The Art: The Secret History of Psywar, Conspiritainment and the Shattering of Reality: Book I 9798860689121

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The Art: The Secret History of Psywar, Conspiritainment and the Shattering of Reality Book I

The Art: The Secret History of Psywar, Conspiritainment and the Shattering of Reality Book I by S. William Snider Mysterion West Virginia

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The Art: The Secret History of Psywar, Conspiritainment and the Shattering of Reality Book I

The Art: The Secret History of Psywar, Conspiritainment and the Shattering of Reality Book I Copyright © 2023 Steven W. Snider

Editing by: Lisa Amenya Cover Art and Design by: Elma Maria

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

Mysterion West Virginia [email protected] https://www.patreon.com/thefarmpodcastII

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For "Annie," Ed, and AW

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Glossary The Art, Book I ....................................................................................................................6 Introduction: A Game for the Curious .............................................................................................. 13 Sign of the Times ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter One: Let There Be More Light ............................................................................................. 21 "Active Measures" and Conspiracy Theories .......................................................................................... 22 The ASC, MK-ULTRA, and Political Warfare ............................................................................................ 33 Chapter 2: The Operator.................................................................................................................. 51 Elimination by Illumination ..................................................................................................................... 52 The Counterinsurgent ............................................................................................................................. 59 The Gangster ........................................................................................................................................... 68 The Operator........................................................................................................................................... 72 Civic Action.............................................................................................................................................. 90 Chapter 3: Gremlins ........................................................................................................................ 99 Gremlins, Groupies and Fellow Travelers ............................................................................................. 100 The Whistleblowers and the Conspiracy Theorist ................................................................................ 124 Chapter 4: The Flying Saucers of the Illumination ........................................................................... 153 The American Security Council and Alternative Cultures: Birchers ...................................................... 154 The ASC and Alternative Cultures: The Ufonauts ................................................................................. 166 A Modest Proposal ................................................................................................................................ 179 Chapter 5: Et in Arcadia ego........................................................................................................... 189 The San Fran Nexus ............................................................................................................................... 190 Spy vs Spy .............................................................................................................................................. 198 Chapter 6: Majic Men .................................................................................................................... 207 The Soviet Aquarian Age and the Noosphere ....................................................................................... 208 The Aviary ............................................................................................................................................. 222 Page 4 of 303

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SRI and Dead Cows................................................................................................................................ 234 Chapter 7: The Dark Side of Camelot.............................................................................................. 248 The End of the Rainbow? ...................................................................................................................... 250 Pandora's Box........................................................................................................................................ 269 Will the Real UFO Working Group Please Stand Up? ........................................................................... 278 Epilogue: The Engineer .................................................................................................................. 287 Will the Real MJ 12 Please Stand Up?................................................................................................... 288

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Glossary The Art, Book I • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

4GW - Fourth-generation warfare 9/11 – The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by the militant Islamist extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 AATIP - Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program AAWSAP - Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program ACU - American Conservative Union ADS - active denial systems ADT - Active Denial Technology AFOSI - Air Force Office of Special Investigation AFRL - Air Force Research Laboratory AFWL - Air Force Weapons Laboratory AI – artificial intelligence AIDS - acquired immunodeficiency syndrome AIM - Accuracy in Media AMORC – Ancient Mystial Order Rosae Crucis APA - American Psychological Association APRO - Aerial Phenomena Research Organization ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency ARPANET – ASC - American Security Council ASCF - American Security Council Foundation ASD [SO/LIC] -Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict ATP - Advanced Theoretical Physics BAASS - Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies or Bigelow Aerospace BBN - Bolt Beranek and Newman BBRDW - Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham, and Wong BNDD - Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs BSSR - American University's Bureau of Social Science Research

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Bush II - George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. His father is George HW Bush or Bush I. Bush or Bush I - George HW Bush was an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993 C2 – command and control system CA - Civil Affairs CAO - Civic Affairs Office CASE - Committee Against Summit Entanglement CAT - Civil Air Transport CAUS - Citizens Against UFO Secrecy CBS - CBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network that is the flagship property of the CBS Entertainment Group division of Paramount Global. CCCP - Central Committee of the Communist Party CDTC - Combat Development Training Centers CEO – chief executive officer CFF - Crusade for Freedom CFR - Council on Foreign Relations Church Committee - Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities CIA Central Intelligence Agency CIC - Army Counterintelligence Corp CID - Criminal Investigation Division CINCPAC - commander in chief, Pacific CMA - Civilian Material Assistance CNP - Council for National Policy COG - continuity of government COIN - modern counterinsurgency CORDS - Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support CPAC - Conservative Political Action Committee CSDI - Center for the Study of Democratic Institutes CUT - Church Universal and Triumphant CV - Cornelius Vanderbilt CV – curriculum vitae DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DEA - American Drug Enforcement Agency DIA - Defense Intelligence Agency DMT - N, N-Dimethyltryptamine DoD - Department of Defense Duga-3 – The Ark

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

DUMBS - deep underground bases EDCOR - Economic Development Corp ELF - extremely low frequencies EMP - electrical magnet pulse EMR - electromagnetic radiation EPA – Environmental Protection Agency ESP - extrasensory perception ETs – extraterrestrials FBI - Federal Burea of Investigation FCRCs - Federal Contract Research Centers FDR – Franklin D Roosevelt FMFP - Fleet Marine Force, Pacific FPRI - Foreign Policy Research Institute FS - Fraternitas Saturni (the Brotherhood of Saturn) FSC - Freedom Studies Center FTD - Foreign Technology Division G3 - Directorate of Operations, Plans, Training, and Force Protection, International Affairs and Security Cooperation GATT - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GOP – Grand Old Party Ham radio - Amateur Radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communications. HUAC - House Un-American Activities Huks – Hukbalahap IAS - Institute for American Strategy ICBMs - Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles ICDCC - International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture IFF - identification-fried-or-for IITRI - Illinois Institute of Technology's Armour Research Foundation INCA - Information Council of the Americas INSCOM – the Army's Intelligence and Security Command ISA - Intelligence Support Activity ISC - Institute for the Study of Conflict JBS - John Birch Society JCS - Joint Chiefs of Staff JFK – John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK and by the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. JIC - Joint Intelligence Committee

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

JRAD - Joint Research and Development JSOC - Joint Special Operations Command KGB - Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti or Russian Committee for State Security 92953 KKK - The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacists, far-right-wing terrorists, and hate groups. LA – Los Angeles LANL - Las Alamos National Laboratory LARP - live-action-role-playing LBJ – Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Lick – JCR Licklider LSD - Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD and known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. MAAG - Military Assistance Advisory Groups MACV - Military Assistance Command, Vietnam MAES - Medical Aid for El Salvador MID - Military Intelligence Division MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology MJ-12 – Majestic 12, a purported organization that appears in UFO conspiracy theories MK-ULTRA - Project MKUltra or Project MKUltra - an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the US Central Intelligence Agency and intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken people and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. MPS - Mont Pelerin Society MSU - Michigan State University MUFON – Mutual UFO Network NAM - National Association of Manufacturers NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration NBC - National Broadcasting Company is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, NCID - National Council for Industrial Defense NDC - National Defense Council NDRC - National Defense Research Committee NICAP - National Investigations Committee for Aerial Phenomena NIDS - National Institute for Discovery Science NLP - neuro-linguistic programming NMIC - National Military-Industrial Conferences NORAD - North American Aerospace Defense Command

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

NSA - National Security Agency NSC - National Security Council NSC-68 NSIC - National Strategic Information Center OB - Operation Brotherhood OCB - Operations Coordinating Body OCO - Office of Civil Operations OCPW - The Office of the Chief Psychological Warfare OG OG OSO OGPU – the Soviet Joint State Political Directorate Okhrana - commonly referred to as the Tsarist secret police ONR - Office of Naval Research OPC - Office of Policy Coordination OPLAN - Operations Plan ORC - Officer Reserve Corp ORD - Office of Research and Development ORO - John Hopkins University's Operations Research Office OS – Office of Security OSI - Office of Scientific Intelligence OSO - Office of Special Operations OSRD - Office of Scientific Research and Development OSS - Office of Strategic Services OTO - Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO, the German magical order Aleister Crowley took over) PB/7 - Program Branch 7 PBS – Public Broadcasting Service PC PCP – phencyclidine PMC - British private military company POW – prisoner of war PR – public relations PRC - People's Republic of China Project MAC - Mathematics and Computers Project MASSTER - US Army Project Mobile Army Sensor Systems Test, Evaluation, and Review PRUs - Provisional Reconnaissance Units PSB - Psychological Strategy Board psi - parapsychological psychic phenomena or powers PSYOP - Psychological operations PWD/SHAEF - Psychological Warfare Division of the European Supreme Headquarters, Allies Expeditionary Force

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

RAC - John Hopkins University's Research Analysis Corporation RAND - RAND Corporation RFK – Robert Francis Kennedy, also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American politician and lawyer. ROTC - Reserve Officers' Training Corps RRL - Radio Research Laboratory Russian Woodpecker – The Moscow Signal or The Signal SACSA - Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities SAGE - Semi-Automated Ground Environment SCORE - Signals Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment SDC - Systems Development Corporation SDI - Strategic Defense Initiative SDS - Students for a Democratic Society SEALS - The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs SF – Special Forces SFHQ - Special Forces Headquarters SGA - Special Group Augmented SHAEF - Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces Signal, The – Moscow Signal SIHE - Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology SISS – Senate Internal Security Committee SOCOM - US Special Operations Command SOEV - Stichting voor Onderzoek van Ecologische Vraagstukken SOFs - special operations forces SOG - Special Operations Group SORO - Special Operations Research Office SOSJ - Sovereign Order of Saint John Special Group CI - Special Group, Counterinsurgency SRI - Stanford Research Institute SRS - Security Research Service TAI - Total Information Awareness TSS - Technical Services Staff TTSA - To the Stars Academy UAP - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena UC Berkley – University of California, Berkley UCLA - University of California, Los Angeles UFOs - unidentified flying objects UK – United Kingdom US - United States USASOC - US Army Special Operations Command USGSC - US Global Strategy Council

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• • • • • •

USIA - US Information Agency USO – United Service Organizations USSR - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics WACL - World Anti-Communist League WCC - World Commerce Corporation WTO - World Trade Organization I

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Introduction:

A Game for the Curious

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Sign of the Times

The Protestant Reformation began in 1517, and was followed by the Catholic Counter-Reformation in 1545. The Reformation inspired wars by the time of the Catholic response, but the Counter-Reformation took things to the next level. A series of increasingly brutal religious wars ravaged Europe for over a century. The result was the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Of it came the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which produced a climate of greater religious tolerance and solidified the modern European nation-state. As wonderful as these developments were, they came at a terrible cost. The devastation wrought in Central Europe by the Thirty Years War was comparable to what that region experienced during the World Wars three centuries later. Nearly a third of the populations of what is now modern-day Germany and the Czech Republic were wiped out. Sweden, then a superpower, embarked upon a brutal "scorched earth" policy that destroyed thousands of towns and villages in Germany alone. Disease and famine were rampant, with tens of thousands of people displaced by the violence. It took some regions up to a century to recover from the conflict.1 These developments must have been especially shocking to Protestants. The onset of the seventeenth century appeared to hold so much promise for them. Just a little over a decade before the turn of the century, Elizabethan England triumphed over Catholic Spain in spectacular fashion. In the Protestant stronghold of Bohemia, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) witnessed something on December 17, 1603, that gave him pause. It was a Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn in the House of Pisces. In astrology, the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn hold great significance. They also reliably occur every twenty years or so.2 A Great Conjunction is a rarer thing. And one involving Pisces was linked with the birth of prophets, miracle workers, revealers of secrets, and even the Messiah, in some Jewish lore. Kepler began to speculate that an earlier Great Conjunction involving Pisces in 7 BC had witnessed the birth of Christ. The significance of this Great Conjunction was given credence the following year, when Kepler witnessed his famous supernova. This observation led the budding astronomer to modestly suggest the events heralded the emergence of a new sect or significant political events.3 These musings proved to be far more perceptive than many of the other prophecies floating around. Hesilaus Roslin, a rival of Kepler's in celestial matters, via a combination of precise astronomy and the

1

McFate, Sean, The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 64. 2 Churton, Tobias, The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians: The World's Most Mysterious Secret Society (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2009), 22-23. 3 ibid, 23-24.

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Sabian concept of "seven ages," foresaw the beginning of a glorious new era in 1613.4 Elsewhere, the scholar Simon Studion (1543-1605) published a book of prophecy entitled Naometria in 1604. It hailed the looming destruction of the Papacy while proclaiming the Second Advent of Christ would occur in 1623.5 The year 1623 also witnessed a Great Conjunction. In this case, Saturn and Jupiter were in the House of Leo, symbolized by the lion. For half a century prior, learned men, working from words attributed to famed Swiss physician and mystic Paracelsus6 and prophetic texts in the biblical books of Amos and Esdras, had prophesized the coming of a Protestant redeemer. This figure would complete the Reformation and finish off Roman popery once and for all. It was widely believed this figure would be of Nordic origins --possibly a Scandinavian king or a German prince --and associated with the lion. Dramatic nicknames such as the "Lion of Septentrion '' and "Midnight Lion" were often branded about when this Nordic redeemer was up for discussion.7 And now, a Great Conjunction was set to unfold in the House of Leo the Lion in 1623, a year the Naometria earmarked for the Second Coming. With the Elizabethan Age still looming large and prophecy in the air, these were heady days for the Protestant world. But by the time the Great Conjunction of 1623 rolled around, with the nascent Thirty Years War poised to drown Europe in rivers of blood for years to come, such starry-eyed optimism had long ceased. The funny thing is, many of these prophecies have proven far more accurate than observers would have credited them with during the Thirty Years War. Kepler, for instance, totally called it: a new sect did emerge after 1604, as did significant political events. The extent to which this sect influenced the subsequent political events, or whether it even existed outside the minds of a few inspired nerds at this point, is a matter of debate. What is not is its profound influence on the history of the West, and the world-stage, during the preceding 400 years.

4

ibid, 190. The Harran Sabians were a Neoplatonic sect that survived in northeastern Syria until at least the eleventh century. They idolized Hermes Trismegistus, the mythological figurehead of Hermeticism. The Sabians were instrumental in preserving Greco-Egyptian traditions during the European Dark Age. This knowledge gradually passed back to Europe via Islamic sources during the "High" Medieval period, laying the foundation for the Renaissance. 5 ibid, 27. 6 Paracelsus (1493-1541) is credited with contributing to the European medical revolution that underpinned the Renaissance. His contributions to chemistry and toxicology were quite significant. Conversely, he is also credited with re-introducing opiates to the West. He developed an early form of laudanum, which he came to believe could be a universal panacea. See Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge (New York: Bantam, 1992), 194-195. Paracelsus' approach to medicine was firmly rooted in alchemy and Hermeticism. The essence of his medical theories revolved around freeing up energy flow in his patients. Using the symbolic language of alchemy, he called for patients being treated through mercury (spirit), sulfur (soul), and finally salt (matter). This would lead to the wellness of both the spiritual and physical bodies, the health of both being completely intertwined. See Churton, The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians, 62-63. 7 Churton, 27

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Further, Kepler's rival, Hesilaus Roslin, was also right. A new age did start after 1613. It just wasn't what anyone was expecting. Nearly four centuries later, mainstream historians still fail to note the significance of the age that began after 1613. As for Studion and his Naometria, well, that's where things get weird. Obviously, the Second Coming didn't happen in 1623. No, what happened that year was far stranger. Amid one of the bloodiest religious wars in modern history, an early live-action-role-playing (LARP) exercise solidified its place, if not as a full-blown religion, then at least as a spiritual movement. A game became dogma, in other words, and the world would never be the same again. Nearly 400 years later, as the Great Conjunction of 2020 loomed, another LARP was poised to become an equally earth-shattering faith. This LARP grew out of a fake religion inspired by the Protestant LARP of the early 1600s. Confused? Probably. That's why I will wait until a later book to explain the Law of 17 and 23 in relation to the Great Conjunction of 1623. For now, let's add a name to these LARPS and an observation. In case you haven't guessed, the LARPs I've alluded to are Rosicrucianism and QAnon. Both started as a game. And ultimately, both were put towards the same end: political propaganda. Or, more precisely, psychological warfare. Fittingly, QAnon reached a fevered pitch in the year 2020, which featured its own Great Conjunction. What's more, this would be the first one visible from the Western Hemisphere since the "Rosicrucian Conjunction" of 1623, which witnessed the apex of the furor. Despite being separated by nearly 400 years, there is much that connects Rosicrucianism and QAnon beyond their origins as games for the curious. This is not to suggest that QAnon is the final culmination of some Rosicrucian plot stretching back four centuries. It is, however, the inevitable culmination of nearly four hundred years of Rosicrucianism invading the phantastic. That being said, there's no question that this process shifted into high gear with the onset of the Cold War. To fully grasp what I'm getting at with these ramblings, some of the oddest and most obscure histories of the Cold War must be unpacked. It largely revolves around the rise of modern conspiritainment. In the following chapters, we shall examine how conspiracy theories were weaponized during the Cold War for the purpose of psychological warfare. In a forthcoming book, we'll unpack how an inspired network of misfits and weirdos attempted to turn this curious means of psychological warfare back on the American establishment itself. But it's Book III where things start getting really strange. Yet another LARP turned into a religion; and arguably the most influential of the twentieth century and beyond. This led to a new kind of game, one that would use conspiritainment to break down the fabric of reality itself. Finally, things came full circle when the national security establishments decided to use these gaming methods to their own ends. It probably goes without saying, but this is not a conventional history. How can it be, when the end game of this work is to illustrate how consensus reality is breaking down? While the author has done his best to Page 17 of 303

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maintain scholarly standards, how can one academically apply the Phenomena of 17 and 23 to Rosicrucianism? Consider: Two Great Conjunctions are associated with the original Rosicrucian furor that unfolded during the seventeenth century. The first one occurred in 1603, the other in 1623. The 1603 one occurred on December 17 (which happens to be your humble author's birthday), 417 years prior to the Conjunction of 2020. Elsewhere, the Great Conjunction of 1623 unfolded on June 17. And Johannes Valentinus Andreae was likely 23 years old when he wrote the Fama in 1609.8 This significance would not be fully understood for nearly 350 years. It would take two proto-hippies in Southern California founding a fake religion in the middle of the twentieth century for the Phenomena of 17 and 23 to become a thing. Was the presence of so many 17s and 23s in an earlier fake religion a loving tribute, evidence of a rip in the fabric of time and space, or something even stranger? These are the types of questions this work is principally concerned with, so it may be best to stop reading after this book if that type of thing makes you uncomfortable. When I began this work, it was intended as a book on Q. It seemed fairly straightforward and I only expected to invest a few months in researching and writing it. Instead, it took a few months to realize I wasn't just writing a book, but embarking on a journey. It's now been nearly three years and I've crossed the country searching various special collections and conducting interviews. I've seen many incredible things and met more than a few remarkable people. And I've compiled enough material for at least three books with enough rabbit holes to keep the curious preoccupied for a lifetime. I truly wish I were boasting about making that claim. Again, vigorous efforts at maintaining academic standards have been attempted. It's just that such a worldview cannot do this history justice, for it is not one of standards and norms, but of chaos. To cushion the blow a bit, I have opted to start with the Cold War portion. This is fairly "conventional" history, if parapolitics even counts as such. From here, things will get stranger and stranger. But there is method to the madness. As you will soon learn, astrology proved to be a most potent tool in the arsenal of American psychological warfare officers. So too were vampires, sorcerers, and what one peculiar individual referred to as "low humor." Nor were these things merely studied in military colleges and think tanks. They were enshrined in field operation manuals. And they fed into a particular dogma, often dubbed "counterinsurgency," that came of age during the John F. Kennedy (JFK) years. It was a poisoned well, one that would leave a marked trail of bodies up to the present day. But the bloodshed is only part of the tragedy. The other side of the coin is a shattered pile of glass once dubbed "consensus reality." This was driven home to me on July 19, 2023. I was in Washington, DC, covering the annual Captive Nations Summit. It's part of the broader Captive Nations Week, which occurs each year during the third week of July. Certain groups in the United States angled to make it a national holiday for decades now.

8

Churton, 296

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An early institution to support Captive Nations Week was the Freedom Studies Center, an American political warfare academy covered at length in this work. Part of its mission was to create a class of political cadres to counter their Soviet counterparts. Fifty years after the Center shuttered its doors for good, its progeny were still carrying on this mission at the Captive Nations Summit. Central to the 2023 summit was the concept "conscious memory" and "memory politics." Words like "narrative" and "counternarrative" were in heavy rotation while the power of words and stories was emphasized throughout. I couldn't help but marvel how this could just as easily be a Rosicrucian Summit as an anticommunist one. Few have grasped the importance of story and narrative quite like Rosicrucians and their modern manifestations. Political and psychological warfare specialists are among the latter, as this work shall make clear.

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Chapter One:

Let There Be More Light

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"Active Measures" and Conspiracy Theories

Before we really dig into that dry Cold War history properly, I feel the need to address recent narratives concerning what is now referred to as "active measures." This expression has become chic in recent years because it's the Russian description for what we Yanks long called "political warfare." It was an evolution of disinformation ushered in by the Cold War.9 The modern concept of political warfare was first coined by United States (US) State Department diplomat George F. Keenan in 1947. Broadly speaking, it is the employment of all methods at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its objectives.10 Political warfare can be both overt and covert. As to the former, political alliances, economic measures, and "white" propaganda are examples. As for covert methods, some favorites include support of "friendly" foreign elements, "black" psychological warfare, and even sponsorship of militant underground resistance movements. The modern concept of "hybrid" warfare, popularized by the Russian Federation during the 2010s, is essentially a rebranding of Cold War-era political warfare.11 In Active Measures, political scientist Thomas Rid's illustrious history of disinformation, the 1950s is depicted as the height of US political warfare. In Rid's telling, this is the only time US intelligence services achieved parity with their Soviet counterparts in the art of disinformation. Specifically, he points to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station in Berlin as the spear tip of CIA political warfare efforts.12 At the time, Germany was divided into East and West blocs, one controlled by the Soviets, and the other by the US and their allies. Berlin, located deep in the heart of East Germany, was also divided into East and West blocs. As such, it was a hotspot for espionage throughout the Cold War, but most especially prior to the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. During the 1950s, several elaborate political warfare operations were run there involving everything from forgeries, front organizations, and even intervention in East German elections.13 Rid points to the 1959-1961 period as decisive in the decline of US political warfare efforts. Beginning in 1958, the CIA changed its covert action objectives. This resulted in a gradual curtailing of funds for the Berlin operations. By the early 1960s, the CIA had allegedly deescalated its political warfare efforts to the point of near insignificance compared to Soviet operations.14 In a clever sleight of hand, he chooses to 9

Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), 7. 10 Thomas Rid, Active Measures, 64. 11 Pronk, Danny. “The Return of Political Warfare: Strategic Monitor 2018-2019.” The Return of Political Warfare | Strategic Monitor 2018-2019, 2019. https://www.clingendael.org/pub/2018/strategic-monitor-2018-2019/thereturn-of-political-warfare/. 12 Rid, Active Measures, 11-12. 13 Rid, Active Measures, 80-82, etc. 14 Rid, 96-100; 321-23.

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focus only on the CIA's political warfare efforts. Further, the emphasis is on German operations targeting the Soviet bloc. As far as political warfare operations targeting the US population, Rid is largely mum on the matter. The same could be said of the military's role in such things. The Army contemplated nontraditional forms of combat --variously dubbed "political warfare," "psychological warfare," and "special warfare" --since the onset of the Cold War.15 By 1961, the military had a formal definition of political warfare: "Political warfare is a sustained effort... to seize, preserve, or extend power, against a defined ideological enemy, through all acts short of a shooting war by regular military forces, but not excluding the threat of such a war. Political warfare, in short, is warfare --not public relations... It embraces diverse forms of coercion and violence including strikes and riots, economic sanctions, subsidies for guerilla or proxy warfare and, when necessary, kidnapping or assassination of enemy elites."16 As we shall see later in this work, the military adoption of political warfare would have some staggering implications for its role in domestic American life. Those reverberations are still being felt to this day. So, do keep this in mind as we go forward. Another misconception we shall explore throughout this chapter and beyond is the use of conspiracy theories in political warfare. When this connection is addressed, it's often depicted as a purely Russian preoccupation. For instance, Rid dedicates an entire chapter to the Reagan-era Russian Committee for State Security (KGB) disinformation campaign linking the CIA to the spread of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).17 Elsewhere, Herculean efforts have been made to implicate Russia in the spread of conspiracy theories on social media.18 To be sure, the Russians have a rich history of utilizing conspiracy theories for political warfare. This tradition traces back to the Tsarist era, when the dreaded Okhrana (commonly referred to as the Tsarist secret police) sponsored the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion at the turn of the twentieth century.19 While the Americans were a bit late to the game, the utilization of conspiracy theories for political warfare purposes was being considered during the early stages of the Cold War. The early stages involved the effects of superstitions on society. The RAND Corporation (RAND) undertook a study and a report was issued in 1950. RAND is a think tank established in the late 1940s with the support of the US Air Force. As such, much of its work revolves around defense-related matters, and now 15

Michael McClintock, Instruments of State Craft: U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, Counterterrorism, 1940-1990 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 31. 16 Michael McClintock, Instruments of State Craft: U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, Counterterrorism, 1940-1990, 233-234. 17 Rid, Active Measures, 298-311 18 See, for instance, Samuel Woolley, The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth (New York: Public Affairs, 2020), 45-48. 19 Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, 2nd Edition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013), 4; Richard B. Spence, Trust No One: The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly (Los Angeles, CA: Feral House, 2002), 13; Rid, Active Measures, 103.

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encompasses the concerns of the entire US military. It's interesting to note that two years prior, in 1948, it was commissioned by the Air Force to study unidentified flying objects (UFOs).20 This commission was one of the first formal studies sanctioned by the national security establishment on the matter. Nor is this the only time RAND would weigh in on the UFO question. We'll encounter RAND time and again throughout this work and not by accident. Throughout the Cold War, and especially in the early days, RAND offered almost unparalleled freedom to academics in regards to what they could research. One commentator described it as being viewed internally as "a society of Platonists permitted to search for truth on behalf of the powerful."21 Even the title of the 1950 report betrays traces of this thinking. It was called "The Exploitation of Superstition for Purposes of Psychological Warfare." It noted: "susceptibility to such non-rational appeals causes considerable trouble for the secret police and other authorities in totalitarian states."22 The report goes on to list several instances in which the security services of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were overwhelmed investigating superstitions such as chain letters and astrological charts.23 Noted the report: "It seems likely that superstitions flourish in an atmosphere of tension and insecurity and that when daily experiences fail to provide sufficient reassurances and freedom from anxiety, when in fact factors making for anxiety and insecurity are multiplied, as they are in a time of war, an atmosphere exists which is conducive to the acceptance of superstitions."24 The same could be said of conspiracy theories. During the postwar years, they gained traction outside of fringe circles due to the ongoing wave of political scandals starting with JFK's assassination in 1963, and concluding with the October Surprise of 1980. During this 17-year period, the nation witnessed the disastrous foray into Vietnam and the subsequent defeat; the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), and Malcolm X; the onset of the War on Drugs; revelations of mass surveillance used against a variety of groups; the Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation; and the nation's first major economic downturn during the postwar years, personified by the stagflation of the Carter years. There was certainly enough tension to go around. It manifested in various ways, such as the wave of

20

Michael Swords and Robert Powell, UFOs and Government: A Historic Inquiry (San Antonio: Anomalist Books, 2012), 58-59, 492-493. 21 Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot" in The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot: Studies in the Relationship between Social Science and Practical Politics, edited by Irving Louis Horowitz (Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1967), 7. RAND was originally conceived of as a "brain factory" for the Air Force, applying both rigorous scientific methods and the emerging "science" of game theory to US nuclear strategy. In the early decades of the Cold War, it was a haven for eccentric genius. Analysts had considerable leeway in choosing their research projects. The Santa Monica-based headquarters was never closed, enabling employees to work odd hours. Few other institutions, public or private, allowed analysts to set their own hours and what subjects they could research. See Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 133, etc. 22 Jean M. Hungerford, " The Exploitation of Superstition for Purposes of Psychological Warfare" (ASTIA Document # ATI 210637, RAND Corporation, 1950), 5. 23 Jean M. Hungerford, " The Exploitation of Superstition for Purposes of Psychological Warfare," 4-12. 24 Hungerford, " The Exploitation of Superstition for Purposes of Psychological Warfare," 22.

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popular, conspiracy-driven, paranoid thrillers of the 1970s (i.e. The Parallax View, The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor, etc.).25 The most recent wave has been driven by a similar litany of controversies. Since 2000, the United States endured the highly contested presidential election of that year; the 2001 terror attacks (including not just 9/11, but also the anthrax attacks and the DC Sniper), the Patriot Act and the invasion of Afghanistan; the 2003 invasion of Iraq; the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent "long recession"; the Panama Papers and WikiLeaks; and the scandals involving the NXIVM cult and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Combine this with an economy that's been fragile at best throughout the twenty-first century, and one is left with a nation where faith in public institutions are at historic lows across the board.26 Food for thought as we go forward, For now, let us briefly return to the RAND report on superstitions and psychological warfare. At the onset, it noted that the most common forms of non-rational appeals to manifest during times of tension were: prophecies; trust in protective devices, such as charms or amulets; "fringe" or "radical" religions; belief in magical phenomena, miracles, etc.; and fatalism, especially in regards to one's own chances.27 Conspiracy theories, with their pessimism and dystopian musings; their magical thinking; and religious zeal, encompass all these things. Clearly, the US national security state acted on these findings. One aspect of the CIA's celebrated Berlin political warfare operations Rid singles out is the use of astrology by the late 1950s. The Berlin station sponsored the publication of Horizont, a metaphysical magazine designed as "a direct attack on advocates of Moscow Communism through the vehicle of astrological analysis and prophecy." Personalized horoscopes were even mailed to officials in East Germany's Ministry of State Security and selected members of the ruling Socialist party. Often, they came in the form of harassment letters.28 This is certainly

25

See, for instance, Jesse Walker, The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory (New York: Harper Perennial, 2014), 157-178. 26 Gallup. “Confidence in Institutions.” Gallup.com. Gallup, August 13, 2021. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx. Confidence in public institutions has not risen above 50% since 2010. That's still a little better than the government's rating. When the National Election Study began asking Americans about their trust in government in 1958, three-fourths of country trusted government. By 1966 it had fallen to 65%, while just 26% of the country supported the government by 1980. Support rose again throughout that decade, continuing into the early 1990s. After a dip in the middle of the decade, it rose again by the late 1990s and reached a three decade high after 9/11 (with a whopping 49% of the country supporting the gov't). It's been pretty much downhill since then. Throughout the '10s, support for the government routinely dipped into the teens. See Pew Research Center. “Public Trust in Government: 1958-2021.” Pew Research Center - U.S. Politics & Policy. Pew Research Center, May 28, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/05/17/public-trust-in-government-1958-2021/. Traditional media is not fairing much better either. Recent polls suggest less than half of the nation trust the legacy media. See Meek, Andy. “Fewer Americans than Ever before Trust the Mainstream Media.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, February 20, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2021/02/20/fewer-americans-than-ever-before-trust-themainstream-media/?sh=f00b167282af. 27 Jean M. Hungerford, " The Exploitation of Superstition for Purposes of Psychological Warfare," 5. 28 Rid, Active Measures, 90-92.

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in line with suggestions in the RAND report concerning the use of astrology for psychological warfare purposes. There are indications the US national security state went even further through that looking glass prior to the Berlin operations. In August and November 1952, the enigmatic figure of Dr. Andrija Puharich briefed US Army psychological warfare officers on extrasensory perception (ESP). Shortly thereafter, Puharich was reactivated by the Army. During January 1953, he delivered a classified briefing on ESP to the Medical Field Service School of the US Air Force in San Antonio. In February, Puharich was at the Pentagon. There, he addressed the Advisory Group on Psychological Warfare and Unconventional Warfare.29 These meetings have long fascinated a certain type of researcher dealing in woo-woo. Were they a crucial point in the murky history of psychics at the service of the national security state? Puharich has been cited as the grandfather of the later CIA/Pentagon programs involving "remote viewing."30 That shall be discussed further in Chapter Four. For now, let us consider Puharich's claims on these matters. To wit, they revolved around involvement in "Project Penguin," initiated by the Navy in 1948 to research psychic phenomena (psi). But no evidence of such a program existing has ever emerged.31 However, the Navy launched the mysterious Project Pelican in 1948. Very little is known about it, but what has come out indicates a fullblown Clockwork Orange-style procedure. Would-be assassins were allegedly strapped into chairs, eyes clamped open, and shown a series of ultra-violent films to desensitize them to human suffering.32 Pelican potentially served as a basis for Project Bluebird,33 which became ARTICHOKE (it should be emphasized that Bluebird/ARTICHOKE was a joint CIA/Pentagon project) several years later. It is also relevant to note that individuals subjected to this procedure were being "groomed" for work as assassins or "ordinary

29

Andrija Puharich, The Sacred Mushroom: Key to the Door of Eternity (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc, 1974), 10-12; H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2009), 53; Annie Jacobson, Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations Into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017), 36-37, 44. Albareli reports the San Antonio meeting as occurring after the DC presentation. Jacobson does not mention Puharich's second presentation to the Pentagon in November 1953. Rather, she placed it in November 1952. Puharich himself also placed it in 1952. . 30 See, for instance, Annie Jacobson, Phenomena, 40-54. 31 Peter Levenda, Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft Book I: The Nine (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2005), 240. 32 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 345-347. Pelican, though it was not named, was first revealed to the public prior to the MK-ULTRA revelations of 1977. In 1975 journalist Peter Watson first reported the Clockwork Orange-style methods being used by Pelican in the London Sunday Times. He later elaborated on this earlier report in his book War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1978), 248250. Pelican was first referenced by name in David C. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980). From there, the matter largely rested until the publication of Albarelli's A Terrible Mistake in 2009. The sparring references to Pelican therein constitute the most in-depth account of it published thus far. 33 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 202.

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commando" units.34 This implies that, at least by the 1970s, this aspect of Pelican was principally used on special operations forces (SOFs). This is a crucial point, as we shall see in a moment. Is this what Puharich actually meant when he referred to "Project Penguin"? Regardless, ARTICHOKE had formally taken an interest in his research by 1953, just as Puharich was brought into the Army. That same year, he lectured senior military and intelligence officers on the uses of ESP in psychological warfare on separate occasions. Not long afterward, Puharich found support from ARTICHOKE's Morse Allen.35 By late 1953, he was conducting parapsychological research at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Armour Research Foundation(IITRI), which was being monitored by both ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA.36 The IITRI facility will show up again in this chapter, so do keep it in mind. Puharich wasn't the only doctor interested in parapsychology consulting with ARTICHOKE either. Another was the psychologist and Rhodes scholar George Estabrooks (1895-1973). Estabrooks is most remembered now for his bold claims regarding hypnosis. At one point, he declared: "I can hypnotize a man, without his knowledge or consent, into committing treason against the United States." In 1971, he alleged that he had developed "hypnotic couriers" on behalf of the military during WWII. Estabrooks also had a keen interest in telepathy and was involved with the Boston Society for Psychical Research.37 ARTICHOKE looked at the work being done in academia on parapsychology. During the mid-twentieth century, the bulk of such research was done by Dr. J.B. Rhine of Duke University's storied Parapsychology Laboratory in North Carolina. ARTICHOKE scrutinized these findings.38 More ominously, during this same timeframe, the CIA initiated a program involving "the search for and development of exceptionally gifted individuals who can approximate perfect success in ESP performance." The Office of Security (OS), which ran ARTICHOKE, was urged to follow "all leads on individuals reported to have true clairvoyant powers."39

34

Peter Watson, War on the Mind, 38, 248-250. H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2013), 43. 36 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 260-261; Ben Robinson, The Magician: John Mulholland's Secret Life, 2nd Ed. (selfpub., www.lynrary.com, 2010), 177-179. 37 Albarelli Jr, A Terrible Mistake, 280-281. 38 Albarelli Jr, A Terrible Mistake, 264; Jacobsen, Phenomena, 42-44. Jacobsen lists Rhine's work as being for the Department of Defense. ARTICHOKE was a joint CIA/Pentagon project, but she does not specify if there was an ARTICHOKE connection. Rhine (1895-1980) was a botanist who had received his master's degree from the University of Chicago. Rhine was so impressed with a lecture given by the author Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes and devoted Spiritualist) exulting the scientific proof for communication with the dead that he decided to try his hand at it. This led to a lifelong obsession with a host of arcane interests, including ESP, which contributed a considerable amount of academic research on. He founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology in an attempt to apply scientific legitimacy to the field. Rhine was famous for his use of "Zener cards" (which look like playing cards, but with fairly basic shapes like circles and squares on one side) to test for esp. This method was parodied during one of the early scenes in the original Ghostbusters film involving the Bill Murphy character and two grad students. 39 Martin A Lee & Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond (New York: Grove Press, 1985), 18n. It would be interesting to know if this were in any way related to the ARTICHOKE work based upon Puharich's research. It involved "young girls and teenagers for mostly unknown objectives apparently related to the CIA's interest in hypnosis, sleight-of-hand, and telekinesis" (Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 4235

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At this point a word must be said concerning the more storied Project MKULTRA. Much ink has been spilled over on the subject and much of it lousy research at best, if not outright disinformation. In brief: the genesis of what became MK-ULTRA began in 1952, but was not officially launched until 1953. Contrary to what has been widely reported, ARTICHOKE was never "rolled" into MK-ULTRA. ARTICHOKE grew out of the earlier Project Bluebird, launched around 1949, and became ARTICHOKE in 1951.40 ARTICHOKE continued to run concurrently with MK-ULTRA until 1963, when both programs were wound down and replaced by successor programs.41 Sidney Gottlieb, who oversaw MK-ULTRA, never had any control over ARTICHOKE, nor was it even a part of his Technical Services Staff, which housed MK-ULTRA. Rather, ARTICHOKE resided in the CIA's mysterious Office of Security.42 With all of that out of the way, it can be said with confidence that MK-ULTRA did investigate hypnosis, psychedelics, and a host of other strange topics, including the occult and UFOs. The same was true of ARTICHOKE, and potentially a later program, called MK-OFTEN.43 MK-ULTRA also explored parapsychology, but not to the extent of the rival ARTICHOKE program. Indeed, MK-ULTRA appears to have reigned in many of the supernatural excesses of ARTICHOKE.44 Still, it occasionally dipped its toe in. At one point, the MK-ULTRA folks analyzed the writings of psychic Edgar Cayce, the so-called "Sleeping Prophet." They also followed the work of Martin Ebon, a longtime chronicler of parapsychological research.45 To return to Puharich and his early work on parapsychology for the national security state: almost universally overlooked by researchers is its connection to psychological warfare. Another point totally missed is the military body that initially considered Puharich's work for psychological operations. It was a then-obscure section of the Army's Directorate of Operations, Plans, Training, and Force Protection,

43). During the 1970s, Puharich ran a private project out of his Ossining, New York country estate revolving around the "Space Kids." Ranging from the ages of nine to the late teens, these kids supposedly possessed unique psychic powers Puharich was training them to use. See Steven Levy, The Unicorn's Secrets: Murder in the Age of Aquarius (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1988), 166-167. The launching of the Space Kids appears to have coincided with the winding down of ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA. 40 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination, 168-169. 41 Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 171. 42 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 233. 43 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 251-272. By far the two best works on the CIA's behavioral modification research can be found in the previously cited works by H.P. Albarelli Jr. Other compelling accounts can be found in John Mark's The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate"(New York: Norton, W.W. Norton & Company, 1979); Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain's Acid Dreams The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond (New York: Grove Press, 1985, 1992); and David Black's Acid: A New Secret History of LSD (London: Vision, 1998, 2001). Another popular source is Gordon Thomas's Journey Into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse (New York: Bantam Books, 1989). However, Albarelli ably demonstrated in A Terrible Mistake that Thomas was prone to embellishments if not outright fabrications (670-674). 44 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 263. 45 ibid, 264-265.

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International Affairs and Security Cooperation (G3)46 called "The Office of the Chief Psychological Warfare," or the OCPW. Puharich had two 1952 engagements with this outfit involving psywar, one in the summer and one in November.47 Puharich was reactivated into the Army by January 1953. He met with Air Force doctors that month, and addressed the Pentagon's Advisory Group on Psychological Warfare and Unconventional Warfare in February, shortly before formally re-joining the Army.48 The lineages of both the OCPW and the Advisory Group are noteworthy. The former was launched in 1951, in the midst of the Korean War. Despite the outfit's name, the OCPW also oversaw US Army special operations forces and its psywar officers. In fact, the OCPW is who gave birth to the US Army Special Forces (better known as the Green Berets) and consolidated special operations functions at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In other words, the OCPW is the precursor to the modern-day US Army Special Operations Command.49 As for the "Advisory Group on Psychological Warfare and Unconventional Warfare," this appears to have originated as a subcommittee set up by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to liaise with the CIA on covert operations during the late 1940s.50 By 1951, all covert operations being carried out by the US national security state theoretically fell under the purview of the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB). Bringing together the CIA director, an Undersecretary of State, a Deputy Secretary of Defense, and a representative from the JCS serving as the body's military advisor, the PSB was housed within the National Security Council (NSC). In addition to coordinating all government bodies engaged in psychological warfare and

46

While psychological warfare is typically viewed as an intelligence function, the US Military does not classify it as such. Virtually all military intelligence functions fall under the purview of G2, the intelligence section. Psychological warfare is carried out by G3, which concerns itself with operations. From the early postwar years, psychological warfare was viewed as "primarily operational in nature and does not readily fall within the scope of the Intelligence Division." See Alfred H. Paddock. Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, 2nd ed. (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 44. 47 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena: The Secret History of the US Government's Investigation Into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis, 36-37. 48 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 44; Andrija Puharich, The Sacred Mushroom: Key to the Door of Eternity (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc, 1974),10-12. Interestingly, Puharich claims that it was an officer who headed the OCPW's research branch that initially approached him. Puharich later addressed the OCPW's research branch proper in November at the Pentagon. Puharich claims they were interested in his work with Faraday cages, which he was then experimenting with. Puharich claims the Army requested that he rejoin the active duty the day after the meeting. 49 Alfred H. Paddock. Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, 2nd ed., 1, etc. Joy Rohde, Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research during the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 13-14, 20-21, etc. The lineage of the Army Special Operations Command is every bit as discombobulated as all aspects of US special operations. By the late 1950s, the OCPW had been rechristened the Office of the Chief of Special Warfare (Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 155). Steps were formally taken by General Edward Meyer to consolidate all Army special operations under a unified command during 1982. See William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command" in Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Legislation: Why It Was Passed and Have the Voids Been Filled? (Carlisle, PA: United States Army War College Press, 1991), 5. It wasn't until 1989 that USASOC formally came into being. 50 Alfred H. Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 70.

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managing public perception, the PBS also oversaw unconventional warfare and special operations.51 In other words, the group Puharich addressed was part of the PSB, probably the Department of Defense (DoD) component assigned to covert operations. By 1953, not long after Puharich's meeting, one of many reorganizations of the national security state began. The functions of the PSB were transferred to Eisnerhower's freshly minted Operations Coordinating Body (OCB), also housed within the NSC.52 Shortly before this, all of the DoD's functions on the PBS were transferred to the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for the Office of Special Operations (OSO) in the Pentagon.53 This is the predecessor to the modern-day Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD [SO/LIC]). This post in the Office of the Secretary of Defense directly oversees the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the body responsible for all US SOFs . In the twenty-first century, the ASD (SO/LIC), along with SOCOM, have become major players in the US national security state. We shall encounter special operators time and again throughout this work. The OG54 Office of Special Operations (OSO) was a powerful body in its day, one we shall explore later in this chapter. And that brings up one final point that needs to be made. Civilians often consider psychological warfare to be purely an intelligence function. But in much of the US military, especially the Army, psywar is principally a component of special operations, not intelligence. Psywar officers train at Fort Bragg, the heart of the US special operations community, and not an intelligence command, for a reason: Virtually all major military psychological warfare units fall under the purview of SOCOM and not the litany of intelligence services the Pentagon houses. I bring this to the reader's attention as we shall frequently encounter special operators engaged in psychological operations throughout this work. This is not an aspect of special operations that gets much attention and for good reason, as we shall see. But returning to Puharich for a moment. Interestingly, on December 31, 1952, New Year's Eve, he hosted what is sometimes referred to as "the Séance that Changed the World." It was carried out in Maine, by the Round Table Foundation. This was a group Puharich established during the late 1940s to explore ESP 51

Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), 67-68; Alfred H. Paddock, Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 98, 138. 52 Annie Jacobson, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 115. 53 Keyes, Roger M. “152. Memorandum From the Deputy Secretary of Defense: Reorganization—Office of Special Operations, Office of the Secretary of Defense.” U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, July 15, 1953. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d152; Michael McClintock, Instruments of State Craft: U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, Counterterrorism, 1940-1990 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 474n. 64. The memorandum notes: "All functions formerly assigned to the Deputy for Psychological Policy and to the Office of Psychological Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, are hereby assigned to the Office of Special Operations; the Office of Psychological Policy is therefore abolished; and personnel thereof assigned to the Office of Special Operations." Paddock indicates that the subcommittees on unconventional and psychological warfare were part of a broader psychological detachment in the Pentagon. Further, as most military psychological operations to this day still fall under the purview of the Office of Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflicts (SO/LIC), the successor to the Office of Special Operations (OSO), it is logical to assume the original OSO would have had the same functions. As we shall see, it had several noteworthy psywar specialists among its ranks. 54 Or "original gangster," as the kids say.

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and the paranormal. We'll return to it later. For now, the storied séance. It involved Puharich, a lab assistant named Hank Jackson and a Hindu scholar known to posterity as Dr. DG Vinod. During the session, Vinod allegedly channeled entities known as The Nine. In Ancient Egypt, they were known as the Grand Ennead, the pantheon worshipped at Heliopolis since the Old Kingdom. At some point, they revealed to Puharich they were actually extraterrestrial/interdimensional/artificial (it changed over the years)intelligences currently residing in outer space.55 Throughout the Cold War, The Nine turned up time again in the damndest places. They have links to the John F. Kennedy (JFK) assassination and Watergate; to the writers' room of the original Star Trek (to say nothing of latter incarnations such as Deep Space Nine....); the legendary Stanford Research Institute parapsychological experiments; and so much more. Hence, the whole "Séance that Changed the World" rap. But the maiden contact with The Nine happened at an interesting time in Puharich's life: in between several noteworthy meetings with military psychological warfare officers. Puharich briefed figures linked to the OCPW in August and November 1952 (this happened a little over a month before the séance) and with the Advisory Group in February 1953. What's more, Puharich was reactivated into the Army between the November 1952 and February 1953 briefings, during his purported séance. With all of this in mind, the possible links between Puharich and Project Pelican become all the more compelling. Much of Puharich's early sponsorship within the national security state appears to have derived from the SOFs, of which Pelican was intimately entwined by the mid-1970s. Do The Nine constitute an early psychological operation utilizing conspiracy theory and mythos? In fairness, the public at large wasn't made aware of The Nine until the mid-1970s, with the publication of Puharich's Uri. And it really wouldn't be until the late 1990s that the extent of the saga would be known. On the other hand, the potential target of The Nine initially was far more exclusive than John Q. Public. We'll consider that in relation to the circle around Puharich later. Is this the true allure mythos had for Cold War-era psy officers in the Pentagon and intelligence community? And was research into psychological warfare a significant concern of programs such as ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA? These are questions few have bothered to ask. And that's a pity, because it's the key to understanding the national security state's decades-spanning obsession with ESP, UFOs, and all things woo-woo. I shall elaborate on this a little later. For now, a little unpacking is required for the Bircher wing of conspiritainment. Our first step in this journey revolves around a mysterious and long-forgotten Cold War-era think tank.

55

For Puharich's account of The Nine, see Andrija Puharich, Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller (New York: Anchor Press, 1974). Parts of the saga are alluded to in The Sacred Mushroom as well. The only full length account of this psychodrama currently available is Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, The Stargate Conspiracy: The Truth About Extraterrestrial Life and the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt (New York: Berkeley Book, 1999). While the raw data in this work is useful, it is on the whole a highly sensational and dated account. A slightly better overview can be found in the first book of Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces trilogy. It probably goes without saying, but a truly scholarly account of these doings has yet to be written.

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The ASC, MK-ULTRA, and Political Warfare

The American Security Council (ASC)56 originates in Chicago's Mid-American Research Library, established in 1955 by a group of former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents headed by John Fisher .57 A year later, it became the American Security Council. Fisher would go on to become the longtime chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the ASC, holding these posts from 1955 till 2002.58 Behind Fisher and the rest of his G-men was a group of far-right businessmen, mostly based out of the Chicago area. Reportedly, the major visionary behind what became the ASC was General Robert E. Wood, the former chairman of Sears Roebuck. 59 Wood was a leading figure in the pre-WWII isolationist America First Committee, along with another early ASC backer, textile magnate William Regnery.60 During this same timeframe, Wood was also a director for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a powerful and little-addressed organization that we shall explore further in just a moment. Wood was the first executive in retail to join NAM in nearly a decade, giving him some degree of influence when promoting his isolationist stance.61

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The ASC still exists today as the American Security Council Foundation, but is largely a shadow of its former self. Sadly, there has never been a full length work on this mysterious organization. It is featured at length in works such as William Turner, Power on the Right (Berkeley, CA: Ramparts Press, 1971), 199-214; Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1983), 223-227; Thomas Bodenheimer & Robert Gould, Rollback! Right-wing Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1989); Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1991) 29-57, etc; Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States (New York: The Guilford Press, 1995), 46-51. There is also the ASC's official history compiled from its records, John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation" (Wayback Machine, captured 12/07/12, https://web.archive.org/web/20121207230636/http://www.ascfusa.org/app/webroot/files/fckfiles/HISTORY%20 MILESTONES.pdf) 57 Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 3-4; Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States , 46; William Turner, Power on the Right, 199. 58 John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 1. 59 John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 3; Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States,47; Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 31; William Turner, Power on the Right, 200. 60 Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, 47; Bellant, 31. William Turner (Power on the Right, 200) lists another America First Committee luminary, publisher Colonel Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, as another co-founder of the ASC. However, McCormick died on April 1, 1955, literally the day after the first incarnation of the ASC was incorporated. Preliminary work had begun in 1954 (Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 3-4), so the possibility remains that McCormick may have played an early role. 61 Charlie Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War: How the National Association of Manufacturers Planned to Restore American Free Enterprise, 1939-1948 (London: Palgrave, 2020), 49.

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From its inception, the ASC was a private intelligence network. Its initial purpose was to compile dossiers on alleged American communists and other "subversives." By 1958 alone, it reportedly had a million names in its files. At its peak, the dossiers contained up to seven million names. These files were shared with the ASC's corporate donors, largely consisting of major defense contractors like Lockheed, General Dynamics, and Motorola.62 Unsurprisingly, the ASC has been accused of running a "blacklisting" service for corporations deemed vital to the national defense.63 While dossiers would long remain the backbone of the ASC, it soon became a full-blown lobby group for the emerging defense establishment. One researcher went so far to label it "the soul if not the very heart of the military-industrial complex."64 But even before its more conventional lobbying efforts began, leading figures behind it were engaged in some curious activities concurrent to its conception. Also in 1955, Wood and Fisher became entwined in the National Military-Industrial Conferences (NMIC), a series of annual meetings held between 1955-1961. These conferences attracted leading figures in the military and industry to forge strategies for confronting the growing communist threat and to promote "education" concerning such matters.65 The NIMC's official history notes that "thirty-five professional and technical societies, industrial and trade associations, Government departments and agencies, educational institutions, and veterans' groups and the Armed Forces joined hands with the Chicago Chapter of The Society of American Military Engineers to co-sponsor the annual National Military Industrial Conference."66 From the beginning, engineers would be well represented at the NMICs. The forward from the proceedings of the maiden 1955 conference notes that those gathered: "... gave of their time and effort to come to the Military Industrial Conference at Chicago because they had become aware, in the course of their experience, that there is an acute shortage existing, and a greater shortage predicted, of technical and scientific manpower."67 These concerns were being raised two years prior to the launch of Sputnik, which touched off concerns of a "brain gap" between the Soviet Union and US. Fortunately, the NIMC had already been considering how to "educate" the public about this issue for two years prior.68 Amidst the

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John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 3-4; Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 46-47); Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 32; William Turner, Power on the Right, 200-202. 63 Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 32; Turner, 202. 64 Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, 209. 65 Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 38-39; Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 47; Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party ,33. 66 George B. de Huszar (ed.), "Appendix: Institute for American Strategy." In National Strategy in an Age of Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958), 275-276. 67 Lenox B. Lohr, 1955. "Forward." In Military Industrial Conference Proceedings of the Papers and Discussions: How Can Our Technical Manpower be Best Utilized in the Interest of Our National Welfare, Chicago, Il, 1955, 1. 68 No less a figure than storied Army Corps of Engineers figure General Leslie R. Groves, the WWII head of the Manhattan Project, contributed to the paper "Educating America for the Atomic Age." Military Industrial Conference Proceedings of the Papers and Discussions: How Can Our Technical Manpower be Best Utilized in the Interest of Our National Welfare, Chicago, Il, 1955, 6.

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rolls of academics, scientists and engineers that comprised the first NMIC Committee, one name stands out on the education front: General Lucius D Clay.69 Clay is best remembered now as a top Eisenhower deputy during WWII, and later, as the military governor of Occupied Germany. Upon retiring from the Army in 1950, he took up a new struggle: the Cultural Cold War with the Soviet Union. This led Clay, in 1953, to assume leadership of the Crusade for Freedom (CFF). The CFF was set up by the CIA via the National Committee for a Free Europe. During its heyday, it served as a funding arm for Radio Free Europe, various Free Europe exile communities and Radio Liberation from Bolshevikism. Or so the story went.70 The CIA gifted the CFF with a $180,000 grant at its founding and went on to pour over $5 million into it over the next five years. This constituted more money spent by Truman and Dewey combined in the 1948 US Presidential election. In other words, this propaganda effort had serious financial resources behind it. And Clay was the group's figurehead.71 At the forefront of organizing the NMICs was the enigmatic Daniel A. Sullivan, the Secretary-Treasurer of the Society of American Military Engineers at the time of the conferences.72 But beyond this, Sullivan also had longstanding links to the Armour Research Foundation, as did the Conferences themselves. Armour, along with its parent body the Illinois Institute of Technology, were among the official NMIC sponsors since at least 1957.73 For our purposes here, it's also interesting to note the participation of the powerful industrial lobby group known as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in the NMICs.74 Long overlooked by scholars of American conservatism, NAM is one of the oldest and most powerful groups of the right. It was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 22, 1895, at the Odd Fellows Temple. 75 While the body's founding is credited to Cincinnati businessman Thomas P. Egan, also NAM's first chairman, others have described it as partly the brainchild of future president William McKinley and his fixer, the wealthy Ohio businessman Mark Hanna. While nominally established to advocate for high tariffs on imports, McKinley (who delivered 69

Leverett S. Lyon. 1955. "Summary of Conference." In Military Industrial Conference Proceedings of the Papers and Discussions: How Can Our Technical Manpower be Best Utilized in the Interest of Our National Welfare, Chicago, Il, 1955, 90. 70 Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruit of Nazis and Its Effect on the Cold War (New York: Weidenfeld & Bicolson, 1988), 217-219; Francis Stonor Saunders. Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta Books, 1999), 129-137. 71 Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruit of Nazis and Its Effect on the Cold War, 227-228; Francis Stonor Saunders. Who Paid the Piper?, 130. 72 Lenox B. Lohr. 1957. "Address of Welcome." In Military Industrial Conference Proceedings of the Papers and Discussions: The Armed Forces, Industry, Scientists, Engineers, Government, Educators in Convocation on Problems of Engineering Total Peace, Chicago, Il, 1957, 3. 73 "Sponsors," In Military Industrial Conference Proceedings of the Papers and Discussions: The Armed Forces, Industry, Scientists, Engineers, Government, Educators in Convocation on Problems of Engineering Total Peace, I. 74 Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 35. NAM's sponsorship also dates to at least 1957. See "Sponsors," In Military Industrial Conference Proceedings of the Papers and Discussions: The Armed Forces, Industry, Scientists, Engineers, Government, Educators in Convocation on Problems of Engineering Total Peace, I. 75 Williams, A. (2019, January 18). Founding of the Nam and William McKinley. Hagley. Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.hagley.org/research/programs/nam-project-news/founding-nam-and-william-mckinley

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the keynote address at the Odd Fellows Temple during the founding) and Hanna used it as a vehicle to generate support from small and medium-sized southern manufacturers for the looming 1896 presidential election. It worked, with McKinley defeating early populist William Jennings Bryan.76 While initially advocating protectionism in trade, NAM totally reversed course by the 1920s. It began to evangelize for free trade while embracing fanatical anti-labor positions. This included opposition to higher wages and better working conditions. Predictably, it also took a stand against income taxes. During the 1950s, NAM advocated a plan to gradually reduce both corporate and personal income taxes to a rate of 35 percent. They wanted the plan adopted in five years. It took significantly longer than that, but by 2020 the marginal tax nearly stood at the 35 figure.77 For our purposes here, NAM's efforts in public relations are most noteworthy. It was a major preoccupation of the group from early in the game. In 1903 NAM president David M. Parry proclaimed the "chief work" of the group "is an educational one --the molding of public opinion." NAM leaders were convinced that "public opinion is the guiding force in the nation today." It was a belief the group would cling to steadfastly throughout the 20th century.78 Lobbying was NAM's preferred form of persuasion during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1909, they organized the National Council for Industrial Defense (NCID) to coordinate these efforts at a local level. NAM and the NCID provided financing and foot soldiers for politicians sympathetic to industry. In a pinch, the NCID could also organize strikebreakers for besieged factories. Elsewhere, NAM and the NDIC raised money to oppose legislation and to pay off labor-friendly politicians. Eventually, in 1913, these activities were exposed in what became known as the "Mulhall scandal." Congressional investigations unfolded and as details were revealed, outrage set in. The New York World described NAM's acts as "terrorism."79 A subtler approach was needed. Fortunately, the seeds were already laid. Several of these approaches became especially influential among right-wing groups in the post-war year, most notably the letterwriting campaign. NAM was also quick to realize the importance of the press and radio. They established their own newsletter, issued pamphlets, and even made early use of motion pictures to promote their speaker's bureau. They used rotary clubs, churches, schools, trade conventions and political campaigns to 76

Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2021), 170; Jennifer A. Delton, The Industrialists: How the National Association of Manufacturers Shaped American Capitalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2020), 23-24; 26n26; Charlie Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War: How the National Association of Manufacturers Planned to Restore American Free Enterprise, 1939-1948 (London: Palgrave, 2020), 24, 31. It should be noted that Denton disputes the role NAM played in McKinley's election, noting there's no hard evidence for it as a McKinley political group. Whitham does suggest the group was mobilized to get McKinley elected. 77 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism, 361. For more on NAM's complex relationship with trade during the interwar years, see Jennifer A. Delton, The Industrialist, 39-61. For more on NAM's approach to labor and unions during that time, see Jennifer A. Delton, The Industrialists, 62-106. 78 Charlie Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War, 31; Delton, The Industrialists, 72. 79 Delton, The Industrialists, 74-80; Charlie Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War, 31

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spread their message. By the 1920s it had crystallized into a battle cry against the forces of collectivization as personified by organized labor. 80 Possibly one of the most significant efforts was undertaken by NAM president David Perry: he wrote an early science fiction novel to promote NAM's worldview. In 1906, it was issued as The Scarlet Empire and remained in print for much of the twentieth century. It was a dystopian novel centered on the horrors of an undersea civilization organized on socialist principles.81 Another novel approach involved the creation of the National Industrial Conference Board in 1918. This proto-think tank collected and analyzed data on employee relations, labor supply, safety, production and other areas of concern to generate the most effective lobbying and "best practices."82 This appears to be an early form of data mining, which is significant to this story. NAM's obsession with public relations really went into overdrive with the election of FDR in 1932. By 1934, NAM saw itself engaged in a "war of ideas and opinions." The image of capitalism and businessmen took a beating during the Great Depression. To reverse course, NAM invigorated a public relations arm dubbed National Industrial Information Committee. Its first chair was J. Howard Pew of the wealthy Pennsylvania dynasty behind Sun Oil.83 During the Cold War, Pew became one of the major backers of the modern conservative movement, most notably its Christian right component.84 By then, he already had a long history of supporting right-wing pressure groups, most notably the American Liberty League. It was founded in 1934 to save American freedoms from "the Communist-inspired New Deal." Staunchly anti-FDR, it hoped to unseat him during the 1936 election. Individual members were prone to extremism while funding was channeled to antiSemitic groups at times. This led to the group being accused of fascist plotting. Nor was the ALL the only far-right group Pew sponsored during this era. Another noteworthy outfit was the Minute Men and Women, accused of firing tear gas at union organizers during the 1937 Apex Hosiery strike.85 Under Pew's capable hands, major public relations expenses grew from 7 percent of NAM's spending to 55 percent between 1934 and 1937. Soon newspapers, magazines, billboards, pamphlets, radio shows, motion pictures, and film strips pushed NAM's agenda.86 By the 1940s, NAM was actively involved in producing movies to push its message. Elsewhere, it had radio productions broadcast on over 300 stations 80

Charlie Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War, 32; Delton, The Industrialists. Delton, The Industrialists, 72-73. 82 Delton, The Industrialists, 84-87. 83 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 170. 84 Pew supporter of early Cold War era Christian right groups such as the National Council of Churches, the Christian Freedom Foundation, and James W. Fifield's Spiritual Mobilization movement. The latter was especially influential on the modern day Christian right. See J. Michael Bennett, Two Masters and Two Gospels Volume I: The Teachings of Jesus Vs. the "Leaven of the Pharisees" in Talk Radio and Cable News (Hendersonville, TN: Akribos Press, 2020), 255, etc. 85 Philip Jenkins, Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925-1950 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 59-60. 86 Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War, 34-35; Delton, The Industrialists, 108-110. 81

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to all forty-eight states.87 In 1945 alone, it broadcast 1,350 radio hours over networks and local stations; supplied "Briefs for Broadcasters" to over 800 stations; under the banner "Industrial Press Services" it issued over 5,000 small weekly and daily newspapers to a staggering 69 million people; and it issued over a million booklets, most to schools and colleges.88 Nor did these efforts let up after FDR's death and the end of WWII. By 1947, NAM ads appeared in 265 papers across the nation while pamphlets and leaflets issued by the group numbered in the millions. In 1950, NAM launched Industry on Parade, a $1.5 million radio show with its own singers and full-time debaters. It even issued its own comic books in which Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Marx appeared as antagonists of business. Future conspiracy titan Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society (JBS), cut his teeth working on NAM's PR efforts during this era.89 We shall return to NAM and the JBS in a future chapter, so do keep them in mind. But before moving along, it's worth briefly noting two other curious outfits NAM members sponsored. One was the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS). A kind of proto-Cato Institute, the MPS was instrumental in reviving classical liberal economics favored by the Austrian school in postwar years. In the US, this served as a cornerstone for libertarianism, as classical liberalism is referred to here. MPS was founded by Friedrich Hayek, who's The Road to Serfdom (1944) fueled the postwar libertarian movement. NAM was instrumental in promoting Serfdom in the US and had deep ties to the MPS from the beginning. Storied Austrian school economist Ludwig Von Mises, another early MPS member, had consulted for NAM since the WWI era. Leading NAM figures such as Pew, Jasper Crane, B.E. Hutchinson, and William Grede all became members and financial contributors to the early MPS.90 Even more curious was its support of Robert LeFevre's Freedom School. Founded in 1956 in Larkspur, Colorado, LeFevre and his school have had a profound, and almost entirely overlooked influence, on both the modern libertarian movement as well as the 1960s counterculture and the modern anarchist movement. Indeed, it was arguably a crucial transformation point between the Bircher counterculture of the early 1960s to the hippies that dominated the classic counterculture we all know and love. This will be addressed more in later chapters. For now, it should be noted that the school was funded by leading NAM figures such as former directors Robert Gaylord and William Grede; as well as textile magnate and longtime far-right sugar daddy Roger Milliken; and a young Charles Koch. A scholarship for the school was even offered by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored all of the National Military-Industrial

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Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War, 178-180. Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War, 257. 89 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 170-171. 90 Delton, The Industrialists, 188-189; Whitham, Corporate Conservatives Go to War, 315. For more on the rise of the modern libertarian movement, the deep influence the MPS had on it, and how it's fueled globalist policies since the Reagan/Thatcher era, see Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of the Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018). 88

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Conferences (NMICs). LeFevre was also a member of the I AM cult during the interwar years.91 I AM will be significant in Books II and III. Besides being a sponsor, NAM was clearly a major inspiration for the operations of the NMICs and the later Institute for American Strategy (see below). But, it was not alone. Other interesting sponsors include Harvard's Defense Studies Program and the University of Pennsylvania's Foreign Policy Research Institute. The latter would work closely with one of the NMIC's more enduring legacies, as we shall see. Another curious sponsor was John Hopkins University's Operations Research Office (ORO), later renamed the Research Analysis Corporation (RAC). Originally, this had been a social science think tank the US Army established in collaboration with John Hopkins during 1948. The ORO cut its teeth in Korea studying "field operations, psychological warfare, and bombing tactics."92 This included a massive study of the psychological effects of the conflict on American soldiers and Korean/Chinese prisoners of war (POWs).93 By 1958, the ORO dropped out, only to be replaced by Stanford's Hoover Institute.94 The relationship with Hoover would continue till the end of the conferences. In future chapters, much more will be said of the military's sponsorship of academic research, so keep ORO in mind. In 1958, the NMICs took the next step towards mind war by creating the Institute for American Strategy (IAS). The IAS was renamed the American Security Council Foundation (ASCF) in 1975, while the ASC and the ASCF would eventually merge in 1997.95 Originally, the IAS was designed to organize the NMICs, but it soon took on more ambitious projects. With the aid of the University of Pennsylvania's Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), the IAS launched a program of "inculcating" both elites and the general public with anticommunist ideology.96 Many of the figures from the FPRI had a background in political warfare.97 Chief among them was Frank Rockwell Barnett, who did double duty as the program director during the early years of the IAS.98 While little remembered now, the enigmatic Barnett was a pivotal figure behind the conservative drift in the US

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Delton, The Industrialists, 190-191. Joy Rhode, Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 23. 93 Peter Watson, War on the Mind, 113-14; 217; 381. 94 Dan A. Sullivan to John Slezak, July 31,, 1958. The letter is presented on a National Military-Industrial Conference letterhead noting various "Cooperating Agencies." 95 Fisher, 38. 96 Irwin Suall, The American Ultras: The Extreme Right and the Military-Industrial Complex (New York: League for Democracy, 1962), 24-26. 97 Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 47; Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 36. 98 David Teacher, Rogue Agents: The Cercle and the 6I in the Private Cold War 1951-1991, 5th Ed. (unpublished manuscript, 2017), 35. 92

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beginning in the 1970s. From 1955 till 1962, he was the vice-president and director of research for the Smith-Richardson Foundation.99 Later, he developed a close working relationship with billionaire publisher Richard Mellon Scaife and brewery magnate Joseph Coors.100 The money provided by Smith-Richardson, and later Scaife and Coors, was instrumental in the rise of the New Right and Reaganism.101 Barnett put this funding to work, establishing a host of hawkish think tanks across both the US and the United Kingdom (UK). Smith Richardson funds were used to launch the FPRI102 and with Scaife's money Barnett financed his own National Strategic Information Center (NSIC)103 as well as the UK's Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC) and the European-wide Interdoc network.104 As was indicated above, Frank Barnett's expertise was political warfare, and an especially militant variety. A core doctrine of the IAS was dubbed "fourth-dimensional warfare."105 Barnett described it as embracing "diverse forms of coercion and violence, including strikes and riots, economic sanctions, subsidies for

99

Saxon, Wolfgang. “Frank R. Barnett, 72, an Expert On Military Strategy and Security.” The New York Times. The New York Times, August 18, 1993. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/18/obituaries/frank-r-barnett-72-an-experton-military-strategy-and-security.html. 100 David Teacher, Rogue Agents, 37, 531-537; Brain Crozier, Free Agent: The Unseen War 1941-1991 (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), 90; Giles Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 192. 101 The money behind the rise of the New Right ultimately derived from a small circle of donors: the Olin family in New York, the Bradleys in Milwaukee, the Coors family of Denver, the Koch family of Wichita, along with the Smith Richardson family (North Carolina) and Scaife (Pittsburgh). See Jane Meyer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (New York: Doubleday, 2016), 74, 83; and Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 97. Essentially then, six families principally sponsored the Reagan Revolution and Barnett had access to the purse strings of three of them. And as we shall see over the course of this chapter, the Koch and Bradley families' political worldview was modeled by institutions Barnett's political warfare operations were behind. 102 Sean Stone, New World Order: A Strategy of Imperialism (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2016), 113n28; Irwin Suall, The American Ultras: The Extreme Right and the Military-Industrial Complex, 25n. 103 David Teacher, Rogue Agents: The Cercle and the 6I in the Private Cold War 1951-1991, 532. Barnett established the NCIS in 1962 along with former Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer and future CIA director William Casey See Teacher, 35-36. 104 For more on Barnett's links to the ISC and Interdoc, see Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network. For more on the Barnett and the ISC specially, see Crozier, Free Agent; and Teacher, Rogue Agents. There is much dispute over the extent of the ISC's influence in the UK, with some sources believe it was instrumental in the rise of Thatcherism, while others believe it's influence was somewhat exaggerated. For the former, see Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism" Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View on Terror (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989, 108-113; and Teacher, Rogue Agents. For the latter, see Jeffrey H. Michaels, "The Heyday of Britain's Cold War Think Tank: Brain Crozier and the Institute for the study of Conflict, 1970-79," in Transnational Anti-Communism and the Cold War: Agents, Activities, and Networks, eds. Luc Van Dongen, Stephanie Roulin, and Giles Scott-Smith (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 146-160. Also, ISC founder and head Brain Crozier's self-serving autobiography, Free Agent, attempts to both over and underplay his influence. 105 Irwin Suall, The American Ultras: The Extreme Right and the Military-Industrial Complex, 25; D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 48.

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guerilla or proxy warfare, and when necessary kidnapping and assassination of enemy elite."106 While possibly considered radical in the 1950s, Barnett's style has largely been institutionalized within the US foreign policy establishment of the twenty-first century. But would Barnett have been willing to bring the war home? There are some indications of this. For instance in the summer of 1976, as the prospect of a Democratic presidential victory that fall loomed, Barnett and his NSIC launched a $1 million "interface operation."107 This consisted of "a campaign of direct and large-scale persuasion to Congress, the Executive Branch, Trade Associations, and the press corp." Barnett himself personally relocated to DC. in September of that year to oversee the "operation."108 While this seems fairly benign compared to what Barnett advocated abroad, it nonetheless demonstrates his prowess as a fundraiser for domestic operations. And while Barnett may have been willing to pull his punches domestically, some of the individuals he funded may not have been so tame.109 Further, it's interesting to note the similarities between Barnett's concept of "fourth dimensional warfare," and later concepts of "fourth generation warfare" (4GW) adopted by the American conservative movement towards the end of the 1980s. Former civilian military intelligence analyst Dr. James Scaminaci III defines it thus: "Fourth Generation Warfare is a conflict between a state actor and a non-state 4GW actor. The 4GW actor can be driven by ideas, religion, or the defense of the 'purity of its race.' The central objective is to undermine and destroy the legitimacy of the state actor, to deny the state actor a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and to use manipulations of moving images and other psychological warfare techniques to remove effective support from the state actor. Psychological warfare would be more important than military operations."110 The purpose of both fourth dimension and 4GW is to destabilize and delegitimize a state government via all means short of conventional warfare. While Barnett's vision of fourth dimensional warfare was principally aimed at hostile foreign populations, 4GW proponents had the US public in their sights. In the case of both, a civilian population would be mobilized to make a nation ungovernable, thus toppling the state itself. This ideology was spread through the American conservative movement via the same networks Barnett had established the funding circuit for.111 106

Suall, The American Ultras, 25. Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment, 212213. 108 ibid, 197. 109 Brain Crozier, the founder and longtime head of the ISC, may have been involved in operations to destabilize various UK governments during the 1970s. See, for instance, Teacher, Rogue Agents, 85-90. 110 DeVega, Chauncey. “How ‘4th Generation Warfare’ Helps to Explain the Rise of Donald Trump.” Salon. Salon.com, July 7, 2016. https://www.salon.com/2016/07/05/how_4th_generation_warfare_helps_to_explain_the_rise_of_donald_trump /. 111 DeVega, Chauncey. “How ‘4th Generation Warfare’ Helps to Explain the Rise of Donald Trump.” Salon. Salon.com, July 7, 2016. 107

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*** But let us return to the IAS and its early efforts to "inoculate" both elites and the general public against Communism. A core tenet of the IAS was that the Soviet Union was engaged in a "total Cold War" against the US and the West. Taking their cue from Eisenhower, the IAS suggested waging the Orwellian notion of "total peace" as a counter-strategy. As the twentieth century is defined as one of "total one," a strategy of total peace would entail "mobilization, integration, and prudent management of the political, economic, educational, technological, industrial, scientific, cultural, ideological ,and spiritual resources of the entire nation to secure the objectives of peace, justice, liberty, and opportunity." The IAS is of course quick to point out that in a "free society," such tasks can only be achieved via "voluntary action, individual initiative, and new forms of creative partnership between Government and the private sector."112 Ah yes, nothing says "free society" quite like public-private partnerships. Another core belief of the IAS was that the world was beset by revolutions and the tempo would only increase throughout the century. It cited seven then unfolding,113 resulting in the current age akin to witnessing multiple historic upheavals along the lines of the collapse of the Roman Empire; the rise of Islam; the discovery of the New World; the Industrial and French Revolutions; and the appearance of electricity and radio, all appearing within decades of one another. The IAS concluded that "the social, economic, and political changes of the next few decades, induced by military, scientific and technological revolutions, may be at least as radical as the cumulative changes of the last 1000 years."114

https://www.salon.com/2016/07/05/how_4th_generation_warfare_helps_to_explain_the_rise_of_donald_trump /. For more on the legacy of fourth generation warfare amongst the American conservative movement, see James Scaminaci III, “Book 1, Chapter 1, The Christian Right’s Epistemological Break With Reality and Fourth Generation Warfare,” Academia, ICOD: June 26, 2015, at https://www.academia.edu/37323542/Book_1_Ch_1_Ver_1.0_The_Christian_Rights_Epistemological_Break_With _Reality_and_Fourth_Generation_Warfare; James Scaminaci III, “Book 1, Chapter 2, The Drive for Power and Domination,” Academia, March 4, 2012, at https://www.academia.edu/37323112/Book_1_Ch_2_Ver_1.0_The_Drive_for_Power_and_Dominion; James Scaminaci III, “Book 1, Chapter 3, The Corporate, GOP, and Christian Right’s War on Science,” Academia, ICOD: December 28, 2014, at https://www.academia.edu/37323127/Book_1_Ch_3_Ver_1.0_The_Corporate_GOP_and_Christian_Rights_War_o n_Science; Book_1_Ch_4_Ver_1.0_America_as_a_Christian_Nation_Taking_Back_America; James Scaminaci III, “Book 1, Chapter 5, The Infrastructurial Roots of Biblical Capitalism,” Academia, ICOD: October 15, 2013, at https://www.academia.edu/37323133/Book_1_Ch_5_Ver_1.0_The_Infrastructural_Roots_of_Biblical_Capitalism; James Scaminaci III, “Book 1, Chapter 6, Enter the Christian Reconstructionists,” Academia, ICOD: October 6, 2013, at https://www.academia.edu/37323139/Book_1_Ch_6_Ver_1.0_Enter_the_Christian_Reconstructionists. 112 George B. de Huszar (ed.), "Appendix: Institute for American Strategy." In National Strategy in an Age of Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958), 270-271. 113 The second industrial revolution, the communications revolution, the birth of atomic power, the international anti-colonial movement, the perpetual Communist revolution, the demographic explosion and the space race. See George B. de Huszar (ed.), "Appendix: Institute for American Strategy." In National Strategy in an Age of Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958), 272. 114 George B. de Huszar (ed.), "Appendix: Institute for American Strategy." In National Strategy in an Age of Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958), 271.

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Say what you want, they weren't wrong on that count. Nor does their suggested course of action seem especially nefarious at first: "education for the survival of an entire civilization."115 It's only when the apocalyptic sentiment sets in that one is given pause. It was during 1957 that a committee within the NMIC was established to set up what became the IAS during the following year, and just after the '58 conference. As with the NMICs, Armour Research's Daniel A. Sullivan once again took a leading role in organizing the new body.116 Final plans were formalized at a special meeting of the board of directors in June 1958. At the time, the directors consisted of Sullivan, Henry Regnery, General Douglas L. Weart,117 and Major Lenox R. Lohr.118 Barnett and ASC head John Fisher were also present as observers. Another intriguing name listed among those present is "Dan McMichaels."119 This is most likely R. Daniel McMichael, a WWII veteran and foreign policy guru who was a senior figure in the Sarah Scaife Foundation by the 1980s. McMichael was later a member of the IAS' Freedom Studies Center's Planning and Development Committee during the 1960s.120 The Sarah Scaife Foundation was the principal philanthropic arm of Richard Mellon Scaife's activities for years. By the 1960s, he had formally joined the IAS' board.121 Thus, funding from the Mellon dynasty may have been in play very early in the game. During the meeting, the board of directors (with Sullivan acting as chairman) created an executive committee tasked with carrying out the day-to-day functions of the IAS on behalf of the board.122 Sullivan was also appointed to this committee, along with a curious cast of characters. There was Thomas H. 115

ibid. George B. de Huszar (ed.), "Appendix: Institute for American Strategy." In National Strategy in an Age of Revolution, 276-277. 117 A onetime commander of the Army Corps of Engineers and then-head of the Chicago Chapter of The Society of American Military Engineers, a major partner in the NMICs. 118 Lohr was another military engineer who served in the Army Corps and later for the Society of American Military Engineers. He was also deeply involved in organizing the 1933-34 World's Fair in Chicago and later became president of the Windy City's Museum of Science and Technology. Curiously, during WWI, he briefly worked on cryptography with legendary cryptography William F. Friedman at the Riverbank Laboratory. Riverbank is considered the birthplace of American cryptography and was later folded into the Armour Research Institute. It was founded originally if the plays of William Shakespeare were an elaborate cipher created by Sir Francis Bacon. Such notions are closely linked to Rosicrucianism. Lohr was also chairman of the NMICs when the IAS was established. 119 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, June 1958, Institute for American Strategy, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center Online Archive, https://emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/1323797/20184387MNBT989105745F0000000408679I006.pdf. 120 The Freedom Studies Center of the Institute for American Strategy: Contained herein is Background Information on the Institute for American Strategy and the Freedom Studies Center (Boston, VA: 1966) ,Edward Geary Lansdale papers, 1910/1987, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, https://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/20/edward-geary-lansdale-papers 121 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 122 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, June 1958, Institute for American Strategy, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center Online Archive, https://emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/1323797/20184387MNBT989105745F0000000408679I006.pdf. 116

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Coulter, a one-time professional hockey player for the Chicago Black Hawks who became the head of the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry. He held the post for twenty-seven years.123 Elsewhere, there was General Edwin W. Rawlings, an Air Force officer who closed out his career heading the Air Material Command at the storied Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.124 Keep Wright-Patterson in mind, as it is a major staple of Ufology that we shall return to. On the subject of Ufology, it's interesting to note that an Edward Condon was also appointed to the committee at this time. However, this was not the Edward U. Condon who eventually headed and closed Project Blue Book, but Edward J. Condon, a vice-president of Sears Roebuck. Also getting the call was John Slezak, who was both a mechanical engineer and former Army officer. During WWII, he worked his way up the ranks of the Chicago Ordnance District, heading it by the end of the conflict. His work supplying the Army must have impressed someone as his services were in great demand throughout the postwar years. He became a trustee of the Illinois Institute of Technology (which Armour belonged to) in 1949; a director of the NAM and a significant administrator in the Army during the Eisenhower years. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Army (Material) from 1953-1954 before being promoted to Under Secretary of the Army in the 1954'-1955 period. The Under Secretary is the second highest post in the entire Department of the Army. In 1957, he was appointed chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board, a DoD advisory committee overseeing the Reserves. Slezak held the post for 20 years, far longer than anyone before or since. Having established the executive committee, the IAS board set up several additional committees at this meeting: an educational projects committee, a foreign advisory committee, a planning and implementation committee, and one to manage the NMICs. Finally, it expanded the board of directors to include Coulter, Rawlings, Condon, and Slezak. Among those tapped to join them were General Robert E. Wood, who had also been a NAM director in the run-up to WWII; General George W. Mundy, another Air Force man who did time at Wright-Patterson before being tapped to head North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) at the end of his career;125 and Dr. Haldon A. Leedy, director of the Armour Research Foundation.126 Additional support soon came from cooperating agencies, such as Hoover, the FPRI, Armour, the American Society for Industrial Security, and the American Legion, as well as from

123

Sherlock, Barbara. “Thomas H. Coulter, 92.” Chicago Tribune, August 21, 2021. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-12-19-0312190328-story.html. 124 “Edwin W. Rawlings, 93, General and Chairman of Food Company.” The New York Times. The New York Times, December 23, 1997. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/23/business/edwin-w-rawlings-93-general-and-chairmanof-food-company.html. 125 Weiler, Pete. Biography: Gen. George W. Mundy, CO 39th bomb group (VH). Accessed April 1, 2023. http://39th.org/39TH/bio/mundy.htm. Mundy was also said to be a lifelong friend of General Curtis LeMay, a far right Air Force man who broke with the ASC after finding it to be too moderate. LeMay has long been linked to Ufology. 126 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, June 1958, Institute for American Strategy, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center Online Archive, https://emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/1323797/20184387MNBT989105745F0000000408679I006.pdf.

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representatives from the US Information Agency, and the Federal and Illinois Civil Defense agencies.127 The usual suspects, in other words. The IAS set both short and long-term goals for itself. As to the former, it sought to spread "vital information on overall strategy" relating to national survival "to classrooms, trade associations, civic leaders, public affairs committees, business groups, veterans organizations" and the mass media. In cooperation with schools and educational institutes, it wanted to develop "study programs" for "church's groups, women's clubs, and various voluntary agencies." Naturally, much of this material was developed at the NMICs.128 Basically, it was calling for a massive indoctrination campaign across the whole of American society. And that was just its short-term goal. The long-term goal cut to the heart of the IAS' notion of "education": a "National Service University" that would "train American personnel for nonmilitary security service." To achieve this, it recommended courses in predictable subjects such as "Communist Strategy and Tactics," "The American Revolutionary Heritage," and "The Philosophy of Freedom." For our purposes here, the most intriguing proposed course involved "Semantics, Group Dynamics, Propaganda Analysis, Motivational Research."129 Such a university was established and it was the crowning achievement of the IAS. But that came a few years later, long after the group was mired in controversy. *** The initial fruits of these efforts were first rolled out in 1959 via "National Strategy Seminars" held at the National War College for reserve officers. With the support of the National Security Council, the JCS, and the Secretary of Defense, the IAS subjected these officers to an intense, two-week course heavy on Cold War political warfare. The lecturers became a lightning rod for controversy in 1961 when they were attacked by Senator William J. Fulbright.130 By this time, the ASC and the IAS had already begun to package these techniques for the masses. It is unknown if the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE, which provided much of the funding for MK-ULTRA during the late 1950s131) was directly involved in those early National War College efforts. Still, SIHE's Colonel James Monroe was definitely monitoring them.132 At the time, Monroe and the SIHE had been working with members of the Dutch security services to set up their own 127

Barnett, Frank R. “Institute for American Strategy - Isgp-Studies.com.” Accessed April 2, 2023. https://www.isgp-studies.com/organisations/ASC/1960_08_12_NMIC_and_IAS_board.pdf. 128 George B. de Huszar (ed.), "Appendix: Institute for American Strategy." In National Strategy in an Age of Revolution, 279. 129 George B. de Huszar (ed.), "Appendix: Institute for American Strategy." In National Strategy in an Age of Revolution, 281-282. 130 Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 47-49; Russ Bellant, old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 36-37; D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War (Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 2014), 46-49. 131 Interestingly, SIHE was also bankrolling Cameron's research against the backdrop of events described above. See Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 141n, 146. 132 Giles Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network, 37.

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anticommunist political warfare outfit. It emerged in 1960 as the Stichting voor Onderzoek van Ecologische Vraagstukken (SOEV: Foundation for the Investigation of Ecological Problems), named in honor of the SIHE.133 The successors of the SOEV later became key components in the broader, Western European anticommunist Interdoc network.134 Monroe was an apt figure for such efforts. Before signing up with the CIA, Monroe was an Air Force officer specializing in psychological warfare. During the mid-1950s, he headed Operation REPAIR, a joint CIA-Air Force venture to study the effects of brainwashing and other forms of stress endured by American POWs during Korea. A key REPAIR figure supervised by Monroe was psychologist Albert D. Biderman, a senior figure at American University's Bureau of Social Science Research (BSSR). Indeed, the BSSR was tasked with running REPAIR, under contract from the Air Force and SIHE.135 Biderman would prove to be incredibly influential. Through his work on REPAIR, he developed what is known to posterity as "Biderman's Chart of Coercion." It listed what were found to be the most effective interrogation methods, with "isolation" number one with a bullet. Biderman's chart was cited by the CIA's Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation handbook, first issued in 1963 and kept in circulation in one form or another for forty years. Later, it was found that Biderman's chart was used as a basis for the "enhanced interrogation methods" used by the US Army at Guantanamo Bay during the 2000s. Elsewhere, a wide range of cults employed the methods outlined by Biderman to control their flocks.136 As for Monroe, he also served in the Pentagon's Prisoner of War Office, though it is unknown if this was related to REPAIR. Monroe's other charges on REPAIR included CIA psychiatrist and future SIHE co-worker Dr. John Gittinger; and Dr. Robert J. Lifton, a famed psychiatrist who has written popular works on brainwashing.137 Monroe's links to brainwashing and psychological warfare will be of note later in the chapter, so do keep these ties in mind. The efforts of Monroe and the Dutch were geared towards creating a broader, international anticommunist political warfare network based upon the methods of the SIHE. Monroe believed the IAS would be an ideal partner for the Dutch in these efforts. It is unknown if the IAS ever became involved with what became the Interdoc network, but the main American partner was the above-mentioned NSIC, which Barnett founded.138 As such, no direct ties between the IAS and SIHE have yet emerged, but Monroe clearly saw it as a part of a global, anticommunist psychological warfare effort SIHE was attempting to launch with the Dutch. 133

Giles Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network, 49; David Teacher, Rogue Agents: The Cercle and the 6I in the Private Cold War 1951-1991, 25. 134 David Teacher, Rogue Agents: The Cercle and the 6I in the Private Cold War 1951-1991, 25-26. For more on the Interdoc network, see Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network. 135 H.P. Albarreli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 192-193; Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Holt Paperback, 2006), 31-33. 136 Albarelli, Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 198-199; Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture, 50-52. 137 Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 42; Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 193, 195; Marks, The Search of the "Manchurian Candidate", 166 138 Giles Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network, 38.

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Further, it has been suggested that Barnett moved onto the NCIS from the IAS in 1962 principally because the latter had drawn too high a profile after Senator Fulbright had outed its efforts to indoctrinate US military personnel during the prior year.139 If Barnett was in fact involved in psychological operations as a part of the highly secretive MK-ULTRA program, it would make perfect sense to move these activities to another institution after the IAS had drawn congressional attention. Nor does Barnett appear to have ever completely broken from the IAS. A mid-1960s packet promoting its Freedoms Studies Center lists Barnett as a member of the school's "Planning and Development Committee."140 More on the Freedom Studies Center appears in the next chapter. Beyond this, another leading early figure in the IAS was Daniel M. Sullivan of Commonwealth Edison, and later the Armour Research Foundation.141 As was noted above, in 1953, the Armour Research Foundation was also involved in research sponsored by ARTICHOKE (and possibly MK-ULTRA). What's more, MKULTRA and the SIHE are known to have provided funding to the University of Pennsylvania,142 whose Foreign Policy Research Institute worked closely with the ASC in the IAS. And that brings us to a crucial point: A curious and little remarked upon aspect of MK-ULTRA is its role in psychological warfare. And not just on a personal level, but societal-wide. There was a belief in some circles that "brainwashing" techniques used on a micro level (i.e. against the individual) could also be applied on a macro (i.e., societal) level.143 This particular aspect of MK-ULTRA has been very little investigated in popular works with one glaring exception: Naomi Klein's groundbreaking 2007 book The Shock Doctrine. The title is a concept in which societies are subjected to sudden, massive shocks that lure them into a kind of fugue state. From there, they can be more effectively and efficiently reoriented while the public remains in this state of shock.144

139

David Teacher, Rogue Agents: The Cercle and the 6I in the Private Cold War 1951-1991, 35-36. Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 141 John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 39-40. 142 John Marks,The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 171. 143 Giles Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network, 35. 144 Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007), 3-21, etc. Klein errs, however, in tracing the origins of these methods to the Cameron "medical experiments." These experiments were brutal and have justifiably been widely condemned, but were hardly very innovative in 1957. A rival program, ARTICHOKE, had developed something by the early 1950s known as the "A treatment" ("A" being ARTICHOKE). A host of different methods were used by the "A treatment" to induce a state of shock in a subject: a combination of sodium pentothal and Benzedrine (the former initially knocking the subject out, while the later would suddenly revive him in a very disoriented state); LSD, heroin, and barbiturates; and inevitably electroshock mixed with LSD. Frequently this shock was followed by a session with a hypnotist as the subject was thought to be most susceptible to both interrogation and reprogramming in the immediate aftermath. Even before the "A treatment," the U.S. Army had developed a WWII-era special interrogation unit, variously nicknamed the "Rough Boys" or the "Kraut Gauntlet," that employed electroshock in conjunction with Metrazol (a drug that causes uncontrolled convulsions in subject with a high enough dose), amphetamines, morphine, heroin and mescaline. See Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 43-44; Albarelli, Jr., A Secret Order, 173-174. 140

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Klein came to believe that the "Shock Doctrine" originated in the brutal medical experiments conducted by the Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron on behalf of MK-ULTRA. These experiments, which began in 1957 at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University, entailed extensive use of electroshock, occasionally mixed with a cocktail of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and/or phencyclidine (PCP), and sometimes ended with a round of sensory deprivation. In theory, the state of shock these things created in a subject led to a mental "blank slate" in which their behavior could be modified.145 Cameron's "experiments" were bankrolled by the SIHE,146 the same outfit observing the IAS's work at the National War Colleges. What's more, Col. James Monroe, the SIHE official attending those seminars, personally oversaw Cameron's work on behalf of the SIHE.147 Did Monroe, himself a psychological warfare specialist, see the IAS's work as a means of applying Cameron's techniques to the masses? Klein certainly seemed to think so, though she largely failed to recognize why this approach would appeal to psychological warfare officers. Had she recognized this connection, she would have realized the "shock doctrine" was employed here in the US well before the twenty-first century and George W. Bush (Bush II). In point of fact, the shock doctrine was used on a large scale domestically throughout the Cold War. It was unleashed on a most curious battlefield: "alternative cultures." We must now turn our attention to the bizarre relationships the American Security Council enjoyed with various fringe movements over the years. It wasn't just MK-ULTRA that the ASC network had ties to either, but also the rival ARTICHOKE. ARTICHOKE was housed in the Security Research Service (SRS), a component of the mysterious Office of Security. While the day-to-day operations of running ARTICHOKE fell to Morse Allen, as has been widely reported, it was actually the SRS head, General Paul Gaynor, who had ultimate authority.148 Both Gaynor and Allen were friendly with John Trevor Jr.,149 a pro-Nazi and anti-Semite, who was a longtime member of the ASC's board of directors.150 Gaynor had also been friendly with Trevor's father, John Sr.,151 a hard-line isolationist who worked closely with ASC co-founder General Robert E. Woods in the years leading up to WWII.152 Then there was Lee Pennington, a former senior FBI official who worked with the ASC for decades, eventually becoming the director of its Washington office. Pennington was also a longtime contract agent for the Security Research Staff, with Gaynor being his principal handler.153

145

ibid, 25-38; 46-48. For more on Cameron's "research," see Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, 140151; and Thomas, Journey Into Madness. 146 Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, 141n, 16; Thomas, Journey Into Madness, 163; Albarelli, A Terrible Mistake, 193. Other projects sponsored by the SIHE included experiments on children involving LSD by Dr. Lauretta Bender, a highly respected children's neuro-psychiatrist based out of New York's Bellevue Hospital. See Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 41-42. 147 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 193. 148 Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 168-170. 149 ibid, 438. 150 Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 33. 151 Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 438. 152 Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 32-33. 153 Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (New York: Random House, 1984), 227.

