Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.
The tag 'October Surprise' is associated with 20 posts.

Latest Patreon Uploads: The Making of Japan, Inc., Lab Leak Covid Meme, Spreading Bank Crisis, World War III, 1934 Coup Attempt Revisited

The lat­est Patre­on talks–with machine transcriptions–include top­ics such as the insti­tu­tion­al links between the 1934 Coup Attempt and the cap­i­tal­iza­tion of Japan before and after World War II; Sim­i­lar­i­ties between Japan Inc. and Amer­i­ca Inc.; Pro­pa­gan­diz­ing of the “Lab Leak” pro­pa­gan­da meme in Covid. Dr. Jef­frey Sachs “pret­ty con­vinced” Covid came from a U.S. Bio-Lab. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE. Mr. Emory emphat­i­cal­ly rec­om­mends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash dri­ve con­tain­ing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fas­cist books on easy-to-down­load PDF files.


Latest Patreon Talks: Marcos Attorneys Solicit Sterling Seagrave, Review of Jimmy Carter Presidency, Ukraine War Anniversary

The lat­est Patre­on talks, with machine tran­scrip­tions, include: Analy­sis of Jim­my Carter’s Pres­i­den­cy and dis­cus­sion of an approach to the Sea­graves by attor­neys for the deposed Mar­cos cou­ple. Dr. Jef­frey Sachs “pret­ty con­vinced” Covid came from a U.S. Bio-Lab. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE. Mr. Emory emphat­i­cal­ly rec­om­mends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash dri­ve con­tain­ing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fas­cist books on easy-to-down­load PDF files.


Good Evening Mr. Bush! I’ll Be Your Server Tonight!

Exem­pli­fy­ing the grotesque, orgias­tic hagiog­ra­phy to which the media have been sub­ject­ing us since George H.W. Bush died is a reput­ed con­ver­sa­tion between the dying George H.W. Bush and Dubya, as report­ed by James Bak­er. After speak­ing to oth­er off­spring and rel­a­tives, the dying Pop­py report­ed­ly spoke with Shrub, who alleged­ly said: “I’ll see you in Heav­en, Dad!” Sup­pos­ed­ly, Pop­py spoke no more before going on to his Eter­nal Reward. If, in fact, such a ren­dezvous does take place, we do not expect it to occur in the Celes­tial Here­after. Exem­pli­fy­ing the mur­der­ous real­i­ties of George H.W. Bush’s tenure on earth is his super­vi­sion of the Afghan Muja­hadin and the birth of Al-Qae­da: “ . . . . More to the point, now, in the Afghanistan War, Vice Pres­i­dent Bush’s inter­ests and Osama bin Laden’s con­verged. In using bin Laden’s Arab Afghans as proxy war­riors against the Sovi­ets, Bush advo­cat­ed a pol­i­cy that was ful­ly in line with Amer­i­can inter­ests at that time. But he did not con­sid­er the long-term impli­ca­tions of sup­port­ing a net­work of Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ist rebels. . . . . Specif­i­cal­ly, as Vice Pres­i­dent in the mid-eight­ies, Bush sup­port­ed aid­ing the mujahideen in Afghanistan through the Mak­tab al-Khi­damat (MAK) or Ser­vices Offices, which sent mon­ey and fight­ers to the Afghan resis­tance in Peshawar. ‘Bush was in charge of the covert oper­a­tions that sup­port­ed the MAK,’ says John Lof­tus, a Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cial in the eight­ies. ‘They were essen­tial­ly hir­ing a ter­ror­ist to fight ter­ror­ism. . . . Cofound­ed by Osama bin Laden and Abdul­lah Azzam, the MAK was the pre­cur­sor to bin Laden’s glob­al ter­ror­ist net­work, Al Qae­da. It sent mon­ey and fight­ers to the Afghan resis­tance in Peshawar, Pak­istan, and even the Unit­ed States to bring thou­sands of war­riors to Afghanistan to fight the Sovi­et Union. The MAK was lat­er linked to the 1993 bomb­ing of the World Trade Cen­ter in New York through an office in Brook­lyn known as the Al-Kifah Refugee Cen­ter. It is not clear how much con­tact he had with bin Laden, but Sheikh Omar Abdel Rah­man, the ‘Blind Sheikh,’ who mas­ter­mind­ed the 1993 bomb­ing of the World Trade Cen­ter, also appeared in Peshawar on occa­sion. . . . ”


