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- >==========================
- >ufo/conspiracy #954, from Cix_UseNet, 22211 chars, Jun 17 19:37 91
- >--------------------------
- TITLE: The BRENNEKE Trial (Re: The OCTOBER SURPRISE)
-
- +From : harelb@cabot (Harel Barzilai)
- +Subject : The BRENNEKE Trial (Re: The OCTOBER SURPRISE)
-
-
- "We were convinced that, yes, there was a meeting, and he was
- there and the other people listed in the indictment were there,"
- said jury foreman Mark Kristoff following the trial. "There never
- was a guilty vote ... It was 100 percent."
-
-
- =============================================
- T h e V e r d i c t i s T r e a s o n
- =============================================
- by David Armstrong and Alex Constantine
- Z Magazine, July/August 1990
- [excerpts]
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- --> [Send the 1-line message GET VERDICT TREASON ACTIV-L to ]
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- [For more info, see misc.activism.progressive which is carrying a
- string of articles about the October Surprise --Harel]
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- Z is an independent, progressive monthly magazine of critical thinking
- on political, cultural, social, and economic life in the United
- States. It sees the racial, sexual, class, and political dimensions
- of personal life as fundamental to understanding and improving
- contemporary circumstances; and it aims to assist activist efforts to
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- Subscriptions: One Year $25; Two Years $40; Three Years $55
- Z Magazine, 150 W Canton St., Boston MA 02118, (617)236-5878
- [Each issue of the magazine is about 110 pages -- no advertisements]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- The May 4 acquittal of Richard Brenneke, the self-proclaimed CIA
- contract agent accused of lying to a federal grand jury about the 1980
- Reagan-Bush campaign's efforts to delay the release of 52 American hostages
- then held in Iran, has cast a long shadow over Washington. Despite the
- modicum of attention the case has received in the mainstream press, its
- true implications-namely "treason," "perjury," and "impeachable offenses"-
- have yet to be fully addressed.
-
- Brenneke's story bears repeating. On September 23, 1988, Brenneke, a
- Portland, Oregon, property manager and arms dealer, voluntarily testified
- at the sentencing hearing of his "close friend," Heinrich Rupp, a gold
- dealer and former-Luftwaffe pilot who had been convicted of bank fraud in
- Colorado. During closed-door testimony before Judge James R. Carrigan,
- Brenneke told the Denver court that both he and Rupp had worked for the CIA
- on a contract basis since 1967, including flying planes for Air America,
- the CIA-owned front company in southeast asia. Moreover, Brenneke
- testified that Rupp believed he'd been "doing something the [CIA] asked him
- to do" when the fraud was committed.
-
- To support his claim, Brenneke swore that both he and Rupp had been
- employed by the CIA to assist in covert operations on numerous occasions.
- One of these clandestine adventures, according to Brenneke, was a midnight
- flight to Paris in 1980.
-
- =======================================
- T h e O c t o b e r S u r p r i s e
- =======================================
-
- In his Denver deposition, Brenneke testified that on the night of
- October 18, 1980, Rupp flew Reagan-Bush campaign director William Casey
- from Washington's National Airport to the Le Bourget Airfield north of
- Paris for a series of secret meetings. According to Brenneke, it was at
- these meetings--held on October 19 and 20, at the Waldorf Florida and
- Crillon hotels--that members of the Reagan-Bush campaign secretly
- negotiated an "arms-for-no-hostages" deal with representatives of the
- Ayatollah Khomeini. The purpose of this Faustian pact, Brenneke said, was
- to prevent an "October Surprise"--the release of the hostages prior to the
- November elections--thereby ensuring President Carter's defeat. For their
- part, the Iranians allegedly received $40 million with which they could
- purchase badly needed American-made weapons and military spare parts for
- their war against Iraq.