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It should be noted at this point that this researcher has seen no indication that ARTICHOKE had any interest in applying its techniques on a mass scale like MK-ULTRA. What this does illustrate, however, is that the ASC had no shortage of ties to the various CIA/Pentagon behavioral modification programs active during the Cold War. And given their already extensive role in propaganda as the principal lobby group for the military-industrial complex, they would have made an ideal vehicle for applying MK-ULTRA or ARTICHOKE methods to the masses. They had both the connections and the platform.

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Chapter 2:

The Operator

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Elimination by Illumination

Before moving along, one curious figure working for the Institute for American Strategy (IAS) during the mid-1960s must be addressed at length. That would be the legendary General Edward Lansdale,154 generally thought to be the inspiration for the title characters of two equally legendary novels, Graham Greene's The Quiet American (1955) and William Lederer and Eugene Burdick's The Ugly American (1958).155 In the case of Greene's title character, this was an erroneous claim,156 though Lansdale did partly inspire The Ugly American.157 And the general exerted considerable influence over the original film version of The Quiet American (1958), making the title character and the novel's anti-American politics more in line with his own beliefs. That's a polite way of saying Lansdale transformed Greene's highly nuanced novel into pure American Cold War propaganda.158 On the whole, Lansdale was something of an American pop culture staple throughout the second half of the twentieth century. He was the man who led a successful counterinsurgency against the Hukbalahap (more commonly referred to as "Huks") in the Philippines, which in theory "liberated" the nation from the scourge of communism. And he had a well-earned reputation as a kingmaker after presiding over the elections that brought Raymond Magsaysay and Ngo Dinh Diem to power in the Philippines and Vietnam, respectively. His role in these affairs was already public knowledge at a time when the US security services were especially sensitive to their role in such intrigues. But Lansdale had a thing for publicity and knew the ends it could be put towards.

154

Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.; Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 323n70; Bellant, Old Nazis the New Right, and the Republican Party, 37-38, etc. Lansdale has inspired several biographies. The most recent is Max Boot, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2018). Probably the best available is an earlier one, Cecil N. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Washington: Brassey's, 1998). There's also Jonathan Nashel's Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2005), but this is more of a sociological account of Lansdale than a true history. Nashel does provide some compelling insights into Lansdale's influence on pop culture, however. There's also Lansdale's account of his time in the Philippines and his first go round in Vietnam, In the Midst of War: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia (New York: Fordham University, 1991), It's self serving to be sure, but provides invaluable insight into his thinking. Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1988) may be the best overall account of Lansdale, his influence, and his followers. Compelling information can also be found in Daniel Ellsberg's Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Penguin, 2002). 155 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2018), 12, 290, etc; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2005), 149. 156 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 291; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 150. 157 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 324-327, etc.; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 177. 158 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 292-293; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 163-173.

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This was due in no small part to his background as an advertising executive in the interwar years. After spending part of his youth in Los Angeles (LA), against the backdrop of Hollywood,159 he returned there in 1935 to begin his career as an adman. Twenty-seven at the time, his older brother arranged a position for him at Silverwood's in LA. After several years of long hours and low pay, he took a new position in San Francisco. Lansdale's career began to take off in 1941 when he went to work for a Bay Area firm owned by Leon Livingstone. There, his clients included Wells Fargo, the Union Trust Company, and Levi Strauss. When WWII broke out, he used his background in advertisement as a selling point to the nascent US intelligence community.160 No doubt, these experiences helped Lansdale mold later public perceptions of himself. In the early years of the Cold War, he was the personification of the idealistic, liberal, anticommunist. With his harmonica and movie star mustache, he simultaneously sought to spare the developing world from the yoke of European colonialism and Soviet exploitation. This perception was due in no small part to Lansdale's tireless self-promotion. Besides his forays into Hollywood, Lansdale was known for his detailed and impassioned reports to superior officers; the political influence he managed in the Philippines and Vietnam; and his thinly-veiled connections to the recently-founded CIA. He may even have stooped to planting glowing accounts of himself in the press. Regardless, it gave him a true international man of mystery vibe. By 1960, he was a full-blown celebrity in the Far East and a presence in Western pop culture.161 *** Lansdale's enduring legacy resided in his use of psychological warfare. His background in advertising was crucial in these efforts. In particular, he emphasized the notion of knowing your target market, in this case, his enemies.162 To this end, he studied all aspects of their culture, most notably their myths and superstitions. And those particular cultural aspects offered some of the best prospects for weaponization. In the Philippines alone, he employed a host of strange methods against the insurgent Huks. Famously, he noted the Filipino fear of vampires and ordered a psywar team to spread rumors in the countryside of such creatures targeting "men with evil in their hearts." These rumors were spread via a prominent local fortune teller. Once word was out, Lansdale had a patrol silently grab a member of the Huk, punch two holes in his throat, and drain the captive of blood. Once the body was dry, it was placed back on the trail for the Huk patrol to find. Hanging from a tree, no less. Allegedly, they deserted that particular patch of the jungle.163

159

Lansdale appeared as an extra in several films while attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Cecil N. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Washington: Brassey's, 1998), 11-16; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 26-29; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 29-34. 161 See, for instance, Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 69-72; and Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 107, 198-199. 162 Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 43. 163 Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of War: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia (New York: Fordham University, 1991), 72-73; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 132; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 39-40; Douglas 160

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A variation of this technique appears to have been employed in Vietnam using the infamous "death" playing cards. Here indigenous irregular troops, supported by US special operations forces, exploited Buddhist beliefs concerning the pituitary gland. Because of its location beneath the skull, just above and between the eyes, it is often described as the "Third Eye." It was viewed as the seat of consciousness in Buddhism, and physical mutilations of this region had a deep psychological effect. Hence, these forces sometimes nailed playing-size cards depicting a light green skull, red eyes, and red teeth dripping blood, into the foreheads of the corpses they left behind.164 Lansdale would have been impressed. He had already used a variation on the Third Eye during his Philippines counterinsurgency campaign. In this case, it was in the form of the Egyptian Eye of Providence, more popularly known as the Masonic All-Seeing Eye. At one point, he dispatched a psywar team to a local village where All-Seeing Eyes were painted on the houses opposite suspected insurgents. In theory, the next morning they would be greeted by a foreboding Eye of God. Lansdale described them as having a "sharply sobering effect."165 This technique was later adopted in Vietnam as well, under the auspices of Operation Black Eye, with additional violence. Initially, the eyes were printed on a piece of paper, and were left on the dead bodies of Vietcong166 leaders. Later, these "grotesque" human eye prints began appearing on the doors of residences suspected of harboring Vietcong.167 This surely had a sobering effect. Elsewhere, Lansdale's boys forced a confession from a captured soldier, recorded it, and then killed him. After the Huk's body was found and buried, Lansdale's team used state-of-the-art radio equipment to broadcast it from a local cemetery, essentially creating a haunting. In this case, it was said to have driven away an entire village supporting the insurgents.168 This approach seems to have been adopted in Vietnam by psywar teams. Known as "Wandering Souls," helicopters equipped with loudspeakers would harass villages controlled by the Vietcong at night by broadcasting eerie sounds meant to represent the souls of dead insurgents yet to find rest. This technique was also considered for use in the Congo, but there, the

Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 2nd ed. (Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse, 2000), 25-26. It should be pointed out, however, there is much dispute as to how accurate this story was, or whether Lansdale himself was embellishing it. 164 Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 61-62. 165 Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 74-75; Boot, 133; Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 40. 166 The term "Vietcong" was invented by American psychological warfare specialists, working closely with Lansdale, in 1956. It was mainly for American consumption, as it combined Vietnamese with communism, the latter synonymous with evil in the minds of most Americans during the 1950s. Previously, the Vietnamese communists were referred to as the Vietminh. They continued to use that name after establishing the government of Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in North Vietnam during 1956. The Vietminh in the south who continued the insurgency were called National Liberation Front (NLF) in the DRV. "Vietcong" was originally intended to refer to the NLF, as distinct from the Vietminh, but eventually it became a catchall term for Vietnamese communists. See Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 189. I've opted to go with the term "Vietcong" to refer to the Vietnamese communists as well as it is the term Americans most closely associated with their opponents in the war. 167 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 240. 168 Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 40-41; Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 118; Alfred McCoy, Policing America's Empire, 378.

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sounds would have invoked fearsome local gods rather than the spirits of the dead.169 This was vintage Lansdale. Mock executions were staged by Lansdale's forces in the Philippines as well. With the aid of chicken blood, soldiers would pretend to execute insurgents, and even civilians. In one instance, the massacre of an entire village was staged.170 By far, Lansdale's most infamous ploy to weaponize metaphysics occurred during Operation Mongoose, his project to overthrow Castro in Cuba. Lansdale proposed that submarines be deployed to the island on All Souls Day. After dark, they would launch "fireworks" into the air over Havana, which in theory, would be interpreted as a portend by the Catholic population of Castro's coming downfall. It was later humorously described before the Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities --more commonly known as the Church Committee -as "Elimination by Illumination."171 Lansdale's penchant for this type of thing was so well known by the late 1950s that it appeared in The Ugly American. Here, the Lansdale character, a military officer called Edwin Hillandale, is said to have a degree from the "Chungking School of Occult Science." In one episode, there are allusions to the use of astrology in psychological warfare.172 Here, the Hillandale character uses his knowledge of it to manipulate the Prime Minister of "Sarkhan," a fictitious Southeast Asian country. In reality, Lansdale did use phony astrology on the local population during his time in Vietnam.173 By this time, Lansdale was well-acquainted with the mysticism and cults of Southeast Asia. He wrote voluminous reports to his supervisors on astrology and even included a top-secret photo of a Vietnamese astrologer plying her trade. They were also graced with his insights into how geomancy worked.174 On the more practical side of things, Lansdale utilized cults as part of Vietnam's security apparatus even earlier. It started during his 1954-1955 tour of Vietnam and his interactions with the nation's legendary "sects." Before the country became divided between North and South, much of rural southern Vietnam was dominated by three heavily armed sects. These sects were all further subdivided by various warlords and their private armies. Each offered the French varying degrees of support against the communists.175

169

Peter Watson, War on the Mind, 410. Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 117-118. 171 Boot, 385; Nashel, 74. 172 Both the British Naval intelligence and the Political Warfare Executive used "cooked" astrology against the Nazis during World War II. These actions may have contributed to Rudolf Hess's mysterious flight to the UK in 1939. Two future novelists, Dennis Wheatley and Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond), were involved in these efforts. Aleister Crowley, the infamous magician and spy, may have played a role in these shenanigans. See Spence, Secret Agent 666, 242, 246. 173 Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 177. Per Boot, Lansdale also suggested recruiting certain "Vietnamese soothsayers" for "operational use." See The Road Not Taken, 526-527. 174 Nashel, 146. In case you're wondering, geomancy is a type of divination related to earthworks and other sacred spots. 175 Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 146-147; Currey, 145-146; Boot, 202-204. 170

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One, the Binh Xuyen, is often described as a social organization or club. But for all sakes and purposes, it was an organized crime syndicate. At the time of Lansdale's arrival, it controlled much of Vietnam's criminal underworld with the blessing of the French. The sect was founded in 1940. The Japanese trained and organized them as a military force during WWII. After briefly supporting the Vietnamese communists, the Binh Xuyen joined forces with the returning French colonists in 1946 and remained in their service until Lansdale's arrival.176 The other two sects were religious in nature. The Hoa Hao was a reformed Buddhist sect established in 1939. Centered around the Mekong and Bassac Rivers, the Hoa Hao had amassed some 1.5 million followers by 1954. They practiced a mixture of rites borrowed from Buddhism and other faiths. Founder Huynh Phu So was a faith healer said to be blessed with the gift of prophecy. He "disappeared" in 1947, likely after being murdered by the communists. The sect carried on and became fierce opponents of the Vietcong.177 Easily the most bizarre of the sects was the Cao Dei. Founded in 1919 and organized as a formal church in 1925, Cao Dei is often described as a "syncretic" religion. That's putting it mildly. Its status as a church reportedly came about after government contractors and civil servants embarked on an all-night session of séances and Ouija board readings. The founder, a mystic named Ngo Van Chieu, claimed to be in communion with a spirit dubbed Cao Dei. The faith claims to synthesize all the world's major religions, from Christianity to Taoism. It uses a Masonic-style All Seeing Eye as its symbol and features a pantheon of saints that include Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tse, Sun Yat-sen, Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. It even has its own "Holy See" in the Tay Ninh Province. In 1941, Cao Dei attempted to form a breakaway state in French Indochina. They failed, and the Cao Dei leaders were exiled to Madagascar, where they remained until 1946. In the meantime, the sect began collaborating with Imperial Japan in Vietnam by 1943. Like the Hoa Hao, they initially supported the communists in 1946 but were in the French camp by 1947. And also, like the Hoa Hao, they had nearly 1.5 million followers by 1954 split between rival factions and warlords.178 Lansdale was most impressed with the Cao Dei. He studied the sect heavily during both of his tours in Vietnam. He contemplated using the sect as a psychological weapon against the communists and discussed this possibility with the JCS. When the sects embarked upon a French-backed insurrection against Diem in 1955, Lansdale bribed one of Cao Dei's most revered warlords to support the regime. It worked and proved decisive in keeping Diem in power during the Battle of Saigon and its run-up (sometimes known as the Sect Crisis of 1955).179 Other factors at play in Vietnam during the spring of 1955 will be discussed below.

176

Lansdale, 153; Currey, 145; Boot, 203-205 Lansdale, 152-153; Currey, 146. 178 Lansdale, 153; Boot, 202; Currey, 145-146; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 177-178. 179 Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 144-145; Lansdale, 260-312; Boot, 254-261; 271-273; Currey, 173-177 177

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Not only would Lansdale utilize what was effectively an indigenous cult in Vietnam, he later helped establish one there. They were known as the Sea Swallows and formed the core of the Bing Hung community in the Ca Mau peninsula, one of the most contested regions of Vietnam during the early 1960s. A Catholic sect with origins in pre-revolutionary China, the group was founded by a former colonel in Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (Nationalist Chinese) forces turned priest. In 1950, shortly after Chiang's army was driven from mainland China to what became modern-day Taiwan, these Catholic converts fled to Cambodia. After enduring eight years of persecution there, a Kuomintang intelligence officer on loan to the CIA named Bernard Yoh convinced the sect to relocate again, this time to Vietnam.180 Roughly 350 hardcore Chinese Catholic anticommunists set up shop at Bing Hung in 1959. Soon, it resembled a "little Fort Bragg." The Chinese Catholics comprised a crack force that was dubbed the Sea Swallows. Soon, they were supplemented by some 500 Vietnamese volunteers. This became the Popular Force Battalion, a distinct unit from the Sea Swallows. Apparently, the Chinese never truly trusted their Vietnamese charges. Lansdale toured the compound in late 1960, shortly before JFK's inauguration. Supposedly, this was the first time he encountered the Sea Swallows and walked away impressed. He wrote a glowing report that made its way to JFK days after the new president took office. As the story goes, JFK was so floored he made an unofficial phone call to Lansdale urging him to publish the story in the Saturday Evening Post. The general obliged, and the Sea Swallows became media darlings for a brief period.181 There is ample reason to question this narrative, however. We shall return to these characters in a later chapter. For now, it bears mentioning that Lansdale's support of Catholicism in Vietnam may have been the downfall of Diem's regime. Diem and many of his top officials were Catholic in a nation in which they were a small minority. With the bulk of the nation Buddhists, the Catholic minority depended on the Cao Dei and Hoa Hao to maintain their power in relation to the communists. Once Lansdale suppressed the sects, it consolidated the Buddhist majority behind the communists.182 For a man so adept at spiritual warfare, it was a gross and glaring miscalculation. One that inevitably cosigned the government in South Vietnam, and later Lansdale's career, to ruin. *** Another crucial, if little remarked upon, aspect of Lansdale's approach to psywar was the use of practical jokes and "low humor."He described it thusly: "...psywar had a wider potential... A whole new approach opens up... when one thinks of psywar in terms of playing a practical joke. We all know that many people risk their lives and safety to paint slogans and appeals on walls in forbidden territory, motivated as much by the anticipation of the antics of their outraged enemies as by ideology and patriotism. Low humor

180

Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 37; Currey, Edward Lansdale, 219-220; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 344. Valentine claims the sect spent much of the 1950s in Laos while Currey places it in Cambodia. Virtually all other accounts agree with Currey. 181 Boot, 344-346, 357; Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 37; Currey, 219-221, 224-225. 182 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 136-137, 141-144, 177-179.

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seems an appropriate response, somehow, to the glum and deadly practices of Communists and other authoritarians."183 Lansdale's words seem even more apt in the twenty-first century than when he wrote them during the 1970s. The rise of the Internet and social media arguably created an entire generation in the West so obsessed with clickbait that they're willing to endure almost any degradations for the post. This has led to increasingly extreme pranks and practical jokes, often resulting in deadly outcomes. But that's a discussion for the future books in this series. What must be emphasized here is that Lansdale realized early on that jokes and pranks could be weaponized in the same way as myths and superstitions. As incredible as all of this may seem, many of Lansdale's contemporaries put credence in these methods. During a 1963 symposium held by RAND, Lansdale's use of the All Seeing Eye in the Philippines was discussed at great lengths. Military officers in attendance were informed that it was a model for psychological warfare deployed against their enemies on the "cheap." The simplicity and costeffectiveness of it all were a marvel.184 The reader will recall from Chapter 1 that RAND pondered how superstition could be utilized for psychological warfare since at least the early 1950s. By 1976, the Army issued a two-volume psywar manual (Army Pamphlet 525-7-1) that formally adopted Lansdale's conflation of terror, humor, and myth as a tactic of unconventional war and counterinsurgency.185 It wasn't all fun and games, however. Lansdale understood implicitly that for his pranks and deceptions to have the maximum impact, they had to be backed up by actual violence and terror. And he knew just how to manage this. Despite his disdain for combat, Lansdale was also a pioneer in using what are now considered special operations forces. Under the watchful eye of his advisers, several elite units were developed to support the Filipino army in its counterinsurgency efforts. These included Scout Rangers, modeled upon the US Army's own Ranger forces, capable of long-range patrols behind enemy lines. Upon spotting the enemy, they could either call regular units or deploy their hunter-killer teams. Taking the hunter-killer concept to its extreme was the "Nenita" unit. It was a small, mobile force with total freedom to respond to guerrilla action with assassination and terror. Often, it targeted senior Huk military officials for "find and finish" missions. In many ways, this approach foreshadowed later US special operations forces like the Army's Delta detachment. Another elite unit, the Seven Battalion Combat Team (also known as "Charlie Company"), was capable of long-range reconnaissance missions, either in uniform or disguise, for covert intelligence operations. This approach was similar to that of US Army Special Forces' A-Teams. Lansdale also wanted to create airborne assault teams that anticipated the "air cavalry" tactics used by the US Army in Vietnam but were prevented from doing so at this earlier date. Cash rewards were also offered to help locate top Huk leadership while an early use of "turning" was also employed. This involved using surrendered Huk fighters as turncoats to infiltrate their former units. 186 While not widely 183

Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 71, Nashel, 42. 185 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 117, 239-242. 186 Boot, 130-131; Currey, 96, 100-101; Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 118-124; Alfred McCoy, Policing America's Empire, 378. 184

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adopted by US special operators, their counterparts in Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa would greatly expand on this practice during the 1970s and 1980s.187 One final "innovation" of Lansdale's worth mentioning here was the use of a proto-private military company. It was dubbed the "Freedom Company." Nominally, it was supposed to provide the Diem regime with skilled Filipino technicians to help maintain the US military equipment being sent to Vietnam en masse. But the Freedom Company provided experience, knowledge, and skill, not just in equipment maintenance, but in fighting an insurgency as well. Privately, Lansdale acknowledged its original mission was to fight unconventional warfare. It enabled Lansdale to deploy Filipino veterans in Vietnam "undercover of a public service organization." Personnel "sheep-dipped" in this fashion could then be sent abroad for work in Vietnam and elsewhere. It helped train Diem's presidential guard and counterinsurgency training camps to which the Vietnamese forces were dispatched. And it likely participated in "unconventional" operations against the Vietcong.188 Modern US and UK private military firms such as Blackwater, Dyncorp, Aegis, and Erinys would take on similar roles during Anglo-American adventures in the Balkans and the Middle East. Once again, Lansdale showed the way.

The Counterinsurgent

So, who was this guy? Lansdale was a former advertising executive who joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor to the CIA) during WWII. He was moonlighting for the Military Intelligence Division (MID) simultaneously, though much of his time was spent on OSS projects. His tenure with the spy agency is depicted as unremarkable. Most accounts insist he spent his entire OSS service in the US, primarily based out of San Francisco and, later, New York.189 He was assigned to the OSS' Research & Analysis and Secret 187

Causwell, X. (2019, July 22). The logic of pseudo-operations: Lessons from the Rhodesian bush war. Georgetown Security Studies Review. Retrieved May 7, 2023, from https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2018/05/31/the-logic-of-pseudo-operations-lessons-from-therhodesian-bush-war/. 188 Lansdale, 213-215, etc.; Currey, 165-167; Boot, 242-243; Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 26-27, 48;. 189 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 39; Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Washington: Brassy's, 1998), 26. There were rumblings that Lansdale departed the US twice during his OSS days, once for New Zealand, and later for China. The possibility has been floated that he was involved in some capacity with setting up guerrilla units on behalf of the OSS to participate in the Pacific Theater. Lansdale long denied having ever left the US during WWII however, and no evidence of these missions has ever emerged. See Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 24-26. It must be said that Lansdale being dispatched to the Pacific to work with guerrilla units would go a long way towards explaining how he ended up managing US counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines during the Cold War.

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Intelligence Divisions. Some of his duties included liaison with universities and libraries for research purposes; preparing intelligence reports based on open source data; cultivating business contacts for intelligence purposes; developing training courses and manuals; and recruiting agents for "secret operations and secret missions."190 In other words, he was officially a desk jockey. There are indications that at least some of Lansdale's OSS duties involved more secretive research. For one, his superior during much of his time in San Francisco was Captain William Vanderbilt, a Naval reserve officer who signed on with the OSS at the onset of the war. A former governor of Rhode Island and scion of the storied Vanderbilt family, he was dispatched to San Francisco to establish an OSS station there. Vanderbilt and Lansdale became fast friends, and the captain became his first patron within the intelligence services.191 It's likely this relationship was more instrumental in Lansdale's later career than is often realized. It probably marked his entry into American Blue Blood circles. The Rockefeller family, especially Nelson, were crucial Lansdale patrons throughout the Eisenhower years.192 Further, both Vanderbilt himself and his family had ample links to Hollywood. He was one of the principal investors in fellow OSS veteran and storied filmmaker John Ford's Argosy Pictures in 1946. His cousin, Cornelius Vanderbilt (CV) Whitney, was a successful Hollywood producer193 who also financed Ford's films.194 Vanderbilts make a compelling candidate for Lansdale's later access to Hollywood and the Rockefeller family.195 But, to return to some of the curiosities surrounding Lansdale's OSS days, he developed a keen interest in psychological stresses felt by recruits during their training. This led him to develop a most curious field exercise: a recruit would be ordered to find and kill a "German" agent in the New York subway or a similar location. The recruit's progress would be monitored up to the last minute, at which point the instructor would intervene before the exercise could be brought to its bloody conclusion.196 This may have been an assassination training program. This is intriguing in light of another semi-legendary intelligence figure operating in San Francisco partly during this time. That would be Colonel Boris Pash, one of the most colorful figures of the early CIA. While 190

Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 22; Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 39. Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 19; Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 35-36. 192 See, for instance, Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 263-269. Also, Boot, 308309. Per Colby and Dennett, Nelson Rockefeller's aide on the National Security Council was William Kintner, who later became then Army Chief of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer's head of long-range planning. See Thy Will Be Done, 359. During the 1950s, Kintner worked with the Foreign Policy Research Institute on the National Military Industrial Conferences. After retiring from the CIA in 1961, he became a member of the Institute for American Strategy. See Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 35, 37. 193 His credits include Gone With the Wind, A Star is Born and Rebecca. 194 Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta Books, 1999), 285-286. 195 At least one member of the Vanderbilt family collaborated with Nelson Rockefeller during WWII on national security issues. See Saunders, Who Paid the Piper, 261. 196 Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 21. 191

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serving in the US Army, he was made their representative for Operation Bloodstone. Originally set up by the State Department, but taken over by the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC, the precursor to the CIA's Directorate of Plans) early in the game, Bloodstone involved recruiting defectors, smuggling refugees from behind the Iron Curtain, and assassinations. Additionally, the Pentagon greenlighted "special operations," defined as "clandestine warfare, subversion, sabotage and. . . assassination."197 Later, Pash was tapped to head the CIA's Program Branch 7, commonly known as PB/7. Also housed in the OPC, PB/7 was credited with overseeing assassinations, kidnappings, and other "special operations" during mid-1970s Congressional investigations into the CIA.198 During this time, Pash also served on the charmingly named "Health Alteration Committee" for the CIA. Its responsibilities involved targeting individuals, including heads of state, for severe incapacitation or assassination. To this end, special weapons, including drugs and poisons, were employed. 199 For obvious reasons, Pash has often been depicted as the CIA's assassination chief during this era. However, Pash was an administrator and organizer by this time, not a field operative.200 In fairness, Pash always emphasized that PB/7 was a planning, not an operation group. This led to later speculation that PB/7 provided cover and deception for the actual OPC/CIA assassination program.201 Regardless, Pash was already an old hand at the black arts by this point in time. He was the son of a Russian Orthodox priest dispatched to San Francisco in 1894. Pash was born in San Francisco during 1900. His family returned to Russia in 1912 and supported the White movement after the Revolution broke out in 1917. Young Boris served in the White Army during this time, returning to the US circa 1920. By 1930, Pash was commissioned in the US Army Reserve while living in the LA area.202 He was assigned to the Military Intelligence Division, reporting to the Presidio in San Francisco, while continuing to live and work in LA throughout the 1930s. Pash was briefly called up in 1934, 1937, and 1939 before being brought into regular active duty during 1940. He mainly operated out of the Presidio until 1943. Even after future IAS staple General Leslie Groves tapped Pash to head security for the New Mexicobased Manhattan Project, he still commuted back to the Presidio throughout 1943. It was only after he was given command of the Alsos Mission, a joint US-UK effort to locate German nuclear scientists and those involved in chemical and biological warfare research, that Pash departed San Francisco.203 Lansdale was commissioned in the Officer Reserve Corps (ORC) in 1929 after doing Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) in high school and college, both of which he attended in LA. During the latter, he

197

Christopher Simpson, Blowback, 152-153 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 334; Simpson, Blowback, 153; Ralph P. Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK (New York: Hot Books, 2018), 116. 199 Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 69. 200 Simpson, Blowback, 153. 201 Ralph P. Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers, 116-117. 202 Ralph P. Ganis, The Skorzeny Paper, 114; Boris T. Pash papers (Box 1, "Biographical File 1918-1949"), Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 203 Boris T. Pash papers (Box 1, "Biographical File 1918-1949"), Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 198

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briefly served as a combat intelligence officer at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He remained in the ORC until 1937, when he tendered his resignation to his commanding general at the Presidio. Lansdale left LA in 1931 for New York, but returned to California, to San Francisco, in 1935.204 When Lansdale rejoined the Army towards the end of 1942, he was sent to the San Francisco field office of the Military Intelligence Service (the successor to the MID). He continued to work out of this location until 1944, even after joining the OSS, when he was reassigned to NYC. His office in San Francisco was not at the Presidio, but within two miles of it.205 Did Pash and Lansdale know one another? There's no record of this, but there are no shortages of points where the paths could have crossed. Pash's later work for PB/7 may provide a clue. Rather than carrying out assassinations directly, PB/7 may have been engaged in both planning and cover for the actual assassination squad. Was Lansdale's work in San Francisco serving a similar purpose, either for an assassination program, the Manhattan Project or both? It's believed that Pash's crew did carry out targeted assassinations of German scientific personnel during his Manhattan days.206 Another possible point of contact comes from General Ralph Van Deman. Often described as the "father" of American military intelligence, he was also one of the architects of blacklisting. Van Deman first cut his teeth in the black arts while serving in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. An insurgency was already brewing, and it fell to Van Deman to craft a counterintelligence apparatus to confront this threat. It proved highly effective, with some arguing this marked the beginning of America's surveillance state. When Van Deman took over military intelligence during WWI, he employed the same methods abroad and domestically: namely, the tracking of "subversive" via clandestine surveillance. Frequently, this was done by vigilante groups such as the semi-official American Protective League (which the American League succeeded), private detective agencies, and even Ku Klux Klan (KKK)-like groups being used to track civilians.207 Nor did Van Deman's work end after he retired from the Army in 1929. In point of fact, he continued tracking "subversives" on behalf of the Army and FBI from practically his retirement until his death in 1952. Setting up shop in San Diego, Van Deman began compiling files on US citizens, first in California, and later throughout the nation. The same super patriot-type groups were used, along with individual informants, information provided by the FBI, and military and naval intelligence. Suspected communists were always Van Deman's chief concern, especially those linked to the labor movement and Hollywood. Towards the end of the 1930s, he expanded his range to include Italian and Japanese-Americans. This left

204

Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 9-14, 17. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 18-19. 206 Ralph P. Ganis, The Skorzeny Files, 115. 207 Hochschild, A. (2018, January 5). How a Young Army officer built America's empire of paranoia from 85,000 index cards. Mother Jones. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/how-a-youngarmy-officer-built-americas-empire-of-paranoia-with-torture-surveillance-and-85000-index-cards/. For a more indepth exploration of Van Deman's work for military intelligence, see Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 293-346, etc. 205

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him well-positioned to play a leading role in the internment of the latter in the lead-up to WWII.208 In many ways, Van Deman's operation was a precursor to the later private intelligence activities of the American Security Council. The American Legion worked closely with the ASC on compiling its own collection of files. There is no hard evidence that Pash or Lansdale knew Van Deman. But there's no question that Pash was involved in interning Japanese-Americans prior to Pearl Harbor.209 Further, he was brought into active service in June 1940, roughly a month after a National Intelligence Conference was held by the heads of the military and FBI concerning espionage domestically. It was after this May meeting that Van Deman's network was formally brought into America's resurgent counterintelligence community.210 Pash became Chief of Army Counterintelligence for the Western Hemisphere during his Presidio days, while his papers reveal that he occasionally traveled to San Diego during the early 1940s.211 As such, it seems all but certain Pash knew Van Deman by this time. Could the relationship go back further? Pash worked as a school teacher in Hollywood throughout the 1930s while serving in the Army reserves as an intelligence officer. It's known Van Deman had a special obsession with Hollywood and was occasionally provided intelligence from the Army. Further, military intelligence was run out of San Francisco during this era, meaning Van Deman and Pash likely reported the same section. They both specialized in counterintelligence, after all. The possibility that Pash provided intelligence to Van Deman's network, either directly, or through a third party, seems strong. This would also explain why he was called into active duty and began working on interning Japanese-American shortly after Van Deman attended the May intelligence conferences. As for Lansdale, he rubbed elbows with Hollywood during his UCLA days. The father of one of his friends ran Hollywood's Central Casting Bureau. This led to Lansdale occasionally during work as an extra while at UCLA. It was also during this time Lansdale led an intelligence group at the UCLA ROTC. Hollywood and academia were popular targets of Van Deman. After school, Lansdale was active in the reserves while living in California from 1929-1931 and later from 1935-1937, when he resigned his commission. This timeframe certainly allows for the possibility that Lansdale, either directly or indirectly, was a source for Van Deman. It would have also given Lansdale the kinds of skills that justified placing him in charge of a major counterinsurgency operation. And in the Philippines, Van Deman's old stomping grounds, no less.

208

Hochschild, A. (2018, January 5). How a Young Army officer built America's empire of paranoia from 85,000 index cards. Mother Jones. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/how-a-youngarmy-officer-built-americas-empire-of-paranoia-with-torture-surveillance-and-85000-index-cards/; Alfred McCoy, Policing America's Empire, 321-333. 209 H.P. Albarreli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 331; Simpson, Blowback, 152-153; Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers, 114; Boris T. Pash papers (Box 1, "Biographical File 1918-1949"), Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 210 Boris T. Pash papers (Box 1, "Biographical File 1918-1949"), Hoover Institution Library & Archives; Alfred McCoy, Policing America's Empire, 327-328. 211 Boris T. Pash papers (Box 1, "Biographical File 1918-1949"), Hoover Institution Library & Archives; H.P. Albarelli Jr., 331.

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This is especially intriguing in light of one of Lansdale's most peculiar OSS assignments. During his time in San Francisco, Lansdale assisted with "truth drug experiments" then being carried out by that agency. These tests, often involving synthetic marijuana, were an early precursor to the work done by Projects ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA, among others. Lansdale has long been rumored to have played a significant role in these experiments, but the only evidence that has thus emerged is a brief mention of the future general in a September 1943 memorandum concerning this work.212 Also of interest on that note is a copy of Albert D. Biderman's report on American POWs in Korea residing in Lansdale's personal papers at Hoover.213 The reader will recall from Chapter 1 that Biderman developed the infamous "Chart of Coercion" while working on the Joint CIA-Air Force Project REPAIR during Korea. This coincided with Lansdale's time moonlighting for the CIA under Air Force cover in the Philippines. This is especially noteworthy in light of Lansdale's above-mentioned interest in psychological stresses. Inevitably, Lansdale has been linked to ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA as well. There is even less evidence for this than his ties to the OSS truth drug experiments. There is ample evidence that Lansdale participated in programs geared towards behavior modification using data analysis and the budding field of behavioral science, however. Further, great lengths have been taken to cover up his role. For instance, very little censorship was applied to Lansdale's special collection at Hoover Institute. From what I could tell, the folder with the most missing documents belonged to a collection of correspondences involving Rose Kushner from 1966-1967. Twenty-three mostly blank sheets of paper reside in that folder. Each bears the inscription "DOCUMENT CONTROL RECORD (Lansdale papers)" with a "Document Withdraw Number" below it.214 This is bizarre on so many levels. Rose Kushner was a journalist who became a celebrated breast cancer advocate during the late 1970s. President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the National Cancer Advisory Board during his administration. Kushner seems to have first reached out to Lansdale in March 1966 by soliciting his advice on a novel she was working on. In response, Lansdale notes that he has "a great stack of papers on the subjects" she asked about. Lansdale never names these subjects, and even seems hesitant to put them into writing. He suggests she contact two former members of his most recent Viet Nam team (Lansdale was there when Kushner first wrote to him) who possessed much of these materials and had "lived a great deal of it themselves."215 The two members, Bernard Yoh and Rufus Phillips, were counterinsurgency specialists who served with Lansdale during both of his Vietnam adventures. Much more will be said of both in the following chapter.

212

H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 219, 789n. Albert D. Biderman, "American Prisoners in the Korean War: An Antidotal Review," draft 1961 February 5, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 14, "Korea"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 214 Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 215 Edward Lansdale to Rose Kushner, 18 March 1966, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 213

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Kushner continued to work on the book, which was dubbed The Peacehawks, through November 1966. Lansdale was at the center of it, and Kushner began the process of making arrangements to meet him in Vietnam through the Pentagon.216 Something seems to have changed towards the end of that year. In early 1967 Kushner began circulating a paper among the foreign policy establishment that she had written. It was entitled "The War in Vietnam." It's likely this report is what was removed from Kushner's folder as I was unable to find a copy of it in the special collection. As such, I only have a vague sense of its contents gleaned from additional letters referencing it. But, it's clear Kushner's paper dealt with techniques of behavior modification. She advocated using "behavioral and Pavlovian concepts in conducting the war...". Kushner worked at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine's Pavlovian Laboratory during the late 1940s and continued to study behavioral science for years afterward. When she wrote the paper, Kushner was an editorial board member of the Pavlovian journal Conditional Reflex.217 She solicited support for her paper from Dr W Horsley Gantt, her former boss at the Pavlovian Laboratory; University of Utah psychologists Paul S Porter and Ernst G Beier; State University of New York at Stony Brook's psychologist Leonard Krasner; and BF Skinner, the father of behavioralism and one of the most influential and celebrated psychologists of the 20th century.218 They all believed her proposal had merit. Krasner even went so far as to state, "... applying behavioral principles to world problems... is not only exciting but I believe inevitable."219 The paper began circulating in national security circles, especially among Lansdale's team. Two Lansdale collaborators, the abovementioned Phillips and Colonel Sam Karrick, wrote glowing accounts of it. Another fellow traveler, General William P Yarborough, was duly impressed. The Army passed it along to its Medical Research and Development branch.220 The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) team in Bolivia studied her proposals and sought to implement several. Running them through USAID's "Community Development Program," they were seen as consistent with "the Lansdale approach."221 What was it about Kushner's proposal that generated so much buzz, especially among Lansdale's circle? A clue can be discerned from Leonard Unger, a State Department official, in a letter he sent to Kushner on April 1, 1967. Therein, he notes her "line of thinking" had "been pursued here [Vietnam], especially by

216

Arthur Sylvester to Rose Kushner, 2 December 1966, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 217 W. Horsley Gantt to Rose Kushner, 16 January 1967, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 218 B.F. Skinner to Rose Kushner, 27 January 1967, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 219 Leonard Krasner to Rose Kushner, 23 February 1967, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 220 Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 221 Charles C. Brady to Rose Kushner, 5 September 1967, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

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USAID in relation to Revolutionary Development...". Unger goes on to note that a team headed by Dr. Ithiel de Sola Pool was currently in Vietnam conducting research along the lines she outlined.222 At the time, Pool was overseeing a project in Vietnam on behalf of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Its lineage traces back to projects Lansdale had initiated in the Pentagon during the early 1960s. Much more will be said of this work in Chapter 6. But suffice to say, Lansdale was deeply engaged in behavioral modification initiatives. But rather than LSD or electroshock, he preferred data mining and the emerging field of computer technology. *** But to return to Lansdale's early years. As the European theater wound down in 1945, he transferred to Army intelligence and headed to the Pacific Theater. In the immediate aftermath of that conflict, he (now in the Air Force after it separated from the Army) worked as an "advisor" in the Philippines during the Huk Rebellion (1942-1954). Circa 1954, he was dispatched to Vietnam in the same capacity. During the early 1960s, he oversaw Operation Mongoose, the JFK administration's attempt to unseat (read: assassinate) Castro. Finally, he returned to Vietnam in 1965 and remained there till 1968. From there, Lansdale's public career largely came to an end. While he served with the Air Force throughout the postwar years, it was cover for a host of covert operations he oversaw for both the CIA and DoD.223 During this roughly twenty-three-year period, Lansdale arguably became the "father" of American counterinsurgency doctrine.224 His work in the Philippines alone shaped America's approach to counterinsurgency for years to come.225 But how did he manage this? His curriculum vitae (CV) prior to 1950 gives few indications as to why he was tasked with directing a major counterinsurgency operation on behalf of the CIA during that year. I've already tried to answer this question and will continue to explore it throughout this work. Another possible clue may be discerned by an agency Lansdale worked closely with on the Philippines campaign: the US Information Agency (USIA). On the rare occasion that Lansdale's collaboration with the USIA in the Philippines is mentioned, it's in the most mundane fashion: the Agency provided the Filipino troops with handbooks on his behalf,226 or gifting free film and literature to the nation's Civil Affairs Office for propaganda purposes.227 But the USIA was simultaneously engaged in more dubious activities. Since 1951, it contracted with the Bureau of Social Science Research (BSSR) for various projects.228

222

Leonard Unger to Rose Kushner, 1 April 1967, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no 54., Folder "Kushner, Rose 1966-1967"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 223 Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 1-3. 224 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 109; Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 319-320. 225 See, for instance, McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 100-126. 226 Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars, 138 227 Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 114; Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 112; Alfed McCoy, Policing America's Empire, 377. 228 Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture, 72.

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The reader will recall from Chapter 1 that the BSSR was deeply involved in Operation REPAIR, a joint CIA/US Air Force project investigating brainwashing and interrogation in the Korean War. One of its more enduring legacies was a psychiatrist and BSSR Senior Research Associate Albert Biderman's Chart of Coercion. This work was later incorporated into the CIA's Kubark interrogation manual and employed at Guantanamo Bay during the 2000s.229 The Human Ecology Fund, the MK-ULTRA funding conduit linked to the IAS, also underwrote BSSR's studies of Africa and prisoner interrogation. Not to be outdone, the Air Force provided the BSSR with funding for a variety of colorful projects: "targets and vulnerabilities in psychological warfare" for the peoples of Eastern Europe and Soviet Kazakhstan; a report on "captivity behavior" and psychological collapse among POWs; and a series of studies on the usefulness of drugs, electroshock, violence, and other coercive techniques during the interrogation of prisoners.230 In contrast, the BSSR's work for USIA sounds positively benign: to inculcate a state-of-the-art understanding of communication dynamics into the USIA's overseas propaganda program. This resulted in three crucial introductions to the USIA's propaganda efforts: audience surveys; opinion leaders, as well as a distinction between elite and mass propaganda/psychological operations (a distinction the IAS later upheld), and the penetration of "nation communications systems" by US propaganda. In 1953, the USIA commissioned the BSSR to study public opinion and communications in the Philippines along these lines. These efforts taught the USIA how to identify local opinion leaders from surveys derived from Filipino interviews; gauge respondents' sources of information on the US; compile statistics on attitudes towards US-Philippines relations, democracy, nationalism, and communism; and secure feedback on the effectiveness of these efforts. 231 But beyond this, information on Filipino culture and native superstitions gathered by the USIA was funneled back to Lansdale via the Psychological Strategy Board, and later the National Security Council.232 As we shall see, Lansdale used this data for some rather colorful psywar ops. For now, it should be emphasized that this was the dawn of a new approach to psychological warfare, one that emphasized a "scientific" approach. In many ways, Lansdale's background as an adman during the 1930s, and later as a research specialist during WWII, made him ideal for this brave new world. He already possessed an intuitive understanding of the emerging science of communications from his PR days. His OSS tenure may have driven home the importance of compiling as much raw data on a subject as possible. This provides a crucial insight into Lansdale's later approach to counterinsurgency. It's certainly evident in the rise of Raymond Magsaysay as president of the Philippines. For Magsaysay's 1953 presidential campaign, Lansdale put his unique skill set to good use. Magsaysay was Lansdale's chosen candidate, and to ensure his election, he applied advertising techniques such as "symbol manipulation" and "motivational analysis" as part of his electioneering.233 In this fashion, Lansdale "sold" 229

See Chapter 1 for further details. Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion: Communication Research & Psychological Warfare 1945-1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 72. 231 Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion, 73. 232 Simpson, Science of Coercion, 74-75. 233 Curtis, The Unquiet American, 113-114. 230

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Magsaysay, American-style "democracy" to both the Philippines and the rest of the world. To achieve this, Lansdale (frequently with the assistance of the Civic Affairs Office (CAO), blanketed the island nation with political propaganda. Among the most effective instances of this was the political slogan "Magsaysay is my guy" on buttons; big-beat recordings of "The Magsaysay Mambo" and "The Magsaysay March," both of which became popular songs; and the enlistment of major American newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.234 Lansdale modeled his efforts on a similar campaign that drafted Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1952. This will take on greater significance once we start exploring the concept of "Civic Action." For now, one final point bears mentioning: Lansdale wasn't just selling Magsaysay to the Philippines, but also American interventionism to the rest of the world. After disastrous efforts to “rollback” communism in Eastern Europe and the Korean War stalemate, Lansdale's Philippines operation put a more benevolent face on American imperialism. American advisers such as Lansdale were just there to ensure free and democratic elections. In a sense, the Philippines was marketed as a model for how developing nations could collaborate with the United States to achieve democracy and economic advances. In reality, it was simply a Madison Avenue form of colonialism that emphasized image over substance. And Lansdale sold it as well as anyone.

The Gangster

Another aspect of Lansdale's towering legacy needs unpacking: drug trafficking. Lansdale first became aware (allegedly) of its role in Southeast Asian politics circa 1953. During the summer of that year, he conducted a six-week investigative tour of Indochina to understand the Viet Minh (a predecessor to the Viet Cong) invasion of Laos. In the process, he stumbled upon "Operation X." Various French intelligence and paramilitary services, desperately short of funds and working in conjunction with a loose confederation of French organized crime syndicates known as the Corsican Brotherhood, had taken control over much of the Golden Triangle's lucrative opium trade. When Lansdale found out the French military was complicit in drug trafficking, he urged Washington to investigate. In theory, he was ignored.235

234

Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 33-34, 37, etc; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 143-145, etc. Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003), 131-140. The "Golden Triangle" is a region between the borders of Laos, Thailand, and Burma (later Myanmar) that produced much of the world's illicit opium from roughly the end of the Second World War until the mid-1970s. McCoy's The Politics of Heroin is probably the most thorough account of this history. Other compelling accounts appear in Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence, and International Fascism (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1980) and Douglas Valentine's two part history of American drug enforcement agencies, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's Drug War (London: Verso, 2004) and The Strength of the Pack: The Personalities, Politics, and Espionage Intrigues that Shaped the DEA (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2009). 235

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But just how ignorant was Lansdale of this state of affairs prior to 1953? When Lansdale was dispatched to the Philippines in 1950 on behalf of the CIA, his boss was General (then Colonel) Richard Stilwell, head of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC, the predecessor to the CIA's Directorate of Operations)'s Far East Division.236 Stilwell was certainly aware of the importance of opium in that region by this time. He was deeply involved in Operation Paper, a covert activity launched in 1950 during the Korean War. With the support of the CIA, Taiwanese guerrilla forces were inserted into the People's Republic of China (PRC) via Burma. While the US Military faced Chinese communist forces in Korea, Nationalist Chinese guerrillas would be used to destabilize the PRC from within. Or at least that was the plan. In actuality, the Taiwanese forces proved much more adept at taking over the region's opium traffick than challenging the PRC. They set up shop in Burma and were soon producing nearly a third of the world's illicit opium, a fact Stilwell was well aware of.237 This provides a compelling context to Lansdale's allegations of French complicity in opium trafficking during 1953. The following year, Lansdale was again dispatched to Vietnam. He was in a full-blown war with the French and their underworld backers not long after arriving. Lansdale went about fragmenting and dividing the legions of religious sects and gangs (often intertwined) that dominated South Vietnam in the final years of French rule. Lansdale knew the drug trade was crucial to French influence and immediately began targeting it. The pushback was just as sudden. A Chinese banker assisting in Lansdale's efforts was murdered not long afterward. This briefly deterred Lansdale's investigation, but shortly after 1955's Battle of Saigon (essentially a clash between US and French-backed South Vietnamese forces), the French-supported opium trade was broken. It wasn't until 1958 that the government of South Vietnam began to revive the opium trade to finance its own counterinsurgency efforts. The Lansdale-sanctioned regime of Ngo Dinh Diem made the move.238 Lansdale was greatly aided in these efforts by legendary OSS/CIA paramilitary officer Lucien "Black Luigi" Conein. He was born in Paris, but grew up in Kansas. Once WWII broke out, he returned to France, where he joined the regular army (and not the elite Foreign Legion, as he often boasted). After France's defeat, he returned to the US. There, he joined the US Army, and later the OSS. In 1944, he returned to France as part of the OSS' famed Jedburgh teams, one of the earliest uses of unconventional warfare by the US intelligence services. While working with the French resistance, Conein developed excellent contacts with the Corsican Brotherhood. It was they who gave him the handle Black Luigi.239

236

Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 68, 71-72; Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 113. Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 75-86; Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 167-178; Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992), 299300; 238 Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 156-161; Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 203-204, 254-274, etc; Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup, 133. 239 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 216; H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 335. 237

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Conein exploited these contacts as part of Lansdale's war against the French. Despite being Lansdale's principal informant on the Corsican drug routes, either the syndicate never made the connection or simply didn't seek reprisal (which would be highly unusual for the Corsicans) if they were so aware.240 Multiple French-sponsored efforts, especially after the Battle of Saigon, were made to kill Lansdale and terrorize his fellow Americans. Lansdale described the atmosphere thus in his biography: "A group of French soreheads among the French in Saigon undertook a spiteful terror campaign against American residents. Grenades were tossed at night into the yards of houses where Americans lived. American owned automobiles were blown-up or booby-trapped."241 At least one US Marine came under fire via a drive-by carried out by someone in a French Army truck.242 Lansdale claimed that he was shot at by a sniper while driving through Saigon.243 Later, a French man who resembled Lansdale was machine-gunned to death in front of the adman's house.244 Tellingly, the US Information Service in Saigon was one of the American institutions rocked by explosions.245 In true Mafioso fashion, Lansdale confronted his rival, the French Colonel Jean Carbonel, after the man resembling Lansdale turned up dead in front of his house. Lansdale informed Carbonel that he was "withdrawing his protection" from the French forces. The next morning, he made the same statement to the French ambassador. Meanwhile, Lucien Conein was busy assembling explosive devices. That night, he tossed the bombs in the yard of Carbonel and other senior French military officers. The final recipient of one of Conein's bombs was the French ambassador. For good measure, several French junior officers were simultaneously arrested for possession of explosive devices and a target list of Americans.246 Game, set, match. Lansdale had won. When Lansdale returned to Vietnam in 1965, he was more accommodating. In 1971, Lansdale told Alfred McCoy that shortly after arriving, he learned the Corsicans were still active in Vietnam; and held a grudge from the Battle of Saigon. But circumstances were much different in 1965 than they had been in 1955. "So I wouldn't have to look behind my back every time I walked down the street," Lansdale explained to McCoy, "I decided to have a meeting with the Corsican leaders. I told them I wasn't interested in doing any criminal investigations; I wasn't in Vietnam for that. And they agreed to leave me alone. We had some kind of truce."247 This was quite a reversal in course for a man who had been after the Corsican's opium network since 1953. Once again, his point man was Black Luigi. Conein was well aware the Corsicans were still a major presence in the Golden Triangle, a point he passed onto Lansdale. Lansdale opted to take no action, allegedly 240

Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup, 133. Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 316-317. 242 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 277-278 243 Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 317; Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 161. 244 Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 317; Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 161; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 278 245 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 278 246 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 279-280; Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 317-318 247 McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 249. 241

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because it was no longer his area of responsibility.248 Given his longstanding antagonism towards the Corsicans, and the French in general, this explanation does not come off as very compelling. McCoy believed political considerations were at play. Vietnam's then-Premier, General Nguyen Cao Ky, had close officials within his regime collaborating with the Corsicans in exchange for a cut of the profit. Ky's hold on the country was fragile, and exposure of his administration's complicity in the heroin trade could have toppled it. And it would have been impossible to target the Corsicans without embarrassing Ky, hence the lack of action on Lansdale's part.249 Elsewhere, Douglas Valentine suggests that, in addition to these political considerations, Lansdale and Conein were also using the Corsicans as informants concerning drug smugglers aiding the insurgency. He further suggests that, in addition to sparing Ky embarrassment, he was doing the same for the CIA. At the time, much of the heroin in Vietnam found its way there from Laos, where the CIA supported various traffickers against communist insurgents.250 Whether Lansdale was that concerned over sparing the CIA embarrassment at this point is debatable, as we shall see. Dutch researcher Henrik Kruger, in the classic The Great Heroin Coup, offered up a very different explanation. Concurrent with Lansdale's return to Vietnam in 1965 was an upheaval in the Laotian heroin racket. Reportedly, US-backed Laotian and South Vietnamese generals, including Premier Ky, were taking over the opium traffick. One consequence was an end to "Air Opium," a collection of aging aircraft chartered by the Corsicans during the late 1950s to transport their wares. This left the CIA-sponsored Civil Air Transport (CAT), the predecessor to the more well-known Air America, as the unrivaled opium air power in Southeast Asia. The Corsican position in the Golden Triangle was further weakened after a threeway opium war in Laos concluded in 1967, the same year Lansdale left Vietnam. The Corsicans remained for a few more years, but their decades-spanning domination of the opium trade in Southeast Asia was finally broken.251 Lansdale was a supporter of Ky, and his office worked closely with the general. Did part of his duties include assisting Ky in consolidating his hold over the opium trade? Lansdale was an old hand at the Golden Triangle opium trade by this point, and his penetration of the Corsicans via Conein was absolute. No one would have been better suited for the task, and it would explain the cloud of mystery that still lingers over Lansdale's last significant overseas deployment. While this is often explained away due to the general's alleged failure, it seems more likely because of the sensitive nature of Lansdale's work. Managing the heroin trade was only one aspect of it. Another was likely was political. Daniel Ellsberg recounted a discussion on election rigging in which Ambassador Lodge made some provocative statements. Those present were left with the impression that he expected Lansdale to assist with the political situation.252

248

ibid. ibid, 251. 250 Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf, 419-420. 251 Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup, 133-134. 252 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, 106-108. 249

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We will address some additional, disturbing, possibilities in just a moment. For now, the stage must be set by another little remarked-upon, but highly significant aspect of Lansdale's legacy.

The Operator

Beginning in 1957, Lansdale operated out of the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations (OSO),253 an earlier incarnation of which approached Andrija Puharich about ESP a few years prior. This is noteworthy, for as well shall see, Lansdale, who specialized in psywar, was known for embracing unorthodox approaches to his craft. Proto-OSO's earlier discussions with Puharich indicate the outfit already had an interest in the eccentric even before Lansdale made the scene. But he took it to a whole other level of weird. Lansdale took over the OSO, albeit a new incarnation of it, in 1961 and remained its chief until 1963.254 It was a heady time for such things. America had a new president, and he had a different perspective on the Cold War than his immediate predecessors. During the Eisenhower years, a nuclear doctrine of massive retaliation prevailed among the Armed Forces. This anticipated massive showcase battles against the Soviet Union in which air power would be supreme. By contrast, JFK (like Lansdale) favored a policy of "small wars" (i.e. unconventional warfare, popularly known as guerilla warfare; and counterinsurgency) in which the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) would square off in proxy conflicts across the developing world.255 In hindsight, the latter view clearly foresaw the emerging dynamics of the Cold War and how it would be waged. But military planners are often biased by how previous wars were won, making them oblivious to how future ones will be fought. The Cold War was a classic instance of this. The US military harbored a 253

Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 314; Cecil N. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 189; Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, tape 1/side 2, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript, p. 14, https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-051228-017.pdf. 254 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 358; Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 230-231; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency that Changed the World (New York: Alfred A. Knopp, 2017), 74. In actuality, by 1962, the Lansdale office had a rival: the Special Assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Special Activities, or SACSA. SASCA and the Lansdale office were arch rivals. SASCA prevailed and Lansdale's office was formally abolished in September 1963, shortly before his retirement. SASCA appears to have continued on for a time, and may have been a bridge to what became the Assistant Secretary of Defense of Special Operations and Low -Intensity Conflicts and Special Operations Command from Erskine's initial Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Special operations and the Office of Special Operations. For more on this netherworld, see Boot, The Road Not Taken, 314-315, 358, 420-421; Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, tape 1/side 2, tape 2/side 1, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript, p. 14, 20-21; https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-051228-017.pdf; and L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2008), 486-491. 255 Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 14-15; Robert Coram, Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010), 260.

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deep-rooted suspicion of guerrilla fighters since WWII (when such forces became a staple in modern warfare) and maintained this attitude throughout the 1950s.256 By this time, the offensive use of guerilla fighters in enemy or enemy-controlled territory would be defined as "unconventional warfare." Basically, this was US forces working with indigenous fighters to create an insurgency in hostile territory. In the early years, counterinsurgency was often lumped in with unconventional warfare, though it would emerge as a distinct form of war by the 1960s. While unconventional warfare concerned itself with creating an insurgency in hostile territory, counterinsurgency sought to put down insurgencies in friendly states or regions. In other words, it was a defensive strategy to the offensive-oriented doctrine of unconventional warfare.257 JFK was an unabashed US Army Special Forces groupie (the military's leading unconventional warfare specialists). The president was described as having an almost romantic fascination with this type of warfare and virtually adopted the Special Forces. While it's well known that it was JFK who authorized the Special Forces to wear their distinct green berets (previously denied to them by the JCS), his involvement influenced every aspect of the unit. He personally supervised the selection of new equipment and assessed their training. Shortly after taking office, he doubled the size of the Special Forces and ordered their commandancy to be a general officer (a prospect consistently resisted by high command throughout the 1950s).258 Kennedy was also an early and vigorous supporter of counterinsurgency, which became a central public plank of his foreign policy. JFK's preoccupation with insurgencies dates back to the early 1950s, when he toured Indochina as a young congressman. Disillusioned with European colonialism and concerned with Soviet-sponsored "brush-wars" in the developing world, he envisioned a perfect storm in which much of the world would turn Red through this combination of incompetence (Europe) and duplicity (the USSR).259 The new-fangled doctrine of counterinsurgency appeared to have the mojo then needed. It would enable the US to confront Soviet forces in a limited, covert fashion while avoiding large, foreign military buildups that typify colonialism. Given the brutality later associated with special operations forces and counterinsurgencies, JFK's support may surprise those who perceive him as a peacenik.260 Just how anti-war Kennedy truly was is debatable in and of itself. Still, it's important to emphasize that during the early 1960s, special operations forces and counterinsurgency were widely viewed as a more moderate option for confronting the Soviet Union. To 256

See, for instance, Alfred H. Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 33, 74-76, etc; and Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 30-46, etc. 257 Alfred Paddock, Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 2; Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 34-35. 258 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 179-181. 259 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 161-163; Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 156-157; Robert Coram, Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine, 260; Gerard Colby & Charlotte Dennett, They Will Be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 375. 260 Amusingly, L. Fletcher Prouty argues Kennedy only embraced counterinsurgency due to the influence of his brother. Robert Kennedy was effectively JFK's counterinsurgency czar, and according to Prouty, only became committed to it after he was "brainwashed" by the Pentagon and CIA. See The Secret Team, 475-476.

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understand just how moderate this option would have appeared to Cold War liberals, we need only consider, in brief, the mushroom clouds then being envisioned by the JCS. JFK was already concerned with the military brass following the Bay of Pigs. In the aftermath, he confessed: "If there were another Bay of Pigs... the military would almost feel it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to protect the integrity of the nation, and only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment."261 The president realized just how dire the situation was shortly after taking office in 1961. JFK had attacked Nixon during the campaign over the "missile gap," a purported Soviet advantage in nuclear weapons that posed a mortal threat to the US.262 Shortly after assuming office, the president learned that not only was the missile gap nonexistent, but that the US held a 10 to 1 superiority in nukes over the Reds!263 Ironically, this discovery was made via state-of-the-art spy satellites after JFK and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered an overhaul of US first-strike nuclear strategy.264 And that was only the beginning. At anNational Security Council meeting during the summer of 1961, the JCS' Net Evaluation Subcommittee presented JFK with a plan for a surprise nuclear strike against the Soviets. The attack would be launched in late 1963, after "a period of heightened tension." Kennedy was so unsettled by the proposal that he walked out in the middle of the briefing.265 This insanity emanates from a military doctrine known as "Escalation Dominance," initially conceived by RAND during the 1950s. In brief, this is the ability to threaten or coerce other nations or actors via the capability of dominating the next level of escalation in violence. Borrowing from concepts of conventional warfare, RAND strategists used computers and game theory to develop the doctrine. They even codified it into mathematical "theorems." Its essence was the ability to threaten escalation to the "utmost levels of violence" to control lower levels of conventional conflict.266 This doctrine raises two significant problems: the perpetual need for nuclear superiority, on the one hand, and the willingness to play the ultimate trump card: a preemptive first strike. After all, the escalations of threats won't have any credibility if your enemy calls your bluff and you're unwilling to follow through. During the cold war, this meant the tactical use of nuclear weapons in a limited war and intercontinental 261

Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), 357. 262 Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans (Boston: South End Press, 1987), 131, 135. These dire warnings began in 1958, emanating from the pen of columnist Joseph Alsop. Soon military figures like Strategic Air Command head General Thomas Powers chipped in to the apocalyptic chorus. By 1963, they warned, the Soviet Union would have 2000 ICBMs to the US' paltry 130. 263 Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans, 11; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 591-592. 264 Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 139-140. 265 James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters (New York: Touchstone, 2008), 236. See also, Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 11. 266 Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 4-6; Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould, Rollback: Right-wing Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1989), 50-51, 120-121.

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ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in a strategic conflict. And in both cases, the first blow must be struck. Thanks to game theory, RAND conceived of a proverbial nuclear "royal flush." This is a rare conjunction of circumstances during a hand of poker in which victory is assured. In this case, the US could deliver a "disarming first strike," a pre-emptive knockout blow to an enemy's military forces that incapacitates their ability to retaliate.267 Planning for the royal flush, of a devastating surprise preemptive strike, was enshrined in US strategy by NSC-68 in 1954.268 In 1961, the Pentagon believed such a window of "opportunity" presented itself."269 Following the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the JSC advised Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that first-strike capability was both "feasible and desirable." This spurred the president to inform his brother that "the military is mad." McNamara, JFK, and other civilians within the administration pushed back against the JCS, but the buildup continued. By 1963, the Air Force Association, a veterans group, and IAS cooperating agency, openly pushed for nuclear superiority.270 In September of that year, JFK starred down another briefing from the Net Evaluation folks. He and his advisors were better prepared this time. The JCS acknowledged that even a preemptive strike would result in 30 million US civilian casualties by 1968, well above the eye-popping 12 million figure being bantered about by the Strategic Air Command at the time. McNamara was even more dire concerning 1968. His estimates projected that even if the US destroyed 93 percent of the USSR's nuclear capabilities in a first strike, the Soviets would still be able to inflict roughly 50 million casualties domestically. But at least 140 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union would perish with them. One can't help but wonder if Kubrick was informed of this encounter while working on 1964's Dr. Strangelove.271 JFK pressed the attack and got the JCS to acknowledge that the US and USSR were approaching a point of nuclear stalemate. But the data from the 1963 briefing may have been misleading: it appears to have been based on projections of US and Soviet nuclear arsenals between 1964-1968. The reader will recall that the original Net Evaluation report was based upon a strike occurring at the end of 1963, after a period of "heightened tension." In other words, it's possible senior military officers still believed a window of opportunity existed for a first strike in the coming months.272 Keep this in mind as we explore the development of special operations forces during the Kennedy years. One final note on US nuclear policy before moving along: In a bit of irony, the original conception of US 267

Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 10. Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 63. NSC-68 also formalized Escalation Dominance" as formal US policy. While the US waited to be dealt that royal flush, it advocated the perpetual pursuit of nuclear superiority and a global encirclement of the Soviet Union with nukes. 269 Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 14. 270 James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, 238-240: Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, 357-358. 271 James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable, 240-241; Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 146. 272 James W. Douglas, JFK and the Unspeakable, 241-243. 268

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special operations forces came out of nuclear planning during the late 1940s. The Pentagon estimated that even if the US were able to wipe out the bulk of the USSR's military capabilities by nuclear means, the underground resistance it would face across such a vast territory would make occupation by conventional military means impossible. Thus, a plan was drawn up using elite US commandos working in conjunction with anticommunist indigenous paramilitaries (i.e. White Russians and former Nazi Quislings such as Ukrainian Nationalists) to roll up the Communist guerillas and eventually occupy the territories on behalf of the Pentagon. This laid the groundwork for what became the Green Berets.273 Special operations forces and covert operations would later be framed as a "safer" alternative to nuclear war. But did the relationship between SOFs and nuclear policy ever truly end? This is a subject we shall revisit before this work concludes. *** Edward Lansdale was also one of the earliest visionaries behind modern counterinsurgency, or COIN. While little acknowledged, his influence on US counterinsurgency doctrine is still felt to this day.274 But at the pinnacle of Lansdale's career during the late 1950s/early 1960s, he was regarded as a COIN guru second to none. Lansdale was already using his reputation to make waves in the Office of Special Operations even before JFK came to power. Since its establishment in 1953, it was run by famed Marine Corps General Graves Erskine, whom Lansdale worked under as a deputy director beginning in 1957.275 With Erskine at the helm, the OSO was a powerful office deeply involved in a host of covert activities, including special operations, psychological warfare, and sensitive intelligence activities involving signals. And as the Pentagon's representative on the "Special Group" (and its predecessors)276 and the US Intelligence Board, it was part of an interagency committee that supervised the entire intelligence community. A major aspect of this was veto power over many covert operations proposed by the CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA), and JCS. It also supervised all DoD intelligence activities, making it a precursor to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It even helped set policy for the NSA, giving it a voice in things like spy satellites.277 Suffice to say, this made a lot of enemies within the national security state.

273

Christopher Simpson, Blowback, 138-141; Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 40-42. Boot, The Road Not Taken, 320-323; 600, etc; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 1, etc. 275 Major Barton J. Mallory to Colonel Edward Lansdale, June 12, 1957, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.71, "Military Service"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team, 486. 276 This body was originally known as the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) when it was established in 1951. After Eisenhower became president in 1953, it was reorganized as the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB), both of which were addressed in chapter 1. Then, in 1955, it became the Planning Coordinating Group (PCG). Not long afterwards, it was rechristened the "Special Group." It retained this title until the LBJ administration, when it became the 303 Committee. See Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), 115, 173, etc. 277 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 314-315; Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, 189-192, 207-208; L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team, 486; Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript; 274

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Said enemies took the opportunity to strike in the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion (1961). Erskine suffered a heart attack prior to the run-up. This left Lansdale as the OSO's representative on the Special Group for the planning. Despite his reputation as a CIA stooge, Lansdale fiercely resisted the agency throughout, effectively denying them access to special operations forces and other Pentagon resources. Allen Dulles, previously a staunch Lansdale supporter, was outraged. He personally interceded with Lansdale. Eventually, the soon-to-be general relented and asked to tour Southeast Asia while the debacle came to its inevitable conclusion.278 When it came time to assign blame for the Bay of Pigs, one of the oddest culprits was the OSO. Despite Lansdale's repeated objections to the assault, the office was singled out. In the days following the Bay of Pigs failure, Erskine's staff was dispersed to other offices and duties. Lansdale acquired some in a new, less powerful version of the OSO. The creation of the DIA, which Erskine had lobbied for, was sped up, stripping both OSOs of the bulk of their intelligence functions. All signals duties were transferred to the NSA, along with the OSO's regulatory powers over it. Erskine retired, and not long afterward his office ceased to be.279 Despite the original OSO's downfall and JFK's growing apathy towards the CIA, Lansdale briefly thrived in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs. A variation of the Special Group, Special Group Augmented (SGA), was launched with Robert Kennedy as the de facto head. Lansdale was appointed as executive officer and chief of operations for this group.280 The infamous Operation Mongoose, often depicted as the CIA's bestknown assassination program, grew out of this body. Tasked with toppling Castro's regime, Mongoose employed the mafia in a bid to assassinate the dictator at one point. Lansdale does not appear to have been privy to the schemes. In point of fact, the CIA largely denied him access to their Mongoose activities. And for good reason: Lansdale was attempting to undermine these efforts. In August 1962, the general issued a Mongoose policy paper that spoke of the "liquidation of leaders." Effectively, he was leaving a paper trail for Mongoose's assassin plots --a cardinal sin against the cult of secrecy (more commonly referred to as "plausible deniability") surrounding such https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-051228-017.pdf, 21;Keyes, Roger M. “152. Memorandum From the Deputy Secretary of Defense: Reorganization—Office of Special Operations, Office of the Secretary of Defense.” U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, July 15, 1953. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d152. 278 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 207-208, 210-212; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 376-377. The rift between Lansdale and Dulles probably began in Vietnam. During the Battle of Saigon, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (Allen's brother) supported the removal of Diem. Lansdale directly defied him and kept Diem in power. While you couldn't quibble with the results at the time, it's possible Allen nourished resentment over Lansdale's cavalier disregard of his brother's orders. Ones that Allen himself supported. See Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 139-141; Currey, Edward Lansdale, 175-177; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 286-289. Tellingly, Lansdale is very careful about what he sees concerning John Foster's role in these intrigues and doesn't mention Allen at all. See Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 300-301. 279 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 230-231; Prouty, The Secret Team, 486-487. See also V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript; https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-051228-017.pdf, 21. 280 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 240; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 380-381. McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 203.

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things. 281 This is often chalked up to Lansdale's "aloof" nature. By this point, Lansdale had been active in the US intelligence community for nearly two decades and was known for the tight secrecy he maintained in the field.282 It seems more likely that he could maintain secrecy when it suited him and be aloof when he wanted something to come out. And indeed, some thirteen years later, the Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities --more commonly known as the Church Committee --would use Lansdale's original policy paper as a major basis for their exploration of CIA assassination plots.283 The CIA, in turn, would try to discredit Lansdale by highlighting some of the more colorful psywar proposals he put forward to the Special Group.284 More on those in a moment. For now, it's important to emphasize the growing rift between Lansdale and the CIA during this time. A major factor in this was the "pilot program" nature of the SGA. It was a quasi-agency meant to directly manage a major covert operation, bypassing the CIA's control of such things in the process. While the CIA still had a role via the notorious "Task Force W,"285 it was theoretically a supporting agency in SGA. As the executive officer and chief of operations in Mongoose, the CIA director and agency were supposed to report to Lansdale. Max Boot described Mongoose outside of CIA control "as a challenge to the entire intelligence establishment...". While this position is a bit extreme, Boot makes a valid point: if Mongoose succeeded where the CIA had failed in toppling Castro, the existence and future of the CIA would come into question. 286 The reader will recall from above that Lansdale fiercely resisted the CIA's Bay of Pigs plan. As we shall see in the next chapter, he even inserted one of his longtime paramilitary officers into the operation to spy on the proceedings. Eventually, Lansdale was tapped to replace the CIA in directing anti-Castro activities. By all accounts, he exercised heavy-handed control over the CIA's contributions, requiring the agency to submit their plans "in nauseating detail." Lansdale's insistence on having as much in writing, including assassination plans, is curious in this context. William K Harvey, Lansdale's handpicked CIA representative to Mongoose, eventually cut the general out of the loop and ceased meeting with him.287 This feud continued during the Church Committee, with CIA officers who worked with Lansdale on Mongoose invoking his whimsical psywar proposals as a means to discredit him.288

281

Currey, Edward Lansdale, 245-249; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 390-391. See, for instance, Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 234. 283 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 247-248. 284 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 385. 285 Task Force W oversaw Miami's JMWAVE station. It was staffed by 500-600 employees who managed over 3000 Cuban agents. It was by far the largest CIA station in the world during this era, costing more than $100 million annually. Overseeing these efforts was the CIA's "Blond Ghost," Theodore Shackley. Fittingly, it was this station that oversaw CIA's ploy to enlist the Syndicate to assassinate Castro. See Currey, Edward Lansdale, 245; and Boot, 392. Boot describes it as the second largest CIA station. 286 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 398; See also, Currey, Edward Lansdale, 240, etc. 287 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 246; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 390-391. 288 Boot, 397-398; Currey, 243-244. 282

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Nor was the CIA the only body feeling threatened by the general. Lansdale was never popular with the Pentagon's hierarchy, and their patience with him was well exhausted by the early 1960s. As was noted above, the military was dominated by generals who rose through the ranks during WWII. They were infatuated with air power and saw war with the Soviet Union as inevitable. The Kennedy administration's emphasis on low-intensity conflict threatened defense budgets for conventional forces at best and left the US vulnerable to the Soviet military juggernaut. Or so the thinking went. To counter Lansdale's influence on counterinsurgency and special operations, the JCS established another special operations office headed by the "Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities," or SACSA. Fittingly, it became the Pentagon's point of contact for the CIA concerning covert operations. It also cut Lansdale out of the loop in Vietnam, where SACSA took over operations. Further compounding the situation was SACSA's eventual head: Marine General Victor "the Brute" Krulak.289 Befitting a man nicknamed Brute, Krulak cut nearly as colorful a figure as Lansdale. On the one hand, the Brute was a far more effective bureaucrat than his rival. On the other, Krulak's knack for self-promotion (and tall tales) may have been on par with Lansdale's. For years, the Brute insisted he encountered JFK in the Pacific Theater of WWII. In the standard version, the meeting revolved around JFK rescuing Krulak's besieged forces at Choiseul Bay, off the Solomon Islands. The marine general later left an addendum to the Kennedy Presidential Library acknowledging that this meeting, or any other between himself and the future president during WWII, never occurred.290 Despite these fabrications, the Brute was a guest of the White House at least a dozen times during 1963. By contrast, Lansdale didn't make any visits that year, at least officially.291 Despite his reputation as a hard-charging, no-none sense Marine, Krulak appears to have had deep involvement in psychological operations throughout his time in the Kennedy administration and beyond. SACSA continued the military's custom of combining psychological warfare and covert activity in Vietnam, with the Brute overseeing all of it in that theater during most of the JFK years. Krulak's fortunes were further bolstered by the friendship he cultivated with RFK, technically the US Attorney General, but also his brother's covert operations point man.292 Conversely, Lansdale clashed frequently with the Attorney General over Mongoose. Eventually, RFK removed Lansdale from covert operations altogether, paving the way for his departure from government.293 But not before Mongoose nearly triggered WWIII.

289

Currey, 234-235; Robert Coram, Brute, 260-261; Boot, 406; Prouty, The Secret Team, 487-489; Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 21; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 293. Prouty insists Lansdale had some kind of influence over SACSA and Krulak, but there is no evidence of this. Lansdale's former deputy assistant describes Krulak as setting out "systematically to destroy Lansdale's office" (Wilson interviewed by Partin, 21). 290 Robert Coran, Brute, 132-134; Boot, 406; Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 296-297. Even as late as 1988 celebrated journalist Neil Sheehan was recounting this WWII encounter as factual. In fairness, Krulak had not died yet. 291 Boot, 406. 292 Coran, Brute, 264; Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie,297-298. 293 Boot, 381-382, 398-399.

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In February 1962, Lansdale submitted a six-phase plan for Mongoose that he believed would trigger an internal revolution in Cuba by October. However, Lansdale left the door open to direct US military intervention if the revolution broke out on schedule, but required support. But JFK was unwilling to commit, leading to Lansdale's plan being scaled back slightly.294 The SGA met again in August 1962 to discuss the next phase of Lansdale's plan. He told the group, "we want boom and bang on the island" and suggested "all possible diplomatic, economic, psychological and overt pressure" short of direct US military intervention be brought to bear. It was during this meeting Lansdale put the Castro assassination schemes into writing.295 A little over midway through August, the SGA approved Lansdale's uptick in aggression.296 On August 30, it instructed the CIA to produce a list of sabotage targets in Cuba. The next day, Lansdale urged the SGA to approve a stepped up effort to inspire revolt against Castro and fray ties between the Cubans and the Soviet Union. Nothing much happened, and by October 14, RFK personally urged "massive activity." Even more sabotage was ordered.297 As it turns out, Mongoose had more of an effect than the SGA initially realized. Concerned about the stability of Castro's government, the Soviet Union deployed massive numbers of soldiers to the island over the summer. By October, 20,000 Soviet troops were stationed there, along with 1,300 field artillery pieces, 700 anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks, and 150 jets. Further, construction had begun on launch sites that could fire nuclear weapons. This laid the foundation for the Cuban Missile Crisis, which started formally on October 16, days after RFK ordered increased hostilities from Mongoose. In the aftermath, Lansdale took the blame for Mongoose's role in the crisis. Others blamed the Kennedy brothers, especially RFK, for their fanaticism in toppling Castro.298 But what of the intrigues playing out between Lansdale and the CIA? The extent it played in this debacle remains shrouded in mystery. Max Boot, Lansdale's biographer, suggests the Kennedys and the CIA were committed to Castro's assassination. Conversely, Lansdale saw Castro as a stabilizing force, believing Cuba would become more extreme if Raul Castro or Che Guevara came to power.299 This is as good as any explanation I've seen put forward explaining the shit show Mongoose deteriorated into. While Lansdale was floundering, the Brute was thriving. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he may have been the military's point man for disinformation, though to this day his actual role is shrouded in mystery. Was he sowing rumors in Miami's anti-Castro Cuban community? Were warplanes being moved from Georgia

294

Currey, 244;;Boot, 388. Currey, 246-247. 296 Boot, 393. 297 Currey, 248-249. 298 Currey, 249. 299 Boot, 391. 295

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to Florida heralding an attack or a diversion? Were the American submarines surrounding Cuba, or was it another false lead? And how deeply involved was the Brute in these activities?300 The same could be asked of the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident that spurred American intervention into Vietnam. By late 1963, Brute received his third star. With it came a new assignment: Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFP). This was the largest field command in the entire Marine Corps at the time and the one that would be at the forefront of any escalation in Vietnam.301 But before departing SACSA, Krulak played a significant role in plans resulting in Tonkin the following year. Throughout 1963, the JCS grew increasingly disillusioned with CIA efforts to halt Viet Cong advances in South Vietnam. In May 1963, the JCS directed Admiral Harry G Felt, commander in chief, Pacific (CINCPAC, the supreme commander of all US military forces in the Pacific during this era), to draw up a plan for "hit and run" operations against North Vietnam, using South Vietnamese forces with the assistance of the US. Working in conjunction with the CIA, Felt developed Operations Plan (OPLAN) 34-63, which was later shortened to 34A.302 To implement this plan, more adjustments were made to the special operations command structure. JFK got the ball rolling in January 1962, when he established another branch of the Special Group, this one known as "Special Group, Counterinsurgency." Initially, it only had oversight of special operations in South Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. But by July, it oversaw operations across Asia and Central and South America. In theory, Lansdale's Special Group Augmented had broader responsibilities and was tasked with "offensive" paramilitary activities (unconventional warfare, in other words). In contrast, Special Group, CI, was focused on counterinsurgency in specific areas. But the SGA mainly focused on anti-Castro activities while Special Group, CI ,and SACSA, moved to the forefront of the shadow war across Southeast Asia and beyond. 303 It became a moot point in early 1963, by which time Lansdale was dismissed, and Mongoose abolished.304At this point, Lansdale went on the offensive against his rival. Lansdale still had some vestige of his Office of Special Operations. His liaison from the Army's Directorate of Special Warfare was an admirer known as Colonel John Paul Vann. Vann studied Lansdale from afar for years and was delighted to be working with him, even if Lansdale was currently a persona non-gratis. Vann had recently returned from Vietnam and foresaw a looming disaster there. He briefed Lansdale, and anyone else in the Pentagon who would listen, about the dire situation. Eventually, Vann was scheduled to brief the JCS on his concerns during early July 1963.305

300

Coran, 271-272. Coram, 279; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 378. 302 Coram, 4-5. 303 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 166-170; Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 24. Samuel Wilson, Lansdale's former deputy assistant, describes Lansdale's office as initially concerned with Vietnam, but most other deployments of SOFs as well. But soon, much of this authority was usurped by SACSA. 304 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 397; Currey, Edward Lansdale, 249-250. 305 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 336-337. 301

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At the time, the Brute had just completed his own report on Vietnam after being dispatched on a factfinding mission. He briefed the JCS and submitted his report shortly before Vann was scheduled to deliver his own briefing. Krulak embraced the sunny side of the conflict, proclaiming that "the shooting part of the war is moving to a climax." When he was tipped off about Vann's scheduled briefing, his office began demanding a copy. Vann stalled him for as long as he could, waiting until just four hours prior to his scheduled meeting with the JCS to submit the report. An hour later, Vann was informed that he would no longer be briefing the JCS that day.306 Five weeks later, Vann's views on the war appeared on the front page of the New York Times.307 As far as this researcher is aware, there has never been a suggestion that Lansdale played a role in these events. But by summer 1963, with his career on the line, Lansdale was angling to return to Vietnam. Diem had requested his return as an adviser as far back as November 1961.308 By 1963, Diem's administration was on the verge of collapsing, giving Lansdale the opportunity to play the savior once again. In July, the Buddhist crisis (in which monks became to famously self-immolate) broke out against the backdrop of Krulak's rose-colored report. In early August, Vann's views appeared in the New York Times. Lansdale contributed his own Vietnam article to Reader's Digest and became an off-the-record source for Time and Life.309 The reader will recall that Lansdale used the Sunday Evening Post to leak his own glowing Vietnam report during 1961. To say nothing of how he had used Hollywood to craft his public persona, betraying his background in public relations. As such, one is left with the sense that Lansdale once again fell back on his PR chops to save his floundering career during the summer of 1963. Vann's report played into growing concerns that the US was mismanaging its role in Vietnam. What better way to right the ship than dispatch the Ugly American back to his old stomping grounds, where he could work his magic again? Lansdale may even have gotten the chance had the decision to remove Diem from power already been made. Even then, Lansdale may have been allowed to return if he signed off on the coup his old aide, Lucien Conein, was then plotting. But when Diem's assassination became inevitable, Lansdale couldn't get behind it. He saw the reasoning and never held it against Conein. It was just that he considered Diem a friend and didn't want his blood on his hands. 310 Before moving along, one final note about Vann warrants mentioning here. It was during this timeframe he first encountered celebrated journalist Neil Sheehan and cultivated him.311 Sheehan would later gain fame for his role in The Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, who later became a good friend of Vann's, first

306

Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 337-341 Sheehan, 345. 308 Boot, 374. 309 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 253; Boot, 408-409. 310 Currey, 254-255; Boot, 408-409, 414-415. 311 Coram, Brute, 276. Sheehan also covers their relationship at length in A Bright Shining Lie. 307

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used Sheehan to leak information too in 1968.312 Despite his reputation as a muckraker, many military figures around Lansdale held Sheehan in high regard and would often serve as sources for his works.313 As for Vann, he retired from the Army not long after. For years, the narrative held that he was drummed out for speaking his conscience. In actuality. he already decided to retire even before leaving for Vietnam. During his time at Fort Leavenworth (1957-1958), he committed statutory rape. He was investigated by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) during 1959. Not only did Vann lie to them, but he enlisted his wife in obstructing justice. Despite beating the charges, the investigation was on his record. This made his promotion beyond the rank of colonel impossible. Hence, his military career was already over.314 But his actions laid the foundation for his return to Vietnam, nominally as a civilian. In this capacity, Vann assisted in Vietnam's most brutal counterinsurgency operation. This will be explored more in the next chapter. *** The military took a more active role in Vietnam beginning in early 1964. The Pentagon's forces were under the command structure of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) . The US military personnel tasked with covert raids, the Special Operations Group (SOG), was established during January 1964 within the MACV. This network is typically referred to as MACV-SOG in the literature. The operational chain of command for MACV-SOG passed through SACSA and, finally, the Special Group, CI.315 It would seem that, as the stakes were raised, so too were the levels of bureaucracy. One can almost hear the echoes of "plausible deniability" ringing out to this day. But, to return to OPLAN 34A. Upon review, the Brute selected several options and drew up a twelvemonth plan in three phases of increased intensity. Krulak wanted to jettison the CIA's limited ventures against North Vietnam and replace them with large-scale clandestine warfare run by the military. Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ), who ascended to the presidency after the November 1963 JFK assassination, signed off, and the raids began in February.316 Phase I wrapped up in May. Despite being viewed as a disappointment, the Pentagon opted to go with a less ambitious Phase II than what Krulak originally proposed. Max Boot, Lansdale's most recent biographer, noted the striking similarities between the Brute's plan for Vietnam and Lansdale's Mongoose concepts.317 More on that in a moment.

312

Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, 206-208. See, for instance, Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript; 30, https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-051228-017.pdf. Lansdale even put Soldier of Fortune founder Robert K. Brown in contact with Sheehan. See Edward Lansdale to Robert K. Brown, 22 April 1975, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 7, "Correspondences Soldier of Fortune 1975"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 314 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, .484-494; Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg,243. 315 Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, Revised Edition (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2019),6-7, 13. 316 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie,374-376. 317 Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, 6; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 431. 313

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By this point in time, the JCS were chomping at the bit for direct US military intervention via bombing North Vietnam. Plans were drawn up for these actions, then leaked to the press. Which is interesting in light of the emphasis the Brute's plan put on psychological operations.318 Regardless, it did the job. The North Vietnamese were convinced US escalation was inevitable even as the LBJ White House remained indecisive on the matter. But few in the security services had any illusions about where these activities were leading the nation. There was even speculation that a bombing campaign against the North would spur Chinese intervention. And this, in turn, would necessitate the US deploying nuclear weapons in the conflict.319 The reader will recall from above that going nuclear had been a particular obsession of the JCS throughout this era. Plans had been drawn up for a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union by the end of 1963, before the window to "win" a nuclear exchange with the Russians permanently closed. Did some Pentagon planners still see the window as being open in early 1964? Or was China now the target? Certainly, the prospect of nukes being used did not deter any of the senior civilian or military figures overseeing the raids through 1964. The perspective of the Gulf of Tonkin incident being a false flag is beyond the scope of this work. Still, I hope this cursory overview illustrates how the North Vietnamese were arguably provoked into attacking the USS Maddox.320 It's also worth noting that Tonkin occurred a little over two years after the JCS proposed Operation Northwoods. Seeking to provide a pretext for US Military intervention in Cuba, Northwoods suggested enlisting anti-Castro Cubans in Cuban military uniforms to attack the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay; and carrying out a domestic terror campaign "in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington" that could be blamed on Castro.321 So we can dispense with the JCS embracing a false flag as a preposterous notion, at least for this era. Another question rarely raised about this series of events is how much LBJ was also provoked into action. At the time, he was facing a presidential election against hardline anticommunist Barry Goldwater, a longtime fixture in the American Security Council. Much more will be said of Goldwater in the next chapter. For now, it's interesting to note the pressure Goldwater put on the more ambulant LBJ to escalate

318

Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, 23-25; Boot, 431. Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, 23-25, 30. 320 Boot, 431-432. Max Boot is hardly a conspiracy theorist, but rather a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and contributor to The New York Times and Foreign Policy. And even he suggests OPLAN 34A played a role in the North Vietnamese decision to attack the Maddux. He's mum of whether Lansdale had a similar goal regarding Cuba and Mongoose. 321 Boot, 387-388; US Department of Defense, Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba Project (TS), the Joint Chiefs of Staff, JCS 1969/321 (Washington, D.C.: the Department of Defense, March 13, 1962), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf; Ruppe, D. (2001, May 1). U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba. ABC News. Retrieved April 29, 2023, from https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1 319

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the Vietnam conflict during the 1964 election cycle. Indeed, once LBJ supposedly decided to bomb North Vietnam after the second attack in Tonkin, Goldwater announced his support for LBJ's actions to the press an hour before the president declared his intentions publicly.322 Goldwater's actions here will take on chilling significance in the following chapter, so keep them in mind. As for the Brute, it's impossible to say how deep his involvement in these intrigues went. A lifelong Republican, Krulak got his third star, a new command, and was on track to be next the Commandant of the Marine Corps (the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the Corps) in the aftermath of JFK's assassination. He was no longer the SACSA when the raids began against North Vietnam in 1964, but he had drawn up a plan of increased escalation that was arguably designed to provoke a military response from North Vietnam. Tellingly, he was succeeded as the SACSA in early 1964 by Rollen "Buck" Anthis, a career Air Force man.323 Anthis had just commanded some of the first modern Air Force special operators in South Vietnam, but his promotion at this point was indicative of the bombing campaign the JCS desired. From early 1964 until 1968, the JCS relentlessly advocated not only the mining of harbors and waterways; and blockading the seacoast of Vietnam up to China. But also bombing land, water, and rail communications between China and North Vietnam; eliminating air support from China; and unrestricted air attacks on military and industrial targets in North Vietnam up to China's border. The rationale put forth was that this would cut off Sino-Soviet supplies to the North. Once this was accomplished, North Vietnam could be bombed into submission.324 Had these plans been attempted, Communist China would have surely invaded well before bombs were being dropped at their border. And if there was one thing the military had learned from Korea, it was that they could not prevail over a nation of 700 million in Asia without using nuclear weapons. Thus, throughout the 1964-1968 period, the JCS romanticized the prospect of their commanders having authority to deploy "tactical nuclear weapons." Several of LBJ's top generals, including the aftermentioned Admiral Henry Felt (the author of the original OPLAN 34A that Krulak found too restrained) and Air Force General Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay had even been hashing out these plans secretly with Goldwater during the election.325 Fittingly, Krulak established a permanent residence in San Diego, a key node in Goldwater's Southern California stronghold, upon his retirement from the Marine Corps in 1967. I have not been able to determine if the Brute knew Goldwater during this period, but Krulak joined the Bohemian Club of San Francisco a few years into his retirement. Goldwater was already a member by that point, along with other

322

Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, 222, 233. Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 378-379. 324 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 61. 325 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, 62-64. 323

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conservative California Republicans such as Ronald Reagan.326 At the club's legendary Bohemian Grove retreat, Krulak ended up at the same camp, the "Owl's Nest," as Ronnie Raygun.327 Nor was Brute finished with intrigues after leaving the Corps. Not long after his retirement, Krulak went to work for his old friend, press magnet James Copley, owner of the San Diego Union. Copley installed the Brute as president of the Copley News Service. This made an ex-Marine with no formal training in journalism the head of a major news bureau active worldwide. The staff of Copley News Service featured "a surprising number of former military people, mostly in foreign bureaus." The news service lost money for years and continued to do so under Krulak's leadership. Besides running the bureau, he wrote columns for it, under his own name and a pseudonym. Krulak retired from the news bureau in 1977, a month before the American press accused Copley News Service of being a virtual subsidiary of the CIA, with Krulak as the spymaster. Naturally, the Brute denied these allegations while continuing to write columns for Copley.328 The always entertaining L Fletcher Prouty, a former Lansdale subordinate whom much more will be said of in the next chapter, couldn't seem to make his mind up about Krulak. He argues that while heading Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, Krulak was reluctant to deploy his forces because they would be under CIA control, rather than Marine. The Brute "knew too much about the CIA."329 But a little later, he states Krulak's job with SACSA was to "support the CIA." He describes the Brute as being surrounded by CIA advisors, including Lansdale, his arch-rival. Prouty leaves a little wiggle room for himself by suggesting Krulak wasn't aware of the CIA presence at this point.330 Predictably, he's mum on Brute's post-military CIA work. Clearly, the Brute acquired a reputation for disinformation during his time with SACSA, the one point in his extensive military career where it was a standard job requirement. And, there is no shortage of possibilities as to where he honed these skills. While his time in special operations was brief, the Brute left his mark. But not nearly to the extent of his rival. *** Edward Lansdale's time heading the OSO, both Mach I and II (Erskine's heart attack occurred during the late 1950s, frequently leaving Lansdale in control), was one of the most significant developments in the US national security state. However, it is rarely recognized as such by historians. Perhaps more than any other figure, Lansdale laid the foundation for what became the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), 326

Turner, Wallace. “Goldwater Spending Weekend in Camp at Bohemian Grove.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 31, 1964. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/07/31/archives/goldwater-spending-weekend-in-campat-bohemian-grove.html.; Sancton, Julian. “A Guide to the Bohemian Grove.” Vanity Fair, April 1, 2009. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/05/bohemian-grove-guide200905. 327 Coram, Brute, 325. 328 Coram, Brute, 323-326. 329 L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team, 481. 330 Prouty, The Secret Team, 488.