FTR #1026 The So-Called “Arab Spring” Revisited, Part 2

In FTR #‘s 733 through 739, we pre­sent­ed our view that the so-called Arab Spring was a U.S. intel­li­gence oper­a­tion, aimed at plac­ing the Broth­er­hood in pow­er in Mus­lim coun­tries dom­i­nat­ed either by a sec­u­lar dic­ta­tor or absolute monar­chy.

Con­tin­u­ing analy­sis from our pre­vi­ous pro­gram, this broad­cast delves fur­ther into the net­work­ing between the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Al-Qae­da. Against the back­ground of the occu­pa­tion of Idlib Province in Syr­ia by Al-Qae­da, we high­light the appar­ent role of Mor­si’s gov­ern­ment and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the events sur­round­ing the 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beng­hazi, Libya.

The over­throw of Khadafy in Libya was an out­growth of the so-called Arab Spring, as was the pre­cip­i­ta­tion of the civ­il war in Syr­ia. Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance is the fact that the GOP-led inves­ti­ga­tions of the Beng­hazi attack led direct­ly to both the inves­ti­ga­tion of Hillary Clin­ton’s e‑mails and the deci­sive­ly sig­nif­i­cant FBI tam­per­ing with the 2016 elec­tion, as well as the alleged “hack” of Hillary’s e‑mails!

An Egypt­ian news­pa­per pub­lished what were said to be inter­cept­ed record­ings of Mor­si com­mu­ni­cat­ing con­spir­a­to­ri­al­ly with Muham­mad al-Zawahiri, the the broth­er of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Al-Qae­da. Much of this checks out with infor­ma­tion that is already on the pub­lic record.

Note the net­work­ing of GOP Sen­a­tors John McCain and Lind­say Gra­ham with Khairat El-Shater of the Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood while he was in prison, as well as the alleged links between the Egypt­ian Broth­er­hood and the cells involved in attack­ing the U.S. Embassy in Libya.

What we may well be look­ing at is a gam­bit along the lines of what has become known as the Octo­ber Surprise–collusion between the Iran­ian Islamists and George H.W. Bush/CIA/GOP to (among oth­er things) desta­bi­lize the Carter admin­is­tra­tion and 1980 re-elec­tion cam­paign.

In addi­tion, we won­der about a deal hav­ing been struck to have Al-Qae­da fight against Bashar Assad in Syr­ia, while avoid­ing attacks inside the U.S.?

Of pri­ma­ry focus in the mate­r­i­al below is Khairat El-Shater (translit­er­at­ed spellings of his name dif­fer.) El-Shater:

