Douglas Caddy

Piers Morgan to appear before Leveson inquiry next week Former Daily Mirror and News of the World editor expected to be quizzed about his statements on celebrities and phone hacking By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 December 2011 12.25 EST Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror and the News of the World, is to appear before the Leveson inquiry next week. His appearance was confirmed by a CNN spokeswoman in New York, where he is based for the filming of his TV chatshow Piers Morgan Tonight, who said that he would be giving testimony at some point next week. "He's appearing next week, but we don't have a confirmed date yet," said Megan McPartland. He is expected to be questioned about his own public statements about celebrities, phone hacking and his experience at the helm of two of the country's best-selling newspapers. Morgan is expected to give evidence by video link from New York. Last summer it emerged that Morgan had been lined up to take over from Larry King when the TV host retired from his nightly interview show on CNN. At 28 Morgan was appointed editor of the News of the World, making him the youngest tabloid newspaper editor in history. He was editor of the Daily Mirror for more than 10 years but was sacked in 2004 after the newspaper conceded that photos it published apparently showing British soldiers abusing an Iraqi were fake. In a statement the Mirror said it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and that it would be "inappropriate" for Morgan to continue. Morgan famously claimed in a GQ magazine interview in 2007 that phone hacking was "widespread" and that "loads of newspaper journalists were doing it" when Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in January of that year. Asked by the model Naomi Campbell in the interview whether he knew about voicemail interception while he was editor of News of the World, Morgan said: "Well, I was there in 1994-95, before mobiles were used very much, and that particular trick wasn't known about. I can't get too excited about it, I must say. "It was pretty well known that if you didn't change your pin code when you were a celebrity who bought a new phone, then reporters could ring your mobile, tap in a standard factory setting number and hear your messages. That is not, to me, as serious as planting a bug in someone's house, which is what some people seem to think was going on." Morgan agreed that voicemail interception was an invasion of privacy, adding: "But loads of newspaper journalists were doing it. Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter, has been made the scapegoat for a very widespread practice." A year earlier, in 2006, Morgan wrote an article for the Daily Mail claiming that he was played a tape of a message Paul McCartney left on the mobile phone of Heather Mills. "The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back," he said in the article. "He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answerphone."

News of the World editor: I felt there were bombs under the newsroom floor Colin Myler tells Leveson inquiry of mood after Clive Goodman's jailing over phone hacking and Andy Coulson's resignation By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 December 2011 07.35 EST Colin Myler, the former editor of the News of the World, has said he felt there were "bombs under the newsroom floor" when he arrived to take over from Andy Coulson in 2007. Myler was parachuted in from Rupert Murdoch's New York Post to take over from Coulson after he resigned in the wake of the jailing of royal editor Clive Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire on phone-hacking charges. He told the Leveson inquiry into press ethics on Thursday that he knew then that practices at the paper had to be tightened up. "I felt there could have been bombs under the newsroom floor and I didn't know where they were and I didn't know when they were going to go off." He said it was evident after the police had removed three binliners of documents and notes from Mulcaire's home that something could explode at any moment. Myler said the "for Neville" email – the first indication that phone hacking was not limited to one rogue reporter – was one of those potential bombs. "You mentioned bombs under the newsroom floor," counsel for the inquiry Robert Jay asked: "This was creating a tendency for one or more of those bombs to explode, would you agree with that?" Myler agrees, and said: "There was no appetite to go back to that place." The former editor was also asked if he knew if the "for Neville" email was handed over to James Murdoch at a meeting on 10 June 2008, when the Taylor settlement was being discussed. Myler said he could not recall but that if the paper's legal chief Tom Crone testified that he did, he believed that would have been the case. "I can't remember if he did that," he said. "I am aware that Crone said in his testimony and I have no reason to disbelieve that he did what he said he did." Myler also revealed that he had not seen copies of internal emails that proved he and the paper's former legal chief Tom Crone had communicated the extent of the hacking until they were released by the culture committee this week.

Leveson calls NoW emails to women in Max Mosley story 'frankly outrageous' Judge challenges News of the World's former editor, Colin Myler, over paper's ethos By Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011 12.18 EST Lord Justice Leveson has branded emails sent by the News of the World to two women in the Max Mosley expose as "frankly outrageous". The judge put it to the paper's former editor, Colin Myler, that the reason the paper's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, was not reprimanded about the emails was because of the general "ethos" of the paper. Myler, giving evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday, admitted that the emails were "totally inappropriate". The emails were sent by Thurlbeck to get the first hand accounts of the women involved an orgy organised for Max Mosley. They offered them cash and anonymity if they told their story first hand for a follow-up story. Myler says he didn't know until Thurlbeck's evidence to the Leveson inquiry on Tuesday that Ian Edmondson, the paper's then news editor, had written the emails. Myler said: "In hindsight I should have reprimanded them [Thurlbeck and Edmondson] and a letter should have gone on the personnel files." Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked Myler why, if he felt the emails were "totally inappropriate" was the Mosley story put forward for "scoop of the year" at industry awards. He suggested that far from being "contrite" Myler was "proud" of the story. Myler said he was not "gloating" but was "humiliated" by the Mosley victory. "Let me be clear about this, the News of the World was humiliated by Mr Mosley's court victory," he said. "I was humiliated and it was a landmark for how tabloid newspapers would have to approach these stories. I wasn't gloating at all," Myler added. Myler said he thought the News of the World's story on Mosley was justified. "Mr Mosley was the head of the richest sport in the world. It had a global membership of 120m including the Automobile Association," said Myler. "As head of that he presided over a huge expansion programme. He should have displayed ethical standards … taking part in orgies that were brutal and depraved and included paying women for sex was not [behaviour] the FIA could reasonably accept."

At Nixon library, the old game of hardball against a new view of Watergate The former president's loyalists fought a revised portrayal of the scandal and sought to hold up confirmation of the National Archives director over the redesign by historian Timothy Naftali. By Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times December 14, 2011 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-nixon-library-20111214,0,3294124.story During his five-year overhaul of the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Cold War historian Timothy Naftali won wide praise for transforming a much-ridiculed institution into a house of serious scholarship under the auspices of the National Archives and Records Administration. Yet nobody was surprised that the private Richard Nixon Foundation — run by fierce loyalists of the former president — didn't honor Naftali when he left as director last month to join a think tank and write a book. The raw, unflinching Watergate exhibit he unveiled in March was, in the loyalists' view, deeply unkind to Nixon's legacy. The foundation, which had run the library with private funds from its inception in 1990, had a chilly relationship with Naftali since he was appointed director in 2006 with the clear orders to make over an institution that seemed designed only to burnish Nixon's image. Now, a fuller portrait is emerging of the campaign the loyalists waged and the tactics they employed — including the use of high-level political pressure — to thwart Naftali's efforts at the library. Prominent in the effort to rein in the director was Ron Walker, 75, who worked as an advance man during Nixon's first White House term and now runs the foundation. Foundation members were so offended by Naftali's work, Walker said, that some "alumni" from the Nixon White House approached Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to place a hold on the 2009 Senate confirmation of David Ferriero as archivist of the United States. "It was to send a signal to the archives if Tim's not gonna straighten up and fly right," Walker said. In a phone interview, Alexander said he did place a hold on Ferriero's confirmation, but only so he could meet Ferriero before he was confirmed. He acknowledged that Walker and other former members of the Nixon White House had complained to him about Naftali. "I know many of them were unhappy with [Naftali's] attitude," said Alexander, a veteran of the Nixon White House. "And they talked to me about it. Ron asked me to express that to the new director of the archives." In his meeting with Ferriero, Alexander said, he suggested areas the library might focus on, such as Nixon's efforts to open up China and his environmental and civil rights legacies. "What I said was, 'Obviously, Watergate's an important part of President Nixon's presidency, just like Monica Lewinsky is part of Bill Clinton's presidency, but the whole Clinton library isn't about Monica Lewinsky,' " Alexander said. "I thought it was a perfectly legitimate request, that there ought to be a broader view of President Nixon," he added. In fact, though the Watergate exhibit has received the most media attention, it has always been part of a much larger museum that explores the broader patterns of Nixon's life and career. Ferriero, who did not return calls for comment for this story, was confirmed as the nation's top archivist in November 2009, soon after his meeting with Alexander. There is no sign that the meeting influenced Naftali's approach, and Naftali said the Watergate exhibit opened as he envisioned it, despite the foundation's panel-by-panel critique and a nine-month delay. Pressed to respond to Walker's remarks, Naftali said he was sad that the Nixon foundation "appears not to be letting go of their anger at me." Walker is mentioned in a May 5, 1971, exchange between Nixon and his top aide, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, who served 18 months in prison for covering up the Watergate burglary. The conversation falls under the heading "President Nixon and Dirty Tricks" on the Nixon Library website. An audio recording captures Haldeman discussing various efforts to sabotage the political opposition, including some headed by Nixon aide Charles Colson. Haldeman tells Nixon, "We've got some stuff that he [Colson] doesn't know anything about … through [appointments secretary Dwight] Chapin's crew and Ron Walker and the advance men." After former Nixon aide John Taylor left as head of the Nixon foundation in 2009 to serve as a full-time Episcopal priest, the foundation fell into the hands of "Haldeman's inner circle of political operatives," Naftali said. "Sadly, they were using the same tactics, from the same playbook," Naftali said of the foundation's campaign against him. "It's a very special tribe that has never accepted the nation's verdict on Watergate. "What was I supposed to do," Naftali asked, "give up and let the coverup continue at the library?" The former director said his work at the library "got difficult at times," particularly because "an intensity gap favored the Nixonians. They simply cared more about the library than most anybody else." Stanley N. Katz, a Princeton University historian who works with the archives on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, said the effort to pressure Naftali through a senator was "reprehensible." "There's nothing illegal about it, but it's extraordinary," Katz said. "We've been struggling to keep the archives out of politics for 25 years." Katz said it was "very inappropriate" to attempt to "intervene in the appointments process on essentially what's an irrelevant issue." It was "playing hardball," he said. Walker said he never tried to get Naftali fired. "I did nothing to undermine him, but I did let people know we were unhappy with the way he was doing certain things." He added: "We would like to have [had] somebody who was more friendly to President Nixon." Under the foundation's watch, the library devoted space to Watergate, but described the scandal as a "coup" that was fanned and stoked by Nixon's enemies. Walker said he came out of retirement in 2009 to run the foundation, appalled that Naftali had invited former White House counsel John Dean — who revealed Nixon's involvement in the Watergate coverup — to speak. Walker said he considers the library, whose campus includes Nixon's birthplace and grave, "hallowed grounds." In response to the Dean talk, the foundation temporarily suspended funding for library programs. On Memorial Day 2010, Naftali was giving a private tour of a new archival facility to a small delegation from the Nixon foundation, including Walker and Edward Nixon, the former president's brother. Naftali said he wanted to thank the foundation for lobbying Congress to build the $9-million facility. The encounter, as both sides recount it, soon turned ugly. "Edward Nixon said, 'My family is being hurt by the things you did here, Tim, and it's not fair,' " Walker said. He said one of the delegation told Naftali, "Why don't you move on?" Naftali remembers it differently. He said the Nixon loyalists told him the library should be treated as a "shrine," and that he wasn't doing that. "It wasn't 'move on,' it was 'get the hell out,' " Naftali said. "They cornered me and berated me. I knew that if I said anything, it would be misinterpreted. So I said absolutely nothing in response to their hectoring." He added: "At that moment I was determined not to leave a single minute before I did what I'd promised the archives." The National Archives has yet to name Naftali's successor as head of the Nixon library.

