Gene Wheaton:CIA and the Military Industrial Complex

[Tim Gratz]

Alan wrote:

[Wheaton] denied being Sheehan's source for several key pieces of information, contradicting Sheehan's affadavit

Is it not clear that one of the two was dissembling?

Either Wheaton told Sheehan something Sheehan used in his affidavit and when confronted Wheaton backtracked, or, whether negligently or intentionally, Sheehan prepared an affidavit false in material part.

[John Simkin]

I have argued on the thread on Richard Lee Armitage that David Corn is a CIA disinformation agent. He specializes in “limited hangouts”.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6711

This is how he dealt with Gene Wheaton and Daniel Sheehan in his biography of Ted Shackley. The Wheaton/Sheehan theory of CIA covert activities at this time did not include the assassination of JFK. This has of course now changed. Carl E. Jenkins, who took part in the JFK assassination, was used by the CIA to undermine Wheaton’s testimony. What Corn does not say is that we now know that the information provided by Wheaton about the Iran-Contra deal was accurate. What is more, he said it over two months before Nicaragua shot down the C-123K cargo plane that was supplying the Contras. Eugene Hasenfus, an Air America veteran, survived the crash and told his captors that he thought the CIA was behind the operation. He also provided information on two Cuban-Americans running the operation in El Savador. This resulted in journalists being able to identify Rafael Quintero and Felix Rodriguez as the two Cuban-Americans mentioned by Hasenfus. It gradually emerged that Tom Clines, Oliver North, Edwin Wilson and Richard Secord were also involved in this conspiracy to provide arms to the Contras. Wheaton’s point was that Ted Shackley and George Bush played a central role in this scandal.

David Corn, Blond Ghost: The Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (1994)

Sheehan and Wheaton sat down in the kitchen of Hoven's house in early February of 1986. It was magic. To a wide-eyed Sheehan, Wheaton, posing as an experienced operator, tossed out wild stories of clandestine operations and dozens of names: Wilson, Secord, Clines, Hakim, Singlaub, Bush. A whole crew was running amok, supporting Contras, conducting covert activity elsewhere. Drugs were involved. Some of this gang had engaged in corrupt government business in Iran and Southeast Asia. Now the same old boys were running weapons to Latin America. Central to the whole shebang was a former CIA officer named Ted Shackley. Sheehan was captivated. He had struck the mother lode.

Sheehan spoke a few times with Carl Jenkins. At one session, Sheehan listened as Jenkins and Wheaton discussed what Wheaton was calling the "off-the-reservation gang"- Secord, Clines, Hakim, and Shackley - and the operations they ran in and out of government. According to Hoven, Wheaton and Jenkins wanted to see information about this crowd made public and saw Sheehan as the mechanism of disclosure.

Wheaton and Jenkins did not tell Sheehan that they hoped to settle a score with a band they believed had an unfair lock on the air-supply contracts they desired. But to Hoven it was clear that one faction of spooks was whacking another. Hoven was not sure who was on what side. He guessed that somebody somewhere - maybe even in the Agency itself - was upset with the freelancers and wanted to see them reined in. But if Jenkins or anyone else thought they could use Sheehan as a quiet transmitter of damaging information, they were as wrong as they could be.

Throughout the winter and spring, as Sheehan talked to Wheaton and Jenkins, he had something else on his mind: a two-year-old bombing in Nicaragua. On May 30, 1984, a bomb had exploded at a press conference in La Penca, Nicaragua, held bv Eden Pastora, a maverick Contra leader who resisted cooperating with the CIA and the main Contra force. Several people were killed, but not Pastora. Afterward, Tonv Avirgan, an American journalist who suffered shrapnel wounds at La Penca, and his wife, Martha Honey, set out to uncover who had plotted the attack. A year later, they produced a book that charged a small group of Americans and Cuban exiles-some with ties to the CIA and the Contras-with planning the murderous assault. One of the persons they fingered was John Hull, a Contra supporter with a spread in northern Costa Rica and a relationship with North and the CIA. Their report noted that some Contra supporters were moonlighting in the drug trade.

Hull sued the couple for libel in Costa Rica. He demanded $1 million. Avirgan and Honey, who lived in San Jose, received death threats. They considered retaliating by filing a lawsuit in the States against individuals in the secret Contra-support network. But they could find no lawyer to take such a difficult case. Eventually Sheehan was recommended to them. They checked him out. The reports were mixed. But he had one undeniable positive attribute: he would accept the case. The couple retained him.

Come late spring of 1986, Sheehan was mixing with spooks in the Washington area, and he was pondering how to craft a lawsuit for Avirgan and Honey. He collected information on the Contra operation. He drew closer to Wheaton, who had a new tale every time they met. Then Sheehan made a pilgrimage to meet the dark angel of the covert crowd: Ed Wilson.

