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"Cheney and Rumsfeld pressured CIA to mislead Congress in the 1970's, too" by Margie Burns

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bobthedrummer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-27-09 07:08 PM
Original message
"Cheney and Rumsfeld pressured CIA to mislead Congress in the 1970's, too" by Margie Burns
(5-27-09 Online Journal)

"The first time Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld pressured the CIA to mislead Congress was in 1975 and 1976, when Cheney was chief of staff to President Gerald Ford and Rumsfeld was Ford's secretary of defense."

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4736.shtml


Below is a related archived thread for those that love the truth

"The Pike Committee" (started 3-11-08)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2990965
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Mnemosyne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-27-09 07:12 PM
Response to Original message
1. Treasonous war criminals. n/t
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knowbody0 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-27-09 07:15 PM
Response to Original message
2. the only solution is daylight on all
these things done in our name and "for our own good" are the festering underbelly of our grand illusion of democracy and security. we need to know, to accept the shame, and somehow find redemption
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santamargarita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-27-09 08:25 PM
Response to Original message
3. Cheney and Rumsfeld were always known then as the crazies...
even by Republicans.
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-27-09 08:27 PM
Response to Original message
4. Thanks Bob...K&R
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Uncle Joe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-28-09 12:52 PM
Response to Original message
5. Kicked and recommended.
Thanks for the thread, bobthedrummer.
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katty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-28-09 01:32 PM
Response to Original message
6. darth and dumsfeld have been buddies in crime for decades
why this has not come out more--their previous heinous 'activities' is due to the ever-suppressing MSM.
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Liberation Angel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-28-09 02:05 PM
Response to Original message
7. These guys are deep shadow government operators
Edited on Thu May-28-09 02:08 PM by Liberation Angel
they only came out of their hidey holes because someone turned the lights on and they have been scurrying around ever since doing as much damage to human beings (and th earth) as they can manage. Fascist operators from way back.

good point bobthe d.

Important one.

They are the "bishops" on the chessboard of politics and they can kill....effectively at the whim of their kings ...


K& highly Recommended

Like brzezinski, these treasonous bastards have been lurching menacingly around for 30 or 40 years causing horrors

needs to be remembered, this past....
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happydreams Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-28-09 02:52 PM
Response to Original message
8. K&R
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bluesmail Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-28-09 03:20 PM
Response to Original message
9. The Usual Suspects. Again. eom
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-28-09 07:54 PM
Response to Original message
10. K&R Thanks for keeping on this...
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MinM Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri May-29-09 01:41 PM
Response to Original message
11. The long march of Dick Cheney
Edited on Fri May-29-09 01:47 PM by MinM
While I tend to be dubious of any piece that relies on the work of Lamar Waldron:

http://www.ctka.net/ultimate_final.html
http://www.ctka.net/2009/legacy_secrecy.html
http://www.ctka.net/2009/legacy_update.html

I have no doubt that Cheney and Rumsfeld were as despicable in those years as they are now.

The long march of Dick Cheney
11/25/05 "Salon.com" -- -- The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. When it matters, the regular operations of the CIA, Defense Department and State Department have been sidelined...

Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal thwarted his designs for an unchecked imperial presidency. It was in that White House that Cheney gained his formative experience as the assistant to Nixon's counselor, Donald Rumsfeld. When Gerald Ford acceded to the presidency, he summoned Rumsfeld from his posting as NATO ambassador to become his chief of staff. Rumsfeld, in turn, brought back his former deputy, Cheney.

From Nixon, they learned the application of ruthlessness and the harsh lesson of failure. Under Ford, Rumsfeld designated Cheney as his surrogate on intelligence matters. During the immediate aftermath of Watergate, Congress investigated past CIA abuses, and the press was filled with revelations. In May 1975, Seymour Hersh reported in the New York Times on how the CIA had sought to recover a sunken Soviet submarine with a deep-sea mining vessel called the Glomar Explorer, built by Howard Hughes. When Hersh's article appeared, Cheney wrote memos laying out options ranging from indicting Hersh or getting a search warrant for Hersh's apartment to suing the Times and pressuring its owners "to discourage the NYT and other publications from similar action." "In the end," writes James Mann, in his indispensable book, "Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet," "Cheney and the White House decided to back off after the intelligence community decided its work had not been significantly damaged."

