1980 campaign:

Agents for Bush

by Bob Callahan*
Covert Action Information Bulletin, Number 33 (Winter 1990)

EXCERPT...

Bush and Terrorism

The Bush presidential campaign not only set the tone for the role and structure of the intelligence apparatus in the new Reagan administration, it also took up a new foreign policy theme which would reap huge political dividends in the years to come. This new theme was terrorism/counterterrorism.

In July 1979 George Bush and Ray Cline attended a conference in Jerusalem where this theme was given its first significant political discussion before leaders of Israel, Great Britain and the United States.

It would take an enormously important event to keep a major American presidential candidate away from campaigning on the Fourth of July weekend. For George Bush, the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism was such an event. The Jerusalem Conference was hosted by the Israeli government and, not surprisingly, most of Israel’s top intelligence officers and leading political (figures) were in attendance. (6)

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin rose to the podium on July 2, 1979 to provide the conference with its opening address. By the summer of 1979, even Menachem Begin was willing to join in the bashing of his old Camp David friend, Jimmy Carter – a practice which had become almost endemic by the fall of 1979.

The Israelis were angry with Carter because his administration had recently released its Annual Report on Human Rights wherein the Israeli Government was taken to task for abusing the rights of the Palestinian people on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel’s new anti-Carter tone was mile, however, compared to the rhetoric of the two separate U.S. delegations which attended the conference. The first delegation was led by the late Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington. It included the noted black civil rights leader Bayard Rustin; Ben Wattenberg of the American Enterprise Institute; and Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter of Commentary Magazine. The members of this delegation were registered Democrats, yet all became very active in neo-conservative politics during the Reagan years.

The Republican delegation was led by George Bush. It included Ray Cline and two important members of Bush’s Team B form his CIA days – Major General George Keegan, a Bush supporter who had served as intelligence chief for the United States Air Force; and Harvard professor Richard Pipes. (7)

Looking for a mobilizing issue to counter the Carter-era themes of détente and human rights, the Bush people began to explore the political benefits of embracing the terrorism/anti-terrorism theme.

As Jonathan Marshall of the Oakland Tribune explains: “At the conference, Ray Cline developed the theme that terror was not a random response of frustrated minorities, but rather a preferred instrument of East bloc policy adopted after 1969 when the KGB persuaded the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to accept the PLO as a major political instrument in the Mideast and to subsidize its terrorist policies by freely giving money, training, arms and coordinated communications.(8)

In Ray Cline’s imagination, terrorism had now hardened into a system – an international trouble making system. Richard Pipes elaborated on the Cline hypothesis. “The roots of Soviet terrorism, indeed of modern terrorism,” Pipes states, “date back to 1879….It marks the beginning of that organization which is the source of all modern terrorist groups, whether they be named the Tupamaros, the Baader-Meinhoff group, the Weathermen, Red Brigade or PLO. I refer to the establishment in 1879 of a Congress in the small Russian town of Lipesk, of an organization known as Narodnaya Volya, or the People’s Will.”(9)

According to Philip Paull, who wrote his master’s thesis on the subject of the Jerusalem Conference, “If Pipes was to be believed, the Russians not only support international terrorism, they invented it!”(10)

The Bush/Cline/Pipes definition of terrorism was of course both expeditious and powerfully political. “Left out of their equation,” Jonathan Marshall comments, “was any mention of terrorist acts by CIA-trained Cuban exiles, Israeli ties to Red Brigades, or the function of death squads from Argentina to Guatemala. Soviet sponsorship, real or imagined, had become the defining characteristic of terrorism, not simply an explanation for its prevalence. Moreover, there was no inclination whatsoever to include, under the rubric of terror, bombings of civilians, or any other acts carried out by government forces rather than small individual units.” (11)

Within days after the conference the new propaganda war began in earnest. On July 11, 1979, the International Herald Tribune featured a lead editorial entitled "The Issue is Terrorism," which quoted directly from conference speeches. The same day Congressman Jack Kemp placed selected quotes from the conference in the Congressional Record. In his syndicated column of July 28, 1979, former CIA employee William F. Buckley blasted two of his favorite targets in one single mixed metaphor: “No venture is too small to escape patronage by the Soviet Union,” Buckley stated, “which scatters funds about for terrorists like HEW in search of welfare clients.” Then in August, George Will, who also attended the conference, wrote about it in the Washington Post.

