PJ 17
CHAPTER 17
THE NEWS DESK
7/7/94 Rick Martin
RUSSIAN CHEMICAL WEAPONS
LISTEN UP!
In a conversation this week with the people at the Militia Of Montana (MOM): "It is extremely clear to me, with the BMP-40 equipment here, with the gassification trucks out of Mississippi being shipped on the same trains that the BMP-40s are, it's just hard to argue anymore. Anyone who argues is in denial as far as I'm concerned.
"Chemical warfare is the easiest way. They have things to take care of the human life very rapidly, without damaging the environment. Their whole project is to reduce the world's population anyway".
In an article from the June 27 edition of SPOTLIGHT, written by Mike Blair,
Quoting:
As the U.S. Congress considers ratification of the so-called Chemical Weapons Convention signed last year in Paris by 156 nations, including the new Russian republic and the United States, Russian scientists are secretly developing new toxic weapons, far more deadly than even the very worst currently in U.S. stockpiles.
The effects of deadly nerve gas weapons, first developed by the Germans during World War I, are now becoming apparent to Americans. It is acknowledged by U.S. experts that primitive types, either released by Iraq or as a result of aircraft bombing Iraqi chemical weapons arsenals during the recent Persian Gulf War, are the cause of various maladies afflicting thousands of U.S. servicemen who served in the Middle East conflict. They came in contact with only low levels of the toxins.
Vil Mirzyanov, a former top Soviet chemical weapons scientist, has warned that the Russian military is currently violating the convention's convenants and secretly developing and stockpiling massive amounts of new chemical weapons that are not known to the West and can cause instant death with only traces coming in contact with the skin.
Mirzyanov, who has been jailed in Russia for revealing details of the Russians' top secret chemical weapons development, stated in an article in a recent issue of the WALL STREET JOURNAL that some of the weapons have a killing efficiency surpassing 'any known toxin by a factor of five to eight'.
Secretly, Mirzyanov has warned, the Russians have produced three new, extremely deadly toxic weapons, far worse than anything ever developed by scientists in either the so-called East or West.
Between 1985 and 1991, as the Soviet Union was breaking down its barriers to the West, its laboratories were creating a weapon referred to as Substance A-230.
Tests of the new chemical toxin were undertaken on a massive scale, according to Mirzyanov, on the Russians' proving grounds located near Nukus in Uzbekistan.
Victor Petrunin, director of the State All-Union Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, told Mirzyanov that the test results were outstanding, meaning the toxins were dreadfully effective in killing humans.
Then, according to Mirzyanov, another so-called binary chemical weapon was synthesized called
A-232, which is similar to A-230. It is a part of a new ultra-lethal weapon on the Russian "Novichok" class, which can be disguised as common agricultural chemicals. Since the U.S. does not know the formula, its inspectors cannot identify the compounds, the Russian scientist warned.
Binary chemical weapons are those which can be broken down into two relatively harmless chemicals. However, when they are combined, after delivery by a guided missile, shell or some other weapons system, they become a deadly chemical toxin. In their individual states they can be easily disguised as agricultural chemicals.
During the same period that A-232 was produced the Soviet scientists were also developing a binary weapon based on a compound known as Substance 33, which passed tests and was put into production by the Red Army. Russian scientists have now produced, according to Mirzyanov, some 15,000 tons of the deadly chemical in the city of Novocheboksarsk in the upper Volga region, between Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. The quantity available to Russian Army units has the potential for killing millions.
SOLAR WARNING
Quoting an article from the June 29 edition of the JOHNSON CITY PRESS (TN), written by Randolph E. Schmid, WASHINGTON--Reasons to avoid the midday sun sound like a litany of physical ills in modern America--skin cancer, cataracts, damaged immune system, premature aging. Now Americans will at least have guidelines [see chart below] to how bad it is out there.
The government launched a new daily solar warning index on Tuesday, an effort to help people avoid becoming part of the annual toll of more than 700,000 new cases of skin cancer and more than a million cataract operations.
The National Weather Service will issue daily forecasts of ultraviolet light exposure for 58 cities across the nation.
The scale will be 1-10 in most areas, rising to 1-15 in regions that receive stronger solar radiation. The higher the number the greater the danger.
The goal, officials agreed, is to remind people of the danger so they will use sunscreens and sunglasses and reduce exposure to themselves and their children.