-
- Brenneke testified that he had participated in the last of the three
- Paris meetings, working out the details of the cash and weapons
- transactions. Also present at this meeting, Brenneke said, was William
- Casey, who was eventually appointed Reagan's CIA director. It was in that
- latter capacity that Casey masterminded the arms-for-hostages deal with
- Iran that would eventually be known as the Iran-Contra scandal.
-
- Also in attendance at this remarkable meeting, according to Brenneke,
- was Donald Gregg, a CIA liaison to President Carter's National Security
- Council. Gregg, a CIA operative since 1951, later became National Security
- Advisor to Vice President George Bush, and is currently the US ambassador
- to South Korea.
-
- A third member of the American delegation in attendance at the Paris
- meetings, Brenneke told the court, was then-vice presidential hopeful
- George Bush. A month after his Denver testimony, Brenneke wrote a letter
- to Judge Carrigan amending his statement. In the letter, Brenneke
- explained that he had no first hand knowledge of Bush being in Paris, but
- had been told by Rupp that Bush had been spotted on the tarmac at Le
- Bourget. When questioned on this point during his trial, Brenneke replied:
- "I simply repeated what I was told.... I disbelieved it then, and I
- disbelieve it now."
-
- =============================================
- B r e n n e k e ' s D a y i n C o u r t
- =============================================
-
- Eight months after his sworn statement in Denver, the US Justice
- Department charged Brenneke with five counts of making "false declarations"
- to a federal judge. The indictment alleged that Brenneke had knowingly
- lied when he said that both he and Rupp had worked for the CIA. The
- government also charged that Brenneke had concocted the entire story about
- Bush, Casey, Gregg and the "October Surprise" deal.
-
- Speculation at the time held that the indictment may have been timed
- to avoid political embarrassment. During the 1988 presidential campaign,
- Brenneke had publicly accused Gregg of directing the Contra resupply effort
- out of Vice President Bush's office. After assuming the presidency, Bush
- nominated Gregg to become the US ambassador to South Korea. Gregg's Senate
- confirmation hearings began on May 12, 1989, the same day Brenneke was
- indicted. The charges effectively prevented senators from raising
- Brenneke's accusations during the confirmation process.
-
- Furthermore, the Bush administration showed no real interest in taking
- Brenneke to trial. In fact, the prosecution offered Brenneke a deal that
- would keep him out of jail in exchange for a guilty plea. Despite having
- no money and suffering from a severe heart ailment, Brenneke refused the
- government's conditions.
-
- Brenneke's trial began on April 24, in federal district court in
- Portland, Oregon. Brenneke's attorney, Michael Scott, the brother of Rep.
- Patricia Schroeder, D-Colorado, had originally planned to subpoena a star-
- studded list of witnesses for the defense. Among the notables were former
- President Carter and former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, both of
- whom have stated that they were aware of the Reagan-Bush campaign's hostage
- negotiations prior to the 1980 election.
-
- Being broke, however, Brenneke was forced to rely on the government to
- pay the expenses of his witnesses. It was up to the court, therefore, to
- determine which witnesses were necessary to his defense. Judge Malcolm F.
- Marsh--a Reagan appointee--had no trouble determining that Carter, Bani-
- Sadr, and Robert McFarlane were not. In fact, of the 24 potential
- witnesses presented by Brenneke lawyers, only five were deemed "necessary."
-
- Government prosecutor Thomas O'Rourke, the US attorney in Denver,
- suffered under no such burden. At taxpayers' expense O'Rourke assembled an
- impressive roster of government witnesses. Eldon Hatch, a CIA personnel
- specialist, testified that after thoroughly searching the agency's files he
- could find no employment records for either Rupp or Brenneke. Under cross
- examination, however, Hatch admitted that Rupp had been trained by Inter-
- Mountain Aviation, a CIA proprietary. Hatch, a 31-year CIA veteran, also
- acknowledged that the agency had maintained "files" on both Rupp and
- Brenneke. Defense witness Frank Snepp, a former CIA agent and critic of
- the Agency, later testified that CIA contract agents were often listed in
- "Soft files" that "existed only in a clandestine part of the agency and
- were not shared with personnel because the [agent's] situation was so
- sensitive.
