The_Info_Web/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/USA/State Department.md

created	updated	title	aliases	tags	description	category	summary
2025-07-23	2026-10-14	State Department	U.S. Department of State Department of State United States Department of State	Organization Government USA Diplomatic Foreign Policy Dark_Alliance_Investigation	The United States Department of State is the federal executive department responsible for the nation's foreign policy and international relations.	U.S. Government	The State Department serves as the federal executive department responsible for the United States' foreign policy and international relations.

The State Department serves as the federal executive department responsible for the United States' foreign policy and international relations.

Middle East Policy and the Osirak Incident

In June 1981, following Israel's bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak bombing, the State Department issued a formal condemnation. This public stance contradicted President Ronald Reagan's private acceptance of the raid.¹

The Moscow Signal Cover-Up

The State Department played a central role in managing the U.S. government's response to the Moscow Signal, establishing a classified program code-named the Moscow Viral Study to secretly conduct genetic testing on embassy personnel. Embassy employees were deliberately misled about the testing's purpose. The department publicly minimized the dangers despite scientific concerns.²

BCCI Banking Scandal Involvement

Beginning in 1983, the Central Intelligence Agency started distributing intelligence about the criminal activities of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International to the State Department.³ By September 1986, the State Department had access to a CIA report indicating BCCI had owned First American Bank since 1982.⁴ Rather than pursuing criminal allegations, the department silenced Paula Hawkins and worked to protect BCCI's operations.⁵

Odyssey Network Evidence Destruction

The Dallas police turned over three cartons of index cards from the Odyssey Network investigation to the department's Dallas resident agent on December 12, 1974, according to a department letter to Senator John C. Culver dated June 27, 1977. The department was then headed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The letter describes the cartons as containing "several thousand 3x5 cards." The cartons reached Washington on January 2, 1975, and were placed in storage until September 1975. After a review under the Privacy Act of 1974 that began on September 27, 1975, the letter states, the cards were "determined not to qualify as records relevant to the Department's statutory purpose and were destroyed."⁶

The writer S. Dovey wrote that the department received over 30,000 index cards containing client names from John David Norman's operation in 1973 and destroyed them.⁷ The Tribune quoted Lieutenant Harold Hancock of the Dallas police as saying he had seized more than 30,000 index cards from Norman, some listing prominent people and federal employees in Washington, and had sent them to the department. It quoted Matthew Nimetz, a counselor for the department, as saying the cards "were not relevant to any fraud case concerning a passport" and had therefore been destroyed, and reported that Nimetz could not explain why the department had looked at the cards only for passport irregularities or why it had not turned them over to the FBI or postal inspectors.⁸ George Bliss testified before the Senate subcommittee in Chicago on May 27, 1977, that the department had shredded 35,000 cards in 1974.⁹ The New York Times reported on August 16, 1973, that the Dallas police put the catalogue files seized from the Odyssey Foundation at 50,000 to 100,000 names.¹⁰

The letter states that two individuals in the Dallas card files appeared to have department affiliation, that the security files of two employees with similar names were examined, and that no formal investigation was started because the information was considered insufficient.⁶

Dark Alliance Investigation

The State Department granted Danilo Blandon political asylum in 1984 despite the DEA having identified him as a major cocaine trafficker since 1983. It is State Department policy to check with the DEA before approving asylum applications. When the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General examined Blandón's immigration records, he found them "in disarray." The same occurred with Blandón's wife Chepita Blandon, granted asylum in 1985 despite being reported as a "member of a cocaine distribution organization."¹¹

The State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America was described by a 1992 House committee report as "a domestic, covert operation designed to lobby the Congress, manipulate the media and influence domestic public opinion" regarding the Contra war. The State Department issued a White Paper on Contra drug allegations that belittled every claim except those involving the Sandinistas, studiously avoiding any mention of Norwin Meneses.¹²

Footnotes

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1. Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. ↩︎

2. Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩︎

3. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank. Random House, 1993, p. 366. ↩︎

4. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 12. ↩︎

5. Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank. Random House, 1993, p. 363. ↩︎

6. Letter from Douglas J. Bennett Jr., Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations, U.S. Department of State, to Sen. John C. Culver, June 27, 1977, reprinted in U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation, hearings, Chicago, May 27, 1977, p. 120. https://archive.org/details/protectionofchil00unit ↩︎

7. Dovey, S. (2023). Eye of the Chickenhawk. United States: Thehotstar. ↩︎

8. Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1977, reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Sexual Exploitation of Children, hearings, Serial No. 12 (1977), p. 435. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041 ↩︎

9. Testimony of George Bliss, Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation, Chicago, May 27, 1977, p. 58. https://archive.org/details/protectionofchil00unit ↩︎

10. "Alleged Homosexual Ring Found in a Raid on Apartment in Dallas," New York Times, August 16, 1973, p. 16. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/16/archives/alleged-homosexual-ring-found-in-a-raid-on-apartment-in-dallass.html ↩︎

11. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it" ↩︎

12. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 15 and Chapter 9 ↩︎