(Two 30-minute segments)

Long dor­mant in the depths of the Archive Shows, the tor­tu­ous and ongo­ing story of “ex” CIA agent Ed Wil­son is once again mak­ing news and shak­ing foun­da­tions in the cor­ri­dors of Amer­i­can polit­i­cal power. A for­mer LAPD nar­cotics inves­ti­ga­tor who has cru­saded against the intel­li­gence community’s involve­ment in the nar­cotics traf­fic, Mike Rup­pert dis­cusses Wilson’s case in this inter­view, review­ing past details and reveal­ing new information.

The pro­gram begins with dis­cus­sion of Wilson’s numer­ous oper­a­tions, focus­ing at con­sid­er­able length on Wilson’s arm­ing and train­ing of Libyan Dic­ta­tor Khadafy’s ter­ror­ist cadre in the 1970s. Ship­ping more than 20 tons of C-4 plas­tic explo­sive and hun­dreds of thou­sands of tim­ing devices with which to det­o­nate it, Wil­son gave Khadafy a huge ter­ror­ist arse­nal. In addi­tion, Wil­son req­ui­si­tioned active-duty Spe­cial Forces per­son­nel to train Khadafy’s ter­ror­ists. The pro­gram touches on Wil­son and Terpil’s work in train­ing other noto­ri­ous ter­ror­ists, includ­ing Italy’s Red Brigades and Car­los the Jackal. Much of the dis­cus­sion con­sists of analy­sis of many of Wilson’s key part­ners in his var­i­ous oper­a­tions, includ­ing for­mer CIA offi­cer Theodore Shack­ley, one of the most impor­tant fig­ures in the his­tory of CIA clan­des­tine operations.

The pro­gram reviews mate­r­ial from RFA-4 about the deaths of key wit­nesses in the Wil­son case and dis­cusses the fact that Wil­son and Terpil’s oper­a­tions would have been impos­si­ble had they not had the tacit approval of U.S. intel­li­gence! In the sec­ond half of the pro­gram, Mike dis­cusses new infor­ma­tion in the case, espe­cially indi­ca­tions that a num­ber of impor­tant Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cials and intel­li­gence offi­cers per­jured them­selves in order to con­vict Wil­son. Specif­i­cally, these offi­cials were party to per­jured tes­ti­mony to the effect that Wil­son had not had any con­tact with the CIA since his offi­cial retire­ment. Dis­clo­sure of this may very well result in a new trial for Wil­son and pos­si­ble free­dom, a devel­op­ment that could have pro­found impli­ca­tions for the 2000 pres­i­den­tial race. For­mer Pres­i­dent George Bush was direc­tor of the CIA when Wilson’s activ­i­ties were under­taken. Dis­clo­sures that Wilson’s oper­a­tions had been offi­cially sanc­tioned could be very dam­ag­ing to his son, George W. Bush.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: analy­sis of the death of State depart­ment aide Elaine Boat­ner, who had pos­si­ble infor­ma­tion to pro­vide about the Wil­son case; dis­cus­sion of the prox­im­ity in time of Boatner’s mys­te­ri­ous death, the air­plane crash that almost took the life of for­mer CIA direc­tor Stans­field Turner and the res­ig­na­tion of Judge Stan­ley Sporkin (for­mer gen­eral coun­sel to the CIA); Stans­field Turner’s rela­tion­ship to the Wil­son case; Wilson’s work for Task Force 157 (a com­bined Navy and CIA oper­a­tion); the rela­tion­ship between Task Force 157 and the Nugan Hand Bank (one of the sem­i­nal U.S. guns-for-drugs oper­a­tions); analy­sis of the death of for­mer Wil­son asso­ciate and CIA offi­cer Kevin Mulc­ahy. (Recorded on 1/23/2000.)