Daniel P. Sheehan

[Thomas Graves]

Thomas, I was not refering to "fights" here.

Nor did I mean "deadly" literally, of course.

But my point is when I (on behalf of a client) got involved in a substantial legal fight where I knew the other side was going to "pull no punches" I would not withhold my best evidence against it (obviously).

Is that that hard to understand?

Another example: many people are dubious of Russo's claims against Shaw because when he was first interviewed about his knowledge about Shaw, he never mentioned the most damning thing he later claimed to know: that he had heard Shaw and Ferrie discussing plans to kill JFK.

When someone's story gets more sensationak over time, it is not unreasonable to bring some heavy skepticism to the newest revelations.

Is there anything about this point you do not understand?

_________________________________________

Gosh, Mr. Gratz,

Thanks for settin' me straight on that!

(Actually I was commenting on your overall style or modus operandi in dealing with people who don't agree with you...) And as for the Russo "case," maybe he had his own damn reasons for not divulging all of his information "when he was first interviewed."

_________________________________________

[John Simkin]

This account of Daniel Sheehan and the Christic Institute appears in Joel Bainerman's very impressive, The Crimes of a President (1992)

Did the Reagan-Bush White House do business with drug traffickers? This question not only applies to the Presidencies of George Bush and Ronald Reagan, but to every single administration since the end of World War II.

The Christic Institute and its founder, Daniel Sheehan, deserves special credit for its work in exposing the CIA's ties to drug lords, particularly during the Reagan years. Founded in 1980 as a non-profit, public-interest law firm and public policy center, the Christic Institute had previously prosecuted some of the most celebrated public-interest lawsuits of the decade, including the Karen Silkwood case as well as the Greensboro Massacre suit against the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan.

During one of my trips to Washington I finally got a chance to meet Sheehan. Although situated only a few blocks from Washington's Union Station, it seemed only right that a nonprofit organization fighting against the tremendous odds of battling covert operators would be housed in a rundown, near slum neighborhood of the nation's capital.

Although we had just a short time together because I was flying back to Israel that evening, Sheehan struck me as being one of the very few people in the United States who grasped most of the complexities of the story of how the CIA had become involved with drug traffickers. The way he rattled off the names and events, he could probably have repeated them in his sleep.

Sheehan claims that there existed a conspiratorial "secret team" of covert operators which carried out its own, private foreign policy much of it funded by proceeds from the international drug trade. The 29 defendants named in a suit instituted by the Christic Institute in Florida included Lt. Colonel Oliver North, retired major generals Richard Secord and John Singlaub, former CIA intelligence officers Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines, financier Albert Hakim, Robert Owen, a former aide to Vice President Quayle, Contra rebel leader Adolfo Calero, mercenary Thomas Posey, and drug dealers John Hall and Jorge Ochoa.

"We assembled evidence that the Contra resupply network orchestrated criminal covert operations, including secret wars, assassination programs and illicit arms deals. It financed these activities, in part, through the smuggling and sale of tons of cocaine and other illegal drugs into the United States," says Sheehan. "Since the Congress, the Reagan-Bush White House's Justice Department, and the Judiciary had, for the most part, turned a blind eye to these allegations, we took our evidence directly to the American public. The public needs to know and has a right to know of covert and illegal activities undertaken by private citizens in the name of U.S. foreign policy and 'national security.' "

In the lawsuit, the institute used the RICO statutes, passed in 1970 to bring Mafia bosses to justice (the statutes enable a member of a conspiracy to be held accountable for crimes committed by those under his orders). The institute was able to formally charge the Reagan-Bush Secret Team as a result of the 1984 bombing of a press conference in La Penca, Nicaragua. During the early part of 1984, after the Boland Amendments were passed, Oliver North came up with a new plan to secretly circumvent the congressional ban on Contra military aid. The idea was to take away the responsibility of arming and training them from the CIA and transfer it to a "private" network controlled directly by him from the White House. This meant uniting the various Contra forces into one effective fighting force.