Accounts of a Massacre, Saved From Junkyard Flames The New York Times By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT December 14, 2011 BAGHDAD — One by one, the Marines sat down, swore to tell the truth and began to give secret interviews discussing one of the most horrific episodes of America’s time in Iraq: the 2005 massacre by Marines of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha. “I mean, whether it’s a result of our action or other action, you know, discovering 20 bodies, throats slit, 20 bodies, you know, beheaded, 20 bodies here, 20 bodies there,” Col. Thomas Cariker, a commander in Anbar Province at the time, said to investigators as he described the chaos of Iraq. At times, he said, deaths were caused by “grenade attacks on a checkpoint and, you know, collateral with civilians.” The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war, were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp. The documents — many marked secret — form part of the military’s own internal investigation, and confirm much of what happened at Haditha, a Euphrates River town where Marines killed 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers. Haditha became a defining moment of the war, helping cement an enduring Iraqi distrust of the United States and a resentment that not a single Marine was ever prosecuted. That is one of the main reasons that all American combat troops are leaving by the weekend. But the accounts are just as striking for what they reveal about the extraordinary strains on the soldiers who were assigned here, their frustrations and their frequently painful encounters with a population they did not understand. In their own words, the report documents the dehumanizing nature of this war, where Marines came to view 20 dead civilians as not “remarkable,” but as routine. Iraqi civilians were being killed all the time. Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the commander of American forces in Anbar Province, in his own testimony, described it as “a cost of doing business.” The stress of combat left some soldiers paralyzed, the testimony shows. Troops, traumatized by the rising violence and feeling constantly under siege, grew increasingly twitchy, killing more and more civilians in accidental encounters. Others became so desensitized and inured to the killing that they fired on Iraqi civilians deliberately while their fellow soldiers snapped pictures, and were court-martialed. The bodies piled up at a time when the war had gone horribly wrong. Charges were dropped against six of the accused Marines in the Haditha episode, one was acquitted and the last remaining case against one Marine is scheduled to go to trial next year. That sense of American impunity ultimately poisoned any chance for American forces to remain in Iraq, because the Iraqis would not let them stay without being subject to Iraqi laws and courts, a condition the White House could not accept. Told about the documents that had been found, Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the United States military in Iraq, said that many of the documents remain classified and should have been destroyed. “Despite the way in which they were improperly discarded and came into you possession, we are not at liberty to discuss classified information,” he said. He added: “We take any breech of classified information as an extremely serious matter. In this case, the documents are being reviewed to determine whether an investigation is warranted.” The military said it did not know from which investigation the documents had come, but the papers appear to be from an inquiry by Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell into the events in Haditha. The documents ultimately led to a report that concluded that the Marine Corps’s chain of command engaged in “willful negligence” in failing to investigate the episode and that Marine commanders were far too willing to tolerate civilian casualties. That report, however, did not include the transcripts. Many of those testifying at bases in Iraq or back in the United States were clearly in the hot seat for not investigating an atrocity and may have tried to shape their statements to dispel any notion that they had sought to cover up the events. But the accounts also show the consternation of the Marines as they struggled to control an unfamiliar land and its people in what amounted to a constant state of siege from guerrilla fighters who were nearly indistinguishable from noncombatants. Some, feeling they were under attack constantly, decided to use force first and ask questions later. If Marines took fire from a building, they would often level it. Drivers who approached checkpoints without stopping were assumed to be suicide bombers. “When a car doesn’t stop, it crosses the trigger line, Marines engage and, yes, sir, there are people inside the car that are killed that have nothing to do with it,” Sgt Maj. Edward T. Sax, the battalion’s senior noncommissioned officer, testified. He added: “I had Marines shoot children in cars and deal with the Marines individually one on one about it because they have a hard time dealing with that.” Sergeant Major Sax said he would ask the Marines responsible if they had known there had been children in the car. When they said no, he said he would tell them they were not at fault. He said he felt for the Marines who had fired the shots, saying they would carry a lifelong burden. “It is one thing to kill an insurgent in a head-on fight,” Sergeant Major Sax testified. “It is a whole different thing — and I hate to say it, the way we are raised in America — to injure a female or injure a child or in the worse case, kill a female or kill a child.” They could not understand why so many Iraqis just did not stop at checkpoints and speculated that it was because of illiteracy or poor eyesight. “They don’t have glasses and stuff,” Col. John Ledoux said. “It really makes you wonder because some of the things that they would do just to keep coming. You know, it’s hard to imagine they would just keep coming, but sometimes they do.” Such was the environment in 2005, when the Marines from Company K of the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton, Calif., arrived in Anbar Province, where Haditha is located, many for their second or third tours in Iraq. The province had become a stronghold for disenfranchised Sunnis and foreign fighters who wanted to expel the United States from Iraq, or just kill as many Americans as possible. Of the 4,483 American deaths in Iraq, 1,335 happened in Anbar. In 2004, four Blackwater contractors were gunned down and dragged through the streets of Falluja, their bodies burned and hanged on a bridge over the Euphrates. Days later, the United States military moved into Falluja, and chaos ensued in Anbar Province for the next two years as the Americans tried to fight off the insurgents. The stress of combat soon bore down. A legal adviser to the Marine unit stopped taking his medication for obsessive-compulsive disorder and stopped functioning. “We had the one where Marines had photographed themselves taking shots at people,” Col. R. Kelly testified, saying that they immediately called NCIS and “confiscated their little camera.” He said the soldiers involved had received a court-martial. All of this set the stage for what happened in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. That morning, a military convoy of four vehicles was heading to an outpost in Haditha when one of the vehicles was hit by a roadside bomb. Several Marines got out to attend to the wounded, including one who eventually died, while others looked for insurgents who might have set off the bomb. Within a few hours 24 Iraqis — including a 76-year-old blind man and children between the ages of 3 and 15 — were killed, many inside of their homes. Townspeople contended that the Marines overreacted to the attack and shot civilians, only one of whom was armed. The Marines said they thought they were under attack. When the initial reports arrived saying that more than 20 civilians had been killed in Haditha, the Marines receiving them said they were not surprised by the high civilian death toll. Chief Warrant Officer K. R. Norwood, who received reports from the field on the day of the events at Haditha and briefed commanders on them, testified that 20 dead civilians was not unusual. “I meant, it wasn’t remarkable, based off of the area I wouldn’t say remarkable, sir,” Mr. Norwood said. “And that is just my definition. Not that I think one life is not remarkable, it’s just —” An investigator asked the officer: “I mean remarkable or noteworthy in terms of something that would have caught your attention where you would have immediately said, ‘Got to have more information on that. That is a lot of casualties.’ ” “Not at the time, sir,” the officer testified. General Johnson, the commander of American forces in Anbar Province, said he did not feel compelled to go back and examine the events because they were part of an continuing pattern of civilian deaths. “It happened all the time, not necessarily in MNF-West all the time, but throughout the whole country,” General Johnson testified, using a military acronym for coalition forces in western Iraq. “So, you know, maybe — I guess maybe if I was sitting here at Quantico and heard that 15 civilians were killed I would have been surprised and shocked and gone — done more to look into it,” he testified, referring to Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. “But at that point in time, I felt that was — had been, for whatever reason, part of that engagement and felt that it was just a cost of doing business on that particular engagement.” When Marines arrived on the scene to assess the number of dead bodies, at least one Marine thought it would be a good time to take pictures for his own keeping. “I know I had one Marine who was taking pictures just to take pictures and I told him to delete all those pictures,” testified a first lieutenant identified as M.D. Frank. “He was with me, sir, and he was snapping some pictures and I was like, ‘Sergeant, just delete those because you are just getting yourself into a world of trouble.’ So he said, ‘Roger that, sir.’ ” The documents uncovered by The Times — which include handwritten notes from soldiers, waivers by Marines of their right against self-incrimination, diagrams of where dead women and children were found, and pictures of the site where the Marine was killed by a roadside bomb on the day of the massacre — remain classified. In a meeting with members of the news media in October, before the military had been told about the discovery of the documents, the American commander in charge of the logistics of the withdrawal said that files from the bases were either transferred to other parts of the military or incinerated. “We don’t put official paperwork in the trash,” said the commander, Maj. Gen. Thomas Richardson, at the meeting at the American Embassy in Baghdad. The documents were piled in military trailers and hauled to the junkyard by an Iraqi contractor who was trying to sell off the surplus from American bases, the junkyard attendant said. The attendant said he had no idea what any of the documents were about, only that they were important to the Americans. He said that over the course of several weeks he had burned dozens and dozens of binders, turning more untold stories about the war into ash. “What can we do with them?” said the attendant. “These things are worthless to us, but we understand they are important and it is better to burn them to protect the Americans. If they are leaving, it must mean their work here is done.” Yasir Ghazi contributed reporting.

