Terry Mauro

******************************************************* Thanks, Ron. I'm running 98 SE, with DSL, at present. Will I have the capabilities for downloading it, or do I need 2000, XP, or NT, instead? I'm off to work, but will get back to you tonight. Thanks, again for any info. Ter

And his birthday party would have been ruined by this report in the International Herald Tribune which shows America's standing in the world at an all time low: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/13/news/pew1.php There is, of course, no way to know these things because, obviously, if he had lived, at least some things would have been different, leading to different things today: a different succession of Presidents dealing with different issues and bringing about different policies, different actions, different perceptions. Can it be said, in sum, that his death changed the world? To some extent, each and every death does that. The degree to which it influences anything else is directly proportional to the influence the decedent had in life. Quite true, but even the Test Ban was just the first step in JFK's larger goal of General and Complete Nuclear Disarmament. He liked to quote the Chinese proverb that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.Could JFK have accomplished this goal if he had another five years as President? I do not know, but I have a feeling that if a lesser man had proposed a moon landing, no one would have believed him. I don't know how "great" Kennedy was, but having already reached the office of President - even having been seriously considered for it - shows an achievement far greater than any of us here have attained, and at an age younger than many of us are today as well. So that's definitely something.Clearly, he did not lack vision whether or not - as we'll of course never know - he had to wherewithal to carry the vision to reality. He also had "what it takes" to make others believe that his vision was possible. A moon landing was the stuff of fantasy ... but more had been achieved in the previous 30 years than in the three centuries before, so why not this too? On the other hand, some of his other visions - coexistence with Blacks and Reds, for example, and not killing the Yellows - were not so fantastic to others. And so, he died. ... And, of course, we'll never understand exactly why Lee did it, will we ...? *************************************************** "On the other hand, some of his other visions - coexistence with Blacks and Reds, for example, and not killing the Yellows - were not so fantastic to others. And so, he died." "Ooh, what a lucky man, he was..." by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer He had white horses, and ladies by the score All dressed in satin, and waiting by the door **Chorus** ooh, what a lucky man he was, ooh, what a lucky man he was. White lace and feathers, they made up his bed A gold-covered mattress, on which he was laid **Chorus** He went to fight wars, for his country and his king For his honor and his glory, the people would sing **Chorus** A bullet had found him, his blood ran as he cried no money could save him, so he laid down and he died "... And, of course, we'll never understand exactly why Lee did it, will we ...?" ...And, of course, you surely jest, don't you...? Good points, Duke.

It seems to me that one way to solve the problem is to never log out. That way, whenever you come back, you're already logged in. (This reminds me of a joke about the Old Log Inn. But that's off subject and off color too.) Also, Mark said someone suggested switching to Firefox. I would recommend that anyway. I started using Firefox months ago, and find it much preferable to IE. It just seems to work better. ****************************************************************** "Also, Mark said someone suggested switching to Firefox. I would recommend that anyway. I started using Firefox months ago, and find it much preferable to IE. It just seems to work better." Hi guys. At the risk of sounding totally illiterate, what is Firefox, and what is IE? I've seen a part of my Temporary Internet Files that open with an IE. folder, in which the cookies are stashed. I found this out when I began cleaning out my cookies before shutting down. I have Norton 2005, the $69.00 package that I renew on line every November. I don't see pop-ups when I lurk on the Ed Forum. But, I do remember seeing alot of activity at the top of the screen a few months back. I'm not sure if they were pop-ups, though. Thanks, Ter

Hi Terry, Can you elaborate on this. Do you mean Hemming in particular or just his kind in general? John ****************************************************** "Hi Terry, Can you elaborate on this. Do you mean Hemming in particular or just his kind in general? John" From Post #'s 77 and 79 -------------------------- "Ms. Mauro: I served with the man in Cuba. When I suggested [during 1959 in Havana] that he take up where he left off as a youngster [in Argentina] flying motorless gliders -- he went after flying like a demon possessed. In very short order he had over 100 hours in a friend's [an instructor] single engine airplane. A couple of times, after watching us parachute from C-47s, he said: "...Don't ever expect me to do that stuff...flying is enough thrills for me..!!" I told him that Cmdte. [Major] Rene de los Santos was already flying left-seat in a twin engine Cessna 310; and that if he didn't get with it -- Rene was going to fill his pilot's log book up before he was even "checked-out" in a light twin. After searching for Cmdte. Camilo Cienfuegos for 16 days, and discovering that he had been shot down by accident near San Jose del Lago, Las Villas Province -- we switched to doing some "water" parachute jumps right in front of the Rosita de Hornedo Hotel, Miramar, Havana -- and I didn't see "Che for some weeks. During January 1960, he arrived [with Aleda March] at my Air Base in western Pinar del Rio Province. We had no radio in the control tower, so I didn't know it was him arriving. He popped out of the Cessna 310 [light-twin] and said someting which I couldn't make out. He always spoke in such a low voice, I would have to lean down close to listen. He repeated: "...Vos lo ves [you notice] that I am in the "left-seat" and driving this very fast and nice airplane..?" "..I have over 35 hours in the pilot seat recored in my log book already.." I almost told him he was now ready for parachute instruction, but thought better of it, and kept on talking about navigation, etc. ! He arranged for me to train the Sandinista guerrillas at my San Julian Air Base. He honored my request for reinforcements, because we had been attacked twice just after Christmas [Navidades - Noche Buena]. He got me released from La Cabana Fortress after having been arrested by limp-wristed secret police punks. I left Cuba for Mexico enroute to fight against the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza during October 1960. Upon learning that the Cuban authorities had jailed my close friend Cmdte. William Alexander Morgan, I opted to go north to the states on a gun-running mission -- expecting that once inside the U.S. -- I might get support enough to save William's life. Amongst those efforts was a sit-down with the famous liberal labor leader Harry Bridges [san Pedro - Los Angeles - December 1960] Harry Bridges promised to have his friends in the Latino labor movement inquire into the situation. Everything failed, and Morgan was executed on March 11th, 1961 !! Skipping ahead to 1966. I was tasked by JJA's CI division to go to Ascension Island [british owned] and there prepare for an operation to kidnap "Che" [alive] from the Baraka, Congo [Leopoldville] area where he and many Cubans were advising the Simba rebels. However "Che" had already crossed over Lake Tanganyika and was on his way to Prague. We went back to the States [CONUS] just after July 4th, 1966. While signing up for service in Vietnam with USAID/Public Safety -- I was once again approached to go to do the "Che" Op -- this time to Bolivia, so as to "snatch" Guevara out of there "ALIVE", or provide an aircraft for him to fly out so that we might intercept him in Uruguay, his 1st choice as "Safe-Haven". I turned it down, and as you know, Felix and Gus tried to do that mission, but Banzer gave orders to Gary Prado to execute him. ["Code-Word 500"] I feel today that had I gone, the outcome most likely would have resulted in his death anyway !! Just by his diaries -- you can plainly see that this warrior never told a lie in his entire life !! He is missed terribly !! R.I.P. I don't expert that everybody [including you] has the time to bone-up on these things. It is much easier for me [stressful also] because I was there, and I "walked-the-walk" !! Regards, GPH" ************************************************************************ -------------------------- "We sent a "Big Gringo" to fire an M-2 Carbine [more than a couple times] right next door to his first safe-house. When that didn't clue him in that his operation had been blown, we started the finger pointing about his guys being Cocaine lab operators. Nothing worked. He was burnt out from Africa, and Mario Monje [under Moscow orders] was sabotaging his every move -- because he was a Maoist, but more so, because they didn't go for the guerrilla campaign stuff. Monje practically hand delivered Intel to the CIA Cuban Dep/Chief of Station. NSA was intercepting all of the radio messages [burst transmitters] to the Rio Platte trawlers. Even THEY were trying to get him to get out of Dodge. When he changed the pre-planned AOR [Area of Operations] -- from the more hospitable Alto Beni Plateau, and instead went down to the semi-desert Nuncahuazo/Vallegrande locale, he was a dead man. He didn't do a proper "Country Area Study", and had his guys learn Quechua, when 99% of the indigenous indians there speak Guarani and Aymara. Beards are unknown to the locals, and these foreign "invaders"scared the xxxx out of them I turned it down because while in D.C. I had a relapse of my Dengue Fever. Then came the finger pointing by Garrison --whilst he tried to save Marcello's little ass from RFK's "Sheridan Squad". I had family, and I was getting tired of the LBJ "Texican" horse-xxxx approach to everything. It took Gus a lot longer getting over the La Higuera scene, because he also had fought Batista. Felix, because his family was Prio rooted, mistakenly took to the opposite, trophy boasting. Moreover, the Batistiano coward-ass bastards had the D.C. REMF pogue's ears while whining about all of the executions done by Herman at La Cabana -- despite the fact that "Che" was absent and doing the "Bank" thing -- and duties as G-3 ["Operations & Training" for the General Staff - Fuerzas Armadas Revolutionarias] Get-over-IT !! [i haven't] GPH" _________________________ ********************************************************* In my opinion, he could have done alot more for Guevara, instead of leaving him to hang out and dry in Bolivia, regardless of how prepared, or apparently unprepared Guevara was for this operation. The reference to "cocaine labs", even if just in passing, leaves me wondering what exactly Hemming's ties to drug trafficking were. Especially after reading Simkins' Post # 184: "According to Daniel Hopsicker's book, Barry and the Boys, Gerry Hemming was arrested on 23rd August, 1976, for the illegal transfer of a silencer, and drug smuggling. It seems that this was the point that Gerry began talking about his past work with the CIA. He told one reporter: "All of a sudden they're accusing me of conspiracy to import marijuana and cocaine. Hey, what about all the other things I've been into for the last 15 years, lets talk about them. Let's talk about the Martin Luther King thing, let's talk about Don Freed, Le Coubre, n-killers in bed with the Mafia, the Mafia in bed with the FBI, and the goddamn CIA in bed with all of them. Let's talk about all the people I dirtied up for them over the years."" In other words, did Hemming help pave the way for illegal drug trafficking into the United States? Did his presence in South America have more to do with setting up something like Operation Watchtower in the 1970's and 80's? What about his statement: "While signing up for service in Vietnam with USAID/Public Safety -- I was once again approached to go to do the "Che" Op -- this time to Bolivia, so as to "snatch" Guevara out of there "ALIVE"," This leaves me skeptical as to what his true mission in Vietnam really entailed. Possibly setting up another drug lane for China White [heroin] to enter into the United States? I'm sure he was busy trying to support and raise a family back here, but at what price? This is by no means a Grand Inquisition of Mr. Hemming, mind you. I'm merely trying to establish what his true motives may have been as a mercenary, and for whom he was really working.

Gerry P. Hemming was interviewed by Daniel Hopsicker for his book Barry and the Boys. It included the following attempt to defend his involvement in the drug trade: First of all, we figure, who's using this dope? Leftists! This is not a fact that messes up my chess game. You cannot allow that kind of capability to remain freelance. There is too much money. Some tinhorn asshole can come in, take over, and end up ruling a subcontinent. We were always looking for signs of foreign intelligence and military penetration of the South American drug trade, signs of Soviet or Cuban presence. In other words, Gerry helped U.S. government agencies working with gangsters to keep control of the drug trade. ***************************************************** "In other words, Gerry helped U.S. government agencies working with gangsters to keep control of the drug trade." Does that surprize you? Not me. Especially coming from a guy who could've saved Che Guevara, but chose to let him die, instead. And for what, so that his mafioso/MIC connected bosses could have free rein over the drug lanes of South America? Better us than the commies, right? Real cute, and real stupid. Look at what your enabling has wrought upon those generations directly following your American Coup d'etat, Hemming. Are you happy now that you've finally brought the plebes to their knees, and totally wiped out the brains of an otherwise promising future group of people of color? Not to mention a modicum of your white-collar, cocaine addicted, up-and-coming CEO's, typical of the kind you see in the Executive Office today. To quote a line from The Band's, "Unfaithful Servant." "Unfaithful servant, you don't have to say you're sorry. If you did it just for the price, or did it just for the glory."

Bernice, what you have said isn't exactly correct. I believe that I mentioned Josiah's book being sold there. I recommended someone seeking a definition from Gary as to what the Museum considers a conspiracy book and what criteria does one need to meet to get it sold there. You are correct however on it not being Gary's decision for I believe he told Robert to put something together and he'd present it to the people who make the decision as to whether they will sell it in the Museum's bookstore. This is what I said in the earlier post ... "I think one needs to first define 'conspiracy book'. Does not Josiah Thompson's book "Six Seconds in Dallas" imply that there must have been a conspiracy and is it not sold in the Museum's book store or am I mistaken about that?" "Has anyone bothered to contact Gary Mack for a defined explanation as to what the Museum will or will not stock in the book store?" Bill *********** Bill: Basically the same question, you just happened to mention Josiah's book, I did not and used less words.. all in the expression..same meaning generally...not important enough to quibble about.. The point I recall is that it took a long time for Gary to finally get around to telling us that he did not choose the stock, never figured out the why not ?..He did relate many other reasons, first, which were not clear ... at that time, so the conversation continued.... When he finally did relate that information, it did not make sense really, as Weisbergs books are and had been taught from in a College were documented and of historical value, ..therefore the reasoning simply did not make any sense, none of it ever did really..we all ended such, on a good note, but nothing was ever clarified..it was seemingly like a last response...having run out of all others during that week-end... Perhaps you could answer a question for me, if you would or know.. Is Gary in full charge of the 6th Floor Museum?, and if so why would this one duty be witheld from him.?.in regard to what books are sold.? He appears to be in complete charge of the photos, information, documents, films and or such..from what I have seen and observed......it seems to me if so, this would not make any sense.. Or are perhaps his hands tied, in some ways, and the Dallas Authourites are really in control...and he simply works with them ?? If so, they should not be, imo.. the Museum should be able to extent to the public, all of the information, that is documented, not just what some seemingly are choosing, whomever they are.. The American citzens are entitled to such ..he was their President not any one group.. B. ******************************************************************* Ah yes, Bernie. I remember it well. An extremely well-rehearsed exhibition of, "Duh, I only work here.", or more fittingly, "Mongo only pawn in game of life." He appears to be in complete charge of the photos, information, documents, films and or such..from what I have seen and observed......it seems to me if so, this would not make any sense.. Or are perhaps his hands tied, in some ways, and the Dallas Authorities are really in control...and he simply works with them ?? If so, they should not be, imo.. the Museum should be able to extend to the public, all of the information, that is documented, not just what some seemingly are choosing, whomever they are.. The American citizens are entitled to such ..he was their President not any one group.. Correctomundo again, Bern. But, as you and I both have been so painfully aware, Right-Wing Dallas and it's Hysterical Society, will stop at nothing short of outright censorship in its vain attempt to keep their "Big-D-My-Oh-Yes" image pure as the driven snow. Any commission of power-wielding city fathers displaying such a lack of foresight and downright ignorance of Harold Weisberg's compelling works speaks volumes, to me, with regard to the fascist undercurrent running through the very fabric of that city's charter. I wouldn't trust anything coming out of that place, especially from that obviously over-zealous crew who've got such a strangle-hold on that town. A bunch of overpaid, oil dredging yahoos, if you ask me. But, that's just MHO, B.

************************************************************************ What about the work of Harold Weisberg? Has that ever been allowed in the Mausoleum? What about Mark Lane's work, Sylvia Meagher's, or darest I even ask about Garrison's? I'm truly interested to know the list of books that have been allowed by the Dallas City Commissioners. How about Dick Russell's, or Peter Dale Scott's? What about David Lifton's? Any bites, yet? To quote from one of the above posts: "And, as Gary has pointed out, the book store has carried conspiracy books in the past. It's just that the good ones are mostly out of print." Yeah, but where there's a will there's a way. As Dawn pointed out, you can obtain just about any book through Amazon.com, and it needn't be all the worse for wear, either. Still, it's blatantly obvious how strong-willed the Dallas City Commissioners really are. They need to change their name to, "The Dallas Hysterical Historical Society." Re-name the "supposed" sniper's lair, to the pidgeon-hole eye view of Dealey Plaza.

