"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." Orwell-- The US is probably moving toward becoming a heavily controlled Rightist state. This blog is an effort to document how that happened.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

MKULTRA: Government Mind Control Experiments; Part 3

Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” was an SS doctor who experimented on people at Auschwitz for 21 months. Along with Italian researchers, he was an expert in finding ways to bind victims to their torturers. He enjoyed selecting people for death, sometimes simply shot victims, and , as a geneticist, performed a number of ghastly experiments. He was especially interested in twins, but only 3000 of them survived. He also learned how to create artificial twinning between two children.The value of this research was convincing victims they had a twin somewhere and that their programmer could help them find the twin. In Canada, it is believed that Mengele came to Canada via Brazil and the US government and went by the names “Dr. Green” and “Dr. Gruenbaum.” But some contend that a Jewish doctor who collaborated with the Nazis also used the latter cover name. Silvio Day recalled that Mengele worked in the garb of a priest at St. Jean de Dieu. Silvin claimed to have once mocked his German doctor with a “Hi Hitler.” A Montreal woman remembers a man she was to address as "Herr Doktor" who spoke bad French. The meeting occurred in 1968 and he appeared to be in his late fifties. It is believed that Mengele was in Montreal until 1962. Victims recall he wanted to be called “Vaterchen” (Daddy) and “Schoen Joseph.”

In Canada, survivors believed that he worked at the Allan Memorial branch of McGill University. Although he was supposed to have died of a stroke or swimming accident in 1979 in Brazil, the US Marshal’s Service proposed a mission to apprehend him in Paraguay in 1985. There is a widespread belief that Mengele was in Montreal until 1962, working with Dr. Cameron, who sometimes called himself “Dr. White.”. Gazil Kastner, was one of the survivors of experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute. She received 55,000 pounds from the Canadian government and CIA in the mid-1990s in compensation. In 2006, she told a British documentary that she was regressed to childhood via electroconvulsive therapy.

Karl Blome was an SA major General and important Nazi medical experimenter. He worked for the US for a time and then was put on trial in 1957 for his medical experiments and euthanasia. He just barely got off. At Dachau, he was involved in mustard gas experiments/

Dr. Hermann Becker-Freysing, a physiologist, though convicted for medical experiments at Nuremberg spent time working for the US, writing reports on his experiments. . His work included starving prisoners and then force-feeding them.

Siegfried Ruff was another Nazi who worked for the US. He wrote reports for the Army Air Force on his high altitude experiments on prisoners.

Scientists who worked for I.G. Farben were often used in the search for a truth serum. Some were temporarily released from prison to work for the Army Chemical Corps. Others ended up working at Edgewood Arsenal. It is known that in the early years, the army Chemical Corps tested LSD on 1000 soldiers who “ volunteered. “ It was also administered to terminally ill civilian patients.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

MKULTRA: Government Mind Control Experiments, Part 2

A witness followed her and explained how Claudia’s testimony had been validated by experts. Ms. Mullin claimed she was used to compromise Senator Frank Church when he was investigating the CIA.

Chris, another witness said that her father, who sexually abused her, was in the military and was involved in the mind control experiments, working with a “DR. Greene.” She said that her father would take her out of the house at night, while her mother was sleeping, for various experiments. Claudia said the Dr. Greene she knew was L. Wilson Greene. Greene sometimes tied her down in a cage. Chris and Claudia both said that Greene used disguises when he first dealt with them. Chris described several radiation experiments. One was clearly tied to mind control, but it is difficult to see how the others were.

These 1995 hearings by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experiments showed that at least eighteen people were injected with plutonium without their knowledge. Valerie B. Wolf, a New Orleans psychotherapist and social worker, discussed some of the survivors she had treated and was subsequently stripped of her license as a therapist.

Beginnings

In 1953, Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, told a gathering of Princeton alumni that there were two fronts in the battle for men’s minds. The first front included propaganda, censorship, and mass indoctrination. The second involved “brain changing” and “ brainwashing.” The government’s mind control experiments have been called MKUltra and Project Monarch. { Monarch was entirely different and created for disinformation purposes.]People who were connected with the project call it the Freedom Train for some reason. There are many tapes of the experiments carried out in the forties and fifties on model Candy Jones ( real name Jessica Wilcox, and CIA alias Arlene Grant) and her husband. Before leaving office in 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all UKULTRA records destroyed. In June, 1975, a commission headed by Nelson Rockefeller revealed that the CIA had been engaging in mind control experiments. Later, Stansfield Turner, Director of the CIA, told Congress about the experiments in a very general way.


According to CIA director William Colby they had been abandoned b y the late 1970s. John Marks, the best researcher on mind control, says this was technically true because programs , once completed, were moved to operational areas. The CIA inspector general John Earman later noted that John J. McClone, Helms’ successor, was never adequately briefed on MKUltra.


The September 4, 2000 issue of the Norway Post revealed that even the government of Norway was injecting children, psychiatric patients, and others with LSD in the 1950s and 1960s. Ten of its subjects died. One reason for the urgency of the mind control experiments was that world had had seen what the Chinese communists had been able to do with the minds of US prisoners. It was also known that the USSR had seized many German scientists who had experimented with mind control. People who studied films of the Hungarian show trials of Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty were taken by how effectively he had been brain-washed. By the end of the Korean War, 70% of the 7,190 erican prisoners held in China signed confessions. The Chinese also had some success reeducating American prisoners. Far more recently, Moslem terrorists kidnapped Beruit CIA station Chief William Buckley and turned him over to Dr. Aziz al-Abub for mind control experiments. The CIA was certain the Communists would try to use drugs on American officials, and Sidney Gottlieb ( 1918-1999) told Congress in September 1977 that drugs were probably secretly slipped to members of Nixon’s staff while on a foreign visit.

Knowledge of government mind control experiments and operations is limited. They are together called MK-Ultra . The latter term does not appear in government documents. During World War II, the US carried out mind control experiments mainly at McGill University in Canada, but also at Cornell under the direction of Dr. D. Ewen Cameron ( 1901-1967), a Canadian psychiatrist. Many of his experiments were conducted in Canada were jointly funded by the CIA and Canadian government. Cameron was born in Scotland, was tall and blue-eyed, and wore custom-made suites. He had served on the Nuremberg Tribunal, judging Nazi doctors. He was head of both the Canadian and US psychiatric associations. A West Coast psychiatrist who worked for him thought he lacked sufficient humanity to be a physician. He was pretty cold, blooded. His main interest was in “depatterning,” breaking undesirable patterns of behavior by removing some ideas and ways of thinking. Also at Cornell was Harold Wolff, who worked in mind control with his partner Lawrence Hinkle. These three men were North American probably the best investigators in the field. One of his projects was to train and program 100 Chinese refugees as detection-proof agents, but it is unlikely any were ever reinserted in China.

. After the war, it imported Nazi and Italian Fascist scientists through "Operation Paperclip.” Its first name was “Overcast.” There is no question that a large number of Nazi scientists were brought to the United States, and that some of them worked on mind control experiments. Carmel Offie worked out of the State Department at the end of World War II and specialized tracking Nazi scientists who had eluded Operation Paperclip, which was to bring them to the US. In all 796 Nazi scientists and engineers were brought to the US, many of them were “ardent Nazis.” He acted as a booking agent and brought people to the US with sanitized dossiers. In 1949 he ran operation Bloodstone, a project to bring in 250 more Nazis whose background had been too heinous to merit recruiting before this. He was also recruiting former Nazi secret police, and by then, was probably with the new CIA.

Numerous victims of the experiments have insisted that Dr. Joseph Mengele, the most notorious Germany scientist, worked on these experiments in the United States and Canada until his likely 1979 death. In North America, he used music—particularly the violin—for programming purposes. A great deal has been written about the use of country music for programming and drug distribution. It has been said that all this is tied to Mengele’s activities, but this writer still cannot make the connection.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

MKULTRA: Government Mind Control Experiments, Part 1

One might begin this analysis of government mind control experiments with these
Words from a Ms. Mullin about an experience in 1959. This information can be found in the October, 1995 report of the presidential advisory commission on radiation experiments. { Long quotation is in bold as software does not seem to permit indentation].


MS. [ Claudia] MULLEN: Good afternoon.

Between the years of 1957 and 1974, I became a pawn in
the government's game, whose ultimate goal was mind-control and
to create the perfect spy, all through the use of chemicals,
radiation, drugs, hypnosis, electric shock, isolation in tubs of
water, sleep deprivation, brain-washing, verbal, physical,
emotional and sexual abuse.

I was exploited unwittingly for nearly three decades of
my life, and the only explanations given to me were that "the end
justifies the means", and "I was serving my country in their bold
effort to fight communism."

I can only summarize my circumstances by saying they
took an already-abused seven-year old child and compounded my
suffering beyond belief. The saddest part is I know for a fact
that I was not alone. There were countless other children in my
same situation, and there was no one to help us until now.

I've already submitted as much information as possible,
including conversations overheard of the agencies responsible.
I'm able to report all this to you in such detail because of my
photographic memory and the arrogance of the doctors -- the
arrogance of the people involved. They were certain they would
always control my mind.

Claudia said that the experimenters and even some CIA officials asked for personal sexual favors from her and the other little girls. These men wanted to be called “Uncle” and they restricted themselves to anal intercourse until the girls were older. For some perverse reason or other, they had these sexual scenes filmed.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Ptech: Successor to Promis Software, Part 3

They had also been probing BMI, and concluded that it had financed the bombings to two embassies in East Africa. In 2002, one of them Robert Wright, stood weeping on the US Capitol steps, apologizing that he did not do more to save lives on September 11, 2002. He was then muzzled. On the other hand, an agent born in Egypt was twice promoted after refusing to wear a wire while talking to one terrorist suspect and refusing to tape a telephone conversation with another.

Some of the owners of Ptech, she found, when working as Maktab Al-Khidamat-- had funded the Afghan mujahadeen in the eighties, and she joined others in suggesting that they pumped some money into the Brooklyn cell that attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. That organization morphed into a firm known as Mitre, and with Booz & Hamiltoon, now operates Ptech. James Woolsey is a director of Booz and Hamiltoon. Joe Bergantino hired an investigator to keep track of the Ptech people and found that they had a warehouse in a area from whence drugs were shipped. Government officials persuaded WBZ not to air his story, and ABC's Brian Ross and NBC's Lisa Myers= stories on Ptech met the same fate.


