THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

CONSPIRACIESAND CONSPIRACY

THEORIES

Michael Newton

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

Copyright © 2006 by Michael Newton

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Newton, Michael, 1951–The encyclopedia of conspiracies and conspiracy theories / by Michael Newton.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Contents

Preface iv

Entries A–Z 1

Bibliography 398

Index 404

iv

Preface

Black’s Law Dictionary defines a conspiracy as “acombination or confederacy between two or morepersons formed for the purpose of committing, bytheir joint efforts, some unlawful or criminal act.”That is it, in a nutshell—and the marvel of modernjournalism is that virtually any suggestion of anactive conspiracy provokes knee-jerk charges of“paranoia,” “eccentricity,” or outright “delusionalinsanity.”

In fact, we are surrounded by conspiracies eachday, around the world, in every walk of life. Eachtime a pair of thieves goes shoplifting, it is a conspir-acy. Wherever prostitutes and pushers meet withjohns and junkies, conspiracies thrive and multiply.Each time a bribe is offered and accepted, anywherecriminals or corrupt politicians plot illicit backroomdeals for their own benefit, wherever police ignorethe commission of crime—there lies conspiracy.

Illegal plots are hatched within the best and worstof families, in seedy bars and Fortune 500 board-rooms, at the Pentagon and in the nests of radicalswho scheme against the government. The White Househas been both a target and a hotbed of conspiracy inmodern times. Some famous (or notorious) organiza-tions are conspiratorial by definition—the Mafia, theKu Klux Klan, and the CIA are only three examplesout of thousands. Other institutions, though createdto deter illegal actions, have themselves become cor-rupted over time, committing more crimes than theysolve. Some individuals and institutions are theauthors and the targets of conspiracies: The latePresident John F. Kennedy provides a case in point.In fact, it may be said that active plotters, by virtueof their lifestyles, are most likely to become the focusof hostile conspiracies (a lesson some leaders oforganized crime have learned only during the finalmoments of their violent lives).

The fact that thousands of conspiracies exist and have been amply documented does not mean, ofcourse, that every theoretical conspiracy is true.Some are absurd, transparently ridiculous, or evenphysically impossible. A number of the plots detailedwithin these pages seem to be half tawdry jest and half distilled insanity. Unfortunately for the critics of “conspiratorial thinking,” some of the silliest plans are also among the best-documented,confessed by their authors and verified from declas-sified government files.

Who, in real life, would plot to embarrass anational leader by dusting his clothes with depilatorypowder to make his hair fall out? Or by lacing hisfavorite cigars with hallucinogenic drugs to makehim babble incoherently on television? Who wouldever think to kill a famous skin diver by plantingexplosive seashells along his favorite beach? Whattwisted mind would surgically implant microphonesinside a stray cat and then release the cat on thegrounds of a hostile embassy?

The answer to all four of those questions is thesame: the CIA. Within living memory, our “masterspies” devoted countless hours and untold taxpay-ers’ dollars to these and other bizarre schemes:“remote viewing” by psychic spies, mind control viaLSD, and assembly-line production of hypnotized“robot” assassins. By 1976, in the wake of Water-gate, the Vietnam War and congressional hearings onillegal domestic surveillance, citizens in the Land ofthe Free had to ask themselves if there was any dif-ference between truth and illusion, between conspir-acy and government business as usual.

As conspiracies vary in scope and intent, so theselection of topics for the work in hand has beenarbitrarily confined to significant conspiracies andconspiracy theories. The author defines that term to

Preface

v

mean any plot (or suspected plot) that involves oraffects large numbers of people, or that, while hav-ing a limited direct impact, still inspires widespreadinterest or comment. An example of the first varietywould be the Iran-contra conspiracy, in which twosuccessive presidents violated federal law, obstructedjustice, and condoned illegal sale of weapons andnarcotics to pursue an outlawed terrorist campaignabroad. The latter might include a claim that JohnDillinger (America’s most famous outlaw of the1930s) escaped his final shootout with police andleft a hapless double to die in his place. Both plotspervert the course of justice, one threatening the verysoul of the republic, with the other being a meresideshow, and both are offered here—if nothing else,for sheer variety.

As indicated by this volume’s title, some conspira-cies detailed within its pages may exist only in the-ory, lacking any sort of “smoking gun” that wouldpermit indictment, trial, and conviction of suspectedplotters—where, in fact, conspirators are evennamed. Inclusion of those theories here, as theories,does not constitute endorsement either by theauthor or his publishers. In every case, the allega-tions have been previously published elsewhere;those sources may be found in the work’s extensivebibliography.

In a similar vein, while legal definitions of con-spiracy require the plotting of a crime, societyaccepts a broader meaning that includes any covertcombination against the public interest, whether or not laws are broken. Thus, it may not be a crimeto pay off inventors and suppress their inventions—a superefficient carburetor, say, or a cure for AIDS—but such actions clearly fall within the wider defini-

tion of conspiracy, and allegations of such actionsare included here. Likewise, while some hoaxes,practical jokes, and publicity stunts stop short ofcrossing the line into fraud, their impact on societymay be profound and deleterious, thus warrantinginclusion here.

Entries in this encyclopedia are alphabeticallyarranged. They include short biographies of conspir-ators and victims, profiles of conspiratorial organi-zations and movements, brief histories of nationsthat have spawned or suffered from conspiracies(and which has not?), descriptions of specific con-spiratorial events, and general essays on social, polit-ical, or religious movements of a conspiratorialnature. The appearance of a name or term in SMALL

CAPITALS denotes a subject with its own discrete entryin the text. “Blind” entries also direct the reader toentries containing information on the subject listed(e.g., Billy the Kid—See UNDEAD OUTLAWS). The bibli-ography is limited to sources published or translatedin the English language, and while extensive, it is byno means exhaustive. Most of the works listed therecontain their own bibliographies, replete with fur-ther leads to this or that conspiracy theory.

Thanks are due to Dave Frasier at Indiana Univer-sity for his generous assistance with various points ofresearch. Every effort has been made to make thework in hand as timely and complete as possible, butconspiracy theories evolve and mutate with the speedof e-mail in this Internet age. Readers are invited tosubmit corrections and any pet conspiracy theoriesof their own to the author in care of Facts On File.Barring a request for anonymity, any material usedin future editions of this work will be publiclyacknowledged.

ABBAS, Abu (1948–2004)One of the world’s most notorious terrorists prior tothe advent of Osama bin Laden (see BIN LADEN

FAMILY), Abu Abbas was born in 1948 in a Syrianrefugee camp for Arabs who were expelled fromISRAEL. He studied at Damascus University and wasrecruited by the Popular Front for the Liberation ofPalestine in 1968. After guerrilla training in theSoviet Union, Abbas joined the newly formed Pales-tine Liberation Front and engaged in bitter conflictbetween rival Palestinian groups in LEBANON. Hesubsequently allied himself with Yasser Arafat andArafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In1981, Abbas was credited with planning the hang-glider attack on an oil refinery at Haifa, Israel. Ayear later, when the PLO was exiled to Tunisia,Abbas was elected to the group’s ruling executivecommittee. In October 1985 U.S. authorities namedAbbas as the mastermind of the Achille Laurohijacking, during which an American hostage wasmurdered. Abbas negotiated the surrender of fourhijackers in that case and joined them on a flight toTunisia, where they were supposed to be “disci-plined” by PLO leaders. That flight was interceptedby U.S. warplanes, with Abbas and the hijackersjailed by Italian authorities, but Abbas was releasedto Yugoslavia on October 12, 1985. From there, he reportedly flew to Baghdad, IRAQ. An Italiancourt subsequently convicted Abbas in absentia andsentenced him to life imprisonment, but he remained

in hiding until 1996 when Israeli authorities permit-ted him to settle in the Gaza Strip as part of the endless Middle East “peace process.” Abbas pub-licly embraced nonviolence, while U.S. and Italianauthorities ignored him. U.S. troops captured Abbasin April 2003 after they invaded Baghdad as part ofOPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. His death in U.S. cus-tody was announced in February 2004, with jailersblaming his demise on natural causes while the lateprisoner’s widow called his death an assassination.

AFGHANISTANDarius I and Alexander the Great were the first con-querors to visit Afghanistan, followed by Musliminvaders in the seventh century, Genghis Khan (13thcentury) and Tamerlane (14th century). Four hun-dred years later, the “great game” between Englandand RUSSIA for control of central Asia sparked threeAfghan Wars (1839–42, 1878–80, and 1919). Britainwas victorious, granting Afghani independence in1919, and the monarchy of Emir Amanullah wasfounded in 1926.

The Afghan front remained peaceful until the coldwar prompted King Mohammed Zahir Shah toaccept financial aid from the Soviet Union. A royalcousin, Mohammed Daud Khan, dethroned the kingin 1973 and was himself unseated by rival NoorTaraki five years later. Taraki and successor BabrakKarmal tried to establish a Communist state, but

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Islamic rebels (mujahideen) violently opposed themove. Fearing defeat, Karmal requested Soviet mili-tary aid; Moscow responded with a full-scale inva-sion in December 1979.

Enter the United States, with heavy covert aid forthe mujahideen (whose ranks included Osama binLaden and the future leaders of AL-QAEDA). Armedand trained by the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

(CIA) and U.S. Special Forces, financed in equal partsby U.S. aid and international HEROIN sales, themujahideen waged bloody guerrilla war against theRussians until April 1988, when diplomats from theUnited States, the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, andPAKISTAN agreed to cut off foreign support forAfghani combatants. Russian troops withdrew inFebruary 1989, leaving the pro-Soviet regime ofPresident Najibullah in nominal command of thenation. Islamic rebels deposed Najibullah in April1992 and then turned on each other as rival drug-dealing warlords battled for supremacy. Amid thechaos, a group of extreme Muslim fundamentalists(the Taliban) seized the capital in September 1996and imposed a system of religious statutes thatincluded death by stoning for adultery and severingof hands for theft. By 1998 the Taliban controlled 90percent of Afghanistan, though its regime was recog-nized only by Pakistan, SAUDI ARABIA, and the UnitedArab Emirates.

Global isolation made Afghanistan a fertile breed-ing ground for radical groups and heroin smugglers.Bin Laden and al-Qaeda used Afghanistan as alaunching pad for acts of TERRORISM, culminating inthe PENTTBOM attacks of September 11, 2001,whereupon President George W. Bush invaded thecountry and unseated the Taliban regime (missingbin Laden in the process). U.S. conduct during thatmilitary action—dubbed “Operation Enduring Free-dom”—remains highly controversial. Several hun-dred Afghan prisoners of war were transferred to aU.S. military base in Cuba, where they remain todaywithout criminal charges being filed; the WhiteHouse refuses to identify the captives. One prisonerwho was released, Pakistani national MohammadSagheer, claimed in November 2002 that some 7,000POWs died in U.S. custody before or during trans-portation to the mysterious “Camp X-Ray” in Cuba.Meanwhile, military action continues in “liberated”Afghanistan, where a U.S. air strike killed 50 mem-bers of a wedding party in Oruzgan Province in2002. Another tragic “accident” occurred in April

2003 when American planes bombed a residentialdistrict in eastern Afghanistan, killing 11 civilians.

Curiously, while U.S. spokesmen claimed that suppression of Afghanistan’s heroin network was a major secondary goal of Operation Enduring Freedom, drug smuggling has increased dramaticallysince the U.S. invasion in 2001. By February 2002Afghanistan supplied an estimated 75 percent of theworld’s total heroin supply, and 90 percent of allheroin found in Great Britain. According to varioussources including the UNITED NATIONS, Afghan heroinproduction decreased by 91 percent under Talibanrule and then soared again in the wake of the U.S.invasion, until Afghanistan surpassed MYANMAR asthe world’s foremost producer of opium and its illicitderivatives. U.S. authorities have no comment on thecurious trend, except to note (in May 2003) that“most of the heroin that winds up in New York Citycomes from COLOMBIA.” Critical observers note dis-turbing parallels between Afghanistan and VIETNAM,where CIA agents and their warlord clients collabo-rated on heroin smuggling throughout the 1960s.

The situation remained volatile in the first half of2005 when an unsubstantiated report in Newsweekclaimed that U.S. soldiers had desecrated copies ofthe Koran at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp inorder to intimidate prisoners. The article sparkedriots in Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslimworld that resulted in several deaths and extensiveproperty destruction. Newsweek later retracted thearticle when no evidence could be located to backupthe claim and it appeared their initial source wasunreliable. Much of the Muslim world reacted to theretraction with skepticism.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY.

AFRICAN National CongressThe African National Congress (ANC) was createdat Bloemfontein, SOUTH AFRICA, on January 8, 1912,to defend the rights of the nation’s black majorityfrom dominant racist whites. Its first campaign waslimited to opposing passage of the 1913 Land Act,which barred black Africans from owning land inbroadly defined “white areas” of South Africa. Thateffort failed, and the ANC stagnated until 1944when a new and more militant ANC Youth Leaguewas organized by activists Nelson Mandela, OliverTambo, and Walter Sisulu. The revitalized ANCsponsored nonviolent mass action against South

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AFRICAN National Congress

Africa’s increasingly racist legislation, forging analliance to that end in 1947 with the Natal IndianCongress and the Transvaal Indian Congress.

In 1948, neofascist elements with ties to the latelydefeated THIRD REICH organized South Africa’sNational Party to inaugurate a sweeping system ofapartheid (Afrikaans for “separateness” of theraces), and the next four years saw black rightssteadily erode on all fronts. In June 1952 the ANCjoined other antiapartheid groups for a DefianceCampaign of civil disobedience, but that effort wasscuttled in April 1953 by a new law banning protestmeetings. In June 1955 a “Congress of the People”held at Kliptown, near Johannesburg, adopted theFreedom Charter that would henceforth serve as theprimary document of opposition to apartheid.Sweeping arrests in 1956 jailed 156 leaders of theANC and allied groups, but all were acquitted attheir “treason trial” in 1961. ANC leader AlbertLuthuli won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960, but theANC was soon outlawed in South Africa, its mem-bers driven underground by accusations of TERROR-ISM and sedition.

Once banned from legitimate discourse, the ANChad no choice but to adopt armed struggle as amethod to depose apartheid. In 1961, its leadersorganized Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation)to wage war against the racist power structure inSouth Africa. Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962and sentenced to life imprisonment, along with Wal-ter Sisulu and other ANC leaders, at trial in 1964.Oliver Tambo subsequently established the ANC’sgovernment in exile, fielding an estimated force of6,000 guerrillas from bases in ANGOLA, MOZAM-BIQUE, and ZAMBIA. The ANC forged close ties withthe banned South African Communist Party, and itscentral party document, the Manifesto of the Azan-ian People, described the ANC’s primary goal as thedestruction of “racial capitalism” in South Africa.

Three decades of struggle and repression climaxedon February 2, 1990, when President F.W. de Klerklifted the ANC’s ban. Nelson Mandela won theNobel Peace Prize in 1993, and majority rule wasrestored to the nation in 1994. That April, the ANCwon a landslide victory in South Africa’s first inte-grated election, to become the nation’s ruling party.Mandela served as president until 1999, when hewas succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. The ANC alsoholds an elected majority in eight of the country’snine provinces.

A curious sideshow to mainstream activitiesinvolves the controversial career of Nelson Man-dela’s ex-wife. Winnie Mandela was charged withattempted murder in 1991, following the disappear-ance of a young bodyguard whose torture and deathshe allegedly ordered. In the absence of a corpse, shewas acquitted of the primary charge, but jurors con-victed her of kidnapping. The court imposed a sus-pended sentence for that offense, but Mrs. Mandela’slegal problems continued. On April 25, 2003, shewas convicted on 43 counts of fraud and 25 countsof theft, receiving a five-year prison term. Courtwatchers predicted that she would serve a maximumof eight months in jail.

AGENT Orange“Agent Orange” was the code name used for a pow-erful herbicide employed by the U.S. military duringthe VIETNAM War. The name derives from an orangeband painted around metal drums that contained theproduct. Although initially developed in the 1940s, itwas not seriously tested for application in tropicalclimates until the early 1960s. By 1971, when its usewas discontinued, an estimated 20 million gallons ofAgent Orange were sprayed in Vietnam, either byhand or (more commonly) in mass drops from air-craft. (The motto of one airborne chemical unit:“Only You Can Prevent Forests.”)

Agent Orange was a 50–50 mix of two chemicals,commonly known as 2,4–D and 2,4,5–T. The com-bined product was mixed with kerosene or diesel fuelbefore dispersal in widespread “deforestation” cam-paigns. A variant form (dubbed “Orange II” or“Super Orange”), used in Vietnam during 1968–69,combined chemicals 2,4–D and 2,4,5–T. Early healthconcerns surrounding Agent Orange focused on con-tamination of the product with TCDD, a form ofdioxin related to the dibenzofurans and pcb’s. Somedioxins occur in nature and may be harmless, butTCDD has produced a wide variety of diseases in labtesting on animals, including several ailments fatal tohumans.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Vietnamese nativescomplained that Agent Orange and other militarydefoliants were killing livestock and producing birthdeformities in humans. The Pentagon ignored thoseclaims and likewise struck a pose of denial in thepostwar years when U.S. veterans displayed abnor-mally high rates of cancer and other diseases linked

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AGENT Orange

to TCDD exposure. Finally, on January 23, 2003,the Veteran Affairs Department acknowledged a linkbetween Agent Orange and chronic lymphocyticleukemia (CLL), granting an extension of govern-ment benefits to veterans suffering from that disease.Speaking for the government, Secretary AnthonyPrincipi said, “It’s sad that we have to presume serv-ice connection, because we know that [veterans]have cancer that may have been caused by their bat-tlefield service. But it’s the right thing to do.” Andwhile the “right thing” came too late for veteranswho died of CLL and similar diseases prior to 2003,Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors announced theirexpectation of finding 500 new CLL cases per yearamong Vietnam vets.

At the time of the VA’s belated announcement,10,000 Vietnam survivors were under treatment forillness related to Agent Orange, Super Orange, or the13 other defoliants widely used during the Asian war.The other compounds, all used between 1962 and1964, included: “Blue” (cacodylic acid), Bromacil,Dalapon, Dinoxol (mixing 2,4–D and 2,4,5–T),Diquat, Diuron, “Green” (2,4,5–T), Monuron,“Pink” (2,4,5–T), “Purple” (2,4–D and 2,4,5–T),Tandex, Trinoxol (2,4,5–T), and “White” (a formu-lation of Picloram and 2,4–D).

AGHORA cultDescribed by investigators as “a very open society,”the Aghora sect of the Hindu religion is nonethelessone that would surprise most westerners for its prac-tice of ritual cannibalism. In June 2003 ReutersNews Service reported the experience of Mike Yon, aFlorida native and ex-Green Beret who visited Indiain search of ideas for a book he was planning. OnSeptember 5, 2002, Yon was present when an Israelitourist drowned in the Ganges River near Rishikesh.A team of Israeli divers sent to recover the bodyfound another Caucasian corpse instead, and Yonwatched with dive-team leader Yigal Zur as a mem-ber of the Aghora cult approached the bloated body,placed a coin on the dead man’s exposed liver, andthen tore off a piece of flesh and ate it on the spot.

Widespread stories persist that the Aghoris are notmere scavengers but may be active predators in themold of the Thugs who terrorized India from the 12thcentury until the latter 1800s. Like the Thugs, Aghorisworship Kali, the dark god of Hinduism, and they alsorevere Shiva (god of destruction and reproduction). As

Yon told Reuters, “I heard rumors that European and American tourists were being taken. It soundsludicrous, but where it is in India, anything goes.” AsYon explained the cult’s philosophy, white foreignersare viewed as possessing great Shakti—a creativeenergy that Hindus believe flows directly from God.“If you sacrifice a rich or powerful person,” Yonexplained, “they have more Shakti. Children havemore Shakti because they haven’t lived long.”

Yon discovered that the sect is not confined toIndia but also thrives in Nepal. Bribes of whiskey—consumed by cultists as a sacrament—led Yon to anAmerican convert, 52-year-old Texas native GaryStevenson, now known as Kapal Nath. Adorned withdreadlocks, tattoos and a set of tom-toms made frominfant human skulls, Nath sipped his liquor from ahollowed skull while briefing Yon on the propermethod of cooking human flesh. “I like to take a freshbody, you know,” Nath told Yon, “maybe even anIsraeli, cook ’em barbecue.” The technique, Nathexplained, involved a “big, big bucket of barbecuesauce, paintbrush, roller, you know.”

Yon emerged from the interview with a disturbingview of Hinduism’s darker side. “The amazingthing,” he told Reuters, “is that they are doing itthere in the open. A policeman was burning the bodyof his neighbor and cracked open the skull to releasethe soul. The policeman gave Nath some of thebrains to eat.” Human brains, in fact, topped Nath’slist of favorite foods. A self-confessed serial killer,Nath admitted multiple murders during a conversa-tion that Yon taped for posterity. His first victim,long before joining the cult, was apparently a man heshot in San Francisco sometime in the 1970s. Nathalso boasted of stalking human prey on the Hawai-ian island of Oahu, where he lived from 1978 to1994. As Yon recalled, “He said he liked to eat thebrain and heart. He said human meat has the sametaste as pork.”

AGNEW, Spiro (1918–1996)A son of Greek immigrants born in Baltimore onNovember 9, 1918, Spiro Agnew received a lawdegree from the University of Baltimore in 1947. In1962, campaigning as a reformer, he was electedchief executive of Baltimore County. Four years later,Agnew was elected governor of Maryland. Republi-can presidential candidate RICHARD NIXON choseAgnew as his running mate in 1968.

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AGHORA cult

That campaign was well advanced when PresidentLYNDON BAINES JOHNSON (LBJ) heard rumors of aRepublican effort to sabotage peace negotiations onthe VIETNAM War. Specifically, Anna Chennault—aChinese-born Republican activist and leader of Con-cerned Asians for Nixon—was suspected of urgingSouth Vietnamese leaders to stall the peace talks.Johnson ordered a FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION (FBI) investigation, which included wiretapsand physical surveillance on Chennault. Three daysbefore the election, on November 2, 1968, FBI eaves-droppers heard Chennault advise a South Vietnamesepolitician that his country would “get a better deal”from Nixon in the new year. Asked if Nixon knewwhat she was doing, Chennault replied, “No, but ourfriend in New Mexico does.” Coincidentally or oth-erwise, Spiro Agnew spent that afternoon in Albu-querque, making campaign speeches.

J. EDGAR HOOVER, himself a staunch Nixon sup-porter, reported the conversation to President John-son on November 6. Furious, LBJ telephonedNixon—already the president-elect—and chastisedhim for meddling in U.S. foreign policy. Hoover sub-sequently reported the FBI investigation of Agnewand Chennault to Nixon, placing full blame on theJohnson White House.

If Agnew took offense at the snooping, he coveredit well. During the next four years, employed prima-rily as Nixon’s mouthpiece for stinging attacks onthe press, “radical liberals,” and other targets drawnfrom the White House enemies list, Agnew repeat-edly sought Hoover’s help in preparing his inflamma-tory speeches, once requesting “especially graphicincidents” from classified files with which to smearhis critics. A phone call placed on May 18, 1970, forinstance, solicited FBI assistance in defaming Rev.Ralph Abernathy, a civil rights activist and leader ofthe Southern Christian Leadership Conference.Hoover described the call in a memo: “The VicePresident said he thought he was going to have tostart destroying Abernathy’s credibility, so anything Ican give him would be appreciated. I told him that Iwould be glad to.”

Exposure of the WATERGATE scandal in 1972spelled political doom for Spiro Agnew. Journalistsinvestigating the Nixon administration discoveredthat Agnew had been taking bribes since 1962 fromengineers and architects pursuing government con-tracts in Maryland. The payoffs had continued afterhe became vice president, and Agnew persistently

failed to report the income on his tax returns. Meet-ing with Nixon on August 6, 1973, Agnew pro-claimed himself innocent of any wrongdoing, but hisdays were numbered. On October 10, 1973, heresigned in disgrace, pleading “no contest” the sameafternoon on one count of income tax evasion dat-ing from 1967. Agnew was fined $10,000 andplaced on three years’ probation. Following his res-ignation, Agnew told friends that he had beenthreatened by unnamed persons at the Nixon WhiteHouse and stated, “I feared for my life.” He neverspoke to Nixon again, but he described the events ina memoir titled Go Quietly or Else (1980). Agnewdied in 1996.

AIDSThe deadly disease known as AIDS—AcquiredImmune Deficiency Syndrome—was first officiallyreported in 1981 from the United States, thoughmost authorities believe that it originated in Africa.(Some claim that the first case, unrecognized at thetime, may have surfaced as early as 1969.) Thehuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causesAIDS was identified in 1983, and reliable tests for thevirus were perfected two years later. The virus istransmitted by exchange of bodily fluids, chiefly viasex, transfusions of infected blood, or sharing con-taminated hypodermic needles. There is presently nocure for AIDS, though various drugs retard itsadvance in some patients. AIDS kills by leaving itsvictims open to attack by various “opportunistic”diseases that are normally repelled by healthyimmune systems. At the end of 2001, the WorldHealth Organization reported that AIDS had killed24.8 million victims worldwide; another 40 millionpersons were infected, more than half of them (28.1million) residing in sub-Saharan Africa.

What is the origin of HIV? Reporter WilliamCarlsen, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle,notes that “[i]n the early years of the AIDS epidemic,theories attempting to explain the origin of the dis-ease ranged from the comic to the bizarre: a deadlygerm escaped from a secret CIA laboratory; God sentthe plague down to punish homosexuals and drugaddicts; it came from outer space, riding on the tailof a comet.” Today, the official line traces HIV to apopulation of African apes that were infected with asimilar virus, which somehow jumped the normal“species barrier” to attack human beings. Still unex-

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plained is the means by which a mutated simian dis-ease suffered by heterosexual black Africans spannedthe Atlantic in the 1970s to infect predominantly gay,Caucasian victims in North America. Those yawninggaps in medical knowledge invite sinister specula-tion, and conspiracy theories are fed by tantalizingbits of evidence from the public (or not-so-public)record.

On June 9, 1969, a high-level biological researchadministrator for the U.S. Defense Department, Dr.Donald MacArthur, appeared before a House sub-committee on military appropriations, seeking fundsfor a new line of research. “Within five to ten years,”MacArthur testified, “it would probably be possibleto make a new infective microorganism which woulddiffer in certain important aspects from any knowndisease-causing organisms. Most important of theseis that it might be refractory to the immunologicaland therapeutic processes upon which we depend tomaintain our relative freedom from infectious dis-ease. Should an enemy develop it, there is little doubtthat this is an important area of potential militarytechnological inferiority in which there is no ade-quate research program.” Congress fundedMacArthur’s research—and AIDS surfaced in Africaa decade later, during 1977–78.

Coincidence?On July 4, 1984, a New Delhi newspaper called

the Patriot published the first accusation that AIDSwas created as a weapon by the U.S. Army. Citingarticles from an official army research publication on“natural and artificial influences on the humanimmune system,” Patriot reporters claimed that sci-entists from the Army Biological Warfare Laboratoryat Fort Detrick, Maryland (known since 1969 as theNational Cancer Institute’s Frederick CancerResearch Facility), scoured Africa to find “a power-ful virus that could not be found in Europe or Asia.”When located, the Patriot claimed that material “wasthen analyzed at Fort Detrick and the result was theisolation of a virus that causes AIDS.”

Army spokesmen branded the Patriot report anexample of “infectious propaganda” from RUSSIA, butthe story would not die. In 1986, two French-born scientists living in East Germany, Jakob and LilliSegal, published a pamphlet titled AIDS: USA Home-Made Evil. The document, circulated widely inEurope and Africa, claimed that HIV is a geneticallyengineered hybrid of the visan virus (source of a braindisease borne by sheep) and a virus dubbed HTLV-I

(known as a cause of cancer in white blood cells).Army denials persisted, but Col. David Huxsoll cre-ated further doubt in February 1987 with a publicannouncement that “studies at army laboratories haveshown that the AIDS virus would be an extremelypoor biological warfare agent.” (Huxsoll later deniedever making that statement; the reporter who quotedhim maintains that his report was accurate.)

If gays were targeted for a secret biowarfare blitz,how and when did it happen? In 1978, more than1,000 nonmonogamous gay men received experi-mental hepatitis B vaccinations at the New YorkBlood Center in Manhattan, sponsored by the Cen-ters for Disease Control and the National Institutesof Health. The first U.S. cases of AIDS were recordedamong New York gays in 1979; by 1985, 64 percentof the original CDC-NIH test group in Manhattanwere dying from AIDS. At the same time, two other“new” diseases surfaced among Manhattan homo-sexuals. One, a herpes virus now believed to causeKaposi’s sarcoma (also known as “gay cancer”) isclosely related to a cancer-causing herpes strain stud-ied in U.S. animal research labs a decade before AIDSappeared. The other, an infectious microbe chris-tened Mycoplasma penetrans, attacks the patient’scirculatory and respiratory systems. Its originremains officially unknown.

AIR AmericaOnce the largest unofficial airline in the world, AirAmerica evolved from a makeshift operation in the1930s when Gen. Claire Chennault’s “American Vol-unteer Group” was dispatched to aid CHINA in itslong war against JAPAN. In December 1941 the PEARL

HARBOR attack eliminated any vestiges of feignedU.S. neutrality, but the covert tradition died hard. In1947, the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) andthe State Department used the framework of Chen-nault’s old group to create Civil Air Transport(CAT), operating a fleet of aircraft to assist National-ist Chinese forces in their war against the communisttroops of MAO ZEDONG. With the Red victory, CATmoved its headquarters to TAIWAN, continuing sup-port for “Free China” while operating routine pas-senger flights throughout Southeast Asia. TheKorean War (1950–53) found CAT pilots flying morecovert missions on behalf of “democracy.” The endof that “police action” brought diversification, withCAT elements operating as Southern Air Transport,

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AIR America

Air America, and Air Asia Ltd. Mercenary pilotshired with U.S. taxpayers’ money flew various illicit(and unrecorded) missions, including support forFRANCE in its losing battle to maintain control ofIndochina (today VIETNAM, LAOS, and CAMBODIA).

In the 1960s, as the United States assumed theFrench imperial burden in Vietnam, the CIA consoli-dated its various client airlines under the single logoof Air America. Most of the pilots were military vet-erans, responding to advertisements for “the mosthighly skilled, adventurous, and patriotic aviationpersonnel who could be found.” Air America’s mottowas “Anything, Anytime, Anywhere”—a catchallthat included illegal supply flights from Vietnam intoLaos and Cambodia, as well as transportation ofHEROIN shipments from Asia’s “Golden Triangle” tothe United States. Air America officially disbanded in1975 with the fall of Saigon. Twelve years later onMay 30, 1987, former CIA Director William Colbydedicated an Air America Memorial at the Universityof Texas in Dallas.

ALBANIALocated on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea,Albania was ruled from ancient times successively byRome (to A.D. 535), the Byzantine Empire (535–1444), and the Ottoman Turks (1446–1912). It wasthen, and remains today, one of the poorest Euro-pean nations. A ravaged battlefield in World War I,Albania emerged from that conflict to declare itself arepublic, but Muslim strongman Ahmed Zogu pro-claimed himself president in 1925 and then switchedhis title to king (Zog I) three years later. He ruleduntil 1939, when Benito Mussolini’s fascist govern-ment annexed Albania. Near the end of World WarII, in 1944, Communist guerrillas led by EnverHoxha liberated Albania from Italian occupation.

Unfortunately for natives who expected liberty,Hoxha was a devotee of Soviet dictator JOSEPH

STALIN and emulated Stalin’s brutal methods of sup-pressing dissent. In 1961 Hoxha broke with RUSSIA

over personal and political differences with NikitaKhrushchev, forging a new alliance with the Chinesegovernment of MAO ZEDONG. With Mao’s death in1978, Hoxha was set adrift, pursuing his own dead-end policies that left Albania the most impoverishedand isolated country in Europe. Ramiz Alia succeededHoxha in 1985, and public faith in COMMUNISM

remained strong, despite the nation’s failed economy.

Reds won a decisive victory in the March 1991 elec-tions, even as the Soviet Union collapsed, but a gen-eral strike and riotous street demonstrations soonforced the ruling cabinet to resign. A change of namesand public policy failed to carry 1992’s election forthe former Communist (now Socialist) Party, as Dr.Sali Berisha became Albania’s first elected president.

Unfortunately, Albania’s democratic experimentfailed in early 1997 when a series of shady pyramidschemes collapsed, robbing gullible investors of $1.2billion in savings. The furious dupes turned theirwrath on the government, which had naively endorsedthe swindlers. Rioting destroyed Albania’s fragileinfrastructure, while rebels and organized gangstersturned the country into a free-for-all shooting gallery.A multinational force of 6,000 peacekeepers arrivedto restore a semblance of order and supervise electionsthat ousted President Berisha from office. Troublecontinued for Albania at the turn of the new millen-nium. Ethnic cleansing in neighboring SERBIA drove440,000 Albanian expatriates back to their ancestralhomeland. Since then, a witch’s brew of political dis-sension, minority rebellion, organized crime, and eco-nomic instability has frustrated efforts to create afunctioning democracy in this troubled land.

ALEPH See AUM SHINRIKYO.

ALEXANDER I (1888–1934)Alexander I had ruled as king of Yugoslavia for 13years, by the time an assassin took his life on October9, 1934. The king was in Marseille, riding in an opencar with French foreign minister Louis Barthou, whenCroatian nationalist Petrus Kaleman leaped onto thevehicle’s running board and killed both men withclose-range fire from an automatic rifle. Kaleman, inturn, was seized and fatally beaten by security police;another 40 persons were injured when mountedguards charged into a crowd along the parade route.Detectives of the French Sûreté declared the doublemurder the result of a conspiracy among Croatianrebels. As a result of the slayings, the League ofNations established two international conventions tocombat political TERRORISM in 1937: The Conven-tion for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism“criminalized” attacks on heads of state and other“internationally protected persons,” while the Con-vention for the Creation of an International Criminal

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ALEXANDER I

Court sought to enforce those regulations. However,since few nations (including the United States) ratifiedeither convention, they had no legally binding effect.

ALEXANDER II (1818–1881)Czar Alexander II ruled RUSSIA with an iron handfor 26 years before he was assassinated on March1, 1881. The murder was carried out by membersof a radical group called Narodnya Volya (“ThePeople’s Will”), organized with an estimated 500members in 1875. Czar Alexander was traveling bycoach to view the wreckage of a recent NarodnyaVolya bombing in St. Petersburg, when suicidebomber Ivan Grinevetsky attacked the royal coach,killing himself along with his target. Various con-spirators, including ringleader Sophia Petrovskaya,were soon rounded up by police, convicted at aperfunctory trial, and speedily hanged. In additionto Czar Alexander, other Russian officials whowere slain by Narodnya Volya included the governor-general of St. Petersburg and a chief of the dreadedOKHRANA.

ALGERIABeginning in the seventh century B.C., Algeria hasbeen pillaged by successive invaders includingRomans, Vandals, Hafsids, Merenids, assortedpirates, Spaniards, Arabs, and Turks. French soldiersconquered the country in 1830, and Algeria wasnamed an “integral part” of FRANCE in 1848. Frenchcolonists put down roots with a vengeance, brutallyresisting when a nationalist uprising in 1954–55escalated into full-scale war between France andAlgeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN). PresidentCharles de Gaulle opened peace negotiations in1962, prompting renegade elements of the Frencharmy—calling themselves the OAS (Secret ArmyOrganization)—to plot de Gaulle’s assassination.Acts of TERRORISM in Algeria and France failed tostop Algerian independence in July 1962, but FLNvictory did not end the violence.

Ahmed Ben Bella was elected premier in October1963, but his regime was overthrown on June 19,1965, by military forces under Col. Houari Boume-diene. Boumediene promptly suspended Algeria’sconstitution in a bid to “restore economic stability,”but the resultant military government was not a typi-cal right-wing junta. Recalling their revolutionary

roots, Algeria’s new leaders welcomed radicals fromaround the world—including members of the BLACK

PANTHER PARTY, the IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY, andvarious Palestinian groups engaged in war againstISRAEL—to train at desert camps described by U.S.spokesmen as “schools for terrorism.”

Algeria’s first-ever parliamentary elections wereheld in December 1991, but army leaders invalidatedthe results after members of fundamentalist IslamicSalvation Front (FIS) won a majority of votes. Thatautocratic move plunged the nation into bloody civilwar, which continues to the present day. Chiefamong the current rebel factions is the ArmedIslamic Group (GIA), headquartered on the MitidjaPlain outside Algiers (lately dubbed the “Triangle ofDeath”). Estimated body counts for the latest Alger-ian conflict range from 100,000 to 250,000 or more.Wholesale slaughter of civilians has flourished sinceFebruary 1997 when GIA leaders vowed to “slashthe throats of all apostates and their allies.”Observers briefly hoped for peace with AbdelazizBouteflika’s ascension to the presidency in April1999, but conflicts with the military have emascu-lated Bouteflika’s administration. Despite a facade ofdemocracy, Algeria is essentially a military dictator-ship with Islamic militants and a long-disaffectedBerber minority engaged in perpetual rebellion.

ALIEN abductionsSince the mid-1960s a sizable body of literature hasdeveloped purporting to describe or debunk thealleged phenomenon of humans being kidnappedand detained by the (apparently extraterrestrial)occupants of unidentified flying objects (UFOS).Believers in the alien abduction phenomenon rangefrom self-described abductees to psychiatrists andprofessors at prestigious universities. Their critics—some with equally impressive scientific credentials,others simply professional naysayers—insist thatsuch reports are the result of deliberate hoaxes ormental illness, with the latter (typically long-dis-tance) diagnoses running the gamut from FALSE MEM-ORY SYNDROME to full-blown psychosis.

Reports of UFOs—which may be any airborneobject unidentified by its immediate observers—areas old as human history. “Close encounters” withUFO pilots or passengers are a more recent phe-nomenon, with reports from Europe and NorthAmerica apparently beginning in the 19th century.

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The best-known cases of alleged alien abductioninclude the following:

September 1961—Barney and Betty Hill report-edly experienced a “missing time” phenomenonwhile driving near Portsmouth, New Hamp-shire. Under hypnosis they later recalled analien abduction that included medical experi-ments. Their case went public in 1966 in a two-part series in Look magazine and in JohnFuller’s book The Interrupted Journey. The casewas subsequently dramatized in a made-for-tel-evision movie, The UFO Incident.

January 25, 1967—Betty Andreasson was allegedlytaken by five-foot-tall aliens from her home in South Ashburnham, Massachusetts, whilerelatives stood paralyzed and helpless to assisther. She later recovered fragmentary memoriesof the event.

December 3, 1967—Police Sergeant HerbertSchrimer lost consciousness after seeing a UFOin Ashland, Nebraska, and woke with “a redwelt on the nerve cord” behind one of his ears.Two months later, under hypnosis, Schrimerdescribed his conversation with “a whiteblurred object” that descended from the UFO.

October 11, 1973—Mississippi residents CharlesHickson and Calvin Potter were night fishingalong the Pascagoula River when they allegedlysighted a UFO and were carried aboard bythree of the craft’s occupants. They werereleased 20 minutes later, after the aliens toldthem, “We are peaceful. We mean you noharm.” Hickson reportedly passed a polygraphtest administered by private investigators onOctober 30 and appeared on Dick Cavett’s TVtalk show in January 1974. Parker, meanwhile,shunned publicity and moved out of state.

November 5, 1975—Logger Travis Walton wasallegedly beamed aboard a hovering UFO nearHeber, Arizona, in full view of six coworkers.He was found five days later, nude and incoher-ent, but later recovered fragmentary and hor-rific memories of his captivity aboard the UFO.In Walton’s absence the six witnesses (suspectedby police of murdering Walton and hiding hisbody) sat for polygraph tests. Five were rated“truthful” in their description of the incident,while the sixth—a convicted felon—yielded“inconclusive” test results. The incident was

later dramatized in the motion picture Fire inthe Sky (1993).

August 26, 1976—Four fishermen were allegedlyabducted by aliens near Allagash, Maine. Theircase was later detailed by author Ray Fowler inThe Allagash Abductions (1994)—and maywell have inspired Stephen King’s best-sellingnovel Dreamcatcher (2001).

December 1977—Bloomington, Indiana, residentDebbie Jordan was reportedly abducted fromher home. A decade later, author Budd Hopkinsdescribed the incident in his book Intruders(1987). Jordan maintains an Internet Web sitewith details of the case at www.debshome.com.

1987—Best-selling science-fiction author WhitleyStrieber published Communion, the first of sev-eral “nonfiction” books detailing his ownalleged experience with alien kidnappers.Strieber’s background (and the profits derivedfrom his books) prompted skeptics to suggest along-running hoax.

September 1990—Three anonymous witnesses(said to include an elected official and two government agents) allegedly saw a woman“floating” from a 12th-story apartment win-dow in Manhattan, accompanied by three smallaliens who steered her levitating body toward ahovering UFO. When all were safely aboard,the craft nose-dived into the East River. AuthorBudd Hopkins reported the case in his bookWitnessed (1996).

By June 1992 the alien abduction phenomenonwas regarded seriously enough in some circles to ratea five-day conference at the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT), chaired by MIT physicistDavid Pritchard and Harvard psychiatrist JohnMack. One topic of discussion was the so-calledmissing embryo/fetus syndrome (ME/FS) that wasreported by some female subjects who claim unex-plained and prematurely terminated pregnancies fol-lowing their abductions. Although such incidents are“now considered one of the more common effects ofthe abduction experience,” according to authorDavid Jacobs in his book Secret Life (1992), a reportto the MIT conference found no confirmatory evi-dence. “By now,” Dr. John Miller told the gathering,“we should have some medically well-documentedcases of this, but we don’t. Proof of a case of ME/FShas proved entirely elusive.”

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ALIEN abductions

The same is apparently true of other physical “evi-dence” reported by alleged abductees. Such phenom-ena as bloody noses, cuts, bruises, burns, and “scoopmarks” are cited as proof of alien contact, but allhave plausible explanations in everyday life. Varioussubjects report surgical implants in their heads orother parts of their bodies, but again none are con-firmed. Alleged abductee Richard Price submitted atiny object, surgically removed from his penis, fortesting at MIT as a suspected “alien implant.” Labo-ratory analysis concluded that the object consisted of“successive layers of human tissue formed aroundsome initial abnormality or trauma, occasionallyaccreting fibers of cotton from Price’s underwear thatbecame incorporated into this artifact as the tissuehardened.”

Such verdicts do not faze believers, includingmany who suspect an intergalactic conspiracy ofsilence surpassing anything seen on The X-Files. In1998, author Ann Druffel published a book titledHow to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction,with the recommended defensive techniques includ-ing mental and physical struggle, “righteous anger”and “protective rage” (both “best employed beforethe onset of paralysis”), and prayers to divine entities(named by Druffel as “the most powerful techniqueyet discovered” for repelling alien kidnappers). Ifsimple attitude proves ineffective, Druffel’s readersare advised to employ various flowers, herbs, cruci-fixes, metal fans, and “bar magnets crossed over thechest” to discourage abduction. Failure to be kid-napped by a snatch squad from beyond the stars pre-sumably suggests that the repellents are effective.

ALPHA 66Alpha 66 ranks among the most violent and mostnotorious of the Cuban-exile groups devoted to over-throwing FIDEL CASTRO’s regime in Havana. Officialhistories of the organization claim it was founded inPUERTO RICO sometime in the latter part of 1961.The group’s cryptic name allegedly combines the firstletter of the Greek alphabet (marking “the begin-ning” of exile campaigns against Castro) with thenumber of men present at its founding (66).

Throughout 40-odd years of arson, bombing,murder, and futile commando raids against CUBA,Castro has charged—and U.S. intelligence “insiders”privately agree—that Alpha 66 enjoys covert supportfrom the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI),

the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), and otherorgans of the U.S. government. (In 1976, Alpha 66leader Antonio Veciana Banch told the CHURCH

COMMITTEE that his group was actively supported bythe CIA from 1960 to 1973, during which time thegroup participated in CIA-MAFIA plots to kill Cas-tro.) That relationship has not always been a friendlyone, however. Following the BAY OF PIGS fiasco,Attorney General Robert KENNEDY staged raidsagainst exile training camps run by the CIA in con-junction with elements of the Mafia, the KU KLUX

KLAN, and other criminal groups. Antipathy towardPresident John Kennedy was so pronounced amongright-wing Cuban exiles that they remain prime sus-pects in the 1963 JFK ASSASSINATION, and membersof Alpha 66 were questioned in 1977 by the HOUSE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS.While acts of TERRORISM linked to Alpha 66 could

fill a hefty volume of their own, prosecutions in theUnited States have been few and far between. Fivearmed members of the group were captured in Cubain December 1968, but U.S. authorities made no effortto punish Alpha 66 for violating neutrality laws. Twoyears later in September 1970, Cuban authoritiesannounced the capture of nine more Alpha 66 com-mandos on the island. Terrorist actions in Cuba con-tinued through the 1990s—including three drive-byshootings at the same Havana hotel between March1994 and May 1995—while the FBI professed inabil-ity to find the men responsible. Similar failure resultedin various crimes committed on U.S. soil, therebystrengthening the widespread belief that Alpha’sefforts were endorsed from Washington. The groupremains active today, claiming chapters in various U.S.cities with large Cuban-American populations.

al-Qaeda See under Q.

AMERICA First CommitteeEstablished in September 1940, the America FirstCommittee (AFC) was ostensibly an isolationistgroup opposed to U.S. involvement in World War II.Although its membership included prominent Ameri-cans of every political stripe, the group’s public tonewas set by inclusion of outspoken bigots includingHenry FORD and one-time hero aviator Charles Lindbergh. Both men were bitter racists and anti-Semites: Ford had spent the 1920s reviling Jews in

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ALPHA 66

his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, whileLindbergh was compromised by visits to Nazi GER-MANY, where he fathered three illegitimate childrenand accepted a medal from Reichsmarshal HermannGöring in October 1938. A public endorsement fromJew-baiting Rev. Charles Coughlin in April 1941cinched the AFC’s reputation as a thinly veiled pro-Nazi propaganda vehicle. Lindbergh himself con-firmed that judgment in a speech at Des Moines,Iowa, where he declared that the “three most impor-tant groups who have been pressing this countrytoward war are the British, the Jewish, and the Roo-sevelt administration.” Soon after, in another publicstatement, Lindbergh said that “the Jewish peopleare a large factor in our movement toward war.”

Flagrant bigotry notwithstanding, the AFCattracted some 800,000 members to 450 local chap-ters by autumn 1941. Many recruits were die-hardenemies of the NEW DEAL, seeking any vehicle to pun-ish Franklin Roosevelt for “socializing” America.Some sources claim that the AFC formally dissolvedon December 11, 1941, four days after the Japaneseraid on PEARL HARBOR, but Lindbergh and companyseemed unaware of that fact when he addressed anaudience of 50 AFC members in New York City onDecember 17. Wound up to fever pitch by the U.S.declaration of war against Germany and JAPAN,Lindbergh railed that there was “only one danger inthe world, namely, the Yellow Danger.” Japan andCHINA (at war with Tokyo for the past decade, nowAmerica’s ally) were really “allied together againstthe white race,” Lindbergh claimed, lamenting thatWashington had missed a chance to use Germany “asa weapon against this alliance.” (Lindbergh’s geniusapparently did not extend to recognizing Germany’salliance with Japan against the United States.)Instead of joining ADOLF HITLER to preserve a whiteworld, Lindbergh ranted, U.S. troops were “fightingon the side of the Russians and Chinese.” Worse yet,he said, Washington had “no plan and does notknow what it is fighting for.”

The federal government knew whom Lindberghsupported, however. On February 23, 1934, FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Director J. EDGAR HOOVER

reported to Roosevelt that the AFC was funded byNazi supporters, including Axel Wenner-Gren, a pro-German financier in Sweden. As recently as Novem-ber 1941, Hoover noted, AFC spokesman (andformer Wisconsin governor) Robert La Follette hadcalled for violent revolution by “fearless red-blooded

Americans to overthrow the government.” Such rev-elations, coupled with the extremist remarks of AFCleaders themselves, combined to destroy the group’sonce-substantial public influence by 1943.

AMERICAN Indian MovementPatterned after the California-based BLACK PANTHER

PARTY, the American Indian Movement (AIM) wasorganized in Minneapolis during the summer of1968. As chapters spread across the country, AIMbegan to garner national attention. Members partici-pated in the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island,though AIM did not initiate the move. A 1972 “Trailof Broken Treaties” march on Washington, D.C. cli-maxed with presentation of a 20-point solutionpaper to President RICHARD NIXON. The followingyear, a 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, SouthDakota, included violent clashes with the FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) and U.S. Army, andthe government-sponsored vigilante group GUARDIANS

OF THE OGLALA NATION (GOON), resulting in expo-sure of the FBI’s illegal tactics. A total of 1,162 per-sons were finally arrested, including 562 siegeparticipants and 600 others detained across thecountry for supporting AIM. Of the 1,162 initiallyjailed, only 185 were finally indicted, some of themon multiple felony charges. Trials spanned the nexttwo years, but the most important was the trial ofAIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means in1974. Each defendant was charged with 13 counts,including arson, burglary, criminal conspiracy, theft,interfering with federal officers, and possession ofillegal weapons. Judge Fred Nichol ultimately dis-missed all charges, lamenting from the bench that“the FBI I have revered so long, has stooped so low.”Nichol added:

Although it hurts me deeply, I am forced to the conclu-

sion that the prosecution in the trial had something

other than attaining justice foremost in its mind. . . .

The fact that the incidents of misconduct formed a

pattern throughout the course of the trial leads me to

the belief that this case was not prosecuted in good

faith or in the spirit of justice. The waters of justice

have been polluted, and dismissal, I believe, is the

appropriate cure for the pollution in this case.

Still, the GOON campaign of TERRORISM contin-ued at Pine Ridge for another two years. On June 26,

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AMERICAN Indian Movement

1975, a shootout occurred on the reservationbetween FBI agents and members of AIM, claimingthe lives Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams,along with AIM member Joe Killsright. On Novem-ber 25, 1975, a federal grand jury indicted four AIMmembers for the Coler-Williams murders. Defen-dants Darelle Butler, James Eagle, and RobertRobideau were already in custody, while 31-year-oldLeonard Peltier remained at large. Canadian policecaptured Peltier at Hinton, Alberta, on February 6,1976, and extradited him to the United States onDecember 18. At trial, defendants Butler andRobideau admitted firing on Coler and Williams, butthey claimed that the G-men had started theshootout; jurors acquitted both men on July 16,1976, accepting their plea of self-defense. Prosecu-tors dropped all charges against James Eagle on Sep-tember 8, 1976, leaving Peltier as the only defendantin the case. At his trial, beginning in March 1977, thegovernment claimed Peltier alone had shot bothagents, killing them execution style with rifle bulletsfired at point-blank range. To prove that case, prose-cutors illegally suppressed an FBI memo of October2, 1975, stating that Peltier’s weapon “contains a dif-ferent firing pin than that in [the] rifle used at[the] . . . scene.” Deprived of that exculpatory evi-dence, jurors convicted Peltier on April 18, 1977. Sixweeks later, on June 1, 1977, Judge Paul Benson sen-tenced Peltier to two consecutive life terms. Today,many FBI critics still regard his trial as a deliberateframe-up.

AIM remains active today, though its programsrarely make national headlines. FBI harassment haspresumably ceased, though members still recall anoff-the-record comment from one G-man afterWounded Knee: “Half the stuff that went on outthere isn’t even on paper.” In 2000 FBI DirectorLouis Freeh lobbied publicly (and successfully) todiscourage President Bill Clinton from pardoningLeonard Peltier.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY.