From my friend, Chris Dolmar. Activist Sherman Skolnick Dies (CBS) CHICAGO Community activist and cable television host Sherman Skolnick has died at the age of 73. Mr. Skolnick died at his home. Some dismissed Mr. Skolnick as a conspiracy theorist, but some have credited him with exposing a bribery scandal within the Illinois court system in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in a corruption scandal that led to the indictment of former Gov. Otto Kerner. Mr. Skolnick founded the group the Citizens Committee to Clean up the Courts in 1963. He was also the host of the cable television program "Broadside." For 48 years, a key focus of Sherman Skolnick's investigative reporting was the rampant judicial corruption in the courts of law in U.S.A., specifically in Chicago and in the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D. C. In 1973, Mr. Skolnick wrote a book, "The Secret History of Airplane Sabotage", a heavily documented book dealing, among other things, with the sabotaged plane crash December, 1972, in Chicago, one month after Richard Nixon was re-elected President. Twelve Watergate figures died when the United Air Lines plane pancaked just short of Midway airport. Dead in the crash zone were Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, wife of the Watergate burglar and others linked to the Watergate Affair. She had in her possession over 2 million dollars in valuables obtained by blackmailing Nixon on his role in the 1963 political assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Skolnick's group "liberated" the entire unpublicized file of the National Transportation Safety Board, some 1300 pages of documented reports and pictures showing sabotage. Skolnick brought a suit against the NTSB contending sabotage cover-up. The NTSB re-opened their public hearings on the crash but continued to contend it was caused by "pilot error". Skolnick who was the star-witness at the re-opened hearings demanded that the NTSB panel disqualify themselves since most were financially tied to the airlines industry and that the Rockefellers, owners of all three News Networks, and major owner of United Air Lines, wanted the matter censored. The NTSB panel refused to disqualify themselves and entered a whitewash report,condemning Skolnick and his associates. Thereafter, Rockefellers' lawyers harassed the publisher so that Skolnick's book was stopped in the printing cycle and no copies are now available. But you can read it here: Re: http://www.skolnicksreport.com/shistory.html Part II: http://www.skolnicksreport.com/shistory2.html Part III: http://www.skolnicksreport.com/shistory3.html Part IV: http://www.skolnicksreport.com/shistory4.html More highlights of the work of the Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts. Their work in 1969, touched off the biggest judicial bribery scandal in U.S. history,the collapse of Illinois' highest court, the Illinois Supreme Court. As the head of his group, Skolnick directly accused the high court judges of bribery involving a banker who owned a bank right across the street from the high court's Chicago offices. Facing jail and on appeal to their court, the banker, the former Illinois Director of the Department of Revenue, Theodore J. Isaacs, won his criminal appeal by bribing most of the high court judges with stock in his nearby bank. Outraged by Skolnick's direct confrontation with them, the high court judges demanded that Skolnick disclose to the high court judges how he and his associates went about investigating the high court. When Skolnick refused to disclose, the high court judges had Skolnick, a paraplegic invalid in a wheelchair, hauled off to prison for "contempt of court". The imprisoning of Skolnick touched off a public commotion and the chief justice and an associate justice of the high court resigned, and a third accused high court judge suddenly died in the ruckus and Skolnick was vindicated. Caught up in a further mess involving the same bank was the former Illinois Governor by 1969 he was a federal appeals Judge in Chicago. Skolnick accused that judge, Otto Kerner Jr., of bribery as well. Kerner held press conferences and on all the local media called Skolnick a "xxxx". Despite his denials, Federal Appeals Judge Kerner was prosecuted and sent to prison, the highest level sitting federal judge sent to prison in U.S. history. Also imprisoned was Kerner's crony, former chief state tax collector Isaacs. Kerner died an ex-convict. The work of Skolnick and his group touched off a series of bribery scandals by which from 1983 to 1993, 20 local judges and forty lawyers were sent to jail for bribery. Including: the Chief Judge of the Traffic court who said Skolnick with his accusations of bribery was "imagining" things. That Chief Judge was sent to prison for bribery and died an ex-convict. In 1991, one sizeable conservative paper was the only one that dared run the story how Skolnick and his associates were the only journalists to attend a federal appeals court hearing in Chicago in a case involving suppressed bank records of the Chicago branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale Delavoro, owned in part by the Vatican. The suppressed records, ordered so by state and federal regulators involved the secret private joint business partner of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. After the hearing, in the back of the Federal Appeals Court, Skolnick interviewed two hearing participants who admitted to Skolnick that the suppressed bank records involved Saddam Hussein's private business partner, George Herbert Walker Bush, the then U.S. President. Sources had earlier informed Skolnick of that, and Skolnick, to be careful, asked the same question about that THREE times and each time, the answer was the same: Bush was the private business partner of Saddam Hussein in billions of dollars of oil-kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein by the weak sheikdoms in the Persian Gulf. Skolnick is one of the only ones to have the more or less complete record on appeals in the case including the Affidavit of the CIA General Counsel, that revealing these matters would violate national security. The hearing participants said that revealing all this would cause a run on the banks worldwide and for that reason had to be suppressed. In 1991, likewise published in that newspaper, "Spotlight", was Skolnick's exclusive story about the mysterious Bank of Credit and Commerce International: How the Bank of England for 30 days only had as a public record that BCCI bribed 25 per cent of both Houses of Congress, 108 Congressmen and 28 U.S. Senators. Although Spotlight did not publish Skolnick's list of bribed lawmakers, other authors claiming they got such details by other means, published some of the names thereafter in Media Bypass Magazine. It was basically the list of names, supplied to Spotlight but omitted from the published article. Since 1995, Skolnick has put on Internet, exclusive details of the small group of highly--patriotic admirals and generals have repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought, as authorrized under the Military Code, to arrest their Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton on their documented charges of treason. If he arrested them for mutiny,they were prepared, if they survived, to defend themselves at Courts Martial with their documents proving he sold top nuclear secrets to sworn enemies of the United States, including Red China. Clinton has met from time to time in the White House with Wang Jun, the reputed head of the Red Chinese Secret Police. Such matters have not been discussed in the mass media as they would embarrass and finger supposed "Independent" Counsel Kenneth W. Starr. Wang Jun is Starr's PRIVATE law client. Also, Starr is the UNREGISTERED foreign lobbyist for the Red Chinese Government. Meaning that Clinton's Justice Department can whenever they wish prosecute and jail Starr as an UNREGISTERED foreign lobbyist. Wang Jun is also the head of the Red Chinese Government operation, Poly Technologies, that makes and markets AK-47 submachine guns and has reportedly attempted to sell them to U.S. inner-city narco-terrorist gangs. Were the Red Chinese hoping to instigate shoot-em-ups with local police all over the U.S. The following is a short-list of the U.S. flag officers assassinated becaused they opposed Clinton and under the Military Code sought to arrest Clinton, their Commander-in-Chief: April 17, 1995, a planeload of top U.S. Military brass, assassinated when their plane blew up by sabotage near Alexander City, Alabama, including Clark Feister, an assistant Secretary of the Air Force, close friend of the then Secretary of Defense Perry; Major General Glenn Profitt II, director of plans and operations for the Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. Also the one who had been head of a super-secret military agency that was called Army Security Agency. They had onboard, to confront Clinton and the Pentagon with lies, a live POW, supposedly not supposed to exist, from Southeast Asia. They were prepared to show how top U.S. officials, also cronies of Clinton, were in the dope traffic from S.E. Asia, "the Golden Triangle", including George Herbert Walker Bush, retired Pentagon official General Colin Powell, and former Pentagon official Richard Armitage. Also assassinated to prevent a military coup: The highest naval officer in uniform, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jeremy Boorda, assassinated in his office with several caliber weapons and disguised in the press as a "suicide". Also: General David McCloud, head of the Alaska Military District, site of the Early Warning System of missile attacks; murdered by way of a sabotaged air crash. Giving aid and assistance to these flag officers planning to arrest Clinton, was the former Director of Central Intelligence, William Colby, assassinated near his vacation home and falsely written off as an alleged "boating accident". Colby had been general counsel of the CIA's bank proprietary, Nugan Hand Bank and their successor and alter ego, Household International and Household Bank. Household has their world headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Prospect Heights, Illinois. Parked with Household was 58.4 million dollars of federal funds to make good the long-pending claims of Chicago-area caulking contractor, Joseph Andreuccetti, that a series of banks, including Household, perpetrated a massive swindle on him. 50 million dollars of that was secretly transferred to Little Rock, Arkansas to try to cover up the embezzlement of 47 million dollars from Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, for which Bill and Hillary Clinton are subject to being federal criminally prosecuted and sent to prison for misappropriation. S & L owner Jim McDougal was murdered in jail the night before his testimony about all this. His ex-wife Susan has been repeatedly harassed to shut her up on what she knows about all this. Cong. Dan Burton [R., Ind.} started to put the details of the mysterious 50 million dollars and Clinton into the Congressional Record, 5/29/96, pages H5627-28. Was it blackmail, threats, or what that stopped Burton from putting in ALL the details? Judges on the take, some of them termed "banksters" or "banker-judges," drew the attention not only of Skolnick's seasoned Jewish humor but also of his relentless and feared public exposure mechanisms. The robed mafiosi had him in jail eight times during his long life but could never stick anything of substance on him. Twenty judges and over forty attorneys went behind bars, from 1969 to 1993 alone, through America's leading judge-buster who has now passed on. Skolnick started in his late twenties using his superb mental powers and writing skills as reflected in his reporting on judicial and political corruption. Since 1958 he was a court reformer. In 1963 he founded the Citizens Committee to Clean Up the Courts, a public interest group researching and disclosing certain instances of judicial bribery and political murders. Starting in 1971 his comments were on a recorded phone message that he called Hotline News. Since 1991 he was a regular participant and producer, and since 1995 he was producer/moderator of "BROADSIDES", a one hour weekly taped public access Cable TV Show on in Chicago Monday evening, 9 p.m., Channel 21 Cable, reaching an audience of 400,000 viewers. Sherman H. Skolnick was elevated to national prominence when a mafia of corrupt Illinois judges swindled his parents out of their lifetime savings. Time Magazine reported on the scandal in August 1969 and depicted Skolnick in his wheelchair on the cover. Law school professor Kenneth A. Manaster reviews this judicial bribery scandal in his 2001 book "Illinois Justice, The Scandal of 1969 and the Rise of John Paul Stevens" http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/14280.ctl Since 2003, the learned Sherman H. Skolnick found a home for the last years of his investigative reporting in the Toronto-based internet talk radio and magazine. http://www.cloakanddagger.de (http://www.cloakanddagger.ca). He also contributed to http://www.rense.com and his reports appeared on many other sites. The great series of his last years was the ongoing "Overthrow of the American Republic series. Together with Cloak and Dagger host Lenny Bloom, Sherman Skolnick further penned the "Middle Finger News" series. Some of the hot trails of his last years were the judicial corruption of five judges of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore in December 2000, election frauds, the 9-11 inside attacks, theft of trillions of $$ through the Bush-Clinton crime syndicate, the infiltration of the American government by gangsters and foreign agents (mainly British, Chinese, Israeli, Jesuit), and the overthrow of the Republic. Every one of his words was a considered appeal to avoid the temptation of the Big Lie. Now, the scrutinous eye of Sherman H. Skolnick no longer peers through the magnifying glass. That was his chosen symbol on his web site, www.skolnicksreport.com like a Sherlock Holmes of American investigative journalism. A paraplegic since childhood, this militating dove passed on peacefully during sleep in his 75th year to a higher perch. He helped his students, readers and listeners to find clarity of perception in a world of confusion and deception. God took him too soon.

*************************************************************** "I also have some interesting declassified FBI documents for anyone that is interested." I would be most appreciative if you might e-mail these documents to me as well, Mr. Horne. Thank you so very much for your unflinching and undaunted efforts in bringing this information to the forefront. Sincerely yours, Theresa C. Mauro tmauro@pacbell.net