Singh became so upset by the FBI's bungling of the case that she went to Senator Charles Grassley, who promised to look into it. He also found someone to be her bodyguard. Nothing ever came of his investigation. This writer has found several other touchy cases where he has tried to do the right thing and also protect the whistleblower. In most of these instances, the senator seemed to find it necessary to back off.

Bergantino found that Ptech's software was used by many federal agencies, but federal investigators told him not to air his findings at they would damage an on-going investigation. However the government delayed even looking into Ptech and the firm had almost a year to destroy records. As a result of Singh and Bergantino=s work, Ptech was finally raided by Operation Greenquest ( a program to find those who finance terrorism) on December 6, 2002. Bergantino was not alerted, and someone else got the exclusive coverage of the story. After the raid, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer almost immediately said Ptech was clean. Green Quest was a Customs-led operation, and Michael Chertoff at Justice had unsuccessfully tried to seize control of it. Powerful Republican strategist Grover Norquist denounced the raid.

Some who believe the US government itself was behind 9/11 fear that Singh is spreading CIA disinformation that Al Qaeda exists as an independent entity. A few take her surmise that Cheney was operating a Ptech program in the White House bunker to mean that he was interfering with FAA-NORAD efforts to respond. Her information on Ptech and its ownership is not disputed. She clams that intelligence sources told her that the people who financed the firm had drug business ties to the CIA that extended back to BCCI days, but she has remained deliberately vague on that subject.


Some on the very far left believe Singh is spreading CIA disinformation that Al Qaeda
One reason there is so much interest in Ptech software is that air traffic controllers saw more than the usual number of unidentified flights that day. But most interesting was the "phantom flight 11" mentioned in the 911 Commission report. It was still on screens at 9:24 AM , after the NORAD war games had ceased and after the Pentagon had been struck. Was the FAA getting mistaken information provided by manipulation of its Ptech software by other Ptech software? Singh thinks the reports on what Cheney was doing in the White House bunker suggest he was using Ptech software. Perhaps he was trying to track what was going on. There was also the possibility that someone else was using it to confuse the FAA and NORAD. We're not likely to know if this occurred.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Ptech: Successor of Promis Software, Part 2

Al-Qadi appeared on the Bush administration=s first terrorist list, and his US assets were frozen. He was also head of Saudi Arabia's Blessed Relief Foundation ( Muwafaq). Qadi claims that he met Dick Cheney in Jeddah and that they remain on good terms. He also has a stake in Ptech through BMI, a real estate investment firm in New Jersey, that had links to BCCI. Governor Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission , used BMI to sell a property. Qadi's lawyer said his client had no direct storck in the firm by 2000. Yaqub Mirza, a director of Ptech, is also on the terrorist list.Suheil Laher and Muhammed Mubayyid, two people the FBI sought after 9/11, turned out to be Ptech employees. Directors and investors also had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.


For two years, consultants Ptech were working in the basement of the FAA. They had access to the FAA=s computer systems and would have been in a position to find holes in the nation=s domestic air defenses Others who use the software are the FBI and Air Force.

Whistleblower Indira Singh is a computer software who started with JP Morgan in the mid-199-s and stayed with the firm when it became MorganChase. She was trying to develop interceptive software for the bank that would prevent PROMIS progeny software from stealing data. She first became familiar with Ptech six months after 9/11, when she was asked to permit Pteche to give a demonstration at JP MorganChase. That bank was considering the use of the software to detect terrorist money transfers. A team from Ptech appeared that was lead by Dr. Hussein Ibrahim, co-founder of BMI. After the Ptech people were on the premises half an hour, their behavior alarmed her. Ibrahim wanted to demonstrate the program on his laptop by using proprietary Morgan Chase data. Singh learned through her calls that Yasin al- Qadi had a major interest in the firm. She took her security concerns to the MorganChase=s General Auditor who advised her to forget about it and keep quiet or she was out. She continued to pursued the matter and was fired. She then became a senior consultant for Interoperability Clearing House. Why Morgan Chase covered for a firm that seemed to have terrorist ties remains unexplained.

Ms. Singh had an apartment near Ground Zero and was a volunteer EMT there on September 11. She claims that her apartment is contaminated and that her lungs were damaged by working as an emergency EMT that day. She developed strong feelings about what happened that day and took her concerns about Ptech to the Boston FBI, where someone finally told her there was nothing they could do as " Saudis have been given a free pass for 9/11." Then she contacted Joe Bergantino a reporter the local CBS station, WBZ who was also investigating Ptech.


At one point, people Singh thought the Secret Service debriefed her. She wanted to tell them about the people behind Ptech, but they told her A:We can=t investigate the people behind Ptech. Just trust me, let=s focus on the software.@ She later decided her questioners were from military intelligence.


A former Ptech employee and several current employees called the Boston office soon after 9/11 and that there was no follow up. Two FBI agents in Chicago in Chicago encountered many problems when they reported that al- Qadi was funding terrorist organizations. They were told they could keep writing reports but not to make arrests. Their supervisor apparently shouted at them, “You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects.” Al Qadi was working with the CIA in the U.S., Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia. He helped get funds to the Kosovo Liberation Army. Subsequently, the US, Albania, and Turkey froze his assets. He was a CIA operative at time, but who knows what else he wad doing. It is clear now that Ali Mohammed, once a CIA employee, appears to have been a skilled double agent for Al Qaeda, who took advantage of both the CIA and FBI, making both appear inept.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Ptech: Successor to PROMIS Software, Part 1

We know less about Ptech software than we do about PROMIS. But the new software is much more powerful and important, because our defense against terror depends upon its effectiveness. Unlike PROMIS, it appears to be owned by private interests. However, we would not be surprised if the US government somehow had some ownership rights.

Ptech is a high tech command and control system is probably the most advanced command and control and data mining software in the world. Experts call this Adata blueprinting software.@ This software combines artificial intelligence and interoperability, the capacity to read, modify source codes, and operate other programsCall without being detected thereafter. It is commonly called "Ptech" after the name of the firm that builds it. . It is a very advanced version of PROMIS and its progeny. It is used in a variety of areas including finance, medicine, intelligence, warfare, and aviation. The military uses it in a number of ways and looks to the day when it can be used from space to provide a "God's-eye view" of the battlefield. Some might think that reliance on this Saudi-owned computer software company might be more dangerous to the US than having most ports operated by a UAE company.

A version of Ptech is headquartered in the basement of the FAA. It is intended for use when planes were hijacked and it is intended link and coordinate the activities of the FAA, NORAD, and the Secret Service. As a firm, Ptech works with DARPA, the Department of Defense's research group and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency uses Ptech software.

This software was built in Quincy, Mass. Ptech ( now GoAgile), which emerged in 1994 with ample funding, is an outfit financed by Yassin Al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman with ties to Al Qaeda, who invested $5 in 1994 and $18 million in 1998. Ptech is currently harvesting significant profits with its Playstation products. Apparently it produces toys for all ages.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Russell Herman: Covert Federal Banker , Part 2 of 2

Colonel Herman was sprayed with something while mowing his lawn on July 1, 1993. He later found it was SERINE. He was never well after that. Herman was kidnapped on October 28, 1993. He was found at St. Mary’s Hospital , Clayton, Missouri in a wing occupied by ONI personnel. There is no evidence he was held in the Springfield, Missouri prison hospital where whistle blowers and dissidents are often sent. When he saw his wife, he told about how he had been tortured. At a Marion, Illinois Veteran’s Health Care Center. He complained that the hospital fed him rotten chicken and mashed potatoes cooked in water. He was being asked to sign over some securities, including her Bonus 3392-181, which was held in the Durham Family Trust. He claimed that high government officials, including former President Bush, Alan Greenspan, and Oliver North came to the hospital to urge him to sign over the accounts. She claimed that when exiting an elevator, she saw the three men leave his room and go down the hall to another elevator.

On or about August 29,1994 Colonel Herman died. Mrs. Herman obtained the opinion of a second coroner who showed her the signs of torture and offered the opinion that Herman had been frozen to death. Grisly pictures of his tortured corpse are posted on the internet.

http://www.theantechamber.net/VkDocuments/Herman/index.htm#rbi .

Subsequently, Nevada Secretary of State Frankie Sue Del Papa changed the names of the board of directors for his holdings there. Still later, the couple’s signatures were forged on a Goldman-Sach account certification.

Mrs. Hermann was denied widow’s benefits on the grounds they were married two days less than necessary. They had lost their 1987 Mexican marriage certificate and were remarried in 1993. She went to her Illinois Congressman for help, and a staffer shouted at her: RUSSELL HERMAN had no right to break his CODE OF SILENCE. RUSSELL HERMAN was U.S. Treasury. He had no right to break his CODE OF SILENCE!" There is other evidence, including his will, that he may have been an employee of the Secret Service, like Wanta. Later the Department of Health and Human Services dealt with her request for disability due to an auto accident and other factors by claiming she was “deceased.”

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Russell Herman: Covert Federal Banker , Part 1

The story of Colonel Russell Herman (aka Herrmann) is almost as interesting as that of Leo Wanta. Both held covert funds on behalf of the U.S. government. Both seem to have concluded that the funds they held should be used for the benefit of the people of the United States rather than for dubious black operations. Wanta remains alive, but Herman may have died as a result of his efforts to hang on to funds.

Born in Lansing Illinois on July 2, 1927, Russell Herman served in the military for 53 years, beginning with a stint in the Coast Guard when he wa far under age. Mostly he worked mostly for the Office of Naval Intelligence. He attempted to retire in 1990-1991 and was refused. . Like Al Carone, he became a banker for the CIA using military cover. Don Hughes was another of these government bag men. According to Herman’s widow, V.K. Durham, he once had a meeting with Vincent Foster in Marion, Illinois, and he was tasked with overseeing 175 secret accounts. He once couriered $30 million to Mexico for Ed Meese to acquire TIAS 12087 "Multilateral Inter-American Investment Corporation securities. Twelve years later, a TIAS 12087 GROUP bought space at One Worlds Trade Center. Durham Limited had five shares in the venture. Mrs. Herman said she gave the account numbers to Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Dan Burton.