News of the World ex-head of legal says he held up key email to James Murdoch Tom Crone tells inquiry he held up an email suggesting phone hacking went beyond a single journalist in meeting with Murdoch By James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011 11.03 EST The News of the World's former head of legal has said he held up the front page of an email that suggested phone hacking went beyond a single journalist at the paper during a critical meeting with James Murdoch to discuss how best to settle a legal action. Tom Crone told the Leveson inquiry into press standards that he went into the 10 June 2008 meeting with Murdoch, who was chairman of the paper's owner News International, armed with documents that appeared to show that hacking was not the work of a "rogue reporter". "I think I took a copy of the 'for Neville' email," Crone told the inquiry on Wednesday. "I can't remember whether they were passed across the table to him but I'm pretty sure I held up the front page of the email. I am also pretty sure he already knew about it." Colin Myler, the paper's editor at the time, was also at the meeting. The email in question contained transcripts of voicemails intercepted from a mobile phone belonging to Gordon Taylor, who was suing the News of the World. It was sent by one of the journalists on the title, Ross Hall, to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire for the attention of "Neville", which is understood to be a reference to the paper's former chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck. It emerged on Tuesday that Murdoch was sent an email by Myler ahead of the June meeting which referred to and included a message from Crone referring to the email and the existence of the transcripts. The email chain was published by the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee yesterday along with a letter from Murdoch in which he insisted he had not read the "for Neville" email. Asked on Wednesday by inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC about the 10 June meeting, which was called to discuss how to respond to Taylor's claim, Crone told the Leveson inquiry: "I certainly took a copy and possibly spare copies of the [legal] opinion." The legal opinion was drawn up by Michael Silverleaf QC and warned there was evidence of a culture of illegal information gathering at the paper. Murdoch told parliament in October that he had been told about the email and the legal opinion but insisted he had not be shown either document. Murdoch told MPs he had been advised by Myler and Crone to settle the Taylor case because the PFA chief executive had obtained evidence from Scotland Yard that proved his phone had been hacked by the News of the World. He denies he was told that hacking went beyond Goodman and that this was the reason he authorised a six-figure pay-off to Taylor. At the time, News International was insisting that only one reporter, former royal editor Clive Goodman, had hacked into mobile phone messages, and that he had done so secretly with Mulcaire without the company's knowledge. Crone said of the 10 June meeting: "What was certainly discussed was the email… the damning email and what it meant in terms of further involvement in phone hacking beyond Goodman and Mulcaire." He added: "This document clearly was direct and hard evidence of that." Cone said: "I left that meeting knowing that Mr Murdoch was prepared to settle the case if necessary for a bit more than … £350,000." Myler is likely to be asked about the meeting with Murdoch and Crone when he gives evidence to the inquiry this afternoon. Myler told parliament earlier this year that Murdoch was told about the contents of the "for Neville" email

http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/cinque9.1.1.html

Neville Thurlbeck: knowledge of phone hacking 'went to the top' of NoW News of the World's sacked chief reporter claims knowledge of hacking 'went to the top' of the newspaper 'but no further' By Josh Halliday and Tara Conlan guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011 07.59 EST Neville Thurlbeck, the sacked chief reporter of the News of the World, has claimed that knowledge of phone hacking "went to the top" of the newspaper "but no further". In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Media Show broadcast on Wednesday, Thurlbeck said: "The News of the World were provided with evidence by me as to where the culpability lay. Now at that point the News of the World were faced with two choices, either deal with the problem or ignore the problem and on that decision rested, I believe, the future of the News of the World." Asked how his bosses reacted when Thurlbeck allegedly provided them with evidence of wider hacking, he replied that they said: "'Leave it with us'. And eventually they fired me." Thurlbeck told the BBC that: "It was clear when the 'For Neville' email came about that phone hacking was taking place." The so-called 'For Neville' email contained transcripts of private messages left by Professional Footballers' Association boss Gordon Taylor and was compiled by private investigators working for the News of the World in June 2005. It is inferred that the transcript was provided to, or was intended to be provided to Thurlbeck. Thurlbeck, who worked under Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson while both were editors of the NoW, has previously insisted that he took no part in voicemail interception despite his name being on the so-called "for Neville" email. The email came to the attention of the News of the World's lawyer Tom Crone in May 2008 and Crone subsequently spoke to Thurlbeck about it. In his interview with The Media Show, Thurlbeck was asked who knew about widespread hacking at the News of the World. He claimed: "I think it went to the top of the News of the World and then no further. It should have gone down the corridor to Rebekah Brooks and then to James Murdoch." Thurlbeck did not say under which News of the World editor it "went to the top". Brooks was editor of the News of the World from 2000 until 2003, during which time it is alleged that a private investigator hacked into murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's mobile phone. She moved to become editor of The Sun and then chief executive of News International. Coulson was editor of the News of World between 2003 and 2007, when he resigned and was replaced by Colin Myler. Asked whether Thurlbeck thought Brooks, who resigned at the height of the phone-hacking scandal in July, knew of wider hacking at the News of the World, he said: "I don't think she did at all. I've got no doubt at all that if James Murdoch had have been made aware he would have instigated an investigation into it at the very least and informed the board as to why he was making a record privacy payout to Gordon Taylor." However, Tom Watson, the Labour MP and prominent critic of News International, immediately cast doubt on Thurlbeck's version of events. Watson said on Twitter that the interview was "totally inappropriate", adding: "He's appealing his sacking. He told me a completely different story." The Labour MP said last month before the Commons culture committee that he had taped a private conversation between himself and Thurlbeck, and that the former News of the World reporter said Tom Crone, the former legal manager at the title, indicated he would show the damning "for Neville" email to James Murdoch.

James Murdoch was told in email phone hacking was 'rife' Daily Telegraph 4:57PM GMT 13 Dec 2011 Recently discovered emails show that News International boss James Murdoch was sent details in 2008 of claims that phone-hacking was ''rife'' at the News of the World. But Mr Murdoch told the House of Commons Culture Committee, which is investigating the phone hacking scandal, that he did not read the email exchange forwarded to him by the paper's then editor Colin Myler. In an email dated Saturday June 7 2008, Mr Myler requested a meeting with Mr Murdoch to discuss the case being brought against the paper by Professional Footballers Association chief executive Gordon Taylor over claims reporters had eavesdropped on his messages. The News of the World editor warned Mr Murdoch: ''Unfortunately, it is as bad as we feared.'' Attached to his message was a "chain" of emails detailing discussions between News International's legal adviser Julian Pike of Farrer & Co and Mark Lewis, who represented Mr Taylor. Mr Murdoch and Mr Myler met three days later on June 10, along with Tom Crone, legal manager for the NotW's publishers News Group Newspapers. Mr Myler and Mr Crone say that they told Murdoch at that meeting about the discovery of the notorious "For Neville" email, which proved that phone-hacking was not limited to a single "rogue reporter" on the paper as the company had claimed. But Mr Murdoch insists that the meeting was simply to authorise an increased settlement offer to Mr Taylor and that he was not shown the email or told that it proved that wrong-doing was more widespread than previously thought. The email exchange released today shows that Mr Pike wrote to Mr Crone on June 6, following his meeting with Mr Lewis. Mr Pike said that Lewis had told him Taylor "wishes to be 'vindicated or made rich'. He wishes to see NGN suffer. He wants to demonstrate that what happened to him is/was rife throughout the organisation. He wants to correct the paper telling parliamentary inquiries that this was not happening when it was." The solicitor noted that Mr Taylor was referring to NGN's position that Clive Goodman - the royal correspondent jailed in 2007 for intercepting messages - was a "rogue trader" acting alone with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. NGN had already offered Mr Taylor a £350,000 settlement, but he was demanding "seven figures plus indemnity costs", which could run to £1.2 million, said Mr Pike, who told Crone he would meet Mr Mulcaire to try to prepare a defence. Mr Crone forwarded the message to Myler, making clear that details of the hacked emails were contained in what he refers to as "the Ross Hindley email" - believed to be the message entitled "For Neville" obtained by Mr Taylor. Mr Crone voiced his concern about a "nightmare scenario" in which the PFA's in-house lawyer Joanne Armstrong may be able to sue because voicemails were also taken from her phone. "There is a further nightmare scenario in this, which is that several of those voicemails on the Ross Hindley email were taken from Joanne Armstrong's phone. We can also assume that she will have seen this evidence and is waiting to see how Taylor's case concludes before intimating her own claim," he wrote. He said he expected the company to enter a defence that while it "knew of and made use of the voicemail information Mulcaire acquired between Feb(ruary) and July 2005" - the period of the hacking which led to Goodman's conviction - it did not know whether "any of its employees... acted in concert with" him over the following year. Mr Crone also refers to a tape obtained by Mr Taylor, which the PFA boss alleges records Mulcaire informing someone called Ryan about how to get into his voicemail. But the NGN legal manager says that Mulcaire appears to address the person as "Rial", which "can only be helpful" to the paper's case as it has never had a reporter of that name. Passing the email exchange on to Mr Murdoch in an email with the heading "Strictly Private and Confidential and subject to legal professional privilege", Mr Myler wrote: "Update on the Gordon Taylor (Professional Football Association) case. Unfortunately it is as bad as we feared. "The note from Julian Pike at Farrer's is extremely telling regarding Taylor's vindictiveness. It would be helpful if Tom Crone and I could have five minutes with you on Tuesday." In a response timed just two minutes later, Mr Murdoch said: "No worries. I am in during the afternoon. If you want to talk before, I'll be home tonight after seven and most of the day tomorrow." In a letter to the Culture Committee yesterday, Mr Murdoch said that he had forgotten about the email exchange until he was reminded of it on December 7 by the Management and Standards Committee set up by NI's owners News Corp to look into the hacking affair. Mr Murdoch told the Commons committee that he was "confident" that he did not review the chain of emails before or after agreeing to meet Mr Myler and did not have a phone conversation with the NotW editor that weekend. "Having agreed to meet the following Tuesday, I would have relied on the oral briefing on 10 June 2008 that I have previously described in my testimony before the committee," he wrote. In a statement released later, Mr Murdoch said: "I was sent the email on a Saturday when I was not in the office. I replied two minutes later accepting a meeting and did not read the full email chain. "As I have always said, I was not aware of evidence of widespread wrongdoing or the need for further investigation