*********************************************************** Len Osanic and Greg Burnham have allowed me to quote this letter from Prouty.org many times in the past. From Prouty.org Letter of the Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 16:54:13 -0800 Subject: Undermining U.S. currency by the High Cabal; the final "Front of the Cold War" From: (Gregory Burnham) Hello Colonel Prouty, Approximately 20 years ago, while still in my twenties, I was dismissed rather aloofly as being "out of my depth" regarding what I saw as dangerous developments with regard to the history of currency, and ultimately the future of currency if the pattern continued. It has continued. Would you care to comment on my scenario? Albeit rudimentary, perhaps it has some merit. The founder of Sony Corporation, Akio Morita, a man I highly respect, commented that following the defeat of Japan he made several trips to America. He was apparently in awe that the U.S., a country less than 200 years old, should be capable of the kind of production (rooted in the military/industrial and oil complex) that defeated his country and was the driving force behind the defeat of Germany, as well. He noticed upon his arrival, and much to his dismay, that nearly everything that was chintzy, cheap, tinny, and easily broken, seemed to be labeled: "Made in Japan" in retail outlets across America. He went home determined to change that image. Hence, the Sony Corporation, which has since evolved from its humble beginnings as a manufacturer of stereo and T.V. products, to a recognized leader in that industry, and has successfully purchased C.B.S. Recording Company, among other highly significant ventures, was born. Like Japan, the countries directly aided by our entering the war and those directly, or indirectly defeated by our entering the war, have many things in common. These countries were committed, their people patriotic, their military personnel dedicated professionals, and their resolve was firm, by our standards as well as their own. Their culture was time tested, their warring methods were analytical, well planned and well implemented, but ultimately, both our allies and our enemies were failing prior to our entry into the war. Although most Americans did not see Germany or Japan as a threat to our form of government, the casual isolationist certainly would have recognized the threat that the aggressors posed to a nice European vacation, if nothing else. It was important to the average American to be victorious in that war. So, we were definitely at the fulcrum of the affair and at the epicenter of the victory. In order to complete our victory, however, the U.S. had to effectively achieve a feat that the world could barely comprehend at the time. So we set out, armed only with pen in hand (backed by nuclear ink), to overthrow the Gold Standard. "Wait, hold on a minute! Wasn't that already done when FDR bailed/hocked us out of the depression," you say? The answer is both yes and no. The "New Deal" was the "First Mortgage" on a loan never intended to be repaid by the borrowers. A Silver Certificate is an I.O.U., as legal tender it can be "cashed in" (no pun intended) for silver. A Federal Reserve Note, on the other hand, is also legal tender. It too is an I.O.U. However, this I..O.U. can only be "cashed in" (pun intended) for another I.O.U. - and you and you and you and you, and your Big Brother, ad nauseum. And so, the age of: "A nation, economically standing on its own two stilts, was born." The collateral securing the deal was the promise that there would in fact, be a future. Uncle Sam would see to that through the blood, sweat and tears of a generation of baby-boomers who did not yet exist! When this generation of Americans came of age, they would represent the largest "working force" group of citizens in our history. In the mean time, while we waited for this generation to grow up we needed something to keep us going. The powers that be were unable to motivate average Americans by offering positive hope, since that ideal was splattered across Dealey Plaza, crushed in Memphis, Tennessee, and finally pre-empted at the Ambassador Hotel. Nor could they motivate citizens through creating a credible negative threat behind which to rally the American people. Even before Vietnam and Watergate were being exposed, or the "Iran may take hostages, but they can't nuke us.", mentality set in, we were subjected to cleverly disguised propaganda campaigns like the cartoon show, "Rocky & Bullwinkle" with Boris and Natasha, or the satirical "Get Smart" portraying the CIA and KGB as U.S. Control versus Soviet Chaos. Ultimately, the only war, vague enough to bear scrutiny, cryptic enough to be arbitrarily defined, and non-threatening (cold) enough to prevent panic, was escalated. Indeed, the ability to wage war defines a government's authority over its people. The scope of that authority is not measured by the actual "temperature" of the war zone. Instead, the perceived potential of mere tensions developing into a state where intentions are high enough to unleash a nation's war powers in earnest are created and promoted by the political "climate" of the day. Cold wars are only cold in the middle. Through numerous pseudo-wars America was kept mobilized without having to contend with the fear of total annhilation. The cold war was a war of economic attrition. Some would say therefore, "We've won it." My question in response is, "Who are we?" The value of foreign currency, the Yen, the Deutchmark, the Pound, the Frank, is no longer relative to a STANDARD - its value is measured in relation to the U.S. Dollar. Not only has America been off the gold standard and on the Dollar standard, but so has the rest of the free world. After the end of WWII it was advantageous to us for our currency to be so strong - it represented the economic strength of the PEOPLE of the U.S. We were the largest creditor nation. We all know that has changed. Yet I didn't have concern that "The Japanese are buying up America," in the past panicked decade or two. I mean it's not like they can take California to Osaka when they go to visit the family. And referring to any nationality of people as "they" is offensive. The fact that we owe more than we are owed, in one school of thought, is a much better position to be in... especially if you don't plan on paying it back. Which brings me back to my original question: Is it just me or does it seem likely that there is a major push to undermine the confidence Americans have in currency? I feel like I need a co-signer when paying cash! I some times am penalized for paying with cash because it is not the "preferred method" of paying. When the stock market goes on the incredible ride we saw earlier this year and is not followed by a severe economic back lash, especially without any change in monetary policy by the FED, I see that as an Economic Coup', where the losses are spread far and wide, but generally not deep, and the Cabalists rake in currency the next day. Do you think that we will have any paper currency by 2000 a.d. - or are we being conditioned to lose confidence in it on the one hand, and also conditioned by reward and lack of penalty to gain comfort in using "credits", on the other? If so, is it related to tracking, control, direct marketing, demographics, invasion of privacy - and last but not least - NSAM 11110? GO_SECURE, Gregory Burnham ___________________________________________________ NSAM 11110 aka Executive Order 11110: On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy's order gave the Treasury the power "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous. With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York out of business. If enough of these silver certificats were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything. Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the gevernment the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money. Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S. the ability to create its own money backed by silver. After Mr. Kennedy was assassinated just five months later, no more silver certificates were issued. The Final Call has learned that the Executive Order was never repealed by any U.S. President through an Executive Order and is still valid. Why then has no president utilized it? Virtually all of the nearly $6 trillion in debt has been created since 1963, and if a U.S. president had utilized Executive Order 11110 the debt would be nowhere near the current level. Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to future presidents who would think to eliminate the U.S. debt by eliminating the Federal Reserve's control over the creation of money. Mr. Kennedy challenged the government of money by challenging the two most successful vehicles that have ever been used to drive up debt - war and the creation of money by a privately-owned central bank. His efforts to have all troops out of Vietnam by 1965 and Executive Order 11110 would have severely cut into the profits and control of the New York banking establishment. As America's debt reaches unbearable levels and a conflict emerges in Bosnia that will further increase America's debt, one is force to ask, will President Clinton have the courage to consider utilizing Executive Order 11110 and, if so, is he willing to pay the ultimate price for doing so? Executive Order 11110 AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows: Section 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended- By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph [j]: [j] The authority vested in the President by paragraph of section 43 of the Act of May 12,1933, as amended (31 U.S.C.821), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denomination of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption and -- By revoking subparagraphs and [c] of paragraph 2 thereof. Sec. 2. The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made. John F. Kennedy The White House, June 4, 1963. Of course, the fact that both JFK and Lincoln met the the same end is a mere coincidence. Abraham Lincoln's Monetary Policy, 1865 (Page 91 of Senate document 23.) Money is the creature of law and the creation of the original issue of money should be maintained as the exclusive monopoly of national Government. Money possesses no value to the State other than that given to it by circulation. Capital has its proper place and is entitled to every protection. The wages of men should be recognised in the structure of and in the social order as more important than the wages of money. No duty is more imperative for the Government than the duty it owes the People to furnish them with a sound and uniform currency, and of regulating the circulation of the medium of exchange so that labour will be protected from a vicious currency, and commerce will be facilitated by cheap and safe exchanges. The available supply of Gold and Silver being wholly inadequate to permit the issuance of coins of intrinsic value or paper currency convertible into coin in the volume required to serve the needs of the People, some other basis for the issue of currency must be developed, and some means other than that of convertibility into coin must be developed to prevent undue fluctuation in the value of paper currency or any other substitute for money of intrinsic value that may come into use. The monetary needs of increasing numbers of People advancing towards higher standards of living can and should be met by the Government. Such needs can be served by the issue of National Currency and Credit through the operation of a National Banking system .The circulation of a medium of exchange issued and backed by the Government can be properly regulated and redundancy of issue avoided by withdrawing from circulation such amounts as may be necessary by Taxation, Redeposit, and otherwise. Government has the power to regulate the currency and credit of the Nation. Government should stand behind its currency and credit and the Bank deposits of the Nation. No individual should suffer a loss of money through depreciation or inflated currency or Bank bankruptcy. Government possessing the power to create and issue currency and creditas money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by Taxation and otherwise need not and should not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing Governmental work and public enterprise. The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of the consumers. The privilege of creating and issueing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Governments greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles the long felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts, and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprise, the maintenance of stable Government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own Government. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power. Some information on the Federal Reserve: The Federal Reserve, a Private Corporation. One of the most common concerns among people who engage in any effort to reduce their taxes is, "Will keeping my money hurt the government's ability to pay it's bills?" As explained in the first article in this series, the modern withholding tax does not, and wasn't designed to, pay for government services. What it does do, is pay for the privately-owned Federal Reserve System. Black's Law Dictionary defines the "Federal Reserve System" as, "Network of twelve central banks to which most national banks belong and to which state chartered banks may belong. Membership rules require investment of stock and minimum reserves." Privately-owned banks own the stock of the Fed. This was explained in more detail in the case of Lewis v. United States, Federal Reporter, 2nd Series, Vol. 680, Pages 1239, 1241 (1982), where the court said: Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in its region. The stock-holding commercial banks elect two thirds of each Bank's nine member board of directors. Similarly, the Federal Reserve Banks, though heavily regulated, are locally controlled by their member banks. Taking another look at Black's Law Dictionary, we find that these privately owned banks actually issue money: Federal Reserve Act. Law which created Federal Reserve banks which act as agents in maintaining money reserves, issuing money in the form of bank notes, lending money to banks, and supervising banks. Administered by Federal Reserve Board [q.v.]. The FED banks, which are privately owned, actually issue, that is, create, the money we use. In 1964 the House Committee on Banking and Currency, Subcommittee on Domestic Finance, at the second session of the 88th Congress, put out a study entitled Money Facts which contains a good description of what the FED is: The Federal Reserve is a total money-making machine. It can issue money or checks. And it never has a problem of making its checks good because it can obtain the $5 and $10 bills necessary to cover its check simply by asking the Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving to print them. As we all know, anyone who has a lot of money has a lot of power. Now imagine a group of people who have the power to create money. Imagine the power these people would have. This is what the Fed is. No man did more to expose the power of the Fed than Louis T. McFadden, who was the Chairman of the House Banking Committee back in the 1930s. Constantly pointing out that monetary issues shouldn't be partisan, he criticized both the Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt administrations. In describing the Fed, he remarked in the Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296 on June 10, 1932, that: Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government Board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the maladministration of that law by which the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the monied vultures who control it. Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into States to buy votes to control our legislation; and there are those who maintain an international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and of wheedling us into the granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime. Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this country by bankers who came here from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions. The Fed basically works like this: The government granted its power to create money to the Fed banks. They create money, then loan it back to the government charging interest. The government levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt. On this point, it's interesting to note that the Federal Reserve act and the sixteenth amendment, which gave congress the power to collect income taxes, were both passed in 1913. The incredible power of the Fed over the economy is universally admitted. Some people, especially in the banking and academic communities, even support it. On the other hand, there are those, both in the past and in the present, that speak out against it. One of these men was President John F. Kennedy. His efforts were detailed in Jim Marrs' 1990 book, Crossfire: Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy's attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11,110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency. Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system. Saxon also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the dominant Federal Reserve banks. A number of "Kennedy bills" were indeed issued - the author has a five dollar bill in his possession with the heading "United States Note" - but were quickly withdrawn after Kennedy's death. According to information from the Library of the Comptroller of the Currency, Executive Order 11,110 remains in effect today, although successive administrations beginning with that of President Lyndon Johnson apparently have simply ignored it and instead returned to the practice of paying interest on Federal Reserve notes. Today we continue to use Federal Reserve Notes, and the deficit is at an all-time high. The point being made is that the IRS taxes you pay aren't used for government services. It won't hurt you, or the nation, to legally reduce or eliminate your tax liability. ____________________________________________________ TO: Len Osanic FROM: Fletch Prouty SUBJECT: Web Site Responses a. Gregory Burnham Dec 1, l997 Dec 3, 1997 Few subjects over time get as much attention as the definition of "Money" and your approach to it is interesting. Actually there are about as many attempts at the obfuscation of what money really is, as there are for the variety of uses which it can be put to. I recall that during my WW II flying days, when we used to fly from Africa to Asia, we went by way of the southern coast of Arabia. About half way across there is a small, and interestingly developed sheikdom called Salala. The British had obtained the rights to build a runway there as a refueling point and safety landing ground. For this "right" they agreed to pay the Sheik in "Money" which in that remote area consisted only of copies of an Eighteenth Century coin... the "Maria Theresa" silver dollar. All were dated 1780 and were the size and shape of all other silver-dollars by weight (same as in USA); but what was their value... especially out there on the barren shores of Arabia? I obtained several of them for swapping an Arab a new pair of canvas work gloves (value unknown). A modest exchange, to say the least. It was then that I learned that, when the British had produced enough of these coins, originally, to satisfy the Sheik's "rental" demand, the Sheik would not accept them. The problem turned out to be that when he had obtained "His" originals with their last century date, he believed them to be the only "Legal" coins and would not accept others with other dates in their place. It happens that mine are dated 1780, also, and that the "counterfeit" ones the British had made for the Sheik with other dates had to be recast, because they were l93O's and 1940's. My coins are 1780. The "legal tender" coins in Salala were 1780, and the British had to continue to produce these otherwise normal silver dollars with this only lawful date as validation. To you and me they were perfectly produced "Silver Dollars", and with some frequency I used to find others in circulation in other countries throughout wartime Arabia, Africa and Asia... all dated 1780. Think that over. Is that what creates the value of MONEY...a small chunk of silver with a fixed date? b. During the Nineteen-sixties, I was the Manager of the ordinary commercial Branch Bank in the Pentagon. As a function of my transfer from a military career to a banker's role, I was sent to the American Bankers Association Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin. The end of my schooling there coincided with the emergence of the new "Currency"....the Credit card. (Arthur Burns, then head of the Federal Reserve did much lecturing there for us.) As is supported by a photo on my CD-ROM, I was one of 15 bankers who, as a member of the Automation Planning and Technology Committee of the American Bankers Assn, traveled the country supporting conventions on the subject of the Credit Card (not yet in circulation then) and what computers would do for money and banking. The theme was, that the Computer would permit the bank to give better service for its customers. In the process, the American Bankers Assn. ordained the Credit Card and new Money... whatever that was going to be. c. There is no end to this subject; yet it remains one of the most interesting and misunderstood factors of human economic existence. I would like to recommend a few volumes that I believe provide an important base to the subject: a few of which may be considered to be controversial: 1) "The New Paigrave: MONEY" First American Edition, 1989 by W.W. Norton & Co (Classic) 2) "The Secrets of the Federal Reserve" by my old friend, Eustace Mullins, Bankers Research Inst. P.O. Box 1105, Staunton, VA 24401. (Valuable research) 3) "Stored Labor: A New Theory of Money" by Hugh A. Thomas. (No address) Superb! Thomas: "There is but one hope for freedom. That hope lies with the possibility that some day people will learn the true meaning of money, that money is their lifeline to an existence above that of an animal, that money offers them the ability to deal with others through the medium of agreement rather than the medium of force and, that money is an extension of their lives, that they own their labor: MONEY. When these things are known by enough people they will cut off the hands of the state and reclaim their lives." d. BURNHAM has introduced another interesting subject with his statement: "The founder of SONY Corporation, Akio Morita, a man I highly respect, commented that following the defeat of Japan he made several trips to America...Upon return home he noted that "Cheap" things were labeled "Made in Japan" in stores in America. He went home determined to change that image. Hence, the SONY Corp, which has since evolved from its humble beginnings as a manufacturer of stereos and T.V. to be recognized a leader in that industry." (That's not quite an accurate copy of Burnham's words; but I'll stop here for another purpose.) It just happens that I was ordered to Tokyo during the early days of the Korean War period, and was assigned the job of "Military Manager of Tokyo International Airport" during the period of the U.S. military occupation of Japan. At that time it was the third busiest airport in the world, not only because of the Korean War activity; but because of just such business activity as Burnham describes on the part of Mr. Morita. Many other Japanese entrepreneurs were doing their best to revive from the losses and damage of WWII; but even more important was an another enormous business phenomenon. I began to notice that day after day the few Japanese transport aircraft available, and countless large commercial aircraft from USA Charter Companies began to jam the parking ramp on Tokyo Airport. They were loaded with items from the States. US money and manufactured material was flooding the place. Have you ever really thought why Mr. Morita, a fine Japanese businessman, would name his company SONY? That is not a Japanese word, nor is it a Japanese acronym. The name SONY began to appear at the airport after the flood of post-war recovery money, and one of the meanings of those four letters is "STANDARD OIL OF NEW YORK". That has always been SONY or SOCONY. (The Standard Oil Company of New York) THE ROCKEFELLERS had arrived to re-finance Japan. [A prime example of OUT-SOURCING, my emphasis. TM] What this meant was that during those "MacArthur" days Rockefeller money was flooding Japan; and money such as that (Yes, I'm using the term MONEY) kind of "money" began the amazing job of rebuilding Japan. We should all note that these phenomena took place in what we called the Korean War and the Vietnam War eras. These conflicts carefully orchestrated and planned during the Cairo and Teheran Conference days in Nov/Dec 1944 had been ably designed to pour hundreds of billions of dollars/money into those activities. The Vietnam War cost ran well over $500 billion... and this was not Maria Theresa "Dollars". e. Your good letter has caused me to go back through some of my dog-earred records to rediscover and to confirm much of what you have written. It is my belief today that this High Cabal is going to increase around the world rather than to have itself modified. Thank you for your good letter, L. Fletcher Prouty

******************************************************* Socony-Vacuum 1937 SOCONY = Standard Oil Company Of New York Thank you, Purv. Thank you, for following the cobblestone road. BTW, DeMohrenschildt worked for Creole Oil of Venezuela. SOCONY and CREOLE OIL, both Rockefeller interests. Also, Prescott Bush was one of the original founders of The American Liberty League. This recent information was found by a reporter named Buchanan, whose work can be linked at the Dave Emory Spitfire site. Glad that those who recognize "where to look", recognize the direction in which I often meander. There is considerable more to the story of the "big bucks" when one then follows from the American Liberty League to the AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION which includes the really BIG money players and their investments in the Soviet Union. And just so that one knows most, the individual who lived in Miami, FL and rode the bus to Mexico with LHO and reported it to the FBI, also worked for a South American subsidary of the good ole STANDARD OIL group. One just might also want to check into the background of DeMohrenschildt's family business in the Soviet Union as well. Tom P.S. Still have not forgotten the Playboy Club Manager who Jack Ruby called. Will eventually get around to "re-digging" through the boxes and send the name. Wish that I had kept my old "key card", as they are now considered as valuable "collectibles". ***************************************************************************** P.S. Still have not forgotten the Playboy Club Manager who Jack Ruby called. Will eventually get around to "re-digging" through the boxes and send the name. Wish that I had kept my old "key card", as they are now considered as valuable "collectibles". Hey Purv, I sent the last picture I had of me with the N.O. Club's G.M. to Dawn this past Christmas, in case you ever want her to scan it to you. You can P.M. her for it whenever you're interested. Ter

******************************************************* Socony-Vacuum 1937 SOCONY = Standard Oil Company Of New York Thank you, Purv. Thank you, for following the cobblestone road. BTW, DeMohrenschildt worked for Creole Oil of Venezuela. SOCONY and CREOLE OIL, both Rockefeller interests. Also, Prescott Bush was one of the original founders of The American Liberty League. This recent information was found by a reporter named Buchanan, whose work can be linked at the Dave Emory Spitfire site.

