Hand-Nugan Bank, CIA and the Assassination of JFK

[John Simkin]

Maybe we should try and help this investigation:

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/invest...ive/case1_2.asp

The Nugan Hand Bank

The Questions Whose Answers are Secret

What were the dates of Michael Hand's employment by any U.S intelligence agency, whether on permanent or contract or other ad hoc assignment, & what was his work?

Did any U.S intelligence agency ever have a relationship with Bernie Houghton? What was the nature & duration of this?

Did the CIA ever have a relationship with Franck Nugan? What was the nature & duration of this?

How & when did Bernie Houghton meet Admiral Yates? Did Houghton have letters of recommendation from Admiral Yates & other high-ranking U.S military officers when he arrived in Australia in 1967 and how did this come about?

Colonel Allan Parks, U.S Air Force (ret.), has said that while serving undercover for U.S intelligence as an official of the U.S embassy in Vientiane, Laos, in the 1960s, he became aware that Bernie Houghton was generally known to be transporting contraband like drugs & gambling devices in SE Asia, along with surplus military equipment & other goods. Colonel Parks has said that Houghton's movements were frequently recorded on cable traffic he saw at the embassy & that General Aderholt was also aware of it. What did the U.S intelligence agencies do with their information/records on Houghton?

Houghton was primary caterer to the social needs of U.S servicemen on R&R in Sydney. This period overlapped several years when Houghton was a critical factor in the operation of Nugan Hand, though not yet an officer of it - were there records kept of his relationship with U.S officials? If so, what do they reflect & what use has been made of them?

What was the nature & duration of the CIA's relationship with Kermit L. "Bud" King, former American pilot? Does any U.S Government agency have a file on King's mysterious death during his business association with Michael Hand? If so, does it - or any other intelligence file - reveal participation by Hand in any illegal activities, including but limited to bringing drugs out of Asia?

Does any U.S intelligence or law enforcement agency have a record of any drug transactions that Hand or Houghton carried on with people from the Asian mainland, including Khun Sa, the military leader from the Shan States of Burma? Were U.S military and intelligence officers who dealt with Hand before & after their retirement informed of this?

When did U.S intelligence agencies first become aware Nugan Hand was soliciting large deposits in violation of the foreign exchange controls laws of many countries? That it was moving money for illegal drug dealers? That it was soliciting deposits from U.S citizens in Saudi Arabia & elsewhere & U.S servicemen?

Why was Michael Hand allowed to keep his U.S passport after accepted Australian citizenship?

Why were the Australian visa problems of Houghton, a U.S citizen, in February 1972 solved by the intervention of a top official (Leo Carter) of ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation)?

. Do cable traffic or other records provide evidence to support charges, made by Christoper Boyce & several officials of the Australian Labor Party, and by others, that the U.S involved itself in Australian domestic political or labor activities, or provided covert impetus for the removal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam from office in 1975?

Did any U.S intelligence agency ever have a relationship with, or arrange for money to paid to or on behalf of, former Australian Governor John Kerr? If so, please provide details. Did any representative of the U.S Government communicate directly or indirectly with Kerr in the week prior to his dismissal of Gough Whitlam?

Was Bernie Houghton given access to U.S military transport at Richmond Air Base and why?

Was there any official relationship, on contract or otherwise, between Houghton and the former Australian CIA station chiefs Walker & Wonus?

After Hand's tour of duty in Laos with the CIA, did he at any time return to the U.S for further training or briefing by any U.S intelligence agency? Did Houghton even get such training/briefing?

During Hand's time in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Panama did he have contact with anyone in any U.S intelligence agency?

Did any employee or contract agent of a U.S intelligence agency ever use Nugan Hand Bank or Joe Judge to finance arms deals in southen Africa or elsewhere?

What was the nature & duration of any relationship between Hand or Houghton & Theodore Shackley before Shackley left the CIA?