James Murdoch: I didn't read crucial phone-hacking email News International boss was sent email in 2008 showing practice went beyond rogue reporter By Dan Sabbagh and Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 December 2011 16.50 EST Fresh questions about the extent of James Murdoch's knowledge of the phone-hacking scandal were raised on Tuesday when it emerged he received an email that included a briefing indicating that the activity had not been confined to a single "rogue reporter". News International's executive chairman wrote to MPs to say he had not properly read the June 7 2008 mail from News of the World editor Colin Myler which forwarded an account of the case being brought against the paper by the Professional Footballers' Association boss Gordon Taylor The email chain appears to contradict Murdoch's insistence that he was not briefed in detail on the case which was later settled for more than £700,000. The forwarded note from the paper's legal manager Tom Crone warned of a "nightmare scenario" because Taylor had obtained firm evidence of the hacking of one of his colleague's phones which involved at least one other News of the World journalist. Myler's email also contained a second warning, from another lawyer retained by the News of the World, which added that Taylor's legal team wanted to demonstrate that phone hacking was "rife" throughout News International, the British parent company of the red top title. Murdoch replied to the revealing email within three minutes of it being sent to him – but insisted – on the day the email chain was made public by the culture and media committee for the first time – that he had only read the top of the email, not the email chain below. Writing to MPs, Murdoch said: "I am confident that I did not review the full email chain at the time or afterwards," in part because Myler's note had been sent to him at the weekend. Crone's forwarded note places pressure on Murdoch's account of his handling of the hacking affair because it refers to the email which became known as the "For Neville" mail, a key piece of evidence that showed hacking extended beyond a single rogue reporter. Murdoch has always insisted he was not told about the existence of the "For Neville" email. Crone and Myler have repeatedly told MPs that they briefed Murdoch about the email – referred to in the newly-released emails as "the Ross Hindley email" in reference to the reporter who had transcribed hacked voicemails allegedly intended for the paper's chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck. Three days after Myler sent the note that Murdoch says he did not read in full, the News Corp boss met the editor and Crone on 10 June 2008 to agree to settle the case in secret. News Corp, however, continued to maintain publicly that hacking was confined to a single "rogue reporter" until the end of 2010. That "rogue reporter" was Clive Goodman who was jailed in 2007, for his part in hacking into phones belonging to officials working for Prince William and Prince Harry. Accounts of the 10 June meeting have been disputed for several months, with Murdoch telling parliament in July and November that he did not see the "For Neville" email, nor did he understand its significance. Myler and Crone have repeatedly disputed Murdoch's account, saying the "For Neville" email was the sole reason for settling the case. The Murdoch disclosure came on the same day that Crone told the Leveson inquiry into press standards that he had always suspected phone hacking at the paper went beyond a single journalist, saying that he believed that the "rogue reporter" line was "erroneous from the outset". Elsewhere, in the high court, a lawyer acting for Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was jailed for hacking phones for the News of the World, said his client had told Crone in 2007 that he was also instructed by another journalist, Ian Edmondson, the title's former news editor, to intercept voicemail messages. The email chain forwarded to Murdoch by Myler also includes a note from Julian Pike, News International's external legal adviser at the firm Farrer's dated 6 June 2008. Pike says that Taylor's lawyer, Mark Lewis, has told him that he wants to demonstrate that hacking "is/was rife throughout the organisation" and he wants to "correct" the News International line that Goodman was a "rogue trader". Crone commented on that note from Pike a day later, suggesting to Myler that "the best course of action" is to make a settlement offer to Taylor which would "amount to £700k [thousand]". The two emails, were in turn, forwarded by Myler to Murdoch at 2.31pm on 7 June 2008, a Saturday. In a short email the then News of the World editor concludes that the status of phone-hacking case "is as bad as we feared". Myler asks for a meeting with his superior on Tuesday to discuss. Murdoch acknowledged Myler's email almost immediately, responding at 2.34pm. "No worries," it began. "I am in during the afternoon. If you want to talk before I'll be home tonight after seven and most of the day tomorrow." The email correspondence has come to light after it was unearthed by News Corp's in-house management and standards committee this month, which is working with the police and other outside bodies investigating claims of phone hacking against the News of the World. Linklaters, the law firm to the committee, passed the email chain to both Murdoch himself and the culture media and sport select committee. Murdoch was first asked about the "For Neville" email when he appeared before MPs on the culture media and sport select committee with his father on 19 July of this year. He was asked by Tom Watson : "When you signed off the Taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of the 'For Neville' email, the transcript of the hacked voicemail messages?" and replied: "No, I was not aware of that at the time." In September, Myler and Crone, appearing together before the same group of MPs, said they had told Murdoch about the "For Neville email" in 2008. Murdoch was subsequently recalled by the MPs and insisted he had not been made aware that there was any evidence that hacking was more widespread than a single reporter. In a statement, Murdoch said: "I was sent the email [from Colin Myler] on a Saturday when I was not in the office. I replied two minutes later accepting a meeting and did not read the full email chain. As I have always said, I was not aware of evidence of widespread wrongdoing or the need for further investigation."

New inquiry into Milly Dowler hacking launchedJudge signals that fresh statements will be taken from police about latest developments By David Leigh guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 December 2011 12.44 EST The Leveson inquiry into press behaviour has launched its own investigation on Monday in an attempt, in Lord Justice Leveson's words, to "get to the bottom of" fresh evidence about the News of the World's hacking of Milly Dowler's voicemail. The judge signalled that new statements would be taken from two police forces, Surrey and the Metropolitan police, about the question of the hacking and deletion of the murdered girl's voicemail messages. This followed confirmation from counsel for the Met that it was now considered "unlikely" that the private detective Glenn Mulcaire, who had been commissioned to hack Milly's phone by the Sunday tabloid, had also been responsible for deleting her voicemail messages. Neil Garnham QC confirmed to a public session of the Leveson inquiry that Mulcaire had not been tasked by the NoW to hack Milly's phone until "some time after" the mystery deletion of voicemail messages from the 13-year-old girl's One-2-One mobile phone. As a result, he said, it was "unlikely" that Mulcaire was to blame for the deletions. It was, however, conceivable, although also unlikely, that other NoW journalists had carried out the deletions. He said the phone company's standard system was to delete messages 72 hours after being listened to, and that Milly had accessed her own phone "approximately 72 hours" before the Dowlers discovered the emptying of her voicemail box, giving them false hope that she was alive. The Scotland Yard version was challenged by David Sherborne, representing the Dowlers. He pointed out that every single voicemail had been apparently deleted at once on 24 March 2002. This could not have been the result of automatic deletions of each message after 72 hours, he said, because the Dowlers had left a series of anxious messages on the phone in preceding days. Sherborne said someone else must have been accessing and deleting messages between 21 and 24 March. He pointed the finger at "a journalist at the NoW" who was also in possession of Milly's phone number and pin number: "The Surrey police know the identity of the journalist," he alleged. Leveson said: "This information is of significance." The public would want to know the upshot of the fresh allegations, he said, and therefore he would be unable to leave the issue until part two of the inquiry, which was due to deal with phone-hacking allegations following the conclusion of any court cases. He needed to "get to the bottom of what is likely to have happened" and could not "leave it hanging in the air indefinitely". Garnham denied that it was Scotland Yard officers who had initially blamed the NoW for the deletions. The Dowlers' lawyer, Mark Lewis, has publicly stated that the allegation about the NoW deletions first came via the Met. Leveson told the inquiry he might have to go back to Surrey police, the original Dowler investigators, and ask them to submit evidence on the issue. Garnham told the inquiry that it had now been discovered that the voicemail deletion occurred on 24 March 2002, the day the Dowlers visited the former Birds Eye office block in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, where there had been CCTV footage of their daughter. "The MPS have been investigating the suggestion that Mr Mulcaire deleted voicemail messages on Milly Dowler's phone," said Garnham. "Although their investigations are not yet complete, they are presently able to say this. "First, the visit by the Dowlers to the Birds Eye building occurred on 24 March 2002. Second, Mr Mulcaire was not tasked in relation to the Dowlers until some time after that date. Third, and accordingly, it's unlikely that anything Mr Mulcaire did was responsible for what Mrs Dowler heard when she called Milly's phone during that visit. "It is not yet possible to provide a comprehensive explanation for the fact that on that occasion the automated 'mailbox full' message was not heard. It is conceivable that other News International journalists deleted the voicemail, but the MPS [Metropolitan police service] have no evidence to support that proposition and current inquiries suggest that it is unlikely. The most likely explanation is that existing messages automatically dropped off from the mailbox after 72 hours. The relevant phone network provider has confirmed that this was a standard automatic function of that voicemail box system at the time. There were approximately 72 hours between Milly's disappearance and the visits to the Birds Eye building

Met police chief's rediscovered diaries reveal meals with NoW executives Lord Stevens' diaries catalogue dinners at the Ivy with Rebekah Brooks and meetings with Andy Coulson Press Association guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 December 2011 10.05 EST The Metropolitan police commissioner and the editor of the News of the World dined together at the Ivy while murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler was missing, official diaries show. Lord Stevens met various senior executives from national media while he was Britain's top police officer between 2000 and 2005, according to his once-lost diaries. The meetings included three dinners with former NoW and Sun editor Rebekah Brooks at the Ivy, a favourite haunt of celebrities in central London, the diaries, which were released on Monday to the Press Association following a request under the Freedom of Information Act, show. These included a three-hour dinner on 28 August 2002, months after Milly disappeared in March and before her body was found on 18 September. Brooks resigned as News International chief executive on 15 July this year saying she was "appalled and shocked" that Milly's phone was hacked. Two days later Scotland Yard detectives arrested her on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption. She is currently on police bail. Her lawyer has said she denies committing any criminal offence. In October News International confirmed it was paying the Dowler family £2m in settlement of their civil claim over the illegal interception of Milly's voicemail messages by a private investigator working for NoW. Rupert Murdoch also donated £1m to charities chosen by the schoolgirl's family to underscore his regret. But over the weekend the Dowler family's solicitor Mark Lewis said that, despite initial reports, police now suspect that the NoW was not responsible for deleting messages on Milly's phone and giving the family false hope that she was alive. Instead, Milly's phone would automatically delete messages 72 hours after being listened to, and some messages had been deleted before the NoW began hacking into her voicemail. The former commissioner's diary showed Brooks, under her maiden name of Rebekah Wade, met with Lord Stevens on at least six occasions between 2000 and 2005, including three dinners at the Ivy in August 2002, June 2003 and December 2004. Other meetings described lunch or dinner with "News of the World", without naming the individuals invited. Lord Stevens also dined with both Brooks and former News International executive chairman Les Hinton, the most senior figure to resign over the hacking scandal so far, seven days after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. The dinner was held in the force's headquarters at New Scotland Yard. In September 2004 Hinton, along with "other editors (Sun, NofW etc)", dined with Lord Stevens at News International's headquarters in Wapping, east London. A close Murdoch lieutenant who had worked with the News Corp chief for more than 50 years, Hinton quit as CEO of the company's Dow Jones subsidiary in July as the scale of hacking which took place under his watch at the NoW became apparent. Lord Stevens said in his autobiography that he worked hard to foster good relations with newspapers, making himself "available" to editors. Lord Stevens also met former NoW editor Andy Coulson on at least five occasions, including for lunch at Shepherd's in the heart of Westminster and dinner at Cipriani London in Mayfair. These occurred in August 2000, March 2001, February 2003, November 2004 and January 2005, the diaries showed. Neil Wallis, NoW's former executive editor, who was arrested in July by the Metropolitan police's phone-hacking investigation team, was also present on this last occasion at Cipriani London. Coulson, who was also arrested in July over the allegations and released on bail, resigned as David Cameron's director of communications in January, saying that coverage of the scandal was making it too difficult for him to do his job. Stuart Kuttner, the former NoW managing editor who was arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and inappropriate payments to police in August and later released on bail, also met Lord Stevens on at least two occasions in March 2001 and November 2004. Lord Stevens also dined with a series of other media executives during his time in office, including Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, the Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, and former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan. Other executives whom he met included representatives of the Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Independent, the Daily Express, the Financial Times, the Observer, the London Evening Standard, the BBC, ITN and Sky News. Lord Stevens' diaries, which had been lost, were found after a "thorough investigation" was ordered by the current commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, earlier this year. Lord Stevens used a paper-based diary from 1 January 2000 to 9 August 2001, but then used both a paper diary and Microsoft Outlook after this date, the response to the FOI request showed. Mark Lewis, the Dowler family's lawyer, said the "revelation shows the level and type of contact between the police and News International". He added: "It might be that nothing untoward was discussed but the lack of openness causes suspicion. Policing should be open."