1.–Was the num­ber two man in the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, though not for­mer­ly a mem­ber of Mor­si’s gov­ern­ment.
2.–Networked with U.S. Ambas­sador Anne Pat­ter­son and GOP Sen­a­tors John McCain and Lind­say Gra­ham and Khairat El-Shater (alter­na­tive­ly translit­er­at­ed with two “t’s” and/or an “al”), short­ly after Mor­si was deposed. ” . . . . It is inter­est­ing to note here that, pri­or to these rev­e­la­tions, U.S. ambas­sador Anne Pat­ter­son was seen vis­it­ing with Khairat El-Shater—even though he held no posi­tion in the Mor­si government—and after the oust­ing and impris­on­ment of Mor­si and lead­ing Broth­er­hood mem­bers, Sens. John McCain and Lind­say Gra­ham made it a point to vis­it the civil­ian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment to release him. . . .”
3.–Was deeply involved in mobi­liz­ing Al-Qae­da on behalf of Mor­si and the Broth­er­hood: ” . . . . Also on that same first day of the rev­o­lu­tion, Khairat al-Shater, Deputy Leader of the Broth­er­hood, had a meet­ing with a del­e­gate of jiha­di fight­ers and reit­er­at­ed Morsi’s request that all jihadis come to the aid of the pres­i­den­cy and the Broth­er­hood. . . . ”
4.–Was the appar­ent source of a $50 mil­lion con­tri­bu­tion by the Broth­er­hood to Al Qae­da: ” . . . . That the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s inter­na­tion­al wing, includ­ing through the agency of Khairat al-Shater, had pro­vid­ed $50 mil­lion to al-Qae­da in part to sup­port the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Egypt. . . .”
5.–Had the pass­port of the alleged leader of the Beng­hazi attack in his home when he was arrest­ed: ” . . . . Most recent­ly, on July 29, 2013, Ahmed Musa, a promi­nent Egypt­ian polit­i­cal insid­er and ana­lyst made sev­er­al asser­tions on Tahrir TV that fur­ther con­nect­ed the dots. . . . Musa insist­ed that he had absolute knowl­edge that the mur­der­er of Chris Stevens was Mohsin al-‘Azzazi, whose pass­port was found in Broth­er­hood leader Khairat El-Shater’s home, when the lat­ter was arrest­ed. . . .”
6.–Epitomized the GOP-beloved, cor­po­ratist eco­nom­ic ide­ol­o­gy and lifestyle: ” . . . . Arguably the most pow­er­ful man in the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood is Khairat El-Shater, a mul­ti­mil­lion­aire tycoon whose finan­cial inter­ests extend into elec­tron­ics, man­u­fac­tur­ing and retail. A strong advo­cate of pri­va­ti­za­tion, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Mus­lim Broth­er­hood busi­ness­men who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Party’s impres­sive elec­toral vic­to­ry this win­ter and is now craft­ing the FJP’s eco­nom­ic agen­da. . . . . . . . the Brotherhood’s ide­ol­o­gy actu­al­ly has more in com­mon with America’s Repub­li­can Par­ty than with al-Qai­da. Few Amer­i­cans know it but the Broth­er­hood is a free-mar­ket par­ty led by wealthy busi­ness­men whose eco­nom­ic agen­da embraces pri­va­ti­za­tion and for­eign invest­ment while spurn­ing labor unions and the redis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth. Like the Repub­li­cans in the U.S., the finan­cial inter­ests of the party’s lead­er­ship of busi­ness­men and pro­fes­sion­als diverge sharply from those of its poor, social­ly con­ser­v­a­tive fol­low­ers. . . .”

This broad­cast begins with con­clu­sion of read­ing of a key arti­cle that was fea­tured in our last pro­gram.

Key points of analy­sis in dis­cus­sion of the Morsi/Zawahiri/Brotherhood con­nec­tion include:

