April 9, 2016
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Marcello's first contact with the law came on November 29, 1929, when he was arrested at the age of 19 by New Orleans police as accessory before and after the robbery of a local bank.(3) The charges were subsequently dismissed. Less than 6 months later, on May 13, 1930, he was convicted of assault and robbery and was sentenced to the State penitentiary for 9 to 14 years. He served less than 5.(4) It was during his prosecution on these charges that Marcello first came to the attention of the public and press. Testimony disclosed that he had personally planned the crime -- a grocery store robbery -- using an interesting method of operation. (5) In testimony before the McClellan Senate committee in 1959, Aaron M. Kohn, the managing director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans and a former FBI agent testified that Marcello had shielded his own complicity in the crime by inducing two juveniles to carry out the robbery. (6) Kohn testified that Marcello and a confederate had supplied the juveniles with a gun and instructions on their "getaway."(7) The plan had gone awry when the two were later apprehended and pressured by authorities to identify the "higher-ups."(8) Kohn also noted that Marcello "was referred to as a Fagin" in press accounts at the time, in an apparent reference to the Dickens character who cruited juveniles to carry out his crimes. (9)
In 1935, after receiving a pardon by the Governor of Louisiana, Marcello's early underworld career continued ...
-- III. Carlos Marcello, by House of Representatives Committee on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, from "Inside the Dixie Mafia: Politics of Death," by John Caylor
Bill Clinton, according to several agency sources interviewed by biographer Roger Morris, works as a CIA informer while briefly and erratically a Rhodes Scholar in England. Although without visible means of support, he travels around Europe and the Soviet Union, staying at the ritziest hotel in Moscow. During this period the US government is using well educated assets such as Clinton as part of Operation Chaos, a major attempt to break student resistance to the war and the draft. According to former White House FBI agent Gary Aldrich, Clinton is told by Oxford officials that he is no longer welcome there....
27-year-old Clinton, only months out of Yale Law School, is back in Arkansas eager to run for Congress. Roger Morris writes later, "A relative unknown, he faces an imposing field of rivals in the Democratic primary, and beyond, in the general election, a powerful Republican incumbent. Yet as soon as he enters the race, Mr. Clinton enjoys a decisive seven-to-one advantage in campaign funds over the nearest Democratic competitor, and will spend twice as much as his well-supported GOP opponent. It begins with a quiet meeting at his mother's house in Hot Springs. Around the kitchen table, as Virginia Clinton will describe the scene, avid young Billy meets with two of his most crucial early backers -- uncle Raymond G. Clinton, a prosperous local Buick dealer, and family friend and wealthy businessman Gabe Crawford. As they talk, Mr. Crawford offers the candidate unlimited use of his private plane, and Uncle Raymond not only provides several houses around the district to serve as campaign headquarters, but will secure a $10,000 loan to Bill from the First National Bank of Hot Springs -- an amount then equal to the yearly income of many Arkansas families. Together, the money and aircraft and other gifts, including thousands more in secret donations, will launch Mr. Clinton in the most richly financed race in the annals of Arkansas -- and ultimately onto the most richly financed political career in American history.Though he loses narrowly, his showing is so impressive, especially in his capacity to attract such money and favours, that he rises rapidly to become state attorney-general, then governor, and eventually, with much the same backing and advantage, president of the United States . . . No mere businessman with a spare plane, Gabe Crawford presided over a backroom bookie operation that was one of Hot Springs' most lucrative criminal enterprises. [And the] inimitable Uncle Raymond -- who had also played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in keeping young Bill out of the Vietnam draft -- was far more than an auto dealer. In the nationally prominent fount of vice and corruption that was Hot Springs from the 1920s to the 1980s (its barely concealed casinos generated more income than Las Vegas well into the 1960s), the uncle's Buick agency and other businesses and real estate were widely thought to be facades for illegal gambling, drug money laundering and other ventures, in which Raymond was a partner. He was a minion of the organized crime overlord who controlled the American Middle South for decades, New Orleans boss Carlos Marcello or "Mafia Kingfish" as his biographer John Davis called him."
-- Arkansas Connections, by Sam Smith
"Talk to Emile and he'll give you the Seneca right around the first of the year."
"What's significant about the first of the year?"
"The tithing is gonna really go on the increase, come January 1."
"Tithing?"
"Yeah, the dime that the state's workin' on for lettin' the Agency's operation go on here," Seal answered. "You didn't think somethin' this big could be goin' on without havin' to pay for it. Shit, you were in Southeast Asia. Didn't you tell me we had to pay some fuckin' prince in Laos every time the Air Force dropped a bomb there? You see it's all the same, just one fuckin' banana republic after another."
The "dime" Seal referred to was the 10 percent being charged the CIA by high Arkansas state officials for allowing the Agency to operate in Arkansas. The word tithing Terry had learned back in his Sunday school days in the Nazarene Church. The term meant 10 per cent of your money would be given the church and, in return, as the Bible proclaimed, you would get it back 10 fold. And this was undoubtedly true for the CIA.
Arkansas was providing cover for the Agency's illegal airplane modifications, Contra training operations, arms shipments and, from what Seal revealed, ways to invest the black money that was being made from its gun-running to Central America. So that's why the singer Glen Campbell called Arkansas the "land of opportunity."
***
Here he was at the core. Like Dorothy, he had looked behind the curtain and seen the true "Wizard."