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and its most celebrated component, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Beginning in 1957, he pushed to emphasize what was then known as "special warfare" (i.e. unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency) across the services. But the Special Group, under pressure from the JCS, shot down Lansdale's plan.331 Lansdale pressed ahead anyway. Up till this point in time, the Army was the only branch of the Armed Forces with special operations capabilities. At Lansdale's urging, the Air Force created its first permanent special operations forces in 1961, the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron. This squad still exists today as the 1st Special Operations Wing of the Air Force Special Operations Command. In 1962, Lansdale managed the same with the Navy, creating the first Sea, Air, and Land Teams (commonly known as Navy SEALs).332 He then selected men from each service to staff his office, the bulk of them having gone through either Air Force special operations, SEAL, or Army Special Forces training.333 Whereas previously, the OSO was almost entirely an Army affair, it became a truly joint agency under Lansdale, laying the foundation for SOCOM and JSOC. Another one of Lansdale's enduring legacies was the close links he established between US special operations forces and foreign militaries, especially the officers. Military Assistance Advisory Groups (MAAG) began to appear in various hotspots where US interests were threatened early in the Cold War. But shortly after being assigned to the Office of Special Operations, Lansdale began lobbying for "a global program of bringing US personnel and foreigners together on a favorable basis." This would necessitate "trained counter-guerrilla advisers to MAAGs where required" and "seminars conducted by outstanding experienced persons" on unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency. He also called for the "proper indoctrination" of American personnel sent abroad, a point we shall return to in the next section.334 For now, it needs to be emphasized that Lansdale's suggestions were taken to heart and then some. Under JFK, thousands of students from over sixty-five countries were trained at US military schools, with an emphasis on counterinsurgency. The training took place at continental US bases and schools and overseas facilities in the Philippines, Okinawa, and Germany. The Green Berets almost entirely directed overseas training. The Seventh Special Forces Group had a battalion at Panama's Fort Gulick for training by 1961. The First Special Forces Group, with assistance from the Seventh, trained detachments from Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and elsewhere by that same year. The Fifth conducted "live" training in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia concurrently. While the emphasis was on training elite units, all foreign security personnel were eligible, meaning regular military and police forces received special warfare training from the Green Berets. 335 Soon, inroads were made with Spanish, Norwegian, Italian, Turkish, Pakistani, Iranian, Jordanian and Saudi forces. The Jordanian Army's first airborne school was established by the Green Berets, who also founded 331

Currey, Edward Lansdale, 193. Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 322. 333 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 193-194. 334 Boot, 317. 335 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 185-186; Prouty, The Secret Team, 473-474. 332

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the first Turkish special operations forces during this time.336 Lansdale would spend much of his final year in the Kennedy administration touring Central and South America. He had been closely monitoring developments in Columbia since 1959.337 Lansdale's friend and underling, Special Warfare School capo General William Yarborough, made a special trip there in 1962 to assess the situation. His report, and the subsequent deployment of forces there, provided a model for US military intervention in Latin America for years to come.338 The use of "irregular forces," supported by US advisors, would become notorious during the Dirty Wars of the 1970s and 1980s. Lansdale didn't make it to Columbia the following year, but did tour Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, and Panama.339 Much of the initial staging for these trips began in Panama, presumably from Fort Gulick. The most notorious of the Green Beret-driven overseas training operations was based there. The facilities used by the Special Forces became known as the School of the Americas in the coming years. Counterinsurgency courses began in 1961. Some 1,400 students graduated annually by the early 1960s, most Latin Americans. By 1984, when control of the school was theoretically transferred to Panama, over 45,000 Latinos had been churned out by the school. Many became leaders in numerous military governments across the Americas during the 1970s and 1980s.340 As such, the school was a lightning rod for allegations of human rights abuses for decades. The US was forced to relocate it to Fort Benning, GA, in 1984 due to the controversy surrounding it. The school was finally shuttered in 1996 amid ongoing protests.341 Still, nothing matched the cultivation of foreign militaries like what went on at Fort Bragg. Between 19521963, 800 foreign officers graduated from Bragg's Special Warfare Center. The school's capacity was further expanded after 1962. Training guerrilla fighters in other countries was always a core capability of the US Army Special Forces. But during Lansdale's tenure, partnerships with special units of foreign militaries became a primary goal.342 Over the years, this became a crucial form of "soft power" for US special operations forces. By cultivating close ties to both elite units and officers of foreign militaries, it gave the special operations forces tremendous influence (and knowledge of) these militaries on the whole.343

336

Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 63-64 Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale, 251. 338 Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), 392-395; Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 222-224. 339 Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale, 251-253. 340 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 185-186. 341 Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture, 104-106. 342 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 186; Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 63-64 343 General Samuel V. Wilson, Lansdale's future deputy assistant in the OSO, was instrumental in setting up these courses at Fort Bragg. One of the earliest students was the above-mentioned Nguyen Van Thieu, Vietnam's future president, and a man Lansdale cultivated during his second tour of Vietnam. Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 19. 337

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Equally influential are the ties Lansdale nursed with the Israelis. As early as 1959, with Lansdale effectively heading the OSO, US and Israeli military advisors were working together in reorganizing Iran's secret police, the dreaded Savak.344 At one point, Lansdale considered establishing strategic "military-economic self-defense" communities in Laos with the Israelis during the early 1960s. He later held regular meetings in Washington with Colonel Yehuda Prihar, Israel's military attaché. This led to Lansdale touring Israel in the fall of 1961 to study their "antiguerrilla concepts." Lansdale met with senior intelligence and military personnel and toured training facilities such as the Gadna Center near Tel Aviv and the military's Airborne Center. Lansdale also arranged for Colonel Prihar to brief American officials on Israeli counterinsurgency practices. Prihar was already an experienced military advisor. He was present for one of Israel's first overseas advisory missions, this one concerning the Burmese insurgency that confronted the UK during the 1950s.345 Not much came of these efforts. McNamara and Dean Rusk vetoed any further collaboration Lansdale sought with the Israelis.346 But by the 1980s, Israeli advisors became staples of US counterinsurgency operations, especially in Latin America.347 They developed a brutal brand of counterinsurgency and counterterror that fascinated and horrified their US counterparts in equal measures.348 This would have a profound effect on US security services, especially among the special operations community, in the twenty-first century. We'll explore this more in Book III. For now, one last point needs to be made about Lansdale and his time heading the Office of Special Operations. And that's how he shifted the entire structure of covert operations. The Bay of Pigs had not deterred JFK from covert actions, but the CIA's handling of them. Kennedy now decreed that the US military would take the lead in such things. It was a bold move. Paramilitary operations, by definition, exist outside formal military operations. Now, the DoD would be engaged in nonofficial military operations in foreign countries during peacetime.349 But beyond this, the CIA had a monopoly on covert operations prior to the JFK years. They were still able to maintain this throughout the Cold War, but their fortunes changed with the War on Terror. Gradually the military, specifically the Joint Special Operations Command, usurped the CIA's role in covert operations during the twenty-first century. This reorientation in covert operations probably fueled a lot of the intrigues concerning Lansdale during the Kennedy years. This will be explored further in a following section.

344

Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture, 74. McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 201-203. 346 Cecil B. Currey,, Edward Lansdale, 250-251. 347 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 414-415 348 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 442-444. 349 Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 143; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 161-165; Prouty, The Secret Team, 481-483. 345

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Civic Action

"Of course, my concept of having soldiers behave as the brothers of the people wasn't original. The U.S. Army has a long history of similar civic action, from the opening of the West and protection of settlers in our country to such endeavors in foreign countries as the founding of public schools and public health systems. In 'wars of national liberation,' civic action is a compelling necessity for countering the 'socialist comradeship' of Asian Communist guerrillas with the people. The fundamentals of the Communist practice are summed up in the 'three great disciplinary measures' and the 'eight noteworthy points' of the Chinese Communist 8th Route Army as publicized by Mao Tse-tung." -Edward Lansdale350 The First Special Forces Command resides within the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), the long-time heart of the special operations community. USASOC is the largest component of the US Special Operations Command, providing most of the "name" special operations forces: the Green Berets, the 75th Rangers Regiment, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment,351 and the Delta Force. All Green Beret groups are housed in USASOC's First Special Forces Command, along with the only two Psychological Operations Groups in the entire military. In many ways, the First Special Forces Command is the true successor to the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare. In particular, the structure of the First Special Forces Group is almost identical to the old OCPW. In the latter, what became US Army Special Forces were combined with psychological operations (PSYOP) officers in two separate divisions --Special Operations and Psychological Operations. These two are well known, and still exist within the First Special Forces Command, though the former has now achieved preeminence. But there was a third component rarely mentioned: the Requirements Division. It was tasked with organization, personnel, training, logistics, and research to support the other two divisions.352 That too still exists in the First Special Forces, in the form of the 528th Sustainment Brigade. But there's yet another brigade in the First Special Forces, one with a curious lineage within the development of special operations: the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade. "Civil affairs" are one of the most enigmatic components of modern warfare. They have a long history to be sure, stretching back to practically the beginning of warfare itself. The use of "bread and circus" by the military governors of the Roman Empire can be seen as early civil affairs. In the American experience, civil

350

Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of War,, 84n. More commonly known as the "Night Stalkers," these are the Army's elite helicopter units that support special operations forces. For the unit's origin's story, see Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of the Joint Special Operations Command (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2015), 12, 15-16, 43-45, etc. 352 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 38; Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 95. 351

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affairs were often closely linked to military government, initially in Central America, and later in USoccupied zones during the World Wars. As the Cold War set in, the role of governance in civil affairs greatly diminished. The new point of emphasis was on what is commonly referred to as "hearts and minds" campaign. These efforts sought to depict Western armies as liberators by employing soldiers in public works, such as building bridges and roads; or something as simple as handing out gum and candy to children in occupied nations. In theory, this would convince the populace invading army was on "their side."353 But as far back as WWII, a covert aspect of civil affairs, rarely addressed, existed. General Robert A McClure, who was instrumental in establishing the OCPW and the broader special warfare community, cut his teeth as a psywar officer during WWII. In this capacity, McClure directed the entire Psychological Warfare Division of the European Supreme Headquarters, Allies Expeditionary Force (PWD/SHAEF), by war's end. His posting in the aftermath is most telling. McClure became the chief of the Civil Affairs Division in the Army's New York Field Office. Reporting directly to General Daniel Noce, the US military chief of the Civil Affairs Division, McClure ran his Civil Affairs office much like his psywar division. His New York Field Office was organized much like that division, with sections dedicated to the press, periodicals, motion picture, radio, theater, music, arts, exhibits, libraries, and book rights. While likely not true of all Civil Affairs offices, McClure held meetings on propaganda policy out of his office.354 This came at a time in which there was a robust debate within the Army over the role it should play in psychological warfare. The general consensus was that civilians, rather than uniformed military men, should take the lead in psywar efforts. The Army would restrict itself to an advisory/coordinating role. In this fashion, the Army could avoid rousing public ire over perceived "gestapo-isms."355 And incidentally, the "father" of Army psychological warfare had extensive experience in civil affairs, which was dominated by civilians and Army reservists. Historically, only a handful of soldiers assigned to civil affairs are active duty. As such, even those in the reserves could pose as civilians. Thus, civil affairs were ideal for covert psychological operations using civilians as a front. And indeed, civil affairs was eventually put to this use. Per the official history, the transformation began in Vietnam. As far back as 1959, "Military Governance" was stripped from the civil affairs branch in the Army Reserves. When Civil Affairs (CA) teams were sent to Vietnam during the 1960s, it was frequently to engage in unconventional warfare, the specialty of the Green Berets. By this time, the Army's main civil affairs outfit was the 95th Civil Affairs Group. In 1971, it

353

USASOC History Office and the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade, U.S. Army Civil Affairs: History Handbook (Fort Bragg, NC: USASOC History Office, 2016), 1-5; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 127-129, 354 Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 11-14; 48-49; 54. 355 Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare, 48-49.

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was formally relocated to Fort Bragg. Much of this unit was disbanded afterward, but the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion remained active at Fort Bragg and continues its relationship with USASOC to this day. When USASOC was formally organized during the 1980s, the 96th remained under its command. It was joined by all reserve CA units, which found themselves assigned to the US Army Reserve Special Operations Command. In 1990, these units fell under the control of the US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, thus formally establishing the linkage between civil affairs and psywar. In 1993, all active and reserve CA personnel were designated as Army Special Operations Forces.356 Thus, by the twenty-first century, the relationship between civil affairs and special warfare (including psywar and unconventional) was firmly established, having grown out of the Army's Vietnam experience. Or so the story goes. Edward Lansdale's actions in the Philippines stand in stark contrast to this narrative. There, Lansdale's chief instrument for waging counterinsurgency against the Huk was known as the Civil Affairs Office (CAO). This body was set up in Ramon Magsaysay's personal staff while he served as the Philippines' Secretary of National Defense. This ensured that the CAO remained under his direct control, rather than the Philippine Army's. This proved decisive in Magsaysay's bid for the presidency. Under Lansdale's watchful eye, the CAO funded student organizations and disseminated antiHuk/anticommunist materials via schools, newspapers, leaflets and public radio. The US Information Service got in on the act, producing 13 million leaflets and other materials within two years. The Far Eastern Broadcasting Company, run by American missionaries, distributed free radios to receive their broadcasts. CAO ideological messaging was incorporated into the preaching. Meanwhile, the CAO sponsored over 6,000 meetings across the nation. Civil Affairs officers were also assigned to most army units, where they had both advisory and supervisory roles. This helped clamp down on the notorious corruption of the Filipino armed forces. CAO was also enlisted to stage manage the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR). With land reform a major issue of contention among the Huks, this body was set up to provide discharged soldiers with homesteads. Soon, these farms were offered to Huks willing to lay down their arms. While very few Huks (likely less than 300) ever got any land out of this program, its propaganda value was enormous. While only a few hundred ever got land, thousands surrendered in the hopes of such rewards.357 These schemes would later serve as the basis for the Strategic Hamlet program Lansdale introduced in Vietnam, which will be addressed in a later chapter. Speaking of Vietnam, it should come as little surprise that Lansdale brought the same formula there during his first tour. He established the "Operation Brotherhood" (OB), paramedic teams of Filipino doctors and nurses brought to South Vietnam to provide free medical services. Dispensaries were built that served as

356

USASOC History Office and the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade, U.S. Army Civil Affairs: History Handbook, 5-7; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 349-350. 357 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 112-114; Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars, 70-71;

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cover for counterinsurgency efforts. Soon, OB spawned the Eastern Construction Company, which enlisted 500 hardcore Filipino anticommunists to build roads and hand out medicine. Naturally, they also assisted in identifying and eliminating Vietcong agents. The Eastern Construction Company later expanded its operations to Laos and elsewhere. In this fashion, the lines between civilian and military operations were forever blurred.358 This laid the ground for a full-blown Civil Affairs program, which Lansdale launched in early 1955. As with the Philippines, CA teams were dispatched to rural villages to dig latrines, patch roofs, and dispense medicine when not propagandizing for Lansdale and locating Vietcong agents. The expectation was that, as in the Philippines, the rural populace would turn against the insurgents and vote for Lansdale's handpicked candidate. The Philippine's CAO teams had engaged in the same kind of electioneering for Magsaysay. But in Vietnam, they failed to generate the same kind of popular support for the Diem regime. Eventually, they were turned towards darker ends. Several of Lansdale's programs later evolved and were incorporated into the infamous Phoenix program, which killed over 25,000 Vietnamese "insurgents" over the course of the US intervention.359 Tellingly, Phoenix was managed by the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), a civil affairs program run by the South Vietnamese and US governments. The reader will recall from above that journalist Rose Kushner's notions of behavior science-driven counterinsurgency were also being explored by the Revolutionary Development outfit. This marked quite an evolution for civil affairs: from building roads and bridges to managing paramilitary death squads and developing Pavlovian methods of social control. How did this happen? Once again, we must look to Lansdale. In fairness, CORDS/Phoenix went to levels with "civil affairs" that the general could have scarcely imagined. But by the time he arrived in Vietnam in 1954, Lansdale had already conceived of the next evolution of civil affairs. He dubbed it "civic action." It included "hearts and minds" staples of Civil Affairs, with the addition of one significant component: political cadres that could provide military units with their own political commissars. Lansdale had studied Mao by the early 1950s and never grew tired of reminding audiences his civic action officers were modeled upon political cadres embedded in the Chinese army.360 Interestingly, Lansdale likened this approach to political warfare,361 which was discussed at length in Chapter 1. By 1960, political cadres were being used in Vietnam. By the middle of the decade, it was so 358

Boot, The Road Not Taken, 242-243; Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 27 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 159160; 166. 359 Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 26-27; Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars, 211-213; Boot, 251-252, 283-284; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 186-191. Sheehan notes that in 1955, a year after Lansdale arrived, South Vietnam began the "Denunciation of Communist Campaign" to smoke out the political cadres the North left as stay-behinds. Through a combination of torture, assassination, and concentration camps, an estimated 8000-10000 Vietcong insurgents in 1955 were reduced to 2-2500 by 1957. In fairness, Max Boot notes Lansdale tried to moderate the worst excesses of this campaign. But as far as I've uncovered, he had no opposition to it in principal. 360 Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 69-70; Boot, 127-128; Currey, 265-267. 361 Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 120.

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widespread MACV had its own Political Warfare Division to churn out commissars. The role of political warfare(PW) cadres combined counterintelligence functions (i.e., spying on their fellow troops) with anticommunist indoctrination, civil affairs, and psywar. While the influence of these cadres was nominal in Vietnam, they would be instrumental in sustaining US-sponsored paramilitary forces in Central America during the 1980s and early 1990s.362 There is reason to believe Lansdale was the driving force behind the military's adoption of political cadres. In 1959, Lansdale established a special group within the Office of Special Operations dubbed the "Coordinating Group" to further develop his concepts of civic action. Proposals could be submitted by anyone in the armed forces via military channels. Supposedly, the end game of these brainstorming sessions was to "build a world in which men can live as brothers." Around this time, Lansdale took to dubbing those who shared his views as "gremlins." During this era, the word was commonly defined as "an unaccountable, disruptive influence." By all accounts, this is what the military viewed Lansdale and his followers as. One such gremlin, future General Samuel V Wilson, stated that the Pentagon "thought we were crazy. Indeed, they thought we were dangerous. They accused us of trying to think like political commissars by introducing politics to the field of battle."363 Let us pause here for a moment and consider the implications of this. Lansdale and his gremlins effectively made political cadres a staple of US counterinsurgency efforts --political cadres modeled upon their communist counterparts, no less. Is it any wonder the Pentagon brass was concerned? While rarely living up to the expectation, the US Military is supposed to be apolitical, bending to the will of the American public and their elected officials. But here is Lansdale openly advocating that the military become engaged in political indoctrination. Can you say slippery slope? In fairness to Lansdale, his political ideology constituted an ill-defined Americanism. It displayed reverence for the Declaration of Independence and American consumer culture in equal measures. It idolized the American Revolution, the "good revolution," while playing up the cult of the Founding Fathers. He even attempted to apply the mythos around early American statesmen such as Jefferson and Washington to protégés like Magsaysay and Diem. Ever the adman, Lansdale took it upon himself to sell America in its most "mom and apple pie" form to the people he occupied as something to strive for. To be sure, efforts were made to incorporate their own cultural history, but always with an understanding of the superiority of the American system.364 While crass and hopelessly kitschy by today's standards, it nonetheless enshrined a reverence for "traditional" America among a generation of American-trained political commissars. In theory, these folks would only concern themselves with foreign populations. But as was noted above, Lansdale was already expressing a need to indoctrinate military officers, along with civilians regularly dealing with the communists, to ensure they were suitably inoculated in anticommunism.

362

Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 280-283. Currey, Edward Lansdale, 275-276; Boot, 320-322. 364 See, for instance, Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 47-50; 106-117, etc. 363

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After being drummed out of the Pentagon in 1963, he got his chance. And it was courtesy of the Institute for American Strategy (IAS). *** As the story goes, the recently-retired Edward Lansdale was very bored and began toying with an idea that had been germinating for some time. A mere 28 days after his retirement, he produced a lengthy memorandum dubbed "Liberty Hall." Therein he laid out his vision for a nonprofit, public-service educational corporation to be located in the DC area. Liberty Hall would focus on teaching "practical American political action for export abroad." In addition to the best of America's youth, students would be drawn from the ranks of the military and foreign services, in addition to interested foreign nationals.365 Lansdale insisted the school was not intended as a private intelligence organization," but that it would be capable of "sending small teams to foreign countries, upon request" to "resolve problems of concern to freedom." His eventual backers were far more open about the school's dedication to political warfare. It probably goes without saying, but said backers were the IAS and the funding network it had assembled. As was noted in Chapter 1, an early goal of the IAS was to establish a "National Service University" that would "train American personnel for nonmilitary security service." Supposedly, this shared synergy brought Lansdale and the IAS together around 1964. But, as was noted in Chapter 1, the IAS grew out of the National Military-Industrial Conferences of the 1950s. These were partially sponsored by the National War College and other bodies of higher education dedicated to military matters. Concepts developed at the NMICs, and later the IAS, were then promoted by affiliates throughout these schools and officer training courses. And it just so happens Lansdale spent much of the late 1950s touring these same circuits while promoting his doctrine of civil action.366 Thus, it seems likely he and the IAS crowd were comparing notes well before the mid-1960s. Hence the similar vision they shared for a political warfare academy. The end result was the Freedom Studies Center (FSC), an anticommunist training academy housed in a Tudor-style mansion in the rural hamlet of Boston, Virginia. The 700-acre property was a reputed factory turning out "professionals in psychological warfare." At the onset, it offered four courses: "Economics, Ideology, Philosophy, Political Theory": "Strategy, Tactics and Techniques of Struggle"; "Science and Technology and World Politics"; and "Area Studies." The last two are rather vague and ill-defined. The economics section is the standard capitalist branding message. The second course, "Strategy..." makes it clear that the FSC was chiefly concerned with counterinsurgency and like doctrines. This course went deep

365

Currey, 287-288; Boot, 434. For an overview of Lansdale's extensive speaking engagements during this time, see Currey, Edward Lansdale, 262-275, etc. See also Boot, 319-322, etc. Besides the National War College, Lansdale also lectured at West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Army War College, the Army's Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, the Civil Affairs School, and so on. Many of the institutions were sponsors of the NMICs and/or the IAS. 366

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into "psycho-political warfare"; "revolutionary" and "unconventional warfare"; "propaganda"; and "tactics and techniques of insurgency and counterinsurgency."367 It was fully operational by the late 1960s and, by the middle of the next decade, had produced hundreds of graduates among the ranks of "congressional aides, retired military officers, and corporate executives." By the Nixon administration, the methods of FSC graduates were on display. Of the most noteworthy was Tom Charles Huston, Nixon's internal security adviser. He concocted an abortive plan to spy on Americans the administration deemed harmful to the nation's image abroad. This mostly consisted of antiwar and civil rights activists.368 The time of the Freedom Studies Center's cadres had not yet arrived. The insurgency they began against the US foreign policy establishment did not bear fruit until the 1980s. The anticommunist internationalism the school personified became state policy under Reagan. It was Lansdale, along with ASC founder and longtime head John Fisher, who provided the vision behind the school. In more recent years, Lansdale's role has been downplayed, but he provided the school's name, location, organizational structure, and a good part of its initial curriculum. 369 One of his gremlins remarked that the original purpose of the project was to promote "Lansdaleism."370 Lansdale apologists argue that the general became uncomfortable with Fisher's far-right politics early in the game and soon departed.371 And in fairness, Lansdale does not appear to have any contact regarding the FSC/IAS after 1966. But, many of his "gremlins" were also involved in the school. The inauguration featured lectures from the enigmatic General Edwin Black, whom more will be said in the following chapter. He was joined by Lansdale's old frenemy, former CIA director Allen Dulles, whom Lansdale recommended in his memorandum to Fisher.372 And then, there was the school's Planning and Development Committee. It featured such Lansdale gremlins as Stephen Chowe, "a longtime U.S. government analyst of Communist political moves," handpicked by Lansdale for a lecturer slot.373 He was

367

"The Freedom Studies Center of the Institute for American Strategy," Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 368 Kyle Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2018), 42-43. 369 "Memorandum for John Fisher from Edward Lansdale," 14 July 1965, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; Kyle Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War , 42-43; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 434435. 370 Bernard Yoh to Edward Lansdale, 17 October 1966, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 54, "Yoh, Bernard 1966-1968"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 371 See, for instance, Boot, 434-435; and Currey, 288-289. 372 Seminar for Congressional Aides, September 21-24, 1966, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; "Memorandum for John Fisher from Edward Lansdale," 14 July 1965, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 373 "Memorandum for John Fisher from Edward Lansdale," 14 July 1965, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; "The Freedom Studies Center of the Institute for

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joined there by Lansdale himself and the above-mentioned Rufus Phillips III, an Army paratrooper, and close Lansdale associate since their mid-1950s exploits in Vietnam. Rounding out the committee was counterinsurgency guru and paramilitary specialist Bernard Yoh, who worked with the Sea Sparrows (see above) during the 1950s before formally serving under Lansdale during his second tour in Vietnam.374 Throughout 1966, while Lansdale was in Vietnam, he kept the general apprised of the school's development. During a meeting with Fisher in February, he expressed concern over "to much FBI red-baiting" in the courses. He countered with a proposed course in Lansdalian "Americanism" in confronting communist revolutionary warfare.375 Yoh's concerns were confirmed when the school opened in the fall "with an old-fashioned anticommunist seminar." Still, Lansdale's wife and other close associates attended the opening with Yoh. They were "touched" when one of the speakers stated "he hopes to see Lansdale back to put the school on the right track."376 Further, Lansdale was still receiving copies of the Washington Report, an official publication of the ASC, up until 1973. And it just so happens that page 8 of a February edition features an announcement for the FSC's 1973 seminars. 377 This was the final year the school functioned. It would seem Lansdale was still keeping track of it, albeit from a distance. Even if he was uncomfortable with direct ASC associates during this era (especially when a Democrat was in office), Lansdale fully embraced them during the Reagan years. More on that in the next chapter. For now, it's worth noting rumblings that Lansdale and Bernard Yoh were involved in "a resuscitation of the old Freedom Academy idea" as late as 1979378 as the Reagan backers were mustering their forces. Suffice to say, Lansdale's fingerprints are all over the Freedom Studies Center. While little remarked upon now, the FSC has proven to be one of Lansdale's more enduring legacies. But given the implications of the school --a full-blown political warfare/counterinsurgency shop, training political cadres for use domestically --it's easy to see why this aspect of his career is glossed over, if mentioned at all. The extent that the school played in the Reagan Revolution and the general rightward drift of the nation after the 1960s will never be known, but it made one thing clear: the war for American "hearts and minds" had officially come home. To fully understand this dynamic, we must now turn our attention to some of these gremlins.

American Strategy," Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 374 "The Freedom Studies Center of the Institute for American Strategy," Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 375 Bernard Yoh to Edward Lansdale, 28 February 1966, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 54, "Yoh, Bernard 1966-1968"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 376 Bernard Yoh to Edward Lansdale, 17 October 1966, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 54, "Yoh, Bernard 1966-1968"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 377 "The 1973 Seminar Schedule at the Freedom Studies Center," Washington Report, no. 73-2 (February 1973), 8, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 25, "Washington Report"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 378 Charles T. R. Bohannan to Edward Lansdale, 11 April 1979, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 2, "Bohannan, Charles T. and Dorothy 1972-1983 "], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

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Chapter 3:

Gremlins

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Gremlins, Groupies and Fellow Travelers

Edward Lansdale inspired many acolytes. One of the most notable and relevant to our saga is William Godel. Upon graduating high school, Godel attended the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell (yes, the Roswell) and, later, Georgetown's School of Foreign Service. He was commissioned to the War Department's military intelligence division in 1940. After Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, he transferred to the Marine Corps and saw heavy combat in the Pacific Theater. He was eventually forced to leave the Corps after being seriously wounded at Guadalcanal in 1943. By 1947, he caught on as an intelligence analyst at the Pentagon.379 Like Lansdale, Godel specialized in psychological warfare. During the Korean War, he was a deputy director of the National Security Council's Psychological Strategy Board (PSB). There he worked as a liaison between the Pentagon and the CIA, sometimes in an acrimonious fashion. In between clashes with the CIA, Godel was given a sensitive task: handling American POWs accusing the US military of engaging in biological warfare. The concept of brainwashing grew out of this debacle, as the security services scrambled to explain away the allegations made by their own troops. While this played out, Godel was personally instructed by the Pentagon to secure the American POWs from North Korea. By all accounts he performed magnificently, but the CIA'S Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) banned him from their offices over the bad blood.380 By the mid-1950s, Godel found himself a deputy director of the Office of Special Operations (OSO), where he hooked up with Lansdale.381 He carried out a variety of roles in this capacity. In 1955, he was assigned as liaison to NSA with a mandate from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to revamp the agency.382 In 1956, he worked on the Navy's classified efforts to map Antarctica, resulting in a five-mile ice shelf being named in his honor.383 Godel even became involved with the Pentagon's role in the space race towards the end of the decade. This resulted in the operator being detailed to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA). ARPA was established during that year principally as a response to Sputnik, the first satellite launched into space. It was a major propaganda coup for the Soviets, and ARPA was part of America's response. It was charged with revamping the various competing military rocket programs. But by 1960, virtually all of these

379

Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top Secret Military Research Agency (New York: Little Brown and Company, 2015), 96; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 21-22. 380 Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 103-107; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 25-26. 381 Annie Jacobson, The Pentagon's Brain, 109; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 71. Weinberger describes him as "deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations." The Pentagon loves these kinds of rambling titles. 382 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 26-27; Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 109. 383 Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 109.

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functions were taken over by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian space agency.384 For a time, ARPA found itself without purpose. Godel was one of the first figures within the agency to attempt to fill the void by rebranding it as the scientific leader in the emerging doctrine of counterinsurgency. His bosses at ARPA were not too hip to the idea, but Lansdale loved it. Thus, Godel launched Project AGILE, a brutal exploration of counterinsurgency methods conducted in Vietnam as mission creep set in. Even though the program was officially ARPA's, Godel reported directly to Lansdale, now the head of the Office of Special Operations. 385 Lansdale biographer Max Boot indicates the general was resentful of this assignment.386 But as we shall see in Chapter 6, Lansdale and Godel quickly turned Vietnam and the surrounding nations into laboratories for applying cutting-edge technology to counterinsurgency. The implications of this are profound. Bizarrely, AGILE involved a company linked to Eugene Burdick, the co-author of The Ugly American. A later work by Burdick, The 480, recounts the efforts of a political consulting agency using computers and data to get a Republican populist candidate elected in 1964. This was a thinly veiled account of that ARPAcontractor, which shall also be explored in Chapter 7. It's also interesting to note that Godel, like his mentor Lansdale, had a knack for theatrics when it came to psywar. After joining ARPA in the aftermath of Sputnik, Godel launched Signals Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment (SCORE). It was an audacious plan in which a giant missile would be launched into space and dubbed the largest satellite in orbit. The Soviets would be unimpressed, but the public at large, ignorant of satellites in 1958, would be sufficiently captivated. Gravity was added by hiring Dan Sullivan, the lawman who tracked down legendary bank robber John Dillinger, to serve as ARPA's security manager on the program. For good measure, a recorded message of Eisenhower addressing the people of Earth was added to give the whole thing an air of science. When there were doubts about whether the message would be heard from space, Godel covertly beamed the president's voice over the radio. It was a fitting final touch for an eight-month psychological operation, conducted under the strictest secrecy, through ARPA. And it worked.387 Godel was at it again in 1959. He was tasked with providing cover for Corona, the world's first spy satellite, developed by the CIA and US Air Force. Godel dubbed the satellite Discoverer and claimed it was an "environmental capsule." Live animals were being shot into space to test life support systems, in other words. Except they weren't even alive. To appease the American Society for the Prevention of Animal Cruelty, mechanical mice were developed for the journey. And yet again, it worked.388

384

See Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain; and Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, for an in depth account of ARPA's role in the early space race. 385 Weinberger, 74-75; Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 120. 386 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 371. 387 Weinberger, 55-60. 388 Weinberger, 62-65.

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*** Edward Lansdale was many things, but combat specialist he was not. Fortunately for him, he had an uncanny ability at talent-spotting such individuals. Several of these folks spent decades practicing their black arts in hot spots across the globe. We've already met a few of them, such as Lucian "Black Luigi" Conein; and Bernard Yoh. Lansdale first encountered Yoh in Vietnam shortly after the Battle of Saigon. They were introduced by President Diem, whom Yoh was advising on military matters.389 By this time Yoh had considerable experience in special warfare. Born in Shanghai in 1925, he cut his teeth leading guerrilla fighters against the Japanese occupiers during WWII. The US Navy Sino-American Cooperative Organization enlisted his forces to rescue American airmen downed on missions over Japanese-held territory by conflict's end. From there, he participated in the Chinese Civil War on the side of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist/Kuomintang forces. After their defeat, Yoh continued to work for the Kuomintang as an intelligence officer until at least the late 1950s.390 It was in this capacity he helped relocate the Sea Sparrows to Vietnam at decade's end, as was noted in the prior chapter. Yoh relocated to the US permanently in 1963 and became a lecturer on psychological warfare at the Air War College. Later, he worked in the capacity at the US Air Force Special Operations School at Hurlburt Field, Fl. In 1974, Yoh joined Accuracy in Media (AIM), a conservative watchdog of the "liberal press." He served as the group's director of communications for nearly 20 years.391 While the AIM has lost much of its luster in the twenty-first century, it was instrumental to the conservative counterrevolution that kicked off during the 1970s. Founded by Federal Reserve economist Reed Irvine in 1969, AIM was dedicated to investigating "complaints, take proven cases to top media officials, seek corrections, and mobilize public pressure to bring about remedial action." Its chief instrument was the Fairness Doctrine, a Truman-era policy that theoretically promised equal time to either side of a debate. Conservatives had long denounced the policy, believing it curtailed their viewpoint in the mainstream. But in the hands of Irvine, it became a cudgel against legacy media. Irvine launched a vast grassroots campaign (with tactical support from the Nixon administration) among the right, imploring

389

Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 319-320. Lansdale, In the Midst of War, 319-320; The New York Times. (1995, December 28). Bernard Yoh, 74, lecturer on Warfare. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/28/us/bernard-yoh-74-lecturer-onwarfare.html; WP Company. (1995, December 27). Bernard Yoh dies at 74. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/12/27/bernard-yoh-dies-at-74/d5f8f628-4a1d-46f9-93f874d621ce9240/ . 391 The New York Times. (1995, December 28). Bernard Yoh, 74, lecturer on Warfare. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/28/us/bernard-yoh-74-lecturer-on-warfare.html; WP Company. (1995, December 27). Bernard Yoh dies at 74. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/12/27/bernard-yoh-dies-at-74/d5f8f628-4a1d-46f9-93f874d621ce9240/ . 390

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them to report any and all liberal bias in the media to his group. The Federal Communication Commission, which oversaw the Fairness Doctrine, was soon swamped with complaints from AIM.392 Reed and co were greatly assisted in these efforts by far-right sugar daddy Clarence Manion, a kind of proto-version of Charles Koch and Rush Limbaugh rolled into one. Keep Manion in mind as we'll encounter him quite a bit in the next chapter. Also note that throughout AIM's peak years, their communications director was a Lansdale groupie with extensive firsthand experience in psychological warfare and counterinsurgency. And that his mentor spent years rigging elections overseas. Another noteworthy combat gremlin of the commando variety was Napoleon Valeriano. A 1937 graduate of the Philippine Military Academy (modeled on West Point), he later graduated from the US Cavalry School at Fort Riley; and the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. During WWII, he survived the Bataan Death March, escaped a POW camp, and joined the resistance against the Japanese. During the Philippines civil war, he managed several death squads, including the abovementioned Nenita unit. These forces were the ones used to spread the vampire tropes, reinforced by the trail of bodies they left in their wake. Even before the faux vampire attacks, Valeriano's troops had a fearsome reputation among the Huk. The Nenita was referred to as the "skull squadron" by rebels who accused Valeriano's forces of taking heads as trophies. By the time of his death in 1975, he was a colonel in both the US and Philippines Army.393 Valeriano was Lansdale's go-to combat specialist. After working together in the Philippines, Lansdale would later utilize Valeriano during both of his sojourns to Vietnam. Valeriano is credited with developing "special techniques" of interrogation during his time in the Philippines and Vietnam that were taught to US special operations forces until at least the 1990s.394 No doubt this further bolstered Lansdale's unorthodox approach to psywar. It's of note that Valeriano, with Lansdale's assistance, became one of the main trainers for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs forces.395 This is especially interesting in light of Lansdale's later opposition to the invasion. Reportedly, Valeriano clashed with fellow trainer David Morales. Eventually, Valeriano was dismissed from the planning stage and the broader project. But the bad blood between him and Morales wasn't a factor in his removal.396 This raises the distinct possibility, to this researcher's mind, that Valeriano's role in the run-up to the invasion was partly to spy on these efforts for Lansdale. This could partly explain Lansdale's later reluctance to support the Bay of Pigs while running the Office of Special Operations in

392

Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 224-225. 393 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 78; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 120-121; The New York Times. (1975, January 22). Col. Napoleon D. Valeriano, counterinsurgency expert. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/22/archives/cal-napoleon-d-valeriano-counterinsurgency-expert.html. 394 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 232-233. 395 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 209; Colby and Dennett, Thy Will Be Done, 312. 396 Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 231-232.

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General Erskine's absence. And would also shed some light on the CIA's later antagonism towards Lansdale during the Operation Mongoose days. Another larger-than-life combat specialist Lansdale frequently collaborated with was Charles TR Bohannan, an Army captain often referred to as "Bo" or "Boh." Bo may have been the one figure in Lansdale's entourage who was more unconventional than The Ugly American. He had a Ph.D. in anthropology, specializing in Navajo folklore. Prior to WWII, he worked at the Smithsonian Institute. Bo first arrived in the Philippines in 1944, where he led scout teams behind enemy lines ahead of conventional forces. When he returned to the Philippines in 1946, he had a reputation as a fearless leader and skilled guerrilla fighter. During his second tenure, this perception was buttressed by his litany of eccentricities. He often attended important meetings barefoot and squatted in a corner rather than using a chair. He never wore socks and, outside of official meetings, always sported huarache sandals. He was smitten with a bush jacket with brass shotgun shells for buttons. His house in Manila was built out of semicircular, corrugated steel Quonset huts he set up in a vacant lot. Remarkably, he was married.397 Like Valeriano, Bohannan worked with Lansdale on all major overseas assignments, including both Vietnam ventures. He may have also engaged in covert activities in Laos on behalf of Lansdale. The same is true of Columbia, in which both he and Valeriano were active during 1959 and 1960. They were joined by Lucien Conein and Morales. As noted in the prior chapter, this happened when Lansdale was attempting to forge closer ties between foreign militaries and US special operations forces, especially in the Americas. Bohannan played a crucial role in organizing private, quasi-paramilitary outfits like Operation Brotherhood and the Freedom Company for Lansdale to boot.398 As was noted in the prior chapter, these outfits were used in Vietnam and beyond. While Bohannan and Lansdale had a falling out during Lansdale's second tour of Vietnam, Bohannan probably deserves far more credit for Lansdale's approach than is often acknowledged. Besides his formidable skills as a guerrilla fighter, Bohannan put his background in anthropology to use against the Huk and later insurgents. In particular, Bohannan viewed folk superstitions among the inhabitants of developing nations as ripe for weaponization. Lansdale's extensive use of metaphysics and myth in psywar may have originated with Bohannan.399 And like Valeriano (whom he frequently collaborated with), Bohannan was credited with developing unique "enhanced interrogation methods" that were long employed by US special operations forces.400 ***

397

Boot, 115-116; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 108; Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 232-233. McClintock, 108;143; Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 231-232. McClintock suggests Bohannan may have been involved in the Bay of Pigs planning with Valeriano. Albarelli Jr., who interviewed several Bay of Pigs veterans, makes no reference to this. 399 Alfred McCoy, Policing America's Empire, 377. 400 Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 231-232; Bohannan and Valeriano also co-authored an influential 1962 work on counterinsurgency. See McClintock, 272-274. 398

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One of the most enigmatic figures connected to Lansdale is General Edwin Black. Like Lansdale, Black was an OSS veteran, but one who spent the war considerably closer to the front. He graduated from West Point in 1940 and formally joined the Army. There he remained until June 1943. At year's end, he was assigned to the OSS. By war's end, he was a colonel in command of an OSS detachment in Germany.401 Virtually all of his time in the OSS was spent in the Special Operations branch. Initially, Black was dispatched to the OSS' Special Forces Headquarters (SFHQ) in London. There, he was deeply involved in operational plans for the resistance groups and commandos to be used behind enemy lines. These included the legendary Jedburgh teams. In the aftermath of D-Day, he was shifted to continental Europe, where he served as a liaison between OSS commandos and the advancing forces of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF).402 Black's post-war military career is far more murky. A declassified FBI document from 1950 notes that Col. Black was working out of the Pentagon, with the title "Secretary to the Scientific Advisor to the Policy Council of the Joint Research and Development Board, Office of the Secretary of Dense." Whatever that is. It's interesting that what drew the FBI's attention to Black were inquiries he made to the USSR Embassy for a subscription to the Information Bulletin of the USSR. Black explained that he was simply trying to cancel the Military Library's subscription after the Soviets asked for $2.50 semi-annually for copies. This occurred in 1947.403 As we shall see in Book II, an equally curious figure with ties to both the Philippines and the national security services approached a Soviet embassy on the West Coast during that same year in regard to the same publication. He was also investigated by the FBI, who soon disregarded the incident. But there may be more than meets the eye to these seemingly unrelated events. As shall be explored below, there's far more to what Black was engaged in with the DoD during his affiliation with the Joint Research and Development (JRAD). During the mid-1960s, Black worked his way up to brigadier general. And the military continued to saddle him with cumbersome titles. He was one of the featured speakers for the Freedom Studies Center's opening in 1966. A brochure describes him as "Director, Western Hemisphere Region, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs)."404 401

Colonel William G. Bartlett to David K.E. Bruce, 5 December 1944, Office of Strategic Services, Special Operations Branch, OSS Detachment, European Theater of Operations, "Promotion of Edwin F. Black," https://ia801301.us.archive.org/17/items/EdwinFBlackOSSPersonnelFile/Edwin%20F%20Black%20OSS%20Personn el%20File.pdf. 402 Colonel William G. Bartlett to "CO, Hq & Hq Detachment OSS, European T of Opns," 6 December 1944, Office of Strategic Services, Special Operations Branch, European Theater of Operations (US Army), "Job Description and Justification to Accompany Recommendation for Promotion of Major Edwin F. Black," https://ia801301.us.archive.org/17/items/EdwinFBlackOSSPersonnelFile/Edwin%20F%20Black%20OSS%20Personn el%20File.pdf. 403 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau File 62-83818, 2 February 1950, 3, https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2016/09/04/8-24-16_MR23709_RES_ID1344387-001.pdf 404 Freedom Studies Center, "Seminar for Congressional Aides" (Boston, VA: Institute for American Strategy, 1966), Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

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By 1967, Black was in command of US forces in Northeastern Thailand.405 He was a close friend to James Thompson, a fellow OSS veteran who served as the agency's final commander in Bangkok. After the war, Thompson was approached by Sir William Stephenson, the head of the UK's WWII-era British Security Coordination. At the time, Stephenson, along with OSS head William Donovan and a host of other US/UK intelligence veterans, were setting up the shadowy World Commerce Corporation (WCC). That company was long reputed to be a front for a host of intrigues. Stephenson offered Thompson a gig as the WCC's Thailand representative. This led to WCC financing for Thompson's own Thai Silk Company. It became a successful enterprise, earning Thompson the moniker of "the Silk King of Thailand."406 In late March 1967, Thompson disappeared suddenly while in Malaysia and has not been seen since. Given his links to the US intelligence community and that he frequently traveled across the Golden Triangle (Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, formerly Burma) during its peak years of opium production, this led to much speculation about the circumstances surrounding the disappearance. This topic is beyond the scope of this work, but Black's actions are interesting in relation to this incident. He left his post immediately after Thompson's disappearance to search for him, drawing criticism from the military brass. This move also brought Black and Denis Horgan, his aide, into Malaysia 407 The British, in what is known as the Malaysian Emergency, had just put an insurgency down there in 1960. Partly due to the US presence in Vietnam, renewed conflict broke out in 1968. Thus, Thompson and Black both visited the nation during this period of heightened tension. It was at this point things started getting weird. In April 1967, Black held a press conference concerning Thompson, where he mentioned that he was offering a $5,000 reward for his return. He also discounted claims by a British psychic named Al Koran that Thompson had committed suicide. The following day, Black told the Bangkok Post that Malaysian spiritualists and mediums believed that Thompson was "alive, but ill without speech... under the spell of evil spirits." The proclamations of mystics and spiritualists would haunt the investigation. A relative of Thompson's complained of an overemphasis on "witch doctors" and "seers" during the initial search.408

405

Llewellyn M. Toulmin, The Disappearance of Jim Thompson, the “Silk King of Thailand”–A Search and Rescue Analysis (Silver Springs, MD: self-pub, 2015), 23, https://www.academia.edu/41477816/The_Disappearance_of_Jim_Thompson_the_Silk_King_of_Thailand_A_Sear ch_and_Rescue_Analysis_Report. 406 Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine, 71.For more on the WCC, see this author's own A Special Relationship: Trump, Epstein, and the Secret History of the Anglo-American Establishment Book I (self-pub, 2020), where the subject is explored at length. Martha Galleher, a step-niece of Thompson's who searched for him at the time of his disappearance, had a close relationship with the OSS man. In her account of Thompson, she makes no mention of the WCC and states Thompson raised the money from private sponsors. However, she acknowledges that Thompson worked closely with OSS founder William Donovan while he served as US Ambassador to Thailand during the mid1950s. She encountered Donovan and Thompson together during this time and suspected they were engaged in some type of intelligence activity. See Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King: A Niece's Search for Jim Thompson (self-pub, 2007), 45 407 Denis Horgan, The Bangkok World (West Hartford, CT: Bluefoot Books, 2013), 61-62. 408 Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 16-17, 22.

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During summer 1967, a Malaysian madam known only as "Mrs. Wong" claimed friends engaged in supplying girls to Norwegian sailors had seen Thompson spirited away on a ship bound for Hong Kong. A Singapore medium urged her to come forward with this information. Later, Mrs. Wong and an Indian mystic tracked down a prostitute claiming to have had an affair with Thompson and witnessed his disappearance. Thompson himself was said to be in hiding and posing as a fortune-teller at one point that summer.409 But nothing quite tops the role psychic Peter Hurkos, a close associate of Andrija Puharich, had in the investigation. Hurkos first began working with Puharich in 1956. These early sessions produced what Puharich believed were transmissions from The Ennead of Ancient Egypt. Puharich also tested Hurkos' abilities under the influence of magic mushrooms.410 It has long been alleged Puharich likened these deities to The Nine, whom he channeled on New Year's Eve 1952 and later in 1953 (see Chapter 1). 411 While this seems highly plausible, I have been unable to confirm this claim definitively. As for Hurkos, Thompson's family hired him to aid in the search. He arrived on April 20 and was briefed by Lt. Denis Horgan, Black's aide. Soon, he was taken to meet with Black himself. The general signed off a Malaysian expedition involving Hurkos and Horgan, trying to sus out what happened to Thompson. He even offered Hurkos money and military support if the need arose. While there, Hurkos had a vision of Thompson being abducted and driven away in a military jeep. What's more, he claimed Thompson was transported to Cambodia. Black dutifully reported Hurkos' impressions to his superior, General Richard Stilwell.412 The US didn't start bombing Cambodia until 1969,413 but relations were already frayed. The US and Cambodia did not have diplomatic relations in 1967, meaning no official with the US government could travel there without potentially sparking an international incident. Despite this, Black pushed for Hurkos and Lt. Horgan to embark upon a reconnaissance mission there in his efforts to find Thompson. Unsurprisingly, his superiors vetoed this plan. Undeterred, Black attempted to get the Australians to produce someone to take Hurkos into Cambodia. They too declined. Shortly thereafter, a Thai Buddhist clairvoyant "confirmed" Hurkos' Cambodian impressions. But no Cambodian recon was authorized, so Hurkos departed in early May.414 During August 1967 Katherine Wood, Thompson's older sister, was brutally murdered at her home near Philadelphia, PA. Hurkos insisted the murder was connected to Thompson's disappearance. He characterized these events as an "international plot" to force Thompson to denounce the US presence in 409

Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 95, 97. Andrija Puharich, The Sacred Mushroom, 107-114, 163, etc. 411 See, for instance, Peter Levenda, Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of Political Witchcraft Book I: The Nine. 412 Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 81-85. See also Denis Horgan, The Bangkok World, 64-65. 413 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, 226-227, etc. Nixon openly launched an invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970, to much national outrage. A bombing campaign was begun against Laos in 1969 as well. As I hope this illustrates, the threat of an expanded US war, and especially bombing campaign, in Southeast Asia by 1967 weighed heavily on the entire region. 414 Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 85-89; Denis Horgan, The Bangkok World, 66-67. 410

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Thailand.415 Thompson's family had become disillusioned with this approach by then, but not General Black. He was still receiving missives from astrologers, psychics, and spiritualists concerning Thompson as late as 1973, when his friend was declared dead by Thailand's government. Black tried to get Thompson's family to consult with some of these characters, but to no avail.416 What in the world was going on here? The three common explanations given for Thompson's disappearance are 1) suicide, with the body never recovered; 2) Thompson was abducted and later murdered by bandits who thought the disappearance was drawing too much press; and 3) He was working on some project for the CIA that led his abduction and possible murder. Virtually everyone discounts the first one. Lt. Denis Horgan, Black's aide who accompanied Hurkos to Malaysia, subscribed to the ransom-plot-gone-wrong theory.417 Martha Galleher, Thompson's niece-in-law, believed his disappearance was related to something he was doing for the CIA in relation to China. Because Thompson was a longtime, deep-cover agent, he was not able to return to the West after being given this assignment. She came to believe this after receiving supposedly classified documents providing details of Jim's fate. This occurred in 1972, when Black attempted to renew interest in the case by publicizing the still available reward in regional papers.418 Earlier in her account of Thompson, Galleher drops an intriguing detail she quickly discards: When the FBI began investigating Thompson's disappearance, they suspected he was a double agent for the communists.419 Besides links to the Chinese communists, Thompson also worked for Ho Chi Minh and what became the Vietminh/Vietcong during WWII. He also had connections to the Free Thai movement, supported by the communists, from that time.420Lt. Horgan reports that Thompson and his boss were frequently at odds over Vietnam, with Thompson less concerned about a communist victory than the longterm effects the war would have on the region.421 Is it possible Thompson was working for an intelligence service not connected to the West? Galleher claims numerous friends and associates, including herself, insisted Thompson was a patriot who would never betray his nation. But she also leaves open the possibility that her step-uncle was a homosexual. Homosexuality was commonly used by the intelligence services of both East and West throughout the Cold War as a means of blackmail. From the end of WWII till his disappearance in 1967, Thompson lived in Thailand, a country known for its "sex tourism." He liaised with various communist groups since WWII.

415

Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 101-102. Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 183-185. 417 Denis Horgan, The Bangkok World, 68. 418 Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 181-184, 198-208. 419 Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 5. 420 Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 37-40, 75-76, etc. 421 Denis Horgan, The Bangkok World, 60. 416

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If Thompson was gay, and there was an awareness of this among the Reds, there was a distinct possibility that he was blackmailed into collaborating.422 Was Black deliberately trying to turn the investigation of his disappearance into a circus for this reason? His actions certainly led to considerable coverage of the role psychics were playing in the investigation. And then there's his suggestion of sending Hurkos and Horgan into Cambodia. As ludicrous as this may be, Hurkos long claimed to have participated in the Dutch underground during WWII. However, no evidence of this has ever been found.423 Did he genuinely believe this would produce compelling intelligence for other purposes? Was he hoping to provoke an incident that would distract from Thompson's disappearance, and potential activities leading up to it? It's impossible to say, but the activities of Lansdale and co by the early 1970s may shed further light on this sideshow. More on that below. For now, I need to address the even more unsettling implication of this fiasco. First, let us return to Black's job during the late 1940s: Secretary to the Scientific Advisor to the Policy Council of the Joint Research and Development Board, Office of the Secretary of Dense. As I noted above, this was part of the Pentagon's Joint Research and Development Board (JRAD). It was the successor to the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which in turn was the successor to the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC). These agencies which oversaw the Manhattan Project, were briefly addressed in Chapter 2. More will be said in the epilogue, but for now, it's important to note that the head of the JRAD during Black's time there was Vannevar Bush.424 One of the most influential scientists to ever live, Bush is another figure we shall encounter in the epilogue. For now, it's worth noting he was a founder and major figure behind the original Committee on the Present Danger. This lobby group, featuring many of the nation's leading scientists, was instrumental in ushering in the modern military-industrial complex and enshrining "containment" as the US's guiding foreign policy for nearly half a century.425 This concept will be addressed more below. While Operation Paperclip, the CIA program to bring Nazi scientists into the US, is fairly well known. Far less so is a similar project the Pentagon was running that predated Paperclip. It was known as Project Overcast. The JCS created the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) in 1946 to direct this project. The JIC 422

Thompson was also known for his charitable work with children in Thailand. Orphans frequently resided at his residence there. I've found absolutely nothing to suggest there was anything improper about these activities. Thompson's love for the peoples of Southeast Asia was well-known and he engaged in a variety of activities to raise standards of living. However, another figure possibly tied into this saga is John Paul Vann. As was noted in the last chapter, Vann was convicted of statutory rape while serving in the Army. Biographer Daniel Sheehan in A Bright Shining Lie indicates Vann later pursued underage girls while working for USAID in Vietnam. 423 Ron McRae, Mind Wars: The True Story of Secret Government Research Into the Military Potential of Psychic Warfare (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), 41-42. 424 Johnny Miri, "The Fall of Vannevar Bush: The Forgotten War for Control of Scientific Policy in Postwar America" in Historic Studies in Natural Science 51, no. 3 (September 2021), 508-511. 425 Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment, 13, etc.

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consulted at times with JRAD during Bush's tenure running the latter.426 What's significant about this is that the JIC oversaw Project Bluebird and, later, ARTICHOKE for the Pentagon.427 Was Black involved in Bluebird? A declassified FBI document strongly indicates this. Entitled "Biological Warfare," the document describes a committee tasked with studying such things. Black is described as its founder and secretary. But the committee's interest in biological warfare revolves around the unconventional kind. Of it, the document notes: "Several possible uses of such techniques by unfriendly parties were covered. These uses included the extraction of classified information from an individual through subconscious isolation and detailed interrogation through regression. A simple means for the reproduction of the subconscious state was explained and the process of the subconscious assignment covered, pointing out the possibilities of espionage and sabotage guidance of US personnel through domination by foreign technicians. The possibilities of the instilling of false information into, and the eradication of information from the conscious memory were cited. Details were given concerning negative visual hallucinations and the surveillance possibilities. The possible destruction and the re-creation of personality and character traits were explained." 428 These details raise the distinct possibility this was a part of ARTICHOKE, and possibly even more. As was noted in Chapter 1, ARTICHOKE was a joint Pentagon/CIA project that grew out of Bluebird. An interservice committee was established, known as the Artichoke Committee, was established to oversee this. The CIA and military branches all contributed representatives to this committee, with the sole exception of the FBI.429 And it just so happens, the FBI document noted above describes efforts to enlist an FBI representative to this committee, which Hoover is advised to reject. 430 Even more damning are the CIA people listed as present for the meeting. One was Dr. Willard F Machle, who was then the head of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI).431 The OSI briefly controlled ARTICHOKE before authority was given to the Office of Security. But the OSI remained active in the project well into the 1950s. Machle was soon replaced as the OSI head by H Marshall Chadwell, who will be addressed more in Chapter 4. Before joining the CIA, Chadwell was a close collaborator of Vannevar Bush's on the NDRC.432

426

Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 25-33. 427 Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda, 164, etc. 428 United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Biological Warfare," D.M. Ladd, DocID: 34386951, Washington, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1949, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MeOxLwRaYpzVbAdti8gkVNRdModI5k6b/view 429 See, for instance, H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 88, etc. 430 United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Biological Warfare," D.M. Ladd, DocID: 34386951, Washington, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1949, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MeOxLwRaYpzVbAdti8gkVNRdModI5k6b/view 431 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 203. 432 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 141.

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As for the other CIA man on Black's committee, he was an interrogation specialist named Cleve Backster.433Backster and his likely ties to Bluebird are addressed in Chapter 6. At a minimum, the document suggests Black was at least aware of the research being conducted for Bluebird. His desire to include the FBI is also interesting. Supposedly, it was related to communism and espionage in the US.434 The reader will recall that Andrija Puharich worked with ARTICHOKE during the mid-1950s, shortly before he encountered Hurkos. He was also doing parapsychological research for a group known as the Round Table Foundation. Several individuals, including former vice-president Henry Wallace, with pre-WWII communist connections, were linked to it. We'll explore this and its implications more in Chapter 6. But suffice to say, if Black was involved in some kind of counterintelligence operation involving Bluebird and targeting communist agents, Thompson's disappearance raises some incredible possibilities. It also may explain his obsession with making a mockery of, and possibly sabotaging, the investigation. As a final note, it is worth mentioning Lt. Denis Horgan left the Army not long after this series of events. Soon, he was entrenched as the editor for Bangkok World, then one of Thailand's two English-language publications. During the early 1970s, Horgan was forced to fire a fellow editor from the newspaper's Sunday edition after he made false claims concerning the health of Burma's dictator. Supposedly, the strongman was nearing death. When this proved not to be the case, a minor diplomatic incident broke out between Thailand and Burma, resulting in the dismal of this editor. This character's name was Sterling Seagrave,435 and you'll hear a lot about him in Book III. For now, it's important to keep in mind that Edwin Black's former military aide was his boss during the early 1970s. *** It's difficult to say what effect Edwin Black's actions had on his military career. He retired in 1970, after nearly thirty years in the security services. It was during his retirement that Black gained his greatest infamy. This would come from his role in an Australia-based bank known as Nugan Hand. Co-founded by former Green Beret Michael Hand and heavily staffed with senior US military figures and spies, the bank collapsed in 1980 following the death of Hand's co-founder, Frank Nugan. This came on the heels of revelations concerning its role in arms and drug trafficking.436

433

United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Biological Warfare," D.M. Ladd, DocID: 34386951, Washington, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1949, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MeOxLwRaYpzVbAdti8gkVNRdModI5k6b/view 434 United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Biological Warfare," D.M. Ladd, DocID: 34386951, Washington, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1949, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MeOxLwRaYpzVbAdti8gkVNRdModI5k6b/view. 435 Denis Horgan, The Bangkok World, 174-175. 436 Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine, 166. The most in depth account of Nugan Hand can be found in Peter Butt, Merchants of Menace: The True Story of the Nugan Hand Bank Scandal (Sydney, Blackwattle Press, 2021). Compelling, if somewhat dated, accounts can be found in R.T. Naylor, Hot Money and the Politics of Debt (New York: The Linden Press/Simon and Schuster, 1987), 316-323; and Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 332-338, etc.

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Founded in 1973, the bank expanded rapidly across the globe. At the time of its demise, it had offices in Sydney, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila, the Cayman Islands, Honolulu, and Washington, DC. The Nugan Hand offices in Manila and the Thailand city of Chiang Mai were in the same buildings as the local stations of the American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Reportedly, Nugan shared secretarial services with the DEA in Thailand. This is a curious arrangement considering that particular branch was set up at the behest of Murray Riley, a known drug trafficker who used the Chiang Mai branch as a Laundromat.437 Australian investigators determined that at least twenty-six drug networks and syndicates used Nugan Hand's services.438 But if anything, its role in the arms trade may have been more extensive. Michael Hand vigorously supported the white minority governments of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Apartheid South Africa. By the mid-1970s, it was virtually impossible for these regimes to acquire Western arms due to embargos. Michael Hand and his bank circumvented these embargos by working as a broker; and accepting gold, ivory, and tiger skins as payment. The end results were impressive. During the late 1970s, Hand managed to ship millions of rounds of ammunition and thousands of firearms to southern Africa.439 There can be little question Black was aware of these activities. While in South Africa, Michael Hand launched Murdoch Lewis Properties Ltd to handle the transactions. Black became the president of both the Nugan Hand and Murdoch Lewis Properties branches in Hawaii. From there, he took a hands-on role in arranging deals to provide South Africa with helicopters, munitions and other goodies.440 Further, the CIA's station chief, Red Jantzen, regularly socialized with the staff of Nugan Hand's Chiang Mai Laundromat. Jantzen and Black were friends, which may have led to the CIA man being offered a job at one of Nugan Hand's conferences.441 And if that weren't enough, consider Black's next banking gig following Nugan Hand's collapse: Hawaii's Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham, and Wong (BBRDW). This merchant bank was founded by a one-time CIA asset and collapsed in 1983 under circumstances eerily similar to Nugan Hand. The bank was set up in 1977 and expanded rapidly. Soon, it had offices in Taiwan, Singapore, Tahiti, Jakarta, and beyond. On paper, it was a corporate empire that stretched from Hawaii to Europe via the Far East. Problems emerged when the IRS began investigating the bank in 1982. At first, the CIA tried to block the investigation. After that failed, it seized all of BBRDW's files on the grounds of national security. Much like Frank Nugan, the firm's founder, Ron Rewald, attempted suicide. But he survived, and brought a $600 million lawsuit against the CIA in the aftermath. That probably wasn't the best idea, as he was found guilty on ninety-

437

Peter Butt, Merchants of Menace, 72-74; Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine, 166; R.T. Naylor, Hot Money, 318; Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 334. 438 Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 334. 439 Peter Butt, Merchants of Menace, 45-47, 50-51, etc; Naylor, Hot Money, 317; Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 334. 440 Peter Butt, Merchants of Menace, 45-46, 136-141, etc. 441 Butt, Merchants of Menace, 225.

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four of ninety-eight counts in 1985 and promptly imprisoned. Sentenced to eighty years, he was paroled in 1995.442 It seems utterly improbable that Black was oblivious to all the illicit activities playing out at these financial institutions. A more compelling question is how much of this Lansdale was aware of? As was noted in Chapter 2, he effectively went to war with French gangsters during his tenure in Vietnam and was often in close proximity to drug trafficking. Curiously, Black asked Lansdale about Michael Hand shortly before taking a position at Nugan Hand in 1977.443 In 1983, as BBRDW was collapsing, Lansdale and his wife vacationed with Black in Hawaii.444 As for Nugan Hand, Black wasn't the only Lansdale associate linked to the bank either. One of Lansdale's biggest CIA backers (and a close friend) was William Colby, who became the agency's director in 1972. He served as DCI until 1976, as Nugan Hand was being set up and delving into the southern African arms trade. After his retirement, Colby became a legal adviser to Nugan Hand, assisting it with tax matters and banking projects in Panama and Florida.445 Thus, both the head of the bank's Hawaii branch and its principal legal counsel were close, longstanding Lansdale associates. This is intriguing in light of a certain issue Black and Colby were all interested in during the mid-1970s: the resettlement of the Hmong (Meo) tribesmen. Originally hailing from China, the Hmong were driven out during the late nineteenth and settled in the highlands of Laos and Vietnam. In the aftermath, they took up opium cultivation as a means of survival. In French Indochina, they became an integral part of the state-sanctioned opium trade. After the French were driven out and the region descended into various combat zones, they became a mercenary force for the CIA while continuing to cultivate and sell opium.446 It all came together in Laos in 1959, when CIA personnel and Green Berets were dispatched to Laos to begin training the Hmong tribesmen. Lansdale, who effectively ran the Office of Special Operations at this point, was an enthusiastic supporter of these efforts. He envisioned the Hmong gathering intelligence and sealing off mountain infiltration of Thailand and South Vietnam from the Vietcong and Communist Chinese.447 This marked the beginning of the secret war in Laos, which lasted until the 1970s. All the while, the Hmong remained active in the drug trade, now with the assistance of Air America.448 Even after they were driven out of Laos, the Hmong remained active in the drug trade. Nugan Hand's Chiang Mai branch was apparently an especially popular laundry for the tribesmen.449 Two years prior to 442

Naylor, Hot Money, 320-322; Butt, Merchants of Menace, 252; Shikina, R. (2010, November 25). Con man rewald directs a Los Angeles Talent Agency - Hawaii News - Staradvertiser.com. https://web.archive.org/web/20101231013417/http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20101125_Con_man_Rewa ld_directs_a_Los_Angeles_talent_agency.html. 443 Edwin Black to Edward Lansdale, 29 October 1977, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 2, "Black, Ed"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 444 Edwin Black to Edward Lansdale, 9 January 1984, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 2, "Black, Ed"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 445 Butt, Merchant of Menace, 47-50, etc.; Naylor, Hot Money, 318. 446 Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, Revised Edition, 94-95, 130. 447 McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 305-306. 448 McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 307-321. 449 Scott, American War Machine, 167

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joining Nugan Hand, Black was in correspondence with William Colby, then DCI, over establishing a resettlement program for refugees fleeing the Indochina region as Vietnam collapsed. Black and Colby were concerned with tracking the refugees while aiding them in establishing contacts with family in their former homelands. While this may seem fairly begin, Black notes, "In time, they may be able and willing to provide us with a clearer picture of the situation in their former homeland." 450 And that brings us to what is possibly the most incredible scheme involving Nugan Hand. With the assistance of legendary former OSS man, mercenary, and arms trafficker Mitchell WerBell, Nugan Hand explored the possibility of resettling roughly 3,000 Hmong tribesmen to a former US Naval base on the Grand Turks Island of the Caribbean's Turks and Caicos Islands. The possibilities were breathtaking: an offshore tax haven manned by several thousand of the US's most experienced (and ruthless) mercenary forces. It could become a staging ground for US paramilitary efforts in the Caribbean at a time when the opium of the Golden Triangle was giving way to the cocaine of South America. What could these veteran mercs and drug traffickers have accomplished there? Sadly, we'll never know. The scheme collapsed not long after Frank Nugan's suicide.451 As I hope this has illustrated, both Lansdale's knowledge of, and complicity in, the drug trafficking of the US security services, was surely far greater than has generally been acknowledged. This is a crucial aspect of Lansdale's life and career that is typically glossed over. I've opted to dwell on it so much here as it will have increasing significance throughout both this Book, and Book III of this series. For now, I have a few more gremlins for the reader's consideration. *** General Samuel V Wilson, an unabashed Lansdale groupie to his dying day, served under the man on two separate occasions. Wilson later played a crucial role in the establishment of the Special Operations Command and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict during the late 1980s.452 Wilson was already a legend in the SOF community even before serving under Lansdale. He cut his teeth with the OSS in the China-Burma-India Theater. Wilson was among Merrill's Marauders, the legendary commando outfit and proto-SOF group. During the Cold War, he served in various roles for

450

Edwin Black to William Colby, 7 May 1975, in "Letters to Brigadier General Edwin Black," www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80M01066A001100100038-0.pdf. 451 Naylor, Hot Money, 319-320. It's interesting to note that WerBell had served in the OSS with Lucien Conein in the China-Burma theater. They remained in contact and WerBell was a business partner of Conein's as late as 1974. See Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup, 164. 452 For Wilson's role in establishing SOCOM, see William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command" in Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Legislation: Why It Was Passed and Have the Voids Been Filled? For Lansdale's influence on Wilson's later activities, see Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript; https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-051228-017.pdf.

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the CIA's special operations forces. He even did a turn with the USAID (which frequently collaborates with the spy agency).453 The latter occurred during Vietnam, when Wilson worked as a deputy and chief of staff for Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. He initially took the USAID gig at Lansdale's urging. Wilson's three years there, from 1964 and 1967, were eventful. Under his watchful eye, the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development (CORDS) agency formally came into being. CORDS was a part of the Revolutionary Development Cadre Division, also partly initiated by Wilson. He even played a role in setting up the Provisional Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), which conducted the infamous Phoenix Program (noted in Chapter 2) within CORDS. The purpose of this program was to kill or capture cadres of the Vietcong's "clandestine government" in the South. Prior to Phoenix taking flight, Wilson tested a regional pilot program.454 One of Lansdale's biggest CIA backers, William Colby, later directed the PRUs/Phoenix. Further, all of this fell under the Office of Civil Operations (OCO), established at the urging of Ambassador Lodge. Lansdale was offered a slot in the OCO but turned it down. Still, he had Wilson and other gremlins, such as John Paul Vann, in crucial posts. The role Wilson was originally dispatched to Vietnam to fill had been held by Rufus Phillips, another Lansdale gremlin noted above.455 While Lansdale and his gremlins may have objected to how OCO/CORDS/Phoenix was later run, they were instrumental in providing the infrastructure and, frankly, the vision behind it. Wilson felt its major flaw was that it happened "10-15 years" too late. Wilson's on-again, off-again relationship with the CIA continued into the mid-1970s. From 1974-1976 he served as the CIA's deputy director under future President George H.W. Bush. Despite being a lifelong Democrat, Wilson described Bush as "a close, personal friend."456 But most of his career played out in the US Army. During the early 1950s, he was the Army's intelligence liaison to the nascent Special Forces, which allowed him to contribute to their development. He returned to Fort Bragg during the early 1960s to develop those courses that would prove to be so influential on foreign militaries. Wilson's time serving under Lansdale occurred shortly before and directly after his stint at Bragg. He was first detailed to the Office of Special Operations for 100 days in 1958. Wilson described

453

William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command," 13-14; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 320. For more on the CIA's relationship with AID see, for instance, McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 188196, etc; and McCoy, A Question of Torture, 60-61. 454 Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 23, 25-26, 28-29; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 657, 732-733. 455 Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 23, 25-26, 28-29; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 655-657. For more on the structure/relationship of CORDS/Phoenix, see Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 115-117, etc. John Paul Vann played an enormous role in crafting Phoenix's infrastructure as well. It's debatable whether he and Wilson provided more of the vision for the infrastructure. See Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 655-657, 732-733, etc. 456 William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command," 13-14;Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, 56.

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this time as "the most educational 100 days I've ever spent." He returned to the OSO in 1961 and remained there until 1963, all the while serving as Lansdale's deputy assistant.457 After returning from Vietnam, he rejoined the military. Initially, he commanded the 6th Special Forces Group before being given command of the prestigious 82nd Airborne. From there, he served several roles with the DIA before his return to Bush's CIA. He then went back to the DIA in 1976 as its director before retiring in 1977.458 But even in "retirement," Wilson remained highly active in SOFs affairs. He was involved in establishing the Delta Force, for years the backbone of JSOC., during the late 1970s.459 He also floated the concept that later became the US Special Operations Command during this time. Wilson realized the military's conventional mindset would never allow for something like SOCOM, so he drummed up support for it among Congress. This led to the creation of the Special Operations Advisory Panel and, later, the Special Operations Policy Advisory Group. 460 These efforts got the ball rolling on 1987's Nunn-Cohen Amendment, which formally established SOCOM. During the highly contested congressional hearings on these matters, Wilson again played a crucial role in supporting the legislation, along with Lansdale fellow travelers such as ex-CIA director (and Phoenix head) William Colby; and General Richard Stilwell, 461Lansdale's superior during the Philippine days, and longtime friend. That so many Lansdale gremlins and fellow travelers would be involved in the creation of SOCOM is only fitting, as it was principally his vision they were working from. Before moving along, one endlessly fascinating character integral to our story first earned a name for himself while working. Christopher Mellon was then working as an aide to Senator William Cohen, one of the co-sponsors behind the amendment that created SOCOM. A scion of the wealthy and powerful Mellon dynasty of Pittsburg, Mellon was crucial in helping Cohen gain support for the legislation and " provided many of the ideas for the low-intensity conflict elements of the law."462 Wilson praised Mellon's efforts, describing himself as "deeply fond" of the young congressional staffer. He even went so far as to suggest that Mellon would make a fine Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflicts, the official who oversees SOCOM, and a post Mellon himself helped create.463 It didn't come to 457

Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 14-17; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 320-322. Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 34-37; William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command," 13-14. 459 William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command," 14; Langer, Emily. “Samuel V. Wilson, Army Lieutenant General and Spymaster, Dies at 93.” The Washington Post. WP Company, June 12, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/samuel-v-wilson-army-lieutenant-general-and-spymaster-diesat-93/2017/06/12/22ab5ec2-4f79-11e7-b064-828ba60fbb98_story.html. 460 Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 38-39; William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command," 14. 461 William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command," 26-28; Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 58; Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of the Joint Special Operations Command, 39-40. 462 William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command," 59. 463 Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 57. 458

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pass, but when Cohen became Secretary of Defense during Bill Clinton's second term, Mellon followed his old boss to the Pentagon and held many important posts there. But more on that later. Lansdale was hardly resting on his laurels during this time either. During the early 1980s, he was befriended by F Andy Messing, a former Green Beret with a penchant for intrigues. Messing became highly active politically after Vietnam. Prior to meeting Lansdale, he served as the executive director for the American Conservative Union and later became a leading figure in the Conservative Caucus.464 The latter was largely defunct by the twenty-first century. But during the Reagan years, it was a crucial node in the private funding network used to sponsor "low-intensity conflicts" against the Soviet Union across the globe.465 A major component of this network was the American Security Council's Coalition of Peace Through Strength, which brought together a variety of conservative groups in support of Nicaraguan Contras and other "freedom fighters." The Conservative Caucus gained notoriety towards the end of the 1980s for its direct collaboration with the government of Apartheid South Africa.466 By contrast, the American Conservative Union (ACU) still remains a force among the American right up to present day. It was established in 1964 by a cadre of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) members, including National Review founder and right-wing icon William Buckley. Its goals were to consolidate and mobilize the intellectual resources of the conservative movement; provide leadership for existing groups; influence American public opinion; and generate citizen action. To create political activists, in other words. It was highly successful, and by decade's end, the Nixon administration was leaning on the ACU for appointees. One was Freedom Studies Center graduate Tom Charles Huston.467 The tradition continues to present day. But even more influential is the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC). Started during the early 1960s, the ACU and YAF took over sponsorship by the 1970s. CPAC is an annual gathering of hundreds of right-wing activists to promote policy and candidates to the Republican Party. It emerged as a real force within the Grand Old Party (GOP) towards the end of the 1970s, when it played a crucial role in Reagan's rise.468 In the modern era, it routinely draws the heads of all leading conservative think tanks and is crucial in canvassing support for would-be presidential candidates.

464

National Defense Council Foundation, "In Defense of Free Enterprise, Country, and Constitution," (Washington, DC: National Defense Council Foundation), Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 465 Under the Reagan administration, low-intensity conflict (LIC) was an umbrella term adopted for the interrelated doctrines of counterinsurgency, special operations, and unconventional warfare. Hence the reason the Pentagon official who directly oversees SOCOM is dubbed the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and LowIntensity Conflict. See McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 334-336, 339-340; and Bodenheimer & Gould, Rollback, 101-103. 466 Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 82-3; Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 222-223. 467 John A. Andrew III, The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: 1997), 213-214, 217; Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 115-116. 468 Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 128-129, 138, 289; Meyer, Dark Money, 354.

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After his time with Special Forces and these groups, Messing opted to go solo and founded his own group. It was called the National Defense Council (NDC). The NDC described itself as "a pro-defense, free enterprise research and educational organization with tax-exempt status...," one that it was highly active in "refugee relief work in Central America" and "Congressional fact-finding missions to places like El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Grenada."469 A brochure from the group during the height of IranContra boasts that the NDC had distributed "over 100 tons of food and medicine into the hottest combat areas on Central America"; that it had "taken 38 Members of Congress... to wars in Africa, Central & South America, and Asia..."; "briefed Members of Congress, the Administration, the Media, and other VIPs to assist in educating them on the dozens of wars going on world-wide which affect America's safety and economy"; and that it was "responsible for reduced cut-backs of Special Forces (SF) in 1978, assisted in increasing SF from 1981 to present and saving US Navy Seals in 1981."470 Clearly, Messing and his organization shared many of Lansdale's longstanding interests. Messing was supposedly part of "Lansdalian" followers, a group that took root in the military after the general's retirement. He first encountered Lansdale's concepts in 1970 while going through Special Forces training. Later, Messing read Lansdale's autobiography, In the Midst of War, and contacted him on a whim during 1980.471 It marked the beginning of Lansdale's last major military adventure before his death. Through Messing, Lansdale met other "Lansdalians" working closely with the Reagan administration. One was fellow NDC "adviser" General John Singlaub.472 It's a bit surprising Singlaub and Lansdale had not encountered one another before the 1980s. Singlaub, like many of the military men we've encountered thus far, had a background in special operations. Like Lansdale, Singlaub was a UCLA graduate and OSS veteran. During WWII, he cut his special operator teeth with Jedburgh teams in France. Once the European conflict wound down, Singlaub was transferred to the Chinese-Burma theater, where he engaged in guerilla warfare. Shortly before being dispatched to the Korean War to lead CIA paramilitary teams, he helped set up the Ranger Training Center at Fort Benning, Georgia. Later, he oversaw the Military Assistance Group Vietnam -Special Operations Group (MACV-SOG) during the conflict. That infamous command, tasked with overseeing special operations forces in Vietnam, played a role in the above-mentioned targeted assassination program known as

469

Catherine C. Dickey to Edward Lansdale, 2 August 1984, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 470 National Defense Council Foundation, "In Defense of Free Enterprise, Country, and Constitution," (Washington, DC: National Defense Council Foundation), Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 471 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 589; Currey, Edward Lansdale, 247. 472 Boot, 589; Currey, 247.

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Phoenix.473 Upon leaving the military during the Carter era, Singlaub developed close working relations with the ASC and other far-right groups.474 During the mid-1980s, the NDC sponsored what was dubbed the "Singlaub Committee."475 First meeting around 1983, it spawned a blue-ribbon panel at the Pentagon the following year. Set up by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Fred Ikle, it was to advise the Pentagon on the growing conflict in El Salvador.476 Ikle is an appropriate figure to be overseeing these activities. He was Swiss by birth, relocating to the United States in 1946. After earning a Master's Degree in social science and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1950, he held a variety of positions at many of the usual suspects: Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social Research, Harvard's Center for International Studies, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.477 The reader will recall from Chapter 1 that Smith Richardson was a significant node in the New Right funding network established by the Institute for American Strategy's Frank Barnett. It's especially interesting to note Ikle was a director for the National Endowment for Democracy during the 1990s. This will take on greater significance in Book III. As for the Singlaub Committee, it produced a classified report rejecting the use of conventional forces and technologically advanced weapons and advocated reliance on special operations forces to train indigenous combatants. The panel featured a strong NDC presence. Besides Singlaub, Lansdale and Messing were also present.478 The Singlaub Committee eventually morphed into the above-mentioned Special Operations Policy Advisory Group that General Samuel V Wilson was so deeply involved with. Singlaub was the chairman and remained so, even as the membership varied. Other Lansdale fellow travelers, such as General Richard G Stilwell and General William Yarborough, sometimes participated.479

473

Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, 30; Scott & Jon Anderson, Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World AntiCommunist League (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1986), 151; Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 42-44, 168; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 341-342; Boot, 589. 474 Bellant, Old Nazis, New Right, and the Republican Party, 40-41, 55, etc; Kyle Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right, 86, 96-98. 475 F. Andy Messing to "Fellow Americans," 1984, 3, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 476 Maj. Hubbard to Becky Alexander, 16 May 1984, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; Department of Defense, "Background Paper on the Situation in Central America," 1984, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; McClintock, Instruments of Stagecraft, 340; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 590. 477 Schwartz, H. A. (2011, November 11). CSIS mourns the loss of Fred C. Iklé. CSIS. https://www.csis.org/news/csismourns-loss-fred-c-ikle. 478 Maj. Hubbard to Becky Alexander, 16 May 1984, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; Department of Defense, "Background Paper on the Situation in Central America," 1984, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; McClintock, Instruments of Stagecraft, 340; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 590. 479 McClintock, Instruments of Stagecraft, 340-341.

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Clearly, the Lansdalians and their namesake played a crucial role in both crafting what became SOCOM as well as shaping the Reagan administration's foreign policy. But, there are indications that they did more than advise. Consider an early member of the NDC: Robert K Brown.480 Brown is another former special operator who became something of a minor celebrity as the publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine. For years the world's premier mercenary publication, the magazine was used for decades to recruit troops for various hotspots across the globe. After bouncing back and forth between the Army (at one point, he served on Singlaub's Studies and Observation Group) and freelance work as a mercenary, Brown set up Fortune in 1975. From the get-go, it was a crucial means of providing troops to various troubled zones, starting with Rhodesia. Brown was especially passionate about supplying the white minority governments of southern Africa with elite American troops.481 Lansdale put Brown in contact with several of his former operators to supply Soldier of Fortune with articles and became a subscriber to the magazine in 1975 before it even released its first issue.482 These activities were unfolding at the same time Michael Hand of the infamous Nugan Hand Bank was putting together arms deals for the same white minority governments of southern Africa. But beyond that, Hand also provided "rogue" CIA/Naval intelligence officer Ed Wilson with Green Berets to train Libyan troops.483 It would be interesting to know if he was doing the same for South Africa and/or Rhodesia, and if he enlisted the services of Brown in these efforts. By the 1980s, Lansdale's followers were knee-deep in anti-communist paramilitaries. One was Peregrine International, which operated between 1981-1984. Headquartered out of Texas, Peregrine was founded by two former "freelance" undercover agents of US Customs who specialized in illicit arms trafficking. They hoped to continue this work in the private sector with Peregrine and use the proceeds generated by reward monies to free American POWs in Vietnam. Not long after setting up shop, they hired Major Richard Meadows as the company's president. Meadows served in Vietnam with the Special Forces under John Singlaub.484 Meadows arranged for the Peregrine founders to meet his "mentor": General Samuel V. Wilson. Wilson urged the Peregrine folks to broaden their horizons. He envisioned the company as an American KeeniMeeni Services, an early British private military company (PMC) established by Special Air Services (SAS) veterans. Wilson was supposedly serving as a point man between the company and the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA). Composed largely of former Special Forces, the ISA is the principal intelligence arm

480

Catherine C. Dickey to Edward Lansdale, 2 August 1984, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 5, "National Defense Council"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. This letter is written on the NDC's official masthead, which Brown's name appears on. He turns in a few other NDC letters in Lansdale's papers as well. 481 Kyle Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right, 108-109. 482 See Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 7, "Correspondences: Soldier of Fortune 1975"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 483 Peter Butt, Merchants of Menace, 137-138. 484 Frank Greve, Matthew Purdy and Mark Fazlollah, "Pentagon Recruited Firm to Act as Covert Force, Founder Says," The Miami Herald, 26 April 1987, https://www.newspapers.com/image/633459539/ (accessed June 2023).

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of JSOC and one of the elite spy agencies in the world.485 We shall return to the ISA in much greater depth during Book III. But to return to Peregrine. Wilson and the ISA allegedly had big plans for the company. It was given a list of countries where it could and could not operate. The green light flashed in Belize, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, Sudan, and Somalia. By far the most ambitious project the group was considered for was a possible coup in Iran in which they would support elements within the military to overthrow the regime. But after some early success in Honduras, the CIA took over. The company folded not long afterward. Soon a new, quasi-PMC, was operating in Honduras, this one linked to John Singlaub. Singlaub was reputed to have some ill-defined connection to Peregrine as well. He certainly was engaged in such things by the following year.486 In 1985, Singlaub enlisted Robert K Brown to provide veterans for the Nicaraguan Contras, telling Brown that he needed "to take over where the CIA left off." Brown didn't need much encouragement. He was already deeply involved in recruiting forces for Central America by then.487 His network also provided veterans for outfits like "The Company," a Kentucky-based syndicate composed almost entirely of former military and law enforcement personnel deeply engaged in drug and arms trafficking by the late 1970s.488 It would seem that these organizations --Nugan Hand, Peregrine International, Soldier of Fortune, "The Company," etc. --provided an infrastructure to support elite US special operations forces and their foreign counterparts after the defense budget was gutted in the wake of Vietnam. One can discern inspiration from the veteran-laden front companies Lansdale established in the Philippines and Vietnam during the 1950s as a foreshadowing of the powerful PMCs that arose in the aftermath of the Cold War. These 80s efforts, involving numerous "Lansdalians," are a crucial bridge. The National Defense Council was another such bridge, which surely delighted Lansdale. Further credence is added to this notion by the NDC's "Senior Economic Adviser," J Herbert "Herbo" Humphreys Jr. Hailing from Memphis, TN, Humphreys was the scion of a local industrialist who made his own fortune by developing a successful Holiday Inn franchise on the Great Cayman island (where Nugan Hand maintained an especially active branch). Throughout much of his adult life, Humphreys split his time between

485

Frank Greve, Matthew Purdy and Mark Fazlollah, "Pentagon Recruited Firm to Act as Covert Force, Founder Says," The Miami Herald, 26 April 1987, https://www.newspapers.com/image/633459539/ (accessed June 2023). For more on the history of the ISA and its significance, see Michael Smith, Killer Elite: The Real Story Behind the Operation to Track Down Osama Bin Laden, 2nd Ed. (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2011). The ISA features heavily in Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of the Joint Special Operations Command, as well. 486 Frank Greve, Matthew Purdy and Mark Fazlollah, "Pentagon Recruited Firm to Act as Covert Force, Founder Says," The Miami Herald, 26 April 1987, https://www.newspapers.com/image/633459539/ (accessed June 2023). 487 Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right, 118-119. 488 Sally Denton, The Bluegrass Conspiracy: An Inside Story of Power, Greed, Drugs and Murder (New York: iUniverse Star, 1990, 2001), 63-64. Denton's book remains the definitive work on "The Company."

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Memphis and the Bahamas. In 1984, he founded Marex International, a company dedicated to uncovering sunken treasure.489 Like Lansdale, this gave Humphreys a rather buffoonish public persona. Any number of tongue-in-cheek accounts of his treasurer hunting can be found online. Elsewhere, conspiracy theorists would latch onto this peculiarity in regard to one of the most incredible allegations surrounding Lansdale. That whole saga is so elaborate that I won't be able to unpack it until Book III. For now, I can emphasize that Humphreys' anti-communism during the Reagan years was very serious. Besides funding the NDC, he also provided a group called the Civilian Material Assistance (CMA) with funding.490 Robert K Brown also allegedly put up funds for the CMA,491 while Singlaub had an ill-defined relationship with the group.492 This is the firm that operated in Honduras after Peregrine, another company Singlaub had some kind of connection to, was pushed out It later came out that the CMA secured several contracts with the CIA in 1984 via its liaison with the US Ambassador in Honduras, John Negroponte. At one point, it was providing arms, trainers, and even participated directly in operations in Honduras and Nicaragua. This venture collapsed during the fall of 1984 when the Sandinistas shot down a CMA supply flight. Two Americans lost their lives, and the Reagan administration faced a brief scandal over the matter. The dead mercs were later celebrated in the pages of Soldier of Fortune, inspiring a fresh wave of volunteers.493 By the 1990s, former CMA head Thomas Posey was working as Humphreys Jr's "director of security" on his treasure-hunting expeditions.494 This strongly implies there was more going on with the National Defense Council than ferrying food and medical supplies to Central America. There are indications Lansdale was indirectly active in these intrigues. During 1985, the Philippines was in the midst of a contested election between Corazon Aquino and longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos that threatened to spiral into a civil war. Lansdale dispatched Messing, who used the general's old network in the Philippines to feel out both political camps. Upon his 489

Moore, V. (2018, March 22). Herbo Humphreys, 1948-2018. Memphis magazine. https://memphismagazine.com/features/columns/herbo-humphreys/ 490 Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B, Volume 21; Depositions: Posey -Ransom, before Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, 100th Congress, 114-119 (1987) (statement of Thomas Posey, head of CMA), https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146491#relPageId=138&search=singluab. 491 Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B, Volume 21; Depositions: Posey -Ransom, before Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, 100th Congress, 158-159 (1987) (statement of Thomas Posey, head of CMA), https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146491#relPageId=138&search=singluab. 492 Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B, Volume 21; Depositions: Posey -Ransom, before Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, 100th Congress, 189-195, etc (1987) (statement of Thomas Posey, head of CMA), https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146491#relPageId=138&search=singluab. See also, Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right, 152-153. 493 Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right, 152-153. 494 Moore, V. (2018a, January 29). On Sundays we find silver: The story of Herbo Humphreys. Memphis magazine. https://memphismagazine.com/features/herbo-humphries-on-sundays-we-find-silver/.

