Edwin Wilson, former CIA operative convicted of selling arms to Libya, dies at 84

Bush & a CIA Power Play

Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews.com

EXCERPT...

The Blond Ghost

SNIP...

After retiring, (Ted) Shackley went into business with another ex-CIA man, Thomas Clines, a partner with Edwin Wilson, the rogue spy who later would go to prison over shipments of terrorist materials to Libya. Clines himself would be convicted of tax fraud in the Iran-contra scandal, another controversy in which Shackley's pale specter would hover in the background.

But in 1980, Shackley was set on putting his former boss, George Bush, in the White House and possibly securing the CIA directorship for himself. Shackley volunteered his prodigious skills to Bush in early 1980. Though that fact has come out before, Shackley's involvement in the Iran hostage issue, the so-called October Surprise controversy, has been a closely held secret, until now.

In 1992, the House investigators should have jumped when they saw the Shackley tie-in. The task force, which was examining charges that Republicans sabotaged Carter's hostage talks, already knew that other ex-CIA men were managing a 24-hour-a-day "Operations Center" at Reagan-Bush campaign headquarters to monitor Iran developments. Richard Allen had called the ex-spies a "plane load of disgruntled CIA" officers "playing cops and robbers."

Some House investigators wanted the behind-the-scenes CIA role mentioned. A "secret" draft chapter of the House task force report, which I also found in the storage room, stated that: "Many of the (Operations Center's) staff members were former CIA employees who had previously worked on the Bush campaign or were otherwise loyal to George Bush." But that section was deleted from the publicly released version.

Another task force discovery -- also dropped from the final report -- was that conservative "journalist" Michael Ledeen, another Shackley associate, was privately collaborating with the Reagan-Bush campaign on the Iran hostage issue. The draft chapter said Ledeen was an unofficial member of the campaign's "October Surprise" group. A separate page of Allen's notes revealed Ledeen joining campaign director, William J. Casey, in a Sept. 16 meeting for what was called the "Persian Gulf Project."

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile7.html

This crew foisted the Safari Club and the October Surprise all the way through PNAC, among other forms of undemocratic death, into our body politick.

...which would serve to prevent opening a can of worms from the casino in Havana to the selection of Smirko McCokespoon in 2000. A nice summation of the general's memories from Joseph Trento:

http://books.google.com/books?id=3uPBM7z_62gC&pg=PA344&lpg=PA344&dq=singlaub+wilson+shackley&source=bl&ots=xEmzJY9Y3v&sig=5eEnm-aizWKN5n1_bj64Xaj5ywc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yTVfUML-BaO-yQGtwYD4Cg&ved=0CFkQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=singlaub%20wilson%20shackley&f=false

in the way back machine. I had forgotten and didn't know some of that. The horror of Ted Shackley came flooding back and I could almost smell the gun powder and blood.

It also makes me know that we MUST disband the CIA.

Fascinating how we always go back to the same playbook.

What ever became of Wilson's partner Frank Terpil?

This is a good bio on him with notes at the bottom. I'd like to know who in the Carter administration authorized the shipping of 42,000 lbs of C4 to Khadaffi in '77 or if they even knew about it (probably a CIA black op).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwilsonE2.htm

sold didn't kill anyone? Why was he hiding out in Libya instead of, say Brazil? He trafficked weapons outside of sanctioned limits and played on his credentials to cover his sales. He should have died in prison. He's worse than an Ames.

...in an interview that according to the publication (Playboy, Penthouse, Rolling Stone???) can't remember which, was very difficult to arrange.

He was one of the first to expose the criminal enterprises of the government and its agencies and quite frankly, I'm surprised that he lived as long as he did. Of course with all the liberal media actually doing their job and investigating the truly sloppy anti-democratic machinations of the government (of the day), we had a lot of game-changing revelations dumped on us and he was put on the shelf...

Glad to hear he got through all of that.

Edited to add link:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwilsonE2.htm

.

He was not a good guy and millions of people's lives were ended or destroyed because of him.

It's ugly thinking there will always be another sociopath to take the place of a dead one!

Thanks for offering more info. for those of us who haven't learned as much as we need, Octafish. It really matters.