AMERICAN LegionOrganized by veterans of the First World War in1919, the American Legion was created to promote“100% Americanism”—defined by its founders asmilitant opposition to all things “radical” or “Bol-shevik.” Violence quickly followed, with at least fivedeaths resulting by year’s end, as legionnaires

attacked unfriendly editors, suspected communists,or union strikers. The early legion plainly favoredFASCISM, as witnessed by its 1923 pledge of honorarymembership to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.Two years later, national commander Alvin Owsleygranted a newspaper interview that included threatsto overthrow the U.S. government.

“If ever needed [said Owsley], the American Legion

stands ready to protect our country’s Institutions and

ideals as the Fascisti dealt with the destructionists who

menaced Italy!”

“By taking over the Government?” he was asked.

“Exactly that,” he replied. “The American Legion is

fighting every element that threatens our democratic

government—Soviets, anarchists, IWW, revolutionary

Socialists and any other ‘Red.’. . . . Do not forget that

the Fascisti are to Italy what the American Legion is to

the United States.”

Nine years later, in the spring of 1934, high-rankinglegionnaires attempted to carry out Owsley’s threat,operating through a front group called the AMERI-CAN LIBERTY LEAGUE. On the eve of World War II,legion commanders announced their plan to organizea civilian spy network, keeping track of perceived“subversives” from coast to coast. Attorney GeneralRobert Jackson sidetracked the vigilante campaignby authorizing the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION (FBI) American Legion Contact Program,whereby some 40,000 legionnaires were recruited as“confidential national defense informants,” report-ing gossip about their coworkers and neighbors. Sosuccessful was the program, filling J. EDGAR

HOOVER’s private files with much information hemight otherwise have missed, that it was continueduntil 1966.

From the 1940s onward, legionnaires providedHoover’s most dependable forum for speechesattacking communists, civil rights activists, antiwarprotesters, and other enemies of the FBI, but collab-oration was not always peaceful. The legion’s super-patriots took themselves too seriously at times, asduring the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. In1953 Hoover ordered Inspector Cartha DeLoach tojoin the legion and “straighten it out.” DeLoachenlisted, rising swiftly to become a post com-mander, department commander, and then nationalvice-commander. Legionnaires wanted to elect himas their national commander in 1958, but Hoover

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AMERICAN Legion

vetoed the move, deeming the top post “too political.”Instead, DeLoach became chairman of the legion’snational public-relations commission, ensuring thatany public criticism of Hoover or the FBI was metby immediate protest from legion posts nationwide,scripted by ghost writers in the FBI’s Crime RecordsDivision.

AMERICAN Liberty LeagueIn July 1933 retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen.Smedley Butler received a visit from two prominentAMERICAN LEGION officials, William Doyle and Gerald MacGuire, requesting that Butler campaignfor election as the legion’s next national commander.The thoughtful legionnaires assured Butler that cashhad been collected to finance his campaign, yet But-ler demurred when the pair produced a speech forhim to deliver at the legion convention in Chicago,including demands for a U.S. return to the gold stan-dard. A year later, MacGuire approached Butleragain, this time hailing the role military veterans hadplayed in bringing FASCISM to GERMANY and ITALY.MacGuire asked Butler to lead a veteran’s march onWashington, where they would stage a coup d’étatagainst President Franklin Roosevelt and save theUnited States from a “communist menace.”

Although convinced that “the whole affairsmacked of treason,” Butler requested furtherdetails. MacGuire spelled out a plan to seize thegovernment by force and install a suitable strong-man in the White House. The plotters had $3 mil-lion in hand, with more on tap whenever theyneeded it, MacGuire said. “Is there anything stirring yet?” Butler asked. “Yes, you watch,”MacGuire replied. “In two or three weeks, you willsee it come out in the papers.”

Two weeks later, in August 1934, the AmericanLiberty League was publicly launched by a coalitionof right-wing financiers and politicians known forstrident opposition to Roosevelt’s NEW DEAL.Included were directors and officers of U.S. Steel,General Motors, STANDARD OIL, J.C. Penney, Mont-gomery Ward, Goodyear Tire, Mutual Life Insur-ance, and the members of the wealthy DUPONT

family. After MacGuire approached him a third time,Butler told his story to FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION Director J. EDGAR HOOVER, followed by anappearance before the HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES. No leaders of the league were

called to testify, but exposure of the group’s plans inmedia reports caused prominent backers to distancethemselves from the group. A half-baked scheme torun Georgia governor (and KU KLUX KLAN ally)Eugene Talmadge for president died on the drawingboard, and the league dissolved in 1936.

AMES, Aldrich Hazen (1941– )The son of a CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)officer, born June 26, 1941, Aldrich Ames workedsummer jobs for the agency in his teens and joinedfull-time in February 1962. He quickly masteredRussian and distinguished himself in handling mat-ters related to the Soviet Union. Lust intervened tosidetrack his career in 1981 while Ames was assignedto Mexico City. There, he met and fell in love withMaria del Rosario Casas Dupuy, a cultural attachéwith the Colombian embassy who persuaded Amesto divorce his wife and marry her. Ames soon discov-ered that his salary could not satisfy Maria’s expen-sive tastes, and his quest for additional money ledhim to become a mercenary Russian “mole” withinthe CIA.

Between 1985 and his arrest on February 21,1994, Ames earned more than $2.5 million by sell-ing classified information to Russian spies, hisbetrayal continuing beyond the 1991 collapse of theSoviet Union. Aside from delivering thousands ofCIA documents, Ames also identified 25 Russiannationals employed as spies by the CIA or the FED-ERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI). All werearrested by the KGB, with at least 10 subsequentlyexecuted. Those losses belatedly prompted a jointCIA-FBI investigation, beginning in 1991, but bothagencies somehow ignored Ames’s extravagantlifestyle until May 1993 when he was betrayed by aKGB defector. G-men then placed Ames under closesurveillance, including phone taps, searches of hishousehold trash (revealing notes from a Russiancontact), and retrieval of information stored on hiscomputer. Ames and his wife were both indicted onApril 26, 1994, Ames quickly striking a bargain onMaria’s behalf. The couple pleaded guilty to variouscharges on April 28, Ames receiving a sentence oflife without parole for conspiracy and tax fraud,while Maria received a sentence of five years andthree months. Both the FBI and the CIA were widelycriticized for their apparent negligence in pluggingthe deadly intelligence leak.

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AMES, Aldrich Hazen

ANARCHISTSIn its purest form, anarchism is the belief that allforms of government should be abolished. Histori-cally, some anarchists have gone beyond mere advo-cacy and have attempted to secure their goal byphysical attacks on prominent officials in Europeand the United States. Before the advent of Bolshe-vism with the Russian Revolution of 1917, “radi-cals” and “enemy aliens” in the United States werelikely to be branded anarchists regardless of theiractual philosophy. The same label was also broadlyapplied to social reformers and labor organizers, justas a later generation of activists would be falselybranded Communist.

America’s anarchist panic dated from 1880 withthe onset of a major immigration wave from ITALY.On May 4, 1886, the Chicago Haymarket bombingkilled eight policemen and an uncertain number of

civilians and injured more than 260 others at a rallyfor striking workers. Eight alleged anarchists wereconvicted of conspiracy, though evidence proved thatnone of them had thrown the bomb. Fear of anar-chism increased with each reported act of violence. In 1900, Italian anarchist Gaetano Brescileft his adopted home in New Jersey to assassinateKing Umberto I of Italy. The following year, anarchistLeon Czolgosz shot and killed President WilliamMcKinley in Buffalo, New York. McKinley’s succes-sor, Theodore Roosevelt, created the Bureau of Inves-tigation (later, the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

[FBI]) and signed legislation to stifle the anarchistpress in 1908. Four years later, two immigrant labororganizers were framed on murder charges (but werefinally acquitted) during a textile strike at Lawrence,Massachusetts. Colorado’s Ludlow massacre of 1914prompted three anarchists to plot the murder of

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ANARCHISTS

In 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz (left) assassinated President William McKinley (right), and the murder sparked widespread fear of anarchists in the United States. (Author’s collection)

industrialist John D. ROCKEFELLER (and thus sparkedcreation of the New York City bomb squad). Twomore anarchists were arrested (some say framed) inNew York the following year for plotting to blow upSt. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“Progressive” president Woodrow Wilson reservedsome of his harshest words and legislation for“enemy aliens” on the eve of America’s entry intoWorld War I. The bolshevik revolution of 1917 gavenativists a new reason to tremble, but communismand anarchism (or “syndicalism”) were confused inmany minds, including that of a fledgling clerk at theJUSTICE DEPARTMENT named J. EDGAR HOOVER.War’s end brought no cessation of violence, as awave of strikes and riots sparked fears of an anar-chist revolt in the United States.

Those fears were exacerbated in April 1919 when29 bombs were sent through the mail to various

prominent targets around the United States. The firstwas detected and disarmed on April 28 at the homeof Seattle mayor Ole Hanson (who had recently usedtroops to crush a strike by 60,000 shipyard workers).The next day, in Atlanta, a parcel bomb exploded atthe home of former U.S. Senator Thomas Hardwick,maiming one of his servants. During the next week,34 more bombs were intercepted and defused withoutfurther injury. Their targets included Frederick Howe(commissioner of immigration at Ellis Island); Sena-tor Lee Overman (chairman of a series of recent hear-ings on the bolshevik menace); Supreme Court JusticeOliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.; U.S. Postmaster GeneralAlbert Burlson; Secretary of Labor William Wilson;Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer; federal judgeKenesaw Landis (who had sentenced IWW leaders toprison); and two living symbols of unfettered capital-ism, J.P. MORGAN and John D. Rockefeller.

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ANARCHISTS

Emma Goldman (left) was among those deported to Russia in 1919 along with another advocate of violent revolution,Alexander Berkman (right). (Author’s collection)

The bombers tried again on the night of June 3,1919. This time they delivered their “infernaldevices” by hand and all detonated, but the onlycasualties were two of the bombers themselves. InWashington, D.C., a blast outside the home of Attorney General Palmer damaged houses within atwo-block radius, shredding the bodies of twoclumsy saboteurs who would remain foreverunidentified. Other bombs rocked targets in Boston;Cleveland; New York City; Newtonville, Massachu-setts; Paterson, New Jersey; Philadelphia; and Pitts-burgh, without further injury. Handbills were foundat most of the bombing scenes, signed by “TheAnarchist Fighters.” Palmer and J. Edgar Hooverstruck back with a vengeance between November1919 and January 1920 with a series of coordinateddragnet raids designed to capture and deportalleged “enemy aliens.” Thousands were arrestedwithout warrants or specific charges from coast tocoast, but fewer than 600 were finally deported;most were released without so much as an apologyfor their detention and occasional subjection to bru-tal “third-degree” tactics in custody. The sweepingPALMER RAIDS produced no suspects in the 1919bombing, and publicity surrounding the fiascoboomeranged against Palmer in Congress, whereexposure of his vigilante tactics doomed his presi-dential ambitions and soon drove him from office indisgrace. (Hoover dodged the axe and lived to raidanother day, concocting fables that he had“deplored” the raids, although surviving documentsprove that he personally organized and supervisedevery aspect of the events.)

On September 16, 1920, a horse-drawn wagonfilled with dynamite and iron sash weights explodedoutside the Wall Street offices of J.P. Morgan inManhattan. Its detonation, timed to coincide with alunchtime exodus of workers from buildings in thefinancial district, instantly killed 30 victims andinjured at least 300 (of whom 10 more would diefrom shrapnel wounds). Hundreds of windows wereshattered, some as far as a quarter-mile fromground zero. William Flynn, chief of the U.S.SECRET SERVICE (and soon to be director of the FBI),denied that the bombing was an attempt to murderMorgan, even then vacationing in Europe. “Thisbomb was not directed at Mr. Morgan or any indi-vidual,” Flynn declared. “In my opinion it wasplanted in the financial heart of America as a defi-ance of the American people. I’m convinced a

nationwide dynamiting conspiracy exists to wreckthe American government and society.” As for theauthors of that conspiracy, veteran Red-hunterFlynn had no doubts: they were the same anarchistsblamed for the still-unsolved bombings of 1919.Attorney General Palmer arrested William (“BigBill”) Haywood, boss of the radical IndustrialWorkers of the World, “as a precaution,” but noevidence was found linking Haywood or his “Wob-blies” to the crime.

ANDERSON, Jack (1922– )Born in 1922, newsman Jack Anderson first gainednational prominence in the late 1940s when hejoined Drew Pearson at the Washington Post,helping to produce the nationally syndicated“Washington Merry-Go-Round” column. Ironi-cally, Anderson owed his position to J. EDGAR

HOOVER, who informed Pearson that his formeraide (Andrew Older) was a communist. Pearsonpromptly fired Older and hired Anderson to replacehim. Anderson, in turn, became friendly with Sena-tor Joseph McCarthy, funneling information fromPearson’s private files to McCarthy without Pear-son’s knowledge. Although forewarned that the filescontained unverified allegations, McCarthy quotedthe information as factual, thereby losing Ander-son’s support. In 1951, after publicly questioningthe use of FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)agents to escort McCarthy’s secretary on a visit toHawaii, Anderson and Pearson were placed on thebureau’s “no contact” list.

Despite that ostracism, the columnists still praisedHoover effusively through the 1960s until the rela-tionship finally soured in 1968, when Pearson andAnderson began to investigate Senator ThomasDodd, a former G-man and the FBI’s unofficialmouthpiece on Capitol Hill. FBI agents tried to foilthat investigation by stealing some of Anderson’smail, the theft later acknowledged by U.S. Postmas-ter General Lawrence O’Brien. The columnists retali-ated with a December 1968 article in True magazine,predicting that America was witnessing “the lastdays of J. Edgar Hoover.” The piece ascribedHoover’s “sainthood” to “40 years of planted pressnotices,” without mentioning that Anderson andPearson had participated in the charade.

FBI surveillance of Anderson continued into the1970s, joined by agents of the CENTRAL INTELLI-

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ANDERSON, Jack

GENCE AGENCY (CIA), the INTERNAL REVENUE SERV-ICE, and military intelligence. Anderson turned thetables by interviewing Hoover’s neighbors and raid-ing his garbage cans, reversing the standard FBI“trash cover” to report on Hoover’s favorite brandof soap and liquor. Anderson won a Pulitzer Prize forhis coverage of Washington scandals in 1972,prompting members of RICHARD NIXON’s staff(including former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy) toplot Anderson’s assassination. Several methods werediscussed, including an LSD-induced car crash and asimulated mugging, before the White House ruledthat murder was “too severe a sanction.” Instead,Nixon aides asked Hoover to help them discreditAnderson. Hoover cheerfully agreed, denouncingAnderson as “the lowest form of human being towalk the earth,” a “journalistic prostitute,” and “thetop scavenger of all columnists” who would “golower than dog shit for a story.”

On May 1, 1972, Anderson’s column brandedHoover “the old curmudgeon of law enforcement,”detailing decades of FBI harassment against MARTIN

LUTHER KING, JR., and others. Furious, Hooverordered an investigation to identify Anderson’ssources within the bureau, but he never learned theresults. Next morning, the FBI director was founddead at his home in Washington, D.C. Anderson sub-sequently became the first U.S. reporter to expose theCIA’s long-running plots to murder Cuban leaderFIDEL CASTRO.

ANGLICAN ChurchThe Anglican Church (or Church of England) wascreated in 1536 when King Henry VIII dissolved allmonasteries and abbeys of the CATHOLIC CHURCH

throughout Britain. The rift with Rome resulted inequal parts from a growing Protestant movement inEngland and from Henry’s personal quarrel with thepope (who refused to permit even royal divorces).The Anglican creed followed British colonists toCanada and there became a tool of imperial racism,as thousands of aboriginal children were forciblyinstalled in church-run “residential schools.” Thosesectarian institutions worked overtime to break tiesbetween captive students and their native culture,imposing new language, religious creeds, dress codes,and a view of history in which their ancestors were“heathen savages.” Many children in the Anglicanresidential schools were also subjected to sadistic

abuse in the guise of discipline—and to sexual preda-tion which the church long ignored and then activelydenied until the cover-up unraveled in the 1970s and1980s. An official church apology for the abuse in1998 failed to mollify surviving victims, 12,000 ofwhom filed a total of 4,500 civil lawsuits seekingmonetary damages. In autumn 2002 Anglican lead-ers agreed to settle out of court: The church agreedto pay victims of the residential school system a totalof $25 million. The relatively simple resolution ofthose claims, while long delayed, stands in sharpcontrast to the ongoing scandals surrounding theCatholic Church’s protection of PEDOPHILE PRIESTS

on four continents.

ANGOLAThe arrival of Portuguese explorers in 1482 spelleddisaster for native inhabitants of this nation in south-western Africa. Soon, Angola became a major sourceof slaves for PORTUGAL’s huge colony of BRAZIL.Rigid colonial rule and brutal suppression of dissentcontinued through World War II and the 30 years ofcivil war that followed. Major nationalist groupsbattling against the colonial regime included the Pop-ular Movement for Liberation of Angola (MPLA),the National Front for the Liberation of Angola(FNLA), and the National Union for the Total Inde-pendence of Angola (UNITA). Portugal finallygranted Angolan independence in 1975, and thedominant MPLA has controlled the new governmentever since, but opposition from UNITA leaderssparked a new civil war that continues to the presentday. RUSSIA and CUBA supported the Marxist MPLAgovernment with aid and troops until 1989, whileU.S. arms and aid were funneled to UNITA throughthe CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA). Angolathus became a proxy battlefield for rival superpow-ers, much as SPAIN had been during its civil war inthe 1930s. The UNITED NATIONS supervised free elec-tions in 1992, declaring victory for MPLA incum-bent president José Eduardo dos Santos. UNITAcontender Jonas Savimbi instantly declared theprocess fraudulent and resumed armed struggleagainst the ruling regime. Although (allegedly)deprived of CIA financing, until his death in a gunbattle in February 2002, Savimbi controlled 80 per-cent of Angola’s diamond supply, and funded hisstruggle via outlawed sale of “conflict diamonds” onthe global black market.

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ANGOLA

ANIMAL Liberation FrontThe Animal Liberation Front (ALF) was organized inNew York City in the early weeks of 1979. Officially,it comprises a loose-knit network of autonomouslocal units, each of which (in ALF’s own words)“carries out direct action against animal abuse in theform of rescuing animals and causing financial lossto animal exploiters, usually through the damageand destruction of property.” Such actions are illegalby definition and thus constitute conspiracy,although ALF spokespeople deny the existence of atrue organization, maintaining that “any group ofpeople who are vegetarians or vegans and who carryout actions according to ALF guidelines have theright to regard themselves as part of the ALF.” A listof ALF actions, taken from the group’s own InternetWeb site, includes the following:

March 14, 1979—Two dogs, one cat, and twoguinea pigs were taken from the New York Uni-versity Medical Center’s lab in New York City.

June 15, 1981—ALF activists in Toronto, Canada,liberated 21 experimental animals from a labo-ratory at the Hospital for Sick Children.

May 1984—ALF commandos caused $60,000property damage at the University of Pennsyl-vania’s Head Injury Laboratory, escaping with60 hours of videotape that was later released asa movie entitled Unnecessary Fuss, whichproved so disturbing to viewers that funding forthe program was ultimately slashed.

January 1, 1985—Canadian ALF activists rescued arhesus monkey and three cats from a lab at theUniversity of Western Ontario (in London), leav-ing the facility with $600 in property damage.

April 1985—Nearly 1,000 lab animals were liber-ated from the University of California at River-side. An estimated $700,000 in propertydamage was reported. The intruders escapedwith lab documents and videotapes (laterreleased to the media).

October 26, 1986—264 animals were liberatedfrom a breeding facility at the University ofOregon, with $120,000 estimated damageinflicted on the school laboratory.

April 6, 1987—ALF arsonists struck the AnimalDiagnostics Laboratory at the University ofCalifornia in Davis, destroying the lab anddamaging 20 university vehicles. Authoritiesestimated the damage at $5.1 million.

April 2, 1989—Nocturnal raiders took 1,231 lab animals from a Veterans AdministrationHospital at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Spray painting and fires set in twolaboratory offices caused a total of $500,000damage.

April 24, 1989—ALF claimed credit for arson firesthat inflicted $10,000 damage on three meatmarkets in Vancouver, British Columbia.Hycrest Meats and Robson Gourmet Meatswere closed forever by the fires, while NazareMeat spent four months in renovation.

August 1991—ALF’s “Operation Bite Back I” tar-geted the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) Fur Animal Research Facility at Wash-ington State University. Intruders liberated 23animals and inflicted $150,000 damage toresearch facilities.

August 13, 1991—ALF claimed credit for a break-in at Bustad Hall on the Washington State Uni-versity campus, where 18 experimental animalswere freed from their cages. Substantial damagewas inflicted to lab facilities and researchrecords.

December 14–15, 1991—The Billingsgate FishCompany suffered $100,000 in damageovernight when ALF commandos vandalizedthe plant and torched three delivery vehicles.

December 22, 1991—An anonymous phone call linked ALF to an arson fire that destroyed a building at the Malecky Mink Ranch inYamhill, Oregon. The ranch owner, who collab-orated with state researchers on various proj-ects, claimed that his business was destroyed.

February 28, 1992—ALF arsonists set fire to aresearch office at Michigan State University andvandalized a lab where mink were kept, inflict-ing $100,000 in property damage. Medicalresearch data spanning three decades was lostin the raid.

June 6, 1992—ALF raiders in Edmonton,Alberta, struck the University of Alberta’sEllerslie Research Station, rescuing 29 cats andinflicting $100,000 in property damage. Stolenfiles documented the lab’s purchase of animalsfrom illegal sources.

October 24, 1992—ALF claimed responsibilityfor a fire at a coyote farm run by researchersfrom Utah State University. Damage was esti-mated at $100,000.

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ANIMAL Liberation Front

May 10, 1994—ALF took credit for an arson firethat forced evacuation of 1,000 workers fromthe Carolina Biological Supply Company(CBSC) in Burlington, North Carolina. CBSC isone of the largest U.S. suppliers of animals forlab research and dissection in schools.

October 1994—ALF’s first fox liberation campaignstruck the McEllis Fur Farm at Pleasant View,Tennessee, sparing an estimated 25 foxes fromcertain death in the name of “fashion.”

October 2, 1995—Raiders struck the DargatzMink Ranch near Chilliwack, British Colum-bia, destroying crucial breeding documents andreleasing 2,400 mink into the wild.

November 12, 1996—ALF arsonists leveled theAlaskan Fur Company in Minnesota. Companyspokespeople pegged total damages at$250,000 for the building and $2 million forlost furs.

April 4, 1997—The Don Kelly Chinchilla Farmin Texas was raided by ALF commandos, lib-erating 10 chinchillas for placement in privatehomes.

April 26, 1997—More than 50 activists werejailed after storming the Yerkes Regional Pri-mate Center at Emory University in Atlanta.Police battled the crowd with Mace and teargas, charging those arrested with various crimi-nal counts.

May 30, 1997—“Operation Bite Back II” cli-maxed with a record theft of 10,000 mink from the Arritola Mink Farm at Mount Angel,Oregon.

July 21, 1997—ALF arsonists caused $1 million indamage to Cavel West, a horse-rendering plantin Redmond, Oregon, that provided tissue tothe Pacific Coast Tissue Bank in Los Angeles.Medical procedures at Pacific Coast were post-poned indefinitely.

July 5, 1998—Raiders at Cornell University (inIthaca, New York) liberated dozens of wood-chucks, releasing them into the wild. Theintruders also removed data cards from thecages, destroyed crucial ledgers, and left vials ofserum to spoil at room temperature.

November 13, 1998—ALF activists liberated6,000 mink from the Rippin Fur Farm nearAldergrove, British Columbia. At the sametime, breeding files collected during a 70-yearperiod were destroyed.

April 5, 1999—Activists struck research facilitiesat the University of Minnesota, stealing 116 labanimals, ransacking a dozen separate labs, anddestroying equipment valued in the millions ofdollars.

Those actions, while among the most spectacular,are merely the tip of ALF’s iceberg. Between 1979and 1993, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT spokespersonsclaimed that at least 313 raids of various kinds werecarried out against various targets in the name of ani-mal rights across the United States. No final tabula-tion is available for Canada or for Britain’s similarlyactive ANIMAL RIGHTS MILITIA. The actions continueto this day on all fronts.

ANIMAL Rights MilitiaThe Animal Rights Militia (ARM), an ally of the ANI-MAL LIBERATION FRONT (ALF), was organized in Eng-land during the early 1980s and subsequentlyexpanded to North America. While emulating theALF’s tactics of liberating captive animals and causingeconomic damage to its targets, ARM spokespeoplemaintain that the ALF “does not go far enough withregards to direct action. More effective victories canbe achieved with poisoning hoaxes, and other suchstrategies.” Acknowledged ARM actions include:

1984—A poison hoax in England targeting theMars candy company, which “performed hor-rific tooth-decay experiments on animals withno signs of stopping.” ARM threats of poi-soned candy forced mass recalls of variousMars products, inflicting “huge financiallosses” on the company and prompting aban-donment of the offensive experiments.

September 1, 1987—ARM claimed credit for Cali-fornia arson fires that destroyed a paper prod-ucts warehouse and caused $100,000 damageto San Jose Veal Inc.

November 26, 1987—The same California arson-ists caused $230,000 damage to the FerraraMeat Company, destroying a barn filled withhay and grain.

January 2, 1992—ARM activists initiated a poi-son scare against Cold Buster candy bars inCanada. The bar’s inventor, Larry Wang, wasnamed by ARM spokespeople as a participantin cruel animal experiments at the University of

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ANIMAL Rights Militia

Alberta. Development of the candy allegedlyincluded 16 years of animal research. The ARMpoison scare forced a recall of candy valued inexcess of $1 million.

April 23, 1992—ARM commandos equipped withred paint celebrated the International Day forLaboratory Animals by vandalizing the home ofHans Fibiger, an animal researcher at the Uni-versity of British Columbia.

August 10, 1994—ARM raiders in the UnitedKingdom coordinated detonation of incendiarydevices at the Edinburgh Woolen Mill, Nurse’sfur store, C.H. Brown’s saddlery and leathershop, Westworld Leather Goods, and Madi-son’s leather shop.

August 24, 1994—ARM incendiary bombingsaround England caused $4 million damage attwo leather shops, a fishing tackle shop, theCancer Research Fund Shop, and an outlet ofthe Boots the Chemist chain (targeted as sup-porters of animal testing).

September 16, 1994—Further British incendiaryattacks caused an estimated $4 million damageat the Linsley Brothers sport shop, the ImperialCancer Research Foundation store, and twomore Boots the Chemist outlets. Boots subse-quently sold off its pharmaceutical division toavoid further incidents.

December 23, 1994—Another ARM poison hoaxrocked Vancouver, British Columbia. Activistsfalsely claimed to have injected frozen turkeyswith rat poison, placing the contaminated poul-try in various Safeway and Save-on-Food mar-kets throughout the city. Turkeys valued at $1million were recalled, while Turkey ProducersCo-op reportedly suffered major revenue losses.

January 15, 1998—ARM activists in Uppsala,Sweden, raided laboratories owned by Bio JetService, liberating 92 guinea pigs slated forexperimentation at Uppsala University. Thebreeder, Gothe Olofsson, announced that hewas giving up the trade in laboratory animals.

ANSLINGER, Harry (1892–1975)A Pennsylvania native who was born in 1892,Harry Anslinger went to work for the U.S. WarDepartment in 1917 and then shifted to the U.S.

Treasury Department in 1926. Appointed commis-sioner of PROHIBITION in 1929, he served barely ayear in that position before he was named commis-sioner of narcotics in 1930. Anslinger thereafter ledthe Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) until hisretirement in 1962, campaigning for stricter druglaws and harsh enforcement.

A perennial lightning rod for J. EDGAR HOOVER’swrath, Anslinger invited that reaction in variousways. He courted national publicity, and Hooverblamed Anslinger for using copycat initials to namehis agency (although the “FBI” label was notadopted until 1935, five years after the FBN’s cre-ation). The greatest bone of contention wasAnslinger’s public warnings of an international drug-dealing MAFIA. Strong evidence supported Anslinger’scontention, but Hoover was incapable of any com-promise with enemies, a stance that led him to denythe very existence of organized crime. Deputy Attor-ney General William Hundly recalled, years later,that Hoover “got in a big pissing match with HarryAnslinger over at Narcotics, who he didn’t like, andAnslinger had the Mafia coming up out of the sewersthe same way Hoover had the communists comingup out of the sewers. So Hoover got himself lockedinto saying there was no Mafia.”

That claim proved humiliating over time.Anslinger tapped exiled Mafioso CHARLES “LUCKY”LUCIANO’s telephone in December 1946, exposingnarcotics traffic from Europe to America. Fouryears later, he cooperated with Senator Estes Kefau-ver’s investigation of organized crime, while Hooverand the FBI remained aloof. In 1957, following themass arrest of Mafia bosses at Apalachin, NewYork, congressional investigator Robert Kennedydemanded FBI files on the various gangsters identi-fied and then infuriated Hoover by delivering theinformation to Anslinger’s FBN, where Kennedythought prosecution was more likely to result. (Infact, Kennedy found that the FBN had files on all70 of the arrested mobsters, while the FBI had thindossiers on only 30.) While Hoover belatedlyordered illegal phone taps on various “top hood-lums,” Anslinger recruited the U.S. Coast Guard,INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, and U.S. Customs offi-cers to interdict narcotics shipments.

Anslinger retired from the FBN in 1962 and published a book, The Murderers, that detailed the growth of international drug cartels since the

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1920s. He remained outspoken on the subject untilhis death in 1975.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

ANTARCTICAAntarctica is the fifth-largest continent on Earth,with a total area of 5.4 million square miles. It is aworld of ice where no recorded temperature has evertopped 59° Fahrenheit, and the record low (fromJuly 21, 1983) is –129°F. Despite the presence ofsmall research stations, Antarctica is officially unin-habited—but was it always so?

In 1959, while performing research at the Library ofCongress, Professor Charles Hapgood (Keene College,New Hampshire) discovered a map drawn by Oron-theus Phynius in 1531. It pictured Antarctica withrivers and mountains but without its trademark mile-thick glaciers. A similar map of an ice-free Antarcticawas published in 1737 by Philippe Boiche, a memberof the French Academy of Science. In fact, Boichedepicted the southernmost continent as two great bod-ies of land divided by water in the same region wherethe Transantarctic Mountains are shown on modernmaps. Boiche’s vision was affirmed in 1958 when mod-ern cartographers revealed that Antarctica is, in effect,an icebound archipelago of large islands.

How did mapmakers of the 16th and 18th cen-turies present such a strikingly different picture ofAntarctica? Conspiracy theories advanced in thisrealm typically involve some variation of the“ancient astronauts” theme, though intimations of alink to lost Atlantis or the mythic HOLLOW EARTH

are also popular. From those beginnings theoristsgenerally invoke a global conspiracy of silence,masking The Truth (as they see it) about planetEarth, its beginnings, and the origins of humankind.

ANTHRAX conspiraciesAnthrax is a spore-forming bacillus that is deadly tohumans and is transmitted in three different forms:cutaneous (contracted through the skin), gastroin-testinal (ingested orally while eating), and pulmonary(inhaled by its victims). Various countries, includingthe United States, have stockpiled anthrax since theearly 1930s, constantly experimenting and refiningthe disease to make it more effective as a biologicalweapon. In recent years, the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) has twice investigated plots touse anthrax within the country, as a terroristweapon, with unfortunate results in both cases.

The United States suffered a tragic brush withanthrax in 2001. Between October 4 and November21, at least 46 residents of the eastern United Statestested positive for exposure to anthrax, after a seriesof infected letters were mailed to various media out-lets and government offices. Five of those victimsdied: two Washington postal workers, an employeeof a Florida tabloid, a New York hospital employee,and an elderly Connecticut woman. Despite a mas-sive nationwide investigation, including a $1 millionreward offer for information leading to the arrest ofpersons responsible for the anthrax mailings, thecase remains unsolved today. FBI failure to crack thecase, despite unprecedented effort and publicity,opened the bureau to harsh criticism from Congress,the media, and the U.S. public at large.

In August 2002 Newsweek magazine reported“intriguing new clues” in the bureau’s search for theanthrax killer(s). According to that report, trackingdogs employed to screen a dozen possible suspects“went crazy” at the Maryland home of Dr. StevenHatfill, a 48-year-old scientist once employed at anarmy bioweapons-research lab. Newsweek dubbedHatfill “eccentric . . . [f]lamboyant and arrogant,”proclaiming that FBI agents were “finally on the vergeof a breakthrough” in the case. Hatfill was placedunder round-the-clock surveillance and subjected to apolygraph test (which he reportedly passed), and hishome was searched twice without revealing evidenceof any criminal activity. Still, that did not preventAttorney General JOHN ASHCROFT from publiclybranding Hatfill “a person of interest” in the case,refusing to define the term when challenged by Hat-fill’s attorneys. Hatfill held a press conference todeclare his innocence on August 11, 2002; two dayslater his attorney filed complaints with the bureau’sOffice of Professional Responsibility, alleging miscon-duct in Hatfill’s case. On September 4, 2002, Hatfillwas fired from his job at Louisiana State University’sbiomedical laboratory, after JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

officials barred him from working on projects fundedby federal grants. In May 2003 G-men acting on “atip” dredged a pond near Hatfill’s home and againcame away empty-handed. Disposition of Hatfill’slawsuit against the FBI and Justice Department waspending as this volume went to press.

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APOLLO ProjectOn July 20, 1969, millions of people around theworld watched in awe as U.S. astronaut Neil Arm-strong stepped from his spider-legged spacecraft toset foot on the Moon. It was, as Armstrong pro-claimed to the television cameras, “One small stepfor man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Or was it?In 1991 author Bill Kaysing announced his “dis-

covery” that there was, in fact, no Moon walk—noton Armstrong’s flight nor on any of the subsequentApollo missions claimed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The events werenot filmed in space, Kaysing said, but rather on amilitary soundstage in Nevada (perhaps at super-secret AREA 51). In Kaysing’s view, the whole Apolloprogram came down to a “$30 billion swindle,”incorporating “programmed astronauts,” some“well-faked photographs,” and bogus Moon rocks,sold to the world with “the help of father-figure[Walter] Cronkite as the journalistic goat.” In placeof proof, Kaysing posed pointed questions, whichNASA has thus far declined to answer. Theyinclude:

• Why are no stars visible in photos of the jet-black lunar sky?

• If the Moon’s surface is dusty enough to showdeep footprints, why did the lunar lander’srocket dig such a shallow crater—and why isthere no dust on the spacecraft’s legs?

• If Armstrong was the first human to set foot onthe Moon, why was a shoeprint visible at thebase of the ladder as he filmed his own originaldescent?

• If the Moon was proved sterile after the firstApollo landing, why did astronauts from latermissions spend long terms in quarantine?

• In Kaysing’s own words, “Why did so manyastronauts end up as executives in very largecorporations?”

Kaysing believes the “fake” Moon landings werestaged after NASA discovered that its years ofexpensive research and planning were all for nothingand that the Moon walk was impossible; scientiststhereupon allegedly joined forces with members ofthe MAFIA in LAS VEGAS to fake the various Apollomissions, thereby avoiding criticism and potentialcancellation of their meal tickets. The scenario

includes empty spacecraft launched from Floridaand crashing back to Earth in the Antarctic, whileastronauts are flown to the Nevada movie set andbogus Moon rocks are concocted in a high-techceramics kiln. Curiously, a film with a similar theme,Capricorn One, was released by Hollywood in1978—13 years before Kaysing published his treatise on NASA’s great scam.

In 1999 a public-opinion poll revealed that 11percent of the U.S. population doubted that astro-nauts had ever set foot on the Moon. That marginreportedly jumped to 20 percent in 2001 after theFox TV network twice broadcast a program titledConspiracy Theory: Did We Really Land on theMoon? On September 9, 2002, in Beverly Hills,aging astronaut Buzz Aldrin assaulted a heckler halfhis age after the man brandished a Bible, askingAldrin to swear that he had walked on the Moon.

Throughout the mounting controversy, NASAmaintained stony silence, refusing to debate skep-tics concerning the Apollo project’s validity. As lateas 2001 NASA’s response to the controversy con-sisted of a one-line memorandum: “Apollo: Yes, wedid.” Then, on October 30, 2002, newspapersacross the United States reported that NASA hadretained Houston author and aerospace engineerJames Oberg (for $15,000) to write a bookdebunking critical claims. “Ignoring it,” Obergtold reporters, “only fans the flames of people whoare naturally suspicious.” Stephen Garber, NASA’sacting chief historian, weighed in with the opinionthat Oberg’s 30,000-word manuscript “is not goingto convince the people who believe in these myths.Hopefully, it’ll speak to other people who arebroad-minded.” The book, Garber said, wouldexpose “space myths writ large [and will] look atsome of these broader issues of how these mythsget initiated and promulgated.”

The ink was barely dry on that announcementwhen, nine days later, NASA announced cancellationof Oberg’s book. An unnamed NASA spokespersontold reporters that “the project stirred up too muchridicule.” Instead of the reported $15,000 advance,Oberg would receive $5,000 “for work alreadydone.” Oberg, for his part, vowed to find anotherpublisher. “I’m writing the book anyway,” he toldreporters, “and now commercial publishers are inter-ested. We live in a time teeming with conspiracy the-ories, and people, especially teachers, have little tohelp train students in critical thinking.”

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APOLLO Project

AQUINO, Benigno (1932–1983)In the 1970s Benigno Aquino led political oppositionto U.S.-supported dictator FERDINAND MARCOS inthe PHILIPPINES. After three years of political exile inthe United States, Aquino returned to his homelandon August 21, 1983, and was murdered on arrival byManila airport employee Rolando Galman. Filipinosecurity forces killed Galman on the spot, andauthorities soon proclaimed him the proverbial “lonegunman.” Dogged investigators soon uncovered evi-dence of a conspiracy within the corrupt Filipinoarmy, however, and 25 officers (including Gen.Fabian Ver, army chief of staff) were charged withAquino’s murder. A court acquitted the defendantson December 2, 1985, but the resultant scandal pro-pelled Aquino’s widow into a political race againstMarcos (ironically supported by the army). Marcosfled the country in February 1986, absconding withan estimated $3 billion in loot.

ARAB Communist OrganizationLittle is known of the Arab Communist Organiza-tion’s (ACO) beginnings. Its first known action, onAugust 14, 1974, was a bombing that damaged theU.S. pavilion at the Damascus International Fair inSYRIA. Two weeks later, in LEBANON, ACO membersattacked the American Life Insurance Company’soffice at Sidon. On September 14 another Damascusbombing targeted a building planned for use by theU.S. Information Agency. That same month, ACOmembers robbed a bank in Tyre, Lebanon, escapingwith $68,400. Back in Damascus, on October 10,1974, an ACO bombing on the eve of a visit by U.S.Secretary of State HENRY KISSINGER killed one per-son and wounded another at a National Cash Regis-ter office. Subsequent attacks targeted a Lebanesemineral water firm in Beirut (November 1974); twoBeirut banks ($66,000 stolen in December 1974;$438,000 in February 1975); a British-owneddepartment store in Beirut (bombed twice, inDecember 1974 and January 1975); the Jordanianand Egyptian embassies in Damascus (January1975); American Life’s offices in Tyre (February1975) and Kuwait (April 1975); and an Interna-tional Telephone and Telegraph (IT&T) office inBeirut (May 1975). Leaders of the group werearrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in Syriain 1975 (with the survivors finally paroled in 2002).ACO members were briefly suspected in the June

1976 kidnap-murder of U.S. Ambassador FrancisMeloy and his chauffeur in Beirut, but the culprits inthat case were never caught. Alternate theories inthe case blame members of the Palestine LiberationOrganization and the Popular Front for the Libera-tion of Palestine.

AREA 51Area 51 is a supersecret U.S. Air Force base atGroom Lake, Nevada, buried at the heart of theNevada Test Site (60-odd miles northwest of LasVegas). It figures prominently in most conspiracytheories involving unidentified flying objects (UFOS)and government suppression of alien technologythat was allegedly collected since the Roswell UFOcrash of 1947. Unauthorized personnel are strictlybanned from the region and are subject to arrest for trespassing. Popular rumors (and a dramaticepisode of The X-Files TV series) suggest thatintruders on the site are brutally “debriefed” andmay be subject to memory-erasure treatments priorto their release (if, in fact, they do not simply “dis-appear”). U.S. Air Force spokespersons dismisssuch stories as fantasy, noting that Area 51 wasthe scene of prolonged testing involving “stealth”aircraft, a circumstance that may have contributedto local UFO sightings. President George W. Bushconfirmed the covert base’s sinister reputation formany observers in September 2002 when he exemptedArea 51 from federal environmental legislation that required disclosure of classified informationconcerning local operations.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

ARGENTINASouth America’s second-largest country was “dis-covered” by SPAIN in 1516 and colonized thereafter,with the usual impact on aboriginal people. Argen-tineans broke with Spain to establish their own government in 1810, finally declaring independenceon July 9, 1816. The country remained neutral dur-ing both World Wars, though strongman leaderJuan Perón welcomed Axis investments throughoutWorld War II and offered sanctuary to many THIRD

REICH fugitives accused of WAR CRIMES. Perón’spopular wife—Eva Duarte de Perón (“Evita”)—doubled as de facto minister of health and labor,forging close ties with labor unions, but her death

23

ARGENTINA

in 1952 and Perón’s increasing authoritarianismproduced a military coup that drove Perón frompower in 1955. Military juntas ruled Argentina formost of the next 18 years, before Juan Perónreturned to power by popular demand in 1973. Hedied the following year, leaving his fourth wife(Isabel Martínez de Perón) as the Western Hemi-sphere’s first female chief of state.

The honeymoon was short-lived, as Argentinateetered on the brink of chaos. In 1975, incidents ofright- and left-wing TERRORISM claimed at least 700lives. Strikes and public demonstrations paralyzed thegovernment, while the cost of living rose 355 percent.On March 24, 1976, Lt. Gen. Jorge Rafael Videlaseized power and declared martial law, launchingArgentina’s infamous “dirty war” to suppress all dis-sent. During the next 17 years, the Argentine Com-mission for Human Rights (operating from Geneva,SWITZERLAND) would tabulate 2,300 political mur-ders, more than 10,000 political arrests, and the dis-appearance of another 20,000 to 30,000 persons.

While violence by dissident groups soon declined,the economy remained chaotic, and Argentina’s mili-tary rulers lived at constant risk from their comrades.Field Marshal Roberto Viola deposed Videla inMarch 1981, and was later ousted in turn by Lt.Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri. In April 1982, Galtieriinvaded the British-held Falkland Islands and thenresigned in disgrace two months later after Englandhanded Argentina a humiliating defeat. Gen. Rey-naldo Bignone succeeded Galtieri, scheduling popu-lar elections for 1983 as inflation hit 900 percent.

A return to democracy has thus far done nothingto improve Argentina’s disastrous economy. Massinfusions of $21.7 billion from the InternationalMonetary Fund in 2001 likewise failed to end thecountry’s crippling recession—or to preventArgentina from defaulting on $155 billion in foreigndebts. The nation’s former dictators sought to shieldthemselves from prosecution with blanket amnestylaws passed in 1986–87, but courts have found vari-ous loopholes allowing prosecution of the worstoffenders. In July 2002, ex-Gen. Galtieri and 42other military officers were indicted for the torture-slayings of 22 leftist rebels during the long “dirtywar.” Former naval officer Ricardo Cavallo, the lat-est defendant, was extradited from Mexico in June2003 to face charges of genocide and terrorism.

The most bizarre skeleton in modern Argentina’scloset may be the fate of several thousand children

taken by the state from parents who “disappeared”in the 1970s. Years later, investigators from Conadi(the National Commission for the Right to Identity)discovered that the children were kidnapped andadopted by members of the ruling junta. As Conadiexplains: “The baby thefts were carried out as partof a systematic plan. Some babies were abandonedin city parks or hospital clinics, but most wereplaced in the hands of military officers and othermembers of the regime and their families, whoraised them as their own.”

ARMENIAIn successive centuries, Armenia (in the southernCaucasus, bounded by AZERBAIJAN, GEORGIA, IRAN,and TURKEY) was conquered in turn by Greeks,Romans, Persians, Byzantines, Mongols, Arabs,Ottoman Turks, and Russians. Turks proved theworst rulers, occupying Armenia from the 16th cen-tury through World War I. Demonstrations ofArmenian nationalism prompted Turkish massacresof thousands in 1894 and 1896, but the worstslaughter began in April 1915 and continuedthroughout the “war to end all wars.” During thatfour-year campaign of annihilation, now widelyregarded as the first 20th-century example of geno-cide, Turkish rulers ordered deportation of the entireArmenian population to the desert wastes of SYRIA

and Mesopotamia. Most (non-Turkish) historiansagree that 600,000 to 1.5 million victims were slainin that early campaign of “ethnic cleansing.”

Following Turkey’s defeat in World War I, anindependent Armenian republic was established inMay 1918, but invaders from RUSSIA throttled theshort-lived democracy in November 1920. In March1922 Armenia became part of the TranscaucasianSoviet Socialist Republic. Fourteen years later, it was“liberated” as a separate Soviet Republic, andremained under Moscow’s thumb until the SovietUnion collapsed in 1991. Meanwhile, in 1988,Armenia began a six-year war with Azerbaijan forcontrol of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave,that conflict costing another 30,000 lives beforeAzerbaijan emerged victorious in 1994.

Political conspiracy and violence continue inArmenia to the present day. Prime Minister VazgenSarkissian and six associates were assassinated onOctober 27, 1999, when gunmen opened fire in Par-liament. Aram Sarkissian was appointed to succeed

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ARMENIA

his murdered brother, but his outspoken oppositionto President Robert Kocharian led Kocharian toreplace him as prime minister with AndranikMarkaryan in May 2000.

ARMY of GodThis loose-knit coalition of religious zealots,devoted to eliminating legalized abortion in theUnited States, made its first appearance in August1982 when self-styled members kidnapped Dr. Hec-tor Zevallos and his wife from their home in Illinois.Dr. Zevallos, the operator of a women’s clinic inGranite City, was held captive for six days until hepromised to stop performing abortions. (RingleaderDon Anderson received a 30-year prison sentencefor that crime; he subsequently earned another 30-year stretch for torching two Florida clinics.) Sincethat incident, the Army of God (AOG) has claimedcredit for various acts of TERRORISM across theUnited States, generally bombings, arson, and otheracts of vandalism against women’s clinics. Con-victed clinic bomber Michael Bray describes himselfas “chaplain” of the group while simultaneouslydenying any culpable knowledge of its ongoingcriminal activities. Some critics argue that the AOGdoes not exist, per se, but that its name is simplyinvoked by perpetrators of various violent crimes ina bid to make the scattered “pro-life” movementseem well organized. In 1997–98 letters signed by the AOG claimed credit for fatal bombings in Atlanta and Birmingham, subsequently linked to neo-Nazi fugitive Eric Rudolph. Following anAtlanta gay-bar bombing linked to Rudolph in Feb-ruary 1997, a letter signed by the AOG announced:“We declare and will wage total war on the ungodlycommunist regime in New York and your legislative-bureaucratic lackey’s [sic] in Washington. It is youwho are responsible and preside over the murder ofchildren and issue the policy of ungodly preversion[sic] that[’]s destroying our people. . . . Death to the NEW WORLD ORDER.” Despite this and similarpronouncements through the years, spokesmen forthe FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) inWashington have declared that its “Terrorist Sectiondoes not consider the ‘Army of God’ as a terroristgroup, and therefore no FBI investigation appearswarranted at this time.” In 2001 the group wasblamed for sending dozens of hoax ANTHRAX

mailings to clinics across the United States.

ARNOLD, Benedict (1741–1801)A Connecticut native who was born January 14,1741, Benedict Arnold was named for an ancestorwho served as governor of Rhode Island. In 1775,prior to the official outbreak of the American Revo-lution against England, Arnold was commissioned asa captain in the Massachusetts governor’s SecondCompany of Guards. Bouts of illness, quarrels withrival militia officers, and perceived shabby treatmentby his commanders soon grated on Arnold’s nerves.Though pleased with a promotion to colonel, Arnoldwas humiliated by a failed attempt to seize Québecand landed in court on a charge of plundering Mon-treal’s stores. Exonerated on that count, he was givena fleet of 15 ships with orders to oust British troopsfrom Fort Ticonderoga. Though successful, Arnoldlost 10 of his ships in the battle, seething in the faceof more public criticism. Further embarrassed by thepromotion of younger subordinates, Arnold resigned

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ARNOLD, Benedict

Benedict Arnold became America’s first notorious traitorduring the Revolutionary War. (Author’s collection)

in July 1777. He soon changed his mind, and whileCongress took him back, Arnold lost his seniority inthe hot-headed gesture. Further quarrels with hiscommanders, a wound suffered during the Saratogacampaign, and an expensive new wife (mollified bythe income from shady business deals) led Arnold tobetray his country in May 1779. British spies offeredhim £10,000 and a commission in the redcoat armyfor assistance in defeating the upstart colonials.Arnold responded with plans for the capture of WestPoint, New York, but a courier was captured, and histreason was revealed. Arnold escaped and wasrewarded for his treachery with land in Canada, pluspensions for himself, his wife, and his five children.Arnold tried his hand at shipping, but no one wouldreally trust a turncoat, and he found himself nearlyfriendless in Canada. His business subsequentlyfailed, and he died, nearly forgotten, in 1801.

ARYAN BrotherhoodArguably the largest and most violent of U.S. PRISON

GANGS, the Aryan Brotherhood (AB) was organizedat California’s San Quentin Prison in 1967. Itevolved from a series of white-supremacist jailhousecliques in the 1950s and early 1960s, includinggroups called the Bluebirds, the Nazi Gang, and theDiamond Tooth Gang. It was initially established toprotect white inmates from violence by nonwhitegangs, primarily the MEXICAN MAFIA. Today, the ABhas members in prisons throughout the UnitedStates, while those on the outside (however briefly onparole) engage in a variety of criminal activities thatinclude wholesale theft, the manufacture and sale ofillegal drugs, and contract murder.

As suggested by its name, the AB is a far-right,racist, and anti-Semitic group that nurtures intensehatred of Jews and nonwhite minorities. In additionto the “AB” logo, its heavily tattooed members traditionally sport swastikas, the lightning-boltsymbol of the Nazi SS, shamrocks, the Satanicnumerals 666, and various expressions of “WhitePride.” In prisons where gangs are theoreticallybanned, AB members meet and plot their crimesunder the guise of holding Odinist religious cere-monies (an ancient Scandinavian belief systemadopted since the 1990s by many neo-Nazis whoreject “Jewish” Christianity). This marks a changefrom 1980s when most AB members publiclyespoused the CHRISTIAN IDENTITY creed (maintain-

ing that Anglo-Saxons are God’s chosen people,while Jews are literally children of Satan).

Violence is habitual with AB members. In August1993 AB member Roy Slider was convicted ofassaulting a black prison guard, Thomas Davis, inOhio. A year later, in October 1994, AB discipleDonald Riley drew a life prison term in Houston,Texas, for the murder of a black Marine Corps vet-eran. Between 1996 and 1998 an AB “reign of ter-ror” at California’s Pelican Bay State Prisonincluded six murders. In April 1997 AB memberJohn Stojetz was convicted of murdering a blackteenage inmate at an Ohio state prison. In 1998when black victim James Byrd, Jr., was dragged todeath behind a pickup truck near Jasper, Texas, twoof those arrested for the crime were self-declared ABmembers who were festooned with racist tattoos.During commission of the crime, one of the killersgleefully declared, “We’re starting The TURNER

DIARIES early.”