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return, Messing reported that Aquino was the best choice. He and Lansdale set out lobbying Congress to back her claim. It was a major success, which Messing credited to Lansdale's still-influential network in the Philippines.495 And then there was Colonel Oliver North, the infamous National Security Council figure laid low by IranContra only to be reborn as a conservative icon during the following decades. Lansdale and the Marine colonel came to know one another through Messing. North eventually viewed himself as "Lansdalian." The admiration cut both ways. After North became embroiled in criminal investigations in 1986, Lansdale lamented: "He's a very decent guy and used good initiative on the NCS staff. Friends of mine claimed that he was simply a current copy of me in today's government."496 High praise indeed! *** As I hope this section has illustrated, there was far more to Edward Lansdale than the buffoonish caricatures often put forward. Lansdale has been almost entirely exorcized from official histories of the CIA and special operations forces, supposedly due to his larger-than-life psywar schemes. In reality, Lansdale profoundly influenced how the US wages covert war. He was one of the key visionaries behind what became the Special Operations Command and his acolytes would carry Lansdale's vision of counterinsurgency (at times employing high-tech methods) into the twenty-first century. But beyond this, Lansdale was at the forefront of creating an entirely new culture within the national security services. When assessing figures in this community, researchers have typically split them into two camps: spies (CIA) and military men (Pentagon). But Lansdale and the figures who gravitated to him over the years --Wilson, Stilwell, Black, Singlaub, Messing, etc. --defied such easy categorizations. In fact, many spent their careers bouncing back and forth between the CIA and Pentagon, often doing the same type of work for either: waging "low-intensity conflict." The US military, long dominated by advocates of conventional warfare, regarded many of these figures with weariness, if not outright contempt. For a time, they found a home in the CIA. But as it proved to be increasingly bureaucratized and inept at covert operations, they found themselves at odds with the professional hierarchy. The military was ideal for creating a professional class of unconventional warriors via the special operations forces (the CIA had relied on an ad hoc group of OSS paramilitary specialists and adventurers for covert operations during the early days). But it was long reluctant to do so. Lansdale attempted to establish an early version of SOCOM during the Kennedy years and faced relentless pushback from the military, State Department, and elements of the CIA. At that point in his career, he had nothing but a series of counterinsurgency successes overseas. And yet, he was already in the doghouse of both State and the DoD.497 Then came his clashes with the CIA over the Bay of Pigs and Mongoose. Finally, the foundation for the military's eventual domination in covert

495

Currey, Edward Lansdale, 347. Boot, The Road Not Taken, 589-590; Currey, 347. 497 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 199-200. 496

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operations (which they wanted no part of at the time was laid), at the CIA's expense, during Lansdale's tenure heading the OSO. In hindsight, it is clear a new force emerged in the national security state during this era: The Operators.498 These were the men tasked with waging the empire's wars from the shadows, sometimes in uniform, but often without. Sometimes they worked with the Pentagon, sometimes the CIA, and sometimes as gunsfor-hire. Often, they were not products of the Ivy Leagues or the Military's elite officers' schools. Their expertise was learned firsthand in the killing fields and bleeding grounds. Operator culture developed a thorough contempt for the "desk jockeys" of the CIA and the DoD as time passed on. While consigned to the margins of the national security state for much of the Cold War, they gained new life under Reagan and began consolidating power. By the twenty-first century, they were at the forefront of US foreign policy. The US Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations Command are now powerful bodies within the national security state, able to manipulate domestic and foreign policy as well as the CIA ever could. Much more could be said of the Operators and will be over the course of this work and its two sequels. There's arguably no faction within the American national security state with more sway in the twenty-first century's second decade than SOCOM and JSOC. It required the combined resources of State, CIA, and the regular military to counter them during the Trump years. But that's for a future work. For now, we must turn our attention to one final gremlin.

The Whistleblowers and the Conspiracy Theorist

One of the most remarkable documents I found among Lansdale's personal papers resided in one of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) folders. Specifically, the one headed "Council on Foreign Relations Correspondences." But this document wasn't from anyone affiliated with the CFR. Rather, it was sent by Rouben Chublarian, an Armenian refugee who acquired American citizenship in 1955. Chublarian was an anticommunist like many refugees who arrived in the US from Central Asia during this era. But he took it even further than most. Chublarian was fond of writing open letters to prominent Anglo-American figures in which they were accused of various intrigues. Bertrand Russell was one of his more celebrated targets.499

498

In fairness, this concept was first floated by Michael Hastings, but possibly without awareness of what a transformation in national security circles it represented. See Michael Hastings, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan (New York: A Plume Book, 2012). 499 Rouben Chublarian papers, 1949-1974. Archives West. (2006). https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv04118.

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Another was the CFR. In 1973, he sent a missive to longtime CFR fixture David Rockefeller by way of Bayless Manning, the Executive Director of the group circa 1973. It seems that Chublarian was banking on Manning sending copies of his letter out among the Council members, prompting Rockefeller to defend himself before his peers and the American public. For some strange reason, Manning didn't go through with this request. After this rebuff, Chublarian took it upon himself to send copies of his David Rockefeller letter to as many Council members as he could locate. Again, the hope was that they would demand Rockefeller respond to Chublarian's charges before the public at large. 500 Written on January 23, 1973, and spanning a mere three and a half typed pages, the letter nonetheless manages to run the gauntlet. In the first paragraph, Chublarian describes himself as part of a team studying the question of why "the Nationalist China lobby was a naked emperor." He then gets to the heart of the matter, stating: "the allegation that there exists a 'Secret Subversive Society', led by you, the Rothschilds, and other capitalist magnates." He then goes on to credit Carroll Quigley with a "Global Conspiracy Larger than Communism." Its doctrine is rooted in the ideology of the Bavarian Illuminati, Chublarian goes on to further elaborate. The conspirators are known as "Bilderbergers," he confides. While the Rockefellers and Rothschilds lead the movement, Prince Bernard of the Netherlands is the figurehead. Besides Quigley, other conspiracy staples, such as Garry Allen's None Dare Call It a Conspiracy are cited, along with investigations run by the Liberty Lobby. The CFR is directly accused of fermenting oligarchy in the US and making Henry Kissinger "the second most powerful man in the world." Midway through page three, Chublarian goes for a deep dive into Zionist conspiracy theorizing that lasts until practically the end of page 4. He then concludes by imploring: "Mr. Rockefeller you cannot live under the shadow of these accusations --with your standing as the Chairman of these powerful institutions --The Council on Foreign Relations, the Chase Manhattan Bank, and your membership in the family of oil magnates. You have a great impact on the lives of the American people, therefore, the team asks you urgently to clarify this matter to the American public."501 If the reader is unfamiliar with subjects such as the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, the Liberty Lobby, and so forth, fear not --we're exploring these topics in the following chapters. For now, it can be sufficiently said that Chublarian's letter could have just as easily been written by the likes of Alex Jones during the present day. The only revision necessary would be a new Rockefeller to direct the allegations at, as David shed his mortal coil in 2017. As we shall see, Chublarian's allegations were already cliché by 1973. They were sentiments in line with the John Birch Society (JBS), which Lansdale supposedly despised.502 Further, Lansdale had already been a member of the CFR for over a decade by the time he received Chublarian's letter, having signed on in

500

Rouben Chublarian to Edward Lansdale, 30 March 1973, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 10, "Council on Foreign Relations, Correspondences"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 501 Rouben Chublarian to David Rockefeller, 23 January 1973, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 10, "Council on Foreign Relations, Correspondences"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 502 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 434-435; Currey, Edward Lansdale, 288.

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1959.503 This was at the height of Lansdale's influence, when he had the ear of powerful neo-liberal figures such as Nelson Rockefeller, David's brother. It was the cumulation of Lansdale's rise in the old Eastern Establishment, a process that began during the OSS days and the patronage of William Vanderbilt. So, why would Lansdale opt to keep such a thing in his CFR folders? Lansdale's politics always remained murky. Often depicted as a liberal anti-communist, Lansdale nonetheless was comfortable collaborating with groups closer to the far right like the Institute for American Strategy throughout the 1960s. Amusingly, Chublarian received the 1961 George Washington Honor Award medal from the Freedom's Foundation of Valley Forge, an early sponsor of the IAS and the National Military Industrial Conferences from which it emerged.504 Lansdale even received publications from Freedom's Foundation for years.505 It's generally argued that Lansdale, like many liberal anti-communists of his day, began a rightward drift during the 1970s that resulted in the embrace of Reaganism by 1980. The Cold War consensus that dominated the CFR, that of "containment," broke down at the end of the 1960s. Containment referred to confining the Soviet Union and the Communist sphere within the borders that emerged during the early Cold War. After 1968, it gave way to two competing camps in the CFR. The liberal wing, spearheaded by David Rockefeller, preferred to pursue a policy of "detente," i.e., "peaceful" co-existence via economic competition with the communist world. This camp gravitated towards the Rockefeller-funded Trilateral Commission during the 1970s. At the other end of the spectrum, the conservative wing of the CFR embraced the far-right's long-held commitment to "rollback," which sought to totally eradicate communism. As the 1970s wore on, the latter allied with the American Security Council and other militant anticommunists via the Committee on the Present Danger.506 Superficially, Lansdale followed this trajectory. In 1979, he formally resigned from the CFR after 20 years in the body.507 A few years later, he was openly collaborating with far-right luminaries like John Singlaub and Oliver North. But he had already dipped his toes into those waters years ago.

503

Winston Lord to Edward Lansdale, 9 February 1979, Rouben Chublarian to David Rockefeller, 23 January 1973, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 10, "Council on Foreign Relations, Correspondences"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 504 Rouben Chublarian papers, 1949-1974. Archives West. (2006). https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv04118. For the IAS/NMICs connection to the Freedom's Foundation see, for instance, Frank Barnett to General Matthew Ridgeway, 25 March 1960, https://emu.usahec.org/alma/multimedia/1463137/20184120MNBT1036350211F0000000295344I006.pdf. The Freedom's Foundation of Valley Forge appears on the masthead of this official, joint IAS/NMIC letter. 505 Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 3, "Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 506 See, for instance, Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1983), 173-186, etc.; Bodenheimer and Gould, Rollback, 161-169, etc.; Michio Kaku & Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War, 183-190, 235-237, etc. 507 Winston Lord to Edward Lansdale, 9 February 1979, Rouben Chublarian to David Rockefeller, 23 January 1973, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 10, "Council on Foreign Relations, Correspondences"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

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And certainly, the dribble of Chublarian would not have influenced his politics. So, why retain this crank letter? I suspect because he was looking for insight into a community that had already proven useful to Lansdale, and which he and his gremlins would make greater use of as the years went on. *** To begin unpacking this notion, I need to now address one final gremlin: Daniel Ellsberg, he of The Pentagon Papers fame. Ellsberg arrived in the national security state via the Marine Corps, where he served from 1954-1957, later describing it as "the happiest time in my life." He was already a Harvard graduate upon joining the Corps, majoring in economics and coming in third in his class. After departing the Corps, he returned to Harvard to pursue a prestigious Fellowship, which he completed in 1959. By that time, he was already working for RAND, which his legacy will forever be linked to. 508 He left RAND during 1964 and went to work at the Pentagon. He remained there until the following year, working in one of the DoD's hidden power centers. It's known as the International Security Affairs office. Housed within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and headed by an Assistant Secretary of Defense, the ISA has a reputation as a civilian component of the Pentagon.509 During Ellsberg's time there, it was staffed and headed by a variety of colorful figures. One was the above-mentioned General Edwin Black, whose time in the ISA wrapped up a year after Ellsberg departed for Vietnam. When Ellsberg arrived at the ISA in 1964, it was headed by Paul Nitze.510 Nitze was a staple of Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment for decades. He entered Washington from Wall Street during the late 1940s with expertise in international trade. He was instrumental in developing the policy of containment and crafting the national security state it necessitated. In those days, he clashed with the likes of the National Association of Manufacturers over the skyrocketing Federal budget this required. 511 During the 1970s, he was at the forefront of neo-liberal luminaries who made cause with the Conservative establishment, as was noted above. He founded the second incarnation of the Committee of the Present Danger, which proved to be a crucial incubator for the fledgling neo-conservative movement.512 Nitze was succeeded at the ISA by John McNaughton, with whom Ellsberg became close.513 After Ellsberg departed the ISA, McNaughton and his department were tasked with compiling what became The 508

Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, 24-33; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 590-591; Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 467-469. 509 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 236. 510 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 46. 511 Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment, 7780. 512 See Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, for an extensive history of the both versions of the CPD, Nitze's career and the rise of the neo-conservatives. 513 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 34-47, etc.; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 535. There are indications that McNaughton did not feel this way about Ellsberg. Some have suggested McNaughton pushed Ellsberg on Lansdale as a way to get rid of him. See Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 203, 223-224.

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Pentagon Papers. Not long after work began on this project, McNaughton died suddenly in a plane crash. He was succeeded as head of the ISA by Paul Warnke.514 The reader will recall from above that James Thompson disappeared in March 1967. McNaughton's plane crashed during July in North Carolina. It was during 1965 that Daniel Ellsberg hooked up with Edward Lansdale, accompanying the general on his second tour of Vietnam (1965-1968). William Colby, then in charge of the CIA's Far East department, made the introductions.515 Despite this, Colby was adamant that neither Lansdale nor his team was working with the CIA even though several members were employed by the agency. Others came from USIS, USAID, and the broader State Department. Lansdale appeared to be attempting another interagency group like the one he oversaw with Mongoose. The pushback was even more intense, effectively sidelining Lansdale before he even got to Vietnam. It probably didn't help that he backed John Paul Vann's claims that CIA paramilitary teams were infiltrated by anti-Saigon elements.516 Other members of this team included Lansdale's death squad capo Napoleon Valeriano and infamous CIA assassin Lou "Black Luigi" Conein.517 While Ellsberg was largely accepted by Lansdale's team, all of whom previously worked with him, there was early suspicion that the ex-Rand member was being used to spy on them for his former company. But he passed the vetting.518 The exact nature of Ellsberg's work for Lansdale was never known to the other members. Ellsberg rarely engaged with the rest of the team, primarily working with Lansdale. The general taught him counterinsurgency and witnessed Ellsberg's talent for getting information from people. It is perhaps for this reason Lansdale frequently used Ellsberg as his representative in meetings and committees.519 Ellsberg notes that Lansdale taught him to issue detailed reports after such meetings.520 One is left with the impression that part of Ellsberg's job was to keep tabs on Lansdale's bureaucratic rivals. Lansdale was said to want him to act as a "catalyst" for pacification.521 This is consistent with Ellsberg's main task for Lansdale: assessing conditions in the field. Specifically, he studied pacification, pointed out problems, and recommended solutions.522 Ellsberg wasn't opposed to getting his hands dirty. He worked with counter-terror teams and participated in operations against

514

Ellsberg, Secrets, 186, etc.; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 685. Despite the significance McNaughton had on his career and the extent that he covers their time together in his autobiography, Ellsberg is curiously mum on McNaughton's sudden 1967 death. It's also interesting to note that Nitze and Warnke later became fierce opponents during the 1970s in regards to Soviet nuclear capabilities. Warnke was an early supporter of detente. See Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, 142-145. 515 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 467-469. 516 Ellsberg, Secrets, 99-103; Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 547, 611-613. 517 Boot, 465. 518 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 234-235. 519 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 238-239. 520 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 169. 521 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 241. 522 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 241.

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political leaders while in Vietnam. When all was said and done, he went on a number of combat missions, acknowledging, "I did a lot of shooting."523 It started with Ellsberg accompanying "Census Grievance" teams into the field. Inspired by famed British counterinsurgent Robert Thompson (often credited with putting down the Malayan Emergency), South Vietnam's police launched a "Family Census" program in 1962. It proved effective at generating intelligence, creating a Police Special Branch (PSB) unit to act upon what was being collected. The PSB was characterized by its "professional interrogators," trained and supplied by the CIA and US Army Special Forces.524 Ellsberg was impressed by the intelligence being gathered. He urged the expansion of the PSBs and "interrogations and dossier files." Using village informants, the PSBs were tasked with directly targeting the Vietcong's infrastructure.525 Later, the PSBs were used to provide intelligence to the Phoenix Program. It was the parent organizing, providing Phoenix with targets.526 All of this should probably raise some serious questions about Ellsberg's saint-like status as a whistleblower. He became a close friend of Valeriano during his time in Vietnam in addition to the "snatch and snuff operations" he conducted with Conein. Ellsberg even accompanied John Paul Vann, now retired from the Army and detailed to USAID on "pacification," into the field. He outfitted himself with a Swedish SMG submachine gun, an unusual weapon he carried as a status symbol. He acquired it from a CIA province representative. The CIA armed counterterror teams with this weapon, leading people to believe Ellsberg was working for the agency.527 Ellsberg claimed he only started carrying the weapon because going into the field unarmed made him stand out among the rank-and-file troops. He doesn't explain how he hoped to manage this with a distinct, CIA-issued weapon. Of course, he claimed to have only engaged in combat because it made him "invisible in the field" as far as the other troops were concerned.528 He just wanted to fit in, you see. Not everyone saw it that way. Bernie Yoh, another Lansdale gremlin noted above, described Ellsberg as a "shoot-them-dead superhawk" by this time. Original CORDS (which housed what became the Phoenix Program) head William Porter was so impressed that he requested Ellsberg for his staff in 1966. Lansdale agreed.529

523

Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's Drug War (London: Verso, 2004), 418-419; Tom Wells, Wild Man,.249 524 Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 73-75. 525 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 240. 526 Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 277-278; Roberto J. Gonzalez, American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain (Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009), 60-61. 527 Ellsberg, Secrets, 110-125 151; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 493. 528 Ellsberg, Secrets, 151-152. 529 Ellsberg, Secrets, 126-127, 143, etc.; Boot, The Road Not Taken, 493; Wells, Wild Man, 254.

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Legend has it Black Luigi had to intercede on Ellsberg's behalf after the Corsican Brotherhood threatened to kill him over an affair with a gangster's moll.530 When these adventures are mentioned at all in conventional accounts of Ellsberg before he turned against the war, they're intended to apply "balance" and "color" to his early years. But compelling evidence suggests he was a dedicated counterinsurgent. For well over a year, he was deeply involved in the Office of Civil Operations, where Phoenix came to reside. But beyond this, Ellsberg was instrumental in promoting the pacification methods of men like Vann to the civilian administrators like Porter and Robert "Blowtorch" Kromer.531 To be clear, Ellsberg did not participate in Phoenix. But he did his part to craft the infrastructure that later supported it. This point is entirely glossed over and ignored by his supporters and admirers. Ellsberg later returned to RAND and gained fame smuggling out the documents that became The Pentagon Papers. He worked closely at the time with the above-mentioned Fred Ikle,532 who set up the "Singlaub Committee" a decade plus later. As for the leaks, one individual Ellsberg approached prior to releasing the documents was John Paul Vann. They met at Vann's home in Littleton, Colorado, where they reviewed the papers together and had intense discussions about what should be done. Previously, Ellsberg and Vann had agreed on the need for quick, significant troop reductions in Vietnam. Vann believed the paramilitaries he had built through CORDs would be able to preserve Vietnam. But eventually, he broke with Ellsberg to the point of informing the Nixon administration of his activities. This included cooperating with an investigator who questioned him in Vietnam about the Pentagon and appraising the White House of Ellsberg's legal defense.533 However, Vann's betrayal of Ellsberg may not have been genuine. He also kept Dan apprised of what he was telling the Nixon regime. He told Ellsberg he shouldn't take his derogatory comments to heart and even offered to testify on his behalf at Ellsberg's trial.534 Ellsberg notes that Vann was still informing on Nixon's Vietnam policy all the way into 1972.535 This is interesting in light of Vann's sudden death that year in a helicopter accident. This chain of events will be discussed more below. When they came, the leaks were especially damaging to Lansdale. Many of the more sensational allegations hurled against him came from The Pentagon Papers. Despite this, Lansdale remained friendly

530

Tom Wells, Wild Man, 235-236; Currey, Edward Lansdale, 295;Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 12516; Jim Hougan, Spooks: The Haunting of America -The Private Use of Spies (New York: William Morrow and Company Inc., 1978). 144. 531 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 614-615, 655. 532 Ellsberg, Secrets, 311-12. 533 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 309-310, 317, 339, 482-483. One individual Vann was keeping apprised of Ellsberg's activities was Alexander Haig, Kissinger's military aide. Vann also provided Kissinger himself with information about Ellsberg. 534 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 482-483. 535 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 266.

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with Ellsberg throughout his life, describing his heart as "being in the right place."536 Other associates noted Lansdale continued to think highly of Ellsberg and didn't hold his actions against him.537 Ellsberg was even more enthusiastic about Lansdale. When discussing the general with Max Boot for the writer's 2018 Lansdale bio, Ellsberg proclaimed: "I loved Lansdale" and "I really revered him and continue to have the same warm feeling; that never changed. I felt just like other members of the team did. It was a cult. He was the leader of the cult, and I was a member of that cult."538 Indeed, Ellsberg has consistently expressed love bordering on hero-worship for the general for years now.539 These sentiments had little effect on his standing in activist circles. After leaking The Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg became an overnight liberal icon. Members of The Beatles lined up for his autograph.540 After hooking up with film producer Bert Schneider (Head, Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider) for the acclaimed documentary Hearts and Minds (1974), Ellsberg found himself among the vanguard of the counterculture. Schneider was a crucial gateway. Bert was the son of Abe Schneider. The father spent his entire career working at Columbia Pictures, starting as an office boy for founder and president Harry Cohn. He worked his way through the ranks of Columbia's financial hierarchy to become the company's chief financial officer. From there, he ascended to the presidency in 1958 upon Cohn's death. All three of Abe's sons followed him into the film industry, Stanley Schneider eventually becoming Columbia's president as well. As for Bert, he took a job at Columbia's television arm after being expelled from Cornell.541 It was during this time Schneider first encountered filmmaker Bob Rafelson. They relocated to LA and formed a production company known as Raybert. Rafelson conceived of a television show revolving around four zany, Beatlesesque musicians. He called it The Monkeys. Both the show and the faux band it produced became among the most iconic institutions of the 1960s, producing solid TV ratings and selling thousands of records. In 1968, Schneider and Rafelson brought The Monkeys to the big screen via the cult classic Head. While the film subsequently drew a dedicated following, it was a flop upon release. Possibly its greatest significance is that it marked the first collaboration between director Rafelson and Jack Nicholson, who penned Head's script. From there on out, they made five more movies, but with Nicholson in front of the cameras. Two of them, Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens, were produced by Schneider. The former procured Nicholson his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Schneider 536

Boot, The Road Not Taken, 544-547. Tom Wells, Wild Man, 457. 538 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 469. 539 Tom Wells notes similar sentiments expressed by Ellsberg for Lansdale in his 2001 Ellsberg bio. See Wild Man, 238. 540 Boot, 546. 541 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me on the Water 1974: The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics (New York: Harper, 2021), 332; Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1998) , 55-56, 67; Peter Mills, The Monkees, Head, and the 60s (London: Jawbone, 2016 ), 37-38; Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther. Salon. https://www.salon.com/2012/06/09/true_hollywood_story_the_producer_and_the_black_panther/. 537

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also produced Nicholson's break-out film, Easy Rider, easily the most iconic counterculture film of the 1960s. It netted Nicholson his first Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.542 With buzz building around Easy Rider even before its release, Schneider and Rafelson took the opportunity to enter into a new partnership with Steve Blauner, a childhood friend of Schneider's. The end result was the production company called BBS (which took its name from the first initial of each man's first name). After securing a sweetheart deal that gave the company the final cut of their films from Bert's father, who still headed Columbia, set up shop just outside Hollywood proper. The BBS offices brought a rock 'n' roll ascetic to the movie offices. Chic filmmakers like Peter Bogdanovich, Hal Ashby, and Michelangelo Antonioni rented out space there. A cast of strange characters was constantly making the rounds, offering the latest in self-enlightenment and social causes, along with killer cannabis. Weed, and later, cocaine, flowed like water. Counterculture icons like William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, and Huey Newton were constantly dropping by. It was this milieu Ellsberg gravitated towards by the mid-1970s.543 Schneider procured a house in Benedict Canyon and filled it with political radicals. For a time, he dated actress Candice Bergen and later a teenage girl who attended the same high school as his daughters from a prior marriage. Schneider embraced a wide variety of self-help and consciousness-raising trips. He hung out with psychedelic pioneer Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass), retained a gestalt therapist, visited Zen master Richard Baker in San Francisco, and made periodic treks to Esalen.544 The latter will be addressed at greater length in Chapter 5. Supposedly, Schneider became politically aware during RFK's 1968 presidential campaign and radicalized by his subsequent assassination. He befriended Jane Fonda and became a close friend and longtime patron of Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Youth International Party (commonly referred to as the "Yippies").545 But it was through Fonda that Bert encountered what became his driving passion: the Black Panthers. Bert contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Panthers. Ex Candice Bergen once remarked, "At times, I thought he financed the Panthers single-handedly, indirectly dispatching agents of the revolution from behind his desk or beside the pool table of his Hollywood Office of Operations." And

542

Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me on the Water, 233-238; Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 56-75, 116-120, 175-177, etc.; Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther. Salon. https://www.salon.com/2012/06/09/true_hollywood_story_the_producer_and_the_black_panther/. For much more on Schneider's involvement with The Monkees and Head, see Peter Mills, The Monkees, Head, and the 60s. 543 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 234-235. 544 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 239-240; Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther. 545 Hoffman and the Yippies were incredibly influential among the counterculture, especially the more militant wing. But beyond that, they were closely linked to another network of pranksters that will be at the forefront of Book II. But suffice to say for now, it is within this particular milieu that the lines between radicalism of the political left and right are blurred to the point of being nonexistent. For more on Hoffman's significance to counterculture radicalism, see Jonah Raskin, For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

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he became particularly close to Huey Newton, who became a familiar figure in Hollywood thanks to Schneider.546 It was Schneider who bankrolled Newton's flight from justice during the mid-1970s. By 1974, Newton was riddled with paranoia and cocaine addiction. In the span of less than a month, he assaulted Panther rival Bobby Seale; ordered his bodyguard to shoot two plainclothes policemen; shot a teenage prostitute in Oakland; beat two women who angered him at a club; and pistol-whipped an African-American tailor. Needless to say, a variety of criminal charges loomed over Newton by the end of August 1974.547 Schneider concluded that the only way to save Newton was to smuggle him out of the country. First, the producer sent him to Jalapa, Mexico.548 From there, the plan was to smuggle him to Cuba, where Castro's regime would offer political asylum. But Schneider and his brain trust inexplicably tried to find a pilot from LA's anti-Castro Cuban community. This backfired spectacularly, resulting in the Panthers deploying "soldiers" to protect Schneider's cabal from the Cubans. Eventually, Schneider arranged for a Swedish marijuana smuggler known only as "the Pirate" to sail Newton to Cuba.549 This was all unfolding against the backdrop of the production of Hearts and Minds. Even before the film went into production, Schneider was floating Ellsberg's legal bills. To plot strategy, he routinely hosted 546

Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 241-242; ; Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther. Brownstein claims it was Fonda who introduced Schneider to Newton. Others claim it was Elaine Brown. Further, Bert had already dipped his toe into activism in 1967 when he contributed funds to organizer Rennie Davis. But, these early efforts were for far less radical left wing causes than what he would later support. See Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther. It's interesting to note that the Black Panthers and the SDS, two of the groups linked to individuals Ellsberg was engaged with during this time, were simultaneously being targeted by the FBI and others as part of domestic counterinsurgency efforts unfolding during the late 1960s. The Panthers and SDS were both prime targets. See Roberto J. Gonzalez, American Counterinsurgency, 28-30. 547 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 249; Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 271; Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther; Candice Bergen, Knock Wood (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1984), 193-194, 200-202. Bergen, who refers to Schneider as "Robin" in her memoir, makes it clear he was quite active in the "consciousness movement" during the early 1970s, making regular trips to Esalen. 548 Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 272. There is some dispute as to where Newton was taken in Mexico. Biskind gives the location as "Jalapa," though he surely means Xalapa. Biskind describes Bert's hideaway there as "an inaccessible jungle compound on the west coast of Mexico that Bert, Benny (Shapiro), and a few others bought in 1968 when they thought fascism was riding the coattails of the Nixon presidency." As is noted later in this chapter, Schneider did maintain a mysterious hideaway in Xalapa with other LA counterculture types. However, Biskind places the compound on Mexico's west coast when in fact it's located in the state of Veracruz, off the Gulf of Mexico. Elsewhere, in Rock Me on the Water, Ronald Brownstein names the location as Yelapa, which he describes as "a remote island off Puerta Vallarta where Schneider had a small house --some described it as merely a hut --on a larger property owned by Benny Shapiro...". See Brownsten, Rock Me on the Water, 249. Yelapa is on Mexico's west coast, but it's not an island. Rather, it's a beach community in the state of Jalisco. Puerta Vallarta is located there, so Brownstein may have meant an island near Yelapa rather than the town itself. It's possible Biskind confused Yelapa with a later residence Schneider had in Jalapa/Xalapa. It's also possible, given some of the rumors concerning what went down at Xalapa, the sources for both writers played coy about the details. The Xalapa allegations are addressed below. 549 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 249-253; Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 272-273; Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther.

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Ellsberg, his wife, and their attorney at his Benedict Canyon residence. From these bull sessions came the idea of developing a documentary about Ellsberg, The Pentagon Papers, and Vietnam. 550 Schneider had no prior experience in documentaries, so he brought in a CBS producer named Peter Davis on the recommendation of Bob Rafelson. Curiously, Davis' wife was Johanna Mankiewicz, the daughter of Citizen Kane scribe Herman Mankiewicz.551 Herman's brother was the celebrated director Joseph Mankiewicz. The reader will recall from Chapter 2 that Joseph was the filmmaker who adapted The Quiet American to Lansdale's specifications. Joe's son, Christopher Mankiewicz, was an executive at Columbia from the late 1960s till the mid-1970s, during the height of the Schneider family's influence there.552 Further, Peter Davis' brother-in-law, top Democratic political operative Frank Mankiewicz, is who allegedly suggested the Hearts and Minds title.553 Given Lansdale's obsession with such in counterinsurgency and civic action, one can't help but wonder if the general influenced the decision. What's more, Ellsberg was already on friendly terms with Frank Mankiewicz by then. The whistleblower had first met RFK in 1967 through a meeting arranged by Mankiewicz, then working as the senator's press secretary.554 It would be interesting to know if Schneider also gained access to RFK via Mankiewicz. Both Schneider's father and brother were forced out of Columbia after a string of flops during production. After viewing a rough cut of Hearts and Minds, the studio was reluctant to release it.555 This resulted in Schneider ponying up a million dollars to buy the film back from Columbia. From there, Warner Brothers stepped in to distribute it. After the film received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary, Schneider arranged for the Vietcong to issue a statement if it won. A telegram was dispatched, and when the film prevailed, Schneider read it himself at the Academy Awards. If that wasn't enough, Schneider also noted that it was "ironic" the film should win just as Vietnam was about to be "liberated." Predictably, Hollywood's old guard was outraged. The next week, Davis was forced to issue a statement denouncing his film as propaganda for the Vietcong.556 As for Schneider, he solidified his place as a Hollywood legend. He was already renowned as Hollywood's first counterculture filmmaker, the man who had revolutionized film production. He pioneered formulas for low-cost filmmaking, enabling a new generation of filmmakers to make films that were audacious in

550

Candice Bergen, Knock Wood, 211-212; Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 243; Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 177-178. 551 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 244; Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 178, 187. Johanna Mankiewicz was killed suddenly in a car accident in 1974, in the midst of production on Hearts and Minds. 552 Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 214, 443. 553 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 248. 554 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 193, 202; Tom Wells, Wild Man, 289. In Wells' account, Ellsberg claimed that contact was initiated by RFK via Mankiewicz. Ellsberg was probably exaggerating. 555 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 248. 556 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 254-256; Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, 184-188, 275; Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther. Salon. https://www.salon.com/2012/06/09/true_hollywood_story_the_producer_and_the_black_panther/.

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form and content. But best of all, they turned a profit, and largely outside the old Hollywood system.557 Simply put, American independent filmmaking would not exist in its current form without Bert Schneider.558 He was only involved in a few more movies after Hearts and Minds, but he remained an influential producer behind the scenes throughout the 1980s.559 Schneider's commitment to political radicalism was undiminished as well. He continued to support Newton up to the time of the Panther's death in 1989. By then, he had forged links with figures like Daniel Ortega, the revolutionary leader of the Sandinistas.560 Central America took the place of Vietnam among Hollywood's activists left during the Reagan years, and Schneider's support was much sought after.561 By the mid-1970s, Schneider was subsidizing much of the US's radical left (including the Black Panthers and the Yippies via Abbie Hoffman). Much as Frank Barnett did for what became the New Right (see Chapter 1), Schneider built a funding network for the remnants of the New Left and counterculture in the 1970s562 that became crucial to leftist activism during the Reagan years. Thus, virtually anyone in Hollywood wishing to generate real funding for whatever cause they embraced needed Schneider's blessing at a minimum.563 And he still maintained ties with Ellsberg. During the 1980s, Bert Schneider was active in Medical Aid for El Salvador (MAES), a Hollywood-centric support network for revolutionaries in the Central American nation established by longtime activist Bill Zimmerman.564 Zimmerman, a pilot, was dragged into the 1974 Huey Newton caper by Schneider. 565 Ellsberg and Stanley Sheinbaum joined Zimmerman and Schneider in this later venture. This led to a broader commitment in 1980s Hollywood to support leftist movements in Central America. Joining this

557

Candice Bergen, Knock Wood, 186-187. See Peter Biskind, Easy Rider, Raging Bulls, for an in-depth account discussion of Schneider's influence on indie films. 559 Laura Shapiro, Zoom conversation with the author, 9 June 2023. Laura was an organizer for Medical Aid for El Salvador during the 1980s. She met Schneider and many other Hollywood figures through this vehicle. Because of the transformation Easy Rider and his other films wrought on Hollywood, he was still highly regarded within the industry and among the generation of Hollywood who made their mark during the late 1960s and early 1970s. 560 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 256. 561 Laura Shapiro, Zoom conversation with the author, 9 June 2023. 562 See, for instance, Candice Bergen, Knock Wood,211-213, etc., for the extent Schneider was sponsoring political radicalism by the 1970s. 563 Laura Shapiro, Zoom conversation with the author, 9 June 2023. 564 Laura Shapiro, Zoom conversation with the author, 9 June 2023; Oney, S. (1984, July). Flying down to Managua. The Stacks Reader. http://www.thestacksreader.com/flying-down-to-managua/; Flying seminar: Ows meets Bill Zimmerman – picture gallery. The New School for Social Research. (2011, December 3). https://blogs.newschool.edu/tcds/2011/12/03/ows-zimmerman-gallery/. 565 Ronald Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water, 250-253. 558

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trio were the likes of Ed Asner, Warren Beatty, Michael Douglas, and a young Oliver Stone, among many others.566 Sheinbaum is an intriguing figure in this milieu. He knew Ellsberg from at least the early 1970s, when he raised a million dollars and a team of attorneys for the whistleblower's legal battle over The Pentagon Papers.567 There's a good chance Sheinbaum knew Edward Lansdale well before then. During the mid-1950s, Sheinbaum, a long-time academic and activist, was part of a team that Michigan State University (MSU) dispatched to Vietnam to supervise a public safety program to prepare police for duty in rural areas. This was actually a part of the pacification program Lansdale launched during 1955 that resulted in the deaths, disappearances, and torture of thousands. See the prior chapter for more details. Upon realizing the program was being sponsored by the CIA in 1959, Sheinbaum made a big show of resigning. Supposedly, this was a part of his rebirth as a hard-left activist.568 Sheinbaum became a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutes (CSDI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 1960-1970.569 Established in 1959, the Center had a reputation as a far-left think tank sympathetic to student radicals by the late 1960s.570 During this time, some of its most notable Fellows included Rexford Tugwell, a celebrated member of FDR's "Brain Trust" who held several posts in the liberal icon's administration and was the last US governor of Puerto Rico;571 and longtime Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas, sometimes described as the most liberal member in the Court's history. By the early 1970s, after Sheinbaum's departure, Tugwell was captivated by Lansdale. Writing to Lansdale on The Center's stationery during 1972, Tugwell notes, "I could see your genius was for action and that the bureaucracy, military or other, would shut off all such possibilities." In a later note from 1973, Tugwell informs Lansdale he's sending his son, just back from his second tour in Vietnam, a copy of In the Midst of War.572 The curious relationship between The Center and counterinsurgency will be explored more in the next book.

566

Laura Shapiro, Zoom conversation with the author, 9 June 2023; Oney, S. (1984, July). Flying down to Managua. The Stacks Reader. http://www.thestacksreader.com/flying-down-to-managua/. 567 Ballon, M. (2004, September 9). Father of the Leftist Guard. Jewish Journal News. https://web.archive.org/web/20120118171652/http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/father_of_the _leftist_guard_20040910/; Editors: Stanley K. Sheinbaum. NPQ. (n.d.). https://www.digitalnpq.org/about/sheinbaum.html. 568 Ballon, M. (2004, September 9). Father of the Leftist Guard. Jewish Journal News. https://web.archive.org/web/20120118171652/http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/father_of_the _leftist_guard_20040910/; Editors: Stanley K. Sheinbaum. NPQ. (n.d.). https://www.digitalnpq.org/about/sheinbaum.html. See also, Edward Lansdale, In the midst of War, 209. 569 Stanley K. Sheinbaum. NPQ. (n.d.). https://www.digitalnpq.org/about/sheinbaum.html. 570 Redmon, M. (2009, May 28). Center for the study of democratic institutions. The Santa Barbara Independent. https://www.independent.com/2009/05/28/center-study-democratic-institutions/. 571 For more on Tugwell's remarkable life and role in FDR's administration, see Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007). 572 Rexford Tugwell to Edward Lansdale, 11 April 1972, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 8, "Correspondences: Tugwell, Rexford"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives; Rexford Tugwell to Edward Lansdale, 23 March 1973,

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Ellsberg was already displaying similar contradictions by the mid-1960s. He attended his first Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) meeting during spring 1965.573 Ellsberg claimed he didn't participate in any further anti-war rallies until he made the scene at Princeton's 1968 "America in a Revolutionary World" conference. This was less than a year after his return from Vietnam. Here he once again crossed paths with SDS members like Tom Hayden (who later became active with the likes of Schneider, Zimmerman, and Sheinbaum in Hollywood during the 1970s).574 But Ellsberg viewed his presence there as different from the other participants. He writes: "With respect to the subject of the conference, it seemed safe to assume that they were sympathetic to a variety of revolutionary causes. My own interest in the conference stemmed from my past and current work on averting or defeating Communist-led revolutions. I was there in effect as a professional counterrevolutionary."575 Supposedly, this was at the dawn of Ellsberg's political awakening. And yet, he came to this scene after nearly half a decade working on counterinsurgency and "pacification." Was something else at play? Such possibilities will be explored in the next book. For now, it's worth noting another scene his ties to have been little remarked upon: psychedelics. Ellsberg first dropped LSD in 1960. His entry into early psychedelic culture was as peculiar as everything else about the man. Ellsberg was made aware of the drug by the larger-than-life figure that was Thelma Schnee Moss. A one-time actress and screenwriter, Moss had a life-changing experience while undergoing LSD therapy during the late 1950s. She began proselytizing for psychedelics while studying psychology at UCLA. Her daughter claimed she took LSD at least once a week during this time. She was intrigued by people's reactions to paintings and music while tripping.576 By the late 1960s, Moss had taken up parapsychology. She ran her own lab out of UCLA's former Neuropsychiatric Institute from 1967-1978. The lab generated Moss quite the reputation in Hollywood. She consulted on films such as The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and Ghost. After initially exploring a range of phenomena including hauntings, poltergeist, ESP, and hypnosis, she became obsessed with Kirlian photography during the early 1970s. It dominated her research for years to come.577 Jacques Vallee encountered her in 1974. He reports that Moss claimed visits from various national security agencies since 1971578 --i.e., around the time she discovered Kirlian photography. Like many figures in these metaphysical

Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no. 8, "Correspondences: Tugwell, Rexford"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 573 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 74. 574 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 209-211; Tom Wells, Wild Man,307-308; Laura Shapiro, Zoom conversation with the author, 9 June 2023; Oney, S. (1984, July). Flying down to Managua. The Stacks Reader. http://www.thestacksreader.com/flying-down-to-managua/. For more on Hayden, Schneider and co, see Brownstein, Rock Me On the Water. 575 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 210. 576 Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg, 169-170. 577 Taff, Dr. B. (2012, July 18). Legacy’s end. Aliens Above Ghosts Below. http://barrytaff.net/2012/07/legacys-end/; Jornlin, A. (n.d.). Thelma Moss: Parapsychologist to the stars. American Ghost Walks. https://www.americanghostwalks.com/articles/thelma-moss-los-angeles-parapsychologist. 578 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two: Journals 1970-1979, 274.

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fields, Moss' interest in high weirdness enabled her to travel regularly to the Soviet Union during the 1970s with ease.579 Ellsberg first encountered Moss via another curious friend: George "Jerry" Goodman. Ellsberg first encountered Goodman while attending Harvard. A one-time novelist and screenwriter, Goodman reinvented himself as the author of popular works on economics. This resulted in him hosting the Emmywinning Public Broadcast System(PBS) series Adam Smith's Money World from 1984-1996 under the pseudonym Adam Smith. He was also an executive editor for Esquire and on the New York Times' editorial board at one point. But his first post-Harvard gig was serving in the fledgling US Army Special Forces from 1952-1954.580 After his wife had positive results with LSD, Goodman joined UCLA LSD experiments being run by Dr. Oscar Janiger. Dr. Oz, as he was known around Hollywood, was studying LSD's effect on creativity in artists, musicians, and writers. Each participant was assigned what would now be thought of as a "trip-setter" (they were called "babysitters" in Janiger's experiments). Goodman's was Moss. She later did the same for Ellsberg. I have been unable to determine if this was a part of Janiger's broader experiment, though the wife of an Ellsberg co-worker at RAND later told the FBI this session occurred at UCLA. It raises some intriguing possibilities if it were a part of Janiger's efforts. Bert Schneider knew Dr. Oz. One of the least remarked-upon aspects of Schneider's life is a residence he kept for years in Mexico, near Xalapa (Jalapa). His neighbor was Dr. Oscar Janiger. Dr. Oz, a cousin of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, was part of a small group of scientists and literary figures who began using LSD during the mid-1950s. Other figures in these circles included Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, and Alan Watts. They were among the first to use LSD socially rather than clinically. Cary Grant was famously treated with LSD therapeutically by Janiger. Eventually, the likes of James Coburn, Anais Nin, and Jack Nicholson found their way to Janiger. Dr. Oz was also the first researcher to conduct clinical experiments with N, NDimethyltryptamine (DMT) in the US.581 Janiger and Schneider were close friends.582 Their activities in Xalapa were the stuff of legend in Hollywood. It was a sign of status to be invited to Mexico for the festivities these aging psychonauts embarked upon. Despite the semi-legendary status of the Xalapa scene, few are willing to discuss what went on there.583 As such, it's unknown if Ellsberg found his way down south. But it would hardly be surprising, given his loyalty to Schneider. The producer, destitute and homeless by the time of his death

579

Jornlin, A. (n.d.). Thelma Moss: Parapsychologist to the stars. American Ghost Walks. https://www.americanghostwalks.com/articles/thelma-moss-los-angeles-parapsychologist. 580 AP. (2014, January 3). George Goodman, aka TV’s “Adam Smith,” dies at 83. MSN TV. https://web.archive.org/web/20140104210934/http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=845675&ocid=rr-tvnews. 581 Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams, 51, 57, 61-62, etc. 582 Janiger was also Abbie Hoffman's psychologist beginning in 1979 and played a crucial role in getting legal charges dropped against him. See Jonah Raskin, For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman, 242, etc. 583 Laura Shapiro, Zoom conversation with the author, 9 June 2023.

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in 2011 after years of hard living, could still count on support from Ellsberg and Jack Nicholson during his final years.584 Further, Ellsberg could have been active in these circles since at least 1960. His friend Jerry Goodman was introduced to LSD by his wife, who also turned on Cary Grant's wife. This led to Grant's own experimentations. They all saw Dr. MA Hartmann at first,585 but Cary Grant ended up as one of Oz's patients. Ellsberg only acknowledged tripping once during this period. The first time was with Moss. The second was part of an experiment by his RAND colleague, Dr. William H McGlothlin. McGlothlin believed LSD had beneficial effects and was curious about its long-term effects on "normals." Specifically, McGlothlin was interested in what LSD could do for personality changes. A RAND report he issued noted "changes in dogmatism" concerning political affiliation. He concluded: "If some of the subjects are drawn from extreme right or left wing organizations, it may be possible to obtain additional behavioral measures in terms of the number resigning or becoming inactive."586 In other words, Dr. McGlothlin believed it could induce apathy in the previously politically motivated. These implications will be explored more in Book II. If nothing else, McGlothlin's experimentation may have been among the most surreal of any such research with LSD. Besides dosing Ellsberg, he also administered LSD to infamous nuclear strategist Dr. Herman Kahn. Often cited as an inspiration for the character of Dr. Strangelove, Kahn was impressed enough to do his own experiments with psychedelics at the Hudson Institute.587 Ellsberg didn't attempt to start his own experiments, but he did discuss LSD and marijuana at length with McGlothlin. Ellsberg's ex-wife later told the FBI that McGlothlin, "told him about a place in New Mexico or Mexico where experiments with drugs took place."588 Could this have been Xalapa? McGlothlin also participated in Janiger's early research before branching out on his own.589 Given their shared interests in such arcane fields and close proximity, it's probable they remained in contact. Still, this researcher has been unable to obtain additional information on the extent of their relationship. Ellsberg insists he didn't do LSD for several years after these early forays. During Vietnam, he was reported to have done LSD regularly, even during combat missions.590 He may not have stopped for a while at that point. Ellsberg was supposedly doing a lot of acid during the early 1980s.591 This coincided with when he worked with Bert Schneider on various Central American projects. Still, Ellsberg didn't believe his experiences on LSD influenced his decision to release the Pentagon Papers. He would later muse that LSD could be crucial to bringing about a global consciousness conducive to world 584

Coleman, K. (2012, June 12). True hollywood story: The producer and the black panther. Tom Wells, Wild Man, 169-170. 586 Tome Wells, Wild Man, 172; Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams, 197. 587 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 172; Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams, 197. 588 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 172. 589 Jay Stevens, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (New York: Grove Press, 1987), 279-280. 590 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 249. 591 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 593. 585

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peace. He used words like "interrelated" and "interdependent" to describe his LSD experiences, and suggested the "new physics" backed these perceptions.592 Basically, he was drawing deep from the consciousness wing of the broader New Age movement. There was a very good reason for that, as we shall see in Chapter 6. Others, such as Jerry Goodman's wife, insisted LSD "liberated" Ellsberg, enabling him to become "a sixties child." The most immediate effect was an epiphany that his marriage lacked "intimacy."593 Ellsberg addressed this via marriage counseling and various affairs, years before the 1960s counterculture took off. Needless to say, his New Left/counterculture bona fides were impeccable by the mid-1970s. *** During The Pentagon Papers era, Lansdale and his old crew were up to some interesting activities as well. The general expressed indignation over Ellsberg's actions, calling him "a loon with a martyr complex."594 But Lansdale's own exploits around this time suggest he doth protest too much. Consider a most peculiar encounter he and Black Luigi had with historian Alfred McCoy during the early 1970s. In 1970, McCoy was a 25-year-old graduate student at Yale Graduate School editing an academic book on Laotian politics. An editor at Harper & Row publishers suggested that McCoy use his knowledge of Southeast Asia to write an analysis of the heroin epidemic then gripping US troops in Vietnam. McCoy liked the idea and delved in. During the spring break of 1971, he flew to Paris. There he interviewed two aging French soldiers, General Maurice Belleux and counterinsurgency guru Roger Trinquier, on some of the more unsavory aspects of colonial rule in French Indochina. Both proved to be surprisingly forthcoming about the integral role opium played in funding the French occupation. It was an elaborate structure involving the security services, the Corsicans, the Vietnamese cults, etc. When McCoy asked both men what became of this network, he was informed that it had been taken over by the CIA once the French were driven out.595 Intrigued, McCoy decided to explore the CIA connection further. And on the ground seemed the best route to pursue this angle. So in the summer of 1971, he set out for South Vietnam. But along the way, he stopped in Washington DC to interview a few operators with years of expertise in the region. They were Edward Lansdale, and two of his most notorious former team members: Lucien Conein and Bernard Yoh. All three were delighted to reminisce with McCoy about "drug trafficking in Saigon by the French, by the Corsicans, and intimates of President Ngo Dinh Diem."596 Diem was, of course, Lansdale's handpicked choice to lead South Vietnam. Lansdale's political intrigues there to install Diem while working with the CIA had already been popularized by The Quiet American by then. Hence, Lansdale and co were acknowledging the US security services were aware of the opium trade by their client regime and were, 592

Meyer, A. (2022, December 18). Daniel Ellsberg talks psychedelics, Consciousness and World Peace. Lucid News. https://www.lucid.news/daniel-ellsberg-talks-psychedelics-consciousness-and-world-peace/ 593 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 172-173. 594 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 546. 595 McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, ix-x. 596 McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, xi.

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at a minimum, willing to turn a blind eye. Specifically, the CIA was being implicated by one of their former operators, who retired as a major general detailed to the National Security Council. There had been rumblings of CIA involvement in Southeast Asian drug trafficking for years by then, but McCoy was getting it from the proverbial horse's mouth. Further, McCoy was given a contested amount of assistance in writing the book by a former CIA officer named Tom Tripodi.597 There, he spent six years working out of the Office of Security's (OS) Secret Operations Branch of the Security Research Services section.598 The reader will recall from Chapter 1 that the OS, specifically the Security Research Services, directed Project ARTICHOKE. Nor is Tripodi the first OS veteran we've encountered in this web. The above-mentioned Edwin Wilson, the legendary CIA/Navy arms trafficker, was an OS veteran as well.599 At the time, Tripodi was working for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD)'s Office of Strategic Intelligence (OSI). Which is interesting, because Lucien Conein landed a gig in that same department around July 1971.600 Conein's time with the BNDD, soon to be re-christened the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), is one of the most colorful episodes in that agency's history. We shall return to it in a moment. The BNDD seemed keen to help McCoy, but there were others. Upon arriving in Vietnam, he was given leads that led him to conclude General Nguyen Cao Ky was the opium godfather within the South Vietnamese regime, then effectively a military dictatorship. The reader will recall from Chapter 2 that Lansdale was a Ky backer, and may have helped him consolidate control of the opium trade via Conein upon his return to Vietnam. In 1966, Ky won the premiership in an election Lansdale and the Revolutionary Development Division (which Phoenix was housed in) played a crucial role. As with the Philippines, military cadres were used as poll watchers.601 But by 1971, Ky's political star was greatly diminished. He served as the vice president in the administration of Nguyen Van Thieu. Nor had the transition to power been a peaceful one. Ky was largely a marginalized figure in South Vietnam after Thieu consolidated in 1968. While Ky remained a member of his government, all of the general's backers were expelled.602 This occurred as Lansdale's time in Vietnam was winding down. By 1971, he openly opposed Thieu's regime, but President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger supported it. After Thieu flagrantly rigged a 1971 election, Lansdale savaged the Nixon administration's Vietnam policy in a letter sent to the Washington Post.603

597

McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, xix; Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 125. Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 125-126. 599 Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA (New York: Random House, 1984), 62. 600 Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 113-114, 125. 601 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 499. 602 Douglas Valentine, Phoenix Program, 185-188. 603 Boot, 540-541. 598

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As for McCoy, he was given a hot lead about CIA-backed opium trafficking in Laos among the Meo by a USAID official. Lansdale's friend and collaborator, John Paul Vann, was then one of the senior USAID officials in the country. After Vann died via a helicopter crash in Vietnam during 1972, Lansdale, Conein, and Ellsberg attended his funeral.604 Well before then, USAID assisted McCoy in traveling to Laos, where he witnessed the CIA's involvement in the drug trade there firsthand.605 This revelation was the cornerstone for what became The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. This 1972 work was the first scholarly account of CIA involvement in drug trafficking to be released. What had once been a far-out conspiracy theory was now supported by an on-the-ground investigation by a qualified academic. McCoy's book opened the floodgates for further exposure. This eventually forced the CIA to acknowledge its role in the narcotics trade during the 1990s. By that point in time, the evidence was overwhelming. And this came on the heels of The Pentagon Papers, which The New York Times began publishing in June 1971. The following month, The Times reported on the 25,000-plus deaths linked to Phoenix. Several days after the article came out, Colby acknowledged the deaths before Congress. Fortunately, the furor over The Pentagon Papers resulted in little public attention being brought to this revelation.606 Colby might not have made it to the CIA directorship two years later if enough outrage had been generated then. This was all unfolding around the time McCoy was meeting with Lansdale and co in Washington, DC, and shortly before Conein went to work for the BNDD. Black Luigi was brought in by the Nixon administration for three reasons: to serve as an expert on Corsican trafficking in Southeast Asia; to frame JFK as the mastermind behind President Diem's 1963 assassination; and to discredit Daniel Ellsberg. These tasks were given to him by former CIA officer and future Watergate burglar E Howard Hunt.607 At the time, Hunt and the rest of Nixon's "Plumbers Unit" were just in their infancy. The Plumbers were largely a result of Ellsberg's leak (hence the name). At first, Nixon was not especially concerned about the leaks because they were more damaging to the JFK and LBJ administrations. Henry Kissinger, by contrast, was disturbed from the beginning and played into Nixon's paranoia. This set Nixon on a path that led to the downfall of his administration.608 Shortly after Conein signed up in July 1971, Hunt suggested a personality profile be done on Ellsberg to refine a targeted harassment campaign. The CIA's OS provided him with one. It was further decided to burglarize the offices of Ellsberg's shrink to acquire additional insight into his mental state. There are even indications that Ellsberg's file was later turned over to the OS for the personality profile it developed with

604

Boot, 554-555; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 8-21. Also present were General Richard Stilwell, William Colby, and Robert Komer. It was practically a CORDs reunion. 605 McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, xiv-xviii. 606 Valentine, Phoenix Program, 378. 607 Curiously, the main point Hunt grilled Conein on was whether Ellsberg and Vann were engaged in drug trafficking in Vietnam. See Tom Wells, Wild Man, 483-484. 608 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 544-547. Tom Wells, Wild Man, 460. Ellsberg, Secrets, 422-426. Ellsberg believed Nixon himself, rather than Kissinger, who jumped the shark over the leaks.

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the Office of Medical Services.609 Later, the Plumbers Unit plotted to assault Ellsberg during a 1972 antiwar protest in the Capitol. Ellsberg was tipped off however, and exposed his would-be assailants to authorities before they could act.610 Could the tip have come from Black Luigi, his former protector in Vietnam? By 1974, Conein had embarked upon one of the most controversial projects in his career (which is saying something). He was still employed by the BNDD, which had been reorganized as the DEA by this point. He was tasked with heading the agency's new Special Operations Group. Conein brought additional CIA men to staff this unit, earning them the nickname the "Dirty Dozen." And while not a member of Conein's team, arms trafficker Mitchell WerBell, noted above, was being used to provide intelligence on fugitive financier Robert Vesco, then residing in Costa Rica. But it wasn't WerBell that earned the team the Dirty Dozen moniker. What did were the allegations that Conein's actual task was to assemble a death squad that could carry out targeted assassinations of major drug traffickers. Multiple researchers have described this proposition as a Phoenix-style operation on a global scale.611 Eventually, it all came out. Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act by the Nixon administration in 1972. As noted above, John Paul Vann also died in a helicopter accident in Vietnam during this time. He had been in contact with G Gordon Libby of the Plumbers regarding Ellsberg not long before his death.612 But, as was noted above, he also kept Ellsberg apprised of the Nixon administration's activities. In 1973, in the midst of Ellsberg's trial, the break-in at his shrink's office was exposed.613 In early 1975, details of Conein's death squad in the DEA were leaked to famed muckraker Jack Anderson. Congressional investigations soon followed.614 Between these events, Watergate spurred the CIA to compile a report of its misdeeds. Dubbed "the Family Jewels," William Colby played a significant role in the investigation. He also shared highlights with the public upon becoming CIA director. It revealed massive, domestic surveillance operations, drug experimentation on American citizens and even hinted at an assassination program. This came on the heels of his Phoenix revelation in 1971, and set the stage for Senate and House investigations into the abuses of the CIA. The Senate probe, often referred to as the Church Committee after Chairman Senator Frank Church, is the more celebrated of the two. Lansdale, Conein, and Colby were all called to testify, along with figures like Boris Pash. As far as the assassination inquiries went, Lansdale's written statements about bumping off Castro from 1961 proved to be especially damaging. The end result was the only real 609

Tom Wells, Wild Man, 488-489, etc. ; Hougan, Secret Agenda, 41-56; Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 113-115. 610 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 497-503;Kupferberg , S. M., &; Sia, R. H. P. (1974, November 7). Ellsberg says anti-war moratoriums delayed mining of Haiphong for two and a half years: The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1974/11/7/ellsberg-says-anti-war-moratoriums-delayed-mining/; Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup, 163. 611 Jim Hougan, Spooks: The Haunting of America -The Private Use of Secret Agents, 137-151; Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 263-272;Henrik Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup, 163-164. 612 Tom Wells, Wild Man,309-310 613 Boot, 576 614 Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack, 268, 290; Hougan, 148-149.

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Congressional attempt to reign in the CIA since its foundation. It took the agency years to recover from this debacle.615 Thus, in the span of half a decade, Lansdale, his gremlins, and fellow travelers engaged in a series of leaks and testimonies that were partially responsible for bringing down the Nixon administration and forever tarring the CIA as a rogue agency. To say nothing of the litany of conspiracy theories that emerged surrounding the factual exposure of things like Mongoose, Phoenix, and MK-ULTRA (which also came out during this time). Was all of this a mere coincidence? That seems a stretch. Prior to his election, Lansdale had cordial relations with Nixon despite being a Democrat. Upon assuming office, Lansdale made overtures to the administration via back door channels and published policy suggestions in the CFR's official publication, Foreign Affairs. But he was rebuffed, and it soon became evident Lansdale would have no role, formal or otherwise, in Nixon's administration.616 This was the first time Lansdale was not directly engaged in crafting US foreign policy since the Eisenhower administration. But probably the trigger was Nixon's embrace, via Kissinger, of detente. This was most famously expressed by the normalization of relations with the People's Republic (PRC) of China and Nixon's decision to abandon Vietnam for "peace with honor."617 As the fever dreams of the above-mentioned Rouben Chublarian should illustrate, the far-right felt deeply betrayed by this. Even the more respectable elements, such as Admiral Thomas Moorer, then Chairman of the JCS, were outraged. In the Reagan years, in his post-Navy life, Moorer was active in an American Security Council task force on Central America. He was joined by many of the usual suspects: John Singlaub. William P Yarborough. Richard Stilwell.618 To return to the Nixon years, Admiral Moorer became ensnared in controversy over what was later dubbed the "Moorer Radford affair." The essence of the scandal involved a Navy spy ring in the Nixon White House authorized by Moorer. It was especially concerned with Kissinger and his negotiations with China, which the military was largely frozen out of.619 Making this all the more remarkable is that the Yeoman planted in Kissinger's inner circle had partaken of the same Kool-Aid as Chublarian. He believed the Rockefeller family, backed by the CFR, had implanted Kissinger into the Nixon White House. His mission was to procure cooperation with the Soviet Union to ensure continued Rockefeller domination of world currencies. In exchange, Kissinger would steer a foreign policy resulting in Soviet hegemony and a world government.620

615

Boot, 576-585; Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 222-227. Boot, 536-541 617 Boot, 552; Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), 31, 47. 618 Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party,84. 619 Hougan, Secret Agenda, 63-76. See also Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup: The Removal of a President. 620 Hougan, Secret Agenda, 75. 616

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While it's doubtful Moorer and other senior Naval figures were quite that red-pilled, their actions indicate the degree of betrayal felt by the conservative establishment. It's also worth noting that Moorer authorized the creation of Task Force 157, a covert Naval operation that supplied covers via front companies and the like. One of their ace operatives was arms trafficker Edwin Wilson, who also moonlighted for the CIA.621 Wilson later used Task Force 157 to step up front companies enabling Nugan Hand to traffic arms to southern Africa.622 Nor was the Navy the only one with a curious relationship with Kissinger. By the early 1970s, he was meeting with Bert Schneider. This was before Schneider became one of Ellsberg's primary financial patrons, no less. But more importantly, it was after Kissinger's return from China.623 In 1973, Schneider took starlet Candice Bergen on a tour of China after Nixon's visit and detente.624 By this time, he was certainly bankrolling Ellsberg. In some ways, the circle that gravitated to Schneider shared a similar perspective to Nixon as Lansdale's. Ellsberg and Abbie Hoffman were both optimistic when Nixon was elected, believing he would have more freedom to change course in Vietnam.625 By the 1970s, disillusionment had set in across the board. Outside of certain rarified circles, anyway. Nixon's actions were viewed by the Atlantic-centric liberal wing of the CFR as an acceptable, even reasonable, course of action. But Lansdale was a Cold War liberal who had spent years in the Far East directly battling communism. Further, he had a deep, genuine affection for its people. As the above should have illustrated, many of his close, long-time relationships, both professionally and personally, were with Asians. Further, his longtime mistress and second wife was a Filipino woman. A figure like Kissinger viewed the nations of the Far East as pawns on a chess board, but Lansdale was personally invested in their fate. And now, the Nixon administration was content to abandon virtually all mainland Asia (save South Korea) to the communists. To say nothing of the administration's obsession with destroying Ellsberg. Would these things have sufficiently outraged Lansdale to take action against Nixon? With Colby entrenched as DCI during Nixon's second term and Black Luigi working with the Plumbers while holding a crucial post in the DEA, Lansdale was well positioned. He routinely used Conein to develop trust and gather intelligence on groups hostile to him during overseas deployments. Conein was then using Mitchell

621

Hougan, Secret Agenda, 61-62. Peter Butt, Merchants of Menace, 48-49. 623 Candice Bergen, Knock Wood, 195-197. 624 Candice Bergen, Knock Wood, 219-222. 625 See, for instance, Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers , 293-294; and Jonah Raskin, For the Hell Of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman, 170-171. While Schneider may have been a true believer, both Ellsberg and Hoffman are suspect figures. This should be clear regarding Ellsberg by this point. Like The Pentagon Papers leaker, Hoffman displayed a remarkable ability to elude the FBI throughout the 1970s. And of course, he was a crucial figure in the riots surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, an event littered with undercover police and military figures. Possibly one out of every six demonstrators was some type of undercover operative. See Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams, 214-224, etc. Hoffman's suspicious activities will be explored in much greater depth in Book II. That Schneider would latch on to these figures, along with Huey Newton (who arguably did as much to undermine the Black Panthers as the FBI), raises some questions about the real motives of the producer. 622

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WerBell for such a purpose against Robert Vesco's organization. Later, WerBell and Colby worked with Edwin Black's Nugan Hand. Ah yes, General Edwin Black, he of the psychic-themed investigation into the disappearance of his friend, Jim Thompson. The reader will recall from above that Thompson was suspected of communist sympathies, if not being a double agent, witting, or unwitting. Further, his step-niece (who rejected the prospect of Thompson as a double agent) believed his disappearance was related to Communist China, which he had contacts in from WWII. What's more, she thought he may have been working on behalf of Henry Kissinger.626 Black was well aware of Thompson's politics and strongly opposed anything that would have allowed communism to prevail in Southeast Asia. And General Black is not the one who disappeared during this time of intense domestic political realignment. I'm just saying. But to return to the 1970s fallout. As an added bonus, the preceding Congressional investigations and actions seriously curtailed the CIA's covert operations capability.627 Lansdale may have been working towards these ends since at least the early 1960s, as was noted in Chapter 2. This is the only reasonable answer for such otherwise inexplicable actions as putting assassination plots into writing. Lansdale wouldn't even publicly acknowledge working for the CIA until the 1980s, and yet he would knowingly leave a paper trail for grossly illegal and damaging activities? Does it really track that a man with years of experience in clandestine operations to make such a careless mistake unless he had an ulterior agenda? This would certainly be in keeping with the allegations that he was using Napoleon Valeriano to spy on the CIA's Bay of Pigs plot. What it amounted to is that, with the advent of Reagan, Lansdale and his gremlins finally had an administration in place both favorably disposed to covert operations, and hamstrung by a crippled CIA. The stage was set for a new approach, and they wasted little time advocating for what became the Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations Command. And these bodies just happen to be in line with the vision Lansdale had for the Office of Special Operations during the Kennedy years. It took nearly three decades, but Lansdale's vision was legally enshrined in 1987 and arguably at the forefront of the national security state by the twenty-first century. Again, coincidence? The Nixon administration certainly didn't seem to think so. At the onset of the leaks, there was a belief among close Nixon figures such as Charles Colson that a conspiracy was afoot. It centered around the notion that The Pentagon Papers were started by "Bobby Kennedy forces" in government to be used during the 1968 election to force out LBJ. Neil Sheehan was suspected of being a part of these circles, as was future Committee for Present Danger figurehead Paul Nitze. John Paul Vann may have been under consideration as a co-conspirator. According to G Gordon Libby, the FBI also toyed with these notions.628 William Buckley's National Review came to this conclusion at first. In an article 626

Martha Galleher, The Missing Thai Silk King, 181-185. Annie Jacobsen, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, 252-253. 628 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 461-463. Wells believed that the Nixon White House had confused Nitze for dove Paul Warnke. Both headed the Pentagon's ISA during the mid-1960s. Warnke was known as a fierce opponent of Vietnam. But Nitze was a fanatical Cold War warrior and was horrified by the Nixon/Kissinger pursuit of detente. This was 627

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published in 1972, it attributed the leaks to a "counter-government" attempting to undermine US foreign policy and its position in the world.629 While Lansdale was never close to RFK, and indeed clashed frequently with him, he was well connected to the Pentagon's mid-1960s International Security Affairs office via Ellsberg and Edwin Black. Lansdale vigorously supported Herbert Humphreys and backed him throughout the 1968 Democratic primary.630 But, he was also advising Nixon, as was noted above. Thus, if the Papers began as a conspiracy among "Bobby Kennedy forces," it seems unlikely Lansdale was read in. But after disillusionment set over Nixon's foreign policy, it's entirely possible he was informed of the study and developed his own plan for the documents. This is obviously highly speculative on my part, but not beyond the realm of possibility. *** Another striking aspect of this series of events is what it did for conspiracy theories. In the span of less than a decade, far-out notions like drug trafficking, mind control, and mass surveillance programs were being acknowledged by government officials. As was noted in Chapter 1, this mainstreamed political paranoia during the 1970s. It was fertile ground indeed, and Lansdale and gremlins like Ellsberg and Conein were instrumental in cultivating this climate. But they weren't alone --one particular conspiracy sacred cow, who happened to have served under Lansdale for years, was ready to throw his hat in the ring. That former colleague was L Fletcher Prouty, who went to great lengths to implicate Lansdale in the JFK assassination.631 It started with a 1973 Prouty-penned book called The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World and reached an apex in 1991 with the release of the Oliver Stone film JFK. In between, Prouty accused Lansdale of a lot of things --i.e., stage managing the Huk attacks to put Magsaysay in office; creating the Vietcong in the mid-1950s to fill the coffers of the military-

crucial to the rift that emerged in the neo-liberal order, and spurred Nitze to make cause with the conservative establishment. These rifts were already playing out during this time. Hence, Nitze should not be discounted as a possible conspirator in these affairs. Ellsberg is curiously mum on his relationship with Nitze during this time. 629 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 486. 630 Max, The Road Not Taken, 537. During the 1968 election, Lansdale maintained a stance of neutrality in regards to both Humphreys and Nixon publically while trying to establish links with both camps in private. The hope was for a future role in the new administration, regardless of who won. 631 Addressing the Kennedy assassination is vastly beyond the scope of this work. But, if you haven't gathered already, I'm a believer that compelling evidence exists indicating elements of the domestic security services enabled private groups, at a minimum, in carrying out the assassination. See, for instance, Some of the best accounts of the Kennedy assassination, and ones most relevant to the premise of this book, include Hinkle & Turner's Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK (1981, 1992), Russell's The Man Who Knew Too Much (Russell 1992), Scott's Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993),Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (2008), Albarelli Jr.'s A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination (2013),Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government (2015), and Ganis' The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the Plot to Kill JFK (2018). Obviously, this is in no way, shape, or form meant to be a conclusive list of relevant books dealing with the assassination in regards to this present work.

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industrial complex; and so on.632 During the Church Committee, Prouty was one of the witnesses called against Lansdale.633 But nothing quite tops Stone's JFK picture. The movie explores the role the domestic security services played in the JFK assassination, relying heavily on Prouty's narrative. The end result was that the onscreen coup master, "General Y," is a thinly veiled stand-in for Lansdale.634 Stone wasn't shy about his source and publicly hailed Prouty as a fearless truthteller.635 But Prouty didn't directly implicate Lansdale in the JFK assassination in Secret Team, but to a cabal within the Pentagon and CIA that may have participated in the assassination. It was not until 1990, when Prouty reached out to Stone, that he not only linked Lansdale to the assassination, but accused Lansdale of directing the assassination team in Dallas! Prouty never explained why he waited decades to make these claims, and the only evidence he offered was a picture of a man's profile next to the infamous "Three Tramps" that may be Lansdale. There is no credible evidence Lansdale was in Dallas on the day of the assassination.636 Further, the cornerstone of Prouty's claims, that Lansdale directed the assassination team, is implausible. Despite spending much of his career in special operations, Lansdale had virtually no formal combat experience. He was a psywar officer first and foremost and spent only a limited amount of time in the field. There were far more qualified people to direct assassination teams. As was noted above, Lansdale had a great eye for combat specialists. And surely, if he were involved in the assassination, he would have tasked someone like Conein or Valeriano with running the assassination teams(s). It was their area of expertise, not his.637 And finally, there's the question of why Lansdale would have wanted JFK dead. As was noted in the prior chapter, JFK was the most significant backer of Lansdale's concept of special operations forces to hold power during that era. While they grew further apart the deeper into Kennedy's administration, Lansdale blamed this on the "bureaucrats" in the administration.638 It was RFK that Lansdale had issues with. Working with the attorney general on Mongoose was trying for Lansdale, leaving him with a low opinion of RFK. But he always respected JFK.639 And even if he took issue with RFK, it couldn't have been too deep seeded. In 1965, he recommended RFK to ring-wing crusader John Fisher for the Freedom Studies Center's

632

Boot, 422. At one point, Prouty argued there were no Huks. Foreshadowing the crisis actor conspiracy theories, he accused Lansdale of using Filipino actors to stage the attacks. See Currey, Edward Lansdale, 339. 633 Currey, 338-339. 634 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 421-423; Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War, 201-203. 635 Boot, 421. 636 See Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 237-238; Boot, 422.. 637 It's also been alleged Conein was in Dallas on the day of the assassination. Again, it's based on a picture of a man who looks like him. But this person has been identified by his wife, family, and friends, as a local postal worker. See Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 237. 638 Currey, Edward Lansdale, 256. 639 Boot, 378-382.

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board of directors, noting RFK "sparked much of the increase in U.S. counterinsurgency effort when his brother was president."640 So, what are we to make of Prouty's antics? Like many of the figures we've encountered, "colorful" just doesn't seem an adequate description for the likes of Prouty. He was also an OSS figure, and later worked in the Pentagon for years. He claimed to have known Lansdale since 1952, when they encountered one another in the Philippines.641 Prouty himself claimed to have worked in the Office of Special Operations when the Erskine one was giving way to Lansdale's. He requested his office be moved to the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. It was granted.642 Supposedly, this led to him becoming "the first Chief of Special Operations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff" when he retired in 1964. 643 It makes one wonder how many special operations heads were roaming the halls of the Pentagon during the early 1960s and whether they ever confronted one another in the men's restroom with a ruler. To be fair, some of Prouty's allegations are highly compelling. This is why he can't be as easily dismissed as, say, David Icke.644 His take on the Ellsberg leak is insightful in this regard. He described The Pentagon Papers as an "inside" job carried out by the same actors they purport to expose.645 This is a fair enough description, given that they caused Lansdale and his old mates some scathing headlines. But this came after Lansdale's career in government was finished and potentially served a broader goal, namely toppling Nixon. It's also noteworthy that Prouty's concept of the "Secret Team" --his hypothetical CIA/Pentagon cable" --first gained traction, by his own admission, due to The Pentagon Papers.646 Elsewhere, his descriptions of Lansdale's envisioned special operations forces, with a special emphasis on civil affairs and military assistance programs, are spot on.647 He singles out a 1959 report entitled "Training Under the Mutual Security Program" as highly significant. He even repeats the entire thing as an appendix in The Secret Team. Prouty states that Richard Stilwell wrote it, but much of the vision came from Lansdale.648 It appears to have derived from Lansdale's time on the so-called "Draper Committee," a presidential study group commissioned by Eisenhower to study foreign aid. Lansdale was greatly praised

640

"Memorandum for John Fisher from Edward Lansdale," 14 July 1965, 2, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 11, "Freedom Studies Center"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 641 Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order, 237. 642 L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team, 486-487. 643 Prouty, The Secret Team, xxxvi. 644 For those of you unaware, Icke is the mastermind behind accounts of the elites being shape shifting reptiles from outer space. 645 Prouty, The Secret Team, xxi-xxiv. Interestingly, Prouty signals out the Pentagon's International Security Affairs branch as the main culprit. Ellsberg worked for this outfit, as did Edwin Black. It was this section that initiated the Singlaub committee during the 1980s. While little remarked upon, the International Security Policy office has significant authority, having a reputation as the Pentagon's "little State Department." See, Jay Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, 342. 646 Prouty, The Secret Team, xxi. 647 Prouty, 427-434, etc. 648 Prouty, 434, 531-532, etc.

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for his efforts.649 Prouty dates the report to just after the findings of the Draper Commission were submitted to Operations Coordinating Body (soon to be the Special Group). Regardless, the report is wholly in keeping with what Lansdale and his gremlins were advocating in the Pentagon circa 1959: Leadership courses for foreign military officers;650 "indoctrination" of US military officers;651 an emphasis on elite units serving as advisers;652 and, of course, an emphasis on civil affairs.653 Many of these things came to pass during the Kennedy years and later, underscoring the modern-day Special Operations Command. And of course, these insights are more often ignored in lieu of Prouty's more sensational claims. The groups Prouty became involved with in his post-Air Force days are insightful as well. One was the after-mentioned Liberty Lobby, which we'll explore in greater depth in a following chapter. But it seems like cults are where Prouty's true passion lay. He had longstanding ties to both the LaRouche movement and the Church of Scientology.654 The LaRouche movement and the Liberty Lobby are especially significant, as they gave Prouty major inroads to the far-right conspiracy crowd. This made him a star in such circles, and he took full advantage. It resulted in Donald Sutherland playing a fictionalized version of him in Stone's film, among other things. This is noteworthy in light of Lansdale's preoccupation with myths and cults as a means of psycho-political warfare. And Prouty emerged at the same time as Ellsberg, only The Pentagon Papers provided the former with major mojo among the 1960s counterculture and the emerging New Age movement. In other words, two of the biggest stars in the fringes of the far-right and left, were men who had previously served under Lansdale. Ellsberg was unabashed in his admiration for Lansdale. Prouty claimed to despise him, but in actuality, appears to have been spreading disinformation and creating a peculiar mythos around his former commanding officer. Was Lansdale running a domestic operation involving either man, one targeting alternative cultures and using conspiracy theories as a means of psycho-political warfare? Lansdale's correspondences with Ellsberg have been carefully curated by Hoover, a few still censored circa 2023. And those are the ones that made it to his special collection. There are no records of correspondences between Lansdale and Prouty after their retirements, but again, if this was an operation, putting it on record is generally illadvised unless you want it to come out. Lansdale knew that as well as anyone. But would Lansdale have seriously considered weaponizing conspiracy theories against alternative cultures? If you've made it through this whole section, you should be chuckling at me for asking this question. This is a man who contemplated faking the Second Coming of Christ. Surely he was capable of

649

Boot, 327-330; Currey, Edward Lansdale, 205-206. Prouty, 544-555 651 Prouty, 556. 652 ibid, 560-562. 653 ibid, 563-564. 654 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 421. 650

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such things. And the actions of Lansdale and his former team members during the Nixon administration strongly indicate they were capable of domestic operations to sway American politics. Lansdale already had extensive experience with this in the Philippines and Vietnam. But beyond this, there is ample evidence that organizations and figures closely tied to Lansdale were actively engaged in weaponizing conspiracy theory by at least the early 1960s, and in some cases, even sooner. Over the following two chapters we'll conduct two case studies on how this was applied to alternative cultures on the right and left. We'll start with the glorious John Birch Society, and then work our way on to Ufology. The mere overlap between these two groups in personnel is shocking enough. And that's just scratching the surface.

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Chapter 4:

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The American Security Council and Alternative Cultures: Birchers

The ASC was responsible for much of what became modern conspiracy literature. Many such tropes, especially those involving an UN-led one-world government, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Rockefeller family, and the like, originate from the John Birch Society (JBS).655 The JBS was founded in 1958 by a retired candy manufacturer named Robert HW Welch (1899-1985), who remained the organization's principal fixture until he stepped down as president in 1983.656 As designed by Welch, the JBS featured a semi-secret character. It was organized via small local chapters, sometimes known as "cells." There were a maximum of twenty members per chapter. If more people wanted to sign on, they were expected to set up their own chapters. The identity of members was kept hidden, and at times they were assigned four-letter codenames. Welch drew inspiration from the methods of the communists themselves.657 It wasn't just the organizational structure of the communists that Welch sought to emulate. The JBS employed various methods of harassment, most notably in regard to letter-writing campaigns. Welsh would direct local chapters to bombard an organization, group, or individual with critical letters in a kind of proto-trolling. Elsewhere, the group employed a variety of front organizations to disseminate their message and give the illusion of having more grassroots support than they really did. Welch firmly believed that he was mimicking the methods of the communists and turning them against them.658

655

see Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (New York: Doubleday, 2016), 38-43; Diamond, 52-58; Russ Bellant, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1991), 43-46; Savage, John, Jeremy B. White, Sam Sutton, Carly Sitrin, Bill Mahoney, and Josh Gerstein. “The John Birch Society Is Back.” POLITICO Magazine, July 16, 2017. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/16/the-john-birch-society-is-alive-and-well-in-thelone-star-state-215377; Banyan, Will. “The Illusion of Elite Unity: Elite Factionalism, the 'War on Terror' and the New World Order (Part 1).” Conspiracy Archive, March 5, 2015. https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2015/07/17/theillusion-of-elite-unity-elite-factionalism-the-war-on-terror-and-the-new-world-order-part1/?fbclid=IwAR33K8bHjKp601v6K7nWccD2C5LlXB7lScW-K63cqe9rBC5Aq8jz65Up-PI; Banyan, Will. “The Illusion of Elite Unity: Elite Factionalism, the 'War on Terror' and the New World Order (Part 1).” Conspiracy Archive, March 5, 2015. https://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2015/07/17/the-illusion-of-elite-unity-elite-factionalism-the-war-onterror-and-the-new-world-order-part-1/?fbclid=IwAR33K8bHjKp601v6K7nWccD2C5LlXB7lScWK63cqe9rBC5Aq8jz65Up-PI. The best full length account of the history of the JBS can be found in D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War (Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 2014). As for Welch himself, his life is covered in Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2021). 656 D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 1, 187; Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism, 4-9, etc.; Jane Mayer, Dark Money, 38; Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 53. 657 D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 10; Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 195-196; William Turner, Power on the Right, 29; Jane Meyer, Dark Money, 40. 658 Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 10-11; Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 195-196, 227-228, 233; Jane Meyer, Dark Money, 40; William Turner, Power on the Right, 29; Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 54.

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For our purposes here, it's interesting to note that Welch was a board member of the powerful heavy industry lobby group the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM),659 previously discussed in Chapter 1. There, NAM's close early links to the National Military-Industrial Conferences (and it's Hell-spawn, the Institute for American Strategy) were considered. Even after its formal support ended, NAM-affiliated groups continued to work with NMICs.660 As for Welch, his relationship with NAM began during WWII. He served on the board, and as chairman and vice-president of the Washington branch, during that era.661 Throughout the 1950s, Welch was a member of NAM's national board in addition and served as a regional vice president for three years during that decade. He also chaired NAM's educational committee. There was even discussion of Welch becoming NAM's president during the 1950s, but he was precluded from doing so due to not being his company's president or board chair.662 And possibly internal politics. Despite support from NAM'S conservative wing throughout this time, he clashed with its executive committee over his work on the educational committee. Under Welsh's guidance, the emphasis shifted from promoting education for careers in manufacturing to ensuring teachers understood the dangers of communism.663 Welsh was still active in that capacity as late as 1958, when the NMICs and the IAS embarked on their own efforts to educate the public on the dangers of communism. Perhaps we should not be surprised that Welch's work for NAM is credited for the latter organizational brilliance he displayed in the JBS.664 By the mid-1950s, Welch's status in NAM was such that figures like South Korean president Syngman Rhee were imploring the candy maker to push the trade association towards a more active role in the anticommunist struggle.665 It also connected Welch to prominent conservative sugar daddies such as J Howard Pew.666 While never a member, Pew was described as a "good friend" of Welch's by the latter's biographer. More importantly, both he and his family were financial contributors to the JBS.667 The Sun Oil chief praised Welch's efforts in educating the American public, describing his work as more important than Joseph McCarthy's.668 High praise, that, from a man like Pew.

659

Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 1; Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 89; Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 53. 660 The Illinois Manufactures Association, for instance, was a sponsor of both the NMICs and the IAS. It had links to NAM since at least the 1920s. The first director of NAM's Women's Bureau, appointed in 1928, was a member of the Illinois group and came to NAM's attention through her work with it. See Jennifer Denton, The Industrialists: How the National Association of Manufacturers Shaped American Capitalism, 104. 661 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 89. 662 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 171. 663 Jennifer A. Delton, The Industrialists, 195. 664 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life,188; Denton, The Industrialists, 196. 665 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 166,169. 666 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 160. 667 Philip Jenkins, Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925-1950 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 227. 668 Miller, A Conspiratorial Life,191.

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Other NAM colleagues would do more than praise Welch. His first anti-Communist manifesto, May God Forgive Us (1952), began as a letter that he made three copies of for three friends. But after a buzz grew, a businessman from NAM made 3,000 mimeographed copies. Soon another Welch associate was poised to make 17,000 copies of the tract for each member of NAM. Welch had pitched a book-length version of the letter to Henry Regnery by then. The book became a moderate success, partly due to Welch's grassroots marketing methods, but primarily because the Chicago Tribune published a condensed version in four installments.669 The reader will recall that the Tribune was then owned by Robert McCormick, a prominent America Firster reputed to have co-founded the ASC. The same milieu helped Welch launch a small monthly magazine called One Man's Opinion in 1956. Initial funding came partly from colleagues in NAM, partly from Texas oil money, and from "isolationists associated with Colonel McCormick and his Chicago Tribune."670 McCormick was dead by then, which raises some interesting possibilities as to the identities of those associates. Especially since One Man's Opinion eventually became American Opinion, the official house publication of the JBS. Nor was Welch the only connection NAM had to the JBS. In fact, Welch hosted the first-ever JBS meeting in November 1958, right on the heels of the conclusion of NAM's annual Congress of Industry in New York. Welch invited seventeen friends and associates to the meeting, about half of whom were set to attend the NAM conference. Eleven showed up and ten became founding members of the JBS. Potentially four of them --William J Grede of Milwaukee; Cola Parker, head of another Wisconsin-based company; Robert W Stoddard of Worcester, MA; and Ernest Swigert of Portland, OR --were not just former NAM members. All four had been presidents of the outfit at one point.671 At least one other former NAM president, F Gano Chance, signed up early in the group's run.672 While never a president, another JBS founder, Fred Koch (also the patriarch of the Koch dynasty), was a leading NAM figure at the national level like Welch. 673 As such, five of the eleven founding members had ties to NAM, having held senior posts in one of the nation's most powerful lobby groups during the 1950s. There may have been as many as six NAM members among the founders, with five former presidents active by the early 1960s. Longtime NAM fixture Roger Milliken soon became a crucial funder of the JBS.674 Another intriguing figure to hold dual membership in NAM and the early JBS during this time was populist firebrand Clarence Manion. Unlike many of his colleagues in NAM, Manion was a lifelong Democrat who 669

Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 108-11 Miller, 177-178. 671 Miller, 193, 205; Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 8-9, 58; Irwin Suall, The American Ultras, 53, Denton, The Industrialists, 195-197. Denton lists Cola Parker as one of the JBS founding members, but neither Miller nor Mulloy name him as such. Miller lists Parker as part of the JBS' initial Nation Council circa 1960. 672 Mulloy, 58. 673 Miller, 193; Denton, The Industrialists, 193-194. 674 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers on the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of America, 105. Despite longstanding antagonism against NAM's neo-liberal drift during the Cold War (see below), Milliken remained a member of NAM until the early 1990s. He was also a major early supporter of William Buckley's National Review despite Buckley's professed loathing of the JBS. See Denton, The Industrialists, 307; and Hemmer, Messengers on the Right, 105. 670

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was deeply influenced by the populism of party stalwart William Jennings Bryan.675 After WWI, Manion taught history at Notre Dame while working towards a law degree. He left South Bend for a few years for a private practice before returning to the school in 1925 to teach law. He eventually became the dean of the law school.676 Initially, Manion was a vigorous New Deal supporter, but became disillusioned after his Catholicism hindered his political aspirations.677 By the early 1940s, he drifted into the America First milieu, where he first encountered Welch and later IAS/ASC luminaries such as Henry Regnery, General Robert Wood, and Chicago Tribune publisher Colonel Robert McCormick.678 But it was during the postwar years that Manion really left his mark on the conservative movement. He is considered one of the trailblazers of right-wing talk radio. With early financial support from Regnery, Roger Milliken, and William Buckley's father, Manion launched the Manion Forum of Opinion in 1954. It would remain on the air for over twenty-five years, only shuttering after Manion's death in 1980. While Manion was not the first postwar right-wing radio commentator, he was easily the most politically influential of the first generation. The Rush Limbaugh era would have never come to be were it not for Manion's decades of activism on the airwaves.679 The Manion Forum was especially popular among NAM's conservatives and would give voice to many of their pet issues throughout the 1950s.680 But to return to the matter at hand. These JBS figures ---Welch, Grede, Parker, Stoddard, Swigert, Koch, and Manion, along with fellow travelers such as J Howard Pew and Lammot Du Pont --were at the core of NAM's conservative guard throughout the 1950s.681 Further, former Under-Secretary of the Army and longtime IAS member John Slezak was a senior NAM figure during this same time. He surely knew at least a few of Welch's fellow NAM conspirators, who were also former presidents. It is thus interesting that so many figures linked to NAM set up the JBS in 1958, the same year the IAS and its political warfare efforts were launched. Surely that's just a coincidence.682 But one commonly held 675

Nicole Hemmer, Messengers on the Right, 6-7. Nicole Hemmer, Messengers on the Right, 12, 21; 677 Hemmer, Messengers on the Right, 14-15. 678 Hemmer, Messengers on the Right, 18-21; Edward Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 70-73. 679 Hemmer, Messengers on the Right, 45-48, 105, etc. 680 Denton, The Industrialists, 190. 681 Denton, The Industrialists, 190-193-194. 682 Another one of those "coincidences" was the support NAM had given, beginning in the 1940s, to Reverend James W. Fifield and his Spiritual Mobilization movement. By decade's end, Spiritual Mobilization had made great strides in remaking America's clergy along more conservative lines. Some scholars believe these activities were crucial in launching the modern day Christian right. See, for instance, Kruse, Kevin M. “How Corporate America Invented Christian America.” POLITICO Magazine, April 16, 2015. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservativeroosevelt-princeton-117030/; and J. Michael Bennett, Two Masters and Two Gospels Volume I: The Teachings of Jesus Vs. the "Leaven of the Pharisees" in Talk Radio and Cable News (Hendersonville, TN: Akribos Press, 2020) During the mid-1950s, Fifield was active in the Committee of Endorsers, along with Welch and Manion. See Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 187. 676

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notion about the JBS should be dispelled by now: there was absolutely nothing "fringe" about the Birchers during the early days. Welch and his merry band of ex-NAM presidents were the Establishment. Another interesting point to be drawn from NAM's role in the JBS is the competing economic interests within the American Establishment. A favorite whipping boy of the JBS and its successors is the previously mentioned foreign policy think tank known as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). While there's no question the CFR has wielded enormous influence over American foreign (and, to a lesser extent, domestic), this influence was often depicted as part of a Byzantine communist plot. This is interesting because the CFR has historically been dominated by the bankers, insurers, and lawyers of Wall Street.683 Conversely, their harshest critics can be found in places like the JBS and the ASC. The JBS appears to have received covert support from individuals linked to NAM in its early years, while the ASC's funding was dominated by the defense industry throughout its history. In other words, the bulk of funding for these types of organizations largely derived from manufacturers and heavy industry, unlike the bankers and lawyers who dominated the CFR. Throughout much of the Cold War and beyond, there has been an ongoing economic rivalry between Wall Street and the military-industrial complex, which the CFR and JBS/ASC nexus are representative of.684 As outlandish as it may seem that an outfit like the JBS would be used by major business interests, consider: The CFR held incredible influence over the news media for much of the twentieth century. From the beginning, the Council was intimately linked to The New York Times while maintaining a considerable presence in the Washington Post, Newsweek, and the US News and World Report as well as CBS and NBC by the late 1970s.685 Prior to the rise of Fox News and the Internet, grassroots efforts like mailing lists and fringe groups like the JBS were frequently employed by the far-right establishment to influence the masses.686

683

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Times (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966), 952-953; Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations & United States Foreign Policy (New York: Author's Choice Press, 1977), 85-108; Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and the Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate and Beyond (New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1976), 24-25. 684 See, for instance, Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and the Cowboy War; and Kirkpatrick Sale, Power Shift: The Rise of the Southern Rim and Its Challenge to the Eastern Establishment (New York: Vintage Books, 1976). In more recent years, the situation has been further complicated by the rise of Silicon Valley. See Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of the Shadow Government (New York: Viking, 2016). 685 Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust, 66-68; Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 953. The reader should note many of these media outlets were closely connected to Lansdale's network. The New York Times was instrumental not just for Ellsberg's leaks, but those of John Paul Vann as well. Neil Sheehan, a favorite of Lansdale crew, spent many years with the Times. Both the Times and The Washington Post played a crucial role in Nixon's downfall. Elsewhere, CBS was the TV wing of Columbia Pictures, which the Schneider family maintained a considerable presence in for years. Bert Schneider got his start in the industry at CBS. 686 See, for instance, Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 100-102; John A. Andrew III, The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: 1997), 103-104.