-
- =============================
- A S t a r i s S w o r n
- =============================
-
- The government's star witness was Donald Gregg, who was flown in from
- South Korea to testify. But Gregg has never been a credible witness.
- During the Congressional Iran-contra hearings, Gregg testified under oath
- that despite being vice President George Bush's National Security Adviser
- at the time, he had not learned of the Reagan Administration's efforts to
- resupply the Nicaraguan Contras until August 1986. During his Senate
- confirmation hearing in 1989, however, information surfaced that clearly
- contradicted Gregg's earlier statements. An entry in one of Oliver North's
- notebooks that somehow escaped the shredder indicates that Gregg attended a
- meeting on the illegal resupply operation in September 1985. In addition,
- a memo from Gregg's on office initialed by Gregg himself, reveals that on
- May 1, 1986, Gregg met with Vice President Bush to discuss "resupply of the
- Contras." Gregg attributed the discrepancy to a secretarial error,
- claiming the meeting had actually concerned "resupply of the Copters." A
- New York Times editorial a the time ran under the heading "Mr. Gregg Still
- Lacks Credibility."
-
- During the Brenneke trial, Gregg swore he did not go to Paris on
- October 18, 1980, but had been vacationing with his family at Bethany
- Beach, Delaware. To prove his point, Gregg presented photographs of
- himself, his wife and their daughter, on a sunny beach that he said were
- taken on the weekend in question.
-
- Gregg's claims were easily disproved by Robert Lynott, a veteran
- meteorologist for the National Weather Service, the National Forest Service
- and a Portland TV station. After comparing the photographs with reports
- from the Indian River weather station--ten miles from Bethany Beach--Lynott
- concluded that "These pictures were not taken on those days. I'm 100
- percent sure that they weren't taken on the 18th and I'm 90 percent sure
- they weren't taken on the 19th."
-
- As for Bush and Casey, prosecutor O'Rourke failed to demonstrate that
- they could NOT have been in Paris on the relevant days. This inexplicable
- lack of accurate record keeping is all the more remarkable for a campaign
- manager and candidate at the height of a presidential race.
-
- More damning testimony came from Richard Allen, a former Reagan-Bush
- campaign official who later served as President Reagan's National Security
- adviser. Allen told the court that during the fall of 1980, he had set up
- a secret committee within the campaign to monitor the Carter
- Administration's progress in their hostage negotiations. Two internal
- campaign memos were presented as evidence to support Allen's testimony.
- The first, dated October 15, 1980, was from Allen to Reagan, Casey,
- campaign strategist Richard Wirthlin, and Edwin Meese III, who later became
- Reagan's attorney general. According to the memo, a person referred to as
- "ABC XYZ" had informed the campaign that the hostages could be freed "at
- any moment, as a bolt from the blue." Allen testified that "ABC XYZ" was
- in fact Edmund Muskie, who at the time was President Carter's secretary of
- state. [note Muskie served with John Tower and Brent Scowcroft on the
- presidential commission which investigated the Iran/Contra scandal. RW] A
- second memo, dated October 24, 1980, named Bob Garrick, a high ranking
- campaign official, as the sole spokesperson on the hostage issue.
-
- Another defense witness, Israeli Col. William Northrup, testified that
- American-made weapons were shipped to Iran via Israel "within a fortnight"
- of the Paris meetings, implying that they were part of the deal not to
- release the hostages.
-
- In his closing argument defense attorney Michael Scott stressed the
- timing of the hostages release which came on January 20, 1981, just minutes
- after Reagan was sworn in as president.
-
- =====================
- T h e V e r d i c t
- =====================
-
- On May 4, after only five hours of deliberation, the jury found
- Brenneke "not guilty" on all five counts.