The imprisoned rogue officer made Sheehan's head swim. The essence of Wilson's story, Sheehan claimed, was that the Agency in 1976 had created a highly secretive counterterrorist unit modeled on the PRUs of Vietnam and had run this entity apart from the main bureaucracy. The mission: conduct "wet operations" (spy talk for assassinations). After the election of Jimmy Carter, this group was erased from the books and hidden in private companies, and Shackley was the man in charge of the unit both in and out of government. The program was divided into different components. CIA man William Buckley supposedly had directed one out of Mexico with Quintero and Ricardo Chavez. Another unit was headed by a former Mossad officer. Felix Rodriguez was involved in yet one more in the Mideast. Sheehan took Wilson at his word. "Wilson went into such detail," Sheehan later maintained. "It's not something that's being made up."

At one point after Sheehan met with Wilson, it dawned on him: eventhing was connected. The La Penca bombing, the North-Contra network, the Wilson gang, all those CIA-trained Cuban exiles, the whole history of Agency dirty tricks, the operations against Castro, the war in Laos, the nasty spook side of the Vietnam War, clandestine Agency action in Iran. It was an ongoing conspiracy. It did not matter if these guys were in or out of government. It was a villainous government within a government, a plot that had existed for decades, a permanent criminal enterprise. Sheehan had a unified held theory of covert U.S. history. And Shackley was the evil Professor Moriarny, the man who pulled all the strings. The avenging Sheehan now was determined to take Shacklev down.

Sheehan melded the La Penca bombing case to his Wheaton - influenced investigation of the old-boy network. Avirgan and Honey shared with him all the information they carefully had developed on the Contrasupport operation. Names and stories he threw at them - including Shackley's - were unfamiliar. They took it on faith that Sheehan knew what he was doing when he blended the results of their professional investigation with the grab-bag of information he had collected from Wheaton, Wilson, and others. "We saw John Hull as the center, and Sheehan saw it as Shacklev," Honey recalled. "Shackley was the main ingredient. I don't know why Danny fixated on him. He told us he had lots of information on Shackley's involvement in La Penca. That was b.s. But what do we know, sitting in Costa Rica?" Sheehan was looking for a case he could play before a large audience. He repeatedly told Avirgan and Honey the public did not care about La Penca. But people would pay notice if the enemy was one grand conspiracy headed by a dastardly figure.

Sheehan applied the resources of his small Christic Institute to the case. Wheaton continued investigating the Wilson crowd and other covert sorts. He started telling Jenkins that he believed he was chasing a decades-old, top-secret assassination unit. Wheaton claimed it had begun with an assassination training program for Cuban exiles that Shackley had set up in the early 1960s. The target was Castro. The secret war against Cuba faded, but the "Shooter Team" continued. It expanded and was now called the Fish Farm, and Shackley remained its chief.

Sheehan knitted together all this spook gossip and misinformation with a few hard facts, and on May 29, 1986, he dropped the load. In a Miami federal court, Sheehan filed a lawsuit against thirty individuals, invoking the RICO antiracketeering law and accusing all of being part of a criminal conspiracy that trained, financed, and armed Cuban-American mercenaries in Nicaragua, smuggled drugs, violated the Neutrality Act by supporting the Contras, traded various weapons, and bombed the press conference at La Penca. Sheehan's plaintiffs were journalists Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey. The conspirators were far-flung: John Hull in Costa Rica; Cuban exiles based in Miami (including Quintero); druglords Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa in Colombia; arms dealers in Florida; Contra leader Adolfo Calero; an Alabama mercenary named Tom Posev; Robert Owen, a secret North aide; the unknown bomber at La Penca; and Singlaub, Hakim, Secord, Clines, and Shackley. Sheehan alleged that Shackley had peddled arms illegally, plotted to kill Pastora, and (with Secord, Clines, and Hakim) accepted money from drug sales for arms shipments. Sheehan demanded over $23 million in damages.

With this lawsuit, Sheehan believed, he could break up the Contrasupport operation and cast into the light shadowy characters who had been up to mischief for years. Sheehan and Wheaton had stumbled across some real players and some real operations. But they both possessed hyperactive imaginations, and whatever truth they did uncover they had twisted into a false, cosmic conspiracy.

The filing-drafted sloppily by Sheehan-surprised Shackley and his fellow defendants. Hoven and Jenkins were stunned. Neither expected Sheehan to produce such a storm. Sheehan clearly was in this for politics and ego. He was not about to be a quiet disseminator of information. "I had been left with the assumption," Hoven noted, "that I was set up to pass information to Sheehan. But they" - whoever they were - "mucked it up because Sheehan was not playing it close to the script."

[Pat Speer]

I have argued on the thread on Richard Lee Armitage that David Corn is a CIA disinformation agent. He specializes in “limited hangouts”.

From what I've read of Corn, he gives a big thumbs down on current U.S. foreign policy. I doubt he deliberately covered anything up. The problem with men like Corn and Woodward is that they are so "inside" they stop looking behind their backs.

On the other hand, what do you make of Christopher Hitchens? I've seen him on TV a number of times. I used to like him. Now I'm beginning to wonder if he's not connected to the CIA or MI6 in some way. He was on American TV the other night going on about Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda, and flipping off the audience whenever they booed him for reciting his "facts". He came across like a British Dick Cheney on a cocaine binge.