ASBESTOSThis fibrous mineral had few industrial applicationsuntil its fire-retardant properties were discovered inthe 1890s, whereupon its use expanded rapidly.Another decade passed before physicians recognizedthe first of several respiratory diseases resulting fromexposure to asbestos—whereupon its chief producersshifted into cover-up mode. A brief chronology of the90-year battle follows.

1918—An officer of Prudential Insurance declaresthat life-insurance companies will no longercover asbestos workers, due to “health-injuriousconditions of the industry.”

1930—The Johns-Manville Company, a leadingasbestos producer, produced and suppressed areport detailing job-related fatalities amongasbestos workers.

1932—A letter from the U.S. Bureau of Minesinformed asbestos manufacturer Eagle-Picher:“It is now known that asbestos dust is one ofthe most dangerous dusts to which man isexposed.”

1933—Physicians employed by Metropolitan Lifereported that 29 percent of the workers in oneJohns-Manville plant have asbestosis (“white-lung disease”). The firm settled lawsuits filed by11 dying employees on the condition that their

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ARYAN Brotherhood

attorneys agreed never again to “directly orindirectly participate in the bringing of newactions against the Corporation.”

1934—Executives of Johns-Mansville andRaybestos-Manhattan edited an article onasbestos written by a Metropolitan Life physi-cian, downplaying the perils of asbestos dust tohumans.

1935—Officers of Johns-Mansville and Raybestos-Manhattan order the editor of Asbestos maga-zine to cease publication of critical pieces.

1936—While combining to sponsor research onthe health risks of asbestos dust, a consortiumof major producers retains exclusive controlover disclosure of all findings.

1942—A secret internal memo circulated toOwens-Corning executives described “medicalliterature on asbestosis . . . scores of publica-tions in which the lung and skin hazards ofasbestos are discussed.”

1943—The president of Johns-Mansville privatelydenounced the executives of a competingasbestos company as “a bunch of fools for noti-fying employees who had asbestosis.” When asubordinate inquired, “Do you mean to tell meyou would let them work until they droppeddead?” the CEO replied, “Yes. We save a lot ofmoney that way.”

1944—A survey of 195 asbestos miners, con-ducted by Metropolitan Life, found 42 suffer-ing from asbestosis.

1951—Having sponsored yet another medicalreport on asbestos, executives of several leadingproducers removed all references to cancerfrom the document before publication.

1952—Johns-Mansville executives reject a pleafrom their company’s medical director, Dr. Ken-neth Smith, that warning labels be attached toproducts containing asbestos. Smith later testi-fied under oath, “It was a business decision asfar as I could understand. . . . [T]he corporationis in business to provide jobs for people andmake money for stockholders and they had totake into consideration the effects of everythingthey did and if the application of a caution labelidentifying a product as hazardous would cutinto sales, there would be serious financialimplications.”

1953—The safety director for National Gypsumpenned a letter to Indiana’s Division of Industrial

Hygiene suggesting that mixers of acoustic plas-ter wear respirators “because of the asbestosused in the product.” Company executivesdeemed the letter “full of dynamite” andordered its interception. A subsequent memorevealed that company agents “succeeded instopping” the letter, which “will be modified”before mailing.

1964—A study published in the Journal of theAmerican Medical Association demonstratedthat asbestos workers display an abnormal inci-dence of asbestosis, mesothelioma, and lungcancer.

1966—An executive of Raybestos-Manhattandeclared, “We feel that the recent unfavorablepublicity over the use of asbestos fibers inmany different kinds of industries has been a gross exaggeration of the problems. There is no data available to either prove or disprove the dangers of working closely withasbestos.”

1971—The U.S. government issued its first stan-dard for asbestos exposure.

1973—The Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) banned spray-on asbestos insulation ashazardous to health.

1977—Attorneys representing disabled asbestosworkers uncovered correspondence revealingthat major producers had suppressed informa-tion on the dangers of their product since the1930s.

1978—A judge in South Carolina, presiding over a lawsuit against Owens-Corning Fiberglas® Corporation, acknowledged “a conscious effortby the [asbestos] industry in the 1930s to down-play or arguably suppress, the dissemination ofinformation to employees and the public for fearof the promotion of lawsuits.”

1979—The EPA announced its intent to ban allforms of asbestos for the good of public health.

1982—Johns-Manville filed for bankruptcy pro-tection against civil litigation.

1986—After seven years of delay, the EPA pub-lished its proposed rule banning all use ofasbestos.

1989—A full decade after its initial proposal, theEPA ban took effect.

1991—Asbestos producers won a federal lawsuit,resulting in court-ordered revocation of theEPA’s 1989 asbestos ban.

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ASBESTOS

1994—Washington tightens asbestos-exposurestandards while permitting its continued use incertain circumstances.

1997—FRANCE banned importation of asbestos,prompting the government of Canada (anasbestos exporter) to file complaints of alleged“free trade” violations with the World TradeOrganization in 1998.

1999—Florida’s Supreme Court finds thatOwens Corning willfully concealed evidenceof health hazards posed by asbestos. Thecourt’s ruling says: “It would be difficult toenvision a more egregious set of circum-stances . . . a blatant disregard for humansafety involving large numbers of people putat life-threatening risk.”

2000—At trial in Albany, New York, 12 individ-ual defendants and two corporations pleadedguilty to criminal violations of federalasbestos restrictions. At the same time, a Syra-cuse grand jury indicted a 15th defendant formoney laundering and violations of the CleanAir Act.

ASHCROFT, John (1942– )John Ashcroft is the son and grandson of fundamen-talist Pentecostal ministers who carried that conserva-tive upbringing through law school and into thepolitical arena, first as a failed congressional candidatein 1972 and then as Missouri’s state auditor(1973–75), state attorney general (1976–85), and gov-ernor (1985–93). He was elected to the U.S. Senate in1994, proving so unpopular with his constituents thathe lost his 2000 reelection bid to an opponent whodied before election day. A longtime friend and ally ofthe Bush family, Ashcroft was considered for the postof U.S. attorney general in 1991, but he was ulti-mately deemed too controversial. President George W.Bush had no such qualms in 2001, although Ashcroftwas admittedly his second choice. Confirmed despitestiff opposition from minorities and civil libertarians,Ashcroft vowed that his religion would have noimpact on his performance in office—and then spent$8,000 for a drape to hide a bare-breasted statue ofJustice at his headquarters in Washington.

Ashcroft avoided any major controversy until theterrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, whereuponhe unleashed a national campaign of arrests

unequaled since the PALMER RAIDS of 1919–20. Healso campaigned for new powers in the realm ofdomestic surveillance, achieved with passage of theUSA PATRIOT ACT, but Congress stopped short ofgranting Ashcroft’s fondest wishes: authority to uni-laterally detain and deport on suspicion alone anyaliens branded “suspected terrorists,” elimination ofdeportation hearings, and waiver of appeals fromdeportation orders.

Despite his commitment to pursuing terrorists, onDecember 7, 2001, Ashcroft issued an order forbid-ding FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION agents fromchecking the names of suspected terrorists againstfederal firearms-purchase records. Former JUSTICE

DEPARTMENT attorney Mathew Nosanchuk bluntlyaccused Ashcroft and his aides of “rejecting theirown authority and acting as lawyers for the gunlobby.” At the same time, Ashcroft tried to workbehind an airtight screen of secrecy. While in the Sen-ate, during 1998, he had accused Attorney GeneralJanet Reno of “stonewalling” when she withheldfederal prosecutors’ memos from Congress; in 2002Ashcroft claimed the same privilege for himself,prompting the chairman of the House JudiciaryCommittee to express “concern that you have onestandard for a Democrat attorney general andanother standard for yourself.” Ashcroft, unfazed bycriticism, dismissed public fears that his nationwidecrusade might threaten civil rights, responded interms reminiscent of J. EDGAR HOOVER: “To thosewho scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lostliberty, my message is: your tactics only aid terrorists,for they erode our national unity and diminish ourresolve.” Beset by lawsuits from all sides, Ashcroftcontinued his demands for greater power. Heresigned as attorney general in January 2005.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

ASSASSINS cultThe first agents of militant Islam in the Middle Eastwere members of a neo-Ismailite sect, formed byCaliph-Imam al-al-Mustansir and his son Nizar inEGYPT sometime in the mid-11th century. Nizar wasdriven from Cairo by rivals at court, finding supportamong Ismailite converts in the mountains of Persia(now IRAN). There, while Nizar remained the move-ment’s figurehead, true power resided with Hassanibn-al-Saabah, leader of the Persian Ismailites. In

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1090 Hassan’s warriors captured the mountainstronghold of Alamut, where Hassan installed him-self and soon became known as the Old Man of theMountain. Alamut—also known as the Eagle’sNest—provided a fortuitous vantage point for obser-vation and interdiction of Christian invaders duringthe centuries of the Crusades.

According to Marco Polo, who visited Alamut in1271, the stronghold included fabulous gardens,occupied by lovely women whom the reigning cultleaders used to good advantage. Simply put, cultmembers would be drugged with hashish and thencarried into the garden, where they woke amongnubile beauties who were willing to satisfy any sex-ual demand. After they were drugged a second time,the soldiers found themselves “back” at Alamut,where the Old Man informed them that they hadbeen granted a glimpse of Paradise—the very afterlifeawaiting any disciple who died in service of Allah. Soemboldened, the Assassins—from hasashhim, “usersof hashish”)—feared no danger when they were dis-patched to kill targets chosen by their leader. Manyof the victims were crusaders, but rival Muslim lead-ers also fell before the cult’s onslaught, and theAssassins also served as mercenary contract killers ifthe price was right.

By the late 11th century, the cult had outposts inSYRIA and had converted the prince of Aleppo, Rid-wan ibn-Tutush (d. 1113). By 1140 Assassins had cap-tured mountain fortresses throughout northern Syria,including Masyad, al-Kahf, al-Qadmus, and al-‘Ullayqah. Where Christian invaders failed to curb thecult, Mongol invaders finally succeeded, routing theAssassins from Masyad in 1260. Twelve years later,the Mamluk Sultan Baybars dealt the cult a final blowwith mass arrests and executions. Still, some membersof the sect reportedly escaped to India—where theymay have resurfaced as thugs in the 13th century.

ASTRAZENECAOn June 20, 2003, leaders of the giant pharmaceuti-cal company AstraZeneca pleaded guilty in Washing-ton, D.C., on a felony charge of health-care fraudand agreed to pay $355 million in settlement of crim-inal and civil accusations filed against the company.Those charges claimed that AstraZeneca engaged ina nationwide plot to market illegally Zoladex, aprostate-cancer drug, by bribing 400 doctors across

the United States to prescribe the company’s productto patients. The bribes included financial grants,employment of some doctors as “consultants,” freetravel and entertainment, plus countless free samplesof Zoladex (worth hundreds of dollars each)—whichthe doctors then billed to Medicare or other federalhealth programs. AstraZeneca’s $355 million settle-ment included a $64 million criminal fine, $266 mil-lion to settle civil accusations from the U.S.government, and $25 million to settle accusationsthat the firm defrauded various Medicaid programsthat were partially administered by various state gov-ernments. AstraZeneca’s settlement marked thelargest U.S. fine for health-care fraud since October2001 when leaders of Tap Pharmaceutical Productspaid $875 million to settle charges in a nearly identi-cal conspiracy.

ATF See BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, AND

FIREARMS.

ATLANTA Police DepartmentFrom 1915 to 1961 Atlanta, Georgia, was thenational headquarters of the KU KLUX KLAN (KKK),which remained violently active in the city even afterits largest faction sought whiter pastures in Alabamaunder Governor GEORGE WALLACE. For many years,Atlanta’s police department was infested with Klans-men, including officers of command rank. Racistgovernors Eugene and Herman Talmadge encour-aged Klan infiltration of Georgia law enforcement,and local policeman Sam Roper served as ImperialWizard of the state’s dominant KKK faction in1949–53. Some critics went so far as to claim thatKlan membership was a prerequisite for employmentwith the Atlanta Police Department, and while thatmay not have been literally true, the case of Officer“Trigger” Nash suggests the extent to which KKKsentiments subverted honest enforcement of law inAtlanta (and throughout Georgia at large).

On November 1, 1948, Officer Nash—whosenickname derived from his propensity for shootingblacks—was one of several police officers whoaddressed a Klan meeting in Atlanta. He was greetedwith applause that night “for killing his thirteenthnigger in the line of duty” a few days earlier. Accord-ing to the minutes of that gathering:

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ATLANTA Police Department

Trigger Nash, also a policeman, got up and made a talk

and said he hoped he wouldn’t have all the honor of

killing the niggers in the South, and he hoped the people

would do something about it themselves.

Infiltrator Stetson Kennedy noted that Nash andhis fellow patrol officers faced no censure for theiropen expressions of homicidal racism. Furthermore,Kennedy charged, the Atlanta Police Departmentmade a habit of suppressing evidence whenever KKK“wrecking crews” committed murders, bombings,and other crimes within city jurisdiction.

A generation later, racist malfeasance of anotherkind was charged in the case of alleged serial killerWayne Williams. Convicted on dubious evidence inthe murders of two adult ex-convicts, Williams waspublicly branded as the “Atlanta child killer” whowas responsible for the murders of 30-odd victimssince 1979. Critics of the murder investigationnoted that Atlanta police (then led by a black chiefand mayor) seemed intent on crafting an arbitrarylist of victims, excluding some cases while otherswere illogically included, suppressing eyewitnessstatements that named an alternate (Caucasian) sus-pect in one of the slayings attributed to Williams.Years after Williams was convicted and sentencedto life in prison, records from the FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION and the Georgia Bureau of Inves-tigation revealed that Klansmen had been suspectsin the murders before Williams was arrested, butthose files—including transcripts of an apparentconfession in one case—were “lost” in favor of jail-ing a black defendant (and thus avoiding potentialrace riots in Atlanta).

AUM ShinrikyoJAPAN is world renowned as a haven for bizarre alter-native religions, but none in recent memory hassparked more controversy—or spawned more lethalviolence—than the sect known as Aum Shinrikyo(“Supreme Truth Society”). Organized in 1989, thecult was later linked to a triple murder committed inits first year of operation; six years later, its leaderswere jailed for a mass-murder plan designed to bringabout the ultimate apocalypse.

Aum’s founder, Shoko Asahara, was born ChizuoMatsumoto in 1955. His vision was poor from child-hood, and he attended a school for the blind beforemoving to Tokyo in 1976. Early acquaintances recall

his childhood obsession with money and power.Years later, in Tokyo, he founded a yoga school andwas jailed on charges of selling phony medicine.With that rap behind him, he shifted his focus to reli-gion in 1989, launching Aum Shinrikyo with 10 dis-ciples who dubbed the myopic messiah their“venerable master.” Before the year was out, Aumdrew complaints from the parents of young recruits.Several families pooled resources and hired attorneyTsutsumi Sakamoto to sue the cult. In November1989 Sakamoto, his wife, and their 14-month-oldson vanished without a trace. Six years elapsedbefore their remains were found, in September 1995,resulting in murder charges against Asahara andcompany. By then, Aum’s venerable master had morepressing problems on his hands. After years ofpreaching imminent apocalypse—most recently aforecast that 90 percent of the world’s urban popula-tion would die in poison gas attacks by 1997—Asa-hara had decided to give prophecy a helping hand.

In June 1994 seven residents of Matsumoto werekilled and more than 200 were injured when deadlysarin nerve gas was released in a residential neigh-borhood. Developed by German scientists in the1930s, sarin is among the world’s deadliest chemicalcompounds. Authorities investigating the attackfound evidence of sarin by-products near Aum Shin-rikyo’s headquarters in Kamikuishiki, 100 milessouthwest of Tokyo, but there was insufficient evi-dence for criminal charges, and the case remainedofficially unsolved.

Nine months later, on March 20, 1995, unknownpersons released another blast of sarin on the Tokyosubway during morning rush hour. This time, 12 per-sons were killed, with more than 5,500 treated fornonfatal injuries. Two days later, police raided Aumheadquarters in Kamikuishiki, but Asahara and hischief lieutenants had already fled. Four cultists werearrested, but the real surprise was in the evidenceretrieved: two tons of chemicals for making sarin—enough, in fact, to kill at least four million people; $7million in cash; gas masks; and cult publicationsincluding Asahara’s prediction of impending gasattacks throughout the world. Another 50 cultistswere in residence, most of them severely malnour-ished, but they were released by police.

Shoko Asahara was still at large on March 24when he showed up on national television, denyingany role in the Tokyo gas attack. His sincerity wasquestioned three days later when police found a

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chemical lab concealed at an Aum Shinrikyo shrinenear Mount Fuji. On March 29 Aum cultists werenamed as suspects in the near-fatal shooting ofJapan’s top law-enforcement officer, Takaji Kuni-matsu, and two more cultists were jailed on March31 for carrying explosive chemicals. On April 7,1995, illegal firearms were seized from a vehicleowned by the sect.

Asahara, for all his protestations of innocence,was still predicting disaster—most recently, massdeaths in Tokyo that were expected to occur on April15. The date passed without incident, but four dayslater, in Yokohama, 300 persons were injured whenpoisonous phosgene gas was released in the city’smain railroad terminal. On April 21 two dozen morevictims were hospitalized by a gas attack in a Yoko-hama shopping center. The following week, Japaneseauthorities announced that two army sergeants, bothmembers of Aum Shinrikyo, had warned Asaharabefore the police raids in March.

The dragnets and terror continued. On May 4,1995, police arrested cult attorney YoshinebuAoyama as a suspect in the gas attacks. Days later,an alert cleaning woman for the Tokyo subway sys-tem discovered gas bombs with sophisticated trig-ger mechanisms—enough gas, police said, to kill10,000 people. On July 4 cyanide canisters werefound at another Tokyo train station, but thedevices were successfully disarmed. Australianpolice reported that cult members had apparentlytested their gas on Aussie sheep at a remote farm inthe Outback.

By that time, more than a dozen cultists were incustody, facing various charges related to the gasattacks. Asahara himself was arrested on May 15and was soon indicted with six others on murdercharges stemming from the March subway attack.On June 20 one of his disciples who was still at largehijacked an airliner with 350 persons aboard,demanding the immediate release of “venerable mas-ter” Asahara, but police stormed the plane and dis-armed him without loss of life.

On October 5, 1995, Japanese news sourcesreported that Shoko Asahara had confessed involve-ment in the Tokyo subway attack and various othercrimes. One of Asahara’s aides, Masahiro Taming,surrendered to police three days later, facing chargesof attempting to murder Tokyo’s governor. On Octo-ber 30 a Japanese court officially ordered the dis-bandment of Aum Shinrikyo. Slow-motion murder

trials proceeded during the next eight years withmultiple convictions, but Asahara’s trial was still inprogress during 2003 with the defendant alternatelysleeping in court or mumbling incoherently in whatdetractors called a pretense of insanity designed tospare him from a death sentence.

As for Aum Shinrikyo, it was revived as “Aleph”in February 2000, offering apologies to the familiesof its victims, coughing up cash settlements fromthe millions of yen its members earn selling com-puter parts throughout Japan. The reborn sectclaims 1,650 members, including 300 in RUSSIA,recently visited by cult leader Fumihiro Joyu. Unim-pressed by Aum’s about-face, U.S. Secretary of StateColin Powell formally labeled Aleph a terroristorganization in 2001. A few months later, in Janu-ary 2002, five Russian members, led by DmitriSigachev, were jailed on charges they had plotted tobomb various Japanese cities and thereby secureAsahara’s freedom.

AUSTRIAIn 1867 the Austrian empire merged with HUNGARY

to become a dual monarchy under Emperor FranzJoseph I, a belligerent ruler who joined GERMANY,TURKEY, and BULGARIA as part of the Central Powersin 1914. When BLACK HAND rebels assassinatedArchduke Franz Ferdinand that summer, the allianceplunged Europe—and later the world—into WorldWar I. That conflict left Austria in political and eco-nomic chaos after 1918. A new constitution estab-lished parliamentary democracy in November 1920,but members of a growing Nazi Party soon agitatedfor another alliance with Germany. ChancellorEngelbert Dollfuss imposed a dictatorship in 1933 toblock the spread of Nazism, but Nazis assassinatedhim on July 25, 1934. German troops invaded Aus-tria in March 1938, and ADOLF HITLER declared itsunion with Germany (the Anschluss) as part of theTHIRD REICH.

After World War II, the victorious Allies declaredAustrians a “liberated” people, but fond memories ofthe Reich lingered on. Neo-Nazi groups thrived afterAustria regained full independence on May 15, 1955,and their influence continues to the present day. InJune 1986 former UNITED NATIONS secretary-generalKurt Waldheim was elected president in a campaignmarked by controversy over his alleged links to NaziWAR CRIMES in YUGOSLAVIA. In February 2000 the

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conservative People’s Party formed an alliance withthe extremist Freedom Party led by Jörg Haider, aracist xenophobe known for public remarks thatpraised wartime Nazi policies. Haider’s fascist viewsprompted sanctions against Austria by other mem-bers of the European Union, and while he resignedfrom the party in May 2000, Haider remained aninfluential adviser. The Freedom Party–People’s Partycoalition crumbled in September 2002, with Haiderstriking off to form a new and more extreme vehiclefor his political ambitions. The struggle for control ofAustria’s soul and body politic continues.

“AXIS of Evil”In the latter part of 2001, while American troops wereengaged in toppling the government of AFGHANISTAN,U.S. President George W. Bush publicly blamed theworld’s terrorist crisis on an “Axis of Evil,” includingthe nations of IRAQ, IRAN, and North KOREA. LeeHamilton—former chairman of the House ForeignAffairs Committee, now head of the Woodrow WilsonInternational Center—noted that Bush’s turn of

phrase “was a very effective phrase for rallying theAmerican public” after the PENTTBOM attacks of September 11, 2001. Critics promptly branded thelabel both illogical and irrelevant: Iraq and Iran hadbeen mortal enemies since the 1970s, while NorthKorea had no ties to either Middle Eastern nation—and none of the countries singled out by Bush had anylink to the 9/11 raids. By late 2002 Hamiltonacknowledged that Bush’s name-calling “has madediplomacy more difficult in the months since [9/11]and probably exacerbated the dangers that he wasseeking to contain.” Lumping the three disparatenations together also made it more difficult for Bushto explain the U.S. invasion of Iraq (based on unsup-ported claims that Baghdad possessed weapons ofmass destruction) while pursuing diplomatic negotia-tions with North Korea (which boasts of its nucleararsenal). In fact, while right-wing allies still employthe term Axis of Evil in their calls for a continuingglobal war on TERRORISM, Bush himself has notuttered the phrase since August 2002. Professor DavidHouck, a linguistics expert at Florida State University,analyzed Bush’s rhetoric in an interview with USA

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“AXIS of Evil”

Demonstrators in New York City protesting the war in Iraq carry a sign featuring the likenesses of Vice President DickCheney, President George W. Bush, and Attorney General John Ashcroft under the words “Axis of Evil.” (Corbis)

Today. While acknowledging that “Axis of Evil” was“a shorthand phrase that does a lot of work,” Houckalso noted its primary shortcoming: “The trouble isthat ‘evil’ doesn’t leave a lot of room for negotiation.How do you negotiate with evil?”

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

AZERBAIJANAzerbaijan, located on the western shore of theCaspian Sea at the southeast extremity of the Cauca-sus, was ceded to RUSSIA by Persia (now IRAN)through the Treaty of Gulistan (1813) and the Treatyof Turkamanchai (1828). The country declared inde-pendence from Russia in May 1918, following theBolshevik Revolution, but Red Army forces recon-quered Azerbaijan two years later. It was annexedinto the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic in1922 and then was reestablished as a separate Soviet

republic in 1936. Finally, Azerbaijan once againdeclared independence from the collapsing SovietUnion in August 1991.

Freedom hardly ended the nation’s troubles, how-ever. In 1988, Azerbaijan and ARMENIA went to warfor control of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, astruggle that cost 30,000 lives before Azerbaijanemerged victorious in 1994. Current prime ministerArtur Rasizade was elected two years later, in aprocess labeled “seriously flawed” by internationalobservers. Economic woes verging on national bank-ruptcy may be alleviated by Western investment inAzerbaijan’s vast OIL reserves, valued in the trillionsof U.S. dollars, but long-running dissension over theroute of a new oil pipeline has thus far stalled thecountry’s black gold bonanza. In July 2001 Iranianwarships chased two Azerbaijani oil-explorationships out of disputed Caspian waters, thus exacer-bating conflict over petroleum rights.

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AZERBAIJAN

BACKWARD maskingBackward masking (BM) is the process of recordingwords or music backward to include a secret messageon recordings that can only be deciphered by playingthe tape or CD backward. In the 1980s BM became apoint of heated controversy: TELEVANGELISTS, politi-cians, and private groups such as the Parents MusicResource Center alleged deliberate “brainwashing”of children by using hidden plugs for sex, drugs, andSATANISM. Arguments ranged from flat denials tobizarre allegations of a global conspiracy involvingthousands of executives, performers, and techniciansin the music industry. The truth, as usual, lay some-where in between.

It is a fact that BM does exist and has for manyyears. In 1969 the Beatles planted backward lyrics ontheir Abbey Road album, hinting at Paul McCart-ney’s death as a morbid publicity stunt. Popularsingers David Bowie and Meat Loaf Aday haveacknowledged using BM on their albums but denyany sinister intent. In 1990 Rob Halford (lead singerfor the heavy-metal band Judas Priest) told reportersthat BM “has been going on for 30 or 40 years.”

The question then must be: To what effect? BMcritics—typically fundamentalist Christians or politi-cians seeking their support—see demons inside everyalbum. In April 1986 Ohio minister Jim Brown con-vinced local teenagers to burn their records of TV’sMr. Ed’s theme song, somehow persuading them(and their presumably mature parents) that the rever-

sal of “A horse is a horse” yields “Someone sang thissong for Satan.” The Arkansas state senate passed aban on BM in 1983, while Congress defeated a simi-lar federal bill. In 1990 performers Judas Priest andOzzy Osbourne faced lawsuits from parents whoclaimed that the performers’ music had driven theirsons to commit or attempt suicide, but the defen-dants prevailed in both cases.

BAHAMASChristopher Columbus “discovered” the Bahamas(not North America) on October 12, 1492. A night-mare of slavery and sadism ensued for the Arawaknatives, who were soon wiped out. A notorious havenfor pirates by the early 17th century, the Bahamasremain so today. Mobster MEYER LANSKY paved theway for large-scale casino gambling before Englandgranted the islands internal self-rule in 1964, and thetourist traps now flourish. The scenic islands alsoserve as a way station for South American COCAINE

and HEROIN en route to the United States and Europe.Pervasive government corruption ensures that fewshipments are seized and that visiting felons (at leastthose with money) are rarely molested.

BAHRAINThis rocky archipelago in the Persian Gulf was ruledby various invaders from the fourth century A.D.

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until its final master (Britain) granted full independ-ence on August 14, 1971. OIL was found in Bahrainin the 1930s, but its wells are expected to run dryearly in the 21st century. Efforts to diversify thenational economy have been frustrated by bloodysectarian fighting between rival Shi’ite and SunniMuslims. Women voted for the first time in February2001, throwing their weight behind a constitutionalmonarchy, but the immensely rich al-Khalifa familystill owns most of Bahrain’s wealth.

BALTIMORE Police DepartmentDuring the years 1966–82, law enforcement in Balti-more, Maryland, was dominated by Police Commis-sioner Donald Pomerleau, a die-hard enemy ofperceived “subversives” who also used the policedepartment to punish his personal critics. Pomerleaulaunched the Baltimore Police Department’s (BPD)Red Squad—also known as the Inspectional ServicesDivision (ISD)—on July 1, 1966, with officerstrained by the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

(FBI) and U.S. Army Intelligence to ferret out “ene-mies” of the state. ISD’s chief, Maj. MauriceDuBois, was himself an FBI agent for 20 yearsbefore he joined the BPD. Under such leadershipBPD engaged in a wide range of illegal surveillanceand harassment directed at black or “leftist” organi-zations. A primary target was the BLACK PANTHER

PARTY (BPP), earmarked for destruction by the FBIand the BPD alike.

Pomerleau and DuBois saw their chance to crushthe local BPP in early 1970 when a human skeletonwas unearthed in Baltimore. The city’s medicalexaminer reported that the deceased was a whitemale, 25–30 years old, who died of a drug over-dose. Unsatisfied with that bland result, BPDshipped the remains to the FBI crime lab, wheretechnicians “positively” identified the corpse as 20-year-old Eugene Anderson, a black BPP memberallegedly killed by a close-range shotgun blast. InApril 1970, 17 Panthers and white attorney ArthurTurco were charged with murdering Anderson,allegedly because they thought he was a policeinformer. The indictment followed a meetingbetween Baltimore’s district attorney and U.S.Attorney General John Mitchell, who was subse-quently jailed for his role in the WATERGATE con-spiracy. The prosecution’s three witnesses, all paidBPD/FBI informers, were granted immunity from

prosecution and placed on salary for the durationof the trial, but they failed to earn their money.“Key witness” Mahoney Kebe was so confused attrial that the judge ejected him from court andordered his testimony stricken from the record. Anew district attorney ultimately dismissed allcharges against the defendants, while admittingthat his predecessor was guilty of “improper prose-cution practices.” The Maryland state senate inves-tigated complaints of BPD’s abusive conduct in1975, and its December report sustained most ofthe charges made by various harassment victims.Three years later, state lawmakers passed new legis-lation that restricted police surveillance andgranted citizens access to information contained intheir files. With his spying activities curtailed, Com-missioner Pomerleau resigned in 1982, two yearsbefore the expiration of his term in office.

BANGLADESHFormerly East PAKISTAN, this segment of India’s historic Bengal region was widely separated fromthe Muslim state of West Pakistan when INDIA

was partitioned in 1947. Religion aside, people ofthe two Pakistans had nothing in common,prompting East Pakistan to declare independence(as Bangladesh) in March 1971. Nine months ofcivil war and deadly famine then ensued, climaxedby India’s intervention to defeat West Pakistan inDecember 1971. Since then, a relentless series offamines and natural disasters have ravaged thecountry, climaxed in 2002 by a deadly arsenic crisis.Authorities say that 3–4 million wells that weredug by the UNITED NATIONS as part of a “safe-waterprogram” in the 1970s now contain dangerous levelsof arsenic. At last count, 35 million persons wereplagued by ailments ranging from skin lesions tocancer and diabetes.

BAPBOMBBirmingham, Alabama’s, Sixteenth Street BaptistChurch has a long history of involvement in theblack civil rights movement. In 1946, after it hosteda meeting of the Southern Negro Youth Congress,police commissioner EUGENE “BULL” CONNOR visitedthe pastor and warned him that if such activities con-tinued, God—acting through the KU KLUX KLAN—might “strike the church down.” Seventeen years

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later, when the church served as a rallying point fordemonstrators led by Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.,that threat was realized. On Sunday, September 15,1963, a powerful bomb rocked the church. Fouradolescent girls—Addie Mae Collins, DeniseMcNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley—were killed in the blast; a fifth, Sarah Jean Collins,was permanently blinded in one eye.

Klan members were the prime suspects, with sev-eral names provided by Gary Rowe, a FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) informant in theKKK since 1960. Director J. EDGAR HOOVER calledthe investigation—code named BAPBOMB—thebureau’s most intensive manhunt since the killing ofJOHN DILLINGER; yet it was marked from the begin-ning by what journalist Diane McWhorter aptly callsa “leisurely pursuit of witnesses.” When local policesought information on prime suspect Robert Chamb-liss, a violent Klansman known to his friends as“Dynamite Bob,” G-men falsely reported that theyhad mounted constant surveillance on Chambliss’shome the night before the bombing and observednothing irregular. Results of FBI polygraph tests onChambliss and other Klan suspects were likewisewithheld from Birmingham authorities, perhapsbecause Connor’s police force was known to beheavily infiltrated with Klansmen. Governor GEORGE

WALLACE “beat the Kennedy crowd to the punch”soon after the bombing when suspects Chambliss,Charles Cagle, and James Hall were charged withmisdemeanor counts of possessing unregistereddynamite. All three were convicted and sentenced tosix months in jail, their sentences suspended by thecourt. A few days later, James Hall joined Rowe (andcountless other Klansmen) on the FBI’s payroll as afull-time informant, vowing to help solve the BAP-BOMB case.

In 1964 the bureau obtained tape recordings ofKlansman Thomas Blanton, Jr., discussing details ofthe church bombing with his wife in their home.Later reports claimed the tapes were “barely audi-ble” without computer enhancement, unavailable inthe 1960s, but the issue remains contested today.Before year’s end, G-men knew beyond doubt thatthe bombers were Blanton, Chambliss, HermanFrank Cash, and Bobby Lee Cherry. In 1965 Hooverruled out prosecution on grounds that chances ofconviction by an Alabama jury were “remote.” Afive-year federal statute of limitations officiallyclosed the case in 1968, yet FBI historian Robert

Kessler contends that “the investigation continueduntil 1971.”

Be that as it may, the Blanton tapes and otherBAPBOMB evidence went into storage afterHoover’s death in 1972, and FBI headquarters madeno initial offer of assistance until five years laterwhen Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxleyreopened the investigation. Finally, after Baxleythreatened to hold a Washington press conferencewith survivors of the four slain girls, G-men releaseda portion of their file on Robert Chambliss, whilewithholding all material on Blanton and the otherbombers. Chambliss was indicted for murder in Sep-tember 1977 and convicted two months later, largelyon the testimony of a niece who heard him boastingof the crime in 1963. Chambliss received a life prisonterm with a 10-year minimum before parole; he diedin custody in 1985.

Accounts vary as to what the FBI did next. RobertKessler maintains that Birmingham agent-in-chargeG. Robert Langford reopened the BAPBOMB case in1993 “without telling headquarters” and that hesubsequently “found” the Blanton tapes (allegedlymislaid and forgotten since 1972). An alternatereport, published in April 2000, claimed that the FBIreopened its investigation in 1997 after the chancediscovery of “new and credible” evidence—that is,the tapes maintained in bureau files since 1964. Ineither case, bomber Herman Cash died in 1994 with-out facing criminal charges. A grand jury convenedto study the case in November 1998, its review cul-minating in the May 2000 arrest of aging KlansmenBlanton and Cherry on charges of first-degree mur-der. Even then, controversy endured: Cherry claimedthat G-men had offered to reduce the charges if hewould “lie” under oath about Blanton; Blanton’sdaughter told reporters, “The FBI told dad, ‘We’regoing to pin it on somebody. We don’t care who.’”Agent Craig Dahle of the Birmingham field officedenied the charges, telling reporters, “It wouldn’thappen that way.”

Thomas Blanton was convicted of murder onMay 1, 2001, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ayear later, on May 22, 2002, Bobby Cherry was con-victed and received an identical sentence. In thewake of Blanton’s conviction, Bill Baxley voiced out-rage at the FBI’s long suppression of recordings andother evidence in the case: “What excuse can the FBIhave for allowing Mr. Blanton to go free for 24years with this smoking-gun evidence hidden in its

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files?” he asked. “If we had had those tapes, wewould have unequivocally been able to convict Blan-ton [in 1977]. The FBI, for all intents and purposes,gave a ‘get out of jail free card’ to Tommy Blanton.”Former assistant attorney general John Youngrecalled of the 1977 Chambliss prosecution, “[TheFBI] denied having any more evidence than whatthey gave us, and it was hard enough getting whatwe got.” Director Louis Freeh agreed, calling theBAPBOMB case “a disgrace to the FBI” and tellingthe media, “That case should have been prosecutedin 1964. It could have been prosecuted in 1964. Theevidence was there.”

Agent Dahle, in Birmingham, told reporters thatthere was “no easy answer” to Baxley’s questionsbut insisted, “I think it is wrong to assert that therewas any effort to block anything.” NewsmanKessler blamed the whole thing on simple igno-rance: “Instead of withholding evidence fromAlabama Attorney General Baxley in 1977, as Baxley claimed, the FBI did not realize it had thematerial.” While that assertion strained credulity,Kessler went even further, giving the bureau creditfor Alabama’s state prosecution of Tom Blanton:“Because of the tenacity of Langford . . . and . . .others involved,” Kessler wrote, “the FBI hadbrought to justice a man who had blown up fourgirls because of the color of their skin.”

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

BARBIE, Klaus (1913–1991)An avid supporter of ADOLF HITLER and the genoci-dal THIRD REICH, Klaus Barbie served as chief of theGESTAPO in occupied FRANCE during 1942–44. Inthat capacity, the “Butcher of Lyon” supervised exe-cutions of at least 4,000 persons, deported another7,500 to certain death in concentration camps, andtortured countless others. Captured by U.S. authori-ties in Germany after the war, Barbie was recruited toserve the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) aspart of Operation Paperclip, a scheme whereby Naziintelligence officers were shielded from WAR CRIMES

prosecution while helping the CIA fight COMMUNISM

in Europe. (The Nazi sadist’s contributions to “worldfreedom” remain classified.) French extradition war-rants were rejected while Barbie served the UnitedStates (1947–51), and the CIA afterward relocatedBarbie’s family to BOLIVIA, where he enjoyed the pro-tection of pro-Nazi dictator Hugo Banzer Suárez and

the CATHOLIC CHURCH’s archbishop in La Paz, AbelAntezana. Living affluently as “Klaus Altmann,”Barbie served as a leader of the Nazi undergroundmovement in South America, reportedly communingregularly with fugitive MARTIN BORMANN. His coverwas blown in 1973, but Bolivian authorities stalledextradition to France for another decade. In themeantime, INTERPOL’s chief officer in Bolivia wasfired on corruption charges for aiding Barbie’s con-cealment. On his return to France in 1983, Barbielaunched a campaign of legal delays that postponedhis trial until May 1987. He was convicted of massmurder two months later and sentenced to lifeimprisonment. Barbie died in prison of leukemia onSeptember 25, 1991.

BARBIE® dollsCritics who denounce the Mattel Toy Company’sfamous Barbie® dolls as tools of a global conspir-acy are less concerned with Mattel’s acknowledged$1.5 billion sales than with Barbie®’s impact onyoungsters who play with the well-endowed plasticmaterial girl. As outlined on various Internet Websites, the Barbie® conspiracy involves long-termbrainwashing of girls (or children generally) toaccept a body image that is unattainable withoutextensive plastic surgery, while craving a kind ofparasitic “bimbo” lifestyle. Mattel executives denypromoting any such message, either consciously orotherwise, and in 1997 filed a lawsuit against theDanish band Aqua over Aqua’s dance tune “BarbieGirl.” (Lyrics included “I’m a blonde bimbo girl ina fantasy world / Dress me up, make it tight, I’myour dolly.”) Although Mattel sued primarily forcopyright infringement—Aqua’s advertising usedthe same “electric pink” employed in Barbie® adsfor decades—lawyers for the firm made it clear thatthey were fighting for Barbie®’s reputation. Thatlawsuit was dismissed, and appellate judge AlexKozinski later noted that the original 1950sBarbie® resembled a “German streetwalker” beforeit was revamped into a long-legged all-Americangirl with a “fictitious figure.” The U.S. SUPREME

COURT rejected Mattel’s final appeal in January2003. Meanwhile, the company’s announced planto introduce “smart” Barbie® dolls drew ridiculefrom critics nationwide. As one put it, “Makingsmart Barbies is like making G.I. Joe a conscien-tious objector.”

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BAYER CorporationIn June 2003 several U.S. hemophiliacs filed a class-action lawsuit against the Bayer pharmaceuticalcompany, alleging that Bayer (and others) deliber-ately exposed patients to AIDS and hepatitis C by sell-ing medicine manufactured from the blood of ailing,high-risk donors. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco,alleges that Bayer engaged in DRUG DUMPING, dis-tributing tainted blood-clotting products in Asia andLatin America during 1984–85, after notice ofinfected products blocked their sale in the UnitedStates. Attorney Robert Nelson, speaking for theplaintiffs, said, “This is a worldwide tragedy. Thou-sands of hemophiliacs have unnecessarily died fromAIDS and many thousands more are infected withHIV or hepatitis C.” Defense attorneys replied with astatement saying, “Bayer at all times complied withall regulations in force in the relevant countries basedon the amount of scientific evidence available at thetime.” The firm added that “decisions made 20 yearsago should not be judged by today’s scientific knowl-edge.” No verdict had been rendered in the case atpress time for this volume.

BAY of Pigs invasionIn 1960 Vice President RICHARD NIXON proposed aplan (dubbed Operation Zapata) to topple theregime of Cuban leader FIDEL CASTRO by means of amilitary invasion. President Dwight Eisenhowerapproved the scheme and authorized CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) planning of the assault,but his second term ended in January 1961, andNixon’s presidential hopes were dashed by the elec-tion of John Kennedy. With enthusiastic supportfrom his brother (and attorney general) Robert,Kennedy decided to proceed with Nixon’s plan andthus restore “freedom” to CUBA. The CIA’s “army”consisted of 1,500 Cuban exiles, including 200 for-mer soldiers who had fought Castro under deposeddictator Fulgencio Batista (14 of them fugitives fromoutstanding murder charges in Cuba). The forcetrained in GUATEMALA, with U.S. arms and equip-ment, operating on the theory that suffering Cubanswould rise against Castro en masse when the firstshots were fired. The invaders’ target was the Bahiade Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on Cuba’s southern coast.They landed on April 17, 1961, but found no wel-coming committee of the Cuban people. Instead, theywere instantly betrayed by locals loyal to Castro, and

a Cuban military force closed in to crush the landingteam. By April 20, 1,197 invaders had been cap-tured, and most of the others were dead (includingfour CIA pilots). Embarrassed by the fiasco, Presi-dent Kennedy drew criticism from all sides, includingcomplaints from Cuban exile leader José Miró Car-dona that the invasion was doomed by Kennedy’sfailure to provide air support. In December 1962Castro released 1,113 of the prisoners in exchangefor $53 million in food and medicine raised by pri-vate U.S. donations. The Bay of Pigs debacle markedCuba’s first-ever victory against U.S. imperialism,and many theorists today believe it was a motivatingfactor in the 1963 JFK ASSASSINATION.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

BCCI conspiracyFounded in the 1970s by Middle Eastern financiersAgha Hasan Abedi and Swaleh Naqvi, the Bank ofCredit and Commerce International (BCCI) swiftlyspun a global net of shady deals involving (amongothers) the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), theMAFIA, international drug dealers, Arab terrorists, andthe usual cast of corrupt politicians (many of theminfluential leaders of the U.S. Democratic Party). Vol-umes could be written about BCCI’s crimes, but aDecember 1992 report from the U.S. Senate fairlysummarized the bank’s illicit transactions.

BCCI’s unique criminal structure . . . was an essential

component of its spectacular growth, and a guarantee

of its eventual collapse. The structure was conceived by

Abedi and managed by Naqvi for the specific purpose

of evading regulation or control by governments. It

functioned to frustrate the full understanding of BCCI’s

operations by anyone.

Unlike any ordinary bank, BCCI was from its earli-

est days made up of multiplying layers of entities,

related to one another through an impenetrable series

of holding companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, banks-

within-banks, insider dealings and nominee relation-

ships. By fracturing corporate structure, record

keeping, regulatory review, and audits, the complex

BCCI family of entities created by Abedi was able to

evade ordinary legal restrictions on the movement of

capital and goods as a matter of daily practice and rou-

tine. In creating BCCI as a vehicle fundamentally free

of government control, Abedi developed in BCCI an

ideal mechanism for facilitating illicit activity by others,

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BAYER Corporation

including such activity by officials of many of the gov-

ernments whose laws BCCI was breaking.

BCCI’s criminality included fraud by BCCI and BCCI

customers involving billions of dollars; money laundering

in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas; BCCI’s bribery

of officials in most of those locations; support of terror-

ism, arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies;

management of prostitution; the commission and facilita-

tion of income tax evasion, smuggling, and illegal immi-

gration; illicit purchases of banks and real estate; and a

panoply of financial crimes limited only by the imagina-

tion of its officers and customers.

Among BCCI’s principal mechanisms for committing

crimes were its use of shell corporations and bank con-

fidentiality and secrecy havens; layering of its corporate

structure; its use of front-men and nominees, guaran-

tees and buy-back arrangements; back-to-back financial

documentation among BCCI controlled entities, kick-

backs and bribes, the intimidation of witnesses, and the

retention of well-placed insiders to discourage govern-

mental action.

The BCCI facade suffered its first major crack in1988 with a Florida indictment for laundering drugmoney, but even then federal prosecutors failed tograsp the enormity of BCCI’s crimes, including infil-tration and ownership of major U.S. banks. Operat-ing in 73 nations and bribing officials in each, BCCItook full advantage of endemic corruption inARGENTINA, BANGLADESH, BOTSWANA, BRAZIL,CHINA, COLOMBIA, the CONGO, GHANA, GUATEMALA,INDIA, JAMAICA, KUWAIT, LEBANON, Mauritius,MOROCCO, NIGERIA, PAKISTAN, PANAMA, PERU, SAUDI

ARABIA, SENEGAL, SRI LANKA, SUDAN, SURINAME, theUnited States, ZAMBIA, and ZIMBABWE. By the time itfinally collapsed in the 1990s with a handful of itsranking leaders prosecuted for various crimes, BCCIhad paved the way for a new millennium of corporatecorruption. As summarized by Senate investigators:

Unanswered questions include, but are not limited to,

the relationship between BCCI and the Banco

Nazionale del Lavoro; the alleged relationship between

the late CIA director WILLIAM CASEY and BCCI; the

extent of BCCI’s involvement in Pakistan’s nuclear pro-

gram; BCCI’s manipulation of commodities and securi-

ties markets in Europe and Canada; BCCI’s activities in

India, including its relationship with the business

empire of the Hinduja family; BCCI’s relationships

with convicted Iraqi arms dealer Sarkis Sarkenalian,

Syrian drug trafficker, terrorist, and arms trafficker

Monzer Al-Kassar, and other major arms dealers; the

use of BCCI by central figures in the alleged “OCTOBER

SURPRISE,” BCCI’s activities with the Central Bank of

Syria and with the Foreign Trade Mission of the Soviet

Union in London; its involvement with foreign intelli-

gence agencies; the financial dealings of BCCI directors

with Charles Keating and several Keating affiliates and

front-companies, including the possibility that BCCI

related entities may have laundered funds for Keating to

move them outside the United States; BCCI’s financing

of commodities and other business dealings of interna-

tional criminal financier Marc Rich; the nature, extent

and meaning of the ownership of other major U.S.

financial institutions by Middle Eastern political figures;

the nature, extent, and meaning of real estate and finan-

cial investments in the United States by major share-

holders of BCCI; the sale of BCCI affiliate Banque de

Commerce et Placement in Geneva, to the Cukorova

Group of Turkey, which owned an entity involved in

the BNL Iraqi arms sales, among others.

BELARUSBelarus (also known as White Russia) has been vari-ously claimed throughout its history by Lithuania,POLAND, and RUSSIA. It suffered more than mostnations in World War II, with seesaw battlesbetween JOSEPH STALIN’s Red Army and ADOLF

HITLER’s Wehrmacht, played out on its swampy soil.When the Soviet CHERNOBYL power plant explodedin 1986, 70 percent of its nuclear fallout landed inBelarus, causing epidemic cancer and related ill-nesses. Belarus declared independence in August1991, but its people had no taste for freedom. Anew treaty with Russia in April 1997 stopped justshort of a political merger. President AleksandrLukashenko (in power since January 1994) runs an authoritarian state that is widely denounced for its human-rights violations in the Stalinist mode. Accused of fielding death squads that havemurdered dozens of dissidents since the late 1990s,Lukashenko was nonetheless reelected (under highlysuspicious circumstances) on September 9, 2001.

BELGIUMSince 57 B.C., a series of conquerors ranging fromJULIUS CAESAR to ADOLF HITLER have used Belgium asthe gateway for attacks on more inviting parts of

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BELGIUM

Europe. At the same time, Belgian kings acquired anAfrican empire that they pillaged brutally with utterdisregard for the welfare of aboriginal peoples. Bel-gian control of the Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (nowRWANDA and BURUNDI) was not relinquished until1960–62, after a final spasm of warfare along raciallines. Belgium has been rocked by incessant scandalsince 1991 when a deputy prime minister was slainby still-unidentified contract killers. In 1996 disclo-sure of the Marc Dutroux child-sex-and-murder ringrevealed a morass of perversion and government cor-ruption that had permitted predatory killers to actwith near impunity. Two years later Belgian states-man and former NATO official Willy Claes was con-victed of bribery. In 1999 public officials confessed toconcealing evidence that most of Belgium’s poultrywas contaminated with cancer-causing dioxin. Newprime minister Guy Verhofstadt began sweepingreforms that same year, but his efforts were over-shadowed by Belgium’s odd claim of “universal juris-diction” over WAR CRIMES, allegedly permittingBelgian courts to extradite and try citizens of anynation for atrocities committed anywhere on Earth.A cast of suspects led by President George W. Bushstaunchly denied Belgian jurisdiction outside its ownborders, and Belgium scrapped the law on July 12,2003, in a bid to keep U.S. goodwill.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

BELIZESandwiched between MEXICO and GUATEMALA inCentral America, Belize was ruled, or “supervised,”by England (as British Honduras) until September21, 1981. Guatemala delayed recognition of Belize’snational sovereignty for another decade, and it stillclaims rights to more than half of Belize. Negotia-tions before the Organization of American States hasthus far failed to resolve the conflict, leaving anatmosphere ripe for subversion, spying, and cross-border guerrilla raids.

BERIA, Lavrenty Pavlovich (1899–1953)A native of GEORGIA who was born in 1899,Lavrenty Beria trained as an architect but laterdevoted himself to the Communist Party and servedin its SECRET POLICE. He met Russian dictatorJOSEPH STALIN on vacation in 1931 and there earnedStalin’s gratitude by foiling an assassination attempt.

(Later, some claimed Beria staged the event himselfin order to win Stalin’s favor.) By 1938, Beria wasthe chief of Stalin’s NKVD (later the KGB), and hewas ultimately blamed for the deaths of millions inRussia’s various purges. A closet pedophile whosecrimes against children were covered by Stalin’s pro-tection, Beria earned a reputation as a ruthlesstyrant who “got things done,” trusted with Stalin’smost important jobs (including development of RUS-SIA’s early nuclear weapons). At Stalin’s death in1953, many Russia watchers assumed Beria wouldbe the nation’s next supreme leader, but he hadmade too many enemies during those past 15 years.Before year’s end a group of rivals led by NikitaKhrushchev conspired to have Beria jailed and exe-cuted as an “enemy of the state.”

