Gary Hart is an interesting figure in the JFK investigation. Hart worked as an attorney for the United States Department of Justice from 1964 to 1965. He then became special assistant to the solicitor of the Department of the Interior (1965-1967). Hart then established his own law practice in Denver, Colorado.

Hart managed the campaign of George McGovern to become the party's presidential candidate in 1972. Hart also took charge of McGovern campaign to defeat Richard Nixon. Hart's strategy was disrupted by Nixon's Operation Sandwedge and Operation Gemstone. Hart was unable to convince the American public that the White House was involved in the Watergate break-in and McGovern only carried Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Hart was elected to the Senate in 1972. In 1975, Frank Church became the chairman of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Members of this committee included Hart (Colorado), Walter Mondale (Minnesota), Richard Schweiker (Pennsylvania), Philip Hart (Michigan), Howard Barker (Tennessee) and Barry Goldwater (Arizona). This committee investigated alleged abuses of power by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence.

The committee looked at the case of Fred Hampton and discovered that William O'Neal, Hampton's bodyguard, was a FBI agent-provocateur who, days before the raid, had delivered an apartment floor-plan to the Bureau with an "X" marking Hampton's bed. Ballistic evidence showed that most bullets during the raid were aimed at Hampton's bedroom.

Church's committee also discovered that the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation had sent anonymous letters attacking the political beliefs of targets in order to induce their employers to fire them. Similar letters were sent to spouses in an effort to destroy marriages. The committee also documented criminal break-ins, the theft of membership lists and misinformation campaigns aimed at provoking violent attacks against targeted individuals.

One of those people targeted was Martin Luther King. The FBI mailed King a tape recording made from microphones hidden in hotel rooms. The tape was accompanied by a note suggesting that the recording would be released to the public unless King committed suicide.

In September, 1975, a sub-committee made up of Hart and Richard Schweiker was asked to review the performance of the intelligence agencies in the original John F. Kennedy assassination investigation. Hart and Schweiker became very concerned about what they found. On 1st May, 1976, Hart said: "I don't think you can see the things I have seen and sit on it."

When the Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations was published in 1976, Hart joined Walter Mondale and Philip Hart to publish an appendix to the report. The three men pointed out that "important portions of the Report had been excised or security grounds". However, they believed that the CIA had "used the classification stamp not for security, but to censor material that would be embarrassing, inconvenient, or likely to provoke an adverse public reaction to CIA activities."

Hart called for a new Senate Committee to look into the events surrounding the assassination of JFK. He said it was necessary to take a closer look at Lee Harvey Oswald and his relationship with the FBI and the CIA. In an interview he gave to the Denver Post Hart said the questions that needed answering included: "Who Oswald really was - who did he know? What affiliation did he have in the Cuban network? Was his public identification with the left-wing a cover for a connection with the anti-Castro right-wing?"

In the interview Hart went on to state that he believed Oswald was probably operating as a double-agent. He thought this was one of the reasons why the FBI and CIA had made "a conscious decision to withhold evidence from the Warren Commission."

In 1985 Hart and William S. Cohen, another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, published the novel Double Man. According to Bob Woodward: "This is an expertly crafted thriller that is full of many uncomfortable plausibilities. Though clearly labeled fiction, it dances knowledgeably with many old and new ghosts, including the CIA, the KGB, the Kennedy assassination, terrorism, and a range of state secrets. The Double Man has to be taken, minimally, as a grim warning about the intelligence services in our own country and elsewhere."

Hart left the Senate in 1987 in order to concentrate on becoming president in 1988. He soon emerged as the Democratic Party front-runner. However, on 3rd May, 1987, the Miami Herald published a story that suggested that Hart was having a sexual relationship with Donna Rice. Hart's wife supported him claiming that his relationship with Rice was non-sexual. Two days later the Miami Herald obtained a photograph of Hart with Rice abord the Monkey Business. This photograph was subsequently published in the National Enquirer.

A Gallup Poll found that 64% of those surveyed thought the media treatment of Hart was "unfair" whereas 53% believed that marital infidelity had little to do with a president's ability to govern. Despite these views the stories about Rice had badly damaged his campaign. In the New Hampshire primary Hart won only 4% of the votes and soon after announced that he was withdrawing from the race.

As a result of this failure Hart left politics. Is it possible that the CIA was involved in stopping Hart becoming president? The CIA had long-term links with the Miami Herald.

Richard D. Mahoney, Hart's friend and speech writer, wrote the excellent Sons & Brothers about the Kennedy Assassination. Hart is not mentioned in the text but could he have been a source for Mahoney's theory that the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida were behind the assassination?

This is an extract from an article that appeared in Salon Magazine (15th September, 2004)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/...n/index_np.html

One of the most aggressive investigators on the Church Committee was the young, ambitious Democratic senator from Colorado, Gary Hart, who along with Republican colleague Richard Schweiker, began digging into the swampy murk of southern Florida in the early 1960s. Here was the steamy nursery for plots that drew together CIA saboteurs, Mafia cutthroats, anti-communist Cuban fanatics and the whole array of patriotic zealots who were determined to overthrow the government of Cuba -- the Iraq of its day. "The whole atmosphere at that time was so yeasty," says Hart today. "I don't think anybody, Helms or anybody, had control of the thing. There were people clandestinely meeting people, the Mafia connections, the friendships between the Mafia and CIA agents, and this crazy Cuban exile community. There were more and more layers, and it was honeycombed with bizarre people. I don't think anybody knew everything that was going on. And I think the Kennedys were kind of racing to keep up with it all."

Schweiker's mind was blown by what he and Hart were digging up - there is no other way to describe it. He was a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania and he would be chosen as a vice presidential running mate by Ronald Reagan in 1976 to bolster his challenge against President Jerry Ford. But Schweiker's faith in the American government seemed deeply shaken by his Kennedy probe, which convinced him "the fingerprints of intelligence" were all over Lee Harvey Oswald.

"Dick made a lot of statements inside the committee that were a lot more inflammatory than anything I ever said, in terms of his suspicions about who killed Kennedy," recalls Hart. "He would say, 'This is outrageous, we've got to reopen this.' He was a blowtorch."