Herman held some US government funds and securities through Cosmos Investment Corporation and Cosmos Seafood Energy Marketing in Nevada..V.K. Durham, claimed that , without her permission, Secretary of State James Baker used her Hereditary Owner Bonus 3392-181 as collateral for some Brady Bonds. Her owner bonus 3392-181 was based on gold certificates issued by the treasury under the Transcontinental Agreement of 1875, to some Latin American countries The Treasury thought it had redeemed all the certificates and considered them cancelled. . The U.S. government used this instrument and other non-performing foreign instruments to issue ten-year Brady Bonds, which in turn were used as collateral to acquire currencies, including dollars. The Brady Bonds were to come due September 12, 2001 and be redeemed through the auspices of the trustee, Cantor Fitzgerald. It is difficult to determine whether the government or the Hermans were owners of land and water rights in their name in California.

Herman had been involved with the CIA in the 1980s and had objected to the murder of women and children. He was tossed into a Latin American jail, but with the help of Chiapas Indians made his way back to the United States. Herman’s widow claimed that he had spent two years looking into the involvement of the G.H. Bush administration and Bill Clinton in the laundering of drug money. The Clinton involvement was about whether Governor Clinton permitted the CIA to fly drugs into Mena, Arkansas.

Friday, April 20, 2007

MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO: The Math/Science Wizard Who Said TOO Much, Part 7

In February, 2001, through his lawyers, Riconoscuito contacted Colin Powell and John Ashcroft offering information about terrorists within the United States who planned to hijack planes and bomb American sites. Michael also offered information about “sleepers” in the United States. He was also concerned about the possibility that 37 Soviet surface to air missiles had been shipped from Bulgaria to Canada and that they could be misused. In return for his information, he asked for immunity for himself and his contacts regarding anything learned in following up his leads. Nothing was done. This man had been involved in providing Stinger missiles (SAMs) and other weapons for the Mujahadeen in the 1980s and had even dealt with Osama bin Laden, who was known as Tim Osman when he visited the United States. After he contacted the press about the FBI rejecting his warnings, he was moved from Allenwood Federal Prison to the hole in Springfield, Missouri. He was not allowed to take any records or papers with him.

Mike claimed that the famous MI6 agent, Sir Denis Kendall advised Oliver North before he appeared before the Senate. Kendall was proprietor of some biological labs in Los Angeles

At one point, he asked to speak to representatives of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network because he had something to say about SWIFT chips. SWIFT is a an exchange agency for international banks. He hinted that he could prove that the US had somehow tampered with SWIFT chips.

Some say Mike was a casualty in a small war between two intelligence factions. On the one side is the Aquarius faction, clustered around MJ-12. It can be assumed that it is somehow tied to the rogue intelligence operations that emerged in the late 1970s called The Enterprise. The other faction , COM-12, is based in Naval Intelligence and is trying to keep intelligence work lawful.



The late Sherman Skolnick believed that Robert Booth Nichols was somehow involved in the World Trade Center bombing. When he told Michael, he went through the roof. Michael shouted into the phone:” “ *get* *off* *that* *case*!” Skolnick insisted Nichols was part of Reagan’s Kitchen Cabinet.


Robert Booth Nichols ( born ,1943) was a licensed arms trader and invented the submachine pistol. He was an admitted CIA agent. In 1993 he sued the LA police, claiming they had ruined a multi million dollar arms deal in an action that ended as a mistrial. He claimed to be an intelligence expert and his office/apartment number in Marina Del Rey was “007.” . Nichols has been described as a “handsome, dashing figure, frequently described as ‘Clark Gable without ears….” His friend Steven Seagal got him a cameo role in “Under Siege.” He headed Meridian International Logistics (MIL) and did substantial business in Japan and Australia. MIL also controlled Meridian Arms Corporation, and eccentric scientific genius Michael Riconosciuto was Vice President of that firm for a brief period. MIL , in 1988, made a substantial grant to a Japanese medical school, probably to carry out research in biological weapons. Directors of MIL include Harold Okimoto and Eugene Giaquinto, head of MCA Home Entertainment. He and Riconoscuito worked together in the development of weapons at the once secret Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture. Aslthough that venture was also involved in the drug trade used to support the Nicaraguan Contras, there is no solid evidence that Nichols was intimately involved in the domestic side of the drug business.

Nichols was Senior Vice President of F.I.D.C.O.( First Intercontinental Development Corporation) a firm closely tied to the NSA that carried out various contracts, including construction, abroad. Another director and friend is George Pender, who is also tied to the Suma Corporation , which is linked to Howard Hughes . Pender, Meese, Dr. Earl Brian, and Nichols were close friends of Ronald Reagan and members of his California kitchen cabinet. Reagan advisor Michael McManus and Clint Murchison, owner of the Dallas Cowboys,were also directors of F.I.D.C.O.

Nichols and Earl Brian were involved in a firm known as Bio-Rad Laboratories, which occupied some of the property owned by Hercules, in Hercules, California. The above facility looks insignificant, but it sets on twenty underground stories. It manufactures the most deadly biological substances known to man. Their most important produce was Cytotoxic Tlymphocytes, which c an be used to wipe out people with certain DNA codes. He has also claimed that Bio-Rad, , had developed deadly toxins designed to attack people with certain DNA structures. In other words , it can attack races. Conversely, people with certain DNA structures could be immunized, leaving others to be attack by biological agents. About the time one has written off this claim, evidence turns up that there could be some truth to it.

In September 1987, FBI Special agent Thomas Gates of Los Angeles began investigating Nichols and International Logistics. They suspected he was running drugs in connection with Eugene Giaquinto, and they thought Eugene Giaquinto was funneling MCA-Home Entertainment profits to Ed “The Conductor” Sciandra of the Buffalino crime family. They also thought Nichols had ties to the Gambino family and was infolves in a $500 million stock fraud case. The matter became public when the feds indicted Giaquinto and said they had a picture of him handing Nichols a box and tapes of their conversations. Nichols’ lawyer introduced a great deal of information about his involvement with prominent people and the White House and offered to call witnesses from the intelligence community. Nichols admitted that he had no visible means of support for fifteen years. Then the trial simply stopped and was never resumed.


Attorney Allan Boyak, a former DEA agent, published a piece on Nichols in the Executive Intelligence Review that claimed Nicols was a major heroin dealer but that he kept all of his dealings outside the country. Boyak also found Nichols had close ties to the leading Japanese crime figure in Hawaii, Harold Okimoto. Okimoto was a ranking Japanese intelligence officer in World War II.

For a time in the late 1980s, Nichols was head of the Special Service Unit in Dominica. It is a small security force for the island. It is said that there boiling lake that provides energy for a remarkable geothermal power plant on the island used to power multiple intelligence computer complexes belonging to Project Echelon, a joint effort of the USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Hughes Aviation had some kind of tie to the power plant. It was designed to combine as many data bases as possible and was coordinated by Douglas Dillon of New York City, a former Eisenhower and Kennedy Official. Casolaro knew about this and believed Michael Riconosciuto ‘s claim that it is going private, and the late Senator Frank Church had warned congress about efforts to take it private. Nichols also operated a rum-importing firm that some thought was a cover for drug operations, including moving China white heroin into Mexico.

According to Robert Booth Nichols’ estranged brother, James, he was a hit man for the Tongs in Hawaii as a young man. Boyak claims that Nichols laundered $50,200,000,000 for Ferdinand Marcos. It’s a good bet that this was done on behalf of the CIA and that the money was World War II Japanese gold that Marcos was minding for the US. Nichols has a castle outside Milan and an estate in Hawaii as well as the Marina Del Ray home. Bob Nichols also had business ties with the Yakuza crime clan of Japan.

Robert Booth Nichols was a major source for Joseph “Danny” Casolaro ( 1947-1991) , who was investigating POMIS, and died an apparent suicide in a Martinsburg, West Virginia motel on August 10, 1991. Barbara Bittinger, the assistant head housekeeper, reported that there was blood everywhere but it also appeared that someone tried to wipe it up. He was not a nail-biter but three nails were damaged and there was a bruise on the top of his head. Danny had told his brother, Dr. Tony Casolaro, that he had been receiving a number of threatening telephone calls.Danny told FBI agent Thomas Gates that Nichols warned him, "If you continue this investigation, you will die." He went to Martinsburg to meet a “source,.” Bill turner, who gave him documents about corruption in Hughes Aircraft. The paers were not found in Danny’s hotel room,. He told Turner there was a second source he planned to meet there.

Danny published Computer Age for ten years before giving it up in 1990. Studying the origin PROMIS software was a natural for him. Michael Riconosciuto provided the initial information on it, and Bill Hamilton egged him on. Soon he was chasing many leads and meeting spooks and quasi spooks. Other information came from Alan D. Standorf, a NSA employee who worked in electronic intelligence. He also provided information to Michael Riconosciuto. . Standorf gave Danny records showing wire payments to Brian from foreign entities, most likely in connection with the sale of PROMIS software. E also provided information on banking scandal and government ties to the underworld. In room 900 of the Hilton, Danny placed a high speed copier so that Standof’s files could be quickly copied and returned. Before Danny was found dead, Standorf’s body would be found stuffed into his a car trunk at Washington National Airport on January 31, 1991. He died from a blow to the head and luggage and personal items were placed on top of his body.

Danny learned about the BCCI scandal before it became news and found the story of the Republicans 1980 deal with the Iranians fascinating. He had earlier published a novel about the JFK conspiracy and was prepared to look for pieces that would fit together and to believe that all was not as it appeared to be. David Corn of The Nation, who later worked to hard to discredit critics of the official 9/11 explanation, said that Casolaro was pursuing the “silly theory” of the Christic Institute that a secret intelligence and political team, which Danny called the Octopus, was somehow behind the theft of PROMIS, supplying the Contras, the October, 1980 Surprise, the BCCI scandal and much else. Eliot Richardson, attorney for Inslaw, had written Attorney General Thornburgh asking for an independent counsel to investigate the PROMIS case and never got a reply. Richardson later said: "I have never understood why ... I mean, I was attorney general when Thornburg was a U.S. attorney. I appointed him chairman of a committee of U.S. attorneys, newly formed for the first time. I am a responsible former public official. I am not a wild-eyed nut." Richardson thought Danny’s death a suicide was “highly implausible” and should be investigated further.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO: The Math/Science Wizard who Said Too Much; Part 6

Riconscuito has been handled as though he was a serial killer, being moved from prison to prison to prison and being subjected to unusual punishments. The federal prosecutor ridiculed the claim that Riconosciuto could be involved with the intelligence community and said work could not be done on software on the reservation because sand interferes with computers. He received 30 years for possessing chemical solvents that could be used to manufacture illegal drugs.