One of the Contra leaders, Eden Pastora of the ARDE organization based in Costa Rica, refused a CIA ultimatum to ally his group with the larger Contra group the administration was supporting, the FDN. He was told by the CIA to "unite with the FDN or suffer the consequences."

At a press conference where Pastora was to announce that he was not going to accede to these demands, a bomb exploded, killing eight people and injuring many others. The White House obviously wouldn't take no for an answer.

Sheehan alleges that the explosion was arranged by Hull, a drug trafficker who helped Oliver North's Contra supply operation, and Felipe Vidal, another narcotics smuggler who worked with Hull. At a crucial December 1984 meeting at the Shamrock Hilton Hotel in Houston, Texas, attended by Hull and Owen, Jack Terrell, another participant in North's supply network, claims Hull told him "Pastora had to be killed" (The Progressive, March 1990).

The CIA helped cover up the bombing through extensive use of disinformation within Costa Rica. A Costa Rican government report revealed that in 1984 CIA agent Dimitrius Papas trained an elite 15-member group of Costa Rican intelligence agents known as "the Babies" to organize a network of illegal telephone taps and a slush fund for payoffs to Costa Rican leaders (The Progressive, March 1990; Newsweek, February 12th, 1990).

[Peter Dale Scott]

My advice to Sheehan years ago, was that material from Carl Jenkins was the weakest part of the Christic case, and perhaps even deliberately planted to poison it. Even if my fears are correct, there would be no reason to suspect that Wheaton was worse than just plain gullible.

[Jack White]

Peter....very nice to see someone of your credentials show up here. Maybe you can set a few people straight.

Welcome.

Jack

[John Simkin]

My advice to Sheehan years ago, was that material from Carl Jenkins was the weakest part of the Christic case, and perhaps even deliberately planted to poison it. Even if my fears are correct, there would be no reason to suspect that Wheaton was worse than just plain gullible.

I would add that I've been examing the timing of when and where certain Contra information was provided. While Wheaton's information on Jenkins and Quintaro themselves can be shown to be accurate and while the names that were given in reference to Contra activities were on the money, I've begun to have the notion that during 1986 Jenkins may well have started to plant bogus information, especially in regard to Shackley and a secret/rogue assassination team/network.

Such information would clear him from becoming a whistle blower, would help sabotage Sheehan's related pure North illegal arms deals case and would also help contaminate anthing else that Wheaton might want to share.

It always seems to be a handy thing to divert someone from a small conspiracy by offering them a much bigger, sexier one. Something tells me that Jenkins may have become bait for Sheehan... then he could casually tell everyone that Sheehan had just misunderstood everthing he had to say.

Victor Marchetti has described this type of CIA operation a “limited hangout”. To quote Marchetti:

A "limited hangout" is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting - sometimes even volunteering some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.

We will probably never find out who masterminded the assassination of JFK - or why. There are too many powerful special interests connected with the conspiracy for the truth to come out even now, 15 years after the murder.

But during the next two months, according to sensitive sources in the CIA and on HSCA, we are going to learn much more about the crime. The new disclosures will be sensational, but only superficially so. A few of the lesser villains involved in the conspiracy and its subsequent coverup will be identified for the first time - and allowed to twist slowly in the wind on live network TV. Most of the others to be fingered are already dead.

But once again the good folks of middle America will be hoodwinked by the government and its allies in the establishment news media. In fact, we are being set up to witness yet another coverup, albeit a sophisticated one, designed by the CIA with the assistance of the FBI and the blessing of the Carter administration.

A classic example of a limited hangout is how the CIA has handled and manipulated the Church Committee's investigation of two years ago. The committee learned nothing more about the assassinations of foreign leaders, illicit drug programs, or the penetration of the news media than the CIA allowed it to discover. And this is precisely what the CIA is out to accomplish through HSCA with regard to JFK's murder.