Hart too concluded Kennedy was likely killed by a conspiracy, involving some feverish cabal from the swamps of anti-Castro zealotry. And when he ran for president in 1984, Hart says, whenever he was asked about the assassination, "My consistent response was, based on my Church Committee experience, there are sufficient doubts about the case to justify reopening the files of the CIA, particularly in its relationship to the Mafia." This was enough to blow other people's minds, says Hart, including remnants of the Mafia family of Florida godfather Santo Trafficante, who plays a key role in many JFK conspiracy theories. "(Journalist) Sy Hersh told me that he interviewed buddies of Trafficante, including his right-hand man who was still alive when Hersh wrote his book ('The Dark Side of Camelot'). He didn't put this in his book, but when my name came up, the guy laughed, he snorted and said, "We don't think he's any better than the Kennedys." Meaning they were keeping an eye on Hart? "At the very least. This was in the 1980s when I was running for president, saying I would reopen the (Kennedy) investigation. Anybody can draw their own conclusions."

The CIA-controlled press was just merciless toward Hart after the pic of Donna Rice and Hart was published. Years later I read somewhere that Hart believed that it was a frame up.

There has never been a doubt in my mind that he could not be "permitted" to become become president because of what he knew about the assassination of JFK. The Hart-Schweiker Senate sub committee, (under the larger Church Commitee), spent two years investigating JFK's assassination. This lead directly to HSCA. A brilliant video, with much commentary from Richard Schweiker, called "The Killing of President Kennedy" was released. Not sure when, I copied mine from a friend's in the mid 80's.

Clinton also had asked an aid to look into the assassination. Of course Sid Blumenthal, who co-ed. "Government By Gunplay" with Assassination Information Information Bureau's Harvey Yazijian, became a top aid to Bill and Hillary. During
Monica-gate Sid, who was known in the WH as "GK"- (Grassy Knoll)- was called before the Starr-chamber. Perhaps this explains Sid's reluctance to discuss these matters -(JFK assassination)- today. In "Gunplay" Sid has three excellent pieces, the forward" , an article on Cointelpro- (How the FBI tried to destroy the Black Panthers")- and a piece on The Rockerfeller Commission. Sid also did some excellent investigative work on the Itek Corp, in Massachsuetts, detailing its CIA history. (Itek "studied" the Zapruder film) several times, including in 1975 for a Dan Rather/CBS "documentary" (cover-up) of the JFK assassination.

Dawn

A friend of mine. was invited to a Presidents Prayer Breakfast, about 10 years ago. After he returned, he told me that he ran across Donna Rice, at the Hotel where he was staying. They talked some and ended up having dinner together one night. I laugheed, and ask what she was doing at a Prayer Breakfast! He told me that she was a very nice woman and also quite interesting to talk to. He also told me that she is a devout re-dedicated Christain. Plus she had also helped to set up the Prayer Breakfast that year.

What happened to Donna Rice is that she was raised in a religous family, as she was also. She was an over achiever with a promising future. She went off to college and as happens to many with this background, she got involed with a little faster group then she was use to being with. At some point she was the victim of a date-rape, which grealy upset her. Following depression, she started drinking some with her friends and doing things she had never done before. Later she became involved with a guy that turned out to be a drug dealer and who was busted and sent to prison.

Eventually she found herself at a party in Miami, where she met Gary Hart. After awhile, the party continued on to a boat called the Monkey Business, which Gary Hart had chartered. She and Gary were attracted to each other. But, at that point she didn't realize he was married or actually much about him. However, she did become aware that he was married, before they all left for that overnight boat trip to Bimini. They did become involved and he did tell her that he was married and that he was going to run for President.

Then a so-called friend borrowed some photos of that trip, to show to her boyfriend, but never returned them. Donna discovered much later, they were evidently the ones who had tipped off the Miami Herold. But, the MH wouldn't use the photos with no story....so the media spied on Hart and Rice for the info and then broke with the story.

The couple was able to sell the photos to National Enquirer though.

After the scandal broke, Donna didn't know what to do, so she went back home to So Carolina, to be with her family where she resumed her former religious life.

For a couple of years, Donna was silent. When she finally broke her self-imposed silence she emerged as a leading national spokesperson for the fight against illegal pornography, specifically protecting children.

Today, Doinna is married to a technology executive, Jack Hughes. She is also Director of Marketing and Communications at "Enough Is Enough!", a nonprofit organization dedicated to stopping illegal pornography, assisting victims, and making the Internet safe for children.

___________
Dixie

Here is the appendix written by Gary Hart, Walter Mondale and Philip Hart that appeared in the Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations (1976):

We fully support the analysis, findings, and recommendations of this Report. If implemented, the recommendations will go far toward providing our nation with an intelligence community that is more effective in protecting this country, more accountable to the American public, and more responsive to our Constitution and our laws. The key to effective implementation of these recommendations is a new intelligence oversight committee with legislative authority.

Committees of Congress have only two sources of power: control over the purse and public disclosure. The Select Committee had no authority of any kind over the purse strings of the intelligence community, only the power of disclosure. The preparation of this volume of the Final Report was a case study in the shortcomings of disclosure as the sole instrument of oversight. Our experience as a Committee graphically demonstrates why legislative authority-in particular the power to authorize appropriations-is essential if a new oversight committee is to handle classified intelligence matters securely and effectively.

In preparing the Report, the Select Committee bent over backwards to ensure that there were no intelligence sources, methods, or other classified material in the text. As a result, important portions of the Report have been excised or significantly abridged. In some cases the changes were clearly justified on security grounds. But in other cases, the CIA, in our view, used the classification stamp not for security, but to censor material that would be embarrassing, inconvenient, or likely to provoke an adverse public reaction to CIA activities.

Some of the so-called security objections of the CIA were so outlandish they were dismissed out of hand. The CIA wanted to delete reference to the Bay of Pigs as a paramilitary operation, they wanted to eliminate any reference to CIA activities in Laos, and they wanted the Committee to excise testimony given in public before the television cameras. But on other more complex issues, the Committee's necessary and proper concern for caution enabled the CIA to use the clearance process to alter the. Report to the point where some of its most important implications are either lost, or obscured in vague language. We shall abide by the Committee's agreement on the facts which are to remain classified. We did what we had to do under the circumstances and the full texts are available to the Senate in classified form. Within those limits, however, we believe it is important to point out those areas in the Final Report which no longer fully reflect the work of the Committee.