[John Simkin]

On the other hand, what do you make of Christopher Hitchens? I've seen him on TV a number of times. I used to like him. Now I'm beginning to wonder if he's not connected to the CIA or MI6 in some way. He was on American TV the other night going on about Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda, and flipping off the audience whenever they booed him for reciting his "facts". He came across like a British Dick Cheney on a cocaine binge.

Peter and Christopher Hitchens are two public school educated characters who rebelled against their class background and were members of Socialist Worker Party (followers of Leon Trotsky) in their youth.

They both became journalists. Peter joined the tabloid press and soon became extremely right wing. For many years he was a supporter of Margaret Thatcher, now he is a neo-fascist, who claims that the Conservative Party is too left-wing.

Christopher remained a socialist and worked for liberal and left-wing journals and newspapers. He then moved to the United States. To everyone’s surprise, he became a strong supporter of George Bush. He has clearly been turned. Others say that it is a result of his drink problem. Whatever the truth, he has no credibility in the UK as even those on the right are no longer willing to defend George Bush in the press. Even his brother Peter Hitchens considers Bush to be an idiot.

[John Simkin]

Articles about Gene Wheaton in Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,975391,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,975399,00.html

[John Simkin]

In my opinion Larry Hancock's book, Someone Would Have Talked (second edition) is the best book published on the assassination of JFK. It is worth buying the book for this section alone on Gene Wheaton:

On May 16, 1996, Buttimer followed up the telephone call with a letter to Wheaton in which she offered to meet with Wheaton should he find himself in the Washington D.C. area. We have also a copy of another letter from Buttimer to Wheaton in which she refers to a personal meeting with him in July 1996, at which time Wheaton delivered additional reference material to Buttimer. Unfortunately no contact report has been found for this meeting.

There is no further record of any contact by Buttimer or anyone else from the ARRB with Wheaton. In March, 1998 he again faxed the Board and noted that Buttimer seemed to have departed from the Board. He was never contacted again and only received generic Board news releases. The only response to his effort at follow-up is a very general reply from Eileen Sullivan, Press and Public Affairs Officer. In this "form letter" response, she refers to the Board as having received thousands of leads and suggestions and not being able to link any document releases to information provided by a particular individual.

Apart from this generic "thank you," there is no expression of further interest from the Board. And there was no further record of any comment from Gene Wheaton on the subject until Malcolm Blunt located the Wheaton ARRB files and brought them to the attention of this author, who then pursued the matter with the help of William Law. Law contacted and interviewed Wheaton in 2005, where he confirmed what was in the ARRB records.

A good deal of background research has been done on the Wheaton documents and on the names which Wheaton eventually disclosed to the ARRB in the documents submitted to Buttermer. These include the CV which Wheaton eventually identified as that of Carl Elmer Jenkins; a copy of Jenkin's passport circa 1983; and business cards for Carl Jenkins (ECM Corporation - International Security Assistance Specialists, New York, Washington DC, California, PO Box in Falls Church Va., Consultants for Human Development, Falls Church Va., identified as a mail drop and National Air, Liaison Officer). The National Air card has a note on it indicating that Jenkins had connected Wheaton to Raphael "Chi Chi" Quintero, Nestor Sanchez, Nestor Pino, Bill Bode, Rob Owen, and Vaughn Forrest.

Research confirms that beyond a doubt, Carl Jenkins was indeed a senior CIA officer who worked on paramilitary activities in support of the Bay of Pigs project and that by 1963-64 he was indeed directly involved with the AM/WORLD project, with Artime (AM/BIDDY) and Quintero (AM/JAVA-4).

In September, 1963 Jenkins wrote a general memo describing Artime's operational philosophy and concepts. This summarized his views about commando teams, infiltration teams, and guerrilla actions. The memo addresses military operations as Artime conceives them to be organized and conducted under a single organization (AM/WORLD) in which the Cubans can have faith. In a section on Commandos, there is discussion of the use of abductions and assassinations targeted against Cuban G-2 intelligence informants, agents, officers, and foreign Communists to raise the morale of people inside Cuba.'

In December, 1964, Jenkins prepared a summary report of Quintero's visit to Europe for a dialogue with Rolando Cubela in preparation for further meetings with Artime. The goal of this meeting was to develop contacts with a group inside Cuba which was capable of "eliminating Fidel Castro and of seizing and holding Havana, at least for an appreciable time that would be sufficient to justify recognition."'

There seems to be no doubt that Jenkins was indeed involved in a very special project in 1963-64 just as the CV Wheaton provided to the ARRB indicates. It should be noted that these AM/ WORLD activities were completely segmented from JM/WAVE and communications from Jenkins and Hecksher were not run through JM/WAVE. In fact ' the AM/ WORLD group operated its own facility in Miami (cryptonym "LORK")...

There seems some reason to at least speculate that both Quintero (who became second in command to Artime) and Rodriguez (who also joined Artime's offshore autonomous effort in 1963) may have been associated with CIA paramilitary officer Carl Jenkins before the Bay of Pigs. It also seems possible that Rodriguez may have been involved with the assassination project described in the NPIC memo and that the project was overseen by Carl Jenkins-this being the operation described by the NPIC personnel.