Reporter reveals undercover methods at NotW Financial Times By Ben Fenton December 12, 2011 The chief reporter of the News of the World admitted on Monday that he had sent emails to prostitutes involved in one of the newspaper’s “kiss-and-tells” which threatened to identify them if they refused to give their stories, but claimed the messages were dictated by a senior executive. Neville Thurlbeck agreed with the counsel for the Leveson inquiry that the emails were intended to intimidate the women into telling all about a “sex party” involving Max Mosley, the former Formula One chief, which had been splashed all over the now-defunct Sunday tabloid the previous week. In the emails, Mr Thurlbeck offered the women the chance to have their faces pixelated in a series of pictures of Mr Mosley that were taken from stills in a video recorded by one of the five prostitutes on behalf of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper. But to ensure anonymity, and a cash payment, they had to agree to tell their side of the story. If they did not, the emails implied, their faces would be clearly identifiable in pictures appearing in more than 3m copies of the News of the World the following week. Giving evidence under oath, Mr Thurlbeck claimed that the content of the emails was spelt out for him by Ian Edmondson, the then news editor. He said the latter had been on holiday the previous week and had missed the glory of the Mosley scoop. However, Mr Thurlbeck told the inquiry into press standards and ethics that he could have refused Mr Edmondson’s instructions and said he took full responsibility for the emails. Earlier, he and Mazher Mahmood, the investigations editor of the News of the World, had both told the inquiry that they believed that acting in the public interest was the paramount concern for stories that they wrote. Mr Thurlbeck said he had written a kiss-and-tell story about an alleged affair between David Beckham and an actress called Rebecca Loos because the footballer and his wife Victoria commercially exploited their wholesome family image. Mr Mahmood said he believed all his stories, many of which were obtained by dressing up as the so-called “fake sheikh” to record people off their guard incriminating themselves in criminal activities, had been in the public interest and involved “criminal or moral wrongdoing or hypocrisy”. The Leveson inquiry was set up by David Cameron to look into press standards after last July’s scandalous revelation that the News of the World had hacked the phone of Milly Dowler, the murdered Surrey schoolgirl, in 2002. Some uncertainty was cast at the weekend over the details of that event when The Guardian, which broke the story in July, reported that police now believed that the most inflammatory of the News of the World’s alleged actions were probably not its responsibility. The newspaper quoted the police as saying that the deletion of voicemails on Milly’s phone probably occurred as the inadvertent result of Surrey police listening to her messages as they tried to find her. Because of an automatic system, this led to messages being deleted and gave her parents false hope that she was alive and picking up her voicemail. Mr Mahmood said he was not aware of phone hacking until after the arrest of Clive Goodman, the paper’s royal editor, in 2006. Asked if any names were mentioned at the time, he told the inquiry: “I didn’t hear any names, but the fingers were all pointing at the newsdesk.” Lawyers for Tessa Jowell announced on Monday that the former culture secretary and Labour’s spokesman on the Olympics had settled a phone hacking claim with the News of the World’s parent company for £200,000 plus undisclosed costs. Ms Jowell, who was told her mobile phone had been hacked on multiple occasions when her husband was facing charges of corruption in connection with his role as a lawyer for Silvio Berlusconi, stipulated that half the damages be paid to a charity in her south London constituency. She will also receive all the documentation from her case and will remain one of the core participant witnesses at the Leveson inquiry.

Oscar Griffin Jr., 78, Pulitzer Prize Winner Who Brought Down Scheming Texas Tycoon, Dies By DOUGLAS MARTIN The New York Times December 10, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/oscar-griffin-jr-78-pulitzer-prize-winner-who-brought-down-scheming-texas-tycoon-dies.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries Judge Roy Bean, the 19th-century Texas justice of the peace and saloonkeeper, called himself “the law west of the Pecos.” Not until the 1960s was Judge Bean’s legend challenged — by Billy Sol Estes. Mr. Estes was a glad-handing wheeler-dealer who used cash from his $100 million agricultural empire to practically purchase the town of Pecos, buying up businesses ranging from a tractor dealership to a funeral home. Mr. Estes had two planes, a barbecue pit big enough for 10 sizzling steers and decidedly nonindigenous palm trees in his front yard. A monkey climbed the trees until he got mumps. Mr. Estes was also well connected politically, boasting that the president of the United States took his calls. On his wall at the time were autographed pictures of President John F. Kennedy and a longtime friend, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. In Pecos, population 12,728 then, Mr. Estes essentially ruled — until a 29-year-old journalist named Oscar Griffin Jr. toppled him. Mr. Griffin, who died on Nov. 23 at 78, was the city editor of a semiweekly Pecos newspaper that competed fiercely with a daily paper owned by none other than Mr. Estes. On a five-person news staff, Mr. Griffin was by necessity a jack of all trades, as much reporter as editor. And it was as a reporter that he brought down Mr. Estes, unraveling an elaborate fraud scheme in four articles that earned Mr. Griffin and his little newspaper, The Pecos Independent and Enterprise, a Pulitzer Prize in 1963 for distinguished local reporting. The series, which was as understated and meticulous as Mr. Griffin and took months to prepare, at first caused no particular fuss or fanfare in Pecos. The articles carried no byline, ran under headlines smaller than those for the major articles and did not even mention Mr. Estes by name. But their description of how that businessman masterminded a byzantine scheme to borrow money using nonexistent fertilizer storage tanks as collateral caught the attention of the F.B.I. Congressional hearings into this and other Estes flimflams led to the highest levels of the Kennedy administration, particularly Johnson, who had been a business associate of Mr. Estes’s in several ventures. Some histories say the vice president tried to help Mr. Estes in questionable dealings with the Agriculture Department that emerged after Mr. Griffin exposed the tank fraud. Some say Kennedy may have considered dropping Johnson from his ticket in 1964, partly because of the Johnson-Estes connection. In 1963, Mr. Estes was convicted of a battery of fraud charges by federal and state courts and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. (The United States Supreme Court overturned the state conviction on the ground that television and radio coverage of his pretrial hearing had violated his rights.) After six years in prison, Mr. Estes was released on parole in 1971. Eight years later, he was convicted of other fraud charges and served four more years. As the Estes story unfolded and the national news media picked up on it, Mr. Estes’s supporters outnumbered his detractors in Pecos, nestled at the juncture of the Pecos River and the old Comanche Trail. “You have to remember that Billy Sol was like God in this town,” one man told The New York Times in 1962, adding, “Anyone opposed to him might just as well pack up their bags and leave town.” The episode began in 1961, when Dr. John Dunn, a physician who bought The Independent the year before with three partners, grew suspicious of Mr. Estes’s maneuvers. Dr. Dunn’s mother, who ran a retail credit shop, had told him of the unusual number of mortgages being carried by farmers dealing with Mr. Estes. Dr. Dunn soon discovered that Mr. Estes had borrowed $24 million — $180 million in today’s dollars — using as collateral fertilizer tanks that turned out not to exist. Mr. Estes had persuaded farmers in a cotton-growing area to pretend to buy tanks by taking out mortgages on them. He offered the farmers 10 percent of the purchase price — in effect, something for nothing. Dr. Dunn told the F.B.I., but federal agents found no violation of banking laws. Before long Dr. Dunn sold his interest in the paper and turned over his material on the Estes case to The Independent. Mr. Griffin said he first became suspicious of Mr. Estes’s easy-money scheme when he overheard farmers talking in a small cafe. “It’s like pennies from heaven,” he quoted one as saying, recounting the case in an interview with United Press International in 1962. In pursuing the Estes story Mr. Griffin was taking on a competitor. Mr. Estes started his newspaper in August 1961 after The Independent refused to back him as a candidate for the local school board. Mr. Estes’s paper slashed advertising rates to force The Independent out of business and warned advertisers to avoid it. The strategy appeared to be working. The Independent cut its editorial staff from five to two. The Independent’s trump card was Mr. Griffin’s investigative series, which came out in February and March 1962. Mr. Estes was arrested on March 29. In addition to the fertilizer tank scam, he was convicted of defrauding the federal government’s grain storage program in a scheme that in one instance involved taking three federal agriculture officials on a shopping spree at the Neiman Marcus store in Dallas. The day before Mr. Estes was arrested, Mr. Griffin said he went to see him and asked him “point blank” if the fertilizer tanks existed. “He told me that there weren’t as many tanks as the mortgages showed,” Mr. Griffin wrote. “That sure was the understatement of the year.” Mr. Estes, now 86, still nurses hard feelings about Mr. Griffin, the reporter who helped put him in jail. “It’s a good riddance that he left this world,” Mr. Estes said Friday in a brief telephone interview. Oscar O’Neal Griffin Jr. was born in Daisetta, Tex., on April 28, 1933. He served in the Army in the 1950s, graduated from the University of Texas in 1958 and worked at several other small Texas papers before joining The Independent. After his series appeared, he joined The Houston Chronicle in 1962 and covered both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He was later a spokesman for the federal Transportation Department, worked at small Texas oil companies and earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. His family said he died of cancer in New Waverly, Tex., where he lived. Mr. Griffin is survived by his wife of 56 years, the former Patricia Lamb; a brother, Red; a sister, Peggy Marino; three daughters, Gwendolyn Pryor, Amanda Ward and Marguerite Griffin; a son, Gregory; and seven grandchildren. The Independent not only got the goods on Mr. Estes; it also defeated his newspaper, The Pecos Daily News, which Mr. Estes had started in the hope of grinding The Independent out of existence. After the scandal broke, The Daily News went into receivership. (The Independent survives as The Pecos Enterprise.)