Sorry to take so long in copying this article, but Harper Magazine's website is now defaulting to something by the name of magazine.com, and I'm no longer able to obtain a url to the articles appearing in the magazine. What I found disconcerting about this article is the total oblivion exhibited by the members of its forum with regard to what happened in November 1963. If this is the culmination of what is to be considered as representative of the United States military's brain trust, we're all heading straight to hell in a bucket, or better yet, a military helmet. ******************************************************************************** AMERICAN COUP D'ETAT Military thinkers discuss the unthinkable Eternal vigilance being the price of liberty, Americans--who spent decades war-gaming a Soviet invasion and have taken more recently to daydreaming about "ticking bomb" scenarios--should cast at least an occasional thought toward the only truly existential threat that American democracy might face today. We now live in a unipolar world, after all, in which conquest of the United States by an outside power is nearly inconceivable. Even the best-equipped terrorists, for their part, could dispatch at most a city or two; and armed revolution is a futile prospect, so fearsomely is our homeland secured by police and military forces. To subdue America entirely, the only route remaining would be to seize the machinery of state itself, to steer it toward malign ends--to carry out, that is, a coup d'etat. Given that the linchpin of any coup d'etat is the participation , or at least the support, of a nation's military officers, Harper's Magazine assembled a panel of experts to discuss the state of our military--its culture, its relationship with the wider society, and the steadfastness of its loyalty to the ideals of democracy and to the United States Constitution. The following forum is based on a discussion that toook place in January at the Ruth's Chris Steak House in Arlington, Virginia. Bill Wasik served as moderator. ANDREW J. BACEVICH is a professor of international relations at Boston University and the author, most recently, of The New American Militarism. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1992. BRIG. GEN CHARLES J. DUNLAP JR. is a staff judge advocate at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. In 1002 he published an essay entitled "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." (His views here are personal and do not reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense.) RICHARD H. KOHN is the chair of the curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and editor of the book The United States Military Under the Constitution of the United States, 1789-1989, among others. EDWARD H. LUTTWAK is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of many books, including Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook. BILL WASIK is a senior editor of Harper's Magazine. _______________________________________________________________________________ I. BILL WASIK: Let us begin with the most straightforward approach. Would it be possible for a renegade group of military officers, or the officer corps as a whole, to simply plot and carry out a coup d'etat in the United States? EDWARD LUTTWAK: If somebody asked me to plan such a coup, I wouldn't take on the assignment. CHARLES DUNLAP: I wouldn't either. [Laughs] LUTTWAK: I've done it for other countries. But it just wouldn't work here. You could go down the list and take over these headquarters, that headquarters, the White House, the Defense Department, the television, the radio, and so on. You could arrest all the leaders, detain or kill off their families. And you would have accomplished nothing. ANDREW BACEVICH: That's right. What are you going to seize that, having seized it, gives you control of the country? LUTTWAK: You would sit in the office of the Secretary of Defense, and the first place where you wouldn't be obeyed would be inside your office. If they did follow orders inside the office, then people in the rest of the Pentagon wouldn't. If they did, as well, American citizens would still not accept your legitimacy. RICHARD KOHN: It's a problem of public opinion. All of the organs of opinion in this country would rise up with one voice: the courts, the media, business leaders, education leaders, the clergy. LUTTWAK: You could shut down the media-- KOHN: You can't shut it down. It's too dispersed. LUTTWAK: No, you could shut down the media, but even if you did shut down the media, you wouldn't be able to rule. Because, remember in order to actually rule, you have toi have acceptance. Think of Saddam Hussein: he was not a very, you know, popular leader, but he did have to be obeyed at the very minimum by his security forces, his Republican Guards. So there is a minimum group that one needs in order to control any country. But in this country, you could never control such a minimum group. KOHN: I've raised this point before with military audiences: Do you really think you can control New York City without the cooperation of 40,000 New York police officers? And what about Idaho, with all those militia groups? Do you think you can control Idaho? I'm not even going to talk about Texas. BACEVICH: And this comes back to the federal system. As Edward pointed out, even if you seized Washington, Americans are willing to acknowledge that Washington is the seat of political authority only to a limited extent. The coup plotters could sit in the Capitol, but up in Boston we're going to ask, "What's this got to do with us?" DUNLAP: It's also impossible given the culture of the military. The notion of a cabal of U.S. military officers colluding to overthrow the government is almost unthinkable. Civilian control of the military is too deeply ingrained in the armed forces. BACEVICH: The professional ethic within the military is firmly committed to the principle that they don't rule. WASIK: So we can agree, then, that the blunt apporach won't work. Was there ever a time in our history when the United States was in danger of an outright military takeover? KOHN: The closest, I would say, was a faction in the military at Newburgh, New York, in March of 1783. The army felt like it was about to be abandoned in the oncoming peace; officers were concerned about their reintegration into American society, that they wouldn't get the pay that had been promised them. They got caught up in a very complex plot, in which they were used by a faction in the Congress that was trying to change the Articles of Confederation to give the central government the power to tax. Nationalist leaders in Congress basically provoked a coup attempt and then double-crossed the officers that they induced to do it by tipping off George Washington. All this led to a famous meeting of the officers when it was proposed that they see to their own interests, and either march on the Congress or, if the war continued, retire to the West and abandon the country. Washington faced down the conspirators in an emotional moment at Newburgh on March 15, 1783. DUNLAP: He was reading a letter from a congressman, as I recall, and then at one point he said, "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles. For I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country." KOHN: And this caused a kind of emotional break at the meeting, according to the people who were there. DUNLAP: Because they realized how much he had sacrificed. And it humiliated them. LUTTWAK: So the point here is to make sure your army has excellent retirement benefits. This was an industrial action. It was about getting paid. KOHN: The pay represented alot more than just the money, though. There was deep political intrigue involved, and person animosity. LUTTWAK: In other words, the republic was in great danger in 1783. Which doesn't cause immediate alarm these days in the streets of Manhattan. BACEVICH: But this does bring up another crucial reason there could never be a military coup in the United States: the military has learned to play politics. It doesn't need to have a coup in order to get what it wants most of the time. Especially since World War II, the services have become very skillful at exploiting the media and at manipulating the Congress--particularly on the defense budget, which is estimated now to be equal to that of the entire rest of the world combined. DUNLAP: I agree, though I wouldn't characterize it negatively. The military works within the system to achieve its needs. LUTTWAK: A few years back, the president of Argentina told the country's air force that its budget for the next year would be $80 million. Now, Argentina has a fairly large air force; $80 million was enough for one base, basically. But the air force had no recourse, no back channels to Congress, no talk shows to go on. That could never happen in the United States. BACEVICH: Right. Our military doesn't need to overthrow the government, because it has learned how to play politics in order to achieve its interests. II. WASIK: Are there any unforeseen circumstances in which a coup might become possible in the United States? KOHN: One could conceive of situations in which the military would be invited to exercise extraconstitutional authority. Imagine rolling biological attacks, with the need to quarantine whole cities or regions. A military takeover might arise, indeed, from a politician wanting to simply retain order in the country. It might be supported by the American people--and Congress and the courts might go along. LUTTWAK: Such a scenario would probably play out through a multi-stage transformation. After all, take any group of nice people on a trip; if five bad things happen to them in a row, they will end up as cannibals. how may adverse events are needed before a political system, arguably the most firmly rooted constitutional system in the history of the world, becomes uprooted? How many September 11ths, on what scale? How much panic, what kind of leadership? All of us can say that it is foolish to talk of a coup in the United States, but any of us could design a scenario by which a coup becomes possible. DUNLAP: If there were a massive attack by a nuclear weapon, or by some other weapon of mass destruction, the immediate crisis might require the use of the armed forces. But obviously there are plans for those scenarios, and if they're executed, then control would be maintained under the Constitution. BACEVICH: But these are scenarios in which the military would be invited to overstep its role. KOHN: Yes. I cannot conceive that in such a situation the military would aggrandize its position on its own. WASIK: So a weapon of mass destruction might cause the military to assume greater power. What about a purely political crisis? Could the military step in if, say, the Constitution were unclear on a course of action? DUNLAP: One interesting scenario would be a crisis between the branches of government that are expected to control the military. I.e., if the armed forces were caught between the orders of the president, the Congress, or even the courts, and there were no constitutional path to resolve the disagreement. KOHN: Wouldn't the armed forces simply freeze? They'd be paralyzed. LUTTWAK: It's a very interesting line of inquiry. Let's say a president, exercising his proper and legitimate presidential authority, initiates a military action. The Congress wakes up and says, "Wait a minute, this president is berserk; he's starting a war, and we're against it." But in the meantime, the military force has already been put in a very compromised situation. If things were moving very fast, the military might well take an unconstitutional action. KOHN: Something similar actually happened during Reconstruction: there were conflicting orders from the Congress and the president. LUTTWAK: What were the details? KOHN: It was 1867, when Grant was the commanding general. BACEVICH: The president, Andrew Johnson, was in favor of a rapid reconciliation and minimal political change. The Congress, under the control of radical Republicans, wanted to impose change on the South, and also thereby consolidate Republican control over the army: as far as Reconstruction was concerned, Grant and Edwin Stanton, who was secretary of war, were to take their marching orders from Congress. When Johnson fired Stanton, Grant found himself both the commanding general of the army and the acting secretary of war. But he struck an obedient, apolitical pose, and he continued to do the bidding of Congress. LUTTWAK: What about a situation in which the military was ordered to start a war that it did not believe could be won? Imagine that President Bush orders the American armed forces to effect a landing in Fujian province and march up to Beijing. The army would say, "Of course, Mr. President, we're willing to obey orders. But we have to have a universal military conscription, we have to bring our forces up to four million and a half." And imagine that Bush refuses. BACEVICH: The military would leak it to the Washington Post, and the war would never happen. It's the Bosnia case: when President Clinton wanter to intervene in Bosnia, General Barry McCaffrey testified to Congress and gave a wildly inflated projection of the number of occupation troops that would be required. By overstating the cost of the operation, the generals changed the political dynamic and Clinton found his hands tied, at least for a period of time. WASIK: Let's get back, though, to the subject of the crises, whether real or contrived. It seems as though the American public wants to see the military step in during these situations. A poll taken just after Hurricane Katrina found that 69 percent of people wanted to see the military serve as the primary responder to natural disasters. DUNLAP: People don't fully appreciate what the military is. By design it is authoritarian, socialistic, undemocratic. Those qualities help the armed forces to serve their very unique purpose in our society: namely, external defense against foreign enemies. In the military we look to destroy threats, not apprehend them for processing through a system that presumes them innocent until proven guilty. And I should add that if you do try to imprint soldiers with the restraint that a police force needs, then you disadvantage them against the ruthless adversaries that real war involves. WASIK: Then why do so many Americans say they want to see the military get involved in law enforcement, "peacekeeping," etc.? DUNLAP: Americans today have an incredible trust in the military. In poll after poll they have much more confidence in the armed forces than they do in other institutions. The most recent poll, just this past spring, had trust in the military at 74 percent, while Congress was at 22 percent, and the presidency was at 44 percent. In other words, the armed forces are much more trusted than the civilian institutions that are supposed to control them. III. BACEVICH: The question that arises is whether, in fact, we're not already experiencing what is in essence a creeping coup d'etat. But it's not people in uniform who are seizing power. It's militarized civilians, who conceive of the world as such a dangerous place that military power has to predominate, that constitutional constraints on the military need to be loosened. The ideology of national secruity has become ever more woven into our politics. It has been especially apparent since 9/11, but more broadly it's been going on since the beginning of the Cold War. KOHN: The Constitution is being warped. BACEVICH: Here we don't need to conjure up hypothetical scenarios of the president deploying troops, etc. We have a president who created a program thats directs the National Security Agency, which is part of the military, to engage in domestic eavesdropping. LUTTWAK: I don't know if this would be called a coup. KOHN: Because it's so incremental? LUTTWAK: It's more like an erosion. The President is usurping additional powers. Although what's interesting is that the president's usurpation of this particular power was entirely unnecessary. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, which approves terrorism-related requests for wiretaps, can be summoned over the telephone in a matter of minutes. In its entire history, it has said no to a request for surveillance only a handful of times, and those were cases where there was a mistake in the request. Really, even a small-town sheriff can get any interception he wants so long as after the fact he can show a judge that there was reasonable cause. BACEVICH: Bush's move was unnecessary if the object of the exercise was to engage in surveillance. It was very useful indeed if the object is to expand executive power. KOHN: Which is exactly what has been the agenda since the beginning of this administration. LUTTWAK: Now you're attributing motives. BACEVICH: Yes, I am! If you read John Yoo, he suggests that one conscious aim of the project was to eliminate constraints on the chief executive when it comes to matters of national security. DUNLAP: I will say that even if it was a completely legal project, there is a question of how approriate it is for the armed forces to be involved in that kind of activity. Since, as I noted before, the American people have much less confidence in those institutions of civilian control than they do in the armed forces, we need to be very careful about what we ask the military to do, even assuming it's legal. WASIK: If we are talking about a"creeping coup" that is already under way, in what direction is it creeping? BACEVICH: The creeping coup deflects attention away from domestic priorities and toward national-security matters, so that is where all our resources get deployed. "Leadership" today is what is demonstrated in the national-security realm. The current presidency is interesting in that regard. What has Bush accomplished apart from posturing in the role of commander-in-chief? He declares wars, he prosecutes wars, he insists we must continue to procsecute wars. KOHN: By framing the terrorist threat itself as a war, we tend to look upon our national security from a much more military perspective. BACEVICH: We don't get Social Security reform, we don't get immigration reform. The role of the president increasingly comes to be defined by his military function. KOHN: And so our foreign policy becomes militarized. We neglect our diplomacy, de-emphasize allies. DUNLAP: Well, without commenting on this particular subject-- KOHN: You shouldn't. [Laughs] DUNLAP: --is this not something that is decided at the ballot box? I mean, aren't these the kinds of issues that the American people decide when they elect a president? KOHN: But you imply by that statement, Charlie, that the ballot box exists as a kind of pristine, uncontextualized Athenian gathering at the square to vote. In fact, the ballot box in this country is the product of how things are framed by the political parties, by the political leaders. Also, very few of our congressional districts now are really contested, after gerrymandering. Very few of our Senate seats are real contests. LUTTWAK: It becomes about personalities; you ask an American citizen to choose between Laura Bush and Teresa Heinz Kerry, and they choose Laura Bush. But it doesn't mean that they favor the misuse of the American military to try and change the political culture of Afghanistan. This is madness--and it is bipartisan madness. BACEVICH: That's a key point. LUTTWAK: Bipartism madness. This is not even militarism. Militarism had to do with eminent professors of Greek desperate to become reserve officers so they could be invited to the miitary ball. That's militarism. This is an intoxication about what the actual capabilities of any military force could be. DUNLAP: This intoxication with the military's capabilities certainly isn't coming from the uniformed military officers. BACEVICH: Except insofar as they are involved in the playing of plitics, in constantly pressing for more resources. Meanwhile, we've underfunded the State Department for twenty-five years. LUTTWAK: I once was privy to a peace negotiation conducted in the corridors of the State Department. The State Department literally had no funds to give lunch to the participants, a fact that both sides complained bitterly about. Dunlap: Well, I don't think it's anything new that the State Department is underfunded. The State Department has no bases in any state, so it does not have a constituency. But in terms of the expenditure of resources in the Department of Defense, that is very much controlled by civilians and not military commanders. LUTTWAK: But it is still the military that has the resources. BACEVICH: And so over time--because this has happened over time--you create a bias for military action. Which agency of government has the capacity to act? Well, the Department of Defense does. And that bias gets continually reinforced, and helps to create a circumstance in which any president who wants to appear effective, and therefore to win reelection, sees that the opportunity to do so is by acting in the military sphere. IV. WASIK: I want to address the question of partisanship in the military. Insofar as there is a "culture war" in America, everyone seems to agree that the armed forces fight on the Republican side. And this is borne out in polls: self-described Republicans outnumber Democrats in the military by more than four to one, and only 7 percent of soldiers describe themselves as "liberal." KOHN: It has become part of the informal culture of the military to be Republican. You see this at the military academies. They pick it up in the culture, in the training establishments. DUNLAP: The military is an inherently conservative organization, and this is true of all militaries around the world. Also, the demographics have changed: people in the South who were Democratic twenty years ago have become Republican today. BACEVICH: Yes, all militaries are conservative. But since 1980 our military has become conservative in a more explicitly ideological sense. And that allegiance has been returned in spades by the conservative side in the culture war, which see soldiers as virtuous representatives of how the country ought to be. KOHN: And meanwhile there is a streak of antimilitarism on the left. BACEVICH: It's not that people on the left disdain the military but rather that they are just agnostic about it. They don't identify with soldiers or soldiering. LUTTWAK: And their children have less of a propensity to serve in the military. Parents who describe themselves as liberal are less likely to make positive noises to their children about the armed forces. DUNLAP: Which brings up a crucial point. Let's accept as a fact that the U.S. military has become more overtly ideological since 1980. What has happened since 1980? Roughly, that was the beginning of the all-volunteer force. What we are seeing right now is the result of twenty-five years of an all-volunteer force, in which people have self-selected into the organization. BACEVICH: But the military is also recruited. And it doesn't seem to me that the military has much interest in whether or not the force is representative of American society. KOHN: I don't think that's true. BACEVICH: Where do you think recruiting command is focused right now? It's focused on those evangelicals, it's on the rural South. We are reinforcing the lack of representativeness in the military because of the concentrated recruiting efforts among groups predisposed to serve. DUNLAP: They are so focused on getting qualified people. The military is going to the Supreme Court so that it can recruit on campuses where currently we're not able to. KOHN: That's just law schools. DUNLAP: But it has implications across the armed forces. BACEVICH: The recruiters go for the rich turf, which is where evangelicals are. You have to work a hell of a lot harder to recruit people from Newton and Wellesley, Massachusetts. KOHN: Or anywhere in the well-to-do or even middle-class suburbs. BACHEVICH: In an economic sense, the services are behaving quite rationally. But in doing so they perpetuate the fact that we have a military that in no way "looks like" American society. DUNLAP: The other part of the problem is the behavior of the politicians. They realize the affection that American people have for people in uniform. BACEVICH: And so they land on aircraft carriers to prance around in the flight suit of a fighter jock. Both parties now see the military vote as being a part of politics, as a constituency. It's a constituency that the Democrats want to pry away. KOHN: And partisanship in the military overall, i.e., the percentage of the military that identifies with a party as opposed to being "independent" or non-affiliated, is much greater overall. Not only are military officers more partisan than the general population; they're more partisan than, say, business leaders and other elite groups. I've tracked the numbers of retired four-star generals and admirals endorsing a candidate in presidential campaigns, and it's vastly up in the last two elections. BACEVICH: Remember at the Democratic National Convention, where General Claudia Kennedy introduced General John Shalikashvili to address the delegates? Why were they up there? There was only one reason: to try to match the parade of retired senior officers that the Republicans have long been trotting out on political occasions. KOHN: But is that to get military votes? Or just to connect with the American people on national security and patriotism? BACEVICH: It's both. In 2000, the Republican National Committee put ads in the Army Times and other service magazines attacking the Clinton/Gore record. To me that was, quite frankly, contemptible. WASIK: It seems as if the two are related: if it's reported that you have the support of the military--as was the case before the 2004 election, when newspapers noted that Kerry had less than 20 percent support within the military--then you get a halo effect among the rest of the voters. Does the partisanship of our military present a danger to the nation? KOHN: One of the great pillars in our history that has prevented military intervention in politics has been the military's nonpartisan attitude. That's why General George Marshall's generation of officers essentiallly declined to vote at all, as did generations before them. In fact, for the first time in over a century we now have an officer corps that does identify overwhelmingly with one political party. And that is corrosive. V. KOHN: Consider this glaring example of political manipulation by the military: After every other American war before the Cold War, the country demobilized its wartime military establishment. Even during the Cold War, when we kept a large standing military, we expanded and contracted it for shooting wars. But in 1990 and 1991, the military--through General Colin Powell, who was head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time--intervened and effectively prevented a demobilization. BACEVICH: More accurately, I'd say that he prevented any discussion of a demobilization. KOHN: That's right. DUNLAP: We did have a reduction in the size of the military. There were cuts of around 9 percent, in both dollars and manpower. KOHN: But it was nothing compared to the end of great American wars prior to that. BACEVICH: Powell is explicit on this in his memoirs. "I was determined to have the Joint Chiefs drive the military strategy train," he wrote. He was not going to have "military reorganization schemes shoved down our throat." HOHN: This was not a coup, but it was very clearly a circumvention of civilian political authority. BACEVICH: Let us also consider the classic case of gays in the miitary. Bill Clinton ran for the presidency saying he would issue an executive order that did for gays what Harry Truman did for African Americans. He wins the election. When he tries to do precisely what he said he would do, it triggers a firestorm of opposition in the military. This was not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff merely saying, in private, "Mr. President, I would like to give you my professional opinion." KOHN: It was the most open revolt the American military, as a whole, has ever engaged in. LUTTWAK: Ever? KOHN: Open revolt, yes. BACEVICH: Now, Clinton's actions were ill-advised, to put it mildly. But what we got was something like rebellion. Two Marines published an op-ed in the Washington Post, warning the Joint Chiefs that if they failed to stop this policy from being implemented, they were likely to lose the loyalty of junior officers. I mean, holy smokes. DUNLAP: Which brings up the issue: How transparent should the uniformed side of the armed forces be about their opinions? I will tell you, it is very difficult for serving officers to figure out exactly where the line is. There are points where they feel that their military values require them to speak out. KOHN: I'm not sympathetic. As professional military officers, they are called upon to make far more difficult decisions in far more ambiguous and dangerous situations. The civil-military relationship is one of the most important parts of their profession, and if they are not educated and prepared enough to make the proper judgments, then they don't belong in high-ranking positions. LUTTWAK: It seems as though we should take into account the views of the armed forces in regard to military questions and nothing more. The military is like a surgeon. If you go to a hospital--even if you own the hospital--you will defer to the surgeon if he tells you that you need your appendix out rather than your leg cut off. But if the surgeon starts talking about religion or politics or homosexuality, you wouldn't defer to him at all. KOHN: But with gays in the military, the officers framed it in military terms. They said that revoking the ban would destroy the good order and discipline of the armed forces. LUTTWAK: In the showers. KOHN: Exactly. In retrospect, it was a foolish argument--but that was how they framed it, in military terms. LUTTWAK: So how should it have been done differently? President Clinton comes in and wants to allow homosexuals to serve in the military. Do soldiers have the right to express themselves on this? KOHN: Not publicly. DUNLAP: By law, you can contact your congressman. LUTTWAK: Right. DUNLAP: That may be the answer. The answer may be you can just do it on an individual basis. KOHN: On a private basis. LUTTWAK: But let's consider a more recent example. On day General Eric Shinseki, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, happened to be testifying on Capitol Hill. Somebody asked him about a possible invasion of Iraq, and General Shinseki--reflecting what, as I understand it, was the view of anyone who had ever looked at that country and counted its population--said that it would take several hundred thousand troops to control Iraq. Whereupon Shinseki was publicly contradicted by his civilian superiors, who ridiculed his professional opinion. DUNLAP: Right. Dick, do you consider that to have been appropriate feedback for him? KOHN: No, Shinseki behaved appropriately. In contradicting and disparaging him, the civilians signalled to the military that they did not want candor even when it is required, which is in front of Congress. DUNLAP: There are two other interesting examples with General Pace, our current chairman. One was when he differed with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld about what a military person should do if he or she is present when there's an abuse during an interrogation process. Pace insisted that the military had the obligation to intervene--which I think is the right answer. KOHN: But afterward he fudged it and claimed that there was no disagreement with the secretary. DUNLAP: Be that as it may, I think it was the right answer. The second and, I think, more difficult scenario was when Representative Jack Murtha said that he wouldn't join the armed forces today, nor would he expect others to do so. General Pace publicly criticized Murtha's remarks. Here was another instance in which the senior representative of the uniformed military spoke out in what was arguably a political context against civilian leadership. But in this case again, I thought it was appropriate. WASIK: So it seems clear that whether we like it or not, the military has learned how to use the political system to protect its interests and also to uphold what it sees as its values. Thinking over the long term, are there any dangers inherent in this? KOHN: Well, at this point the military has a long tradition of getting what it wants. If we ever attempted to truly demobilize--i.e., if the military were suddenly, radically cut back--it could lead if not to a coup then to very severe civil-military tension. BACEVICH: Because the political game would no longer be prejudiced in the military favor. KOHN: That's right. BACEVICH: But there is a more subtle danger too. The civilian leadership knows that in dealing with the military, they are dealing with an institution whose behavior is not purely defined by adherence to the military professional ethic, disinterested service, civilian subordination. Instead, the politicians know that they're dealing with an institution that, to some degree, has its own agenda. And if you're dealing with somebody who has his own agenda, well, you can bargain, you can trade. That creates a small opening--again, not to a coup but to the military making deals with politicians whose purposes may not be consistent with the Constitution. End of article. Copyright Harpers Magazine April 2006

******************************************************* It was also a term I became familiar with when I was living in Key West in 1963-64. It was used to describe the Cuban nationals coming ashore by small boat, dinghy, or raft. I was once mistaken for one while searching for bottles outside of one of the sub basins on the eastern end of the key. Luckily I had my Navy I.D. card tucked in my bathing suit at the time and didn't get hauled off for questioning.