Here was what seemed a strange alliance. A state run by Democrats in bed with a Republican administration in Washington, and both conspiring to evade Congress' prohibition against aiding or abetting the Contras. It was so steeped with hypocrisy.
Was the CIA the invisible force that had the power to compromise these political pillars of the nation?
Were these same invisible forces orbiting only in Arkansas or throughout the nation? He wondered. But why limit it to the nation? Perhaps the world functioned under one control. Could that control be the CIA? Was there a secret alliance of agents worldwide who operate as they please?
Religion, he had come to realize, was a form of social control. Was politics as well? Was it just a game like professional sports, simply to divert public attention from what was really happening? Was it all just a placebo?
While driving back to OSI, Terry was strangely quiet and withdrawn. He was feeling manipulated by the social order he had been raised to obey, and now he had doubts about his previous motivations in life.
"You're awfully quiet, Terry-san," Sawahata said after a few minutes.
"Aki I've got to ask you a question. It's funny I've never asked, considering all the time we've spent together. Are you a Republican or a Democrat."
"I am a political atheist. I work for the CIA."
"What does that mean?"
"That means Agency is politics. Agency is the government. Everything else is just puppets, a big game, Terry-san. You did not know that?"
If Terry Reed was not a liability before, he certainly was now. Those who see behind the curtain are always a threat. It was like someone telling the Pope in the 1300s that the world was really round and that it did, indeed, revolve around the sun, rather than the other way around.
***
Seal began yelling at the top of his voice, something totally out of character for him. Terry had never seen him this euphoric.
"YEE-HAWWWWWW," he screamed. "I'm gonna fuckin' make it. We're gonna do this, Terry. We've got these assholes eatin' outa our hands. YEEHAWWWWWWWWW. Give me the fuckin' airplane."
He grabbed the control yoke and executed a series of aileron rolls. Terry had never been sick in an airplane, but he was sure he was about to lose his SOS.
"OK, enough of that shit," Seal said after seeming to tire of the aerobatic antics. "You got the airplane, I'll hook up the radios."
Terry sat silently at the controls, trying to figure out what was driving Seal. As Barry emerged from under the electrical panel, after making the radio connections, he abruptly began pounding with his right hand on the dash of the Lear until Terry thought the avionics in the control panel would be dislodged.
"There ain't nuthin' in this world more powerful than good ol' fuckin' blackmail, Terry. And don't let anybody ever tell ya different. Jeeeeesus Christ, I got some good shit on some big people."
"Will you let me in on your party? Calm down, Barry! Tell me what's goin' on. "
"Terry, what's most important right now is for ya ta play ball with these guys and get your ass down to Mexico ASAP. You impressed the shit out of Leroy ... Robert Johnson, too. I won't be able ta come ta Mexico right now, I've got a little matter ta take care of. But ya get on down there and get in a position to receive me, and I'll be joining ya soon. Goddam, this'll be great. Won't it be fun workin' together and spendin' all their fuckin' money?"
"What this blackmail, you're talking about?"
"Ever hear the old expression, it's not what ya know, it's who ya know? Well, whoever said that just hadn't caught the Vice President's kids in the dope business, 'cause I can tell ya for sure what ya know can definitely be more important than who you know."
"You gotta calm down and tell me what you're talking about, if you want me to know. What's this about the Vice President's kids and dope."
"I don't wannna tell ya too much, 'cause truthfully ya don't have a need to know. But Terry I been workin' with several federal agencies for the past couple of years as ya probably suspicioned. In the course of that business, a person can't help but run across some real sensitive information. It seems some major players in the Medellin Cartel, whom I personally know, ran across some knowledge that's very valuable to both the Republicans and the Democratic Party. Real national security stuff. It seems some of George Bush's kids just can't say no ta drugs, ha ha ha ha ...Well, ya can imagine how valuable information like that would be, can't ya? That could get ya out of almost any kind of jam." Seal paused for a moment then asked, "Ya ever play Monopoly? The information I got is so good it's just like a get-out-of-jail-free card ... ha,ha,ha,ha YEEHAWWWWW..."
"Barry, are you telling me George Bush's kids are in the drug business?"
"Yup, that's what I'm tellin' ya. A guy in Florida who flipped for the DEA has got the goods on the Bush boys. Now I heard this earlier from a reliable source in Colombia, but I just sat on it then, waitin' to use it as a trump card, if I ever needed it. Well, I need ta use it now. I got names, dates, places ....even got some tape recordins'. Fuck, I even got surveillance videos catchin' the Bush boys red-handed. I consider this stuff my insurance policy. It makes me and my mole on the inside that's feedin' the stuff to me invincible. Now this is real sensitive shit inside of U.S. Customs and DEA and those guys are pretty much under control. It's damage control as usual. But where it gets real interestin' is what the Republicans will do ta the Democrats in order ta dirty up the people who might use this information against Bush."
"So you've got direct knowledge of the Republicans trying to neutralize some Democrats before they can nuke Bush with this?"
"Hell yeah. I've been part of it. Remember that meetin' we had at SOBs when I told ya ya should play ball with these guys and get your butt down ta Mexico and be prepared to receive me? ... Remember in that meetin' I told ya I had a plan to blow the lid off the whole damn Mena deal and shut it down due to adverse publicity? Well, what I didn't tell ya was that project was already in effect, and the Republicans were already trying to neutralize some important people in Arkansas ...namely the Clinton family."