BIG SevenThe “noble experiment” of PROHIBITION created thefirst national crime syndicate in U.S. history as vari-ous local and ethnic bootlegging gangs joined forcesto minimize bloodshed and maximize profits. Beforethe web of crime spread nationwide, however, anexperimental prototype was tested by mobsters onthe East Coast. That alliance, known as the BigSeven, was created in 1926–27; members included:(1) the “Bug and Meyer Mob” under Benjamin“Bugsy” Siegel and MEYER LANSKY; (2) New York’sdominant MAFIA faction, led by CHARLES “LUCKY”LUCIANO and John Torrio; (3) the Joe Adonis gang inBrooklyn; (4) the dominant gang in northern NewJersey, led by Abner “Longy” Zwillman and WillieMoretti; (5) southern New Jersey’s crime lord, Enoch“Nucky” Johnson; (6) New England mobsterCharles “King” Solomon (operating from Bostonwith Joseph Kennedy); and (7) the Philadelphia syn-dicate run by Irving Wexler (also known as “WaxeyGordon”), Irving “Bitzy” Bitz and Harry Stromberg(also known as “Nig Rosen”). This group served asthe nucleus of future “crime conventions” held in1929–34, at which alliances with gangs from Floridato Chicago and California were solidified to mutualadvantage. Allies from the Big Seven also ensuredLuciano’s victory in his 1931 war to modernize theAmerican Mafia and depose the old guard of “mus-tache Petes.” Its members would remain dominantfigures in organized crime through the 1950s—andin Lansky’s case, long after that.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

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BELIZE

BIKO, Stephen Bantu (1946–1977)The founder of SOUTH AFRICA’s “black conscious-ness” movement was born in 1946 and became anoutspoken critic of the nation’s racist apartheid sys-tem from childhood. Expelled from his first school for“antiestablishment” activity, Biko later organized theSouth African Students’ Organization while attendingsegregated classes at the University of Natal MedicalSchool. Three years later, in 1972, he was among thefounders of the Black People’s Convention, workingto merge 70-odd different civil rights groups from dif-ferent parts of South Africa. The all-white govern-ment “banned” Biko in 1973 with a decree thatforbade any travel outside his hometown in the East-ern Cape Province. Undeterred, he founded theZimele Trust Fund to assist political prisoners andtheir families. That effort sent Biko to jail for brutalinterrogation on four occasions between August 1975and September 1977. The last session proved fatal,with a savage beating inflicted by Biko’s jailers onSeptember 7. Police surgeons recommended hospitaltreatment on September 11, but Biko’s jailers movedhim to the Pretoria Central Prison instead, where hedied one day later, lying naked and untreated on theconcrete floor of his cell. Minister of Justice JamesKruger initially claimed that Biko died from a self-imposed hunger strike, remarking that the news ofBiko’s death “left him cold.” Kruger’s lie was dis-carded after an inquest revealed Biko’s head injuries,but the magistrate in charge deemed the wounds acci-dental. Following the collapse of apartheid, Biko’sfamily sued the state for damages in 1979 and settledout of court for R65,000 ($25,000). Three doctorsinvolved in Biko’s case were initially cleared by theSouth African Medical Disciplinary Committee butthen were mildly censured for their negligence in1985. The police officers who murdered Biko in jailsought and received amnesty in 1997 from the trou-bled nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

BILDERBERG groupLittle is known about the origins of this shadoworganization that was thought by some to secretlycontrol the daily course of major events throughoutmuch of the world. Some accounts say the groupwas founded in the early 1950s by Prince Bernhardof the Netherlands, while others speak of secretmeetings held at England’s Oxford University in1940. Some observers call the group Marxist even

as others proclaim it the last bastion of neoimperialcapitalism. Whatever their political leanings, manyassociates of the group also belong to the TRILAT-ERAL COMMISSION and the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN

RELATIONS (not to mention some with strong con-nections to the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY). Aclique of such low profile that it has no formalname, the Bilderberg group takes its public labelfrom the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland,where journalists first discovered the group’s exis-tence in 1954. While the group maintains a head-quarters in Leyden, it has no formal membership.Rather, secret invitations are sent to suitable candi-dates for once-yearly strategy sessions convened atplush resorts around the world. Asia Timesdescribed the group as follows in May 2003, shortlybefore it convened at Versailles:

The Bilderberg club is regarded by many financial and

business elites as the high chamber of the high priests of

capitalism. You can’t apply for membership of such a

club. Each year, a mysterious “steering committee”

devises a selected invitation list with a maximum 100

names. . . . Participants and guests rarely reveal that

they are attending. Their security is managed by mili-

tary intelligence. But what is the secretive group really

up to? Well, they talk. They lobby. They try to magnify

their already immense political clout, on both sides of

the Atlantic. And everybody pledges absolute secrecy

on what has been discussed.

The Bilderberg mingles central bankers, defense

experts, press barons, government ministers, prime

ministers, royalty, international financiers and political

leaders from Europe and America.

Guests this year . . . Queen Beatrix of the Nether-

lands, Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos of Spain, and

high officials of assorted governments. The Bilderberg

does not invite—or accept—Asians, Middle Easterners,

Latin Americans or Africans.

Other past or present U.S. power players withconfirmed links to the group include Bill Clinton,David Rockefeller, HENRY KISSINGER, U.S. Secretaryof Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Henry Ford II.Whatever the true thrust of its hidden agenda(s), theBilderberg group’s near-obsessive secrecy and ties toevery major government on earth ensures that itwill be the object of conspiracy theories as long as it exists.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY.

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BILDERBERG group

BILLY the Kid See UNDEAD OUTLAWS.

BIN LADEN familyThe best-known member of this affluent Saudi Ara-bian clan is Osama bin Laden, founding father of AL-QAEDA and the reputed mastermind of a five-yearTERRORISM campaign that culminated in the cata-strophic PENTTBOMB attacks of September 11, 2001.Few Americans know the rest of bin Laden’s familyor recognize its strong economic ties to the BUSH

DYNASTY spanning more than a decade. Bush–binLaden family ties date from the 1970s, but they werenot revealed until 1990’s public exposure of theinternational BCCI CONSPIRACY. Houston business-man James Bath was a major BCCI stockholder andpersonal friend of George W. Bush, whom he metwhile both served in the Texas Air National Guard.As explained by Time magazine reports, Bath ini-tially “made his fortune by investing money for[Sheikh Kalid bin] Mahfouz and for another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh bin Laden” (Osama’sfather). Among the firms receiving bin Laden moneyfrom 1977 onward was Arbusto Energy, an oil com-pany founded by “Dubya” Bush. A decade later,when Bush and Rath moved on to another oil com-pany, Harken Energy, Salem bin Laden (Osama’sbrother) negotiated access to oil fields in Bahrain,thus granting the Bushes another multimillion-dollarwindfall.

In the United States, meanwhile, financial assets ofthe Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) were managedby the Carlyle Group—one of the world’s largestarms dealers and a majority shareholder in suchfirms as the Seven-Up Company and the FederalData Corporation (sole supplier of air traffic-controlsurveillance systems to the U.S. Federal AviationAuthority). Carlyle earns $12 billion minimum peryear, managed by an executive team that includesFrank Carlucci (former deputy director of the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) and secretary ofdefense under President RONALD REAGAN) and JamesBaker II (secretary of state under President GeorgeH. W. Bush). Carlyle’s overseas representativesinclude George H. W. Bush and former British primeminister John Major. In 2003 Carlyle would reapmore billions by supplying most of the hardware tocoalition forces for OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

While his family and the Bush clan were growingrich together in the 1990s, Osama bin Laden turned

to terrorism in the name of Islamic fundamentalism,seeking to destroy ISRAEL and its global allies. Fol-lowing the August 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of twoU.S. embassies in Africa, President Bill Clintonordered the CIA to take bin Laden “dead or alive,”but the agency failed to carry out the contract. Clin-ton told the press in September 2001, “At the timewe did everything we can do. I authorized the arrestand, if necessary, the killing of Osama bin Laden and we actually made contact with a group inAFGHANISTAN to do it.” Theorists explain the CIA’sfailure to bury Osama in various ways, ranging frominstitutional incompetence to sinister intervention bymembers of the Bush family. George H. W. Bush,they recall, was director of the CIA in 1976–77 andmaintained his ties to the agency as vice president(1981–89), as president (1989–93), and as a paidspokesman for the Carlyle Group.

Soon after the January 2001 inauguration of Pres-ident George W. Bush, CIA and FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) insiders claim they received

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BILLY the Kid

During a search-and-destroy mission in the Zhawar Kiliarea of Afghanistan, U.S. Navy SEALs (SEa, Air, Land)found valuable intelligence information, including thisOsama bin Laden propaganda poster located in an al-Qaeda classroom, January 14, 2002. (Reuters/Corbis)

direct orders from the White House to “back off thebin Ladens.” Whether that fiat included Osama (anFBI “Top Ten” fugitive since 1996) may never beknown, but the global manhunt for bin Laden faredno better under Bush than it had under Clinton.After the 9/11 attacks, when U.S. forces invadedAfghanistan with the specific intent of capturing orkilling al-Qaeda’s leaders, bin Laden escaped onceagain and remains at large to this day, issuing peri-odic communiqués to the faithful from exile in partsunknown. Avid supporters of the Afghani invasionwere confused by subsequent White Houseannouncements that bin Laden’s apprehension “isnot a priority” and by news that President Bush him-self had aborted a plan to kill bin Laden with missile-firing drone aircraft in January 2001 after the CIAallegedly pinpointed his location in Afghanistan.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY.

BIRMINGHAM Police DepartmentBirmingham, Alabama, was once described as “themost segregated city in America,” a place where thecolor line was drawn so starkly that black and whitewitnesses in court swore oaths on different Bibles.From RECONSTRUCTION through the 1960s, Birming-ham was a hotbed of unfettered KU KLUX KLAN vio-lence, nicknamed “Bombingham” by black residentswho suffered 50-odd unsolved dynamite attacks(including the lethal BAPBOMB incident) between1948 and 1966. To find out why such crimesremained unsolved, we need look no further than theBirmingham Police Department (BPD).

Like every other police department worldwide,the BPD served major interests in its city, in this caseBirmingham’s “Big Mules” of industry. That supportincluded “suppression of labor unions and “commu-nists” of all sorts, along with blacks who forgot“their place” in lily-white southern society. Underpublic safety commissioner EUGENE “BULL” CON-NOR (1941–53, 1957–63) the BPD and city firedepartment were little more than tools for enforcingwhite supremacy. The BPD’s Intelligence Divisionmounted nonstop surveillance on civil rightsactivists, yet never seemed to notice when theirhomes were bombed or strafed with gunfire. Detec-tive Sergeant Tom Clark, a specialist in “racial mat-ters,” was Connor’s personal liaison with the KKKand helped arrange (with FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVES-TIGATION collusion) the May 1961 Klan assault on

FREEDOM RIDE participants in Birmingham. Twoyears later, after black witness Roosevelt Tatum sawa Birmingham policeman (Car 22) deliver a bomb toa black-owned motel, FBI agents stepped in to savethe day, slapping Tatum with perjury charges thatsent him to prison for 12 months. Connor’s minidic-tatorship ended in 1963, but routine police harass-ment of black activists and organizations continuedinto the late 1970s, including illegal surveillance,wiretaps, and opening of mail.

BLACK Dragon SocietyThis militaristic, ultranationalist secret society ofJAPAN traced its roots to the tumultuous 1868 MeijiRestoration, which dissolved the nation’s traditionalsamurai class. Following a failed revolt against theemperor in 1877, disaffected samurai organized vari-ous secret societies, which merged in February 1881as the Black Ocean Society (Genyosha). The group’sfirst president, Hiraoka Kotaro, owned the richestopal mines in Japan. Obsessed with plans for aninvasion of KOREA, Black Ocean members seduced,bribed, and blackmailed various government officialsto support the plan, assassinating several whorefused. A network of brothels in Japan, CHINA, andother Asian countries served the Genyosha by col-lecting intelligence and providing blackmail ammuni-tion against politicians and other prominent targets.By 1890 the organization received more financialsupport from the Ministry of War than from privatedonors, and it enjoyed a special status with theHome Ministry (which used Genyosha goons toattack leftists and other political opponents).

In 1894 the Black Ocean’s terrorist campaignsparked the Sino-Japanese War, resulting in Japanesevictory over China. At the same time, turning itssights against RUSSIA, the group changed its name tothe Black Dragon Society (Kokuryukai). The group’sdriving goal was to extend Japanese influencethroughout Asia and the world at large. To that end,the society recruited members ranging from govern-ment ministers and military leaders to opium smug-glers and professional killers. Hundreds of memberswere taught to speak Russian and were then dis-patched into Siberia and Mongolia as spies forJapan. That intelligence network played a large rolein the Russo-Japanese War, climaxed by Russia’sdefeat in 1905. Black Dragon leaders next broadenedtheir target to encompass “Greater East Asia,” a goal

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BLACK Dragon Society

emphasized by nationalists during Japan’s “nationalreconstruction” in the 1930s. Once again, acts of ter-rorism precipitated war—this time in Manchuria—and politicians who opposed the Black DragonSociety (including Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi)were marked for assassination. The campaign culmi-nated in 1936 with a military revolt, and while thatuprising failed, Black Dragon members and support-ers retained enough influence to guide Japan throughthe portentous years ahead to an alliance with ADOLF

HITLER and the PEARL HARBOR attack that broughtthe United States into World War II.

BLACK Friday conspiracyTo finance the U.S. Civil War (1861–65), PresidentAbraham Lincoln issued millions of dollars in papercurrency—dubbed “greenbacks”—that were securedby the credit of the federal government. In the event

of Union victory, greenback holders believed thepaper currency would be redeemed with GOLD. Theywere still waiting for that payback in 1869 when agroup of speculators led by “robber barons” JayGould and James (“Jubilee Jim”) Fisk set out to cor-ner the U.S. gold market. Realizing that cooperationfrom President Ulysses Grant was crucial to theirsuccess, Fisk and Gould paid Grant’s brother-in-law,financier Abel Corbin, $25,000 to lobby against thesale of government gold reserves. Corbin persuadedGrant to name Daniel Butterfield as assistant U.S.treasurer, presumably unaware that Butterfield hadagreed to tip Fisk and Gould in advance of any government gold sales.

On September 20, 1869, Fisk and Gould began topurchase large stocks of gold on the open market,thus boosting the price from $20 to $162 per ounceduring the next three days. President Grant reactedto the move by ordering the sale of $4 million in

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BLACK Friday conspiracy

Robber baron Jim Fisk (left) was a prime mover in the “Black Friday” gold conspiracy, while Jay Gould (right) was acohort who escaped punishment for his role in the scandal. (Author’s collection)

government gold on September 24—“Black Fri-day”—thereby puncturing the “gold bubble” andcausing prices to plummet. Fisk and Gould, fore-warned of Grant’s move by Butterfield, sold shortand made millions from the crisis. (Butterfield him-self made $35,000 by selling gold short on Black Fri-day.) With scandal brewing Fisk issued a series ofstatements implicating President Grant and his wifein the conspiracy, which in turn prompted a congres-sional inquiry led by Representative (later president)James Garfield. Democrats sought to elicit testimonyfrom Grant, his wife, and Abel Corbin’s spouse, butthose petitions were defeated in the House by aRepublican majority. Creditors pursuing Fisk andGould were stymied by a blizzard of injunctionsfrom TAMMANY HALL, leaving Butterfield alone tosuffer dismissal from his treasury post. Historiansremain divided on Grant’s complicity in the BlackFriday plot.

BLACK Guerrilla FamilyThis all-black PRISON GANG was organized in 1966at California’s San Quentin Prison by BLACK PANTHER

PARTY member GEORGE JACKSON. Unlike otherprison gangs that focus primarily on drug salesand/or racial warfare behind bars, the Black Guer-rilla Family (BGF) was born with (and maintainstoday) a strong political ideology incorporatingblack revolution against the U.S. government. (As iscommon with revolutionary groups, the BGF soonquarreled with Black Panther chiefs, and the twogroups became bitter enemies.) Many present mem-bers of the gang were once affiliated with the Pan-ther Party or its more militant offshoot, the BlackLiberation Army. The highly organized BGF acceptsany black inmates (except homosexuals) who acceptthe group’s philosophy. Candidates must be spon-sored by members in good standing, and they areinvestigated by screening committees that investigatethe inmate’s background, criminal record, and rela-tionship to his sponsor. Once accepted, membersswear a “death oath” vowing lifelong allegiance tothe BGF. Gang structure includes a central executivecommittee, “field generals,” captains of squads, lieu-tenants, and soldiers. Membership declined in the1980s and then enjoyed a resurgence with enroll-ment of imprisoned street gang members such asCRIPS AND BLOODS. Many BGF members display tattoos with the gang’s initials, plus crossed sabers

or shotguns and black dragons sitting astride prisontowers. BGF members are mortal enemies of theneo-Nazi ARYAN BROTHERHOOD.

BLACK Hand(s)Historically, the “Black Hand” name was applied totwo distinct and separate groups. The first, hardly anorganization at all, was a loosely knit network ofItalian terrorists and racketeers (including somemembers of the MAFIA) who extorted money fromtheir fellow countrymen. The technique involvedcrude threatening notes with a demand for cash,“signed” with the imprint of a hand in black ink.Failure to pay up on time typically brought reprisalsin the form of arson, bombing, vandalism, beatings,mutilation, or murder. When large numbers of Ital-ians migrated to the United States after the Civil War,Black Hand extortionists came with them and con-tinued their activities in cities ranging from NewOrleans to Chicago and New York. Few convictionswere obtained in Black Hand cases because the vic-tims and their families were commonly too fright-ened to report the crimes or to testify against theirpersecutors. Simple passage of time doomed theBlack Hand rackets in America, as PROHIBITION gavethe ethnic gangs a new source of fabulous income,while advancements in fingerprint technology madeBlack Hand notes a one-way ticket to prison.

The other Black Hand was a Serbian nationalistgroup, organized in May 1911 to reverse AUSTRIA’srecent annexation of BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.The organization’s formal name was Ujedinjenje iliSmrt (Union or Death), but members emulated Italy’sfreelance terrorists by adopting a black handprint astheir logo. Membership approached 2,500 by 1914,including many Serbian army officers and CrownPrince Alexander, all sworn to the goal of creating a“Greater Serbia” by any means available. New mem-bers swore “before God, on my honor and my life,that I will execute all missions and commands with-out question. I swear before God, on my honor andon my life, that I will take all the secrets of thisorganization into my grave with me.” The group’slast great coup was the June 1914 assassination ofArchduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which inturn sparked a chain of events that unleashed WorldWar I. Most leaders of the Black Hand were in jail byMay 1917 when a show trial sentenced seven rank-ing officers to death. The group itself was banned by

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BLACK Hand(s)

law one month later, by which time its survivingmembers were immersed in the bloody business ofsurviving in their war-torn homeland.

BLACK HundredsDuring the Russian Revolution of 1905 leaders ofthe czarist SECRET POLICE organized various reac-tionary groups to fight dissidents at the grass-rootslevel. The largest of those groups was the League of the Russian People, more commonly known as theBlack Hundreds. (Black, at the time—and in parts ofEurope today—was deemed the opposite of Red, orrevolutionary.) The league’s membership includedlandowners, bureaucrats, police officers, and rela-tively “wealthy” peasants. Its philosophy waspromonarchy, antirevolutionary, and anti-Semitic.Mass slaughter of Jews had been common in RUSSIA

since the 1881 assassination of Czar ALEXANDER II,and the Black Hundreds continued that brutal tradi-tion. Jews bore the brunt of violence by the BlackHundreds through 1911, prompting thousands ofsurvivors to flee Russia entirely. Ironically, in March1917, most of the league’s 3,000 members joined theleft-wing Bolshevik Party led by VLADIMIR LENIN,and some later rose to prominence in the Soviet gov-ernment, including leadership positions in the KGB.

BLACK Muslims See NATION OF ISLAM.

BLACK Orchestra“Black Orchestra” was the GESTAPO code name for agroup of conspirators within the German army whoplotted to overthrow ADOLF HITLER during WorldWar II. The group gained a powerful ally in February1944 when Hitler demoted the chief of his intelli-gence service, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. BlackOrchestra members made several abortive attemptson Hitler’s life, but their best effort came in July1944 with a time-bomb secreted in Hitler’s commandbunker during a general staff meeting. Days beforethe attempt, Canaris learned that SS chief HEINRICH

HIMMLER suspected a plot, but the conspirators pro-ceeded with their plan despite the admiral’s warning.Three of Der Führer’s aides died in the blast, butHitler suffered only minor injuries and launched apurge of suspected traitors. The Black Orchestra con-spirators were soon identified, brutally tortured, and

hanged from meat hooks with piano-wire nooses.(Hitler reportedly filmed the executions to enjoythem repeatedly.) Admiral Canaris was confined atFlossenberg concentration camp until March 1945when he was hanged on Hitler’s order, his nude bodyleft to rot on the scaffold.

BLACK Panther Party for Self-DefenseThe Black Panther Party was organized in October1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, two stu-dents at Merritt College in Oakland, California.Combining Maoist politics with the teachings ofMALCOLM X, they devised a party program thatincluded freedom, full employment, decent housing,improved educational facilities, liberation of allblack men held in American prisons, exemption frommilitary service for all blacks, and “an immediateend to police brutality and murder of black people.”To the latter end, Panthers armed themselves and“patrolled” police in the ghetto, advising black pris-oners of their constitutional rights. Soon, spokesmenof STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY hailed thePanther Party as “the vanguard of an anticapitalistrevolution involving the whole of American society.”

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) Direc-tor J. EDGAR HOOVER seems to have taken thatoverblown rhetoric seriously, describing Black Pan-thers as the single greatest threat to America’s inter-nal security. Reports suggest that there were nevermore than 1,200 Panthers nationwide, but manywhite police and politicians shared Hoover’s view,exacerbated by a series of violent clashes in late1967 and early 1968. In November 1968 Hooverordered FBI field offices “to exploit all avenues ofcreating . . . dissension within the ranks of the BPP”;he also demanded “imaginative and hard-hittingcounterintelligence measures aimed at crippling theBPP.” California G-men engineered a shooting warbetween Panthers and members of the rival UnitedSlaves (U.S.) organization, using informants andagents provocateurs on both sides to keep the actiongoing. At least four Panthers were killed by U.S.gunmen before the feud ended, mute testimony tothe claim of ex-Agent Wesley Swearingen that“Hoover wanted the Panthers in jail or dead.” Asimilar effort in Chicago sparked violence betweenthe Panthers and members of a volatile street gang,the Blackstone Rangers. Between December 1967and December 1969, at least 28 Panthers were killed

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BLACK Hundreds

by police or rival militants—many of whom, oncloser inspection, proved to be FBI hirelings.

Prosecution was another angle of attack, althoughwith less certain results. In 1969 alone 348 Pantherswere jailed across the United States on various felonycharges, costing the party more than $200,000 inbail premiums. In April of that year G-men and NewYork police charged 21 Panthers with conspiracy tocommit murder and arson, but all were finallyacquitted at trial. A month after those arrests, onMay 15, 1969, Hoover issued a memo commandingall agents to “destroy what the BPP stands for.” InDetroit agents drafted spurious extortion letters inthe party’s name, addressed to local businessmen. InLos Angeles FBI informant MELVIN SMITH providedinformation on a nonexistent cache of weapons,prompting police to raid the local Panther office inDecember 1969. Four days later members of theCHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT used a floor plandrawn by G-men and informant WILLIAM O’NEAL toraid the home of party leader FRED HAMPTON, rid-dling him with bullets as he lay asleep in bed. In1972 G-men and informants joined forces with theLOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT to frame PantherElmer (“Geronimo”) Pratt on a false murder charge.

The FBI’s Panther hunt did not end with Hoover’sdeath in May 1972 or with the party’s subsequentdissolution. Imprisoned Panthers were still subject tosurveillance and harassment under the bureau’sPRISACTS (Prison Activists) program which targeted“extremist, revolutionary, terrorist, and subversiveactivities in penal institutions.” PRISACTS waslaunched in 1974 “with the primary goals of pro-moting liaison and cooperation between the FBI andprison administrators nationwide relative to aboveelements, and to generally provide for two-wayexchange of information.”

G-men also pursued the scattered party veteransstill at large, including ex-Panther Joanne Chesi-mard. Linked to robbery and a shootout in New Jer-sey during May 1973, Chesimard was indicted for awide range of East Coast crimes, but courts dis-missed three cases, and juries acquitted her in twoothers. Finally convicted on the original counts inMarch 1977, she escaped from prison in November1979 and surfaced in Cuba eight years later to pro-mote her autobiography. Huey Newton also fled toCuba, dodging charges for the murder of an Oaklandprostitute in 1974; he then returned in 1977 to facetrial. Two juries failed to reach a verdict in the case.

Newton was killed in Oakland on August 22, 1989,in what police described as a drug dispute. A memberof the rival BLACK GUERRILLA FAMILY was convictedof Newton’s murder in 1991.

BLACK SeptemberThis Arab terrorist group took its name from thebloody events of September 1970 when King Hus-sein of JORDAN turned his army against Palestinianmilitant groups operating against ISRAEL from Jor-danian soil. Bitter fighting ensued before thousandsof refugees fled into LEBANON, SYRIA, and IRAQ.Some researchers claim Black September was anultramilitant branch of FATAH, the military wing ofthe Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led byYasser Arafat. The group’s most infamous actionoccurred in September 1972 when masked gunmeninvaded the Olympic Village in Munich, GERMANY,killing 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Israel’s WRATH

OF GOD hit teams pursued alleged leaders of thegroup through 1973, killing several in Europe andvarious points in the Middle East. While the mop-ping up was still in progress, one of the group’salleged founders, Abu Daoud, told Jordanian jour-nalists, “There is no such thing as Black September.Fatah announced its operations under this name sothat Fatah would not appear as the direct executorsof the operations.” The last known “action” claimedby Black September was a December 1973 radiobroadcast from Jordan, threatening to kill HENRY

KISSINGER during a tour of the Middle East.

BOHEMIAN ClubAllegedly founded in 1883, the Bohemian Club isdescribed by some conspiracists as a collection of“secret world leaders” on a par with the ILLUMINATI,the BILDERBERG GROUP, or the TRILATERAL COMMIS-SION. Prominent Americans identified (in unsubstan-tiated Internet reports) as members of the groupinclude Nelson ROCKEFELLER, HENRY KISSINGER, andvarious past presidents, among them Theodore Roo-sevelt, Herbert Hoover, and RICHARD NIXON. Meet-ings are supposedly held each July at BohemianGrove, a plot of redwood forest along the RussianRiver, near San Francisco in northern California’sSonoma County.

Most information available on the Bohemian Clubcomes from spokesmen of a self-styled “avenging

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posse,” the Bohemian Grove Action Network(BGAN), which strives to expose the club’s allegedsubversive activities. Supposed eyewitness reportsfrom BGAN infiltrators describe “80 percent of theBohemians in a state of intoxication so advancedthat many of them had fallen insensible among theferns,” yet conspiratorial business presumably con-tinues—and is said to be occult in nature. One sup-posed club ritual, dubbed the Banishment of Care,includes the burning of a giant effigy, apparentlyphotographed from a distance by BGAN spies in2003. Internet researcher Alex Jones maintains thatthe ritual is a celebration of Molech (or Moloch), apagan god reviled by authors of the Old Testament.

Jones also suggest that club members have, at sometime in the past, indulged in human sacrifice. His “evi-dence” allegedly consists of two “rediscovered photosdepicting scenes from early 20th-century BohemianGrove gatherings”—though, in fact, they are undatedand contain no landmarks to identify the sparsely-wooded setting(s). One photo depicts the apparenthanging of a man (or mannequin) dressed in a suit, hisface concealed by a drooping hat. It resembles a typi-cal lynching photo and contains no solid clues as towhen or where it was taken. The second shot reveals agroup of men surrounding a male figure lying pros-trate on a wooden table. Jones maintains that therecumbent form “is clearly a black child or a midget,”though in fact simple comparison shows him to beroughly as tall as those surrounding the bier.

What do the photos prove? What is their source?Do they portray authentic homicides, or were theystaged? In either case, where and when were theytaken? What evidence do they reveal of any occultritual? How are the alleged killers identified as mem-bers of the Bohemian Club? Such questions mean lit-tle to dedicated conspiracists. The mystery—andpublic controversy—will doubtless persist.

BOLIVIASpanish invaders decimated Bolivia’s indigenous peo-ples in the 16th century, soon reducing them to slav-ery. Some of the colonists lost interest as mineralwealth dried up in the latter 17th century and asBolivia won independence in 1825 (taking its namefrom liberator Simón Bolívar). Feuds with neighborsresulted in loss of substantial territory to CHILE

(1879–84), BRAZIL (1903), and PARAGUAY (1932–53),while the incessant border warfare destabilized

Bolivia’s government. In 1965 Bolivian rebels aidedby fighters from CUBA launched a revolution, but the movement was crushed by native troops and CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY agents two yearslater. Bolivia’s halting progress toward democracywas stalled by imposition of a military junta(1980–82), but the subsequent election of a leftistgovernment did little to reform the country. Regularstrikes paralyzed the economy, while much ofBolivia’s natural wealth was either wasted or funneledthrough black-market outlets. The one growth indus-try, COCAINE, produced pervasive corruption in gov-ernment and law enforcement. President HugoBánzer (1997–2002) allegedly made “significantprogress” toward curbing drug traffic, but eradica-tion of coca plunged many Bolivian farmers intoabject poverty.

BONAPARTE, Napoleon (1769–1821)Once the emperor of France and arguably the mostpowerful man in all of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte(born Buonaparte) died in exile on the island of St.Helena at age 51 on May 5, 1821. Initially, his deathwas blamed on stomach cancer, which had alsoclaimed the lives of his father and two sisters.Another 150 years passed before Bonaparte’s deathwas reexamined by Swedish dentist Sten Forshufvud,whose study of Napoleon’s last days convinced himthat the ex-emperor had died from slow poisoningwith arsenic. Chemical analysis of Napoleon’s hairseemed to confirm the diagnosis, leading Forshufvudto publish his findings in 1961. Three decades later,another student of Napoleon, Ben Weider, reachedthe same conclusion and named Count Charles Tris-tan de Montholon as the actual killer (allegedlyprompted by the Comte d’Artois, who became KingCharles X of the French in 1824). A different verdictwas delivered in by a team of French scientists in1999, however. While confirming that Napoleon’sremains contained 15 parts of arsenic per million(five times the “safe” level), the analysts concludedthat Napoleon absorbed the toxin from “such thingsas hair products, wallpaper, ash from wood fires orglue.” If the arsenic had been ingested orally, theteam declared, Napoleon’s death “would have beenmuch quicker”—an argument blandly ignoring theForshufvud/Weider theory that Bonaparte was poi-soned slowly over time with small doses of arsenic tosimulate natural death. The ultimate conclusion,

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affirming the 19th-century cancer diagnosis, pre-dictably failed to persuade conspiracy theorists thatNapoleon died from natural causes.

BORMANN, Martin (1900–?1945)The son of a former Prussian soldier, Martin Bor-mann, who was born in 1900, dropped out of schoolto work as a farm laborer and then served with aGerman artillery unit in World War I. In the early1920s he espoused NATIONAL SOCIALISM and joinedthe far-right Rossbach Freikorps, participating inacts of Nazi TERRORISM. In March 1924 Bormannreceived a one-year prison term as an accomplice ofRUDOLF HESS in the brutal murder of Walther Kadow(Bormann’s former elementary school teacher). Uponrelease, he rose swiftly through the Nazi ranks, serv-ing as second-in-command to Deputy Führer Hess.At the same time, he administered ADOLF HITLER’spersonal finances, and ascended to supplant Hess inMay 1941 after Hess made his mysterious one-wayflight to England. Dubbed Hitler’s “Brown Emi-nence” during the remainder of World War II, Bor-mann was regarded by some observers as the truemaster of the brutal THIRD REICH. Author WilliamStevenson, in The Bormann Brotherhood (1973),contends that Bormann blackmailed Hitler, suppress-ing evidence that Hitler murdered his niece and lover,Geli Raubal, in September 1931. Be that as it may,no covert machinations could save the crumblingNazi Reich in 1945 as Allied troops advanced onBerlin from all sides. With Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis, Bormann must have known he wouldbe prosecuted for WAR CRIMES and the atrocities ofthe HOLOCAUST. According to official histories, Bor-mann fled the Führerbunker on April 30, 1945, act-ing on Hitler’s order “to put the interests of thenation before his own feelings” and save himself tocarry on the fight from exile.

What happened next remains a point of heatedcontroversy. Hitler’s chauffeur, Erich Kempka,claimed that Bormann was killed by artillery firewhile fleeing Berlin in a tank. Artur Axmann, aleader of the Hitler Youth, told a different story,insisting that Bormann committed suicide and thathe (Axmann) saw Bormann’s body lying on a Berlinstreet on May 2, 1945. Nonetheless, between Decem-ber 1945 and September 1946, Allied investigatorsheard “strong rumors” that Bormann was alive andwell in AUSTRIA, SPAIN, ARGENTINA, and ITALY. The

Nuremberg war-crimes tribunal treated him as livingand sentenced Bormann to death in absentia onOctober 1, 1946. Five months later, a Swiss newspa-per reported that Bormann was living in the Alps andplotting the rise of a FOURTH REICH. In May 1948John Griffiths, a businessman living in URUGUAY, toldU.S. authorities that Bormann was hiding inArgentina. President Harry Truman ordered a FED-ERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION investigation, but J.EDGAR HOOVER’s report of September 8, 1948,claimed that no trace of Bormann could be found.

A West German court declared Bormann legallydead on January 30, 1954, but the controversy resur-faced in 1962 when a Peruvian newspaper claimedthat Bormann had died in PARAGUAY on February 15,1959. (The alleged attending physician denied anyknowledge of Bormann.) In 1965 German prosecu-tors excavated a site in Berlin where Bormann’sremains were allegedly buried, but they came upempty handed. Seven years later, construction work-ers digging on the same spot allegedly unearthed askeleton said to be Bormann’s, but the find onlymade matters worse. Between December 1972 andApril 1973 German authorities released photographsof four distinctly different skulls, each in turn “posi-tively” declared to be Bormann’s. On that weird noteanother court issued Bormann’s second legal-deathnotice, but Nazi-hunters remained unconvinced.

BOSNIA and HerzegovinaOnce known to Roman invaders as Illyricum, themodern Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is atriangular patch of territory in the Balkans, bestknown for endless ethnic and religious feuds betweenits Bosnian, Croat, and Serbian inhabitants. Serbiannationalists touched off World War I in 1914 byassassinating AUSTRIA’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand atSarajevo. Absorbed by YUGOSLAVIA in 1929, theregion was occupied by ADOLF HITLER’s Nazi troopsin 1941. Jew-hating locals learned new genocidaltricks during the HOLOCAUST, which served themwell a half-century later. The fractured nationdeclared independence from Yugoslavia in December1991, and a brutal war of “ethnic cleansing” eruptedthe following year, marked by atrocities on bothsides (Muslim-Croats vs. Serbs) during the next fouryears. At the peak of conflict, reports surfaced thatvarious warlords or independent felons were usingthe carnage to produce commercial SNUFF FILMS.

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That charge remains unproved, but sluggish WAR

CRIMES trials continue at The Hague, where morethan 100 defendants stand indicted. A Bosnian Serbcommander, Gen. Radislav Drstic, was convicted inAugust 2001 for killing 8,000 Muslims at Sre-brenica, in 1995. The trial of former Serbian presi-dent SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC continues at this writing(in May 2005).

BOTSWANAAfter being overrun by Zulus (1820s) and then byBoers from Transvaal (1870s), aboriginal San tribes-men of Botswana were “protected” by the BritishEmpire from 1885 to 1965, emerging from colonialrule as Africa’s first true democracy in September1966. Although maintaining superficial good rela-tions with white neighbors Rhodesia and SOUTH

AFRICA, Botswana harbored black rebels from bothcountries and suffered repeated incursions by whitetroops hunting “subversives.” High unemploymentand stratified socioeconomic classes combined toproduce a deepening recession in the 1990s. At thesame time Botswana suffered the world’s worst dev-astation from AIDS. By 2001, 350,000 of its 1.6 mil-lion people were infected, and half of the populationbetween ages 25 and 29 was rated terminally ill.Ambitious pronouncements that new health pro-grams will prevent any new AIDS infections by 2016have yet to be tested.

BOY Scouts of AmericaA self-styled patriotic and religious movement whosemembers take an oath to “God and country,” theBoy Scouts of America (BSA) was sued in 1990 bythe parents of a seven-year-old boy in Illinois. Theboy was rejected as a Cub Scout because of both hisagnosticism and his refusal to pronounce the reli-gious portion of the scout oath. Discrimination wasclaimed; BSA spokespersons defended their group asa private order, immune to federal civil rights lawsthat demand equality of treatment in any “place ofpublic accommodation.” A federal district courtaccepted that argument in May 1993, and the U.S.SUPREME COURT declined to review the case sevenmonths later. BSA leaders hailed the verdict as a victory for Christian values, but some of those sameleaders left much to be desired where morality andethical behavior were concerned.

Scouting originated in England, with RobertBaden-Powell’s creation of the Boy Scout Move-ment. Although himself a closet pedophile who col-lected nude photos of boys, Baden-Powell publiclyvoiced the opinion that child-molesting scoutmastersshould be flogged. In practice, though, his attitudewas very different, and he allowed two of his topaides—H. D. Byrne and Robert Patterson—to resignquietly after both were exposed as serial offenderswith dozens of victims. To the end of his days,Baden-Powell was known for his “extreme reluc-tance to discuss the perennial problem posed byhomosexual scoutmasters.”

The BSA was organized by publisher WilliamBoyce with help from Baden-Powell in 1910. By thattime, the Scout Movement in England had estab-lished a “Gray List” of adults banned from scoutingfor various reasons, including pedophilia, that wasused (theoretically) to screen incoming scoutmasters.In 1911, after one short year of operation, the BSAcreated its own “Red Flag List,” known at headquar-ters as the Ineligible Volunteer Files. Those bannedfrom scouting are not exclusively pedophiles—thelist has ranged over time from political “undesir-ables” to convicted killers—but child molesters rep-resent a substantial portion of those excluded.According to statistics revealed in various lawsuits,some 4,000 adults were banned from scoutingbetween 1971 and 1991, with at least 1,800 of thosedismissed as sexual predators. James Tarr, head ofthe BSA from 1979 to 1984, admitted thatpedophilia has “been an issue since the Boy Scoutsbegan.”

It should not be assumed, however, that 1,800child molesters were arrested or convicted of molest-ing boy scouts during 1971–91. Far from it. In fact,BSA leaders have done everything within theirpower—including lies under oath—to protect themovement’s “good name.” Time after time, as amplydocumented in Patrick Boyle’s Scout’s Honor (1994),BSA leaders suppressed evidence of criminal activityto preserve scouting’s public image. Each and everyone of the 4,000 adults banned from scouting in1971–91 received a personal letter from BSA head-quarters, vowing that “this decision [to reject orexpel a scoutmaster] and the reasons for it will bekept confidential.” In a 1988 Virginia lawsuit, thejudge demanded all Ineligible Volunteer Files com-piled on pedophiles from 1975 through 1984, andBSA attorneys delivered 231 dossiers. A year later, in

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California an identical judicial demand was issuedfor all such files spanning the past 20 years. This timethe BSA produced only 180, but the judge hadalready perused a week-long series in the WashingtonTimes that identified 416 files. Slapped with a heavypunitive fine, BSA leaders claimed they “misunder-stood” the court’s original order, producing another1,691 pedofiles, for a grand total of 1,871.

It should not be presumed that lawsuits havechanged much (if anything) within the world ofScouting. In January 2003 police in Christchurch,New Zealand, went to arrest scoutmaster RolandHarding at his home on charges of molesting fourboys and found their suspect dead in an apparentsuicide. Three weeks later, a 66-year-old formerscoutmaster in Guelph, Ontario, pleaded guilty tocharges of molesting three scouts. In June 2003 areport published in USA Today revealed that “atleast 25” members of the BSA’s Law EnforcementExplorers program—assigned to work with variousU.S. police departments—had been sexually abusedduring the past three years. A dozen of those victimshad been molested during the past 12 months in Cal-ifornia, Tennessee, and Texas. Once again the oldrefrain was trotted out: “Sponsors have promised toreform the program.” Critics suggest that afternearly 100 years, the reforms should be completed.

BRAZILPORTUGAL claimed the territory of modern Brazil in1500, staking out its sole New World colony in ahemisphere dominated by SPAIN and England. Colo-nial rule was as disastrous for aboriginal people hereas in other parts of the Western Hemisphere, butindependence came earlier with a revolution in 1820.Brazil fought with the victorious Allies in both WorldWars, but its military leaders seemed to learn morefrom their FASCIST enemies than from Westerndemocracies. In 1961, after President João Goulartnationalized a Brazilian IT&T subsidiary and tookother steps to prevent U.S. corporations from lootingthe nation, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY leadersconspired with native military officers to topple thecivilian government. Their coup was successful in1964, establishing a brutal police state that enduredfor 20 years, sustained by the torture and murder ofdissidents. Popular elections resumed in January1985, but corruption continued, forcing the resigna-tion of President Collor de Mello in December 1992.

Economic woes continued into the 21st century, andnational bankruptcy was only prevented by a $30billion loan from the International Monetary Fund inAugust 2002. In June 2003 Brazilian lawmakersobtained copies of a secret report prepared by theU.S. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY in 1974. The doc-ument (National Security Study Memorandum 200)detailed plans to target 13 developing nations forintensive efforts to promote sterilization as a meansof population control. Brazil was singled out becauseit “clearly dominates the continent demographically”and might achieve “a growing power status . . . overthe next 25 years.” Brazil’s Ministry of Healthcharged that 44 percent of all Brazilian femalesbetween the age of 14 and 55 had been permanentlysterilized by U.S.-funded doctors since the programbegan.

BROOKINGS InstitutionThe Brookings Institution is a private nonprofitorganization that seeks to improve the performanceof American institutions, the effectiveness of govern-ment programs, and the quality of U.S. public policy.Since 1916 when it began life as the Institute forGovernment Research (renamed for St. Louis philan-thropist Robert Somers Brookings in 1927), thegroup has functioned as “a bridge between scholar-ship and public policy,” researching various criticalsubjects and critiquing government efforts to copewith various problems. Its stated goals include“bringing new knowledge to the attention of deci-sionmakers and affording scholars a better insightinto public policy issues.”

Such efforts are predictably unwelcome to dog-matic regimes that operate covertly in defiance of thelaw. President RICHARD NIXON, obsessed with pur-suit of those who had leaked the so-called PentagonPapers to various newspapers in 1970, decided that“liberal Democrats” at the Brookings Institution hadplayed some role in the affair. The evidence: a paperreviewing U.S. involvement in the VIETNAM War,written for Brookings by ex-Pentagon employeeLeslie Gelb. White House conspirator Charles Col-son wrote a memo to Nixon aide John Ehrlichmanon July 6, 1971, saying in part: “It looks to me likewe may soon expect another installment in the Pen-tagon Papers written by the same authors but doubt-less more up to date. . . . In my opinion this shouldbe promptly investigated.”

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White House “plumber” John Caulfield laterclaimed that he was summoned to Colson’s office inthe second week of July 1971 and there informed thatPresident Nixon recognized “a high priority need toobtain papers from the office of a gentleman namedLeslie Gelb” at the Brookings Institution. Colson alsohad a plan, according to Caulfield: “The suggestionwas that the fire regulations in the District of Colum-bia could be changed to have the FBI [FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION] respond to the scene of any fire inthe district and that if there were to be a fire at theBrookings Institute [sic] that the FBI could respondand obtain the file in question from Mr. Leslie Gelb’soffice.” While no specifics were discussed, Caulfieldinferred that he was being told to set the fire himself.

Caulfield, himself no stranger to criminal activity,reportedly deemed the plan “asinine” and reported it

to presidential counsel John Dean. Dean, in turn,warned Ehrlichman against pursuing the “insane”conspiracy, and Ehrlichman allegedly ordered Colsonto forget the plan. Colson, for his part, denies anyknowledge of the plot (though a friend later toldauthor J. Anthony Lukas that Colson may have sug-gested the plan as “a joke”).

BULGARIAAbsorbed by the Roman Empire in the first centuryA.D., the territory of modern Bulgaria was subse-quently invaded by Goths, Huns, and Bulgars (in679). Ottoman Turks overran the country in 1396and ruled it ruthlessly until 1908. Initially an ally ofaggressor GERMANY in both World Wars, Bulgariaturned on ADOLF HITLER in 1944 and established aCommunist regime. During the cold war, Bulgariawas known as RUSSIA’s most slavish ally, and many ofthe KGB’s expendable assassins were Bulgarians.Todor Zhikov, general secretary of the BulgarianCommunist Party, resigned in 1989 after 35 years inpower. His successor scheduled free elections for May1990; the Communist Party won a surprise victoryand promptly renamed itself the Bulgarian SocialistParty. Voters defeated the Communist/Socialist slatein October 1991, electing Bulgaria’s first noncommu-nist government in 47 years, but the nation’s econ-omy continued its downward spiral amid revelationsof rampant corruption and organized crime.

See also COMMUNISM.

BULL, Gerald Victor (1928–1990)An American citizen born at North Bay, Ontario, in1928, Gerald Bull suffered a loveless childhood,raised by an aunt after his mother died and his fatherleft for parts unknown. Still, he excelled in school andwas rated a virtual genius, earning his Ph.D. from theUniversity of Toronto at age 23. By that time he wasalready obsessed with the idea of building giant guns that could propel satellites into outer space, avision fueled in equal parts by childhood readings ofJules Verne and study of the giant field guns used byGermany to bombard Paris during World War I.

Bull took the first step toward realizing his visionwhen he joined the Canadian Armament andResearch Development Establishment (CARDE),involved throughout the 1950s with problems ofsupersonic aerodynamics for aircraft and missiles.

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Robert Somers Brookings founded the Washington institutethat Watergate conspirators plotted to destroy in 1972.(Author’s collection)

Supersonic wind tunnels were expensive to build, soBull devised an alternative method of testing: In lieuof constructing vast tunnels, he proposed using can-non to fire models down a test range at supersonicspeed. The early tests were successful, and at age 31Bull was promoted to lead CARDE’s aerophysicsdepartment. A loathing for bureaucratic red tapedrove Bull to a series of unapproved media inter-views, which in turn alienated his superiors, and hewas dismissed from CARDE two years later in 1961.

Briefly adrift in private life, Bull soon found sup-port from the Pentagon, the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY (CIA), and the Canadian Defense Depart-ment for a new experimental program dubbed Pro-ject HARP (High-Altitude Research Program),created to study large guns and high-altitude ballis-tics. Initial testing was done in subterranean tunnelson land that Bull purchased along the Vermont-Quebec border. Free-flight tests were later conductedon the island of Barbados, where giant projectileswere lobbed over the Atlantic, peaking at an altitudeof 108 miles.

Diversion of military funds for the ongoing Viet-nam War doomed Bull’s project and once again lefthim without official sponsors. Before the bitter end,Bull transferred HARP’s assets to his own company—Space Research Corporation (SRC)—operating froman 8,000-acre spread in rural Vermont. By the 1970sCIA contacts had placed Bull in touch with govern-ment representatives from SOUTH AFRICA, CHINA,and IRAQ, but those connections ultimately landedBull in jail. American relations with South Africa’sracist apartheid regime were severed in the latter1970s, and U.S. corporations were banned fromdoing business with Johannesburg. Bull ignored therestrictions until he was arrested for smuggling30,000 artillery shells to South Africa via the West Indies. A guilty plea on that charge broughtBull a six-month jail term, despite a federal prosecu-tor’s recommendation that Bull serve no time in custody. The conviction left Bull bankrupt and des-perate. On release from prison he moved to Brussels,seeking any clients who would keep his dream afloatfinancially.

By 1981 Bull had a new deal with Iraq, by thenimmersed in a marathon war with neighboring IRAN.Rumors persist that Bull met personally with SaddamHussein, then a favorite client of the Pentagon andthe REAGAN-BUSH White House for his opposition toIran. According to journalist David Silverberg, Hus-

sein was so taken with Bull’s presentation that he“downed a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and calledup his cronies in the middle of the night, insistingthat they rush right over to hear Bull.” Be that as itmay, Bull soon found himself at the helm of ProjectBabylon, designing a “supergun” for Iraq that wouldsport a 120-meter barrel and tip the scales around4.2 million pounds. A model of the giant weaponwas displayed in May 1989 at the Baghdad Interna-tional Exhibition for Military Production. On theside, Bull also helped Iraq design a multistage missilethat would have permitted long-range strikes againstHussein’s enemies.

At 6:20 P.M. on March 22, 1990, as Bull paused tounlock the door of his sixth-floor apartment in Brus-sels, an unknown assassin shot him three times in theback with a silencer-equipped pistol. Bull collapsedto the floor, where two more shots were fired into theback of his head at close range. Killed instantly, helay bleeding on the floor for 20 minutes before policearrived. Bull’s briefcase lay untouched nearby, con-taining various papers, financial documents, andclose to $20,000 in cash. Within days of the murder,Saddam Hussein declared in a speech from Baghdad,“A Canadian citizen with U.S. nationality came toIraq. He might have benefited Iraq. I don’t know.They say the Iraq intelligence service is spread overEurope, but nobody spoke of human rights of theCanadian citizen of U.S. nationality. After he came toIraq, they killed him.”

ISRAEL was the immediate prime suspect in Bull’smurder because Israel was committed to retardingweapons-development programs in Iraq and otherhostile Arab states. Alternate scenarios blame theIranian government (known enemies of Iraq), Britishintelligence, and the CIA. The British theory,advanced by journalist Walter De Bock in 1998,claims that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcherordered Bull’s murder because he was taking lucra-tive Iraqi arms contracts away from British firms. (Assupport for his claim, De Bock noted that reporterJonathan Moyle was murdered in Chile on March31, 1990—eight days after Bull’s assassination—while investigating claims of secret British militarytrading with Iraq.) American involvement in themurder was suggested by Canadian journalist DaleGrant, reporting that Michael Bull “broached theidea that the CIA did it, because his father wasapplying for a U.S. pardon of his arms-smugglingconviction.” Two years later, former SRC employee

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Christopher Cowley told the House of Commonsthat he and Bull had briefed the CIA and Britain’sMI5 on the progress of Project Babylon as it pro-ceeded. While convinced that Israel was responsiblefor killing Bull, Cowley “speculated that the CIAmust have been tipped off by the MOSSAD [Israeliintelligence] and thus had acquiesced in the assassi-nation.”

Project Babylon disintegrated after Bull’s death,which was doubtless the intention of his killer(s).SRC immediately closed its doors, and the employeesscattered. Iraqi forces invaded neighboring KUWAIT

on August 2, 1990, and U.S.-led forces respondedwith aerial attacks in January 1991, climaxed by aswift land offensive the following month. Bull’ssuperguns were located and destroyed by UNITED

NATIONS weapons inspectors in the wake of the GulfWar. No suspects have yet been identified in Dr.Bull’s murder.

BUREAU of Alcohol, Tobacco, and FirearmsThe U.S. government has taxed alcoholic beveragessince 1791, but the Treasury Department’s modernBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF)properly traces its lineage to the PROHIBITION Bureauthat was active between 1920 and 1933. That unitwas briefly transferred to the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT inJune 1933, merging with the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) to create a new Division ofInvestigation, but its life ran out with Repeal sixmonths later. After the demise of Prohibition’s“noble experiment,” Treasury created a new AlcoholTax Unit to pursue recalcitrant bootleggers. (As lateas 1963, 5,500 suspects were charged with distillingor selling untaxed alcohol; the number dropped to75 in 1979.) Guns were added to the mix in 1934with passage of the National Firearms Act (whichtaxed, but did not ban, such “gangster weapons” asmachine guns, silencers, and sawed-off shotguns).The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 extended thosetaxes to “destructive devices,” but BATF remained adivision of the INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE until July1972 when it became a separate agency at Treasury.That same year witnessed passage of the FederalBombing Statute, which divided jurisdiction inexplosives cases as follows:

• U.S. Postal inspectors are responsible for mailbombs and bombings of post offices;

• The FBI investigates all bombings of federalproperty other than post offices or Treasuryfacilities;

• BATF takes primary responsibility for all otherbombings unless the incidents are officially designated as acts of TERRORISM, in which caseG-men assume control of the investigation.

In a nation where the phrase “gun control” sparksacrimonious debate from coast to coast, BATF wasbound to be a controversial agency. It did not helpthat John Caulfield, appointed by President RICHARD

NIXON to lead BATF, was soon exposed as a hush-money bagman in the WATERGATE scandal. In 1979BATF’s critics told the U.S. Senate that “75 to 80 per-cent of BATF cases brought [to trial in Maryland andVirginia] involved defendants who had no criminalintent, but were enticed by bureau agents into violat-ing technical requirements, which the defendants didnot know existed.” President RONALD REAGAN

hoped to dismantle the unit entirely, thus repayingpolitical debts to the National Rifle Association, buthe succeeded only in cutting BATF’s budget andhuman resources.

