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

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 #869 The Assassination of Olof Palme, Part 2

Con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sion and analy­sis from FTR #868, this pro­gram under­scores the pos­si­ble role of Swedish and Scan­di­na­vian fas­cists over­lap­ping both WACL and Sapo, the Swedish intel­li­gence ser­vice. Involved with escape net­works forged to aid the inter­na­tion­al flight from jus­tice of fas­cists and Nazis, the prin­ci­pals in these net­works exhib­it­ed behav­ior around the time of the Palme killing that is sug­ges­tive. Worth not­ing in this regard is the late Stieg Larsson’s inves­ti­ga­tion of the Palme killing, which point­ed in the direc­tion of some of the same fig­ures exam­ined in the Kruger essay. The pro­gram con­cludes with an exam­i­na­tion of the Bofors muni­tions firm and its cor­po­rate links to Third Reich indus­try and the post­war Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work, with which it may well be affil­i­at­ed.


FTR #868: The Assassination of Olof Palme, Part 1

The first of two pro­grams high­light­ing the unsolved 1986 assas­si­na­tion of Swedish Prime Min­is­ter Olof Palme, the broad­cast fea­tures a 1988 arti­cle by the bril­liant free­lance Dan­ish jour­nal­ist Hen­rik Kruger, author of “The Great Hero­in Coup: Drugs, Intel­li­gence and Inter­na­tion­al Fas­cism.” Through this exam­i­na­tion of the inter­sect­ed net­works that Kruger has termed (in “The Great Hero­in Coup”) “The Inter­na­tion­al Fascista,” we are able to observe the ele­ments of Oper­a­tion Con­dor, key indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions com­pris­ing the for­mer World Anti-Com­mu­nist League, indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions under­ly­ing “the Strat­e­gy of Ten­sion” in Italy, as well as the cast of char­ac­ters that man­aged the Iran-Con­tra machi­na­tions. Long the focal point of death threats and assas­si­na­tion attempts, Palme had earned the lethal ire of fas­cists in North and South Amer­i­ca, as well as Europe. The fail­ure to solve the killing, despite the pas­sage of almost 30 years and some very strong evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries, under­scores the grav­i­tas of the forces that destroyed Palme. Kruger’s arti­cle also serves as some­thing of an “in vit­ro” win­dow into many of the polit­i­cal net­works we have exam­ined over the years.


The Assassination of Olof Palme

In our ongo­ing series of inter­views with Peter Lev­en­da, the author of “The Hitler Lega­cy,” we have high­light­ed points of dis­cus­sion relat­ing to WACL, Oper­a­tion Con­dor, the Iran/Contra scan­dal and oth­er ele­ments that might not be famil­iar to recent/younger read­ers and lis­ten­ers. Peter detailed his hair-rais­ing vis­it to Colo­nia Dig­nidad in FTR #839. While going through some box­es in stor­age, we came across an old essay by the bril­liant Dan­ish jour­nal­ist Hen­rik Kruger, author of “The Great Hero­in Coup,” ana­lyz­ing the unsolved 1986 assas­si­na­tion of Swedish prime min­is­ter Olof Palme. We present that arti­cle here, in order to famil­iar­ize younger read­ers and lis­ten­ers with indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions we haven’t cov­ered in decades. All of the con­tents of this web­site as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 35+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of video­taped lec­tures are avail­able on a 32GB flash dri­ve. Dave offers his pro­grams and arti­cles for free–your sup­port is very much appre­ci­at­ed.


Roberto Calvi Linked to Pablo Escobar

It is now rel­a­tive­ly well known that the late Pablo Esco­bar and the asso­ci­at­ed Medellin Car­tel were heav­i­ly involved with the Iran-Con­tra cocaine traf­fic of the 1980’s. Press accounts have now sur­faced in Italy and the UK about Esco­bar hav­ing banked some of his pro­ceeds with Rober­to Calvi’s Ban­co Ambrosiano. Found mur­dered in Lon­don in late 1982, Calvi was the advis­er to the IOR, hav­ing suc­ceed­ed the late Michele Sin­dona in that regard. (Like Calvi, Sin­dona was a mem­ber of the Licio Gel­li’s P‑2 Lodge.) Dis­clo­sure of the Calvi/Escobar link sug­gests anoth­er link between the Iran-Con­tra affair and the Stibam arms for drugs ring that heav­i­ly over­lapped the milieu of the P‑2, Vat­i­can Bank and the Ban­co Ambrosiano.


Thompson Agonistes: The Dissent and Subsequent Disappearance of A CIA Officer

Jim Thomp­son, CIA offi­cer who open­ly crit­i­cized the Agen­cy’s pol­i­cy in Asia dis­ap­peared from the face of the earth.


FTR #574 Interview with Daniel Hopsicker – Victor Kozeny’s Last Stan

Activ­i­ties of 9/11 hijack­er Mohamed Atta in Flori­da; Russ­ian drug smug­gling net­works; Edgar Valles Diaz and Igor Rabaev.