Seal took a break to communicate with ground control. When he turned back to Terry, he continued, "Yeah, that day ya explained to me the connection between the Ward family, the Rose Law Firm and the governor's mansion, well ....I about shit! Ya see what ya didn't know was I was on a secret mission by none other than the Agency ta sort of.. ..uh, dirty up some people real close to the governor. Now I had been workin' on this through Dan Lasater. Now Dan's a good ol' boy and all that, but he's gotta drug problem, and he's got the balls to be stealin' from the Agency, too. From what I hear, Dan's been doin' a lot of questionable out-a-state investin'. In fact, he's stashin' a lot of cash in a resort in New Mexico. *
"I was told ta exploit that, which I was workin' on. But you come along with this new connection. And when ya told me that Finis Shellnut was the guy at the ranch (where the 'green flights' dropped their money in Arkansas) ... dollar signs started dancin' in my head. I saw an immediate way to get some white stuff up some noses around Bill Clinton real fast. Now don't get mad, but that duffel bag I had ya take over to Skeeter Ward wasn't really money."
"I'm afraid to ask what it was," Terry said as he focused on the "little airplane" displayed on the Lear's flight director.
"Let's don't call it cocaine. Let's just call it neutralizin' powder. Least that's the way the Bush family saw it. This is just one family warrin' against another. Just like the Mob."
"Goddam, Barry, this is heavy shit! Are you saying you were the source of the cocaine ending up around a lot of important people in Arkansas. Like the ones I've been reading about in the paper. There's a major scandal brewing there ..."
Terry sat silently and continued to think. Seal gazed out the window and said nothing.
Already predicting the answer by Seal's silence, Terry asked, Did you have anything to do with Roger (Clinton) and some of those guys in Lasater's firm getting investigated?
"Terry, I told ya when I met ya, I'm in transportation and I transport what the government wants transported. In this case, the Republicans ... the Bush family ... wanted some stuff transported through Mena and into Arkansas that would end up in the noses of some very prominent Democrats. And yes, I must 'fess up, I've had a hand in that. YEEE-HAWWWWWW! It's not who ya know it's what ya know."
Terry found all this disquieting. Seal had never discussed drugs with him before, and if Barry was telling the truth, he had unknowingly delivered some to Skeeter Ward. Seal was telling him that he had a hand in the major political storm that was brewing in Arkansas. Terry had not bargained for this sort of involvement.
Roger Clinton, the governor's brother, had already been arrested and had pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges. He was now serving time at a federal prison/drug rehab center in Texas. Rumors abounded that Roger was helping the Feds implicate major figures in the Arkansas financial community for cocaine related crimes. Not only was a federal grand jury investigation getting underway, but panic was already permeating the Arkansas bond business with fears that investor confidence would be shaken if the Feds proved that the bond industry was laundering drug money and its corporate leaders were actually trafficking in drugs.
The Feds were targeting Dan Lasater and people in his firm, most of them friends of Governor Clinton. But George Bush's real target, from what Seal was saying, was Bill Clinton and Seal was the instrument that Republicans were using under the guise of the CIA.
***
The five waiting men were clearly taken aback when Governor Bill Clinton stepped from the vehicle with his aide, Bob Nash, and led the entourage into the World War II ammunition storage bunker that would serve as the meeting place.
In a low tone, Cathey turned to Terry and said: "Shit! I was afraid he'd show up. That'll certainly upset our agenda. I'm glad Johnson is here. He'll be able to handle him."
The waiting group of five had expected Nash, but not his boss, Arkansas' Commander-in-Chief, Bill Clinton. By his mere appearance, Clinton was risking exposure of his involvement in unauthorized covert operations. But he seemed desperate.
The meeting had been called at Camp Robinson, an Army facility outside Little Rock, to get some problems ironed out. In addition to the governor and his aide, the "guest list" included Max Gomez (Felix Rodriguez), John Cathey (Oliver North), resident CIA agent Akihide Sawahata, Agency subcontractor Terry Reed -- and the man in charge, the one who would call the shots. He called himself Robert Johnson.
Johnson had been sent from Washington to chair this very delicate operational briefing that would hopefully extricate the Agency from its entanglement in what was becoming a messy situation in Arkansas....
Cathey began the briefing.
"Governor Clinton," he said switching to his toastmaster tone, "I'm glad you could attend tonight's meeting with us. We're both surprised and honored. Bobby (Nash) didn't inform us you would be attending ... However, let's get down to it....
Terry viewed this meeting as his initiation into the inner circle. But this impromptu appearance by Governor Clinton, however, would expose Terry to yet more things that he had no "need to know." It would also confirm his suspicions that operations in Arkansas were being run with Clinton's full knowledge....
"Gentlemen," Cathey said, "this meeting is classified Top-Secret. The items discussed here should be relayed to no one who does not have an operational need to know. I repeat Top-Secret. There are to be no notes taken."...
Johnson, Cathey said, was the personal representative of CIA Director William Casey and had been sent to chair the meeting. Casey was too important to show his face, Terry assumed. But he felt honored, and yet surprised, to find he'd been dealing with someone so closely connected to the Director of Central Intelligence, the top of the intelligence pyramid.