Still BATF endured, often struggling in an adver-sarial relationship with the FBI. As BATF historianJames Moore reports, “The FBI has had a deep andlasting impact on the ATF, and the effects were clear-est and most destructive in terrorist cases.” Accord-ing to the BATF, conflict arose primarily whenG-men manipulated their definition of terrorism toavoid unwanted cases (notably those involvingantiabortion violence and the KU KLUX KLAN) orwhen they claimed credit for cases solved by BATFagents. Moore describes 10 such cases with 50 defen-dants, in which bureau spokesmen claimed creditafter the fact.

Two of the FBI’s most embarrassing cases from the1990s began as BATF operations. The first, fromIdaho, involved a four-year BATF campaign toentrap neo-Nazi Randy Weaver in illegal arms trans-actions. When he was finally charged and refused tosurrender, agents of the U.S. Marshals Service weresent to arrest him, sparking a shootout that killedWeaver’s son and a federal officer. The FBI’s SWATtook over at that point, and matters quickly wentfrom bad to worse, resulting in the death of Weaver’swife and a $3.1 million settlement to her survivors.Eight months later, another BATF squad attacked theBranch Davidian religious sect near Waco, Texas. Six

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persons died in the clash, and G-men moved in for asiege that ended with the fiery deaths of nearly 80more on April 19, 1993.

After the catastrophic PENTTBOM attacks of Sep-tember 11, 2001, as President George W. Bushsought to reorganize America’s “homeland security”apparatus, there were renewed calls for BATF’s relo-cation from Treasury to Justice. FBI spokesmenhailed the proposed move on November 12, 2002,with a press release that read:

The FBI supports the proposed transfer of the criminal

enforcement authorities of the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) to the Department of Jus-

tice (DOJ). We have been working closely with the

DOJ and with the Treasury Department to ensure that

any legislation effectuating such a transfer would

preserve the ATF’s existing criminal and regulatory

enforcement authorities.

The department was transferred in January 2003.In addition, its name was changed to the Bureau ofAlcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

BURNETT, Alfred (fl. 1970)A twice-convicted felon in Seattle, Alfred Burnettwas awaiting trial on robbery charges in January1970 when he was suddenly released from the KingsCounty jail despite objections from his parole officer.Burnett subsequently pleaded guilty in that case butremained at large, again despite the parole officer’sdemand that he be jailed for failure to appear forsentencing on another charge. The FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION’s (FBI) Seattle field office over-ruled Burnett’s parole officer in each case, namingBurnett as an informant who supplied the bureauwith “valuable information” on ghetto violence andthe BLACK PANTHER PARTY. More specifically, he wasassigned to locate Jimmy Davis, a Panther suspectedof involvement in one or more recent bombings.

Burnett never located Davis, but he compromisedby targeting a friend of Davis’s, 22-year-old VIETNAM

War veteran Larry Ward. After some haggling, Wardapparently accepted Burnett’s offer of $75 to plant abomb at Seattle’s Hardcastle Realty Company on thenight of May 14, 1970. Burnett supplied the bomb butthen alerted G-men and police to the impending crime.According to his later statements, “The police wanted

a bomber and I gave them one.” Burnett insists that he“distinctly told them it was Ward instead of [Davis]”and “that he was unarmed.” Be that as it may, whenWard arrived on foot at Hardcastle Realty carryingBurnett’s bomb, he was surrounded by Seattle squadcars and killed in a barrage of gunfire. Adopting aremorseful pose after the fact, Burnett maintained, “Ididn’t know Larry Ward would be killed.”

Seattle police were equally surprised—that is, if webelieve their later statements (although the city’smayor had publicly advocated killing bombers as a“deterrent” to future attacks). John Williams, chief ofthe Seattle Police Department’s intelligence unit,blamed FBI agents for Ward’s death. “As far as I cantell,” Williams told Senate investigators, “Ward was arelatively decent kid. Somebody set this whole thingup. It wasn’t the police department.” FBI agents pro-tected Burnett, now marked as an informer, by secur-ing his transfer from state prison to federal custody.

BURNS, William J. (1860?–1932)A Baltimore native who was born “around 1860”and raised in Ohio, William Burns worked briefly asa SECRET SERVICE agent (and later chief) before retir-ing in 1909 and founding his own Chicago-basedWilliam J. Burns International Detective Agency. In1910 Burns was credited with solving the bombingof the Los Angeles Times, though some critics calledthe case a frame-up. A year later, according toreports filed by Attorney General George Wicker-sham, Burns stacked the trial juries of Oregon Sena-tor John Mitchell and Representative John Williamswith political enemies, thus securing dubious convic-tions on land-fraud charges. Before the United Statesentered World War I, Burns was also employed as anagent of British Intelligence.

Despite that checkered background—or perhapsbecause of it—Burns was tapped by Attorney General HARRY DAUGHERTY (a personal friend) onAugust 18, 1922, to head the Bureau of Investiga-tion. Burns took office four days later, while youngJ. EDGAR HOOVER was promoted to serve as thebureau’s first assistant director. That same after-noon G-men in Michigan illegally raided a meetingof the Communist Party, seizing membershiprecords and other documents. That action set thetone for Burns’s tenure as director, during which thebureau was used as a partisan political weapon,pursuing “radicals” and labor unions, breaking

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strikes, maintaining files on Democratic congressmen,and generally protecting the corrupt regime of President WARREN HARDING.

Burns also kept files on the party affiliations andpolitical connections of his agents, whose numberincreased from 346 to 441 at the end of his tenure.(Clerical staff decreased by 78 during the same period,for an overall net increase of 17 bureau employees.)Some of the new G-men were hired as favors to influ-ential politicians; others were drawn from the ranks ofprivate-detective agencies, notorious as corrupt strike-breakers. When Congressman Oscar Kellar objectedto bureau involvement in a national railroad strike, G-men raided his office in September of 1922. A yearlater, in the midst of the Teapot Dome scandal, Burnsand Hoover sent agents to investigate the administra-tion’s leading critics, Montana senators ThomasWalsh and Burton Wheeler.

While Hoover later took pains to distance him-self from Burns, he also learned a great deal fromthe aging director—including the use of scare tactics

and dubious statistics to milk appropriations from Congress. Hoover accompanied Burns on hisvarious trips to Capitol Hill, where Burns warnedcredulous lawmakers of the latest “menace” andimpressed them with news of the bureau’s achieve-ments. In 1922, for instance, Burns told the HouseAppropriations Committee that Bolshevik strategyin America—

principally consists of urging the working man to strike,

with the ultimate purpose of bringing about a revolu-

tion in this country. . . . Radicalism is becoming

stronger every day in this country. They are going about

it in a very subtle manner. For instance, they have

schools all over the country where they are teaching

children 4 and 5 years old, and they are organizing ath-

letic clubs through the country. I dare say that unless

the country becomes aroused concerning the danger of

this radical element in this country, we will have a very

serious situation.

Where finances were concerned, Burns fell backon the Dyer Act to claim that G-men had “recov-ered” thousands of stolen cars across the UnitedStates (most of them retrieved in fact by local police).Playing a tune that Hoover would echo for the next50 years, Burns told the House in 1922, “The valueof automobiles recovered by our service amounts tomore than our appropriation.”

The Teapot Dome investigation snowballed afterPresident Harding’s sudden death in August 1923,and Burns was one of those called before Congress toexplain his behavior. Burns admitted using G-men toinvestigate Senators Walsh and Wheeler, but theinterrogation skirted his apparent role in the May1923 shooting death of JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

employee Jess Smith. Attorney General Harlan Stonedemanded Burns’s resignation on May 9, 1924, andafter a brief spell of defiance, Burns complied thenext day, replaced as director by J. Edgar Hoover.(The modern FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’sInternet Web site erroneously claims that Burnsremained in office until June 14, 1924.)

Resignation did not end his involvement with theTeapot Dome conspirators, however. When the trialof ex-Secretary of the Interior Bernard Fall finallyopened in October 1927, Burns (now back at thehelm of his detective agency) was hired to shadowthe jurors. A mistrial was declared, and Burns nar-rowly escaped conviction on a charge of criminal

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BURNS, William J.

William J. Burns brought a background of corruption andbrutality to government as an early leader of the FBI.(Author’s collection)

contempt. The near-miss drove him into retirementat Sarasota, Florida, where he passed his final yearspenning “true” accounts of his more famous cases.At his death, on April 14, 1932, the WashingtonPost hailed Burns as “probably the most famousindividual in the detective business during his activeyears.”

BURUNDIThe original inhabitants of Burundi were pygmieswho now comprise 1 percent of the nation’s popula-tion. Ruled by GERMANY through World War I, theregion was ceded to BELGIUM in 1923, when theLeague of Nations broke up German East Africa.Belgian colonists exacerbated ethnic rivalries byforcing blacks to carry I.D. cards denoting them asHutu or Tutsi. On gaining independence in 1962,Burundi became a monarchy under Tutsi kingMwami Mwambutsa IV. The nation’s Hutu majorityrebelled in 1965, prompting brutal Tutsi reprisals.Mwambutsa was deposed by his son, Ntaré V, in1966, and a military junta (also led by Tutsi) seizedpower a few months later. A civil war killed 100,000Hutu in 1970–71 while successive military coups in1976 and 1987 heightened ethnic tension inBurundi. Another 20,000 Hutu were slaughtered byTutsi mobs in August 1988. Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi,was defeated in Burundi’s first democratic election,which installed a Hutu—Melchior Ndadaye—aspresident in June 1993, but he died in a coup beforeyear’s end. Burundi’s next Hutu president, CyprienNtaryamira, was killed with RWANDA’s presidentwhen rebels shot their plane down on April 6, 1994.The Tutsi-dominated army seized power in July1996, again installing Pierre Buyoya as leader butethnic clashes continued, claiming 200,000 lives bylate 2002. The military leadership has not been offi-cially recognized but that of Pierre Buyoya has. Var-ious peace negotiations have thus far failed to haltthe black-on-black campaigns of “ethnic cleansing.”

BUSH dynastyThe patriarch of this political dynasty—as wealthyand influential as the more “liberal” KENNEDY

clan—was Samuel Prescott Bush (1863—1948), aNew York native who made millions as president ofthe Buckeye Steel Casting Company (1907–27),first president of the National Association of

Manufacturers, and a charter member of the U.S.Chamber of Commerce. In 1929–33 he was a closeadviser to President Herbert Hoover, whose hands-off approach to the financial crises ushered in theGreat Depression.

The Bush family suffered no pangs of hardshipduring that era, as Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895–1972) expanded into banking. (He also inauguratedthe family’s ties with Yale University and the super-secret SKULL AND BONES Society.) Prescott was adirector and major shareholder in the United Bank-ing Corporation (UBC), which in turn purchased theConsolidated Silesian Steel Corporation from Naziindustrialist Fritz Thyssen. Herr Thyssen obtainedmany of his workers from the Auschwitz concentra-tion camp (not yet converted to a full-time slaughter-house for Jews), and exposure of that enemy link in1942 prompted U.S. authorities to seize UBC andtwo other Bush-managed firms (Holland-AmericanTrading Corp. and Seamless Steel Equipment Corp.)in October 1942 under terms of the federal Tradingwith the Enemy Act. The stigma of helping financeADOLF HITLER did not prevent Prescott Bush fromserving in the U.S. Senate (1955–63), although helost his first political race in 1950.

Meanwhile, George Herbert Walker Bush (1924– )had returned from World War II a hero, decoratedfor airborne action against the same THIRD REICH

supported by his father’s investments. A Yale gradu-ate and Skull and Bones loyalist, George soonexpanded the family’s portfolio to include Texas OIL

fields. Twice defeated in campaigns for the U.S. Sen-ate (1964, 1970), Bush finally settled for a seat in theHouse (1967–71) and then served as U.S. representa-tive to the UNITED NATIONS (1971–73), chairman ofthe Republican National Committee (1973–74), U.S.liaison to China (1974–75), and director of the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (1976–77). A failedRepublican presidential candidate in 1980, Bushaccepted the consolation prize of serving as RONALD

REAGAN’s vice president (1981–89). In that capacityhe worked overtime to cement Reagan’s ties with theINTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS andhelmed the first U.S. War on Drugs, condemned byU.S. Coast Guard spokesmen as “an intellectualfraud.” As Reagan’s successor in the White House(1989–93), Bush invaded PANAMA and launched theGULF WAR against IRAQ, but domestic fumblesdoomed him to a one-term presidency. In the end, his staunchest supporters on the far right wound up

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suspecting Bush of treason after his public referencesto a NEW WORLD ORDER inspired a host of fresh conspiracy theories. Before leaving office, Bush pardoned six of his comrades in the IRAN-CONTRA

CONSPIRACY and engineered the taxpayer bail-out ofson Neil’s Silverado Savings and Loan company, oneof the prime offenders in the national SAVINGS AND

LOAN SCANDAL.Neil Mallon Bush (1955– ) never tried his hand

at politics, but his brothers made up the difference.George Walker Bush (1946– )—commonly calledDubya to distinguish him from father George—

attended Yale as a Bush “legacy” and completed hisobligatory term with Skull and Bones. The war inVIETNAM threatened Dubya’s health and welfareupon graduation, but his family arranged forGeorge, Jr., to serve his country stateside in theTexas Air National Guard. The uniform proved tooconfining, and Dubya literally vanished during thelast 12 months of his military service, later spinningcontradictory yarns about that missing year whilehis commanding officers assured reporters that hehad not been at his post. For whatever reason nocharges were filed, leaving Dubya to dabble in oil

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President George W. Bush sits with his wife Laura during morning church services at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Behind Bush (left to right) are his father, former President George Bush, his mother Barbara, his daughters Jenna and Barbara, and his mother-in-law Jenna Welch. (Corbis)

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and professional baseball while he sought his truecalling. Those ventures prompted an SEC investiga-tion on charges of insider trading. Again, no chargeswere filed, but a formal statement from the SECwarned: “It must in no way be construed as indicat-ing that the party has been exonerated or that noaction may ultimately result.” Dubya changed direc-tions in 1994, campaigning successfully to becomegovernor of Texas. During his term in office(1995–2000), Texas led all other U.S. states in exe-cutions of prison inmates and in spiraling environ-mental pollution.

While George, Jr., made his mark in Texas, brotherJohn Ellis (“Jeb”) Bush (1953– ) was staking out thefamily’s claim in Florida. Jeb broke the clan’s tie withYale, preferring the University of Texas, but he other-wise maintained tradition by his involvement in dubi-ous real-estate transactions (including defaulted loans)and his losing race for the Sunshine State’s governor-ship in 1994. Successful on his second try four yearslater, Jeb Bush presided over a regime that was secondonly to Texas in execution of prisoners and attemptsto sink oil wells in protected nature preserves. Jeb’salleged manipulation of ballots during Dubya’s first presidential campaign posed one of the majorcontroversies in a still-disputed ELECTION 2000, but thefamily prevailed (with help from five Republican

SUPREME COURT justices) to put George, Jr., in theWhite House.

As president, Dubya swiftly wiped out the hard-won national economic surplus and charted a coursetoward record deficit spending, while calling for taxcuts to benefit the richest 2 percent of Americans. Healso ordered federal agents to “back off” investiga-tions of the Saudi Arabian BIN LADEN FAMILY, long-standing financial allies of the Bush dynasty. Thatmove backfired with the PENTTBOM attacks of Sep-tember 11, 2001, masterminded by AL-QAEDA leaderOsama bin Laden, but Bush rallied by invadingAFGHANISTAN and pushing passage of the USA

PATRIOT ACT in the name of “enduring freedom.”While the United States sank deeper into recession,Bush next declared media war against a mythicalAXIS OF EVIL, allegedly including mortal enemiesIRAQ and IRAN with isolationist North KOREA. In2003 Bush launched OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM tounseat SADDAM HUSSEIN, but the advance claims thatIraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” weresoon proved false. That glitch notwithstanding,Dubya seemed intent on waging his reelection cam-paign in the guise of a warrior, donning military garbto pose with combat veterans 30 years after evadinghis own stint of military duty.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

CAMBODIAWhen FRANCE colonized Southeast Asia in 1863, itmerged the modern nations of Cambodia, LAOS, andVIETNAM into an artificial unit dubbed FrenchIndochina. In Cambodia the invaders seized all butceremonial powers from the Hindu Khmers who hadruled Cambodia since A.D. 600. French extraction ofrubber and other raw materials was interrupted byJAPAN in World War II. France reluctantly “liberated”Cambodia in 1949, though full military independencewas not achieved until 1955. The royal Norodomfamily sought to remain neutral in Vietnam’s warwith the United States, but Vietnamese rebels soughtsanctuary in Cambodia, pursued by U.S. troops underPresident RICHARD NIXON. Pressure from indigenouscommunists (Khmer Rouge) prompted a militarycoup by Gen. Lon Nol in March 1970. Khmer Rougeforces under Pol Pot seized power in April 1975,inaugurating a four-year campaign of genocideagainst native Cambodians. Vietnamese troopsdeposed Pol Pot in January 1979, but he fought onfrom hiding until 1997, while various coups dis-rupted the Cambodian government. (Finally capturedand sentenced to house arrest for his crimes, Pol Potdied on April 15, 1998.) UNITED NATIONS efforts toestablish a WAR CRIMES tribunal failed in February2002. Cambodian officials vowed to handle the mat-ter themselves, but Prime Minister Hun Sen—himselfa former Khmer Rouge member—has thus far donenothing to punish his former colleagues.

CAMDEN 28 See HARDY, ROBERT W.

CAMORRAWhile the MAFIA restricts “made” membership to persons of Sicilian ancestry, the Camorra criminalsociety is composed of mainland Italians. Details of its history are deliberately obscure, but theCamorra’s roots are traceable to the Garduna, a Span-ish secret society transplanted to Italy when Spainseized Naples in the 16th century. Blood oaths andsecret signs were employed, and a Grand RulingCouncil based in Naples supervised the operations ofsmall units led by caporegimes (a term shared with therival Mafia, frequently shortened to capo). Whereasthe early Mafia was chiefly a rural organization, theCamorra enjoyed an urban power base, frequentlyusing the CATHOLIC CHURCH as a cover. Sporadic war-fare between the Camorra and the Mafia increasinglyturned toward collaboration after World War II. Bythe 1970s Camorra gangsters on the Italian mainlandworked hand-in-hand with the Mafia’s heroin smug-glers. More recently, authorities have claimed linksbetween the Camorra and the RUSSIAN MAFIA in smug-gling of contraband that includes weapons-gradenuclear material.

CAMP Van Dorn massacreBy any standards, the U.S. Army’s 364th InfantryRegiment (Colored) was one of the most controversial

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Allied military units created during World War II.Consisting entirely of black soldiers but commandedby white officers, the 364th was initially stationed inArizona, but a mass transfer was ordered afterunruly behavior there produced a rash of com-plaints. May 1943 found the regiment at Camp VanDorn, outside Centreville, Mississippi. Despitestrictly segregated quarters, the men of the 364thwere soon in trouble again, accused of looting ashop on the base. On May 30, Pvt. William Walkerwas fatally shot by white military police officers,allegedly while trying to seize one of their weaponsin an angry confrontation. Following that incidentU.S. Army files confirm that Col. John F. Goodmanordered the firing pins removed from all weaponsthat were carried by men of the 364th. What hap-pened next remains a point of heated controversymore than 60 years after the fact.

According to author Carroll Case, disturbances atCamp Van Dorn continued until July 4, 1943, whenmilitary police surrounded barracks occupied by sol-diers of the 364th and slaughtered some 1,200 menwith concentrated small-arms fire. Case heard thestory first from an ex-MP, a blatant racist identifiedas Bill Martzall (deceased in 1989), who said:

We were riding in weapons carriers and were armed

with .45-caliber machine guns. We were told to wait

until dark and to report to the black camp. It was

located near the Engineering Division close to the rail-

road. Some other troops armed to the teeth joined us.

We pulled up to the black camp and ordered the 364th

out into this area. I remember that one of the nigger

soldiers threw a brick and hit one of the MPs in the eye.

I don’t know if he lost his eye or not because all hell

broke loose. We were ordered to let them have it. We

had the whole area sealed off—it was like shooting fish

in a barrel. We opened fire on everything that moved,

shot into the barracks, shot them out of trees where

some of them were climbing, trying to hide. We shot

every nigger we could find. The screaming, yelling and

begging was horrible.

Two other locals, Luther Williams and W. M.Ewell, corroborated the story. Williams had been aWilkinson County firefighter in 1943, while Ewellwas a civilian employed in the camp laundry. Bothdescribed a “makeshift morgue” at Camp Van Dorn,with “hundreds and hundreds of bodies stacked uplike hogs, almost as high as the ceiling.” The corpses

were allegedly removed aboard a special train forburial at some unknown location.

When Case’s book was published in 1998, cast inthe form of a novel with a short nonfiction preface,U.S. Army spokespersons dismissed it as a flight offantasy. In December 1999 an official report waspublished, intended “to put to rest any concern thatthese alleged events were even remotely possible.”According to that document, “All of the nearly 4,000men who were assigned to the 364th Infantry in1943 have been traced to their separation from mili-tary service.” Leaders of the NAACP expressed con-cern with the results of the investigation. “We aren’tsaying the Army is wrong,” spokesman John Whitetold reporters, “but we don’t have the personnel hereto confirm what they found. We are saying we need athird party to offer an objective look at the matter. Ifthe Justice Department signs off on the Army report,we will be satisfied.”

Neither Attorney General Janet Reno nor succes-sor JOHN ASHCROFT displayed any inclination toinvestigate the claims. Case’s publisher, Rusty Den-man, challenged the army’s version of events, com-paring Camp Van Dorn to the long-denied KoreanWar massacre at NO GUN RI. For years the armydenied any record of that event, Denman noted,“And then—boom!—there it is.”

CANCER curesIt is an article of faith among many conspiracists thatone or more sure-fire cures for cancer have been discovered over the past century, only to be callouslysuppressed by leaders of the mainstream medicalestablishment. The names most often mentioned asoppressed benefactors of humankind include:

Harry Hoxsey, grandson of farmer John Hoxsey,who allegedly discovered an herbal cure forcancer in horses around 1840. The Hoxseytreatment was refined in time, handed downfrom father to son within the family, untilgrandson Harry went public with his miraclecure a century later. The Hoxsey treatmentcombines ingestion of a tonic (including redclover, licorice root, and other natural ingredi-ents) with external application of a salve madefrom bloodroot, antimony trisulfide, and zincchloride. According to Hoxsey and his support-ers, the combination is effective in reversing

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most forms of cancer, but it has been brandedquackery and effectively suppressed by leadersof the American Medical Association (AMA).

Royal Raymond Rife, a scientist who spent 20years tracking the cause of cancer across theUnited States and Europe, finally isolating amicroorganism he dubbed the “BX virus.” Inthe course of his research, Rife also allegedlylearned how to kill BX and reverse its effectsamong “terminal” patients. The results of hisresearch were published in 1931, endorsed by apanel of researchers at the University of South-ern California—until the AMA closed ranks tocensor all future reports and hound Rife intoobscurity.

Gaston Naessens, a Canadian researcher whodeveloped a camphor derivative called “714-X,” allegedly capable of reinforcing the humanimmune system to defeat cancer, AIDS, andother “incurable” diseases. AMA leaders arecast as the villains once again in a campaign ofpersecution that saw Naessens branded a quackand indicted on various felony counts in 1985.He was acquitted of all charges in December1989, but his “fraudulent” cure is still banned.

Why would anyone—much less a panel of promi-nent physicians—suppress effective cures for cancerand other deadly diseases? The obvious answer is greed.Research and treatment of cancer is a multibillion-dollar global industry. If patients could be cured withitems readily available at any health-food store, hugeyearly profits would be lost to doctors, hospitals,health-insurance carriers, and PHARMACEUTICAL

COMPANIES around the world. The countless scandalsof modern medicine, from DRUG DUMPING toMedicare fraud and needless surgery, makes it clearthat modern healers are no strangers to avarice. Asfor the so-called cancer cures touted and banned overthe past 160 years, only the inventors and theirpatients know if any were truly effective.

CARLOS the Jackal (1949– )Arguably the world’s most infamous terrorist beforeOsama BIN LADEN, Carlos the Jackal was born IlichRamirez Sanchez in 1949. The son of a wealthyVenezuelan physician devoted to COMMUNISM,Ramirez enjoyed lavish affluence in his youth whilebeing schooled in the rhetoric of proletarian revolu-

tion. Educated in RUSSIA under KGB tutelage, he wasdispatched to the Middle East in the early 1970s, forparamilitary training with Palestinian commandos.There in the desert camps, Ramirez became “Car-los.” (The “Jackal” tag was added later, after policefound a copy of the novel Day of the Jackal in one ofhis abandoned hideouts.) Much deliberate mysterysurrounds his subsequent movements, and there is nohard evidence to support claims that Carlos partici-pated in BLACK SEPTEMBER’s lethal attack on the1972 Munich Olympics. Carlos probably assassi-nated Lord Edward Seiff in Britain on December 30,1974, before moving on to conduct a series of bomb-ings and rocket attacks against pro-Israeli targets inFrance. Almost cornered in Paris in 1975, Carlosshot his way out of the trap, killing two Frenchpolice officers and a Palestinian informer. ThatDecember Carlos led the team that invaded an OPECconference in Vienna, killing three persons andescaping with 42 hostages to LIBYA. Accounts differon whether Carlos then remained in Libya as a guestof MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFFI or returned to France,perhaps leading the 1982 rocket assault on a Frenchnuclear reactor. Before year’s end, French policejailed his wife, Magdalena Kopp (a terrorist with tiesto the German Red Army faction). Kopp ultimatelyserved five years in prison, despite a series of terroristattacks designed to win her freedom. Internationalheat drove Carlos underground, perhaps in SYRIA,but rumors circulated in the early 1990s that SAD-DAM HUSSEIN might bring him out of retirement forraids on U.S. interests. In 1994 Carlos was finallyarrested, reportedly while recuperating from testicu-lar surgery to improve a low sperm count. At his trialin 1997, Carlos received a life prison term for threeof his suspected 80-plus murders.

CARTER, Asa Earl (?–1979)Alabama native “Ace” Carter studied journalism atthe University of Colorado and tried his hand as aradio disc jockey in Colorado before settling on acareer as a full-time white supremacist. Employed at aBirmingham radio station in 1955, he sparkedprotests with anti-Semitic broadcasts that were airedduring Brotherhood Week and was fired from his job.Moving on to the segregationist CITIZENS’ COUNCIL,Carter soon quarreled with Alabama leader SamEnglehardt and resigned to organize a local faction ofthe KU KLUX KLAN. Six members of his group

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assaulted singer Nat “King” Cole at a Birminghamconcert in April 1956, based on Carter’s claim thatCole was “a vicious agitator for integration.” In Jan-uary 1957 Carter was jailed for shooting two of hisown Klansmen after they questioned his handling ofKKK money. Eight months later, four of his followerskidnapped and castrated black handyman EdwardAaron as part of a Klan initiation ceremony. The fourwere sentenced to 20-year prison terms but receivedearly parole from Governor GEORGE WALLACE, whoemployed Carter as his chief speechwriter. In thatcapacity Carter penned Wallace’s infamous “Segrega-tion Forever” speech, including a promise to “standin the schoolhouse door” if black students enrolled atAlabama colleges. In later life Carter reinvented him-self as a best-selling author. Taking the name “For-rest” Carter (after 1860s KKK leader Nathan BedfordForrest), he wrote the novel Gone to Texas, laterfilmed with Clint Eastwood as The Outlaw JoseyWales. Next, he fabricated Cherokee grandparents towrite The Education of Little Tree (ironically includ-ing a loving portrait of a Jewish peddler). Carterwould not live to see his final book become a 1990scult phenomenon, however. He died in 1979,allegedly from a heart attack, but ambulance atten-dants say he choked to death on vomit following adrunken fistfight with his son.

CASEY, William (1913–1987)William Casey launched his long career in covertoperations in 1941 during World War II as an agentfor the OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES (OSS). Fol-lowing ADOLF HITLER’s defeat, Casey stayed on withthe OSS in Europe to spearhead PROJECT PAPERCLIP,recruiting “ex”-Nazis for the new struggle againstCOMMUNISM. Retiring from the intelligence game toprivate legal practice in 1946, Casey representedvarious CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)members and front groups in the 1960s before Presi-dent RICHARD NIXON tapped him to chair the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission. SubsequentSEC leaders have distanced themselves from Casey’sregime, some remarking that under his leadershipthe body’s initial’s might have stood for “See Every-thing Crooked.” With top aide Stanley Sporkin,Casey instituted a policy of “enforcement actions”that served primarily to keep Casey’s name in head-lines, while 95 percent of the SEC lawsuits institutedwere “settled” within 48 hours. (Casey’s immediate

superior, Senator Harrison Williams, was later drivenfrom his post as chairman of the Senate Banking and Finance Committee after he accepted bribesfrom undercover FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

agents in the ABSCAM sting operation.) Caseyserved as RONALD REAGAN’s presidential campaignmanager in 1980, engineering the OCTOBER SURPRISE,and he was rewarded with appointment to serve asdirector of the Central Intelligence Agency. StanleySporkin was named the CIA’s general counsel andjoined Casey to plot the covert contra war of TERRORISM against the lawful government ofNICARAGUA. When Congress banned that crusade,Casey-Sporkin plunged headlong into the IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIRACY with Vice President George H.W. Bush. Before that scandal publicly erupted, Rea-gan appointed Stan Sporkin to serve as a federaljudge in Washington, D.C. (where he remained onthe bench for 18 years). William Casey died from amalignant brain tumor in early 1987 shortly beforehe was scheduled for questioning by senate investiga-tors in the Iran-contra case. In death he became theperfect scapegoat for the politicians who had pulledhis strings at CIA headquarters.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

CASOLARO, Joseph Daniel (?–1991)Prior to August 1991, few persons outside Washing-ton, D.C., recognized the name of 44-year-old free-lance journalist Danny Casolaro. His life—and whatsome call his quixotic quest—only achieved signifi-cance for conspiracy theorists after Casolaro wasfound dead in the bathtub of a hotel room in Mar-tinsburg, West Virginia, wrists slashed with a single-edged razor blade. In the rented room, police foundbeer bottles, a half-empty bottle of wine, a shattereddrinking glass, and a handwritten note reading “Godwill let me in.” Dr. James Frost, West Virginia’sdeputy chief medical examiner, found “nothinginconsistent with suicide” in Casolaro’s death, butrelatives and close friends insist he was murdered.

Why? And by whom?Before his death, Casolaro was obsessed with

revealing the details of a global megaconspiracy,tracking a single thread that allegedly linked suchdiverse plots and scandals as the OCTOBER SURPRISE

of 1980, the IRAN-CONTRA plot of PresidentsRONALD REAGAN and George H. W. Bush, and the BCCI banking network. In death, he left behind

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unfinished proposals for a book titled The Octopus,described by Casolaro as “the most explosive inves-tigative story of the 20th century.” As described inCasolaro’s synopsis: “This story is about a handfulof people who have been able to successfully exploitthe secret empires of espionage networks, big oil, andorganized crime. This octopus spans the globe . . . tocontrol governmental institutions in the UnitedStates and abroad.”

Unfortunately, Casolaro left no details of theplot(s) behind. Relatives say he was traveling to meeta source in West Virginia when he died, but Casolarohad not named the individual. The files he carriedwith him everywhere were not found in his hotelroom or at his home. From all appearances hismonths of research on a book that never went topress produced no detailed notes, no interviews ontape, no photocopied documents. That circumstance,as much as any other, fuels speculation that Casolarowas killed to prevent revelations of what “They” haddone and/or planned to do in the future.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

CASSIDY, Butch See UNDEAD OUTLAWS.

CASTRO, Fidel (1926– )Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on August 13,1926, at Mayari, CUBA. He graduated fromHavana’s Colegio Belen in 1945 and auditioned forthe New York Yankees as a prospective pitcher(rejected) before earning his LL.D. from the Univer-sity of Havana in 1950. Castro practiced law fortwo years and then joined the revolution againstU.S.-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista. Afterleading an assault on the Moncada Barracks at San-tiago de Cuba, he was imprisoned for two years(1953–55) and then exiled to MEXICO and theUnited States. Embarrassed by Batista’s corruptionand brutality, leaders of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY (CIA) offered Castro their covert support,and he returned to Cuba with renewed zeal for therevolution. (The CATHOLIC CHURCH excommuni-cated Castro in 1955, though whether for his poli-tics or his divorce cannot be ascertained.) Batistafled the island in 1959, and Castro assumed controlof Cuba, first as prime minister (1959–76) and thenas president (1976–present). He soon disappointedU.S. leaders by jailing or deporting MAFIA bosses

who ran Havana’s casinos and by nationalizingCuba’s natural resources. Deprived of aid fromWashington, Castro turned to RUSSIA and declaredhimself a communist. CIA leaders joined right-wingCuban exiles to plot an invasion of Cuba, resultingin the BAY OF PIGS fiasco (1961). Repeated CIA-Mafia efforts to murder Castro failed in the 1960s,but terrorist raids against Cuba continued fordecades, carried out by U.S.-based groups such asALPHA 66 and Omega 7. Many researchers believethe covert war on Cuba led directly to the JFK ASSAS-SINATION of 1963, but they disagree on whetherCastro or his enemies killed President John Kennedy.Castro, meanwhile, remained in power as this vol-ume went to press, the longest-serving head of statein the Western Hemisphere.

See also COMMUNISM; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

CATHOLIC ChurchIt is difficult for us to grasp in modern times with theecclesiastical chaos of rival creeds, but for more thana millennium following the alleged death of JESUS

CHRIST, there was only one Christian church onEarth. Purportedly organized by the 11 loyal apos-tles, with Peter generally identified as the first pope,the new sect expanded from its Middle Eastern rootsby word of mouth. Church leaders spent their first500 years debating and revising doctrines, ratifyingsome “holy” texts while discarding others, translat-ing pagan festivals into Christian “holy days” for thesake of acceptance by Rome’s emperors. Thatempire’s collapse provided church leaders with theirfirst great opportunity for seizing power, as fright-ened and disoriented people sought solace from theirfaith. Before the church could rule, however, it hadto destroy its opponents—and that task would con-sume the next 1,300 years.

First came a purge of all “ungodly” knowledgethat conflicted with the church’s narrow and self-serving tenets. In 391 Christians burned the greatlibrary at Alexandria, destroying an estimated700,000 scrolls. “Dark Ages” descended on Europeas similar actions followed wherever the pope heldsway. Even Greek and Roman medical texts weredeclared “heretical,” leaving humanity vulnerable toa plague that killed an estimated 100 million personsin the sixth century. (The 12th-century Black Death,by contrast, killed about 27 million.) Under churchleadership from the sixth to the 16th centuries,

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“medicine” was largely restricted to prayer andbleeding, a combination that virtually guaranteeddeath from any significant illness. Still, the plaguewas good news for church leaders as terrified peas-ants flocked to find relief from “God’s judgment.” Asits influence expanded, so the church accumulatedever-growing wealth—by sale of ecclesiastical officesor priestly “indulgences” (free passes for sin), some-times by brute seizure of coveted lands and propertyfrom “heretics.” As papal power increased, so theoccupation of pope became increasingly hazardous.Indeed, the rapid turnover in popes—10 between891 and 903 alone—sparked rumors of assassinationwithin the Vatican itself.

The church suffered its first great rift in 1054when Rome’s pope quarreled with church leaders inConstantinople and the latter defected to createtheir own Eastern Orthodox Church. Instant“heretics” by definition, Eastern Orthodox believ-ers joined Muslims and Jews on the papal hit listwhen the first Crusade was launched in 1095.Those “holy” wars against an ever-shifting cast of“infidels” dragged on until 1291, killing tens ofthousands (some historians say millions) in a brutalseries of seesaw campaigns for control of the “HolyLand.” The fighting meant more loot for Rome,while on the home front, equally brutal campaignswere mounted against religious dissenters. TheAlbigensian Crusade, launched by Pope Innocent IIIin 1208, slaughtered an estimated 1 million Catharheretics in France. At least 60,000 died in the siegeof Beziers alone; when a captain asked the pope’sfield commander how his men should distinguishCatholics from Cathars, the commander replied,“Kill them all, for God knows his own.” Persecu-tion of dissidents and other unfortunates was for-malized in 1231 when Pope Gregory IX establishedthe Inquisition. That saintly murder machine spreadworldwide during the next 400 years, reaching asfar as the Americas and India (where 3,800 “infi-dels” were murdered at Goa for rejecting Jesus).Women were also favored targets in a series of col-lateral witch hunts that spanned roughly three cen-turies from 1450 to 1750. Sexual abuse and tortureadded a new twist to saintly sadism in those cases,as whole European districts were depopulated offemales. (The perversity of inquisitor Foulques deSaint-George was so notorious that residents ofToulouse took the unusual and dangerous step ofgathering evidence against him.)

If there was any doubt about the Vatican’s desireto rule the world, Pope Boniface erased it with thebull (decree) Unam Sanctum in 1302. That procla-mation read:

Therefore, if earthly power errs, it shall be judged by the

spiritual power . . . but if the supreme spiritual power

errs it can be judged only by God, and not by man. . . .

Therefore we declare, state, define and pronounce that it

is altogether necessary for salvation for every human

creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.

With global domination on the table, it was nosurprise that sundry papal candidates aggressivelypursued the throne of Rome. That contest producedthe Great Schism, wherein dueling popes reigned atRome and Avignon between 1378 and 1417. Theseparate papal lines had no quarrel about Christiandogma or ritual but struggled fiercely for control ofthe “one true church’s” political and financial poweruntil the contest was finally resolved in Rome’s favor.

Discovery of the New World in 1492 gave thechurch new chances for winning souls at gunpoint.Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors traditionallyapproached native tribes in the Western Hemispherewith a printed order from Rome—the Requermiento(requirement)—demanding that all present abandontheir traditional beliefs and accept Jesus on the spotunder pain of execution or enslavement. Naturally,since the “Indians” spoke neither Spanish nor Por-tuguese, they were fair game for slaughter, andRoman priests were among the first to claim shackledsurvivors as slave labor for their missions and planta-tions. Back in Europe, meanwhile, papal authoritywas challenged by a new breed of dissidents (orProtestants) led by Martin Luther. Henceforth, bothbranches of Christianity would persecute Jews andwitches, but they would also kill each other in a seriesof clashes that included the ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY

MASSACRE (10,000 Protestants slaughtered in France)and the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) that involvedsix nations and the Holy Roman Empire. In NorthAmerica, sectarian conflict took the form of conspir-acy theories targeting JESUIT monks and anti-Catholicagitation by members of the KNOW-NOTHING MOVE-MENT and the KU KLUX KLAN.

Controversy surrounding the Catholic Church hasnot subsided in modern times. Religion was a majorissue for Catholic presidential candidates Al Smith(1924, 1928) and John Kennedy (1960), while some

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Protestant sects and institutions still teach believersthat the pope is the Antichrist and the “Beast of Rev-elation.” During World War II and the HOLOCAUST,Pope Pius XII charted a course of accommodationwith ADOLF HITLER that protected church propertywhile ignoring the wholesale slaughter of Jews andother minorities. (In 2003 Pius XII was nominatedfor sainthood.) Sectarian violence often overshadowspolitical issues when members of the IRISH REPUBLI-CAN ARMY clash with Protestant groups such as theUlster Defense Association in Northern Ireland.Rome’s stance on abortion and contraception (bothbanned by papal decree) provides theological sup-port for such terrorist groups as the ARMY OF GOD.Within the church itself, ongoing scandal surroundsthe Vatican’s handling (some say coddling) ofPEDOPHILE PRIESTS and the so-called rehabilitationprograms offered by groups such as the SERVANTS OF

THE PARACLETE. By 2003 hundreds of priests in theUnited States and Europe stood accused of sexualoffenses while their superiors often seemed moreintent on protecting the church’s reputation than theminds and bodies of its loyal parishioners. On thefinancial side, persistent scandal dogs the VATICAN

BANK and its alleged ties with organized-crimegroups including the MAFIA and the CAMORRA. Aslong as religion remains a bone of contentionbetween human beings, the world’s largest and rich-est church will doubtless be a lightning rod for criti-cism and suspicion.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

CENTRAL African RepublicThis landlocked nation of equatorial Africa was rav-aged by slave traders from the 16th to the 19th cen-tury. FRANCE occupied the territory in 1894,expanding by 1910 to create French EquatorialAfrica (including portions of the Congo and modernGabon). A 1946 rebellion forced the French to grantself-government, and 12 years later residents of thedistrict voted to become an autonomous republicwithin the French community. President DavidDacko declared independence from France in August1960, aligning the country with CHINA before a mili-tary coup deposed him in December 1965. New rulerJean-Bédel Bokassa declared himself EmperorBokassa I in December 1976, and the country wasrenamed the Central African Empire. Brutality andrepression marked the “new” regime and continued

through two more coups (in September 1979 andSeptember 1981). By the 1990s a crippled economyprohibited payment of government salaries, and thearmy revolted in 1996. Prime Minister Ange-FélixPatassé requested French troops to crush the rebel-lion, and UNITED NATIONS peacekeepers arrived in1998 to quell ongoing bloodshed. In September 1999Patassé defeated rival André Kolingba in an electionthat was marred by charges of massive fraud. Troopsfrom LIBYA and the Congo helped Patassé survive acoup by Kolingba supporters in May 2001, followedby bloody reprisals against the insurgents.

CENTRAL Intelligence AgencyNear the end of World War II, William Donovan sug-gested to President Harry Truman that the OFFICE OF

STRATEGIC SERVICES (OSS) or some similar groupshould continue operations during peacetime. Tru-man agreed but bypassed Donovan for leadership ofthe new CIA when it was created in 1947. A yearlater, the agency’s charter was expanded from mereintelligence gathering to include “covert actions,”though the CIA was specifically barred from operat-ing inside the United States—a restriction that hasseldom (if ever) restrained America’s “spooks” fromspying when and where they please.

By 1953 when Allen Dulles took charge of theCIA, simple intelligence gathering had lost its allure.The agency—or “The Company,” as it is oftencalled—was ready and willing to embark on a moreaggressive phase of covert operations. Under Dullesand his successors, covert operations were defined asactivities “conducted or sponsored by this Govern-ment against hostile foreign states or groups or insupport of friendly foreign states or groups butwhich are so planned and executed that any U.S.Government responsibility for them is not evident tounauthorized persons and that if uncovered the U.S.Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibil-ity for them.”

During the next two decades, operating on therazor’s edge of “plausible deniability,” the CIAwould plunge headfirst into murky waters through-out the world. A few of its known illegal operationsinclude: toppling the duly elected governments ofGUATEMALA and CHILE; installing the shah of IRAN asabsolute dictator and supporting his terrorist regimefor another quarter-century; conducting covert proxywars in LAOS, ANGOLA, and elsewhere in the name of

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“anti-COMMUNISM”; launching the disastrous BAY OF

PIGS INVASION in a failed effort to unseat FIDEL CAS-TRO in CUBA; plotting with leaders of the MAFIA tomurder Castro; planning “executive action” (that is,murder) against other heads of state throughout theThird World; collaborating with organized crime inEurope and the Far East to suppress native dissi-dents; pursuing MIND-CONTROL experiments throughuse of LSD, hypnosis, and other means; smugglingheroin to the United States aboard AIR AMERICA

flights; arming “contra” terrorists to overthrow theelected government of NICARAGUA, and spearheadingthe IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIRACY; arming Muslimrebels (including Osama bin Laden) to fight Sovietforces in AFGHANISTAN; arming SADDAM HUSSEIN

during IRAQ’s long war with Iran; and conductingdecades of illicit domestic surveillance and “disinfor-mation” campaigns that included bribing journalists,infiltrating college campuses, spying on political can-didates, and harassing political dissenters. The latteroperations were conducted both in collaborationwith the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI),and sometimes in opposition to the JUSTICE DEPART-MENT’s authorized domestic snoopers. Since 2001domestic spying by the CIA has been approved andvastly expanded under terms of the USA PATRIOT ACT.

The net result of those covert activities, spanningmore than a half-century, has been predominantlynegative. From the Bay of Pigs to untimely reports ofOsama bin Laden’s “death,” the CIA has embar-rassed its political masters time and time again.(Most recently, President George W. Bush used theagency as his scapegoat when journalists exposed hisfalse justifications of OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.)CIA agents left their clumsy fingerprints on everyphase of the WATERGATE scandal, and a later genera-tion bungled efforts to predict (and thus prevent) thecatastrophic PENTTBOM attacks of September 11,2001. The agency has also suffered mightily from“blowback”—the phenomenon in which a group ornation armed and funded by the CIA turns andattacks the guiding hand. (Saddam Hussein, Osamabin Laden, and PANAMA’s Manuel Noriega providethree classic examples.)

Given the CIA’s long record of highly public fail-ures, some critics suggest that its operations have lit-tle to do with “intelligence,” however we define thatterm. Others suggest that it is not too late to followthrough on President John Kennedy’s reputed 1963plan to “dismember” the agency and “scatter it to

the winds” (a plan foiled, coincidentally or other-wise, by the JFK ASSASSINATION). CIA apologistsgrant that The Company has made “a few mis-takes”—after all, its leaders and agents are “onlyhuman”—but they claim that untold good has alsobeen accomplished by unsung heroes acting in thebest interests of “God and country.” Unfortunately,those supposed good deeds are shrouded by the samecloak of secrecy that covers everything else about theCIA, including the size of its annual budget.

That very secrecy, coupled with the CIA’s knowncrimes, ensures that conspiracy theories will alwaysdog the agency’s covert footsteps. Some of the moredurable theories include CIA involvement in the RFK

ASSASSINATION, the murders of Dr. MARTIN LUTHER

KING, JR., and MALCOLM X, invention of the AIDS

virus, creation and widespread ghetto distribution ofcrack COCAINE, toppling President RICHARD NIXON

by means of fabricated Watergate evidence, the murder of JOHN LENNON, and suppression of “thetruth” concerning UFOS. At age 51 and counting,only one thing can be said with certainty about theCIA: Nothing said by any spokesman for the agencyshould be accepted at face value.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; DULLES BROTHERS;KENNEDY DYNASTY.

CERMAK, Anton Joseph (1873–1933)A native of Bohemia (now the CZECH REPUBLIC) andborn in 1873, Anton Cermak immigrated toChicago and worked as a street vendor (known as“Pushcart Tony”) before he discovered the wondersof urban ward politics. Rising swiftly throughDemocratic Party ranks, Cermak served as an Illi-nois delegate to the party’s national conventions in1924, 1928, and 1932. He failed to win a U.S. Sen-ate seat in 1928, but was elected mayor of Chicagotwo years later. Although portrayed in Windy Citymythology as a crusading reformer, Cermak wasknown among local mobsters as Ten-Percent Tonyfor the flat rate of bribes he demanded. (He also rana thriving real estate business, profiting hugely from insider tips he received from members of thestate legislature.) Curiously, once installed in office,Cermak severed ties with the powerful Al Caponemob and forged alliances with rival gangster Roger Touhy (local boss of the INTERNATIONAL

BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS). For that treacheryCermak paid the ultimate price. On February 15,

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1933, while attending a campaign rally with presi-dential candidate Franklin Roosevelt in Miami,Cermak was shot by Giuseppe Zangara, a formersharpshooter with the Italian army. When hisChicago secretary rushed to Cermak’s hospital bedside, Cermak said, “So you survived all right. Ithought maybe they’d shot up the office in Chicago,too.” He lingered for three weeks until gangreneand pneumonia claimed his life on March 6. Zan-gara was billed in the press as a lone-nut assassinwho failed in a bid to kill Roosevelt, but Chicagojudge John Lyle later declared, “Zangara was aMAFIA killer, sent from Sicily to do a job and swornto silence.” Sixty years after Zangara’s execution,SECRET SERVICE files released under the Freedom ofInformation Act revealed that the gunman had beenjailed for bootlegging in 1929 and subsequently losthuge sums to mob-owned racetracks in Florida,working off part of his debt as a drug-smuggling“mule.” Conspiracists note the similarity betweenZangara’s case and those of “lone assassins” in the JFK and RFK ASSASSINATIONs and the murder ofDr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

CHADThree rival kingdoms surrounded Africa’s LakeChad by the 16th century, but all were conqueredby Sudanese warlord Rabih al-Zubayr between1883 and 1893. French invaders toppled Rabih in1900 and 10 years later absorbed the territory intoFrench Equatorial Africa. Chad became a separatecolony in 1920, was admitted to the French com-munity in 1946, and finally achieved independencein August 1960. President Ngarta Tombalbaye diedin a coup, in 1975. Successor Gen. Félix Malloumsoon faced rebels in a civil war financed from LIBYA.In 1977 Libya seized a strip of territory in Chad,prior to launching a full-scale invasion two yearslater. Libyan leader MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFFI pro-posed a formal merger of nations in January 1981,but Chad refused, so Libyan troops withdrewbefore year’s end. They returned for another try in1983, supporting antigovernment rebels led byGoukouni Oueddei, while France sent troops todefend current ruler Hissen Habré. In 1990 Habré’sgovernment was toppled by the Patriotic SalvationMovement, which suspended Chad’s constitutionand dissolved the legislature. PSM leader IdrissDéby soon faced violent opposition from a new

Movement for Democracy and Justice (MDJC).Clashes continue, despite a cease-fire agreement inJanuary 2002.

CHALLENGER shuttle disasterAt 11:40 A.M. on January 28, 1986, the space shuttleChallenger was launched from Kennedy Space Cen-ter in Florida. Seventy-three seconds into the flight, aglobal TV audience watched, horrified, as the space-craft erupted into a giant fireball and plummetedback toward splashdown in the Atlantic. All sevenastronauts aboard were killed, and while investiga-tors later blamed a defective “O” ring for permittingan explosive fuel leak, conspiracy theories abound.As with the subsequent COLUMBIA SHUTTLE DISAS-TER, theories include an act of sabotage or TERROR-ISM, intervention by extraterrestrials to preventfurther space exploration by earthlings, and a mun-dane cover-up of negligence among planners andtechnicians of the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA). Thus far, none of the claimshas been substantiated.

CHAPPAQUIDDICK incidentOn the night of July 18, 1969, a black Oldsmobilesedan plunged off a narrow bridge on Chappaquid-dick Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Sub-merged, the car was not found until the morning ofJuly 19. Inside it authorities discovered the corpse of28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, a former secretary tomurdered U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy. Soon afterthat grim discovery, Senator Edward Kennedy enteredthe Edgartown police station on Martha’s Vineyardand confessed that he had driven the car. At the time,“Ted” Kennedy was considered a Democratic front-runner for president in 1972, but the Chappaquid-dick scandal doomed any hopes that he cherished foroccupying the White House. A series of evasive andcontradictory statements left many questions sur-rounding the accident forever unanswered, despiteKennedy’s guilty plea to charges of leaving the acci-dent scene. He received a two-month suspended jailsentence, and while some observers denounced thewrist-slap as a prime example of political corruption,others question whether Kennedy was even in the carwhen it crashed. Conspiracist R.B. Cutler maintainsthat the Chappaquiddick incident was an “ambush”and “political assassination” of Kennedy, carried out

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by the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY to bar yetanother Kennedy from seeking the presidency. As forKopechne’s bereaved mother, she told reporters inJuly 1969, “I am satisfied with Kennedy’s statementand hope he decides to stay in the Senate.” Kennedyfulfilled that wish, remaining in office as this volumewent to press.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

CHASE Manhattan BankFounded and owned by the ROCKEFELLER family,Chase Manhattan Bank (formerly Chase National)moved closer to becoming the world’s richest bankin September 2000 with its bid to buy out rival J.P.MORGAN. That step prompted journalists to reviewChase’s corporate history, and what they found wasa sordid record of cashing in on human misery.Before World War II Chase and parent companySTANDARD OIL (now Exxon) financed ADOLF

HITLER’s rise to power in GERMANY and assistedhim in building Europe’s most powerful army. BothChase and Standard Oil were major stockholders inI.G. FARBEN, the German chemical company thatbuilt the Auschwitz death camp and invented Zyklon-B nerve gas to facilitate extermination of“undesirables” during the HOLOCAUST. Farbenreciprocated by purchasing masses of Standard Oilstock. The symbiotic relationship did not end withthe U.S. entry into World War II but rather flour-ished despite legislation banning trade with the fas-cist enemy. Before Hitler’s defeat, Chase/Standardoperatives helped the Nazi elite smuggle stolenassets worth billions of dollars to friendly banks inSWITZERLAND and South America.