Before the year was out Commentary, National Review, and eventually New Republic writers would all church out yard after yard of copy on this theme. Soon after, Claire Sterling, who had also attended the conference, would create the first "bible" of this new perspective with the publication of her highly controversial book, The Terror Network.(12)

With the help of George Bush and Ray Cline, the Jerusalem Conference had managed to start a propaganda firestorm.

In the following decade, the theme of terrorism/counter-terrorism would grow increasingly important to George Bush. He would become the ranking authority on this subject in the Reagan White House. Indeed, it would be Bush’s own Task Force – the Vice President’s Task Force on Combatting Terroris, -- which would eventually provide Oliver North back channel authorization through which he would bypass certain dissenting administration officials in his ongoing management of the Reagan/Bush Secret War against Nicaragua.(13)

CONTINUED...

PDF: https://archive.org/details/GeorgeBushTheCompanysMan-CovertActionInformationBulletinNo.33

CIA Out of Control

Russ Baker
Village Voice, Sept. 10, 1991

EXCERPT...

Dellums press secretary Max Miller says the representative from Berkeley, together with majority whip David Bonior--another outspoken liberal--made an agreement with Speaker Thomas Foley to maintain a low profile in return for gaining seats on the committee. After one full round of legislation and briefings, Miller says, Dellums will be heard from. "They wanted to find out as much as they could before speaking out." Meanwhile, the energetic Oliver North, in his role as president of something called the Freedom Alliance, has launched a campaign to collect a million Dump Dellums signatures. He calls Dellums "a pro-Marxist, antidefense radical," who would be a threat on the "supersensitive" committee. Putting Dellums on the panel, North says, was an "extremely reckless and very dangerous appointment."

And those who make trouble get trouble. Reports and rumors that the apparatus pokes into the personal lives of members of Congress underlines the danger of investigating national security agencies. "There's a little bit of fear that if you do go after the intelligence community, your career is threatened," says McGehee, author of "Deadly Deceits: My 25 years in the CIA." Even the complacent Senate intelligence committee chair David Boren has reason to worry. According to the "Voice"'s Doug Ireland (see Press Clips, May 28), Boren faced a vicious primary battle in his first senatorial campaign, during which his opponents accused him of being a homosexual. At a press conference, Boren swore on a white Bible that he was not. "It would therefore be utterly churlish," Ireland wrote, "to speculate on whether or not the Company has a file on the state of its tamed watchdog's libido." Since then, Boren has called Robert Gates "one of the most candid people we've ever dealt with."

Leading congressional critics of the CIA have been defeated, despite their long, distinguished careers in Washington and Congress's nearly foolproof 98 per cent reelection rate. Both Otis Pike and Frank Church were defeated soon after chairing their precedent-setting '70s hearings. Pike's report had been so incendiary that Congress voted not to release it before the White House had a chance to censor the document. (It was ultimately leaked to and published by the "Voice." Pike's committee staff director had been warned by the CIA special counsel, "Pike will pay for this, you wait and see--we'll destroy him for this," according to "The New York Times." Also defeated were outspoken senators Dick Clark, Birch Bayh, and Harold Hughes. Foreign money--possibly South African--is believed to have financed the defeat of Clark, a vocal critic of the CIA and U.S. ties with South Africa.

Challenging the CIA also means trying to rein in dictatorial tendencies that naturally accrue to the occupant of the Oval Office. "Every president of the United States, no matter what he says before he becomes president, about how he's going to clean things up," says Marchetti, "once he gets in there and finds out that's *his* agency, that's *his* intelligence community, hey, all bets are off."

One man who told the truth blew his chance to become CIA director, thanks to "reformer" Jimmy Carter. Hank Knoche, acting director following Bush's retirement, had been called down to a Senate committee. "The chairman was complaining that `we just don't know what's really going on,'" says Marchetti, who was privy to the details of the incident. "They asked [Knoche] about covert action operations: `Do we know all the stuff that's going on? Could you tell us more about them?'" Asked to reveal the 10 largest ongoing operations, Knoche offered to name a few of the lesser ones, despite urgings from his aide that he keep his mouth shut. President Carter reportedly heard about it, and was none too happy. Instead of Knoche, the odds-on favorite for the slot, he named intelligence novice and old Naval Academy chum Admiral Stansfield Turner. "Hank learned his lesson that day," says Marchetti.

CONTINUED...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/alt.conspiracy/G8CP9pwqjvU

Why isn't this organization rated?