It appears that Carl Jenkins' paramilitary activities in support of Cuban operations were exactly as described to Gene Wheaton and exactly as summarized in the Jenkins CV submitted to the ARRB. There is also no doubt that Jenkins was very closely associated with Quintero in this period, as described by Wheaton. There are two books in print that also confirm these descriptions of Jenkins.

In The Death Merchant: The Rise and Fall of Edwin P. Wilson, author Joseph Goulden presents information from the CIA officer whom Quintero went to when he became suspicious of an assassination assignment being promoted to Quintero and other exiles by Ed Wilson. The officer (given the pseudonym "Brad Rockford") talks about entering the CIA on detached duty from the Marines, being career paramilitary, and running CIA paramilitaries out of JM/WAVE. It seems clear that Rockford was in fact Carl Jenkins.

In his book Manhunt: The Incredible Pursuit of a CIA Agent Turned Terrorist, Peter Maas mentions Carl Jenkins by name as the case officer for Quintero prior to the Bay of Pigs. Quintero was part of an advance team sent in before the invasion by Jenkins. After the landing failed, he hid out in Cuba for six weeks before making his way back to Florida. Afterwards Clines would assume a case officer role for Quintero, who would go on make to a number of sabotage and assassination missions into Cuba."

It seems worth pointing out that Jenkins' name has never been mentioned in any of the numerous works on the Bay of Pigs, the Miami station, or the secret war against Castro. Prior to this investigation of Wheaton's ARRB communications, Carl Jenkins had a far lower profile than even David Morales.

Interestingly, Gene Wheaton recommended that William Law read these books in a 2005 interview. Wheaton suggested that they would describe the individuals he had been associating with or had source information on from what has become known as Iran-Contra.

Additionally, it is of interest that Ted Shackley and Tom Clines (who was to succeed Jenkins as Quintero's case officer) would be familiar names from both JM/WAVE and the Wilson affair. It is also of interest that David Morales's long time friend Ruben independently mentioned that Morales had introduced him to Shackley, Clines and Wilson on a trip to Virginia-and later, to Artime.

Another name mentioned in Wheaton's communication with the ARRB was that of Irving Davidson. Wheaton implies no direct role for Davidson in the conspiracy, however he seems to suggest that Davidson may have unwittingly served as a sort of cut out, bagman, or facilitator. Davidson was a very long time "arranger" in Washington, a registered lobbyist for clients including the Samozas of Nicaragua, the Trujillos of the Dominican Republic, and the Murchisons of Dallas.

In Chapter 16 we examined Davidson's role as the broker of a Murchison deal involving a Haitian meat packing plant in which Bobby Baker had been involved. Baker and VP Johnson had traveled to the Dominican Republic in 1963 and Baker had gone back shortly afterwards, possibly leveraging Johnson's name in regard a casino deal involving his Las Vegas business partners. During the Dominican crisis, tapes record President Johnson and Abe Fortas discussing an intermediary involved in discussions with potential leaders. The name used in the conversation is "Davidson."

Murchison had introduced Davidson to FBI Director Hoover (Anthony Summers relates an interview with Davidson, who lived only a block away from Hoover, in which he describes frequent visits to Hoover and Tolson).'

Davidson represented Carlos Marcello in Washington and was running information between Murchison and Marcello in 1963: it was a government sting of a Murchison/Marcello project that resulted in Marcello's arrest. Reportedly Davidson had also been in contact with Marcello after his forced deportation by Robert Kennedy, helping him to covertly return to the United States. In Interference, Dan Moldea writes that Murchison had gotten Teamster investments for California land development and that there were many connections between Murchison and Marcello, including their joint use of Davidson. Moldea also describes Robert Kennedy's major 1963 Justice Department initiative against sports gambling and its potential impact on both Marcello and Murchison, both heavily involved with professional sports gambling.'

Davidson also had a history as an intermediary in arms transactions, as a collaborator with Cuban exile activities, and as an informant (apparently a protected informant) to both the FBI and CIA. One 1959 FBI memorandum concerns a report by Davidson about a purchase of military weapons. Howard Davis was seeking Davidson's assistance in obtaining quantity of 50 caliber machine guns to be used by Cuban counter revolutionaries. A 1959 CIA report describes Davidson being involved with Cuban exiles interested in forming a government in exile, shows Davidson making introductions for them in Washington.' Other memos show Davidson under FBI electronic (ELSUR) surveillance. And in November - December 1963, Davidson was the subject of NSA monitoring, apparently at the request of the FBI. The NSA made reports to the FBI on November 17, 19, and 27, 1963.

Also, as previously noted, Davidson was Jack Anderson's office mate and may have helped focus Anderson's attention on the bombshell lead from John Roselli that JFK had been killed by a team originally formed and trained to kill Castro. Anderson's "scoop" helped undercut Jim Garrison's early focus on CIA officers and anti-Castro exiles as the main actors in the conspiracy.