1.–Muhamed Zawahir­i’s promise to bol­ster Mor­si’s gov­ern­ment with mil­i­tary sup­port, in exchange for Mor­si steer­ing Egypt in the direc­tion of Sharia law. ” . . . . The call end­ed in agree­ment that al-Qae­da would sup­port the Broth­er­hood, includ­ing its inter­na­tion­al branch­es, under the under­stand­ing that Mor­si would soon imple­ment full Sharia in Egypt.  After this, Muham­mad Zawahiri and Khairat al-Shater, the num­ber-two man of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood orga­ni­za­tion, report­ed­ly met reg­u­lar­ly. . . .”
2.–Morsi’s agree­ment with Zawahir­i’s pro­pos­al. ” . . . . Zawahiri fur­ther request­ed that Mor­si allow them to devel­op train­ing camps in Sinai in order to sup­port the Broth­er­hood through trained mil­i­tants. Along with say­ing that the Broth­er­hood intend­ed to form a ‘rev­o­lu­tion­ary guard’ to pro­tect him against any coup, Mor­si added that, in return for al-Qaeda’s and its affil­i­ates’ sup­port, not only would he allow them to have such train­ing camps, but he would facil­i­tate their devel­op­ment in Sinai and give them four facil­i­ties to use along the Egypt­ian-Libyan bor­der. . . .”
3.–The net­work­ing between U.S. Ambas­sador Anne Pat­ter­son and GOP Sen­a­tors John McCain and Lind­say Gra­ham and Khairat El-Shater (alter­na­tive­ly translit­er­at­ed with two “t’s”), short­ly after Mor­si was deposed. ” . . . . It is inter­est­ing to note here that, pri­or to these rev­e­la­tions, U.S. ambas­sador Anne Pat­ter­son was seen vis­it­ing with Khairat al-Shater—even though he held no posi­tion in the Mor­si government—and after the oust­ing and impris­on­ment of Mor­si and lead­ing Broth­er­hood mem­bers, Sens. John McCain and Lind­say Gra­ham made it a point to vis­it the civil­ian Shater in his prison cell and urged the Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment to release him. . . .”
4.–Note that Mor­si sanc­tioned and Broth­er­hood-aid­ed Al-Qae­da mil­i­tants were appar­ent­ly involved in the Behg­hazi attacks that led to the Beng­hazi inves­ti­ga­tion, the Hillary e‑mails non-scan­dal and all that fol­lowed: ” . . . . Accord­ing to a Libyan Ara­bic report I trans­lat­ed back in June 2013, those who attacked the U.S. con­sulate in Beng­hazi, killing Amer­i­cans, includ­ing Ambas­sador Chris Stevens, were from jiha­di cells that had been formed in Libya through Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood sup­port.  Those inter­ro­gat­ed named Mor­si and oth­er top Broth­er­hood lead­er­ship as accom­plices. . . . ”
5.–Khairat El-Shater was deeply involved in mobi­liz­ing Al-Qae­da on behalf of Mor­si and the Broth­er­hood: ” . . . . Also on that same first day of the rev­o­lu­tion, Khairat al-Shater, Deputy Leader of the Broth­er­hood, had a meet­ing with a del­e­gate of jiha­di fight­ers and reit­er­at­ed Morsi’s request that all jihadis come to the aid of the pres­i­den­cy and the Broth­er­hood. . . . ”
6.–Khairat El-Shater was the appar­ent source of a $50 mil­lion con­tri­bu­tion by the Broth­er­hood to Al Qae­da: ” . . . . That the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s inter­na­tion­al wing, includ­ing through the agency of Khairat al-Shater, had pro­vid­ed $50 mil­lion to al-Qae­da in part to sup­port the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Egypt. . . .”
7.–Next, we high­light anoth­er impor­tant arti­cle from Ray­mond Ibrahim about the Mor­si/Al-Qae­da con­nec­tion to the Beng­hazi attack. Sup­ple­ment­ing the infor­ma­tion about net­work­ing between U.S. Ambas­sador to Egypt Anne Pat­ter­son, John McCain, Lind­say Gra­ham and Khairat al-Shater, we note that:

1.–The Beng­hazi attack­ers were appar­ent­ly linked to Mor­si and the Broth­er­hood: ” . . . . days after the Beng­hazi attack back in Sep­tem­ber 2012, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood con­nec­tions appeared.  A video made dur­ing the con­sulate attack records peo­ple approach­ing the belea­guered U.S. com­pound; one of them yells to the besiegers in an Egypt­ian dialect, ‘Don’t shoot—Dr. Mor­si sent us!’ appar­ent­ly a ref­er­ence to the for­mer Islamist pres­i­dent. . . .”
2.–The pass­port of the alleged leader of the Beng­hazi attack was found in the home of McCain/Graham con­tact Kharat al-Shater’s home when he was arrest­ed: ” . . . . Most recent­ly, on July 29, 2013, Ahmed Musa, a promi­nent Egypt­ian polit­i­cal insid­er and ana­lyst made sev­er­al asser­tions on Tahrir TV that fur­ther con­nect­ed the dots. . . . Musa insist­ed that he had absolute knowl­edge that the mur­der­er of Chris Stevens was Mohsin al-‘Azzazi, whose pass­port was found in Broth­er­hood leader Khairat El-Shater’s home, when the lat­ter was arrest­ed. . . .”
3.–The attack on the U.S. Embassy may well have been intend­ed to take Chris Stevens hostage, in order to use him as poten­tial barter for the Blind Sheikh: ” . . . . The day before the embassy attacks, based on lit­tle known but legit­i­mate Ara­bic reports, I wrote an arti­cle titled ‘Jihadis Threat­en to Burn U.S. Embassy in Cairo,’ explain­ing how Islamists—including al-Qaeda—were threat­en­ing to attack the U.S. embassy in Cairo unless the noto­ri­ous Blind Sheikh—an Islamist hero held in prison in the U.S. in con­nec­tion to the first World Trade Cen­ter bombing—was released.  The date Sep­tem­ber 11 was also delib­er­ate­ly cho­sen to attack the embassy to com­mem­o­rate the ‘hero­ic’ Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 al-Qae­da strikes on Amer­i­ca. . . .”
4.–The Unit­ed States: ” . . . . first with Anne Pat­ter­son, and now with Sen­a­tors John McCain and Lind­say Gra­ham, keep pres­sur­ing Egypt to release Broth­er­hood lead­ers; McCain per­son­al­ly even vis­it­ed the civil­ian El-Shater, whose raid­ed home revealed the pass­port of Azzazi, whom Musa claims is the mur­der­er of Stevens. . . .”

