U.S. Secret Service agents in prostitution scandal

[Douglas Caddy]

Poster's note: I am posting this article even though it is not directly related to the JFK assassination topic. My reasoning is that there have been serious allegations of misconduct by Secret Service agents in the JFK killing and here it is again almost 50 years later with yet another president whose life is being put at risk by those whose job is to protect him. (I have no objection if our moderators choose to move this article to another forum topic.)

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U.S. Secret Service agents leave Colombia over prostitution inquiry

Washington Post

By David Nakamura and Joe Davidson

Published: April 13, 2012

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating allegations of misconduct by agents who had been sent to Cartagena, Colombia, to provide security for President Obama’s trip to a summit that began there Friday.

Edwin Donovan, an agency spokesman, said that an unspecified number of agents have been recalled and replaced with others, stressing that Obama’s security has not been compromised because of the change. Obama arrived in Cartagena on Friday afternoon for this weekend’s Summit of the Americas, a gathering of 33 of the hemisphere’s 35 leaders to discuss economic policy and trade.

Donovan declined to disclose details about the nature of the alleged misconduct. But Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said the accusations relate to at least one agent having involvement with prostitutes in Cartagena.

In a statement, Donovan said the matter has been turned over to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which serves as the agency’s internal affairs unit.

“The Secret Service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously,” Donovan said. “These personnel changes will not affect the comprehensive security plan that has been prepared in advance of the President’s trip.”

Adler said the entire unit was recalled for purposes of the investigation. The Secret Service “responded appropriately” and is “looking at a very serious allegation,” he said, adding that the agency “needs to properly investigate and fairly ascertain the merits of the allegations.”

The Washington Post was alerted to the investigation by Ronald Kessler, a former Post reporter and author of several nonfiction books, including the book “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.”

Kessler said he was told that a dozen agents had been removed from the trip. He added that soliciting prostitution is considered inappropriate by the Secret Service, even though it is legal in Colombia when conducted in designated “tolerance zones.” However, Kessler added, several of the agents involved are married.

There have been other incidents involving Obama’s security detail over the past year.

In November, Christopher W. Deedy, a federal agent with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, was charged with second-degree murder after shooting a man during a dispute outside a McDonald’s in Hono­lulu. Though Deedy was off-duty at the time, he was on the island to provide advance security arrangements for Obama’s trip to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

In August, Daniel L. Valencia, a Secret Service agent, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in Decorah, Iowa, where he was helping arrange security for Obama’s bus trip through three Midwestern states. Valencia, who was off-duty at the time of the arrest, was recently sentenced to two days in jail with credit for time served, and a fine of $1,250.

[John Dolva]

It clearly exposes the important political nature of this meeting.

Indiscretions by the SS is surely not surprising.

In this instance a standard espionage loophole is closed.

[Guest Tom Scully]

The JFK assassination happened nearly 49 years ago. In the events discussed in this thread, the current president was not in the same country as some SS agents who fell victim to gossipy hotel staff and nosy reporters, were.

The unsubstantiated bad behavior of contemporary agents, especially when no U.S. president is even involved, seems more of a management problem than something relevant to JFK debate. A motorcycle cop in Obama's motorcade hit a bump in the road and fell off of his ride yesterday. Should a thread be initiated here to discuss that? Isn't that incident more relevant since the president was in that motorcade?

Unless this forum is to serve as a catchall for all news about the Secret Service, good or bad, this thread does not belong here and it should be moved from this forum.

[Douglas Caddy]

The JFK assassination happened nearly 49 years ago. In the events discussed in this thread, the current president was not in the same country as some SS agents who fell victim to gossipy hotel staff and nosy reporters, were.

The unsubstantiated bad behavior of contemporary agents, especially when no U.S. president is even involved, seems more of a management problem than something relevant to JFK debate. A motorcycle cop in Obama's motorcade hit a bump in the road and fell off of his ride yesterday. Should a thread be initiated here to discuss that? Isn't that incident more relevant since the president was in that motorcade?

Unless this forum is to serve as a catchall for all news about the Secret Service, good or bad, this thread does not belong here and it should be moved from this forum.