Today,.prisoner Riconoscuito is dying of cancer and is in a facility ill equipped to treat him. He had previously served two years in prison in the seventies on drug charges, and psychiatrists found him unstable and having a poor grip on reality. He had stashed various documents in a trailer in Vallejo, California, think they would assure his safety and freedom. They did not, and eventually permitted the Canadian Royal Mounted Police officers Sean McDade and Randy Buffam to access the documents in 2000. They were trying to decide whether their government had purchased stolen software when it acquired PROMIS software and whether there were ways US intelligence people could get into that software in Canada. Cheri Seymour, a southern California reporter who had emptied another Riconosciuto trailer, worked with them. The Mounties found ample evidence that Riconosciuto worked for Wackenhut for a long time developing weapons of various sorts and they found some evidence that the CIA operation on the reservation was tied to organized crime and to powerful interests in the entertainment industry. According to Michael’s acquaintance Professor Orlin Grabbe, he was thrown into the “hole” at Allenwood after reports surfaced about what he told the RCMP. The Canadians later found that what Michael told them checked out with what British MI6 had on him and the reservation.

Up to this point, evidence can be developed to support his claims. He has made other claims that have not been verified. Riconosciuto spent years working with people who were involved in all sorts of black operations, and he seems to have reached the point where he could believe almost any evil scheme attributed to government. Hence, he thinks government scientists knew they were spreading AIDs when testing HIV vaccines in Greater New York in the late 1970s and he also believed reports in the early 1990s that the government was testing software that would allow it to monitor an infinite number of telephone calls anywhere in the world. Of course, in the latter case this turned out to be true.

Riconosciuto hypothesized that the Oklahoma City bombing(April 19, 1995) could have involved the use of one of his bombs because the primitive McVeigh device could not have sheared structural steel. He added that it looked like a well-controlled blast and that this could not be done by the average person; it required volumetric initiation by means of sophisticated electronic circuits. General Benton K. Partin , who tested most non nuclear bombs for the Air Force, wrote that the McVeigh device could not have done all the damage that was done to the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

He told an journalist Michael Lindemann that he tried to get a helicopter full of documents out of the Nevada Test Site but that it blown out of the air, taking five people to their deaths. He said the documents involved illegal biogenic experiments and illegal aliens. Lindermann asked him if there were any extraterrestrials there and Michael said he did not know. He did say that the US had some propuolsion vehicles that looked a bit like flying saucers. The Messerschmit BO-105 chopper did indeed go in the worst accident in the history of the Nevada Test Site. The rest cannot be verified. However, there are reports that he told an interviewer that he witnessed an autopsy of an alien body. Perhaps he was referring to the famous and controversial filmed autopsy that appeared on television.

In 1991, Riconosciuto claimed to be staying at the apartment of Robert Booth and Ellen Nichols in Nicosia Cyprus, monitoring efforts to regain American hostages in Lebanon. He claimed that the bombing of Pan Am 103 was connected to a DEA “controlled operation” that involved Lebanon and Cyprus. The DEA was permitting some drugs to pass through as bait for arrests to be made in the US. controlled DEA. The Syrian mob ran a Casino du Liban, from whence they ran drugs. It was these drugs that were in the controlled delivery. Michael claimed that some CIA people were using this cover to send some “noncontrolled” drugs to the US. Tony Asmar, a German Lebanese, figured out what was going on and lost his life for having this knowledge. Michael thought a senior DEA official was involved. He also named Bub McFarland and Michael McManus, former assistant to Ronald Reagan, as being involved. The story contradicts the official story and it seemed far-fetched, but the passage of time has proven him to be correct in most details. Some writers have assumed that the rogue operation was for private profit, but it was more PanAM 103; CIA;DEA; likely intended largely to raise money for the government. . Retired Mossad agent Rafi Eitan affirms that he had met Michael in Lebanon and that Michael had talked about working for the DEA out of a safe house in Cyprus. .

Thirty-four days before the bombings of two US embassies in Africa, he notified the FBI in Miami that the bombings would occur. Two days before the bombings, he asked the Coleman, florida Bureau of Prison authorities for permission to telephone ECOMOG to warn African security officials. The request was denied.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Michael Riconosciuto: The Math/Science Wizard Who Said too much, Part 5

A modified version of the software was spread throughout the defense industry by 2000. Eventually, major banks and many kinds of enterprises used PROMIS. One of the first banks to have the software was BCCI, which was used by the CIA, NSA, and intelligence agencies friendly to the US. BCCI would serve as the front for arming Iraq in the late eighties, and of course people connected with it helped the shaky enterprises of George W. Bush. Since 2002, the French, Germans, and a committee of the European Parliament have suggested PROMIS is used for economic and industrial espionage against them. Eventually the software, with its “Trojan horse” was used in 88 countries. The PROMIS program today seems to be part of a much a far more complex program developed by NSA called MOSIS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Implementation System) which Riconosciuto alluded to on a German television documentary

Riconosciuto got into very deep trouble by befriending the late investigative reporter Joseph Danny Casolaro and by signing an affidavit stating that the federal government had stolen PROMIS software from Bill Hamilton, owner of Inslaw. Casolaro wrote about how the software was stolen and said that a small group of men, whom he called the Octopus, had found ways to profit personally from federal clandestine operations. No one actually uses the name “Octopus;” t here is no formal organization. Danny just used the name to refer to people and firms that participate in intelligence and black ops for profit. He was making progress in his investigation of a huge drug operation in the Bekaa Valley in which the CIA, and probably F.I.D.C.O., were participation. The latter was handling a US reconstruction program there. There were major drug labs in the Valley and product from Columbia was being refined for distribution in Europe. He was also investigating fraud at Hughes Aircraft Corporation and the possibility that Republicans had made a deal with the Iranians to hold the 52 hostages until after the election. His bok was to be entitlede Behold a Pale Horse and was also to include material on the BCCI scandal and MCA. Casolaro apparently committed suicide in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Michael said that in his last days, Danny gathering information about Mike Abbell, a man who was the key to a huge government drug operation. Abbell had been with the criminal section of the Justice Department and later became a US Attorney in DC. In the mid-1990s, he was given three years for laundering money for the Cali drug cartel. For a time, he practiced law in Bogotá. He worked closely with Gilbert Rodriguez, leader of the cartel. Riconosciuto claims to have handled gold transfers for Gilbert Rodriguez, Abbell, Norm Casper, Robert Booth Nichols, Harold Okimoto, George Pender, and others. Michael claimed that the CIA’s drug operations within the US were appropriately labeled “the company,” and involv ed some 300 agents and contractors. He was willing to turn in these people if he could enter the Witness Protection Program. He claimed to have turned over twenty nine to US Attorney in California, who made some arrests based on that information. However the attorney, after onec having admitted the connection, subsequently made a point of denying any contact.

Michael’s written testimony for the Inslaw trial and interviews with Brooks Committee attorneys included information of Wachenhut’s double billing, how Iran was paid for retaining the 52 hostages past the 1980 election, the mechanics of CIA money laundering including the listing of dead drop accounts in the West Indies, how highly sensitive technology was sold to Red China through third parties. Riconosciuto tied Reagan Justice Department attorney Michael Abbell to the Cali cartel and confirmed CIA drug operations in the Bekaa Valley. Michael gave up Abbell as part of an unsuccessful effort to enter the Witness Protection Program, but it failed. In subsequent litigation, there was testimony that Riconosciuto helped launder $40 million for the Bush-Quayle campaign; however, only one government source has supported this claim. He claimed that a great deal of illicit money was laundered through HUD, and he added that corrupt figures in the Nixon, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush administrations all used the money laundering operation at his reservation to hide their ill-gotten gains. He also claimed that the CIA , working with Wackenhut and sometimes the Mossad, plays a big role in providing California with met amphetamine.

A week after signing that Inslaw statement, he was arrested for running a drug lab in the State of Washington Three weeks before testifying before the Brooks Subcommittee on PROMIS, Peter Viedenieks, a Justice Department official, said there would be consequences for appearing including a long child custody suite for his wife. . Viedenieks was the same official who was supposed to meet Danny Casolaro at the time of his suicide. At one point he managed the PROMIS preogram for the Department of Justice. Michael claimed that Videnieks had been a frequent visitor to the Cabazon Reservation. Viedenieks and Brian both told House investigators that they did not know Riconosciuto, but Viedenieks refused to give Congress another interview after it Riconosciuto had spoken to Congressional investigators. Indio city policemen, who sometimes provides security on the reservation, had placed Brian and Riconosciuto together at a weapons demonstration on the reservation. Customs Agent Scott Lawrence carried on a two year investigation of Viedenieks but was rebuffed by his superiors when he asked that a grand jury be impaneled to look into the case and har testimony from CIA agents. Riconosciuto defenders point to a 1993 affidavit from Peter Viedenieks’ secretary that made it clear he was lying about not being involved in the intelligence drug trade. He had probably been placed in Customs to make sure the shipment could be moved without incident.Journalist Harry Martin claimed that he had previously heard Videnieks admit to knowing Michael and an individual privy to the RCMP investigation PROMIS thought it supported this conclusion. The Mounties were able to establish that Videnieks had been driven to the reservation by `Drug Tug' captain Calvin Robinson. The Customs Service investigated Videnieks and former Secretary of State Al Haig was called as a witness, but the probe was dropped when Videnieks retired. The boat had been seized in 1988 for transporting drugs.


The Brooks Committee report said that Attorney General Dick Thornburgh had overlooked the destruction of evidence by his personnel case and that the Department of Justice had harassed witnesses.