For example:

(1) Because of editing for classification reasons, the italicized passages in the Findings and Recommendations obscure the JVO significant policy issues involved. The discussion of the role of U.S. academics in the CIA's clandestine activities has been so diluted that its scope and impact on the American academic institutions is no longer clear. The description of the CIA's clandestine activities within the United States, as well as the extent to which CIA uses its ostensibly overt Domestic Contact Division for such activities, has been modified to the point where the Committee's concern about the CIA's blurring of the line between overt and covert, foreign and domestic activities, has been lost.

(2) Important sections which deal with the problems of "cover" were eliminated. They made clear that for many years the CIA has known and been concerned about its poor cover abroad, and that the Agency's cover problems are not the result of recent congressional investigations of intelligence activities. The deletion of one important passage makes it impossible to explain why unwitting Senate collaboration may be necessary to make effective certain aspects of clandestine activities.

(3) The CIA insisted upon eliminating the actual name of the Vietnamese institute mentioned on page 454, thereby suppressing the extent to which the CIA was able to use that organization to manipulate public and congressional opinion in the United States to support the Viet Nam War.

(4) Although the Committee recommends a much higher standard for undertaking covert actions and a tighter control system, we are unable to report the facts from our indepth covert action case studies in depth which paint a picture of the high political costs and generally meager benefits of covert programs. The final cost of these secret operations is the inability of the American people to debate and decide on the future scope of covert action in a fully informed way.

The fact that the Committee cannot present its complete case to the public on these specific policy issues illustrates the dilemma secrecy poses for our democratic system of checks and balances. If the Select Committee, after due consideration, decided to disclose more information on these issues by itself, the ensuing public debate might well focus on that disclosure rather than on the Committee's recommendations. If the Select Committee asked the full Senate to endorse such disclosure, we would be unfairly asking our colleagues to make judgments on matters unfamiliar to them and which are the Committee's responsibility.

In the field of intelligence, secrecy has eroded the system of checks and balances on which our Constitutional government rests. In our view, the only way this system can be restored is by creating a legislative intelligence oversight committee with the power to authorize appropriations. The experience of this Committee has been that such authority is crucial if the new committee is to be able to find out what the intelligence agencies are doing, and to take action to stop things when necessary without public disclosure. It is the only way to protect legitimate intelligence secrets, yet effectively represent the public and the Congress in intelligence decisions affecting America's international reputation and basic values. A legislative oversight committee with the power to authorize appropriations for intelligence is essential if America is to govern its intelligence agencies with the system of checks and balances mandated by the Constitution.

You can find some very cheap copies of Gary Hart's book, Double Man, from here:

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchRe...n&x=75&sortby=3

I suspect that it is possible that someone set Hart up with Rice, and that the relationship was then "leaked" by someone who wanted, for whatever reason, to derail his candidacy. It is only a suspicion.

But a single affair ruined Hart's presidency.

Clearly anyone with knowledge of the facts could have ruined JFK's presidency by publishing the fact that he shared a friend with a major Mafia don and that he had an affair with a lady suspected of ties to an Eastern bloc intelligence organization. Or, they could have used their knowledge of those plots to blackmail Kennedy.

Why, then, the assassination?

Several possibilties suggest themselves: (1) the conspirators were unaware of either relationship (but Rosselli and Giancana were aware of Campbell); or (2) the conspirators hated JFK enough they wanted to murder him, not just drive him from office.

All right, here is the trivia question: who introduced Rice to Hart, and where? Anyone remember?

P.S. Dixie has it wrong, I am quite sure. The party was not in Miami, but there were Miami connections. Hint: there were two Dons involved, but in this case they were not Mafia dons.

Politics in the early 1960s was very different to the late 1960s. It was Richard Nixon who really developed the idea of “black propaganda” in American politics (I would have thought you would have remembered that Tim).

Of course lots of journalists knew about JFK’s affairs but they also knew that no newspaper would publish these stories. This includes those newspapers that hated JFK. It was an agreement that held until Nixon. It was an arrangement that suited both parties. The Republicans had not published stories about the sexual activities of F. D. Roosevelt and the Democrats had not written about Dwight Eisenhower. Nor did they write about Nixon’s homosexual relationship with Bebe Rebozo.

Dorothy Kilgallen was a close friend of Florence Smith, who had been having an affair with JFK since 1944. A friend asked her why she did not write an article about JFK’s love life (Kilgallen held right-wing views and was the country’s leading gossip columnist at the time). Kilgallen replied that journalists did not do that kind of thing. Anyway, if they did write such stories, the papers would never print these stories. You should read Seymour Hersh’s book, The Dark Side of Camelot, to see how this worked.

This is why JFK was so reckless with his sexual activities. For example, the FBI had evidence of him making regular visits to Cuba in the 1950s in order to carry on his affair with the ambassador’s wife.

In the 1950s and early 1960s it was information about financial corruption that most worried politicians. People like Lyndon Johnson used this information to blackmail politicians. If the politician did not play ball, the story would be leaked to people like Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. They would publish stories about corruption but as far as I am aware, they never went with stories about sex.

But John you did not answer my question: Who introduced Donna to Gary, and at whose party?

John you may be correct about the code of conduct among journalists. So is it your position that even the minions of OM adhered to the unwritten understanding?

John, it shows how dumb journalists were in the sixties,

Now all journalists realize that sex is sexier than money!

Was it you? I hear she was a Born Again Christian posing as a tart.



Maybe they knew that all the time. Maybe they had different morals then. It was only after a period of Republican rule under Nixon that journalists were completely corrupted by money.

While we are asking questions. What do you think of the posts I have made about your mates Donald Segretti and Karl Rove?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4487

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3812

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4437

I shall reply to those tomorrow. "Mates" in the English or Australian sense is true of Karl Rove, "boy genius" "bush's brain" but not of Segretti, as you full well know, John.

I shall give other members time to figure out who introduced Rice to Hart and at whose party. One hint (beside the fact that both had first names of Don) is that the party was a New Years Eve party at Aspen, Colorado.

One other hint (shades of conspiracy!), the host of the party had worked with G. Gordon Liddy.