"Thank you," Johnson said. "As Mr. Cathey mentioned, I am the emissary of Mr. Casey, who for obvious security reasons could not attend. We are at a major junction of our Central American support program. And I am here to tie up a few loose ends. As you are all aware, the severity of the charges that could be brought against us if this operation becomes public ... well, I don't need to remind you of what Benjamin Franklin said as he and our founding fathers framed the Declaration of Independence ..."
Cathey interrupted. "Yeah, but hanging is a much more humane way of doing things than what Congress will put us through if any of this leaks out." This marked the only time during the briefing that laughter was heard.
"This is true," Johnson replied. "And therefore, Governor Clinton, I'm going to find it necessary to divide this meeting into groups so that we don't unnecessarily expose classified data to those who don't have an absolute need to know. We can first discuss any old business that concerns either "Centaur Rose" or "Jade Bridge", and I think that you will agree that afterwards you and Mr. Nash will have to excuse yourselves ..."
Clinton was visibly indignant, giving the angry appearance of someone not accustomed to being treated in such a condescending manner.
"It seems someone in Washington has made decisions without much consulting with either myself or my aide here, Mr. Nash. And I'd like to express my concern about the possible exposure my state has as you guys skedaddle out of here to Mexico. I feel somewhat naked and compromised. You're right, there are definitely some loose ends!"...
Nash interjected: "Sir, Governor Clinton's concerns are that there may be some loose ends cropping up from the Mena operation in general. As you know, we have had our Arkansas State Police intelligence division riding herd on the project. And that has been no simple task. Even with some of our ASP officers undercover over there, we couldn't have gained any real inside knowledge had it not been for Mr. Reed's ability to report it directly to me. This thing about Barry Seal getting Governor Clinton's brother involved is what's got us all upset. I mean, as we speak, there's an investigation going on that could spill over onto some very influential people here in Arkansas, and people very close to the governor personally ..."
Johnson looked like he was getting irritated. Clinton had not been scheduled to be there and his original agenda now was being discarded.
"Hold on!" Johnson shot back. "Calm down! Mr. Casey is fully in charge here. Don't you old boys get it. Just tell me what has to be taken care of, or who needs to be taken care of, and I'll fix it for you!"
Johnson boasted to the group that Attorney General Edwin Meese, by arranging the appointment of J. Michael Fitzhugh as U.S. Attorney in Western Arkansas, had effectively stonewalled the ongoing money laundering investigations in Mena where the Contra training operations had been centered. It was his impression, Johnson said, that everything was now "kosher" and the "containment" was still in place. Operations "Rose" and "Bridge" had not been exposed because federal law-enforcement agencies had been effectively neutralized. But Johnson said he was now concerned that the "drug" investigation there might expand beyond his control and unmask the residue of black operations.
Now the meeting was starting to turn into a shouting match, Terry quietly observed that Clinton appeared on the verge of losing his well-rehearsed, statesman-like demeanor. Stopping investigations around Mena had helped the CIA and its bosses in Washington, but it had not solved any of the governor's local political problems. And these same problems were threatening to unveil the Mena operations.
It was the spring of 1986, just over a month after Barry Seal's assassination in Louisiana. Clinton was facing a very tough and dirty reelection campaign. His Republican opponent was certain to be ex-Governor Frank White, the only man who had ever defeated Clinton. The newspapers were filled with stories about Clinton's brother, who had been convicted and served time from federal drug trafficking charges, giving White the dirt he needed to launch a serious and damaging political attack.
Roger Clinton had "rolled over" and turned informant, enabling the Feds to begin an investigation of investment banker Dan Lasater, a close personal friend and campaign contributor of Clinton's. This investigation, it was clear, could spill over into Lasater's firm, possibly exposing CIA money-laundering and other possible illegal activities. [1]
The investigation of Clinton's brother had been carried out largely by disloyal state police officials who were backing White, and without Clinton's knowledge, when the inquiry was first initiated. Terry wondered whether a "coup" was building? Clinton was clearly in big political trouble, and his demeanor now was not the cool and composed man people saw on television. Perhaps the CIA and the Reagan administration wanted another "presidente," a Republican one, in its banana republic?
Rumors were also running wild that the bond underwriting business, in which Lasater was a major figure, had been used to launder drug money. In addition, candidate White had another big issue to run with. He would charge later that Clinton was directing choice state legal work as bond counsel to the prestigious Rose Law firm, where his wife, Hillary, was a senior partner. And Clinton had to be fearful that exposure of the Mena operations would be the death blow to his reelection hopes. And, if that weren't enough ammunition, the governor was also facing a possible state budgetary shortfall of more than $200 million.
By his comments, the governor's political problems and his potential exposure were clearly on his mind. Clinton showed his contempt for the young man from Washington as he lost his composure, jumped to his feet and shouted: "Getting my brother arrested and bringing down the Arkansas bond business in the process isn't my idea of kosher! You gents live a long way from here. Your meddling in our affairs here is gonna carry long-term exposure for me! I mean us. And what are we supposed to do, just pretend nothing happened?" He was angry.
"Exactly, pretend nothing's happened," Johnson snapped back. "It's just like the commercial, you're in good hands with Allstate. Only in this case, it's the CIA." Johnson paused, took a deep breath, and continued. "Mr. Clinton, Bill, if you will, some of those loose ends you refer to here were definitely brought on by your own people, don't you agree? I mean your brother didn't have to start shoving Mr. Seal's drugs up his nose and your friend, Lasater, has been flaunting his new wealth as if he's trying to bring you down. We're having to control the SEC and the IRS just to keep him afloat.