In August, 1978, Marchetti published an article about the assassination of in the liberty Lobby newspaper, Spotlight. In the article Marchetti argued that the HSCA had obtained a 1966 CIA memo that revealed that E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Patrick Hemming had been involved in the plot to kill Kennedy. Marchetti's article also included a story that Marita Lorenz had provided information on this plot. Later that month Joseph Trento and Jacquie Powers wrote a similar story for the Sunday News Journal.

The HSCA did not publish this CIA memo linking its agents to the assassination of JFK. Hunt now decided to take legal action against the Liberty Lobby and in December, 1981, he was awarded $650,000 in damages. Liberty Lobby appealed to the United States Court of Appeals. It was claimed that Hunt's attorney, Ellis Rubin, had offered a clearly erroneous instruction as to the law of defamation. The three-judge panel agreed and the case was retried. This time Mark Lane defended the Liberty Lobby against Hunt's action.

Lane eventually discovered Marchetti’s sources. The main source was William Corson. It also emerged that Marchetti had also consulted James Angleton and Alan J. Weberman before publishing the article. As a result of obtaining of getting depositions from David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, G. Gordon Liddy, Stansfield Turner and Marita Lorenz, plus a skillful cross-examination by Lane of E. Howard Hunt, the jury decided in January, 1995, that Marchetti had not been guilty of libel when he suggested that JFK had been assassinated by people working for the CIA.

Gary Buell posted this very interesting information when I raised this issue before:

Members who have looked at Joseph Trento's new book "The Secret History of the CIA" know that it contains material of interest concerning the assassination, mostly from the perspective of James Jesus Angleton of the CIA. What it does not contain is anything about the alleged memo re Howard Hunt in Dallas which Trento had written about in an article in the Sunday News Journal, August 20, 1978, and which is reproduced in Plausible Denial by Mark Lane. So I thought I would ask him about it. What follows is our correspondence via e-mail:

Gary Buell: I am currently reading your fascinating new book. My particular interest is the JFK assassination and the information you received from Angleton deserves careful consideration. I think that there was one serious omission in your book in that regard. That is the lack of any mention of the memo that Angleton showed you concerning Howard Hunt's alleged presence in Dallas on 11/22/63. Many researchers believe that was an Angleton disinformation ploy of some sort but whether the memo was genuine or not I do not see how the reader can be expected to evaluate Angleton's views on the assassination without considering this material. I believe you yourself once speculated that he may have been attempting to obscure his own role in sending Hunt to Dallas. And, if I am not mistaken did you not also once suggest that Hunt may have been sent to Dallas by a KGB mole? Did you ever discuss this memo or its contents again with Angleton before his death?

Joe Trento: I left it out because Hunt's role had been so discussed. My view is that Hunt's presence was more an embarrassment then anything significant. That's how Angleton treated it. Lane made much more of this then I believe it deserved. Gary the real question is it was Angleton's disinformation or someone trying to force the CIA's hand by demonstrating employees had come to Dallas. The original manuscript did include the material but the publisher could not publish a 1,000 page book.

Gary Buell: Thanks for the prompt reply. I am not real clear on your answer. If it was Angleton's disinformation to what end? And was Hunt in Dallas or not and who sent him? If I recall your original article (which I did read quoted in Lane's book)you refer to sources at the HSCA admitting having this memo, which was later denied. The whole thing is confusing, particularly your coment about someone trying to force the CIA's hand. I mean Angleton was behind this in one way or another. I would be most interested in reading the section of your book on this that was cut for space, if you are agreeable.