No objection from here as previously indicated. The article's primary and perhaps only redeeming feature is to remind us that there was a legitimate question about the behavior of some of the SS agents in Dallas in the 24 hours leading up to Kennedy being assassinated.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14061

[Pamela Brown]

But in the case of JFK it was supposedly he who was involved with prostitutes, not those protecting him.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

The JFK assassination happened nearly 49 years ago. In the events discussed in this thread, the current president was not in the same country as some SS agents who fell victim to gossipy hotel staff and nosy reporters, were.

The unsubstantiated bad behavior of contemporary agents, especially when no U.S. president is even involved, seems more of a management problem than something relevant to JFK debate. A motorcycle cop in Obama's motorcade hit a bump in the road and fell off of his ride yesterday. Should a thread be initiated here to discuss that? Isn't that incident more relevant since the president was in that motorcade?

Unless this forum is to serve as a catchall for all news about the Secret Service, good or bad, this thread does not belong here and it should be moved from this forum.

1) This thread, although interesting, should be moved off the JFK discussion board. However, it is about as relevant as the unintelligible gibberish of a wedding announcement from 1939 or the fine print of a Topps baseball card/bubble gum wrapper circa 1974.

2) Just because it's "gossipy" or "salacious" does not mean its not true. There is a lot of salacious activity occurring 24/7 on this planet of 7 billion humans. And a fair portion of it is occurring with pious, hypocritical, lying politicians in the thick of it.

3) Just an example, I know a former manager of the Omni Hotel in Austin, TX, and he told me on two separate occassions in 2006 that he walked age 18 or 19 year old girls up to Rick Perry's room on the 9th floor (or walked them to the service elevator so no one could see, punched the 9th floor and told them the exact room married Gov. Rick Perry was in). I don't think these girls were going to have Perry help them with their alegebra at the local junior college.

Hotel staff and taxi drivers and bartenders and bouncers can be a *goldmine* of information. In fact, the bartender at this particular Omni in Austin was the one who had the hook up with the escort services for the bar patrons...

Edited April 15, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[John Dolva]

And now the military too. Does anyone really believe this is unusual? Isn't the 'unusual' thing that it happens at this meeting. They're also questioning the 'status' of the prostitutes. (guardian)

It's still about Cuba and the cold war.

This is an important meeting with serious splits and Cubas exclusion a US move. The meeting is still full of nations hat have agendas of their own. What is being secured here is US political interests. Simple.

[Guest Tom Scully]

The JFK assassination happened nearly 49 years ago. In the events discussed in this thread, the current president was not in the same country as some SS agents who fell victim to gossipy hotel staff and nosy reporters, were.

The unsubstantiated bad behavior of contemporary agents, especially when no U.S. president is even involved, seems more of a management problem than something relevant to JFK debate. A motorcycle cop in Obama's motorcade hit a bump in the road and fell off of his ride yesterday. Should a thread be initiated here to discuss that? Isn't that incident more relevant since the president was in that motorcade?

Unless this forum is to serve as a catchall for all news about the Secret Service, good or bad, this thread does not belong here and it should be moved from this forum.

1) This thread, although interesting, should be moved off the JFK discussion board. However, it is about as relevant as the unintelligible gibberish of a wedding announcement from 1939 or the fine print of a Topps baseball card/bubble gum wrapper circa 1974.

2) Just because it's "gossipy" or "salacious" does not mean its not true. There is a lot of salacious activity occurring 24/7 on this planet of 7 billion humans. And a fair portion of it is occurring with pious, hypocritical, lying politicians in the thick of it.

3) Just an example, I know a former manager of the Omni Hotel in Austin, TX, and he told me on two separate occassions in 2006 that he walked age 18 or 19 year old girls up to Rick Perry's room on the 9th floor (or walked them to the service elevator so no one could see, punched the 9th floor and told them the exact room married Gov. Rick Perry was in). I don't think these girls were going to have Perry help them with their alegebra at the local junior college.

Hotel staff and taxi drivers and bartenders and bouncers can be a *goldmine* of information. In fact, the bartender at this particular Omni in Austin was the one who had the hook up with the escort services for the bar patrons...

.............

As a side note, what is the point of 98% of the unintelligible gibberish, data dumps of 40 year old wedding anouncements that you regularly plague Education Forum with? With little or no analysis. That's about as useful to understanding the JFK assassination as reading bubble gum wrappers.