"Our deal with you was to help 'reconstruct the South,''' Johnson sniped, using a term Southerners hate, since it reminds them of the post-Civil War Yankee dominance of the South. "We didn't plan on Arkansas becoming more difficult to deal with than most banana republics. This has turned out to be almost comical."
"Bobby! Don't sit here on your black ass and take this Yankee shit!" Clinton yelled at Nash in an appeal for support. "Tell him about Seal bribing those federal agents!" It was getting to resemble a verbal tennis match as volleys were being lobbed, each one with more intensity. From the comment about Seal, Terry concluded that Clinton did in fact have his own intelligence network, too.
"Why, Mr. Clinton, with racial slurs like that, the federal government could terminate educational busing aid here," Johnson wryly shot back. "I thought Arkansas was an equal opportunity employer!"
Nash touched the governor's arm, coaxing him back into his chair.
Johnson continued, "The deal we made was to launder our money through your bond business. What we didn't plan on was you and your token nigger here to start taking yourselves seriously and purposely shrinking our laundry."
"What do you mean by shrinking the laundry?!" Clinton asked still shouting. By now, Clinton's face was flushed with anger.
To the CIA, Arkansas had to be a money-launderers' heaven. To understand why, one must realize that intelligence agencies have the same problem as drug traffickers. To launder cash, a trafficker must either find a bank willing to break the law by not filing the documentation required for cash deposits, or go offshore where reporting requirements are less strict. Like traffickers, once offshore, the CIA must use wire transfers to get their money into the U.S., but at great risk of detection.
The trafficker, having broken the law to make his money, has no legal recourse if his banker double-crossed him. In other words, it's an insecure investment, which pays low interest, if any.
Arkansas offered the CIA something money launderers are rarely able to achieve, a secure business environment containing a banking industry where vast amounts of money move around unnoticed as part of the normal course of business. Through its substantial bond underwriting activities, the state had a huge cash flow that could allow dirty and clean money to co-mingle without detection. All they were lacking was the "dirty banker" to cooperate with them by ignoring the federal banking laws.
And that they found within the Clinton administration. This "banker" was none other than the Arkansas Development and Finance Authority, or ADFA, which was a creation of, and directly under the control of, the governor's office. Its official mandate was to loan money to businesses either already in or coming to Arkansas in order to develop an industrial base for new jobs that Clinton had made the centerpiece of his administration. ADFA, was in effect, a bank making preferred loans.
But, from what Terry had learned from Seal and Sawahata, that was not all ADFA was doing. ADFA, in effect a state investment bank, was being "capitalized" by large cash transfusions that the Agency was taking great pains to hide.
"No paper, no trail," seemed to be the dominate doctrine of the Agency's activities since, by design, cash dropped from an airplane in a duffel bag is not the standard way of transferring money.
ADFA was designed to compete for the profits generated by the bond issues necessary to industrialize Arkansas. The old Arkansas Industrial Development Commission that Clinton had inherited had no money of its own, and was forced to send prospective clients seeking industrial development loans to the established, privately-run investment banking industry in Little Rock. The state could be very selective in its referral business, however, and those who received the state's business stood to profit handsomely.
This insider referral business was alive and well when Terry moved to Arkansas, and he saw Seth Ward's son-in-law, Finis Shellnut, jockey for a position to reap these profits by going to work for Lasater, who was getting the lion's share of the secret sweetheart deals.
Before ADFA's creation, the state sent preferred business directly to investment banking firms like Lasater's. All that was needed for money-laundering was the firm's silence and a source of cash, which, in this case, the CIA provided. The heads of these firms were a coterie of wealthy and well-connected people who got even richer by doing what comes natural in Arkansas, "The Natural State" as it's called ..... dealing incestuously under the table.
Arkansas desperately needed new businesses -- and so did the CIA. It had plenty of black money, but that alone was not enough. "You can't kill an enemy by lobbing dollars at him" was the phrase Cathey had used with Terry to explain the CIA's dilemma of having the monetary resources to fund the Contras, but no legal way to deliver it directly. The Agency was barred by Congress from converting the cash into weapons and training the Contras needed on the battlefield, at least not through traditional Department of Defense suppliers.
Under Director William Casey's plan, the CIA needed other companies that would be a source of secretly-produced weapons that would find their way into the hands of the Contras. These selected businesses needed payment to perform these services for the CIA, and that cash came to them conveniently in a legal and undetectable manner, through ADFA, in the form of industrial development loans backed by tax-free development bonds. The CIA should have been showing a profit through accrued interest on their secured investments. But a problem had arisen. As Johnson had said, the "laundry" was shrinking.
And Johnson was not happy about that as evidenced by the way he was firing back at Clinton. It was apparent that Johnson knew Clinton and his people had not abided by his agreement with the Agency.
"Our deal was for you to have 10 per cent of the profits, not 10 per cent of the gross," Johnson sternly admonished Clinton.
