--- aliases: - A. Robert Frye - A. R. Frye - Bob Frye category: "Business & Finance" tags: - Person - PROMIS summary: "President of Wackenhut Services, Inc. who signed the April 1981 Wackenhut joint venture with the Cabazon Indian reservation and toured Picatinny Arsenal with John Philip Nichols in May 1981." updated: 2026-10-08 relations: - type: employed_by with: "[[Wackenhut Corporation]]" start: 1981 role: "president, Wackenhut Services, Inc." fn: 1 - type: participant_in with: "[[Cabazon Indian Reservation]]" start: 1981-04 end: 1984-10 role: "signed the April 1981 joint venture agreement for Wackenhut" fn: 1 --- A. Robert Frye was president of Wackenhut Services, Inc., a subsidiary of the [[Wackenhut Corporation]], in 1981, and represented the corporation in the [[Cabazon Indian Reservation|Cabazon]]/Wackenhut joint venture with [[Dr. John Philip Nichols]], the tribal administrator, which aimed to develop and manufacture arms on the reservation.[^1] The writer Cheri Seymour describes him as Executive Vice President of the Wackenhut Corporation in Indio, [[California]].[^2] The 1993 report of Judge [[Nicholas J. Bua]] for the Department of Justice states that Frye, then president of Wackenhut Services, Inc., responded for Wackenhut when the Cabazon Security Corporation solicited capability statements from security firms in early 1981; that Frye signed the April 1981 joint venture agreement for Wackenhut and Tribal Chairman [[Arthur Welmas]] signed for the Cabazon Security Corporation; and that the joint venture had no employees at any time and "the only individual employed by Wackenhut was Frye."[^1] The report quotes Frye's account that he first met Riconosciuto on a trip to the Picatinny Arsenal, which Frye placed in May 1981, and states that [[Peter Zokosky]] recalled a second trip in October 1981 on which Frye met Riconosciuto.[^1] An inter-office memorandum from A. R. Frye to R. E. Chasen of the "S & S Group," headed "DIV/AREA: WSI" and dated May 25, 1981, reports a trip of May 11 to 22, 1981 to New Jersey, Indiana and Washington, D.C., made with Nichols. It lists three purposes: to explore the manufacture of 120 mm combustible cartridge cases and other armament activities on Cabazon land, to have the joint venture placed on bidders' lists for set-aside contracts, and to contact government agencies about the export of Munitions List items, specifically night vision goggles. The memorandum records visits to the Picatinny Arsenal with Zokosky, a meeting with the Army's R. Scott Westley and [[Dr. Harry Fair]], and a May 13, 1981 meeting with Victor Guadagno of Flinchbaugh Products, a retired colonel of the Arsenal, who said Flinchbaugh would be interested in a joint venture with Cabazon-WSI.[^3] A letter in the Casolaro papers whose signature is not legible refers to a planned meeting with "Robert Frye, President of Wackenhut Services, Inc." to review a nitrocellulose proposal for NATO and DARPA ammunition, and states that Frye "will be privy to these conversations, as always."[^4] A Cabazon Arms letter of Arthur Welmas to a San Diego firm lists "Bob Frye" and "Dr. Myron Malkin" among the names that follow the signature.[^5] [[John Connolly]] wrote in *Spy* in 1992 that [[Eden Pastora]], who had been seen at a test of night-vision goggles at a firing range near the Cabazon reservation with Nichols and a Wackenhut executive, identified that executive, "A. Robert Frye," as "the man from the CIA," and that Pastora later said in a conversation that he did not know Frye.[^6] In Cheri Seymour's account, Frye met with [[Michael Riconosciuto]] and Nichols at Picatinny Arsenal in May 1981, where Riconosciuto conducted a theoretical blackboard exercise on a Railgun for Dr. Harry Fair. Frye was present when Dr. Fair commented on Riconosciuto's scientific and technical knowledge, terming him a "potential national resource."[^2] Frye suffered a heart attack in early April 1983 and was hospitalized. After this, he never traveled to California to meet with Dr. John Philip Nichols or the Cabazons again. Wackenhut Corporation's involvement with the Cabazon Joint Venture virtually ceased, and it was formally terminated in October 1984.[^2] [[Robert Chasen]], Executive Vice President of Wackenhut Corporation in Coral Gables, stated that Frye went behind his back in facilitating the biological warfare technology project at the Indio facility. Chasen believed Frye and [[Dick Wilson]] were "dazzled" with [[Robert Booth Nichols]], despite Chasen's own distrust of Nichols.[^2] ### Footnotes [^1]: United States Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, report of Judge Nicholas J. Bua on the INSLAW matter (1993), section on the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture, printed pp. 55 to 58 and footnotes 32 and 35. Official finding, placed as the position of the body that issued it. https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nsa/DOJ-OIP-INSLAW_1993.pdf [^2]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. [^3]: A. R. Frye, inter-office memorandum to R. E. Chasen (the scan text prints "Crasen"), S & S Group, "Trip Report (May 11-22, 1981)," May 25, 1981 (the scan text prints the year as "1531"; the trip dates and the Bua report place it in 1981), Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Wackenhut-Correspondence," https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks. [^4]: Undated letter to Patrick Moriarty, Pyrotronics Corp./Red Devil/Wildcat, headed "CSC/WSI Joint Venture," Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Wackenhut-Correspondence." [^5]: Arthur Welmas, letter dated May 1 (year not printed) to La France Specialties, San Diego, Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Wackenhut-Correspondence." [^6]: John Connolly, "Inside the Shadow CIA," *Spy,* September 1992, pp. 46-54. Sole source for the Pastora identification and the retraction. https://www.prop1.org/legal/prisons/92wack.htm