-
- "We were convinced that, yes, there was a meeting, and he was there
- and the other people listed in the indictment were there," said jury
- foreman Mark Kristoff following the trial. "There never was a guilty vote
- ... It was 100 percent."
-
- While the jury's verdict represents a substantial victory for Brenneke
- personally, many questions remain unresolved. Technically, the decision
- does not mean Brenneke was telling the truth about the Paris meetings; it
- simply means the government was unable to convince the jury that he was
- lying.
-
- Still, there is a substantial body of circumstantial evidence
- suggesting that the Reagan-Bush campaign stole the 1980 election, and the
- Brenneke decision adds even greater credence to that argument. At the very
- least it suggest the Republicans were willing to barter with American lives
- for their own political gain. Legally, any dealings between campaign
- officials and the Iranians would be a clear violation of the Logan Act,
- which prohibits private citizens from engaging in diplomatic negotiations
- with foreign governments. More important, since Iran could easily have
- been classified as a hostile nation at the time, any effort to furnish them
- with weapons would constitute providing aid to an enemy nation, which is
- tantamount to treason.
-
- Then there is the question of Donald Gregg's testimony. If, as the
- jury apparently believed, Gregg was not telling the truth about his
- whereabouts on that all important weekend in 1980, will the bush
- administration be as vigilant in seeking perjury charges against him as it
- was in prosecuting Brenneke?
-
- =============================
- E n t e r t h e S & L ' s
- =============================
-
- In addition to lifting the lid on the October Surprise, Brenneke's
- testimony in Denver shed light on another scandal. During his deposition,
- Brenneke stated that the bank fraud for which Rupp was convicted was
- actually part of a larger "systematically developed program by which money
- was raised for the Contras, using a variety of schemes involving banks, and
- then involving the disposition of those funds."
-
- Brenneke's comments became the center piece for a series of
- investigative reports by Pete Brewton of the Houston Post. Earlier this
- year, Brewton revealed that "the CIA may have used part of the proceeds
- from S&L fraud to help pay for covert operations and other activities that
- Congress was unwilling to support publicly." Brewton disclosed that
- "numerous links" exist "between organized crime figures and CIA operatives,
- including some involved in gun running, drug smuggling, money laundering,
- and covert aid for the Nicaraguan Contras."
-
- One example Brewton refers to is Indian Springs State Bank in Kansas
- City, Missouri. When Indian Springs failed in 1984, federal investigators
- focused their attention on Farhad Azima, a major shareholder in the bank.
- Azima, an Iranian emigrant who's family had close ties to the Shah, has
- been linked in court documents to the CIA and organized crime. Azima was
- also the owner of Global International Airways. Brewton reported that an
- ID card given to him by Brenneke, dated November 1, 1975, shows a vice
- president and pilot for global to be none other than Heinrich Rupp. Global
- supplied one of the cargo planes used by the White House to deliver 23 tons
- of TOW missiles and sundry spare parts to Tehran.
-
- Among Global's clients was Southern Air Transport, once owned-and-
- operated by the CIA. Southern Air personnel maintain that Global ran
- weapons out of Dallas to the contras and cocaine back into the US.
- Global's biggest customer was the Egyptian American Transport and Services
- Corporation (EATSCO). EATSCO's board of directors included unindicted
- Iran-contra figure Theodore Shackley and convicted Iran-contra conspirator
- retired Gen. Richard Secord. The finances of Indian Springs Bank and
- Global were intimately intertwined. When Global filed for bankruptcy,
- Indian Springs was next in line.
-
- =================================================================
- I s T h e r e a R e p o r t e r i n t h e H o u s e ?
- =================================================================
-
- Mainstream coverage of the Brenneke trial and the CIA/Mafia/White
- House links to the S&L crisis have been conspicuously absent. Following
- the Brenneke decision, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the
- Washington Post all ran short Associated Press wire stories but never
- mentioned the words "treason" or "perjury." Joel Bleifuss of In These
- Times writes: "The most interesting of the three AP stories was the heavily
- and strangely edited version in the Washington Post. It seems that if the
- jury didn't have sense enough to find Brenneke guilty, it was up to the
- Post to do the job."