Supporting the THIRD REICH was more than sim-ply good business for Chase executives: for some, itwas also a labor or love. Family patriarch John D.Rockefeller ranked among the world’s foremost pro-moters of “eugenics,” the pseudoscience of “racebetterment” by selective breeding. Auschwitz“Angel of Death” JOSEF MENGELE was among theeugenics experts funded by Rockefeller endowments.Today, operating as the Manhattan Institute—founded by former CIA director WILLIAM CASEY—Chase/Rockefeller supports such “scholars” asCharles Murray (whose opus The Bell Curve claimsblacks are genetically and intellectually inferior towhites). The Manhattan Institute also pioneered theories of “compassionate conservatism” which

were touted in modern times by President George W.Bush. (Statements from Bush declare the ManhattanInstitute second only to the Bible as a guiding influ-ence on his political philosophy.) The Rockefeller-owned Museum of Modern Art in New York Citystill proudly displays works of art that were lootedfrom Jewish families en route to Hitler’s deathcamps.

In December 1998 Holocaust survivors namedChase, J.P. Morgan, and seven French banks asdefendants in a lawsuit seeking to recover assetsstolen from victims of Hitler’s regime before and during World War II. According to affidavits filed insupport of that class-action lawsuit, the defendants“froze and blocked Jewish accounts during theperiod of the Nazi occupation in France, deprivingJewish families of the financial means to flee France.”Chase’s Paris branch, supported by headquarters inNew York, displayed “excessive zeal” in enforcinganti-Jewish laws and was held in “very specialesteem” by Nazi puppet rulers of the Vichy Frenchregime. Court papers also claimed that Chase nearlydoubled its deposits under German rule in Francefrom 27 million francs in 1942 to 50 million in 1944.Chase spokesmen told reporters that their firm hadbeen engaged in “settlement talks” with the WorldJewish Congress for several weeks and lamented the filing of an “unnecessary” lawsuit. The briefembarrassment did not prevent Chase from purchas-ing Morgan in 2000 to become J.P. Morgan Chase.Critics note that the corporate logo bears a strongresemblance to a “modified swastika.”

See also BUSH DYNASTY; FASCISM; FARBEN

INDUSTRIES.

CHECHNYAWith the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, thissouthern “republic” of the USSR campaigned for fullindependence. Russian troops sealed the borders inDecember 1994 and replaced Prime Minister ViktorChenomyrdin with a pliable successor, but rampantorganized crime and a plummeting economy guaran-teed further trouble, and guerrilla warfare continuedthrough 1996. In 1998, Russian leader Boris Yeltsinsacked Prime Minister Sergei Kiryenko and restoredChenomyrdin to tentative power. Warfare resumed in1999 with some 215,000 Chechen refugees driveninto neighboring Ingushetia. Russian troops capturedthe Chechen capital (Grozny) in December 2000 and

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thus declared “victory,” but fighting continues, whilemembers of the “Chechen Mafia” expand their rack-ets throughout Europe and beyond.

CHENEY, Dick (1941– )Nebraska native Richard Bruce (Dick) Cheney wasborn in 1941 and moved to Wyoming as a child withhis family. He briefly attended Yale University(1959–60) before earning his bachelor’s and master’sdegrees from the University of Wyoming (1965–66).He abandoned his Ph.D. studies in 1969 to pursueright-wing Republican politics. Under PresidentRICHARD NIXON, Cheney served as “special assistant”to the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969–70),

White House staff assistant (1971), and assistantdirector of the Cost of Living Council (1971–73).When Nixon resigned in disgrace, Cheney moved onto serve as vice president of Bradley, Woods & Com-pany, a New York investment research firm(1973–74), and then returned to Washington underPresident Gerald Ford as deputy assistant to the pres-ident (1974–75) and White House chief of staff(1975–77). Next, Cheney was elected to the Houseof Representatives from Wyoming (1979–89), wherehe distinguished himself as one of only two congress-men opposing a federal ban on armor-piercing “copkiller” bullets.

Cheney left Congress to serve President GeorgeH. W. Bush as secretary of defense (1989–93) andthen became chief executive officer of the Hallibur-ton Company, a major U.S. energy conglomerate.He earned more than $36 million from Halliburtonin 2000, but Cheney was worth every cent to thefirm. Under his leadership, Halliburton increased itsgovernment contracts by 91 percent (to $2.3 billion)and qualified for nearly $2 billion in federal loans.At the same time, Halliburton admitted to $100 mil-lion in “accounting irregularities” and signed con-tracts with two of the world’s top “state sponsors ofTERRORISM” (LIBYA and IRAQ). In 2000 whenCheney left private enterprise to seek the vice presi-dency under George W. Bush, Halliburton donated$1.8 million to the Republican Party. Soon after hisinauguration, Cheney met with leaders of the OIL,natural gas, and nuclear power industries to assem-ble a “wish list,” which was then recast as the Bushadministration’s national energy policy. The result-ing scandal from that escapade (including Cheney’sinvolvement with ENRON) found Cheney withhold-ing 13,500 pages of Energy Plan documents fromcongressional investigators, pleading “executiveprivilege” in the face of subpoenas and court orders.The PENTTBOM attacks of September 11, 2001, dis-tracted Congress from the inquiry, and Halliburtonreturned to the government trough in 2003, reapinga secret, no-bid $7 billion contract to pump oil andfight fires in Iraq after Bush launched OPERATION

IRAQI FREEDOM. When questioned about the sweet-heart deal on 60 Minutes, Halliburton’s spokesmanmanaged to keep a straight face while claiming that Cheney’s influence had “zero impact” on theterms of their secret contract. (In December 2003 itwas revealed that Halliburton had overcharged U.S.military forces an average of $1.60 per gallon on

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Rows of body bags containing bodies of dead hostages liefor identification at a morgue in the town of Vladikavkaz,September 4, 2004. At least 322 people, including 155children, died during the bloody end to a hostage-taking ata school in the southern Russian town of Beslan, nearChechnya. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters/Corbis)

fuel pumped and processed in Iraq.) Cheney is amember of COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS and theTRILATERAL COMMISSION.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

CHERNOBYL disasterOn April 26, 1986, cooling systems failed at theChernobyl nuclear reactor, 50 miles north of Kiev inthe Soviet UKRAINE. As described in subsequentreports, a series of technical errors caused water torun low and overheat in various cooling compo-nents, creating an explosion that shattered the reac-tor’s 1,000-ton lid, set fire to the facility, andunleashed a deadly cloud of radioactive fallout onthe surrounding countryside. For weeks thereafterhelicopters fought the fire by dumping sand and leadinto the shattered reactor. A second major blazeerupted on May 23, requiring further desperateefforts. Meanwhile, radiation spread throughoutUkraine and across much of Europe.

The Chernobyl body count may never be known.Russian authorities did not acknowledge the disasteruntil April 28, when monitors at a power plant inSweden detected large doses of radiation in the airand suspected a leak at their own facility. Within 36hours of the explosion 300 persons were treated forserious radiation sickness, and more than 100,000were evacuated from their homes. In 1991 the Cana-dian Broadcasting System claimed 10,000 to 15,000immediate deaths; various sources projected long-term losses from cancer and other diseases, rangingas high as 125,000. Apologists for the nuclear indus-try, meanwhile, claim that only 48 verified deathshave occurred thus far, with an additional 800 casesof thyroid cancer reported in children.

Chernobyl conspiracy theories do not concern theincident’s death toll, however, but rather Russianclaims that it was accidental. The Soviet Union’s col-lapse in 1991 has done nothing to mollify lifelonganticommunists who believe that Russian commis-sars still plot world domination on behalf of aslightly revised “evil empire.” As one Internet Website summarizes the case (noting the “rather pro-found connections [Chernobyl] had to astrology andbiblical prophecy”):

The Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Ukraine . . . was

no accident. To the contrary, it was a sick, intentional

experiment conducted by the “former” Communist

government in Moscow to garner knowledge about the

effects of radioactive contamination. For what reason?

To prepare to fight and survive a global nuclear war.

The clincher, in that view, is Kosvinskiy Mountain,an underground control and command center similarto those scattered throughout the United States, thatRussian authorities constructed in 1996. “Whywould this be so,” the conspiracists ask, “unless theKremlin is planning to fight a nuclear war?”

See also COMMUNISM.

CHIANG Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) (1887–1975)A native of CHINA’s Zhejiang province who was bornin 1887, Chiang Kai-shek studied in JAPAN, includingmilitary training with the Japanese Imperial Army.While there he joined Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s United Revo-lutionary League, forerunner of the Kuomintang(KMT), which opposed the reigning Ming dynasty.In 1911 when rebels rose against the Manchudynasty, Chiang returned home to join in the action.A Chinese republic was established in 1912, but Chi-ang disliked new leader Yüan Shih-kai (Yuan Shikai)and worked during the next four years to topple him.When Sun Yat-sen (Sun-Yixian) established a newgovernment in 1917, Chiang served as his militaryaid, using the post to cement his ties with variousTRIAD criminal syndicates. Sun’s death in 1925 leftChiang the dominant KMT leader. He continuedSun’s policy of collaboration with China’s Commu-nist Party until 1927 when Chiang reversed himselfand launched a bloody purge of Reds nationwide. By1928, with Red leaders MAO ZEDONG and ZhouEnlai in hiding, Chiang assumed ultimate power ashead of the KMT government and “generalissimo”of all Chinese military forces.

Chiang’s honeymoon was short lived. Communistresistance sparked new purges in the 1930s, drivingthe Red Army into its historic Long March by 1934.Simultaneously, Chiang’s old mentors from Japaninvaded Manchuria (1931) and then China itself(1937). With the outbreak of World War II Chiangbecame supreme commander of Allied forces in theChinese theater of operations. Victory over Japanbrought no peace, however, as fighting resumedbetween Communists and KMT forces. Chiang’sgovernment collapsed in 1949, and he fled off-shoreto TAIWAN, where he established a Chinese govern-ment in exile. Supported by Triad drug money and

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U.S. aid to “Nationalist China,” Chiang spent therest of his life rattling sabers, calling for “reunifica-tion” of China (under his command), and schemingwith Western intelligence agencies to subvert the Bei-jing regime. Secure as president for life on Taiwan, heruled a modest empire of corruption until his deathin 1975.

See also COMMUNISM.

CHICAGO Police DepartmentBest known until 1968 for its corrupt alliance withorganized crime, the Chicago Police Department hasalso been extremely active in political surveillance—so active, in fact, that author Frank Donner oncedubbed Chicago “the national capital of policerepression.” Official conflict with ANARCHISTS andlabor unions dates from the 19th century; later tar-gets of surveillance and harassment included theCommunist Party and the Industrial Workers of theWorld. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)agents kept abreast of those campaigns and cooper-ated when they could while ignoring (and publiclydenying) the existence of syndicated crime in theWindy City. Occasional insults, such as G-manMelvin Purvis’s decision to capture JOHN DILLINGER

without informing local police, never truly jeopard-ized the joint pursuit of persons and organizationsthat were branded “subversive.”

By 1960 Chicago’s intelligence unit had collectedfiles on 117,000 “local individuals,” plus 141,000out-of-towners and some 14,000 suspect organiza-tions. Subjects included the STUDENTS FOR A DEMO-CRATIC SOCIETY and its offshoot WeathermanUnderground, the Southern Christian LeadershipConference and various organizations opposed tothe VIETNAM War. Agents of the FBI’s Chicago fieldoffice frequently shared information with police, asin Chicago’s 1966 campaign against JOIN (Jobs or Income Now), which climaxed with a raid on the group’s office. Two years later, televised inci-dents of police brutality during the DemocraticNational Convention shocked America. (Congres-sional investigators dubbed the incident a “policeriot.”) At the same time, in 1968–69, police collab-orated with the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO operationsagainst the Blackstone Rangers and the BLACK PAN-THER PARTY. Armed with floor plans drawn by anFBI informant, Chicago police invaded the home ofChicago Panther chief FRED HAMPTON in December

1969 and killed him while he slept. (It now appearsthat Hampton was drugged before the raid by thesame bureau informant who sketched his apartmentfor police.)

In 1970 the Chicago police department had 382officers assigned to its intelligence unit, 49 commit-ted full-time to investigation of “subversive” activi-ties (as opposed to actual crimes). Citywide morethan 1,000 federal, state, and city agents wereengaged in undercover operations, spending an esti-mated $2 million that year in pursuit of alleged trai-tors. Chicago’s Subversive Activities Unit received abroader mandate in 1971, ordered “through covertand overt activity,” to gather intelligence on all“organizations and individuals which present athreat to the security of the country, state, or city.”That mandate was renewed in 1973, with a special“dirty tricks” campaign inaugurated in 1974 to“neutralize” various targets by causing them “tocease or change direction.” Exposure of illicit activi-ties embarrassed the department in 1974, and byyear’s end police spokespeople admitted destroyingfiles on 1,300 organizations and 105,000 individuals(thus concealing the names of 220 informants). Nosurveys of police surveillance have been made sincethe 1970s, but minority groups and civil libertarianssuggest that the problem is ongoing. Mundane cor-ruption continues, meanwhile: In January 2003 threeChicago cops were charged with conspiracy to dis-tribute COCAINE.

See also COMMUNISM.

CHICAGO 7The year 1968 is described by some historians as the United States’ most tumultuous year since theCivil War. Disaffection over the long-running war in VIETNAM mounted throughout 1966–67, with mass demonstrations organized by groups includingSTUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY (SDS), theNational Mobilization Committee to End the War inVietnam (MOBE), Vietnam Veterans Against theWar, and the Youth International Party (YIP). Thoseprotests peaked in August 1968 when delegates tothe Democratic National Convention gathered inChicago to select their presidential candidate. Offi-cers of the CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT, encour-aged by Mayor RICHARD DALEY, responded withbrute force (dubbed a “police riot” by members of acongressional investigative committee). In the wake

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of that chaotic week, on March 20, 1969, federalprosecutors indicted eight defendants on charges ofconspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act of 1968.Those charged included:

Abbie Hoffman, 32-year-old leader of the YouthInternational Party, self-described “orphan ofAmerica” and “child of Woodstock Nation”

Jerry Rubin, radical cofounder of the YIPDavid Dellinger, 54-year-old chairman of MOBE,

described by prosecutors as “the chief architectof the conspiracy”

Rennie Davis, 29-year-old national director ofcommunity organizing programs for the SDS

Thomas Hayden, cofounder of the SDS, author ofthat group’s famous Port Huron Statement, and“chief ideologue” of the antiwar movement

John Froines, 32-year-old industrial chemist witha Ph.D. in toxicology, charged with manufac-turing stink bombs for the protesters

Lee Weiner, teaching assistant in sociology atNorthwestern University, likewise charged withmaking “incendiary devices” (stink bombs)

Bobby Seale, cofounder of the BLACK PANTHER

PARTY, who briefly visited Chicago during theconvention but participated in none of theadvance planning for protests. Prosecutorsapparently included him on the list to link theother defendants with Seale’s prior radicalstatements

Trial of the Chicago 8 before Judge Julius Hoff-man began on September 24, 1969. By October 29profane outbursts from Seale prompted Hoffman toorder him bound and gagged in the courtroom.Protests against that action left defense attorneyscited for contempt, but Seale’s case was finally sev-ered from the others on November 5, reducing thelist of defendants to seven. Jurors began delibera-tions on February 14, 1970, and returned with ver-dicts four days later. Defendants Froines and Weinerwere acquitted on all counts, while the other fivewere convicted. On May 11, 1972, the Seventh Cir-cuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Hoffman’s con-tempt convictions against all defendants and theirlawyers. Six months later, on November 21, the samecourt voided all convictions in the case. Chargeswere dismissed against Bobby Seale, and a Connecti-cut jury acquitted him on unrelated charges of mur-dering a suspected FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

informer in the Panther Party. Abbie Hoffman wascharged with COCAINE violations in 1974 and spentseven years as a fugitive, finally surrendering to awork-release program in 1981–82; he committed sui-cide in April 1989. Tom Hayden married actress JaneFonda, later serving in the California state assembly(1982–92) and state senate (1992–2000). DaveDellinger was arrested in August 1998 at age 83while demonstrating outside a nuclear power plant.

CHILEChile’s aboriginal Inca and Arucano rulers were bru-tally deposed by Spanish invaders in the 16th cen-tury. Rebel leaders Bernardo O’Higgins and José deSan Martín threw off the Spanish yoke in 1818. Aseries of wars with PERU and BOLIVIA (1836–39,1879–83) expanded Chile’s territory while leavingBolivia forever landlocked. Industrialization beganprior to World War I and prompted creation of dissi-dent communist groups. Chile’s president duringWorld War II was initially pro-Nazi, but he shiftedallegiance midstream to support the victorious Allies.Marxist president Salvador Allende Gossens waselected to office in September 1970 and swiftlyformed alliances with CUBA and CHINA. Prompted by U.S. investors (with IT&T chief among them),President RICHARD NIXON and aide HENRY KISSINGER

ordered the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY to desta-bilize Chile’s economy, with the goal of topplingAllende. The illicit campaign was successful, cli-maxed by a military coup in September 1973 thatkilled Allende and ended Chile’s 46-year record ofconstitutional government. A four-man junta led byArmy Chief of Staff Augusto Pinochet Ugarte insti-tuted brutal military rule, during which thousands ofChileans were arrested, murdered, or “disappeared.”In 1977 Pinochet promised elections in 1985; losingthat vote, he clung to power by force until January1990 and then finally stepped down as dictator(though he remained as army chief of staff untilMarch 1998). In October 1998 Pinochet wasarrested in England on orders from a Spanish judgefor trial in the disappearance and presumed murderof Spanish citizens during his term as dictator. Britishauthorities refused to extradite Pinochet, and hereturned to Chile in March 2000. There, the nation’ssupreme court stripped him of immunity from prose-cution in June 2000, but a judge found Pinochetmentally unfit for trial in July 2001. No one has yet

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been punished for the crimes of Pinochet’s regime—nor for U.S. complicity in those atrocities.

CHINAAs one of Earth’s oldest civilized nations, China hasalso suffered more than its share of intrigue, subver-sion, rebellion, and organized crime. Combative feu-dal states were first united under Emperor Qin ShiHuangdi (Ch’in Shih Huang Ti; 246–210 B.C.), whostarted work on consolidating a defensive Great Wallto bar invaders from the North. Manchu invadersfrom the north succeeded, in 1644, in establishingone more in China’s succession of ruling dynasties.Isolation was the nation’s byword: By the end of the18th century, only Canton (modern Hong Kong) andthe Portuguese port at Macau were open to Euro-pean merchants. Narcotics and British ingenuitybroke down that barrier at last, as the first OPIUM

WAR (1839–42) compelled China to accept addictivedrugs for the profit of England. A second OpiumWar (1856–60) was required to guarantee the Royaldealers’ territory, and China lapsed into an era ofsociopolitical instability. A disastrous war withJAPAN (1894–95) forced China to cede further trad-ing rights, and Peking’s retaliatory Boxer Rebellionof 1900 was crushed by an international forceincluding U.S. Marines.

The death of Empress Dowager Ci Xi (Tz’u-hsi)and the succession of an infant heir in 1908 sparkeda nationwide rebellion against the Manchu dynasty,led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian). Supported bypowerful TRIAD crime lords, Sun triumphed tobecome the first president of a provisional ChineseRepublic in 1911. Soon tiring of politics, Sunresigned in favor of Yuan Shikai (Yüan Shih-k’ai),who promptly crushed the Republican movement torule as dictator. Yuan’s death in June 1916 sparked along civil war for control of China, finally ending invictory for another Triad ally, General CHIANG KAI-SHEK (Jiang Jieshi), and his nationalist Kuomintangfaction. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931—the firstmilitary campaign of what would later becomeWorld War II—and the struggle continued until1945. The mushroom cloud had barely settled overNagasaki when Chiang declared war on China’scommunist movement, led by MAO ZEDONG. Despitesupport from the United States, Chiang was defeatedand run out of China in 1949, establishing a tiny“nation” on the island of TAIWAN. Washington

refused to recognize Red China, but President HarryTruman learned a bitter lesson when Chinese troopsrepelled U.S. forces from North KOREA in 1951.

At home, Mao’s regime was modeled on theworks of Russia’s JOSEPH STALIN, emphasizing“progress” over human rights (and sometimes sur-vival itself). China occupied Tibet in 1959, forcingthe Dalai Lama and 100,000 of his Buddhist disci-ples into permanent exile. Meanwhile, a “GreatLeap Forward” sought to convert China’s agricul-tural economy forcibly to modern industry—withthe result that more than 20 million persons ulti-mately starved to death. That gruesome failuresparked a power struggle within the Chinese Com-munist Party, climaxed by declaration of a “CulturalRevolution” in 1966, as young Red Guards killedmillions more in violent purges of “old ideas, oldculture, old habits and old customs.” PresidentRICHARD NIXON reversed his lifelong anticommuniststance in 1971, recognizing China in a bid to capi-talize on Beijing’s rift with Moscow. Mao’s death inSeptember 1976 unleashed more rivalries within theRed regime, prompting imprisonment of Mao’swidow and three colleagues (the “Gang of Four”) oncharges of subversion.

China’s trend toward Westernization has contin-ued since the death of Mao, interrupted periodicallyby saber rattling from Washington and/or Beijing.Student demonstrators were massacred at Beijing’sTiananman Square in May 1989, and U.S.–Chineserelations were further strained 10 years later whenCongress accused China of stealing Americannuclear secrets during the past two decades. (SomeU.S. military officers accused President Bill Clintonof complicity in that alleged “treason.”) In general,however, Washington has displayed a fair degree oftolerance toward China—and toward Chinesehuman-rights violations in particular—when theprofits of U.S.-based corporations are at risk.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY; COMMUNISM.

CHRISTIAN FrontThe brainchild of Detroit’s Rev. Charles Coughlin, aCATHOLIC priest known for his radio diatribesattacking Jews and President Franklin Roosevelt, theChristian Front was organized in early 1938. Instruc-tions printed in Coughlin’s newsletter Social Justice,on May 22, 1938, urged would-be leaders of themovement to

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Let your organization be composed of no more than 25

members. After a few contacts with these 25 persons

you will observe that two of them may be capable of

organizing 25 more. Invite these capable people to do

that very thing.

The Christian Front’s first and largest chapter wasorganized in New York City, where it met weekly inthe basement of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle.Some members affected Nazi-style uniforms, bandingtogether in “goon squads” that were notorious fortheir verbal and physical assaults on Jewish mer-chants. On July 31, 1939, Social Justice hailed thefront as “the inevitable counteraction to COMMU-NISM” and “a protector of Christianity and Ameri-canism.” A nationwide membership of five millionwas predicted for the following year.

On January 14, 1940, journalists were summonedto the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’s (FBI)New York field office where J. EDGAR HOOVER per-sonally announced the arrest of 17 Christian Fron-ters who were charged with stealing weapons from aNational Guard armory as part of a “vast plot” tooverthrow the U.S. government and establish a fas-cist dictatorship. When one of the reporters askedhow such a small group could execute a “vast” con-spiracy, Hoover replied (inaccurately), “It only tooktwenty-three men to overthrow Russia.”

At trial in April 1940 the Christian Front defen-dants were accused of plotting to foment race war-fare in America. As outlined by the prosecution, “theultimate idea was to incite Jews to riot and then havea revolution and a counterrevolution.” Despite testi-mony from FBI informant Denis Healy that the frontwas “growing by leaps and bounds,” training specialteams “to eradicate the Jews,” hard evidence of crim-inal conspiracy was slim to nonexistent. Defenseattorneys questioned Healy’s role and cast doubt onhis actions as an agent provocateur. None of thedefendants was convicted.

CHRISTIAN IdentitySpawned from the 19th-century “Anglo-Israelism”movement, the modern cult of Christian Identitypreaches that Europeans of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic,Scandinavian, and Teutonic origins are the true tribesof Israel described in the Old Testament. In this the-ology Jews are not only excluded from “Israel,” butthey are also literal children of Satan, produced when

Eve allegedly copulated with the serpent in Eden toproduce her evil son Cain. Nonwhite races (or “mudpeople”) allegedly did not appear on Earth until Cainwas banished from Eden for slaying brother Abel,whereupon he (Cain) mated with various subhumanfemales and encouraged his sons to do likewise.Evangelist Edward Hine brought the racist doctrineto North America in the 1880s, and the Brooklyn-based Anglo-Israel Association was founded in 1888.Thirty years later, members of the revived KU KLUX

KLAN took Christian Identity’s gospel to heart,encouraged by Henry FORD’s attacks on “the Inter-national Jew.” In the 1930s various pro-Nazi groupsadopted Christian Identity tenets, a trend that con-tinued for the next half-century, blossoming in the1970s and 1980s with such groups as the AryanNations, POSSE COMITATUS, and the SILENT BROTHER-HOOD. In the 1990s Christian Identity tenets pro-vided religious underpinnings for the paranoidAmerican MILITIAS. (Militia convert TimothyMcVeigh, executed for the OKLAHOMA CITY BOMB-ING of April 1995, was a Christian Identity believer.)Ironically, at the same time, many hard-core whitesupremacists abandoned Christian Identity even astheir paramilitary cohorts of the militia movementwarmed to its teachings. Today, a majority of neo-Nazis have forsaken Christianity altogether, return-ing to the primitive Odinist religion of their allegedNordic ancestors.

CHRISTIAN ReconstructionismExtreme religious fundamentalism, regardless of itsbasic creed, is arguably the most divisive force onEarth today. Throughout recorded history, morewars, atrocities, and acts of TERRORISM have beenmotivated by religion than by all political doctrinescombined. From the 1990s to the present day, manyultraconservative Christian spokesmen (includingprominent TELEVANGELISTS) have pursued a doctrineknown as Christian Reconstructionism that seeks toreplace the U.S. Constitution and elected governmentwith a narrow interpretation of “Biblical Law.”Reconstructionists advocate dismantling democracyand its various trappings—including public schools,labor unions, and any legislation that protectsminority civil rights. Women would be relegated tohearth and home under this system, while capitalpunishment would expand to include such “crimes”as adultery, blasphemy, heresy, homosexuality, and

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witchcraft. Extreme proponents of the creed publiclyadvocate a return to stoning as the official means ofexecution.

Christian Reconstructionism springs from a workby zealot Rousas John Rushdoony titled Institutes ofBiblical Law. A rambling 800-page “explanation” ofthe Ten Commandments and other Old Testamentrules, Rushdoony’s diatribe professes to reveal “theonly true order” on Earth. As Rushdoony viewedlife, “Every law-order is a state of war against theenemies of that order, and all law is a form of warfare.” An appendix by Rushdoony’s son-in-lawGary North offered a crash course in “Christian eco-nomics.” In that discourse North proclaims: “Bywhat standard can man know anything truly? By the Bible, and only by the Bible.” Having thus truncated all debate, Reconstructionists wage “war”against civilized society on every front—and theespousal of their creed by high-ranking politiciansposing as “compassionate conservatives” suggestthat the cult is no longer strictly marginalized. Anunfortunate side effect of such beliefs is that extremefundamentalists in government—such as Secretary ofthe Interior James Watt under President RONALD

REAGAN—care nothing for preservation of the Earthor its environment. Why should natural resources be conserved, they ask, when the Second Coming of Jesus will wipe out all man’s works within a few short months or years? Critics charge that suchcrusading attitudes are perilous not only to MotherNature but also to the immediate future of human-kind when an overzealous finger on the nuclear trig-ger can make Armageddon a here-and-now reality ofHell on Earth.

CHURCH CommitteeIdaho senator Frank Church served as chairman ofthe U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on GovernmentIntelligence Activities, better known as the ChurchCommittee. Active during the term of the 94th Congress (1975–77), it took public and private testimony from hundreds of witnesses and collectedthousands of classified files from the FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI), the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), the INTERNAL REVENUE

SERVICE (IRS), the NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, andother federal investigative bodies. The committeeissued 14 reports before it was dissolved, but muchof the original reference material remained secret

until 1992 when passage of the JFK ASSASSINATION

Records Collection Act declassified more than50,000 documents.

After interrogating FBI officials, informants, andvictims of harassment, the Church Committee hadthis to say about J. EDGAR HOOVER’s motives for ini-tiating illegal COINTELPRO campaigns:

Protecting national security and preventing violence are

the purposes advanced by the Bureau for COINTEL-

PRO. There is another purpose for COINTELPRO

which is not explicit but which offers the only explana-

tion for those actions which had no conceivable

rational relationship to either national security or vio-

lent activity. The unexpressed major premise of much of

COINTELPRO is that the Bureau has a role in main-

taining the existing social order, and that its efforts

should be aimed toward combating those who threaten

that order.

With respect to FBI claims that COINTELPROactivities were discontinued after May 1971, SenatorChurch and his colleagues reported:

The Committee has not been able to determine with

any greater precision the extent to which COINTEL-

PRO may be continuing. Any proposals to initiate

COINTELPRO-type action would be filed under the

individual case caption. The Bureau has over 500,000

case files, and each one would have to be searched. In

this context, it should be noted that a Bureau search of

all field office COINTELPRO files revealed the exis-

tence of five operations [conducted after May 1971].

A search of all investigative files might be similarly

productive.

More disturbing than concealment of records,however, was the committee’s discovery that “[a]tti-tudes within and without the Bureau demonstrate acontinued belief by some that covert action againstAmerican citizens is permissible if the need for it isstrong enough.” Based on that conclusion, the com-mittee declared in its final report that:

The American people need to be assured that never

again will an agency of the government be permitted to

conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers

threats to the established order. Only a combination of

legislative prohibition and Departmental control can

guarantee that COINTELPRO will not happen again.

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Closing its FBI inquiry on a pessimistic note, theChurch Committee noted that “Whether the Attor-ney General can control the Bureau is still an openquestion.” In fact, as events since 1976 haverevealed, neither the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT nor theWhite House has been able to restrain FBI domesticsurveillance—if, in fact, they had any serious inclina-tion to do so.

In examining the CIA the Church Committeeuncovered murder plots against Cuban leader FIDEL

CASTRO (including CIA collaboration with theMAFIA) and revealed details of the Company’sMKULTRA mind-control experiments, along withextensive evidence of domestic spying banned by theCIA’s charter. As revealed in the committee’s finalreport:

The CIA conducted four mail opening programs within

the United States, the longest of which lasted for twenty

years. These programs resulted in the opening and pho-

tographing of nearly a quarter of a million items of cor-

respondence, the vast majority of which were to or

from American residents. While the programs were

ostensibly conducted for foreign intelligence and coun-

terintelligence purposes, one former high-ranking CIA

official characterized the Agency’s use of this technique

as a “shotgun” approach to intelligence collection; nei-

ther Congressmen, journalists, nor businessmen were

immune from mail interception. With cooperation from

the FBI, domestic “dissidents” were directly targeted in

one of the programs. . . .

The stated purpose of all of the mail opening pro-

grams was to obtain useful foreign intelligence and

counterintelligence information. At least one of the pro-

grams produced no such information, however, and the

continuing value of the major program in New York

was discounted by many Agency officials. . . .

The CIA’s New York mail intercept project,

encrypted HTLINGUAL by the Counterintelligence

Staff and SRPOINTER by the Office of Security, was

the most extensive of all the CIA’s mail intercept pro-

grams, both in terms of the volume of mail that was

opened and in terms of duration. Over the twenty year

course of mail openings, more than 215,000 letters to

and from the Soviet Union were opened and pho-

tographed by CIA agents in New York. Copies of more

than 57,000 of these letters were also disseminated to

the FBI, which learned of this operation in 1958, levied

requirements on it, and received the fruits of the cover-

age until the project was terminated.

Despite the absence of clear authorization outside

the CIA, despite the generally unfavorable internal

reviews of the project in 1960 and 1969, and despite

the facts that it was generally seen as illegal and that its

primary value was believed by many agency officials to

accrue to the FBI in the area of domestic intelligence,

the momentum generated by this project from its incep-

tion in the early 1950’s continued unchecked until Feb-

ruary of 1973.

Exposure of such illegal techniques before Con-gress brought more promises of immediate cessationfrom CIA headquarters, but critics maintain that noinformation from Langley (or FBI headquarters) canbe accepted at face value. More recently, with pas-sage of the USA PATRIOT ACT in 2001, domestic sur-veillance in the name of “national security” has beenexpanded beyond anything envisioned by Hooverduring the COINTELPRO years.

CISPES caseThe FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’s (FBI) four-year pursuit of the Committee in Solidarity with thePeople of EL SALVADOR (CISPES) began in June 1981when Salvadoran native Frank Varelli approachedthe Dallas field office with a tale of right-wing Central American murder squads roaming aroundthe United States. Agent Gary Penrith, second incommand of the Dallas FBI, sent an inquiry to the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY and secured areply that Varelli’s information might be accurate. (Infact, it was false.) By that time, Varelli had expandedhis story to include CISPES, a group created to solicitfunds for humanitarian aid to war-torn El Salvador.Varelli insisted that CISPES was the leftist counter-part of his mythical right-wing assassins, and thebureau took him at his word. In September 1981 acriminal investigation was opened, seeking evidencethat CISPES members had violated the federal Foreign Agents Registration Act. G-men found noevidence of any illegal acts, and the case was officially closed in February 1982.

FBI historian Robert Kessler reports (in TheBureau, 2002) that “[b]ecause of poor supervisionby headquarters, the Dallas office reopened the CIS-PES case two years later,” but records declassified inJanuary 1988 indicate that the CISPES investigationresumed in March 1983 on direct orders from FBIheadquarters, employing Attorney General William

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Smith’s expanded guidelines for “foreign counterin-telligence—international TERRORISM” cases. Kesslerfurther states that the investigation “had no politicalmotives,” and while headquarters instructed G-menthat “the purpose of the investigation was not toinvestigate the exercise of First Amendment rights ofCISPES members,” agents proceeded as they mighthave done for any COINTELPRO operation ordered bylate Director J. EDGAR HOOVER. A headquartersmemo issued to all field offices on October 28, 1983,commanded agents to develop “information on thelocations, leadership, and activities of CISPES chap-ters within each field offices’ jurisdiction.”

Before the CISPES surveillance finally ended onJune 18, 1985 (without producing any criminalcharges), the FBI had opened new files on 2,375 indi-viduals and 1,330 organizations that were found tohave some marginal link with CISPES or its mem-bers. The other groups included more than 100organizations opposed to President RONALD

REAGAN’s Central American policies, plus local chap-ters of the United Auto Workers and the NationalEducation Association. The writings of one memberof the CISPES clergy were cited in an FBI report asevidence of a “mind totally sold on the MarxistLeninist philosophy.” When one G-man reportedthat a group he had investigated was nonviolent andlegitimate, FBI headquarters refused his suggestion todrop surveillance; instead he was ordered to “con-sider the possibility” that the organization “may be afront org for CISPES.” A memo from the NewOrleans field office, dated November 10, 1983,advised Director WILLIAM WEBSTER that:

It is imperative at this time to formulate some plan of

attack against CISPES and specifically, against individ-

uals . . . who defiantly display their contempt for the

U.S. Government by making speeches and propagan-

dizing their cause while asking for political asylum.

New Orleans is of the opinion that Departments of

Justice and State should be consulted to explore the

possibility of deporting these individuals or at best

denying their re-entry once they leave.

A subsequent review of the CISPES investigationby the House Committee on Civil and ConstitutionalRights found that all 59 FBI field offices wereinvolved in the futile search for “subversive” activity.The committee also documented 50 unsolved break-ins committed during the same period, targeting

churches, homes, and offices of persons opposed toReagan’s Central American policies. FBI spokesper-sons denied any bureau involvement in those burgla-ries, and while Director William Sessions confessedthat “the scope of the investigation was unnecessarilybroadened” in October 1983, he called the case “anaberration” in FBI behavior. One agent was disci-plined for his role in the CISPES case: G-man DanielFlanagan, assigned as Frank Varelli’s case officer inDallas, confessed to stealing money earmarked forVarelli and was resigned after reimbursing the FBI$1,000.

CITIZENS’ CouncilsOften called the White Citizens’ Councils despiteprotests from “respectable” leaders, this network ofracist groups had its roots in Sunflower County, Mis-sissippi, where the first chapter was organized fol-lowing the U.S. SUPREME COURT’s 1954 order todesegregate public schools. Early members includedmany southern business people and politicians, whotook care to separate themselves from “low-class”KU KLUX KLAN, but there was no philosophical gapbetween the Councils and the KKK. Both deemedracial equality a communist scheme to “mongrelize”the white race, and both distributed anti-Semitic lit-erature naming Jews as primary architects of the“race-mixing” conspiracy. While the Councils pub-licly disclaimed any link to acts of racial TERRORISM,known members participated in race riots and otheracts of violence throughout the South. In 1960 coun-cil leader Emmett Miller was jailed for attempting tobomb a black school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Threeyears later Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Everswas assassinated by council member Byron De LaBeckwith. By 1970 with membership fading thecouncil dropped all pretense of moderation andjoined Klan members to picket the Memphis schoolboard, protesting new “awareness” programs inlocal grade schools. The councils disappeared afterAlabama governor GEORGE WALLACE’s abortive pres-idential race in 1972, but veteran activists returned13 years later at the helm of a new Council of Con-servative Citizens. That organization boasted a list ofallies including Senators Trent Lott and Jesse Helms,teamed with such veteran neo-Nazis as former Klanleader David Duke. The group’s racism is no moreeasily concealed today than in the 1960s, and aninfiltrating journalist heard one council spokesperson

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advise local members to “be a Nazi, but don’t use theword.” The CCC’s Web site may be viewed athttp://www.cofcc.org.

CLINTON, Bill (1946– ) and Hillary (1947– )William Jefferson (“Slick Willie”) Clinton was bornat Hope, Arkansas, in August 1946. As a youth heidolized President John Kennedy and determined tofollow in JFK’s footsteps, a goal he achieved in sev-eral respects. Clinton lost his first political campaign(for Congress) in 1974 but later served as Arkansasattorney general (1977–79) and as governor(1979–81, 1983–92). Despite pervasive hints of scan-dal, he was elected president of the United States in1992 and reelected in 1996. With wife Hillary, Clin-ton was embroiled in controversy almost from theday of his inauguration. Volumes could (and have)been written concerning the various scandals thatdogged his administration, climaxed by Clinton’sDecember 1998 impeachment on charges of perjuryand obstructing justice. (He was acquitted of allcounts by the U.S. Senate.) An alphabetical list ofClinton scandals prepared by Thomas Galvin for theNew York Post included:

Billing-gate: Hillary Clinton’s billing records fromher years with the Arkansas-based Rose LawFirm were subpoenaed in 1994 by investigatorsprobing charges of impropriety in various cases.The documents were “missing” until 1996when they magically appeared in a room adja-cent to Mrs. Clinton’s office. She denied anyknowledge of how they got there or where theyhad been in the interim.

Castle Grande: A real-estate scheme described by investigators as a fraudulent sham. A federalinspector general’s report says Hillary Clintondrafted legal papers that funneled large sums of cash to Seth Ward, father-in-law of her ex-partner Webster Hubbell.

Cattlegate: Prior to arriving in Washington,Hillary Clinton invested $1,000 in cattle futuresand scored a swift $100,000 profit. Critics saidher huge windfall was “virtually impossible”without use of illegal insider information.

Filegate: Investigative journalists revealed thatClinton White House staffers had improperlyreviewed FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

files on 900 Republican officials active in the

administrations of Presidents RONALD REAGAN

and George H. W. Bush. Clinton spokespersonscalled the invasion of privacy an innocent “mistake,” while opponents feared compilationof a NIXON-style enemies list.

Golfgate: White House aide David Watkins wasforced to resign for using presidential aircraftimproperly on a private golf excursion. Investi-gation of that charge also revealed that in 1992Clinton aides used taxpayer funds to help settlea female campaign worker’s lawsuit againstWatkins on charges of sexual harassment.

Indonesiagate: This scandal concerned the Lippogroup, a firm with longstanding ties to Bill Clin-ton and his friends in Arkansas. An Indonesiancouple with ties to Lippo, though apparentlydevoid of wealth, donated $452,000 to theDemocratic National Committee under Clintonand paid Webster Hubbell another $250,000 forunknown services during a five-month period.

Travelgate: Soon after their arrival in Washington,the Clintons fired various career travel staffersand filled the positions with political cronies.White House memos suggested that Hillary Clin-ton executed the purge on behalf of Hollywoodchum Harry Thomason, who sought a slice ofthe lucrative White House charter business.

Whitewater: Another Arkansas land deal, thisinvestigation broadened into questions sur-rounding Clinton associates Jim and SusanMcDougal and their Madison Guarantee Sav-ings and Loan corporation, whose collapse costtaxpayers an estimated $60 million. Bill Clintondenied knowledge of an illegal $300,000Whitewater bail-out payment, but critics claimhe lied under oath. Susan McDougal served jailtime for refusing to testify in that case.

Those scandals and others forced various Clintonstaffers to resign, while other associates and acquain-tances faced batteries of criminal charges. PresidentClinton’s impeachment resulted from an investigationinto an extramarital affair with White House internMonica Lewinsky and the subsequent attempt tocover it up. Some pointed to this as the latest in aseries of sexual incidents, including sexual assault andharassment, that Clinton and his supporters and vari-ous staff members had concealed dating back to hisearly days in Arkansas. First Lady Hillary Clintoncountered by dubbing the investigation the product of

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a vast right-wing conspiracy to smear the president.One conspiracy theory even purports that Lewinskywas a covert agent trained by a foreign government tocompromise the office of the president of the UnitedStates. Beyond those cases, conspiracists speak archlyof a “Clinton death list,” including 60-odd victims ofhomicide or suspicious “suicides” and “accidents.”Some lists include the name of journalist DANNY

CASOLARO, but the best-known corpse is that ofVINCE FOSTER, a White House attorney enmeshed inthe Filegate, Travelgate, and Whitewater cases. Clin-ton provided further fodder for conspiracy theoristsduring his final hours as president when he granted33 pardons to numerous people, including some withconnections to his brother-in-law Hugh RodhamClinton or Clinton financial donors. Hillary RodhamClinton is today a U.S. senator for the state of NewYork. Her husband, at last report, remains a memberof the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS and the TRI-LATERAL COMMISSION.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

COBAIN, Kurt (1967–1994)On April 8, 1994, electricians installing a new secu-rity system at the Seattle, Washington, home of“grunge” rock star Kurt Cobain found theiremployer dead in a small apartment above thegarage. Authorities declared that Cobain had injectedhimself with 225 milligrams of HEROIN (three timesthe fatal dosage) and swallowed a quantity of Valiumbefore placing the muzzle of a shotgun in his mouthand pulling the trigger. Near the almost-headlessbody, police found a cigar box filled with drug para-phernalia, a plaid hunter’s cap, a box of shotgunshells, and a rambling handwritten suicide note. Theapartment’s door was wedged shut from inside.

Cobain had previously attempted suicide onMarch 4, 1994, leaving another note before he swal-lowed 50 Rohypnol tablets in Rome. Based on thosefacts and evidence at the crime scene, police declaredhis death a suicide, but conspiracists claim thatCobain was murdered. They advance the followingarguments to prove their case:

• The heroin dosage found in Cobain’s blood,aggravated by Valium, should have beeninstantly fatal. Indeed, overdosed addicts areoften found dead with the needles still in theirarms; yet Cobain was found with the long

sleeves of his shirt buttoned at the cuffs. Howcould he have tidied up his clothing, put thedrug kit back in its box, and then shot himselfbefore the drugs rendered him unconscious?

• No “legible” fingerprints were found onCobain’s shotgun, the box of cartridges, the sui-cide note, or the pen used to write it. Initialreports that Cobain had “marks on his hands”from firing the shotgun also proved false andwere later repudiated by police.

• Cobain’s wife, rock star Courtney Love, did notproduce the note from Cobain’s alleged Italiansuicide attempt until after his death. That notehas since been destroyed, but various personswho read it dispute its contents. Some claimingit was a “rambling diatribe” against Love thatmentioned divorce, rather than suicide.

• Seattle coroner Nikolas Hartshorne, who signedoff on the suicide verdict in 1994, also bookedrock bands (including Cobain’s band Nirvana)and was described by acquaintances as a “partyfriend” of Courtney Love. Hartshorne died in abase-jumping accident on August 6, 2002.

• Eldon (“El Duce”) Hoke, lead singer for theMentors, claimed that Courtney Love offeredhim $50,000 to kill Cobain in January 1994.Hoke allegedly passed a polygraph test adminis-tered by Dr. Edward Gelb on March 6, 1996.Eight days after repeating his story for a filmeddocumentary, on April 19, 1997, Hoke wasstruck and killed by a train while walking inRiverside, California. Friends of Hoke called hisdeath “highly suspicious,” noting that shortlybefore the accident, Hoke left his house to buyliquor with “a new friend none of his roommateshad ever met before.” Hoke never returned fromthe booze run, and his “friend” remains unidenti-fied. Private detective Tom Grant, hired by Loveto find her husband after he fled a Seattle drugrehab program on April 1, 1994, now believesHoke’s story and has publicly named Love as asuspect in her husband’s alleged murder. Grantadditionally claims that Cobain’s drug overdosein Rome was “the first attempt on his life.”

COCA-COLAAccording to its Internet Web site, “The Coca-ColaCompany exists to benefit and refresh everyone ittouches.” Those who benefit first and foremost, of

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course, are Coca-Cola’s executives and major stock-holders. Introduced in 1886, Coca-Cola was initiallyadvertised as “a valuable brain-tonic and cure for allnervous afflictions.” The “cure” derived from 60milligrams of COCAINE found in each bottled servingprior to 1903 (no longer included, though Coke’sclassic flavor is still derived from South Americancoca leaves). Today the firm manufactures and distributes materials used in production of 300-plusnonalcoholic beverage brands. From its headquartersin Atlanta, Georgia, Coca-Cola oversees operationsin more than 200 foreign countries. With so muchready case and global clout, it comes as no surprisethat Coca-Cola has inspired numerous conspiracytheories throughout its 108-year history. From thecold war to modern Third World conflicts, Coke’sfar-flung empire has been accused of collaboratingwith the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY and othercovert cliques to carry out sundry acts of espionagewhile exploiting foreign workers in conditions tantamount to peonage. Two cases from the newmillennium illustrate Coca-Cola’s ongoing fascinationfor conspiracists.

May 20, 2003—Company spokesmen announcedthat Coca-Cola was investigating claims by for-mer company auditor Matthew Whitley thatthe firm engaged in massive fraud to inflateyearly revenue by several million dollars. Whit-ley, described by Coke publicists as a “disgrun-tled former employee,” filed an 85-pagewrongful termination lawsuit in Fulton County(Atlanta) Superior Court, alleging that the firmengaged in: phantom sales recorded “justbefore midnight at the end of each quarter in2002”; marketing fraud, including bribery andmanipulation of sales data for a failed cam-paign launched in conjunction with BurgerKing restaurants; and creation of a “slushfund” to disguise the failure of a new soft-drinkdispenser manufactured by Lancer Corpora-tion. Lancer spokesmen insisted that firm’sfinancial reporting was “proper and correct,”while the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta hadno comment. Whitley’s lawsuit is ongoing.

July 4, 2003—A coalition of labor unions inCOLOMBIA announced a nationwide boycott ofCoca-Cola products beginning on July 22 inretaliation for the recent murders of eight unionleaders at Coke plants around the country.

Coca-Cola’s main Latin-American bottler,Panamco, already faced union lawsuits oncharges that it financed right-wing terroristgroups that were known to intimidate and mur-der union activists. Coca-Cola publicistsresponded that their Colombian employees hadmerely been “caught in the crossfire of a 40-year-old civil war,” insisting that “We treat allour employees in nearly 200 countries in whichwe do business with fairness, dignity andrespect.” Union spokespersons in Colombia,meanwhile, noted that more than 1,500 laboractivists had been slaughtered in Colombiasince 1992, including eight murdered at Coca-Cola factories since 1996. Echoes of the boy-cott were heard as far away as Australia, whereJohn Robertson, Labor Council secretary forNew South Wales, told his constituents, “Thismultinational has been quite happy to exploitits workers in Colombia.”

See also TERRORISM.

COCAINECocaine is a highly addictive drug derived fromleaves of the South American coca plant (Erythroxy-lon coca). It has been prized as both a painkiller anda recreational drug since the 16th century. Threehundred years later, fictional detective SherlockHolmes used a 7-percent solution of cocaine torelieve boredom and depression between murdercases, and U.S. addicts could buy their daily fixwithout a prescription until 1916. Still, cocaine didnot become the “drug of choice” among U.S. andEuropean users until the 1970s when governmentcampaigns against HEROIN and MARIJUANA openednew markets for alternative drugs. By the early1980s, major cocaine-smuggling operations wereactive in the Andean nations of COLOMBIA, PERU,and BOLIVIA, with cartels based in Cali and Medel-lín; Colombia was widely touted as home to theworld’s most ruthless narco traffickers. Pervasivecorruption hamstrings law enforcement in all threecountries (as well as the United States), and Colom-bian cartels are notorious for their resort to TERROR-ISM, assassinating jurists, prosecutors, police,politicians, and journalists whenever their empiresare challenged. In the United States, PresidentRONALD REAGAN declared the first “War on Drugs”

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in 1981, led by Vice President George H. W. Bush,but federal efforts were so haphazard and so oftenself-defeating that one U.S. Coast Guard officercalled the effort an “intellectual fraud.” Appointmentof various “drug czars” by Reagan’s successors haslikewise failed to stem the tide of cocaine acrossU.S. borders, where drug-enforcement officersfreely admit that they capture only 10 percent (orless) of all illegal drugs pouring into the country. Inthe 1990s a new form of “rock” or “crack” cocainewas introduced in U.S. ghettos, delivering “anintensity of pleasure completely outside the normalrange of human experience.” Some observers nowbelieve crack was invented by government chemistsand unleashed on black America by the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY as a means of social control.Whatever the truth of that theory, crack has claimedmillions of addicts while providing a bottomlesssource of income for STREET GANGS such as theCRIPS AND BLOODS. Today, Colombian cartels dealfreely with the MAFIA, the YAKUZA, the TRIADS, andother criminal syndicates to reap multibillion-dollarprofits from cocaine sales worldwide.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

COINTELPROThe FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’s (FBI) offi-cial history, reported on the bureau’s Internet Website, provides the following information on so-calledCOINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) opera-tions in the midst of a section devoted to “The Viet-nam War Era.” The description reads as follows:

No specific guidelines for FBI Agents covering national

security investigations had been developed by the

[RICHARD NIXON] Administration or Congress; these,

in fact, were not issued until 1976. Therefore, the FBI

addressed the threats from the militant “New Left” as

it had those from communists in the 1950s and the

KKK in the 1960s. It used both traditional investigative

techniques and counterintelligence programs (“Cointel-

pro”) to counteract domestic terrorism and conduct

investigations of individuals and organizations who

threatened terroristic violence. Wiretapping and other

intrusive techniques were discouraged by Hoover in the

mid-1960s and eventually were forbidden completely

unless they conformed to the Omnibus Crime Control

Act. Hoover formally terminated all “Cointelpro” oper-

ations on April 28, 1971.