Carl Jerkins was a senior CIA officer with exactly the background described by Wheaton to the ARRB. Rafael Quintero was a well respected, covert operations activist associated with anti-Castro and anti-Communist activities over several decades. He was taken seriously at the highest levels of the Kennedy administration. Indeed, DDP Richard Helms himself once commented on an Operational Plan drafted by Quintero to Thomas Parrott, Executive Assistant to the Military Representative of the President in June of 1962."

Quintero had presented the plan to Attorney General Robert Kennedy and General Maxwell Taylor. Beyond that, Quintero was one of only a handful of exiles to be brought into both the AM/ WORLD and AM/LASH (Cubela) projects, initiated by Fitzgerald and eventually turned over the Artime autonomous group project. Quintero was well enough respected to be brought into the secret "extra-governmental" Contra effort, and was eventually solicited by Edward Wilson for an assassination project. In both cases Quintero eventually determined that improper activities were going on and informed on them, in the case of Wilson through his old friend Carl Jenkins.

Gene Wheaton claims that he heard discussions of the conspiracy that killed John Kennedy in Dallas during the time when he was in close personal touch with both Jenkins and Quintero. He never raised this issue when he himself attempted to blow the whistle on various aspects of the Contra supply project. He only raised it confidentially to the ARRB-and was quite surprised to find that his correspondence had been released to public view.

However when interviewed in 2005, he continued to stand by his story that he heard from people involved in the "secret war," who knew that Cuban exiles were incited to execute President Kennedy. These individuals had their own agendas. The exile shooters considered themselves above all as patriots. They had been trained to assassinate Fidel Castro, but in the end they turned their guns on John Kennedy.

Rafael Quintero died October 1, 2006, in Baltimore at the age of 66. A New York Times obituary by Tim Weiner notes that his fellow veteran, Felix Rodriquez, attended the memorial service. The obituary describes Quintero's insertion into Cuba prior to the Bay of Pigs and his escape afterwards. It also states that after his escape from Cuba, Quintero continued working on operations against Fidel Castro, including assassination plots and eventually was paid $4,000 a month to support clandestine arms shipments to the Contras in Nicaragua (despite the Congressional ban on direct U.S. support).

Gene Wheaton's name is not unknown to writers and readers of more recent conspiracy material. As Nick Schou related in an 1997 Orange County Weekly newspaper article, "although he said he was never a CIA employee, Gene Wheaton s experience has brought him into the murky world of agency-connected public-private partnerships."

After a long career with the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigations Division, including several years in Vietnam and Iran, Wheaton went to work for the Anaheim-based autonetics division of Rockwell International in 1976 (the company is now based in Costa Mesa). Three company executives had just been murdered in Tehran, Iran, and Rockwell needed Wheaton to direct its security operations for Project IBEX, a top-secret airborne electronic-surveillance system the company was building for the CIA in Iran.

At Wheaton's disposal were several other Rockwell officials with either CIA or NSA clearances and an elaborate encoding system provided by the CIA." Schou concluded that whatever else may have been written about Wheaton, his "credentials as a onetime covert operative are impossible to deny.""

The reason that Wheaton's name has appeared in print began with his and Carl Jenkins conversations with Paul Hoven in 1985. Hoven worked with a non-profit group devoted to exposing waste in government and the two had some interesting remarks to him about illegal arms shipments and government money being spent for things definitely not approved by Congress. As other leaks eventually began to occur over the North arms deals in the Middle East and Latin America, Hoven introduced Wheaton and Jenkins to Daniel Sheehan. Sheehan was engaged in an attempt to expose a variety of such activities and was happy to receive new sources."

David Corn writes that Wheaton s bottom line for Sheehan was that a "rogue element of the U.S. government was engaged in a host of nefarious activities including assassinations." Corn also describes the names that Wheaton offered to Sheehan. These included: Wilson, Secord, Clines, Hakim, Singlaub, Shackley and Bush.

Sheehan would include Wheaton's (and reportedly Jenkins') information about illegal arms deals and the names of those involved in his crusade and later legal actions.

In 1988 Wheaton offered an affidavit in support of Sheehan s legal action; Jenkins, another source for Sheehan, refused to give a similar affidavit and when questioned asserted that Sheehan must have totally misunderstood any conversations they might have had.

In a 2005 interview with William Law, Wheaton related the following: At some time in 1985/1986 (while he and Jenkins were beginning to talk to parties about illegal arms deals) Wheaton brought up the earlier discussions he had heard in regard to the JFK conspiracy and broached the subject of disclosure of that as well. He states that after a short time the pair declined and told him that if he ever raised the issue they would make him look totally unreliable and ruin his career as a security consultant. It is this author's speculation that once Wheaton was known to his friends as a "whistle blower", they may immediately have begun providing dis-information which would damage his credibility and undermine any remarks he might make in regard to their earlier conversations about the JFK assassination.

Eventually the Contra portions of Wheaton's assertions seem to have been substantially verified. North's own notebook confirms all the names except Shackley. Shirley Brill, a former CIA official, submitted an affidavit with the same names and claimed she heard Clines, Secord, Quintaro and Shackley plotting to frame Wilson.