Fol­low­ing the Beng­hazi dis­cus­sion, we recap an arti­cle about the Broth­er­hood and appar­ent Al-Qaeda/Beng­hazi col­lab­o­ra­tor Khairat El-Shater, not­ing the pow­er­ful res­o­nance between his and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s val­ues and those of the GOP and the cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ty:

1.–” . . . . the Brotherhood’s ide­ol­o­gy actu­al­ly has more in com­mon with America’s Repub­li­can Par­ty than with al-Qai­da. Few Amer­i­cans know it but the Broth­er­hood is a free-mar­ket par­ty led by wealthy busi­ness­men whose eco­nom­ic agen­da embraces pri­va­ti­za­tion and for­eign invest­ment while spurn­ing labor unions and the redis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth. Like the Repub­li­cans in the U.S., the finan­cial inter­ests of the party’s lead­er­ship of busi­ness­men and pro­fes­sion­als diverge sharply from those of its poor, social­ly con­ser­v­a­tive fol­low­ers. . . .”
2.–” . . . . Arguably the most pow­er­ful man in the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood is Khairat El-Shater, a mul­ti­mil­lion­aire tycoon whose finan­cial inter­ests extend into elec­tron­ics, man­u­fac­tur­ing and retail. A strong advo­cate of pri­va­ti­za­tion, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Mus­lim Broth­er­hood busi­ness­men who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Party’s impres­sive elec­toral vic­to­ry this win­ter and is now craft­ing the FJP’s eco­nom­ic agen­da. . . .”

We con­clude with infor­ma­tion about the train­ing of activists in high-tech and social media in order to launch the Arab Spring.

In a remark­able and very impor­tant new book, Yasha Levine has high­light­ed the role of U.S. tech per­son­nel in train­ing and prep­ping the Arab Spring online activists.

Note while read­ing the fol­low­ing excerpts of this remark­able and impor­tant book, that:

1.–The Tor net­work was devel­oped by, and used and com­pro­mised by, ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence.
2.–One of the pri­ma­ry advo­cates and spon­sors of the Tor net­work is the Broad­cast­ing Board of Gov­er­nors. As we saw in FTR #‘s 891, 895, is an exten­sion of the CIA.
3.–Jacob Appel­baum has been financed by the Broad­cast­ing Board of Gov­er­nors, advo­cates use of the Tor net­work, has helped Wik­iLeaks with its exten­sive use of the Tor net­work, and is a the­o­ret­i­cal accolyte of Ayn Rand.


FTR #904 Miscellaneous Articles and Updates

Begin­ning with an update on the inves­ti­ga­tion into the fate of Adolf Hitler, the broad­cast notes that asso­ciates of Simon Dun­stan and Ger­ard Williams (authors of “Grey Wolf”) received death threats in con­nec­tion with their research–this more than 70 years after the Fuehrer’s alleged “sui­cide.”