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NAM would be at the forefront of efforts to establish a conservative media network to counterbalance the CFR-linked legacy media from the early Cold War onwards. They were quick to realize the potential of radio, and would begin sponsoring conservative stations and commentators during the 1950s.687 This helped lay the foundation for the golden age of right-wing talk radio that blossomed in the 1980s. Elsewhere, NAM members provided capital for prestige publishers like Regnery,688 thus giving an outlet for the budding conservative intelligentsia. But it would take years to build up these networks, making the JBS an invaluable bridge. In fairness to NAM, by the early 1960s, the postwar struggle between its conservative and "internationalist"/managerial wings was largely over, with the latter emerging victorious. That faction was driven by the classical liberalism of NAM affiliates Ludwig von Mises and Frederick von Hayek, which deified free trade. Whereas NAM had been highly protectionist prior to the 1950s, the post-war years saw it transform into one of the greatest foes of trade barriers.689 As was noted in Chapter 1, members provided much of the early funding for the arch classical liberal/libertarian Mont Pelerin Society (MPS). Curiously, it was NAM's conservative wing that initially embraced the MPS, however. This was thanks in no small part to Lammot Du Pont's advocacy of Hynek's The Road to Serfdom. Other NAM right-wing luminaries like William Grede and J Howard Pew also made generous contributions to the MPS, along with NAM internationalists like Philip Cortney.690 Thanks to these efforts, the economic philosophy of the MPS would come to mold the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) and the later World Trade Organization (WTO). 691 NAM's gradual realignment brought the formally conservative bastion more in line with the policies of the CFR as the latter half of the twentieth century unfolded. John F. Kennedy was even invited to address NAM in late 1961.692 This made the rise of the JBS and related bodies like the ASC all the more crucial for the conservative establishment during this period. Historically, there was much overlap between both the ASC and the JBS.693 There was even a little overlap between the JBS nexus and the far more exclusive IAS. Consider the curious figure of Edward Scannell 687

Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 52. See also chapter 1 for a more in-depth discussion of NAM's PR/propaganda efforts in the interwar years. 688 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right, 58. 689 For more on NAM's evolving view on tariffs, see Denton, The Industrialists, 172-178. 690 Denton, The Industrialists, 188-189; Charlie Whitman, Corporate Conservatives Go to War: How the National Association of Manufactures Planned to Restore American Free Enterprise, 1939-1948, 315-316. 691 Denton, The Industrialists, 14, 307-308. For a more in depth account of the MPS' influence on the GATT and WTO, see Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism. 692 Denton, The Industrialists, 208. 693 William Turner, Power on the Right, 200, 205. For further membership overlap, see the ASC membership list and bios provided by the ISGP: van der Reijden, Joel. “American Security Council.” American Security Council: Historical Membership List (Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics, 2014. https://isgpstudies.com/american-security-council-membership-list). Some of the more notable names include: John T. Beatty (a president of the United Specialists Corp.), Robert Donner (a Rhode Island-based business man), copper baron

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Butler, an anticommunist firebrand who famously debated Lee Harvey Oswald on air. He served as an executive director of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA), an anti-Communist propaganda outfit based in New Orleans.694 During the early 1960s, Butler was a member of the JBS before he became a public figure.695 Later, he turned up in both the ASC and the Planning and Development Committee of the IAS' Freedom Studies Center by the middle of that decade.696 It was also during this time he came to the attention of General Edward Lansdale.697 We shall encounter Butler again in this strange milieu, so do keep him in mind. There was an even more direct connection between the IAS and the JBS: Henry Regnery and Regnery Publishing. Henry was the son of ASC co-founder William, and the founder of one of the twentieth century's most storied conservative publishing houses. He was a board member of the IAS from the very beginning in addition to being its treasurer. He also worked with the IAS's Freedom Studies Center, serving both on its board and as treasurer.698 Robert Welch and Regnery were not only friends, but Welch owned substantial shares in Regnery Publishing. In the pre-JBS days, Regnery published Welch's pamphlet, May God Forgive Us, in 1952. Two years later, they worked together to bring to market The Life of John Birch, a highly embellished account of the Baptist missionary who gave the JBS its name.699 Welch and Regnery still had business dealings as recently as 1964, with Welch holding considerable shares in the publishing company.700 This coincided with Regnery's early involvement with the IAS, as was detailed in the prior chapter. Further, Welch served on the Campaign for 48 States, a proto-1950s era right-wing group, along with future ASC co-founder and early IAS board member General Robert E Wood.701 Finally, as noted above, Welch got early support from figures around Chicago Tribune publisher William McCormick, a reputed co-founder of the ASC. Clearly, these circles were quite incestuous. By the early 1960s, there was a growing suspicion that the IAS was using Bircher literature to indoctrinate the military and the public, with the covert support of the National Security Council and the Pentagon. As

Spruillie Braden, and Jim Guirard Jr. ASC members General Albert Wedemeyer and ex-FBI agent W. Cleon Skousen do not appear to have been members of the JBS, but they frequently collaborated with it. See Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 147-148; and Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 49, 168. 694 Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, 94-97. 695 van der Reijden, Joel. “American Security Council.” American Security Council: Historical Membership List (Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics, 2014. https://isgp-studies.com/american-securitycouncil-membership-list). 696 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 697 John Newman, Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2008), 342. 698 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 699 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right, 96-97. 700 Hemmer, Messengers of the Right, 182. 701 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 361.

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was in Chapter 1, Senator William J Fulbright was on the attack in 1961. Possible ties to the Birchers were one of the concerns he expressed. The far-right General Edwin Walker (famous for his opposition to desegregation and the likely inspiration for the character of General Jack D. Ripper in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove) was accused of indoctrinating his troops with JBS literature at a time when the IAS's propaganda efforts at the National War Colleges were at their height.702 There's no evidence that Walker's use of JBS literature was inspired by the ASC/IAS, nor was Walker ever a member (though he certainly had many backers in the ASC and traveled in the same circles).703 Indeed, there's no evidence that the IAS ever directly pushed Bircher literature. However, Walker was hardly the only military officer promoting it during the heyday of the IAS' relationship with the Pentagon. And individuals linked to the IAS were not far removed from the JBS.704 But in fairness, they were also among the first to attack Welch and the JBS. In particular, Christian AntiCommunism Crusade head Fred Schwarz, a popular lecturer at IAS events, called out Welch as early as 1960. He was also the first to expose Welch's accusations of Dwight Eisenhower as a Communist agent.705 That being said, it would also appear that the same NSC directive requiring military officers to educate troops in anticommunism used to establish the Institute for American Strategy in a semi-official capacity was also used to initiate Walker's JBS-derived "Pro Blue" program.706 Despite these controversies, the JBS continued to grow throughout the early 1960s, reaching its height in the 1965-1966 period. It was during that span it had its peak membership of 100,000.707 Part of the group's rise was due to its close association with 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, also a reserve general in the US Air Force. Goldwater disliked Welch and tried to have him removed as head of the JBS. Despite this, the group was instrumental in the "Goldwater boom" of the early 1960s, pushing him as a presidential candidate in 1960. This helped lay the foundation for his run in 1964.708 It's also interesting to note the founding of the Committee Against Summit Entanglement (CASE) in 1959 during the JBS' infancy. Established to protest early nuclear test ban overtures between the US and USSR, CASE is often described as a JBS front group. And not without reason. Welch was the group's chairman while its national board and executive committee were loaded with JBS/NAM fixtures such as Fred Koch, Cola Parker, William Grede, and Clarence Manion. They were joined by NAM darling and Mont Pelerin Society founder Ludwig von Mises, Goldwater and storied National Review founder William F Buckley. Goldwater later denied knowing that CASE was a JBS front when he joined or that Welch had personally 702

Diamond, 48. Scott, 214-217; 292-293; Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 43. 704 See, for instance, Irwin Suall, The American Ultras, 19-28. 705 Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 207-209. For Schwarz's links to the IAS lecture circuit, see Irwin Suall, The American Ultras, 22, etc. 706 Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 249-250. 707 Mulloy, 2; Miller, 318. Miller argues that the JBS membership numbers of the 1960s were inflated and that it never reached a peak membership over 30,000. However, he agrees the 1965-66 period is when the JBS was at its most numerous, with a sharp decline coming towards the end of 1966. 708 Miller, 222-223 703

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asked him to serve on the executive committee. But the latter was certainly a lie, as Welch had publicly written about his invitation to Goldwater in 1961. Buckley was not only a member of CASE's national board, but had even initiated discussions with Welch about joining the group. This is interesting in light of his later public proclamations about destroying the JBS.709 Doth Buckley protest too much? It would certainly seem so. The JBS was instrumental in bringing Goldwater's The Conscious of a Conservative to the press and making it a bestseller. Clarence Manion, an early member of the JBS national committee and a crucial source of financing, convinced Goldwater to issue a book outlining his conservative principles. Barry didn't write it --that task fell to William Buckley's brother-in-law, L Brent Bozell. Manion arranged his authorship, as well as disturbing Conscious through Victor Publishing, a nonprofit.710 Manion remained one of Goldwater's closest advisors throughout his 1964 campaign.711 Nor was Manion alone. Other Birchers remained in Goldwater's inner circle of advisers and he never formally denounced the group, even though it would have been politically expedient to do so on multiple occasions.712 This led to concerns that the Birchers were trying to take over the Republican Party proper. While surely overblown, there's no question the JBS played a role in helping Goldwater secure the nomination in 1964.713 By 1968, the number of Birchers had declined to between 60,000-70,000 members. The decline would continue for decades --by the mid-1990s, Birchers only numbered around 15,000-20,000, and even those numbers may have been inflated.714 Nothing quite topped the decline from 1966-1968, in which the JBS may have lost up to 40 percent of its membership. What happened during the mid-1960s to generate such a decline? The two factors often cited are the JFK assassination and Goldwater's epic defeat in the 1964 presidential election. As to the latter, there seems little doubt the JBS took a blow from the fallout. But whether it was one to the chin, or simply a body blow, is a matter of debate. There was a concerted effort to drive the Birchers from the Republican Party and to thin their numbers. At the forefront of these efforts was National Review founder William Buckley, who began his attack on the Birchers in 1962 and redoubled his

709

Mulloy, 146-148.; Miller, 202-203; Nicole Hemmer, Messengers on the Right, 78-79, 97. Manion was also a founding member of the National Weekly, the corporate entity behind Buckley's National Review. 710 Miller, 220-221; Mulloy, 91-92; Nicole Hammer, Messengers on the Right, 141-142. 711 Miller, 292. 712 Mulloy, 91-93; Miller, 291-292; Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 63-64. 713 Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 94-97; Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 291-292 John A. Andrews III, The Other Side of the Sixties, 178-179. Nor were they the only ones with designs on taking over the Republican Party by the mid-1960s, as we shall see. 714 Mulloy, 2. In fairness, the JBS did experience a resurgence, beginning around 1969, and continuing for much of the 1970s. By 1973, JBS gained back eight to nine thousand members, putting their total around 24,000. They added roughly 500-1000 new members per month during the 1970s. Paid circulation of the JBS magazines doubled during this time as well, from 25,000 in 1970 to 50,000 in 1977. See Miller, 318-319, 323. Despite this brief reversal, membership never reached its peak during the mid-1960s and would start to decline again dramatically during the 1980s.

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efforts after Goldwater's defeat. For many years, Buckley was credited with making the GOP safe for the "responsible right," thanks to these efforts.715 Groups like the American Conservative Union and the Freedom Society Association (founded by Goldwater) were designed partially for this purpose. The conservative movement was also broadening, which further siphoned off members .716 Still, the group's membership was at an all-time high in the 19651966 period. Did it just take two years for the counteroffensive to damage the JBS, or was there something else at play? The JFK assassination is far more intriguing. The group hinted at communist involvement in a public statement issued days after the president's death. Less than a month after the assassination, between December 15-18, the group ran a full page advertisement that explicitly blamed communism for JFK's death. As the man fingered for the deed, Lee Harvey Oswald, was an ex-Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union and returned to the States under murky circumstances. It wasn't a hard sale. The ad ran in publications like the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. The PR blitz cost roughly $35,000 (over $300,000 in today's dollars) and was partially paid for by Fred Koch, the father of Charles and David.717 Predictably, the ads caused a sensation. Despite widespread criticism from the usual quarters, the Society advanced the attack. During early 1964 the American Opinion published a trilogy of articles alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald had been trained at a KGB assassination school in Minsk during his defection. 718 Curiously, a watered-down version of these claims was presented to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS, the US Senate's version of the infamous House Select Committee on Un-American Activities) on November 24, 1963. This was two days after JFK's assassination and the day Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby. The abovementioned Edward Scannell Butler had taken it upon himself to fly to DC the day after the assassination to present a tape of his debate with Oswald to the SISS. That was the one in which Oswald famously proclaimed himself a communist. Butler also mentioned that Oswald had received intensive communist indoctrination at an "Army management school." When Butler made his presentation to the SISS on November 24, it was presided over by Senator Thomas Dodd, a longtime fixture in the SISS.719 He was also

715

Miller, 254-258. Mulloy, 100-102; John A. Andrew III, The Other Side of the Sixties, 214. 717 Mulloy, 83-85; Miller, 288-289; Jane Meyer, Dark Money, 40-41. 718 Miller, 7; Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1992), 687-688; Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 215-216. 719 Jeffrey H. Caufield, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical-Right Conspiracy (Moreland Press, 2015), 746-747. 716

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a significant early figure in the ASC.720 Even more intriguing, Dodd was a member of both the IAS' board of directors, as well as a board member of its Freedom Studies Center, by the mid-1960s.721 Further, the issue of the KGB assassination school was first raised before the SISS by an Army reserve officer and fellow ASC member, Lev Dobriansky.722 Besides being a member of the ASC, Dobriansky also sat on the Planning and Development Committee of the IAS' Freedom Studies Center by the mid-1960s.723 As was noted above, Edward Scannell Butler sat on the same Freedom Studies Center committee. And it just so happens, Butler, Dodd, and Dobriansky were all active with the FSC during the same timeframe in the mid-1960s.724 Thus, the JBS and members of the ASC appear to have been working hand in glove to push the "Oswaldwas-a-communist-agent" narrative in the months following the assassination.725 And on the ASC end, at least three of the chief figures --Butler, Dodd, and Dobriansky --would end up working with the IAS' political warfare school by the mid-1960s. Given how successful the Oswald narrative was, this isn't entirely surprising. "Oswald-as-a-communist-agent" was the original JFK assassination conspiracy theory, and it was a driving factor behind the Warren Commission. There were genuine concerns among the American establishment that another world war could break out if this narrative were not thoroughly debunked in the public mind. The Warren Commission was further buttressed by an FBI investigation that ruled Oswald acted alone. While this full-court press alleviated public concerns of communist plots in the short term, it led to a cottage industry within conspiritainment in later years.726 Despite claims to the contrary, the fallout for the JBS over their JFK assassination allegations appears minimal. After all, they emerged as a force in the Republican Party during 1964, even as one of their members was dragged before the Warren Commission to explain the source of his claims.727 Even after Goldwater, a national figure closely associated with the JBS, suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1964 election, the JBS was still flying high the following year. Was the proliferation of far-right groups, along with the JFK assassination and Goldwater defeat, simply resulting in death by a thousand cuts for the JBS? Perhaps, but something significant changed about the JBS in 1964 that is little remarked upon. It was during that year that Robert Welch first invoked the Bavarian Illuminati. 720

William Turner, Power on the Right, 203. Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 722 Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 216. 723 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 724 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 725 Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 215-216. 726 D.J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 90-91. 727 Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 687-688; Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 215. 721

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By November 1966, Welch published "The Truth in Time," first in American Opinion, and later as a pamphlet in its own right. A seventy-three-minute film was also made of Welch reading the essay. In this pivotal work, Welch laid out a master conspiracy driven by the infamous Illuminati.728 They were behind The Communist Manifesto and all "utopian" socialist movements, including synarchism, Nazism, Fabian socialism, and so on.729 The Illuminati and the conspiracy theories surrounding them will be addressed in much greater detail in the sequel to this work. But suffice to say, this subject is far more surreal and incredible than one may imagine. For now, it must be noted that the invocation of the Illuminati was the kiss of death for the John Birch Society. While funding had already started to become an issue, the full-on embrace of the Illuminati corresponded with the rapid decline in their membership during the 1966-1968 period. Nearly 30,000 Birchers, a third of the group's membership, left the organization in 1967 and 1968.730 The group went from being kingmakers within the Republican Party in 1964 to being a shadow of its former self in 1968. This roughly corresponded with Welch's embrace of the Illuminati. Was Welch simply speaking his conscience, as unhinged as it may have been, by the mid-1960s? This author does not believe so. Welch was a successful businessman who put together a very effective organization in less than a decade. By bringing Illuminism into Bircherism, he sabotaged the organization just as it was generating a significant national following. This is baffling behavior that is universally chalked up to fanaticism. But if the JBS was part of a political warfare campaign the IAS and the ASC had initiated in 1958, the possibility exists that some backers were beginning to get cold feet. If the JBS was part of a program to inoculate the American populace with anti-communism, this was scarcely needed in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and JFK's assassination. By the middle of the decade, the Eastern Establishment appears to have been more concerned by the degree to which Cold War tensions had grown. The JBS' efforts to link the Soviets to the JFK assassination had been highly effective. If not managed properly, there was a real possibility the US could blunder into a nuclear exchange. The Warren Commission and a high-profile FBI investigation were launched for the explicit purpose of quashing the notion of Oswald as a Soviet agent. But then again, compelling evidence has emerged that elements within the military, reaching all the way up to the JCS, were angling for a preemptive first strike against the Soviet Union during the early 1960s. And certainly, JFK's assassination and the efforts of the JBS led to a period of heightened tension. Even if the Joint Chiefs tabled a nuclear war with the Soviets, the desire to use tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam remained strong until 1968, as was noted in the prior chapter. The end result would have been an invasion by Communist China, forcing the US to launch additional nukes to halt. Would the nuclear game ship have ended there?

728

Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 183-184. Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 50-51; Jesse Walker, The United States of Paranoia, 199-200. 730 Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 184. 729

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In this context, the full-court press against the JBS takes on an ominous light. Did part of these efforts involve Welch taking a dive? It certainly would have been convenient for him to do so and the first mentions of the Illuminati appeared in 1964. While the threat of nuclear war, at least with the Soviets, had dissipated by then, some may not have wanted to live through another such JBS propaganda blitz during a time when the JCS was potentially striking to provoke a Chinese intervention in Vietnam. The 1964-1968 period when the JBS faced its biggest decline perfectly coincides with the Pentagon's efforts to escalate Vietnam into a region-wide conflict. The Illuminati must have seemed like the ideal silver bullet in certain quarters to reduce the group to absurdity. But as with much of this stuff, it had unforeseen consequences. We'll get to those in the sequel.

The ASC and Alternative Cultures: The Ufonauts

The conspiratorial right was not the only "alternative" culture to be under the influence of the ASC. The ASC also had extensive overlap with the Cold War-era UFO movement. This connection has been little addressed, least of all by conspiracy theorists. An obscure ebook appeared online in the 1990s during the early days of the Internet. Entitled Fire From the Sky and attributed to a "Calvin Burgin," this multipart piece was inspired by the conspiracology of JBS member Peter Beter.731 In this bizarre tract, it is alleged that the ASC was created for the purpose of warning the American public about the UFO phenomenon!732 While this misses the mark by quite a wide margin, there's no question that ASC members were keenly interested in the phenomena that predated the ASC itself. General Nathan Twining was a key early military figure in the ASC.733 A whole mythos surrounds Twining in Ufology. He is said to have been part of the "control group" overseeing the Roswell crash as well as a member of Majestic-12 (MJ-12), the purported cabal behind the UFO cover-up.734 What can be said for certain is that Twining issued the now legendary "Twining Letter" while serving as head of Air Material Command. In said letter, he stated the "flying disks" were "real and not visionary or fictitious," though he did not discount the possibility that they were some

731

Us. Fire From The Sky - eBook. Accessed June 4, 2020. http://abundanthope.net/pages/Books__eBooks_27/Fire_From_The_Sky_-_eBook_2019.shtml. 732 Fire From The Sky - 8. Accessed June 4, 2020. https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_firesky08.htm. 733 Turner,Power on the Right, 207. 734 See, for instance, Stanton T. Friedman, Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic 12 and the United States Government's Cover-up (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1997), 42-45; Timothy Good, Above Top Secret: The World Wide UFO Cover-up (New York: Quill/William Morrow, 1988), 259-260; Richard M. Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up 1941-1973, 2nd ed. (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2002), 21-22; 45-46.

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type of natural phenomena like meteors. He also called for further investigation of the UFO phenomena by the Air Force, leading to Project Sign, the first official inquiry by that body.735 Another ASC luminary, Admiral Arthur Radford, was a significant backer of the two figures behind the creation of the National Investigations Committee for Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). NICAP was the first major civilian organization dedicated to investigating the UFO phenomena. It was founded in 1956 by inventor and former Navy man Thomas Townsend Brown. Another leading figure was Donald Keyhoe, a former Marine.736 Brown had served under Radford during WWII.737 Keyhoe also served under Radford during that war and trained with him earlier. Keyhoe, who had never risen above the rank of major, was able to score a meeting with Admiral Radford in 1953 after the former had retired from the military and the latter was the Chairman of the JCS. Reportedly, the meeting was for an article on national defense, and UFOs were not discussed. Keyhoe's famed work on the subject, Flying Saucers From Outer Space, was published later that year.738 Radford himself believed that he had witnessed a UFO, along with the Secretary of the Navy, a year earlier. This encounter spurred a short-lived investigation into the subject by the Navy. What's more, Keyhoe was aware of Radford's encounter at the time of their meeting in 1953.739 Much has been made of the CIA's infiltration of NICAP from practically its inception. 740 Easily the most noteworthy Company asset linked to NICAP is Colonel Joseph J Bryan III. During the heyday of the CIA's early Cold War propaganda efforts, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC)'s Frank Wisner established a psychological warfare workshop to guide such efforts. And leading this workshop was Bryan, a native Virginian and Princeton graduate.741 In this capacity, he fell in with what became a crucial node of the ASCIAS network during the Cold War. It was known as the Captive Nations movement, which still exists to this day. Growing out of the various Eastern European anti-Communist émigré groups the CIA sponsored during the early days of the Cold War, official support was maintained for decades thanks to the efforts of IAS member Lev Dobrianski.742 The Captive Nations movement, via the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, 735

Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 43-44.The Air Force would launch additional investigations such as Project Grudge and the much more well-known Project Blue Book. 736 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 190-191. 737 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 175. 738 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 139. 739 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 99; Michael Swords and Robert Powell (eds), UFOs and Government: A Historic Inquiry (San Antonio, TX: Anomalist Books, 2012), 165. 740 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 190-192. Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoeter, who was the CIA's first director, was on NICAP's original board of directors. Hillenkoeter was also the CIA director who initiated Project BLUEBIRD, the Agency's first foray into behavior modification. Other individuals affiliated with the CIA who were members of NICAP included the officers Col. Joseph Bryan and Karl Pflock and assets Bernard J. Carvalho and the White Russian Nicolas de Rochefort. Rochefort was a psychological warfare specialist. 741 Daniel J. Leab, The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm: Orwell Subverted (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press,2007), 19. 742 For Dobrianski's ties to the Captive Nations movement, see Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right and the Republican Party, 69-70; and Scott and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (New York: Dodd, Mead &

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later became a major component of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). WACL, another crucial node of the IAS-ASC network, is discussed below.743 The "Committee of Free Albanians" was one such front group involved with the Captive Nations movement.744 Early in his CIA/OPC career, Bryan helped draft statements for the group.745 Bryan later became involved in the CIA-sponsored animated adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm. It has been argued the film was envisioned as part of the CIA's psywar Captive Nations efforts.746 The end revolt of the "captive" farm animals against their communist/pig masters is in keeping with such narratives. Bryan acquired a reputation as a prankster during this time. He may have even fabricated the story of Orwell's widow relinquishing the rights to his novel in exchange for a date with movie star Clark Gable.747 In other words, he had the perfect mind and skill sets to work NICAP for the CIA. Or was his involvement more closely related to a private actor? Far less well-known are NICAP's links to the ASC. Despite being close to two of the leading early figures in NICAP, there is no evidence Admiral Radford ever joined. Several other ASC luminaries did, however. An early NICAP figure in the ASC was General Albert Wedemeyer, who appears to have joined both outfits at roughly the same time (1957). As was noted above, Wedemeyer was also a backer of the JBS.748 And like many figures detailed here, Wedemeyer was a major supporter of special operations. In fact, he was instrumental in setting up what became the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare,749 Puharich's early patron.

Company, 1986), 84. For his membership in the IAS, Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 743 As noted in the Introduction, Captive Nations is still around. In the post-Cold War years, its principal sponsor has been the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. This quasi-government think tank was co-founded by Dobriansky, Lee Edwards (another WACL luminary) and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's infamous National Security Adviser. See, for instance, Smith, D. (1995, December 23). For the victims of communism. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/23/arts/for-the-victims-of-communism.html; and, Captive Nations coalition. Victims of Communism. (2021, September 8). https://victimsofcommunism.org/captive-nationscoalition/. Captive Nations is now very much an inter-generational affair. The 2023 Summit featured Lee Edwards sharing the stage with Paula Dobriansky, Lev's daughter. Some third generation CN activists were even present. 744 Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, 227-229. 745 Daniel J. Leab, The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm: Orwell Subverted, 66. 746 Daniel J. Leab, The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm: Orwell Subverted, 77. 747 Daniel J. Leab, The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm: Orwell Subverted, 41-43. 748 “American Security Council.” American Security Council: Historical Membership List | Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics. Accessed June 7, 2020. https://isgp-studies.com/american-security-councilmembership-list. Wedemeyer also contributed articles to American Opinion, the JBS' official magazine. Earlier, he was active in the Committee of Endorsers with Welch and Manion. See Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 177, 187. Later, he joined CASE, the Birch front group that also involved Welch, Manion, Fred Koch, Barry Goldwater, and William Buckley. See Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 147-148. 749 See Alfred H. Paddock Jr., U.S. Army Special Operations, 52-57, etc.

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Other ASC members who later signed on included General Robert Richardson (1971), former presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (1974), and the ASC founder himself, John Fisher (1978).750 Goldwater also played a crucial role in the creation of modern-day special operations forces. It was the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1987 that got the ball rolling on what became SOCOM.751 General Nathan Twining, and possibly Admiral Arthur Radford, future members of the ASC's National Strategy Committee (a body of former generals and admirals), launched official investigations into the UFO phenomena while serving in the military. Another ASC luminary, technocrat Stefan Possony, may have done the same. During the early 1950s, Possony was involved with a "Special Study Group" being run out of the office of General John Samford, then head of Air Force Intelligence. Samford was another recurring figure in UFO literature because he was the most senior Air Force intelligence officer when Blue Book launched. While the Special Study Group was not entirely dedicated to UFOs, they were a significant subject it considered. Reportedly, Possony remained a lifelong believer in the phenomena.752 He later sat on the infamous Robertson Panel.753 Said body was set up at the urging of the CIA to launch a formal inquiry into the UFO question. Many leading scientists were brought together to discuss the topic on behalf of the panel, which met for some fourteen to seventeen hours in January 1953.754 The principal CIA official behind the formation of the panel was H Marshall Chadwell, the head of the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI).755 At the same time Chadwell was putting together the Robertson Panel, he was also deeply involved with Project ARTICHOKE on behalf of the OSI.756 What partially drove Chadwell's concern regarding UFOs was the psychological warfare component. While he worried about how the Soviets could exploit the phenomena for such purposes against the US, he was also curious about how US psywar planners could utilize it.757 Unsurprisingly, the conclusions of the 750

Reijden, Joel van der. Cult of National Security Trolls: Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM Analyzed. Accessed June 7, 2020. https://isgp-studies.com/coast-to-coast-am-radio-on-ufos-aliens-and-conspiracy. Wedemeyer and Radford were both members of the ASC's original National Strategy Committee, which consisted entirely of former generals and admirals. General Nathan Twining would later join them there by the mid-1960s. 751 Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of the Joint Special Operations Command (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2015), 40. 752 Michael Swords and Robert Powell (eds.), UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry, 150-152. 753 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 124. 754 “CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, June 27, 2008.https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csistudies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html. For an in-depth account of the panel, see Swords and Powell (eds.), UFOs and Government, 170-200. 755 Swords and Powell (eds.), UFOs and Government, 175-182; Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State, 121-123; Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010), 83-84; “CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, June 27, 2008. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csipublications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html. 756 see Albarelli, A Terrible Mistake. Curiously, Chadwell had worked closely with Vannevar Bush in the WWII-era National Research Defense Committee (Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 141). Vannevar is a figure prominently linked to the Majestic 12 (MJ-12) documents in conspiracy lore. 757 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 84.

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Robertson Panel were largely centered around the psychological perception of the phenomena. The panel called for greater public education (so that claims could be more easily debunked) and the monitoring of civilian UFO groups.758 Curiously, despite expressing deep concerns for the psychological effects the phenomena could have on the public at large, Possony was the only figure involved with the panel with expertise in psychological warfare.759 Possony's role in the Robertson Panel, which essentially advocated a campaign of disinformation in regard to UFOs, is interesting in light of his later involvement with the University of Pennsylvania's Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). Possony even played a leading role in the National War College lectures that the IAS and the FPRI put together. A manual was produced from these lectures entitled American Strategy for a Nuclear Age, which Possony is credited as a co-author of.760 Possony later became involved in the IAS's Virginia-based Freedom Studies Center to bridge the Cold War educational "gap" with the Soviet Union via studies of political and psychological warfare.761 For a time, both Possony and General Edward Lansdale, he of "elimination by illumination," were members of the school's staff simultaneously.762 Possony, via his 1970 work The Strategy of Technology: Winning the Decisive War, is credited as the visionary behind the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), more commonly known as "Star Wars."763 The SDI was the first serious attempt to weaponize space. As such, conspiracy theorists have long accused it of being a defense platform designed not to stop Soviet ICBMs, but an alien invasion.764 As the "voice" of the military-industrial complex throughout the Cold War, the ASC took the lead in selling the SDI to the public. In a sign of things coming full circle, the New Age cult Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) was enlisted by ASC members to support the SDI.765 Another figure involved with the Robertson Panel fell into the ASC's orbit: J Allen Hynek, the famed astronomer turned Ufologist. Hynek was active in Project Blue Book for twenty years766 and, before that, had written reports for Projects Sign and Grudge.767 Hynek occasionally disagreed with the public positions of these programs, but generally toed the party line for much of those twenty years. Beginning in the early

758

Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 124-126; (Pilkington, 85-86). Swords and Powell (eds.), UFOs and Government, 191. 760 John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 40; Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 35. 761 John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 46-48. 762 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 763 “Stefan Possony; Pioneered Air War Strategy in WWII.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1995. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-03-mn-61669-story.html. 764 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 223. 765 Bradley C. Whitsel, The Church Universal and Triumphant: Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Apocalyptic Movement (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003), 95-96. CUT would be the source of much criticism for their apocalyptic world view by the late 1980s, frequently urging members to build fallout shelters for an inevitable nuclear war during this time. 766 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, xxxi. 767 Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State 1941-1973, 77. 759

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1970s, Hynek not only became a major proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, but began to offer up a more esoteric explanation involving inter-dimensional beings, connections to poltergeist activity, and even the prominent role telepathy appeared to play in the phenomena. These connections were taken even further by a Ufologist Hynek worked closely with from the mid-1960s until his death in 1986. This would be the legendary French computer scientist and astrophysicist Jacques Vallee. Vallee is a real Renaissance man. During the early 1970s, alone he was working on two highly classified research projects at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), one involving DARPA's ARPANET project (an early version of the Internet), the other an "unpaid consultant" gig for the CIA-sponsored remote viewing program then unfolding.768 In 1969, Vallee published a book called Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers that had profound implications for the field of Ufology. Here Vallee likened UFO sightings to Medieval encounters with fairies and demons, arguing that these experiences had been occurring to humanity for centuries.769 Vallee's work would combine Ufology with investigations of the paranormal, religious experiences, cryptozoology, and ESP. In a sense, Vallee sought to devise a unified theory of high weirdness. He was soon joined in this approach by John Keel, author of The Mothman Prophecies. The efforts of these two men greatly expanded the horizons of Ufology in the 1970s, offering explanations beyond swamp gas or nuts-and-bolts ships piloted by ETs. In many ways, the UFO field is still struggling with these implications. This profoundly influential work was originally published by Regnery Publishing, as was Hynek's debut UFO book, The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry (1972). Regnery also published 1975's The Edge of Reality, which Vallee and Hynek co-authored, in addition to works such as W Raymond Drake's Gods and Spacemen Throughout History (1975) and Jacques Bergier's Extraterrestrial Visitations from Prehistoric Times to the Present (1973), that heavily promoted the ancient astronaut hypothesis. Regnery's involvement with Bergier, whose Secret Doors of the Earth (1975) they also published, is most intriguing. Bergier and Vallee had known one another since 1961770 and would carry on a correspondence throughout the rest of the former's life. This is most interesting in light of Bergier's pedigree.

768

Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 152-154. For more on Vallee's time working with SRI's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) on the APARTANET, see John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 211-212. Curiously, Markoff notes that Vallee's views of the Pentagon funding scientific research frequently clashed with those of these increasingly anti-war ARC staff. Still, the best all around account of Vallee's relationship with Hynek, and his activities during this era, can be found in his journals: Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science 1: A Passion for Discovery The Journals of Jacques Vallee 1957-1969 (San Antonio, TX: Anomalist Books, 2007); Forbidden Science Volume Two: Journals 1970-1979 California Hermetica (San Francisco, CA: Documatica Research, LLC, 2009); Forbidden Science Volume Three: Journals 19801989 On the Trail of Hidden Truths (San Francisco, CA: Documatica Research, LLC, 2012); Forbidden Science 4: The Spring Hill Chronicle The Journals of Jacques Vallee 1990-1999 (San Antonio, TX: Anomalist Books, 2019). 769 George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal (USA: Xlibris Corporation, 2001), 262. 770 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 47.

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*** Bergier had been a spy for the French resistance and was reputed to have maintained ties in the intelligence community.771 In 1959, he authored a curious article in the French magazine Constellation. Entitled "Thought Transfer, Weapon of War," the piece proclaimed that ESP tests were performed on the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the year before. The purpose of the experiment, Bergier wrote, was to determine if telepathic communications were possible over long distances.772 While initially ignored, the story gained new legs in 1960 when an expanded version was published by Science et Vie, France's top scientific journal. That piece linked the experiment to Duke University's famed parapsychologist JB Rhine. As we shall see in a later chapter, Rhine's work was sponsored by ARTICHOKE during the 1950s. Indeed, parapsychology is a subject we shall return to time and again throughout this work. For now, it should be emphasized that the US Navy denied this story and its legitimacy has never been confirmed.773 On the whole, Bergier's career was marked by a host of dubious publications. In 1960 he co-authored, with Louis Pauwels, the legendary The Morning of the Magicians. This metaphysical work introduced many tropes of modern Nazi occultism, such as the Vril forces.774 It also had a significant influence on Ufology. It has been described as presenting "the first fully-fledged modern ancient astronauts theory." Magicians was among the most important sources for the more well-known Chariots of the Gods? (1968) by Erich von Daniken.775 Much of Bergier's ancient astronaut notions derive from weird fiction author HP Lovecraft. Bergier claimed to have corresponded with Lovecraft during the 1930s, but no letters have survived. He and Magicians co-author Pauwels translated and published the first French editions of Lovecraft's work. Curiously, Bergier would address the parallels to ancient astronaut theory and Lovecraft's elder gods (the dreaded Old Ones were said to originate from space) in Extraterrestrial Visitations from Prehistoric Times to Present, the first of two English translations Regnery published.776 This work, originally issued in France in 1970, may have been the first time someone suggested Lovecraft's fiction had a basis in reality. An obsession with the fiction of Lovecraft is a recurring theme among several other figures linked to the ASC network. We shall get to them later. For now, back to Regnery.

771

Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 472, n15. Vallee describes him as having "access to De Gaulle in matters of French national security....". 772 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 70-71. 773 ibid. 774 See, for instance, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 113-118. 775 Jason Colavito, Faking History: Essays on Aliens, Atlantis, Monsters, & More (Albany, NY: JasonColavito.com Books, 2013), 18. 776 Colavito, Faking History, 26-32.

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While the publishing house's involvement in this type of literature was very brief (from roughly 19691975), it proved to be enormously influential in the twentieth-first century in terms of both the ancient astronaut trope, but especially in regards to more esoteric interpretations of the UFO phenomenon. This was hardly the type of work Regnery was known for either. Possibly its most famous publication is William F Buckley's Man and God at Yale and to this day it is known for its conservative worldview (its official website describes itself as "Conservative Books for Independent Thinkers").777 The reader will recall that the Regnery family were major sponsors of the pre-WWII America First Committee and founders of the ASC. While the Regnery publishing house has undoubtedly done its part to advance the far-right worldview of the ASC over the years, their 1970s detour into high strangeness is both very curious and very influential. Especially in light of the IAS connections to all of this. Joining men like General Edward Lansdale and Stefan Possony of the Freedom Studies Center during the 1960s was none other than Henry Regnery, then family patriarch. Further, Colonel Raymond Sleeper, Hynek's old boss on Project Blue Book and a future ASC member, was a speaker at the Freedom Studies Center since at least the 1960s.778 This places a fair amount of IAS men knee-deep in Ufology along with their ASC counterparts. Was this detour into high weirdness driven by the IAS? As Valle tells it, his agent urged him to present the manuscript of his first UFO book, which was eventually entitled Anatomy of a Phenomenon, to the publisher because Regnery "understands the European mind." But when Vallee made his pitch, Henry Regnery was confused by Vallee's approach to Ufology. Despite his lack of enthusiasm, Regnery agreed to have his daughter, Susanne, review it.779 When the publisher next contacted Vallee, the approach was made by Harvey Plotnick, a rising editor at Regnery who would soon be Susanne's husband and Henry's son-in-law. Plotnick enjoyed Vallee's manuscript and agreed to publish it. Vallee began revisions during the summer of 1964 and was finished by the fall. It was during that time that Vallee introduced Hynek to Plotnick and Regnery.780 Vallee would put them in contact with other figures possessing an esoteric bent, such as "revisionist astrologists" Michel and Francoise Gauquelin. They, too, found a home at Regnery.781

777

“Conservative Books for Independent Thinkers.” Regnery Publishing. Accessed June 8, 2020. https://www.regnery.com/. 778 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. Sleeper was also active, along with Possony, in the ASC's official newsletter, the Washington Report, as late as 1973. There, he's listed as "Technology Editor." See Washington Report, no. 73-2 (February 1973), 8, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 25, "Washington Report"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 779 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 112, 115-116. 780 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 127-130. 781 Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 156-157, 161.

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Anatomy was published in 1965 and became a success. Plotnick went so far as to tell Vallee it had "opened up a new genre" and revived interest in books on Ufology.782 Plotnick was enthusiastic about Passport as well.783 Between Anatomy and 1969's Passport, Regnery issued Challenge to Science (which Vallee coauthored with his wife, Janine) in 1966. Vallee's first two works were among Regnery's rare successes during that era. In fact, the company's finances were critical by 1966. It had been operating at a loss for some time, making it increasingly difficult to service its loans in a timely manner. Plotnick was one of the company's few bright spots, having made several "spectacular and profitable" deals. Presumably, Vallee's books were one of those deals. Regardless, this led to Plotnick being made Regnery's president during that year.784 It was the beginning of the end for Henry Regnery at the publishing house that bore his family's name. While Regnery was still the company's chairman, the bylaws gave the president almost total editorial control. In this capacity, Plotnick took the company in a different direction. He shunned the highbrow conservative tracts like Man, God, and Yale, preferring to focus on books people wanted to read. Presumably, much of the high weirdness issued by the publisher fell under these rubrics. Regardless, Henry Regnery had effectively lost control of the publisher by 1969.785 Thus, Regnery's ancient astronaut bonanza during the early 1970s was almost surely driven by dollars as much as ideology (Henry Regnery regarded Plotnick as "amoral," i.e., he possessed no morals). Vallee's relationship with the publisher is ambiguous at this time. J Allen Hynek did not want Regnery to publish 1975's Edge of Reality (co-authored with Vallee) and was forced to do so because of an earlier contract he signed with the publisher.786 Regnery later sued Columbia Pictures over Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), arguing that they owned the rights to the "close encounters..." phrase from an earlier work they had published by Hynek.787 The lawsuit may have been vindictive, as it spoiled Hynek's relationship with Columbia, and came on the heels of his resistance to Regnery publishing Edge. Vallee did not publish again with Regnery during the 1970s, though his 1988 work Dimensions was issued by Contemporary Books, one of the successors to Regnery after Plotnick completed his takeover. When Vallee encountered Plotnick in 1988, he seemed favorably disposed toward him.788 Needless to say, the relationship between Vallee, Hynek, and Regnery was complicated. While it seems evident that Regnery's 1970s-era ventures into high strangeness were principally driven by Plotnick, Henry Regnery was active in his work with Vallee. Further, Hynek and Vallee were both connected to

782

Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 207. ibid, 403. 784 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right, 231. 785 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right, 230-231. 786 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two, 261, 269. 787 Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two, 406. 788 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Three, 341. 783

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Northwestern University during the mid-1960s.789 Northwestern University sponsored the Freedom Studies Center790 and maintained longtime connections with the ASC.791 Regnery was still in control of his publisher when the relationship with Vallee began. Were there other factors besides the endorsement of his son-in-law (whom old man Regnery never appears to have trusted)? Alas, we shall probably never know, but the milieu is suggestive nonetheless. *** Finally, ASC members helped spread some of the most enduring mythos surrounding two subjects that have become staples of Ufology: Hangar 18 and Area 51. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base's Hangar 18 allegedly stores debris from crashed UFOs. Whether Hangar 18 even exists has never been conclusively proven, but during the early 1970s, a University of Florida professor named Robert Spencer Carr (a onetime NICAP investigator) began making these claims. By 1975, former presidential candidate and joint ASC and NICAP member Barry Goldwater got in on the act. He alleged that fellow ASC member General Curtis LeMay had confirmed Hangar 18 to him. Goldwater would double down on these claims over the years, always using Le May as his source. This did much to add legitimacy to the Hangar 18 speculations.792 The ASC's role in the Area 51 mythos was not as extensive, but still curious. Many said mythos derive from Robert "Bob" Lazar, an alleged former Area 51 employee who claimed to see reverse-engineered UFO technology there. Lazar caused a minor sensation during the early 1990s and remains a major source of Area 51 tropes in the UFO community. Lazar claimed to have gotten his job at Area 51 thanks in part to legendary nuclear physicist and ASC member Edward Teller. After Lazar became a lightning rod of controversy during the early 1990s, Teller did not deny knowing him, giving some credence to a man widely dismissed as a charlatan.793 Before moving along, two other ex-military men, both active in the UFO field for years now and tied into the ASC network, need to be addressed. The first is the infamous Colonel Michael Aquino, a former member of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan who later broke away and founded his own Temple of Set. Colonel Aquino has been at the center of controversy for decades, most notably being implicated in the US Army Presidio daycare scandal.794 This led to long, simmering allegations that he oversaw some type

789

See Vallee, Forbidden Science I. Andrija Puharich, the above-mentioned godfather of national security esp research, was a graduate of Northwestern, but many years before the involvement of Hynek and Vallee. 790 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 791 See Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation." 792 S. William Snider and Frank Zero, Strange Tales of the Parapolitical: Postwar Nazis, Mercenaries, and Other Secret History (self-pub., Amazon, 2020), 39-40. 793 Snider and Zero, Strange Tales of the Parapolitical, 40. For more on Lazar's credibility, or lack thereof, see Jacques Vallee, Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception (San Antonio: Anomalist Books, 2008), 204-210; 225-226; 228. 794 Arthur Lyons, Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America (New York: The Mysterious Press, 1988), 125-131.

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of pedophile ring within the US Army.795 And yes, dear reader, that's the same Presidio base in San Francisco Boris Pash spent so much time at during WWII. While these claims are debatable, what is not is Aquino's decades-spanning career as an Army psychological warfare officer. But beyond this, he was also a member of the ASC's advisory board during the 1980s.796 Aquino has insisted his connections to the ASC were insignificant, consisting of a "correspondence membership," and that he did not know any members directly. And yet, he thanked ASC president John Fisher in the intro of a paper he wrote during the early 1980s.797 I personally do not find his denials credible. During the 2010s, Aquino became a staple on the popular UFO website Above Top Secret, where he maintained several threads.798 Well before this, he promoted a most peculiar type of Ufology, one I've dubbed the Lovecraft Gnosis. This involved a full-blown magical system to invoke the interstellar gods found in the weird fiction of HP Lovecraft. There are several magical systems based around Lovecraft's works, but Aquino wrote the first rituals based upon it available to the public.799 The Lovecraft Gnosis will be explored further in additional chapters. Finally, we come to a recent associate of Aquino's in the twenty-first-century UFO racket: Colonel John B Alexander, who is often erroneously described as the inspiration for the George Clooney character in The Men Who Stare at Goats. Alexander was a Green Beret who headed A-Teams in Thailand and Vietnam during that conflict. In the postwar years, he pursued more esoteric interests. During the 1980s, he worked under General Albert Stubblebine in the Army's Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) in what was dubbed the "Advanced Human Technology Office." Here, remote viewing and other such phenomena were investigated.800 Alexander is also considered a pioneer in what is commonly referred to as "non-lethal warfare."801 Upon his retirement from the Army in 1988, he became active in a think tank called the US Global Strategy Council (USGSC). Along with the husband and wife duo of Chris and Janet Morris (the latter co-authored 795

see, for instance, John W. DeCamp, The Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska, 2nd ed. (Lincoln, Nebraska: AWT, Inc., 1996), 328-330. 796 Reijden, Joel van der. “The American Security Council: Cold War Joint CIA-FBI-Pentagon Front Involved in Illegal Operations.” The American Security Council: Cold War Joint CIA-FBI-Pentagon Front Involved in Illegal Operations, isgp-studies.com/american-security-council. 797 ibid. 798 See, for instance, My name is Michael aquino, and I think It's kind of fun to do the impossible; ask Me ANYTHING., page 1. (2014, October 14). Retrieved March 15, 2021, from http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread976579/pg1. 799 Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce III, The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind the Legend, 2nd Ed. (Boston, MA: Weiser Books, 2003), 111-112. It is likely other occultists had crafted rituals based upon Lovecraft prior to Aquino, but they were not published until afterwards. 800 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 277-281; 289-290. For more on Alexander's curious pursuits, see John Alexander, Richard Groller, and Janet Morris, The Warrior's Edge (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1990). 801 Nollinger, Mark. “Surrender or We'll Slime You.” Wired, Conde Nast, 15 Dec. 2017, www.wired.com/1995/02/nonlethal/.

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The Warrior's Edge with Alexander), they used the USGSC to successfully lobby then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to establish one of the earliest task forces on non-lethal weapons during the Bush I presidency.802 Non-lethals are a recurring theme throughout this work and will be explored in much greater depth during the following chapters. The USGSC was founded by longtime CIA officer Ray Cline and featured extensive ties to the Unification Church cult and ASC.803 Cline was even a member of the American Security Council Foundation's (as noted in Chapter 1, this was the IAS' successor) Strategy Board by the 1980s.804 In contrast, numerous USGSC members held dual membership in the ASC.805 General Richard Stilwell, the man who transferred Alexander to Stubblebine's INSCOM,806 was also a member of the USGSC and contributed to a study edited by the above-mentioned Frank Barnett (he of the IAS and an associate of the Society for Human Ecology's James Monroe) for the National Defense University.807 Stilwell had previously joined the ASC during the 1980s.808 Further, Alexander served under General John Singlaub on Project MASSTER809 --US Army Project Mobile Army Sensor Systems Test, Evaluation and Review. This Vietnam-era program was designed to test thencutting-edge technology for intelligence-gathering purposes.810 Clearly, Colonel John Alexander was in the orbit of the ASC by the Reagan/Bush I era. Besides advocating for non-lethal weapons, Alexander was highly active in Ufology. He wrote one of the more scholarly works on the UFO subject in 2011, which came after over a decade working in the field. During the 1990s, he was involved with the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a body dedicated to exploring UFO sightings and other unusual phenomena. In this capacity, he investigated the

802

ibid. Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism Industry": The Experts and Institutions that Shape Our View of Terror (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 93-94. Another interesting member of the USGSC was the once-andfuture Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Interestingly, Jacques Valle reports that J. Allen Hynek knew Rumy "fairly well" during the 1960s while he was serving as a congressman. Rumsfeld appears to have followed the UFO question in this capacity during that era. See Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 198-199. Hynek was still in contact with Rumsfeld as late 1975, and still questioning him on the UFO question. By this time, Rumsfeld was serving in the Nixon administration. Upon being asked if there was a secret study of UGOs, Rumy reportedly responded: "You do NOT have a need to know." See Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two, 294. 804 John Fisher, "History Milestones: American Security Council and American Security Council Foundation," 56; Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 49. 805 Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism Industry", 93. 806 Jacobsen, Phenomena, 280-281. For more on Alexander's relationship with Stilwell, see John B. Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2011), 10-11. Alexander notes that Stilwell had a keen interest in UFOs. 807 David Teacher, Rogue Agents: The Cercle and the 6I in the Private Cold War 1951-1991, 399-400. 808 Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 84. 809 Alexander, John B. “National Security Issues.” John B. Alexander. Accessed September 17, 2021. http://johnbalexander.com/national_security_issues. 810 “History - MASSTER.” U.S. Army Operational Test Command (OTC). U.S. Army. Accessed September 17, 2021. https://www.atec.army.mil/otc/history/history%20masster.html. 803

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famed Skinwalker ranch with other members of NIDS.811 Alexander remains an active commentator in the field to this day. Much more will be said of Alexander and NIDS in future chapters, so do keep them in mind. Before wrapping up here, one final point concerning Aquino and Alexander must be addressed: both men spent large chunks of their military careers in US Army special operations. As such, they served in the successor to the Army's Office of Chief of Psychological Warfare, which formally became the Army Special Operations Command in 1989. In other words, the same lineage that once expressed an interest in the theories of Andrija Puharich. If I am correct, and Puharich's work was chiefly considered for the purposes of psychological warfare, Colonel Aquino may be indicative of what this "approach" led to. By the 1980s, the colonel struck quite a figure with his penchant for plucked eyebrows and Bela Lugosi capes. By decades' end, he was a staple of the daytime talk show circuit, calling for tolerance amidst the Satanic panic. He was already a legend among conspiracy theorists before his identity was revealed to the public. As for Alexander, while he was never formally detailed to a psywar unit, there are indications he was active in such operations during the 1980s. That, too, shall be explored in a future chapter. What's more, General Richard Stilwell, Alexander's patron at the Pentagon and reportedly a believer in the woo, was Edward Lansdale's CIA boss during his counterinsurgency efforts in the Philippines.812 He was also Lansdale cronie General Edwin Black's commanding officer in Thailand when Jim Thompson went missing. The reader will recall from the prior chapter that Black was prepared to dispatch Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos (who was tested by Puharich) to Cambodia. During the 1980s, Stilwell was active in crafting SOCOM with General Samuel V. Wilson, a former Lansdale acolyte from the Office of Special Operations.813 The thread of JSOC/SOCOM to both the ASC/Birchers and high weirdness will prove to be most significant as this work unfolds, so do keep it in mind. To conclude, this is only a small sampling of the ASC's involvement in the UFO movement and is in no way meant to be conclusive. But even in this brief examination, we can see that the ASC's influence was substantial throughout the Cold War. Members were actively involved in official investigations into the phenomena; shaping several of the most enduring tropes such as Roswell, Hangar 18, and Area 51; infiltrating civilian UFO groups such as NICAP; and even promoting some of the most esoteric interpretations of the phenomena. Even more ominous is the presence of a veteran psychological warfare officer and leading ASC member, such as Stefan Possony, in this community. Possony may well have helped develop anti-Communist psychological warfare techniques rooted in MK-ULTRA. Was the ASC doing the same for the UFO 811

Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 232-235. Skinwalker was an isolated ranch in Utah said to experience a litany of strange phenomena, including UFOs, cryptids, orbs, and other high strangeness. For more on the NIDS investigation, see Colm Kellhher and George Knapp, Hunt for Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah (New York: Paraview, 2005). 812 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 113. 813 See William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command" in Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Legislation: Why It Was Passed and Have the Voids Been Filled?

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community? They would have been ideally placed to do so. And the UFO community itself has provided a ready and fertile testing ground.

A Modest Proposal

In Active Measures, Thomas Rid argues that the CIA's political warfare activities were curtailed during the late 1950s (roughly beginning in the year 1958), at a time when the Soviet Union had begun to ratchet up their own "active measures." This allegedly created a distinct advantage for Soviet intelligence services in relation to the CIA as the Cold War went on. Rid is not incorrect, technically speaking. The CIA does appear to have stepped back from political warfare a bit as the 1950s came to an end. But the CIA was hardly the only body tasked with political warfare. And it just so happened that 1958 witnessed an NSC directive recommending that "the military be used to reinforce the cold war effort."814 This initiated a massive psychological operation that first targeted military officers, business leaders, and later the public. Even after the military was forced to cease public support, in the face of congressional outrage, these initiatives never went away. They were simply carried on by the private sector, working in close collaboration with a host of ex-military and intelligence officers. As a result, domestic political warfare efforts have become increasingly politicized (to say nothing of hashing out business rivalries) as the years have passed. This history has been long suppressed. The ASC is a well-guarded secret among mainstream chroniclers of the Cold War and alternative historians alike. There is yet to be a full-length account of its legacy. But if the ASC is a ghost, the Institute for American Strategy practically exists in another dimension. And for good reason: it appears to be not only the control group for the ASC, but at least one other major Cold War-era far right organization. It was known as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and emerged in 1966 after nearly a decade in the making. WACL brought together a fascinating blend of aging WWII-era fascists and Nazis; budding neo-fascist terrorists and Third World "freedom fighters;" various international drugs and arms traffickers; and the inevitable current and "former" military and intelligence officers.815 WACL had three separate US

814

Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 36. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society, 4649; Diamond, Roads to Dominion, 48. 815 For more on WACL, see Anderson, Scott & Jon, Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1986); Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 65-88; Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right; and Dennis, Keith Allen, Building the League: Transnational Anti-Communism and the Development of the World Anti-Communist League 1954 and 1967, (unpublished, 2021). For more on WACL's ties to drug trafficking, see Kruger, Henrik, The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence, & International Fascism (Boston, MA: South End Press,

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branches over the years. The first one, the American Council for World Freedom, was almost totally dominated by IAS and/or Freedom Studies Center affiliates. Both John Fisher and Stefan Possony were early figures of the American Council for World Freedom. There they were joined by fellow IAS men such as Walter Judd, David Rowe, and Lev Dobrianski.816 WACL and the ASC were two of three major outfits behind the Cold War-era far right. The third was a European organization variously known as Le Cercle, the Pinay Group, and several other titles. It began as an offshoot of the infamous Bilderberg group in the 1952-1953 timeframe but soon became an independent body in its own right. Whereas Bilderberg was driven by the predominantly Protestant financial interests of the US, UK, and Netherlands, Le Cercle was much more focused on mainland Europe and thoroughly Catholic, at least during the early years. Virtually all the founding members belonged to either Opus Dei and/or the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM, more commonly known as the Knights of Malta).817 Le Cercle was involved in many of the same shadowy dealings as the ASC and WACL.818 And it was even more secretive, to the point that its very existence was largely unknown in the English-speaking world until the twenty-first century. The conventional narrative holds that it was even unknown among many Anglo-American elites prior to 1968 when the group began to recruit from those nations (previously, it had mainly been a French and German affair). However, Le Cercle appears to have made inroads among American far-right circles even earlier via another European organization: the International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture (ICDCC).819

1980), 192-195; and Scott, Peter Dale, American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 20, 52. 816 For the involvement of these men in the IAS, see Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. For their ties to WACL, see the Andersons, Inside the League. 817 Presently the only full length account of Le Cercle available is David Teacher's long suppressed Rogue Agents. Originally completed around 1993, Teacher was unable to find a publisher for over 15 years. The work was finally released on the website Institute for Globalization and Covert Politics in 2008 as a pdf. An excellent account of Le Cercle is also available on that website: Reijden, Joel van der. “Le Cercle and the Struggle for the European Continent: CIA, MI6 and Opus Dei Covert Politics.” Le Cercle: CIA, MI6 and Opus Dei Covert Politics of Europe, 2018. https://isgpstudies.com/le-cercle-pinay. Other compelling accounts of Le Cercle include Crozier, Free Agent, 186, 191-193, 241; Rockefeller, David, Memoirs (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003), 412-423; Hanni, Adrian, "A Global Crusade against Communism: The Cercle in the 'Second Cold War'," in Transnational Anti-Communism and the Cold War: Agents, Activities, and Networks, ed. Luc van Dongen, Stephanie Roulin & Giles Scott-Smith (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 161-174; and Bale, Jeffrey M., The Darkest Sides of Politics, I: Postwar Fascism, Covert Operations, and Terrorism (New York: Routledge, 2018), 316-317. 818 See, for instance, Teacher, Rogue Agents and the Cercle page on the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics. 819 ICDCC has been even less chronicled than Le Cercle. See Grossmann, Johannes, "The Comité international de défense de la civilisation chrétienne and the Transnationalization of Anti-Communist Propaganda in Western Europe after the Second World War," in Transnational Anti-Communism and the Cold War: Agents, Activities, and Networks, ed. Luc van Dongen, Stephanie Roulin & Giles Scott-Smith (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 251-262; and Teacher, Rogue Agents, 485-490.

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The group's origins are a bit murky, but by the late 1950s, its French section featured the attorney and spy Jean Violet and Antoine Pinay, a former prime minister.820 Both men were co-founders of Le Cercle and, for decades, among its leading figures.821 By 1962, an American section of the ICDCC had been founded. Its head was General Charles Willoughby,822 an ASC figure.823 By the middle of the decade, the ICDCC was a sponsor of the Institute for American Strategy's FSC.824 Thus, the IAS' influence across not just the American far right, but the international milieu, was extensive by the mid-1960s. It was the inner circle of the ASC and potentially the first American WACL chapter. And while it never had as close ties to Le Cercle, it grew as the decade progressed. IAS member Richard Mellon Scaife825 became the chief financial patron of Brian Crozier (a leading Cercle member and eventual chairman during the Thatcher/Reagan years) by the end of the 1960s.826 Thus, the IAS clearly had tremendous, policy-influencing sway on much of the Cold War-era far right. But if anything, its influence on psychological and political warfare was even greater. 1958 witnessed not only the creation of the IAS, but the JBS and possibly the Liberty Lobby.827 The latter is where much of today's anti-Semitic and "racialist" conspiracy theories derive.828 These two outfits became the major purveyors of conspiracy theories in the English-speaking world during the Cold War, and many modern tropes can be traced back to them. In some ways, the Liberty Lobby is an outgrowth of the JBS. Carto was involved with the organization for roughly a year in... 1958. During this time, he worked at the JBS' headquarters in Belmont, MA, where he was said to have learned "valuable organizational and fund-raising skills that could be applied to his efforts to build up Liberty Lobby." Carto apparently broke with the JBS after Robert Welch declined to include the nascent Liberty Lobby in his organizational network. Supposedly, this snub was rooted in ideological

820

Johannes Grossmann, "The Comité international de défense de la civilisation chrétienne and the Transnationalization of Anti-Communist Propaganda in Western Europe after the Second World War," 256. 821 For more on the ICDCC's ties to Le Cercle, see Teacher, 485-490. 822 Johannes Grossmann, "The Comité international de défense de la civilisation chrétienne and the Transnationalization of Anti-Communist Propaganda in Western Europe after the Second World War," 257. 823 “American Security Council.” American Security Council: Historical Membership List | Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics. Accessed June 7, 2020. https://isgp-studies.com/american-security-councilmembership-list. 824 Francis J. McNamara Papers, Collection #C0024, Box 78, Folder 2, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University. George Mason University Libraries. 825 ibid. Scaife, a longtime sugar daddy of rightwing causes, was on the IAS board of directors by the late 1960s. 826 Giles Scott-Smith, Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network, 203. 827 There's something mysterious about its founding. Carto appears to have first gotten the idea for the venture around 1955. Fundraising had begun by then. It was first publicly heralded in 1957, but was not active yet. In fact, it didn't become formally operational until 1961 and incorporated in 1962. 1958 is commonly given as its founding year, perhaps because its news service was launched then. The Lobby itself had planned to formally start operations in DC on July 4, 1958. However, the office didn't open until 1959. See George Michael, Willis Carto and the American Far Right (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2008), 62-65. 828 For more on the legacy of the Liberty Lobby and anti-Semitism, see George Michael, Willis Carto and the American Far Right, 195-217, etc. Also see Zeskind, Blood and Politics.

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differences over Carto's anti-Semitism.829 Despite the snub, Carto received support from the broader IASASC network. An early and longstanding supporter was British anthropologist Roger Pearson, a fanatical supporter of eugenics. While Pearson is most known for his links to the Pioneer Fund, the principal funding source for the post-war eugenics movement, he sat on the editorial boards of both the ASC and the University of Pennsylvania's Foreign Policy Research Institute (a longtime supporter of the IAS) at various times.830 While often depicted as a marginal figure, Carto has proven to be profoundly influential in modern American politics. For one, Carto was crucial in redefining the concept of populism in the Cold War area. First entering the popular vernacular towards the late nineteenth century, it was originally a largely agrarian, and nominally left-leaning, movement throughout the early twentieth century. It gradually drifted towards the right during the interwar years. Carto completed the transformation via concerns and anxiety stemming from modern industrial and technological societies. This included such tropes as antiglobalism, trade and immigration (along with the fear of white "replacement" in Western nations), anticorporatism and monopoly capitalism; and support of non-mainstream or new religious groups.831 Trope rode many of these talking points into the White in 2016. On that note, Carto's electoral strategy is especially intriguing. He was Unite the Right before social media. For years, Carto attempted to forge a far-right coalition amongst the grassroots that would infiltrate the Republican Party. Operating as a "party-within-a-party," it would gradually push the GOP in a more rightward direction. The plan was first introduced as early as 1965, shortly after Goldwater's defeat, in a tract titled The Conservative Victory Plan. Grassroots activists would begin by influencing politics at a precinct and state level, and work up from there.832 In theory, nothing came out of these efforts. And yet, Carto-ian populism had arguably become the dominant ideology in the GOP by the second decade of the twenty-first century, after decades of rightward drift. Of course, conservatives had arguably gained control of the Republican Party when Goldwater defeated Rockefeller. But through these efforts at the grassroots level, they were able to both maintain control of the party (more or less) while gradually shifting both the GOP and the political mainstream further to the right in the process. Again, this is why Carto probably deserves far more credit for Trump than is commonly granted. But, to return to 1958. That year also witnessed the infamous Mexico City conference in which the first attempt to launch WACL was made. For decades, one of the driving forces behind WACL was the Apartheid nation of Taiwan. Located there was the Political Warfare Cadres Academy. The institution became a key node in the WACL infrastructure, ultimately training many Latin American "freedom fighters" of the 1980s.833 The Academy launched during the early 1950s but underwent a major reorganization in 1959. A leading figure behind 829

George Michael, Willis Carto and the American Far Right, 47-48; Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life, 362 George Michael, Willis Carto and the American Far Right, 45. 831 See, for instance, George Michael, Willis Carto and the American Far Right, 144-156. 832 George Michael, Willis Carto and the American Far Right, 157. 833 See Anderson and Anderson. Inside the League. 830

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this reorganization was the above-mentioned Ray S Cline,834 then the CIA station chief in Taiwan and a future ASC luminary. Efforts to launch Interdoc, a European psywar organization linked to the IAS, began shortly thereafter. Effectively, a massive political/psychological warfare effort was initiated by the far right at the end of the 1950s on behalf of the security services of the United States. The guiding hand was the IAS, and the means by which these efforts reached the public at large was often via the underground and conspiracy theories. Some outfits linked to the IAS, such as Interdoc and Barnett's National Strategic Information Center (NSIC), attempted to take a higher road, but it was the efforts of the JBS, Liberty Lobby, and WACL partners, all of it deeply rooted in conspiracy theory, that had a lasting influence. Further, as the years passed, notions previously on the fringes moved closer to the mainstream. By the mid-1970s, a full-blown right-wing counteroffensive was underway to roll back the perceived radicalism of the left. Much of its funding came from a small sewing circle of wealthy donors: John Olin, Lynde, and Harry Bradley, the Smith Richardson and Koch families, Coors, and Scaife.835 And in the case of the Smith Richardson family, Joseph Coors, and Scaife, all three allowed their political patronage to be managed by Frank Barnett at various times. Coors alone was a massive force behind the rise of both the Heritage Foundation and the Council for National Policy (CNP), which superseded the ASC in the 1980s for control of the American far right.836 Elsewhere, Coors and Scaife played considerable roles in funding the Moral Majority.837 Scaife, a close collaborator of Barnett's and an IAS member for years, has been described as the most important of the post-1970s right- wing financiers.838 And then there is the Koch family. While never directly linked to Barnett or the IAS, they were largely products of the political warfare Barnett and co-initiated in 1958. As noted above, Fred Koch, the family patriarch, was a founding member of the JBS.839 Charles and David Koch later became members, but repudiated the more hardline conspiracy-mongering. Still, the JBS profoundly influenced the libertarianism of the Koch brothers.840 Through outfits like the Cato Institute, a more watered-down version of Bircherism crept into the mainstream by the early twenty-first century. Elsewhere, Richard Mellon Scaife went full-blown conspitard by the 1990s. He was obsessed with "getting" President Bill Clinton. Towards this end, he bankrolled the "Arkansas Project" to acquire smut. Private detectives were hired to dig up sexual dirt on Clinton while Scaife personally invoked the "Clinton 834

ibid, 55-57. Scott, The Road to 9/11, 96-98; Mayer, Dark Money, 83. 836 For more on the Coors family's role in launching the Heritage Foundation and the CNP, see Bellant, Russ, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1991). 837 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 98. 838 Mayer, Dark Money, 83. 839 Harry Bradley, the patriarch of the Bradley family of Milwaukee, was also deeply involved with the JBS during the early days. See Suall, The American Ultras, 52; Meyer, Dark Money, 39. As was noted above, the Bradley family was another of the select donor network that launched the New Right. 840 Mayer, Dark Money, 41. 835

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Body Count" during interviews from that era.841 Things reached an apex when one of Scaife's foundations put up the money for The Clinton Chronicles,842 which remains one of the most popular conspiracy sources regarding the Clintons. "Conventional" conspiracy theories and domestic audiences do not appear to be all this operation consisted of, either. We've already noted how the IAS/ASC network overlapped with much interest within the national security establishment involving fringe subjects such as ESP and UFOs. It is entirely plausible that this interest was, at least in part, a psychological operation targeting elements of the Soviet scientific and intelligence communities. ESP will be discussed at much greater length in Chapters 6 and 7. For now, a point must be made about "ancient astronaut" theories, the notion that Earth has been visited by an extraterrestrial species since ancient times. While this is often perceived as a thoroughly American notion, the reality is that ancient astronaut speculations received tentative official support in the Soviet Union nearly a decade before being popularized in the US. Beginning in 1959, members of the Soviet academic community began to seriously discuss the possibility of Earth being visited by an extraterrestrial species in the distant past. To the Soviet regime, this provided a materialistic explanation for supernatural elements in the Bible and other holy texts and a possible means of undermining religious ideas in the West.843 By the late 1960s, Soviet Ufologist Felix Ziegel publicly demanded the Soviet Union launch an official investigation into the enigma. In 1968, the Soviet Academy of Physics denounced Ziegel's claims, effectively bringing the communist infatuation with Ufology to an end.844 Ziegel's fall from grace played out over two years (1968-1970) and involved a figure we shall encounter time and again throughout this work: Jacques Vallee. The reader will recall that Vallee's association with Regnery began in 1965. By 1966, Vallee started exchanging messages with another Soviet Ufologist, Alexander Kazantsev. Before the year ended, Vallee was invited to Moscow to meet with his Soviet counterparts.845 By this time, J Allen Hynek was sharing the Air Force's Project Blue Book files with Vallee, yet the French astrophysicist appears to have traveled behind the Iron Curtain with ease. Kazantsev and Ziegel were friends, which is how they later came to the attention of Vallee. A 1967 article penned by Ziegel for the Soviet magazine Smena quoted Vallee's Challenge to Science (issued by Regnery)

841

Mayer, Dark Money, 85. The Clinton Body Count is a popular conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton have had dozens of their former associates, most notably Vincent Foster, murdered. 842 Reed, Christopher. “Richard Mellon Scaife Obituary.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 7, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/07/richard-mellon-scaife. 843 Jason Colavito, Faking History, 4, 122-124. 844 Colavito, Faking History, 126; Vallee, Forbidden Science, 350-351. Colavito gives the date of Ziegel's downfall as 1970, while Vallee places it in 1968. I defer to Vallee, who actually met Ziegel and was following these events as they were unfolding. 845 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 202, 207, 228-27.

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and reprinted pictures from it.846 Vallee previously reported his findings on Ziegel to US Air Force employee Hynek, who seemed oblivious, or at least appeared to be.847 When Ziegel set out to establish his committee for the investigation of UFOs in the Soviet Union, Kazantsev informed Vallee he was a partial inspiration.848 This came shortly after Kazantsev and Vallee penned an article together for a Soviet publication.849 Ziegel's UFO committee apparently existed for all of two days, and the Russians made arrangements to brief Vallee on the debacle after it was shuttered. Ziegel and Kazantsev launched the UFO committee within the House of Astronautics and Aeronautics. Two signatures were needed to set up the committee, one from the Air Minister. Upon being briefed by Ziegel and Kazantsev, the minister was intrigued and offered further assistance. Ziegel requested that the Air Ministry forward any unusual sightings by their pilots to his committee.850 Within forty-eight hours, the Air Ministry reportedly received fifteen thousand reports. It was totally overwhelmed. To put this in perspective, the reader must understand that during the early 1960s it was estimated that the bulk of the US's ICBM fleet could strike their targets if the Soviet Union's early warning systems were down for even thirty minutes. The USSR would have been almost totally annihilated before it had a chance to launch a single missile in retaliation! Military planners contemplated this timeframe after the electrical magnetic pulse (EMP) was first observed in 1962. A hypothetical EMP weapon could be used to cripple the Soviet Union's early warning systems ahead of a first-strike nuclear assault.851 Turns out, UFO reports could do the job just as effectively, and at a fraction of the cost and risk. Predictably, Ziegel's UFO committee was promptly shut down. Leading scientists denounced him, and military secrecy was applied to the entire subject.852 Interestingly, one of the major concerns that spurred the creation of the Robertson Panel in 1953 was the potential that UFO reports could overwhelm the US's air defense.853 And here are Vallee's pen pals doing precisely that to the Soviet Air Ministry and sending a report of these activities to the Frenchmen via a mutual friend. They even asked Jacques not to pass on their report to Hynek due to outrage over his recent suggestion of a UFO gap between the US and USSR in the pages of Playboy.854

846

Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 278. Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 281. 848 ibid, 309-310. 849 ibid, 336. 850 ibid, 350-351. 851 Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans, 152-153. 852 Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 351, 359. 853 Swords and Powell (eds.), UFOs and Government, 175-176.; Pilkington, Mirage Men,84, 86. 854 Vallee, Forbidden Science I, 350. 847

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What to make of these developments? Vallee certainly does not come off as someone engaged in intelligence work in his journals. On the other hand, such telltale passages would have been edited out long ago. However, what we are left with is mighty juicy in its own right. While Vallee was surely not moonlighting as a spook, he was working with Hynek, a longtime Air Force employee. And his books were being issued by a publishing house deeply connected to anti-communist activities and psychological warfare. Specifically, Henry Regnery was working directly with the Institute for American Strategy during this time. Vallee, as a young French astrophysicist working on highly scientific studies of the UFO phenomena, would have a certain appeal to Soviet Ufologists. In his pre-Passport days, Vallee applied a dry, clinical rigor to the subject that few, if any, works in English during the era could match. This was in keeping with the atheistic/materialistic approach taken by the Soviet Union in regard to the subject. Was Regnery's decision to sign Vallee partly driven by a desire to use the Frenchman as a carrot for some of the more fringe quarters of Soviet science? If so, they took the bait. Or perhaps the Soviets thought they could turn Vallee? Ziegel and Kazantsev continued their research on UFOs even after the Soviet authorities declared the subject "unscientific." This was hardly a common state of affairs in the authoritarian regime. One of Ziegel's UFO books was passed on to Vallee by a CIA officer during the mid-1970s.855 Contact with the Soviet Ufologists and Vallee appears to have totally broken down during that decade but was reestablished by the early 1980s.856 Vallee finally met with Kazantsev again in person in 1990, as the Soviet Union entered its death thrall.857 The most likely explanation is that both sides tried to run their own operations on one another, even if some lower-level players were not witting participants. This seems especially true of the beginnings of this game during the mid-1960s. While it may seem incredible to some readers that the UFO phenomena could be used against the Soviet Union as a means of psychological warfare, the reader is again reminded of the 1950 RAND report on superstitions that opened this chapter. If things like horoscopes and chain letters were used in psychological operations against the Soviets during the 1960s, why not UFO reports? Certainly Ziegel's committee appears to have been highly damaging to the Soviet Air Ministry. That's upper-echelon mind war. And this particular instance is hardly the only use of the UFO phenomena for psychological operations by the US security services. Several early, storied UFO cases such as the Ghost Rockets (1946) and Roswell (1947) incidents, may well have been initiated as psychological operations by the US and UK.858

855

Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two, 240. Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Three, 82. 857 Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 12. 858 See James Carrion, The Rosetta Deception (self-pub., 2014) and James Carrion, The Roswell Deception (self-pub., 2018). 856

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Further, Vallee's longtime correspondent and fellow Regnery author, Jacques Bergier, seems to have been planting disinformation via his ESP-on-nuclear-subs bit at the need of the 1950s. ESP was a major source of psychological warfare directed at the Soviet Union by the US security services by the 1970s. Vallee turns up there as well, one character in a rogue's gallery. This shall be explored in Chapters 6 and 7. *** Perhaps the rise of conspiritainment was not the long-term objective of the Institute for American Strategy. But this is surely its defining legacy. And this legacy has had a profound effect on society at large. By the 1990s, the proliferation of conspiritainment led some to suggest it was breaking down the very fabric of consensus reality. When such suggestions were made in the 1990s, they may have seemed incredible. But few would question that the boundaries between fringe and mainstream were forever blurred by the twenty-first century.859 And perhaps this was already baked in when psychological warfare efforts derived from MK-ULTRA were deployed against the public and frequently via private hands. In this sense, UFOs had equal value in this capacity for both foreign and domestic consumption. Senior military officers believed, due to Orson Wells' legendary War of the Worlds broadcast, that the fallout from revealing the truth about UFOs would open the door to Soviet manipulation during the ensuing panic.860 Even the Robinson Panel made an offhand remark concerning the effect War of the Worlds had on the public. This led to a conclusion from the panel that psychologists should be involved in efforts to manage public perception, along with "someone familiar with mass communications techniques, perhaps an advertising expert."861 And it just so happened that former Panel member Stefan Possony was working with a veteran psychological warfare officer with a background in advertising by the mid-1960s. That would be General Edward Lansdale, and their mutual employer was the Institute for American Strategy. The Shock Doctrine is based on the notion that a massive jolt to society will provide a window for reorienting it. Supposedly, the military was concerned the Soviet Union would do such a thing to American society if the truth about UFOs were known. Indeed, the revelation of extraterrestrial life would provide (at least during the Cold War era) the kind of social shock that Klein was alluding to and then some. But need it be applied on a societal level? What about selected groups? Further, are aliens needed at all? What about the revelation that senior figures in business and government are "conscious agents" of a communist conspiracy? Or that domestic forces conspired to kill JFK and other revered 60s figures? Or that the US security services were involved in drug trafficking and other illicit activities?862 These are additional shocks, some with highly credible evidence supporting them. 859

Barkun, Michael, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 235. 860 Good, Above Top Secret, 415. 861 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 85-86. 862 Accounts of the complicity of the US security services, especially the CIA, in the international drug racket are legion. Some of the more notable include Kruger, The Great Heroin Coup; Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003); Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998); Shaun Attwood, American Made: Who Killed Barry Seal?

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Quality propaganda is often rooted in a factual basis. The spin comes in the intentions and interpretations of those facts.863 By and large, the John Birch Society adhered to these methods. A common technique was to cherry-pick quotes attributed to globalists and apply ample spin to the point that the entire American establishment was implicated in a Byzantine communist conspiracy.864 But there was at least some factual basis, even if the context was totally lost. As such, Birchers and Carto's Liberty Lobby were far more effective in this capacity than the Ufonauts, and their legacy lives on through the process of "red pilling." As recent years have demonstrated, this is an incredible shock. But the conspiracy racket changed after 1968. It was then that full-blown fantasies were grafted onto conspiracy theories of an already dubious nature, creating a kind of comedic performance art. Sadly few, then or now, got the joke.

Pablo Escobar or George HW Bush (self-pub., Gadfly Press, 2016); and Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan (New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). This list is in no way conclusive. 863 Ellul, Jacques Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 53-61. 864 See, for instance, Skousen, W. Cleon, The Naked Capitalist (Buccaneer Books, 1970). Much of this work is based off of Tragedy and Hope by Georgetown professor Carroll Quigley. Quigley's claims are themselves quite controversial on the whole, but Skousen liberally takes some of the more incredible paragraphs and sentences totally out of context and uses them as proof of a communist conspiracy. This is a common tactic of conspiracy literature.

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Chapter 5:

Et in Arcadia ego

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The San Fran Nexus

Esalen Institute is often credited with launching what is commonly referred to as New Age spirituality and the closely related human potential movement.865 Nestled amidst California's Big Sur region, the area was already well known for its hot springs prior to the institution's launch in 1962. Esalen's founders, Michael Murphy, and Dick Price, were fascinated with Eastern mysticism and new psychological approaches such as Gestalt. A series of workshops (and the occasional deep tissue massage the institute was famed for) exploring everything from psychedelics to meditation, and ESP was on tap at one time or another. Gradually, the various processes of consciousness exploration and personal transformation would crystallize as the New Age movement by at least the early 1970s.866 Esalen was no doubt instrumental in synchronizing the various threads of the New Age into a semicoherent ideology. But many of the ideas that defined the spirituality of Esalen did not originate there but from the nearby San Francisco region and three storied institutions located there: University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), Stanford, and SRI, the latter two being connected until 1968. Virtually all of the staples of Esalen, and the broader New Age movement, can be traced back to there, including Esalen's founders. Said founders, Michael Murphy (1930) and Dick Price (1930-1985), were both students of the famed religious scholar Frederick Spiegelberg (1897-1994). He hailed from an aristocratic Jewish family of German origins. Unsurprisingly, he fled Nazism in 1937, eventually catching on at Stanford in 1941. Strangely, Spiegelberg earned his doctorate from the University of Tubingen in 1922. The reader will recall from the introduction that that particular university played a crucial role in launching the Rosicrucian mythos. Spiegelberg had a mystical experience in 1917 that fueled his interest in spirituality, especially the Eastern variety. In particular, Spiegelberg developed a deep interest in Zen Buddhism and Tantra. Western traditions such as alchemy also fascinated him, and he sought a synthesis of Eastern and Western esoteric traditions geared towards a more symbolic, rather than literal, spirituality. These concepts were incorporated into Spiegelberg's popular comparative religions course, which required an auditorium to

865

The human potential movement preceded the New Age, first emerging roughly concurrent with the counterculture during the early-to-mid 1960s. The New Age movement proper did not emerge until the late 1970s/early 180s. By that point, it had largely assimilated (and watered down) the human potential movement. See Jeffrey J. Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 315, etc. 866 David Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011), 109-111. For more on the long, strange history of Esalen, see Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion.

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house all the students by 1950. It was then that Murphy accidentally sat in on the course and thus began his journey toward founding a new religious movement. 867 Dick Price enrolled at Stanford in 1948 and graduated in 1952 with a degree in psychology. After bouncing around, briefly pursuing a doctorate at Harvard and doing a stint in the Air Force, he re-enrolled at Stanford in 1955 for a few courses. One of them happened to be taught by Spiegelberg, who worked his magic again. Price began exploring various Eastern traditions around the Bay Area, but was especially taken by the version of Zen Buddhism crafted by the Beats. At the time, North Beach was the heart of Beat-dom. Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg (LSD guru Dr. Oscar Janiger's cousin), Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti all made the scene. Alan Watts, a British philosopher and religious scholar who played a crucial role in popularizing Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism in the West, was also a regular fixture around the Bay area during this time. Price encountered all of these characters.868 Another sometimes Stanford professor and Bay Area staple that greatly influenced Esalen was the British anthropologist and linguist Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). During WWII, Bateson served in the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Among other things, he contributed to the OSS "truth drug experiments," an early precursor to ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA.869 This led to persistent allegations that Bateson participated in MK-ULTRA, but this seems unlikely.870 Regardless, Bateson was an early psychonaut, having taken his first trip during the 1950s. He arranged for Allen Ginsberg to drop acid for the first time (at Stanford, no less) in 1959. He later worked at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto (near SRI) that tested LSD from 1959 onward. One of the test subjects was Ken Kesey, the future Merry Prankster and author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.871 Bateson taught Price during one of his stints at Stanford and would maintain a lifelong friendship with the Esalen founder. He knew Murphy by the early 1960s and played a key role in supporting the institute during the early days. He purchased a residency in Big Sur in 1961 and led some of Esalen's earliest seminars. Bringing things full circle, Bateson spent his last two years living on the Esalen grounds.872 *** Besides Esalen, another tremendous influence on emerging New Age spirituality were the mystical interpretations of quantum mechanics, then gaining traction during the mid-1970s. Much of this was

867

Jeffrey Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, 47-53. Jeffrey Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, 72-75. 869 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 213-214; 399. 870 ibid, 800-801. That being said, the CIA was testing LSD (and a host of other kinky activities) at a "safe house" in San Francisco. It was along Telegraph Hill, near UC Berkeley. This safe house was a part of the infamous "Operation Midnight Climax" (yes, that was the actual name) overseen by the semi-mystical OSS veteran George Hunter White. See John Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 100-106. Bateson had served under White in the OSS and the two men appear to have met at times in San Francisco during the 1950s, but nothing credible has yet emerged linking Bateson decisively to White's capers, or any others involving MK-ULTRA. 871 John Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 129-130. 872 Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, 307-309. 868

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driven by an eccentric group of physicists based around Berkeley. They called themselves the "Fundamental Fysiks Group." Leading members included Fritjof Capra, John Clauser, Fred Alan Wolf, Henry Stapp, Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert, and Jack Sarfatti.873 As with many cliques and characters tangled up in this sordid tale, separating fact from fiction is easier said than done. In How the Hippies Saved Physics, the group's chronicler, David Kaiser, argues that they laid the foundation for quantum information science,874 the arcane discipline that's spawned such outthere concepts as quantum computing and even quantum teleportation. But Kaiser's premise is not universally accepted, with some claiming he greatly embellished the group's role in creating quantum information science.875 What can be said with more certainty is that the group helped popularize quantum mechanics (which were largely outside of science's purview by the 1970s) and formulated what is now known as "quantum mysticism." Quantum mechanics was first conceived of during the early twentieth century by such storied figures as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrodinger. During the early days, especially in the period between the World Wars, there were metaphysical disputes between those guiding lights and figures like Albert Einstein over the implications of quantum mechanics. Some even looked to Hindu texts like the Upanishads for explanations. These inquiries were shelved by WWII and all but forgotten during the first two decades of the Cold War.876 Mystical interpretations of quantum mechanics began to appear again at a time when physics was under assault. The Vietnam War brought the profession into disrepute due to its close connections to the military-industrial complex. Physics laboratories became favorite targets of anti-war demonstrators because they symbolized the merger of science and the military. By the end of the 1970s, physicists' enrollments had plunged to half of what they had been in 1970. Demand plunged as well. In 1971, 1053 physicists found themselves in competition for 53 jobs.877 Then came the Fundamental Fysiks Group. Popular works such as Space-Time and Beyond: Toward an Explanation of the Unexplainable (co-authored by Sarfatti and Wolf), The Tao of Physics (by Capra), and The Dancing Wu Li Masters (by Gary Zukav, who was not a part of the group, but attended a few of their meetings and was greatly influenced by several of the physicists in the group),878 totally rebranded physics 873

The only full length account of the Fundamental Fysiks Group can be found in David Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics. For their links to Esalen see, Kripal, Esalen, 300-314, etc. Far more speculative accounts of the group can be found in Jack Sarfatti's autobiography, Destiny Matrix (self-pub., 1st Books Library, 2002). Even more far out is Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, The Stargate Conspiracy: The Truth About Extraterrestrial Life and the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt (New York: Berkeley Books, 1999), 236-237; 242-248, etc. 874 David Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics, xvi, 875 See, for instance, Schwebber, S. (2011, September 01). How the hippies saved physics: Science, counterculture, and the quantum revival. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.1261. 876 David Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics, 2-3, etc. 877 ibid, 22-23. 878 ibid, 138-142.

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for countless counterculture denizens. Whereas physics had been seen as the embodiment of the hated military-industrial complex, its more esoteric aspects now offered a scientific explanation to their alternative religions. Esalen played a leading role in grafting this quantum mysticism onto the emerging New Agent movement, with numerous Fundamental Fysikists dropping by Esalen during the 1970s. 879 Throughout the 1980s-1990s, a whole garden industry of popular works on quantum mechanics and its mysteries emerged.880 In this context, it's not entirely surprising several members had links to the old American Security Council network. The most glaring comes from the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner. For years Wigner and fellow physicist Edward Teller were the ASC's principal scientific advisers.881 Concurrent with his work with the ASC, Wigner also laid the foundation for much of the New Age-derived quantum physics during the early 1960s. Around this time, he suggested that consciousness played a central role in quantum mechanics. Specifically, he was one of the first proponents of the notion that a human observer's consciousness can affect an experiment's outcome. He first proposed these concepts through "thought experiments" such as "Wigner's Friend."882 Several members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group were captivated by Wigner's notions, including Nick Herbert, Saul-Paul Sirag, and especially Jack Sarfatti.883 Indeed, much of Sarfatti's "major" work is based upon Wigner's theories.884 Wigner was hardly the only figure connected to the ASC to loom over Fundamental Fysiks Group either. One of the strangest figures (which is saying something) the group came into contact with was Andrija Puharich, whom some consider the grandfather of the New Age. The reader will recall Puharich and his connections to psychological warfare and Project ARTICHOKE from Chapter 1. As for the New Age, Puharich's Round Table Foundation, established in 1948, was one of the first postwar bodies to study such arcane pursuits as ESP and psychedelic mushrooms. From the beginning, Puharich was able to procure funding from several notable Yankee Blueblood dynasties.885 Several members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group first encountered one another via Arthur Young's Berkeley-based Institute for the Study of Consciousness.886 Young, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter, was married to Ruth Forbes Paine of Boston's celebrated Forbes dynasty. Both Arthur and Ruth were early 879

Kripal, Esalen, 300-314. Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics, 143 881 William Turner, Power on the Right, 208. Indeed, Wigner and Teller were largely the ASC's only significant scientific advisers for much of the Cold War. 882 Kaiser, 73-74. 883 ibid, 84. 884 ibid, 80. See also Sarfatti's Destiny Matrix, which includes pages of mathematical formulas based upon Wigner's theories. 885 Peter Levenda, Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft Book One: The Nine (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2005), 238-240. For more on this bizarre milieu, see Andrija Puharich, The Sacred Mushroom: Key to the Door of Eternity (Garden City, NY: Double Day & Company, 1974). 886 Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics, 51-54. 880

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supporters of Puharich's Round Table Foundation. Bizarrely, Ruth's son, Michael Paine, also turns up in the JFK assassination. He and his wife, Ruth Hyde Paine, were friends of Lee Harvey and Mariana Oswald in Dallas during the early 1960s.887 It would seem that it was through Young and his institute that the Fysikists first encountered Puharich during the mid-1970s.888 Jack Sarfatti would have the closest ties to Puharich of all the Fysiks Group members. By the time Sarfatti encountered Puharich during the 1970s, the parapsychologist was working closely with the controversial Israeli stage magician Uri Geller. Puharich was writing a biography of Geller, the aptly named Uri, in which he alleged that the magician was in contact with "Spectra," an extraterrestrial computer orbiting the Earth. Periodically, the intelligence contacted humanity via the telephone, assuring the recipients of a great destiny in a mechanical voice. It wasn't just Geller Spectra contacted either. Sarfatti and his mother became convinced the physicist had received such a phone call during the early 1950s as well.889 Regardless, Sarfatti would later take it upon himself to explain the "New Physics" to the up-and-coming Reaganites. During the late 1970s, A. Lawrence Chickering discovered Zukav's Dancing Wu Li Masters and became transfixed. While Chickering was hardly the only person from that era to become enchanted with Wu Li, his background did not suggest such an interest. He had previously written for William F Buckley's National Review before returning to California during the early 1970s to direct the statewide Office of Economic Opportunity under then-Governor Ronald Reagan. Chickering's interest in metaphysics earned him a reputation as the intellectual leader of the "New Age Right." Chickering fell under Sarfatti's spell shortly after encountering the physicist around 1980 and learning of his contributions to Dancing.890 It was around this time Chickering took a leading role in a San Francisco-based, neo-conservative think tank known as the Institute for Contemporary Studies. This outfit was founded in 1975 by Caspar

887

Peter Levenda, Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft Book One: The Nine, 239-240, etc. Jack Sarfatti, Destiny Matrix, 93-103. 889 Kaiser, 70-71. For Sarfatti's account of this incident, see Destiny Matrix, 93-103. The mid-1970s account of Specter was just the latest manifestation of a narrative Puharich had been weaving since at least the early 1950s. During New Years Eve 1952 Puharich conducted a séance in which he was allegedly contacted by "The Nine," the Grand Ennead of Ancient Egypt. A follow up séance in 1953 involving Arthur Young, Ruth Forbes Paine, and a host of other Boston Brahmins added further details: Besides being the gods of ancient Egypt, The Nine were also extraterrestrial intelligences that existed outside of time and space. Or something to that effect. The story has gone through several incarnations over the years, with the Spectra bit being how it manifested in the 1970s. It was not until the publication of Puharich's Uri: A Journal of the Mystery of Uri Geller (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1974) that the public at large first caught a glimpse of the cult surrounding The Nine. RAW's The Cosmic Trigger would add further details. The only full length account of this netherworld can be found in the highly controversial The Stargate Conspiracy: The Truth About Extraterrestrial Life and the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt (New York: Berkley Books, 1999) by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince. Additional information can be found in the more sober first installment of Levenda's Sinister Forces trilogy. Suffice to say, The Nine remain highly controversial, though they have captivated the public imagination to an extent that is little realized. Among the most celebrated devotees of The Nine was Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Star Trek franchise. It has been alleged that there are numerous references to The Nine throughout various incarnations of Star Trek. 890 Jack Sarfatti, Destiny Matrix, 141-142; Kaiser, 239-240. 888

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Weinberger and Edwin Meese III.891 At a minimum, Weinberger addressed the ASC several times if not being an actual member.892 Meese never joined the ASC, but he was a key early figure in the Council for National Policy (CNP). The CNP had much overlap with the ASC during the early days and eventually succeeded the Cold War-era body as the nerve center of America's conservative establishment by the end of the Reagan years. 893 For our purposes here, it's most significant that much of the early funding for the Institute for Contemporary Studies came from Richard Mellon Scaife and the Hearst family.894 The reader will recall from the first chapter that both Scaife and the patriarch of the Hearst family sat on the Institute for American Strategy's board by the 1970s. Thus, this conservative think tank was established in San Francisco in 1975 with the backing and support of the ASC/IAS network. Nominally, this seems like a curious choice given the political climate of the time and San Francisco being the heart of the counterculture. But, if the right were looking for novel ways to rebrand the military-industrial complex, it makes a bit more sense. There was no shortage of individuals linked to the national security racket surfing the metaphysical waters of the San Fran/Santa Cruz area during this time. Whatever the case, Weinberger and Meese were rewarded once Reagan was elected in 1980. Weinberger spent much of Reagan's two terms entrenched as the Secretary of Defense, while Meese eventually worked his way up to Attorney General. Chickering had the ear of both men, which meant that Sarfatti's work received serious interest within the Reagan administration, especially from the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) crowd.895 The reader will recall that the SDI was one of the longstanding obsessions of the ASC. Displaying his customary lack of hubris, Sarfatti later claimed to have been a crucial inspiration for the SDI. It was around this time that he encountered another ASC scientific luminary, Edward Teller, as well.896 *** Besides the budding New Age movement and the hippified version of quantum physics, the Bay Area possessed another current that captured the public imagination. That would be SRI's legendary remote 891

Reijden, J. (2020). "Conservative CIA": News SITES, think Tanks, POLITICIANS, FOUNDATIONS, John BIRCHERS, Nazis and terrorists -- "Liberal CIA"/SOROS OPPOSITION. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://isgpstudies.com/conservative-cia-network#institute-for-contemporary-studies. Another interesting figure linked to the Institute by the late 1980s was the once and future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. 892 Reijden, J. (2014). American security Council. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://www.isgpstudies.com/american-security-council-membership-list 893 For more on the rise of the CNP and its overlap with the ASC, see Bellant, The Coors Connection: How the Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism. Much of the early funding for the CNP came from the Coors family, which, the reader will recall from the first chapter, was one of several major funding sources for the American right molded by Frank Barnett and Institute for American Strategy. 894 Reijden, J. (2020). "Conservative CIA": News SITES, think Tanks, POLITICIANS, FOUNDATIONS, John BIRCHERS, Nazis and terrorists -- "Liberal CIA"/SOROS OPPOSITION. Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://isgpstudies.com/conservative-cia-network#institute-for-contemporary-studies. 895 Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics, 240-242. 896 Jack Sarfatti, Destiny Matrix, 133-134.