The lab, Michael said, was devoted to creating new technology for electrohydrodynamic mining operation, and soil samples were found in his lab. No drugs were found there and the DEA people destroyed all his glassware, even though it could have been tested for drug residue. All of his equipment was destroyed. In the 1970s, Michael served two years for manufacturing drugs. Two of his lawyers died during his strange trial in 1991. Michael’s wife Bobbi was later arrested and held without bail on charges of custodial interference. The federal agent who arrested Michael is the same person who arranged for her arrest. In order to protect his son’s life, Riconoscuito decided not to add to his affadavit by personally testifying in the Inslaw trial. .

A year after Michael was sentenced, Ian Stuart Spiro, another figure involved in the Inslaw case and Iran Contra, turned up dead in the desert and his family was subsequently killed. Spiro’s relatives said his files and business records were missing.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO: The Math/Science Wizard who SAid Too Much; Part 4

The most important modifications of PROMIS were made in 1983-1984. Riconcuito added telecommunications access to the program. He improved the program at Ido, Silver Springs, Maryland, and Miami, Florida. The DOJ then added a ed a “back door” that could be used to access information on the program wherever it was being used. Eventually PROMIS was used by many foreign governments and their intelligence agencies as well as by financial institutions around the world. Michael said some of the profits were used to reward intelligence operatives and that the rest of the money was used for operations not funded by Congress. Ari Ben-Menashe, an Iranian Jew and Mossad operative, also confirmed Riconosciuto’s story about the theft of Inslaw’s PROMIS, and he, too, ended up in federal prison.

Harry R. Kumnick was one of the people involved in making modifications to the program. Kumnick wrote his sister in Idaho that the new version was so powerful that enormous harm could be done if the wrong people got control of it. He later disappeared. His business partner now says he never heard of him. It will never be ascertained what he was referring to, but it is known that Federal Emergency Management Administration acquired PROMIS and modified it into MAINCORE, a system for keeping track of dissidents in the US so that they can be rounded up in a period of emergency. MAINCORE is housed in Cupleper, Virginia

Much later, Congressman Jack Brooks investigated whether Meese was trying to force Hamilton to sell to Hadron, a rival firm led by Dr. Earl W. Brian and several other ranking Republicans. Brian had lent Meese money and Mrs. Meese was an investor in the firm. Inslaw would retain the services of attorney Elliot Richardson, who pursued the matter for ten years. A serious blow to his efforts occurred when the Justice Department was robbed on April 27, 1991. The bandits trucked away many filing cabinets with information on the Inslaw case. . He won twice, only to be eventually overruled on a technicality. The case would cost one judge his job and get one Justice Department whistle blower his job. IBM subsequently bought Inslaw.

The Justice Department PROMIS facility was allegedly used by Oliver North to track people he claimed to be potential terrorists. Earlier, CIA director Bill Casey had sought an executive order giving the CIA power to spy on American citizens within the United States. The proposal caused an uproar and was dropped. The desire of conservatives to keep track of what other citizens are thinking and doing has a long history. Attorney General--later Chief Justice- Richard Rehnquist told a Senate committee that the government had the "right to collect whatever information it want on anybody."Bill Casey; CIA; In August, 1971, Richard Nixon was considering a plan to wire houses, boats, and other facilities on America. He decided it was unnecessary because the existing surveillance system was pretty efficient. The Justice Department claimed that the FBI did not use the software, but , later, Director William Sessions has refused to give that guarantee. At a 6,100 square foot command center on the 6th floor of Department of Justice headquarters was created for the use of PROMIS

Monday, April 16, 2007

Michael Riconosciuto: The Math/Science Wizard who Said too Much; Part 3

One Indian leader, Fred Alvarez, who raised questions about tribal profits going into foreign banks was executed along with two companions in 1981. Alvarez had been involved in the various black operations that centered there, including some involvement in the October Surprise of 1980. They also objected to use of the reservation to manufacture biological weapons. Michael also claimed that in conjunction with Park-O-Meter Corp., he developed biological and chemical weapons.

A security guard admitted to being the bagman who paid three former Green Berets who came in from Chicago for the hit. After making a taped interview, he disappeared. Barbara Walters reported the incident on 20/20 and raised the possibility that this was a CIA action These joint projects were also tied to the government=s efforts to assist the Contras in Nicaragua, and it has been suggested that some of the profits from the sale of PROMIS software were used to finance the Contras. . The Alvarez murder remained unsolved for 31 years before Dr. Nichols was convicted of engineering the three murders.


Riconcuito claimed that Alvarez was concerned with some aspect of the October Surprise operation and wrote directly to Ronald Reagan to express his concerns. Eventually, Jimmy Hughes, the bagman who paid for the murders was caught and testified in a Riverside Court. He subsequently relocated in Guatemala, and Anson Ng, a stringer for the Financial Times,.was murdered in Guatemala City on his way to interview Hughes. Ng was also looking into the corrupt bank BCCI as well as corruption in Guatemala. He was killed with one bullet to the head and his head was propped up with two pillows to reduce external bleeding and delay the discover of the crime. Officials said he was a victim or ordinary crime, but Senator Alan Cranston told the Senate it looked like a professional hit. Paul Morasca, who shared a San Francisco Condo with Michael, also worked on the reservation and began to oppose some activities there that he thought were illegal. He was murdered in 1982. In 1992, Larry Guerrin was killed in the State of Washington while gathering information on PROMIS for Riconosciuto. Alan Michael May, a onetime Nixon campaign financial aid, was killed in his San Francisco home in May 1991. According to Riconosciuto, he was also involved in moving $40,000,000 to the Iranians in 1991 but was not connected to PROMIS.

As director of research, Michael became involved in modifying a very valuable program named PROMIS, which the Department of Justice had stolen from a private firm, Inslaw, owned by William Hamilton and his wife. Hamilton was a former NSA employee. . It was his knowledge of this matter that was to ruin his life and cause many to attack his credibility. PROMIS is a database that includes a sort-of Rosetta stone of computer languages. It could pull and integrate data from any number of languages. Its only limitation is that it is a software package that must exist at the facilities of the target. At first it was to be used by prosecutors to manage their caseloads. But it soon was used to monitor and manage banking transactions. It can tract electronic information of any kind, including troop movements.

In 1982, Dr. Earl Brian, a close friend of Ed Meese and Ronald Reagan, acted on behalf of the Justice Department and agreed to lease William Hamiltons PROMIS software for $10 million over three years. It was initially a very sophisticated database that prosecutors could use to keep track of cases. Reagan=s Attorney Generals ,William French Smith and Ed Meese, wanted it to fight domestic crime, but it was soon put to other uses. Using information provided by a high government official, the Hamiltons eventually concluded that the Justice Department stole the software initially at the behest of the Army and Navy Hamilton’s basic mistake was probably not selling the firm to a friend of Meese. But he refused and was told " We have ways of making you sell." Soon Justice Department and Hamilton later disagreed over what services were to be provided. Justice stopped payments and seized the program, forcing Hamilton's Inslaw Corporation into bankruptcy. Meese became attorney General in 1985 after much of the damage was done. PROMIS was soon made available to the Israelis and Wackenhut Corporation, which sent PROMIS to its computer laboratories on the Cabazon Indian Nation=s Reservation in Indio, California, where weapons and ammunition was also being manufactured for the Contras. Using some information provided by the Israelis, CIA computer wizard Michael Riconciuto improved the program at Ido, Silver Springs, Maryland, and Miami, Florida. .

Sunday, April 15, 2007

MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO: The Math/Science Wizard Who Said TOO Much, Part 2

Among the other tribes that provided bases for covert operations were Minominee of Minnesota , Arizona's Papago reservations, and the Jicarilla Reservation in Dulce New Mexico The Cabazon, as a minority, had the ability to front and receive government contracts. The Indians appeared to be under control of CIA veteran and mobster “Dr.” John Phillip Nichols ( 1924-2001), who operated a casino with them. His son Mark worked with him and eventually took over control of the reservation upon his father’s death. Journalist Virginia McCullough insists the Nichols family had mob connections.

Riconscuito’s operation on the reservation included weapons development and testing. The Indians manufactured night vision glasses , laser-sighted assault weapons, 9 mm machine pistols, 120mm combustible cartridge cases, 9mm machine pistols, , sniper rifles, portable rocket systems, and biological weapons for the Contras. Riconscuito worked on a new, high tech machine gun for use in Central America. Robert Booth Nichols, no relation to the other two, headed Meridian International Logistics (M.I.L.), a California-based company that conducted extensive business in Australia and Japan. M.I.L. also controlled Meridian Arms Corporation of which Riconosciuto was briefly Vice President. These joint projects were also tied to the government=s efforts to assist the Contras in Nicaragua, and it have been suggested that some of the profits from the sale of PROMIS software, which was enhanced there, were used to finance the Nicaraguan Contras. highly implausible. He also claimed that the US had developed a gene-specific biological weapons that attacked people with certain DNA. Eight years after he made this claim, evidence turned up that such a weapon existed.

Robert Booth Nichols, a CIA agent who headed Meridian International Logistics, was a business partner of Riconosciuto and associated with him for about twenty years. Bob Nichols was not related to Dr. Nichols. Their relationship probably began in 1967 when Michael was sent to Lebanon as part of a drug sting operation. Nichols was also tied to Music Corporation of America. He testified that Riconosciuto was frequently in contact with Admiral Bobby Inman, who was at different times head of the National Security Administration and Assistant Director of the CIA. According to Bobbie, Michael’s wife, Bob Nichols was a long-time friend of Bill Hamilton, the ex-NSA man from whom Justice stole the PROMIS software. This tie probably had something to do with Michael’s eventual decision to help Hamilton seek redress in the federal courts. However, his critics say he knew nothing about the Hamiltons until 1990, when a Lyndon La Rouche follower introduced him to them.

Michael and Nichols began to fall out in the eighties over Booth’s insistence that they take embargoed cargo to Australia in 1984 for further development to fill a large contract for FIDCO, a NSA cutout. . Michael had accompanied Nichols to the secret facility at Alice Springs in Australia, which was a “city of sorts” with very sophisticated labs, but he was troubled that it was privately owned rather than a US government asset. He thought moving the manufacturing to Australia placed him in danger of being terminated. This must be a reference to the top secret Pin Gap facility, jointly operated by Australia and the CIA. His reference to it being privately owned is curious.