INNER CITY BLUES
In a recent edition of the JOHNSON CITY PRESS, from an article written by Sharon Cohen, CHICAGO--
Quoting:
Ella Renfro scurries home from work nightly through an intimidating obstacle course: High-rises scarred by graffiti and grime. Bullet-shattered windows. Gang members lurking in dark stairwells.
She knows it can be dangerous outside. Inside, too, sometimes. There's no guarantee of safety at Stateway Gardens.
Ella Renfro wants a home where she doesn't have to hunker in her inner hallway to avoid stray gunfire or explain to her two children why a 13-year-old was killed outside their South Side apartment window. For now, though, she can't afford to move. So she remains in public housing.
Thirty years after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty, the inspiring rhetoric is gone, the idealism has faded and urban America is more isolated, more desperate--and much poorer.
About 2.6 million people lived in extreme poverty in the 100 largest central cities in 1990, more than twice the 1.2 million who lived there two decades earlier, according to one study.
Cities are not only poorer, they're meaner. Jobs are fewer, guns and gangs more plentiful. Life seems shorter, death more capricious.
Like an American apartheid, many inner cities have become vast wastelands of abandoned factories, weed-filled lots and crumbling houses, where minorities often live without jobs, without hope and sometimes without even venturing a few miles from their door.
'There's little doubt our cities continue to spiral downward despite encouraging signs and pockets of plenty', said Jack Kasarda, an urban affairs expert and director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina.
In many big cities, steel mills, meatpacking houses and auto plants that once offered decent wages to unskilled workers have closed. Other businesses have relocated to largely white suburbs. Whites and middle-class blacks have fled, too.
And many of those left behind are black. In 1990, about 6 million blacks lived in extreme poverty tracts (where 40 percent or more of the residents are poor, a 36 percent increase over a decade earlier, according to Paul Jargowsky, assistant professor of political economy at the University of Texas.
The mood is far grimmer than the 1960s when Congress was passing landmark civil rights bills, poverty-fighting plans were springing up everywhere and America was awash in promise.
One big obstacle is getting people to believe in themselves, says Smith Wiiams, a deacon at Martin's Progressive Community Church, who runs a mentoring program for boys.
"There is a feeling that I am nothing, that nothing can come from me, that there is no future, that there is no end to the bottom of this pit that I'm in, so why do anything"?
HATE CRIMES
In an article from the June 29 edition of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, BERLIN--
Quoting:
FBI Director Louis Freeh said Tuesday that violence against minorities in the United States has reached 'very alarming' levels that equal or surpass the recent surge of neo-Nazi violence in Germany.
Releasing a first-of-its-kind study for the United States, Freeh said 7,684 hate crimes were reported in 1993. Even that figure is low since police agencies contributing to the study represent only 56 percent of the population.
Freeh, starting an eight-day tour of Eastern Europe and Russia, said reported crimes motivated by prejudice in the United States represent "a small percentage of the overall problem", since "thousands more go unreported". A 1992 law requires the FBI to compile the report, but local police agencies aren't required to supply hate-crime data to the FBI.
Attacks against individuals accounted for 70 percent of the hate-crime incidents reported in 1993
--with 20 of them murders.
The FBI study said racial prejudice was the most common motivation for hate crimes, accounting for 62 percent of all such reported incidents. Religious prejudice was behind 18 percent of the incidents and bias against sexual orientation accounted for 12 percent.
Many of America's hate crimes are unplanned and spontaneous, authorities say, unlike the organized neo-Nazi violence that has plagued Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
CAMP DAVID RECHARGE
In a recent article from THE NEW YORK TIMES, written by Douglas Jehl, "Bill Clinton finally has decided that there's nothing wrong with a presidential retreat.
"For his first 17 months in office, Clinton rarely set foot in Camp David, the rustic compound that his predecessors loved but he shunned as too remote. But now, the president who cannot get enough human contact appears to have discovered a yearning for peace and quiet.
"By the time they returned to the White House on Sunday night, advisers who met with them said, they were abuzz about what a difference a weekend [replacement?] can make".
BLOOD SUBSTITUTE?
In an article from the June 28 edition of THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, INDIANAPOLIS--
Quoting:
Eli Lilly & Co. has formed a strategic alliance with Somatogen, Inc. to develop a blood substitute that is Somatogen's leading product, the companies said Monday.