Fresh from his Sil­i­con Val­ley appear­ance, Naren­dra Modi has been actu­al­iz­ing the RSS’s Hindu/nationalist fas­cism, insti­tut­ing an online mon­i­tor­ing agency and beat­ing up stu­dent pro­test­ers in New Del­hi.

Much of the broad­cast details devel­op­ments in the world of high-tech, from appar­ent and ter­ri­fy­ing hacks to pre­dic­tions about the mas­sive replace­ment of work­ers by robots and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Aya­tol­lah Khome­ini’s net­work­ing with a Mus­lim-Broth­er­hood affil­i­ate; the appar­ent hack­ing of a Boston sub­way train; the hack­ing of a water treat­ment plant; review of Nazi hack­er and Glenn Green­wald crony Andrew Auern­heimer’s hack­ing of remote print­ers; review of the devo­lu­tion of Microsoft­’s Tay AI chat­bot into a Nazi; dis­cus­sion of the devel­op­ment of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence as the “next big thing” in tech­nol­o­gy; pro­jec­tions that 83% of jobs pay­ing under $20.00 an hour will be tech­no­log­i­cal­ly phased out; pro­jec­tion that more than 5 mil­lion con­struc­tion jobs will be replaced by robots and/or AI; the late Antonin Scali­a’s net­work­ing with the Hab­s­burg milieu.


FTR #899 Fara Mansoor on “The Deep October Surprise,” Part 4

This broad­cast con­cludes our review of Fara Man­soor’s hero­ic, ground-break­ing research on what we call “The Deep Octo­ber Sur­prise,” and ref­er­ences the his­tor­i­cal lessons to be drawn from the inquiry to the con­tem­po­rary polit­i­cal scene. Usu­al­ly, the term “Octo­ber Sur­prise” refers to an alleged deal between the Reagan/Bush cam­paign and the Khome­i­ni regime in Iran to with­hold the U.S. hostages tak­en from the Amer­i­can Embassy until after Jim­my Carter’s humil­i­a­tion and con­se­quent elec­tion defeat were assured. Fara’s research goes far­ther and deep­er, sug­gest­ing that the CIA learned of the Shah’s can­cer in 1974 (from for­mer CIA direc­tor Richard Helms), with­held the infor­ma­tion from Jim­my Carter, installed Khome­ini’s Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ists as an anti-com­mu­nist bul­wark on the Sovi­et Union’s South­ern flank and then micro-man­aged the hostage cri­sis to insure the ascen­sion of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Con­tra Scan­dal was an out­growth of this dynam­ic. In this pro­gram, we flesh out the net­work­ing involv­ing the Shah’s intel­li­gence spe­cial­ist Hos­sein Far­doust, who select­ed the per­son­nel for Khome­ini’s mil­i­tary gen­er­al staff and became the head of his secret police. Anoth­er of the Bush/CIA operatives–Ibrahim Yazdi–helped Khome­i­ni move from Iraq to Paris, served as his de fac­to chief of staff in Paris, served as his PR flack in the U.S., and was instru­men­tal in maneu­ver­ing Mashal­lah Khashani into place as secu­ri­ty coor­di­na­tor for the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. Pro­gram High­lights Include: Khashani’s lead­er­ship in the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Novem­ber of 1979; the par­tial dis­arm­ing of the Marine guards at the embassy pri­or to the takeover; a pri­or takeover attempt on 2/14/1979 by Khome­i­ni forces dis­guised as “left­ists;” net­work­ing between some of Far­doust’s selec­tions for Khome­ini’s gen­er­al staff and promi­nent fig­ures in the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal; the counter-ter­ror­ism back­ground of Lin­da Tripp, the Bush White House holdover who helped de-sta­bi­lize the Bill Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion; Mitt Rom­ney backer and FBI direc­tor James Comey’s ini­ti­a­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion of Hillary Clin­ton’s e‑mail serv­er.