************************************************************ Ah, but there's hope in Harper's editor, Lewis Lapham's essay: http://www.harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html [Essay] The Case for Impeachment Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006. An excerpt from an essay in the March 2006 Harper's Magazine. By Lewis H. Lapham. A country is not only what it does—it is also what it puts up with, what it tolerates. —Kurt Tucholsky On December 18 of last year, Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.) introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution inviting it to form “a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” Although buttressed two days previously by the news of the National Security Agency's illegal surveillance of the American citizenry, the request attracted little or no attention in the press—nothing on television or in the major papers, some scattered applause from the left-wing blogs, heavy sarcasm on the websites flying the flags of the militant right. The nearly complete silence raised the question as to what it was the congressman had in mind, and to whom did he think he was speaking? In time of war few propositions would seem as futile as the attempt to impeach a president whose political party controls the Congress; as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee stationed on Capitol Hill for the last forty years, Representative Conyers presumably knew that to expect the Republican caucus in the House to take note of his invitation, much less arm it with the power of subpoena, was to expect a miracle of democratic transformation and rebirth not unlike the one looked for by President Bush under the prayer rugs in Baghdad. Unless the congressman intended some sort of symbolic gesture, self-serving and harmless, what did he hope to prove or to gain? He answered the question in early January, on the phone from Detroit during the congressional winter recess. “To take away the excuse,” he said, “that we didn't know.” So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, “Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?” when the Bush Administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that “somehow it escaped our notice” that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law. A reason with which it was hard to argue but one that didn't account for the congressman's impatience. Why not wait for a showing of supportive public opinion, delay the motion to impeach until after next November's elections? Assuming that further investigation of the President's addiction to the uses of domestic espionage finds him nullifying the Fourth Amendment rights of a large number of his fellow Americans, the Democrats possibly could come up with enough votes, their own and a quorum of disenchanted Republicans, to send the man home to Texas. Conyers said: “I don't think enough people know how much damage this administration can do to their civil liberties in a very short time. What would you have me do? Grumble and complain? Make cynical jokes? Throw up my hands and say that under the circumstances nothing can be done? At least I can muster the facts, establish a record, tell the story that ought to be front-page news.” Which turned out to be the purpose of his House Resolution 635—not a high-minded tilting at windmills but the production of a report, 182 pages, 1,022 footnotes, assembled by Conyers's staff during the six months prior to its presentation to Congress, that describes the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq as the perpetration of a crime against the American people. It is a fair description. Drawing on evidence furnished over the last four years by a sizable crowd of credible witnesses—government officials both extant and former, journalists, military officers, politicians, diplomats domestic and foreign—the authors of the report find a conspiracy to commit fraud, the administration talking out of all sides of its lying mouth, secretly planning a frivolous and unnecessary war while at the same time pretending in its public statements that nothing was further from the truth.[1] The result has proved tragic, but on reading through the report's corroborating testimony I sometimes could counter its inducements to mute rage with the thought that if the would-be lords of the flies weren't in the business of killing people, they would be seen as a troupe of off-Broadway comedians in a third-rate theater of the absurd. Entitled “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War,” the Conyers report examines the administration's chronic abuse of power from more angles than can be explored within the compass of a single essay. The nature of the administration's criminal DNA and modus operandi, however, shows up in a usefully robust specimen of its characteristic dishonesty. * * * That President George W. Bush comes to power with the intention of invading Iraq is a fact not open to dispute. Pleased with the image of himself as a military hero, and having spoken, more than once, about seeking revenge on Saddam Hussein for the tyrant's alleged attempt to “kill my Dad,” he appoints to high office in his administration a cadre of warrior intellectuals, chief among them Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, known to be eager for the glories of imperial conquest.[2] At the first meeting of the new National Security Council on January 30, 2001, most of the people in the room discuss the possibility of preemptive blitzkrieg against Baghdad.[3] In March the Pentagon circulates a document entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts”; the supporting maps indicate the properties of interest to various European governments and American corporations. Six months later, early in the afternoon of September 11, the smoke still rising from the Pentagon's western facade, Secretary Rumsfeld tells his staff to fetch intelligence briefings (the “best info fast...go massive; sweep it all up; things related and not”) that will justify an attack on Iraq. By chance the next day in the White House basement, Richard A. Clarke, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, encounters President Bush, who tells him to “see if Saddam did this.” Nine days later, at a private dinner upstairs in the White House, the President informs his guest, the British prime minister, Tony Blair, that “when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.” By November 13, 2001, the Taliban have been rousted out of Kabul in Afghanistan, but our intelligence agencies have yet to discover proofs of Saddam Hussein's acquaintance with Al Qaeda.[4] President Bush isn't convinced. On November 21, at the end of a National Security Council meeting, he says to Secretary Rumsfeld, “What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?...I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.” The Conyers report doesn't return to the President's focus on Iraq until March 2002, when it finds him peering into the office of Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, to say, “xxxx Saddam. We're taking him out.” At a Senate Republican Policy lunch that same month on Capitol Hill, Vice President Dick Cheney informs the assembled company that it is no longer a question of if the United States will attack Iraq, it's only a question of when. The vice president doesn't bring up the question of why, the answer to which is a work in progress. By now the administration knows, or at least has reason to know, that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, that Iraq doesn't possess weapons of mass destruction sufficiently ominous to warrant concern, that the regime destined to be changed poses no imminent threat, certainly not to the United States, probably not to any country defended by more than four batteries of light artillery. Such at least is the conclusion of the British intelligence agencies that can find no credible evidence to support the theory of Saddam's connection to Al Qaeda or international terrorism; “even the best survey of WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile and CW/BW weapons fronts...” A series of notes and memoranda passing back and forth between the British Cabinet Office in London and its correspondents in Washington during the spring and summer of 2002 address the problem of inventing a pretext for a war so fondly desired by the Bush Administration that Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's MI-6, finds the interested parties in Washington fixing “the intelligence and the facts...around the policy.” The American enthusiasm for regime change, “undimmed” in the mind of Condoleezza Rice, presents complications. Although Blair has told Bush, probably in the autumn of 2001, that Britain will join the American military putsch in Iraq, he needs “legal justification” for the maneuver—something noble and inspiring to say to Parliament and the British public. No justification “currently exists.” Neither Britain nor the United States is being attacked by Iraq, which eliminates the excuse of self-defense; nor is the Iraqi government currently sponsoring a program of genocide. Which leaves as the only option the “wrong-footing” of Saddam. If under the auspices of the United Nations he can be presented with an ultimatum requiring him to show that Iraq possesses weapons that don't exist, his refusal to comply can be taken as proof that he does, in fact, possess such weapons.[5] Over the next few months, while the British government continues to look for ways to “wrong-foot” Saddam and suborn the U.N., various operatives loyal to Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld bend to the task of fixing the facts, distributing alms to dubious Iraqi informants in return for map coordinates of Saddam's monstrous weapons, proofs of stored poisons, of mobile chemical laboratories, of unmanned vehicles capable of bringing missiles to Jerusalem.[6] By early August the Bush Administration has sufficient confidence in its doomsday story to sell it to the American public. Instructed to come up with awesome text and shocking images, the White House Iraq Group hits upon the phrase “mushroom cloud” and prepares a White Paper describing the “grave and gathering danger” posed by Iraq's nuclear arsenal.[7] The objective is three-fold—to magnify the fear of Saddam Hussein, to present President Bush as the Christian savior of the American people, a man of conscience who never in life would lead the country into an unjust war, and to provide a platform of star-spangled patriotism for Republican candidates in the November congressional elections.[8] * * * The Conyers report doesn't lack for further instances of the administration's misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years—misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as “enemy combatants,” etc.—but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President's impeachment. Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man. We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a xxxx who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues? * * * The above is a brief excerpt from the complete essay, available in the March 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine. Notes 1. The report borrows from hundreds of open sources that have become a matter of public record—newspaper accounts, television broadcasts (Frontline, Meet the Press, Larry King Live, 60 Minutes, etc.), magazine articles (in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books), sworn testimony in both the Senate and House of Representatives, books written by, among others, Bob Woodward, George Packer, Richard A. Clarke, James Mann, Mark Danner, Seymour Hersh, David Corn, James Bamford, Hans Blix, James Risen, Ron Suskind, Joseph Wilson. As the congressman had said, “Everything in plain sight; it isn't as if we don't know.” [back] 2. In January of 1998 the neoconservative Washington think tank The Project for the New American Century (which counts among its founding members Dick Cheney) sent a letter to Bill Clinton demanding “the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power” with a strong-minded “willingness to undertake military action.” Together with Rumsfeld, six of the other seventeen signatories became members of the Bush's first administration—Elliott Abrams (now George W. Bush's deputy national security advisor), Richard Armitage (deputy secretary of state from 2001 to 2005), John Bolton (now U.S. ambassador to the U.N.), Richard Perle (chairman of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2003), Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense from 2001 to 2005), Robert Zoellick (now deputy secretary of state). President Clinton responded to the request by signing the Iraq Liberation Act, for which Congress appropriated $97 million for various clandestine operations inside the borders of Iraq. Two years later, in September 2000, The Project for the New American Century issued a document noting that the “unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification” for the presence of the substantial American force in the Persian Gulf. [back] 3. In a subsequent interview on 60 Minutes, Paul O'Neill, present in the meeting as the newly appointed secretary of the treasury, remembered being surprised by the degree of certainty: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go.... It was all about finding a way to do it.” [back] 4. As early as September 20, Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, drafted a memo suggesting that in retaliation for the September 11 attacks the United States should consider hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, or perhaps deliberately selecting a non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq. [back] 5. Abstracts of the notes and memoranda, known collectively as “The Downing Street Minutes,” were published in the Sunday Times (London) in May 2005; their authenticity was undisputed by the British government. [back] 6. The work didn't go unnoticed by people in the CIA, the Pentagon, and the State Department accustomed to making distinctions between a well-dressed rumor and a naked lie. In the spring of 2004, talking to a reporter from Vanity Fair, Greg Thielmann, the State Department officer responsible for assessing the threats of nuclear proliferation, said, “The American public was seriously misled. The Administration twisted, distorted and simplified intelligence in a way that led Americans to seriously misunderstand the nature of the Iraq threat. I'm not sure I can think of a worse act against the people in a democracy than a President distorting critical classified information.” [back] 7. The Group counted among its copywriters Karl Rove, senior political strategist, Andrew Card, White House chief of staff, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. [back] 8. Card later told the New York Times that “from a marketing point of view...you don't introduce new products in August.” [back] This is The Case for Impeachment by Lewis H. Lapham, published Monday, February 27, 2006. It is part of Features, which is part of Harpers.org. Written By Lapham, Lewis H. Permanent URL http://harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html

************************************************************** "Who runs the U.S. today? The military industrial complex, to whom the neocon PNAC with its 2000 coup and imperialistic foreign policy is one of the best things that ever happened. They are partners in crime." And, lest we not forget how far back, nor how deep the roots of the American war machine really reach. Look to the bankers of the Eastern Establishment and their Wall Street financial houses, created in the 18th and 19th centuries. The economic philosophy of capitalism, along with Manifest Destiny imperialism, has made vast fortunes for their aristocratic baronial class, such as the Astors, Vanderbilts, Du Ponts, Mellons, Morgans, and Rockefellers. The American economy has always been based upon the business of war. Therefore, the MICIC, and the neo-colonial-conservative PNAC are mere off-shoots, or by-products of the original architects of the American "nightmare", which was established and created based upon their anglo-baronial role models. What has this to do with the JFK assassination? JFK was supposed to be a product of his status-seeking, Ambassador-to-the-Court-of-St. James-seeking, rum-running, Irish Boston back-water father, Joe. People such as these are considered to be interlopers by the Bostonian Brahman, and New York Blue-Blooded classes, to be used for their own agendas. The elites thought they had another "player" of the same ruthless caliber and ethic as his old man. But, JFK attempted to switch certain key-policy ploys which catered to the financiers regarding his NSAM executive orders on Vietnam, and the Federal Reserve, as well as prior his public firing of Allen Dulles, and his promise to smash the CIA to pieces following the BOP. Allen Dulles, also of the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, with connections to United Fruit and its Cuban plantations, friend of Prescott Bush, and his German banking connection prior to WWII. These people were established for over a century and controlled the economic and political policy of the U.S. along with its Anglo-American Atlantic umbilical cord, and continue to do so into perpetuity. They were never going to allow some upstart like JFK [which is what he was always considered as, BTW], be allowed to turn the tables on everything they've ever been allowed to build, or get away with, nor continue to dismantle the lifelines to their precious holdings. You'll never find this written in your school history books, either. And, the regime you see today, in place and in power, is a direct culmination of what happened on 11/22/63. It's a reminder to the American psyche that any person having views or ambitions differing, or divergent to those of the established ruling class will be dealt with in a swift and expedient manner, be it either physically, or characteristically.

****************************************************** "Please note that I am not disputing that the Executive Branch has gotten much stronger since the 1930s and even more so after WWII. My question is more along the lines of "is this branch talk a kind of decoy" ? American liberals love to talk of branches instead of the corporate money that makes all three branches green tributaries of the Wall Street River. Is this liberal "branch talk" doing more harm than good, in distracting the citizenry from more fundamental issues?" "Public hearings before the Munitions Investigating Committee began on 4th September, 1934. In the reports published by the committee it was claimed that there was a strong link between the American government's decision to enter the First World War and the lobbying of the munitions industry. The committee was also highly critical of the nation's bankers. In a speech in 1936 Nye argued that "the record of facts makes it altogether fair to say that these bankers were in the heart and center of a system that made our going to war inevitable". (8) The Report on Activities and Sales of Munition Companies was published in April, 1936. It included the following passage: “Almost without exception, the American munitions companies investigated have at times resorted to such unusual approaches, questionable favors and commissions, and methods of 'doing the needful' as to constitute, in effect, a form of bribery of foreign governmental officials or of their close friends in order to secure business. These business methods carried within themselves the seeds of disturbance to the peace and stability of those nations in which they take place.” (9)" Follow the cobblestone road. It always leads back to Wall Street, regardless of whether it was in 1864, 1964, or 2004.

************************************************ "If anyone wants to sue me, or donate money to COPA's Legal Fund they can reach me at: Bill Kelly COPA PO Box 772 Washington D.C., 20044 Bkjfk3@yahoo.com" Billy, you're such a crackup, you blow me right out the door! And, being a member of COPA, if anyone wants to sue me, good luck because it'll already be donated to COPA's Legal Fund.

So will I. It is desperately important that a dialogue is created between liberals and conservatives. In reality we are not too far apart. The real problem is with the far-right who control the mass-media and have created such an irrational dominant ideology. The internet is gradually changing the balance of power and eventually we will be able to join forces to create a better, more sustainable, society. *********************************************** "The real problem is with the far-right who control the mass-media and have created such an irrational dominant ideology. The internet is gradually changing the balance of power and eventually we will be able to join forces to create a better, more sustainable, society." I certainly hope so, for all of mankinds' sake. I will always be grateful to you for putting a name on this, John. For many years I'd struggled to explain what I'd perceived to be this very same ploy. People were only too quick to laugh at the idea that they may somehow have been manipulated in such an insidious way, especially by a medium they considered to be totally innocuous. Operation Mockingbird revealed just how extensive and inter-relative this actually became. Aside from the realization of how easily masses of humanity might be psychologically, though involuntarily programmed, and consequently controlled in the process, there are still those who refuse to acknowledge their political affiliations' complicity in any of these actions. Unfortunately, they're destined to remain in a state of denial through their blind loyalty, or false pride.

My two cents of dimestore psychology are that Tim reacted differently for two reasons. One, he didn't feel personally threatened by Piper; he considered Piper a disreputable figure and enjoyed making Piper blow his cool. When the table was turned, however, and the authoritarian and respectable father figure of the forum, John Simkin, called Tim to task for his head-in-the-sand attitude towards Guatemala, he just couldn't handle it. Tim, like far too many Americans, has let himself be deceived into thinking that America is the world's hero, the shining light of freedom on the hill.. When forced to face the sad reality of our history--that honest Americans have been lied to by Imperialist capitalists interested primarily in PROFIT, with god, mother, and country miles behind, they look away or pick a fight. Tim, as we all know, has had a tremendously hard time accepting that any reputable American figure could have played a role in the assassination. Whether Democrat or Repub, black or white, Tim can't fathom that any patriotic American could kill his president. Tim can't accept that patriotism and anti-communism can be BAD things. He still won't admit that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a mistake. As I've said before, I've known guys like Tim my whole life and consider many of them friends. Yes, I consider Tim a friend. But he was wrong. Hopefully, he can learn from this. **************************************************** Pat, thank you for putting it so correctly and succinctly for me. I'm in total agreement with what you've said and with R.C.D. As I've stated before, I really enjoyed their debates, but had to draw the line on that last post of his that I answered. I've always held Robert Charles Dunne in the highest of esteem from the other forums he's posted on of which I've also been a member. The same can be said for you as well, Pat. But, it's as if T.G. kind of self-destructed, and I find that extremely unfortunate. Carry on without him.