The other problem was the Lockerbie crash of Pan Am 103 in 1988. Nichols and Riconscuito knew that a bomb was likely to be planted on that flight, and Nichols promised Mike that he would get Major Charles McKee to cancel the reservations for his team. They had come upon evidence that suggested a rogue drug operation involving some CIA people and perhaps DEA agents. Mike was furious when he learned that his friends had been on that flight.

Earlier, in the 1960s, he spent some time in Lebanon working on communications equipment and involved in some way in either a drug bust or drug selling scheme. It is likely that he was also involved in CIA, Wackenhut, Mossad drug activities in California.

Michael has been credited with developing several highly effective explosives. One was a sort of super bomb in which chemicals in a gaseous cloud were blown into the air and infused by means of a rocket carried wire with a large electronic charge and then detonated (Multiple Explosives Transitional Container). The resulting fuel-air mix produced something almost as powerful as a small nuclear explosion. He was also involved in another sub-atomic weapon called “blue lightening.” The latter leaves a residue of Tritium, which some claim was found at the Oklahoma City site. When Riconosciuto was brought before a special federal Grand jury investigating federal corruption in Chicago, retired Judge Nicholas J. Bau forbade any mention of “blue lightening ” and made prejudicial comments about Riconosciuto.

While working at the reservation and other places, he became involved in many intelligence activities. He developed advanced weapons for the Nicaraguan Contras and met some of their leaders. He spent much time on developing communications and encryption equipment for the intelligence community. He developed chemical warfare weapons and improved night vision goggles. At Lear in Nevada, he learned technology of enhanced fuel-air explosive weapons and did some work in that area along with Gerald Bull of Space Research Corporation. Bull also developed the “Giant Gun” of Saddam Hussein which an Israeli Mossad team took out before our first war with Iraq. Bull was eliminated by a Mossad-CIA operation. Michael managed to save enough Wackenhut correspondence to prove his expertise in weapons making, even though the company has said he was just a “hanger on.”

Riconosciuto had developed considerable expertise laundering money, and he told House Judiciary Committee investigators that he was involved in routing the $40,000, 000 down payment to Iranian leaders as part of the GOP’s deal to have them hold 52 hostages until after the US election of 1980 was over. Allegedly, Maurice Stans produced the money that was routed to the Iranians through a Mexican bank. There is no longer any question about the deal or the $40,000,000 down payment, but Michael’s involvement cannot be independently established.

The reservation was a favorite visiting shot for Saudi sheiks, mob leaders, politicians, military officers, and foreign intelligence people. Two important visitors were Dr. Earl Brian, a businessman with long CIA ties and Peter Videnieks, a Customs lawyer on loan to Justice who Michael said managed the Department a software system. Brian was said to have had many transactions through BCCI and banks in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. According to both Mike and Bob Nichols, Videnieks was involved with them and Dr. Earl Brian in Hadron Corporation, which tried to buy Inslaw, producer of PROMIS software. Hadron also manufactured lasers. Nicaraguan Contra leaders visited it because weapons were being manufactured there for their use.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

MICHAEL RICONOSCIUTO: The Math/Science Wizard Who Said TOO Much, Part 1

, Michael Riconosciuto (pronounced Riconoshooto), has been called a lying conspiracy theorist, and though he was a child prodigy and often praised as a scientific and computer wizard, ,he is now said to lack skills in both areas. Some of his claims seem outrageous: the Justice Department stole a marvelous software from a private company; the CIA has dealt in drugs, and the Reagan administration broke the law by supplying weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras. He also talks about a strange Indian reservation and numerous experiences no single person was likely to have. Occasionally he takes the legitimate knowledge he has to reach erroneous conclusions. His father was friend of one president and his business partner was an intimate of another, so he may have been inclined to believe that all is not as it appears. Nevertheless, a close examination of his main claims could lead to the conclusion that his claims are mainly on target.

Michael Riconosciuto was a child prodigy and scientific genius who was recruited by the CIA and spent years in successful black operations research. When he was ten years old, he wired his parents’ neighborhood with a working telephone system. In the eighth grade, he created a three dimensional sonar system. As a teenager he won many science fair competitions with laser technology and was invited to do summer research at Stanford. He was involved with his father , Marshall Riconosciuto, in Hercules Research Corporation and developed various electronic devices including an acclaimed power cell. When his father operated a local Hercules Power Company Plant, owned by Dupont, Michael assisted him. His father had been a friend of Richard M. Nixon.

Marshall was also close to W. Patrick Moriarty, the safe fireworks king, who played a key role in Nixon’s kitchen cabinet. Moriarty would eventually go to prison in 1985 on mail fraud counts connected with the failure of his Bank of Irvine. In the process he admitted to bribing many California politicians, and he named some of them. Marshall was allegedly an admirer of Hitler and clearly was a friend of Fred L. Crisman, who helped G-2 agents acquire samples from an alleged crash of 6 UFOs at Maury Island in 1947. They were probably from some US. Experimental craft. Marshall was also a close friend of Clay Shaw and was involved in defending Shaw when Jim Garrison tried to associate him with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Crisman was questioned by Garrison because some thought he was one of the three tramps picked up after Kennedy was shot.

Investigator James Rothstein, a former New York detective, interviewed Michael Riconosciuto and found that the intelligence people began using him as a “chicken” for sexual purposes to entrap people since he was 13. Michael did not quite admit this to Rothstein, but the investigator found many bits of information that pointed in this direction, including the fact that Michael was sometimes taken to New York City. How likely could this be? Rothstein has been involved in similar cases and may be too anxious to find what he believed were “signs” of abuse. On the other hand, there is a possibility that Rothstein is correct as the author has found, strange as it seems, that some parents—especially members of the conservative elite-- actually find this sort of exposure desirable for their children.

As a young fellow, At that time Michael was manufacturing drugs and once built an under the water lab in Seattle to avoid police detection. He appears to have done a great deal of scientific free-lancing work, including development of modem accessing and error trapping software for Tyme Share, Inc. Charles Emmert, a pal of both Pat Moriarty and Michael’s father, claimed that Mike lived with Janis Joplin for a period and that he was also a cooked amphetamines for the Hells Angels. Emmert added that Michael once shot down an RCA satellite in Mozambique when he was angry with the corporation. According to Emmert, Riconosciuto hung around the Stanford Research Institute wad knew everyone there. For a time, Mike and a fellow named “Victor” ran a teenage prostitute ring to service LA cops.


Before entering Cal Tech, he was recruited for the CIA at age 17. Michael studied physics under Arthur Shallo, inventor of the laser and a Nobel Prize winner. By most accounts he worked for the agency for about 25 years At age 16 or 17, Michael was recruited for the CIA by Al Holbert, a Mossad agent who was connected with federally sanctioned methamphetamine operations in Madera and Mariposa counties. This would have been in 1966. Holbert was allegedly involved in the California drug trade, probably in partnership with CIA people. Michael said learned that Al was also a Soviet agent and he severed his ties with Hobart . In time. Michael became Director of Research for a Wackenhut operation in the California desert. Wackenhut provides security at sensitive military bases, and is filled with former CIA and NSA people. Some say Wackenhut is the “CIA’s CIA.” CIA Director Bill Casey had once been its outside counsel. Wackenhut had a number of joint ventures with the Cabazon Indians, whose reservation was an ideal site for its operations because the tribe has some of the benefits of sovereignty. This nation , had less than thirty members, but numerous companies were located there-- almost all of them fronts for covert operations. In some ways, the alliance with this small nation gave Wackenhut and the intelligence community the advantage of having a small country located on Interstate 10, in the middle of California. Wackenhut, of course, had very close ties to the CIA and has a number of former CIA people in high positions. The CIA used other sovereign Indian reservations for money laundering and drug and gun running. Michael was involved in these activities, particularly laundering the money from these illicit transactions. He told a reporter that gold mesh filters made by Wirecroft Products are often used as currency by intelligence operatives.

Friday, April 13, 2007

PROMIS SOFTWARE: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part 8

The June 15, 2001 Washington Times reported that Osama bin Laden had PROMIS software. Apparently rogue FBI agent Robert Hanssen sold it to a Russian, who then sold it to bin Laden. While this appeared to be a major foul-up, the truth is that the software was a Trojan Horse. In 1981-1982, the US and Israel installed a trap door that enabled them to access any files of firms using this software. The operation of the trap door was handled for the NSA by Systematics Corporation of Arkansas. Security people also monitored all sorts of transactions from a super-secure center in the World Trade Center. Riconosciuto'Al Qaeda; PROMIS;FBI;CIAs deposition stated that the software had been sold to many nations including the intelligence agencies of Canada, Singapore, Lybia, Australia, and south Korea.

The Hamiltons had won a $6.8 million judgement in a bankruptcy court in 1987, but it was later overturned. They had to start litigating all over again. By then, Elliott Richardson was representing the Hamiltons and asked for a settlement that could reach $500 million.

Riconoscuito's wife Bobbie was arrested on a custodial warrant and her three children were awarded to her former husband. Riconosuito's lawyer Dennis Eisman died of a gunshot wound while he was enroute to meet a woman in a Philadelphia parking lot who had information that would substantiate the prisoner=s claims, including his insistence that a Justice Department official threatened to harm his son and put family members in jail. Eisman's death was ruled a suicide. Investigative journalist Danny Casolaro was in touch with Eisman before this and would die in Martinsburg, West Virginia on August 10, 1991B an apparent suicide. His telephone records showed a number of telephone calls to Colonel Charles Hayes, a former CIA operative concerned about the government drug trade. Casolaro went to that city to discuss promise documents with the Justice Department's Peter Videnieks and Robert Altman, a banker connected to BCCI. At his funeral, a bemedaled army officer and a man in a trench coat marched up to his coffin, put a medal on it, and marched off. He had not served in the military. Webster Hubbell handled the investigation of his death as well as the Inslaw case. In a February 14, 1994 court filing, Inslaw said that the Justice Department=s Office of Special Investigations was its own intelligence service and was probably responsible for the death of Casolaro.