Under the agreement, Indianapolis-based Lilly will invest $20 million in exchange for Somatogen common stock.
The expected market for artificial blood has lured as many as 20 companies worldwide into the contest for the first product, industry sources said.
The two companies jointly will promote and market the product in North America, splitting the costs and sharing the profits.
NORTH & BUSH & DRUGS
In an article from the June 16 edition of the MODESTO BEE, AUSTIN, Texas--
Quoting:
Oliver North knew large shipments of cocaine were being smuggled into the United States by mercenary pilots he'd hired to assist Contras in Nicaragua, according to a former federal agent.
Celerino "Cele" Castillo, who was a supervisory agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration in El Salvador, said he told the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador as well as then Vice- President Bush at a 1986 cocktail party about the drug smuggling in North's Contras supply operation.
No action was taken, Castillo said.
"(Former Marine Lt. Col.) Oliver North was running the operation. His pilots were known drug traffickers listed in government files and these people were being given U.S. visas", Castillo said Thursday in a telephone interview.
Castillo's account was first told to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, a 10,000 circulation magazine that carries the story in its Friday issue. He also has written a book due out next month on the North case.
North, the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat from Virginia, denied Castillo's allegations.
Castillo resigned from the DEA in 1992 and now works as a private investigator in McAllen, Texas. He said he was not paid for his story.
HONOLULU LAW
In an article from the June 24 edition of the MODESTO BEE, HAWAII--"The governor has signed a bill banning same-sex marriages, a measure lawmakers approved after the state Supreme Court said existing prohibitions on homosexual matrimony may be unconstitutional. The bill signed by Gov. John Waihee on Wednesday says the high court ruling encroached on the Legislature's lawmaking function and infringed on the separation of powers of the respective branches of state government".
VOLCANIC ATTRACTION
In an article from the July 4 edition of THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, written by Kenneth Reich--
Quoting:
The number of people who live in areas at risk from volcanic eruptions will reach 500 million by the year 2000, according to a report by scientists of the U.S. Geological Survey.
"About 90% of the threatened people will live along the subduction zones of the Pacific Rim's
so-called Ring of Fire, where 75% of Earth's 850 active volcanoes are found...".
TRANSPLANTS
In an article from the June 25 edition of the MODESTO BEE, LONDON--
Quoting:
Stephen Hyett, 32, who received six transplanted organs, was released from a hospital Friday, but doctors say he still has a long way to go in his recovery. Hyett received a liver, kidney, stomach, duodenum, small intestine and pancreas in March at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. The operation had not been announced previously. Hyett has a condition called Gardner's Syndrome, which can cause deadly tumors in the bowel and duodenum.
CLARK CLIFFORD
In an article from the July 4 edition of THE LOS ANGELES TIMES--
Quoting:
Lawyers and accountants trying to collect money for depositors of the failed bank have filed a $55 million civil lawsuit against New York attorney and financier Robert Altman and former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, the WASHINGTON POST reported. The paper said the suit was filed Friday in federal court in the District of [Criminals] Columbia. The suit alleges that Clifford and Altman had 'an irreconcilable conflict of interest' because they served as lawyers both for Bank of Credit and Commerce International and for First American Bankshares Inc., according to court documents.
JUSTICE SCALIA
In an article appearing in the July 4 edition of THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, WASHINGTON--
Quoting:
Justice Antonin Scalia thinks some of the Supreme Court's opinions are irrational, disturbing or downright preposterous--and he isn't shy about saying so.
In the court's term that ended last week, Scalia stepped up his take-no-prisoners style of dissenting from decisions he considers wrongheaded. It's colorful reading for both the liberals who love to hate him and the conservatives who cheer him on.
"Today's opinion is an inspiring demonstration of just how thoroughly up-to-date and right-thinking we justices are in matters pertaining to the sexes", he wrote sarcastically when the court ruled in April that people cannot be excluded from trial juries because of their sex.
"Times and trends do change, and unisex is unquestionably in fashion", Scalia said.
Scalia's writing shows deep conviction about the law, said conservative legal observer Bruce Fein. Scalia, nominated to the high court by President Reagan in 1986, contends the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original intent of its authors. [Amen].