******************************************************* "Califano may or may not be a "nice guy" (he was a Democrat after all). But his intelligence, presumably, cannot be doubted." "Nor can the intelligence of Alexander Haig (who also may or may not be a "nice guy")." Who's inferring they're not intelligent? They're extremely intelligent, as well as crafty. I find them to be dishonest in their motives, especially when it comes to keeping the best interests of the citizenry in mind, whether it relates to their dismantling of Medicare, or whether they think Castro killed Kennedy. The fact that Califano is/was a democrat means absolutely nothing to me, from what I've observed of both party's agendas. It's been one party - two branches since 1972, as far as I'm concerned. People are judged by their deeds. Califano's and Haig's are dubious based upon their actions in the political arena regardless of what party they belong to. Trento and Russo are far too compartmentalized by their affiliations with covert operations for me to venture in making any fascimile of a fair comment on them. And, to be honest with you, I haven't read Trento's book, and am only familiar with Russo from what I've read about him on the net. Califano and Haig, on the other hand were elected officials. Maybe I should've put quotation marks on the word "nice," because it was meant in a sarcastic way. Actually, the wording I used was great guy. Oops, I meant "great" guy.

I'm not sure that he had to, as long as his fingerprint did. I don't know much about these things, but I've assumed that a fingerprint can be planted just like other evidence, without the person's finger actually being there. (I've assumed, for example, that the purpose of getting a palm print from Oswald's dead body was to plant it on the rifle.) But I admittedly don't know how it would be done. Am I wrong about this? ************************************************* "I don't know much about these things, but I've assumed that a fingerprint can be planted just like other evidence, without the person's finger actually being there. (I've assumed, for example, that the purpose of getting a palm print from Oswald's dead body was to plant it on the rifle.) But I admittedly don't know how it would be done. Am I wrong about this?" Not at all. You're absolutely right, Ron. There's no second-guessing on how far the tentacles of the Eastern Establishment Power Elite, are capable of reaching in their efforts to cover their tracks. It's "Big Money," originating from that cobblestone street which runs east from Trinity Church at 211 Broadway to Nassau Street, NYC.

*************************************************** Welcome to the forum, Roger. It's always good to have new blood, er I mean, new views brought in to add to the mix.

********************************************** "(just like Joseph Califano and Joseph Trento and Gus Russo)." T.G., what you're doing here is only succeeding in making yourself look like a dingbat! And, a very un-funny one, at that! I'm going to post something associated with Califano, whom I abhor to the nth degree. It is quite long and tedious, yet it may shed some light on how both democrats and republicans are at liberty and in complicity when it comes to implementing public policy, regardless of how the outcome may affect their constituency. This transpired under the auspices of Jimmy Carter's administration and managed to pull the safeguards out from under the only form of national healthcare we might have been afforded in our retirement. But, also succeeded in ruining the livelihoods, professions, access to updated equipment for, and the inevitable result in the closure of, many medical centers serving those of lesser means and/or access to healthcare. This, as opposed to those who can afford to go to Cedars-Sinai, Saint Johns, and/or other more prestigious private non-profit medical centers. In other words, those who can afford major medical/surgical plans that most employers are loathed to, or cannot afford to, carry for their employees. This, in turn, and by the early 1980's, led to the formation of DRG's (Diagnostic Related Groups) which made access to healthcare less viable for the uninsured. By the 1990's the formation of HMO's, which in my opinion stands for Healthy Members Only, were the eventual outcome. Below are the reasons why I particularly distrust Joseph Califano. But, of course, you'll probably find absolutely nothing wrong with the way he conducted "business as usual, on the beltway." And, yes, I realize this may not seem to have anything whatsoever to do with the initial subject matter of this thread. But, your continual referencing to Califano is what prompted me to post this. He's not the great guy you seem to be bent on promoting. _____________________________________________________________ Page 2 (continued) Berkowitz: Did you ever ask him about HCFA? Did you ever ask Wilbur in passing whether he thought, after it was over, whether it was a good idea? Wortman: No, and he never saw fit to mention his view to me. I'd kept my distance from Bob Ball. He was such a power at SSA and I knew that Joe was feeling curtailed in options he could pursue by this powerful group of Democrats, you might say, so I purposely kept very much arm's length from Ball, Arthur Hess. I had a lot of respect for those people, though. I'm having a little trouble with this because I hold some of these Americans in very high regard even though I found it important for me in doing my job conscientiously with my political masters to keep a distance. Berkowitz: Yes. It's a shame, because it seems to me that Arthur Hess could really help the HCFA stuff since he put Medicare together. Wortman: That's right. I always found I had enlightening discussions with Art Hess in terms of policy options. Berkowitz: Well this is terrific. Wortman: Always had a feeling with some others that I was being positioned or worked over just a little bit. Berkowitz: Bob thought in a little more strategic terms. Wortman: He was goal driven like Arthur Fleming. Berkowitz: Not quite as certain as Arthur Fleming perhaps. Wortman: Yes, that's right. They still had the same agenda. Berkowitz: Let me ask you one last question if I might and that is, who should we talk to. We're trying to get this story straight about HCFA's starting and this task force of the initiation. You've mentioned a lot names. I've been trying to write some of them down. Where's Keith Weikle today, for example? Do you know? Wortman: Yes, Keith is a major executive with a profit-making hospital and, if you want, I could call Aimee on some of these, Ed, and give you some numbers, but I can give you Keith. Keith and I are still friends. He's an extremely fine chap. He would be an interesting person for you to talk to. Berkowitz: We're going to talk to Joe Califano. We're going to talk to Champion. Wortman: Hale? Yes. Berkowitz: We're going to talk to Fred Bohen. Who else should we be talking to. Doesn't have to be such a bigwig, but maybe somebody else. Wortman: The little task force. Some of their memories are better than mine. John Berry, I used John Berry a lot because he's an MBA type, and Shriver just loved all those charts I'd bring in there. Berry was big on charts. He had milestone charts about how we were going to get this reorganization done. Then he'd come in there with charts about how much we'd gotten completed, we're 70% complete on this, 50% complete. And even though I thought some of those contained a high degree of B.S., Joe seemed to like that stuff so I used Berry a lot. He was very good, and he went on then to live through all of the HCFA reorganizations under different administrators and he only retired I'd say, maybe 7, 8 years ago. And then he became, I think, an administrator in the state of Virginia. You'd have to track John Berry down. Talk to John Berry. Talk to Anne Marie Hummel. She is now up in the front office of HCFA and has worked for various administrators. She's had her career, since leaving me, 15 years with me in different capacities, she's had her career at HCFA. Berkowitz: OK, so we can get her at HCFA. Wortman: She's in Washington, although she's increasingly spending more time in Baltimore. Anne Marie Hummel, one of my closest friends in government and a trusted compatriot, is Hummel. Now you've got to remember with these old pals of mine they're gonna laugh about some of the same anecdotes I've told you about. Berkowitz: That's terrific. Wortman: Some of them are rich in their mind about how Tierney tried to undermine me one way or another. Another person who was with me in these different efforts and who's in town is Dave Weinman. His associate, Pat Schoeni, also a product of HCFA, was in charge of public affairs there at one point under some administrators. But Dave was with me at SRS and with HCFA and has interesting perspectives on organizations. Berkowitz: Where would we find him today? Wortman: He's in Alexandria, Virginia. Dave Weinman, Keith Weikle, another chap who's sort of followed HCFA and who was with me at the start is Larry McDonough who is recently been deposed as the Medicaid administrator in the San Francisco regional office, for reasons I don't fully understand. But McDonough was one of my loyalists from OEO. Dave was too. Whenever I undertook major tasks in government, like refugees, I tried to collect some of these loyalists of mine that I could depend on. And Dave and Larry had been with me, as has Anne Marie, on a lot of special assignments. And Sammie, if you want to talk to her. Sammie would not be a kind of person who would be into the program rationales or organizational rationales. She would be, by her very nature as a wonderful human being, into the people and how they interplayed. Berkowitz: And where is she these days? Wortman: She's in Ocean View, Maryland. Berkowitz: Terrific. Wortman: If you want to hear anecdotes about LBJ she can even get into that. Berkowitz: Terrific. Well, thank you very, very much. Last Modified on Wednesday, March 1996