Alan D. Standorf, an intelligence employee who probably gave Casalaro information, was found beaten to death in his car at Washington National Airport William Richard Turner, a former Hughes Aircraft employee who provided Casaloro with information on corruption in defense contracting, was arrested on charges of bank robbery. All of his files were seized. Prosecutors showed a film of him running away from the bank, the problem was he has only one leg. Turner said he was frightened "shitless" when he saw Danny's papers connecting North and BCCI He also saw material about the Silverado failure and some guy named Ibrahim . Anson Ng, a reporter for the Financial Times died a month before Casolaro. He was in Guatemala to interview Jimmy Hughes, a witness who had information about the reservation murders

Thursday, April 12, 2007

PROMIS SOFTWARE: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part 7

A group of former CIA agents calling themselves the Fifth Column claim accessed the trap door via a mobile Cray computer. Like the PROMIS program itself, they acquired the computer through purchases of surplus government equipment. The former agents were led by Colonel Charles S. Hayes, whose 1992 testimony in the Inslaw case was redacted by the NSA. Hayes was sent to a Kentucky prison in a bizarre case in which he was accused of hiring someone to kill his son. Before he was sentenced, the judge made many arbitrary hearings including refusing to let him defend himself. Hayes attorney was prevented from asking many questions of a key government witness Lawrence Myers, a right-wing journalist who had ties to Timothy McVeigh and had once been involved in extortion and grand theft. The Army ruled he had multiple personalities. Myers has given similar testimony in similar cases. Kennetta Williamson, criminal investigator for the Tennessee attorney general's office, said he was "a pathological liar."

Visitors to Hayes in the hospital were intimidated by US Marshals, and a Kentucky State trooper who was probably with Hayes when he met President Clinton at Cincinnati airport was intimidating for telephoning the hospital to learn of Hayes= condition.

. After Bill Clinton was recruited for the CIA by London Station chief Cord Meyer, Hayes claimed that he supervised Clinton=s journey to the USSR. Hayes and his colleagues were mainly concerned with tracing drug money, particularly as it went to government official . Hayes later spoke of his fears that the US could become a narco republic. Their investigations included careful scrutiny of the Chicago exchanges and the transactions involving one Federal Reserve official. Before Hayes was sentenced, he met with Newt Gingrich, who was seeking financial records that would help Kenneth Starr's pursuit of Bill Clinton.

The Cram computer was on a truck that is used to move it around. The former agents claimed they found that many politicians had billions stashed away in off-shore and Swiss banks. The rogue agents appeared to have a right-wing orientation, and preyed upon many more Democrats than Republicans. They found that Vincent Foster, who handled the Systematics accounts for Rose Law Firm since the late 1970s had several million in a Swiss account. Foster=s account was in the Banca Della Svizzera Italiana in Chiasso, Switzerland. That money could have been skimmed out of other accounts or , some say, it was payment from Israel for unknown services. The Fifth Column moved many of the politicians money to Treasury holding accounts in several Federal Reserve branches with nary a complain from them or their banks. It is claimed that they emptied Vinc Foster's account of $2.73 million. But it is likely that they also skimmed off large sums for themselves. The information they provided the Mexican government resulted in serious legal problems for the Salinas family and disclosure of a half billion they had stashed in secret accounts. The Fifth Column also fed the tabloids information on the toe-sucking and philandering political advisor, Dick Morris. They also presented politicians with printouts showing their illegal dealings and accounts. Almost sixty senators and representatives decided not to run again in 1996. This was a record number only matched in 1896. is job for pursuing this story. and estimated the five former agents were moving around about $ 4 billion. His July 23, 1995 interview on USA Radio Network was interrupted for reasons of national security. Press Secretary Mike Mc Curey worked hard to convince journalist Sarah McClendon that Norman was mentally unstable, but in the end he lived in her home for a while for safety purposes.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

PROMIS SOFTWARE: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part s 5 and 6

In 1991, Congressman Jack Brooks began a three year investigation that concluded that there was a conspiracy to steal Inslaw's technology. The Brooks Committee recommended that a special prosecutor be appointed, but Attorney General William Barr refused to do so. John Cohen, one of the committee=s lead investigators believed the software was being used to track money laundering and also to carry out illicit money operations. He also thought some of the latter was tied to drug trafficking. PROMIS had the capacity to jimmy the two Banking systems, SWIFT and CHIP, enabling users to move drug money around the world without detection. The staff was also looking into how a certain large entertainment corporation, with alleged mob ties, could have been using PROMIS to move drug money. However, none of the laundering concerns appeared in the final report. Some who have written about the schemes connected to Promis have tried to tie them to prominent Democrats, but it should be noted that not one Republican voted to support the Brooks Committee Report.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police eventually began investigating the Inslaw case on the pretext that Canada may have purchased stolen property. Their main concern was probably that the software was being used to spy on them. Interest was heightened by the double murder of Neil Abernathy and his 12 year-old son, Brendan. The Canadians thought Riconoscuito had given him, through PROMIS, information on US law enforcement and US Bureau of Prison records. Some of Riconosciuto=s files on how the system was stolen, improved, and used were carted up to Canada by an Canadian Mounties investigator . Janet Reno investigated Canadian complaints and said that the PROMIS system was not the one used in the US. It was a coincidence in names. Private investigator Larry Guerrin, who was working for Riconosciuto in connection with the Inslaw case, was found dead in the Mason County, Washington in February, 1987. Other Riconscuito associates were to turn up dead around this time: David Eisman, who was working on the Inslaw Case; Tony Burkett, found dead of a gunshot wound in the mouth, and Alan May, who had been involved with Riconoscuito in the Iran Contra scandal. May had multiple pharmaceuticals in his blood. Burnett had been meeting with Riconosciuto, and a pathologist hired by his parents found considerable physical damage to his body. Ian Spiro, who was gathering documents for Michael, was found dead by his own hand in his truck, after he had apparently killed his wife and children. Later, Joseph Aguilar, who sometimes did manual work for Spiro, shot himself. In 1994 the body of Vali Delahanty turned up in Lake Bay, Washington. She had been trying to warn Riconosciuto that the DEA was preparing to free him on drug charges.



PROMIS SOFTWARE: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part 6



In the mid-1990s, Debra von Trapp, a high technology communications specialist, reported that she had been connected with a CIA operation in a Xerox-owned plant in Shugart, Germany which was selling Japanese hard drives to the Eastern Bloc and KGB even though this was illegal. It is possible, but she did not say so, that the drives were equipped with software that US intelligence could access. Later, she was forced to help a task force in Washington working to develop software that could be used to gather enormous amounts of information on people's private lives. This was probably the beginning of the Total Information Awareness Program that was developed under the administration of George W. Bush. The team was headed by Robert Goetzman, he told her he worked in the office of President George H.W. Bush. He also held a high position in the FBI, but was a "dual agency" person, working also for the CIA. Through threats, he forced her to use her connections to help develop what he called "black hole technology." Also involved were Peter Stanley of the CIA and DIA's Jim Cofield, an expert on banking software. These men constituted the core of the Bush plumbers unit that was assigned to the Ross Perot campaign. Probably as part of another operation, Linda Tripp retained a job in the White House monitoring possible security breaches. She had been an operations assistant for the Delta Force and later administrative assistant for Army Intelligence at Fort Meade.

When George H.W. Bush lost the election, the program was shut down, but the team working on it were successful in replacing the computer and communications software in the Executive Branch so that the CIA could keep track of what the Clinton administration was doing. She also thought that the Japanese government through MCA Corporation had been used to finance the operation in return for receiving vital economic intelligence via these bugs. In addition to planting bugs in the White House, Democratic National Committee, and Executive Office of the President offices, the team inserted another agent in the purchasing office of the Executive Office of the President. Sarah McClendon, who was well informed about what went on behind the scenes in Washington, agrees that these people bugged the White House, but she thinks von Trapp was also fed some disinformation about the Oklahoma City bombing.


Riconscuito's career will be discussed in a series that will appear in several days.

Also coming is a short series on Ptech software

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

PROMIS: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part 4

In 1991 Riconcuiuto signed a deposition for Hamilton, an old NSA hand, in his efforts to recover lost profits. Riconcuito was then arrested before he could testify in person. His written testimony and subsequent interviews with Brooks Committee attorneys included information of Waackenhut double billing, how Iran was paid for retaining the 52 hostages past the 1980 election, the mechanics of CIA money laundering including the listing of dead drop accounts in the West Indies, how highly sensitive technology was sold to Red China through third parties. Riconoscuito tied Reagan Justice Department attorney Michael Abbell to the Cali cartel and confirmed CIA drug operations in the Bekaa Valley.

He is now in prison for operating a meth lab and has been in prison ever since. In the litigation, there was testimony that Riconcuito helped launder $40 million for the Bush-Quayle campaign; however, only one government source has supported this claim.

. Ari Ben-Menashe testified that he was present when Brian made a presentation of the program to the Israeli government in 1987. In his affidavit, he said Israel bought the program and that all US intelligence agencies were using it by then. He further stated that Israel helped Brian sell the software to Iraqi intelligence and that he was present in Brian=s Santiago, Chile office when the deal was consummated. A British Air Force officer who was present was later found hanged. The death was ruled a suicide. Brian acquired the nickname ACash@ in Brazil where he sold the software to that government. But before concluding the sale, Brazilians said he placed a call to Attorney General Edwin Meese. President Joao Figueiredo gave a deposition to this effect in 1992 and was supported by a CIA agent who was present. However, the NSA redacted the agent=s testimony.

The Israelis and Americans developed plans to quietly sell the software to intelligence agencies all over the world. Senator John Tower, with long experience in the covert arms trade, helped the US and Israelis develop a working arrangement. Israel used firms connected with Robert Maxwell=s Macmillan publishing empire and the United States worked through Earl Brian=s Hadron, Inc. Using a firm called SCT, Brian tried to purchase Inslaw. It is likely that Brian was operating CIA fronts, but one can assume that he was sharing in the profits. Some speculate that this was his payoff for handling the financial side of the October, 1980 Surprise, in which Bill Casey, he, and others made a deal with the Iranians to hold 52 hostages until after the American presidential election. Brian was eventually convicted of ten counts of financial fraud in matters apparently not related to Inslaw.

A modified version of the software was spread throughout the defense industry by 2000. Eventually, PROMIS was used by major banks and many kinds of enterprises. One of the first banks to have the software was BCCI, which was used my the CIA, NSA, and intelligence agencies friendly to the US. BCCI would serve as the front for arming Iraq in the late eighties, and of course people connected with it helped the shaky enterprises of George W. Bush. Since 2002, the French, Germans, and a committee of the European Parliament have suggested PROMIS is used for economic and industrial espionage against them.