Robert, you really ought to make the effort stop embarrassing yourself.

CIA Who's Where in Europe

http://cryptome.org/dirty-work/cia-who-where.htm

FENDIG, PHILIP FRANKLIN.

Ted Shackley introduces Philip F. Fendig to the HSCA :

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=1138492

MISS C. JOHNSTON IS WED IN CAPITAL; Has 2 Attendants at ...

New York Times - May 17, 1953

Johnston, wasl married this afternoon to Philipi Franklin Fendig, son of Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Fendig of Rensse- laer, Ind., and he late lr. Fendig,I in St. Thomas

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Fendig&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=37412206&

CIA LOSING CHIEF FOR COVERT ACTIONS

New York Times - Apr 28, 1976

William E. Nelson, deputy director for operations, confirmed that he announced h( s plans to retire at a staff meeting on Monday, the same day the committee

Business and People

Los Angeles Times - Apr 13, 1981

... Fluor Corp. announced the promotion of William E Nelson as vice president- corporate security and Gerald B. Slnykln as vice president-medical ser- vices

http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/9712/ch05p1.htm

Chapter V: Ronald Lister

....A. Background of Lister

When interviewed by the OIG, Ronald Lister said that he was in law enforcement for approximately 13 years: first with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department in 1967, then with the City of Maywood, California, Police Department from 1969 to 1973, and finally with the City of Laguna Beach Department in California, from 1973 to 1980. In 1980, Lister left the Laguna Beach Police Department to "go into the security business full-time."(45) He became the owner of Terman International Security Consultants, which later became Mundy's Security Group. The business was based in Newport Beach, California. Lister told the OIG that the company was "involved in physical security applications, both overseas and here in the U.S., commercial, institutional, maybe governmental, residential."

In researching DOJ files, the OIG found five FBI files on Lister. In September 1983, Lister's company, Pyramid International Security Consultants, was listed as the subject in a neutrality violation investigation involving the sale of weapons to El Salvador and the loan of money from Saudi Arabia to the Salvadoran government. Lister was also alleged to be attempting to sell arms to several other countries. No further information was ever developed in this matter. .....

.....The third page and half of the fourth appear to be notes about an effort by Lister to sell a scrambler and night vision equipment to an unidentified client. The second half of the fourth page has notes about the FBI's interviewing Lister about whom he knew in Eastern Bloc countries. Then comes a list of names, including: Bill Nelson, Ron Brown, Steve Kissler, Tabor Suppan, Scott Weekly, Roberto Abuson [sic], and Ray Prendes. Lister later stated that he wrote these names because he had given them to the FBI when they interviewed him. He said that Bill Nelson was an "A.S.I.S. member" (American Society for Industrial Security) who was the security director for the Fluor Corporation -- for which Lister claimed to have done some work. Lister said that Ron Brown was a retired Navy Captain; he could not recall who Steve Kissler was, and Tebor Suppan was his businessman "buddy in Europe." Lister told the OIG that he believed that Scott Weekly was associated with the Defense Intelligence Agency and that he worked with Weekly on several projects, including a weapons demonstration in El Salvador. Lister stated that "Abuson" was the head of the ARENA political party in El Salvador, the opposition party there in the 1980s, and that Prendes was the General Secretary of the Christian Democrats, the party in power. Roberto D'Aubison was indeed a leader of the ARENA party in El Salvador during the early 1980s (and later the Prime Minister of El Salvador), and this document may well reflect efforts by Lister to supply military equipment to one or more factions involved in the civil war that was raging in El Salvador during this period.

The next pages appear to document efforts on Lister's part to sell security plans and materials to a representative of a foreign government in San Francisco, and several other individuals. The journal states:

In the meantime I had regular meeting with DIA Subcontractor Scott Weekly. Scott had worked in El Salvador for us. Meeting concern my relationship [with] the contra group in Cent. Am. At that time I asked him about scramblers syst. I might buy to sell. He suggested one which he was familiar with that was commercially available. Not classified and told me who was currently using it. N.C. State Police, FBI & other domestic group, Public & Private. Said he could get one for me to sell if I had a customer. Want $10,000 for it. As he had to share cost [with] someone in DIA. . . .