"This has turned into a feeding frenzy by your good ole boy sharks, and you've had a hand in it, too, Mr. Clinton. Just ask your Mr. Nash to produce a business card. I'll bet it reads Arkansas Development and Finance Authority. We know what's been going on. Our people are professionals; they're not stupid. They didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, as you guys say. This ADFA of yours is double-dipping. Our deal with you was to launder our money. You get 10 per cent after costs and after post-tax profits. No one agreed for you to start loaning our money out to your friends through your ADFA so that they could buy machinery to build our guns. That wasn't the deal. Mr. Sawahata tells me that one of ADFA's first customers was some parking meter company that got several million in ... how shall we say it ... in preferred loans.
"Dammit, we bought a whole gun company, lock, stock and barrel and shipped the whole thing down here for you. And Mr. Reed even helped set it up. You people go and screw us by setting up some subcontractors that weren't even authorized by us. Shit, people who didn't even have security clearances. That's why we're pulling the operation out of Arkansas. It's become a liability for us. We don't need live liabilities."....
Clinton had paused for a moment to ponder Johnson's words. "What do ya' mean, live liabilities?" he demanded.
"There's no such thing as a dead liability. It's an oxymoron, get it? Oh, or didn't you Rhodes Scholars study things like that?" Johnson snapped.
"What! Are you threatenin' us? Because if ya' are ..."
Johnson stared down at the table, again took a deep breath, and paused. It appeared he wanted to elevate the tone of the disintegrating exchange.
"Calm down and listen," Johnson said. "We are all in this together. We all have our personal agendas ... but let's not forget, both the Vice President and Mr. Casey want this operation to be a success. We need to get these assets and resources in place and get them self-sustaining and prospering on their own while we have the chance. This is a golden opportunity. The timing is right. We have communists taking over a country in this hemisphere. We must all pull together and play as a team. This is no time for lone wolves. Mr. Seal is an example of what happens to lone wolves. They just don't survive in the modern world of intelligence.
"I'm not here to threaten you. But there have been mistakes. The Mena operation survived undetected and unexposed only because Mr. Seal carried with him a falsely created, high-level profile of a drugrunner. All the cops in the country were trying to investigate a drug operation. That put the police in a position where we could control them. We fed them what we wanted to feed them, when we wanted to feed them; it was our restaurant and our menu. Seal was himself a diversion. It was perfect until your brother started free-enterprising and now we have to shut it down. It's as simple as that. Mr. Seal was a good agent and it's a shame he's dead. But, hopefully, our new operation will build on Seal's success in sustaining our Contra support effort while goddamn Congress dilly dallies around as the Russians take over Nicaragua."
Clinton just glared back. "That was a good sermon, but what can you specifically do to end this investigation concerning my brother and the bond business?"
"Your brother needed to go to jail," Johnson said staring at the governor. "As governor you should intervene and make things as painless as possible now. As far as the money investigation goes, Mr. Meese is intervening right now. There will be no money investigation. The U.S. attorney's office (in Little Rock) is 'getting religion' as we speak. *
"There may be nothing we can do about your friend Lasater's drug problem. I suggest that he and everyone else caught with their pants down take the bad along with the good and do a little time -- as your brother has. It's a shame. But bartenders shouldn't drink. If some of our people are going to be in the drug business as a cover, they should do as Mrs. Reagan says and 'just say no'."
Johnson had applied the balm and now the massage began. "Bill, you are Mr. Casey's fair-haired boy. But you do have competition for the job you seek. We would never put all our eggs in one basket. You and your state have been our greatest asset. The beauty of this, as you know, is that you're a Democrat, and with our ability to influence both parties, this country can get beyond partisan gridlock. Mr. Casey wanted me to pass on to you that unless you fuck up and do something stupid, you're No. 1 on the short list for a shot at the job you've always wanted.
"That's pretty heady stuff, Bill. So why don't you help us keep a lid on this and we'll all be promoted together. You and guys like us are the fathers of the new government. Hell, we're the new covenant."
Clinton, having been stroked, seemed satisfied that the cover-up was expanding to, at least, protect the bond business. Like Lyndon Johnson, Clinton had learned that politics is the "art of the possible." He had not gotten everything he wanted, but he was at least walking away whole.
It appeared to Terry that Johnson had won the debate. Clinton and his administration had no grounds to complain about the Agency terminating its operation. Too many errors had been made. The young governor seemed to recognize he had lost, for now, and didn't want to continue the argument in front of the others.
"Bobby, I guess you and I should excuse ourselves," Clinton said while turning to his aide. "These gentlemen have other pressing business and besides, we don't have a need to know ... nor do I think we want to know."
When Clinton exited the bunker, Terry took a moment to absorb what had happened. Clinton had been treated badly in front of the others. Terry had certainly underestimated Johnson, the man he had sized up initially as a mere errand boy for Casey. His youthful demeanor had been misleading. He was clearly a skilled hatchet man. But Terry felt somewhat embarrassed for the governor. Johnson had effectively neutralized the governor of Arkansas' argument by simply changing the subject, and what a subject it was!
Was he hearing that the presidency is offered to a few groomed men, men groomed by the CIA?
Who was this guy, "Johnson," who so easily manipulated Bill Clinton? He made Bill Clinton, on his own turf, appear to be under the control of an invisible force. Up until now, Terry had known Johnson only as the lawyer for Southern Air Transport. He was obviously a lot more than that. He was beginning to take on the mannerisms of a Viceroy and Clinton was certainly showing his obedience to authority and paying the price for fealty. Clinton was compromised....