My bet is Pat will know the answer (probably from memory) to who the two Dons were.

But John you never answered my question: were all the thousands of OM journalists willing to play by the rules and cover up a president's adultery?

Did you know that adultery is grounds for discharge and punishable if done by a military officer?

John, were any of JFK's important political decisions influenced by his sexual activities? If so, did the American public have the right to know this?

John, you are aware, I assume, that the Church Committee also covered up a very salient fact that MIGHT have played a role in the assassination?

Tim, perhaps you are unaware of the culture of the United States in the 1960's. There was a double-standard going on then. It was accepted culture that corporate executives were having affairs, sexual liasons, whatever you choose to call them; but it was taboo in "middle America." The executive's conquest of the "babe" was part and parcel of popular culture, from movies to TV [implied rather than explicit] to stand-up comedy...Milton Berle, that most-visible icon from the infancy of TV, always seemed to have a joke alluding to the office affair with the "boss."

But the press' relationship with the presidency, at least prior to the Nixon administration, was one apparently based upon respect for the office. There appears to have been, historically, a "code" among journalists: attack the policies of the president all you wish, but the president's personal life is out of bounds...unless the personal item has a positive "spin" to it. Attacks on a public figure's personal life, unless criminal charges were involved, were fodder for the tabloids in those days. While knowledge of a president's personal failings may have given some journalists some leverage[Drew Pearson comes to mind here] as far as getting first crack at a story [J. Edgar wasn't the only person who knew the power of leverage], most reputable journalists of the day would simply file derogatory information away for another day when it might prove useful to them.

And while the uniform code of military justice applies to uniformed officers and enlisted men, I know of no single case in the history of the republic in which the prohibition of adultery in that code has been used to file charges against a sitting commander-in-chief...not once. Whether it could or should be is a matter to be discussed and argued...but probably elsewhere, since the topic of this thread is "Gary Hart," and the fact remains that Mr. Hart never held this high office; so any discussion of this in the context of Mr. Hart would be moot. Whether this would suggest to the reader that an attempted hijack of the thread has occurred, I will leave that conclusion solely to the reader.

Discretion is the better part of quite a lot of things. In the days of JFK, no reputable newspaper would have published the photo of Hart and Rice...in fact, until it was published in the Enquirer, no reputable newspaper DID publish the photo. I believe that it was at this point that journalists declared the sex lives of politicians as "fair game," as they evidently believed they'd been "scooped" by the Enquirer. Had something such as the Gennifer Flowers or Monica Lewinski stories been discovered in the '60's, it's my firm belief that, Republican or Democrat, there would've been no mention in the mainstream press...because, in that era, such stories simply weren't published in "family" newspapers.

Of course, had the public's perception of divorce not changed since 1960, I would suggest that Ronald Reagan would never have been elected on a national ticket, either. Back then, divorce and sexual affairs had the same type of double-standard applied: sure, they happened, but nice folks didn't participate in either one. The public's standards of what is and what is not acceptable in a national leader has changed, as well as what is and is not subject to discussion in the pages of a newspaper...or on TV, as in the '50's, you might recall, on I Love Lucy the word "pregnant" was considered taboo by the networks. Not that pregnancies didn't occur; they just weren't mentioned in those terms in "polite society."

"...History has turned the page, uh-huh...", as Salvatore "Sonny" Bono once said it.

Good post Mark.

Can you image Ben Bradlee running a story about JFK love life. After all, they used to go out on double dates.

Phil Graham actually gave a talk on JFK affairs at a convention to newspapers owners in 1963. He asked why people were not reporting this story. They would have said that it was the same reason why Graham did not publish the story in the Washington Post. Graham attended the conference with his current girlfriend.

Here is the picture that did Gary Hart all the damage:

John,

Nixon was a fudgepacker? That's new. Are you sure about that?

____________________________

Sadly sex sells. And our totally controlled press will use it when they are "told" to bring someone down. When Bush senior was asked by Stone Phillips about his- (Bush') alleged relationship with a female aid Bush was permited to refuse comment and that was the end of that story. Then comes Clinton and the right wing faction of the media was all over him. Backed by rich and powerful Richard Melon Scaife and the Scaife funded " American Spectator", Richard Brock writes of one of the special projects, called "The Arkansas project", "a multimillion dollar dirty tricks operation against the Clintons". The plan being to "drive Clinton from Office". (Blinded By the Right)

Stories were NEVER fact checked, according to Brock, as the "facts" were not relevent.

"Blinded By the Right" is a great lesson in history by Brock, a writer who allowed himself to be used to by the "vast rtight wing conspiracy" to smear Anita Hill, ("a little bit slutty and a little bit nutty", in "The True Anita Hill", then wrote the first Troppergate story, (which was later shown to be lies, this is detailed in Brock's confessional "Blinded", )- leading to the Paula Jones lawsuit and the rest is history: SEX: which is all Starr could ever get on Clinton.

Yes Clinton lied under oath, but it was sex with Monica that brought him down.

Did long time dirty trickser Lucianne Goldberg have a hand in putting these two together? (more later on Goldberg).

Dawn

Dawn, "honey traps" only work if the victim likes the honey enough to cheat on his spouse (trying not to be sexist but usually the man is the victim).

Do not understand your reference to Clinton. He survived and his wife may become the first female president. (She has enough sense to be strong on national defense and security issues; Kerry just didn't get it.)

The probable victim of "Monicagate"? Al Gore.

Time to answer my trivia question since no one else has in twenty-four hours.

It is my understanding that Don Johnson of Miami Vice hosted a New Years Eve Party at his home in Aspen, Colorado.

Attendees included Don Henley of the Eagles, Donna Rice and Sen. Hart (the party was in Colorado after all).

If my memory is correct, Henley introduced Hart to Rice.

If the CIA set up Hart with Rice, I am not, of course, implying that either Johnson or Henley were witting of the role of the CIA.

Possibly, the New Years Day Party was at Don Johnsons home, but it was hosted by Don Henley.


Donna Rice Hughes - Women
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/6w5/6w5042.html

How did you meet Senator Hart?