Joe Trento: For contractual reasons I cannot give you the cut material to read. But to clarify the Angleton matter: I was originally tipped off by an assassination committee employee. They contacted me because I had written about Angleton and had access to him. They showed me a copy of the memo about Hunt being in Dallas. I called Angleton and he said he was aware of the memo and may even have a copy. He didn't. But a close friend of his did - and that friend said Angleton had entrusted to him. I read that copy, they matched. Jim did this sort of thing in an effort to get sensitive documents out during the months after his firing in 1974. I suspect Jim felt the document and Hunt story would come out anyway so he orchestrated the leak through me and the committee. The committee denial came because the document was never in the official group of documents they received. Jim told me he thought Hunt's presence was meaningless. He first claimed the reason the committee had the memo was because someone wanted to demonstrate he and Helms were covering up. I am convinced that the memo as written while Angleton did his internal probe to see what the Agency had done or not done and they ran across this business with Hunt and realized they had a potential public relations problem if the information got out. I never was told or got the impression that it was anything very significant - just very interesting. Did Jim tell me the truth on this? The answer is yes and no. I think Lane used this and other events to keep himself as part of the story. The reality is that all of this sideshow stuff diverted folks from looking at what the Soviet's did with LHO in Russia. I suspect at the time of the leak that's what Angleton and friends did not want researchers or reporters looking at.

Gary Buell: Thank you for your lengthy reply which answers some questions and raises others. So the HSCA did have the memo but could not confirm its authenticity because it was not officially turned over - that is interesting. To my knowledge this memo has never turned up in the archives of the committee or ever been acknowledged. I wonder if it still exists. Re-reading your original article you seem to have placed a great deal more importance on the memo at that time. You cite unamed CIA investigators who theorize that Oswald was working for US Intelligence and turned by the KGB. And that Hunt was in Dallas on the orders of a high-level CIA official who was in reality a KGB mole and who ordered Hunt to kill Oswald. Do you think Angleton sent Hunt to Dallas? If this were a movie then Angleton would turn out to be the mole but in real life I think that is far-fetched. What is your take on all this now? Was the memo authentic? Did Angleton send Hunt to Dallas and, if not, who did? If he was in Dallas at all. And what was his mission? Was Oswald a double- or triple agent?

Joe Trento: Angleton thought very little of Hunt so I doubt that they ever had much to do with each other. I suspect that the CIA successfully cited national security considerations regarding some of the JFK/ Soviet stuff. We had a number of sources from the CIA office of Security who offered a variety of theories. As far as it not showing up in the committee records, I suspect an agreement was made between the CIA and the Chairman. I would have never heard except from my staff sources. One possibility is they wanted to do something with it in the hearings and the members were against it, I may have been used as a trial balloon. At the time my colleague and I wrote the piece I suspected everyone's motives. Considering what I know now of the other screw ups the CIA and FBI perpetuated in this case the memo reflected potential public relations problem.

Gary Buell: Thanks for the reply. Obviously the CIA was able to cover-up this "public relations problem", thanks, as you said, to Blakey. Let me ask a few direct questions: 1. Do you think Hunt was in Dallas? If so, any idea who sent him and on what mission? Or are we left simply with speculation? The most fascinating speculation was that he was sent by the KGB mole. 2. Do you think there was a high-level mole in the CIA? If this is in the book, I apologize as I am still reading it. Can we rule out Angleton? Helms? You have been very gracious thus far and I realize that you cannot correspond endlessly with every reader.

Joe Trento: I think Hunt must have been in Dallas - perhaps not even on CIA business. Probably coming back from Mexico. I think the idea that a mole ordered him to Dallas was far fetched. You would have to assume he was competent and could carry out what the mole wanted. I don't think Helms or Angleton were moles. But it is clear that there were at least mid-level moles. Finish the book. You might want to get my previous book (with Bill Corson and Susan Trento Widows.)

I believe that Carl Jenkins was a limited hangout in 1986. In doing so he undermined the testimony of Gene Wheaton and enabled Ted Shackley to sue Daniel Sheehan.