Rumsfeld and Cheney quickly gained control of the White House staff, edging out Ford's old aides. From this base, they waged bureaucratic war on Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, a colossus of foreign policy, who occupied the posts of both secretary of state and national security advisor. Rumsfeld and Cheney were the right wing of the Ford administration, opposed to the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, and they operated by stealthy internal maneuver. The Secret Service gave Cheney the code name "Backseat."

In 1975, Rumsfeld and Cheney stage-managed a Cabinet purge called the "Halloween massacre" that made Rumsfeld secretary of defense and Cheney White House chief of staff. Kissinger, forced to surrender control of the National Security Council, angrily drafted a letter of resignation (which he never submitted). Rumsfeld and Cheney helped convince Ford, who faced a challenge for the Republican nomination from Ronald Reagan, that he needed to shore up his support on the right and that Rockefeller was a political liability. Rockefeller felt compelled to announce he would not be Ford's running mate. Upset at the end of his ambition, Rockefeller charged that Rumsfeld intended to become vice president himself. In fact, Rumsfeld had contemplated running for president in the future and undoubtedly would have accepted a vice presidential nod.

In the meantime, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld undermined the negotiations for a new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty being conducted by Kissinger. Fighting off Reagan's attacks during the Republican primaries, Ford was pressured by Cheney to adopt his foreign policy views, which amounted to a self-repudiation. At the Republican Party Convention, acting as Ford's representative, Cheney engineered the adoption of Reagan's foreign policy plank in the platform. By doing so he preempted an open debate and split. Privately, Ford, Kissinger and Rockefeller were infuriated.

As part of the Halloween massacre Rumsfeld and Cheney pushed out CIA director William Colby and replaced him with George H.W. Bush, then the U.S. plenipotentiary to China. The CIA had been uncooperative with the Rumsfeld/Cheney anti-détente campaign. Instead of producing intelligence reports simply showing an urgent Soviet military buildup, the CIA issued complex analyses that were filled with qualifications. Its National Intelligence Estimate on the Soviet threat contained numerous caveats, dissents and contradictory opinions. From the conservative point of view, the CIA was guilty of groupthink, unwilling to challenge its own premises and hostile to conservative ideas.

The new CIA director was prompted to authorize an alternative unit outside the CIA to challenge the agency's intelligence on Soviet intentions. Bush was more compliant in the political winds than his predecessor. Consisting of a host of conservatives, the unit was called Team B. A young aide from the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Paul Wolfowitz, was selected to represent Rumsfeld's interest and served as coauthor of Team B's report. The report was single-minded in its conclusion about the Soviet buildup and cleansed of contrary intelligence. It was fundamentally a political tool in the struggle for control of the Republican Party, intended to destroy détente and aimed particularly at Kissinger. Both Ford and Kissinger took pains to dismiss Team B and its effort. (Later, Team B's report was revealed to be wildly off the mark about the scope and capability of the Soviet military.)

With Ford's defeat, Team B became the kernel of the Committee on the Present Danger, a conservative group that attacked President Carter for weakness on the Soviet threat. The growing strength of the right thwarted ratification of SALT II, setting the stage for Reagan's nomination and election.

Elected to the House of Representatives in 1978, Cheney became the Republican leader on the House Intelligence Committee, where he consistently fought congressional oversight and limits on presidential authority. When Congress investigated the Iran-Contra scandal (the creation of an illegal, privately funded, offshore U.S. foreign policy initiative), Cheney was the crucial administration defender. At every turn, he blocked the Democrats and prevented them from questioning Vice President Bush. Under his leadership, not a single House Republican signed the special investigating committee's final report charging "secrecy, deception and disdain for law." Instead, the Republicans issued their own report claiming there had been no major wrongdoing...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/MinM/82
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bobthedrummer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-12-09 12:22 AM
Response to Original message
12. What a "coincidence" (not)-this won't go away until they are held accountable...
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wantoutnow Donating Member (148 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-12-09 12:31 AM
Response to Original message
13. Look over here
Obamas dog is so cute. Who's America's next top hooker? go watch John and Kate plus 8. Or is it John plus 4 and Kate plus 4? These bastards needed to be in prison a very long time ago. Time to get off the meds and reality TV and do something.
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wantoutnow Donating Member (148 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jul-12-09 12:33 AM
Response to Reply #13
14. And Im talking legal action
thats been sorely missing. Lots of complicity in our government unfortunately
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