DONNA: Although I'd first seen Senator Hart in Aspen, Colorado, at a New
Year's Day party in 1987, we hadn't talked. On March 27, 1987, I went to a fundraiser at a Miami resort. The event was crowded, so a group of us went outside to a yacht owned by the resort's owner. Upon boarding, we were surprised to discover it had been chartered by Gary Hart and Bill Broadhurst, a Washington lawyer and lobbyist. Apologizing, we turned to leave, but they invited us to stay on board. Before the group left, Gary asked for my phone number, and the next day he called to ask me to dinner that night. I had no idea he was married, but I found out that night.

The next day, Gary and Bill invited me and my new friend, Lynn, to go out into the ocean with them on a yacht called the Monkey Business. We ended up in Bimini, in the Bahamas, and didn't return until the following day. I'd gone through a lot of guys in the past year, trying to get over my old boyfriend, but Gary was the one who swept me off my feet. Before the boat docked, however, he confessed because he was contemplating running for president, he couldn't separate from his wife. I believed him when he told me he faced a difficult choice between pursuing personal happiness and his political destiny.

_______________________________________
washingtonpost.com: Newspaper Stakeout Infuriates Hart
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local...candal/hart.htm

Hart apparently met Rice last New Year's Eve in Aspen, Colo., at a party hosted by Don Henley, a member of the Eagles rock group. He said that Lee Hart was with Hart at the party.

Hart and Rice met again in March --
March 1, according to the Miami Herald -- when Hart and Broadhurst were in Miami, where Hart had a Don's the Question Man!
______________________________________
http://www.eaglesfans.com/info/articles/question_man.htm

But Henley noted that his role in Rice's liaison with presidential aspirant Gary Hart has been overstated. Yes, he hosted the New Year's Eve party where they met; no, he didn't introduce them.



________________
Dixie

Great post, Dixie. I thought Don Johnson was involved as well. Perhaps the party was at his home or ranch.

It is certainly possible that someone with an agenda was placing this pretty lady in Hart's past.

Query whether anyone knows whether when Rice did marry rice was thrown at her? (GROAN!!) I almost lacked the heart to say that!

Gary Hart was elected to the Senate in 1972. In 1975 Hart became a member of Frank Church’s Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. This committee investigated alleged abuses of power by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence.

In September, 1975, a sub-committee made up of Hart and Richard Schweiker was asked to review the performance of the intelligence agencies in the original John F. Kennedy assassination investigation. Hart and Schweiker became very concerned about what they found. On 1st May, 1976, Hart said: "I don't think you can see the things I have seen and sit on it." However, Hart was to discover that the CIA had the power to stop him publishing the information he had discovered concerning the links between the CIA and the JFK assassination.

Hart called for a new Senate Committee to look into the events surrounding the assassination of JFK. He said it was necessary to take a closer look at Lee Harvey Oswald and his relationship with the FBI and the CIA. Hart went on to state that he believed Oswald was probably operating as a double-agent. He thought this was one of the reasons why the FBI and CIA had made "a conscious decision to withhold evidence from the Warren Commission."

In 1985 Hart and William S. Cohen, another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, published the novel Double Man. Is it possible that Hart was trying to get this information out via a novel? I decided to get a copy of the book.

The hero of Double Man is Tom Chandler. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize that Chandler is Hart. Chandler is a member of Frank Church’s Senate Intelligence Committee. During the investigation he becomes interested in the JFK assassination. However, he finds his investigations blocked by E. W. Trevor, the Director of the CIA. Trevor appears to be based on Richard Helms. Chandler becomes convinced that Trevor, who was involved in organizing the CIA assassination attempts against Castro, speculates that this Anti-Castro Cuban assassination team, for some reason, decided to assassinate JFK (this is of course the theme of David Atlee Phillips’s unpublished novel).

Chandler remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and at the beginning of the book (set at some unspecified date in the future) he is asked to investigate the deaths of several western politicians who have been assassinated. These politicians had all been advocating an end to the Cold War. Chandler speculates that these assassinations are being carried out by right-wing extremists in the USA or a renegade group within the KGB who want the Cold War to continue.

Chandler begins an affair with a young staff member of his investigating team, Elaine Dunham. She is actually a CIA covert operative working for Trevor who is doing all he can to sabotage Chandler’s investigation.

A Deep Throat character (Hart gives him the name "Memory") makes contact with Chandler. He is a Cuban who worked as a double-agent in the early 1960s. He knows who killed JFK. He does not provide names to Chandler but directs him towards the CIA’s ZR/RIFLE operation. He also puts him into contact with OJWIN. The description of OJWIN is obviously of Jean Souetre/Michel Mertz. According to OJWIN he was not involved in the assassination plots against Kennedy or Castro. However, he informs Chandler that Trevor was told by a double agent working for both the US and Cuba about the plot to kill JFK. Chandler does not know if Trevor was part of the plot or was just incompetent.

Elaine falls in love with Chandler and confesses that she is working for the CIA. She then resigns from the CIA but while travelling on a plane from Washington to Chicago to visit her sister, she is killed when a bomb explodes during the flight. Chandler speculates that the bomb had either been placed on the plane by the CIA or that it was a just "coincidence like the plane crash that killed Dorothy Hunt".

Chandler is now getting too close to discovering the truth. It turns out that Elaine was the daughter of Memory, the Deep Throat character. As a result of his daughter's death, Memory is likely to tell Chandler the full story.

The CIA leak information that one of Chandler's early business ventures was financed by the Mafia. Photos are published of Chandler with a member of the Soviet Embassy. One of the pictures shows the Russian diplomat passing an envelope to Chandler (in fact the envelope contained tickers to see a Russian ballet). Trevor uses his contacts in the KGB to kidnap Chandler and take him to the Soviet Union. Trevor denounces Chandler as a Soviet spy and this of course undermines the report he has written suggesting that the CIA were involved in the assassination of JFK and other politicians involved in bringing an end to the Cold War.

The book ends with the message that the CIA and the Military Industrial Complex are so powerful that the truth about the JFK assassination will never emerge.

The interesting thing about Hart is that after the publication of The Double Man, he attempted to become president of the United States. He claimed that once in power he would order a full investigation into the assassination of JFK.