In his autobiography, Spymaster (2005), Shackley attacks those people who have suggested that the CIA were involved with the drug trade. However, he does not mention the fact that he won a libel case against Daniel Sheehan. In fact Sheehan does not get a mention in the book. Nor does Carl Jenkins.

[John Simkin]

A good example of disinformation.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individ....asp?indid=1377

[Charles Drago]

Peter,

I hope the following can be appreciated for its relevance to the JFK forum.

As a friend of Sheehan, how do you assess his claim that he was given privileged access to government UFO materials that substantiated claims of an alien presence on and above this planet?

Charles

[John Dolva]

Peter,

I hope the following can be appreciated for its relevance to the JFK forum.

As a friend of Sheehan, how do you assess his claim that he was given privileged access to government UFO materials that substantiated claims of an alien presence on and above this planet?

Charles

Charles, This is news to me....can you convince me of this?...but my first thought is it was done to discredit him...as is the whole 'UFO stuff' [i don't believe it is real and think the USG knows it is not but promotes it to counter 'conspiracy' and to cover some secret projects].....He was not the kind of person I'd expect to have believed in a presence above the planet but a rather progressive diety.....[Liberation Theology style]. I never dis cussed anything like this nor heard him talk to anything but the political case and general political / social situation. He was what I would consider well educated, sane and grounded. This is too new a concept to me to have much to say.....if so, I'm surprised.....very. Peter

Good points, IMO, Peter.

___________

There are an interesting series of photographs of the Pope visiting Central America in the very early 1980's (late 70's?), castigating quite vehemently (straying) libertation theologians kneeling in front of him, and then visiting the US, blessing ranks of Law Enforcement Officers.

After the Sandinistas overthrew the US backed tyrant Somoza in Nicaragua, and the Contras swung into action, tyrranising the Liberated Nicaraguan people with Reagans blessings, and the FMNL looked like taking El Salvador where the US backed death squads wrought havoc and Arch-Bishop Romero was assassinated (likely Liberation Theologian or at least strong sympathiser with a prominent voice amongst the populace) and Costa Ricas people starved while it's fishing fleets caught enough food to feed all yet to service its debts, all was sold to the US where it went to feed the cat pets of the USofA.

Business as usual.

[Charles Drago]

Peter,

In 1977, while General Counsel to the United States Jesuit Office of Social Ministry in Washington, DC., Sheehan served as a Special Consultant to the United States Library of Congress Congressional Research Office Project on Extraterrestrial Intelligence mandated by President Carter. He states that he was given access not only to the classified portions of the United States Air Force's “Project Blue Book” files but to the confidential report prepared for the Science & Technology Committee of the United States Congress by the Library of Congress Congressional Research Office pursuant to this Presidential assignment.

In essence, Sheehan claims to have viewed still and moving images of alien spacecraft and to have read official USG affirmations of their existence.

See:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc836.htm

Your references to liberation theology are appreciated, and your embrace of same shared.

Charles

[Charles Drago]

Peter,

I'm moderately well-read on UFOs in general and the UFO ruse in particular.

There is more to the story than all that you correctly reference.

Charles

[Charles Drago]

I'd venture to say that Sheehan was shown bogus UFO files to get him on public record endorsing the reality of the phenomenon. Thus he opened himself to ridicule, and all of his work could be tainted.

Peter, I agree that a significant number of UFO sightings and even recoveries can be attributed to exclusively earth-bound psyops.

But here we may part company: Some visitations, I have reason to suspect, are quite real.

Charles

[Charles Drago]

Charles, I'm being serious when I say the best thing that could happen to our planet would be contact and proof of other intelligent life.....if they did come why are they being so covert.....they'd  have much to teach we need desperately to know and I don't mean technological...any civilization that lived long enough to develop interstellar travel would long ago likely have developed an end to war-like activilties or never made it that 'far' [as we are likely not to] and wouldn't come so far and not sign the guest book.....star trek Prime Directive doesn't convince me....but your beliefs don't change my great respect for you on other issues. We agree to disagree....maybe. Try convincing me.