Cameron Holmes, a Congressional investigating committee lead investigator, was convinced that Shackley was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. As he explained when he was interviewed by David Corn: "How could Shackley be the one person in this mob unaware of what was going on? Why was he so insistent he had not picked up a single whiff of the Contra operation or the Iran initiative? There was no crime in knowing. Shackley proclaimed his ignorance too much." Holmes was shocked when special counsel Lawrence Walsh decided not to pursue Shackley. He was not even called as a witness. Walsh did not even take Shackley's deposition until after Congress had finished its hearings on the affair.

However, many of Sheehan's assertions became highly controversial. In particular these seem to relate to a grand elaboration of the "secret team" assertions involving Shackley as the leader of a secret COA "wet ops" unit which had been created as far back as 1976. Sheehan also introduced another crime, the La Penaca, bombing and made it part of his overall case and cause. Clearly Wilson's information and the La Penaca bombing helped raise Sheehan's claims to that of extreme, global conspiracy and had a good deal to do with his losing his legal action. It is also clear that Wheaton's basic information about illegal arms sales, extra-legal "secret teams" and even about sanctioned assassinations dating back to the Cuban secret war have been validated as of 2005.

By virtue of his visibility in Iran-Contra and as virtually the only experienced security person to ever serve as a "whistle blower", Wheaton become sought after for comment in virtually every case to follow where it appeared that the Government might be covering up covert activities. As an example, families from the 1985 Gander crash hired Wheaton to investigate rumors that the government was not telling the full truth about the crash. He concluded the plane was operated by Arrow Airlines which had served as a CIA front company and that the airlines had transported arms from Israel to Iran as part of North's Contra project. Wheaton posited that the bombing of the plane was a form of retaliation by the Iranians for North's arms sale scam.

Eventually mainstream media sources, including Time magazine, reached the same general conclusion that the crash was extremely questionable and that Middle Eastern interests of some sort were behind it. Wheaton is even quoted in one Time article on Gander."

Wheaton's views, his goal of exposing secret agendas and secret teams plus his willingness to comment result in reporters and writers calls (and citations) whenever anything possibly terrorist associated happens-such as the OKC bombing. For the mainstream press and for some researchers, the fact that Wheaton has become a "lightning rod" for conspiracy commentary and speculation certainly affects his perception as a source. Interestingly there is only one subject he has never addressed in his public remarks, that of the Kennedy assassination. That he saved only for confidential disclosure to the ARRB.

At present, Wheaton's reports of the individuals and conversations he heard discussing the attack on JFK (heard prior to his and Jenkins involvement with people investigating Iran-Contra) appear consistent and credible. However it is reasonable to speculate that virtually anything shared with him following his proposal that Jenkins and Quintaro go on the record about the Kennedy matter may have been "contaminated".

Wheaton himself may have become a target for disinformation at that point, cultivated to ensure that he would be greeted with skepticism if he ever chose to disclose the conversations he had heard.

[Paul Hoven]

Sorry that I have not returned to add my 2 cents to the Forum since I discovered it this past spring. Health problems have consumed me in the past few years. To start with I had met Carl Jenkins at a party thrown by a magazine editor. I met both Carl and his wife. I knew him as a retired Military ops. Guy and his wife as a current psychologist at the company. Being from Minnesota I got along with her because of her Wisconsin birth and upbringing. I was surprised at Carl’s acceptance of my working at the Project of Military Procurement and working with the Military Reform Movement. While most conservatives were not crazy about anyone attacking the Pentagon, not only did it not bother Carl he was very encouraging. After meeting Jenkins I found out that he knew a friend of mine retired Lt. Col. Carl Bernard from service in Laos and possibly further back in Indonesia.

As it turned out I lived close to Carl and spent time visiting at night at a safe house he ran close to his town house. Like many of us conservatives he was not crazy about George Bush for President. I remember one night at Otoole’s Bar ( Agency hang out in Langley) Carl showing me a picture on the wall where George Bush and Agency people had held the first meeting for his Presidential Bid. Sometime later the picture disappeared before the bar closed (Jenkins was not in the picture).

Along with his dislike of Bush for President he was upset that the White House NSC was being used as an active intelligence operation rather than a clearing house from other intelligence agencies for the President. In particular Lt. Col. Oliver North’s activities bothered him. To such a point that in June of 1986 I set up a meeting for him with the then Commandant of the Marine Corp. I had met the S2 of the Headquarters Marine Corp socially and he arranged the meeting in which Carl (being an ex-Marine) had tried to get Lt. Col. North transferred out of the White House. His argument was that if he stayed in his current position he would be an embarrassment to the Corp. Having been a Marine for a short time myself I understood the pride Marines had for the honor of the Corp. I believe that the Marine Corp did try to transfer North but it was thwarted. As I recall the meeting took place on a Thursday and 2 days later I suffered a major heart attack. Two ambulances from the same county showed up and had a fight over me and the second one to arrive won and took me to a hospital that was not mine and there they saved my life. Unfortunately I lost half of my heart function. I am alive today because of a heart transplant in 2005. Of the number of people involved in Iran Contra that had heart attacks I believe that I was the only one that lived.