In 1987 he emerged as the Democratic Party front-runner. However, on 3rd May, 1987, the Miami Herald published a story that suggested that Hart was having a sexual relationship with Donna Rice. Hart's wife supported him claiming that his relationship with Rice was non-sexual. Two days later the Miami Herald obtained a photograph of Hart with Rice aboard the "Monkey Business". This photograph was subsequently published in The National Enquirer. This had a devastating impact on Hart’s campaign and he was later forced to withdraw from the race. In fact, the incident brought an end to his career.

I wonder if it was the CIA who set Hart up. If so, what was the motive? Was it because they really were behind the assassination of JFK or were they just angry about what he had said about the CIA in his novel, The Double Man?

John wrote:

I wonder if it was the CIA who set Hart up.

It was that under-cover CIA operative Don Henley.

Do you really believe that the CIA could not arrange it for Gary Hart and Donna Rice to be invited to the same party. The last thing that they would have done was to direct them to a party being held by a person with links to the CIA. Come on Tim, disinformation agents can do better than that.

John, are there records of the CIA using the "honeytrap" technique outside of the United States?

By the way I assume yoour last sentence was intended humorously as was my comment about Henley.

[quote=John Simkin,Aug 30 2005, 08:40 AM]

The book ends with the message that the CIA and the Military Industrial Complex are so powerful that the truth about the JFK assassination will never emerge.

[Sadly, is this not exactly what we have discovered?


]The interesting thing about Hart is that after the publication of The Double Man, he attempted to become president of the United States. He claimed that once in power he would order a full investigation into the assassination of JFK.

Just like RFK in 1968. Gary Hart was such an idealist back then. I had SUCH high hopes for him. (I had spent a year working as a City Co-ordinator for the McGovern Campaign in 72, in 4 different states, so I came to know Gary's passion and capabilities quite well. (Tho I never actually met him).


[]In 1987 he emerged as the Democratic Party front-runner. However, on 3rd May, 1987, the Miami Herald published a story that suggested that Hart was having a sexual relationship with Donna Rice. Hart's wife supported him claiming that his relationship with Rice was non-sexual. Two days later the Miami Herald obtained a photograph of Hart with Rice aboard the "Monkey Business". This photograph was subsequently published in The National Enquirer. This had a devastating impact on Hart’s campaign and he was later forced to withdraw from the race. In fact, the incident brought an end to his career.

Of course, Hart was way too knowledgeable to be permitted to become president.
Interesting that it was the Miami Harold's pic. Even tho it was the Enquirer who published it, the national media trounced him, the coverage was non- stop and Hart was forced to drop out of the race. (I remember feeling devestated, because I truly believed he'd push for the JFK assassination to be fully investigated)


I wonder if it was the CIA who set Hart up. If so, what was the motive? Was it because they really were behind the assassination of JFK or were they just angry about what he had said about the CIA in his novel, The Double Man?

[COLOR=blue]I think the answer to this is pretty obvious. And when I use the term "CIA" I mean it in the generic sense. The "Company" killed JFK but they had assistance at the top levels of the MIC. (IMHO)[/COLOR](And I am certain Mr Gratz will chime in here; to again bring up JFK's having sex with Exner, or some other form of hijacking ...his usual MO.)

Dawn

QUOTE (Tim Gratz @ Aug 30 2005, 10:31 AM)

By the way I assume yoour last sentence was intended humorously as was my comment about Henley.

Tim:

I fail to see ANY humor in Gary Hart's being prevented from being president.

You seem to find humor in the STRANGEST places.

Dawn

Gary Hart authored an insightful article on the Iraq war that appeared In the Washington Post on August 24, 2005:

Who Will Say 'No More'?

[Of course, since it was published in that "liberal rag," I don't expect Mr. Gratz to read it...but perhaps someone could give him a synopsis of it.]

Mark, I already read it, although my heart was not in it.

Lest you forget, however, the Washington Post is not a "liberal rag" but rather an arm of Operation Mockingbird.

I believe that Hart, as a onetime leader of the Democrat party, understands better than anyone the Democrats' leadership crisis. In that respect, he's as insightful as he ever was, and said a lot of things that the Democrats in positions of power today might think, but dare not say.

Whether or not you agree with his points about the war in Iraq, I don't see how anyone could argue against his charge of a lack of courage in Democrat party leadership. They lack insight, they lack foresight, and they lack a vision as well.

[I know a lot of hard-core Republicans who have stopped reading newspapers altogether because they perceive the media to have a left-wing slant. I wondered if Tim might be another of those. I choose to read all that I can, and to then try to think for myself, instead of either "following" the "liberal media" or "marching in lockstep" as a "mind-numbed robot" of the "Dittohead" persuasion. ]

While Hart's influence is diminished from what it was in the 1970's, his words still carry the weight of his convictions, right or wrong...and I don't think they're saying what either the Democrats OR the Republicans want to hear...so they're probably right.

I certainly never agreed with all (or even most) of Hart's positions but I did admire his ability to attempt to "think outside the box". I do believe it is in the long term interest of the people of Iraq and the people of the world that there be democracy in Iraq. I think the problem is we did not have enough troops in the country to keep order, probably because we did not anticipate the virulence of the insurgency after the war itself was over. But it is unrealistic to expect democracy in a year or two. How long did MacArthur work in Japan? And look at the results!

[quote=Mark Knight,Aug 31 2005, 09:07 AM]
I believe that Hart, as a onetime leader of the Democrat party, understands better than anyone the Democrats' leadership crisis. In that respect, he's as insightful as he ever was, and said a lot of things that the Democrats in positions of power today might think, but dare not say.

Whether or not you agree with his points about the war in Iraq, I don't see how anyone could argue against his charge of a lack of courage in Democrat party leadership. They lack insight, they lack foresight, and they lack a vision as well.

Mark:

I agree that the Dems have gotten themselves into a mess. They supported this war, now are stuck with it. That's why I was with Dean from the start. He knew enough to know W was wrong about the war and called it like it was. Still does.

I agree also with Gary's words, saw this a few days ago.

I just don't understand why the Democrats are not simply caling W on all the lies told to go into Iraq. But it seems it's like what Terry Mauro recently said "one party, two branches". Sad but true.