When & how did any U.S intelligence agency become aware of a relationship between Thomas Clines, Ricardo Chavez & anyone associated with Nugan Hand, particularly Houghton? When & how did any U.S agency become aware that Clines went to Australia when Nugan Hand failed, and left Australia with Houghton?

Has any U.S intelligence agency been in contact with Hand since he left Australia in June 1980? When, how & what happened?

When was the last contact that a U.S intelligence agency had with Houghton? What happened and how?

Did Naval Task Force 157 ever have representatives in Australia? Who were they & what did they do? Was Edmin Wilson ever one of them?

Did U.S intelligence attempt to warn anyone working for Nugan Hand or any customers of Nugan Hand concerning what it knew about the people involved? Who was warned & what was the nature & content of the warnings?

Why were the FBI's files on Nugan Hand withheld from disclosure, even to Australian law enforcement authorities, on the grounds that they would endanger U.S "national defense or foreign policy"?

To whom & at what Australian government agency, does the FBI say it disclosed all its information on Nugan Hand?

Has any U.S intelligence agency ever had dealings with Donald Beazley? With George Shaw or his relatives in Lebanon? With Clive "Les" Collings, Nugan Hand's Hong Kong rep? With Wilfred Gregory, Nugan Hand's Philippine rep? With John Needham, co-founder of Nugan Hand? With George Farris, Nugan Hand's Washington rep? With the Wing-On Bank, Nugan Hand's Hong Kong Bankers? With Inter-Alpha group, which handled international accounts for Nugan Hand? Elisabeth Thompson, Nugan Hand's lawyers? Neil Scrimgeour, a Nugan Hand confidant in Western Australia?

If you know the answers to any of these questions or have any information on Michael Hand (Do you know where he is?) or the Nugan Hand Bank saga then e-mail me. Hot tips in plain brown envelopes are much appreciated too.

Address them to:

Ross Coulthart, Reporter

Sunday Program, Nine Network Australia

P.O Box 27,Willoughby, NSW 2068 Australia

Tel: (61.2) 9965 2470

Fax: (61.2) 9965 2487

[Greg Parker]

Did Naval Task Force 157 ever have representatives in Australia? Who were they & what did they do? Was Edmin [sic: Edwin] Wilson ever one of them?

JS

Edwin P. Wilson resigned from the CIA in February 1971 and became a contract agent for Naval Intelligence. The Navy set him up in a proprietary very similar to the one he had used while with the Agency for the purpose of providing non-official cover to the Office of Naval Intelligence agents serving overseas under a Project known as Task Force 157. Task Force 157 was a group of about 75 agents who gathered intelligence around the world under the cover of export-import operations. Wilson's assignment was to set up a front called Consultants International, through which agents would be run and supplied. It was a joint CIA/Navy operation. Wilson, as paymaster, was able to embezzle a fortune from the operation. Naval Task Force 157 was shut down by then-Navy Intelligence Director Bobby Inman because of the behavior of Edwin P. Wilson. [Jack Anderson Wash. Post 6.30.77] Wilson had lunch with Inman in early 1976 and told Inman that he would employ his contacts in the Congress to lobby on behalf of Inman's Naval budget requests if Inman in return would help funnel government contract's to Wilson's businesses. [Wash. Post 9.12.81]

Weberman nodule 21

The U.S. Navy had conducted clandestine human intelligence operations during the 1930s and World War II. By the mid-1960s the Navy, however, was largely out of the clandestine HUMINT business. Then, in 1965, Admiral Rufus Taylor asked Thomas Duval and Thomas Saunders to set up a Navy HUMINT program. Despite some concern by senior Navy officers about the "flap potential," their proposal was approved - resulting in this memorandum from Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze. The memorandum provides a rationale for the creation of a new HUMINT organzation, relevant definitions, and establishes the responsibilities of senior officials. With regard to security, the memo mandates that very existence of the program be classified Secret.