I will try and add to the story as I have time and would address any questions that Forum members might have. A couple of heart surgeries screw up your memory a little bit. It seems that I am affected most when it comes to remembering names.

[John Simkin]

Sorry that I have not returned to add my 2 cents to the Forum since I discovered it this past spring. Health problems have consumed me in the past few years. To start with I had met Carl Jenkins at a party thrown by a magazine editor. I met both Carl and his wife. I knew him as a retired Military ops. Guy and his wife as a current psychologist at the company. Being from Minnesota I got along with her because of her Wisconsin birth and upbringing. I was surprised at Carl’s acceptance of my working at the Project of Military Procurement and working with the Military Reform Movement. While most conservatives were not crazy about anyone attacking the Pentagon, not only did it not bother Carl he was very encouraging. After meeting Jenkins I found out that he knew a friend of mine retired Lt. Col. Carl Bernard from service in Laos and possibly further back in Indonesia.

As it turned out I lived close to Carl and spent time visiting at night at a safe house he ran close to his town house. Like many of us conservatives he was not crazy about George Bush for President. I remember one night at Otoole’s Bar ( Agency hang out in Langley) Carl showing me a picture on the wall where George Bush and Agency people had held the first meeting for his Presidential Bid. Sometime later the picture disappeared before the bar closed (Jenkins was not in the picture).

Along with his dislike of Bush for President he was upset that the White House NSC was being used as an active intelligence operation rather than a clearing house from other intelligence agencies for the President. In particular Lt. Col. Oliver North’s activities bothered him. To such a point that in June of 1986 I set up a meeting for him with the then Commandant of the Marine Corp. I had met the S2 of the Headquarters Marine Corp socially and he arranged the meeting in which Carl (being an ex-Marine) had tried to get Lt. Col. North transferred out of the White House. His argument was that if he stayed in his current position he would be an embarrassment to the Corp. Having been a Marine for a short time myself I understood the pride Marines had for the honor of the Corp. I believe that the Marine Corp did try to transfer North but it was thwarted. As I recall the meeting took place on a Thursday and 2 days later I suffered a major heart attack. Two ambulances from the same county showed up and had a fight over me and the second one to arrive won and took me to a hospital that was not mine and there they saved my life. Unfortunately I lost half of my heart function. I am alive today because of a heart transplant in 2005. Of the number of people involved in Iran Contra that had heart attacks I believe that I was the only one that lived.

I will try and add to the story as I have time and would address any questions that Forum members might have. A couple of heart surgeries screw up your memory a little bit. It seems that I am affected most when it comes to remembering names.

Thank you for posting this. Was it a coincidence that so many people involved in the Iran-Contra business had heart-attacks? It also happened to several CIA operatives who were due to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

It also happened to several CIA operatives who were due to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s.

John, can you specify the names?

I know Manuel Artime died quite young and when he was on the HSCA witness list but I cannot recall if he died of a heart attack. William Harvey had a heart attack but he had already testified (at least to Church.)

Edited September 12, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

John wrote:

It also happened to several CIA operatives who were due to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s.

John, can you specify the names?

I know Manuel Artime died quite young and when he was on the HSCA witness list but I cannot recall if he died of a heart attack. William Harvey had a heart attack but he had already testified (at least to Church.)

True William Harvey appeared before the Church Committee but died of a heart attack before he could appear before the HSCA. Other CIA officials who died of heart attacks before they could appear before the HSCA included Sheffield Edwards, David Morales and Thomas Karamessines. FBI agents who were involved in the original investigation, Louis Nicholas, Alan H. Belmont, James Cadigan, J. M. English and Donald Kaylor, also died in this way. Manuel Artime died like Jack Ruby and Florence Pritchett of cancer.

[Tim Gratz]

Good information, John. It does seem however that if someone was going to eliminate witnesses they would have wanted to get started before the witness testified before the Church Committee. After that, the witness might have already spilled his guts as the saying goes.

I think everything indicates Artime's death was accidental but his would be at least on a more suspicious list since he had not yet testified to any committee. Ditto Pritchett but I think her relatives have made it clear she did indeed die of natural causes.

[John Simkin]

Sorry that I have not returned to add my 2 cents to the Forum since I discovered it this past spring. Health problems have consumed me in the past few years. To start with I had met Carl Jenkins at a party thrown by a magazine editor. I met both Carl and his wife. I knew him as a retired Military ops. Guy and his wife as a current psychologist at the company. Being from Minnesota I got along with her because of her Wisconsin birth and upbringing. I was surprised at Carl’s acceptance of my working at the Project of Military Procurement and working with the Military Reform Movement. While most conservatives were not crazy about anyone attacking the Pentagon, not only did it not bother Carl he was very encouraging. After meeting Jenkins I found out that he knew a friend of mine retired Lt. Col. Carl Bernard from service in Laos and possibly further back in Indonesia.