That passage, pretending to describe a campaignagainst criminal activity under the COINTELPROlabel, is a classic piece of FBI misinformation.Within a span of 113 words it rewrites history concerning illegal wiretapping; falsely identifies thetargets of harassment as “terrorists”; implies thatCOINTELPRO campaigns occurred only duringthe first 28 months of the Nixon administration(that is, January 1969 through April 1971); falselyclaims that J. EDGAR HOOVER “discouraged” illegalsurveillance techniques; and claims (again, falsely)that such techniques have not been used by G-mensince 1971.

The FBI has used illegal techniques, includingwiretaps, break-ins, and bugging since its creation in1908. Other classic techniques employed from thestart, including frame-ups and the use of corruptinformants as agents provocateurs to promote crimi-nal activity among surveillance targets, were also sta-ples of various COINTELPRO operations during the25 years when that label was applied to FBI harass-ment and disruption campaigns. Also while theembarrassing practice was officially discarded in1971, evidence from the FBI’s own files clearlyproves that identical abuses have continued withoutinterruption to the present day.

The first official COINTELPRO campaign waslaunched by FBI headquarters on August 28, 1956. Ittargeted the Communist Party, aiming to “bring theCommunist Party (CP) and its leaders into disreputebefore the American public and cause confusion anddissatisfaction among rank-and-file members.” OnMay 8, 1958, Hoover sent Attorney General WilliamRogers a progress report on the FBI’s effort “to pro-mote disruption within CP ranks,” including use ofpaid infiltrators to spark “acrimonious debates” and“increase factionalism.” FBI files later revealed thatduring the years 1957–60, 266 individual COIN-TELPRO campaigns were mounted against the Com-munist Party in America. In the year 1960 alonethose campaigns involved 114 illegal wiretaps, 74warrantless bugs, and 2,342 pieces of private mailread by G-men in violation of federal law. Hoover“discouraged” none of it; in fact, he required thatheadquarters approve each specific criminal act inadvance. One such campaign, launched in October1966 and dubbed “Operation Hoodwink,” usedanonymous letters and forged CP fliers in an ulti-mately futile bid to spark violent conflict betweencommunists and the MAFIA.

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Hoover’s campaign to disrupt the CommunistParty proved so successful that a second COINTEL-PRO operation was launched in 1960, this one tar-geting a wide spectrum of Puerto Rican nationalists.He warned field offices that “the Bureau desires todisrupt the activities of these organizations and is notinterested in mere harassment.” When nationalistleader Juan Mari Bras suffered a near-fatal heartattack on April 21, 1964, FBI memos gloated thatone of the bureau’s trademark anonymous letters“certainly did nothing to ease his tensions for he feltthe effects of the letter deeply.” Far from ending inApril 1971, illegal disruption campaigns againstPuerto Rican nationalist groups and leaders escalatedduring the next two decades, including bombings,beatings, and murders of nationalist leaders, whichwere investigated but never solved by the FBI. Sworndepositions taken from G-men in 1985 acknowl-edged use of illegal bugs and wiretaps, while a for-mer secretary with the San Juan field office blamedagents for a 1978 firebombing at the home of JuanMari Bras.

The bureau’s third formal COINTELPRO target,beginning in October 1961, was the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Any claim that such tacticswere reserved for “terrorists” is laid to rest byHoover’s memo of October 12, 1961, complainingthat the SWP “has . . . been openly espousing its lineon a local and national basis through the running of candidate[s] for public office.” In fact, the “new”COINTELPRO-SWP was not new at all: FBI records,later released under the Freedom of Information Act,reveal that between 1943 and 1963, G-men logged20,000 days monitoring wiretaps on SWP telephonesand 12,000 days monitoring bugs illegally planted inSWP homes and offices. The same 20-year periodwitnessed 208 FBI break-ins against the SWP, with9,864 party documents stolen or photographed during burglaries. Separate COINTELPRO records,perhaps including some overlap with the previousstatistics, confirm 46 disruptive campaigns againstthe SWP through 1971, with 80-plus break-insstaged to photograph more than 8,000 documentsduring the same period.

Next on tap for the COINTELPRO treatment,however reluctantly on Hoover’s part, were variousfactions of the KU KLUX KLAN. Spurred by PresidentLYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, the FBI inaugurated itsCOINTELPRO—WHITE HATE GROUPS on Sep-tember 2, 1964. By the time action was suspended in

April 1971, G-men had undertaken 287 separateoperations against Klansmen in various states.“Snitch-jacketing”—framing loyal Klansmen as FBIinformers—was a favorite technique, apparentlyprompting Mississippi Klansmen to murder one oftheir colleagues in 1965, but the KKK was seeminglyspared the more aggressive techniques employedagainst targets on the political left. Informants wereencouraged to spread dissension in Klan ranks byany means available, including serial adultery withthe wives of brother Klansmen, but G-men oftensheltered Klan spies who committed acts of violenceagainst southern blacks or civil rights workers. Thebureau had 2,000 Klan informants on its payroll bySeptember 1965 when G-men assisted the HOUSE

COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES with apublic investigation of the Klan.

The bureau’s last official COINTELPRO opera-tion, targeting “Black Nationalist-Hate Groups,”was launched on August 25, 1967, with a memofrom Hoover declaring that “the purpose of thisnew . . . endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect,discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities ofblack nationalist, hate-type organizations and group-ings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, andsupporters.” The campaign undertaken in 1967 wasmerely an extension of FBI harassment directed atsundry black activists since 1919. False arrests andframe-ups were routine, as the bureau coordinatedits efforts with local police departments throughoutthe United States. Agents provocateurs encouragedvarious targets to break the law, often supplying gunsor other contraband at FBI expense to facilitatearrests. It mattered not to FBI headquarters that G-men were the true felons in such cases; any excesswas permissible in the name of forestalling “blackrevolution.”

FBI files from the late 1960s reveal that Hoover’scommitment to “prevent violence” by black militantswas a cynical sham. In fact, from southern Californiato Chicago and New York, G-men did everythingwithin their power to cause violence between rivalgroups, promoting street warfare between the BLACK

PANTHER PARTY and various rival groups andencouraging members of the militant Jewish DefenseLeague to attack black spokespersons whom the FBIaccused of anti-Semitism. Multiple deaths resultedfrom the bureau’s effort to “exploit conflicts”between militant groups in southern California andelsewhere.

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The FBI’s last official COINTELPRO campaignwas launched on May 9, 1968, against a motley col-lection of radical groups collectively dubbed the“New Left,” focused primarily on opposition to thewar in VIETNAM. “The purpose of this program,”Hoover wrote, “is to expose, disrupt and otherwiseneutralize the activities of this group and persons con-nected with it. It is hoped that with this new programtheir violent and illegal activities may be reduced ifnot curtailed.” FBI headquarters missed the irony ofcommitting violent crimes to “reduce illegal activi-ties,” but there can be no doubt that bureau inform-ants and agents provocateurs significantly increasedviolence on the part of various New Left organiza-tions. They provided drugs and weapons, schooledtheir naive subjects in the fine points of bomb mak-ing, and suggested acts of sabotage to groups thatwere content with lawful protest. The Nixon admin-istration assisted FBI efforts against the New Leftwith multiple conspiracy charges against movementleaders, resulting in trials described by historianWilliam Manchester as “an unparalleled series ofjudicial disasters for the government.” In terms ofcurbing leftist violence, the bureau’s campaign was aresounding failure. A majority of the 862 allegedbombings or bombing attempts recorded by G-menbetween January 1969 and April 1970 remainunsolved (perhaps because investigation wouldexpose the crimes committed by agents provocateurson the FBI payroll). Of 13,400 persons arrested inNew Left demonstrations during May 1971, 12,653were discharged without trial; 122 were convicted,while another 625 pleaded guilty or no contest, butall such pleas were voided and expunged by a federalcourt in 1974 on grounds of police coercion.

The FBI’s harassment network suffered terminalembarrassment in March 1971 after burglarsinvaded the resident agency located in Media, Penn-sylvania, and stole several thousand COINTELPROdocuments, which soon found their way to the press.Hoover officially canceled all COINTELPRO activi-ties a month later, although their full scope wouldnot be revealed until several years after his death.According to records exposed by the CHURCH COM-MITTEE in 1975, the FBI mounted at least 2,218 sepa-rate COINTELPRO actions against various groupsand individuals between 1957 and 1971; those illegalcampaigns included at least 1,884 illegal wiretapsand 583 warrantless bugs, plus 55,804 pieces of mailillegally opened and read by G-men.

It would be comforting to believe the FBI’s claimthat such methods have not been used since April1971, but evidence to the contrary is plentiful. TheChurch Committee found that during 1972–74,despite the alleged ban on all COINTELPRO tech-niques, FBI agents installed another 421 illegal wire-taps and 114 warrantless bugs while stealing another2,042 pieces of personal mail. As embarrassing asthose disclosures were (or should have been), theystill had no apparent impact on the bureau’s dedica-tion to business as usual. Organizations including theAMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT (AIM), EARTH FIRST!,the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Sal-vador (CISPES), and various Puerto Rican nationalistgroups suffered attacks indistinguishable from“banned” COINTELPRO techniques throughout the1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. (On November 26,1973, some 31 months after all such programs sup-posedly ended, Agent Richard W. Held penned amemo to headquarters suggesting that “Los Angelesand Minneapolis consider possible COINTELPROmeasures to further disrupt AIM leadership.”) “Ter-rorism” remains a frequent excuse for extralegalmeasures on the part of federal agents, and sweepingprovisions of the new USA PATRIOT ACT suggest thatuse of such methods may be increasing, rather thandeclining in the future.

See also COMMUNISM.

COLOMBIASpanish conquistadors invaded present-day Colombiain 1510 and officially established the colony of NewGranada in 1538. Simón Bolívar’s revolutionary forcefrom VENEZUELA fought a 14-year war to oust SPAIN

from the region, finally emerging victorious in 1819.Five years later, Bolívar united Colombia, Venezuela,PANAMA, and ECUADOR as the Republic of GreaterColombia. Ecuador and Venezuela seceded in 1830,and Colombia passed through several political incar-nations before stabilizing with its present name in1885. A brutal civil war erupted in 1899 and draggedon for three years, while the United States usurpedColombia’s longstanding claim to Panama. Relativepeace was restored until 1946 when a chaotic eradubbed “La Violencia” erupted, claiming several hun-dred thousand lives during the next 12 years. A mili-tary junta restored the illusion of order in 1958, butleftist guerrillas soon initiated a new wave of blood-shed, their vehicles including the M-19 movement.

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The rise of a flourishing COCAINE industry in the1970s made Colombia a world center of drug traffick-ing, and violence proliferated on all fronts. By 1989murder was the leading cause of death in Colombia;this was unrestrained by political leaders who wereterrorized and thoroughly corrupted. In 1999 some23,000 persons were murdered across the country; anestimated 2 million Colombians have fled the countryduring recent years, seeking safe havens elsewhere.Billionaire drug lords remain untouchable while thenation staggers from one crisis to the next.

COLONIA DignidadPaul Schäfer was a nurse in ADOLF HITLER’s Lüftwaffeduring World War II, mourning the THIRD REICH’scollapse while he established an orphanage in GER-MANY. Fifteen years later, in 1961, he fled to CHILE asa fugitive from charges that he had molested childrenin his care. Accompanied by a handful of rabid Nazis,Schäfer settled on a 70-square-mile parcel of land inthe Andean foothills, establishing a weird “religious”community that he named Colonia Dignidad. Sur-rounded by barricades, barbed wire, searchlights, andsecurity cameras, Schäfer preached a familiar gospelof anti-Semitism and anti-COMMUNISM, flavored withapocalyptic overtones. As his flock grew to 300, sup-ported by donations from Germany and alleged drugtrafficking, Schäfer curried favor with Chile’s right-wing military leaders and German immigrants. By thetime dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in 1973,Schäfer ranked among the junta’s most favored allies.Chile’s intelligence chief, Gen. Manuel Contreras,stashed political prisoners at Colonia Dignidad andsupervised their torture during frequent personal vis-its. By the time democracy was restored in 1990,Schäfer had established what one legislator calls “astate within a state.”

Colonia Dignidad lost its “charity” status in1990, but its real troubles began six years laterwhen a student at the compound’s boarding schoolcomplained that Schäfer was molesting him. Theboy’s mother pressed charges, and soon a flood ofsimilar complaints besieged the Nazi enclave.Schäfer—known as “Permanent Uncle” inside thebarbed wire—currently faces a dozen charges ofsodomy, assault, and child abuse, but authoritieshave thus far been unwilling to arrest him. SenatorJaime Naranjo Ortiz says that Schäfer has waged “a guerrilla war in the courts,” financed by his

ever-growing business empire. “They easily controlproperties and enterprises worth more than $100million through their various holding companies,”Naranjo told the New York Times. “They areinvolved in real estate, mining, commerce and agri-culture, just like any of several better-known busi-ness conglomerates in this country.” Prosecutorssay Schäfer favors boys ages eight to 12, whom heentices with appeals to their parents. AttorneyHernán Fernández Rojas told the Times: “These arepoor kids whose families sent them to live at Colo-nia Dignidad in hopes of a better life for them.Schäfer thought he could do what he wanted withthese boys within the enclave he controls and thatthey would have no way to defend themselves.”

As the standoff continues, that judgment wouldappear to be correct. In addition to wholesale childmolestation, “Uncle” Schäfer and his cultists are sus-pected in the disappearance of U.S. tourist BorisWeisfeiler, who vanished while hiking near ColoniaDignidad in January 1985. A Chilean militaryinformer later said that Weisfeiler (a Russian-Jewishimmigrant) was killed on Schäfer’s orders. Prosecu-tors say that charge is impossible to confirm “with-out unrestricted access to other eyewitnesses or theColonia Dignidad premises.” A move to expel thecult’s German leaders from Colombia was blockedon appeal, with a ruling that accused criminals mayonly be deported after trial and sentencing. SenatorJosé Vierra-Gallo told the Times, “That means wemay never be able to get rid of them. This thing justkeeps turning around and around in circles. They areso powerful, with so much protection, that they havethe ability to keep these cases going in the courtsindefinitely.”

COLUMBIA shuttle disasterOn February 1, 2003, concluding a 16-day missionin space, the shuttle Columbia reentered Earth’satmosphere and disintegrated in midair, 39 milesabove Texas. All seven crew members died in thefiery plummet to impact, scattering wreckage andhuman remains over a wide strip of the Lone StarState. As in the Challenger tragedy of 1986, sugges-tions of enemy sabotage were instantly raised, withfears heightened in this case by the faltering course ofPresident George W. Bush’s global “War on TERROR-ISM.” Investigators ultimately blamed the loss ondefective insulation tiles, but conspiracists refuse to

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accept the official verdict. Suspects in the terroristscenario include AL-QAEDA mastermind Osama binLaden and Iraqi dictator SADDAM HUSSEIN. Andunlike Challenger, the Columbia did have at least onepossible target on board. Crew member Ilan Ramonwas ISRAEL’s first astronaut and a member of thatnation’s air force. The son of a HOLOCAUST survivor,Ramon was one of the Israeli pilots who bombedIRAQ’s sole nuclear reactor in 1981.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY.

COMMITTEE to Reelect the PresidentThis group, led by former attorney general JohnMitchell, was organized to ensure the reelection ofPresident RICHARD NIXON in 1972. Ostensibly itsduties included fundraising and advertising plans forNixon’s final campaign, but nothing was ever quitewhat it seemed in the Nixon White House. From dayone, the aptly named CREEP was involved in a rangeof criminal activity that included solicitation of ille-gal contributions and pursuit of an elaborate “dirtytricks” campaign against potential Democratic chal-lengers. CREEP’s tactics included covert surveillance,wiretapping, bugging, and slander. Ironically, it wasthe covert committee’s own zeal that finally toppledNixon, with a clumsy break-in at Democratic Partyheadquarters in Washington’s WATERGATE officecomplex in June 1972. Revelation of the men behindthat crime came too late to prevent Nixon’s reelec-tion five months later, but the far-ranging investiga-tion finally drove Nixon from office in disgrace twoyears after the fact.

COMMUNISMIt is curious that communism—a theory and systemof sociopolitical organization that dominated muchof 20th-century history—still remains ill defined andwidely misunderstood by most inhabitants of Earth.To some it means utopia, to others a globe-encircling“evil empire” that enslaved or slaughtered millions.Indeed, the very invocation of its name seems to pre-clude a calm and rational debate.

Perfect communism, as espoused by theoristsKarl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the 1840s,involved revolutionary action against monarchistsand capitalist ruling classes to create an ideal class-less society that was devoid of exploitation at anylevel. The guiding motto of communism—“From

each according to his ability, to each according tohis need”—presumed that all humans would sharewillingly, without avarice or ambition. No govern-ment machine would be used by one group tooppress another; no professional army or policeforce would be needed in the absence of maliciousaggression, and no products would be sold forprofit. In fact, however, for all the right-wing railingagainst communism since the mid-19th century, thesystem envisioned by Marx and Engels has neverexisted in any “civilized” nation on Earth. VladimirLenin changed the Marxist equation in 1917,declaring that a transitional “dictatorship of theproletariat” would be required to convert RUSSIA’sfeudal society to perfect communism at some pointin the undefined future. Whatever Lenin may havetruly intended, his death in 1923 placed brutalJOSEPH STALIN in control of Russia’s fate, and nofurther progress was made toward the Utopianideal. Other “communist” nations, from EasternEurope to CHINA, CUBA, and VIETNAM, typically fol-lowed Stalin’s example with variations, imposing asystem of one-party rule on peasants who were pre-viously ruled by kings, colonial powers, or right-wing dictators allied with the United States. In mostcases, downtrodden commoners benefited from theimposition of state socialism, but they experiencedCommunism in name only, trading one autocraticsystem for another. Despite the collapse of theSoviet Union in 1989–91, bastardized “communist”regimes survive today in China, Cuba, Vietnam,and North KOREA.

Some historians now question whether commu-nism ever truly posed a global threat to the degreeclaimed by Western leaders in the years 1917–90. Ifanything, revisionists suggest, the existence of amenacing “Red Bloc,” allegedly plotting world con-quest behind Iron and Bamboo Curtains, may havebeen a tool employed by the West’s huge MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX to justify vast arsenals, neo-colonial military actions in the so-called ThirdWorld, and pervasive domestic thought control.Certainly, the U.S. military, the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY, and FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION profited greatly from shadowboxing with“Red” agents at home and abroad. From thePALMER RAIDS to fabricated “missile gaps” andbrushfire wars in Asia, the “national security”apparatus we live with today might never haveexisted without the threat of a Red bogeyman. At

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the same time the oppressive measures adopted byStalin, LAVRENTI BERIA, MAO ZEDONG, and other“communist” leaders claimed thousands or millionsof lives (depending on the source). Whether left- orright-wing dictators are worse—if, indeed, any dif-ference at all exists between the two—is a judgmentleft to history.

COMOROSThe four Comoro Islands—Grande Comore (alsoknown as Ngazidja), Anjouan, Mobéli, and May-otte—were colonized by FRANCE between 1843 and1904. In 1974 a 94-percent majority voted for inde-pendence, opposed only by the Christian minorityon Mayotte (which remains a French overseas terri-tory today). The other three Comoros declaredthemselves independent in July 1975—and lapsedinto chaos 30 days later. Nearly two dozen coupshave rocked the archipelago since 1975, com-pounded by several attempts at secession. Anjouandeclared independence in August 1997 after monthsof conflict with security forces and was followedshortly by Mobéli. The three islands were grudginglyreconciled in February 2001, but another coupshattered the peace on Anjouan six months later. Anew constitution reunited the Comoros in March2002, but only an eternal optimist would predictsmooth sailing for this troubled republic in theIndian Ocean.

CONFEDERATE UndergroundA secret group of racial terrorists, active in the south-ern United States in the latter 1950s, the ConfederateUnderground anticipated Nacirema and the SILVER

DOLLAR GROUP by using bombs to combat racialintegration and the individuals perceived as primemovers in a “race-mixing conspiracy” to destroy thewhite race. Anonymous telephone calls to news agen-cies or to local Jewish leaders claimed credit forracist bombings in Atlanta, Georgia, and in Jack-sonville, Florida, during March and April 1958. TheConfederate Underground’s last known message wasa phone call to United Press International, followinga blast at an Atlanta synagogue on October 12,1958. The caller identified himself as “General Gor-don of the Confederate Underground,” saying, “Wehave just blown up the temple. This is the last emptybuilding I’ll blow up in Atlanta.” Several members of

the fledgling National States Rights Party werecharged in that case, but all were acquitted at trial.No members of the Confederate Underground wereever publicly identified, though racist attorney JesseStoner was widely suspected of taking part in the ter-rorist campaign.

See also TERRORISM.

CONGO (Democratic Republic)King Leopold II claimed Africa’s Congo region forBELGIUM in 1885 and thereafter proceeded to amassa vast fortune from ivory, rubber, and slave labor,killing an estimated 10 million Africans in theprocess. Belgium maintained its African colony untilJune 1960 when nationalist agitation secured agrant of independence. The celebration was shortlived, as Moise Tshombe’s Katanga Province secededtwo weeks later followed by the mining province ofSouth Kasai. Belgian troops and mercenariesreturned with a vengeance to crush the civil war, fol-lowed by a UNITED NATIONS peacekeeping force.President Joseph Kasavubu then staged a coupagainst popular Prime Minister PATRICE LUMUMBA

and delivered Lumumba to Tshombe’s camp, wherehe was murdered. UN Secretary General DAG HAM-MARSKJÖLD died in a plane crash en route to a peaceconference with Tshombe in September 1961. See-saw politics and guerrilla warfare brought Gen.Joseph-Desiré Mobutu to power in 1965, and hereigned at the helm of a notoriously corrupt andbrutal regime for 32 years. In the process, Mobutudefeated an invasion from ANGOLA (with aid fromFRANCE), dissolved parliament, and used Zaire as alaunching pad for raids against neighboring coun-tries. Rival Laurent Kabila toppled Mobutu in May1997, but his own autocratic style soon quelled anycelebration of the change in rulers. Rebel forces,aided by troops from RWANDA and UGANDA,launched a new war against Kabila in August 1998.Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 andreplaced by his son Joseph, but the grisly civil wardrags on. By April 2003 an estimated 3.3 millionCongolese were dead, 85 percent of that number lostto AIDS and starvation. In the nation’s capital (Kin-shasa) some 30,000 children roam the streets,expelled from their homes on accusations of “witch-craft.” The UN, meanwhile, is investigating chargesthat Congolese rebels have systematically killed anddevoured forest-dwelling Pygmies in Ituri Province.

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CONGO (Republic)FRANCE added this section of equatorial Africa to itsempire by treaty in 1880, uniting it with GABON andUbangi-Shari as French Equatorial Africa in 1910.Flagrant abuse of black workers sparked interna-tional complaints and native rebellions, but the sys-tem of virtual slave labor endured until 1930. In1960 the Congo declared independence without leav-ing the French community, establishing itself as theRepublic of Congo. President Alphonse Massemba-Débat established a communist regime, but he wasoverthrown by Maj. Marien Ngouabi (a more “mod-erate” Socialist) in 1968. A four-man commandoteam assassinated Ngouabi on March 18, 1977, andCol. Joachim Ybombi-Opango assumed the presi-dency on April 4. A one-party system ruled thenation until 1990, and political leaders renouncedMarxism the following year, setting the stage forCongo’s first-ever free elections in 1992. Unfortu-nately, ethnic violence rocked the country during1993–94, and a four-month civil war devastated thecapital (Brazzavile) in 1997. Supported by troopsfrom ANGOLA, former Marxist dictator Denis Sas-sou-Nguesso toppled President Pascal Lissouba, butvicious fighting continued. After barring his politicalopponents from the country, President Sassou-Nguesso won reelection in March 2002 with 89 per-cent of the popular vote. Cliques of so-called Ninjarebels continue their war of attrition against Sassou-Nguesso’s regime, fighting for control of Congo’srich OIL reserves, with no end to the mayhem insight.

See also COMMUNISM.

CONNOR, Eugene (“Bull”) (1897–1973)Born at Selma, Alabama on July 11, 1897,Theophilus Eugene Connor dropped out of highschool to work as a railroad telegrapher and radiosportscaster (where he earned his famous nicknamefor fabricating plays and statistics—that is, “shoot-ing the bull”—during broadcasts). In 1934 he waselected to the Alabama state legislature; three yearslater he won election as Birmingham’s commissionerof public safety, commanding the city’s police andfire departments. Connor held that post until 1953,declining to seek reelection that year in the wake of a1951 sex scandal. He was returned to office in 1957on a pledge to maintain strict racial segregation inthe face of mounting civil rights protests and main-

tained his post until Birmingham changed its form ofmunicipal government in 1963.

Connor’s die-hard commitment to segregationplaced him in collaboration with the violent KU KLUX

KLAN, protecting nightriders responsible for 40-plusracial bombings between 1948 and 1963. Under Con-nor, the city was nicknamed “Bombingham,” whileits largest black neighborhood was dubbed “Dyna-mite Hill.” On the rare occasions when he addressedthe problem at all, Connor habitually blamed blacksfor the crimes. “We know Negroes did it,” he toldreporters after three black churches were bombed inJanuary 1962. “Everybody we talk to who knowsanything about it says they saw Negroes runningaway from the churches.” A FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) memo filed on December 7,1957, following the demolition of a black-ownedhome, reported that “Connor did not intend toattempt to solve this bombing.” Seven months lateron July 24, 1958, FBI headquarters ordered the Birm-ingham field office “to hold contacts with Connor toa minimum in view of his unsavory background.”Connor reciprocated in October 1958 instructing hispolice to share no information with G-men on pend-ing civil rights cases. (During the last decade of Con-nor’s reign, Birmingham officers were unofficiallybarred from attending the FBI National Academy.)

The breakdown in communications hardly mat-tered by that time since FBI informants in the Klankept G-men fully advised of Connor’s negligencewhere acts of TERRORISM were concerned. One suchinformant, Gary Rowe, advised agents of Connor’sApril 1961 agreement to let Klansmen assault partici-pants in the integrated FREEDOM RIDES withoutpolice interference. Rather than warn the demonstra-tors, however, FBI agents provided Birminghampolice (including an officer known for his ties to theKlan) with an itinerary of the buses, thereby facilitat-ing violent attacks at Anniston and at Birmingham’sTrailways bus depot. Following the latter riot, onMay 14, 1961, Connor explained the absence ofpolice by claiming that most officers had gone hometo celebrate Mother’s Day.

Stripped of his office via popular vote and courtorders in 1963, Connor was elected the followingyear to serve as president of Alabama’s Public ServiceCommission. He held that post until 1972 when aseries of strokes left him disabled and forced his res-ignation. A final stroke claimed Connor’s life on Feb-ruary 26, 1973.

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CONTRAS See IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIRACY.

COSTA RicaSandwiched between NICARAGUA and PANAMA,present-day Costa Rica was inhabited by some25,000 “Indians” when Christopher Columbusarrived in 1502, but few of them survived the Spanish conquest that began in 1563. The colonywon independence in 1821 but was absorbed byMEXICO’s expanding empire two years later. Freedat last in 1848, Costa Rica today enjoys “one of themost democratic governments in Latin America.”That reputation notwithstanding, Costa Rica hasfostered its share of sinister intrigue. Three-timepresident José Figueres admitted, in 1975, that hehad worked for the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY “in 20,000 ways . . . all over Latin America.” That did not stop the agency from tryingto overthrow Figueres in 1955 and again in1970–71 when he was deemed “too moderate” on COMMUNISM. Costa Rica’s failure to sign anextradition treaty with the United States hasmarked the nation as a haven for fugitives on thelam, including notorious swindler Robert Vesco.

CÔTE d’IvoireCôte d’Ivoire (also known as the Ivory Coast) isanother example of African culture destroyed byEuropean incursions. Sixty distinct tribes shared theregion when traders from FRANCE arrived in the early19th century demanding territorial concessions in1842 and organizing a colonial-style government 51years later. After World War II, Côte d’Ivoire becamean autonomous republic within the French union andthen claimed independence in August 1960. FelixHouphouët-Boigny served as president from 1960until his death in 1993, establishing one of thestrongest national economies in Africa. SuccessorHenri Konan Bédié revised the constitution toenhance his own powers, a move that led to massdemonstrations in 1998. The protesters championedivorité as a slogan of national pride, but it soonlapsed into paranoid xenophobia, driving thousandsof ethnic Malians and Burkinans from Côte d’Ivoirein 1999. President Bédié was ousted by a militarycoup that December in a move that cut off most ofCôte d’Ivoire’s foreign aid. General Robert Guei per-mitted an election of sorts in October 2000, with

fraud so rife that both sides claimed victory, and vio-lent opposition to Guei soon drove him from thecountry. Popular candidate Alassane Ouattara wasbarred from the contest on grounds that he was not apure-blooded Ivorian, and while Ouattara was finallygranted citizenship in 2002 (permitting him to cam-paign for president in 2005), the two-year disputecost hundreds of lives in outbreaks of political vio-lence. Guei returned to lead a military coup in Sep-tember 2002, but he died in the resultant fighting.Bloodshed continued until July 5, 2003, when themilitary and various rebel forces declared a cease-fire.

COUNCIL on Foreign Relations (CFR)With the BILDERBERG GROUP and the TRILATERAL

COMMISSION this private group commonly appearson lists of “secret rulers” who allegedly control com-merce and politics worldwide. The CFR describesitself as a “nonpartisan organization dedicated toimproving the understanding of U.S. foreign policyand international affairs through the free and civilexchange of ideas” and (with a slight lapse in mod-esty) as “the privileged and preeminent nongovern-mental impresario of America’s pageant to find itsplace in the world.” According to the CFR’s InternetWeb site the group “is dedicated to increasing Amer-ica’s understanding of the world and contributingideas to U.S. foreign policy. The council accom-plishes this mainly by promoting constructivedebates and discussions, clarifying world issues, andpublishing Foreign Affairs, the leading journal onglobal issues.” Founded in 1921 the CFR pursuesfour stated goals:

1. To add value to the public debate on interna-tional affairs.

2. To energize foreign-policy discussions nation-wide by making the council a truly nationalorganization with membership across thecountry.

3. To identify and nurture the next generation offoreign-policy leaders.

4. To make the council the source for ideas andclear and accurate information on key interna-tional issues for the interested public.

Nine years before the CFR was created, foundingfather Edward Mandell House, a confidential advisorto President Woodrow Wilson, published a book

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titled Philip Dru: Administrator in which he outlineda “conspiracy” within the United States, working for“Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx.” The plot’sgoals, as outlined in print, were the establishment ofa central banking system, implementation of a gradu-ated income tax, and control of both political par-ties. Conspiracists note that by 1916 the first twogoals had been accomplished (and perhaps the third,as well). Today, critics describe the CFR as a politicaland financial powerhouse promoting the insidiousNEW WORLD ORDER.

Whatever its motives, benign or malignant, thereis no denying the CFR’s wealth and influence. Ini-tially funded by the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foun-dations, among others, today the CFR is bankrolledby Xerox, GENERAL MOTORS, Texaco, and other corporate giants. Most U.S. presidents since FranklinRoosevelt (and most unsuccessful White House contenders) have been CFR members, as have allCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY directors since theagency was established in 1947. Other identifiedmembers, at last count, included 14 secretaries ofstate, 14 treasury secretaries, 11 defense secretaries,U.S. ambassadors to 18 foreign nations, and “at leasta dozen” members of Congress (in 2000).

See also ROCKEFELLER CLAN.

CRIPS and BloodsThe Crips and Bloods are America’s two most noto-rious STREET GANGS and were spawned in the blackghetto of Los Angeles, California, following destruc-tion of the local BLACK PANTHER PARTY by agents ofthe FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’s illegalCOINTELPRO campaign. Black youths impressed by thePanthers’ guns, leather jackets, and political rhetoricrallied behind Raymond Washington, a 15-year-oldstudent at Fremont High School, when he organizeda new politicized street gang in 1969. Washingtoninitially called his clique the Baby Avenues (in tributeto an older gang, the Avenues), and the tender age ofhis recruits prompted others to call them Cribs. Stan-dard garb included black leather jackets, earrings(left lobe only), and canes (doubling as weapons)that prompted some enemies to call them cripples orcrips. A reporter with the Los Angeles Sentinel madethe new nickname official in February 1972, and ithas endured ever since.

By that time, many Crips were engaged in crimi-nal activity (dubbed “crippin’”) that included theft,

drug dealing, and turf wars with rival street gangs.Two of those rivals, the Brims and the Piru StreetBoys, merged in early 1972 to create a new gang—the Bloods—that would wage ceaseless war on theCrips for the next quarter-century. By 1978 LosAngeles hosted 45 different Crip gangs and 15Blood factions, some battling each other asviciously as they fought their sworn rivals. RayWashington was one of the casualties, murdered in1979 at age 26. A year later the City of Angelsreported 355 gang murders in 12 months. In the1980s and 1990s both gangs spread nationwidewith Crip and Blood factions reported in cities fromcoast to coast. Most were hard-core ghetto cliquesthat were enriched by trafficking in crack COCAINE,but others were vaguely surreal. (The Crips in LittleRock, Arkansas, consisted of a lone L.A. fugitivesurrounded by disaffected white teenagers whoadopted black slang and declared themselves“homeys.”) A cease-fire between Crips and Bloodswas declared in April 1992, followed by a formalmerger of the gangs in 1999. While some observers(including the NATION OF ISLAM) hailed the move asa breakthrough for “peace,” others noted that thealliance freed Crips and Blood to kill more of theirHispanic and Asian-American rivals while expand-ing their traffic in drugs.

CROATIAOnce the Roman province of Pannonia, modern-dayCroatia was settled by Croats in the seventh centuryA.D. Byzantine and Frankish invaders were repelledin 925, whereupon the victors established an inde-pendent kingdom. Civil war erupted in 1089, pavingthe way for a Hungarian invasion two years later.The two nations officially united under HUNGARY’sking in 1102 while Croatia retained theoreticalautonomy. Following Hungary’s defeat by TURKEY in1526, Croatians elected Austrian Archduke Ferdinandof Hapsburg as their king. The Austro-HungarianEmpire, established in 1867, endured with Croatia asa member through the bloody years of World War I,but Croats declared independence in October 1918.They soon combined with residents of Slovenia, SERBIA, and Montenegro to form a single nation(known from 1929 as YUGOSLAVIA). GERMANY

conquered Yugoslavia in 1941, whereupon Croatiabecame a puppet state of the Nazi THIRD REICH.Croatian fascists (the Ustachi) carried out their own

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HOLOCAUST during World War II, slaughteringcountless Jews and Serbs. With ADOLF HITLER’sdefeat, Croatia became a republic of Red Yugoslavia,so remaining until the collapse of Soviet COMMUNISM

in 1991. A six-month civil war followed Croatia’sdeclaration of independence from Yugoslavia,marked by brutal “ethnic cleansing.” Fighting continued through May 1995 despite the presence ofa UNITED NATIONS peacekeeping force. In 1999,declaring that “national issues are more importantthan democracy,” President Tudjman imposed autocratic rule and proceeded to destroy the alreadywounded economy. His death in December 1999 permitted a return of 300,000 ethnic Serbs (banishedby Tudjman), while successor Stipe Mesic struggledto patch the nation’s bloody wounds. In July 2002Mesic met with the presidents of BOSNIA andYugoslavia, forging an agreement to repatriatehomeless refugees from the region’s latest round ofconflict. It remains to be seen whether a treaty can resolve old hatreds spanning generations. Croatia was accepted as a candidate country for theEuropean Union in 2004.

CUBAArawak natives inhabited this largest island of theWest Indies when Christopher Columbus arrived in1492, but they were soon wiped out by a combina-tion of savage violence, disease, and slave labor.SPAIN established settlements in 1511, and Havana’sexcellent harbor guaranteed that Cuba would be acenter of trade and military action for the next 400years. The 19th-century sugarcane industry flour-ished with importation of African slaves, but anarmed struggle for independence erupted in 1867and lasted until 1878. Reformer José Marti led thestruggle that ended Spanish rule in 1898, but theSpanish-American War placed Cuba under U.S. occu-pation until 1902. By that time the Platt Amendment(1901) had granted Washington the legal right tointervene in Cuban politics, and U.S. troops returnedfour more times between 1906 and 1920.

As PROHIBITION created modern organized crimein the United States, members of the MAFIA and otherbootlegging syndicates (including MEYER LANSKY

and CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO) used Cuba as away station for illicit liquor shipments. Army officersled by Fulgencio Batista toppled President GeradoMachado in 1933 while maintaining Machado’s ties

to the U.S. underworld. Batista established a corruptpolice state that included support for mob-run casinos and brothels in Havana. His crimes were soflagrant that the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY sup-ported rebel FIDEL CASTRO’s uprising in 1956; then itclaimed surprise three years later when a victoriousCastro declared his allegiance to COMMUNISM. A longwar of attrition ensued, marked by a bungled invasionat the BAY OF PIGS in 1961 and multiple attempts onCastro’s life. Castro responded by forging close tieswith RUSSIA and “exporting revolution” to nationsranging from Latin America to ANGOLA. (Some theo-rists say he also staged the JFK ASSASSINATION in1963.) Still manning the nation’s helm in 2003, Castrodrew his mandate from a popular petition (allegedlysigned by 99 percent of the Cuban electorate) thatdeclared Cuba’s socialist system “untouchable” for alltime. The United States, meanwhile, maintains a mili-tary presence at Guantanamo Bay, which since 2001has also housed “Camp Delta” for unnamed detaineesfrom AFGHANISTAN.

CYPRUSCyprus, in the Mediterranean, was the site of Phoeni-cian and Greek colonies in classical times. It fell toTURKEY in 1571 and then was annexed by Englandsoon after the outbreak of World War I. Instead of lib-erating Cyprus, though, London declared it a BritishCrown colony in 1925. The island’s Greek populationcraved reunion (enosis) with their homeland, and arebel organization (the EOKA) waged ceaseless waragainst British occupation troops until August 1960when Cyprus became an independent nation. Arch-bishop Makarios, president of Cyprus since 1959, wasousted by a military coup on July 15, 1974. Turkeyseized upon the chaos to invade Cyprus five days later,claiming that the move was designed to protect theisland’s Turkish minority. In fact, Turkish troops over-ran 40 percent of the island, driving 180,000 GreekCypriots from their ancestral homes. Makariosreturned as president in December 1974 with an offerof self-rule for Turkish Cypriots. In November 1983the minority declared a Turkish Republic of NorthernCyprus (recognized only by Turkey), but the UNITED

NATIONS deemed the move illegal three days later,demanding withdrawal of all Turkish troops. In 1997and 1999 Turkey protested Cypriot deployment ofmissiles capable of striking targets on the Turkishcoast. Northern Cyprus opened its borders to southern

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(Greek Cypriot) visitors in April 2003, but northernleader Raug Denktash demanded that various “unde-sirable” southerners be banned from entering hisself-proclaimed “nation.”

CZECH RepublicIn the fifth century A.D., Slavic tribes occupied theregion of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Czechsfounded the kingdom of Bohemia and the Premyslidedynasty that ruled from the 10th to the 16th century.A Hapsburg, Ferdinand I, claimed the throne in1526. A Czech rebellion in 1618 touched off theThirty Years’ War, although the rebels themselveswere defeated in 1620 and lived for the next threecenturies as part of the Austrian Empire. World WarI shattered that institution, and the Czech lands

merged with Slovakia to create Czechoslovakia inNovember 1918. GERMANY occupied the nation inMarch 1939 and ruled it as a “protectorate” of theTHIRD REICH through World War II. Elections held in1946 saw the Communist Party rise to dominanceand gain control of the government two years later.RUSSIA brutally suppressed stirrings of independencein the 1960s, but four decades of Red rule ended in1989 with the election of President Václav Havel. Astrong Slovak nationalist movement arose in 1991,climaxed with dissolution of the Czechoslovakianfederation on January 1, 1993. Scandal rocked theCzech Republic in 2002 when a senior foreign-min-istry official, Karol Srba, was jailed on charges of hir-ing an assassin to kill investigative journalist SabinaSlonkova.

See also COMMUNISM.

DALEY, Richard Joseph (1902–1976)Chicago’s longtime mayor, known simply as “TheBoss,” was born in the Windy City on May 15,1902. He earned a law degree in 1934 but neverpracticed; instead, like many other sons of Irishimmigrants before him, Daley chose politics as acareer in one of the nation’s most defiantly corruptcities. He served more than a decade in the state leg-islature (1936–47) and was four times chosen as adelegate to the Democratic National Convention(1948, 1952, 1956, 1960). Elected mayor of Chicagofor the first time in 1955, Daley served until his deathin 1976. Daley proved so popular (and powerful)that in three of his six mayoral campaigns (1963,1967, and 1971) no other candidate opposed his bidsfor reelection. In 1960, collaborating with the MAFIA,Daley swung the crucial (and fraudulent) votes thatallowed John Kennedy to defeat RICHARD NIXON in ahard-fought race for the White House. Daley’s out-spoken support for President LYNDON JOHNSON’sforeign policy in VIETNAM won him the plum assign-ment of hosting the Democratic convention in1968—a situation that backfired with antiwardemonstrations, a “police riot,” and the long debacleof the CHICAGO 7 conspiracy trial. For Daley, how-ever, such events (and the recurring exposure ofwidespread corruption inside the CHICAGO POLICE

DEPARTMENT) posed no obstacle to landslide reelec-tions. Stricken with a heart attack, he died at his doc-tor’s office on December 20, 1976. The Chicago

Democratic machine survived his passing, to electson Richard Michael Daley mayor in 1989—anoffice he retains today.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

DALLAS Police DepartmentIn 1962 Michigan State University’s Police-CommunityRelations Institute reported that the Dallas (Texas)Police Department (PD) “has enjoyed for many yearsa nationwide reputation for outstanding efficiency.”That image was shattered a year later by the JFK

ASSASSINATION, but further investigation suggests that it was merely a façade that masked pervasivecorruption, brutality, and a subculture of racist, ultra-conservative politics. From PROHIBITION onward, illegal gambling and other illicit activities were “protected” by police in the employ of rival gamblersBenny Binion and Herbert Noble. Binion eventuallymurdered Noble before moving on to a “legitimate”career in LAS VEGAS, but Dallas police ignored thegang war so completely that journalist HollandMcCombs pronounced the department “tougher onjaywalkers than on murderers.” Chicago mobstersarrived in the 1940s, operating through front manJACK RUBY, whose Carousel Club swiftly became afavorite nightspot for Dallas police (both on and offduty). Ruby’s enduring friendship with local policeshielded him from prosecution on various chargesranging from pimping to aggravated assault and

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ultimately enabled him to kill alleged presidentialassassin LEE HARVEY OSWALD in the basement garageof police headquarters on November 24, 1963.

Two years before that incident was broadcastworldwide on live TV, the Dallas PD instituted use of“shotgun squads” to deter local burglars. The teams—also called jack-in-the-box squads—hid in variouslocal shops after nightfall waiting to gun down would-be burglars (who, coincidentally, were all black orHispanic). The tactic of summary execution forattempted theft raised the hackles of civil libertarians,but local police basked in the praise of conservativepoliticians. Meanwhile, droves of Dallas cops enlistedwith the far-right JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY and the terror-istic KU KLUX KLAN. Lieutenant George Butler (incharge of the disastrous Oswald transfer) was knownas a local Klan recruiter, and he once told journalistPenn Jones that “half the Dallas police were membersof the KKK.” It is unclear how those political leaningsmay have affected police performance on the JFKcase, but photos clearly reveal that Oswald was beatenin custody. Some conspiracists further allege that Offi-cer J. D. Tippit (allegedly murdered by Oswald onNovember 22, 1963) was an active participant in theassassination plot. In support of that contention con-spiracists cite eyewitness testimony (ignored by theWARREN COMMISSION) alleging that Tippit was seen atthe Carousel Club with Ruby and a man resemblingOswald shortly before Kennedy’s murder.

That case was not the last black eye suffered byDallas police. In December 1992 a federal jury con-victed officers Swany Davenport and Randy Harris ofextorting $50,000 in bribes from local crack COCAINE

dealers. A decade later, in July 2002, police informersJosé Ruiz and Roberto Gonzalez pleaded guilty toframing “numerous” defendants with planted evi-dence, thereby violating their civil rights. (In returnfor making phony cases, the two conspiratorsreceived $200,000 from police.) And on August 9,2003, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION spokesper-sons announced a federal investigation into the recentdeath of black merchant Tony Vernon, killed by Dallasundercover detectives when he allegedly threatenedthem with a weapon outside his clothing store.

DAUGHERTY, Harry (1860–1923)An Ohio native, born at Washington Court Houseon January 26, 1860, Harry Daugherty was a life-long Republican activist known for his talents as a

political manipulator. He was also a close friend ofWARREN HARDING and served as manager of Hard-ing’s presidential primary campaign in 1920. As hisreward for that victory, Daugherty was appointed toserve as attorney general on March 4, 1921.

Harding’s regime is remembered today as one ofthe most corrupt in U.S. history, and Daugherty’sperformance was no exception. He quickly trans-formed the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT into a “Depart-ment of Easy Virtue” that became a nationallaughingstock. Daugherty’s top priority appeared to be concealing crimes committed by Harding’sOHIO GANG, including the notorious TEAPOT DOME

scandal. To that end, acting in concert with bureauchief WILLIAM J. BURNS and assistant chief J. EDGAR

HOOVER, he launched a campaign of surveillanceand character assassination against congressionalcritics, including Senators Thomas Walsh and Burton Wheeler.

Harding’s death in August 1923 brought CalvinCoolidge to the White House, and increasing heatfrom Congress and the courts placed Daugherty inan untenable position. Coolidge demanded his resig-nation on March 28, 1924, and replaced Daughertywith Harlan Stone 10 days later. Daugherty was sub-sequently indicted on charges of conspiracy todefraud the U.S. government, but two hung juriesspared him from prison, and the charges were dis-missed in 1927. He died at Columbus, Ohio, onOctober 12, 1941.

DAVIS, William Rhodes (1889–1941)An Alabama native born in 1889, William Davisquit school at age 16 to ride the rails and see theworld as a sailor on various tramp steamers. Backin the United States and penniless by 1926, hecaught the eye of German diamond brokers Karland Werner von Clemm, first cousins by marriageto future Nazi foreign minister (and WAR CRIMES

defendant) Joachim von Ribbentropp. The vonClemm brothers bankrolled Davis’s fledgling OIL

company and paid his way to GERMANY in 1933,where he quickly forged personal and economicalliances with leaders of the THIRD REICH. By 1935Davis Oil was shipping thousands of barrels eachweek to grease the wheels of ADOLF HITLER’s grow-ing war machine. In 1937 Davis and his Germanbackers conspired with Mexican president LázaroCárdenas to nationalize Mexico’s oil fields and to

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grant Davis Oil a monopoly on foreign sales. InSeptember 1939 with the outbreak of World War IIin Europe, Davis visited President Franklin Roo-sevelt and tried in vain to sell him on the notion ofan alliance with Nazi Germany. Failing at that, in1940 he served as the conduit for $8 million in Nazicampaign contributions to rival White House candi-date Burton Wheeler. Davis also funneled cash intovarious antiwar groups, including Charles Lind-bergh’s AMERICA FIRST COMMITTEE. On August 1,1941, in the midst of a publicity campaign againstRoosevelt’s Lend-Lease Bill to support Britainagainst Germany, Davis died of an apparent heartattack in Houston, Texas. Sources close to Britishintelligence (MI-6) later claimed that Davis waskilled by British agents because of his continuingsupport for Hitler.

DEATH AngelsAccording to reports issued by California law-enforcement agencies and the state attorney general’soffice in 1973–74, the Death Angels were (or are) acovert splinter group operating within the NATION OF

ISLAM, taking the sect’s dogma of “white devils” seri-ously enough to launch a private race war on thestreets. Prospective Angels earned their “wings” (fullmembership) by killing a specified number of whites,based on a point system geared to emotional diffi-culty—four children, five women, or nine men.Author Clark Howard reports that the cult had 15“accredited” members by October 1973, presumablyresponsible for killing 135 men, 75 women, 60 chil-dren, or some combination of victims sufficient tomake up the “points.” California authorities com-piled a list of 45 black-on-white murders during thesame period, spanning the length of the GoldenState, wherein victims were slain with cleavers,machetes, or close-range gunshots. Eight DeathAngel prospects were arrested in May 1974, chargedwith San Francisco’s string of “Zebra” attacks thatleft 15 whites dead and eight wounded over a six-month period, but four Angels were later released forlack of evidence. The trial of the remaining four con-sumed four years (1975–79), with attorneys suppliedby the Nation of Islam, and ended with life sentencesfor all defendants.

California authorities are strangely silent on theother Death Angel cases and what has become of thecult, but its name surfaced again in 1986 on the far

side of the country. This time authorities claimed thatNation of Islam defector Hulon Mitchell, Jr., (alsoknown as Yaweh Ben Yaweh, or “God, son of God”)had fielded a team of Death Angels to punish defec-tors from his Black Hebrew Israelites cult and to kill“white devils” for his personal satisfaction. In all,Miami prosecutors claimed, Yahweh’s tarnishedAngels were responsible for murdering 17 white victims in Dade County, severing an ear from eachon Yahweh’s order. Cult enforcer Neariah Israel (for-merly pro football player Robert Rozier) confessedto four murders and accepted a life sentence in returnfor testimony against Yahweh and company.Charged with racketeering and other crimes in aMiami federal court, Yahweh and six codefendantsreceived a curious compromise verdict. All were con-victed of conspiracy but acquitted of racketeering;jurors failed to reach a verdict on various othercounts. Yahweh was acquitted of murder at a sepa-rate trial in November 1986, whereupon additionalhomicide charges were dropped. The Miami “earmurders”—like the earlier California slayings—remain technically unsolved.

DENVER Police DepartmentThe Denver Police Department (DPD) was heavilyinfiltrated by KU KLUX KLAN members in the 1920swhen Colorado emerged as a surprising KKKstronghold north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Some ofthat vigilante attitude survived the Klan’s collapseand surfaced again in 1954 when a new police intel-ligence unit was created to spy on local “subver-sives.” In 1969 the unit collaborated with FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) agents to harassand arrest members of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY.Unlike the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations, however,Denver PD’s domestic surveillance campaign wasnot revealed until March 2002 when its cover wasblown by the American Civil Liberties Union.Mayor Wellington Webb admitted that local policehad adopted an “overbroad interpretation” of theirintelligence duties, resulting in “cases where it maynot have been justifiable to include certain individu-als or organizations in our intelligence gatheringactivities.” In fact, city spokespersons grudginglyconfessed, the DPD had amassed dossiers on 208different organizations and at least 3,200 individu-als. One surveillance target, Glenn Morris of theAMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT, was not warned

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when police discovered that a rival group plannedto murder him and two other activists. (DPD did, however, inform FBI headquarters of the plot.G-men likewise did nothing.) Other targets of ille-gal surveillance in Denver included the AmericanFriends Service Committee, Amnesty International,the Anti-Defamation League of American Indians,the Colorado Coalition for Middle East Peace, Colorado Right to Life, CopWatch, EARTH FIRST!,Greenpeace, Justice for Janitors, the LibertarianParty, Operation Rescue, People for Ethical Treat-ment of Animals, the Rainforest Action Group, VailExpansion Opponents, and the Wildland Project.Denver officials, slapped with multiple lawsuits forcivil rights violations spanning a half-century,offered the public their promise that all illegal surveillance has been terminated. Skeptics remainunconvinced.