Nitze's memo would lead to the establishment, in 1966, of the Naval Field Operations Support Group (NFOSG) to conduct clandestine HUMINT operations. It would soon be given an alternative designation - Task Force 157 - by which it would become more commonly known.

National Security Achive

Import-export businesses are favorite covers for intelligence operatives.

See the cases of:

Hugh Redmond who worked for the SSU (the transition agency between OSS and CIA) whose cover was provided by import-export company, Henningsen and Co.

Frederico Vaughn, a CIA double-agent working for Heroes and Martyrs Trading Corp - an import-export agency for the Sandinista government.

Wild Bill Donovan's involvement with the import-expert firm known as The World Commerce Corporation.

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations - 1981, shows that intelligence is routinely gathered by the CIA, FBI and other government agencies from contacts in the import-export and shipping industries.

Then there was one, Lee Harvey Oswald, who prior to leaving for Soviet Russia, told his mother that he was going into the import-export business and also listed that as his employment on travel documents.

Skip forward to 1963 and a somewhat suspicious character he worked with at Jaggers Chiles Stovall, John Grossi aka Jack Bowen, left that job in January '64 to work in an "import-export" business.

Edited July 14, 2006 by Greg Parker

[James Richards]

James, Jonathan Kwitny's The Crime of Patriots was published in 1987. He says that at the time the book was published, Patricia Swan, Frank Nugan's secretary, was the only one charged with a crime as a result of the Nugan-Hand Bank scandal. Did she ever appear in court? Was anyone else charged after 1987? Has a more recent book on the scandal been published?

John,

I'm not sure of the answers to your questions. There was a Royal Commission conducted by Justice Donald Stewart but that found itself bogged down in delays and obstruction. I remember reading a piece from the Sydney Morning Herald at the time suggesting that this was going to hamper any further arrests and prosecutions.

James

[John Simkin]

I have now created pages for those behind the Hand-Nugan Bank scandal:

Michael Hand

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhandM.htm

Frank Nugan

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKnugan.htm

Bernie Houghton

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhoughtonMB.htm

[Scott Deitche]

The Hand-Nugan bank is another one of those topics that some authors say Trafficante was involved in based on his activities in SE Asia. I can't say for sure.

[John Simkin]

There is no doubt that Frank Nugan and Michael Hand were involved in promoting anti-socialist political causes. As Jonathan Kwitney points out in The Crimes of the Patriots: “By associating with the more hard-hat attitudes of the right wing of Labour, Nugan and Hand may have done more to help their cause than they could by sticking to the more right-wing parties. Certainly it is a standard ploy of the CIA to work less with the most openly anti-communist parties than with the anti-communist wing of the party on the borderline.”

The same is also true of other figures associated with the Nugan-Hand Bank such as Bernie Houghton, Rear-Admiral Earl P. Yates, General Leroy J. Manor, the former chief of staff of the U.S. Pacific Command and deputy director for counterinsurgency and special activities, General Edwin F. Black, former commander of U.S. forces in Thailand, Walter J. McDonald, retired CIA deputy director for economic research, General Erie Cocke, head of the American Legion, Dale C. Holmgren, former chairman of the CIA's Civil Air Transport, Donald Beazley, Florida banker, Guy Puker, foreign policy adviser to Republican leaders and Robert Wilson, U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

[John Simkin]

One of those that Rear-Admiral Earl P. Yates brought in to help the Nugan Hand Bank was Mitchell WerBell. Yates later told the Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking he recruited WerBell as a consultant because he "had extensive experience in Central America".

[John Simkin]

In 1974 the Nugan Hand Bank got involved in helping the CIA to take part in covert arms deals with contacts within Angola. It was at this time that Edwin Wilson became involved with the bank. Two CIA agents based in Indonesia, James Hawes and Robert Moore, called on Wilson at his World Marine offices to discuss "an African arms deal". Later, Bernie Houghton arrived from Sydney to place an order for 10 million rounds of ammunition and 3,000 weapons including machine guns. The following year Houghton asked Wilson to arrange for World Marine to purchase a high-technology spy ship. This ship was then sold to Iran.