Monday, April 09, 2007

PROMIS SOFTWARE: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part 3

Using some information provided by the Israelis, CIA computer wizard Michael Riconciuto improved the PROMIS program at Ido, Silver Springs, Maryland, and Miami, Florida. He was research director for the joint ventures of Wackenhut Corporation and the Cabazon Indians. At age 16, he built his own argon laser at Stanford, and his family had close ties to Richard Nixon .He also had close NSA ties and was sometimes seen at NSA contractor facilities in the Silicon Valley. Riconcuito=s operation included weapons development and testing. The Indians manufactured night vision glasses , laser-sighted assault weapons, 9 mm machine pistols, and biological weapons for the Contras. These joint projects were also tied to the government=s efforts to assist the Contras in Nicaragua, and it has been suggested that some of the profits from the sale of PROMIS were used to finance the Nicaraguan Contras.


One Indian, Fred Alvarez, who raised questions about tribal profits going into foreign banks was executed along with two companions in 1981. Ten years later, Anson Ng, a stronger for the Financial Times.was murdered in Guatemala City. He was there to interview the former CIA men who paid the murderers of the three Indians. He was also looking into the corrupt bank BCCI as well as corruption in Guatemala. He was killed with one bullet to the head and his head was propped up with twop pillows to reduce external bleeding and delay the discover of the crime. Officials said he was a victim or ordinary crime, but Senator Alan Cranston told the Senate it looked like a professional hit.

They also objected to use of the reservation to manufacture biological weapons. A security guard admitted to being the bag man who paid three former Green Berets who came in from Chicago for the hit. After making a taped interview, he disappeared. Barbara Walters reported the incident on 20/20 and raised the possibility that this was a CIA action. were slain. These joint projects were also tied to the government=s efforts to assist the Contras in Nicaragua, and it has been suggested that some of the profits from the sale of PROMIS were used to finance the Contras.

The most important modifications of PROMIS were made in 1983-1984. Riconcuito added telecommunications access to the program. .Barry R. Kumnick was one of the people involved in making later modifications to the program. Kumnick wrote his sister in Idaho that the new version was so powerful that enormous harm could be done if the wrong people got control of it. He later disappeared. His business partner now says he never heard of him. It will never be ascertained what he was referring to, but it is known that Federal Emergency Management Administration acquired PROMIS and modified it into MAINCORE, a system for keeping track of dissidents in the US so that they can be rounded up in a period of emergency. MAINCORE is housed in Cupleper, Virginia.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

PROMIS SOFTWARE: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part 2

In 1982, Earl Brian, acting for the Justice Department, seemed to have agreed to lease William Hamilton's PROMIS software for $10 million over three years. It was initially a very sophisticated data base that prosecutors could use to keep track of cases. Reagan=s Attorney Generals William French Smith and Ed Meese wanted it to fight domestic crime, but it was soon put to other uses. Hamilton's basic mistake was probably not selling the firm to a friend of Meese. But he refused and was told " We have ways of making you sell." Soon Justice Department and Hamilton later disagreed over what services were to be provided. Justice stopped payments and seized the program, forcing Hamilton=s Inslaw Corporation into bankruptcy. Meese became attorney General in 1985 after much of the damage was done.

Much later, Congressman Jack Brooks investigated whether Meese was trying to force Hamilton to sell to Hadron, a rival firm led by Dr. Earl W. Brian and several other ranking Republicans. Brian had lent Meese money and Mrs. Meese was an investor in the firm. Inslaw would retain the services of attorney Elliot Richardson, who pursued the matter for ten years. A serious blow to his efforts occurred when the Justice Department was robbed on April 27, 1991. The bandits trucked away many filing cabinets with information on the Inslaw case. He won twice, only to be eventually overruled on a technicality. The case would cost one judge his job and get one Justice Department whistle blower his job. IBM subsequently bought Inslaw. This facility was used by Oliver North to track people he claimed to be potential terrorists. Earlier, CIA director Bill Casey had sought an executive order giving the CIA power to spy on American citizens within the United States. The proposal caused an uproar and was dropped. The desire of conservatives to keep track of what other citizens are thinking and doing has a long history. Attorney General--later Chief Justice-- Richard Rehnquist told a Senate committee that the government had the Aright to collect whatever information it want on anybody.@ In August, 1971, Richard Nixon was considering a play to wire house, boats, and other facilities on America. He decided it was unnecessary because the existing surveillance system was pretty efficient.


PROMIS was soon made available to the Israelis and Wackenhut Corporation. Wackenhut provides security at sensitive military bases, and is filled with former CIA and NSA people. Some say Wackenhut is the “CIA’s CIA.” CIA Director Bill Casey had once been its outside counsel. The Justice Department claimed that the FBI did not use the software, but Director William Sessions has refused to give that guarantee. At a 6,100 square foot command center on the 6th floor of Department of Justice headquarters was created for the use of PROMIS.

Wackenhut sent PROMIS to its computer laboratories on the Cabazon Indian Nation=s Reservation in Indio, California, where weapons and ammunition was also being manufactured for the Contras. This nation, which claims sovereign immunity, had less than thirty members, but all sorts of companies were located thereB almost all of them fronts for covert operations. In some ways, the alliance with this small nation gave Wakenhut and the intelligence community the advantage of having a small country located on Interstate 10, in the middle of California. Wakenhut, of course, had very close ties to the CIA and has a number of former CIA people in high positions. The CIA used other sovereign Indian reservations for money laundering and drug and gun running. Among them were Minominee of Minnesota and Arizona's Papago rese4rvations. The Cabazon, as a minority, had the ability to front and receive government contracts. The Indians appeared to be under control of CIA veteran and mobster “Dr.” John Phillip Nichols ( 1924-2001), who operates a casino with them. His son Mark worked with him and took over control of the reservation upon his father’s death. The reservation was a favorite visiting shot for Saudi sheiks, mob leaders, politicians, military officers, and foreign intelligence people. Two important visitors were Dr. Earl Brian, a businessman with long CIA ties and Peter Videnieks, who managed the Department of Justice=s interest in PROMIS. Brian had many transactions through BCCI and banks in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

Friday, April 06, 2007

PROMIS SOFTWARE: A Tale of Government Corruption, Part 1

The massive expansion of the powers of electronic surveillance was based on two sophisticated software systems. In the late 1970s, the federal government acquired the Systematics system, which enabled it to follow banking transactions of all sorts. In a few years, it obtained the pore powerful PROMIS, the foundation stone of electronic surveillance systems previously existing only existing as the dreams of spymasters and cryptographers.

PROMIS is a data base that includes a sort-of Rosetta stone of computer languages. It could pull and integrate data from any number of languages. Its only limitation is that it is a software package that must exist at the facilities of the target. At first it was to be used by prosecutors to manage their case loads. But it soon was used to monitor and manage banking transactions. It can tract electronic information of any kind, including troop movements. .

It was software developed by William Hamilton, a former NSA employee, and briefly marketed by his private company, Inslaw. Earlier, financier Jackson Stephens had stolen another piece of Inslaw software called Systematics. Systematics was designed to track financial transactions throughout the world. Stephens had been a friend of Jimmy Carter at Annapolis and he gave government a large share of the software and company..He operated one of the largest investment banks outside Wall Street and was to play a major role in helping the international bank BCCI establish itself in the United States. This bank became famous for its involvements with various intelligence agencies, drug dealers, arms traders, and other criminal elements. Bert Lance, a top Carter Aid, was also connected to BCCI, and his attorney Robert Altman, who later became president of Financial General, renamed First America in 1982, a bank owned by BCCI. Hillary Clinton of the Rose Law Firm, according to Vincent Foster of the same firm, handled the intellectual property litigation for Systematics. Kadal Adham, former head of Saudi Arabian intelligence, fronted the BCCI take over of Financial General.


It is unclear if Carter knew where Stephens got the Systematics software of if he knew much about its use. Eventually, it was used in centers in Arkansas , Boston, United Kingdom, and Israel. . The Rose Law Firm in Little Rock coordinated its use for the government. It is likely but unclear whether this system was later combined with PROMIS. Eventually, the NSA spun off Systematics as Alltel Information Systems, and many banks used its services to keep track of transactions. As money today exists largely on computers, possessing the power of Systematics meant one could use other people=s money for short periods or even transfer it to others by just changing ownership codes. The federal program to collect financial data was based on the idea that the Communists were employing terrorism on a major scale. This federal program including tapping into other collection programs such as CHIPS, Fedwire, and SWIFT. The latter was a Belgium-based financial consortium that tracked international banking activity. Some use by NSA was permitted by organizations controlling the software; however, most access based on abuses by so-called software salesmen, repair services, and simple black bag jobs. Much of the financial information scooped up by the NSA is stored at a modern complex in Dallas that is owned by Rayethon. Systematics/Alltel Information Systems was also in the business of money laundering for the intelligence community. Typically, in this age of digital cash, money laundering involves placement, layering, and integration. The latter means getting clean money out of the system, which may come as loans from off shore banks that are never repaid. It became a major computer services contractor for the Atlanta subsidiary of the notorious bank, BCCI. This bank was used to fund the Afghan insurgency and was closely tied to the financing of Pakistan=s nuclear bomb. Its functions were assumed in 1991 by the Bank of England. When BCCI=s Atlanta subsidiary was no longr available, Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh became a hub for covert money laundering, some of which was connected with the nuclear arming of Paskistan. CIA director Bill Casey established a super spy unit called the Squad D. One of its duties was hacking banking transactions and finding secret accounts of other governments. It is likely that they used both Systematics and PROMIS software. One member of that hackers unit was Colonel Charles Hayes.

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About Me

Sherm spent seven years writing an analytical chronicle of what the Republicans have been up to since the 1970s. It discusses elements in the Republican coalition, their ideologies, strategies, informational and financial resources, and election shenanigans. Abuses of power by the Reagan and G. W. Bush administration and the Republican Congresses are detailed. The New Republican Coalition : Its Rise and Impact, The Seventies to Present (Publish America) can be acquired by calling 301-695-1707. On line, go to http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping. It can also be obtained through the on-line operations of Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Do not consider purchasing it if you are looking for something that mirrors the mainstream media!