http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/cinque8.1.1.html

Leveson Inquiry: Journalists 'would have fought us' The Independent By Sam Marsden, Rosa Silverman Friday 09 December 2011 The former information commissioner suggested today that it was a good thing his office did not prosecute journalists for illegally buying private information. Richard Thomas told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards that he feared newspapers would have fought the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He said he was advised that reporters alleged to have paid private investigators for personal data were well-prepared and like a "barrel of monkeys". The inquiry has heard that the Information Commissioner's Office uncovered a "treasure trove" of evidence linking newspapers to the trade in personal information when it raided the home of private investigator Steve Whittamore in March 2003 as part of an inquiry called Operation Motorman. Mr Thomas told the hearing today: "Maybe this is with hindsight, but perhaps thank goodness we did not prosecute the journalists. "The impact for the office would have been very, very demanding indeed. "I don't know when this was or at what point this was, but perhaps around about 2007, I can recall a conversation along the lines of somebody saying 'Thank God we didn't take the journalists to court, they would have gone all the way to Strasbourg'." Robert Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, questioned why the Information Commissioner's Office did not bring prosecutions against journalists who paid for criminal records or "family and friends" telephone numbers, which could only be obtained illegally. Mr Thomas replied: "I can see that the media would not like any of their journalists being prosecuted, and I suspect they would for example argue there is a public interest in being able to ensure freedom of expression. "Now I don't believe that, I don't accept that. It's one thing as to whether or not that would be successful, but one can anticipate that that sort of point would have been raised and would have bogged down the office for many years." Mr Thomas, who was information commissioner from 2002 to 2009, said he expected his investigators to "get on with the job" and did not give them any instructions about whether to pursue newspapers. "At no time throughout this situation did I think we were either going to be prosecuting journalists or not doing so," he said. Mr Jay suggested that the failure to interview any journalists as part of Operation Motorman could only be put down to a policy decision or incompetence in the investigation team. Mr Thomas replied: "If you want to put it in those terms, I have to put it to the latter. "But I am absolutely clear, because I wouldn't have done any of the things I had done right through 2005, 2006, 2007 if I had thought at any time I or anybody else had said, 'back off the journalists'." Mr Thomas alerted the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) in November 2003 to the involvement of reporters in the illicit trade in private data, the inquiry heard. "I was told some time in October or November that it was going to be too expensive or too difficult to pursue the journalists. That's when I went off to the PCC," he said. The inquiry heard that barrister Bernard Thorogood advised Mr Thomas in January 2005 that police - who were investigating Whittamore and his associates for alleged corruption over the trade in criminal records, vehicle registration and telephone company data - had found it difficult to get information out of reporters. "The journalists were interviewed and were found to be tricky, well-armed and well briefed - effectively a 'barrel of monkeys'," minutes from the meeting noted. Whittamore was convicted of illegally accessing data and received a conditional discharge at London's Blackfriars Crown Court in April 2005. Mr Thomas said illegally obtaining personal records could be more serious than phone hacking. He stressed that his office took breaches of section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998, which covers the unlawful obtaining of personal information, "extremely seriously". In a witness statement he said: "A section 55 offence is often at least as serious as phone hacking, and may be even more serious. "Interception of a telephone call or message is widely and rightly seen as highly intrusive. "But a great deal more information can usually be obtained about individuals by stealing their electronic or written records (such as financial, health, tax or criminal records) than from a conversation or message. "And their entire daily activities can be available if email accounts or social network sites are illicitly accessed." PA

The Man in the Doorway Was Oswald by Ralph Cinque Recently by Ralph Cinque: Lies, Damn Lies, and National Geographic www.lewrockwell.com December 8, 2011 [view photos] http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/cinque7.1.1.html The identity of the man in the doorway of the Texas Schoolbook Depository in the famous photo by Ike Altgens has been debated since the very day of the assassination. It was the first photo of the assassination to circle the globe. Obviously, if Oswald was standing outside the building, he could not have been on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy. The Warren Commission concluded that the man standing with his shirt open was Billie Lovelady, another TBD employee, and it was based, reportedly, on his testimony, on the testimony of others, and on a very detailed anatomical comparison of the facial features. Of course, all advocates of the lone gunman theory say that it was Lovelady, and, it is also true that some conspiracy theorists, including some prominent ones, also say that the Man in the Doorway was Lovelady. But, I’m here to tell you that it was Oswald. First, note that they could have resolved this with 100% certainty at the time. They had Lovelady; he had his clothing; they had Altgens; he had his camera. They could have put Lovelady at the entrance, dressed exactly as he was on the fateful day, and Altgens on the exact spot where he was when he took his famous picture, and just duplicated it. It could have been done easily and immediately. So, why didn’t they do it? The FBI did eventually take photos of Lovelady, but that was later on, and he was wearing different clothes. And, they were regular, close-up pictures, and therefore useless. Fortunately, there was another picture of Lovelady taken on the day of the assassination, and we’ll get to it. But, let’s start by looking at the original Altgens photo, and obviously, the area in question is rather small and quite fuzzy. Look towards the upper left corner. Focus on the man standing next to the column with the open shirt. He’s practically leaning against the column. That’s our man, the Doorway Man. Now look at the blow-up of Doorway Man, and next to it, the picture of Oswald taken after his arrest. In size and general proportions, it sure looks like Oswald. But now, let’s look at a picture of Billy Lovelady taken the same day. It is actually a composite: the left side shows Lovelady in the foreground as Oswald is being led away, and the right side shows Lovelady alone. Note that Lovelady is stockier than Oswald. He looks rather burly in comparison. Doorway Man definitely looks slightly built, asthenic. And notice how loosely the outer shirt fits on Doorway Man. He is really swimming in that thing. The Warren Commission made a big deal out of minute facial measurements, and of course, linking them all to Lovelady. These include: facial length, lower jaw breadth, chin length, nasal breadth, nasal tip, hairline and pattern of hair loss, and more. But, it would be difficult for any of us to confirm these things, and I don’t suggest we take their word for it. Moreover, as with the Zapruder Film and the autopsy photos, it has been suggested that the Altgens photo was altered. And a minute thing like the pattern of a balding hairline would have been relatively easy to alter. So, that brings us back to the shirt- that big, open, unbuttoned, loose-fitting, plaid outer shirt. It is not so easily altered. We know for certain that Oswald was wearing a shirt like that. And we know that he had it buttoned in that fashion, that is, largely unbuttoned, where it was buttoned only at the bottom. And, he wore a white tee-shirt underneath that came to a v. Tee-shirts can be shaped round at the opening or come to a v, and Oswald’s and Doorway Man’s came to a v. But, it’s the shirt being unbuttoned that is most significant. We know for sure that’s how Oswald’s shirt was. Multiple pictures show it. Why was his shirt unbuttoned? Well, the top buttons were missing. He was living alone at the time, renting a room in Dallas. Plenty of guys don’t sew. I don’t. If a button comes off, it stays off. So, Oswald didn’t have a choice that day. His shirt had to be unbuttoned. But, what about Lovelady? He was at work. Most guys button up at work. Plus, the President was driving by that day. It was late November, practically December. According to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce Weather Bureau, the temperature at Love Field when Kennedy arrived was 63 degrees. It may have been a little warmer by the time they reached Dealey Plaza, but not much. It wasn’t that hot. And, we have the picture of Lovelady taken after the assassination where his shirt is buttoned. You can barely see the tee-shirt. So, what are we supposed to assume? That he was standing there watching the President with his shirt unbuttoned, for no explicable reason, and then afterwards, he decided to button up? Why? And is that what happened? Believe it or not, nobody asked him. I read through all his testimony. Nobody asked him, "Were you standing there with your shirt unbuttoned, and if so, why?" The FBI didn’t ask. The Warren Commission didn’t ask. Nobody asked, and nobody discussed it. We are talking about a behavior here. It was a coincidence that Oswald and Lovelady happened to look alike. It was a coincidence that they happened to be wearing similar clothes. But, for both to be wearing their shirts the exact same way and not the usual, normal way for a workplace? That seems like a real long-shot to me. And again, Lovelady was not wearing his shirt that way a little while later at the police station. So, when did he button up? And why did he button up? And how the heck did nobody ask him about it? But, it’s not just the buttoning. Oswald’s shirt was rumpled. It was in need of ironing. And, it was loose-fitting. Likewise with Doorway Man, it’s like he’s wearing a sail. The shirt is bulging out with loose material. It seems more like a loose-fitting pajama top. But, in the picture of Lovelady at the police station, his shirt is tight-fitting. And, it is not unbuttoned; it is not rumpled, and the material is lying smoothly and snugly against his chest. You don’t get any sense that he is swimming in that shirt as you do when looking at both Oswald after his arrest and at Doorway Man. And, the pattern of Lovelady’s shirt is that of large squares. It’s checkered, but the boxes are big. And the white lines in the pattern really stand out. There is a lot of contrast there. For Oswald and the Man in the Doorway, the pattern is much more subtle, more discreet, presenting a more solid-looking coloring. Here is another picture of Oswald in which the likeness of the pattern of his shirt to that of the Man in the Doorway can be readily seen. And it raises the issue of what happened to Oswald’s shirt. They kept parading him around in his tee-shirt. He complained that he wanted his shirt back. He pointed out that everyone else was wearing a shirt but him. There are lots of shots of him like this: And there is other evidence too, such as the testimony of Bill Shelley who said that Lovelady was seated on the stairs and not standing. I notice that Doorway Man is standing with his left arm slightly flexed. There is some tension in his elbow. He’s bending it, and he’s got his left hand centered in front of his body. He is not letting his arm relax and just dangle by his side. That is a muscular habit, which some people have. They carry tension in their arms- habitually- all the time. They never fully relax their arms. Now look at Oswald in the handcuffs. Obviously, his hands are centered there because of the handcuffs. However, he’s also raising his hands some. He’s lifting his forearms. He’s flexing his elbows and quite a lot. He is not relaxed; he is expending energy to bend his arms. It’s the same pattern except more exaggerated. Now look at the mouth in the Altgens photo. It looks like Doorway Man is pursing his lips. His mouth looks firmly closed. Compare that to the cheerful black woman below him whose mouth is relaxed and open. You can see her broad smile and white teeth. Then, in Oswald’s arrest photo in the handcuffs you can really see how he is clenching his mouth tightly shut. Again, it’s the same pattern, just more pronounced. It’s a neuro-muscular habit. Obviously, he was under a lot of stress at that point. Billy Lovelady was about to testify before the House Subcommittee on Assassinations in 1979 when he died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 42. Make of that what you will. But again, at the time of the assassination, they could have tried to duplicate the Altgens photo with him in it to see if it looked the same, but they didn’t. They could have asked him about his habits for buttoning his shirt and what he did that very day, but they didn’t. And since the shirt is the main object, the main form, the most visible dimensionality that you see of Doorway Man, they could have asked him to bring that shirt in. But, they didn’t. I think the Doorway Man was Oswald. I’m not saying that I would bet my life on it, but I’d bet some serious money. December 8, 2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/interactive/2011/dec/07/news-corporation-letter-mps