By 1976 the Nugan-Hand Bank appeared to have become a CIA-fronted company. This is reflected in the type of people recruited to hold senior positions in the bank. For example, Rear-Admiral Earl P. Yates, the former Chief of Staff for Policy and Plans of the U.S. Pacific Command and a counter-insurgency specialist, became president of the company. Other appointments included William Colby, retired director of the CIA, General Leroy J. Manor, the former chief of staff of the U.S. Pacific Command and deputy director for counterinsurgency and special activities, General Edwin F. Black, former commander of U.S. forces in Thailand, Walter J. McDonald, retired CIA deputy director for economic research, Dale C. Holmgren, former chairman of the CIA's Civil Air Transport and Guy J. Pauker, senior Republican foreign policy adviser.

Former CIA agent, Kevin P. Mulcahy later told the National Times newspaper "about the Agency's use of Nugan Hand for shifting money for various covert operations around the globe." The investigative journalist, Jonathan Kwitny, became convinced that the Nugan Hand Bank had replaced the Castle Bank and Trust Company in Nassau, as the CIA's covert banker. The bank, run by Paul Helliwell, was forced to close after the Internal Revenue Service discovered that he Castle Bank was laundering CIA funds and drug profits.

On 27th November 1979 Michael Hand wrote to Ted Shackley. It concerned a meeting the two men had recently attended in Washington: "The opportunity of meeting you again on different terms was very enjoyable and I sincerely trust that something worthwhile businesswise may surface and be profitable for both of us."

In the winter of 1979, Edwin Wilson had a meeting with Bernie Houghton and Thomas G. Clines in Switzerland in an attempt to help him out of his difficulties. This included a non-delivery of 5,000 M16 automatic rifles. The three men discussed ways of using the Nugan Hand Bank to float a $22 million loan to finance the delivery. Hand was obviously concerned that if Wilson was arrested he might begin talking about his dealings with Nugan Hand.

On 7th January 1980, Robert Wilson (House of Representatives Armed Services Committee) and Richard Ichord (chairman of the Research and Development Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee) had dinner with Bernie Houghton at the Bourbon and Beefsteak Bar and Restaurant in Sydney.

On 27th January, 1980, Frank Nugan was found shot dead in his Mercedes Benz. With his body was a Bible that included a piece of paper. On it were written the names "Bob Wilson" and "Bill Colby". Robert Wilson was a senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee and William Colby was a former director of the CIA.

Bernie Houghton was in Switzerland at the time and he immediately rang his branch office in Saudi Arabia and ordered the staff to leave the country. Houghton also visited Edwin Wilson's office in Geneva and left a briefcase with bank documents for safekeeping. Soon afterwards, a witness saw Thomas G. Clines going through the briefcase at Wilson's office and remove papers that referred to him and General Richard Secord.

Two days after Nugan died, Michael Hand held a meeting of Nugan Hand Bank directors. He warned them that unless they did as they were told they could "finish up with concrete shoes" and would be "liable to find their wives being delivered to them in pieces".

Frank Nugan's inquest took place in April, 1980. Testimony from Michael Hand revealed that Nugan Hand was insolvent, owing at least $50 million. Hand then promptly fled Australia under a false identity on a flight to Fiji in June 1980. Bernie Houghton also disappeared at this time and it is believed both men eventually reached the United States.

According to one witness, Thomas G. Clines helped Bernie Houghton escape. Michael Hand also left the country accompanied by James Oswald Spencer, a man who served with Ted Shackley in Laos. The two men traveled to America via Fiji and Vancouver.

[John Simkin]

In thought it might be worth looking at what the participants of the Nugan Hand Bank scam were doing in the days leading up to the death of Frank Nugan.