JIMSON WEED
In an article from the July 3 edition of THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, EL PASO, Texas--
Quoting:
Jeff Fierro's face was bleeding from tiny nicks and scrapes as he staggered home through the desert brush from a party turned nightmare.
Hallucinating after drinking a tea brewed from poisonous jimson weed, the youth said he toppled repeatedly as he tried to sit on imagined chairs and talk to non-existent girls.
Behind him in the desert were the bodies of two of his closest friends.
All apparently were victims of what El Paso teens jokingly call poor man's peyote--a plant officials fear may be Texas' latest drug fad.
Jimson weed and its cousins grow wild throughout much of Texas. Its reputation as a nasty, potentially deadly hallucinogenic stretches to antiquity.
Within the past six months, health officials report, as many as 10 young people have been hospitalized for jimson weed poisoning in El Paso County.
The number of cases is small, but growing. The deaths of Jess's friends--Goliath Martinez and Jefferson Brown--thought linked to the drug, would be the first such deaths reported in Texas in recent history.
"The people who have used this in the past tell me the hallucinations are terrible", said Dr. John Haynes Jr. of the El Paso Poison Control Center. "We want to get out the word there is a danger".
Hayes said the plant--whose flowers, leaves, roots and stems all are poisonous--may cause death by dehydration, raising the victim's temperature to as high as 106 degrees. A secondary cause of death, some experts say, is drowning, as disoriented victims plunge into rivers to satisfy an unquenchable thirst.
GOV, CUOMO.
In an article from the July 2 edition of THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, ALBANY, NY.--
Quoting:
Just four days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a public school district created specially for ultra-Orthodox jews was unconstitutional, Gov. Mario Cuomo and legislative leaders reached agreement Friday on a bill that would allow the district to continue operating.
The legislation is intended to address constitutional issues raised by the high court when it struck down the Kiryas Joel Village School District in Orange County. The district was created by the governor and Legislature in 1989 to serve about 200 Satmar Hasidic children with disabilities.
The Hasidic parents did not want to send their children to the local public schools but wanted to receive federal and state aid to pay for special education.
Critics of the arrangement contend that it fragments education at a time when the state is trying to consolidate school districts, and argues that the Legislature was responding to the political power of the Hasidim.
The Supreme Court majority had ruled that establishing the district violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
But in drafting their bill, the legislators seized on an opening they thought was supplied by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who said in a concurring opinion that the district might have been permissible if it had been created through legislation applicable to any municipality, not just Kiryas Joel, a village about 50 miles northwest of Manhattan whose residents are all Satmar Hasidim.
The lawmakers said their new bill would meet that standard by allowing all municipalities that fit specific criteria to establish new school districts.
EXORCISM
In an article from the July 4 edition of THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, PARIS--
Quoting:
Muslim moderates expressed outrage Sunday at the torture death of a Muslim woman whose brother and two clerics tried to exorcise her.
The Union of Muslim Families denounced "Middle Age practices" used in the exorcism, but also faulted religious and state authorities for failing to regulate clerics in a nation with 2.5 million Muslims.
Louisa Lardjoune, a 19-year-old French woman of Algerian heritage, died in a hospital Friday in the northern border town of Roubaix after being tortured during a five-hour exorcism.
On Saturday, authorities charged her brother Tahar, 44; Mohammed Kerzazi, 30, the imam or chief cleric of the Archimede mosque; and Morad Selmane, 30, the mosque president, with "torture and acts of barbary causing death".
Final autopsy results were pending, but investigators said Lardjoune most likely died from a combination of strangulation, flagellation and the forcing of more than a gallon of salt water down her throat.
"The devil hates salt water", investigators quoted Jerzazu as saying. "It's the devil that killed Louisa".
The practices constitute "a grave deviation from Islam", said the Union of Muslim Families.
"Islam can and must integrate itself in France and respect French norms", the group said. "Today it is up to French Muslims to take charge".
* * * *
7/7/94 By Ed Cleary
NUMBER ONE
In an article from the June 29 edition of the Johnson City Press, Washington, "The United States cemented its position as the largest debtor nation last year, in hock to the rest of the world to the tune of $555.7 billion.
"The Commerce Department said Tuesday that America's net debtor position worsened by 9.4 percent from a revised level of $507.94 billion as foreign holdings in the United States grew more than U.S. assets abroad.