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viewing experiments.897 SRI's work in the field, along with subsequent military programs, has inspired a host of popular fiction and nonfiction works such as Firestarter, The Men Who Stare at Goats, and Stranger Things. It's popularly believed that the SRI experiments marked the beginning of the US national security apparatus' interest in psychic ability. But clandestine research in this field began very early in the Cold War. A lot of it had its origins in Project Bluebird, which was rolled into ARTICHOKE in 1951 (as was noted in Chapter 1, ARTICHOKE was never rolled into MK-ULTRA, despite the persistent claims to the contrary). While nominally, Bluebird and ARTICHOKE were launched to explore what we would now think of as "enhanced interrogation methods,"898 a host of other fringe interests were explored along the way. As was noted in chapter one, ESP and related phenomena were among the subjects researched. MK-ULTRA later followed, though with far more "scientific" restraint. It should come as little surprise then that many of the figures and CIA departments linked to the early SRI remote viewing research had ties to either ARTICHOKE and/or MK-ULTRA. An obvious connection would be former ARTICHOKE scientist Andrija Puharich, reportedly Uri Geller's "handler" during this era.899 Geller was famously tested by the SRI team.900 Another ARTICHOKE link came from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), a participant since the Bluebird days.901 The ONR provided early funding for the SRI experiments.902 MK-ULTRA was also represented via the Technical Services Staff (TSS), the CIA department that oversaw that program. TSS provided the SRI crowd with one of its two CIA contracts.903 Sidney Gottlieb, the infamous head of MK-ULTRA, signed off on this early funding while he headed the TSS.904 The other CIA 897

Many works have been published on the famed experiments of various qualities. Easily the most comprehensive and scholarly are Jim Schnabel's Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies (New York: Dell Publishing, 1997) and Annie Jacobsen's Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigation Into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017). For an emphasis on Israeli stage magician Uri Geller's role in the project, see Jonathan Margolis, The Secret Life of Uri Geller: CIA Masterspy? (London: Watkins Publishing, 2013). Edwin C. May, Victor Rubel, Joseph W. McMoneagle, and Loyd Auerbach's ESP Wars: East & West (self-pub., Panta Rei, 2015). As far as popular accounts are concerned, by far the most well known is Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare at Goats (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), which was later adapted into a popular film of the same name starring George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. 898 For more on the roots of modern enhance interrogation methods in Projects ARTICHOKEE and MK-ULTRA, see Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture:: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006). 899 Margolis, The Secret Life of Uri Geller, 181-182, 241. 900 Various accounts of Geller's time at SRI during the mid-1970s can be found in Jacobsen's Phenomena, Schnabel's Remote Viewers, and Margolis' The Secret Life of Uri Geller, among many others. 901 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination, 169. 902 Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 205-206. The SRI team also helped the Navy set up its own in-house project to experiment with remote viewing at the Navy lab in San Diego. The Navy base in San Diego was reportedly one of the locations where Project Pelican groomed assassins as well. That Navy base also turns up in Robert Guffey's Chameleo, which was addressed in the next chapter. 903 Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 105n. 904 ibid, 202-203.

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contract came via the Office of Research and Development (ORD). During this time, the ORD was deeply involved in its own "behavior modification" research. The head of that office for many of those endeavors was Dr. Stephen Aldrich, who had himself participated in ARTICHOKE during the 1950s.905 Aldrich also graduated from Northwestern University School of Medicine in 1947, the same year as Andrija Puharich.906 It is thus not much of a stretch to suggest that the SRI remote viewing experiments of the 1970s were largely a continuation of the prior work done by ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA during the 1950s and 1960s. The SRI experiments put a much more benevolent face on this type of research, not unlike what the Fundamental Fysiks Group was doing for physics during this time: making it more moonbeams than Big Brother. Unsurprisingly, there was much overlap between the SRI crowd and the fringe physicists. Elizabeth Rauscher, a co-founder of the Fundamentalist Fysiks Group, became a paid consultant for the SRI PSI lab a year before founding the group. She proposed an elaborate, eight-dimensional model of space-time that the SRI team felt provided a compelling explanation for the phenomena they were observing. Other members of the Fysiks Group, but especially Sarfatti and Sirag, would drift into the psi lab's orbit. At one point, the Fysiks Group even tried their hand at remote viewing.907 One of the few mainstream physicists to endorse Rauscher's explanation of PSI during that era was none other than the ASC's Eugene Wigner. This is hardly surprising given that Wigner's theories provided the early inspirations to the Fysiks Group as they tried to explain the PSI phenomena.908 All of this bled into the budding New Age movement. Russell Targ, who, along with Hal Puthoff, ran the SRI remote viewing program through the 1970s, had deep ties to Esalen. Targ took Gestalt and encounter workshops at Esalen during the 1960s while still working as a laser physicist. He began giving workshops at Esalen on PSI in 1972 before the SRI program formally got off the ground. Indeed, the Esalen network appears to have helped drum up early interest in what became remote viewing. Targ would remain a fixture at Esalen until at least the 1980s, sometimes with Puthoff.909 So, to recap: the currents coming out of these three colleges in the Bay area, Stanford (Esalen), SRI (remote viewing), and Berkeley (Fundamental Fysiks Group), laid the foundation for much of the modern New Age movement. The influence of the New Age movement in the twenty-first century is vast in the US. Recent data suggest that six out of every ten Americans, many self-professed Christians, adhere to at least one 905

Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 224-227. “Dr. Stephen Aldrich Obituary (2014) Asheville Citizen-Times.” Legacy.com. Accessed November 24, 2021. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/citizen-times/name/stephen-aldrich-obituary?id=19520638; Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 24. 907 Kaiser, 89-101. Curiously, the connection between the Fundamental Fysiks Group the SRI remote viewing program is not acknowledged in many of the popular accounts on remote viewing, i.e. Schnabel and Jacobsen. This is despite one group member being a paid consultant and others regularly interacting with the remote viewing program during the 1970s. The connection often only turns up in more speculative works such as Sarfatti's Destiny Matrix and Picknett and Prince's The Stargate Conspiracy. 908 Kaiser, 169. 909 Jeffrey Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, 340-345. 906

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belief derived from the movement (i.e., astrology, reincarnation, PSI, etc).910 While not often acknowledged, the New Age movement represents one of the most significant spiritual movements of the modern era. Nor was it just at a spiritual level that the scene around the Bay area influenced the nation (and thus the world). When most Americans think of significant recent developments and San Francisco, the first thing that springs to mind is Silicon Valley. Modern cyberculture is largely an outgrowth of the personal computer (PC) revolution and the ARPANET (a precursor to the Internet) research being conducted in the Bay area beginning in the late 1960s. This spurred what would become today's billion-dollar tech sector. Much of this work was sponsored by the Pentagon via the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA) and conducted at Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and SRI's Augmentation Research Center. As cyberculture was largely an outgrowth of the counterculture, it should come as little surprise that there was much overlap between the budding Silicon Valley and the New Age nexus unfolding at the same campuses.911 Cyberculture will be explored more in Book II.

Spy vs Spy

One final point must be raised before moving along from the San Fran nexus. The presence of figures like Andrija Puharich, Sidney Gottlieb, and Stephen Aldrich lurking in the background of the SRI remote view research raises the specter of things such as Projects ARTICHOKE, MK-ULTRA, and OFTEN. As was noted in Chapter 1, the national security establishment's earliest interest in ESP traces back to Project ARTICHOKE and the research Puharich did on behalf of the Pentagon. But in the case of said research, the national security apparatus had a specific application in mind: Psychological warfare. Had that purpose changed some two decades later when the research began at SRI? In point of fact, there is a distinct possibility that the remote viewing research was, at least in part, a psychological operation targeting elements of the Soviet Union. Of course, part of the rationalization for the SRI remote viewing

910

Gecewicz, C. (2020, August 27). 'New age' beliefs common among both religious AND Nonreligious americans. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-commonamong-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/. 911 See, for instance, John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (New York: Penguin Books, 2005); Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006); and Erik Davis, TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information, 3rd Ed. (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2015).

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program was Soviet research being done along similar lines. As with most things involving the Soviet Union, there is much debate about how committed the regime was. With a fair degree of certainty, it can be said the Soviet Union's forays into parapsychology trace back to the early 1920s. Much of it was driven by a senior OGPU (a predecessor to the KGB) officer named Gleb Bokii. Despite being of noble lineage and a firmly middle-class background, Bokii became an enthusiastic Bolshevik and one of Lenin's closest comrades. Bokii was a gifted cryptographer and rose to the head of the OGPU's special section dedicated to it. In this capacity, he enjoyed a great degree of autonomy and reported directly to such party heavyweights as Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky rather than the OGPU's leadership.912 It was this series of circumstances that enabled Bokii to investigate such subjects as shamanism, hypnosis, and parapsychology in an official capacity. Bokii commissioned his own personal guru, Alexander Barchenko, to start research on the Bolshevik's dime in 1925. Interestingly, during the prior year, Barchenko's "research" received tentative approval from OGPU chief "Iron" Felix Dzerzhinsky.913 This would be the same spymaster who oversaw Operation Trust, briefly addressed in Chapter 1. Operation Trust involved the creation of a false Monarchist organization within Soviet Russia to lure in the remaining White forces during the early 1920s.914 Keep this in mind, dear reader. In 1934, Barchenko got his own lab at the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine. This outfit was set up by the Soviet regime in 1932 to conduct applied studies on the human brain, hypnosis, toxic poisons, and drugs. Scientific knowledge was a sacred cow in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, providing the way to the coming socialist utopia. For a time, this opened the door to official support for eccentrics like Bokii and Barchenko. Work on the Institute was never completed, coming to a grinding halt during the war. But for

912

Andrei Znamenski, Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 2011), 43-45, 77-79. Bokii's background in cryptography is most interesting. As was briefly noted in chapter 1, researcher James Carrion has alleged in such works as The Rosetta Deception and The Roswell Deception that early UFO incidents such as the Swedish Ghost Rockets (1946) and Roswell (1947) constituted a subtle form of psychological warfare involving cryptography. That the governments of Russia and the US have used some of these woo woo pursuits (most notably channeled communications) to mask cryptography cannot be discounted. Cryptography is a recurring theme in this work. 913 Andrei Znamenski, Red Shambhala, 82-83; Serge Kernbach, "Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview," in International Journal of Unconventional Science, Pilot Issue no.3 (2013, republished online at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.1148.pdf), 5. 914 Operation Trust is another hall of mirrors. In Active Measures (17-32), Thomas Rid presents the standard narrative in which it's hailed as a brilliant piece of Soviet disinformation, climaxing with the capture (and subsequent execution) of alleged British master spy Sidney Reilly. A more nuanced view can be found in Richard B. Spence, Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2002). There, Spence compellingly argues that Reilly was in fact a Soviet double agent and likely emerged from Operation Trust very much alive. In Wall Street and the Russian Revolution 1905-1925 (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2017), Spence goes even further. There he suggests the target of Trust was never the Whites, but the Trotskyite rivals of Stalin. This concept will be explored further in Book II.

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a brief period, the Soviet regime and its secret police oversaw lab experiments involving ESP, relatively speaking.915 Unless there was something else at play. On the All-Union Institute's staff from 1936 to 1937 was a fellow named Boris Roerich, a former White officer during the Civil War. While Boris is rather unremarkable, his brother is not. Nicholas Roerich rose to prominence as a painter and mystic during the interwar years. He fled to the US after the Bolsheviks came to power and gained a following there. Patrons included Iowa politician Henry Wallace, a one-time US Secretary of Agriculture who eventually became FDR's vice president in 1941. Unfortunately for Wallace, Roerich was a reluctant Soviet agent. Wallace's correspondences with Roerich were leaked to the American public, resulting in his removal from the vice presidency after the 1944 election. Boris Roerich appears to have been used as a hedge by the Soviet intelligence services to ensure his brother's compliance during these intrigues.916 Wallace would go on to become an early backer of Puharich's Round Table Foundation during the late 1940s. Nor was Wallace the only one of Puharich's early supporters with Communist ties. Zlatko Balokovic, a famous concert pianist who spurred Puharich's initial interest in ESP, had close ties to Tito's regime in Communist Yugoslavia during the war.917 Conversely, another of Puharich's early backers was Lt. Commander Rexford Daniels of the Office of Naval Intelligence.918 During WWII, Daniels worked domestically, tracking "subversives" in the New England area. These included Communists. Another Puharich supporter in the national security state, ARTICHOKE bigwig Morse Allen, also spent WWII chasing Reds, but in New York.919 Roerich and other mystics produced by the former Russian Empire, such as HP Blavatsky and George Gurdjieff, gained a considerable following in the West towards the end of the nineteenth century. Western interest in Russian mysticism, especially amongst the upper classes, continued after the Bolshevik Revolution. Indeed, many of these gurus were dependent upon this patronage to survive after the revolution. The Soviet security forces were clearly aware of this relationship and sought to exploit it, as the case of Roerich illustrates. This raises the distinct possibility that at least part of the purpose of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine, with its various esoteric pursuits, was to entice (and compromise) Western elites with its woo-

915

Andrei Znamenski, Red Shambhala, 83-84; George M. Young, The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 189-191; Serge Kernbach, "Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview," 5. 916 Andrei Znamenski, Red Shambhala, 206-207, 218-223; Peter Levenda, Sinister Forces Book I, 239. 917 Peter Levenda, Sinister Forces Book I, 237, 239. 918 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 29. 919 United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, " Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments: Hearings Before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee To Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Eighty-Third Congress, First Session, Eighty-Third Congress, Second Session, Eighty-Fourth Congress, First Session Part 18," (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954), 1343-1247.

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woo. While this may seem incredible, it must again be emphasized that Soviet intelligence created a faux underground Monarchist movement in Mother Russia to lure in the remaining reactionary forces during this era. Why stop there if a sitting US vice president could be compromised by a mystic? In certain circles, the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine was the most alluring of honey pots. This may explain why several of Puharich's intelligence supporters had backgrounds in counterintelligence, with an emphasis on the Soviet Union. In addition to Wallace, several storied and politically connected families, such as the Astors and the du Ponts, supported Puharich's early efforts. 920 Given the presence of Wallace and Balokovic in the milieu, US spies may have felt it prudent to keep an eye on things. *** While the efforts of Gleb Bokii are the most notable instance of official support for parapsychology in the early Soviet Union, they were not the only ones. Since the early twentieth century, elements of the Russian scientific community became obsessed with the notion that "nervous energy" (which the human body was thought to emit via electromagnetic waves) could be harnessed to produce a variety of psychic phenomena, ranging from telepathy to telekinesis. During the 1920s-1930s, "brain radiation" formed the basis for experiments involving "long-range" telepathy at the Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) Institute for Brain Research. At the time, Petrograd housed a group calling itself the Biocosmist-Immortalists.921 The Biocosmists were an offshoot of Cosmism,922 an older Russian tradition from the late nineteenth century. First envisioned by Nikolai Fedorov (1828/29-1903), it revolves around the notion of "meaningful evolution." As rational beings evolving on Earth's living matter, humanity was seen as destined for cosmic greatness. We had the ability to become "a collective cosmic, self-consciousness active agent, and potential perfector." What this means is that the Earth was in a transition from the "biosphere" (the sphere of living matter) to the noosphere (that of reason). To achieve this, humanity had to unify itself into a single organism that would produce a "planetarian consciousness." Once this was achieved, humanity could not only guide further development on Earth but also be capable of perfecting the universe itself. Death and disease would be overcome, bringing about immortality, first for humanity, then

920

Annie Jacobson, Phenomena, 28-29; Peter Levenda, Sinister Forces Book I, 244-246. Michael Hagemeister, "Russian Cosmism in the 1920s and Today," in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, ed. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 195-196; Serge Kernbach, "Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview," 4. 922 Cosmism has only recently started to generate popular interest in the West. One of the few scholarly accounts addressing it at length is George M. Young, The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Contemporary developments are addressed in Michael Hagemeister, "Russian Cosmism in the 1920s and Today," in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, ed. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 185-202. Various other essays in the Rosenthal collection also address Cosmism in brief. Both works are highly recommended for separating historic Cosmism from the more New Age-centric version that exists in contemporary Russia. 921

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the rest of the universe. 923 To this end, Cosmism was one of the first contemporary movements concerned with space exploration, life extension, and what we would now think of as human potential (i.e., activating telepathic capabilities latent in humans). Many of these concepts were later repackaged in what became the American transhumanist movement.924 It was all rather woo-woo but framed in the language of science. For this reason, Soviet authorities exercised a certain degree of tolerance towards the movement. The Cosmist cause was undoubtedly aided by several of its adherents being among the guiding lights of science in the early Soviet Union. They included Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), one of the world's pioneering rocket scientists; Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945), a founder of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology; and Aleksandr Chizhevsky (1897-1964), a biophysicist who founded heliobiology and "aero-ionization." The influence these men, and several other Cosmists, had on Soviet science was vast. Tsiolkovsky alone is the grandfather of the Soviet Union's space program. As such, Cosmism appears to have established a foothold in Russian scientific thought. Despite its esoteric nature, the Soviet Union could never totally suppress it. The Cosmists appear to have been the driving force behind Soviet ventures into ESP during the 1920s and 1930s. Gleb Bokii had been stationed in Petrograd during the outbreak of the revolution and the aftermath. Whether Bokii was influenced by Cosmism is unknown, but he was certainly near one of its most vibrant centers for a time and would later conduct the same type of fringe experimentation as the Biocosmists were engaged in. This experimentation survived the early days of Stalin's reign and appeared to have continued till the onset of WWII. I have been unable to find anything definitive indicating the research continued during the war. Still, the Nazi regime provided the Soviets with renewed interest in the subject after the war. To the victors go the spoils, and among the loot claimed by the Soviet Union were documents originating from a mysterious body known as the Ahnenerbe.925 Often described as a "think tank," Das Ahnenerbe began as a private study group dedicated to researching ancestral heritage in Nazi Germany. It was formally established in 1935 and brought under the control of Himmler's personal staff during the following year. The Ahnenerbe soon became concerned with arcane subjects. It had research bureaus to investigate runes; to collect myths, folk, and fairy tales; and a special unit to research "so-called occult science." It

923

Michael Hagemeister, "Russian Cosmism in the 1920s and Today," in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, ed. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, 185-186. 924 See, for instance, Young, The Russian Cosmists, 232-234, etc. 925 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 73-74; Serge Kernbach, "Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview,", 5-6. The Ahnenerbe is an endless fascinating subject that has generated much speculation, but little scholarly work shedding light on its odd pursuits. The real full-length account of Das Ahnenerbe is Heather Pringle, The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust (New York: Hyperion, 2006). Peter Levenda also writes at length on the Ahnenerbe in Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult, 2nd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2002), 167-202, etc. Levenda's scholarship on this matter remains controversial, however. A brief but highly informative account can be found in Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (New York: Autonomedia, 1999), 277-283.

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studied Venus idols, Medieval witch trials, prehistoric megaliths, and arranged several expeditions to Tibet.926 While sometimes depicted as National Socialist hippies, Das Ahnenerbe also got up to some rather unsavory activities. For instance, captured Bolshevik political commissars were decapitated so the served heads could be given a phrenological study by the Ahnenerbe.927 And then there was the infamous "aviation medicine" the Ahnenerbe engaged in at Dachau. The most notorious instance of this was the placement of prisoners in a vacuum chamber to determine the amount of pressure the human body could be subjected to at high altitudes.928 Later, In a bid to develop better equipment for the downed Luftwaffe pilots, prisoners were thrown into ice water to time how long it took them to freeze to death.929 It was also at Dachau where unwitting prisoners were doused with mescaline. This all occurred under the auspices of Das Ahnenerbe.930 This led to much speculation that later "research" conducted in the US under the auspices of Projects ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA was based upon earlier work done by the Nazis of Das Ahnenerbe. While the US has already embarked upon its own "truth drug" experiments during WWII, this work does not appear to have gone anywhere near the lengths of concurrent research then being conducted by the Nazis. And it would certainly appear that Ahnenerbe files and reports were studied by people later connected to the CIA/Pentagon behavior modification research.931 But nothing concrete has emerged to establish a direct link. But it is interesting in light of what the Russians got up to. Inevitably, Das Ahnenerbe studied ESP. How could they not? But the Ahnenerbe took a novel, two-track approach to it. The Ahnenerbe's interest in ESP was rooted in their investigation of the "psychophysiological effects of microwave emissions." As the Soviets were already trying to frame ESP as the result of electromagnetic energy (which includes microwaves), the appeal would be obvious. But the Nazis saw two aspects to the phenomena. On the one hand, there was telepathy and related phenomena, which constituted augmented perception and cognition in human beings. But what about countermeasures? If ESP was real, wouldn't it be necessary to develop weapons that could also degrade perception and cognition in human beings? And if ESP resulted from electromagnetism, then why not use electromagnetic radiation to degrade the same mental functions? This is precisely what the Soviets opted to do. Taking their cue from the Nazis, they pursued two separate courses of research, one

926

Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day, 279-280. See also, Pringle, The Master Plan; and Levenda, Unholy Alliance. Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day, 281. 928 Heather Pringle, The Master Plan, 241-242. 929 Heather Pringle, The Master Plan, 272; Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day, 281. 930 John Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 5-6; H.P. Albarelli, Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 332; Peter Levenda, Unholy Alliance, 233-234. 931 H.P. Albarelli, Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 370-373. 927

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involving ESP and the other with what became known as psychotronic weapons, briefly discussed in Chapter 4. But both avenues of research were seen as interrelated.932 In the West, psychotronic weapons are the equivalent of nonlethal weapons, also discussed in the first chapter. Further, ESP and nonlethal weapons research have often gone hand-in-glove in the US, just as they did in the Soviet Union. Andrija Puharich, the grandfather of the US national security state's ESP research, came to believe that extremely low frequencies (ELF) waves (another type of electromagnetic radiation) were linked to ESP.933 At one point, the CIA considered using "psychic energizers" to drive a human insane or to suicide. Puharich had links to this research, the "psychic energizers" surely being ELF waves.934 This strongly indicates that Puharich was involved in early nonlethal weapons research. As we shall see, this cross-pollination was every bit as common in the US as it was in the USSR. Before moving along, it's interesting to note one other group, aside from the scientists and spies, with a peculiar interest in psychotronics prior to the 1960s: occultists. Inevitably, Rosicrucianism was at the forefront of these efforts. H Spencer Lewis' Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) is the most successful American Rosicrucian order of the modern era. Formally established in 1925, its murky origins trace back to the first decade of the twentieth century. Lewis was a former advertising man and utilized these skills to fuel AMORC's growth.935 Lewis crafted some of the earliest psychotronic devices. Among them was the Luxatone, a "color organ" that converted portions of the audio spectrum into the color light spectrum. This was managed by a triangular box with a translucent piece of glass on the front. It featured a detection circuit with a microphone attached that could register sound and produce a corresponding color on the screen. AMORC frequently used it in conjunction with an organ, enabling participants to see color light spectrums emanating from music. Even more intriguing is the " Cosmic Ray Coincidence Counter." Described as an early Geiger counter, this device was capable of registering radioactivity. It was used to demonstrate

932

Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 73-74; Jonathan D. Moreno, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, 7576, 86-87; Serge Kernbach, "Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview," 6-11. Kernbach compellingly argues, however, that Soviet scientists had already pondered a relationship between telepathy and electromagnetic radiation as far back as the 1920s. The ability of electromagnetic radiation to affect the human brain is of course a highly controversial topic, one littered with pseudoscience and disinformation. For one of the few credible, scholarly overviews of this subject, see Dr. Robert O. Becker & Gary Selden, The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life (New York: William Morrow, 1985). 933 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 33-34. 934 H.P. Albarelli, Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 338. 935 John Michael Greer, The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History: The Ultimate A-Z of Ancient Mysteries, Lost Civilizations and Forgotten Wisdom (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006), 43-45. For more on the history of AMORC, see Christopher McIntosh, The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology, and Rituals of an Esoteric Order (San Francisco, CA: Weiser Books, 1997), 126-132; and Tobias Churton, The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians: The World's Most Mysterious Secret Society, 500-509.

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higher-frequency manifestations.936 The significance of this will become clear in the epilogue, where we shall explore other developments along these lines in the Bay Area during that era. The Fraternitas Saturni (FS, the Brotherhood of Saturn), a German occult order that grew out of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO, the German magical order Aleister Crowley took over), were pioneers in these efforts. They developed a notion of "electrical magic" and crafted several devices to aid them in these workings. This enabled them to experiment with "the magical effects of high-frequency sound, electromagnetic fields, so-called Tesla energy, ozonization of the atmosphere, ultraviolet light, and so on."937 Intelligence services in both the East and West would investigate such things during the Cold War as well, but not for their "magical effects." At least not officially. The FS grew out of the OTO in 1926 and was closed and banned in Germany by 1933. The same fate befell many occult lodges in Germany once the Nazis came to power. FS grandmaster Eugen Grosche fled to Switzerland in 193, and Fascist Italy the following year. There he remained until 1943 when he was arrested and extradited back to Germany. In theory, this was due to pressure from the Nazi government. Grosche was jailed for a year, then released on his own recognizance. What's more, he was allowed to continue his occult studies after his release, at a time when such things were widely banned by the Nazi regime. In the aftermath of the war, Grosche found himself in Soviet-controlled East Germany. He joined the Communist Party and dutifully remained on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain until 1950. It was at that point he relocated to West Germany. Grosche remained in contact with members of the FS throughout this time and began the process of formally re-launching it once he was settled in West Germany.938 Around 1955, Grosche entered into a correspondence with British occultist Kenneth Grant shortly before the latter set up his New Isis Lodge. Apparently, Grant's collaboration with Grosche led to his expulsion from the OTO.939 This is interesting in light of the activities of another of Grant's Lovecraft acolytes, Zivorad Mihajlovic Slavinski. During the 1970s, Slavinski set up something known as the "Psychotronics Association." Its purpose was to establish contact with "secret powers and masters of energy." With the assistance of fellow Lovecraft groupie and wandering bishop Michael Bertiaux, this outfit eventually became the Ecclesia Gnostica Alba or White Gnostic Church.940 This transformation occurred once Slavinski became a bishop. Grant is coy about the work of the earlier "Psychotronics Association." But Slavinski also published a book around the time of its founding dubbed Psychotronics: A Theory and Practice of Parapsychology,941

936

Nowicki, M. (2001). Mysterious inventions of dr. Lewis. RC Salon - Mysterious Inventions of Dr. Lewis. https://web.archive.org/web/20130517211716/http://www.rosicrucians.org/salon/inventions/inventions.html. 937 Stephen E. Flowers, The Fraternitas Saturni: History, Doctrine, and Rituals of the Magical Order of the Brotherhood of Saturn (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2018), 101-103. 938 Stephen E. Flowers, The Fraternitas Saturni, 35-36. 939 Kenneth Grant, Beyond the Mauve Zone, 32-33. 940 Kenneth Grant, Beyond the Mauve Zone, 208-211. 941 ibid, 216-217.

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indicating that he was working from the framework of Soviet psychotronics. And that brings me to the reason why I've dwelt on this digression: the Psychotronics Association was founded in Belgrade in 1979. At the time, Belgrade was a part of Yugoslavia, a Communist country, in the midst of the Cold War. Keep in mind, Grant was a known acolyte of Aleister Crowley, an asset of British intelligence, by this time. In fact, Grant had gone to work as Crowley's personal secretary immediately after he was discharged from the British Army over a medical issue in 1944. Grant later engaged in correspondence with another occultist, Eugen Grosche, who lived in Soviet-controlled East Germany for a time, and whose own magical order had an interest in psychotronic devices. By the late 1970s, Grant is in regular contact with Slavinski and his Psychotronics Association, while the latter is living on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Apparently neither Yugoslav, Soviet, American, or British authorities found anything unusual about this. Further muddying the waters is a certain American magical order that also experimented with electronic devices: the Temple of Set. It would seem that "experimentation with electromagnetic and other modern magical technological devices" is mandated within the inner circle of the Temple of Set.942 What's especially striking about this is the sect's founder: an alleged American Security Council member and career psychological warfare officer in the US Army. What's more, this figure later befriends Colonel John Alexander, one of the principal American authorities on nonlethal weapons for decades. But, more on that in the next book. But suffice to say, this is the kind of twilight zone we are entering dear reader.

942

Stephen E. Flowers, The Fraternitas Saturni, 103, 191n25.

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Chapter 6:

Majic Men

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The Soviet Aquarian Age and the Noosphere

The Soviet Union's ESP research was rather moribund until 1960, despite the cache of juicy Ahnenerbe documents. To return to psychological warfare, it seems to have been the Nautilus article inspired by Jacques Bergier (addressed in Chapter 1) that sparked renewed interest on the part of the Soviets. The reader will recall that the Frenchman Bergier, co-author of the classic The Morning of the Magicians, was a chronicler of the paraweird. He also had intelligence ties dating back to WWII. Several of his works were published by Regnery Press, for years a crucial node in the American Security Council-Institute for America Strategy nexus. Bergier was not yet linked to Regnery, but the contents of his Nautilus article were a hoax and likely part of a psywar campaign. It was highly effective. The Soviets claimed their parapsychological research only began after the Nautilus article appeared. This has been long disputed by American researchers, who often point to statements made by the Soviet Union's leading ESP researcher, Leonid L Vasiliev, in 1960. While addressing a group of scientists at Leningrad, Vasiliev boasted of tests involving telepathy "over a quarter of a century ago."943 But what Vasilev was referring to was the experimentation being done at the Petrograd Institute of Brain Research during the 1920s and the pre-WWII 1930s. Vasiliev was a part of the above-mentioned Biocosmist-Immortalist circles active in Petrograd and was even a contributor to their magazine. Further, Vasilev was a close friend of Cosmist and biophysicist Aleksandr Chizhevsky.944 This group was perceived as anarchists and artists and only nominally tolerated by Soviet authorities. And how much that tolerance extended beyond 1937 is hazy. This researcher has found no credible evidence of parapsychological research being carried out in the Soviet Union either at the academic or defense level between 1937 and 1960. Some private ESP experiments during the mid-1950s resulted in a parapsychological lab operating briefly between 1955 and 1958. But these efforts were relatively marginal and without backing from the Soviet regime.945 If anything, Vasiliev seems to have latched on to Bergier's article as a justification for re-launching parapsychological efforts. He's reputed to have stated circa 1960: "Today the American Navy is testing telepathy on their atomic submarines. Soviet scientists conducted a great many successful telepathy tests over a quarter of a century ago. It's urgent that we throw off our prejudices. We must plunge into the exploration of this vital field."946 These certainly do not seem like the type of sentiments one would express if there were extensive research then being conducted.

943

Jacobsen, Phenomena, 70-72; Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 91-92. Michael Hagemeister, "Russian Cosmism in the 1920s and Today," in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, ed. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, 195-196. 945 Serge Kernbach, "Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview," 6. 946 Jacobsen, Phenomena, 72. 944

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Just how deeply the Soviets became involved after 1960 is a matter of debate as well. In 1972, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA, the Pentagon's principal intelligence arm) issued an alarmist report on the purported Soviet "PSI gap." Figures within the CIA were less impressed, seeing the Soviet parapsychology initiative as further evidence of how much superstition still dominated their scientific community.947 In 1963, the Soviet minister of defense greenlit the creation of the Special Laboratory of Biocommunications Phenomena at the University of Leningrad to study ESP. Formal investigations into ESP and psychotronic weapons likely began prior to the public, academic front of the research starting.948 However, Russian sources have insisted that an integrated program of ESP and psychotronic weapon research never formally existed due to the dogma of the Communist Party.949 This seems consistent with the periodic crackdowns the Soviet regime engaged in against ESP research during this era. Edward Naumov, a noted parapsychological researcher in the USSR during the 1960s, was arrested in 1974 and sentenced to two years in a labor camp. International protests led to his release in 1975. It was also during this time the Biocommunications Laboratory was shuttered. It would be re-opened and closed again several times during the following years.950 Unsurprisingly, much of this type of fringe research appears to have revolved around psychotronic weapons rather than conventional ESP investigations throughout the 1960s and 1970s.951 To recap: the US national security establishment displayed an interest in using the superstitions of the Russians for psychological warfare purposes as far back as the late 1940s. The Soviet Union was potentially interested in fringe sciences such as parapsychology, especially the scientific community. This was largely driven by the Cosmist intellectuals within the Soviet scientific establishment. Beginning in the late 1940s, Andrija Puharich privately investigated ESP and other fringe pursuits, with individuals linked to the Soviet Union and other communist regimes sponsoring him. During the 1950s, the Pentagon took an interest in his research, seemingly for its applications to psychological warfare. While the Pentagon and CIA did engage in some low-key ESP research during this era under the auspices of ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA, what was revealed to the public via Jacques Bergier appears to be a complete fabrication. Nonetheless, the Soviet Union does appear to be sufficiently rattled by this report and embarks upon its first serious efforts to investigate parapsychology in nearly a quarter of a century. If the US national security state was feigning interest in parapsychology as part of a psychological operation against the Soviet Union, the results by the 1960s were nothing short of breathtaking. Is it possible that a decision was made to further up the game with the SRI remote viewing program? It's telling that the CIA, which seems to have viewed the Soviet Union's parapsychology as junk science, was tapped to lead the response against the "PSI gap."

947

Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 94-95; Jacobsen, Phenomena, 79-81. Jacobsen, Phenomena, 72-74. 949 Edwin C. May, Victor Rubel, Joseph McMoneagle, Loyd Auerbach, ESP Wars East & West, 202-203. 950 Edwin C. May, Victor Rubel, Joseph McMoneagle, Loyd Auerbach, ESP Wars East & West, 205-206. 951 Serge Kernbach, "Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview," 8-11. 948

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As was noted in the prior chapter, one of the participants in the SRI remote viewing experiments (as well as the computer research being done by ARPA) was Jacques Bergier's friend, Jacques Vallee. It has been compellingly argued that one of the influences behind Vallee's work during this era was the Jesuit priest and anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. On the whole, de Chardin's ideology influenced the work being done at the Augmentation Research Center and the broader remote viewing program at SRI.952 This is most interesting because de Chardin is one of the principal figures to develop the concept of the noosphere, along with Russian Cosmist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945), during the first half of the twentieth century.953 The term originated with the Frenchman Edouard Le Roy (1870-1954) during the 1920s but was popularized by de Chardin. The Jesuit believed that earthly evolution progressed from a geosphere of nonconscious life to a biosphere of consciousness, now giving way to a noosphere. This was being brought about by the "biotechnological" canopy of human consciousness engulfing the Earth and in which individual humans are perpetually immersed.954 Vernadsky came to similar conclusions. Indeed, non-Cosmist Russian scientists were toying with such notions in the heady days following the revolution. Maxim Gorky (who knew Bokii personally) theorized that, beyond the atmosphere and photosphere, the Earth was "enveloped in a sphere of spiritual creation, a manifold, iridescent emanation of energy" circa 1919.955 But the philosophical linkage to Cosmism is clear. The noosphere concept is intrinsically linked to the notion of a continuously evolving Earth. But unlike classical Darwinism, the noosphere advocates evolution through cooperation rather than competition. Along these lines, the emergence of human consciousness offered the potential to sustain, if not improve, the planet. While humanity, or rather our consciousness, retained primacy, our long-term evolution was entwined with our engagement with the physical world.956 We had to evolve together, not unlike the divine mission of Cosmism assigned to humanity for the perfection of the cosmos. Vernadsky, Le Roy, and de Chardin were aware of one another's research and used their shared interests to further hash out the noosphere concept. The genesis probably lay with a series of 1922 lectures Vernadsky gave at the Sorbonne, which both de Chardin and Le Roy attended. During the following

952

D.W. Pasulka and David Metcalfe, "Where Soul Meets Technology: Catholic Visionaries and the Stanford Research Institute as Precedents for Human-Machine Interface and Social Telepathy Apps" in Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural, ed. by Simone Natale & D.W. Pasulka (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 150-158. 953 Paul R. Samson and David Pitt, "Introduction: Sketching the Noosphere" in The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change, eds. Paul R. Samson and David Pitt (London: Routledge, 1999), 4-5, etc.; D.W. Pasulka and David Metcalfe, "Where Soul Meets Technology," 154; Erik Davis, TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2015), 306-307. 954 D.W. Pasulka and David Metcalfe, "Where Soul Meets Technology," 154; Michael Hagemeister, "Russian Cosmism in the 1920s and Today," 200; Erik Davis, TechGnosis, 307-308. 955 Michael Hagemeister, "Russian Cosmism in the 1920s and Today," 195; D.W. Pasulka and David Metcalfe, "Where Soul Meets Technology," 154. 956 Paul R. Samson and David Pitt, "Introduction: Sketching the Noosphere" in The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change, 2-3.

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decades, all three continued to refine the concept of the noosphere, both independently and in collaboration when such was possible.957 Throughout the remainder of his life, Vernadsky hailed the new gospel far and wide in the Soviet Union. The Transition from the Biosphere to the Noösphere, Vernadsky's most celebrated tract on the noosphere, was issued in 1938. His last paper on the subject was published in 1945, shortly before his death. It appeared in the US publication The American Scientist.958 By the end of the Cold War, the noosphere term was widely and frequently used in the Soviet Union as a scientific and political concept, with the distinction casually blurred. It was often used for conference themes and even naming research institutions. De Chardin's concepts never gained traction in Western scientific circles until the second half of the twentieth century. The Russian scientific establishment was far more susceptible. Prestige was attached to institutions such as the Center for Ecological Noosphere Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia and the Vernadsky Foundation, which is closely linked to the Russian Academy of Sciences.959 In contrast, de Chardin's noosphere musings weren't even issued in popular accounts until nearly a decade after his death. He was prevented from doing so during his lifetime by the Jesuits.960 The mid-1960s witnessed two publications, The Future of Man (1964) and The Phenomena of Man (1965), that finally revealed de Chardin's concept in popular accounts.961 But in the West, de Chardin's noosphere primarily spread through spiritual and philosophical circles rather than scientific ones during the second half of the twentieth century.962 Still, his accomplishments among the former were not inconsiderate. He was a close friend of evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley, who worked closely with the UN in the postwar years. Huxley ensured de Chardin's noosphere concept was enshrined in the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). But for decades, its influence remained far more cultural than scientific. The controversy surrounding de Chardin surely contributed to noosphere skepticism. He was a central figure in the Piltdown man affair, a purported missing link later proven to be a hoax to uphold Darwinism.963

957

Ronfeldt, D., & Arquilla , J,. Whose Story Wins: Rise of the Noosphere, Noopolitik, and Information-Age Statecraft (RAND Corporation, 2020), 7-12, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PEA200/PEA2371/RAND_PEA237-1.pdf; Paul R. Samson and David Pitt, "Introduction: Sketching the Noosphere" in The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change, 4-5 ; Young, The Russian Cosmists, 156. 958 Ronfeldt, D., & Arquilla , J,. Whose Story Wins: Rise of the Noosphere, Noopolitik, and Information-Age Statecraft, 8-10 959 Paul R. Samson and David Pitt, "Introduction: Sketching the Noosphere" in The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change, 4. 960 Paul R. Samson and David Pitt, "Introduction: Sketching the Noosphere" in The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change, 52. 961 Ronfeldt, D., & Arquilla , J,. Whose Story Wins: Rise of the Noosphere, Noopolitik, and Information-Age Statecraft, 7-8. 962 Ronfeldt, D., & Arquilla , J,. Whose Story Wins: Rise of the Noosphere, Noopolitik, and Information-Age Statecraft, 14-16, etc. 963 Paul R. Samson and David Pitt, "Introduction: Sketching the Noosphere" in The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change, 2, 52-53, etc. The FBI even maintained a file on de Chardin during the 1940s over his contact with the Chinese communists.

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Whether the noosphere is a superstitious and baseless concept is beyond the scope of this work. But such a position would not have been unusual for a Westerner with a scientific background to take around 1965 when evaluating some of the ideology driving Soviet science. And if you were an intelligence officer looking to nudge the Soviet scientific community toward unproductive ends, it may have a certain appeal. It's interesting to note that de Chardin didn't just catch on at SRI during this era. In point of fact, he was universally adored by the economic and intellectual interests promoting the New Age and human potential movements. New Age chronicler Marilyn Ferguson dubbed the intellectual vanguard "the Aquarian Conspiracy" and published a book under the same title in 1980 hailing their efforts. When surveying members of this network regarding their influences, de Chardin was the individual most often named.964 De Chardin was later credited with molding the "Gaian mind" hypothesis965 that underpins much New Age philosophy in addition to being an early visionary of cyberspace.966 As the SRI remote viewing program (along with the closely related Fundamental Fysiks Group) provided much of the "scientific" justification behind New Age mysticism, we should not be entirely surprised by the extent of de Chardin's influence. But efforts to promote de Chardin within the proto-New Age movement were well underway before various Bay Area scientists embraced mysticism. Barbara Marx Hubbard, a co-founder of the World Future Society, 1984 nominee for the Democratic vice president slot, and Aquarian conspirator par excellence, began pushing de Chardin heavily in such circles by 1967.967 Hubbard, an heiress whose father owned the largest toy company in the world during the 1950s, was indicative of the high society types enamored with the Jesuit. She was described as "very grand and dictatorial" with the "same kind of power-play attitude towards the arts that the father had towards business, the military establishment, and so on. She was very dogmatic."968 But was there something else at play other than people with too much time and money on their hands contemplating the mysteries of the universe (something of a time-honored pastime among the elite)? The presence of so many spooks around the SRI program seems to indicate so. Barbara Marx Hubbard, from a staunchly Republican family, dedicated much of her adult life to de Chardin's noosphere, along with such pursuits as space exploration, life extension, and resurrection technology. Her influence on the New Age was such that, by the time of her death in 2019, she often

964

Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time, 3rd ed. (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2009), 32n. 965 Erik Davis, TechGnosis, 306; Christopher Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West Volume 2: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture (London: T & T Clark, 2005), 151. 966 Erik Davis, TechGnosis, 313-314; D.W. Pasulka and David Metcalfe, "Where Soul Meets Technology,"154; Ronfeldt, D., & Arquilla , J,. Whose Story Wins: Rise of the Noosphere, Noopolitik, and Information-Age Statecraft, 13-15. 967 Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, 40. 968 Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg, 217.

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described herself as the "Mother of Conscious Evolution" without the slightest trace of irony.969 It is thus interesting to note that many of Hubbard's long-term interests roughly coincide with the aims of the Russian Cosmists. What's more, her father, Louis Marx, was a correspondent of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Marx lavished the Bureau's upper hierarchy with toys each Christmas, generating favor.970 He also cultivated many of the nation's most storied military generals. They were godfathers to his numerous children. Among their ranks were Generals Curtis LeMay, Omar Bradley, George Marshall, and future president Dwight Eisenhower. Idella Marx, Louis' second wife, toured overseas with United Service Organization (USO) troupes prior to their marriages. Rumors abound that she had previously worked in the "striptease business."971 Another of Marx's daughters, Patricia, married Lansdale acolyte and "whistleblower" Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame. Their first date occurred in 1965 before Ellsberg followed Lansdale to Vietnam. Patricia, a radio journalist who previously spent two years at Stanford, had her own weekly syndicated public radio show. Her guests included the likes of Howard Zinn, Ted Sorensen, and Carl Sagan. She and Ellsberg first met in 1964 at a party arranged by a mutual friend, and the following year Patricia invited Ellsberg to a dinner Barbara was hosting. It was for virologist Jonas Salk, legendary for developing the polio vaccine and establishing the Salk Institute.972 Hubbard worked closely with Salk for decades.973 Patricia was already active in the anti-war movement. Earlier, she was described as an Eisenhower-style Republican.974 For her first formal date with Ellsberg, she took him to a Students for a Democratic Society rally in DC. Supposedly, this offended the sensibilities of her friends in the peace movement due to Ellsberg's links to the Pentagon. 975 The romance began not long afterward, just before Ellsberg departed for Vietnam. He first proposed to her in the fall of 1965 on a postcard from Vietnam.976 Patricia visited Ellsberg in Vietnam for the first time in December. They traveled across Asia while he was on leave, Ellsberg again proposing to Marx. This resulted in a tentative engagement. She visited him again in Vietnam during summer 1966. But their

969

Evans, J. (2020, December 19). Barbara Marx Hubbard and the evolutionary leaders. Medium. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/barbara-marx-hubbard-and-the-evolutionaryleaders-cc827d635bb1. 970 Burton Hersh, Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover that Transformed America (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2007), 502-503; Tom Wells, Wild Man, 473-474. There is some dispute over how close Marx and Hoover really were, as we shall see. 971 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 216-217. 972 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, 74-75; Tom Wells, Wild Man,217-218, 220-221. 973 Genzlinger, N. (2019, May 15). Barbara Marx Hubbard, 89, futurist who saw “conscious evolution,” dies. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/obituaries/barbara-marx-hubbard-dead.html 974 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 218. 975 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 221. 976 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 263.

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quarrels over Vietnam led to an end to the engagement and a break-up. They began dating again in 1969 and married in 1970, much to the delight of Louis Marx. The toy manufacturer visited Ellsberg in Vietnam and was impressed that his future son-in-law's civilian rank was on par with a US Army general.977 It didn't last. It's noteworthy that Ellsberg married Marx in August and was meeting with US Senators over The Pentagon Papers in December. These included Senator William Fulbright, who did so much to expose the Institute for American Strategy earlier in the decade. But after a few meetings with Ellsberg, Fulbright decided to disengage.978 The formal leaks began in February 1971, a little over six months after the marriage. This is interesting in light of American laws allowing spouses to refuse to testify against one another in court. This afforded Patricia a certain amount of legal protection. And she surely needed it. While often overlooked, Patricia played a major role in The Pentagon Papers leak. She was involved in everything, from copying the documents, getting them to publishers, and supporting Ellsberg in the "underground."979 She sought legal advice shortly before the leaks began to gauge potential outcomes. She had doubts about the impact the documents would make and worried about a rift with her family. Patricia was informed that she might face the death penalty for aiding Ellsberg if he was convicted of treason. Despite this sobering revelation, she was undeterred.980 Nor was she the only member of the Marx family to aid Ellsberg. The apartment of Spencer "Rainbow" Marx, Patricia and Barbara's half-brother, was used to store documents at one point.981 Rainbow was described as a "schizzy" hippie type down with sleeping under trees, meditating by candlelight, and doing yoga in the new at other's residences. Idella Marx, Rainbow's biological mother, and Patricia's stepmother, also had a residence in Cambridge. She and Rainbow were called before grand juries concerning The Pentagon Papers. The Justice Department suspected she played an undefined role.982 Supposedly, not everyone in the family supported Ellsberg's actions, first and foremost the patriarch. Louis Marx Sr. was described as "apoplectic" after learning that his son-in-law leaked The Pentagon Papers. He raged over the "stigma" Ellsberg brought upon the family and allegedly never spoke to his son-in-law again. Patricia's brother, Louis Marx Jr,983 also refused to speak to Ellsberg again. Patricia's wealthy uncle David Marx was also outraged. The family insists this led to a generational rift, with Patricia's sisters and stepbrothers supporting Ellsberg's actions. Patricia insisted her inheritance suffered as a result. There 977

Ellsberg, Secrets, 138-141 333, 346; Tom Wells, Wild Man, 264-265, 309, 368; Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 666, 739. 978 Ellsberg, Secrets,326-328, 356-357; Tom Wells, Wild Man, 349-357, etc. 979 Ellsberg, Secrets, 370-371, 392-393, etc. 980 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 353-354. 981 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 371-372; Tom Wells, Wild Man, 382. 982 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 382. 983 Louis Marx Jr. was a successful venture capitalist in his own right. And like his father, he cultivated political connections. Among his close group associates advising his business empire were James Baker of the storied law firm Baker Botts and George Bush I. See Forbes Magazine. (1998, October 12). I don’t listen to brokers. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1998/1012/6208094a.html?sh=7f80dc10315c.

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were even rumblings that Louis Marx Sr or Jr demanded Ellsberg sign a contract preventing him from benefiting from Marx family monies after the documents came out.984 There are indications things weren't quite so simple. Some, including figures in the Nixon administration, believed Louis Marx's relationship with Hoover was such that the FBI director attempted to run interference for the toy manufacturer during Ellsberg's investigation.985 Patricia Ellsberg disputed this, asserting her father and Hoover were never close despite all the favors Marx did for the FBI over the years. She even insisted her father wanted the investigation to proceed. But there's no question Hoover intervened to stop an agent from interviewing Marx Sr. during the manhunt. After an agent brought Marx in any way, Hoover gave the hapless underlining 48 hours to decide if he wanted to transfer off the case or "retire."986 Something seems to have been in play. The FBI first began investigating Ellsberg in April 1970. By the fall, shortly after Ellsberg's marriage, the FBI opted to drop the investigation despite having a strong case against him. Supposedly, this was done to spare Fulbright the embarrassment, to say nothing of avoiding a confrontation with the powerful senator. But the FBI had never backed down from attacking Fulbright previously.987 The Bureau fared no better after Ellsberg started leaking the documents. Despite running what was described as "the largest manhunt since the Lindbergh kidnapping," the FBI could not find Ellsberg once he was identified as the leaker. For nearly two weeks, Ellsberg and Marx hid out at various locations in Cambridge, MA, while the hapless FBI searched in vain. Ellsberg credited this feat to not using a home or office phone while on the lamb! He finally negotiated a surrender with the Justice Department after thirteen days of alluding the FBI.988 Further, Walter Cronkite approached the Marx brothers (David and Louis Sr) about arranging a meeting with Ellsberg at one point. Cronkite was a friend of both men, but especially David. Cronkite insisted David was favorably disposed towards arranging a meeting, though others have disputed this.989 And let us not forget that Louis Sr's own wife was suspected of aiding Ellsberg and Patricia while they were in Cambridge. This raises some doubt as to how outraged the older Marx brothers and Louis Jr truly were. Patricia Ellsberg insists that she faced serious financial repercussions from her family over her husband's actions. But as Tom Wells makes clear in his extensively researched Ellsberg bio Wild Man, she and Dan continued to live comfortably around LA and San Francisco for decades to come. They traveled frequently and owned multiple residencies, while both dedicated the bulk of their time to their respective political and spiritual

984

Tom Wells, Wild Man,451-453. Burton Hersh, Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover that Transformed America, 502-503; Tom Wells, Wild Man, 473-474. 986 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 473. 987 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 359. 988 Ellsberg, Secrets, 394-395, 405-406. 989 Tom Wells, Wild Man,436. 985

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causes. This is despite Ellsberg's lack of steady income for decades.990 Where Patricia was getting her money from is not entirely clear either. Was Patricia's purported disinheritance another legend to fuel the Ellsberg mystic? A man so righteous his heiress wife gives up her fortune for his cause? And how much of it was reality and how much myth? According to Wells, more than a few people have characterized their relationship as "odd," with more than a few acquaintances surprised they lasted so many years. They spent lots of time apart. During much of the early 1990s, Ellsberg lived in Washington, DC, while his wife remained in California.991 The couple living in different locations across the country was not uncommon for them. Their marriage was characterized as an "open relationship" --which isn't entirely uncommon in 2023 but was quite fringe when they agreed to an arrangement during the 1970s.992 Ellsberg was already known for manic libido prior to their marriage. After returning from Vietnam, he frequented swing clubs and Sandstone, an isolated "sexual retreat" outside LA known for its orgies.993 He was accused of secret bisexual inclinations after The Pentagon Papers leaked.994 Ellsberg continued these activities well after he married Patricia. He was especially fond of threesomes and group sex, often with other men.995 While none of this is especially scandalous in 2023, it would have been extremely compromising during the years (the late 1960s to at least early 1980s) when reports of Ellsberg's participation in these activities were most common. As he often tried to induce coworkers and later allies in the peace movement into these encounters, one is left with the impression of an ulterior motive behind these come-ons. Patricia, by contrast, was much more inclined towards spiritual development. Like her sister Barbara Marx Hubbard, she was quite taken with meditation, Buddhism, and general Eastern thought. She traveled extensively to attend workshops and retreats dedicated to personal growth, meditation, self-realization, and various spiritual paths.996 As noted previously, Ellsberg was also interested in New Age thought. Prior to marrying Patricia, he made the journey to Elysium and Esalen.997 But Ellsberg remained a tourist. Reportedly, he was "revolted" by some of her "New Age stuff."998 Let us step back and take stock of Ellsberg for a moment . To recap from Chapter 3: He was an ex-Marine who had served in the Corps from 1954-1957. From there, he earned a PhD. from Harvard in 1962. By then, he had put in three years with RAND. Upon leaving RAND the following year, he went to work at the Pentagon. In 1965, he hooked up with Lansdale and accompanied the general on his second tour of Vietnam (1965-1968).999 Ellsberg later returned to RAND, where he smuggled out The Pentagon Papers. 990

Tom Wells, Wild Man, 575, 592-597. Tom Wells, Wild Man, 592. 992 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 593. 993 Tom Wells, Wild Man,302-303. 994 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 465. 995 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 593-594, etc. 996 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 594-595. 997 Tom Wells, Wild Man, 307. 998 Tom Wells, Wild Man,594-595. 999 Max Boot, The Road Not Taken, 467-469. 991

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Despite the leaks damaging Lansdale, he remained friendly with Ellsberg throughout his life, describing his heart as "being in the right place."1000 Ellsberg was even more enthusiastic about Lansdale, proclaiming as recently as 2018: "I loved Lansdale" and "I really revered him and continue to have the same warm feeling; that never changed. I felt just like other members of the team did. It was a cult. He was the leader of the cult, and I was a member of that cult."1001 Other members of this cult included Lansdale's death squad capo Napoleon Valeriano and infamous CIA assassin Lou "Black Luigi" Conein.1002 Reportedly, Ellsberg wasn't opposed to getting his hands dirty either. He worked with counter-terror teams and participated in operations against political leaders while in Vietnam.1003 After his liberal awakening supposedly unfolded, it was closely connected to a wealthy and politically connected family. One that aided him throughout The Pentagon Papers psychodrama. All of this should raise serious questions about Ellsberg's saint-like status as a whistleblower. As noted in Chapter 3, he's continued to keep questionable company in the decades that followed. The bigger question is if he ever really stopped working for Edward Lansdale. *** So much for Barbara Marx Hubbard's brother-in-law. Hubbard herself was traveling in the same circles by the early 1980s. It was during this time that she became involved in a mysterious Army think tank known as Task Force Delta. This outfit had nothing (directly) to do with the famed Delta Force but was every bit as curious. It was headed by Colonel Frank Burns, who was acutely interested in neuro-linguistic

1000

Boot, The Road Not Taken, 544-547. Boot, The Road Not Taken, 469. 1002 Boot, 465. 1003 Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's Drug War (London: Verso, 2004), 418-419. 1001

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programming (NLP).1004 Colonel Burns is also believed to be one of the figures behind the Army's famous "Be All You Can Be" recruitment slogan.1005 The upper echelons of support for Task Force Delta included three and four-star Army generals.1006 Only five people were permanently assigned to Delta, including Burns, though several hundred Army officers and civilians were said to participate in the group's efforts. Participation was strictly voluntary. There were four annual Delta meetings at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. During the rest of the year, members kept in contact via an early version of the Internet, variously called "Deltanet" or the "Meta Network." Task Force Delta was charged with investigating the human potential movement, future technologies, and anything else woo-woo to see what its applications to the military may be.1007 Easily the most well-known product of Task Force Delta was Colonel Jim Channon's legendary First Earth Battalion, famously depicted in the book (and later movie) The Men Who Stare at Goats. This was Channon's attempt to envision the Army of the future, in which ESP, dowsing, love bombing, and other

1004

John B. Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 10. NLP functions not unlike the famous "These are not the droids you are looking for" Jedi mind trick from A New Hope. It is a kind of waking hypnosis, in which the practitioner attempts to put a subject in a trance-like state by using a soothing voice, mimicking their physical gestures, and employing verbal misdirection. The NLP practitioner then attempts to bypass the subject's conscious mind and place a suggestion in the subconscious. The practice was developed during the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Their approach was based on the work of psychiatrist Milton Erickson, who had consulted with Project ARTICHOKE on hypnosis during the 1950s. Esalen darling Gregory Bateson also contributed to its development. For more on the background on NLP, see Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (New York: Free Press, 2019), 93-94, etc. Unsurprisingly, various military and intelligence services have had an interest in NLP over the years. Colonel John B. Alexander has written at length on his investigation into the military applications of NLP. See John B. Alexander, Richard Groller, and Janet Morris, The Warrior's Edge (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1990). Apartheid South Africa's explored in NLP during the late 1980s and early 1990s as well. See Eeben Barlow, Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds (Pinetown, South Africa: 30˚ South Publishers [Pty] LTD., 2018), 96-97. 1005 Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats, 161. 1006 Supposedly, the upper brass consisted of Brigadier Generals Allen Omo, Rick Brown and Harden Olson; Major Generals Bob Elton, James Ellis, Jack Merritt, Bob Moore, Dale Vesser and Sam Wetzel; Glen T. Otis and Peter Schoomaker, both of whom were four star generals. See Ron McRae, Mind Wars: The True Story of Secret Government Research Into the Military Potential of Psychic Weapons (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), 123. For our purposes here, the two most interesting figures active in Task Force Delta were Schoomaker and Weztel. Schoomaker had deep ties to the special operations forces. Throughout his career, he commanded the Delta Force, the Joint Special Operations Command and the US Military Special Operations Command. See Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command, 80. After retiring from the Army in 2003, he was brought back into the service by Donald Rumsfeld to serve as Chief of Staff of the United States Army. This is the highest ranking uniformed officer in the entire Army. As for Wetzel, he was close to American Security Council luminary General Alexander Haig, eventually serving as Haig's chief-of-staff in Belgium. In this capacity, Weztel was able to play a significant role in reformulating NATO nuclear policy with the introduction of the Pershing II missiles during the late 1970s. 1007 John Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 9-10; Ron McRae, Mind Wars: The True Story of Secret Government Research into the Military Potential of Psychic Weapons (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), 117-119; Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats, 160-161.

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New Age tropes were employed before resorting to force. It should be noted, however, that Channon was also an early advocate of nonlethal weapons, which the First Earth Battalion would be equipped with.1008 As such, it should come as little surprise the Army's longtime nonlethals guru, Colonel John B. Alexander, was also active in Task Force Delta. Nor were Channon and Alexander the only interesting people to participate. The most well-known figure linked to it is Colin Powell, the general who served as Reagan's National Security Adviser and Bush I's Chairman of the JCS before becoming Bush II's Secretary of State after retiring from the Army. Another Task Force Delta figure who eventually made it into upper management was Colonel Frank Burns' deputy, Tom Kelly. Under Bush II, Kelly served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army. A figure potentially linked to Task Force Delta was American Security Council luminary General Richard Stilwell. Alexander indicates that he became aware of Stilwell's interest in UFOs and the like through the Task Force Delta network but never clarified if Stilwell actually participated.1009 And finally, there's Barbara Marx Hubbard, who consulted with Task Force Delta as a psychologist. One of her suggestions involved bombarding "the Soviets with psychic love rather than hate and suspicion." Reportedly, it was this kind of thinking that inspired the First Earth Battalion.1010 But did the Army truly take these notions seriously? And if not, what was at play? Again, I must point out how remarkably similar the separate tracts taken by the US and USSR were. Was the cosmology adopted by the likes of Hubbard simply the result of the indirect collaboration between de Chardin and Vernadsky in developing the concept of the noosphere? Perhaps, but how could the US intelligence services miss such a connection? Especially if they were interested in targeting the superstitions of the Soviet Union. It does seem that early leaks concerning US ESP research were meant as a form of psychological warfare targeting the Russians. As the notion of the noosphere and earlier versions of it have long been linked to ESP in Russia, it's implausible to believe the US national security state would not have had an interest. That makes what was unfolding in San Francisco during the late 1960s and early 1970s all the more interesting. Alleged US interest in ESP and UFOs appears to have kicked off a peculiar type of Great Awakening in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. As was noted in Chapter 4, the Soviets briefly allowed discussions of UFOs in public forums during that era, along with renewed interest in ESP and other fringe phenomena. While it would be a mistake to chalk up these developments as being entirely due to US influence, perceived US interest in fringe subjects no doubt provided cover in the eyes of certain party officials. Were the SRI remote viewing experiments then an attempt to take things to the next level? And if there was a belief amongst the national security state that these methods were generating results, would they have stopped with one university in the US? If a few random reports on ESP could spur Soviet

1008

Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats, 38. John Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 10. 1010 Ron McRae, Mind Wars, 117-118. 1009

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science into pursuing research of a dubious nature, what could an entire movement accomplish? Especially if it were able to reach the upper hierarchy of Soviet leadership. Preposterous, right? And yet, within years of its founding, Esalen members had established regular contact with the Soviet Union. Co-founder Michael Murphy developed an early interest in Soviet parapsychology and began corresponding with Russians on the topic by 1966.1011 Murphy first ventured to the Soviet Union in 1971 to view their parapsychological research firsthand. He would continue traveling to the USSR throughout the 1970s, along with other members of Esalen's staff.1012 By 1980, Murphy was openly suggesting that the human potential movement could be used as a diplomatic strategy to influence elements of the Soviet Union, specifically the scientific community. During that same year, he set up the Soviet-American Exchange Program at Esalen to establish a cross-culture dialogue between the two superpowers.1013 These efforts gained the support of diplomat Arthur Hartman, Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet Union for much of his presidency.1014 This set the stage for Esalen's famed "hot-tub diplomacy" with the Russians. Reportedly, Reagan himself supported these efforts.1015 Indeed, Esalen enjoyed considerable support from the Reagan and later Bush I administrations. It was tapped to host Boris Yeltsin in 1989 and Gorbachev during the following decade. One Esalen member from this era went on to establish the International Foreign Policy Association with George Shultz, Reagan's Secretary of State.1016 The reader will recall from above that Russell Targ, who ran the SRI remote viewing program along with Hal Puthoff, had links to Esalen dating back to the 1960s. His CIA work began (officially) in 1972, a year after Murphy's first trip to Esalen. Targ and Puthoff frequently contributed to Esalen's workshops until the early 1980s. Targ traveled to the Soviet Union in 1983 to discuss remote viewing at the Soviet Academy of Sciences (where the Vernadsky Foundation is located).1017 If the CIA wanted to run an influence operation on the Soviet scientific community pushing fringe sciences, the infrastructure was clearly in place. Prior efforts had created an interest in the Soviet Union, and figures like Esalen's Michael Murphy had built up contacts in the Evil Empire via parapsychology circles. Elsewhere, Targ already had prior links to Esalen. And once the CIA signed on to sponsor the research of Puthoff and Targ, the spies had the run of SRI. If they hadn't already.

1011

Jeffrey Kripal, Esalen, 316-319. Kripal, Esalen, 319-325. 1013 ibid, 328-331. 1014 ibid, 332. 1015 ibid, 337-338. 1016 Kripal, Esalen, 393-399. Fittingly, Daniel Ellsberg was cultivating Gorbachev for unilateral nuclear disarmament project during this time as well. See Tom Wells, Wild Man, 586. 1017 Kripal, Esalen, 342. 1012

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While I cannot definitively prove the SRI remote viewing program was a sophisticated form of psychological warfare targeting the Soviet Union, I certainly think this section illustrates how such an operation would be possible. And maybe even irresistible to certain quarters. More on those in a moment. It wasn't just the Russians caught in the glow either. Counterculture icon and cyberculture trailblazer Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) became an enthusiastic supporter of the "Aquarian conspiracy" by the early 1980s. He hailed them as the "new Power Elite," crediting them with the "Youth Revolution of the 1960s" as well as "Women's Lib, Gay Lib, Child Lib, and generously supported Black Lib; ended the Vietnam War; spread holistic medicine throughout our culture; etc." He also credited them with the ecology movement, "Oriental neuro-science," and flex-time, among many other innovations. In the future, he saw them leading the way in space migration and immortality,1018 two longstanding goals of the Russian Cosmists. RAW became especially enamored with Barbara Marx Hubbard. They likely became familiar with one another via the L-5 Society, a group dedicated to commercial space exploration. Hubbard was a financial patron of the group1019 and a member of its board of directors.1020 RAW was a member of the L-5 Society, describing himself as "deeply involved" with the group during the 1970s.1021 RAW would later thank Hubbard in the acknowledgments of his influential work Prometheus Rising (1983) while basing the character of "Eve Hubbard" in his Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy upon her. Hubbard also had a soft spot for RAW, hailing him as "one of the leading thinkers of the modern age." At least one influential movement came out of this peculiar alliance, as we will see in Book II.

1018

Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising (Las Vegas, NV: New Falcon Publications, 1983), 116-117. Michael A. G. Michaud, Reaching for the High Frontier: The American Pro-Space Movement, 1972-1984 (Westport, CT, Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 1986), chapter 5 (accessed at https://space.nss.org/reaching-forthe-high-frontier-chapter-5/). 1020 Carolyn Henson (ed.), L-5 News: A Publication of the L-5 Society 3, no. 2 (February 1978), cover. Interestingly, ASC luminary Barry Goldwater was also on the board of directors with Hubbard. 1021 Wilson, Cosmic Trigger, 237. 1019

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The Aviary

There's one final aspect of the San Francisco nexus legacy that must be addressed: Ufology. During the 1970s, RAW's perspective on UFOs was dominated by the esoteric interpretations offered up by John Keel (of Mothman Prophecies fame) and Jacques Vallee, whose landmark Passport to Magonia was published by Regnery less than a decade prior. That RAW gravitated to Vallee is hardly surprising. During the early 1970s, Vallee had regular business at SRI, working on behalf of both the Human Augmentation Center's work on the ARPANET and the remote viewing program.1022 Nor was Vallee the only one involved with the SRI remote viewing program with a keen interest in UFOs. Dr. Christopher "Kit" Green, a CIA officer assigned to oversee various aspects of the SRI remote viewing program,1023 along with its co-director, Hal Puthoff, have been active in the UFO field for decades. During the early 1990s, it was revealed that Green, Puthoff, and likely Vallee were part of an informal group composed mainly of former military and intelligence officers investigating the UFO question. They were dubbed "The Aviary."1024 Other figures linked to The Aviary, such as CIA officer Ron Pandolfi (a longtime fixture in the Division of Science and Technology) and former Air Force and Defense Intelligence Agency officer Dale Graff, were involved in later remote viewing programs.1025 1022

Jacobsen, Phenomena, 153. See also the second volume of Jacques Vallee's journals in the Forbidden Science series for more details on this crucial era. 1023 Jacobsen, Phenomena, 140. 1024 The existence of The Aviary appears to have first been exposed by British journalist Armen Victorian in his "NonLethality, John B. Alexander, the Pentagon's Penguin," published by Lobster magazine in 1993. Victorian would later expand on this account in his Mind Controllers (Miami, FL: Lewis International, 2000), 182-184. While there's yet to be a full length account published about the birdmen, they are addressed at length in several works. The best is easily Adam Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, Kooks (Daily Grail Publishing, 2021). Compelling works such as Greg Bishop, Project Blue Beam; Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010); and Richard M. Dolan, UFOs & the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed 1973-1991 (New York: Keyhole Publishing Company 2009), cover many Aviary figures at various points. The "UFO Working Group" described in Howard Blum's Out There: The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials (New York: Pocket Star Books, 1990) also featured numerous members of The Aviary among its ranks. We'll explore that more below. Various Birdmen have published accounts of the group's activities as well as those of individual members. Easily the most compelling of these are Jacques Vallee's journals, published under the Forbidden Science banner. The four volumes, chronicling over decades (roughly 1960-2000), provide ample details about various members both before and after the creation of The Aviary. John B. Alexander's UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities provides a few sparing details. The early history of The Aviary is addressed directly in Bruce Maccabee, Hawk Tales (self-pub, 2005), an extended essay by sometime member. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Robert M. Collins & Richard C. Doty, Exempt from Disclosure, 2nd ed. (Vandalia, OH: Peregrine Communications, 2007). This work also covers the early years of The Aviary, but in a full-blown "myth-arch" fashion. That's a polite way of saying much of Exempt is pure bullshit. 1025 Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies, 347. Per Schnabel, Pandolfi and Graff were on opposite sides of a heated battle over funding for "Sun Secret," a later remote viewing program overseen by the DIA. Interestingly, Graff had served at Wright Patterson Air Force Base's famed Foreign Technology Division (allegedly the home of Hangar 18, a staple of Ufology noted in chapter 1) from 1964 till 1981. From 1966 to

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Two Aviary members played a significant role in the Bennewitz affair: AFOSI officer Richard Doty and Ufologist William Moore, who confessed to being used by the intelligence community to leak disinformation during a 1989 Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) conference.1026 It was Doty who had originally recruited Moore for this task in 1980.1027 Doty and Moore played crucial roles in funneling Paul Bennewitz disinformation.1028 Jamie Shandera, a minor Hollywood producer and Moore's sometimes research partner, was also a reputed Aviary member and a tertiary character in the Bennewitz affair.1029 As this episode is highly relevant to our discussion, it warrants a brief digression: Bennewitz was an Albuquerque-based businessman convinced he had stumbled onto a Byzantine plot involving various extraterrestrials and factions within the US national security state in 1979. It started when Bennewitz came to believe the strange lights he SAW outside of Albuquerque were of extraterrestrial origins and began filming them. The following year, he was approached by a woman who claimed to be a longtime abductee. After putting her through hypnotic sessions, Bennewitz concluded she was implanted with a tracking/mind control device.1030 Soon, Bennewitz was being passed classified documents that confirmed his suspicions. In 1981, a distinguished Ufologist gave Bennewitz a "special" computer that enabled him to intercept transmissions from a spaceship and what Bennewitz believed to be an alien base in New Mexico.1031 By mid-decade, Bennewitz was convinced that aliens were slipping into his bedroom at night and injecting him with drugs that brought on strange behavior. His sanity rapidly deteriorated to the point that he accused his wife of being controlled by aliens in 1988. Shortly thereafter, his family had him committed.1032 It took nearly two decades for the truth to come out: It turns out that Bennewitz was being harassed, but not by extraterrestrials. Rather, his tormentors were members of the Air Force Office of Special 1968, his commanding officer would have been Colonel Raymond Sleeper, who commanded the entire division from 1966-1968. The reader will recall from chapter one that Sleeper was an ASC member and a lecturer at the IAS's Freedom Studies Center. Sleeper was also the boss of J. Allen Hynek, Vallee's longtime associate, when he headed Blue Book as well. 1026 Greg Bishop, Project Blue Beam, 219-225; Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men, 117-118; George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal (Xlibris Corporation, 2001), 226-227. 1027 Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men, 118-119; Greg Bishop, Project Blue Beam, 63-65; George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 227. Doty appears to have begun the process a year earlier with an enigmatic UFO report sent to Moore. 1028 See Bishop, Project Beta and Pilkington, Mirage Men. 1029 Bennewitz has inspired several full-length account of note: Greg Bishop's Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth (New York: Paraview Pocket Books, 2005); and Christopher Lambert, X-Descending (X Disk Publishing, 2012), Kindle, are the two best. Bennewitz is also addressed extensively in George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal; Mark Pilkington's Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010) and Adam Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks: UFO Disinformation in the Age of Aquarius (Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing, 2021). 1030 Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men, 120; Adam Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 32-37; Greg Bishop, Project Beta, 2, 17-32. 1031 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 122-125; Bishop, Project Beta, 94-96; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 38-39. 1032 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 172-173; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 196; Bishop, Project Beta, 211-218.

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Investigation (AFOSI), the counterintelligence branch of the Air Force's in-house intelligence services. Chief among them was Richard Doty, whom we shall encounter again during this chapter. Whether Doty and company were acting in an official capacity remains a matter of debate. But there can be little question the AFOSI men enlisted fellow Ufologists to feed Bennewtiz false documents while Doty personally encouraged Bennewitz's delusions.1033 And the prominent Ufologist who gave Doty his "special" computer to monitor alien transmissions? Why, none other than J. Allen Hynek, whom we encountered in the prior chapter as part of the ASC/IAS's broader network in fringe subcultures. Hynek himself told the highly controversial Ufologist (and sometime AFOSI asset) William Moore that the Air Force instructed him to give Bennewitz the computer. This claim remains highly contentious.1034 But given Hynek's connection to Regnery Press, which was a part of the IAS's broader psychological warfare efforts, such a possibility cannot be dismissed. This is especially interesting in light of the most lasting impact of the "Bennewitz affair," namely the rise of the mythos surrounding the Dulce Base. In modern UFO lore, Dulce is said to be a massive underground base hidden inside a Mesa overlooking the tiny New Mexico town that gave the base its name. Supposedly, the base was established after a treaty between the US government and an advanced alien species. The latter provided part of the base's joint command structure, while the CIA directed things on behalf of the US government. Eventually, the aliens broke the treaty, leading to open conflict within the base. Grotesque experiments on human beings and cattle alike soon followed, as well as occasional running gun battles between the UFOs and the Delta Force.1035 Absurd as it may seem, this mythos is widely believed by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people within the worldwide UFO community, as being a reality. And it all originated from Bennewtiz,1036 who was likely the target of an elaboration disinformation campaign. This is also widely known within the UFO community, yet people still believe the Dulce mythos. Another curious account of gang stalking appears in Robert Guffey's Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security. There Guffey, an academic, recounts the saga of a high school friend who wound up in possession of several pairs of classified night vision goggles in 2003. This event triggered a nightmarish campaign of ongoing harassment featuring elaborate stealth and non-lethal technologies. After years of following his friend's experiences, Guffey was able to track down one of the scientists who developed some of the technologies used against him. While Guffey's account is incredible, it is also very sober and scholarly.1037

1033

Pilkington, Mirage Men, 120-126. Bishop, Project Beta, 94-96. 1035 Barkun, Michael, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 112-113. 1036 ibid, 112. 1037 See Guffey, Robert, Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security (New York: OR Books, 2015). 1034

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As incredible as this may seem, it's important to remember that Kirtland Air Force Base houses the Air Force Weapons Laboratory (AFWL) and its successors. The lab was established in 1963 to explore "the military uses of nuclear power, weapons, and support equipment, and to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. systems to nuclear weapons effects."1038 Throughout the 1960s, the AFWL was principally concerned with the effects of electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) following a nuclear exchange. It was also during that decade the AFWL was tasked with the mission of studying laser R & D. By the 1970s, this became the lab's primary focus. Specifically, the AFWL sought to create a laser beam that could be used as a weapon.1039 Later, the AFWL would become a major player in Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), briefly addressed in Chapters 4 and 5. During the fiscal year of 1986, more than 60 percent of the AFWL's budget came from the SDI. Much of this was centered around developing space-based laser weapons.1040 During the height of the SDI, the AFWL launched the "Directed Energy Experimental Range" to toy with "directed energy" weapons, i.e., those using microwaves and particle beams.1041 This eventually led to the AFWL's Directed Energy Directorate. In other words, Kirkland housed the Air Force laboratory tasked with developing the service's science fiction-style energy weapons. In September 2001, the Air Force unveiled something they referred to as "Active Denial Technology" (ADT). What it amounts to is a millimeter wavelength microwave beam that can cause a burning sensation in humans when targeted with the technology.1042 For years, researchers have speculated on the use of various types of electromagnetic radiation, such as microwaves and radio waves on the extremely low frequency (ELF) end, as a basis for "non-lethal" weapons.1043 But a considerable body of evidence has emerged during the twenty-first century confirming a vast military interest in such things. And directed energy weapons were hardly the only technologies perused. Non-lethal weapons came in a variety of forms. They include: Calmatives or "incapacitants" (chemicals that put people to sleep); acoustic and light pulsing devices capable of disrupting cognitive and neural processes; fowl odors that can sicken; colored fogs that create panic; optical equipment that causes temporary blindness; and of course, devices that simulate pain in nerve endings, i.e., burning. While these

1038

Karen Van Citters and Kristen Bisson, "National Register of Historic Places Historic Context and Evaluation for Kirtland Air Force Base" (Albuquerque, NM: US Air Force, 2003), https://web.archive.org/web/20120503181950/http://www.denix.osd.mil/cr/upload/kirtland-historiccontext_0.pdf, 148-149. 1039 Karen Van Citters and Kristen Bisson, "National Register of Historic Places Historic Context and Evaluation for Kirtland Air Force Base," 161-162. 1040 Karen Van Citters and Kristen Bisson, "National Register of Historic Places Historic Context and Evaluation for Kirtland Air Force Base," 176-177. 1041 Karen Van Citters and Kristen Bisson, "National Register of Historic Places Historic Context and Evaluation for Kirtland Air Force Base," 181. 1042 Jonathan D. Moreno, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (New York: Dana Press, 2006), 153; Christopher Lambert, X-Descending, Kindle location 3882. 1043 See, for instance, Jonathan D. Moreno, Mind Wars, 75; and Armen Victorian, Mind Controllers (Miami, FL: Lewis International Inc., 2000), 175-181.

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technologies come in various forms, they virtually all target the human brain and nervous system in one form or another.1044 In the rare instances when these weapons have drawn public scrutiny, they're often depicted in a humorous fashion. Easily the most famous is the sticky foam disastrously deployed by the US military in Somalia during 1995 and mocked in the book (and later film) The Men Who Stare At Goats.1045 Other reported uses were not so easy to ridicule, however. In October 2002, a hostage situation broke out at a theater in Moscow. After a standoff lasting several days, Russian commandos pumped an incapacitant into the venue. It worked up to a certain point. The terrorists were mostly knocked out or disrupted, which resulted in many killed at point black range. On the downside, a considerable amount of the hostages -especially children --were killed by the incapacitant. The incapacitant was an anesthetic gas, fentanyl. On the very same day --October 26 --this tragedy concluded, the DC-based National Academy of Science released a report on nonlethal weapons advocating fentanyl as a "calmative" agent.1046 As I hope this illustrates, nonlethal weapons are a serious business, one the US national security state has had an interest in for a considerable time. Further, "nonlethal" weapons are not always so "nonlethal." I've dwelled on this subject here because several figures we've already encountered in this work, and more to come, have been closely connected to nonlethal weapons research for years. What's more, many of these same figures turn up repeatedly in accounts of gang stalking and other extreme (and often bizarre) forms of harassment. As Bennewitz and Robert Guffey's accounts illustrate, there are compelling indications that this type of harassment may have involved cutting-edge military technology. *** Other interesting Aviary figures include Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a longtime Navy man who spent the bulk of his service at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Maccabee was active in the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) from the late 1960s until its demise in 1980. He later worked on the SDI during the 1980s.1047 The reader will recall from Chapter 1 that NICAP was heavily staffed by both former intelligence officers and American Security Council members, while the SDI was one of the ASC's principal legacies. There's no evidence Maccabee engaged directly with the Council, but he was certainly in their orbit. Another Aviary figure who was definitely in the ASC's orbit was Colonel John Alexander. He had links to several major ASC figures, including General Richard Stilwell, and was working with the US Global Security Council (USGSC) by the late 1980s. Numerous members of that body had dual membership in the ASC.

1044

Jonathan D. Moreno, Mind Wars, 142. Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004), 49-51. 1046 Jonathan D. Moreno, Mind Wars, 140-141. 1047 XZRS: Dr. Bruce Maccabee - UFOs. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2021, from https://www.amazon.com/XZRS-DrBruce-Maccabee-UFOs/dp/B08JM8952H; George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 236-237. Hansen notes Maccabee joined an association with the CIA, having been commissioned by the agency to prepare a report for US presidential science advisor John Gibbons. 1045

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Alexander was not the only Aviary member with an interest in nonlethal weapons. As was noted above, the Kirtland Air Force base Doty was tasked with securing was at the forefront of the Air Force's nonlethal weapons research involving microwaves. Prior to studying ESP, Puthoff worked as a physicist specializing in lasers,1048 which are closely related to nonlethal weapons involving microwaves. In recent years, Dr. Kit Green has dedicated himself to researching injuries caused by "anomalous events," some of which potentially being the result of nonlethal weapons.1049 It would seem a dual interest in ESP and nonlethal weapons was as common among some Americans as their Soviet counterparts. As for The Aviary itself, its origins are a bit murky (surprise, surprise!). Affiliates often describe it as a highly informal group primarily existing in the mind of Ufologist William Moore. Moore was the one who came up with the bird handles, after all. The Aviary, then, was the codename for the spooks and military men Moore used as sources during his UFO investigations.1050 The birdmen were simply UFO and para weird enthusiasts looking to discreetly investigate their quirky interests outside official channels. It all started in 1980 when Moore was approached by the most enigmatic of the birdmen, "Falcon." To this day, the identity of Falcon has never been revealed, though there is no lack of online speculation. Regardless, he offered Moore a classic Faustian bargain: spy on and spread disinformation among the UFO community in exchange for legitimate insider information on the phenomena. Through Falcon, Moore first encountered Richard Doty, a crucial stage in what became the Bennewitz affair.1051 Moore was the perfect candidate to play the UFO community with. After teaching professionally at the middle and high school levels, then working as a labor-relations expert for several years, Moore became a full-time writer in 1979. This coincided with the publication of his first book (The Philadelphia Experiment, co-authored with Charles Berlitz) and relocation to Prescott, AZ. The latter was so that he could be closer to the civilian UFO group Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), where he had accepted a position on the board of directors.1052 The Philadelphia Experiment was a success despite Moore concluding the incident was a hoax.1053 It was his next work that put Moore on the map. Dubbed The Roswell Incident (again co-authored with Charles Berlitz) and released in 1980, this work almost singlehandedly put Roswell on the map. Prior to the release

1048

Jacobsen, Phenomena, 119. Before signing on with the CIA in 1972, Puthoff was a member of the Office of Naval Intelligence. While in the Reserve, the ONI loaned Puthoff to the NSA. It involved code breaking, or cryptography. Thus, like his Russian predecessor Gleb Bokii, Puthoff dealt in ciphers before taking on ESP for an intelligence service. 1049 Jacobsen, Phenomena, 396-398. 1050 Bishop, Project Bata, 64. 1051 Bishop, 63-64Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men, 118-119; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 45-46. 1052 Bishop, 50; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 118. 1053 Bishop, 51-52. The basis of the Philadelphia Experiment is that during the WWII era the US Navy conducted an experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Year to achieve invisibility. Such a thing actually was attempted, but to make a ship invisible to radar, not literally invisible. In the more sensational accounts, crew members were said to have turned invisible, fused into the hull, and even traveled through time. While these accounts have no basis in reality, they remain a staple in conspiritainment and have been adopted by later mythos such as Montauk (discussed in chapter five).

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of the Moore/Berlitz book, Roswell was a minor footnote among Urologists. The book came about from a chance encounter that led Moore and fellow Urologist Stanford Friedman to a former Army Air Force intelligence officer who told them of a crashed flying saucer in the New Mexico desert during 1947.1054 As was noted in Chapter 4, there is compelling evidence of the crashed-flying-saucer-at-Roswell narrative being a disinformation campaign. Whether Moore was already being groomed for his latter role as a disinformation agent at this point is beyond the scope of this work to address. But suffice to say, it's curious. Allegedly, The Roswell Incident brought Moore to the attention of Falcon. The circumstances leading up to their maiden meeting were suitably cloak and dagger. After interviewing in Omaha, Nebraska, promoting the book, Moore received a call from someone purporting to be a colonel stationed at the local Offutt Air Force Base. The colonel told Moore, "We think you're the only one we've heard that seems to know what he's talking about," then asked the author if they could meet for coffee. Moore had to leave for the next stop in his book tour in less than an hour, so he declined. During the return trip, after completing an interview in Albuquerque, Moore again received a caller who repeated the same " We think you're the only one we've heard that seems to know what he's talking about" bit. The caller refused to identify himself this time but again offered Moore a meeting.1055 Moore accepted, beginning his official involvement with The Aviary. Or was it? Moore later believed the birdmen began feeling him out several months prior to their initial contact. During July 1980 (nearly two months prior to The Roswell Incident dropping), APRO received a mysterious letter from an 18-year-old Civil Air Patrol (a training program for the Air Force that Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie were involved with, incidentally) cadet named Craig Weitzel. Naturally, Weitzel was doing his training out of Kirtland Air Force Base. Not only did the letter claim that Weitzel had seen a craft, but he also photographed it, and observed a being in a metallic suit emerge from it. Later, the cadet was threatened by a Man in Black, known as "Huck," and reported the whole thing to an Air Force security officer known as "Dody." Moore was assigned the case and soon managed to track Weitzel down. The cadet confirmed having seen a UFO, but denied taking any pictures of it, or having encountered any Men in Black, beings in metal suits, or even a "Dody."1056 Clearly, the latter referred to AFOSI man Richard Doty, then stationed out of Kirtland. During their first meeting, Falcon presented Moore with a list of fabricated Roswell witnesses. Moore quickly realized Falcon's information was false and called him out on it during their second meeting. Doty was also present for this encounter, the first time he and Moore met one another. Falcon and Doty assured Moore that they were merely testing him.1057

1054

Bishop, 52-53; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 19-20; George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 224-226. 1055 Bishop, 58-59; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 118. 1056 Bishop, 54-57; Pilkington, 119; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 42-46. 1057 Bishop, 61-64.

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While Moore had a reputation as a rising star in UFO circles, he had not yet made his mark when The Aviary overtures first began. In those pre-Internet days, this likely means someone was monitoring him via the civilian UFO groups he was tied to. Moore can speak Russian fluently, which may have raised eyebrows in certain counterintelligence circles. The birdmen claim that the Aviary proper did not really get going until several years later, in the fall of 1986. It was then that the storied meeting at Beavercreek, Ohio, unfolded. Beavercreek is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. As was noted in Chapter 4, Wright-Patterson features heavily in UFO mythos, especially "Hangar 18." What's more, this trope was pushed by the old ASC network. Present at the 1986 Beavercreek meeting were Moore, Hal Puthoff, Colonel John B. Alexander, Jamie Shandera (a minor Hollywood producer and sometime research partner of Moore's), and two birdmen yet addressed, Dr. C. B. "Scott" Jones and Colonel Robert Collins.1058 Like many figures in this saga, Jones was a longtime Navy man. He served 35 years, retiring with the rank of commander. Over half of his time in the Navy was spent in intelligence.1059 Upon retiring from the service, he became a special assistant to Senator Claiborne Pell while the congressman chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Jones held this post from 1985 till 1991.1060 It may have been in this capacity that Jones entered the orbit of Laurence Rockefeller, a scion of the famed American dynasty.1061 During the 1990s, Rockefeller endowed Jones with a quarter of a million dollars for a UFO Disclosure initiative targeting the Clinton

1058

Robert M. Collins with Richard Doty, Exempt from Disclosure, 8-9; John B. Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 127-128; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 86. 1059 C. B Scott Jones, Phd. Peace Room - Bio. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2021, from http://www.peaceroom.com/bio.html; George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 239. 1060 Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 98; Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Three, 432-434; George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 239-240. 1061 George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 240. The Rockefeller Foundation was actually one of the principal funding sources for the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, which monitored the work of the Institute for American Strategy during the late 1950s. It was also deeply involved in funding MK-ULTRA. See, Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 141, 146; Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 465. Further, brother Nelson Rockefeller was deeply involved with the National Security Council's Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) during the Eisenhower administration. Rockefeller also served as an undersecretary of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) during 1953, when drug experimentation was undertaken there on behalf of the CIA. See Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 464-465. The OCB was an outgrowth of the Psychological Strategy Board, a body deeply engaged in psychological warfare. Further, the Rockefeller Foundation was engaged in researching how mass communications could be utilized for psychological warfare since the late 1930s. See Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion: Communication Research & Psychological Warfare 1945-1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 22-23, 74-75. Further, brother David Rockefeller described Laurence and Nelson as "an inseparable team" while Laurence had become "the principal executive of the organizations central to our family" by the mid-1950s. See David Rockefeller, Memoirs (New York: Random House Trade Paperback, 2003), 36, 190. Was Laurence aware of the spookier things the family foundation was sponsoring or his brother's activities on behalf of the national security state? He would have certainly been in a position to know.