Lister told LASD investigators that he could not recall what "DIA" stood for, but that it was not the Defense Intelligence Agency. He later told them that it stood for "deals in arms" and that he used the abbreviation because he "thought it was cute. " Lister told the OIG, however, that DIA stood for Defense Intelligence Agency, and that he had referred to Weekly as a DIA subcontractor because an individual named Tim LaFrance had told him that Weekly worked for the DIA. Lister said he merely assumed that Weekly did, but never discussed it with Weekly. Lister added that there were no "CIA operatives" listed on the sheet. Lister told the OIG that he was aware that Bill Nelson had previously worked for the CIA, but that he was retired and had his own security company. The CIA OIG confirmed that an individual named William Nelson was at one time the Deputy Director for operations at the CIA.

When the OIG asked Lister why the Contras had been mentioned in the meeting he documented with Weekly, Lister explained that he had told Weekly about his past contact with Contras in an effort to make himself "look big" and to make it seem as if he had clients that he could provide equipment to. He said his references to the "Contra group" were to Blandon and Meneses and that this was a short-hand way to refer to them.

On the final page of the document is a flow chart suggesting the flow of money. Lister stated that this chart represented the legal way to sell munitions to other countries under the law as it existed in 1983. LASD investigators asked U.S. Customs Service Special Agent James P. McShane, Office of the Defense Trade Controls, to review the document, and he reported that the chart could represent a legitimate transaction that would occur if a State Department license had been obtained. He further stated that the notation "% EUC" might indicate that an "end use certificate" was being purchased and that the transaction would therefore be illegal. In a legitimate transaction, an EUC is provided without cost. He also stated that the fact that the funds were to flow through Hong Kong to "X Country" indicated an attempt to disguise the true destination of the export and therefore might be an illegal diversion of arms to someone that might not be able to get licenses for exported munition. Whatever the legality of the transactions depicted in the flow chart, nothing indicates that it shows the sale of arms to the Contras, and certainly nothing suggests that it depicts the use of drug money in any of the deals.

It is difficult to assess Lister's explanations of his writings in this document. The OIG did not find Lister to be a credible witness and he gave LASD investigators different explanations about it than he gave us. What is clear, however, is that the document does not constitute proof of either a Contra or CIA connection to Lister's drug trafficking endeavors. ....

http://www.ocweekly.com/2001-07-19/features/crack-cop/

Crack Cop

FBI documents link an ex-Laguna cop and drug runner to an Irvine executive with ties to the CIA

By NICK SCHOU Thursday, Jul 12 2001

The CIA has always denied it used drug traffickers to raise cash for Ronald Reagan's 1980s war against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. But FBI documents recently released to the OC Weekly show that a former top agency official met throughout that period with Ronald J. Lister, an ex-Laguna Beach cop who claimed to be the CIA's link between the South American cocaine trade, the Nicaraguan contras and LA's most notorious drug trafficker.

The FBI documents, five heavily censored pages released in response to the Weekly's 1997 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CIA, concern Lister and William Earl Nelson, a vice president for security with the Irvine-based construction giant Fluor Corp. Nelson's previous job: deputy director of operations for the CIA. Nelson retired from the CIA in 1976 amid heated controversy over its ill-fated forays into Chile and Angola—clandestine operations that Nelson supervised from his office at the CIA's Langley, Virginia, headquarters.

Lister's relationship with the Fluor executive began in 1978. How they met isn't clear, thanks to government censors. But the documents do show that Nelson told FBI agents he met with Lister three to four times per year until 1985 and discussed various business ventures, including one in Central America.....

....In 1979, a year before Lister quit the Laguna Beach force and just months after he first met Nelson, he launched Pyramid to carry out private security work.

There's no question that Pyramid was involved in some highly unusual business in Central America. According to a 1998 U.S. Justice Department Inspector General report, the company was investigated by the FBI at least five times between 1983 and 1986. "In September 1983, Lister's company, Pyramid International Security Consultants, was listed as the subject of a neutrality violation investigation involving the sale of weapons to El Salvador and the loan of money from Saudi Arabia to the Salvadoran government," the report states. "Lister was also alleged to be attempting to sell arms to several other countries."