"Analysts said that the new report was a stark reminder that foreigners have a growing influence over Americans' economic fate. They said this influence is showing up in the current selloff of the dollar that has sent the currency's value plunging to a postwar low against the Japanese yen".
NO! NO! NOT THAT
In an article from the June 29 edition of the Johnson City Press, Charleston, S.C., "If Shannon Faulkner wants to be the first woman to march with The Citadel's all-male corps of cadets she should have to look like one, crew cut and all, the college told a judge.
"Her lawyers, however, said Tuesday that the requirements would be punitive and inconsistent with the way the military treats women.
"Both sides in the sex discrimination lawsuit submitted plans Monday to U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck for admitting Ms. Faulkner to the state-supported military school.
"The judge will rule next month whether she will be admitted. Houck also has said he may hold a hearing to resolve the difference in the plans.
"The Citadel proposes that Ms. Faulkner continue as a day student next school year, and then
move into a private room in the college infirmary and begin military training in the fall of 1995.
Ms. Faulkner wants to be allowed in the barracks and begin training this fall".
ANIMAL SPARE PARTS
In an article from the June 16 edition of The European, "A bull in the Netherlands called Herman can now breed female offspring with a modified gene that enables them to produce human milk protein. There are pigs in Britain with human lungs and hearts. A British mouse has been genetically altered to carry an antibody which contains an anti-cancer drug acceptable to humans.
"In other words, the divisions between men and beasts are being blurred, and transgenic animals, as these hybrids are known, could hold the key to an entirely new kind of medicine. Pigs are the favorite for growing substitute human organs because of their size and genetic make-up; human genes are inserted into fertilized sows' eggs, which are reintroduced into the sow and brought to term in the usual way. But sheep and cows are also popular transgenic subjects.
"Some people are already postulating a future in which herds of transgenic animals will live on five-star farms, ready to supply human proteins, antibodies and organs for transplant operations. Some even speculate that the wealthy will keep sheep and pigs carrying transgenic copies of their own vital parts which can be transplanted whenever the originals start to wear out".
PUBLIC HOUSING CLEANING
In an article from the June 25 edition of the Kansas City Star, "Federal Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros has given the go-ahead to public housing authorities across the country to reinstitute drug and gun sweeps, outlawed earlier this year by a federal judge in Chicago.
"Earlier this year police and housing officials seized more than 1,400 firearms in sweeps of Chicago's vast public housing network. Then the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit and in April a federal judge there branded the warrantless searches unconstitutional and halted them.
"In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Cisneros said an outbreak of shootings after the Chicago court ruling persuaded President Clinton to order him and Attorney General Janet Reno to find ways to make the searches constitutional".
MONDEX
ELECTRONIC MONEY
In an article from the June 16 edition of The European, "One issue actively occupying the European Monetary Institute is the 'smart' cashcard. Banks and telecommunications networks in Portugal, France, Germany and Denmark are working on new systems to replace old-fashioned notes and coins with smart cashcards, credit-card-sized pieces of plastic, each containing a computer chip, some software and--most important--electronic money. The furthest advanced of these systems is Mondex, a British innovation being developed by the National Westminster and Midland Banks of British Telecom. If it takes off, Mondex will become the first global electronic cash system, enabling us to "fill" our smart cards with money, in the form of electronic blips--either by swiping them through a cashpoint machine, or through a telephone terminal dialed through to your bank account.
"You simply present your card to the retailer, restaurateur, windowcleaner or whomever, who swipes the card through a reader and credits himself with the same number of blips that he takes off you. When he wants to bank his takings--or spend them--he swipes his card through the reading machine and loads up with the credits he's taken since the last swipe. There is no need to go through a central processing agency--a bank or credit card firm--to get at the money. The moment you swipe the card, the cash is transferred.
"The European Monetary Institute is naturally concerned with questions of security and encryption and there may have to be amendments to EU law. But the advantages in convenience and speed could be huge; and you can hold up to five currencies at once on a Mondex".
EARTHOUAKE WARNING
In an article written by Gwenn H. Wycoff from the Summer 1994 edition of Perceptions, "In an interview with Jack Cole, I found a man dedicated to serving humanity. He has researched ancient writings, mythical tales, and unraveled Earth's secrets for fifteen years.