Neville Thurlbeck: 'News of the World withheld hacking evidence' NoW's former chief reporter has provided evidence accusing executives of 'withholding information' about phone-hacking By Jason Deans and Lisa O'Carroll The Guardian, Wednesday 7 December 2011 Full text: read Thurlbeck's letter to MPs http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/08/neville-thurlbeck-phone-hacking-evidence The News of the World's former chief reporter has provided written evidence to MPs accusing executives on the paper of "withholding information" about the extent of phone-hacking at the title from a parliamentary committee and other senior News International managers including James Murdoch. Neville Thurlbeck claimed Colin Myler, the former News of the World editor, and Tom Crone, the former head of legal at the newspaper, had left him "to dangle as a suspect for the next two years" after he first told them in July 2009 that he had "final proof" that phone-hacking at the paper went beyond a single "rogue reporter". The phone-hacking scandal eventually led to the decision by the paper's owners News International to close the title in July of this year. News International had previously insisted that phone-hacking had only been carried out by royal correspondent Clive Goodman, who commissioned private detective Glenn Mulcaire to hack into voicemail messages. In 2006, they were both found guilty of phone hacking and were jailed the following year. Thurlbeck said his name first became publicly linked to allegations of phone hacking in July 2009 in relation to a News International settlement with PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor. Taylor was paid £425,000 in damages over the interception of voicemail messages. In a letter to the Commons select committee chairman, John Whittingdale MP, which was published online late last night, Thurlbeck wrote: "In my intimate experience of the fall-out from the phone hacking scandal, there has been a pattern of News of the World executives withholding information from News International executives and to the [culture, media and sport committee]." He also wrote that because of what he claimed was a "backdrop of persistent non-disclosure", he cannot believe allegations by Myler and Crone that they told Murdoch in 2008 that phone-hacking at the News of the World went beyond a single reporter. Murdoch the News Corporation deputy chief operating officer and News International chairman denies that he was told this. Thurlbeck said he could not believe that if Murdoch had been told that there was evidence of more widespread phone hacking that he would not have taken further action to find out what had been going on at the News of the World after deciding to pay Taylor damages a settlement that rose to more than £700,000 including legal costs in 2008. "It is inconceivable to me that upon deciding to pay record damages for invasion of privacy based upon telephone hacking that he would not have discussed the implications for the company and shareholders with other members of the board, who would in turn have advised holding an internal inquiry. They didn't," he wrote. Thurlbeck was arrested and bailed in April of this year for alleged phone hacking, and was sacked by News International in the summer. He denies hacking into phones. In another letter to the culture select committee published late on Wednesday, Crone insisted he conveyed to Murdoch the damning legal opinion from the company's own barrister of "overwhelming evidence" that there was "a culture of illegal information access" in the newsroom. He claims he provided Myler with a copy of the written opinion by Michael Silverleaf, QC on 3 June 2008, and that this was duly reported to Murdoch at another meeting on 10 June. He admits he "cannot remember" whether he "handed a copy of counsel's opinion" or whether he and Myler "simply briefed him". But he is sure: "I certainly went to the meeting with a spare copy of the written opinion for Mr Murdoch and would have offered it to him. "If he was not given the copy it was because he asked to be briefed rather than reading it himself." Myler also stands by his previous claims that he and Crone did brief Murdoch about external legal advice to settle with Taylor. "I do not know whether Mr Murdoch was given a copy of Mr Silverleaf's opinion. I did not give him a copy. "However, Mr Crone and I briefed Mr Murdoch at the meeting on 10 June 2008 that Counsel's advice was to settle Mr Taylor's claim," he wrote to the culture select committee. Myler says he did not read a copy of the Silverleaf opinion but was "briefed" on the substance of the advice which was to "settle Mr Taylor's claim". Thurlbeck claims that a taped phone conversation with the News of the World journalist alleged to have made the transcript of the Taylor voicemail messages in the "for Neville" email exonerates him.

James Murdoch: I did not authorise Max Clifford phone-hacking settlement News Corp boss claims he did not sign off deal with publicist worth more than £650,000 By Dan Sabbagh and Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 December 2011 James Murdoch has written to MPs claiming that Rebekah Brooks reached a settlement with Max Clifford in 2010 over his phone hacking-claims against the News of the World without seeking authorisation with him or discussing its terms. The settlement was worth £200,000 a year for two years, according to other evidence sent to parliament by lawyers working for News Corporation. Clifford also had his costs of £283,500 plus VAT paid. James Murdoch's letter – sent to the culture, media and sport select committee – claims that "Mrs Brooks did mention agreement with Mr Clifford to me but did not seek any authorisation from me, nor did she discuss its terms with me." Clifford, the public relations adviser, was one of a group of public figures that had his phone hacked into. The publicist subsequently brought a phone-hacking action against the newspaper. Murdoch is executive chairman of News International, the UK company that owns News Corp's British newspapers, and used to own the now closed News of the World. His letter was released with a string of others last night by the culture, media and sport select committee. Further detail is provided by Linklaters, lawyers to News Corporation's in house management and standards committee, which said there was no written agreement for the Clifford settlement, in a separate letter to the committee. The arrangement was negotiated in February 2010 and contracted Clifford to "help with stories and would be paid a retainer of £200,000 per annum for two years," according to the Linklaters memo. Linklaters note claims that News Corp's management and standards committee "understands that Mrs Brooks was authorised to conclude this agreement by virtue of her position as chief executive of News International." According to Linklaters, News Corp's management and standards committee had also seen no information to suggest that the Clifford settlement was "discussed by the boards of News Group Newspapers, News International or News Corporation". Colin Myler, the former editor of the News of the World, said that he had only a "limited" involvement in the Clifford settlement, in another letter sent to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and published by that body last night. But Myler said that he was present at one meeting in which Tom Crone, the News of the World's chief lawyer, and Julian Pike, who worked for News International's lawyers Farrer & Co, in which he claims that the two lawyers advised Brooks that "the amount she indicated she was prepared to offer Mr Clifford ... was more than they advised was necessary". Myler's letter does not state what sums of money were under discussion, nor does he recall the date of the meeting. The former editor also said that payments to Clifford were to be "met from the News of the World's editorial budget" and from time to time that he would be "shown invoices" from the publicist that would be processed for payment. However, Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, said she could not provide any further detail to the committee as to why she agreed to settle Clifford's claim. She said that while she was "keen to co-operate as fully as possible with the committee" that could not do so because she was "still under investigation by the police" following her arrest on 17 July on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and on suspicion of corruption allegations contrary to section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906. Brooks said that "one of the matters being investigated" are the circumstances surrounding the Clifford settlement, and that she was "questioned by the police on this issue". She said that she could not respond further on the topic because to do so would "directly affect the fairness of the investigative process".

New evidence shows tabloid spied on Murdoch critic By DAVID STRINGER and CASSANDRA VINOGRAD Associated Press Dec 7, 5:54 PM EST LONDON (AP) -- Newly disclosed evidence in Britain's tabloid phone hacking scandal confirmed Wednesday that an outspoken critic of Rupert Murdoch was put under surveillance by his now defunct tabloid the News of The World. Lawmaker Tom Watson, who has led efforts to expose the extent of malpractice in Britain's newspaper industry, was followed for five days in 2009 by private investigator Derek Webb, a former police officer. Law firm Linklaters, which represents the management and standards committee of Murdoch's News Corp., said in a letter sent to Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport committee - which is investigating phone hacking - that three employees of the tabloid were responsible for commissioning Webb to spy on the Labour Party legislator. "We do not think it appropriate to name the individuals involved given the ongoing police investigations," Linklaters said in its letter. Lawyer Mark Lewis, who was also spied on by the newspaper, had previously said that he had seen evidence that Watson, a former government minister, had been under surveillance. The admission "is no longer surprising, though I am intrigued to know the names of the three executives who commissioned the covert surveillance," Watson told The Associated Press in a text message. Linklaters also acknowledged that internal inquiries showed that the ex-chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks, had authorized a settlement in 2010 with celebrity publicist Max Clifford over the hacking of his phone. "Mrs. Brooks was authorized to conclude this agreement by virtue of her position as chief executive of News International. The MSC (News Corp. Management and Standards Committee) has seen no information to suggest that this agreement was discussed by the boards of News Group Newspapers, News International or News Corporation," the letter said. Watson said that disclosure threw up more questions over the extent to which the tabloid's executives were aware of malpractice. "Was she aware that others were involved in wrongdoing and if so, why didn't she immediately act," he told the AP. Brooks, a former News of The World editor, was arrested by police in July and later released on bail. Parliament's culture committee had asked Linklaters whether all 11 of its members, including Watson, had been put under surveillance. News Corp. had "no information yet to suggest that any other member of the committee (or their family or friends) was under surveillance," the law firm said in the letter, dated Dec. 1. In another letter, Neville Thurlbeck, a former chief reporter at the News of The World - who was arrested on suspicion of phone hacking and later released - told the committee he had repeatedly offered executives what he says is evidence that several members of staff were aware of the use of hacking at the tabloid. For many months, executives maintained that phone hacking was the work of a single rogue reporter. Thurlbeck insists that claim was false, and that he had urged two key executives to review his contradictory evidence to before they appeared before lawmakers and laid the blame on a lone employee. "They were in possession of all this knowledge and they failed to disclose it to the committee," he wrote in his letter to the panel dated Nov. 29. Only two people have been jailed for phone hacking, both in 2007 - News of the World reporter Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator convicted over hacking into the voicemail messages of royal staff while working for the tabloid. The release of the documents came as British police arrested an 18th suspect in their investigation, named by media including Sky News - which is 39 percent owned by Murdoch's News Corp. - as Mulcaire. London's Metropolitan Police said a 41-year-old man was held Wednesday on suspicion of conspiring to intercept voice mail messages and pervert the course of justice. It declined to release the man's name. Mulcaire's lawyer, Sarah Webb, declined to comment. Police said later the man had been released on police bail until late March, pending further investigations. "It would be inappropriate to discuss any further details at this time," police said in a statement. London police have identified 5,795 potential phone-hacking victims in material collected from Mulcaire, the private investigator at the center of the scandal. A British media practices inquiry has seen the names of at least 28 News International employees in notes kept by Mulcaire - and five journalists alone had asked Mulcaire to carry out 2,266 tasks. More than a dozen News of the World journalists, including former editor Andy Coulson, have been arrested in the scandal. Two top London police officers and several senior Murdoch executives also have resigned in the scandal, which has led to multiple investigations and damaged Murdoch's global media empire. Coulson, who resigned as Prime Minister David Cameron's media adviser in January when he became embroiled in the investigation, is suing News of the World's publisher for stopping the payment of his legal fees in the hacking case. Coulson left the paper in 2007, but his lawyer James Laddie asked Justice Michael Alan Supperstone at London's High Court to rule that News Group Newspapers must pay Coulson's costs in defending himself from allegations of criminality during his tenure as editor. Christopher Jeans, representing News Group Newspaper, argued that a clause in Coulson's severance agreement covers the "occupational hazards of being an editor" but "in no way covers personal criminal wrongdoing." Supperstone will rule at a later date.