FTR #898 Fara Mansoor on “The Deep October Surprise,” Part 3

With the recent Iran­ian nuclear deal and the lift­ing of eco­nom­ic sanc­tions against Iran, the his­to­ry of U.S./Iranian rela­tions has attained greater rel­e­vance. In that con­text, we present the third of sev­er­al shows revis­it­ing Fara Man­soor’s land­mark research on what we have termed the “Deep Octo­ber Sur­prise.” Fara’s research sug­gests that the CIA learned of the Shah’s can­cer in 1974 (from for­mer CIA direc­tor Richard Helms), with­held the infor­ma­tion from Jim­my Carter, installed Khome­ini’s Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ists as an anti-com­mu­nist bul­wark on the Sovi­et Union’s South­ern flank and then micro-man­aged the hostage cri­sis to insure the ascen­sion of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. After a series of vio­lent inci­dents that sowed chaos in Iran, the Shah him­self real­ized that U.S. intel­li­gence was engi­neer­ing his removal. ” . . . . By late August [of 1977], the Shah was total­ly con­fused. U.S. Ambas­sador Sul­li­van record­ed the Shah’s plead­ings over the out­break of vio­lence: ‘He said the pat­tern was wide­spread and that it was like an out­break of a sud­den rash in the country…it gave evi­dence of sophis­ti­cat­ed plan­ning and was not the work of spon­ta­neous oppositionists…the Shah pre­sent­ed that it was the work of for­eign intrigue…this intrigue went beyond the capa­bil­i­ties of the Sovi­et KGB and must, there­fore, also involve British and Amer­i­can CIA. The Shah went on to ask ‘Why was the CIA sud­den­ly turn­ing against him? What had he done to deserve this sort of action from the Unit­ed States?’ . . . .” Pro­gram High­lights Include: the dis­ap­pear­ance and prob­a­ble assas­si­na­tion in Libya of a key Shi­ite cler­i­cal rival of Khomeini’s–Ayatollah Mosa Sadr; a provo­ca­tion in which a the­ater was burned down, killing 750 occupants–an attack blamed on the SAVAK and the Shah; an arti­cle placed in an Iran­ian paper that inflamed the pop­u­lace against the Shah and coa­lesced the Shi­ite cler­gy against him; key Shah aide Gen­er­al Hos­sein Far­doust’s author­ship of the provoca­tive arti­cle; the piv­otal role played in “the Deep Octo­ber Sur­prise” by Dr. Ibrahim Yaz­di; the Nazi intel­li­gence back­ground of Fazol­lah Zahe­di, who replaced Mohammed Mossadegh after the CIA coup in 1953.


FTR #897 Fara Mansoor on the “Deep October Surprise,” Part 2

This broad­cast is the sec­ond of sev­er­al pro­grams review­ing and high­light­ing mate­r­i­al first pre­sent­ed in ear­ly 1993, fea­tur­ing the land­mark research of Fara Man­soor, a hero­ic, long­time mem­ber of the Iran­ian resis­tance. Usu­al­ly, the term “Octo­ber Sur­prise” refers to an allege deal between the Reagan/Bush cam­paign and the Khome­i­ni regime in Iran to with­hold the U.S. hostages tak­en from the Amer­i­can Embassy until after Jim­my Carter’s humil­i­a­tion and con­se­quent elec­tion defeat were assured. Fara’s research goes far­ther and deep­er, sug­gest­ing that the CIA learned of the Shah’s can­cer in 1974 (from for­mer CIA direc­tor Richard Helms), with­held the infor­ma­tion from Jim­my Carter, installed Khome­ini’s Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ists as an anti-com­mu­nist bul­wark on the Sovi­et Union’s South­ern flank and then micro-man­aged the hostage cri­sis to insure the ascen­sion of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Con­tra Scan­dal was an out­growth of this dynam­ic. In this pro­gram we present analy­sis of the first phase(s) of the oper­a­tion, not­ing that for­mer CIA direc­tor Richard Helms learned of the Shah’s can­cer in 1975 from Gen­er­al Hos­sein Far­doust. With­hold­ing this infor­ma­tion from Pres­i­dent Carter, the CIA fed the admin­is­tra­tion dis­in­for­ma­tion assert­ing that the Shah’s reign well into the 1980’s was assured. Mean­while, the Agency was maneu­ver­ing to install Khome­i­ni as a bul­wark against the left, and, as we shall see, a vehi­cle to desta­bi­lize the Carter admin­is­tra­tion and guar­an­tee the vic­to­ry of the Reagan/Bush team in the 1980 elec­tions. Pro­gram High­lights Include: the pres­ence in Iran in April of 1978 of George H.W. Bush, Ronald Rea­gan and Mar­garet Thatch­er; the long asso­ci­a­tion of the Shah-to-be, Richard Helms and Gen­er­al Hos­sein Far­doust dat­ing to their days togeth­er in a Swiss board­ing school; Carter’s “Hal­loween mas­sacre” in which he fired some 800 CIA covert oper­a­tors, who coa­lesced as part of the Bush team that installed Khome­i­ni and the fun­da­men­tal­ists in pow­er.