"An odd thing occurred one day as he worked to repair a radio; the AM speaker emitted a strange thump. Four days later there was an earthquake.
"Most people would never connect the two events. But, Jack Cole connected them, and knew he had discovered something profound. In his "ah hah!" his passion was born. Could he find a way to save lives by determining the cause of earthquakes? He's never been the same.
"Even though his predictive accuracy only runs 50%, that's an accuracy rate better than anyone else.
"On top of his office building, a huge antenna connects to his computer system. In his office one screen constantly displays the oscillation of the Earth's vibratory field, another its natural wave form.
"Why, with such sophistication is Mr. Cole wrong 50% of the time? He can see when the energy shifts and builds, but he has not yet determined the blocking agent.
"Before each major quake he notifies over 300 officials. This includes police, fire departments officials, leaders of cities, counties and the State. Yet those notified have never passed his information on to the people.
"When asked why, Mr. Cole hesitates to explain and is clearly uncomfortable with his answer,
"To divert a disaster is not economically viable. Industry can make more money on disaster than they can if there is no disaster. When one looks at soaring sales after an earthquake, it is fairly obvious.
"And where was Jack Cole when the January 17 earthquake engulfed the greater Los Angeles area? Away on business to watch an earthquake he knew would be 7.0 or better.
"Ah, yes, that is: 7.0 or better. According to his research it was between a 7.2 and 7.4. And why was this not announced?. He advised that the California Code stipulates 'tax exemption' when a quake is greater than 7.0. [Editor's note: Yes indeed, the above is correct and CONTACT has had independent verification of the above since the week after that January 17 shaker--right from a source at Cal. Tech. 's Seismology Lab in Pasadena! It was reported to us as 7.2 to 7.4 magnitude.]
"So what is Earth's mystery? He has discovered, 'Earth is a gigantic fluid ball, held together by magnetic fields. What I see on the screens is the natural flow of energy within this fluid. When it is disturbed, the pulse and thump occur'.
"Above the area where an earthquake is likely to happen, strange lights appear that look like flying saucers, and other weird bright-light phenomena. Coles explained, 'It is the electric sparks caused by the internal pressurized combustion of the crystals within the Earth which cause the strange lights. This is why people think space ships appear before and after earthquakes'.
"There is a volunteer telephone tree to network his forecast throughout the nation. Anyone can be on this tree for a nominal fee. To continue this service Mr. Cole is desperately in need of funding. If people want to donate to this cause, call (209) 569- 1034 or send checks or money orders to Mr. Jack Cole, 5542 Monterey Road, No. 333, San Jose, California 95138. He will send a short video of his television interviews. He also has video and audio cassettes for sale".
CIA
The U.S. News & World Report cover of July 4, 1994 was a special report labeled "The CIA's Darkest Secrets". It is a glaring example of a lie in full bloom if it is read at face value and accepted as truthful reporting.
The same writing is a brilliant demonstration of the axiom, "The Truth shall set you free". Free from what? From a lie embedded in most minds and being extended wide and high and deep worldwide.
This "investigative" report OMITS in its entirety what the CIA is all about from its origin, its continuing treasonable and criminal activities, its "alternate" financing, extracted buying and selling in a worldwide drug and weapons market, and the true nature of its present policy, agenda and personnel.
The report does include lots of canned CIA chit-chat, insignificant pros and cons, the ducks set up and shot down, distractions galore and mis-dis-information in abundance.
This investigation has a byline by John Walcott and Brian Duffy (whoever they are) and pronounces its scope in this paragraph: "A U.S. News investigation based on interviews with more than 40 intelligence officials in the United States and elsewhere and on a review of some classified DO (Directorate of Operations) documents reveals some of the Agency's most serious flaws. Whenever possible, names and specific attributions are used, but many of those interviewed for this article cannot be cited by name because they continue to serve in the CIA's clandestine service. Senior CIA officials were asked to comment on the magazine's findings but declined in most instances to respond".
These "most serious flaws" are packaged under the following subheads:
a) mishandled defections.
b) sitting on intelligence.
c) fraudulent recruiting and reporting.
d) recruiting double agents.
e) sex and corruption.