On 7th January 1980, Robert Wilson (House of Representatives Armed Services Committee) and Richard Ichord (chairman of the Research and Development Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee) had dinner with Bernie Houghton at the Bourbon and Beefsteak Bar and Restaurant in Sydney.

Nugan flew to the United States with his wife on 9th January. He visited William Colby before moving on to Florida where he entered negotiations to buy a condominium. He also spent time in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland before arriving back in Australia.

On 25th January Nugan had a meeting with Bernie Houghton. The following day Nugan agreed to spend $2.2m on a 828 acre country estate. Nugan told the seller that he was close the deal the next day. Instead, he drove to Lithgow where he was later found shot dead.

I wonder if there is any connection between these events and the death of Nugan?

Robert Wilson and Robert Ichord both resigned from Congress soon after the death of Nugan.

What did Nugan have to say to William Colby? Is it possible he had threatened to expose the role of the CIA in creating the bank.

Why did Nugan return to Australia if he knew the Nugan-Hand Bank was in so much trouble? Surely he would have been safer in the United States?

Does a man who is about to kill himself buy two new properties?

[Scott Deitche]

The Hand-Nugan bank is another one of those topics that some authors say Trafficante was involved in based on his activities in SE Asia. I can't say for sure.

Found it:

Nugen Hand “appears to have been a financial conduit for an Australian mobster in his business dealings with Santo Trafficante Jr.”

Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, p. 75.

Is this Australian mobster the same one Traff. associate Sal Amarena met with in San Francisco? The same Sal Amarena who was close friends with Russel D. Matthews and Lewis McWillie.

[John Simkin]

One right-wing organization called Accuracy in Media defended the Nugan-Hand Bank claiming it was really an honest but hard-luck banking organization that had been maligned by an anti-military press. Is this evidence that Accuracy in Media is a CIA-front?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_in_Media

The Australian government asked the Royal Commissioner D. G. Stewart to investigate the Nugan-Hand Bank scandal. The Stewart Royal Commission was published in June, 1985. It stated that the "Nugan Hand Ltd. was at all times insolvent... and flouted the provisions of the legislation as it then stood in that large volumes of currency were moved in and out of Australia".

Stewart went on to blame the dead Frank Nugan and the missing Michael Hand for the illegal activities of the bank. Rear-Admiral Earl P. Yates, William Colby, General Leroy J. Manor, General Edwin F. Black, Walter J. McDonald, Dale C. Holmgren, Guy J. Pauker and Bernie Houghton were considered blameless. Despite the evidence, Hand and Patricia Swan, Nugan's secretary, were accused of being the only ones "responsible for the shredding of documents".

[John Simkin]

Rear-Admiral Earl P. Yates took offence at what Jonathan Kwitny wrote in "the Crimes of Patriots". Kwitny allowed Yates to write his own account that appeared in the Appendix:

The True Patriots

In his otherwise admirable fight against the scourge of drugs, fraud, illegal arms sales, and abuse of government power, Mr. Kwitny has maliciously maligned and assassinated the character of some truly great American heroes and in so doing has besmirched the reputations of the military and intelligence services of this nation. My purpose here is to defend the honor of those men and the services they represent.

The general comments herein concern only those people for whom I had some measure of responsibility for their involvement in Nugan Hand and for whom I can speak with great confidence. Their names are: General Edwin Black, General Erle Cocke, General LeRoy Manor, Mr. Dale Holmgren, Dr. Guy Pauker, Mr. Donald Beazley, Mr. William Colby, Mr. Walter McDonald, Mr. Robert Jantzen, and Mr. George Farris (hereinafter, THE TRUE PATRIOTS).

I specifically exclude all others, not because I consider them guilty or care any less about their fair treatment, but because I do not have the time, space, or knowledge to defend them against the alleged crimes. I use the word "alleged" advisedly, for as of this date, more than seven years after the collapse of Nugan Hand, no crimes have been proven.