As it turned out I lived close to Carl and spent time visiting at night at a safe house he ran close to his town house. Like many of us conservatives he was not crazy about George Bush for President. I remember one night at Otoole’s Bar ( Agency hang out in Langley) Carl showing me a picture on the wall where George Bush and Agency people had held the first meeting for his Presidential Bid. Sometime later the picture disappeared before the bar closed (Jenkins was not in the picture).

Along with his dislike of Bush for President he was upset that the White House NSC was being used as an active intelligence operation rather than a clearing house from other intelligence agencies for the President. In particular Lt. Col. Oliver North’s activities bothered him. To such a point that in June of 1986 I set up a meeting for him with the then Commandant of the Marine Corp. I had met the S2 of the Headquarters Marine Corp socially and he arranged the meeting in which Carl (being an ex-Marine) had tried to get Lt. Col. North transferred out of the White House. His argument was that if he stayed in his current position he would be an embarrassment to the Corp. Having been a Marine for a short time myself I understood the pride Marines had for the honor of the Corp. I believe that the Marine Corp did try to transfer North but it was thwarted. As I recall the meeting took place on a Thursday and 2 days later I suffered a major heart attack. Two ambulances from the same county showed up and had a fight over me and the second one to arrive won and took me to a hospital that was not mine and there they saved my life. Unfortunately I lost half of my heart function. I am alive today because of a heart transplant in 2005. Of the number of people involved in Iran Contra that had heart attacks I believe that I was the only one that lived.

I will try and add to the story as I have time and would address any questions that Forum members might have. A couple of heart surgeries screw up your memory a little bit. It seems that I am affected most when it comes to remembering names.

I am sure members have questions for Paul.

[John Simkin]

I will try and add to the story as I have time and would address any questions that Forum members might have. A couple of heart surgeries screw up your memory a little bit. It seems that I am affected most when it comes to remembering names.

What did you make of the Daniel Sheehan investigation?

[Paul Hoven]

12 Sept. 2007

Seems like you are interested in heart attacks. At the time of my heart attack two events were taking place that I was involved in. The meeting at Marine Headquarters with Carl and the Commandant ( to get Oliver North transferred out of White House) and the DIVAD program was cancelled. I was the point person at the Project on Military Procurement on the DIVAD [ Division Air Defense(gun) 40mm Bofors Cannon on an old M-48 tank body]. This was the first time that an active Pentagon weapons system was cancelled.

When I started having chest pains after having some orange juice, I assumed it was a muscle cramp. Finally my roommate Joe Burniece called 911. I lived in Arlington Virginia and Arlington county ran the only ambulance service in the county arrived. I was given some nitroglycerin and removed from the apartment and the stretcher was placed on the ground in front of the ambulance. A second ambulance arrived and the two crews started to argue over who was to take me to the hospital. The second crew mentioned that I was the person involved in the cancelling of the DIVAD. They were both informed that I was to go to George Washington in DC. The second arriving ambulance crew won the argument and proceeded to take me to Northern Virginia Hospital instead. We pulled into the building and 16 Doctors, Nurses and techs were there to great me. They saved my life. After 3 days I was transferred to my HMO hospital in DC. (Heart function is measured in ejection function. 55 to 60 is normal, after the heart attack mine was 32. At 20 you become eligible for a heart transplant and around 10 you die.) You tend to idolize the Nurses that tend you during these times and I had 2 during those 3 days. They worked 12 hour shifts and later I was informed by Knut Royce ( a friend and reporter that I worked with at the Project. Knut as a young man was an interpreter for the Emperor of Ethiopia ) that one of my Nurses was the daughter of the CIA liaison in the White House.

Months later Carl Jenkins and I were at Otoole’s Bar in Langley and met an ex-special forces turned Doctor who Carl knew that was on his way to Afghanistan to doctor the rebels fighting the Soviets. My heart attack came up in conversation. He then asked if I had drank something cold before the attack. I mentioned that I had some orange juice. He said that there was a substance that caused heart attack and was delivered in a cold beverage (milk orange etc.).

Danny Sheehan told me that there 9 or ten of us that had heart attacks and I was the only one that did not die. The only name that I remember was Tom Clines.

[Ron Ecker]

Mr. Hoven,

Yours is an amazing story. Thanks for sharing it. I have a couple of questions for clarification. If you suspect that your heart attack was induced by something planted in your drink, would the motive be the DIVAD cancellation? Was the cancellation your decision or were you instrumental in it?

I know nothing about DIVAD, but the Pentagon or whoever hitting someone out of revenge for the cancellation of a program seems like a rather petty thing to do. I could see them hitting someone before it could be cancelled, but why after the fact?

It is very strange that an ambulance crew would know anything about DIVAD or your connection to it. Yet this ambulance crew, if I understand correctly, was instrumental in saving your life, indeed was determined to do it, getting you to the right hospital where all these doctors and nurses were waiting to save you, including a CIA-connected nurse.

Were there two competing factions involved here, one trying to kill you and the other trying to save you?

Ron