********************************************** "(just like Joseph Califano and Joseph Trento and Gus Russo)." T.G., what you're doing here is only succeeding in making yourself look like a dingbat! And, a very un-funny one, at that! I'm going to post something associated with Califano, whom I abhor to the nth degree. It is quite long and tedious, yet it may shed some light on how both democrats and republicans are at liberty and in complicity when it comes to implementing public policy, regardless of how the outcome may affect their constituency. This transpired under the auspices of Jimmy Carter's administration and managed to pull the safeguards out from under the only form of national healthcare we might have been afforded in our retirement. But, also succeeded in ruining the livelihoods, professions, access to updated equipment for, and the inevitable result in the closure of, many medical centers serving those of lesser means and/or access to healthcare. This, as opposed to those who can afford to go to Cedars-Sinai, Saint Johns, and/or other more prestigious private non-profit medical centers. In other words, those who can afford major medical/surgical plans that most employers are loathed to, or cannot afford to, carry for their employees. This, in turn, and by the early 1980's, led to the formation of DRG's (Diagnostic Related Groups) which made access to healthcare less viable for the uninsured. By the 1990's the formation of HMO's, which in my opinion stands for Healthy Members Only, were the eventual outcome. Below are the reasons why I particularly distrust Joseph Califano. But, of course, you'll probably find absolutely nothing wrong with the way he conducted "business as usual, on the beltway." And, yes, I realize this may not seem to have anything whatsoever to do with the initial subject matter of this thread. But, your continual referencing to Califano is what prompted me to post this. He's not the great guy you seem to be bent on promoting. _____________________________________________________________ HCFA Oral History Interview INTERVIEW WITH DON WORTMAN IN WASHINGTON, DC ON JULY 11, 1995 INTERVIEWED BY AIMEE TURNER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Berkowitz: The questions we want to focus on have to do with the establishment of HCFA. We'll talk a little bit about your background before this because we know that Joseph Califano called on you in 1977 to work on that HCFA organization, so one of the questions we would ask is why. Where are you from originally? Wortman: You talking about career-wise? Berkowitz: Where did you grow up? Wortman: I and my wife are small town folk. We grew up in Lacota, Iowa, a town of around 400 folks and we just celebrated, by the way, our 50th high school reunion out there in a restaurant appropriately named The Barn. Out of our class of 11, two are deceased, and of the 9 remaining 8 were there, with or without spouses. Our roots are very deep in small town Iowa, and our mothers were pregnant together. My wife was valedictorian of my class of 11. So I'm quite a contrast to these big city products who graduated from high schools which had two to four hundred in their class like my kids did, you know. Berkowitz: Can I ask what year you were born? Wortman: Yes, 1927. I'm 67. Berkowitz: OK, and you grew up in Iowa and somehow got to Washington. Wortman: Grew up in Iowa. Went into the military service right after high school. My folks were very proud. I enlisted when I was 17 with their consent, and I'm very fortunate the Japanese surrendered shortly thereafter. In July of '45 I enlisted and the Japanese surrendered in August of '45. By the way, this Enola Gay exhibition gets me right down in here, that's not up here, because I wouldn't be here had Truman not found a way to end that war. There's no question in my mind. I was bound for the infantry. Then after the war I joined my brother at Macalester College in St. Paul and graduated from there in '51 with a major--co-major--political science and economics. The Macalester liberal arts experience had much to do with shaping my objectives and values in life, and two professors specifically, G. Theodore Mitan and J. Huntley Dupre. Then I went on to the University of Minnesota Public Administration Center for a master's degree. It is now called the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public and International Affairs, much more prestigious name now. I then sought employment in the federal government and finally got it through an intern program at the Atomic Energy Commission. My federal career can be summarized: 12 years with the AEC, both in Washington and Albuquerque, then 5 years with OEO--no wait, it was closer to 6 years, I think, with OEO under Sargent Shriver and Don Rumsfeld and Frank Carlucci, and then 2 years with the Price Commission/Cost of Living Council with bosses like Jack Grayson, John Dunlop, Rumsfeld again, George Schultz, and then 5 years at the Department of HEW which is now HHS, and there I did all kinds of things. For Weinberger, I ran the inflation effort that Ford had called WIN which was "really a big winner." I must say I say that with some degree of cynicism. I ran the Social Rehabilitation Service for 6 months while they were looking for a new political appointee, and then I got involved for Cap [Caspar Weinberger] in the replacement, relocation of the Vietnamese refugees. I ran that for him. And then Ford came into power and David Matthews became secretary and I concluded my work on the Vietnamese refugee task force for Matthews and then I became head of his office of regulatory reform. Then I did a lot of special assignments for David Matthews. Then Joe [Califano] and Hale [Champion] came on board, and immediately they talked to me about going back to run the old SRS, but it wasn't until after January 20th, probably the first few days, that Joe and Hale one evening assembled me, Jack Young, then the Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget, also a career officer of the government by the way, and Tom Morris who'd worked with Joe at DOD under McNamara. Tom had been Assistant Secretary for Manpower and he'd also been Assistant Secretary for Logistics I think. He'd done a number of different things for McNamara. Joe assembled us in his office one night and said, "I want to undertake a major reorganization of the department consistent with President Carter's intent, campaign promise you might say," and we talked about ideas on that. With some foresight, Jack Young had had his organization and management staff do some analysis of alternative models of how you might run HEW, so there was some sort of staff work done, a major book that Jack had done, and he'd done it with David Matthew's approval. But Jack was very careful in that work not to recommend an alternative, so we then proceeded to meet with Joe and Hale, and in order to keep secret always after working hours. Berkowitz: When are we talking about? Are we talking about March? Wortman: No, we're talking about January. Berkowitz: January. So this is very soon after? Wortman: This whole thing was done in less than two months. They took office on January 20th and announced this major reorganization on March 8th. Berkowitz: So he started meeting with you between January 20th and January 30th? Wortman: Yes, I would say, I'll bet you I was called to that meeting within three or four days. Berkowitz: And it was directly with Califano, in his office? Wortman: Directly. Just the five of us. He trusted Tom implicitly because they were old colleagues. He had done enough--Joe was not one of those political appointees, since he'd been in government, who brought a lot of baggage about distrust of careerists. He just doesn't have that. He's prepared to charge ahead. I'm sure he checked us all out and then he may have known Jack a little bit. Jack was in key roles at the old BOB. Jack was a senior officer at BOB, was known to a lot of people, had been at NASA. He may have known Jack. He didn't know me although I had strong endorsements from people like Shriver. He may have checked that out, I don't know. Berkowitz: You think that would have been a positive thing for Califano? An endorsement from Shriver? Wortman: I would assume so, yes. Berkowitz: You don't think they were at loggerheads in the Johnson White House quite a bit? Wortman: Maybe that's just a supposition I'm making. He would have checked me out though, but I'd pretty well established my career identity as an executive who could work with both parties by that time. Ever since OEO I'd been working at the highest levels of government as an interface with the political level and in fact, most people don't know this, but in 1967 I relinquished voluntarily under Sarge my career status. I was dependent on the good will of my political masters. There were a few times when it didn't look like I was going to survive, and I started looking in the private sector for work. So, anyway, Joe met with us, and he's a hard charger, and he had us developing alternatives and I must say that my life was damn near impossible because the whole thing was to be super-secret. Joe did not want the constituent elements to get wind of this because they are so powerful and influential. He didn't trust, and there was a whole history of this, he and Hale did not trust the embryonic development of the White House staff. Joe had been there, and he knew that he had to be the first horse out of the gate if he was going to get something done, otherwise he'd be stymied by the White House staff and BOB, the old BOB, and, so, the emphasis on secrecy was intense. Yet you can't do a major reorganization without developing data, and early on, for instance, I told Joe we couldn't proceed without legal counsel. Just couldn't proceed, because he was looking at such bold alternatives that I wasn't one to assure him, and neither was Jack or Tom, that he could do all this statutorily. And, so, it wasn't too long before they authorized a senior member of the General Counsel staff who was a political appointee, Dick Beatty, to come and help us. But that was after we'd sort of of decided on a direction. Berkowitz: That's interesting, because in other initiatives Califano seemed always to depend on lawyers. Another issue of that same period was signing regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. For those kinds of questions he depended very, very heavily on lawyers. You might sense that that was his way, just to reach out to some lawyers. His staff was very weighted with lawyers wasn't it? Wortman: It certainly was, numerous young, bright lawyers. Berkowitz: So you're saying this was an exception to that style? Wortman: I would guess so. You're a better observer of all that. He did have a lot of bright lawyers around him, but this was an exception. You're right. Tom didn't have to fulfill operational obligations during the day like Jack and I did. I'd taken over a major maligned organization of government, the Social and Rehabilitation Service, which I'd run six months earlier for six months before Bob Fulton came in, unfortunately a career friend of mine. He took a presidential appointment thinking Ford might be reelected. Berkowitz: This was not a full-time job, this reorganization. You were also running SRS? Wortman: Oh, I was running SRS, yes, and I had to, I couldn't leave SRS. There was no deputy either, I mean, I'm there. State welfare officers would call me. We were in the middle of a major contest between the federal government and many states, in fact most all states, on a two to four billion dollar set of social services claims, a dispute over what was allowable under federal regulations. Berkowitz: The thing that later became uncontrollable spending for social services, that episode? Wortman: The congress had to put a stop to that. Then we had to negotiate out of that, and I had these high priced Arnold & Porter lawyers coming and I had issues, issues galore. Berkowitz: And rehab people coming to see you probably trying to figure out what's happening. Wortman: Oh, yes, and Long had his pet program there--Child Support Enforcement. If I didn't pay attention to that, give due service to Child Support Enforcement which at that time was still developing as a major national initiative (and it's interesting historically, the liberals were anti that program, then the conservatives, then the feminist movement came along and the liberal tone started to get more mottled and mixed. It was sort of fascinating, and now today it's OK to go get those guys.) Berkowitz: So, in this SRS they had vocational rehabilitation, Medicaid, Social services, yes? Wortman: Medicaid, Keith Weikle ran that. Title XX. Social services, AFDC, and those were the major pieces of the pie. Berkowitz: So now were you considered in this reorganization an expert on Medicaid? Wortman: No, I would have to assume you'd have to talk to others about that. I assume that I was considered a strong executive, and I assume that they knew that I tended in my manner to gain the trust and the engagement of my employees. That's one of the reasons why Cap sent me into SRS in the first place, because it had become a much dispirited organization. He sent me over there after some of the California crowd left. Berkowitz: Jack Svahn sounded very tough on that child support item, I know. Wortman: They sent me over there. It was interesting--just a little anecdote--this is going to sound like I'm puffin' my own balloon, but these are meaningful events to me. At the conclusion of my first six months as acting administrator of SRS, they had a big ceremony in the old North building, that's before the Humphrey building was built, in the auditorium there and Wilbur Cohen was there. It was a big ceremony and they were announcing the appointment of my good friend Bob Fulton to be the new administrator of SRS and what happened caught David Matthews by surprise. I was sitting in the audience. I wasn't asked to sit up front and that was appropriate. The focus was on my buddy Fulton. You're talking about one of my best buddies. We go back to Atomic Energy Commission together, so I didn't want to steal any of his thunder either. I'm a great believer that once you've led an organization and you go, you GO. You leave it behind. But anyway, there was a spontaneous standing ovation for me, and I think it caught Matthews by surprise that there was this much affirmation of affection for me based on my six months there, and maybe Joe heard about that. I don't know, because you've got to worry about the union and how people are going to react to these things when you consider major reorganization. Berkowitz: You'd studied public administration at Minnesota. You also studied about the famous reorganizations of 1939. Did you have ideas then about how this should go? Wortman: Myself? Going into it? Berkowitz: Maybe breaking up the power of the Social Security Administration for example? Wortman: No, I did not. I guess you'd have to say as an old careerist, somewhat shaped by events, I came at it and was attuned at that point in time, I'm sure, to be suspicious about reorganization as a solution to public policy matters. Just as I am suspicious about it today. Too often reorganization is used as a cover for insoluble or lack of political will in public policy issues. So, I probably was a little skeptical going into this. I generally approach reorganization with all the ballyhoo, and Joe put a hell of a lot of ballyhoo in his statements, I was probably skeptical. Now when we started talking to Joe, and Joe had the ideas, not Hale. Joe is the one who was pressing. It was clear from the outset he wanted to put these health financing programs together, Medicaid and Medicare. What else he wanted to do wasn't so clear. One evening he asked me to look at and price out moving Medicaid to Social Security. I'll never forget that. I sort of winced when he said it and then I went back in and showed him the dollar data. I said--I don't know if you know what a strong ego this man has? Berkowitz: Yes, I'm aware of that. Wortman: But I said, in a very nice way, I didn't point a finger at him, "Let me tell you, Joe, in all honesty, if you do all this and put this all under the commissioner of social security you'll be going to staff meetings in Baltimore. And that's the last we heard about it. Beause there are what? 98% of the dollars and 99% of the staff all in one big organization of government. Berkowitz: Did you get a sense that one gets in retrospect, that Califano wanted to break up that Social Security Administration? He didn't like these people that were sort of still players in social security? Wortman: Oh, that's true, that's true. Berkowitz: And as Secretary of HEW, he realized that if he was going to get to play he was going to have to break up that agency. Wortman: I do not recall that so explicitly. I do recall his frustration with Ball, Cohen. Berkowitz: Nelson Cruikshank? Wortman: Yes, I do recall he was very worried. There was a view that Tom Tierney, head of Medicare, a powerful bureau, had his own political base in House Ways and Means, and Joe and Hale and I talked about that, and they were very concerned that this was going to be too difficult for me to handle. There was some truth to that. In fact, my inner circle of friends love to remember the anecdotes about how Tierney tried to upstage me, and he used to call me Dan. He used to call me Dan, I think on purpose and Anne Marie Hummel, who's still at HCFA says, "I've never seen you so mad. I've only seen you really mad twice in your whole government experience," and she's worked with me in a lot of capacities. And she says, "Don, you looked up there and you said, 'God damn it, Tom, my name is Don. It's not Dan,'" or something like that. I don't know what all I said. So they were worried about Tierney. And they did not trust Cardwell at first. Remember now, Bruce is another very able career officer. Berkowitz: He was the Commissioner of Social Security? Wortman: He was the Commissioner of Social Security. He had been comptroller of HEW. Came up through FDA, an extremely fine person. And they didn't trust Cardwell. Even after we got this thing under way they started talking to me saying you're going to go out there as deputy commissioner into another holding action I suppose. Go from one holding action to another holding action and what thanks do you get? You get sent to CIA. But, anyway, they were making clear they didn't trust Bruce all that much, and I was going to go out there as their person at Social Security until they can resolve some things. I never was privy to the fact that Hale had his eye on that job. I don't know if you know that anecdote, but Hale Champion wanted to be commissioner and Stan Ross would come in as under secretary. Joe's law partner, friend through the legal business. Berkowitz: And colleague at the White House, wasn't he also? Wortman: Oh, is that right, OK, that's some background I didn't know. So anyway, the White House rejected that. I'm not exactly sure I know the whole story there. I had a little feeling it was a little payback for the sort of one-upmanship that Joe and Hale kept pulling on BOB and the White House staff. See when Joe got this reorganization to the point he was comfortable with it and had it all sort of shaped, he arranged a meeting with the president two days before the press conference, something like that. Let's see my note from the president. It's 3/3, so it was a few days before. Berkowitz: March 3, 1977? Wortman: Yes. The note to Joe from the president was written March 3rd, and I assume that may have been the day after or the day of the briefing Joe gave him. As I understand it, nobody else was in there so this made Joe look awfully good to Carter, awfully good. Berkowitz: In other words Joe briefed the president one on one, just by himself? Wortman: Yes, no staff. Berkowitz: No HHS staff? Wortman: No HHS staff. Berkowitz: No White House staff? Wortman: No BOB, OMB staff, no domestic policy staff. That was all part of it. Super-secret. And I must tell you, I've never worked on anything except in the early days of AEC on the nuclear stockpiling stuff, I've never worked on anything we held secret so well. Another tribute to careerists whose egos--in other words we're not out there playing some game in the press or something, some long-term game. Tom and Jack and I kept our mouths shut. We had charts all done at Fort Belvoir. We had one secretary, Sammie Bear, loyal to both Tom and Joe, she worked for Joe at the White House. She was loyal to me, she'd been my secretary. She didn't breathe a word. Berkowitz: Was Eileen Shanahan at the meetings with Califano? Wortman: Towards the end, the very end. All this formative stuff was conducted with very few in the room and all I recall is Dick Beatty being added. I don't even think Gene Eidenburg--Hale's trusted lieutenant who was very sharp--I don't even recall Gene being at those meetings. It didn't take long for Joe to work through the alternatives, and since Tom and I were very clear he wanted to put Medicaid and Medicare together, once we did that the other pieces fell into place. Berkowitz: Did he tell you that directly at the first meeting. Say, "I'm very interested in that." Wortman: Very clear, pretty clear. I recall being pretty clear about that. It's too bad both Tom and Jack are deceased because you've only got me to recollect all that really except for Joe and Hale. Hale was there all the time. I don't recall Hale having particularly strong views. He was more like us, sort of weighing them, what the pros and cons were, and what the constituent elements would say and all of that. Berkowitz: So your job was to take that idea of putting Medicaid and SRS Berkowitz: We were talking about Califano sending signals about Medicare and Medicaid. Wortman: So we took it from there and then the idea of putting all the income transfer programs into SSA appealed to him. As you read the press release, of course, the emphasis was on the economies that were going to be affected, highly exaggerated in my view, but it had a lot to do with cutting down fraud and abuse. Berkowitz: Let me just get a sense of how you worked then. You'd have these meetings at night with Joe Califano, occasionally once a week maybe, more often? Wortman: Oh, maybe twice. Berkowitz: Twice a week in that period between say January 25th and March 1. He'd meet with you at night in his office there on the top of the Cohen Building as it's called now. How did you answer substantive questions without having your own staff? Wortman: Jack had some of that. You know he was in the central management in terms of budget data and employment data. He could get that. He did not engage Cardwell in this. I can't really recall the sequence in which principle officials got briefed. A few days before all this took place. At some point they got brought in but at least for the first month it was pretty hush-hush, just a few of us doing the work. And Jack would produce some of the data and then I'd produce some of the data. Berkowitz: How about typing drafts? Who typed the drafts? Wortman: Sammie Bear. Berkowitz: She worked in Califano's office? Wortman: Worked for Tom Morris. She was assigned to the task force. She and Tom had an office and we, Jack and I, would meet with Tom. The three of us would meet there, privately. That would be our task force meeting place. Berkowitz: Meet there in her office? Wortman: Tom and Sammie had a set of offices up there near Joe. Berkowitz: Sammie? Wortman: Sammie Bear. She's now down at Ocean View, Delaware. She was in the Johnson White House, but she was a careerist. She worked for Governor Connolly and so Joe trusted her, and it was a well-deserved trust. She's outstanding. And she became my trusted colleague and worked with me on a lot of these different things I've done. After I left government she continued to work for me for about 10 years. Berkowitz: And she's where today? Wortman: She's in Ocean View, Delaware. I have her number. She's retired fully. Berkowitz: She might be somebody we should talk to. Wortman: Yes, she'll tell you a lot about Tom and Jack and myself at that time and Joe trusted her implicitly. After this assignment was over she became an advance person for Joe, planning trips and things like that. Berkowitz: So you had this idea about combining Medicare and Medicaid, and you say you were skeptical about saving money? Wortman: I was skeptical about all reorganizations. Oh, and the money, that was ridiculous. Berkowitz: What were the claims that were made? Wortman: Aw, they were ridiculous, just ridiculous and unfortunately for me then, and some of my reporter friends will tell you--I sat there in the room that day--and some of my staff will tell you too, this press release which I had helped draft, well every night it would come down to me from Joe's office, and have this two billion dollar savings figure in it, and I would just about "throw up." Berkowitz: What was the date on the press release? Wortman: March 8, 1977. Here, this is the key paragraph. "Although it is not possible at this time to give a precise estimate (that's me, I finally got that in) the savings for the US taxpayer related to these reorganization initiatives, especially those involving efforts to eradicate fraud and abuse [here we go, it'll all be fraud and abuse, if you want to do anything about public policy which is saleable] will be at least one billion dollars over the next two years and will reach a total of at least two billion annually by 1981." That is off by a factor of 10! Berkowitz: That was supposed to be fraud and abuse mainly in Medicaid? Is that the notion there? Wortman: Well, fraud and abuse, it was the whole bit. Medicaid, Medicare was the primary thing. Need to get more uniform policies that would apply to the third party providers and all that stuff. It was all of that. Then there'd be improved application of criteria for eligibility in SSI and AFDC. By putting them together you'd have improved administration, and you get the child support and AFDC and it would all be beautiful. Then if you could pull in food stamps, man, we could have this thing licked for a change. You've heard that before? Berkowitz: In other words, these are savings from both income maintenance and from the medical costs? Wortman: Yes, we hoped. Berkowitz: Surely the food stamps, the Department of Agriculture was not about to give you that? Wortman: Oh, no, no. Cap Weinberger had made that pitch and got soundly pushed back, and Joe never did. He never made a pitch for food stamps. Berkowitz: Does that press release mention the Health Care Financing Administration by name? Wortman: Yes. That, by the way, is my creation. Berkowitz: Is it? Can you tell us about that? Wortman: And I don't like it. But it's the best I could come up with. I don't like the acronym which I also came up with, HCFA [as pronounced], it doesn't have, it's a little bit like the GSA's SLUC [as pronounced]. Have you ever heard of SLUC? It doesn't have a ring to it I like. SLUC was Standard Level Users Charge which most Americans would call rent but the government can't call it rent. It was SLUC. So we had all these titles and we're running down to the wire and Joe didn't seem to focus on this as much as I thought he would, because he's pretty creative on the PR side of life. So I came up with the Health Care Financing Administration, HCFA. That sort of won the day although I've never been too happy, too pleased about it. Berkowitz: When did you come up with it? Early on? Wortman: Oh, no, no. Late, late, late, late. Like days before this thing. Days. We were still kicking around different things. Berkowitz: Did you take the problems in order? Did you look at first income maintenance and then health? Wortman: First health financing, then income maintenance, then social services, then these educational programs, consolidation, that kind of stuff. Berkowitz: So in some ways health was the top priority. Wortman: Yes. Clearly. That's the way I think it reads. It starts out with health care. Have you got this stuff? Berkowitz: No. Wortman: Before we leave here today you may want to run and make a copy of a few things here. I've got these notes that Carter wrote to Joe and Joe wrote to me. Berkowitz: What do we have here? This is a fact sheet? Wortman: No, you have there the explanatory material that accompanied the statement. Here's the press statement and then attached to it, which you have right there, is no different than this. This is the whole package that Joe had at the press conference along with these charts. Berkowitz: Right. Now this was March 8 that you had the press conference? This was an HEW press conference, I take it? Wortman: Right. Berkowitz: The President sort of let Califano have the ball on this? Wortman: Especially to see where we put the emphasis you know. This, I must say, in a historical sense, this emphasis on making significant savings in so-called fraud and abuse, and under this reorganization we created an Inspector General and that was before an Inspector General became a statutory requirement. HEW once again was sort of out front of something that became government policy. Joe created