-
- Brewton's revelations concerning the S&L debacle have fared even
- worse. In February, the Los Angeles Times buried a short piece outlining
- Brewton's basic thesis, and has since failed to follow up on the
- allegations. To date, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post
- have seen fit to report on the subject.
-
- Having been vindicated in court, Brenneke says he plans to write a
- book about his life in the CIA and the October Surprise. It will be
- interesting to see how the press responds when his story, which has been
- sitting right under their noses for four years, "breaks" in the book review
- section.
-
- /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
- \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
-
-
- =============================
- F u r t h e r R e a d i n g
- =============================
-
- =====================
- S & L s c a n d a l
- =====================
-
- Pete Brewton's investigative articles in the Houston Post are
- (may be incomplete):
-
- "S&L probe has possible CIA links" 2/4/90
- "Evidence finds CIA operatives may be implicated in failure" 2/5/90
- "[House] Panel calls CIA chief to testify" 2/6/90
- "A bank's shadowy demise" 2/8/90
- "Azima no stranger to Texas business" 2/(between 8 and 11)/90
- "Linsay aided S&L probe figure" 2/11/90
- "Texas S&L, mob, CIA: A tangled web of deceit" 2/18/90
- "CIA declines to testify before [House] panel" 2/21/90
- "House committee plans investigation of agency's actions" 3/2/90
- "The suspicious trail of Denver S&L failure" 3/11/90
- "Attorney linked to S&L crisis has ties to CIA, Mafia figures" 4/4/90
- "House investigators pursue Post's S&L findings" 7/11/90
- also "The news story hardly anyone wants to touch" by Nicols Fox,
- July/August Washington Journalism Review
- also see the book "Inside Job" by Steve Pizzo, Mary Fricker & Paul Molo
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- (note: as of mid November, 1990, the staff of the House Intelligence
- committee is about to make a recommendation as to whether to pursue
- a formal investigation of the Post's allegations)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- =========================================
- C I A & d r u g s m u g g l i n g :
- =========================================
-
- "Is there a contra drug connection?" Newsweek, 1/26/87
- "Contra arms crew said to smuggle drugs" New York Times, 1/20/87
- "Bay area cocaine ring tied to contras" San Francisco Examiner, 3/16/86
- "Nicaraguan exile's cocaine-contra connection" SF Examiner, 6/23/86
- "Probe tracks contra smuggling, US role" Chicago Tribune, 3/3/87
- "Narco-terrorism: A tale of two stories" Columbia Journalism Rev, Sept/Oct 87
- "Pilot: I flew contra arms in, pot out" Newsday, 4/6/87
- "Obstruction at justice" The Village Voice, 3/31/87
- "Memo urged Iran panels to absolve contras of drug charges" Boston Globe 8/5/87
- "North's aids linked to Austrialia study" New York Times, 3/8/87
- "CIA, contras hooked on drug money" In These Times, 4/15/87
-
- =================
- A l s o s e e :
- =================
-
- New York Times 2/24/87, 7/16/87
- Washington Post 12/27/85, 6/30/87
- Wall St. Journal 4/22/87
- Miami Herald 2/16/87, 3/22/87
- Los Angeles Times 2/12/87, 2/18/87
- CBS News West 57th, contra drug reports aired 4/6/87 and 7/11/87
- Related books:
- "Out of Control" by Leslie Cockburn, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987
- "The Crimes of Patriots" by Jonathan Kwitney, Norton, 1987
- "The Iran Contra Connection" by Johnathan Marshall, Peter Scott, Jane Hunter,
- South End Press, 1987
- "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" by Alfred W. McCoy,
- Harper & Row, 1972
- "The Great Heroin Coup" by Henrik Kruger, South End Press, 1980
- "In Banks We Trust" by Penny Lernoux, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984
-
- ##################################################################
-