El Salvador circa the early 1980s was not open for business to just anybody. The entire region was wracked by civil wars and coups d'etat; El Salvador's military-led government was engaged in a systematic campaign of torture and murder against anyone branded a communist or subversive. But in a 1996 interview with San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb, former Pyramid employee Christopher Moore (another ex-Laguna Beach cop) claimed Lister shrugged off the dangers of doing business there. Lister reportedly told Moore he had "a big CIA contact" at an Orange County company and both Pyramid and its employees would be protected while in El Salvador.

"I can't remember his name, but Ron was always running off to meetings with him, supposedly," Moore told Webb. "Ron said the guy was the former deputy director of operations or something, real high up there. All I know is that this supposed contact of his was working at the Fluor Corp. because I had to call Ron out there a couple of times."

Moore said he traveled to El Salvador on Lister's behalf, accompanied by a Spanish-speaking man who said he worked at the Salvadoran consulate in Los Angeles. Once in the capital city of San Salvador, Moore says, he met face to face with Roberto D'Aubuisson, a former Salvadoran army intelligence officer, drug and weapons dealer, and leader of the right-wing ARENA party. But D'Aubuisson's legacy is darker still: he was the architect of El Salvador's paramilitary death squads, a Hitler admirer, and a sociopath reputed to have personally authorized the 1980 murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero.

"That was probably the highlight of my life at that point," Moore told Webb. "There I was, a reserve police officer who'd only been in the country for a couple of days, and I was sitting in this office in downtown San Salvador across the desk from the man who ran the death squads. He had a gun lying on top of his desk and had these filing cabinets pushed up against the windows of the office so nobody could shoot through them."

The timing of Moore's trip to El Salvador coincides with a 1982 Pyramid contract proposal to provide security to the Salvadoran Ministry of Defense; narcotics detectives found the paperwork in a 1986 raid on Lister's home. The contract, written in Spanish and running more than 30 pages, shows Pyramid boasted the services of numerous (but unnamed) former CIA physical security officers and surveillance experts.

Intriguingly, the document suggests that Lister was negotiating directly with Defense Minister General José Guillermo García, linked by El Salvador's Truth Commission to the 1981 massacre of more than 800 villagers in El Mozote. A close ally of D'Aubuisson, García was one of the most powerful members of the right-wing military junta that took control of El Salvador in 1979.

[Ron Ecker]

I think this thread belongs here, given that the Secret Service agents' involvement with Colombian prostitutes has been characterized on CNN as "the biggest scandal in the history of the Secret Service." This demonstrates how relatively important the mainstream media thinks the Secret Service's "deficient performance" (as the HSCA mildly put it) in Dallas was. That just involved the murder of a president, long before these Cartagena hookers were born (at least I assume so).

[John Dolva]

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=18875

[Greg Burnham]

...

[David Josephs]

Tom...

I am constantly amazed by your resources... what I was wondering is whether you have used any relational data software to establish these connections in a visual manner....

it would seem to me that if you had a program that allowed you to click on a name and choose from the difference relationship connections of that person we'd be able to create visual maps showing the importance of the relationships.

If not, how do you keep these people-to-people relationships straight and how do you add to this growing database of yours?

DJ

[John Dolva]

The Summit in Cartagena was an important event. There's hardly anything in the msm about it that many people know exept for this rather hypocritical matter. Quite laughable really to compare it to the SS reported role in the JFK assassination. It seems they like soldiers become the fallguys for the people in charge who in this instance seem to have not done very well at all. They came there with an agenda but so did others. It will be interesting to follow South Amercan events unfold in the coming period.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Unless this forum is to serve as a catchall for all news about the Secret Service, good or bad, this thread does not belong here and it should be moved from this forum.

I gather Tom Scully does not like David Lifton's theory

that members of the SS were corrupted by the JFK assassins

so Scully would like discussion of SS corruption

to be out of sight and out of mind.

Do not block the way of inquiry

Charles Sanders Peirce

[Greg Burnham]

Secret Service Agents Also Partied Before the Kennedy Assassination:

http://www.wfaa.com/news/national/Secret-Service-also-Partied-before-Kennedy-Assassination-148338385.html

Edited April 21, 2012 by Greg Burnham