Dawn

A Gallup Poll found that 64% of those surveyed thought the media treatment of Hart was "unfair" whereas 53% believed that marital infidelity had little to do with a president's ability to govern. Despite these views the stories about Rice had badly damaged his campaign. In the New Hampshire primary Hart won only 4% of the votes and soon after announced that he was withdrawing from the race.

As a result of this failure Hart left politics. Is it possible that the CIA was involved in stopping Hart becoming president? The CIA had long-term links with the Miami Herald.

No, that's not possible. He chose to have an affair with Ms. Rice. Shortly before the "Monkey Business picture" was taken, he dared journalists to investigate his private life.

The following people worked on his U.S. Senate staff in 1979 - 1980:

Rebecca Pinkston

Talia Skari

A morbidly obese older man who talked on a Hart office phone all day with friends about nuclear warfare. Forget his name. Gary Hart, now in Denver, would remember it.

Richard D. Mahoney, Hart's friend and speech writer, wrote the excellent Sons & Brothers about the Kennedy Assassination. Hart is not mentioned in the text but could he have been a source for Mahoney's theory that the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida were behind the assassination?
[/quote]
[font=Arial Black][size=4]

[quote name='David Yarnell' date='Oct 4 2005, 11:20 PM' post='41521']
A Gallup Poll found that 64% of those surveyed thought the media treatment of Hart was "unfair" whereas 53% believed that marital infidelity had little to do with a president's ability to govern. Despite these views the stories about Rice had badly damaged his campaign. In the New Hampshire primary Hart won only 4% of the votes and soon after announced that he was withdrawing from the race.

As a result of this failure Hart left politics. Is it possible that the CIA was involved in stopping Hart becoming president? The CIA had long-term links with the Miami Herald.

No, that's not possible. He chose to have an affair with Ms. Rice. Shortly before the "Monkey Business picture" was taken, he dared journalists to investigate his private life.

The following people worked on his U.S. Senate staff in 1979 - 1980:

Rebecca Pinkston

Talia Skari

A morbidly obese older man who talked on a Hart office phone all day with friends about nuclear warfare. Forget his name. Gary Hart, now in Denver, would remember it.

Richard D. Mahoney, Hart's friend and speech writer, wrote the excellent Sons & Brothers about the Kennedy Assassination. Hart is not mentioned in the text but could he have been a source for Mahoney's theory that the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida were behind the assassination?
[/quote]
[font=Arial Black][size=4]
[/quote]
I am going against my better instincts in mentioning this, as I even have a "loose theory" about government (and Republican Party) attempts to discredit Democratic Presidential Administration's, but that's another story. I certainly would not be surprised if it came out at some point that the CIA or whoever was attempting to discredit Gary Hart at one time, but for what its worth; in 1984 I was an alternate to the Texas State Democratic Convention for Gary Hart (ultimately Walter Mondale was the Dem's nominee). I carpooled with another Hart supporter who'm I believe was an actual delegate, on the way down to Houston we talked about the usual stuff, we knew Mondale would be a disaster against Reagan which is why we were for Hart (besides the fact that his position on domestic and foreign policy was what attracted us to him.) Anyway, the Monkey Business/Donna Rice scandal broke in 1987, but even then I remember us discussing reports of Hart's womanizing and theorizing that he might have a death wish as far as "wanting to be President," not a literal death wish, just that it was said that he didn't seem to have that incredibly intense desire to be President, that I at least, always associate with Presidential candidates. The womanizing was just a rumour at that time. Take it for an anecdotal account of the 1984 Hart Campaign.

I found this interesting article by Lisa Pease on Bob Parry's website:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/112205a.html

It includes the following section on Gary Hart:

Forty-two years ago, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas. In Bethesda, Maryland, this past weekend, a group of distinguished journalists, historians, scientists and others gathered to discuss and debate the evidence of conspiracy in the JFK case.

While the research community has often slammed the mainstream media for not covering the facts of the case, the blame must go both ways. The conference organizers offered no handouts, no summaries of what is new in the case this year, or any hook upon which a journalist might hang a story.

As one of the reporters said in a panel discussion, this is a story without an ending, and how satisfying is that?

But that is a tragedy, in light of the Downing Street Memo and other evidence that the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq was built on a false platform. The common thread throughout the weekend was that secrecy and democracy cannot safely coexist, that the more we have of the former, the less we have of the latter.

The credentials of the speakers this year was more impressive than in previous conferences. Featured speakers included former presidential candidate Gary Hart, author James Bamford, journalists Jeff Morley and Salon founder David Talbot, and historians David Wrone and John Newman (who was a military intelligence analyst), and the former head of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, G. Robert Blakey.

Former Sen. Hart, a Colorado Democrat, recounted his experiences on the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, more popularly known as the “Church Committee” after its leader, Sen. Frank Church.

Hart began with a disclaimer saying he didn’t read the assassination books, hadn’t reviewed his Church Committee files, and warned that everything he said should be prefaced with, “as I recall.”

According to Hart, there was little interest among Committee members in seriously investigating the intelligence community. There had been little oversight of the CIA since its creation 28 years earlier. Reviewing the CIA’s operations seemed both a gargantuan and ultimately unnecessary task. The Vietnam War was in its last days, and there was the sense that poking around in Agency business might undermine morale.

The Committee members also realized that if there was even one leak, their work would be over. That’s one of the reasons there was so little oversight in the years up to that point. Simply put, the CIA did not trust Congress to keep its secrets. So they implemented strict security.

One day, CIA Director William Colby asked for even more security than ever before. He wanted the room swept for bugs before they began. Colby also insisted only members, not their staff, attended.

At that session, Colby presented Committee members with the 600-page Inspector General report on Agency abuses, a document popularly known as the “family jewels.” Included in that document were tales of drug experiments on both witting and unwitting subjects, the wholesale opening of mail, bugging operations, and plots to overthrow governments including -- “with almost demented insistence,” Hart said -- the attempts to kill Fidel Castro.

The Committee members were shocked. And significantly, Hart said that only a few items from that report have ever made it to the public, begging the question of what other abuses occurred. How can we measure the success of Congressional oversight if we don’t know if any of those other abuses were successfully handled?

Hart recounted an episode where he had the chance to meet one of the CIA’s top contract assassins, known only as QJ/WIN. After a long series of instructions, Hart arrived at the location, only to find QJ/WIN did not want to talk to him. Hart wrote about that episode in fictional form in the novel Double Man (co-written with William Cohen).