When Clinton and Nash had gone, the mood changed dramatically. A mood of familiarity returned and only the brotherhood remained. Gomez was the first to speak. The man who was to be in charge of the new operation in Mexico was indignant.
"Presidente Clinton," he said with disgust in a thick Hispanic accent. "Why is it I have more respect for the enemy I've slain on the battlefield than I have for that yuppie kid governor. I've seen everything now. Republicans conspiring with Democrats. Isn't that similar to capitalists trusting Marxists?"
Johnson restrained himself as if wanting to chastise Gomez for not showing proper respect for Clinton in front of the others. "You need to realign your thinking about black and white, good and bad, us and them. Under our new plan we all get along for the advancement of the common goal."
Gomez spit contemptuously on the concrete floor. "Sounds like Mao Tsetung or Lenin philosophy to me!"
Cathey stepped in. "Let me apologize for Max and the rest of us cold warriors here. We're a product of our training, and old hatreds die slowly, if ever. But what we must all come to understand is that communism is our common enemy and not our dislike for one another. We are all hand-chosen by the highest office in the land to be entrusted with this mission. We should all feel honored to be here. Our objective is two-fold. One, to rid this earth of the evil communist element we've been trained to seek out and destroy. The other is to set in place a true self-sustaining and modern black operations division worldwide, as Mr. Casey has envisioned ..."
-- Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA: How the Presidency was Co-opted by the CIA, by Terry Reed & John Cummings
[Barbara Walters] Monica later told investigators that Bill Clinton said he had led a life of lies and deception ever since he was a small boy. According to Monica, the President said that he had been with hundreds of women until the time he was 40, and at that time he considered divorce and leaving politics, but decided to try and make his marriage work and to "be good." According to Monica, he told her they could remain friends and that he could do a lot for her, but that their relationship was not right in the eyes of God.
-- 20/20 Monica Lewinsky Interview, by Barbara Walters
In an interview with "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" that aired Sunday, Kyle claimed that during their lengthy affair Bill told her that he had sex with around 2,000 women and described himself as a "sex addict." Kyle said his self-confessed addiction "explains everything" about his destructive sexual behavior.
-- Bill Clinton's Alleged Ex-Lover Just Made Some 'Sick, Sick' Claims About Bill and Hillary, by James Barrett
Sally Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas and Little Rock talk show host who said she had an affair with then-Gov. Clinton in 1983, told the London Sunday Telegraph that he once came over to her house with a bag full of cocaine. ''He had all the equipment laid out, like a real pro.''
Gennifer Flowers says she saw Clinton smoke marijuana and carry joints with him when he first began visiting her in 1977. Clinton was Arkansas' attorney general from 1977 through 1979. His first term as governor ran from 1979 through 1981. He was governor again from 1983 through 1992.
Two Arkansas state troopers have sworn under oath that they have seen Clinton ''under the influence'' of drugs when he was governor.
Sharlene Wilson is a bartender who is serving time on drug crimes and has cooperated with drug investigators. She told a federal grand jury she saw Clinton and his younger brother ''snort'' cocaine together in 1979.
Jack McCoy, a Democratic state representative and Clinton supporter, told the Sunday Telegraph that he could ''remember going into the governor's conference room once and it reeked of marijuana.''
Historian Roger Morris, in his book ''Partners in Power,'' quotes several law enforcement officials who say they had seen and knew of Clinton's drug use.
On a videotape made in 1983-84 by local narcotics officers, Roger Clinton said during a cocaine buy: ''Got to get some for my brother. He's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner.''
One-time apartment manager Jane Parks claims that in 1984 she could listen through the wall as Bill and Roger Clinton, in a room adjoining hers, discussed the quality of the drugs they were taking.
R. Emmett Tyrrell, editor of American Spectator magazine, has tried to track down rumors that Clinton suffered an overdose at one point. The incident supposedly occurred after the young politician lost the governorship in 1980 and fell into an emotional tailspin.
Tyrrell asked emergency room workers at the University of Arkansas Medical Center if they could confirm the incident. He didn't get a flat ''no'' from the hospital staff. One nurse said, ''I can't talk about that.'' Another said she feared for her life if she spoke of the matter.
-- What did he snort and when did he snort it?, by Investors Business Daily
Former President Bill Clinton accused protesters of defending gang leaders and crack dealers, who killed the black lives protesters say matter, while stumping for his wife, Hillary, at a presidential campaign event in Philadelphia.
The protesters from the movement for black lives were present to call attention to Clinton’s crime policy, which increased sentencing minimums for federal offenses, and how young black Americans were criminalized as “super-predators.” They also called attention to the devastating impact of welfare reform and policies in the War on Drugs, which Bill Clinton strengthened.
Bill Clinton responded, “I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders, who got 13-year-olds hopped up on crack and sent them out in the street to murder other African American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn’t. She didn’t. You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter. Tell the truth.”