Before addressing the general reader, I direct my first comments to the Nugan Hand employees and investors, who were the principal victims of the bank failure. Each of THE TRUE PATRIOTS has expressed to me a most genuine distress for your losses, particularly those of you whom they might have influenced to invest in Nugan Hand. Most of them lost significant sums of their own. For example, I never received any pay due me and personally lost over twenty-five thousand dollars in unreimbursed business expenses. We are, therefore, able to share both your agony and your anger.

Having devoted their lives to the service of their country and having often risked those lives in dangerous missions, THE TRUE PATRIOTS highly treasure the morale and reputation of those who are taking the same risks today in our national defense. They are distressed over any damage done to that morale and reputation by such warped and distorted viewpoints as found in this book.

Each of them deplores the injury done to the relationship between the United States and Australia, a long, strong, and mutually important relationship, which the Soviet Union and its KGB Disinformation Service would dearly love to destroy.

For the above reasons they unanimously regret any distress that their association, however innocent, might have contributed to others. I add to these regrets my own remorse for having induced THE TRUE PATRIOTS to join Nugan Hand. I must take full responsibility for that. They associated with Nugan Hand largely because of their trust in my assurances that I had gone to extraordinary lengths to determine the integrity of that organization and found no evidence whatsoever of a shortfall.

I informed them that my assurances were based on my personal interviews with a wide range of highly respectable, knowledgeable people and agencies, many of whom had a recognized duty to know the bona fides of Nugan Hand. These included: the managing directors of the two largest banks in Australia, which held Nugan Hand accounts; an agent of the Reserve Bank, which has responsibilities similar to our Federal Reserve Bank; the Premier of New South Wales, whose private office was adjacent to the Nugan Hand offices; two prominent Australian lawyers who had worked closely with Mr. Nugan; an agent of the Australian Tax Department, who was familiar with Mr. Nugan's tax work; the managing director of the Sydney subsidiary of Citicorp, who traded securities with Nugan Hand; a partner of the accounting firm that certified Nugan Hand records; vice-presidents of two large international banks that had accounts with Nugan Hand; the U.S. Consul General in Sydney; the desk officer in the Department of Commerce who publishes financial reports on Australian firms; agents of the Treasury Department; agents of the FBI; some highly satisfied clients of Nugan Hand; and several employees. Of all these, none gave any unfavorable information, and most had high praise. General Black and others interviewed similar groups, including prominent newspapers, with comparable results.

In recruiting THE TRUE PATRIOTS, I explained the substance of my lengthy conversations with Mr. Nugan and Mr. Hand about their ultimate objective to build an international "one-stop business shopping-center" organization to make it easier for small businesses to compete in the international marketplace against the multinational cartels. They liked the concept and the opportunity to pursue it. They believed, as I did, that their employment was honorable, that Mr. Nugan and Mr. Hand were honorable, successful, and reliable businessmen, with the highest sense of personal integrity and genuine concern for their clients.

In response to queries about how the firm made money, Mr. Nugan gave me an extensive mathematical dissertation, supported by genuine money market documents, on how to "gross-up" the interest yield on money by buying and selling discounted bills of exchange on the lively Sydney market. He later held a conference of other employees to explain this important aspect of Nugan Hand's money market operation. He further informed me and others that his law practice yielded four to twelve million dollars per year (a false claim, nevertheless substantiated by two other lawyers and a CPA) and that the money was always available as a drawdown to protect our client's deposits.

When I first joined Nugan Hand, I undertook an intensive selftaught accounting and business-law course, at the suggestion of Mr. Nugan, as a first step to better equip myself to make business judgments and eventually assume a position of responsibility and authority in Nugan Hand Bank. In a letter dated 24 January 1977 Mr. Nugan wrote as follows:

"Your title (which may be used on your business cards, letter heads, and in all business contexts) is "President, Swiss Pacific Bank and Trust Company." In this regard you shall be a member of the Board of Directors and shall be subject to the Managing Director, (Mr. Hand) and to the Chairman of the Board of Directors (Mr. Nugan) as well as to the Board of Directors meeting as a Board in the normal course. It is contemplated that as of about the time that an interest in the Bank is made available to you, the position of President will be given its full normal powers by the Board to the effect that you shall become the Chief Executive Officer of the Bank at that time."