When Hart ran for president, he said he was frequently asked what he would do about the Kennedy assassination. He promised if elected, he would reopen the investigation. But then he was caught with Donna Rice on a boat in Florida. “If you’ve seen the movie ‘Bullworth,’ you know that now we can assassinate people with cameras,” he said.

QUOTE (John Simkin @ Dec 5 2006, 02:04 PM)

I found this interesting article by Lisa Pease on Bob Parry's website:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/112205a.html

It includes the following section on Gary Hart:

Forty-two years ago, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas. In Bethesda, Maryland, this past weekend, a group of distinguished journalists, historians, scientists and others gathered to discuss and debate the evidence of conspiracy in the JFK case.

While the research community has often slammed the mainstream media for not covering the facts of the case, the blame must go both ways. The conference organizers offered no handouts, no summaries of what is new in the case this year, or any hook upon which a journalist might hang a story.

As one of the reporters said in a panel discussion, this is a story without an ending, and how satisfying is that?

But that is a tragedy, in light of the Downing Street Memo and other evidence that the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq was built on a false platform. The common thread throughout the weekend was that secrecy and democracy cannot safely coexist, that the more we have of the former, the less we have of the latter.

The credentials of the speakers this year was more impressive than in previous conferences. Featured speakers included former presidential candidate Gary Hart, author James Bamford, journalists Jeff Morley and Salon founder David Talbot, and historians David Wrone and John Newman (who was a military intelligence analyst), and the former head of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, G. Robert Blakey.

Former Sen. Hart, a Colorado Democrat, recounted his experiences on the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, more popularly known as the “Church Committee” after its leader, Sen. Frank Church.

Hart began with a disclaimer saying he didn’t read the assassination books, hadn’t reviewed his Church Committee files, and warned that everything he said should be prefaced with, “as I recall.”

According to Hart, there was little interest among Committee members in seriously investigating the intelligence community. There had been little oversight of the CIA since its creation 28 years earlier. Reviewing the CIA’s operations seemed both a gargantuan and ultimately unnecessary task. The Vietnam War was in its last days, and there was the sense that poking around in Agency business might undermine morale.

The Committee members also realized that if there was even one leak, their work would be over. That’s one of the reasons there was so little oversight in the years up to that point. Simply put, the CIA did not trust Congress to keep its secrets. So they implemented strict security.

One day, CIA Director William Colby asked for even more security than ever before. He wanted the room swept for bugs before they began. Colby also insisted only members, not their staff, attended.

At that session, Colby presented Committee members with the 600-page Inspector General report on Agency abuses, a document popularly known as the “family jewels.” Included in that document were tales of drug experiments on both witting and unwitting subjects, the wholesale opening of mail, bugging operations, and plots to overthrow governments including -- “with almost demented insistence,” Hart said -- the attempts to kill Fidel Castro.

The Committee members were shocked. And significantly, Hart said that only a few items from that report have ever made it to the public, begging the question of what other abuses occurred. How can we measure the success of Congressional oversight if we don’t know if any of those other abuses were successfully handled?

Hart recounted an episode where he had the chance to meet one of the CIA’s top contract assassins, known only as QJ/WIN. After a long series of instructions, Hart arrived at the location, only to find QJ/WIN did not want to talk to him. Hart wrote about that episode in fictional form in the novel Double Man (co-written with William Cohen).

When Hart ran for president, he said he was frequently asked what he would do about the Kennedy assassination. He promised if elected, he would reopen the investigation. But then he was caught with Donna Rice on a boat in Florida. “If you’ve seen the movie ‘Bullworth,’ you know that now we can assassinate people with cameras,” he said.

It's so appalling that someone as intelligent and conspiracy-aware as Gary Hart allowed himself to be so set-up. And I just love how the bastards also have thier little sense of humor at our expense: "Monkey Business".

Hart acted like a trained monkey and fell for the plot so easily.

Dawn

Hart, like Kerry hadn't a chance from the beginning...if they hadn't been politically or sexually assassinated, they would have been physically assassinated once elected, I'm sure. They both knew at least the outlines of the Grand Conspiracy behind many events, not the least of which were Dallas, Iran-Contra, Watergate, et al. Tosh Plumlee told Hart about several of these things long ago. He also testified before Kerry's subcomittee. Not that Plumlee knew all...but enough. They knew [and believed] too much truth to ever get elected and without scandals being set upon them.

[quote] name='Tim Gratz' post='36776' date='Aug 13 2005, 06:25 AM']I suspect that it is possible that someone set Hart up with Rice, and that the relationship was then "leaked" by someone who wanted, for whatever reason, to derail his candidacy. It is only a suspicion.

But a single affair ruined Hart's presidency.

Clearly anyone with knowledge of the facts could have ruined JFK's presidency by publishing the fact that he shared a friend with a major Mafia don and that he had an affair with a lady suspected of ties to an Eastern bloc intelligence organization. Or, they could have used their knowledge of those plots to blackmail Kennedy.

Why, then, the assassination?

Several possibilties suggest themselves: (1) the conspirators were unaware of either relationship (but Rosselli and Giancana were aware of Campbell); or

(2) the conspirators hated JFK enough they wanted to murder him, not just drive him from office. [/qoute]

It seems to me that Kennedy was impeachable or at least, as you said, in a position to be driven from office. Good question. If this was so, why the assassination?

To learn more about Gary Hart, contact one of the many aides he employed at his U. S. Senate office. You have Talia Skari, Rebecca Pinkston, a strange fat man who used the senator's phones for hours every day rambling to a friend about nuclear war, and so many other employees.

It is said that Gary Hart came within 6 inches of becoming president.

This letter (attatchment) was in reference to events that were taking place through 1980-85, (Drug War) before Iran Contra became publicly known and befor GH started his 84 bid for President... He was st-up by the CIA_ CAG OMC Operation. The Secret Air Base at Santa Elena CR was being constructed and "The Fat Lady " Berry Seal's C-123 was stuck in the mud. A few months later, it was shot down with the loss of two crew members... hence secret Iran/Contra operations 'Supermarket and Enterprize" were exposed.