Several paragraphs are given over to the outstanding CIA successes. If these samples are accurate, it is true to state that this organization should be dismantled and the $28 billion-per-year tab be kept in the Federal Reserve! There are all kinds of snippets and tidbits interspersed throughout this writing
--some favorable, others not. But overall it fails on the primary qualification for good reporting: telling the truth. [See related chart below ].
FALWELL AND ROBERTSON vs. CLINTON
In an article from the June 26 edition of the Daily News, "For four successive weeks last month, viewers of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Old Time Gospel Hour on cable television were treated not to the good things of Jesus but to excerpts from a videotape [see our Front Page story!!] in which President Clinton was accused, among other dark deeds, of arranging for the murder of an Arkansas investigator who supposedly had proof of his trysts.
"In the televised excerpts, Gary Parks, son of the investigator who was shot to death last fall by unknown assailants, says, 'I think Bill Clinton had my father killed to save his political career'.
He offers no supportive evidence.
"Falwell, who described Clinton as 'the most radical and controversial President in our nation's history', aggressively promoted the videotape on his program, calling it an exposé featuring 'the people who know the truth'.
"His organization says it has sold tens of thousands of the videotapes for 'donations' of at least $40 plus $3 for shipping.
"The accusation of murder may be the most startling example of the harsh attacks being directed at Bill and Hillary Clinton. But the spread of Clinton dirt, and rumors of Clinton dirt, has become almost an industry, prompting the President, on Friday, to complain bitterly about 'scurrilous and false charges' and 'violent personal attacks'.
"The roughest assaults are coming mainly from Fundamentalist Christian leaders, who portray the Clintons as anti-Christian, and from arch-conservative pressure groups that raise funds through direct mail.
"But the invective also has reverberated on conservative radio talk shows around the country, where the President is called a 'gay-lover' or a 'pot-smoking draft dodger' and callers speculate on his wife's sexual orientation.
"The Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition called Clinton's inaugurating a 'repudiation of our forefathers' covenant with God'.
"On his 700 Club cable television show Robertson has shown an interview with Paula Corbin Jones in which she graphically describes her accusation that the President made sexual advances to her.
"Also on the show, Robertson has promoted conspiracy theories about the death of Vincent Foster Jr., the White House aide and former law partner of Hillary Clinton, who committed suicide in July, asking, 'Was there a murder of a White House counsel? It looks more and more like that'.
"In a fund-raising letter to more than 100,000 donors, Floyd Brown, chairman of a thriving nonprofit group called Citizens United, said he had proof that Clinton is engaged now 'in a massive cover-up and conspiracy to obstruct justice'. He asks his members to fill out an 'emergency survey on the impeachment' of the President.
"What these varied groups seem to share is a visceral dislike of the Clintons themselves, along with some of their policies, such as the health-care plan and the proposed easing of rules on homosexuals in the military.
"Many of the attackers also tend to revel in the tawdriest accusations of financial and sexual misconduct, often mixing established fact with lurid speculation.
"The President and First Lady have condemned what they see as incessant assaults on their character. Clearly, they would prefer to blame their political troubles on right-wing scandal mongering rather than on genuine concern about their policies and on the legal inquiries into their past behavior.
"'I don't suppose there's any public figure that's ever been subject to any more violent personal attacks than I have, at least in modern history, anybody who's been President', Clinton said Friday on a St. Louis radio program.
"Harsh attacks on the occupants of the White House are not new, and neither is a siege mentality.
"President Johnson questioned the motives of demonstrators who called him a killer for his Vietnam policy while President Nixon, long reviled by some Americans, went so far as to compile an enemies list.
"Over the past decade, liberal groups raised money by assailing Presidents Reagan and Bush. But they seldom voiced as much personal venom as some groups are directing at the Clintons, experts on the Presidency say.
"And today, charges and rumors are spread faster, farther and louder than ever before by computer networks, fax machines, fund-raising letters, talk radio and cable television.
"The attackers say the President and his wife, through their past actions and less-than-candid explanations, have made themselves fair game. They reject the notion that they are violating the rules of propriety.
"'The Clintons want to have no scrutiny, and they're very thin-skinned', Brown said.
"Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for Falwell, dismissed the suggestion sometimes made by the White House of an anti-Clinton conspiracy.
"Some people like to think there's this sort of natural pipeline from Floyd Brown to Jerry Falwell to
the next guy, and they're all planning this strategy', he said. 'Really, it's all pretty spontaneous'".