The title became effective on 6 April 1977 and I resigned officially by letter on 12 October 1979, never having attended a board meeting or been given any executive authority. The cunning delays of Mr. Nugan (which I now believe were contrived to forestall me from gaining the authority and information that should have accompanied my title) prevented me from being able to determine the true financial status of the bank.

For example, in June 1977 Mr. Nugan gave me my first assignment: to call on the presidents of a hundred U.S. banks to tell them about Nugan Hand's guaranteed deposit arrangements. Though it yielded poor results, this four-month project and similar ones, such as the attempted purchases of various banks and the opening of new offices, constituted the major scope of my assigned duties and authorities and served as clever diversions to my efforts toward becoming an executive.

Following my resignation on 12 October 1979, I was placed on a consulting status to Mr. Hand personally, with no Nugan Hand Bank authority whatsoever. I was enrolled in the Harvard University Business School awaiting the scheduled formation of a Nugan Hand international holding company, in which I was promised options on a 20 percent interest and a seat on the board. Nugan Hand collapsed while I was still attending school, and I then learned that several others had been promised options on the same 20 percent.

Throughout my time of observation as president of Nugan Hand Bank, THE TRUE PATRIOTS served honestly and loyally the interests of Nugan Hand and its clients. They had grown up in the military service and spent their lives in the company of gentlemen well known for honesty and honor, where it is commonplace to risk one's life, not just one's money and reputation, based on the word of a colleague. Day-to-day association with that kind of integrity leads military men to trust their fellow man, and it should not be surprising that it led these men to trust me and my judgment. If any fault can be found, it was in this trust of me, for, to my knowledge, not one of them has committed any crime, violated any law, breached any ethical standard, nor performed any act for which they need be ashamed.

Furthermore, notwithstanding Mr. Kwitny's contempt for their findings, the Australian Royal Commission (the highest judicial body established to investigate the Nugan Hand affair) found no credible evidence to charge any of THE TRUE PATRIOTS with wrongdoing. In their investigation, one of the most thorough and widely reported in the history of the country, the commission developed 11,900 pages of testimony from 267 witnesses under oath. They searched the files of the FBI and held conferences with the highest officials in the CIA. They also found no credible evidence of involvement of the CIA. But where findings of the Royal Commission such as this do not fit his fabricated version of events, Mr. Kwitny casts suspicion on the integrity or intelligence of the commission.

It might be easy to say nothing and let the reader believe Mr. Kwitny's suggestion that THE TRUE PATRIOTS were all working for the CIA. To those about whom THE TRUE PATRIOTS care most, working for the CIA is certainly an honorable profession. But hiding behind that shield would be repugnant to each of them and disloyal to the many fine people who are, in fact, working for the CIA.

Mr. Kwitny does not have the benefit of a background in the military or intelligence services, yet he states authoritatively:

"The men this book is mostly concerned with have lived their lives in a world of spying and secrecy.... they have been trained to keep the taxpayers from... finding out what they do. Compunctions about lying have seldom impeded that effort. They entered their secret world under the cloak of patriotism...."

Millions of men and women who have served in the military and intelligence services will easily recognize this as a gross distortion of the truth. They know from first-hand experience that military men and most intelligence officers live remarkably open lives, abhor lying, invite and welcome fair-minded outside attention, and often disguise the depth of patriotism that guides them. This obvious example of distortion is part of a consistent thread of deceit in Mr. Kwitny's descriptions of all the events about which I have first-hand knowledge and leads me to suspect comparable distortions about unfamiliar events throughout his text.