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White House.1062 This was likely when Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta first developed a keen interest in UFOs.1063 Much more will be written about Podesta in Book III. Scott Jones may have served as something of a gatekeeper for Laurence Rockefeller regarding the broader UFO community. What I'm suggesting is that Jones played a role in deciding who received Mr. Rockefeller's considerable largess within the para weird community. The Aviary has dominated the UFO field for decades, and access to wealthy donors is a major component of their control. In UFO circles, no one had deeper pockets than Rockefeller during this era. Another interesting aspect about Jones is that he also appears to have been engaged in nonlethal weapons research. Specifically, Jones was implicated in Project Sleeping Beauty, which allegedly investigated the use of microwave weapons for offensive purposes. Jones was also linked to Dr. Michael Persinger, a neurophysicist whose research focused on the effects of electromagnetic fields on biological organisms and human behavior. Persinger is credited as one of the developers of the "God helmet," a device said to induce UFO and other paranormal experiences by using a low-level magnet field to stimulate a subject's temporal lobe.1064 As for Colonel Robert "Bob" Collins, his CV isn't quite as impressive. Collins is variously described as an Air Force physicist and intelligence officer. He appears to have been both, having served for a time at WrightPatterson's famed Foreign Technology Division,1065 a component of the Air Force's scientific intelligence setup. Collins, who had the Aviary handle of Condor, frequently collaborates with Doty in the more outlandish episodes of the birdmen. Supposedly, Collins was stationed at Kirkland by 1986. He told investigator Linda Milton Howe that he had been working with Moore for years behind the scenes at that point.1066 Another Air Force man, Colonel Ernie Kellerstrass, hosted the Beavercreek meeting. His Aviary handle was Hawk, and like most of these figures, he had a background in intelligence. He also had longstanding ties to Wright-Patterson, having worked there while serving in the Air Force and in a civilian capacity. Kellerstrass may well have been one of the driving forces behind the creation of The Aviary.1067 He certainly told a good yarn. While working at Wright-Patterson's famed Foreign Technology Division (FTD) and elsewhere, Ernie was told some incredible things. They involved Roswell, the inevitable deep underground bases (DUMBS), extraterrestrial ambassadors to the US, and the "Red" and "Yellow" Books. The Red Book was a compilation of government research on UFOs going back to 1947. The Yellow Book wasn't a book at all 1062

Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 145-148; George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 241. John B. Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 109-110. 1064 Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 98. This researcher has been unable to confirm the existence of a Project Sleeping Beauty, though Vallee reports rumors from the 1980s that Jones was involved with research involving "electromagnetic effects." See Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Three, 403. 1065 Robert M. Collins with Richard Doty, Exempt from Disclosure, 6-7, 188. 1066 George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 230 1067 Collins & Doty, Exempt from Disclosure, 3, 6-7; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 87-88. 1063

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but an octagon-shaped crystal that originated with the ETs. When the aliens held it, the crystal projected holograms that gave accounts of how the ETs seeded Jesus on planet Earth and such. Rick Doty claimed to have held the crystal as well, but his human biology was insufficient to activate the device.1068 Kellerstrass first began feeding Robert Collins these revelations during the prior year.1069 Later, in 1985, Collins reached out to Dr. Bruce Maccabee, another future birdman working for the Naval Surface Warfare Center. Maccabee had been investigating UFOs for nearly two decades at that point, which is allegedly what led Collins to reach out. After comparing notes on the strange doings at Kirtland, Collins suggested Maccabee talk to Kellerstrass. Ernie obliged and told Maccabee many of the same tales over the course of several interviews.1070 Possibly the most bizarre element of Kellerstrass' claims involved fellow birdman, Dale Graff! Graff was a civilian physicist who spent nearly two decades working at Wright-Patt's FTD. During the late 1970s, Graff arranged Air Force funding for the SRI remote viewing program.1071 Later, Graff left the Air Force and joined the DIA in the early 1980s, where he worked with the Pentagon's remote viewing program. 1072 Kellerstrass indicated that Graff had great information on the UFO question from his time at Wright -Patt, where he used to "tag along" with the MJ-12 (more on that below) members to their meetings. Both Collins and Maccabee state that Ernie told them this.1073 And yet no one in The Aviary has ever acknowledged asking Graff if any of Kellerstrass' claims were true! Nor has Graff ever seemingly weighed in on the matter. This is one of many enigmas surrounding The Aviary. Elsewhere, Rick Doty appears to have been seeding elements of Kellerstrass' narrative in the UFO community via Bill Moore several years earlier. In November 1980, Moore was invited onto Kirtland Air Force base by Doty and Falcon. There, he was shown an analysis conducted on the footage Bennewitz filmed. It was part of a report subsequently dubbed "the Aquarius document" by Ufologists. Moore was later given a highly edited and re-written version of this document in 1981 by Doty with instructions to pass it on to Bennewitz.1074 There was a lot of red meat in this document for a guy like Bennewitz. Besides hinting at an official investigation involving his UFO footage by the national security state, there were other juicy tidbits. The report claimed that the craft Bennewitz filmed featured a "trilateral insignia," for instance. This is surely a reference to the Trilateral Commission,1075 a neo-liberal think tank established by David Rockefeller (brother of Laurence) during the 1970s. The TriLats wielded considerable influence in the Carter

1068

Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 86-87. Collins & Doty, 6-7, 11, etc. Collins & Doty, 6-7. 1070 Bruce Maccabee, Hawk Tales, 1-4; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 87. 1071 Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 217; Jacobsen, Phenomena, 196. 1072 Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 334; Jacobsen, Phenomena, 261-262. 1073 Collins & Doty, 7; Maccabee, Hawk Tales, 31, 33-34, 50-51; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 87. 1074 Bishop, Project Beta, 118-120; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 121-123; 1075 Bishop, Project Beta, 123-124. 1069

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administration, making them a major bugaboo of the conspiratorial right by the late 1970s.1076 Bennewitz was known to have such inclinations. The most significant part of the Aquarius document was its reference to the "MJ-12." This was later revealed to stand for Majestic 12, a shadowy body created in 1947 by President Harry Truman to deal with the UFO question. It included many senior figures in the military, intelligence, and scientific communities. Ufologists had long suspected that there was a hidden control group within the national security state overseeing UFOs, and this seemed to confirm those suspicions. By the end of the 1980s, MJ12 would become a cornerstone of UFO mythos.1077 By the following decade, it was a bona fide pop culture staple. Except that it was all an elaborate hoax. There does appear to have been a highly classified "Operation Majestic 12" initiated by President Truman in 1947, but it had nothing to do with UFOs. Rather, it seems to have involved continuity of government (COG) in the event of nuclear war.1078 As far as is known, the Aquarius document represents the first time Majestic 12 had been linked to UFOs.1079 During the middle of the 1980s, the UFO gods began revealing Majestic at large. In 1983, William Moore was contacted by either Falcon or someone connected to him. He was told that he would "see something important" and would receive instructions. From there, Moore was directed around the country to various airports. Instructions awaited him at each stop as to where he would fly next. He finally ended up at a hotel in upstate New York. There, he was met by a courier who handed him a plain manila envelope. Moore was told that he had nineteen minutes to copy the material within the envelope, at which point the courier would need it back. Moore took pictures and read the folder's content into a tape recorder. The contents purported to be notes from a briefing Carter received on UFOs. Project Aquarius was mentioned, along with the second reference to MJ-12 as the UFO control group. At the end of the nineteen minutes, the courier collected the pages and departed. Other researchers later received copies of these pages or were given them by Moore.1080 The real bombshell was dropped the following year. Jamie Shandera, Moore's research partner, was mailed his own manila envelope in December 1984. The envelope had been mailed from Albuquerque, NM, which Kirtland Air Force Base resides just outside. Inside the envelope was a roll of 35mm black and 1076

Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 2nd ed., 67-69. For more on the influence the TriLats had on Carter, see Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and the Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate and Beyond (New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1976), 309-311; and Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11, 58-59, 66-69. The TriLats are still routinely invoked by the conspiratorial right despite the body possessing little influence since the 1980s. 1077 For more on this narrative, see Stanton T. Friedman, Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic-12 and the United States Government's UFO Cover-up (Philadelphia, PA: De Capo Press, 1996). See also George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 224-225. 1078 John B. Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 130-132. 1079 Bishop, Project Beta, 127-128; Alexander, UFOs, 122; Maccabee, Hawk Tales, 2. 1080 Bishop, Project Beta, 209-210; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 127-128.

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white film that contained what is now known as the "MJ-12 Documents." The crown gem in this cache was the "Eisenhower Briefing Document." It was supposedly prepared for the incoming President Eisenhower around 1952. It outlined the history of Majestic 12 and listed its members.1081 This was the first time the UFO community had been given any real details about the group. Moore and Shandera were weary. They opted to sit on the documents while they vetted them, but not without sharing them among fellow Ufologists. A buzz started to emerge in such circles. By December 1985, the first article addressing MJ-12 to the public at large appeared in Just Cause, a limited distribution newsletter issued by the civilian UFO group Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS).1082 Moore and Shandera kept receiving more Majic goodies throughout '85 as well. They came in a series of postcards postmarked from New Zealand, but sometimes baring an Ethiopian return address. They contained enigmatic references to things like "Suitland" and "Reece's Pieces." In a moment of incredible "serendipity," Ufologist Stanford Friedman (who had helped Moore research The Roswell Incident) was preparing an expedition to the National Archives to review recently declassified Air Force files on UFOs. He encouraged Moore and Shandera to check it out. They obliged and made the scene in July 1985. As "fate" would have it, the odd phrases from the postcards they had received led them to the legendary "Twining memo." This much-disputed document, attributed to ASC luminary General Nathan Twining, seemed to confirm the legitimacy of the MJ-12 documents Shandera had received the following year.1083 When something seems too good to be true, it often is. And this very much appears to be the case with the Twining memo. The National Archives would denounce it as a fake, and few have disputed this assessment (save Stan Friedman).1084 Over the years, there's been a lot of finger-pointing as to who was behind this caper. Arch UFO debunker Phil Klass fingered Moore, Shandera, and Friedman. But security at the National Archive is notoriously tight, making it implausible they could have planted a document.1085 The most likely suspects would be one of Moore's fine-feathered friends. The next major stage in the MJ-12 rollout occurred in 1986. Someone was apparently growing impatient with the heel-dragging of Moore and co. In 1986, British Ufologist Jenny Randles was approached by a young man described as a veteran of the British Army. He offered Randles hundreds of pages of documents from the American security services that sounded remarkably similar to the MJ-12 documents.

1081

Bishop, Project Beta, 210-211; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 68; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 213; Alexander, UFOs, 120-122; Stanton Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, 20-22. 1082 Stanton Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, 56-57. 1083 Stanton Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, 88-89; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 213-214; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 73-74; Alexander, UFOs, 128. 1084 Alexander, UFOs, 128-130; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 74; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 214; Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, 91-102. 1085 Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 74; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 214.

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Randles was weary and declined the offer. It was probably a wise decision on Randles' part. At the time, her UFO research had brought her under investigation by both the US and UK security services.1086 Undeterred, the same anonymous source approached another British Ufologist, one Timothy Good. Mr. Good was not as discerning as Randles and agreed to publish the MJ-12 documents in his forthcoming book, Above Top Secret: The World UFO Cover-Up. There was a caveat: Bill Moore got dibs on announcing MJ-12 to the world. This would occur in mid-June 1987, shortly before Good's book dropped. Thus, Good's book would seemingly provide independent confirmation of the documents Moore revealed to the world.1087 This is a classic technique to seed disinformation. It was a good plan, but Good's publisher had other ideas. They arranged a press conference for May 29, 1987, to give the public a sneak peek at the MJ-12 documents. Either Falcon or another intel contact warned Moore of these developments. Furious, Moore decided to beat Good to the punch. He released his own cache of MJ-12 documents at the annual National UFO Conference in Burbank, California. This revelation occurred the day before the press conference for Good's book. The mainstream media soon caught wind of these developments. The likes of The New York Times and Nightline began debating the documents. 1088 The rest, as they say, is history.

SRI and Dead Cows

From roughly 1980 onwards, The Aviary and others linked to it appeared in virtually every major UFO mythos or initiative to come along. Several major UFO tropes emerged from that point forward that are still staples to this day: Roswell, MJ-12, and Dulce (and the deep underground bases mythos that grew up around it). Members of The Aviary molded all of these myths to some extent.1089 Which is why it's interesting that virtually all of them were in circulation by the time The Aviary formally spread its wings in 1986. But clearly, many of these spooks were working together on the UFO question, and with Moore, well before then. As was noted at the onset of this feathery examination, the genesis of The Aviary traces back to the SRI remote viewing experiments of the 1970s. Hal Puthoff oversaw those activities, while Kit Green and Dale Graff monitored them on behalf of the CIA and Air Force, respectively. And then there's Jacques Vallee, another suspected birdman, who was highly active at SRI during the time. What's more, as the second volume of Vallee's Forbidden Science journals makes clear, the Frenchman, along with Puthoff and 1086

Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 68-69; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 214. Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 70. 1088 Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 70; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 215; Bishop, Project Beta, 211. 1089 Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks is the best account of the Aviary's role in shaping Ufology of the 1980s. Bishop, Project Beta and; Pilkington, Mirage Men are also compelling. 1087

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Green, were actively engaged in researching UFOs throughout that decade, often comparing notes. If Ernie Kellerstrass is to be believed, Graff also had a keen interest in such things. This is why it's especially interesting that Kellerstrass would cite Graff as one of his principal sources for The Aviary tropes he fed to Robert Collins and Bruce Maccabee. Kellerstrass appears to be one of the two primary sources inserting these narratives into Ufology during the 1980s, Rick Doty being the other.1090 If Kellerstrass can be believed (and that's a big if), then one of the two principal sources for this narrative can be linked to the SRI remote viewing program. Establishing a link with Doty is more difficult. On the one hand, there's the obvious Air Force connection: Doty, Graff, and Kellerstrass were all involved with the Air Force during the late 1970s when Graff allegedly made his revelations. However, Robert Collins would later report that Kellerstrass and Doty did not know one another prior to the late 1980s.1091 This doesn't preclude Doty from having encountered Dale Graff at some point prior to the official beginning of The Aviary. But there are no indications of this. Graff spent virtually his entire civilian Air Force career at Wright-Patterson. Doty does not appear to have been stationed at Wright-Patterson for any significant amount of time. Ironically, cattle mutilations provide the most compelling possible tie for this cast of characters. Paul Bennewitz belonged to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), the same civilian UFO outfit that Moore was involved with. While Bennewitz claimed to have been interested in UFOs since the late 1940s, cattle mutilations are what triggered him to actively investigate the phenomena. He appears to have already been active in this regard when he visited the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's cattle mutilation conference in April 1979.1092 Bennewitz wasn't the only one interested in cattle mutilations during the late 1970s. In the second volume of his Forbidden Science journal, Jacques Vallee reports that Dr. Christopher "Kit" Green was actively investigating the cattle mutilation phenomena during the late 1970s. Vallee describes Green as skeptical of the mutilations having an otherworldly explanation and that he was in "close contact with most of the UFO groups" circa 1978.1093 By 1979, Vallee indicates Green hired a former FBI agent to investigate the mutilations. The CIA was potentially footing the bill while the bulk of the investigation unfolded in... New Mexico. Vallee describes Green as "pestering ranchers and sheriffs about impossible predators."1094 Vallee gives the former FBI agent's name as Ken Rommell.1095 Seemingly, this is the same Kenneth Rommell hired by the State of New Mexico to launch a formal investigation into cattle mutilations. Rommell got the gig days after the above-mentioned April 1979 cattle mutilation conference wrapped in

1090

Gorightly, Saucers, Spook, and Kooks, 87. Collins & Doty, Exempt from Disclosure, 11. 1092 Christopher Lambert, X-Descending, loc. 313-326; Bishop, Project Beta, 14; Pilkington, Mirage Men, 14; Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 26. 1093 Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two, 428-429. 1094 Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two, 481. 1095 ibid, 481, 485. 1091

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Albuquerque. That would be the same conference Bennewitz attended.1096 Thus, it would seem that New Mexico, rather than the CIA, was paying Rommell. But Vallee insists Green was in contact with the FBI man during his investigation. Was Bennewitz in this orbit? It's also interesting to note that Vallee was in contact with Stanton Friedman by the mid-1970s. Friedman may have been following cattle mutilations by that time.1097 Friedman claimed that he had known William Moore since the late 1960s and that they became reacquainted in January 1977.1098 We can deduce then that elements of the SRI remote viewing project were interested in the cattle mutilation phenomena, as did Paul Bennewitz. Vallee was in contact with William Moore's research partner Stan Friedman since at least the mid-1970s. Elsewhere, Dr. Kit Green was actively investigating cattle mutilations in New Mexico by 1979. But none of these figures can be directly linked to Doty prior to 1980. At least that they're willing to admit, anyway. Bennewitz first contacted the Air Force about his sightings in October 1980. Doty approached Bennewitz within days of the contact, and started feeding him the mythos directly, and later via Moore.1099 Moore himself was approached in November initially, as was noted above. But Moore came to believe that he had been approached earlier, in July 1980, via the Weitzel letter. The letter came to Moore from ARPO, the same civilian UFO group Bennewitz belonged to. Researcher Mark Pilkington has suggested that Bennewitz drew the attention of AFOSI while visiting the Albuquerque cattle mutilation conference.1100 Kit Green was apparently investigating mutilations in New Mexico during that year as well and later communicated with the investigator hired by the state to look into the matter. If the AFOSI had people at the conference, could the CIA have done likewise? And did they compare notes? It would be useful to know the identity of Falcon, Doty's cohort. Some have accused Doty himself of being Falcon, though Moore and others have denied these allegations. 1101 At one point, Falcon remarked to Moore that the mythos at play was partly designed to "bring a few moles out of their holes." This alluded to the fact that Soviet intelligence followed US UFO reports to glean information on classified defense projects.1102 Recall that Vallee described Green as in "close contact" with many of the leading civilian UFO groups by the late 1970s as well. Falcon described himself to Moore as a senior figure in the DIA.1103 By the late 1970s, the DIA, along with Dale Graff's office out of Wright-Patterson, were two of the principal funding sources for the SRI remote 1096

Richard M. Dolan, UFOs & the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed 1973-1991, 202-203; Bishop, 14-

15. 1097

Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Two, 310-311. Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, 16. 1099 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 120-121; Bishop, Project Beta, 33-35, etc. 1100 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 177. 1101 Pilkington, Mirage Men, 204, 220; 1102 Bishop, Project Beta, 110. 1103 Bishop, Project Beta, 64. 1098

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viewing program. At the time, the program's sugar daddy in DIA was Jack Vorona. Like many others we've considered, Vorona was also involved in nonlethal weapons research. Specifically, he was implicated in a project codenamed Sleeping Beauty. Its purpose? Why, it was a "study of remote microwave mind-influencing techniques...". Interestingly, one SRI remote viewer described Vorona as the "super god in the sky over us."1104 By the early 1980s, Graff was overseeing both the SRI project as well as the Army's remote viewing program based out of Fort Meade (dubbed Grill Flame at the time) while working out of the DIA. And his boss was Vorona, then an assistant vice director for science and technological intelligence at DIA.1105 Was Vorona Falcon? Most likely not, but he does appear to be a member of The Aviary. His code name was allegedly Raven.1106 This leaves us with another curious overlap between ESP, non-lethal weapons, and UFOs. In an effort to explain this, I offer a modest proposal: By the 1960s, if not sooner, both the US and USSR were deeply involved in researching non-lethal/psychotronic weapons. It's entirely possible this research went back even further. But the 1960s witnessed credible instances, such as the Moscow Signal," being deployed by the Soviets, and Project Pandora launched by DARPA to "investigate" its effects.1107 We'll take a closer look at these topics in the following chapters. For now, we'll stick with The Aviary. Given the extensive ties many of the people connected to the SRI remote viewing project had to nonlethal weapons research, one is left with the impression that this was a component of the program that has never been publicly acknowledged. I suspect the remote viewing was a cover for the actual research, which involved the effects of electromagnetism on human consciousness. If there were a connection between ESP and electromagnetic energy, it would be a compelling way to understand how such radiations affect the brain. And as an added bonus, it would intrigue the Soviet scientific community and their underlining Cosmism. By the late 1970s, it would seem that UFO narratives were thrown into the mix. These narratives originated from two specific locations by the late 1970s/early 1980s: Kirtland Air Force Base and WrightPatterson. As was noted above, Kirtland was the longtime home of the Air Force's microwave weapon research program. Besides hosting the Foreign Technology Division, Wright-Patt also houses the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Kirtland's Weapons Laboratory is a component of the AFRL and, thus, under its command. Hence, both bases appear to have ties to non-lethal weapons research. The same two bases from which much of the modern UFO mythos seems to have originated from via Doty and Kellerstrass/Graff.

1104

Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 219-220. Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 261-262. 1106 Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 88. Several other candidates, including former CIA director William Colby, have been put forward as Raven. Needless to say, I think Vorona is far more probable than Colby. 1107 Jacobsen, Phenomena, 74-77. The Moscow signal may have been a proto version of what later became known as "Havana syndrome." During the early 1960s, US personnel at the embassy in Moscow began experiencing mysterious illnesses. The Soviets were beaming unusually high amounts of electromagnetic radiation into the embassy. The USSR claimed it was harmless while Pandora disagreed. 1105

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Besides the allegations concerning Graff, there's clear evidence of modern-day UFO mythos originating at SRI. A major staple is the so-called "Deep Underground Bases," or DUMBS. As was noted above, rumors of an extraterrestrial underground base dubbed Dulce started making the rounds during the early 1980s. But an earlier version of this rumor came from the SRI project via a remote viewer called Pat Price. Price grew up in a large Mormon family in Salt Lake City and later converted to Scientology,1108 a combination that would make many predisposed to notions like underground alien bases. Regardless, Price claimed to have viewed such sites spread across the Earth. They were located at Mt. Perdido along the borders of France and Spain; Zimbabwe's Mt. Inyangani; Mt. Hayes, northeast of Anchorage, Alaska; and Mt. Ziel, in Australia's Northern Territory. Price told Hal Puthoff the purpose of these bases was to "reinforce B.T.L. implants, transport new recruits and overall monitoring functions." 1109 Price then not only invoked the DUMBS but brought implants into the mix as well. That would later become a staple of 1980s Ufology. Needless to say, this seems to stretch coincidence. And if I'm correct, and the SRI nexus was ground zero for a massive psyop, it may have simply piggybacked onto an older one. Let us return to the old ASC network. An obvious linkage comes via Projects ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA. As was noted in Chapter 1, both ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA personnel had ties to the ASC, especially the former. The political warfare efforts the ASC launched via the Institute for American Strategy appear to be rooted in MK-ULTRA. Both programs were well represented at the SRI remote viewing program during the early days. As was noted in Chapter 5, some of the initial funding for the SRI project came from Sidney Gottlieb, then-head of the CIA's Technical Services Staff and the overseer of MK-ULTRA. The CIA's Office of Research and Development, then headed by ARTICHOKE veteran Stephen Aldrich, also provided funding. Elsewhere, onetime ARTICHOKE scientist (and Aldrich's former classmate at Northwestern Medical School) Andrija Puharich was deeply involved in SRI's investigation of Uri Geller. Further, Puharich was pitching the applications parapsychology had to psychological warfare since the early 1950s. *** Another figure not yet addressed who influenced the early SRI remote viewing research was Cleve Backster, a former interrogation specialist for the Army Counterintelligence Corp (CIC) and CIA. Backster developed an interest in ESP during the mid-1960s when he discovered how to read the thoughts of plants with a polygraph (seriously). Hal Puthoff contacted Backster in 1972 for pointers on the research he was about to embark upon. As an added bonus, Cleve hooked him up with psychic Ingo Swann, who became one of the star remote viewers of the SRI program.1110

1108

Jacobsen, Phenomena, 161-162. Richard M. Dolan, UFOs & the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed 1973-1991, 202-203; Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 118. 1110 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 118-124. 1109

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During WWII and in the aftermath, Backster developed a reputation as a whiz with the polygraph. He cofounded the CIA's polygraph program.1111 Polygraphs weren't the only thing Backster worked on for the Agency, either. Backster's transfer to the CIA appears to have been spurred by a report he authored in April 1948 entitled "Subconscious Isolation." There, he laid out the knowledge he had acquired during WWII regarding interrogation. Backster advocated attacking the subconscious mind through various means, including drugs and hypnosis.1112 It seems likely that during Backster's two years at the CIA (1948-1950), he participated in Project Bluebird, the predecessor to ARTICHOKE (see Chapter 1). I already noted in Chapter 3 that Backster turns up on a committee established by Edwin Black and featuring one known CIA Bluebird scientist in 1949. Assaults on the subconscious mind were a major point of discussion there.1113 This doesn't conclusively prove Backster was a part of Bluebird, but now I offer up some additional evidence to make the case. Backster was detailed to the Office of Security (OS), which oversaw Bluebird and later ARTICHOKE. I have not been able to determine if he knew General Paul Gaynor or Morse Allen personally (the Bluebird/ARTICHOKE capos). Still, he certainly knew OS head Sheffield Edwards, who was also in the Bluebird loop. Backster's personal papers feature an entire folder on LSD, including a note from an associate stating The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate" (the first work published on ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA) author John Marks wanted an interview. The capper may be a note this author found attached to an article Backster had been sent on the CIA's LSD experiments. After addressing Backster by his initials, it states: "Looks like they caught up with you after all these years."1114 Obviously, this doesn't conclusively prove Backster was a Bluebird man. But it strongly suggests, at a minimum, he was aware of it. And given several individuals already noted sniffing around the SRI program, it seems clear there is a lineage to the work being done with MK-ULTRA and ARTICHOKE. The question is whether it was related to those programs' flirtations with ESP research, their psychological warfare efforts, or a combination of both? As for his ties to the old ASC network, the links with Puharich and ARTICHOKE were already discussed in Chapter 1. Cleve Backster is another compelling link. He was a longtime member of the enigmatic Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ), a faux chivalric order/cult that claimed to be the legitimate Knights 1111

Jacobsen, Phenomena, 120-121. Cleve Backster, "Subconscious Isolation," April 1948, Box 8, "Confidential Files," Cleve Backster papers, Special Collections, Irvine Sullivan Ingram Library, University of West Georgia. 1113 United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Biological Warfare," D.M. Ladd, DocID: 34386951, Washington, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1949, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MeOxLwRaYpzVbAdti8gkVNRdModI5k6b/view 1114 Sheffield Edwards to Cleve Backster, December, 1948; "D" to Cleve Backster, November 17, 1977; Unknown to Cleve Backster, December 9, 1977, Box 14, "CIA-LSD Research" Folder, Cleve Backster papers, Special Collections, Irvine Sullivan Ingram Library, University of West Georgia. The letter from Edwards to Backster is a Christmas card, giving little indication of how well (if at all) the two men knew one another. On the other hand, Edwards thanks Backster for his "contribution to the work of this office." As Edwards headed the Office of Security at this time, this should leave little doubt as to where Backster served in the CIA. Further, the polygraph section he co-founded was also a part of the OS. 1112

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of Malta. The OG originated during the 1950s and subsequently became a Hydra-headed monster: Every defunct SOSJ spawned three claimants to its lineage. Well, maybe not quite that extreme, but by the twenty-first century, dozens, if not hundreds, have come and gone, often claiming the same lineage with few variations.1115 The OG SOSJ, often referred to as "Shickshinny Knights of Malta" after its longtime base in that Pennsylvanian locale, was a member of the ASC's Peace Through Strength coalition by the 1980s.1116 But several Knights held dual membership in the ASC decades earlier, most notably Douglas MacArthur's former spymaster, General Charles Willoughby.1117 Curiously, Willoughby has been linked to the Roswell incident by Ufologists.1118 Nor is Willoughby the only one with ties to Ufology. Another probable SOSJ Knight that left a deep mark in Ufology was George Hunt Williamson. He first made the scene during George Adamski's legendary encounter with a Venusian in the California desert. After briefly hooking up with pre-WWII fascist militant and fellow mystic William Dudley Pelley, Williamson spent several years in Latin America. Remarkably, this resulted in Williamson sending messages to Puharich from what he believed were communications from The Nine via the cult leaders featured in When Prophecy Fails. By the late 1950s, Williamson proclaimed himself heir to the throne of Serbia. No doubt this brought him into contact with the SOSJ.1119

1115

Sadly, there has never been a full length account of this group. By far the most scholarly history can be found in three works by Kevin Coogan: The Spy Who Would Be Tsar: The Mystery of Michal Goleniewski and the Far-Right Underground (London: Routledge, 2022); Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1999), 598-615; and “Defenders of the American Constitution.” Scribd. Scribd. Accessed June 26, 2020. https://www.scribd.com/document/376276346/Defenders-of-the-AmericanConstitution. For more on the litany of schism and rivals to the Shickshinny group, see Robert W.Y. Formhals, White Cross: Story of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem (Camarillo, CA: Sanghals Publishers, 1979); and Guy Stair Sainty, The Orders of Saint John: The History, Structure, Membership, and Modern Role of the Five Hospitaller Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem (New York: The American Society of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, 1991), 144-166. For more on the modern successors, see Cuneo, The Smoke of Satan, 196n12; and Mishel McCumber, The View Beneath: One Woman's Deliverance From a Luciferian Gospel (USA: Might Roar Books, 2016), 161-177. For the group's own mythological history, see Charles Pichel, History of the Hereditary Government of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta, 2nd ed. (Shickshinny, PA: Maltese Cross Publishers, 1970). There, longtime Grand Chancellor Charles Pichel explains how the group are the "true" Knights of Malta via the Russian line of succession rather than the "official" Knights of Malta, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. 1116 Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 45. 1117 Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, 214-216. 1118 See, for instance, Nick Redfern, Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story (New York: Paraview Pocket Books, 2005), 142. 1119 Michel Zirger and Maurizio Martinelli, The Incredible Life of George Hunt Williamson Mystical Journey: Itinerary of a Privileged UFO Witness (Verdechiaro Edizioni, 2016), 100-105, 120-121, 128, etc. Many SOSJ Knights claimed lineage from various European noble houses. At the forefront was former senior Polish intelligence officer Michal Goleniewski, who was probably moonlighting for the KGB when he defected to the US during the early 1960s. For several years, he was one of the most devastating Soviet defectors that the West had received. But then Goleniewski, with vigorous support from the SOSJ, proclaimed that he was Alexei Romanov, the youngest son of Tsar Nicholas II and the rightful heir to the Russian throne. See Kevin Coogan, The Man Who Would be Tsar. Williamson claimed to be a "Knight of Malta" and a picture has been found of him in full regalia for the part. No evidence has ever emerged

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Elsewhere, SOSJ Knight Colonel Philip J Corso is the author of The Day After Roswell, one of the most successful works on UFOs ever published. During the late 1990s, Corso linked up with The Avery towards the end of his life.1120 Beyond Corso and Backster, several SOSJ Knights had a keen interest in high weirdness, most notably longtime Grand Chancellor Charles Pichel. Another Knight, General Bonner Fellers, directed MacArthur's psychological warfare efforts against Japan during WWII.1121 Thus, we again find the intersection between psychological warfare (to say nothing of Bluebird/ARTICHOKE) and high weirdness in the SOSJ. And that brings up the night side of the SOSJ (s). It wasn't all orgone energy and UFOs.1122 Backster's work on Bluebird gives some indication of this, but it's Corso's CV that's especially unsettling. Colonel Corso was a protégé of General Arthur Trudeau, the head of Army intelligence in 1953. In this capacity, Trudeau directed studies of American POWs that had succumbed to Communist propaganda and brainwashing in Korea. The results of the study ran over 100,000 pages.1123 Unfortunately, I've been unable to determine the name of this project. During his brief time heading Army intelligence, Trudeau clashed with the CIA to the extent that Allen Dulles himself contributed to the general's removal from the post.1124 Corso was fighting similar battles by this point. From 1953-1956, he served on the Operations Coordinating Body, an earlier incarnation of the "Special Group." In this capacity, Corso worked to reactivate 50 garrisons of Eastern European paramilitaries then housed in West Germany. He hoped to train these forces into a division of shock troops that could be used to rollback the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. Corso dubbed this hypothetical division "the Volunteer Freedom Corp." When the West German government nixed the idea, Corso blamed the that he was a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (the "official" Knights of Malta), and given the proliferation of self-proclaimed royalty in the SOSJ netherworld, it seems most likely he belonged to such an organization. 1120 See Alexander, UFOs, 40-50, etc.; Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 307-311, etc. 1121 Kevin Coogan, The Man Who Would be Tsar, 325; Bonnerfellers.com. (n.d.). Home Page. BONNER FELLERS. Retrieved November 12, 2021, from https://bonnerfellers.com/. 1122 See, for instance, Sovereign Order of Saint John, "World Political Intelligence on the Coming Ecological Disaster," (Malta Cross Press, 1973), Box 15, "Knights of Malta, Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem/Folder 33," Cleve Backster papers, Special Collections, Irvine Sullivan Ingram Library, University of West Georgia. In this batshit crazy document, the Knights are warned that "People are prevented from knowing that the constructive properties of Cosmic or Orgone Energy can be used to completely immunize and reverse the destructive power of Nuclear Energy." This state of affairs exists because "Both Cosmic Energy and Nuclear Energy are well known, controlled and directed, not by any one or more nations, but by a live MAN known variously as the Prince, anti-Christ, Mr. X, Satan, the Devil, etc." It goes on to reveal that: "The Devil attempts to discredit and destroy anyone who tries to divulge or make known the existence, advantage and virtues of our Creator's safe and sane Cosmic Orgone Energy." The pamphlet goes on to warn that the various geopolitical disasters the US faced during the early 1970s were the result of Mr. X's plot to destroy the world's natural resources and poison mankind. Rarely if ever has a far right group taken such a peculiar stance on environmentalism. 1123 "Army's Top Researcher: Arthur Gilbert Trudeau," New York Times, 15 January 1958, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/01/15/83387514.html?pageNumber=12 (accessed 7 June 2023). 1124 Burton Hersh, The Old Boys, 371-372. The clash came over the Gehlen Org, which Trudeau believed was thoroughly compromised by Soviet intelligence. History would prove Trudeau's assessment to be spot on.

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"lies by our liberal darlings."1125 If the reader hasn't guessed, these are "stay-behinds" inspired by the earlier Jedburgh teams. At the onset of the Cold War, the CIA made numerous attempts to insert these paramilitaries into Eastern Europe to destabilize the Soviet Union. The origins of these efforts reside in a 1948 CIA operation known as "Bloodstone."1126 Bloodstone came out of the same climate driving early Pentagon nuclear policy. As noted in Chapter 2, early strategy involved deploying Special Forces who would work with indigenous paramilitaries to mop up the remaining Soviet resistance. These plans never came to pass, but thanks to operations like Bloodstone, many Eastern European paramilitaries were trained during the late 1940s and early 1950s. But when war didn't come, and Bloodstone crashed and burned, the CIA and Pentagon were left with a problem: What to do with these forces? Kevin Coogan, who's produced the most scholarly works on the SOSJ, suggests that the Pentagon opted to use the chivalric order for "stashing" these assets away until they were needed.1127 As incredible as Coogan's suggestion may seem, the number of senior military officers in the SOSJ with backgrounds in intelligence, psychological warfare, brainwashing, and paramilitary operations makes these claims difficult to dismiss out of hand. Other compelling evidence can be found in the personal correspondence of another high-ranking SOSJ Knight, General Pedro del Valle. A former Marine, del Valle was very active in far-right circles from his retirement in 1948 till his death in 1978.1128 But throughout 1951, he was in regular contact with a figure that has appeared time and again in this saga: General Richard Stilwell.1129 In a mid-February 1951 missive to Stilwell, del Valle wrote: "... I regret exceedingly that circumstances did not allow my taking on a job which might have put me in close association with you. I hope that at any rate my little plan was of some interest and that at least a part of it can be put into practice." Del Valle goes on to appraise Stilwell of his contacts in Europe. One was a former senior Milice (Vichy France's version of the Gestapo) officer. At the same time, his Italian contact was a leading figure in the Italian Social Movement, the successor to Mussolini's fascist party.1130 The founder and head of the Milice, along with some of its more notorious members, found themselves in the "Organisation Technique" during the

1125

Burton Hersh, The Old Boys, 411. See, for instance, Christopher Simpson, Blowback, 96-106, etc. 1127 Kevin Coogan, The Spy Who Would be Tsar, 282-288, etc. 1128 H.P. Albarelli Jr., Coup in Dallas: The Decisive Investigation into Who Killed Kennedy (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2021), 258-259. An admirer of fascist dictators, most notably Mussolini, del Valle's fanatical racism and anti-Semitism had already triggered investigations by the FBI, ONI, and Army intelligence prior to his retirement. In post-Marine life, he corresponded with American Nazi Party Founder George Lincoln Rockwell, along with figures from the KKK, Minutemen, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and so on. 1129 Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1130 Pedro del Valle to Richard Stilwell, 15 February 1951, Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1126

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final months of WWII. This was a Nazi stay-behind force trained by legendary German commando Otto Skorzeny.1131 This was just a warm-up for the "talent" del Valle was recruiting. A few days later, he wrote Stilwell again, appraising him of a White Russian colony in Argentina that had shown interest. It was headed by the White Russian General Boris Smyslovsky. During WWII, he commanded the pro-Axis 1st Russian National Army. Del Valle sent Stilwell an outline of Smyslovsky's plans in Argentina. He set four goals for the colony: 1) establish and maintain guerilla forces in the Soviet Union; 2) Disseminate propaganda damaging to the Soviets; 3) seek anti-Communist collaborators; and 4) devise a plan for a "Christian Russian Army of Liberation."1132 Elsewhere, he also tried to enlist support for this "formation of guerrillas" from Marine General Henry D. Linscott1133 and Nebraska Senator Kenneth S Wherry.1134 In a letter to another CIA officer, del Valle noted, "Through General Linscott I learn that our scheme 'is under consideration.' "1135 As late as October 1951, del Valle submitted a project to Stilwell that would make for a "counter-espionage and 'dirty tricks' department to use against the enemy."1136 Nothing seems to have come of these efforts, but Stilwell appears to have seriously considered them for a time. He was the one who initiated contact with del Valle on these matters.1137 Stilwell was with the CIA by 1949. He worked as a deputy for Frank Lindsay.1138 Lindsay was the key planner for the CIA's early paramilitary efforts. Abductions and assassinations also fell under his purview. He worked closely with Colonel Boris Pash in this regard. Indeed, there are some indications that Lindsay's unit (Operations Branch) is what actually carried out the "wetworks," while Pash's unit (Planning Branch 7) drew up the blueprints. Lindsay was especially concerned with enlisting Eastern Europeans to carry out these actions in the Soviet Union during this period. These early forays were part of the above-mentioned Bloodstone operation.1139 Stay-behinds, in other words. During the early 1950s, while also overseeing

1131

Ralph Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers: Evidence for the plot to Kill JFK (New York: Hot Books, 2018), 59-60; H.P. Albarelli Jr., Coup in Dallas: The Decisive Investigation into Who Killed Kennedy, 12-14. 1132 Pedro del Valle to Richard Stilwell, 19 February 1951, Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1133 Pedro del Valle to Henry D. Linscott, 25 April 1951, Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1134 Pedro del Valle to Kenneth S. Wherry, 25 April 1951, Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1135 Pedro del Valle to Colonel J.C. King, 1 June 1951, Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1136 Pedro del Valle to Richard Stilwell, 22 October 1951, Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1137 Pedro del Valle to Richard Stilwell, 9 January 1951, Box 1, Folder 2 (Mixed Materials), Pedro A. Del Valle Papers, Coll 126, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon. 1138 Burton Hersh, Old Boys, 299. 1139 Ralph Ganis, The Skorzeny Papers, 109-110, 117; Christopher Simpson, Blowback,101, 151-152.

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Lansdale's Philippines counterinsurgency, Stilwell worked on setting up stay-behind forces to be used against Communist China.1140 Stilwell was at the heart of crafting these secret armies of the CIA and Pentagon across Europe and Asia by the early 1950s when he approached del Valle. As such, this overture must be taken seriously. Later, del Valle ends up in the Sovereign Order of Saint John's "Military Affairs Committee," along with Corso and many other interesting figures. There was the after-mentioned General Charles Willoughby, MacArthur's longtime head of intelligence, and General Bonner Fellers, Big Mac's WWII head of psychological warfare. Another intriguing name to turn up is General Lemuel Shepherd, a four-star general of the Marine Corps.1141 Victor Krulak, the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA) during the early 1960s, was Shepherd's assistant chief of staff during WWII. They remained close, Shepherd becoming one of Krulak's principal patrons in the Marine Corps.1142 As was noted in Chapter 2, while serving as SACSA, Krulak was tasked with organizing South Vietnamese forces into raiding parties to operate in North Vietnam. Basically, Shepherd's former protégé was engaged in efforts similar to the stay-behind operations the CIA had been dabbling in for over a decade by that point. Phoenix was another variation on this. In all cases, indigenous forces carried out black ops (assassinations, sabotage, terror, etc.) behind enemy lines but were frequently led/directed by US special operations forces. It is thus most intriguing that so many figures with links to these kinds of activities turn up in the SOSJ by the early 1960s. Which makes some of their contacts profoundly disturbing in this light. One was Colonel William Potter Gale. Gale served in the Pacific during WWII. He long claimed to have been a military intelligence officer who led Filipino guerrillas against the Japanese before MacArthur liberated the Philippines. There's little support for these claims. Gale spent most of his military career in logistics. He was stationed in Japan for two years after the war on MacArthur's staff before returning to the US in 1948.1143 Even if Gale didn't work with Filipino guerrillas, he might have encountered a character or two chronicled in this work during that time. What isn't in dispute is that a decade later, Gale was established as a far-right militant, deeply engaged in fostering the fledgling postwar militia scene. He also claimed to be a reverend, expounding an especially toxic faith known as Christian Identity "theology." In essence, it designated white people the true Jews, the Biblical Jews as demonic beings, and other nonwhites as subhuman. Gale would preach this toxicity to various paramilitary groups for decades, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Gale was an absolutely

1140

Burton Hersh, Old Boys,300. Kevin Coogan, The Spy Who Would be Tsar, 325; Charles Pichel, History of the Hereditary Government of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta, 192. 1142 Robert Coram, Brute, 141-142, etc. 1143 Daniel Levitas, The Terrorist Next Door (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2002), 18-19. See also Cheri Seymour, The Committee of the States: Inside the Radical Right (Mariposa, CA: Camden Place Communications, 1991). While not entirely a biography of Gale, Seymour's work is the closest thing to such available. She befriended Gale in 1988 towards the end of his life. This seems to have caught the former colonel in a more unguarded state. 1141

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integral figure in the early militia and sovereign citizen movements that have since become staples of American domestic terrorism.1144 And where was Gale drawing inspiration from? When journalist Cheri Seymour asked him this, Gale credited a trio of military officers: Admiral John Crommelin, General Pedro del Valle, and Colonel Benjamin von Stahl.1145 As has already been noted, del Vallee was not only a SOSJ knight but a friend of Stilwell's who had cultivated paramilitary outfits since the early 1950s. Colonel Benjamin von Stahl was also a member of the SOSJ's military committee. Only Crommelin had no links to the SOSJ. Further, SOSJ knights such as del Valle and Willoughby promoted the nascent militia movement via works like The John Franklin Letters. This work claimed to be a tactical guide or manual that suggested "Patriot underground armies should be established, named the 'Rangers' who should train to assassinate, sabotage, and overthrow the 'People's Democracy.' " This book was the work of Colonel Arch E Roberts, who previously worked on General Edwin Walker's Pro Blue program, noted Chapter 1. Walker's program has long been suspected of, but never as, being a part of the Institute for American Strategy's plans for "inoculating" troops against communism.1146 As we shall see in the epilogue, these activities have chilling implications. And they won't be fully understood till Book II. But, to offer a prelude: Colonel von Stahl remained active in SOSJ circles well into the 1980s. Eventually, he hitched his cart to an especially militant breakaway branch headed by a Tennessean named John Grady.1147 We'll be hearing more about this unholy alliance soon. *** As for The Aviary itself, Colonel John B. Alexander's ties to the ASC network were already discussed in Chapter 4. Alexander and some of the other birdmen had another ASC connection not yet addressed: Dr. Edward Teller. As noted in Chapter 4, Teller was both a longtime ASC luminary and a shaper of UFO mythology. This is the man who vouched for Bob Lazar, after all. While researching the groundbreaking account of the Bennewitz affair, later detailed in Project Beta, Teller was suggested to author Greg Bishop as one of William Moore's Aviary sources.1148 Alexander acknowledges having known Teller since his time working at Las Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Alexander wound up there after he retired from the Army in 1988, working on nonlethal weapons. Alexander describes Teller as "an early supporter" of said research. He also notes hosting Teller for dinner 1144

For more on the militant underground spawned by Gale and Christian Identity, see Stuart Wexler, America's Secret Jihad: The Hidden History of Religious Terrorism in the United States (Berkley, CA: Counterpoint, 2015). See also Cheri Seymour, The Committee of the States. 1145 Cheri Seymour, The Committee of the States, 86. 1146 Cheri Seymour, The Committee of the States, 226-230. 1147 Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem Knights of Malta, "Proclamation and Clarification of the Status of King Peter II and His Alleged "Protection' of the OSJ," 29 September 1981 (Reading, PA: American Grand Priory, 1981), 10-11, Box 92, "Order of Saint John," Lawrence Patton McDonald congressional papers, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. 1148 Bishop, Project Beta, 109.

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on several occasions. In one instance, they were joined by fellow birdman Hal Puthoff. Zero-point energy and possibly UFOs were discussed.1149 I've found nothing indicating Teller had direct links to The Aviary prior to the late 1980s, however. Alexander's ties to other ASC luminaries, such as General John Singlaub and General Richard Stilwell, certainly predated his links to Teller. He worked with both during his military service. The reader will recall that it was Stilwell who facilitated Alexander's arcane pursuits in Army intelligence during the early 1980s. As for Singlaub, it's interesting to note that he was active in a breakaway Order of Saint John by the 1980s.1150 Along with Colonel Philip J Corso, Alexander was familiar with another Maltese knight: potential Bluebird/ARTICHOKE man Cleve Backster.1151 This is why the distinct possibility that Richard Doty also served under Stilwell is so interesting. Prior to becoming an intelligence officer, Doty may have been a special operator during the Vietnam War. In January 2005, someone using the name "Rick Doty" described serving two tours of duty as an Air Force Combat Controller in Laos and Thailand in 1968.1152 Alexander states that the first time he and Stilwell encountered one another was during Stilwell's time as Commander of US Military Assistance Command, Thailand. Alexander was then serving as a US Army Special Forces A-Team commander at an isolated base in Thailand.1153 Stilwell was entrenched as the military commander in Thailand as early as 19641154 and held the post till 1968, when he was transferred to Vietnam. Thus, if Doty did, in fact, serve in Thailand during this era, he could have potentially encountered Alexander and even Stilwell (who may have been his commanding officer). If nothing else, Alexander probably encountered Edward Lansdale's good friend General Edwin Black, who was detailed to Thailand during this time. As was noted in Chapter 3, Black had a keen interest in psychics and soothsayers, bringing Peter Hurkos to consult on Jim Thompson's disappearance. Hurkos, a Dutch psychic, had previously collaborated with Andrija Puharich. And, of course, there's the possibility Black was himself a key early figure on Bluebird. But Richard Doty never had direct links to the SRI program, while Alexander's involvement was tenuous at best during his Army service. When it comes to Jacques Vallee, we're on much firmer footing. As was noted in Chapter 4, Regnery published all of Vallee's 1960s UFO books. The family behind the publishing house had longstanding ties to the ASC, while Henry Regnery served as the Treasurer for the Institute for American Strategy (IAS). The IAS was the ASC's MK-ULTRA-linked political warfare concern. Further, Vallee established ties with various Russian Urologists during the Soviet Union's ancient astronaut phase, also

1149

Alexander, UFOs, 23-25. Sir Peter Bonnell to John Singlaub, etc., 2 November 1981 , Box 92, "Order of Saint John," Lawrence Patton McDonald congressional papers, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. 1151 John Alexander, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities, 12. 1152 Christophe Lambert, X-Descending, loc. 2626-2691. 1153 Alexander, UFOs, 11. 1154 Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program (Lincoln, NE: An Authors Guild Backinprint.com Edition/iUniverse.com, 1990), 329. 1150

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noted in Chapter 4. I suggested there that Vallee, wittingly or not, was being used for psychological warfare purposes against the Soviets. It is thus quite striking that he turns up at SRI several years later, working on both the ARPAnet and the SRI remote viewing program. If I'm correct, and a partial purpose of the latter was psychological warfare directed at the Soviets, Vallee's presence is all the more striking. Like lightning at the same location twice.

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Chapter 7:

The Dark Side of Camelot

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The End of the Rainbow?

And that brings us to one final point that needs to be made about SRI and the surrounding Bay Area. Explorations into human consciousness were unfolding there by the 1970s, the likes of which humanity had never seen. Psychedelics, both those used for research and recreational purposes, explored the debasement of the mind. The remote viewing trip sought to understand its full potential. Stanford University's artificial intelligence (AI) program, and like research, sought to see if machines could recreate it. And the ongoing quest to control the human mind also continued at SRI. When most researchers have pondered this, they've honed in on the remote viewing program and its possible connections to nonlethal/psychotronic weapons. After all, the remote viewing program has a clear line of succession to ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA. But recent revelations indicate that, by the mid1960s, the really "cutting edge" work being done in this regard was now in the hands of ARPA, the Pentagon's scientific research agency. In 1968, ARPA (now DARPA) launched the Cambridge Project. This program sought to use the incredible computing advances of the ARPANET to data mine hordes of personal information. This would yield a map of social relationships, enabling the prediction of human behavior. This technology was originally employed during the Vietnam conflict as part of counterinsurgency efforts. It grew out of an earlier venture, Project Camelot, that began in 1964. And that, in turn, was related to a 1962 project called ComCom and even earlier efforts, like the agency's Combat Development and Training Centers. The role behavioral science played in both the Cambridge/Camelot projects and the later Cambridge Analytica debacle is not a coincidence. Behavioral science was an abomination that began to take form during the 1950s. Partial inspiration came from the discipline of radical behaviorism, developed by Harvard psychiatrist BF Skinner. Skinner and his acolytes reduced human beings to an organism that could be managed via proper stimuli. All that was needed was enough experimentation and data to refine this process.1155 Another component was the broader social sciences, a catch-all that includes anthology, archaeology, economics, linguistics, history, political science, and, inevitably, psychology. Just how scientific the social sciences are, compared to the physical ones, is a matter of ongoing debate. But we'll go with it for now. It was from this witch's brew that the arcane discipline of "behavioral science" emerged. A major player in these developments was the Ford Foundation. During the late 1940s, the foundation tapped California lawyer H Rowan Gaither, who had previously helped the Air Force establish RAND, to prepare a report on its postwar priorities. In the subsequent missive, Gaither complained that existing ways of studying human

1155

See, for instance, Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2019), 361-371, etc.

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behavior --i.e., psychology, political theory, philosophy, sociology, etc. -- were "polemical, speculative, and pre-scientific." Gaither suggested turning the study of human behavior into a science.1156 The Ford Foundation liked the idea and dubbed it behavioral science. In 1951, they established the "Behavioral Science Division" and, during the following year, ponied up $3.5 million to set up the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science at Stanford.1157 Elsewhere, the Bureau of Social Science Research (BSSR) was launched at American University in 1950. Funding from Ford also found its way to this body, along with the other usual suspect (i.e., the Rockefeller Foundation).1158 The reader will recall the BSSR from the first chapter. There it was noted that the BSSR contracted with the Air Force and the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (the principal funding conduit for MK-ULTRA) to conduct Operation REPAIR, a study of American POWs from Korea. The work done by behavioral scientist Albert Biderman of BSSR on REPAIR influenced the CIA's Kubark Counterinsurgency Interrogation manual. It served as the foundation stone for Guantanamo Bay's "enhanced interrogation methods" during the 2000s. REPAIR was not an isolated incident. Money-wise, the real players behind the rise of behavioral science were the CIA and the Pentagon. Throughout the 1950s, the intelligence community spent between $713 million annually on behavioral studies in order to establish the discipline. Frequently, these monies were funneled through cut-outs such as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations.1159 The CIA began investing heavily in the behavioral sciences towards the late 1950s. The main funding conduit? Our old friend, the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology --the same outfit potentially in league with the Institute for American Strategy. At one point, the Society was pumping nearly $400,000 a year into behavioral research. BF Skinner received a grant from the Society to help with the writing of Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Other pioneering behavioral researchers such as Carl Rogers (who later broke with behaviorism and established the discipline of humanism) and Charles Osgood were also given grants.1160 The timing is interesting, as behaviorism was falling out of favor in academia at a time when the US intelligence community was ratcheting up funding for it. But nothing could surpass the Pentagon's role in funding behavioral science and the broader social sciences. Much of it came via so-called Federal Contract Research Centers (FCRCs), government monies doled out to private institutions and civilian scientists. These entities first emerged during WWII, being used to fund weapons and operations research. The Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT)'s Rad Lab (more on that below) was one such early FCRC. The practice continued into the postwar years. An early Cold War-era product of the FCRCs was RAND.1161 The number of these Federal Research Centers

1156

Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020), 35-36. 1157 Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, 36. 1158 Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Holt Paperback, 2006), 31-32. 1159 Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture, 31. 1160 John Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 170-174. 1161 Joy Rhode, Armed With Expertise, 21.

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tripled between 1951 and 1967. Funding skyrocketed during that same timeframe, jumping to $1.16 billion in 1967 after netting "only" $122 million in 1951. And much of this funding came from the Pentagon. Of the sixty-six FCRCs active in 1962, 43 were funded by the DoD.1162 A sizable social science community thrived in these institutions. And besides the work being done by the Pentagon itself, each service branch had at least one social science research outfit of its own. The Army, not typically known as a research innovator, funded no less than three by the end of the 1950s. One, the Special Operations Research office (SORO), was also run out of American University, home of the abovementioned Bureau of Social Science Research. SORO was an especially nasty one we shall encounter again in a moment.1163 Further, psychology was getting the bulk of this social science largess. By the early 1960s, the Pentagon was spending nearly $15 million annually on psychology, and much of it geared towards behavioral science. Even after the Pentagon became mired in controversy over its sponsorship of the social sciences in the middle of the decade, funding remained at staggering levels. In 1967 alone, $40 million was earmarked for social research, much of it related to psychology and behavioral science. And at the forefront of these efforts by then was ARPA.1164 It was from this strange brew we got the Three Cs: Projects ComCom, Camelot, and Cambridge. What all three have in common (besides an obsession with predicting human behavior) is a mysterious corporation called Simulmatics and an MIT political scientist named Ithiel de Sola Pool. As to the former, it was the brainchild of a New York ad man named Edward Greenfield. A staunch Democrat, Greenfield got into political consulting after witnessing how both television and computers were transforming American politics in the aftermath of the 1952 presidential election (the first in which TV played a significant role and an early computer predicted the victor).1165 Greenfield had a vision: a political consulting firm that used computers to model and predict election results. Greenfield realized he needed scientists even more than ad men to make a reality out of this concept. So, he headed for San Francisco (where else?) and paid a visit to the Ford Foundation's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, located on the campuses of Stanford. By the mid-1950s, many leaders in the emerging field of behavioral science were gathered there, including Paul Lazarsfeld (considered by 1162

Joy Rhode, Armed With Expertise, 23-24. Joy Rhode, Armed With Expertise, 23. All of these institutions were deeply concerned with psychological warfare, which has long been under the Army's purview. Originally, John Hopkins's Operations Research Office (ORO, later the Research Analysis Corporation) provided the academic expertise. The reader will recall from chapter 1 that the ORO was an early sponsor of the National Military-Industrial Conferences that birthed the American Security Council and the Institute for American Strategy. During Korea, it conducted research on POWs. General Robert McClure, the visionary behind the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare (OCPW) and father of the US Army Special Operations Command, was unimpressed with ORO. This led to the creation of the Human Resources Research Office (HumRRO) in 1951 at Georgetown University. It undertook a general program of psychological research for the Army. See Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 118; and Watson, War on the Mind, 462-463. HumRRO also undertook psychological studies of US troops during Korea. See Watson, War on the Mind, 46-52, etc. 1164 Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 111; Joy Rhode, Armed With Expertise, 106-107. 1165 Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, 25-26. 1163

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many the pioneer in the field), Harold Lasswell, and Eugene Burdick.1166 We previously encountered Burdick in Chapter 2. He co-authored The Ugly American, featuring a thinly-veiled depiction of General Edward Lansdale. In 1956, Greenfield formerly worked for the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson. He was able to get Lazarsfeld, Lasswell, and Burdick to assist his consulting firm, but only Burdick went to work for Greenfield. The experience left Burdick with mixed feelings concerning Greenfield. When Greenfield offered Burdick a spot in Simulmatics when the company was set up in 1959, the novelist declined. The Ugly American was a bestseller, and Burdick thought the company sounded dangerous.1167 He later became one of its fiercest critics. The 1964 novel The 480 (named after the model of 480 voter types Simulmatics developed to predict elections) was a barely fictionalized broadside against the company. It told the story of a populist Republican candidate using a company specializing in predictive modeling to help him win the 1964 election.1168 That sounds vaguely familiar for some reason... Undeterred, Greenfield continued to search for scientists who could help him realize his vision of using computers to model elections. During the late 1950s, he was obsessed with the concepts of William McPhee, a public opinion specialist. During the early 1950s, McPhee went to work for Columbia's Bureau of Applied Social Research on what was hailed as a landmark study on American voting habits. In 1954, he co-authored a book on the results dubbed Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. It knocked the socks off of Eugene Burdick, then entrenched at the Center for the Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, among many others.1169 McPhee developed a novel theory to predict television-viewing habits: he wanted to create a computer simulation to manage this. Greenfield introduced McPhee to his friend Ithiel de Sola Pool, who had worked on the 1956 Stevenson with Greenfield and Burdick. Pool also saw potential, but he and Greenfield were more interested in predicting voting habits. By all accounts, McPhee's dedication to this project, which Greenfield dubbed "Macroscope," spilled over into fanaticism. He was briefly committed to the Bellevue Hospital before completing the program.1170 This served as the basis for the "People Machine" the Simulmatics Corporation developed for the 1960 US presidential election. Greenfield and Pool called in political connections, eventually winning Simulmatics a contract from the JFK campaign despite Greenfield's longstanding loyalty to primary challenger Stevenson. Just how much Simulmatics' contributed to JFK's victory has been endlessly debated since the election. Still, there's little question this represented the first time a combination of big data, microtargeting, predictive models, and computers was used in an American presidential campaign.1171

1166

Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, 29-34. Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, 100-101. 1168 Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, 184-186. 1169 Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, 81-82. 1170 Jill Lepore, If Then, 87-95; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 176. 1171 Lepore, If Then, 124-132, etc.; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 176. 1167

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And that brings us to Ithiel de Sola Pool, the renowned expert in communications and propaganda theory. He came from a long line of rabbis dating back to Medieval Spain. His parents had both been members of the Communist Party prior to the Cold War, and Ithiel had dabbled in Trotskyism during the Great Depression. This created persistent security clearance issues for Pool during the early Cold War. Eventually, a powerful figure on the dreaded House Un-American Activities (HUAC) interceded on Pool's behalf: Richard Nixon. Despite Pool being a dedicated liberal at this point in his life, it was the beginning of a complex, decades-spanning relationship Pool had with the future president.1172 Finally receiving his security clearance in 1951, Pool went to work for MIT's Center for International Studies during the following year. The Center, recently established in 1952, emerged from 1950's Project TROY. This was a joint operation from MIT, Harvard, and RAND scholars to develop psychological means that could be deployed behind the Iron Curtain. MIT wanted to go further, and the Ford Foundation and the CIA were more than happy to put up the money for the center. It was headed by Max Millikan, a former assistant director of the CIA, who hired Pool to direct the center's International Communications Program.1173 As should come as little surprise, it was Pool who wanted to take Simulmatics' technology out of the American election cycle and redeploy it in the Cold War. He found a receptive audience at ARPA, where Edward Lansdale's acolyte, William Godel, was at the height of power (and reporting directly to Lansdale) in that agency. This began a close relationship between Pool and ARPA's controversial Behavioral Science Program. ARPA's 1960s-era Behavioral Science Program was set up by the same man generally credited as the visionary behind the ARPANet --JCR "Lick" Licklider. In addition to being a computer scientist, Licklider was a trained psychologist. He worked for Harvard University, BF Skinner's longtime stomping grounds, between 1943 and 1950. Lick remained mum on Skinner throughout his life despite having encountered him at Harvard. Licklidder was known for his manners, and colleagues took his silence regarding Skinner as a subtle form of rejection. One friend suggested that Lick was intrigued by the data Skinner and his followers gathered. It was their lack of systems analysis and basic appreciation of mathematics that offended him.1174 Apparently, Lick was much more taken by the pioneering Canadian neuroscientist Donald Hebb. Lick has been described as one of Hebb's "earliest and most ardent advocates," singing the Canuck's praise as early as 1949.1175 Lick was not alone. The CIA were early fans of Hebb's as well. Between 1951 and 1954, Hebb received a modest grant from the Canadian Defense Research Board to study the effects of sensory deprivation. The results were a revelation for the Anglo-American intelligence community. Hebb "discovered" that even short-term isolation could be profoundly destructive to the human psyche. His subjects were placed in an isolating "black box" for no more than 2-3 days. All subjects experienced eerie hallucinations similar to 1172

Lepore, If Then, 50-55. Lepore, If Then, 58; Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 65. 1174 M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine (San Francisco: Stripe Press, 2018), 80-83. 1175 M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 105. 1173

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mescaline and a "deterioration in the capacity to think systematically." It was later revealed by a colleague of Hebb's that one of the purposes of this experiment was "to measure the subject's susceptibility to propaganda." Said susceptibility was increased markedly by the isolation.1176 The CIA was intrigued. Hebb was present for a 1951 meeting between the Anglo-American intelligence services to develop a plan regarding brainwashing. They continued to follow his work and wanted to go further than the experiments of 1951-1954. But Hebb was unwilling. Fortunately for the CIA, a psychiatrist then working under Hebb at the University of McGill's Allan Memorial Hospital was less discerning. His name was Dr. Ewen Cameron, and he developed a process known as "psychic driving" based on Hebb's research. As an added bonus, Cameron was willing to go further than Hebb. Thus came the Cameron medical experiments, briefly addressed in Chapter 1. Hebb has always disavowed Cameron's work. But conversely, he did nothing to stop Cameron's "research" despite being his boss at Allan throughout the time of the CIA-sanctioned experiments (1957-1963).1177 Was this one of the "inspirations" Lick brought with him into ARPA's Behavioral Science Program? There was a keen interest in Hebb's theories within the national security state at the time Licklidder went to work for ARPA. But Lick had a few other crucial stops between Harvard and ARPA that likely contributed to his vision. From Harvard, Lick headed for MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. He also went to work for Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), a research and development company specializing in acoustics and (later) computers, during the Lincoln Labs phase.1178 BBN later played a role in Licklidder's time at ARPA. But more on that in a moment. For now, a few points need to be made about Licklidder's principal gig during the 1950s. Lincoln Laboratory was the successor to MIT's famed Radiation Lab, or "Rad Lab," from the World War II era. Lincoln continued to draw upon the nation's finest scientific minds throughout the Cold War. It played an incalculable role in ushering in the modern computer era via the Semi-Automated Ground Environment, or SAGE, a massive air defense early warning system the lab developed for the US Air Force. In the process, the Pentagon pumped millions into MIT, catalyzing it as the Silicon Valley of the East. To meet the demands of SAGE, Lincoln launched a mass education drive to train computer programmers, of which the US only possessed a few thousand. SAGE also brought computers out of the laboratory and into the commercial world. This, combined with the billions in funding provided by the Pentagon, dramatically sped up the development of the computer industry. And finally, Lincoln and SAGE laid the foundation for the personal computer and the discipline of artificial intelligence.1179 For our purposes here, there are two things about Lincoln especially significant: One is that SAGE represented the most important effort to use computers to simulate human behavior during the

1176

Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture, 35-37, 41. Alfred McCoy, A Question of Torture, 42-45; John Marks, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", 146-147. 1178 M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 114-115; Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 146. 1179 M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 120-128, etc. MIT AI Lab founders Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy met each other through Lincoln. See, Waldrop, 170-173. 1177

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immediate postwar years. A lot of the latter work done at Simulmatics grew out of these early efforts. And, of course, Pool was a part of the MIT staff throughout the SAGE era and made use of the MIT Computation Center.1180 The other point is that Lincoln was knee-deep in studying UFO reports during the early 1950s. The Lincoln group (allegedly) had a practical interest in the subject: their bag was US air vulnerability and they worried that UFO reports could overwhelm early warning systems in the event of a Soviet attack.1181 Of course, the Soviets faced the same problem. Due to a more hierarchical command structure that was even more vulnerable to frivolous UFO (disinformation) reports, this was a grave threat behind the Iron Curtain. It would certainly be interesting to know if the Lincoln group investigated that aspect. As noted in Chapter 1, when the Soviets did briefly start accepting UFO reports during the 1960s, they were quickly overwhelmed by them. And one of the Soviet scientists leading these efforts was corresponding with future ARPA employee Jacques Vallee during that time. It is thus intriguing that JCR Licklidder, the man who launched what became the ARPANet, worked on SAGE principally as a psychologist. When the Lick went to work for ARPA in 1962, it was with a dual purpose. One was part of a presidential mandate to update the US Military's command and control system (C2). This resulted in the ARPANet, the precursor to the modern-day Internet. It was logical to look for a Lincoln man for this assignment, as ARPA's early computer research was largely an outgrowth of SAGE. Leftover Q-32s, the computers specifically built for SAGE, served as the basis for the ARPA program. And ARPA was under pressure from the Pentagon to find work for the Systems Development Corporation (SDC). This RAND spin-off wrote the software and conducted the operator training for SAGE. Inevitably, it would find its way into the ARPA computer program.1182 But it wasn't just the C2 program ARPA wanted Licklidder to head. They simultaneously envisioned him running a second office overseeing the enigmatic Behavioral Science Program. This was apparently a mandate handed down directly from the Pentagon. In 1959, the DoD tasked the Smithsonian's Research Group in Psychology and Social Sciences with advising the military on long-term research programs. The report considered the role computers could play in these efforts, leading the panel to recommend that ARPA conduct a compressive program involving both behavioral and computer science.1183 Lick also saw a relationship, later recalling his response to ARPA's pitch as: "Notice that man-computer interaction is heavily involved in the skills and capabilities of the people as well as the machines." He reportedly agreed to take on both jobs but stipulated that he could put some behavioral science funding towards computers.1184

1180

Jill Lepore, If Then, 70-72. Michael Swords and Robert Powell, UFOs and Government, 175-176. 1182 M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 200-202; Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 148-149; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 116-119. 1183 Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 110-111. 1184 M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 201-202. 1181

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This is consistent with the idealistic depiction of Licklidder that his groupies put forward. But the Behavioral Science Program was anything but idealistic. The purpose of this outfit was to "build a bridge from psychology into other social sciences" using computers. Eventually, these efforts were linked to ARPA's Project AGILE, the Vietnam-era counterinsurgency program launched by William Godel. Whether this occurred during Lick's time heading the Behavioral Science Program is debatable.1185 Lick, and his supporters have gone to great lengths to distance him from Godel. Lick complained of Godel trying to push his work towards cloak and dagger ends. Supposedly, he spent most of the program's funding on human-computer interaction rather than social sciences.1186 Elsewhere, he tactfully dodged Godel's efforts to get the office to investigate more woo-woo pursuits, such as hypnosis.1187 But Lick displayed an interest in counterinsurgency. For instance, during 1962 he attended a US Army symposium centered on how behavioral science and computer technology could be applied to counterinsurgency and "limited warfare." There, he participated in a working group geared towards crafting a US Army counterinsurgency program.1188 Nor was this the extent of Lick's involvement in counterinsurgency. Records show that as early as 1963, Lick's C2 division was sharing and intermingling funds with AGILE.1189 Even before Lick joined ARPA, plans were in the works for data-driven counterinsurgency methods. In 1961, as a part of AGILE, Godel (with Lansdale's blessing) initiated Combat Development Training Centers (CDTC) in hotspots across Asia. In theory, they were to help train US allies and develop Q-type gadgets for counterinsurgency.1190 But after falling under the purview of Lick's Behavioral Science office, things became more ambitious. Data was collected on forces the CDTCs were supposed to be aiding in a bid to develop predictive models for these militaries. The program eventually went worldwide and was dubbed "Remote Area Conflict." The black heart of these efforts was in Thailand, which one ARPA researcher described as a "laboratory" for projects later used in Vietnam. Reportedly, Licklidder latched onto the notion that combining big data and computers could predict human behavior from this research. 1191 Ithiel de Sola Pool was impressed with what ARPA had managed thus far, most notably in Thailand, and wanted in. ARPA declined, but contracted with Pool and Simulmatics on various other projects throughout much of the 1960s.1192 One was ComCom, short for 'Communist Communications," launched in 1962. It 1185

Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 151-152; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 171-172. Jacobsen reports that the Behavioral Science Program did participate in AGILE under Lick while Weinberger claims it was afterwards. 1186 Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 118. 1187 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 107. 1188 Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 52.This symposium was sponsored by the Office of the Chief of Special Warfare's Special Operations Research Office. The reader will recall from chapter 1 that this is the precursor to the Army Special Operations Command. We shall again encounter this outfit in just a moment. See Levine, 288n40. 1189 Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 53. 1190 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 73-76, 82-83; Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 120-123. 1191 Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 152-154; Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 53-54, 65; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 148-150. 1192 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 177.

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was an ambitious program, seeking to data mine Soviet and other communist media to create a computer simulation of the internal communications behind the Iron Curtain. The objective was to study the impact foreign news (read: psychological warfare) was having on these nations. The end game was to model and predict the effects future missives from the West would have on the Communist world. Pool also hinted at replicating "certain psychological experiments," though this was never fleshed out in writing. Regardless, the program was funded by ARPA via its Behavioral Science Program and ran out of MIT's Center for International Studies. Pool was the project director, and several MIT students who worked on Simulmatics projects moonlit for ComCom, though the corporation itself was not directly involved.1193 By the 1960s, ARPA wasn't the only Pentagon entity hungry for predictive modeling either. In 1964, the US Army announced the largest behavioral science project in American history: Project Camelot. It sought to compile data from across the world to develop computer simulations capable of predicting when communist insurgencies would break out in the developing world.1194 It was largely inspired by work done by Ithiel de Sola Pool and Simulmatics. Pool began lobbying the JFK administration for what became Camelot as early as 1961. In 1963, Simulmatics compiled economic data in Venezuela in order to use computer simulations to determine what economic programs were necessary to stave off an insurgency. This research was used as the basis for Camelot. The project was greenlit in 1964 following a report produced by a committee Pool headed. He was the only scholar cited in the Army proposal that came forthwith. Other present or future Simulmatics employees, such as James Coleman and Al de Grazia, contributed to the project's design.1195 It didn't take long for controversy to erupt over Camelot. In 1965, a Chilean anthropologist who consulted for the project denounced it before the Chilean Senate. Curiously, he gave a doctored version of Camelot, not acknowledging Pentagon sponsorship. A Scandinavian anthropologist working in Chile and also approached by Camelot later revealed the DoD's role. The Chilean government was outraged, viewing it as an attempt by Washington to draw up invasion plans for their country.1196 Irritated State Department officials, viewing the Pentagon as increasingly infringing on its domain of guiding foreign policy, got in on the act. Various officials logged repeated protests, and the eventual leak 1193

Lepore, If Then,169-172, etc; Levine, Surveillance Valley, 66. Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot" in The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot: Studies in the Relationship between Social Science and Practical Politics, edited by Irving Louis Horowitz (Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1967), 4-6, etc. 1195 Lepore, If Then, 208-210. For a more in-depth account of Camelot's aims, see Irving Louis Horowitz, The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot; and Joy Rhode, Armed With Experts, 64-68. 1196 Lepore, If Then, 210; Jay Rhode, Armed With Experts, 69; Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot" in The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot, 11-14. Of course, the democratically elected government of Chile was toppled by a US-sanctioned coup in 1973 that installed the brutal military dictatorship of Pinochet. As was noted in chapter 1, journalist Naomi Klein argued in The Shock Doctrine that the coup and subsequent reign of terror were based upon techniques based off of MK-ULTRA. Taken in light of the research Project Camelot was conducting less than a decade later, Klein's thesis becomes even more compelling. On the other hand, Camelot had not formally started when the protests began and allegedly had no plans to study Chile (despite being designed to track potential insurgencies in the developing world...). 1194

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of Camelot to the American press probably came from the same quarters. Camelot was soon denounced by various Congressional creatures, most notably US Senator William J Fulbright, who led the charge against the Institute for American Strategy's political warfare agenda just years earlier. Not to be undone, American academics joined the choir. The Pentagon was forced to terminate Camelot by the summer of 1965. Congressional hearings followed later in the year.1197 In this instance, ARPA does not appear to have been directly involved. Rather, Camelot was sponsored by an outfit called the Special Operations Research Office (SORO).1198 Established in 1956, SORO was a legally private institute staffed and managed by Washington DC's American University. But SORO was wholly funded by the Pentagon and designed to meld social scientific expertise with Army operational concerns. As the name implies, this research was geared toward counterinsurgency and psychological and unconventional warfare. Yes, our old friends at the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare (now named Office of the Chief of Special Warfare) founded and directed SORO.1199 SORO was likely run out of the OCSW's Requirements Division, which oversaw research.1200 A predecessor of this division approached Andrija Puharich in 1952, interestingly enough. SORO still had a keen interest in the woo during the 1960s. For instance, 1964 witnessed the publication of the "classic" SORO paper dubbed "Witchcraft, Sorcery, Magic, and Other Psychological Phenomena and Their Implications on Military and Paramilitary Operations in the Congo."1201 It is unknown if Puharich or Lansdale owned a copy of that particular work, but it would hardly be surprising. But I digress. ARPA may not have been entirely off the hook for Camelot. SORO appears to have been monitoring Project AGILE as early as 1962, advocating Licklidder's ARPA departments work more closely with AGILE.1202 Both William Gödel and Edward Lansdale had been forced out of the Pentagon by 1964. ARPA's Seymour Deitchman, another counterinsurgency guru (but with a scientific, rather than military, background), was made the Pentagon's "Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency" in 1964. In this capacity, he took over AGILE during the same year.1203 And no, this was not the same position General Viktor "Brute" Krulak had recently occupied. Krulak was the Pentagon's Special Assistant on Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA). Krulak reported directly to the Secretary of Defense. Deitchman was the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency to the 1197

Jay Rhode, Armed With Experts, 70-75; Lepore, If Then, 210-211; Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot" in The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot, 14-16. 1198 Jay Rhode, Armed With Experts, 64-65; Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 175; Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot," 4. 1199 Jay Rhodes, Armed With Experts, 4, 20, etc; Peter Watson, War on the Mind, 463. 1200 Alfred H. Paddock, Jr., U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, 95. The OCPW/OCSW had three divisions: Psychological Warfare, Special Operations, and Requirements. The latter was tasked "with organization, personnel, training, logistics, and research needs to support both psychological and special operations activities." 1201 David H. Price, Weaponizing Anthropology (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2011), 24; Peter Watson, War on the Mind, 403-404. 1202 Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 288n40. 1203 Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 170-171; Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 163-164.

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"Director of Defense Research and Development." His boss was future Secretary of Defense Harold Brown.1204 However, Krulak received briefings from ARPA contractors on the Strategic Hamlet Program by at least 1962. Despite being Lansdale's baby and not directly connected to Krulak's duties, he vigorously supported it. During 1963, he dubbed it the "heart of the counterinsurgency strategy" in a report. In fairness, he was influenced by General Richard Stilwell, then commanding troops in Saigon, who reportedly wrote much of the report. Still, Krulak continued to defend that project to its detractors in ARPA and the Pentagon throughout his tenure as SACSA.1205 As for Deitchman, he was one of the officials dragged before Congress in the aftermath of Camelot's fallout, indicating ARPA may have been keeping tabs on the project. But Deitchman's role in Camelot appears to be under the auspices of the DoD.1206 Ironically, Deitchman was the first ARPA official to formally employ Simulmatics to work on AGILE or for the agency in any capacity. This arrangement began in 1966.1207 Officially, Simulmatics was in Vietnam to perform "social science research." Some highlights included subjecting Vietcong POWs to Rorschach and Thematic Appreciation tests; 1208 a study of a Vietcong amnesty program using methodology that was highly criticized; and another involving the TV viewing habits of the Vietnamese.1209 And as many figures chronicled in this work, Simulmatics participated in the Phoenix Program. The principal figure responsible for erecting the infrastructure that supported Phoenix was Robert "Blowtorch" Komer, a longtime CIA officer operating out of the NSC by the mid-1960s as an advisor to Walter Rostow.1210 A cornerstone of Phoenix was the above-mentioned "Strategic Hamlet Program," an

1204

Robert Coran, Brute, 260-261; Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 163-164. As Secretary of Defense during the Carter years, Brown played a significant role in getting the ball rolling on what became the US Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations Command. See Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike, 4-5. 1205 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 338-339; Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 142; Robert Coram, Brute, 275. 1206 Jill Lepone, If Then, 211; Dante B. Fascell, "Behavioral Science and the National Security State" in The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot, edited by Irving Louis Horowitz, 187. 1207 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 176. 1208 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 168; Lepore, If Then, 222-225. Both Rorschach and Thematic Appreciation tests involve images on cards that the subject is asked to interrupt. Rorschach images are quite abstract, in particular, Unsurprisingly, the Vietnamese did not understand the tests. 1209 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 179; Lepore, If Then, 227, 246-247. The amnesty program, dubbed Chieu Hoi, was actually a psychological warfare operation to get Vietcong to defect. It combined old school propaganda methods like leaflet drops with "precision" bombing, defoliation and crop spraying. Simulmatics was tasked with assessing the effectiveness. Chieu Hoi appears to have been launched by Everett Bumgartner, a Lansdale disciple. .John Paul Van, a CIA operative who specialized in black propaganda and a longtime friend of Lansdale's, also played a role. See Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 49-51. In fairness, the TV study was evaluating the medium as a counterinsurgency tool. 1210 Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 114-115, 127, 130-133. Rostow, an MIT professor, was a longtime friend of Pool's. See Lepone, If Then, 228. Elsewhere, Rostow had previously served on the National Security Council's Special Group (Counterinsurgency) with Lansdale during the general's time heading the Office of Special Operations. See Boot, The Road Not Taken, 370.

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effort to relocate South Vietnamese into fortified hamlets for their "protection."1211 The program was initiated by Lansdale acolyte and OG ARPA counterinsurgency head William Godel in 1961. The government of South Vietnam previously attempted a modest resettlement of the population in 1959 with disastrous results. But at Godel's urging, a new initiative was launched in 1962 with the end game of relocating ninety percent of South Vietnam's population into these hamlets.1212 In 1966, Simulmatics advised the Pentagon to collect data on the inhabitants. The DoD liked the idea and hired the company the following year to analyze the data via ARPA to see how the pacification was going.1213 ARPA's Behavioral Science Panel also reviewed the Strategic Hamlet Program. This was based on the same ARPA-sponsored report Brute Krulak had rejected. I've been unable to determine if this was related to Simulmatics' work, but Pool worked on the panel along with Licklidder.1214 As far as sheer batshit craziness is concerned, nothing can top the work done by Simulmatics contractor Father Joseph Hoc for ARPA. Born Nguyen Loc Hoa, Father Hoc was a Chinese Nationalist who fled to Rome in 1949, shortly after Chiang Kai-shek's forces departed for Taiwan. There, he was ordained a priest. Nine years later, after obtaining a degree from Stanford in sociology in 1953, he established a congregation in Laos. There, he was convinced by Taiwanese intelligence to relocate his flock to Vietnam. He set up shop in the village of Binh Hung, off the Cao Mau Peninsula. The swampy climate was harsh, and nearly ninety percent of the population supported the Vietcong. Fortunately, Hoc was not a normal priest. He came well-provisioned with military aid and US Special Forces advisors. He set up a militia dubbed the Sea Swallows and vigorously made war against the Vietcong. The Binh Hung operation was later used as a model for Godel's Strategic Hamlet Program.1215 In 1961, Edward Lansdale paid Binh Hung a visit and liked what he saw. Lansdale wrote a glowing report on Hoc's efforts. It was later published in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1961 and attributed to "an American officer." Not long afterward, Hoc was flush with weapons from the CIA and US and Taiwanese Special Forces advisors.1216 Godel was probably with Lansdale for this encounter. In 1961, he delivered arms to Hoc.1217 Things didn't go so well, and by 1965 Hoc was back in the States, teaching at Boston College. He returned to Vietnam in 1967 as a contractor for Simulmatics with a mandate to study psychological warfare in Vietnam. Hoc's operations included spreading Chain Letters among the local populations (a ploy first proposed by RAND in 1950, as was noted in Chapter 1) and a book of prophecies portending the downfall of the Vietcong. The latter, released at the onset of the Tet Offensive, was especially disastrous. Hoc also

1211

Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 50-51. Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 77-78; 1213 Lepone, If Then, 227-228, 241, 247-248. 1214 Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 155. 1215 Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 37, 50; Lepone, If Then, 249. 1216 Boot, The Road Not Taken, 344-346, 352, 357. 1217 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 82. 1212

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proposed recruiting Vietnamese sorcerers to sway rural villages.1218 Lansdale was back in Vietnam by this time and considering the operational use of soothsayers against the Vietcong. But I have been unable to determine if he had any involvement with Hoc during his final tour in Vietnam. By 1968, ARPA's patience with Simulmatics was fast running out. The company turned to Godel in one final hail merry. Godel had been out of ARPA since 1964. In the interim, he served a prison sentence and ran guns in Southeast Asia. Godel attempted to get Simulmatics a contract in Thailand, where Pool had originally wanted the company to work out of. There, Simulmatics would study the regional police and security forces on behalf of ARPA. But by this time, the agency had enough of both Simulmatics and Godel and declined the project.1219 Father Hoc and Godel weren't the only Lansdale cronies actively working with the Simulmatics crew by this time, either. When Pool toured Vietnam in 1967 as part of Simulmatics' ARPA work, he stayed at the villa of Lansdale groupie Daniel Ellsberg. The two men were already on friendly terms by then. Upon Ellsberg's return from Vietnam, but before his whistleblower escapades, he regularly collaborated with Pool.1220 ARPA rid itself of Simulmatics by 1968, but not Pool. Beginning in 1963, figures linked to Pool and using Simulmatics' work on the 1960 presidential election began advocating for creating a National Data Center. Two years later, the Ruggles Report, put together by several prominent social scientists, seconded these notions. The administration of LBJ liked this idea as well. In addition to Vietnam, the mid-1960s was the time of the Great Society, brought forth by legislation such as the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Act, and the Fair Housing Act. The LBJ administration was keen to collect all kinds of data --economic, social, health, employment, voting, housing, population, etc. --from a variety of agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Census Bureau, federal prisons, public schools, and so on. In theory, this data was needed to assess how the Great Society was doing and how it could be improved. 1221 LBJ was floored and put together a committee to study the National Data Center. But Congress and the public at large weren't buying the humanist spin. This led to the first significant public debate on data collection during 1966. Editorials and congressional committees raged against it for nearly two years, leading to the National Data Center being tabled in 1968.1222 By the twenty-first century, the climate in the US was more favorably disposed, leading to something very much like the National Data Center being set up as the "Utah Data Center" at Camp Williams, UT in 2014. Nor was there any reason to hide the national security purposes by this time as the facility, in addition to being located on an Army base, was openly run by the NSA under the auspices of the Office of the Director for National Intelligence.1223

1218

Lepone, If Then, 248-251; Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 177-178. Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 180-181. 1220 Lepore, If Then, 230-231, etc. 1221 Lepone, If Then, 279-280; Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 81. Several agencies were involved in these schemes Levine cites the Bureau of the Budget as having proposed the National Data Center in 1967. 1222 Lepone, If Then, 280-283; Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 82-82. 1223 Hill, Kashmir. “Blueprints of NSA's Ridiculously Expensive Data Center in Utah Suggest It Holds Less Info than Thought.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, July 29, 2013. 1219

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A few stop gaps were sought over the years, beginning with the Cambridge Project. Licklidder departed ARPA in 1964 but returned in 1968 to oversee Project MAC (Mathematics and Computers) for the agency out of MIT. He was a longtime friend of Pool's and supported Project ComCom while running ARPA's Behavioral Science Program.1224 Pool pitched ARPA on another scheme in 1968, cheekily suggesting they appropriate funds earmarked for canceled behavioral science projects (a reference to ARPA dropping Simulmatics). His new proposal was described as a "Behavioral Science Data Analysis Program" to be based out of MIT. A "data library" would be built "for analysis and modeling with the data in an interactive environment." Lick liked the idea and signed off on what became Project Cambridge.1225 The data gathered by Project Cambridge would be analyzed with computers from Project MAC, part of the ARPANet. Lick's supporters hold that this was his principal interest in the project: Cambridge would create a greater demand for the MAC computers, meaning additional funding would be forthcoming. In theory, it worked: During Cambridge's lifetime, it was one of MAC's biggest consumers.1226 But Licklidder's proposal is indicative of a less benign agenda. He noted that Cambridge would compile various "data banks" that would then be available to behavioral scientists and military analysis alike via the ARPANet. Data would be drawn from public opinion polls in foreign countries; youth movements; mass unrest and political movements under rapid social change; international propaganda output; international armament expenditures and trends; etc. Much of this applies to counterinsurgency, which is largely what Cambridge was intended for. It had a common operating system with several programs custom-tailored to the military's behavioral science mission. And it was all connected via the ARPANet.1227 The Pentagon couldn't resist, and Cambridge ran till 1973, despite stiff opposition. The Students for a Democratic Society issued a pamphlet, The Cambridge Project: Social Science for Social Control, raising the alarm. Massive student protests broke out around MIT in 1969 over Cambridge. Licklidder himself took a highly visible role in defending the project. He confronted the protests on the MIT campus and tried to talk down the students. They were unmoved.1228 A year after Cambridge formally ended, the US Congress passed the Privacy Act. It was one of the first attempts to protect the data of the American public via a Data Integrity Board within the Department of Justice. While this provided the American public with some

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/07/24/blueprints-of-nsa-data-center-in-utah-suggest-its-storagecapacity-is-less-impressive-than-thought/?sh=2f79d31d7457. 1224 Lepone, If Then, 283-284. Licklidder's biographer, M. Mitchell Waldrop, disputes this, arguing support for ComCom came after Lick left the Behavioral Science Program. See Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 272. But, as was noted above, ComCom was launched in 1962, by which time Licklidder was heading the Behavioral Science program. Further, Waldrop doesn't even get the name of the project correct, misidentifying it as "Camelot." But as was noted above, this wasn't even an ARPA project, being run by the Office of the Chief of Special Warfare via the Special Operations Research Agency. Given Waldrop's confusion on these simple matters, his denials should be taken with a grain of salt. 1225 Lepone, If Then, 283-285. 1226 M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 305-306. 1227 Levine, Surveillance Valley, 68-69. 1228 Levine, Surveillance Valley, 68-71; Lepone, If Then, 292-293, 296-300; M. Mitchell Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 305-306. .

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degree of protection from the federal government, no provisions were made for corporations. This proved to be a fatal miscalculation.1229 While academics like Mitchell Waldrop, Lick's biographer, have tried to downplay or deny Cambridge's links to counterinsurgency, projects then being undertaken by BBN challenge these notions. BBN was selected just before Christmas Day 1968 to build the network for ARPA. This was a bit of a surprise to outsiders. BBN was not one of the bigger firms to submit bids and didn't have an extensive history of DoD contracts at this point. Lick's influence is often credited for his former company being awarded the contract.1230 Some additional concessions may have been required. Also in 1968, BBN acquired a company known as the Browne and Shaw Research Corporation. Founded in 1963, the company described itself as "one of the principal US centers of government-sponsored research on limited war, local conflict, military security requirements" in the developing world, as well as "broader topics of military environmental forecasting, scientific and technological state of the art studies and forecasting, defense program planning, and arms control."1231 This is a really fancy way of saying it was a defense-oriented data analysis and predictive modeling outfit. Hence, all the talk of "forecasting." In 1968, BBN acquired this company and made it the International Studies Division. In doing this, BBN inherited the former executive vice president of Browne and Shaw, who became a divisional vice president with BBN. In this capacity, he continued to oversee Browne and Shaw. His name was John H Hoagland Jr. A Yale graduate, Hoagland worked for the CIA in some undefined manner after leaving school. He spent a decade with the agency (1951-1961), specializing "in strategic weapons and planning." Not long after leaving the agency, he helped set up Browne and Shaw.1232 Besides Hoagland, BBN also picked up Colonel Thomas L Fisher III from Browne and Shaw. During WWII, he served in the OSS' Special Services Unit, which oversaw paramilitary functions. Fisher led "detachments" in Malaya and Indochina during that time. He later held several senior positions in the Air Force and Pentagon, often related to intelligence or special operations.1233 In June 1969, BBN, via Browne and Shall, submitted a proposal to the military command of the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. It was a plan to harvest and analyze data from various sources on military civic action.

1229

Lepone, If Then, 313. Waldrop, The Dream Machine, 286-287. 1231 Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Volume III: Management Information for Research on Military Civic Action," 3, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.9, Folder "Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Technical Proposal for Research], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 1232 Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Volume III: Management Information for Research on Military Civic Action,"6, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.9, Folder "Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Technical Proposal for Research], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 1233 Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Volume III: Management Information for Research on Military Civic Action," 9-10, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.9, Folder "Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Technical Proposal for Research], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 1230

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Its goal was to "improve the scope and methods" of military civic action.1234 The reader will recall from Chapter 2 that Lansdale claimed to be the innovator of civic action. His concept was to create military political cadres posing as civilians. In this capacity, they could embark upon a variety of psychological operations. In the Philippines, he used civic action to get Magsaysay elected. Would it surprise the leader to learn that Lansdale himself was a consultant for BBN/Browne and Shall on this project?1235 Probably not at this point, as the path that led him there is very clear. Many figures active in Browne and Shaw, like BBN, had ties to MIT. Daniel Ellsberg, a longtime friend of Ithiel de Sola Pool, had an office at MIT's Center for International Studies during this time. So too did Pool, a fixture of the center. Another MIT/CIS figure was Cold War scholar Lucian Pye. During protests over Project Cambridge at MIT, Pool and Pye were both linked to it, though I have not been able to confirm this connection. Still, Pye and Pool were also good friends.1236 And it just so happens Pye was also a consultant on this Browne and Shaw project along with Lansdale.1237 It's entirely possible Pool met Lansdale in Vietnam while crashing with Ellsberg. His former friend and colleague Eugene Burdick's The Ugly American featured a main character based upon Lansdale, after all. Lick's longtime relationship with Pool, extensive MIT links, and counterinsurgency background, raises the distinct possibility he knew Ellsberg, if not Lansdale, by this point. It's all rather incestuous. While I've been unable to link the Browne and Shaw proposal to Cambridge, one can't help but wonder if BBN pumping up its counterinsurgency cred was crucial to the ARPA contract. Shortly before being awarded the contract, they acquired Browne and Shaw, with its built-in CIA connections. And certainly, the Browne and Shaw project is similar to Cambridge, but with a narrower goal: data mining on civic action. The Cambridge project would have been a significant boom to such efforts. While it may seem incredible that a man with Lansdale's reputation was engaged so deeply in the technological side of counterinsurgency, there are indications he was quite visionary and intrigued by such things. In an interview for a publication sponsored by the Society of Vietnamese Rangers, Lansdale mused on "the after shocks of history that will influence our warfare through the 21st century." It went on to

1234

Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Volume I: Management Information for Research on Military Civic Action," 1, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.9, Folder "Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Technical Proposal for Research], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 1235 Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Volume III: Management Information for Research on Military Civic Action," 18, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.9, Folder "Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Technical Proposal for Research], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 1236 Jill Lepore, If Then, 294-295, 299. 1237 Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Volume III: Management Information for Research on Military Civic Action," 19, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box no.9, Folder "Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Browne and Shaw International Studies Division, "Technical Proposal for Research], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 19,

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note that "T.V. Guided drones and excocet missiles showed how important JACK KILBY's integrated circuit have been to modern war. But, in his [Lansdale's -Ed] words, "You aint't seen nothing yet!' "1238 Indeed. These statements raise further questions about Lansdale's role with BBN during the late 1960s. The potential client, Redstone Arsenal, is interesting. Located in Huntsville, Alabama, this Army base is most well-known for housing Paperclip rocket scientists in the aftermath of WWII. They were involved in developing rockets, which led to the creation of NASA and the space program. To this day, Redstone is a major player in missile research. But it's also the headquarters for one of the military's most mysterious Special Forces units. One that leads to some very disturbing implications when combined with this proposal. But, more on that later. Before moving along, I'd like to return to journalist Rose Kushner. As discussed in Chapter 2, Kushner made a proposal to Lansdale advocating the application of behavioral science to counterinsurgency. Kushner was involved in an early form of behavior science research at John Hopkins during the late 1940s, and her proposal for Vietnam was endorsed by BF Skinner no less. As I hope this section has illustrated, Lansdale was at the forefront of these efforts during the 1960s. Behavioral science, along with data mining and computer simulations, were more tools he placed in the counterinsurgent's kit. The world has never been the same. *** It would take a few decades, but interest eventually revived in Licklidder and Pool's data-driven approach to predicting behavior. At the forefront of these efforts was Google. It all started innocently enough. Circa 2000, the search engine made the fateful decision to use its vast cache of behavior data and computational power to craft ads targeting a particular individual based upon their search history.1239 It was Pool's electioneering corporatized in the twenty-first century. And it was only the beginning. Google was accumulating so much data on its user, vastly beyond what was needed for marketing. This was dubbed behavior surplus. Sometime around 2002, Google began to realize this data could be used to predict human behavior with a remarkable degree of accuracy. 1240 By the middle of the decade, "behavior prediction" had become Google's principal business model.1241 It was around the mid-1990s that ARPA (now DARPA) got back into the behavior prediction racket. Within the bowels of something called the Information Systems Office, DARPA was toying with an information processing idea. It was called Project Genoa and was nothing if not ambitious: to develop an intelligent

1238

McDonald Valentine, The Static Line, May 1983, 34, Edward Geary Lansdale papers, [Box 8., "Correspondences Valentine, Don"], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 1239 Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 74-75; Levine, Surveillance Valley, 152-153. 1240 Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 75-78, 81-82 1241 Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 83-85; Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 159-161.