We had previously evaluated this organization, but have since determined that this charity's atypical business model can not be accurately captured in our current rating methodology. Our removal of The Clinton Foundation from our site is neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity. We reserve the right to reinstate a rating for The Clinton Foundation as soon as we identify a rating methodology that appropriately captures its business model.

What does it mean that this organization isn’t rated?

It simply means that the organization doesn't meet our criteria. A lack of a rating does not indicate a positive or negative assessment by Charity Navigator.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.profile&ein=311580204#.V0ByAvkrK00

Of course you'll probably say you have incontrovertible proof that Clinton has spent it all on a Sharia Law sneak attack she plans to launch on inauguration day.

For 15 years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a secretive religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill. Is she triangulating -- or living her faith?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics

CIA Out of Control

Russ Baker
Village Voice, Sept. 10, 1991

EXCERPT...

Dellums press secretary Max Miller says the representative from
Berkeley, together with majority whip David Bonior--another
outspoken liberal--made an agreement with Speaker Thomas Foley to
maintain a low profile in return for gaining seats on the committee.
After one full round of legislation and briefings, Miller says,
Dellums will be heard from. "They wanted to find out as much as
they could before speaking out." Meanwhile, the energetic Oliver
North, in his role as president of something called the Freedom
Alliance, has launched a campaign to collect a million Dump Dellums
signatures. He calls Dellums "a pro-Marxist, antidefense radical,"
who would be a threat on the "supersensitive" committee. Putting
Dellums on the panel, North says, was an "extremely reckless and
very dangerous appointment."

And those who make trouble get trouble. Reports and rumors that
the apparatus pokes into the personal lives of members of Congress
underlines the danger of investigating national security agencies.
"There's a little bit of fear that if you do go after the
intelligence community, your career is threatened," says McGehee,
author of "Deadly Deceits: My 25 years in the CIA." Even the
complacent Senate intelligence committee chair David Boren has
reason to worry. According to the "Voice"'s Doug Ireland (see Press
Clips, May 28), Boren faced a vicious primary battle in his first
senatorial campaign, during which his opponents accused him of being
a homosexual. At a press conference, Boren swore on a white Bible
that he was not. "It would therefore be utterly churlish," Ireland
wrote, "to speculate on whether or not the Company has a file on the
state of its tamed watchdog's libido." Since then, Boren has called
Robert Gates "one of the most candid people we've ever dealt with."

Leading congressional critics of the CIA have been defeated,
despite their long, distinguished careers in Washington and
Congress's nearly foolproof 98 per cent reelection rate. Both Otis
Pike and Frank Church were defeated soon after chairing their
precedent-setting '70s hearings. Pike's report had been so
incendiary that Congress voted not to release it before the White
House had a chance to censor the document. (It was ultimately
leaked to and published by the "Voice." Pike's committee staff
director had been warned by the CIA special counsel, "Pike will pay
for this, you wait and see--we'll destroy him for this," according
to "The New York Times." Also defeated were outspoken senators Dick
Clark, Birch Bayh, and Harold Hughes. Foreign money--possibly South
African--is believed to have financed the defeat of Clark, a vocal
critic of the CIA and U.S. ties with South Africa.

Challenging the CIA also means trying to rein in dictatorial
tendencies that naturally accrue to the occupant of the Oval Office.
"Every president of the United States, no matter what he says before
he becomes president, about how he's going to clean things up," says
Marchetti, "once he gets in there and finds out that's *his* agency,
that's *his* intelligence community, hey, all bets are off."

One man who told the truth blew his chance to become CIA
director, thanks to "reformer" Jimmy Carter. Hank Knoche, acting
director following Bush's retirement, had been called down to a
Senate committee. "The chairman was complaining that `we just don't
know what's really going on,'" says Marchetti, who was privy to the
details of the incident. "They asked [Knoche] about covert action
operations: `Do we know all the stuff that's going on? Could you
tell us more about them?'" Asked to reveal the 10 largest ongoing
operations, Knoche offered to name a few of the lesser ones, despite
urgings from his aide that he keep his mouth shut. President Carter
reportedly heard about it, and was none too happy. Instead of
Knoche, the odds-on favorite for the slot, he named intelligence
novice and old Naval Academy chum Admiral Stansfield Turner. "Hank
learned his lesson that day," says Marchetti.

CONTINUED...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/alt.conspiracy/G8CP9pwqjvU