an Inspector General and appointed his good friend Tom Morris to the job. Tom was an outstanding civil servant, but that whole climate then led Tom to produce his first major report on potential savings on fraud and abuse throughout the department, and rather than saying something would reach two billion annually, Tom comes out and says there's two billion dollars of readily identifiable savings. Well, that whole climate got Tom and Joe in "deep yogurt" because the Congress, the Appropriations Committee, even though it was the same party, what would you do if you're up there looking for money? They took it. You're such a good manager, Joe, you've done all this reorganization to save money, you've attested to it yourself, we'll take the two billion. Now we're talking real money. We're not talking press release money. We're talking real money, right out of your program hide. It was the biggest fiasco in Tom Morris's career. It embarrassed him mightily. I'm sure if he could write about it he'd say he regretted that one. It put us, put me and him, people with high regard for each other, it put us in very tense circumstances, because I thought the whole thing was a bad idea in the first place. Sort of an over-eagerness to identify looseness in your own programs, so I just want to make a point, Ed, that this sort of led from one thing to the other and it ended up accumulating as quite a problem for Califano. He had to go personally up there to the Hill and use a hell of a lot of chips to get a lot of that money restored, if not all of it. I forget how it all worked out. Difficult circumstances and they made the bed, they made their bed there. Berkowitz: Well, did anyone say,when these discussions were going on, was it open ended? Did you debate one another? Did anybody say this putting Medicaid and Medicare together is not going to produce that much change? Wortman: Oh, I did. Berkowitz: You did? Wortman: Oh, yes. Jack Young and I never bought those figures. Tom was, after all, new to the place, and by this time I'd been there three years now doing all kinds of things. I knew the department quite well because I'd done so darn many things. And Jack Young and I didn't buy these figures. Jack is not a very bashful person. He's sort of the one who called Joe to task about buying new equipment for the kitchen and paying a cook so damn much money. Remember that story? Berkowitz: This also happened right around the same time? Wortman: Yes, Jack was not a very timid executive. Berkowitz: Well did you confront Califano on this, in these meetings with him and say, "Joe, it's not going to happen, let's not over sell this?" Wortman: I would not want to overstate our confrontation. I would say that we--I'm going to have to speculate a little bit here, but I'm sure Jack and I registered some disbelief initially at the kind of savings and then the train starts to run down the track. We're running towards a lot of deadlines to get all this legal work done, that package prepared, big charts done all out at Fort Belvoir. Starting to brief everybody. By this time you had to brief the senior staff. You can't have your own staff caught by surprise. You're doing briefings and running around and every night, though, the people working for me I'm sure they'll remember how I used to cuss. Late at night I'd get this thing one more time and I'd scratch out two billion and put maybe two hundred million. Every time I did it I kept upping my own estimate because I was trying to find some middle ground with the boss. I think I probably got up to two hundred million, factor of ten different than two billion. And then, sure enough, I don't know who the AP guy was, but he knew me well. I'd been at the department for three years and worked on a lot of sort of hot issues, like the refugees and initiatives for different secretaries. I think I, well, one of the things I pride myself on is I tried to talk straight to the press. They might not get any answer from me, but at least they were told they weren't going to get any answer from me. I didn't mess around. And sure enough, the AP guy called me down and said, "What do you have backing up this estimate of two billion in savings?" And all I said was, "You son of a bitch." I wasn't going to talk about it. Berkowitz: I'd like to ask you also about the administrative side of all this. Did you see in your mind as you were thinking about this, that means we've got to get most people to Woodlawn? Wortman: You're talking about Medicare? Berkowitz: Medicare and Medicaid too. Bring those Medicaid people from wherever they were in Washington, from the Switzer Building or wherever they were over to Woodlawn, or did you think that through? Wortman: Oh, yes. Berkowitz: Was that in your bailiwick? Wortman: That's another anecdote. It had to do with SSA. I do not recall Joe and Hale talking about consolidation building-wise or geographic-wise. I do recall them worrying about Tierney, and a number of times they asked me, "Don, if he's giving you too much of a problem we'll find a solution for you." But I could tell they weren't eager to do that because they themselves were uncertain about what can of worms that might open. So I got the feeling, "Work this out, Don, as distasteful as you find it," and I did find it distasteful to work with him[Tierney]. He was not a very cooperative person and yet the man had a fantastic sense of humor. I must say that even though I was charged up going into some of those staff meetings about all I had to get done and then he'd call me Dan, and then he'd smoke in the meetings, and by that time this old devil had this terrible cough. So he'd be sitting there and I'm giving these orders, you can imagine this, all these confidants of mine--Dave Weinman, McDonough, Anne Marie Hummel, John Berry, Carolyn Betts--and all these people who were my trusted inner circle to make sure I can get all this done, and all these people were sitting there on the periphery because they were my task force to get everything I had to do done. People I trusted. I met with them every morning and then I'd meet with this big staff that I inherited every other day or so. So any way, I'd get going with everything we had to do, and Tierney would make some goddamn quip and just cut me to ribbons, you know. Very clever. And sometimes I'd have to laugh because some of it was so damn funny. And he's like an old ward boss, you know, and then he'd sit there, [exaggerated cough]. Here again I was making a big statement, [another exaggerated cough]. I still remember the last one. Oh, I was glad I could laugh, look back on it and laugh. Anyway, soon after Bruce [Cardwell] left in December of 77, and I'd been out there for about 6 months I became Acting Commissioner of SSA. I went on June 17th. Berkowitz: What was your title up to then? Wortman: I went out as Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. You asked when the reorganization was complete. From two other items I've extracted from my files I'd say June 17th. Berkowitz: 1977? Wortman: I'm basing this on a letter that was sent to all SRS employees on June 17th from Virginia Smith, my acting deputy administrator of SRS and HCFA. She'd been regional administrator for SRS and everybody trusted her and I did too. So she came up at my request to help me. You also note my immediate appointment to SSA on June 19th, so we sent the letter and disbanded SRS and I gave every employee a little memento of appreciation, because it had been a much maligned and under appreciated organization for ten years. Berkowitz: So the SRS goes out of existence there. No wonder John Gardner was interested since that was his baby. And it was replaced by Rehabilitation Services Administration at that point? Wortman: It was gone. Berkowitz: Just gone? Where was voc rehab after that then? Wortman: It went with Title XX I suppose. Went over to the Office of Human Development. Berkowitz: OK, which was created in this reorganization? Wortman: Or strengthened. I'd have to go back and read my notes on that. Then Bob Derzon came. I was acting administrator. Legally, to do all this, I had to have three titles for awhile. I was acting administrator of SRS, acting administrator of HCFA, and chairman of the reorganization. Those three titles gave me legal grounds to deal with unions, to deal with personnel transfers, to deal with statutory and regulatory obligations, so I could sign all this paper work and keep things moving. And then Derzon showed up. Let's see, March, April, let's say Derzon shows up 15 May. Berkowitz: May of 1977? Wortman: Right. Berkowitz: As head of HCFA, first head of HCFA? Wortman: First head of HCFA, and then for a few weeks I'm his acting deputy and Derzon's making a big plea for me to stay on as his deputy as he's getting a sense of what all this is about. And Derzon and I do hit it off--as people. In fact, it's interesting that when Derzon came on board, within days after his appointment he had already committed to a major appearance in London. Dorothy and I had already invested big time money on a major trip to England, and I needed a vacation really badly at that time. It was a little stressful, but Joe finally bit his teeth and we both went, and we overlapped for an overnight in London and the Derzons entertained us royally even though I was sound asleep most of the time. But any way, Derzon and I got along, and I liked Bob Derzon. But then my focus shifted over night because I went to SSA In June, and it was clear that Cardwell was on his way out. He knew that. I must say, as often happens with political appointees, and I'm digressing some, Cardwell's competence and objectivity were highly respected by Hale and Joe by the time he left. He was a first class chap, and even though Bruce had not picked me, I think as career executives the two of us were committed to making our relationship work. It was easy for me because I'd respected Bruce from when I first got to know him when I joined HEW in '73. We worked on some things together. Berkowitz: This is Bruce Cardwell you're talking about? Wortman: Bruce Cardwell, yes. So we made that work. Berkowitz: As commissioner and deputy commissioner? Wortman: Yes. And then when Bruce left--this is a long way to get around to a story. So the story is this, it's a great story if I do say so myself. Anyway, Bruce is about to leave and I'm called to another private chat with Joe. Joe says, "Don, we've got to start bringing all those actuaries and the policy people from SSA down to Washington. And I want you to do that." And I said, "Oh, boy, Joe," and Hale was sitting there, just the three of us. I said, "Oh, boy. If you want me to move those elements in a hurry, Parren Mitchell, Mathias, they'll stop us, they'll just stop us." "No, you can do it, Don. If I can't pull this off then I shouldn't be Secretary of HEW." Well, anyway, so anything like that had to do some analysis, and I knew even if I only had three people in the room, this one I couldn't contain. I was a newcomer to those SSA people in Baltimore. Their loyalties were not to Don Wortman. Maybe if I'd been there a year, some of the people I had work on this would not want to violate a confidence of a trusted boss, but I hadn't built those relationships, had no opportunity. So anyway, I went up there and I knew it was going to leak, and within days or weeks [senator] Mathias put a rider on an appropriation bill that was riding through, I don't know if it was a supplemental or what, that no funds herein shall be in anyway used to transfer any people from Baltimore to Washington. Just a simple one sentence. And I've always wondered if that-- Joe and I never quite got into a trust level like I'd been so successful with a lot of political leaders, I got it with Hale but not with Joe--and I always wondered if he thought I'd played him on that one. I really hadn't. I just knew that was the way it was going to play out. And we never moved on that idea again. I did tell him, if you let me do this over three or four years, I can get some of these elements down here in incremental form. That might have been too bold. Over three or four years? But political officers with their two-year time horizons can't sit still for that. So that's what came to my mind. They never did talk to me about consolidating either geographically or building-wise, these people. Berkowitz: We're talking about the process of getting out the word about this report on the Health Care Financing Administration. We talked about the fact that there was a statement on March 8 and at some point, maybe late February, these briefings with the people at HEW. Wortman: Yes, must have. I don't remember that so distinctly, but people like Bruce [Cardwell] had to be brought in and the legislative people and the public affairs people, and at some point Eileen Shanahan was brought in, I'm sure. I would assume these draft press releases that I kept complaining about came from the public affairs people by that time as we got down to the wire. In effect, a lot of the analytical work had been done and the public affairs/legislative people evidently were brought in in small numbers at the last minute and then they sort of took over. Berkowitz: What about the people sort of right outside the department, like Ball and Cohen and those people? Wortman: Not a soul. That wouldn't have worked. I'm telling you, you get the American Hospital Association and the Blues and the nurses, you get AFL-CIO, you get all those people involved, they'd stop you. Berkowitz: Because they've been so comfortable? Wortman: Yes, constituent interests always sort of work out their accommodations with existing structures, for the most part, and it creates a high degree of uncertainty for them, this kind of change. The surprise of this was masterful whether the public, the political scientists or public administrators, you, or I agree that this is the way major reorganization should be done. That's a separate question, but this was masterful. It caught everybody by surprise, it didn't permit anybody to mobilize against it. Berkowitz: What about on the Hill? Wortman: I think it fueled the Hill to, especially [Representative Jack] Brooks to put in legislation which now exists that this kind of thing can't happen without consultation with Congress. I'd have to go back and study that, but it contributed in a significant way to the kinds of steps that Brooks took to stop the executive from doing things this massive. Berkowitz: And this was legal? The executive had the right to do this without congressional consultation? Wortman: This was a pretty big thing, creating a big agency. Today in the government you couldn't create an agency or destroy an agency (or a bureau, I use agency/bureau synonymously) without consultation with the Congress. Berkowitz: Did you at some point tell the Ways and Means and Finance committees you were about to change their programs around? Wortman: I suspect, knowing Joe and how shrewd he was in Congressional relations, that they were probably given 24-hour notice. Berkowitz: Really? That's all? Wortman: Maybe 48, no more. They may not have been. It's amazing. That's why Haynes Johnson wrote about this. "How did you get this done, Don?" I can see him now. "How did you pull this off?" I'd never been a part of anything, especially on the domestic side that had been kept secret so long. Berkowitz: Wasn't Califano afraid of retaliation from the committees, as indeed there was from Brooks and so on? Wortman: Yes, he wasn't afraid of retaliation from anybody, and as he says, during the '76 campaign President Jimmy Carter promised the nation significant reorganization of the federal departments as part of his larger commitment to manage a competent, efficient government. That's his first paragraph. He was focused on Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Carter, you know, wrote this note saying, March 3rd, "To Joe Califano from the White House: I'm very proud of your reorganization effort. Please prepare a brief (3-4 minute) presentation of the charts for our next cabinet meeting. J.C." That's a hand written note. Not too many folks get hand written notes. Berkowitz: Do you think that Califano maybe thought that this was his way of showing he knew so much more about Washington than the people running the other departments, his rivals in a sense? Wortman: Good point! Good point. I think that's probably true. He's a very shrewd man, and a pretty complicated individual. That's an interesting point, yes, I think so. And the way he bamboozled the OMB and White House domestic policy staff, he just (cutting sound) right through. Harrison Welford didn't know about this one, and of course he was just getting organized on that big reorganization thing. What's-his-name, the closest advisor to Jimmy? Berkowitz: Watson? Wortman: Not Watson. Berkowitz: Jody Powell? Wortman: The other guy, the guy that was supposed to be Berkowitz: Another Georgian? Wortman: Yes, that guy that Berkowitz: Not Bert Lance? Wortman: No, the guy who was his closest political advisor. The one that Sally Quinn did the knife job on that was unfair? Berkowitz: I can't think of who it was. It'll come to us. [Hamilton Jordan] Wortman: Well, anyway, at that time he and Watson were vying for the chief of staff role. He tended to be the most powerful, yet he was quite disorganized. Anyway, Joe went by 'em all. And I think your point is well taken. Berkowitz: When you did this report which we have here on the table in front of us, how much into detail does it go about what HCFA would look like? In other words, does it see the shape of HCFA? Did you think about duplicating things? SSA was full of research capability and had this big research thing on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, and it had several legislative analysis departments and so on. Wortman: Just to make Medicare, Medicaid and quality control. That was it. Berkowitz: So the level of detail we're looking at on, let's see what date this would be? Wortman: March. Berkowitz: On a March 8, 1977 organization chart and under the Health Care Financing Administration simply three bureaus are listed? Wortman: Right. Berkowitz: With then a little bit of elaboration under quality control. Wortman: Right. Berkowitz: That was it. Wortman: You see here again the fraud and abuse, the elevation of quality control. Berkowitz: In effect the quality control is the only thing in which there are things iterated, like professional standards reviews, nursing home facilities and program integrity. Wortman: Some of that was iterated because that came from the public health side of the organization. PSRO came over the assistant secretary from Health. Berkowitz: That's another bit of moving stuff around. Wortman: Right. Berkowitz: Did anyone give any thought to the fact that SSA had all these little specialized shops that did legislative review and things that go back a long way in terms of research. Ida Merriam was the head of for many years. Wortman: Right. Jack Carroll. Berkowitz: Was the idea that these would all be duplicated in HCFA and, if so, how was that going to save money? Wortman: I picked up Cliff Gaus, who's still in the health business, I saw his name the other day on some organization. As part of this I picked up a statistical unit, maybe out of public health, run by a chap by the name of Cliff Gaus, and I inherited him, too. He was not in SRS. Can't remember, but I did pick up a small statistical unit. Could have been that that was one of those statistical units that was in Merriam or Jack Carroll's shop up there. Berkowitz: By the Chinese restaurant by the Universal Building? Wortman: Up by the, not the Radisson, but the hotel up on Connecticut Avenue. Berkowitz: The Hilton? Wortman: Probably picked that group up out there. Berkowitz: So what you're saying is that beyond the idea of moving Medicare and Medicaid and the idea that somehow it was going to contribute to quality control, no thought was really given to how this agency would look once it was established. Wortman: We didn't have time to do that. That was left to me and people like Bob Derzon to worry that out. Berkowitz: That's what you did after March, figure out about that? Wortman: Yes, I started to think about that. How we were going to organize the region. There was a lot of discombobulation in the regions caused by this and we had to think through how we were going to organize the region, how we were going to organize the headquarters. I must say that various times the alignment in headquarters was different than the alignment in the region. And HCFA went through a certain amount of growing pains in terms of organization. People like Len Schaeffer and succeeding administrators will tell you about that. I sure did not perfect it. By the time I left there, I did not perfect that. And I don't recall, other than just sort of limping along, you might say, I don't recall making any great progress on thinking through the organization while I was still there. I don't recall that. Berkowitz: What about this fundamental merging of Medicare and Medicaid? Surely the idea was that somehow they both make medical payments, and therefore there would be economies of scale. Wortman: That was the idea. Berkowitz: Did anyone have a clear idea of how that was going to be? Wortman: You're aware that for a period of time they tried to organize functionally at HCFA. Berkowitz: Tell me about that. Wortman: Well, I'm not the best one, but they had major units for policy and for operations a little bit like SSA had worked. More recently they had recreated the bureau for Medicaid. They recreated the same sort of bureau that Keith Weikle, Dr. Keith Weikle, ran for me the two times I was head of SRS. First they put these programs together and then the nature of the relationship with the states, the nature of the statutory base was so different that the force-fit doesn't work, and then comes a succeeding political appointee and makes a big plus out of recreating the Medicaid bureau. It's all there in the record. Berkowitz: Right. Isn't that true at SSA as well, that there was, at this time I believe Stan Ross was eager to have different kinds of organization, I believe by program? Wortman: By function. More by function. Berkowitz: Similar kinds of things. Wortman: Stan Ross actually messed up that place coming in for one year and reorganizing. Bad message. But, anyway--personal view. They did for a while try to get those programs working closer together, and when you got one program that's being delivered through 50 state governments plus a few additional territories like Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and you have these different contractual relationships for Medicare, that's a different shape up, a different shape up. And so now today, if you went out to HCFA all I can tell you is you will find a full-fledged Medicaid bureau. And there's a lot of fanfare about recreating it. And if you and I live long enough, Ed, you might, they'll probably merge them again. Sit tight. Berkowitz: I want to just follow up one thread of this to complete the record. You were at SSA as deputy commissioner beginning in June of 1977. How long did that assignment last? Wortman: Well, Bruce left and then I became acting commissioner on January 1, 1978, and stayed in that capacity until about the end of October when Stan Ross was brought in. Then some signals were sent, just through daily conduct, that I was no longer of value and Mr. Ross, as they do in bureaucratic life, they had a big ceremony, gave me an award, and, thank God for Carlucci, I went to CIA on January 1, 1979, and concluded the last two years of the Carter administration at CIA as the deputy director for administration, one of the four barons, as we call them, of the CIA. I worked for Stansfield Turner and Frank Carlucci there. Just to conclude my story a little bit, then my good friends William Howard Taft and Carlucci told me, who were working on transition for Ronald Reagan, that my name was not surviving well. Remember earlier I told you I no longer had career protection. I'd lost that in 1967. I thought it'd be best to retire rather than go through having [William] Casey fire me, which Casey as I look back in retrospect, would clearly have done, given my image in government. So I was at SSA for 18 months. Berkowitz: And during those 18 months were you focused on HCFA stuff at all, were you trying to kind of clean out Medicare and give it over to HCFA? Wortman: No, I was trying to make sure that we provided the necessary support for HCFA. The dependency of HCFA on SSA eligibility apparatus, on SSAs 1300 field offices, all of that where a lot of American people make their first inquiries when they're confused. There's a very important relationship. Berkowitz: Yes, I hadn't thought about that. But absolutely right. In other words, wherever you have HCFA, people are still getting Medicare through Social Security and therefore their benefit questions are going to be at an SSA district office. Wortman: Well, they may get referred to some other 800 number at some point. I don't know about all the workings today, but you still have this network of interface with the American people, because HCFA does not relate with the American people except by paper, not face to face. Berkowitz: It interfaces with fiscal intermediaries and maybe with hospitals and certainly with staffs, not with people. Wortman: That's right, not with people. And they may have five or six thousand people as compared to seventy thousand in SSA. So I worried about that, but still I had enough to do. I had AFDC to run, and as we all know, maybe, maybe not, welfare reform is ever present. It's probably the longest running show in town, and I had Barry Van Lare running AFDC and Lou Hays on Child Support Enforcement. Senator Long wanted to make sure in this reorganization that priority went to Child Support Enforcement. As I'm sorting out my house now in this move to Albuquerque, I've got all these wonderful photos of Long and Joe and I at a big Child Support Enforcement conference at the Hilton hotel. We had 3000 people and we gave 'em a big pitch about Child Support Enforcement, and there's pictures of Long and Joe and myself on the dais, talking to state and county welfare administrators about the importance of Child Support Enforcement. Berkowitz: In other words, another hidden place to find billions of dollars? Wortman: Yes, another place. I'm still not sure, by the way, if you do a real good cost benefit on that program, real good, a Rand type analysis, that it pays off cost-benefit wise. When I left government the dollars invested still had not reached equilibrium as far as dollars gained. Berkowitz: I can tell you that I once talked to Jack Svahn about this --welfare reform--and I said why are you screwing around with this Child Support. He looked at me and said, "It pays twelve dollars for every dollar spent." Wortman: That's B.S. Could be more refined now, as far as tracking the absent spouse, I don't know about that. I'm suspicious. Berkowitz: So you were around for the President's program for better jobs and income? Wortman: Yes, yes, so anyway, I had to focus heavily on welfare reform. I had to meet with my former boss Bill Morrill and we had many task forces. Berkowitz: He was head of ASPE, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation? Wortman: He'd been my boss. He's my close friend. I'm wrong. He was gone at the time. It would have been the guy at Brookings. Berkowitz: Henry Aaron? Wortman: Henry Aaron, it was Henry. Head of ASPE. Berkowitz: So this involvement with HCFA was really because of having been on this reorganization task force, and then you began to get back into other things. Wortman: Yea, and here again I was thrust into a role where Joe had a lot of interests and once again I'm acting commissioner. Those were long days. I'd drive up to Baltimore, get there by seven in the morning and by 2 o'clock Joe would be having conniption fits because he wanted to pull my string, have me in meetings in D.C.. For him it was just intolerable that I was in Baltimore. It was intolerable for me trying to be in two places all of the time. Berkowitz: I'm curious. Did your opinions of Ball and Cohen and Cruikshank change when you became more involved with SSA? Did they seem better or worse to you after that? Wortman: I've always had this particular affection for Wilbur Cohen. If you ask me to explain all that I don't know, but I've always found in my different jobs involved in welfare administration and at OEO that I could have rather forthright discussions with Wilbur Cohen and I was confident they would never go further. As far as explaining what my personal opinion was on a public policy issue and why, even though publically we may have taken different positions. He was always very respectful and he would understand because he's such an old pro himself. Berkowitz: Had been there for the creation of SRS, in fact did the staff work. Wortman: That's right. That's why he was at this function that day with Bob Fulton. Berkowitz: Did you ever ask him about HCFA? Did you ever ask Wilbur in passing whether he thought, after it was over, whether it was a good idea? Continued