My Friend,

I wouldn't presume to attempt to convince you or anyone else to share my acceptance of a portion of the UFO phenomenon as alien visitations.

As a point of information, I am influenced by the work of Jacques Vallee and similarly inclined researchers and thinkers to the degree that I suspect other than interplanetary origins for most of the so-called visitors. But I hesitate to go on about this subject because I'm not even remotely as well-read in it as I am in more prosaic deep political subject matters.

In short, I am, at this point in life, an unsophisticated observer of UFOs. I bring no authority whatsoever to the discussion, and all I can offer are mere beliefs.

And a suggestion: Read Vallee.

Respectfully,

Charles

[Ron Ecker]

Barry Goldwater was quoted in a reputable mag (the New Yorker, I believe) as saying that he once asked General LeMay if he could get him into the hangar where alien spacecraft and bodies (presumably from Roswell) were reportedly kept, and LeMay angrily told him to never bring up the subject again. Now what was that all about?

Also, wasn't there some news recently about Roswell, a witness confirming there was a UFO crash or something? I can't even remember (which is becoming more and more of a problem).

[Michael Hogan]

Barry Goldwater was quoted in a reputable mag (the New Yorker, I believe) as saying that he once asked General LeMay if he could get him into the hangar where alien spacecraft and bodies (presumably from Roswell) were reportedly kept, and LeMay angrily told him to never bring up the subject again. Now what was that all about?

One man's account of that incident:

One example that has always intrigued me is the Senator Barry Goldwater incident back in the 1960's. Goldwater was a United States Senator representing the state of Arizona, was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had been a colonel in the United States Air Force, (eventually achieved the rank of Brigadier General), and was the Republican candidate for President of the United States, losing to Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 Presidential election. As a young adult in 1964, I always thought that Barry Goldwater was ahead of his time, in some of his political views and particularly his interest in the subject of UFOs, but as we quickly found out, his curiosity with UFOs would not be allowed to be pursued.

Senator Goldwater's interest in UFOs, prompted him to seek access to the "blue room" at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which was denied, when he made the request to General Curtis LeMay, who was the head of the Strategic Air Command in the 1960's. Goldwater thought that was where they kept the UFO records. General LeMay told Goldwater, " You can't go in there and I can't go in there", but the General never informed Goldwater what was in there or why access was denied, and neither affirmed or denied that UFO records or materials were in the room. Senator Goldwater apparently had a top-secret clearance, which obviously wasn't a high enough clearance to access the room. Rumors have continued about a blue or green room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base ever since, but no one has of yet revealed what if anything the room contains.

In a 1994 interview on the CNN television show hosted by Larry King, Goldwater stated, "I think at Wright-Patterson, if you could get into certain places, you'd find out what the Air Force and the government does know about UFOs. Reportedly, a spaceship landed. It was all hushed up. I called Curtis LeMay and I said, 'General, I know we have a room at Wright-Patterson where you put all this secret stuff. Could I go in there?' I've never heard General LeMay get mad, but he got madder than hell at me, cussed me out, and said, 'Don't ever ask me that question again!'"

Senator Goldwater never asked about the room at Wright-Patterson again, and took his curiosity and discussion with General LeMay to the grave with him. Goldwater died May 29, 1998. Others high up in the government have unfortunately gone the same route as Goldwater did many years ago, being denied information although you would think that they were in a position to be told. Some of those included, Presidents Carter, Ford, Reagan and most recently Clinton.

http://www.ufodigest.com/goldwater.html

Also, wasn't there some news recently about Roswell, a witness confirming there was a UFO crash or something? I can't even remember (which is becoming more and more of a problem).

Ron, didn't you start that thread?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10402

Edited August 18, 2007 by Michael Hogan

[Ron Ecker]

Ron, didn't you start that thread?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10402

That must have been someone using my computer. But thanks for the link.