FTR #896 Fara Mansoor on “The Deep October Surprise,” Part 1

This broad­cast begins sev­er­al pro­grams review­ing and high­light­ing mate­r­i­al first pre­sent­ed in ear­ly 1993, fea­tur­ing the land­mark research of Fara Man­soor, a long­time, hero­ic mem­ber of the Iran­ian resis­tance. Usu­al­ly, the term “Octo­ber Sur­prise” refers to an alleged deal between the Reagan/Bush cam­paign and the Khome­i­ni regime in Iran to with­hold the U.S. hostages tak­en from the Amer­i­can Embassy until after Jim­my Carter’s humil­i­a­tion and con­se­quent elec­tion defeat were assured. Fara’s research goes far­ther and deep­er, sug­gest­ing that the CIA learned of the Shah’s can­cer in 1974 (from for­mer CIA direc­tor Richard Helms), with­held the infor­ma­tion from Jim­my Carter, installed Khome­ini’s Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ists as an anti-com­mu­nist bul­wark on the Sovi­et Union’s South­ern flank and then micro-man­aged the hostage cri­sis to insure the ascen­sion of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Con­tra Scan­dal was an out­growth of this dynam­ic. In this pro­gram, we begin our analy­sis with an overview of the covert oper­a­tion, both in the U.S. and Iran, high­light­ing the key play­ers and the net­work­ing in which they engaged to ensure Carter’s down­fall and Khome­ini’s rise to pow­er. Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est is the “deep-net­work­ing” between U.S. oper­a­tives such as Richard Cot­tam and Iran­ian agents such as Gen­er­al Hos­sein Far­doust and Vial­lol­lah Qarani. Cot­tam, Far­doust and Qarani’s asso­ci­a­tion stretch from the 1953 coup that installed the Shah and the 1979 “op” that installed Khome­i­ni in Iran and the Reagan/Bush team in the U.S. The pro­gram high­lights the extent to which Amer­i­can domes­tic pol­i­tics, nation­al secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy and over­seas diplo­ma­cy are con­trolled by what amounts to a “secret state.”


FTR #821 Continuity of Government, the JFK Assassination and Covert Operations

Ana­lyz­ing the role of net­works orig­i­nal­ly set up to per­pet­u­ate and sus­tain gov­ern­ment in the event of nuclear war, this pro­gram high­lights the role of Con­ti­nu­ity of Gov­ern­ment (COG) ele­ments in a num­ber of domes­tic and/or ille­gal covert oper­a­tions. With its own com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work, the COG has proved an effec­tive vehi­cle for side­step­ping nor­mal oper­a­tional chan­nels in order to real­ize nefar­i­ous aims. The COG-relat­ed net­works and indi­vid­u­als have fig­ured promi­nent­ly in aspects of the JFK assas­si­na­tion, Water­gate, the Octo­ber Sur­prise, the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal and events pur­suant to the 9/11 attacks. Dick Cheney and Don­ald Rums­feld are two of the promi­nent fig­ures in the COG net­works and have been present in the Nixon/Ford, Reagan/Bush, Clin­ton and George W. Bush admin­is­tra­tions.