For example, his story that I "raced" to Sydney, Australia, to destroy records is almost totally false. Records of customs, passports, and airlines and other documents readily show this. He even admits to possible error therein, but he nevertheless uses the story to advance the false accusation that I participated in the destruction of vital records. He also fails to note that the records of Nugan Hand Bank (the only Nugan Hand subsidiary in which I might reasonably be expected to have had some personal interest in the records) were located in Singapore, not Sydney.

Furthermore, he recounts minor and irrelevant differences in the accounts of witnesses, apparently to discredit the word of THE TRUE PATRIOTS, yet he fails to note the consistency of the testimonies of those PATRIOTS taken under oath, as was found by the Royal Commission.

He preposterously describes Nugan Hand's relatively small operation as "mammoth." If Nugan Hand was "mammoth," then what word is left to accurately describe Citicorp, a New York banking firm ten thousand (10,000) times the size of Nugan Hand? This sort of distortion pervades his work and makes one wonder about his motives and his efforts to achieve accuracy.

The book also describes an "elaborate code" system used to shield illegal activity. Yet, by any standard, it was the very simplest of codes, far less complicated than pig-latin, used principally to shorten cable messages. It was prominently posted by office telex machines, was widely distributed to employees, and was available to just about anyone who wanted to use it. Only the most unsophisticated and poorly informed would truly believe that this code could have been seriously used to conceal information. To stress on staff personnel a respect for clients' rights to privacy? Perhaps. But to hide from authorities?? One would have to assume that the authorities are stupid, blind, and illiterate, or that Mr. Kwitny merely wished to give a sinister cast to the story.

The book rails against THE TRUE PATRIOTS for failure, as insiders, to uncover and expose the alleged crimes of Nugan Hand, but Mr. Kwitny fails to note that three of the ten PATRIOTS never visited the Australian headquarters, where the alleged crimes were masterminded, directed, and executed; four of them made only one brief trip; and three made only two or three trips. I personally made only four short trips there, none longer than about ten days and two less than four days. None of THE TRUE PATRIOTS were employed by Nugan Hand Ltd. or any other Australian organization. None even knew about the various companies privately owned or controlled by Mr. Nugan and Mr. Hand, through which the alleged crimes were executed, and most certainly were never allowed to examine their records. The book does not reveal that only after three months of intensive analysis by an experienced former U.S. Federal Reserve Board bank examiner, and a suicide, did the examiner find reason to suspect the true status of Nugan Hand. Even after seven years of study, the liquidating authority, with full access to the records, has been unable to unravel completely the complex accounting and record system which Mr. Nugan had established. To what extent is a prudent man expected to go to establish the integrity of his employer? Should it not suffice to check the certified assurances of reputable accountants, supervising government authorities, clients, business associates, other employees, and the record of past performance?

Through artfully fallacious reasoning, Mr. Kwitny has created criminals out of some noble and unfortunate victims. By reprinting the lies, innuendos, half-truths, loose associations, and distortions of cheap scandal sheets, left-wing newspapers, and communist-fed, antiAmerican sources, he has, wittingly or unwittingly, served the interests of the Soviet Union and the KGB Disinformation Service.

Finally, even excluding its gross inaccuracies and distortions, this book fails to make a valid case that any of THE TRUE PATRIOTS committed any crime. None were shown to have been involved in or even to have had knowledge of any drug traffic, illegal arms sales, or laundering of money. None of the deposits of their clients violated any currency or banking laws. None of THE TRUE PATRIOTS benefited materially from their association with Nugan Hand, and the only imprudence for which they might be accused is that they trusted a fellow officer.

[John Simkin]

Subject: RARE NUGAN HAND BANK original CBS video 1982 the only TV news in USA that covered NUGAN HAND SCANDAL

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7...34745&hl=en

I see this video has now been taken down.

[Greg Parker]

John, Peter

have another look. I just played it without a problem.

[Thomas Graves]

John, Peter

have another look. I just played it without a problem.

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Works for me, too, Greg.

--Thomas

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