-- Bill Clinton Says Black Lives Matter Protesters Defend Gang Leaders, Crack Dealers, by Kevin Gosztola
RACISM AND CRACK
On October 30, 1995, President Clinton signed legislation preventing a reduction in federal mandatory minimum penalties for the possession of crack cocaine from taking effect, as recommended by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The legislation overturning the recommendation of the U.S. Sentencing Commission passed the House 332 to 83 and was approved by the Senate unanimously. But the debate over the federal crack penalties -- five years in prison for five grams, or roughly 130 "rocks" of crack -- focused on two charges: (1) that the law was unjust because the crack penalties were two to six times higher than for a comparable quantity of powder cocaine; and most divisive of all, (2) that the law was racist because over 90 percent of those sentenced under it were black. When the Reverend Jesse Jackson addressed the Million Man March in Washington on October 16, he said of the federal crack law and its enforcement: "That's wrong. It's immoral. It's unfair. It's racist. It's ungodly. It must change." [44]
In fact, it is unlikely the controversy would have arisen if crack were a race-neutral plague. Unfortunately, in the crack trade, both predator and prey come disproportionately from black, inner-city communities. As noted above, cocaine-driven emergency room admissions for African-Americans are at historic high levels -- 900 percent above the rate for the population as a whole.
Yet Reverend Jackson and others maintained, against the evidence, that crack is no different than powder cocaine. And having played the race card, few national leaders ventured to challenge him with the facts:
• Crack is a much more powerful psychoactive agent than powder cocaine. Crack reaches the brain in just 19 seconds, making it far more addictive than snorted powder.
• Crack use is associated with the explosion in the most horrifying cases of child abuse in recent years. And while drug addiction has long been a path to prostitution, crack has created what is called on the street the "freak house" phenomenon, where female crack addicts (variously known as "rock stars" or "toss-ups") gather to trade sex for their next five-dollar piece of crack.
• Crack dealers are notorious for raising violent drug trafficking to new extremes: the trial of Washington, D.C.'s First Street Crew, for example, was marked by the shooting of eleven witnesses -- five of them fatally. When federal law enforcement agencies have assisted local officials in apprehending crack organizations like the First Street Crew, their actions disproportionately benefited minority inner-city residents who have to put up with the drive-by shootings and the unlivable neighborhoods. ...
And no one has credibly claimed that federal enforcement patterns reflect bias....
In fact, very few federal crack defendants are low-level, youthful, and nonviolent. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, of the 3,430 crack defendants convicted in 1994, there were just 51 youthful, small-time crack offenders with no prior criminal history and no weapons involvement (48 of the 51 were black). [46] And under the so-called safety valve provision of the 1994 Crime Act, which repealed mandatory minimum penalties for first-time, nonviolent offenders, cases similar to these 51 are now eligible for specially lenient sentences.
What the Reverend Jackson actually did in charging racism was to identify the interests of the black community with a small number of predatory criminals, instead of with the millions of inner-city residents who have equal rights to safe neighborhoods. He used race to argue for denying the protection of law to black Americans.
-- Body Count: Moral Poverty ... And How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs, by William J. Bennett, John J. Dilulio, Jr., John P. Walters
Robert S. Bennett (born 1939) is an American attorney and partner at Hogan Lovells, best known for representing President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.
Bennett is also famous for representing Judith Miller in the Valerie Plame CIA leak grand jury investigation case, Caspar Weinberger, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, Clark Clifford in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal, and Paul Wolfowitz in the World Bank Scandal. He served as special counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee's 1989–1991 investigation of the Keating Five. In 2008, Bennett was hired by John McCain to defend allegations by The New York Times of an improper relationship with a Washington lobbyist.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Brooklyn Preparatory School in 1957. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University in 1961 where he was a member of the Philodemic Society, his LL.B. from Georgetown in 1964, and his LL.M from Harvard Law School in 1965. From 1965 to 1967, he served as a clerk for Howard F. Corcoran, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After graduating from law school, Bennett served as assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. He then went on to Hogan & Hartson, where he worked in the litigation department. He then became a partner with the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Washington, D.C. In September 2009, Bennett announced that he would be returning to Hogan & Hartson.[1]
On January 20, 2012 Bennett confirmed that he will represent Megaupload.[2][3]
Bennett served as a member of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children & Young People, created by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, from 2002 to 2004. He is the older brother of William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He is the author of In The Ring: The Trials of a Washington Lawyer, published in 2008.
-- Robert S. Bennett, by Wikipedia
At raucous parties on sprawling estates and aboard private jets, cocaine lay piled in ashtrays, was passed about on silver platters or in small vials, was even bagged in festive pouches hanging as ornaments from Christmas trees. Regular party guests -- powerful businessmen and politicians from Arkansas and beyond -- had "all the coke they could snort," as one witness told the police -- and were supplied, too, with pretty teenage girls from Little Rock high schools as well as with the most fashionable black prostitutes from the capital or Memphis or New Orleans, women who later told stories of suffering cigarette burns and other abuse in the houses and suites of some of the city's most wealthy and prominent citizens. "They were animals," said a West Memphis sheriff’s deputy who listened to some of the accounts.
It was all done with seedy abandon and, for most involved, utter impunity. Drug dealers corrupted local police for protection, hiring off-duty officers as bodyguards, and in any case kept up a steady stream of contributions to local officeholders and charities. At one point gruesome testimony moved prosecutors to bring a few cases. But inquiries never went too far, and the token convicts were soon forgotten, the most famous among them pardoned by Governor Clinton. "I guess there was an accountability of sorts," one official would comment bitterly. For their own purposes at least, according to government informers, representatives of organized crime made videotapes of the politicians cavorting at the parties.
-- Partners in POWER: The Clintons and Their America, by Roger Morris