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machine that could pour over mounds of data and predict the next man-made cataclysm. Assisting in these efforts was John Poindexter, the disgraced Navy admiral, and Reagan-era National Security Adviser implicated in Iran-Contra. Poindexter had rebranded himself as a tech-savvy national security expert, paving the way for his work on Genoa.1242 Poindexter became enamored with Genoa and continued to follow it after his DARPA contract ended. In the aftermath of 9/11, the admiral was convinced that Genoa's time had arrived. Unfortunately, it wasn't ready for prime time. Since 1995, DARPA invested $42 million in Genoa, now part of a concept it dubbed Total Information Awareness (TIA). But the Genoa software was nowhere near intelligent enough to recognize another 9/11-style plot.1243 Shortly after 9/11, Poindexter convinced DARPA the program needed to be beefed up to the scale of a "Manhattan Project on Countering Terrorism." DARPA was game, so long as Poindexter was willing to take over the Information Systems Office and assume the mantle of "TIA czar." The admiral was more than willing and soon had a $145 million start-up budget and an additional $183.3 earmarked for the following year.1244 By August 2002, TIA was embroiled in controversy. Much of it revolved around TIA's use of mass surveillance against the public at large rather than its long-term goals of predicting human behavior. It was enough to force DARPA to officially abandon the project by 2003. Many of TIA's aims continued, however. Some of its functions were transferred to the CIA, NSA, DHS, and various military intelligence branches. PRISM --the massive NSA electronic surveillance and data mining program exposed to the public by Edward Snowden in 2013 --was one of the more infamous children of TIA.1245 Other work was outsourced. If the national security agencies couldn't create TIA formally within Washington's Byzantine bureaucracy, they would prevail via Silicon Valley's standout in information dominance: Google. By 2003, there was an awareness that Google's ventures into behavior prediction were merely commercial, rather than military, approaches to the same technology.1246 The Pentagon and intelligence community appear to have concurred if the funding being pumped into Google around 2003 is any indication. During that year, Google was awarded a $2.1 million contract from the NSA to update their search engines. The following year, they crafted a customized Google search for the CIA. It was also during that year Google acquired Keyhoe, a satellite mapping company that served as the basis for Google Maps. Keyhoe was set up by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's Silicon Valley-centric venture capital firm. Keyhoe even came with an InQ-Tel executive, Rob Painter, with extensive contacts among the CIA, the special operations forces, and

1242

Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 336-338; Weinberger, The Imagineeers of War, 299-301. Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 338. 1244 Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 339; Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 302-303. 1245 Jacobsen, The Pentagon's Brain, 346-350; Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 309-313. 1246 Levine, Surveillance Valley, 161-162. 1243

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various major defense contractors. Painter became one of Google's principal lobbyists for government contracts.1247 It proved to be money well spent. By the Obama years, Google had the run of the White House. Government contracts, defense, and otherwise, flowed like water. We'll get to that in Book III. For now, we need to briefly address Google's principal revival in what has been dubbed "surveillance capitalism": Palantir. Named after the seeing stones from Lord of the Rings, Palantir was started in 2003 to cash in on the national security bonanza following 9/11. It shared similar aims to TIA, namely to harvest big data in a bid to predict human behavior. Feeling the synergy, Palantir executives reached out to Poindexter. The admiral found them arrogant but thought they might be on to something. After TIA was shuttered, Poindexter became an informal adviser/advocate for Palantir in Washington. This led to In-Q-Tel making a $2 million investment in the company in 2005 to further develop the software they'd pitched to Poindexter.1248 These moves had profound implications for the development of surveillance capitalism in the twenty-first century. This will also be further explored in Book III. The Pentagon returned directly to the work in 2008 when it launched the Human Social and Culture Behavior Modeling program. It allocated $19 million to spend on the program between 2008 and 2013. The stated goal was crafting "technologies for human terrain understanding and forecasting." Software would be developed based on "computational/analytical anthropological collection" to assist intelligence analysis and operations planning. The endgame was to "forecast" the effects US military actions had on indigenous peoples.1249 Predictive modeling of human behavior, in other words. What's important to keep in mind is that this unholy merger of computer and behavioral sciences grew out of Licklider's work for ARPA during the 1960s and 1970s. In a sense, what eventually emerged as the controversy surrounding Cambridge Analytica in the second decade of the twenty-first century was already baked into the early ARPAnet research. And a crucial hub for that research during the 1970s was SRI. Elsewhere, SRI's parent university, Stanford, housed the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences since the 1950s. This was one of the principal bodies that developed the discipline of behavioral science in the first place. But back to SRI.

1247

Levine, Surveillance Valley, 174-178; Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 116-117. Max Chafkin, The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power (New York: Penguin Press, 2021), 115-116. 1249 Roberto J. Gonzalez, American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain, 83-85. 1248

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Pandora's Box

Among the many things the SRI remote viewing experiments tested was precognition: Could ESP be used to successfully predict future events?1250 The 2002 Steven Spielberg-helmed science fiction film Minority Report (based upon a story by Phillip K Dick, another roaming prophet of the Bay area during the Weird 1970s) depicted a future in which power psychics, dubbed "Precogs," used precognition to accurately predict criminal behavior. Ironically, ARPA was already developing such technology but using machines rather than human consciousness for their precognitions. Which begs the question: is this what the remote viewing and UFOs were really intended to cover up? Or was there something even more incredible in play? Project Pandora was ARPA's own foray into nonlethals. Begun to study the Moscow Signal, it gradually became more ambitious and unhinged. But before getting to that, let's briefly consider the Moscow Signal. It started at the US embassy in Moscow during 1956 and was first detected in 1962. It was a form of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) administered via microwaves. It was a composite of several frequencies, aiming for a synergistic effect from various wavelengths. The signal's intensity may have been as high as 4,000 microwatts. The signal was beamed directly into the ambassador's office. At various times, it was said to be used to activate bugging devices or to jam US eavesdropping equipment. But both explanations are problematic, given that the CIA allowed the signal to continue for years after it was detected.1251 If sensitive surveillance technology was in play, surely they would have protested sooner? Or perhaps they wanted to see what would happen? Soviet research published during the mid-1960s indicated that such a beam would produce eyestrain/blurred vision, headaches, and a loss of concentration during early exposure. Cancer was a possibility after prolonged exposure, or so the Soviets claimed. And it just so happens that three separate US ambassadors (Charles Bohlen, Llewellyn Thompson, and Walter Stoessel) stationed there during the time of the Signal all later succumbed to different types of cancer. Stoessel suffered from both extreme headaches and bleeding from his eyes prior to developing a rare blood disease similar to leukemia. Testing in 1977 revealed that nearly a third of the returning embassy workers had "slightly higher than average" white blood cell count (the white blood cell counts were described as being 40 percent above those of other foreign service employees...). During the prior year, the US State Department was forced to give Moscow employees a 20 percent hardship allowance in

1250

Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers, 230. Robert O. Becker & Gary Selden, The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life, 315-316; Jacobsen, Phenomena, 74-75 Paul Brodeur, Currents of Death: Power Lines, Computer Terminals, and the Attempt to Cover Up the Threat to Your Health (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 90-91. 1251

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an "unhealthy post." It also installed aluminum window screens to protect the staff. The Soviets continued to irradiate the embassy until 1978 or 1979, then started again in 1983.1252 One hundred US embassy employees previously stationed in Moscow brought a $250 million lawsuit against the US government for overexposure to The Signal. The State Department ponied up $1 million to John Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health to study the effects of The Signal. When the study was issued in 1978, it concluded that "no convincing evidence" was found that employees suffered "adverse health effects as of the time of this analysis." Every suit was eventually withdrawn without a penny being paid.1253 In addition to the Moscow Signal, another alleged Soviet psychotronic weapon directly targeted the United States. Commonly referred to as the "Russian Woodpecker," the signal was first heard worldwide on July 4, 1976. This was not only the US Independence Day but the bicentennial celebration of said event, giving it the requisite symbolism. It got the nickname because its pulse-modulated rate sounded like a buzz saw or woodpecker. The signal was so strong during its heyday that it drowned out virtually everything else on its wavelengths. Shortly after its debut, the UN International Telecommunications Union protested over interference to communications channels, including emergency frequencies for aircraft, supposedly brought about by the Woodpecker.1254 Even more peculiar were claims made by residents of certain US and Canadian cities, most notably Eugene, Oregon. Not far from there, a powerful radio signal of 4.75 megahertz was monitored. Residents there reported pressure and pain in the head; anxiety; fatigue; insomnia; lack of coordination; and numbness; typically accompanied by a high-pitched ringing in the ears. These symptoms are consistent with strong radio-frequency or microwave irradiation. A variety of theories were put forward about reports from Eugene, ranging from Tesla technology to interaction between the Woodpecker and a hypothetical US Navy ELF communications system.1255 As for the Woodpecker proper, its ultimate purpose generated equally robust speculation over the years. By the mid-1980s, three popular ones had gained traction: 1) It was an over-the-horizon radar that would pick up a massive first strike by the US if Soviet spy satellites and other detectors were knocked (think EMPs); 2) it employed ELF to communicate with submarines underwater; and 3) the signal produced a biological byproduct that irradiated target populaces. As to the latter, it was suggested the particular pulse modulation of the signal would enable it to be reradiated by the power supplies at its ultimate destination. If the last scenario was accurate, the Woodpecker was increasing cancer rates, interfering with decisionmaking ability, and sowing general confusion among the public at large. Not to be outdone, the CIA was said to oversee Operation Pique during the late 1970s as a response to Woodpecker. In this case, Pique allegedly bounced radio signals off the ionosphere to affect the mental functions of populaces in targeted 1252

Robert O. Becker & Gary Selden, The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life, 315-317; Jacobsen, Phenomena, 190-191. 1253 Jacobsen, Phenomena, 191; Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 200. 1254 Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 323. 1255 Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 323.

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areas.1256 It probably goes without saying, but the last claim is widely dismissed, both then and now. Nor has anything ever emerged to prove the existence of Pique.1257 While it's easy to chalk up the wild claims surrounding Woodpecker to Cold War hysteria, then gaining renewed vigor with the onset of the Reagan era. But early accounts of Woodpecker got a surprising number of details right. For instance, the signal was traced to a massive facility near Kiev in Soviet Ukraine.1258 After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, this claim was proven to be accurate, as was one explanation put forward for Woodpecker's existence: that it was an early warning system. To the Soviet regime, the Woodpecker was "Duga-3" (which translates as "The Ark"). Described as a masterpiece of mechanical engineering, it possessed an antenna that was 150 meters in height (nearly 500 feet) and 500 meters wide (1640 + feet). Construction on Duga-3 began in 1972. Its stated purpose was indeed as an over-the-horizon radar to monitor possible US nuclear first strikes. This was managed by bouncing signals of the ionosphere to peer over the Earth's curvature. It was housed in a facility called "Chernobyl 2," which resided next to the more well-known Chernobyl 1 --the nuclear reactor that melted down in 1986. For years, the Soviet Union claimed the site was a children's camp. Decades after the regime's collapse, the public was still prohibited from the site long after the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was opened up. It was not until 2013 that the government of Ukraine began allowing the public to tour the ruins.1259 And yet, these explanations are not entirely satisfactory either. For one, it is alleged that early in the construction, it became evident that the Soviet scientists behind Duga-3 did not entirely understand how the ionosphere worked. Hence, the project was doomed to failure even before Duga-3 went online. But because of the corruption and unwillingness of the Soviet regime to acknowledge incompetence, it continued anyway. Further, the project remained shrouded in the utmost secrecy years after the regime's demise. Documents about the facility's operations were either destroyed or spirited away to Moscow, along with vital components.1260

1256

Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 324. This conspiracy theory originates from 1978 via Stefan Rednip. He was an American journalist living in the UK who to have access to classified documents outlining the CIA's nefarious intentions with Operation Pique. Rednip appears to have first made these charges to the UK publication Time Out. See Laura Corballis, "Hired Rain's Gonna Fall," Mother Jones Magazine, July 1978, 7, https://books.google.com/books?id=oOYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=Operation+Pique+Stefen+Rednip&s ource=bl&ots=NtFUR62Z3d&sig=ACfU3U2LAcUtnZGtODJwTATwFxW8HDqe0A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiy6cCj6 qD_AhXAKFkFHQtkDe0Q6AF6BAgkEAM#v=onepage&q=Operation%20Pique%20Stefen%20Rednip&f=false. 1258 Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 323. 1259 Fedykovych, P. (2019, March 4). Duga radar: Enormous abandoned antenna hidden in forests near Chernobyl. CNN. https://web.archive.org/web/20210417170506/https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/duga-radar-chernobylukraine/index.html; Nazaryan , A. (2016, February 15). The massive Russian radar site in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Newsweek. https://web.archive.org/web/20191012093309/https://www.newsweek.com/hunt-russianwoodpecker-246670. 1260 Fedykovych, P. (2019, March 4). Duga radar: Enormous abandoned antenna hidden in forests near Chernobyl. 1257

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And then there's the Chernobyl 1 factor. For years, there has been speculation the doomed nuclear facility was built in that particular location to provide the radar with power. The Duga facility cost the Soviet Union twice as much as the nuclear power plant. That constitutes a hefty investment for something that was doomed to failure before it was even built. And finally, the Chernobyl meltdown is a significant geopolitical event itself. One aspect often overlooked is that the meltdown finally brought the Woodpecker to heel. It continued sporadically for a few more years until going totally silent in 1989, but never at its pre-1986 levels. Mainstream accounts often credit the Woodpecker Hunt Club, a collective of amateur HAM radio operators, with managing this.1261 2015 witnessed the release of The Russian Woodpecker, a sleek documentary on Duga. It chronicles the investigation of Ukrainian performance artist Fedor Alexandrovich into potential links between Duga and the Chernobyl meltdown. Alexandrovich tracked down the visionary behind Duga, Soviet Minister of Communications Vasily Shamshin. From there, he postulates Shamshin, also a Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCCP) figure, deliberately caused the disaster to cover up the epic boondoggle that was Duga. Otherwise, he may have faced severe repercussions over the misappropriation of funds.1262 The film is problematic on several levels. Shot against the backdrop of the 2013-2014 Euromaidan protests that set the stage for the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War, the film feels like a thinly disguised propaganda piece at times. Largely funded from the US and UK and dominated by Ukrainians both in front and behind the camera, there's no question of a clear bias in the narrative. Upon its release, the documentary was immediately celebrated at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Best World Cinema Documentary. Its street cred established, the film would continue to rack up nominations and awards at film festivals worldwide throughout 2015. And then there's the notion that a sitting CCCP member would induce Chernobyl to meltdown to avoid censure over the Duga. This assumes that the station never worked as intended, which the film never conclusively demonstrates. And almost no one who appears on screen that isn't a Ukrainian nationalist finds Alexandrovich's claims ludicrous. In fairness, that's what one would expect from former Soviet state officials in these circumstances (especially with renewed conflict with Ukraine brewing). But when all is said and done, would the consequences for Shamshin be more dire for misappropriating seven billion rubles (roughly between $4-5 billion in 1986) or causing the Chernobyl disaster? In 2023 dollars, that's nearly $13 billion in squandered funds. Given that the Soviets spent roughly 15 billion Rubles

1261

Fedykovych, P. (2019, March 4). Duga radar: Enormous abandoned antenna hidden in forests near Chernobyl. CNN. https://web.archive.org/web/20210417170506/https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/duga-radar-chernobylukraine/index.html; Nazaryan , A. (2016, February 15). The massive Russian radar site in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Newsweek. https://web.archive.org/web/20191012093309/https://www.newsweek.com/hunt-russianwoodpecker-246670. 1262 The Russian Woodpecker, Directed by Chad Gracia, (Gracia Films/Roast Beef Productions, 2015), Amazon Prime, https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Woodpecker-Chernobyl-WarUkraine/dp/B0B72M7BH1/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2RG693A0S87SX&keywords=russian+woodpecker&qid=1685650000&s prefix=%2Caps%2C238&sr=8-2 (Accessed 1 June 2023).

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between 1979 and 1986 on their war in Afghanistan,1263 we can conclude that's not an insubstantial amount of funds. But the Chernobyl meltdown is estimated to have cost the Soviets at least 18 billion Rubles. 1264 To say nothing of the loss of international prestige. And, there's no way Shamshin could have avoided prosecution if his hypothetical crime ever came out. By contrast, graft and corruption had become endemic in the Soviet Union and even the CCCP by the mid-1980s.1265 One suspects Shamshin had other ways of inducing a cover-up that caused a nuclear meltdown. Still, the film raises some curious questions about the purpose of Duga-3. It's debated throughout whether it was a civilian or military installation; what connection, if any, it had to the Chernobyl plant; why is it still shrouded in secrecy despite its flawed design; and whether it was also an elaborate jamming device in addition to an early warning radar. That adds yet another possible military application to Duga in addition to its acknowledged function as a radar and alleged role in communicating with subs and irradiating foreign nations. Obviously, these explanations are problematic in their own right. Nor are they entirely satisfactory in explaining Duga-3's purpose. What is significant about the official explanations is the facility's linkage to a US preemptive nuclear strike and the layers of disinformation surrounding it. As noted in Chapter 2, a nuclear first strike was an ongoing obsession at the Pentagon throughout the Cold War. And ominously, reports of the Woodpecker's return began to make the rounds in 2013, as relations between the US and Russian Federation rapidly frayed over the situation in Ukraine. This time, the transmission emanated from the Republic of Mordovia, near Eastern Europe in the Russian Federation.1266 Was the Woodpecker's return driven by the heightened nuclear tensions? Keep this in mind, as it provides a window to discern the strange combination of psychological warfare, nonlethal/psychotronic weapons, and US nuclear policy that has appeared throughout this work. There's a reason for this, as shall soon be discussed. For now, we need to consider Pandora and an earlier Pentagon foray into the mysteries of electromagnetic radiation. Fittingly, it was known as Project Sanguine. Navy officials became intrigued by extreme low frequency (ELF) radiation in 1958, when they determined these frequencies could be used to communicate with deeply submerged submarines. The reader will recall from Chapter 4 that Jacques Bergier's account of ESP being used to communicate with subs first 1263

United States Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan, (Office of Soviet Analysis, February 1987), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000499320.pdf (Accessed June 1 2023). 1264 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Chernobyl: Assessment of Radiological and Health Impacts 2002 Update of Chernobyl: Ten Years On, 2nd Ed., (Nuclear Energy Agency , 2002), https://www.oecdnea.org/jcms/pl_13598 (Accessed June 1 2023). 1265 See, for instance, Misha Glenny, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (New York: Vintage Books, 2009); and Catherine Belton, Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West (New York: Picador, 2020). 1266 Nazaryan, A. (2016, October 4). Fun with conspiracy theories: Did the Chernobyl disaste. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/fun-conspiracy-theories-was-chernobyl-disaster-cya-move-hide-something-even302570; Podvig, P. (2013, December 3). Russia begins deployment of over-the-horizon radars. Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. https://russianforces.org/blog/2013/12/russia_begins_deployment_of_ov.shtml.

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appeared in print the following year. But rather than exploring parapsychology, the Navy forged ahead with ELF research. By 1969, it built an ELF testing facility in northern Wisconsin in 1969.1267 During that time, the US Navy laid plans to build a massive antenna in the state. The objective was to establish radio links with nuclear submarines at their standard depth of 120 feet below sea level. Conventional radio signals could not pass through the waters at that depth, necessitating the use of ELF waves. To manage this, the original design called for 6,000 miles of cable arranged in a grid to be buried across two-fifths of Wisconsin. The device these cables serviced was a loop antenna that bounced ELF waves off the Earth's surface into the ionosphere and back again. This formed the genesis of Sanguine. 1268

Sanguine was one of the first military projects scrutinized by the newly founded Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A report was issued in 1973 that raised serious concerns about the potential harm that antenna posed to human health and the environment. Without classifying it, the Navy attempted to limit the report's circulation. By this time, an experimental station was already active in Clam Lake, WI. When the public became aware of the report in 1975, the full-scale antenna already had a new code name (Project Seafarer) and location (Michigan's upper peninsula). 1269 The Navy had spent roughly $125 million (over $700 million in 2023 dollars) by that year on ELF research across various projects.1270 As for Seafarer, both local and nationwide opposition to it intensified after the public revelations of the mid-1970s. Work on the Navy's antenna was put on hold for several years as a result. The project got back on track once Reagan assumed office. Renamed (Project ELF) and redesigned once again, the antenna would now stretch 56 miles above ground on intersecting rows of utility poles in the Escanaba River State Forest. Construction resumed in 1983.1271 Project ELF went operational in 1989 and continued until 2004. It faced stiff opposition throughout its lifespan, but more from anti-nuclear activists after the 1980s. It was revealed that the ELF station would transmit one-way messages to US and UK nuclear subs if a preemptive nuclear first-strike strike against Russia was launched.1272 If claims about the Duga's own role in a preemptive first strike are accurate, it would seem that the US and USSR had rival antennas poised to engage one another across the Arctic Ocean in the waning days of the Cold War. Nor were ELFs the only form of electromagnetic radiation considered for military purposes. Let us now return to the Moscow Signal and the US response. To wit, Pandora was launched in 1965 under the auspices of ARPA to investigate The Signal. Or at least that was the official explanation given. During the late 1960s, Pandora conducted the first tests on Moscow embassy employees to ascertain the signal's 1267

Paul Brodeur, Currents of Death: Power Lines, Computer Terminals, and the Attempt to Cover Up the Threat to Your Health, 29. 1268 Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 278-279; Paul Brodeur, Currents of Death: Power Lines, Computer Terminals, and the Attempt to Cover Up the Threat to Your Health, 29-30. 1269 Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 278-281; Paul Brodeur, Currents of Death, 40-41. 1270 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 188. 1271 Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 283; Paul Brodeur, Currents of Death, 160-161. 1272 Nukewatch. (2004, October 15). Project ELF Closes. The Nuclear Resister. http://www.nukeresister.org/static/nr135/135elfcloses.html

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effects.1273 By the early 1970s, it had advanced to holding formal discussions on testing microwave beams on human subjects. Testing done on primates under Pandora during the 1960s showed promise. But after a few non-Pandora ARPA scientists peer-reviewed the data, they were less convinced. In theory, human testing was abandoned at this point. Or at least directly under Pandora. Another related program, dubbed "Big Boy," beamed microwaves at unwitting sailors stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Yard just to see what would happen.1274 Pandora was headed by a curious figure known as Richard Cesaro, a propulsion expert with ARPA since 1958. By all accounts, Cesaro was a true believer in the reality of microwave weapons. As such, his former ARPA colleagues are quick to dismiss him as a quack. ARPA's hierarchy concluded during the early 1970s that, upon reviewing Pandora, the Moscow Signal posed no physical or psychological threat to human beings. But by the mid-1970as, ARPA had good reason to downplay the effects: Both the Moscow Signal and the US intelligence community's awareness of it began to leak to the press circa 1973. Embassy workers in Moscow feared adverse health effects after being formally notified of The Signal in 1976. A wave of lawsuits soon followed. The government successfully parried them, as was noted above.1275 As for Cesaro, while his notions may be eccentric, there's no question they were groundbreaking on occasion. Cesaro has the distinction of being one of the visionaries behind armed combat drones. In Vietnam, the US Navy was already using an early mini-helicopter drone, the QH-50, outfitted with surveillance equipment. In 1967, Cesaro proposed arming the drones and dispatching them to North Vietnam in search of "high priority targets." Testing was done throughout the rest of the decade, and a few QH-50s were sent to Vietnam, though never used in combat. The technology wasn't there yet, and ARPA abandoned the program during the early 1970s.History has certainly been much kinder to Cesaro on this one than his ARPA superiors.1276 Cesaro was known within ARPA for his ties to black ops. Reportedly, Cesaro ran numerous secret projects his supervisors had little knowledge of. He appears to have been read into these spooky circles by none other than William Godel. The two men worked together during ARPA's early days on the Corona spy satellite program. Cesaro was active in classified projects from there on out. After Godel was drummed out of ARPA, there was speculation that Cesaro took his place as ARPA's liaison to the intelligence community.1277 Godel was a major proponent of cutting-edge weaponry, being one of the driving forces behind the adoption of the M-16 rifle and Agent Orange. Cesaro certainly seems to have continued this legacy into the 1970s at ARPA.

1273

Becker & Selden, The Body Electric, 315-316; Paul Brodeur, Currents of Death, 91. Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 75-77, 189; Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 194-195; Paul Brodeur, Currents of Death, 91-93. 1275 Jacobsen, Phenomena, 189-191. 1276 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 197-199. 1277 Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, 189-190. 1274

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But was it all humbug? Cesaro was right about drones, and many reputable scientists have expressed concerns over the weaponization of microwave technology over the years. This was the essence of blue sky research, in other words. Much of this tech was a long shot in the 1960s but conceivable by the twentyfirst century. But during the 1960s/1970s, its greatest value was probably related to psychological warfare. The fact that these technologies were used on such a limited basis in relation to the data mining and predictive modeling of primitive computers bears this out. Compelling evidence indicates that Pandora is exactly the type of thing the Soviets would obsess over. ComCom, Camelot, and Cambridge were surely interesting too, but perhaps not to the extent as ESP or UFOs within certain sectors of the USSR. Further, such research had the added bonus of forcing the Russians to invest in tech less effective in controlling human consciousness. A figure we must again turn to is Jacques Vallee. Vallee was actively working on the ARPAnet at SRI from the early to mid-1970s, coinciding with the heyday of Cambridge. And Vallee certainly rubbed elbows with Licklidder a time or two during this era.1278 But, as the name implies, the Cambridge Project was based out of MIT and Harvard, not SRI. Further, Vallee's work on the ARPANet revolved around telecommunications conferences and how they affected professionals.1279 But Vallee occasionally ran ESP experiments using the ARPANet, noted elsewhere. Is it possible his bosses felt this made for colorful window dressing to distract the Russians? Or was it his contemporaries at SRI that saw the value? I don't enjoy throwing shade on Jacques Vallee. Having closely read his journals and other works in researching this book, I was continuously struck by the integrity that shined forth. Further, one is left with the distinct impression from said journals that he was kept at arm's length by many of the spookier birdmen (i.e., Green, Puthoff, Alexander, Graff, Vorona). The purpose of figures like Doty, Collins, Kellerstrass, Moore, Shandera, and possibly Maccabee seems to be in seeding the mythos that have come to define Ufology. I suspect at least some of these men were simply true believers who genuinely thought they were unraveling a cover-up. Even Moore, who knew he was being used to spread disinformation, claims to have thought there was some truth in what he was being told. But where does Vallee fit in? I firmly believe that when the history of the Cold War and beyond is explored a century or two down the road, Vallee will be acknowledged as one of the most visionary thinkers of his era. His work on the ARPANet, and later building up Silicon Valley as a venture capitalist during the 1980s, were instrumental in the rise of the Internet. But beyond that, his approach to Ufology and broader high weirdness is profound and distinctly spiritual. It was not, however, the type of thing the masses could easily understand. That's what the likes of Barbara Marx Hubbard were for.

1278

See, for instance, Vallee, Forbidden Science -Volume Two, 233, etc. D.W. Pasulka and David Metcalfe, "Where Soul Meets Technology: Catholic Visionaries and the Stanford Research Institute as Precedents for Human-Machine Interface and Social Telepathy Apps," 157. 1279

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Vallee's work would have been irresistible in certain intellectual circles, however. And most especially in the Soviet Union. Vallee's approach to Ufology could provide some semblance of a scientific explanation for not only flying saucers, but also elves, fairies, gnomes, and any number of other mythological creatures. During the 1960s-1970s, the Russians seemed especially gaga for this type of thing. Surely US Cold War planners made the obvious connection, and Regnery's patronage of Vallee certainly indicates such. Would Vallee have made a deal like Moore's? I like to think he has more integrity than that. But could he have allowed himself to be nudged ever so slightly towards psychological warfare efforts with a proverbial carrot? We may never know, but it's a possibility that must be considered. And that brings us back to another figure that looms over these doings like a specter: General Edward Lansdale. As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, Lansdale is one of the principal architects of the modern national security state. On the one hand, his work with the Institute for American Strategy would play a crucial role in the rightward, hardline anticommunist drift the nation would undertake during the Reagan years. This work also put into place the donor network that brought the Raygun to power and later Trump. But beyond that, Lansdale was instrumental in laying the foundation for what became the Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations Command within the Pentagon. As we shall see in Book III, these entities have moved to the apex of power within the national security state during the twenty-first century. Fittingly, Lansdale's associates also played an incalculable role in the rise of big data and predictive modeling. From Godel's work on the Combat Development and Training Centers and AGILE to the staggering overlap between the Simulmatics people and Lansdale's crew, one is left with the conclusion that a beast like Cambridge Analytica simply would not have been possible without Lansdale's "unique" approach to counterinsurgency. And suppose it was Lansdale's vision guiding much of this research involving big data (largely sponsored through the Office of the Chief of Special Warfare and the Office of Special Operations, which oversaw the OCSW and was actually running AGILE through ARPA. In that case, the co-option of Vallee must be given serious consideration. If Lansdale was comfortable murdering insurgents and draining them of blood to mimic vampire attacks, pushing inter-dimensional elves on the Soviets doesn't seem like much of a stretch.

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Will the Real UFO Working Group Please Stand Up?

During the mid-1980s, the Advanced Theoretical Physics (ATP) project was launched. Howard Blum's Out There presented a highly embellished account of this affair. The book chronicled the exploits of "Colonel Harold E. Phillips" and his "UFO Working Group." It was actually the ATP network Blum was describing, while his Colonel Phillips was a composite of Alexander and Colonel Ron Blackburn. By the time the two men first met, Blackburn was retired from the Air Force and working out of Lockheed's famed Skunk Works research facility. During the 1980s, the two men began discussing UFOs informally. This spurred Alexander to launch the ATP. 1280 The ATP formally got going in either 1984 or 1985. The "first set of meetings and briefings" occurred in 1988. The group was still meeting as recently as 1990, two years after Alexander retired from the Army.1281 Membership was designed to be highly restricted. It was by invitation only, and Alexander had final veto on who could sit in. A certain amount of security clearance was required while participants had to have demonstrated a prior interest in the woo.1282 Vallee suggests that despite Alexander's best efforts, secrecy was already compromised by 1985.1283 Blum appears to have been aware of it by at least 1987.1284 At the heart of the ATP's stated purpose was a search for the real MJ-12. Prior to the famous documents leaking, many of the ATP participants had concluded that there was some type of secret working group tasked with the UFO question. Whether it still existed within government or had disappeared into the deep private was one of several questions the group hoped to resolve. As such, individuals were invited from across the military and intelligence communities and top researchers from major defense contractors. These efforts led Blum and others to conclude that Alexander's ATP project was the real MJ 12. Needless to say, members have long pushed back against this notion.1285 By and large, the meetings appear to have been informal, with the ATP receiving no official support. Alexander won tentative approval (or at least tolerance) for the project from his immediate bosses, Generals Robert Moore and Richard Thompson (the former was also a member of Task Force Delta). At the onset of the ATP, Alexander was working out of the Army Materiel Command, which is mainly

1280

Alexander, UFOs, 14-16. Alexander, UFOs, 21; Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 32. Vallee quotes Blackburn as giving a 1985 start date for ATP, while Alexander places it in 1984. As Alexander appears to be the driving force behind it, I'm inclined to defer to the Army colonel. 1282 Alexander, UFOs, 16. 1283 Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Three, 200-201. 1284 Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 55; Howard Blum, Out There: The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials, 3-8. 1285 Alexander, UFOs, 17. 1281

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concerned with procurements and not R & D. Hence, it was made clear to Alexander from the beginning that no funding could be had from his day job.1286 Alexander would go on to brief elements in the CIA, DIA, and NSA on his efforts in the hopes of generating support. Many of these services agreed to provide him with a liaison if not funding. After making the rounds, Alexander and others involved with ATP came to an obvious conclusion for funding: the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or Star Wars. As was noted in Chapter 4, the SDI was a decades-spanning obsession of the American Security Council. Further, UFO mythos have long been linked to the SDI. At the time of Alexander's pitch, the SDI was headed by General James Abrahamson, who had addressed one of the ASC's subgroups not long after assuming command.1287 Interestingly, part of Alexander's pitch to Abrahamson involved NSA-intercepted transcripts of a Soviet scientist discussing the UFO question. The scientist targeted? Dr. F Yu Ziegel, Jacques Vallee's old correspondent, seemed suitably convinced of the reality of the phenomena in the transcripts. Abrahamson was intrigued but turned Alexander down, largely over PR concerns. The SDI was always controversial, and a UFO Working Group would raise further questions about funding. The general was open to using some of the group's data in the algorithms of his deep space probes, but they never took him up on the offer. 1288 Vallee places Alexander's pitch to the SDI around mid-1987.1289 This seems to be about the same time the group's existence was leaked to Blum and others. And if Vallee is to be believed, rumblings about the group were already making the rounds in certain circles as far back as 1985. As these circles included leading scientists and military and intelligence officers, the Soviets were also surely listening. While SDI had nothing to do with aliens, having Alexander meet with its head amidst a cloud of secrecy may have at least raised the possibility. And if the SDI was itself driven more by psychological warfare concerns than practical science (not unlike the SRI remote viewing program...), meeting with Alexander makes a certain kind of sense. As should come as little surprise, The Aviary was well represented on the ATP. In addition to Alexander, other participants included Hal Puthoff, CB Scott Jones, Kit Green, and Vallee.1290 Edward Teller may have also held discussions with the ATP on the UFO question.1291

1286

Alexander, UFOs, 20-24. Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, 53. 1288 Alexander, UFOs, 33-35. 1289 Vallee, Forbidden Science Volume Three, 288. 1290 Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 34-37. Vallee claims that he only sat in on one meeting. 1291 Alexander, UFOs, 23-25. Alexander mentions his discussions with Teller in the midst of the ATP chapter in his UFOs book. He never indicates if the UFO-centric discussions were in relation to the ATP project, however. 1287

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The ATP project wound down roughly around the time the Howard Blum book dropped in 1990. Several of these figures (Vallee, Alexander, Green, and Puthoff)1292 drifted into the orbit of real estate mogul turned commercial space flight pioneer Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) not long afterward. Bigelow formally entered the UFO field during the late 1980s and became one of its biggest funders by the following decade. During a 2017 60 Minutes interview, he acknowledged spending millions upon millions of dollars investigating the phenomena.1293 After amassing a fortune in real estate, Bigelow expanded into a novel market. He founded Bigelow Aerospace in 1998, one of the two leading developers of private space travel, along with Elon Musk's SpaceX. Bigelow's early woo-woo forays included bankrolling the abduction/regression hypnosis efforts of Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs1294 as well as investing in a talk radio show ("Area 2000") dedicated to high weirdness. Launched in 1993, early hosts included Linda Milton Howe, George Knapp, and the legendary Art Bell. Bell departed the following year to launch Coast to Coast AM.1295 These efforts were driven by Bigelow's longstanding interest in unusual phenomena. Consciousness after death was high on the list due to Bigelow having lost a 22-year-old son several years before he got into the UFO racket. He also claimed to have experienced unusual phenomena as a child.1296 The various Aviary figures (Puthoff, Alexander, Green, and Vallee) involved with NIDS developed warm working relations with Bigelow.1297 NIDS was established in Las Vegas in 1995. It had two objectives: research into consciousness (especially after death) and UFOs. To lend credibility to the outfit, Bigelow attempted to put together a prestigious scientific board.1298 This is where many of the birdmen ended up. In this capacity, most of them participated in NIDS' famed investigation of Skinwalker Ranch.1299

1292

National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS): Science institute engaged in research of UFOs, animal MUTILATIONS, and other related anomalous phenomena. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2021, from https://web.archive.org/web/20071006225328/http://www.nidsci.org/personnel.php. NIDS former official website does not list Green among their scientific advisory board, but Vallee attests to Green's early involvement in his journals. See, Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science 4: The Spring Hill Chronicles (San Antonio, TX: Anomalist Books, 2019), 286-296, 300-303, etc. 1293 MJ Banias, The UFO People: A Curious Culture (August Night Books, 2019), 89. 1294 Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 76, 84. 1295 Adam Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks, 174. 1296 Vallee, Forbidden Science 4, 296. 1297 The fourth volume of Vallee's Forbidden Science journals delves heavily into his work with NIDS along with several of the other birdmen. Alexander provides some insight in UFOs as well. One is left with the general impression they became quite chummy with this wealthy patron. 1298 James T. Lacatski, Colm A Kelleher and George Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon (Henderson, NV: RTMA LLC, 2021), 14. 1299 Skinwalker ranch has gained a considerable amount of attention of late, thanks in no small part to the History channel series The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch centered around it. The ranch, as well as the NIDS and later BAAS investigations of it, have already generated two full length accounts. The first is Colm A. Kelleher and George Knapp, Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah (New York: Paraview Pocket Books, 2005). Kelleher and Knapp, along with James T. Lacatski, returned with a follow-up in 2021 entitled Skinwalker's at the Pentagon. While touching briefly upon NIDS' earlier investigation, this account is more concerned with the later work of BAASS on behalf of the Pentagon. Alexander recounts his experiences at Skinwalker on behalf

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Since the mid-1990s, a mythos has slowly built around Skinwalker, an isolated ranch near Ballard, Utah. It started with a series of articles appearing in the Las Vegas Mercury by investigative journalist (and NIDS lackey) George Knapp during the 1990s. Since then, Skinwalker has become a garden industry. It has been the subject of the History Channel series The Secret of Skinwalker (2020-2021), the documentary The Hunt for the Skinwalker (2018), a fictional depiction in a found-footage film (Skinwalker Ranch, 2013), an episode of Joe Rogan Questions Everything, two full-length books, and an untold number of websites and articles. Thus, we find the presence of The Aviary at the heart of a major American mythos yet again. An in-depth discussion of Skinwalker is beyond the scope of this present work. Suffice to say, it has a reputation for generating all kinds of odd phenomena. Besides UFOs and cattle mutilations, orbs, cryptids, poltergeist activity, and a host of other paranormal phenomena have been witnessed there. Bigelow acquired the property in 1996 from a family known as the Shermans (often referred to as the "Gormans" in the literature), who claimed to have experienced epic high weirdness there during a two-year period (1994-1996). Skeptics quickly point out that the ranch's prior owners, who lived on the property for nearly 60 years, denied any mysterious phenomena occurring there. Elsewhere, several of the property's former guards allege that they were subjected to nonlethal weapons testing.1300 While the latter claims are probably baseless, it cannot be denied NIDS' scientific board had ample expertise in such things. NIDS' intense study of Skinwalker yielded few tangible results. In 2004, Bigelow shuttered the outfit.1301 Things began to pick up again in 2007. During that year, Dr. James T Lacatski read Hunt for the Skinwalker. He was captivated and began sharing it with his co-workers. He began to wonder if it was relevant to the work they were involved in.1302 At the time, Lacatski was an intelligence officer serving in the DIA's Defense Warning Office. His work involved missile threat assessment.1303 In June 2007, Lacatski reached out to Robert Bigelow via a letter using the official DIA letterhead. Lacatski wanted to determine if the unusual aerial phenomena were of interest to his office (Defense Warning Office) and requested a visit to Skinwalker. Bigelow obliged, and the two men flew to Utah together during July 2007. Within an hour of setting foot on Skinwalker, Lacatski claims to have witnessed "a complex semi-opaque, yellowish, tubular structure." It apparently bore some similarity to the creature depicted on the cover of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells album. After appearing suddenly before Lacatski, it silently hovered for about thirty seconds, then disappeared back into the ether.1304

of NIDS in his UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, 232-236. Vallee describes investigating Skinwalker, along with Putholf, in Forbidden Science 4, 326-329, etc. 1300 Sheaffer, R. (2020, June 9). Claims about a government "UFO program" - how much is true? Skeptic. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/claims-about-pentagon-ufo-program-howmuch-is-true/. 1301 James T Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher and George Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 31-32. 1302 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 37-38. 1303 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 19; Colavito, J. (2021, May 21). How Washington got hooked on Flying Saucers. The New Republic. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from https://newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science. 1304 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 38-41.

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While maybe not quite a "Road to Damascus"-like moment for Lacatski, he was nonetheless ready to launch another investigation into Skinwalker. And this time, with official support. Lacatski and Bigelow jointly approached Bigelow's longstanding friend, then-Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid. Reid was a longtime powerhouse in the Senate, and had recently assumed the post of Senate Majority Leader. He brought on board two additional Senators, Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska and fellow Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, and together they lobbied the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense for a very peculiar program. The Senators wanted $22 million to investigate the threat posed by "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" (UAP), the chic new phrase for UFO. And they got it.1305 It was dubbed the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), and in 2008 the DIA began accepting bids from private companies for the contract. Bigelow formed a sister company to Bigelow Aerospace, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), for the sole purpose of bidding on this contract. Naturally, he won, aided in no small part by being the only one to submit a contract. Bigelow wasted no time in getting the old NIDS scientific team back together.1306 Puthoff was one of the contractors used by Bigelow in these efforts. He headed "Project Physics," an attempt to build a repository of papers on advanced aerospace technology.1307 Vallee worked as a consultant on building an electronic database for UAP reporting and investigation.1308 Kit Green was also involved in some capacity.1309 The AAWSAP ran from 2008-2010. Reid, along with Congressman Steny Hoyer and former Senator Joe Lieberman, attempted to revive it between 2011-2016, but to no avail.1310 In 2017, it was revealed by the New York Times that the Pentagon had awarded Bigelow and his company millions to manage much of the AAWSAP, the twenty-first-century version of Blue Book. The Times erroneously referred to the AAWSAP as the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a Navy program running concurrently but with a significantly smaller budget and mandate.1311 It was an interesting slip-up. The lead journalist on the piece was Leslie Kean, who had covered the UFO field for years. In 2002, she joined the Sci-Fi Channel and former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta (whom we shall hear much more about in Book III) in suing the government for release of UFO information. She

1305

Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 41-42. Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 42-44. 1307 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 47; Cooper, H., Blumenthal, R., & Kean, L. (2017, December 16). Glowing auras and 'Black MONEY': The pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. PROGRAM. Retrieved March 17, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html. 1308 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 168. 1309 Banias, M. (2020, March 10). This is the real estate magnate who Bought Skinwalker ranch, a UFO HOTSPOT. Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7qxyx/brandon-fugal-owner-of-skinwalkerranch. 1310 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 155. 1311 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 155-156; Cooper, H., Blumenthal, R., & Kean, L. (2017, December 16). Glowing auras and 'Black MONEY': The pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. PROGRAM. Retrieved March 17, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html. 1306

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had been a romantic partner of hypnotist Budd Hopkins, who specialized in working with purported UFO abductees. Hopkins also received funding from Bigelow at one point.1312 Kean became aware of the Bigelow program from sources at To the Stars Academy (TTSA). Puthoff cofounded the outfit with Blink 182's Tom Delonge in 2016.1313 It was one of the most well-funded UFO Disclosure efforts ever. Another interesting figure connected to TTSA was wandering bishop Peter Levenda. As part of TTSA's media blitz for UFO Disclosure, Levenda has co-authored two books with DeLonge, dubbed Sekret Machines.1314 Another figure who played a prominent role in TTSA was former Congressional intelligence staffer Christopher Mellon, a scion of the blueblood Mellon dynasty of Pittsburgh. The reader will recall from Chapter 3 that while working as a staffer for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the 1980s, Mellon played a crucial role in establishing the Special Operations Command and the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflicts (ASD-SO/LIC). Thus Mellon, like many figures in this milieu, had strong links to the special operations community. During the late 1980s, he was even being put forward as a candidate for the newly minted ASD (SO/LIC) post. One of his backers was a Lansdale acolyte, General Samuel V. Wilson, who was instrumental in drafting the legislation.1315 Said legislation was sponsored by Senator William Cohen, who became the US Secretary of Defense in 1997. Cohen brought Mellon to the DoD with him, where the latter held several senior posts. These included stints as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security and Information Operations (19981999) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (1999-2002).1316 Besides the senior posts in intelligence Mellon had at the DoD, his links to information warfare are even more intriguing. Information operations are closely related to psychological warfare. But back to TTSA. Given Puthoff's senior role in TTSA, it is interesting that Kean flubbed basic elements of the story, such as confusing the AATIP and the AAWSAP. Regardless, these efforts proved to be highly effective. While things didn't end well for TTSA or DeLonge, the media blitz they generated paved the way for the 2021 UAP

1312

Colavito, J. (2021, May 21). How Washington got hooked on Flying Saucers. The New Republic. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from https://newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science. 1313 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 156; Colavito, J. (2021, May 21). How Washington got hooked on Flying Saucers. The New Republic. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from https://newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science. 1314 See Tom DeLonge with Peter Levenda, Sekret Machines: Gods Volume I Gods, Man & War (Encinitas, CA: To the Stars, Inc., 2016); and Tom DeLonge with Peter Levenda, Sekret Machines: Man Volume II: Gods, Man & War (Encinitas, CA: To the Stars, Inc., 2019). 1315 See, for instance, William G. Boykin, "The Origins of the United States Special Operations Command" in Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Legislation: Why It Was Passed and Have the Voids Been Filled?; and Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript. 1316 Wayback Machine. (2003). Christopher Mellon. Harvard University (original version). https://web.archive.org/web/20041114004031/http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/graduate/hcia/panelist_ bio_65.php.

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report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.1317 Thus, the prospect of future defense contracts remains alive. As I hope this chapter has illustrated, The Aviary has had an incredible influence on fringe communities and ideologies for nearly half a century now. Originating in the SRI remote viewing program, their research helped provide a lot of scientific legitimacy to the human potential and later New Ages movements. By the 1970s, many of the members were formally investigating UFOs. By the 1980s, a series of incredible revelations --Roswell, Dulce, MJ-12 --rocked the UFO community and have defined the mythos ever since. And all can be traced to The Aviary. Also, during the 1980s, members formally pushed for an official body to investigate the phenomena. It started with Alexander's Advanced Theoretical Physics program, continued through NIDS, and achieved real success with BAASS and AAWSAP. By the end of the 2010s, the birdmen were working on Disclosure initiatives with rock stars and scions of wealthy dynasties. In other words, they've effectively controlled Ufology for at least fifty years. A big part of this control is rooted in their access to funding. Two of the biggest sugar daddies in the history of Ufology were Laurence Rockefeller and Robert Bigelow. The Aviary helped distribute the largess of both men, along with another heavy hitter: Prince Hans-Adam Liechtenstein, the monarch of the tiny European nation.1318 In more recent years, The Aviary has found a novel niche for funding: wealthy Mormons. This may have been due to Mormon Harry Reid, who cited his faith as influencing his decision to back the AAWSAP.1319 When Bigelow opted to sell Skinwalker Ranch in 2016, it was procured by Utah real estate tycoon Brandon Fugal.1320 Fugal is also a Mormon and entered the donor network. Other noteworthy Mormons who have contributed funding include Daniel Marriott, a former Congressman and scion of the hospitality dynasty, and tech baron Joe Firmage. Fugal, Marriott, and Firmage have all been linked to Aviary staple Hal Puthoff and fellow birdman Ron Pandolfi in schemes to produce anti-gravity technology (presumably acquired from nonhuman sources).1321 So it goes. So, The Aviary had the skills and the means to run a massive psychological operation. But is this truly what they were up to? Opinions certainly differ on the matter. Many of The Aviary members still seem to believe some kind of control group manipulating the UFO narrative exists and that they have been used by it. If

1317

Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 155-159; Colavito, J. (2021, May 21). How Washington got hooked on Flying Saucers. The New Republic. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from https://newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science. 1318 George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal, 240.C.B. Jones, who also distributed funds for Laurence Rockefeller, was the keeper of the purse for the prince as well. For more on Liechtenstein's ties to The Aviary network, see the third and fourth volumes in Vallee's Forbidden Science journals. 1319 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 13-14. 1320 Lacatski, Kelleher, and Knapp, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, 218. 1321 Korff, K. (2019, October 24). Here comes the judge: Whistleblower to expose CIA "UFO disinfo" scientist, congressman in Court. Medium. Retrieved November 15, 2021, from https://kalkorff.medium.com/here-comes-thejudge-whistleblower-to-expose-cia-ufo-disinfo-scientist-congressman-in-court-71580f28d6d4.

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this researcher is correct about these UFO mythos being rooted in the old ASC/Institute for American Strategy narrative, these claims may have merit. At the other end of the spectrum, there are persistent allegations that the birdmen are little more than glorified con men, endlessly spinning these narratives for their own financial ends. Again, these claims are not without merit when one considers how they've managed to ingrain themselves with wealthy donors susceptible to their wiles, either due to personal tragedies and/or religious beliefs. Finally, whether The Aviary ever had a coherent agenda is highly debatable. Put simply, they love calling each other names. Personal rivalries have no doubt further muddied the waters.

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Epilogue:

The Engineer

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Will the Real MJ 12 Please Stand Up?

To both shed further light on these mysteries and feed into new ones, we must now return to SRI and the broader Bay Area. For years, this was the heartlands of The Aviary and fellow travelers. This is not entirely surprising as the combination of the 1960s counterculture and the computer revolution that unfolded there during the second half of the twentieth century made it one of the most creatively vibrant communities in the world. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find another city with a broader global influence than San Francisco during this era. While many figures contributed to this state of affairs over the years, one particular individual stands head and shoulders above the rest. His name was Fred Terman.1322 A longtime professor at Stanford, he rose through the ranks to become Dean of Engineering and, eventually, the school's provost in 1955. He held the post until 1965. By that time, he had put in forty years at the university. Neither the school, country, or world would ever be the same again. While little known outside the Bay Area, Terman is a popular candidate for the title "Father of Silicon Valley." Modern Silicon Valley is generally said to originate with Stanford Industrial Park and rapidly spread outward from there. The park came about in the immediate aftermath of WWII. At the time, Stanford was cash-strapped. Fortunately, the Stanford family had endowed the university with over 100,000 acres of land across California, including 8,000 acres of valuable peninsula land in the Bay Area. The trustees decided that an ideal way to raise funds would be to develop a shopping center and an Industrial Park near the school. In October 1951, Varian Associates signed the Industrial Park's first lease.1323 While Fred Terman played no part in conceiving the Industrial Park, he soon left his mark upon it. There are a variety of reasons for this. Besides the mall and the Industrial Park, the trustees planned to sell more land to raise capital. But Terman argued forcibly for large tracts of land to be retained by the school near the campus. He recognized that as the school expanded, it would need additional grounds for a variety of research facilities. His case was compelling, and by 1960, nearly 5,000 acres were set aside for this purpose.1324But his true legacy resides in his ability to jump-start the postwar tech sector there.

1322

Despite being one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, Terman has only generated one full length biography. Fortunately, it's an excellent one: C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford: Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). Elsewhere, Terman draws scarce mentions in many popular accounts of Silicon Valley, SRI or the general rise of the Internet. Much more has been written about Terman's celebrated father, child psychologist Lewis Terman. Two of the best works on Lewis, Henry L. Minton, Lewis M. Terman: Pioneer in Psychological Testing (New York: New York University Press, 1988); and Joel N. Shurkin, Terman's Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992); also provide valuable insights into his son. 1323 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 322-324. 1324 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 326.

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As far back as the mid-1950s, Terman was credited for transforming the Stanford Industrial Park into a "Mecca for the electronics industry." His model was simple, but effective: Building a strong research base near Stanford University that provided an important bridge between facility, students, and neighboring scientists and engineers in the private sector. The faculty advised the companies, and top scientists from the companies consulted with the university. This enabled the school to foster some of the finest minds of the postwar generation, and many opted to seek employment in the Industrial Park or the surrounding region upon graduation. Thus arose a remarkable collaboration between academia and industry that would eventually transform all aspects of American society.1325 This was in no small part due to Terman's ability to talent scout. Important early Bay Area tech companies such as Varian Associates, Watkins-Johnson, Granger Associates, and Hewlett-Packard were all founded by Terman's former students and colleagues in the Bay Area with his encouragement. These ties were crucial in luring such homegrown companies to the Stanford Industrial Park. Further, the connections he made back East during his college years and WWII allowed him to entice established firms such as Lockheed, General Electric (GE), and Standard Oil of California into establishing offices there. By 1958, 123 electronics and electronics-based firms were on the Peninsula; fifty-six firms and laboratories in Palo Alto and Stanford; and sixty-seven others from San Bruno in the north and down to San Jose.1326 Terman served on the board of directors for many companies founded by his former students at various times, besides other local outfits such as the Ampex Corporation. He also consulted for the local branch of GE and many other prominent corporations with offices in the Bay Area. He even helped establish the Stanford Bank and shepherded its merger with the Union Bank of Los Angeles.1327 It was in this fashion he established the close links between industry, entrepreneurial corporate, and academic cultures that came to define Silicon Valley.1328 While Stanford University was important to this culture, none of it would have been possible without a first-rate research institute. And SRI was just such a creature. At the time of its founding in 1946, all of the nation's major research institutes (Mellon, Battelle, and Armour) were situated in the Midwest. In fact, there wasn't a significant research institution west of Kansas City and San Antonio.1329 An influential group of Stanford business friends, alumni, and trustees saw a clear need for a West Coast research institute that would benefit Western industry. Using the Armour Research Institute as a model, the group wasted no time establishing SRI in the aftermath of WWII.1330

1325

C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 328-329; Joel N. Shurkin, Terman's Lids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up, 224; Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, 150. 1326 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 328-329, 474. 1327 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 474-476. 1328 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 500. 1329 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 286. 1330 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 284-285.

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Terman had little to do with SRI's founding, as with the Industrial Park, but he soon left his mark. Terman's interest in research institutes connected to Stanford went back to at least 1927 when he tried to convince the Federal Telegraph Company to establish a lab in Palo Alto. Nor was Terman alone among the faculty with such notions, but the economic realities put these musings on hold. When the concept was revived towards the end of WWII, Terman pitched a research institute centered around the interests of faculty and graduate students. This would lead to a "community of technical scholars" constituting an enclave much like Medieval centers of learning such as Heidelberg, Paris, and Oxford. New ideas and challenges would be debated, fueling innovation. Unsurprisingly, the school (read: wealthy patrons) felt it best to establish a research institute to serve industry.1331 While Terman didn't get his way or have an official role with SRI until becoming its vice chairman in 1955, his behind-the-scenes efforts were crucial. Established in 1946, SRI was firmly in the red during its early years of operation. Due to mismanagement, it struggled to lure personnel contracts until a reshuffling in the 1947-1948 period. With Terman's support, Jesse Hobson was hired to run SRI in 1948. Hobson sought to work more closely with Terman than his predecessor in building up SRI. Terman put his wartime contacts to work. In 1948, SRI had less than $100,000 per month in contracts. By 1955, it had over $10 million per year in contracts. It could never manage this without Fred Terman.1332 *** Silicon Valley is of incalculable importance to modern history while SRI is crucial to the current narrative I'm weaving. So, it behooves me to ask: who is this Fred Terman guy? Settle in, dear reader, as he has quite an origin story to unpack. Fortunately, it's never dull. The first thing about Frederick Emmons Terman of significance is his father: Lewis Madison Terman. Lewis was already a legend at Stanford by the time Fred joined the faculty in 1925. Lewis signed on with the school in 1910 and remained associated with it until his death in 1956. He spent much of this time in the psychology department, which he headed from 1922 till 1945.1333 During Terman's tenure heading the department, five of the twenty presidents (including Lewis) of the American Psychological Association (APA) were members of the Stanford faculty or nominated for positions in it. Three of Lewis' former students later became APA presidents.1334 Stanford's path to possessing a world-class psychology department was a curious one. Fittingly, its early years were closely tied to parapsychology. In 1911, a member of the Stanford family gifted the university $50,000 to support a fellowship in psychical research. The following year, the first Psychical Research Fellowship was awarded to JE Coover, who at the time was the only doctorate the department had produced (it was established in 1892). In 1914, Coover was given an appointment to the psychology

1331

C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 284-285; John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, 187. 1332 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 286-289. 1333 C. Stewart Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 17, 92. 1334 Joel N. Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 161.

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department. Other Psychical Fellows worked at the school for a year or two, but Coover held his post until his retirement in 1937. He conducted psychical research the entire time, even running his own PSI lab and offering courses on it. Stanford may have gone even further down this path were it not for university president David Starr Jordan. The same Stanford family member planned on bequeathing an additional $500,000 to the school for psychical research upon his death. Jordan convinced the benefactor to include the phrase "psychological science" as another possible recipient for these funds. Needless to say, the Stanford faculty ensured the bulk of these funds went towards psychology upon the Stanford family member's death in 1918.1335 Given the later role SRI played in academic parapsychological research during the Cold War, it's interesting that its parent was engaged in such things from the run-up to WWI to the interwar years. This researcher has found no indication that there were additional links. Lewis Terman reportedly despised Coover, seeing his work as a blemish on his department.1336 Still, the presence of Coover and his psi lab at Stanford during this time will be most interesting in light of individuals connected to Terman that we shall explore in the next book. But back to Lewis Terman's legacy. It resides on two pillars. The first is his Herculean contributions to intelligence testing. During 1910, Terman began work on what became Stanford-Binet Intelligence Score, the most widely used intelligence test in the US for fifty years. Terman had a working model by 1916, which drew interest from the Rockefeller Foundation's General Election Board.1337 Terman remained a lifelong devotee of intelligence testing. Fred appears to have put stock in it as well. Before pursuing the woman who became his wife, Fred reviewed her performance on his father's IQ test.1338 It probably goes without saying, but intelligence testing is closely related to personality profiling. Indeed, both concepts largely originate with Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), Lewis' major influence/inspiration.1339 Lewis was one of the first to employ personality testing as well.1340 Lewis Terman's other, more enduring, claim to fame was the development of the gifted program. Using the Stanford-Binet test, Terman began compiling data on high-IQ children. Between 1921-1923, he tested tens of thousands of children in California, initiating the nation's first gifted program. Terman's Genetic Study of Genius proved to be the longest-running longitudinal study in psychology ever conducted.1341 Its

1335

Henry L. Minton, Lewis M. Terman: Pioneer in Psychological Testing, 128, 133, 135; Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 78. Henry L. Minton, Lewis M. Terman, 135. 1337 Raymond E. Fancher & Alexandra Rutherford, Pioneers of Psychology: A History 5th Ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, INC., 2017), 510-512; Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 18-21; Henry L. Minton, Lewis Terman, 46-55; 1338 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 90; Minton, Lewis M. Terman, 162. In some accounts, the socially awkward Fred approached his father about finding him a wife with a high IQ. It just so happened, one of Lewis' grad students fit the bill. 1339 Raymond E. Fancher & Alexandra Rutherford, Pioneers of Psychology, 245, 255, etc. 1340 Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 47 1341 Minton, Lewis M. Terman, 1, 110-117, etc.; Raymond E. Fancher & Alexandra Rutherford, Pioneers of Psychology, 510-512. The only full length account of this remarkable study is Shurkin, Terman's Kids. 1336

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start date is commonly given as 1921, and it was still running until the twenty-first century.1342 Not only did Terman and his successors continue to test the original kids with a variety of IQ, character, and personality workups, but a considerable number of their offspring were tested over the years as well.1343 Terman's gifted program will be explored in greater depth in Book II. Before moving along, two final points need to be made about Lewis Terman: one is his vigorous support for eugenics during much of the interwar years. Terman had advocated the sterilization of the mentally retarded from the time he first developed the Stanford-Binet test. In 1922, he was elected to the Advisory Council of the International Commission on Eugenics. The following year, he was on the Advisory Council of the American branch. When the American Eugenics Committee became independent as the American Eugenics Society, Terman was a character member. He remained active in it until 1935 when the backlash from Nazism appears to have forced him to resign.1344 While Terman is often described as later expressing embarrassment over his support for eugenics, he remained committed to the notion that heredity was the driving factor behind high IQs throughout his life.1345 The fashion in which Fred selected his wife indicates he may have picked up a few of his father's beliefs in this regard. Another interesting point about Lewis I wish to briefly address is his work during WWI. During the conflict, he left Stanford for DC, where he served on the Committee on the Psychological Examination of Recruits and the Committee on Classification of Personnel for the Army. The former was a subcommittee of the National Research Council, then functioning as the Department of Science and Research for the National Defense Council. These committees were tasked with developing psychological tests for the entire US Army. Eight separate tests were developed, but the Army Alpha and Beta tests were most commonly administered. All enlisted men took one or the other based on their degree of literacy. Soldiers who failed the Alpha test were given the Beta one. After the results were tallied, soldiers were given letter grades ranging from "A" to "E." Those who scored an "A" were seen as officer material, while "E"'s weren't even considered worthy of being cannon fodder. A "C" was judged to make a good private or possibly a fair noncommissioned officer. In total, 1.75 million men were tested. Many Army psychologists saw the tests as a model for the organization and utilization of human resources in the postwar period. This laid the basis for a scientific personnel system for the Army. More ominous, it served as a major inspiration for Terman's future gifted program and the general rationale for subjecting children to IQ testing. 1346 This 1342

Leslie, M. (2000). The vexing legacy of Lewis Terman. Stanford Magazine. https://web.archive.org/web/20110610233100/http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2000/julaug/arti cles/terman.html 1343 Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 220, etc. 1344 Minton, Lewis M. Terman, 147-149. 1345 Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 20, 73-77, etc.; Leslie, M. (2000). The vexing legacy of Lewis Terman. Stanford Magazine. https://web.archive.org/web/20110610233100/http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2000/julaug/arti cles/terman.html 1346 Minton, Lewis M. Terman, 66-73; Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 22-24; Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 34; Raymond E. Fancher & Alexandra Rutherford, Pioneers of Psychology, 509-510;Leslie, M. (2000). The vexing legacy of Lewis Terman. Stanford Magazine. https://web.archive.org/web/20110610233100/http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2000/julaug/arti cles/terman.html.

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arguably introduced a form of eugenics into the American education system that has never been exorcized. This, too, is a topic that will be considered in greater depth during Book II. *** So, that's Fred Terman's father. The next aspect of his life I wish to consider is two of his early mentors. He encountered both while working on his doctorate of science at MIT during the mid-1920s. They were his professors during this time. One was Norbert Wiener, whom Fred spent a year studying mathematics under. Besides being a mathematical prodigy, Wiener was also a gifted linguist and philosopher. Wiener introduced new approaches to nonlinear problems, first in electrical engineering and later in much of science.1347 This approach enabled Wiener to develop the concept of cybernetics in the aftermath of WWII. It subsequently became one of the dominant intellectual paradigms of the postwar years.1348 The second and far more influential mentor Fred acquired at MIT was Vannevar Bush. Universally considered to be one of the most brilliant and influential scientists of his generation, Bush was especially influential in the development of computer technology. He conceived of one of the earliest analog computers, which he dubbed Memex. Designed for individual use, it featured a keyboard, translucent screen, microfilm inputs, and the ability to call up reams of stored data with a keyboard stroke. This was effectively the prototype for what became the personal computer. Elsewhere, his 1946 "As We May Think" article proved to be one of the most influential pieces published during the twentieth century. It argued that the same scientists who had just won the war needed to harness the cheap electronics they had developed for the conflict to develop new forms of information management. An entire generation of computer scientists, including Douglas Engelbart, the future head of SRI's Augmentation Research Center, were inspired by it.1349 Possibly as significant as his contributions to developing the modern computer was Bush's networking. During his first teaching post at Tufts University (1916-1919), he helped establish what became Raytheon. He became the dean of MIT's School of Engineering in 1932 and president of the Carnegie Institute of Washington in 1938. For obvious reasons, Bush had a special influence throughout Terman's life. It all began with a yearlong course Terman took from Bush to complete his doctorate.1350 During the ensuing years, they would frequently turn up together in the inner circles of American power. One such instance was both men's membership in San Francisco's exclusive and much speculated upon Bohemian Club. This outfit is legendary for its summer retreat, known as Bohemian Grove, which conducts the bizarre and equally speculated upon play known as the Cremation of Care annually. Terman joined the Bohemian Club shortly after concluding his wartime duties in 1946. The Club had 1900 members by 1347

Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 58. See, for instance, Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, 20-27. Cybernetics was profoundly influential of Fred Terman and many other individuals considered in this work. Centered around the study of command and control, it is a little acknowledged organizing principle many modern social structures. Unfortunately, an in-depth discussion on this subject is vastly beyond the scope of this present work. 1349 Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, 106-107 1350 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 58-60. 1348

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this time. They included the scions of California's wealthy dynasties (i.e., Kenneth Bechtel, William W Crocker, Leonard E Firestone, and Norman Chandler); "Honorary" members such as Herbert Hoover, Earl Warren, and Dwight Eisenhower. Bush first attended in 1939. The faculties of Stanford and UC Berkeley were well represented in the Club as well.1351 As was noted in Chapter 2, by the 1970s, men like Viktor "Brute" Krulak were given turning up at the Grove. Fittingly, it was under Bush's auspices that the most significant assignment of Terman's career emerged. In 1940, Bush was tapped to head the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), which became the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in 1941. Regardless of its name, Bush was the unquestioned force driving the body.1352 We've already encountered both outfits before. Future CIA assassination chief Boris Pash was tasked with managing the Alsos Mission, which sought to capture or kill German nuclear scientists, by Bush and the NDRC. Bush was actually the one who conceived of the mission, along with its parent, the Manhattan Project. A key aide of Bush on the NDRC/OSRD was H Marshall Chadwell. The reader will recall from Chapter 4 that Chadwell would go on to head the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence, which briefly oversaw ARTICHOKE. During WWII, Chadwell directed the NDRC's Division 19, collaborating with the OSS on early "truth drug" experiments.1353 Bush and the NDRC also pushed the development of solid rocket fuels at Caltech and the creation of the legendary Radiation Laboratory (more commonly referred to as the Rad Lab) at MIT.1354 Basically, Bush's efforts with the NRDC/OSRD laid the foundation for virtually all the advanced weapons that would define the Cold War and beyond. This is especially true of one of the lesser-known labs Bush created under the NRDC/OSRD, which he tapped Fred Terman to head. It was known as the Radio Research Laboratory (RRL) and originated as an outgrowth of Rad Lab's work on radar countermeasures. Formally launched in February 1942 with a handful of personnel, the RRL grew to a staff of roughly 800 by 1943. By war's end, the US Military ordered over $150 million worth of equipment based on RRL's designs. The RRL designed products broadly in four categories: 1) jamming transmitters targeting enemy radar; 2) improved window and chaff reflectors to produce false reflections on enemy radar; 3) devices for searching for enemy radar; and 4) methods of protecting Allied radar from countermeasures. Besides research, RRL personnel supported the armed forces in field operations. Technical observers deployed in North Africa, Italy, the China-Burma-India Theater, Guam, Okinawa, and at MacArthur's Australian headquarters.1355 Located initially at MIT in Cambridge, MA, and later at Harvard, the RRL maintained two other important sites outside of Massachusetts. The largest RRL facility outside MA was located in the UK. Dubbed the 1351

Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 428-429. Since 2000, conspiracy icon Alex Jones has pushed the narrative that human sacrifice to Moloch is committed before the Grovers during the performance of the Cremation of Care. See, for instance, Harrod, H. (2019, July 12). Inside the Bohemian Club: Summer camp or secret society?. Subscribe to read | Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/91544df2-a2a1-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1. 1352 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 59. 1353 H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 141, 331, 401. 1354 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 183. 1355 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 247-248.

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American British Laboratory, it was housed in Malvern's Telecommunications Research Establishment. The project was dubbed NRDC Division 15. Eventually, the whole RRL was housed in Division 15 while the Rad Lab resided in Division 14. As for the other important location, it was the RRL's field station, where large-scale equipment was tested.1356 The field station was located seventeen miles from Florida's Eglin Air Force Base, the future headquarters of the US Special Operations Command. It was one of the most secretive research programs of the war. While beginning as an outgrowth of the Rad Lab, the RRL was soon closed off to its parent body. Rad Lab staff had no access to the RRL's work, but the RRL was aware of everything the Rad Lab researched. In theory, this is because the RRL's principal task was developing countermeasures for radar. Thus, it was thought best for the body developing radar for war use (the Rad Lab) be kept in the dark about the countermeasures being developed by its offspring.1357 Among the RRL's early tasks were to develop a General Radio search receiver; research antenna designs for search receivers; develop monitoring and early warning systems to provide continuous visual detection of wide bands; produce jamming transmitters that were both noise generating and frequency modulating; devise jamming methods for long-range navigation systems, communications systems, and identification-friend-or-foe (IFF) systems.1358 There wasn't a more apt head for RRL than Fred Terman. He was an early radio enthusiast, becoming an amateur operator at fourteen in 1913. At the time, radio was still in its infancy. But it had already caught on at the Stanford campus. There were already several early radio stations near the campus, virtually all founded by Stanford graduates. With the support of a few faculty members, graduate Cyril Elwell acquired cutting-edge radio equipment from Denmark in 1909. It enabled him to found the Federal Telegram Company in 1911. By the middle of the decade, it was the largest radio transmitter on the West Coast. And more importantly, the company's research division studied radio frequency propagation ionosphere during the company's early years (1913-1915). At the time, the concept of the ionosphere had just been noted in 1902 and introduced by the Kennelly-Heaviside Layer hypothesis. It wasn't until 1924-1925 that Edward Appleton formalized the ionosphere concept. He was later awarded a Noble Prize for these efforts in 1947. But there was already a dedicated group of ionosphere researchers at Stanford prior to WWI.1359 This is the milieu Fred Terman grew up in. In 1929, four years after being hired on as a professor at Stanford, he approached the faculty for funding to build a lab dedicated to studying radio propagation's effects on the ionosphere. This would be managed by beaming radio pulses into the ionosphere and receiving the reflected pulses back on the ground. This was to determine how certain frequencies interacted with the ionosphere, i.e., whether they were refracted, absorbed by, or passed through, the ionosphere. At the time, a mere thirty papers had been published on this subject, and only four of them originated in the US. While he managed to get the lab up

1356

Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 225-227, 237. Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 202. 1358 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 212-213. 1359 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 22-23, 97. 1357

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and running around 1930, Terman wasn't able to start studying the ionosphere properly until the middle of the decade.1360 In 1936, Fred finally got his ionosphere pulse transmitter-sounder. It was the first on the West Coast. Also during that year, Terman began working with future Nobel Prize winner Norris Bradbury, then of the Stanford Physics Department, on his own research into the ionosphere. Bradbury published four papers on the subject between 1937-1940.1361 During 1939, Terman and Bradbury conferred with fellow radio propagation researcher Lloyd Berkner of the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Berkner was a former Navy man who served as a radio engineer on Admiral Richard Byrd's first Antarctic Expedition (1928-1930).1362 Berkner was putting together a nationwide network of researchers to study the effects of radio waves on the ionosphere. Terman's ionosphere station soon joined Berkner's network. Soon thereafter, he arranged sponsorship for Terman from the National Defense Research Committee. The US had seven cooperating ionosphere stations by 1941. This network was instrumental in planning radio communications during WWII. This appears to be Terman's first collaboration with the NDRC.1363 One of Lewis Terman's most successful gifted children,1364 Bradbury soon became deeply involved with the NDRC as well. During WWII, he worked on the Manhattan Project. As was noted in Chapter 2, this was headed by future Institute for American Strategy member General Leslie Groves, who employed Boris Pash as his security chief. Bradbury went on to direct Los Alamos National Laboratory for a quarter of a century. Los Alamos, primarily dedicated to nuclear testing, is located less than two hours north of Kirtland Air Force Base. That was where the Bennewtiz saga, potentially involving nonlethal weapons, played out. Keep this in mind, dear reader. Further, ASC staple Dr. Edward Teller was a fixture at Los Alamos for decades. Supposedly, this is where Bob Lazar first encountered the infamous nuclear scientist.1365 As for Fred Terman, his ionosphere station led to further overtures from the NDRC at the end of 1941. At a December meeting, he discussed radar countermeasures, which got the ball rolling on what became the Radio Research Laboratory. The Navy was also deeply involved in these discussions, and this is where what became the RRL originated. Terman was always envisioned as the project's head and soon got to work recruiting personnel and establishing an organizational structure. The RRL would be housed at MIT, necessitating Terman's relocation to Cambridge.1366 I've dwelt at length here on Terman's interest in the ionosphere, as this research clearly parallels what the Navy later embarked upon with Sanguine. When I went to Stanford University to search through Terman's RRL papers, this was one of the subjects I was interested in. More broadly, I was curious if the

1360

Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 97-102. Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 119. 1362 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 195. 1363 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 155, 196. 1364 Joel N. Shurkin, Terman's Kids, 273. 1365 Adam Gorightly, Saucers, Spooks and Kooks, 168. 1366 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 199-201. 1361

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highly secretive RRL was engaged in other research unrelated to radar. I was not disappointed. As noted above, the NDRC continued to support Stanford's ionosphere research throughout the war. As I found in Terman's records, he was apprised of these developments throughout the war. By 1944, Laurence A. Manning dispatched a paper entitled "The Determination of Ionosphere Electron Distribution," presenting complex formulas for measuring electrons that ended up in Terman's hands.1367 What I wasn't prepared to find were references to electron beams. It grew out of research conducted at Stanford during the late 1930s on what is known as a klystron. This specialized, linear beam vacuum tube amplifies ultra-high frequency radio waves up to microwave range. An electron beam interacts with radio waves in this regard. It was originally developed by the Varian brothers at Stanford during 1937. The Navy soon took interest, and by 1940, Terman, the Varian brothers and others connected to the klystron project were discussing it at Bohemian Grove.1368 The Stanford Electrical Engineering Department, when not conducting courses for the military, continued this research during WWII.1369 These efforts eventually resulted in Varian Associates (a major early Silicon Valley tech company) along with Stanford's Microwave Lab and Linear Accelerator. Fred Terman and many people in the klystron research later played significant roles in establishing all three. 1370 Indeed, the Stanford Microwave Lab is often seen as one of Terman's greatest contributions to the school. Which makes it all the more remarkable that electron beams are the subject of a full report in Terman's RRL records. It details efforts to "keep together high current beams" that would be used by a highpowered klystron while also developing "small current beams designed to give a small, intense spot on a fluorescent screen." The report was written by Karl Spangenberg, a close Terman collaborator deeply involved in klystron research since the 1930s.1371 These descriptions remind me of what the Air Force later dubbed "active denial systems" (ADS), noted in Chapter 5. These weapons can project a small, focused microwave beam on a target, causing an intense burning sensation. By the early 2000s, these weapons were at the forefront of nonlethal weapons research.1372 This raises some unsettling possibilities about Terman's work with the RRL and Stanford's research during WWII. Especially in light of where funding for the school primarily came from in the postwar years. Upon the dissolution of the NDRC/OSRD at the end of WWII, many of its functions were transferred to the Office of Naval Research. Terman worked closely with the Navy during WWII and was enthusiastic about bringing veterans into SRI in the aftermath. This proved to be most fortuitous as much of SRI's early funding came

1367

Laurence A. Manning, "The Determination of Ionosphere Electron Distribution," 13 July 1944, Box 1, Folder 8, R.R.L. General Files, Frederick Emmons Terman Papers (SC0160). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. 1368 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 159-167. 1369 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 257. 1370 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 159, 167, 276-277. 1371 Karl Spangenberg, "The Production and Control of Electron Beams," 8 April 1942, Box 1, Folder 12, R.R.l. General Files, Frederick Emmons Terman Papers (SC0160). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif. 1372 Jonathan D. Moreno, Mind Wars, 153.

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from the ONR and, to a much lesser extent, the Air Force. This was par the course for this era. Until the National Science Foundation (established in 1950) really got rolling during the mid-1950s, the ONR was the main government agency funding academic science and engineering.1373 With the onset of the Korean War in 1950, the ONR looked to Stanford as the center for tube research and radar countermeasures. The Navy considered Stanford to be "about first in usefulness" for defense electronics. The ONR planned to spend a million dollars on fast-paced electronics research activity at the school, regardless of the outcome in Korea. This resulted in Stanford's Electronics Research Lab, built directly next to the microwave one. The Navy later assisted Stanford in developing its statistics, mathematics, and computer science with generous funding. This led to the creation of another lab, the Applied Mathematics and Statistics Lab, where Stanford was able to explore game theory. It also made valuable contributions to computer science. Throughout the 1950s, 90 percent of the funding for government-sponsored research at Stanford came from the Department of Defense. As late as 1963, 40 percent still came from the DoD. Naturally, the military, especially the Navy, viewed Fred Terman as their point man for this largess.1374 *** Let's pull back now and start looking at the bigger picture. Consider: Stanford witnessed staggering growth in the roughly twenty years after WWII, including the foundation of the Industrial Park that served as the basis for Silicon Valley; and the establishment of SRI, which was instrumental in developing the ARPANet. And virtually all government funding came from the DoD, specifically the Navy. Further, crucial figures in establishing the ONR took on significant roles at SRI. This is especially interesting in light of the Navy's interest in radio propagation research. The reader will recall from above that, by 1975, it had spent nearly $125 million on ELF research alone. That's well over half a billion dollars in 2023. And where was this money going? Well, Stanford and the surrounding area were at the forefront of radio experimentation and manufacturing activity both before and after WWI. In the interwar years, this led to electron tube and electron instrument manufacturers, avionics, and radar countermeasures.1375 During WWII, the Navy leaned heavily on Terman and Stanford to develop countermeasures with RRL. Stanford seems like a logical location for this research, and certainly, Project Sanguine/Seafarer had much in common with early Stanford experiments involving the ionosphere. Were Stanford and SRI at the forefront of nonlethal/psychotronics research, especially that involving ELFs and microwaves? It certainly seems a distinct possibility. And given that this type of research often coincides with studies involving ESP makes it all the more plausible. The reader will recall that one of the two heads of the SRI remote viewing program, Russell Targ, was a laser scientist before he embraced the woo. As noted in Chapter 5, lasers are closely related to nonlethal research involving microwaves.

1373

Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 289-291. Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 307-308, 316-318, 349. 1375 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 330. 1374

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I've already suggested that the SRI remote viewing program and the broader metaphysical scene in the Bay area it supported was an elaborate psychological operation targeting the Russians. But, was it also intended to mask the extent to which the US had invested in psychotronic weapons? The official narrative is that US interest in such things didn't take off until the 1980s. But clearly, Stanford was studying the effects of electromagnetic radiation on the ionosphere even before WWII. This research, along with the development of electron beams, continued to be supported during the war via the RRL. And the RRL, then and now, was one of the most secretive of the government's research initiatives during the war. Its parent body, the Rad Lab, was instrumental in developing the computer revolution and the Internet. The RRL's postwar contributions may be just as significant. Another interesting aspect of this is the presence of continuity of government (COG) that runs through this whole saga. COG is closely related to US nuclear policy. While, in theory, it could be initiated by various factors resulting in the US government being incapacitated, it was long understood that the most likely scenario involved a nuclear war. As was noted in Chapter 2, US special operations forces were first developed to support indigenous militias in the former Soviet Union in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Declassified FBI documents concerning the Civilian Material Assistance (CMA) outfit discussed in Chapter 3 reveal that the 20th Special Forces is trained for "behind the line operations in case of nuclear attacks." At the time, at least one member was active in the CMA, a group used to support Iran-Contra. 1376 But where were these behind-the-line operations supposed to take place? The 20th is one of two Special Forces groups in the National Guard. This would make such a unit idea for COG operations domestically. The reader will recall from Chapter 3 that the CMA had ties to the National Defense Council, which Lansdale was a part of. Members were even engaged in classified discussions with the Reagan administration. And it just so happens, a later incarnation of the Sovereign Order of Saint John was linked to the CMA in the FBI's PATCON investigation.1377 As was noted in Chapter 6, fellow NDC member and Lansdale groupie General John Singlaub was active in a SOSJ during this era, but it was a different group than the one implicated in PATCON, a domestic terrorism investigation. The SOSJ cited in PATCON was a Tennessee-centric outfit led by John Grady. He was briefly addressed in Chapter 6. There, it was noted he claimed lineage from Colonel Benjamin von Stahl, a longtime member of the Pichel Ur SOSJ. Which brings up another curious piece of the 20th Special Forces Group's history. During a sixteen-month investigation into the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, investigative reporter Stephan Tompkins made some startling discoveries. An article originally published in the Memphis, TN-based The Commercial Appeal from 1993 provided the public with the first significant details about this unit. Based out of Alabama's Redstone Arsenal, as the 1960s wound down, the 20th became a dumping ground for Special

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United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Civilian Material Assistance (CMA); Domestic Security/Terrorism; 00: BH," Federal Bureau of Investigation (1991), 11. 1377 Berger, J. M. (2012, April 19). Patriot games. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/04/18/patriotgames/. For a more in-depth account, see Berger, J. M. (2012b, May 21). PATCON. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/policy-papers/patcon/.

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Forces veterans from Military Assistance Command Vietnam's Special Operations Group (SOG).1378 As was noted in Chapter 2, this outfit played a significant role in the lead-up to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Later, it was headed by Singlaub, noted in Chapter 3. As for the 20th, by the end of the 1960s, members were being used for undercover missions domestically. At one point, they were enlisted to provide the Ku Klux Klan with paramilitary training. In exchange, the Klan was organized into an intelligence network by the 20th to keep tabs on African-American activists. Eventually, this group became known as "Klan Special Forces."1379 Reportedly, this was one of many "behind-the-lines" actions the 20th conducted, both outside and inside the US.1380 Bizarrely, the Army's top domestic intelligence unit, the 902nd Military Intelligence Group, worked closely with the 20th during the 1960s on these intrigues. For a time during this era, it was headed by General William Yarborough, a major figure in crafting the modern Army Special Forces.1381 He was also active in the Institute for American Strategy milieu, noted in Chapter 2. A little over a decade later, the 902nd was deeply involved in the Army's remote viewing program. The remote viewers were the 902nd's Detachment-G, under the command of Captain Fred "Skip" Atwater for many years.1382 But the Klan thing, besides the obvious implications of an elite military unit working with a white supremacist group, is remarkably similar to how special operations forces were used with indigenous paramilitary troops in Phoenix.1383 It's also in line with how special operations forces were originally envisioned working with indigenous forces in the Soviet Union mopping up Reds after a nuclear exchange. But were plans for these types of activities only drawn up for Europe or Russia? The activities of the 20th strongly indicate otherwise. Let us return briefly to SOSJ Knight Colonel Philip Corso. As was noted in Chapter 6, his mentor was General Arthur Trudeau. After being drummed out as chief of Army intelligence, Trudeau headed the Army's Research and Development Division from 1958 until his retirement in 1962. Corso later joined him at this command in 1961.1384 Corso claims that part of his job was assessing directed-energy weapons for

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Tompkins, S. (1993, March 21). Army feared king, secretly watched him. The Commercial Appeal. https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ArmyFearedKing.html; William Pepper, The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (New York: Skyhorse, 2016), 126-131. 1379 Tompkins, S. (1993, March 21). Army feared king, secretly watched him. The Commercial Appeal. https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ArmyFearedKing.html; William Pepper, The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., 126. 1380 William Pepper, The Plot to Kill King,131. 1381 Tompkins, S. (1993, March 21). Army feared king, secretly watched him. The Commercial Appeal. https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ArmyFearedKing.html. 1382 Annie Jacobsen, Phenomena, 489, etc. 1383 SOG was active in Phoenix, but not extensively, as is commonly claimed. See Samuel V. Wilson, interview by J.W. Partin, July 11, 1988, US Special Operations Command, Command History, transcript, 30; https://www.afsoc.af.mil/Portals/86/documents/history/AFD-051228-017.pdf. 1384 Kevin Coogan, The Spy Who Would Be Tsar, 288.

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Trudeau. Naturally, these weapons came out of reversed-engineered technology taken from the Roswell crash. Corso even claimed that ARPA was launched in part to develop these weapons in secret.1385 What's especially strange about the allegations is the Sperry Rand connection. The company, then known as Sperry Gyroscope, sponsored the research being done on klystrons at Stanford as far back as 1937. They continued to sponsor this research until 1940 when Sperry relocated their klystron research back East.1386 Sperry Rand was one of the main companies, along with Hughes and Bell Labs, that Corso cites as destinations for recovered extraterrestrial technology. Later Trudeau went to work for Sperry Rand after his retirement from the Army.1387 At the time, the company was headed by Douglas MacArthur, whom many of the SOSJ knights had served under during WWII and/or Korea. MacArthur had negotiated Sperry's merger with the arms manufacturer Remington Rand during 1955 with the assistance of Leslie Groves, former head of the Manhattan Project.1388 The reader will recall that Groves, besides being connected to the Institute for American Strategy, was Boris Pash's commanding officer in Manhattan. And the boss of both was Vannevar Bush. For our purposes here, what is especially noteworthy about Trudeau heading Army R & D as it put him in collaboration with Redstone Arsenal. He worked with the German Paperclip scientists there on projects related to space --both exploration and allegedly weapons. But beyond that, he played a significant role in developing the ballistic missiles at Redstone.1389 The reader will recall from Chapter 7 that Redstone also happens to be the military base BBN/Browne and Shaw International submitted their civic affairs proposal too. The one Edward Lansdale was a consultant for. To recap: By the late 1960s, an Army base primarily known for missile development, space exploration, and other R & D-related projects, is housing an elite special operations unit specializing in "behind-thelines" activities and fielding proposals on data mining operations for "civic action." And, of course, civic action can involve military members carrying out operations out of uniform. I offer a few observations: Given that Redstone would surely be a crucial node in COG activities, it stands to reason one of the main special operations groups tasked with such things would be headquartered there. And given that these types of operations frequently involved US special operations forces working with foreign paramilitaries overseas, such a pattern would likely be repeated here. And indeed, the 20th's links to Klan, and later the CMA, seems to indicate as much. For this reason, civic action would be of special interest to this command. Especially after a nuclear exchange, which would surely necessitate some type

1385

Philip J. Corso, The Day After Roswell: A Former Pentagon Official Reveals the U.S. Government's Shocking UFO Cover-up (New York: Pocket Books, 1997), 254-257. 1386 Gillmor, Fred Terman at Stanford, 163-167. 1387 Corso, The Day After Roswell, 189, 284. 1388 H.P. Albarelli Jr., Coup in Dallas, 245. 1389 Philip J. Corso, The Day After Roswell, 283-284.

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of military government in the immediate aftermath.1390 But conversely, given the highly secretive nature of these operations, all types of deception would be deployed. With this in mind, let's start bringing a few other threads together. The ARPANet was a crucial tool in harvesting and storing data for creating predictive modeling --of both individuals and society --to be used in counterinsurgency. This was one of its two functions. The other was to provide the military with domestic communications after a nuclear exchange.1391 Socially order would surely break down, spurring various insurgencies domestically. The DoD, tasked with restoring order, would need to embark upon counterinsurgency at home. Thus, the ARPANet would serve two functions in this regard. And then there are the curious allegations that Colonel John Alexander made about Majestic 12, noted in Chapter 6. Alexander believes it existed but had nothing to do with UFOs. Rather, it was a part of COG. And it just so happens, Fred Terman's mentor, Vannevar Bush, was long depicted as the original head of MJ-12. The man who oversaw virtually all major defense research during WWII, including the Manhattan Project and the RRL. As one of the most brilliant scientists of his generation and an early PC visionary, he would have been a logical candidate to develop US nuclear policy. Especially if the work done by the RRL was also a part of this. Even assuming the RRL wasn't developing proto-SDI type weapons platforms, its radio propagation research could have been crucial as either an early warning system for a nuclear strike (as the Soviets long claimed the purpose of Duga-3 was), a countermeasure against Soviet radar to cover our own nukes, or possibly to jam the nukes launched by the USSR. This isn't as sexy as Tesla death rays or mind control, but it provides a practical explanation for why this kind of research is shrouded in secrecy and psychological warfare. This isn't to totally discount some of the more incredible allegations --which will be explored further in the sequels --but to emphasize the significance of this research even if there are no Tesla death rays, zero point energy, or globe-spanning mind control signals coming out of it. Basically, everything we have considered --COG, special operators, counterinsurgency, "stay-behinds," the ARPANet, predictive modeling, and "psychotronics" --all would have factored into US nuclear policy. And as this is at the apex of secrecy in the national security state, it stands to reason that all aspects of it would have been shrouded in psychological warfare to confuse our opponents. And imagine if the Soviets could be made to overlook nuclear policy in favor of the noosphere or whether we had reversed engineered UFO technology in the process? Are you starting to get the picture? And who better to line up this hall of mirrors than the nation's premier psychological warfare expert: General Edward Lansdale. And who better to take up the mantle than his acolytes and fellow travelers? Should we be surprised then that, with microwave and psychotronic weapons again making headlines thanks to "Havana syndrome,"1392 a figure like Christopher Mellon would 1390

The reader will recall from Chapter 2 that civic action grew out of civil affairs, which includes military governance. Yasha Levine, Surveillance Valley, 6-7. 1392 Borger, J. (2021, May 2). Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/02/havana-syndrome-nsa-officer-microwave-attacks1391

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be at the center of renewed Disclosure efforts? The year 2023 feels a lot like 1983 in this regard. Only with a shooting war in Europe rather than Central Asia this time around. Stepping further back, one can't help but marvel at the long-term results of these activities. As I hope this work has illustrated, much of the modern-day "Patriot movement" is little more than an outgrowth of a Cold War-era anti-communist indoctrination program influenced by the techniques of MK-ULTRA. It is the epitome of "astroturfing." Ufology and the New Age aren't far behind. The former appears to largely be some screen (and a bit of gaslighting) for US nuclear policy. At the same time, the latter may well have been a psychological operation targeting the pinnacle of the Soviet Union's political and military establishment. Even worse, these movements are at the forefront of "alternative" ideologies to the neoliberal order. But they are as much a part of the broader establishment as longtime conspiratorial bugaboos like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and Bilderberg. The National Association of Manufacturers is even older and nearly as influential as these bodies and has long patronized libertarian and Bircher ideology. There is nothing anti-establishment about any of these threads. Not that the business classes, operators, and spooks of the national security state were the only actors in this maze. Very private actors, often with metaphysical interests, had a long history of bending reality long before the rise of the American national security state. It is their story we shall consider in book two. For now, I leave you with one final question to ponder: Why so Sirius?

since-90s. Beginning around 2017, US embassy officials in Cuba began reporting a series of strange health issues. Embassy personnel from China, India, Europe and even DC soon started reporting similar symptoms. To those of us who tracked this exotic technology for years, it was like the Moscow Signal had returned on steroids. It's remarkable how many of these old things are new again in the third decade of the twenty-first century.

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