Brooks' links to Clifford payment cast doubt on her hacking denials The Independent By Cahal Milmo Thursday, 08 December 2011 Rebekah Brooks personally negotiated a £680,000 out-of-court settlement with the publicity guru Max Clifford which led to his withdrawing a potentially explosive phone-hacking claim against the News of the World, News International (NI) revealed last night. In a letter to MPs investigating the phone-hacking scandal, lawyers representing Rupert Murdoch's media empire laid responsibility for the settlement with Mr Clifford in 2010 at the door of Ms Brooks, saying she brokered a verbal deal with the PR expert which was not put before the NI board. The package, which was not backed by a written document, included a two-year "retainer" of £200,000 to be paid to Mr Clifford and the payment of his legal costs of £283,000. The agreement with Mr Clifford in February 2010 kept a lid on the hacking scandal by preventing the disclosure of evidence which threatened to blow away the NOTW's defence that voicemail interception was restricted to a single "rogue" reporter and knowledge of the practice had not reached executives. Ms Brooks, who at the time of the settlement was NI's chief executive and had been editor of the NOTW until January 2003, has denied any knowledge of widespread phone hacking at the Sunday tabloid until December 2010, when internal documents relating to a civil-damages claim by the actress Sienna Miller led to the launch of a new Scotland Yard investigation into the scandal. But written evidence released last night to the Commons Media Select Committee on behalf of NI's Management Standards Committee (MSC), the internal body responsible for investigating hacking at the company, suggests that Ms Brooks was aware of the substance of Mr Clifford's legal claim when she concluded their deal. Shortly before the deal was struck, Mr Clifford's lawyers had obtained a court order requiring Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was jailed in 2007 for hacking the phones of eight royal aides and public figures including the PR guru, to name every individual at the NOTW who had instructed him to target Mr Clifford and every individual to whom he had in turn supplied hacked voicemail messages. The letter, written on behalf of NI by the law firm Linklaters, notes that the effect of the deal was that the "commercial relationship" between the PR fixer and NI would recommence with the payment of £400,000 over two years. Ms Brooks, who resigned as NI chief executive this summer after repeated expressions of confidence from Rupert Murdoch, was arrested in July on suspicion of conspiring to intercept voicemails and making corrupt payments to police officers. She has denied any wrongdoing. Last night, the Labour MP Tom Watson, a member of the committee, said: "I am surprised that Ms Brooks did not reveal to the committee the settlement she reached with Max Clifford, particularly now that News International have admitted that she was solely responsible for this deal, having never taken it before the company's board." In her own written response to the select committee, Ms Brooks said she was unable to comment on the deal with Mr Clifford because it impinged on police inquiries. The High Court heard yesterday that when Andy Coulson resigned as editor of the NOTW in 2007 to be David Cameron's spin doctor, he believed that News International had promised to pick up any lawyers' bills if criminal proceedings were to be brought against him. Mr Coulson, who was arrested in July in connection with phone-hacking and corruption allegations, is suing NI over its refusal to continue paying his legal fees relating to the phone-hacking scandal. Mulcaire arrested again over message interceptions Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator for the News of the World who was jailed for phone hacking, was yesterday arrested in a dawn swoop on his home on suspicion of further voicemail interception offences and perverting the course of justice. Mulcaire was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in 2007 after he admitted hacking the voicemails of royal aides and public figures, and was earlier this year linked to the interception of voicemails left for murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, which led to the closure of the Sunday tabloid. Officers from Operation Weeting, Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking at the NOTW, detained Mr Mulcaire, 41, at his home in Sutton at about 7am and took him to a west London police station. He is the 18th person arrested by the Weeting team, which has also detained former NOTW editors Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. Although Mr Mulcaire, who was paid £105,000 a year by News International for "research and information", has served time for his targeting of eight individuals, police now believe up to 5,795 people were targeted in the NOTW's hacking operation. Cahal Milmo

Rebekah Brooks? 'We helped choose her police station' says Bell Pottinger By Oliver Duff The Independent Wednesday, 07 December 2011 http://www.independe...r-6273278.html# Bell Pottinger's senior executives described how they prepared the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks for her evidence to Parliament and also helped her to choose which police station she would like to be arrested at and questioned. David Wilson, chairman of Bell Pottinger Public Relations, and Tim Collins, managing director of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs, also talked in less-than- complimentary terms about News International's public relations strategy after the hacking scandal broke. Ms Brooks – who retained Bell Pottinger after her resignation this July, and who has denied any knowledge of hacking – is unlikely to be impressed by the firm's apparent readiness to mention its role in her PR strategy whilst pitching to possible clients. Mr Collins told undercover reporters posing as possible clients that Bell Pottinger helped prepare Ms Brooks for giving evidence to MPs on the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee shortly after her arrest on suspicion of making corrupt payments to police and conspiring to intercept voicemails. "She spent all yesterday morning in the room opposite this corridor while we were very rude to her to prepare her for the select committee," said Mr Collins. "We were four hours in a waiting room adjacent to the committee room waiting to go in. She was really upset actually, in tears when Rupert got attacked because he is her mentor. "He's almost like a father figure to her. I know there are stories about her in the past, I didn't know her too well in the past, so I won't comment on whether she was ruthless or whatever, I must say I see a very honorable, honest woman who's trying to fight to clear her name at the moment." Mr Collins said Bell Pottinger's advice had stretched to helping choose which police station she should be questioned at. "Dave was on the phone... 'No, that nick's not quite right, no no, that one's got a car park, no that one's down a tunnel', and I thought he was on to some very dodgy part of the criminal underworld but in fact it was his brother-in-law who's a police officer." Mr Wilson said he had waited outside for her while she was questioned. "She's been very open and honest and said, 'I didn't know a thing, didn't know any of it'. She said that yesterday and to be honest I believe her. " Mr Collins bemoaned News International's initial handling of the phone-hacking crisis from a PR perspective. "Dave's the PR expert but the problem from our perspective is News International were making a lot of mistakes in the two weeks or so prior to [her resignation] and they've just started making fewer." Ms Brooks could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor? by Patrick J. Buchanan www.lewrockwell.com December 8, 2011 http://lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan198.html On Dec. 8, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt took the rostrum before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan. A day earlier, at dawn, carrier-based Japanese aircraft had launched a sneak attack devastating the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor. Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, “We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan.” But to friends, “the Chief” sent another message: “You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit.” Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoover’s explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West. Edited by historian George Nash, Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war. Yet the book is no polemic. The 50-page run-up to the war in the Pacific uses memoirs and documents from all sides to prove Hoover’s indictment. And perhaps the best way to show the power of this book is the way Hoover does it — chronologically, painstakingly, week by week. Consider Japan’s situation in the summer of 1941. Bogged down in a four-year war in China she could neither win nor end, having moved into French Indochina, Japan saw herself as near the end of her tether. Inside the government was a powerful faction led by Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye that desperately did not want a war with the United States. The “pro-Anglo-Saxon” camp included the navy, whose officers had fought alongside the U.S. and Royal navies in World War I, while the war party was centered on the army, Gen. Hideki Tojo and Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, a bitter anti-American. On July 18, 1941, Konoye ousted Matsuoka, replacing him with the “pro-Anglo-Saxon” Adm. Teijiro Toyoda. The U.S. response: On July 25, we froze all Japanese assets in the United States, ending all exports and imports, and denying Japan the oil upon which the nation and empire depended. Stunned, Konoye still pursued his peace policy by winning secret support from the navy and army to meet FDR on the U.S. side of the Pacific to hear and respond to U.S. demands. U.S. Ambassador Joseph Grew implored Washington not to ignore Konoye’s offer, that the prince had convinced him an agreement could be reached on Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and South and Central China. Out of fear of Mao’s armies and Stalin’s Russia, Tokyo wanted to hold a buffer in North China. On Aug. 28, Japan’s ambassador in Washington presented FDR a personal letter from Konoye imploring him to meet. Tokyo begged us to keep Konoye’s offer secret, as the revelation of a Japanese prime minister’s offering to cross the Pacific to talk to an American president could imperil his government. On Sept. 3, the Konoye letter was leaked to the Herald-Tribune. On Sept. 6, Konoye met again at a three-hour dinner with Grew to tell him Japan now agreed with the four principles the Americans were demanding as the basis for peace. No response. On Sept. 29, Grew sent what Hoover describes as a “prayer” to the president not to let this chance for peace pass by. On Sept. 30, Grew wrote Washington, “Konoye’s warship is ready waiting to take him to Honolulu, Alaska, or anyplace designated by the president.” No response. On Oct. 16, Konoye’s cabinet fell. In November, the U.S. intercepted two new offers from Tokyo: a Plan A for an end to the China war and occupation of Indochina and, if that were rejected, a Plan B, a modus vivendi where neither side would make any new move. When presented, these, too, were rejected out of hand. At a Nov. 25 meeting of FDR’s war council, Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s notes speak of the prevailing consensus: “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into … firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” “We can wipe the Japanese off the map in three months,” wrote Navy Secretary Frank Knox. As Grew had predicted, Japan, a “hara-kiri nation,” proved more likely to fling herself into national suicide for honor than to allow herself to be humiliated Out of the war that arose from the refusal to meet Prince Konoye came scores of thousands of U.S. dead, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fall of China to Mao Zedong, U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the rise of a new arrogant China that shows little respect for the great superpower of yesterday. If you would know the history that made our world, spend a week with Mr. Hoover’s book. December 7, 2011 Patrick J. Buchanan [send him mail] is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of seven books, including Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? See his website.