DETROIT Police DepartmentWith the NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT, the DetroitPolice Department (DPD) was an early pioneer in“antiradical” activities, collaborating with variouslocal industries to harass and suppress unwelcomelabor unions. Detroit police joined in the lawlessPALMER RAIDS of 1919 and in 1930 created a SpecialInvestigation Bureau (SIB) “to work on the Bolshevikand Communist activities” in Motor City. Collabora-tors in that effort included the NYPD, the AMERICAN

LEGION, various professional Red-hunters, and a KU

KLUX KLAN splinter group called the Black Legion.Police joined the Black Legion and used it to punish“subversives” outside the law, but the cooperativeeffort proved embarrassing when Black Legion mem-bers were indicted for bombing, flogging, and mur-der. Police Commissioner Heinrich Pickert solved theproblem of his own complicity when he “franticallypromoted all those police officers who could com-promise him.” In 1939 a grand-jury probe of policecorruption climaxed with indictment of the mayor,the county prosecutor, the police superintendent, andeight officers. The SIB was briefly disbanded andthen revived in June 1940 to work with the FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) on matters of“national security.”

During the next 35 years, Detroit police workedclosely with G-men, various corporations, and theHOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES toshadow, harass, and blacklist citizens who were sus-

pected of “disloyalty.” In the 1960s the SIBexpanded to cover black militant groups, the “NewLeft,” and opponents of the VIETNAM War. Ghettoriots in 1967 left 43 persons dead, nearly all ofthem shot by police. (Three of the dead wereunarmed black men who had been beaten and shotexecution style by officers at the Algiers Motel, butthe shooters were acquitted by an all-white jury oftheir peers.) In 1969–70 DPD officers staged aseries of raids against the BLACK PANTHER PARTY,acting in conjunction with the FBI. Another pro-gram, dubbed STRESS (Stop The Robberies andEnjoy Safe Streets), resulted in more ghetto deathsuntil the team was dissolved for planting weaponson unarmed victims. In 1975 the Michigan Associa-tion for Consumer Protection sued the DPD andother police agencies for conducting illegal surveil-lance on an estimated 110,000 groups and individu-als. The SIB was finally disbanded in 1980, but itsfiles were not destroyed; instead, by mayoral order,they were transferred to the Board of Police Com-missioners. Two years later, a special order fromCity Hall banned any investigation of “beliefs,opinions, attitudes, statements, associations andactivities” unless the targets were “reasonably sus-pected” of criminal activity.

Still, problems continue for the DPD. In 2000after police shot and killed a deaf man “armed” witha rake, the Justice Department launched a probe of40 fatal shootings in the past five years. (A reportpublished in May 2000 revealed that Detroit led allU.S. cities in fatal police shootings.) In October 2002a city officer and a civilian department employeewere among nine persons indicted on federal chargesfor stealing 222 pounds of COCAINE from the evi-dence room and selling it around Detroit. Ninemonths later 17 cops were indicted on charges of“shaking down precinct prostitutes and drug dealers,theft of huge sums of money and drugs from drugdealers, systematic cover-up of officer abuses andcriminal activity, including the planting of evidence,making false arrests and giving false testimony incourt.”

DIANA, Princess of Wales (1961–1997)At 12:15 A.M. on August 31, 1997, a black Mer-cedes S-280 left the Ritz Hotel in Paris with fourpersons aboard. Driver Henri Paul was joined in thefront seat by bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones. In back,

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megamillionaire Dodi Fayed sat with his supposedfiancée Diana Spencer, lately divorced fromBritain’s Prince of Wales and mother of the futureKing William. The car departed at high speed, pur-sued by the retinue of tabloid photographers whotrailed Britain’s most popular and photogenicRoyal wherever she went. Four minutes afterdeparture, with the pack of paparazzi trailing aquarter-mile behind, the limousine crashed in theAlma tunnel. Fayed and Paul were killed instantly;Diana died within the hour from her injuries; Rees-Jones survived, but with alleged impairment to hismemory. Investigators later claimed that HenriPaul was drunk behind the wheel, pushing the limoto excessive speeds after Fayed ordered him toditch the photographers.

Within hours of Diana’s death, various conspiracytheories surfaced to explain the incident. The threemost prominent scenarios include:

1. Diana faked her death. Proponents of thistheory cite Diana’s frequent exasperationwith paparazzi and tabloid exposés as amotive for staging the car crash, thus grant-ing her a chance to live in blissful obscurity.As “evidence,” conspiracists cite the survivalof bodyguard Rees-Jones (defying statementsfrom Mercedes spokesmen that no one couldsurvive a crash occurring at 121 miles perhour) and Henri Paul’s last-minute replace-ment of Fayed’s regular driver. Another clueis Diana’s statement to journalist RichardKray, only six hours before the crash, that sheplanned to withdraw from public life. A vari-ation on the theme suggests that Dianaattempted to fake her death and then waskilled when the stunt spun out of control.Skeptics reject this scenario on grounds thatDiana, a famously devoted mother, wouldnever abandon her sons (whose popularitywith the same tabloid media renders secretvisits virtually impossible).

2. Diana was killed by MI6. The British SecretService (MI6) has a long history of covert/illegal activities on a par with the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (though rarely ashumorous). Some conspiracists believe thatMI6 (and perhaps the queen) deemed Dianaand her relationship with a Saudi Arabian mogula threat to “national security.” No evidence of

such a plot exists (so far), but Rees-Jones wasa former British army paratrooper and officerof the Royal Military Police with two tours ofduty in Northern Ireland (land of countlessplots and counterplots) behind him. Doubterssuggest that while MI6 might kill to protectthe monarchy, stripping Britain of its mostpopular Royal could backfire disastrously forthose in power.

3. Diana’s death was “collateral damage.” Thisscenario assumed that Dodi Fayed was theplot’s intended victim, targeted by ruthlessenemies of his father (Mohammed al Fayed).As with any holder of fabulous wealth, thosepotential enemies are legion, including MiddleEastern arms and OIL merchants. In BritainFayed had recently clashed with the govern-ment (which denied Mohammed’s bid forBritish citizenship) and proprietors of Har-rods department store (who resisted Fayed’stakeover in the 1990s). Some observersviewed the Dodi-Diana romance as a schemeof Mohammed’s, a backdoor approach torespectability in England, which his adver-saries violently opposed. Skeptics assert thatno sane assassin would kill Diana to reachDodi, thus ensuring a police investigation ofunrivaled intensity. As it is, that investigationrevealed nothing—which leaves conspiracytheorists predictably unimpressed. (On Octo-ber 20, 2003, British media reports revealedthat a letter Diana wrote to her butler PaulBurrell in October 1996, 10 months beforethe fatal crash, voiced fears that someoneplanned to kill her by tampering with thebrakes of her car. Specifically, she feared “anaccident in my car, brake failure and serioushead injury in order to make the path clear forCharles to marry.” Spokespersons for theroyal family dismiss those fears as absurd.)

DILLINGER, John See UNDEAD OUTLAWS.

DJIBOUTIThis small, arid nation in northeast Africa was coveted by 19th-century FRANCE because its capital(Djibouti) provided a good port on the Gulf ofAden. Various Somali sultans sold off the land

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between 1843 and 1886, allowing Paris to createthe colony of French Somaliland. Djibouti’s inhabi-tants twice voted to remain under French rule, in1958 and 1967, but the latter year witnessed achange of title as French Somaliland became theTerritory of the Afars and Issas (recognizing Dji-bouti’s primary, bitterly divided tribes). The namewas changed again, this time to Djibouti, in June1977. The harsh policies of dictator Hassan GouledAptidon—an Issa who filled his government withfellow tribesmen—sparked armed revolt by theAfars in 1991. A multiparty constitution wasapproved in September 1992, but Aptidon clung topower by force for another seven years, finallyreplaced by Ismail Guelleh in 1999. Afar rebelssigned a peace accord in March 2000, but sporadicethnic fighting continues, exacerbated by droughtand the presence of countless refugees from neigh-boring ETHIOPIA and SOMALIA.

DOMINICAThis tiny nation in the Lesser Antilles should not beconfused with the larger DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. (Itsname is pronounced “Dom-in-EEK-a”), but its70,000 inhabitants are no strangers to conspiracyand intrigue. Christopher Columbus paved the wayin 1493; then England and FRANCE quarreled overproperty rights until 1763, when Dominica was for-mally ceded to the British Crown. In 1967 Dominicabecame a self-governing member of the West IndiesAssociated States. In June 1981 nine members of theKU KLUX KLAN and U.S. neo-Nazi groups were con-victed of plotting to invade Dominica and overthrowits government. The hare-brained scheme to establisha “white bastion” in the Caribbean failed to recog-nize that 84 percent of Dominica’s inhabitants areeither black or of mixed race.

DOMINICAN RepublicChristopher Columbus explored this Caribbeanisland in 1492 and named it Española. His sonDiego was the first viceroy, and Diego’s capital city(Santo Domingo) is the oldest European settlementin the Western Hemisphere. SPAIN ceded the islandto FRANCE in 1795, but an army of African slavesled by Toussaint L’ouverture threw off the Frenchyoke six years later, establishing the Caribbean’s firstrepublic. Spain reconquered the island in 1814, but

Spanish troops were expelled in 1821. HAITI nextseized power, ruling for 22 years before anotherrebellion established the Dominican Republic, underPedro Santana. Ongoing revolts and Haitianassaults prompted Santana to make the island aprovince of Spain during the U.S. Civil War (1861–65), but the republic was eventually restored. Presi-dent Buenaventura Báez asked the United States toannex his country in 1870, but Congress rejected thetreaty. Instead, when Dominican unrest threatenedU.S. investments, Washington dispatched U.S.Marines to occupy the island for nearly two decades(1916–34).

Leathernecks were still on the scene when ambi-tious Sergeant Rafaél Trujillo Molina toppled presi-dent Horacio Vásquez and named himself dictatorfor life in 1930. Trujillo ruled by force and fear for31 years until he was assassinated by Central Intelli-gence Agency-supported opponents in 1961. (Morethan a year before the murder, President Dwight D.Eisenhower warned his aides, “It’s certain the Ameri-can public won’t condemn [FIDEL] CASTRO until wehave moved against Trujillo.”) Trujillo’s son assumedcontrol, but leftist rebels hated him as much as theyhated his father. In April 1965 President LYNDON

BAINES JOHNSON sent U.S. troops to “protect Ameri-can interests” on the island, armed forces remainingin place until 1966 when Joaquin Balaguer waselected as president. Balaguer proved so popularwith the Dominican army that officers suspendedcounting of ballots in 1978 when it seemed he mightlose his fourth presidential campaign. Threats fromWashington persuaded Balaguer to accept defeat, butinternal corruption remains a fact of life in theDominican Republic. In 2002 a UNITED NATIONS

report declared that 2 million Haitian children weresmuggled into the Dominican Republic, compelled towork as virtual slaves or professional beggars.

DREYFUS affairThe Dreyfus case and its resultant scandal occurredat a time when FRANCE was in turmoil, rocked bygovernment corruption scandals, conflict betweenmonarchists and republicans that threatened to topple the government, and a strong wave of anti-Semitism (encouraged by leaders of the CATHOLIC

CHURCH). Against that backdrop Alfred Dreyfus wasalmost insignificant, an obscure Jewish captain in theFrench army whose family had fled Alsace when

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GERMANY annexed that province in 1871. In 1894 asheet of paper was retrieved from the wastebasket ofGermany’s military attaché in Paris, its message list-ing certain secret documents allegedly delivered toCol. Max von Schwartzkoppen. Dreyfus had accessto those documents, and French military authoritiesdeclared that his handwriting matched the list foundin Schwartzkoppen’s trash. A secret court-martialconvened in December 1894 convicted Dreyfus oftreason in a sham trial where Dreyfus was denied theright to examine the prosecution’s evidence. Uponconviction he was stripped of rank and sentenced tolife imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a French penalcolony off the coast of South America, while monar-chist and Catholic newspapers heaped further vitriolon Jews and republicans.

There the “Dreyfus affair” might have rested ifnot for Lt.-Col. Georges Picquart, appointed chiefof French military intelligence in 1896. Picquart(although himself a rabid anti-Semite) uncoveredevidence that Dreyfus had been framed to protectanother traitor in the ranks, Maj. Walsin Esterhazy.Picquart’s superiors had no interest in reopening thecase, and when Picquart insisted, they transferredhim to Tunisia. A court-martial then acquittedEsterhazy in another display of farcical military jus-tice. Novelist Émile Zola next took up the cause,publishing an indictment of the French army underthe title J’accuse! Convicted of libel and sentencedto prison, Zola fled to England while Catholic lead-ers and right-wing politicians clamored against thealleged conspiracy of Jews and FREEMASONS todestroy France.

Still, the Dreyfus case would not die. Anotherarmy officer uncovered evidence that one Lt.-Col.Hubert Henry had forged papers implicating Dreyfusin acts of treason. Henry committed suicide in thewake of preliminary questioning. Scrambling to saveface, the army brought Dreyfus back from Devil’sIsland for a second trial—and then, incredibly, con-victed him again. This time, however, the tribunalfound “extenuating circumstances” that facilitated apresidential pardon before year’s end. Dreyfus wasnot finally exonerated of the charges and restored tohis former military rank until 1906. Even then thearmy did not admit its “mistake” in convicting Drey-fus until September 7, 1995. Editors of the Catholicnewspaper La Croix waited another four monthsand then apologized for Jew-baiting editorials pub-lished 100 years earlier.

DRUG dumpingDrug dumping is the practice of sending defective,outdated or unwanted medicine, or medical para-phernalia to foreign nations where its sale is notlegally barred. Often, such shipments occur duringtimes of crisis, disguised as humanitarian relief in thewake of wars or natural disasters. Profit is themotive, as those involved in the practice either sellproducts banned in the United States to foreign cus-tomers or claim a hefty tax deduction for donatingproducts to charity. Donors are allowed by law toclaim twice the “cost basis” of donated products—acalculation that includes component materials, labor,warehousing expenses, and accountant’s fees. (Thesame deduction applies to nonmedical donations,thus explaining the bizarre donations of such itemsas bathing suits and odd-sized women’s underwear toThird World countries stricken by famine and earth-quakes.) During the 1990s civil war in BOSNIA, somuch unwanted medicine was “charitably” donatedthat officials had to build a special $34 million fur-nace to dispose of it. ALBANIA received tons of drugsin 1999 with most of the products bearing expirationdates of 1989–90, while others fell within fivemonths of expiration. Spokespeople for the WorldHealth Organization deemed those donations “con-spicuous by their size and inappropriateness,” butthe game continues, encouraged by U.S. politicianswho count PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES amongtheir largest campaign contributors. In response topublic criticism, spokespeople for companies such asBayer (accused of selling diluted cancer drugs in theThird World) typically reply that they have obeyedprevailing statutes of the nations where sales ordonations occurred.

See also BAYER CORPORATION.

DRUG Enforcement AdministrationSuppression of “controlled substances” has a longand convoluted history in the United States. As notedelsewhere, most recreational drugs were legal andreadily available through the early years of the 20thcentury. Today they are still readily available, butvarious statutes and law-enforcement agencies makesale and acquisition a risky game of chance. Respon-sibility for federal drug enforcement initially lay withthe Treasury Department’s ultra-corrupt PROHIBI-TION Bureau (1927–30) and then passed to the Fed-eral Bureau of Narcotics under “reefer madness”

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zealot HARRY ANSLINGER (1930–68). In his last yearas president, LYNDON JOHNSON shifted responsibil-ity to the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT and renamed his unit the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs(1968–73). The Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) received its present name under PresidentRICHARD NIXON and has struggled ever since to stemthe tide of HEROIN, COCAINE, MARIJUANA, and otherdrugs pouring into the country from all sides. Presi-dent RONALD REAGAN declared the first “war ondrugs” and then cut the DEA’s budget and bannedFEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) under-cover operations before leaving Vice PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush in charge of the campaign thatone U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson dubbed “anintellectual fraud.” Bush and subsequent presidentshave appointed a series of high-profile “drug czars”to lead the fight (the U.S. Constitution bans royaltitles in America), but an endless chain of “recordseizures” has failed to win the phony war.

One problem, critics say, is the DEA’s endemic cor-ruption and disrespect for law. In 1978 a team of Jus-tice Department attorneys detailed to “investigateallegations of fraud, irregularity and misconduct” atDEA headquarters uncovered details of a June 1975conspiracy to murder PANAMA’s Manuel Noriega(then chief of intelligence, later president, finally kid-napped by U.S. troops in an exercise dubbed “Opera-tion Just Cause”). In 1994 longtime DEA undercoveragent Celerino Castillo III resigned and published hismemoirs (Powder Burn), including revelations ofwidespread corruption and an expression of personalamazement “that the U.S. government could get awaywith drug trafficking for so long.” Castillo’s term ofservice overlapped the IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIRACY,wherein Reagan-Bush aides smuggled drugs andweapons to support an outlawed terrorist campaignin NICARAGUA. In 2000 journalists revealed that theDEA had allied itself with a Colombian terroristgroup, Los Pepes, in a desperate bid to capture or killcocaine mogul Pablo Escobar. That same year, in Mis-souri, DEA informer Andrew Chambers was shownto have lied in dozens of cases, sending hundreds ofpeople to prison on false charges during a period of15 years. In yet another scandal, this one from March2003, the DEA’s associate agent in charge was sus-pended without pay on suspicion of stealing$150,000. Federal prosecutors charge that 49-year-old Kevin Tamez took the money in 80 installmentsof $1,000 to $3,000 each, disguised as front money

for undercover drug purchases; he then submittedfalse documents that claimed that the cash had beenspent “on law enforcement business.” Ironically,Tamez was also in charge of the New York DEA’sOffice of Professional Responsibility, which was cre-ated to investigate and punish incidents of officialmisconduct. Other DEA agents told the New YorkPost that Tamez had instituted a system of “rule byterror and went out of his way to jam people up.”

See also BUSH DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

DULLES brothersFew individuals have wielded as much influence overU.S. foreign policy (for good or ill) as brothers JohnFoster Dulles (1888–1959) and Allen Welsh Dulles(1893–1969). Though sons of a strict Presbyterianminister, the Dulles brothers were influenced more bymaternal grandfather John Watson Foster, whoserved as secretary of state under President BenjaminHarrison, and by uncle Robert Lansing, who filledthe same position under President Woodrow Wilson.Both brothers attended Princeton University, Johngoing on to earn a law degree from George Washing-ton University and specializing in international law.Rejected by the army in World War I for his pooreyesight, John Dulles benefited from nepotism whenPresident Wilson appointed him legal counsel to theU.S. delegation at the Versailles Peace Conference in1918. Afterward, John served as a member of theWar Reparations Committee that concocted onerousterms for GERMANY (thus paving the way for ADOLF

HITLER’s rise to power in the 1930s).Brother Allen, meanwhile, followed a different

path, joining the U.S. diplomatic service, posted vari-ously to AUSTRIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY,and TURKEY. In 1922 he was named chief of the Divi-sion of Near Eastern Affairs, supervising U.S. diplo-matic action in the troubled Middle East. In WorldWar II Allen served with the OFFICE OF STRATEGIC

SERVICES (OSS) first opposing the THIRD REICH andthen recruiting thousands of Nazis to serve the U.S.intelligence services under terms of PROJECT PAPER-CLIP, as the OSS was transformed into the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA).While Allen maneuvered on a global scale, John

Dulles cast his lot with the Republican Party, serv-ing as an aide and foreign policy adviser to presi-dential candidate Thomas Dewey in 1944. In 1945John assisted in drafting the UNITED NATIONS (UN)

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charter and subsequently served as a delegate to theUN in 1946, 1947, and 1950. Strongly critical ofPresident Harry Truman’s foreign policy, Dulleschampioned the tactic of “containment”—that is,using military force and/or threats of nuclear war toprevent the spread of COMMUNISM. John Dullesfound an ally in President Dwight Eisenhower, whoappointed him secretary of state in January 1953.During the next eight years, he forged alliances(NATO, SEATO, and so on) that were designed toisolate “iron-curtain” countries and maintain a“balance of terror” with the nuclear arms race. Hispolicy of “brinksmanship” was defined as “the abil-ity to get to the verge without getting into the war.”In June 1955 he declared that “neutrality hasincreasingly become obsolete and except under veryexceptional circumstances, it is an immoral andshortsighted conception.” Under that philosophy,John Dulles supervised illegal U.S. interventions invarious nations ranging from GUATEMALA and CUBA

to IRAN and LEBANON.John’s global power plays were ably assisted by

brother Allen, whom Eisenhower appointed to leadthe CIA in 1953. His agents carried out right-wingcoups in Guatemala and Iran, experimented withMIND CONTROL techniques (including LSD and hypnotism), forged alliances with the U.S. MAFIA tomurder FIDEL CASTRO, and planned the chaotic BAY

OF PIGS INVASION with Vice President RICHARD

NIXON. Nixon’s defeat in the 1960 presidential cam-paign left President John Kennedy to carry out theattack on Cuba. Its disastrous failure left Kennedyembittered against the CIA, and Allen Dulles wasforced to resign. Ironically, two years later, PresidentLYNDON JOHNSON appointed him as a member of theWARREN COMMISSION created to investigate the JFK

ASSASSINATION. It came as no surprise, therefore, thatthe commission’s “lone assassin” verdict failed tofind any involvement by CIA agents of their Mafiaand Cuban-exile allies in Kennedy’s death. Cancerultimately claimed both Dulles brothers, John in1959 and Allen 10 years later.

DUPONT dynastyThe DuPont Corporation—one of Earth’s largestand richest—headlines its Internet Web site with alogo reading: “The miracles of science.” One suchmiracle launched the DuPont dynasty more than200 years ago, and some critics say the aroma of

that first venture still clings to the family fortune.There is no doubt, as stated by the History Channel,that “DuPont’s history is interwoven with the his-tory of the United States. As the manufacturers ofgunpowder, DuPont has been a vital part of Amer-ica’s military conflicts. The company’s expansion inthe 19th and 20th centuries into other productsguaranteed its presence in American culture, societyand economics.”

In 1801, appalled by the inferior quality ofAmerican gunpowder, French immigrant ÉleuthèreIrénée du Pont de Nemours set out to revolutionizethe science of destruction. His family had failed toprosper since arriving in the United States two yearsearlier, but young du Pont was a skilled chemist,tutored by the chief armorer of his native France.Erecting a gunpowder plant beside northernDelaware’s Brandywine River, the fledgling DuPontCompany turned out a product so impressive thatby 1905 it controlled 75 percent of the U.S. black-powder market. After World War I, with Europe’seconomy in ruins, the company went international,plunging into new chemical endeavors that madesimple gunpowder take a backseat. (The company’slast black-powder business was sold in 1972). Part-ners in various up-and-coming ventures includedthe Rockefeller family’s STANDARD OIL Company,GENERAL MOTORS, Germany’s I.G. Farben andKrupp Arms.

DuPont links to the THIRD REICH and ADOLF

HITLER were not coincidental. In fact, the family/corporation had a history of funding far-right causes,and in 1933 it was a primary supporter of the AMERI-CAN LIBERTY LEAGUE, which conspired with leadingmembers of the AMERICAN LEGION to stage a militarycoup d’état against President Franklin Roosevelt andhis NEW DEAL. That effort collapsed before the firstshot was fired, but the DuPonts kept pouring cashinto the league, spending an average $500,000 to sup-port the group’s 37 offices nationwide, distributingsome 50 million pro-Nazi pamphlets by 1936. ThePEARL HARBOR attack failed to sever DuPont’s linkswith Hitler, and corporate spokespeople were seenmeeting with Nazi industrial officers in SWITZERLAND

as late as March 1942. DuPont escaped prosecutiondespite such flagrant trading with the enemy, and thefamily’s fortune in FRANCE was carefully protected byGerman occupation troops.

While financing Hitler abroad, the DuPontmachine was instrumental in banning MARIJUANA in

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(Upper left) Pierre-Samuel du Pont, comte de Nemours (1739–1817) founded the family dynasty, while (upper right)Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771–1834) brought the family business to America and built its first great munitions plant; (bottom left) Henry Du Pont (1812–89) continued the dynasty’s tradition of selling munitions and explosives. (Bottom right)Henry Algernon Du Pont’s (1838–1926) election to the U.S. Senate merged business and politics. (Author’s collection)

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the United States. “Demon weed” opponent HARRY

ANSLINGER owed his 1930 appointment as directorof the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to Andrew Mellon,Herbert Hoover’s secretary of the treasury and amajor cog in the DuPont financial empire. Conspir-acists suggest that DuPont’s interest in banningmarijuana had less to do with morality and thefuture of America’s youths than it did with simpleeconomics. By 1930 DuPont already dominated theU.S. petrochemical and synthetics industry; it facedpotential disaster if the many commercial uses ofhemp were realized (at a fraction of the cost for syn-thetics). Joining forces with Anslinger and variouslarge PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, DuPont thusflexed its corporate muscle to eliminate virtuallywhat hemp advocates call “the nation’s most valu-able natural resource.”

Marijuana was a sideshow, however, compared tothe DuPont Corporation’s continuing interest in warand political intrigue. Richard du Pont immersedhimself in the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY’s(CIA) clandestine operation and reaped anothermegamillion-dollar windfall in the process. Du Pont’sSummit Aviation company, founded shortly after theCIA’s BAY OF PIGS INVASION in CUBA, was organizedwith assistance from CIA operative Patrick Foley.During the next decade, Summit furnished “civicaction” aircraft for the CIA’s AIR AMERICA networkand sold converted warplanes to right-wing dictatorsin GUATEMALA, HAITI, HONDURAS, NICARAGUA, andVIETNAM. The conversion process from civilian air-craft to gunship boosted the sales price of an averageCessna 500 percent. Today, while DuPont exploresthe “miracles of science” on all fronts, it still profitsmightily from war. In 2003, before the gunsmokecleared in IRAQ from OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM,President George W. BUSH installed the CEO of

Phillips Petroleum (a DuPont family holding) tosupervise extraction of Iraqi OIL from captured fields.

See also FARBEN INDUSTRIES; ROCKEFELLER CLAN.

DZERZHINSKI, Feliks (1877–1926)Born the son of Polish aristocrats at Vilno in 1877,Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinski rebelled against hisfamily by joining the Lithuanian Social DemocraticParty and organizing factory workers into tradeunions. He was arrested and sent to Siberia in 1897but managed to escape in 1899 (taking the lessons ofincarceration with him). Another arrest in 1908 andthen a final one in 1912 sent him back to Siberia fornine years, charged with anticzarist activity, butDzerzhinski was released in a general amnesty fol-lowing the Russian Revolution of February 1917. Hecast his lot with VLADIMIR LENIN’s Bolsheviks andjoined in the country’s second revolution that Octo-ber. Lenin rewarded Dzerzhinski in December 1917with appointment to serve as Commissar for InternalAffairs and head of the All-Russian ExtraordinaryCommission for Combating Counter-Revolution andSabotage (Cheka). Thus installed as the first chief ofSoviet Russia’s SECRET POLICE, Dzerzhinski launchedthe “Red Terror” of September 1918, following afailed attempt on Lenin’s life. Other purges ensued,and Dzerzhinski retained control of the Cheka whileexpanding his authority as People’s Commissar forTransport (1921) and chairman of the SupremeCouncil of National Economy (1924). In 1922 hetransformed the Cheka into the GPU (State PoliticalAdministration) without weakening its reputationfor TERRORISM. Dzerzhinski died of a heart attack onJuly 20, 1926, but he was not forgotten. Years later,when the GPU became the KGB, its headquarters wasnamed in his honor.

EARP brothersHistory and Hollywood have cast the five Earp brothers—James, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, andWarren—as classic heroes of the American frontier,standing firm against ruthless outlaws to make theWild West a more civilized place. The truth, as usual,is rather different and is glimpsed more commonlybetween the lines, behind the stage settings and theclouds of gunsmoke that surround this famous family.

The Earps were Illinois natives, James born in1841, Virgil in 1843, Wyatt in 1848, Morgan in1851, and Warren in 1855. James was badlywounded as a Union soldier in 1863, and the wholefamily decamped to California the following year. Inthe Golden State, Wyatt worked as a stagecoachguard, bartender, and gambler until 1871 when hewas jailed for horse theft. Posting $500, he fled thestate to hunt buffalo and then drifted to Wichitawhere James and wife Bessie ran a combinationbrothel and saloon. Bessie Earp appeared in Wichitapolice files as a known prostitute between May 1874and March 1875; Earp critics note that her disap-pearance from official records coincided with Wyatt’semployment (in April 1875) as a Wichita policeman.Wyatt lasted 11 months on the job, was fired, andwas fined $30 in March 1876 for assaulting WilliamSmith, a candidate for city marshal.

Moving on to Dodge City, Kansas, Wyatt joinedthe local police force in May 1876, followed shortlyby brother Morgan. James and Bessie soon arrived to

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Wyatt Earp led the group of brothers known in certain circles as “the fighting pimps.” (Author’s collection)

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Morgan Earp (top left) was murdered soon after the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, while Virgil Earp (bottom left)survived his wounds from the gunfight to help Wyatt avenge Morgan’s murder. Gunfighter and tubercular dentist John“Doc” Holliday (top right) joined the Earp brothers in various shady enterprises, while sometime lawman William “Bat”Masterson (bottom right) was another Earp ally in gambling casinos and brothels. (Author’s collection)

resume their familiar trade in flesh and liquor, whileWyatt and colleague William (“Bat”) Masterson pro-tected the action. Both were sworn policemen, butDodge City residents knew them better as cardsharks and procurers, dubbed “the Fighting Pimps.”Wyatt left Dodge City in May 1879 after he andMasterson beat two drunks so badly that “their ownmothers would have had a hard time picking outtheir sons.” A stop-off at Mobeetie, Texas, sawWyatt collaborate with outlaw/lawman Dave Matherto sell phony gold bricks before he was run out oftown by the sheriff. Settled next in Tombstone, Ari-zona, Wyatt gathered his brothers as usual, enlistingtubercular gambler-gunman John “Doc” Holliday tohelp out with poker and gunplay. As historian JohnFaragher described the scene:

Southeastern Arizona at the time was torn by conflict

between the Republican business community and the

mostly Democratic ranchers of the arid countryside.

The “Cowboys,” as the Republican Tombstone Epitaphlabeled the ranchers, were led by Newman “Old Man”

Clanton and his hot-headed sons and were backed by

such violent gunmen as “Curly” Bill Brocius and

Johnny Ringo. The trouble in Tombstone was just

one episode in a series of local wars that pitted men of

traditional rural values and Southern sympathies

against mostly Yankee capitalist modernizers. As the

hired guns of the businessmen in town, the Earps

became the enemies of the Clantons.

Since most of the Earps wore badges, members ofthe Clanton gang soon found themselves unwelcomein Tombstone, unless they were spending theirmoney in Earp-run saloons, casinos, and brothels.Both sides were suspected in a fatal stagecoach rob-bery outside town in March 1881, and violentclashes escalated until October 26 when the two fac-tions met in the infamous O.K. Corral shootout.Morgan and Virgil Earp were wounded, along withDoc Holliday, while three members of the Clantongang were dispatched to Boot Hill. Murder chargeswere filed against the Earps but then thrown out by afriendly judge. Morgan was killed in a local pool hallon March 17, 1882, and the resultant “vengeanceride” by Wyatt, Warren, Doc Holiday, and othersclaimed an uncertain number of lives before the lastEarps departed Arizona.

Wyatt and Holliday returned to Dodge City in1883, teaming with Bat Masterson, gambler-pimp

Luke Short, and others to create the “Dodge CityPeace Commission.” In fact, the group was anythingbut peaceful, launching a reign of terror againstreformers who had vowed to close Dodge City’sbrothels and gambling dens. After successfullydefending the corrupt status quo, Wyatt moved on toIdaho Territory, running various saloons with brotherJames and lending his hand to a claim-jumping gang.Tiring of those pursuits, Wyatt drifted back to Cali-fornia and remained there for the rest of his life,except for four years spent in Alaska (1897–1901),where he banked $80,000 as a gold-rush bartender.Warren Earp returned to Arizona as “a cattle detec-tive” in 1900, but a gunfight in Wilcox claimed hislife months later. Virgil died of pneumonia atPrescott, Arizona, in 1906, and James survivedanother 22 years in San Francisco.

By that time, Wyatt had begun work on his autobiography with author Stuart Lake. He died onJanuary 13, 1929, and thus never saw his strangelife become the stuff of all-American legend, revisedand inflated beyond all recognition through a longseries of novels, films, and television shows. Norwas the process of mythologizing focused solely onWyatt. Brother Morgan was credited with killinggunman William Brooks at Wichita in 1880 when,in fact, Brooks was lynched for rustling in July1874. Within a quarter-century of Wyatt’s death,the Earp crime family had been transformed into rugged heroes, while their gang war with theClanton crowd was enshrined as an epic triumph ofGood vs. Evil.

EARTH First!Inspired by Edward Abbey’s novel The Monkey-wrench Gang (1975), Earth First! was organized in1980 with a motto of “No Compromise in Defenseof Mother Earth!” The group’s “monkey-wrenching”tactics included removal of surveyor stakes from For-est Service logging roads, vandalism of logging andmining equipment, and “spiking” of trees slated forharvest by loggers. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION (FBI) agents placed Earth First! under sporadicsurveillance almost from its beginning, but interestintensified in May 1987 when a California sawmillemployee was maimed after his saw blade shatteredon a hidden nail. Henceforth, the bureau regardedEarth First! as a “terrorist” organization and treatedits members accordingly.

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Between 1988 and 1990 G-men mounted a full-scale effort to infiltrate Earth First! with under-cover agents and paid informants. Documents later revealed in response to a lawsuit disclose thatthe group’s Arizona chapter was subjected to aCOINTELPRO-style campaign from 1988 to 1990,including use of an agent provocateur who persuadedEarth First! members to cut down a rural powerline. G-man Michael Fain provided the necessarytools, instructed Earth First! members in their use,and drove them to the target; then he arrested themas they were acting out his plan. More sinisterintentions were suggested by the operation’s codename: “Thermcon,” which stood for “ThermiteConspiracy” in FBI jargon. Since Earth First! hadnever used thermite (a military-style incendiary), itsmembers now believe agents planned a frame-upinvolving illegal explosives, but the plan never cameto fruition. Instead, it now appears that G-mendecided to try a different approach.

On May 24, 1990, Earth First! activists Judi Bariand Daryl Cherney left Oakland, California, en routeto Santa Cruz and a scheduled meeting with fellowenvironmentalists. Just before noon, a pipe bombexploded beneath the driver’s seat of Bari’s car, shat-tering her pelvis and dislocating her spine, andwounding Cherney in the face with shrapnel. Agentsfrom the BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, AND

FIREARMS launched an investigation of the bombing,but they were soon displaced by G-men and OAK-LAND POLICE, after FBI spokespersons declared thebombing to be an act of domestic TERRORISM. OnMay 25 Oakland police announced the arrest of Bariand Cherney on charges of possessing and transport-ing a bomb. Sweeping raids throughout the Bay Areafailed to reveal Earth First’s alleged “bomb factory,”and prosecutors dropped all charges in the case onJuly 17, 1990.

Bari and Cherney, though vindicated, were not con-tent to let the matter rest. Research informed themthat Richard W. Held, agent-in-charge of the bureau’sSan Francisco field office, had a long history ofinvolvement in illegal COINTELPRO operations,including actions against the BLACK PANTHER PARTY,the AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT, and Puerto Ricannationalists. Those campaigns included widespreaduse of criminal agents provocateurs to incite or commitviolent acts, thus leading Bari and Cherney to believethat G-men or their hirelings may have planted thebomb as part of a frame-up or an attempted murder.

On April 8, 1991, Bari and Cherney sued the bureauand the Oakland Police Department, charging falsearrest, libel, and violation of their civil rights.

Bari would not live to see the case resolved. Shedied of breast cancer on March 2, 1997, with thelong-running discovery phase still in progress, butexecutors of her estate kept up the fight. Attorneysfor the plaintiffs collected 7,000 pages of FBI andpolice files, with another 6,000 pages of sworn testi-mony from official and civilian witnesses. WhileAgent Held pleaded faulty memory to avoid revealingbureau activities, he could not conceal all of the FBI’smoves against Earth First! In one instance, agents hadtargeted a subject named Mark Berry, whose onlylink to Earth First! was his friendship with a subjectof the Arizona “Thermcon” sting operation. In pur-suit of nonexistent crimes, the agents subjected Berryto wiretapping and physical surveillance, read hismail, and circled his home with aircraft. Once, apregnant woman agent and her male partner visitedBerry’s cabinet shop in the guise of a married coupleseeking baby furniture. It came to nothing, and theThermcon file was officially closed in January 1990,but Agent Held’s San Francisco office kept addingnew reports until March—two months before theBari-Cherney bombing. Earth First! abandoned“monkeywrenching” after 1990, supplanted in thatregard by the EARTH LIBERATION FRONT.

On October 15, 1997, a federal judge ruled thatsix G-men and three Oakland police officers shouldface trial on the charges, while ex-Agent Held andothers were dismissed from the lawsuit on a grant of“qualified immunity.” More delays followed, includ-ing a postponement occasioned by the terroristattacks of September 11, 2001, when both sidesagreed that the catastrophe might influence jurors.

The Bari-Cherney trial began at last on April 8,2002. On May 15 Judge Claudia Wilken dismissedtwo more defendants, former G-men John Conwayand Walter Hemje, from the case on grounds ofinsufficient evidence. Finally, after six weeks of testi-mony and 11 days of deliberation, the 10-memberjury returned its verdict on June 11, 2002. The panelfound that six remaining defendants had indeed vio-lated Bari and Cherney’s constitutional rights to freespeech and protection from unlawful searches,awarding damages in the amount of $4.4 million.Those found guilty by the jury included retired G-men Frank Doyle, John Reikes, and Phil Sena; Oak-land police Sgt. Robert Chenault; retired Oakland

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police Sgt. Michael Sitterud; and former Oaklandpolice Lt. Mike Sims (now with the Tracy PoliceDepartment). A seventh defendant, former FBI agentStockton Buck, was cleared on all counts. The jury’saward included $2.9 million for Bari’s estate ($1.6million in compensatory damages, $1.3 million puni-tive) and $1.5 million to Cherney ($850,000 com-pensatory and $650,000 punitive). The variousdefendants filed a notice of appeal on September 6,2002, claiming that the jury’s award was “excessive”and “unsupported by evidence.”

EARTH Liberation FrontUnhappy with the moderate course of action chartedby the environmentalist group EARTH FIRST! after1990, more-radical activists met to organize the Earth

Liberation Front (ELF) at Brighton, England, in1992. According to its video Igniting the Revolution,ELF sprang from a realization “that to be successfulin the struggle to protect the Earth, more extreme tac-tics must be utilized.” The first such actions on recordfrom October 1996 include the burning of a U.S. For-est Service truck in Detroit and the destruction of anOregon ranger station (causing $5.3 million in dam-age). Since then, a six-year series of arson incidentsclaimed by ELF include attacks on a fur breeders co-op ($1 million damage); a fast-food restaurant($400,000); a ski resort ($12 million); a U.S. ForestIndustries facility ($500,000); a Michigan State University research facility ($400,000); Boulder, Colorado’s, Legend Ridge mansion ($2.5 million); aMinnesota genetics research lab ($250,000); twohouses near Ann Arbor, Michigan ($400,000),

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Emergency personnel walk past an automobile destroyed in a predawn arson fire at an auto dealership where Hummerswere defaced with antipollution graffiti in West Covina, California, on August 22, 2003. Scrawled on at least one of thevehicles that was not destroyed by the blaze were the letters ELF, the acronym for the radical Earth Liberation Front.(Reuters/Corbis)

plus various other homes, commercial offices, andvehicles. Small-scale activities include roving acts ofvandalism and tree spiking.

The FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)labels ELF a terrorist organization, but its investiga-tions have produced no noteworthy results thus far.On April 5, 2001, G-men raided the Portland, Oregon,home occupied by ELF spokesmen Craig Rosebraughand Leslie James Pickering, seeking evidence in recentarson attacks, but they came away empty-handed.Frank Ambrose, a 27-year-old “suspected” ELFactivist, was charged with tree spiking in Blooming-ton, Indiana, at about the same time, but prosecutorsdismissed the charges “in the interests of justice” onSeptember 13, 2001, after declaring their suspicion of“a widespread conspiracy” behind the tree-spikingincidents. Defense attorney Richard Kammen took adifferent view of the dismissal. “It was very clear,” hetold reporters, “that the state’s case was based onwild speculation without any support of the facts.There just wasn’t any evidence.”

ELF, meanwhile, seemed intent on carrying its bat-tle to the enemy. Protesters picketed the BloomingtonFBI office during a “Week of Resistance” in April2001, and ELF’s Web site went further, declaring thatthe group would henceforth target “FBI offices andU.S. federal buildings,” “liberal democracy,” andeven “industrial civilization” at large. Thus far, nosuch sweeping attacks have occurred.

EAST Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives (ECCSL)This self-styled conspiracy was organized by brothersDaniel and Philip Berrigan (both priests of theCATHOLIC CHURCH); its limited membership consist-ing of nuns and assorted friends who opposed Amer-ica’s involvement in the VIETNAM War. Its actionsincluded sabotage of railroad equipment near amunitions factory and invasion of local draft boardswhere blood was poured over various files. Somereports also credit the ECCSL (perhaps erroneously)with the 1971 burglary of a FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) resident agency in Media, Penn-sylvania, that exposed the bureau’s illegal COINTEL-PRO operations to public scrutiny. Before thathappened, though, bureau director J. EDGAR HOOVER

exposed the group with claims of a deadly plot toundermine U.S. foreign policy—and thus fueledgrowing ridicule that would hound him to his deathin 1972.

On November 30, 1970, Hoover made his regularappearance before a U.S. Senate appropriationscommittee, pleading for an extra $14.1 million tohire extra agents and clerks in the face of a “radicalcrime wave.” To prove his need Hoover revealed“an incipient plot on the part of an anarchistgroup . . . the so-called ‘East Coast Conspiracy toSave Lives’” to kidnap HENRY KISSINGER whileplanting bombs at various strategic sites aroundWashington, D.C. “If successful,” Hoover warned,“the plotters would demand an end to United Statesbombing operations in Southeast Asia and therelease of all political prisoners as ransom. Intensiveinvestigation is being conducted concerning thismatter.” In fact, Attorney General John Mitchell hadbeen aware of the “plot” since June 1970 when Sis-ter Elizabeth McAlister facetiously suggested thekidnapping in a jailhouse love letter to Philip Berri-gan. (Their courier was an FBI informer who deliv-ered copies of their private correspondence to thebureau.) Mitchell and President RICHARD NIXON

had agreed that there was no danger and refused toprosecute, while Kissinger himself laughed off the“threat” as a daydream concocted by “sex-starvednuns.” Hoover’s public statements, however, placedMitchell in a bind where he must either reprimandthe longtime FBI director (and keeper of career-destroying secrets) or file conspiracy charges againstthe “plotters.”

On January 12, 1971, a federal grand juryindicted six defendants on charges of conspiring tosnatch Kissinger and bomb various Washingtonlandmarks. Those charged included the Berriganbrothers (both already jailed for antiwar activities),Sister McAlister, Father Neil McLaughlin, FatherJoseph Wenderoth, Anthony Scoblick (a marriedpriest), and Dr. Eqbal Ahmad. A new indictment onFebruary 8, 1971, added defendant Joseph Glick tothe list while expanding the charges to includedestruction of government property (draft files) andconspiracy to possess explosives. At trial most of thecharges filed against the “Harrisburg 8” proved to beproducts of fantasy or machinations by an FBI agentprovocateur. On April 5, 1972, jurors convictedPhilip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister on sevencounts of smuggling letters in and out of federalprison. The panel deadlocked at 10–2 for acquittal ofthe other defendants on all charges, and the case waslater dismissed. After serving his time, Philip Berri-gan left the priesthood and married McAlister,

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organized a new “Plowshare” pacifist movement,and continued antimilitary demonstrations unabateduntil his death in 2003.

EAST TimorTimor, in the East Indies, was first colonized by POR-TUGAL in 1520. Holland seized the western portionof the island in 1613 and fought Portugal for the restuntil a treaty divided Timor between them in 1860.Australia and JAPAN fought for the island in WorldWar II, killing 50,000 natives in the process. In 1949 the Netherlands ceded control of West Timorto the fledgling state of INDONESIA, but Portugal heldthe remainder until 1975 when its sudden with-drawal left the new Democratic Republic of EastTimor vulnerable to invasion. To no one’s surprise,Indonesia (sanctioned by the United States and otherwestern nations) attacked and annexed the region inJuly 1976. For the next two decades, largely ignoredby the rest of the world, Indonesia’s brutal occupa-tion of East Timor killed an estimated 300,000 per-sons. Human-rights abuses finally went public in the1990s, and two East Timorese activists won theNobel Peace Prize in 1996 for nonviolent efforts to liberate their homeland. Violence in East Timorescalated until August 1999 when 79 percent of thepopulation voted for independence in a special refer-endum sponsored by the UNITED NATIONS. A UNtransitional force then governed East Timor untilAugust 2002 when the first new country of a newmillennium elected native leaders. In August 2002former governor Abilio Soares was convicted ofcrimes against humanity by an Indonesian court. Sixother defendants were acquitted at the same time in averdict widely condemned as a whitewash of Indone-sia’s WAR CRIMES.

ECHELON“Echelon” is the code-name applied to a SIGINT(signals intelligence) collection network operated bythe U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY in conjunctionwith Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.Its satellite listening posts reportedly include five inthe continental United States, three in Australia, twoin Britain, and one each in Cyprus, Germany, Guam,Hong Kong, Japan, and Puerto Rico. Together, asreported in the European press, those stations have a capacity to “record up to two billion telephone

messages daily.” (Other accounts go further, claimingthat Echelon collects every phone call, FAX message,and e-mail on Earth.) Once the signals are collected,“dictionary” computers scan the text at high speed,seeking verbal “warnings”—that is, random wordsor phrases such as assassinate, bomb, CIA, C-4, FBI,militia, revolt, terrorism, and so on ad infinitum. Thequality of Echelon’s analysis was revealed whenMike Frost, a former Canadian intelligence agent,told CBS News that “one woman ended up in Eche-lon’s database as a possible terrorist because she tolda friend on the phone that her son had ‘bombed’ in aschool play.” Spying may also have a commercialside, according to the New York Times. That news-paper’s report on Echelon asserted that informationgleaned from SIGINT eavesdropping helped the Boe-ing aerospace firm to win a lucrative Saudi Arabiancontract away from a European competitor and thatEchelon data also helped the U.S. firm Raytheon“win a bid for a $1.3 billion surveillance system forthe Amazon forest away from Thomson-CSF, aFrench company.” In short, for the right people, Ech-elon elevates insider trading to a whole new level—asin outer space. In early 2001 the European Union(EU) issued a report condemning Echelon, based ondeclassified documents and testimony from formerintelligence agents, but the EU has no authority toban the system and no technical means of disablingit. For conspiracists, Echelon is icing on the cake—proof positive that Big Brother has finally arrived.

ECUADORSpanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro conqueredthe Inca rulers of modern-day Ecuador in 1532, andSPAIN controlled the region until 1809 when rebelsexpelled the colonial rulers, joining COLOMBIA,PANAMA, and VENEZUELA in a confederacy dubbedGreater Colombia. That union collapsed in 1830,and Ecuador declared independence. A seeminglyendless series of rebellions and dictatorships thenensued, with 48 different rulers installed during thenext 131 years. As if internal conflict were not badenough, Ecuador was rocked by border wars withneighboring PERU in 1941, 1981, and 1995. A treatysigned in May 1991 finally resolved the territorialdispute, but Ecuador’s problems continue, includinga nearly bankrupt economy and widespread poverty.A coup toppled President Jamil Mahuad in January2000, marking South America’s first military revolt

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in a decade. Belated investigations have revealed thatmost of Ecuador’s “leftist” groups in the 1960s werecreated by the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

either to pacify impoverished workers or to justifycontinuing dictatorship. According to Quito’s cham-ber of commerce, Ecuador loses $2 billion yearly(11.2 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Prod-uct) to flagrant corruption.

EGYPTEgypt’s history dates from around 4000 B.C., its“golden age” occurring between the 16th and 13thcenturies B.C. Persia (now IRAN) conquered Egypt in525 B.C., followed by Alexander the Great (332 B.C.),Rome (30 B.C.), Arab caliphs (A.D. 641), TURKEY

(1517), and FRANCE (1801). Mohammed Ali, backedby troops from ALBANIA, became pasha of Egypt in1805. Britain occupied the country in 1882 and for-mally declared it a protectorate in 1914. Egyptiannationalism forced England to grant independence inFebruary 1922, though London reserved rights toguard the Suez Canal and to defend Egypt from per-ceived enemies. British troops were finally with-drawn (except from the Suez Canal Zone) in 1936,but World War II brought them back in full force.Anti-British riots during 1951–52 climaxed with amilitary coup in July 1952. The Egyptian monarchywas abolished 11 months later, leaving GeneralMohammed Naguib as provisional president. In fact,a military junta controlled Egypt, and its leader—Gamal Abdel Nasser—ascended to the presidency onJune 23, 1956.

Nasser’s stubborn refusal to placate the UnitedStates and Britain placed him in constant conflictwith London and Washington. Accordingly, hesought and received aid from RUSSIA, nationalizedthe Suez Canal Zone, and expelled British OIL execu-tives from Egypt. In October 1956 ISRAEL invadedthe Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula, while Britainand France launched attacks of their own againstEgypt. Global pressure ultimately halted the attack,UNITED NATIONS (UN) peacekeepers were dispatchedto Suez, and foreign troops finally withdrew in spring1957. Egypt joined SYRIA to form the United ArabRepublic (UAR) in 1956, and while a coup forcedSyria to withdraw from the alliance in 1961, Egyptcontinued use of the UAR name for another decade.Israel, meanwhile, launched another invasion in June1967, occupying Sinai, the East Bank of the Jordan

River, and a zone around the Gulf of Aqaba. Fightingcontinued around Suez through June 1970, despite aUN cease-fire dating from June 10, 1967.

Nasser died in September 1970 and was replacedby ANWAR AL-SADAT. Angered by Russia’s refusal toprovide sophisticated weapons, Sadat expelled Sovietadvisors in July 1972. Fifteen months later Egyptlaunched a campaign to expel Israel from occupiedSinai, but the effort failed. Sadat risked his politicalcareer in November 1977 with a visit to Israel andpleas for a permanent peace. While Arab nationsraged, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty onMarch 26, 1979. Muslim extremists in the Egyptianarmy murdered Sadat in October 1981. SuccessorHosni Mubarak (still in power at this writing) hasdevoted much of his time to suppressing Islamicextremists, including those responsible for serialattacks on Egyptian Christians (Copts).

EICHMANN, Adolf (1906–1962)A native of GERMANY, born in 1906, Adolf Eich-mann moved to Linz, AUSTRIA, (ADOLF HITLER’shometown) with his family following his mother’sdeath. In Linz, classmates teased him mercilesslyabout his looks, calling him “the little Jew.” Hedropped out of engineering school to work variousjobs, including a stint as traveling salesman for a U.S.OIL company. Eichmann joined the Austrian NaziParty in 1932, soon graduating to the “elite” SS andserving at the Dachau concentration camp in 1934.That September, he moved up to the SS security serv-ice, first cataloging information on FREEMASONS,then shifting to the Jewish Section where an obses-sion with Hebrew culture soon earned him recogni-tion as a “Jewish specialist.” HEINRICH HIMMLER

appointed Eichmann to head a Scientific Museum ofJewish Affairs with the collateral assignment ofresearching “solutions to the Jewish question.” In1939 Eichmann was chosen to head GESTAPO SectionIV B4, tasked with implementing Nazi anti-Semiticpolicies in all occupied countries (ultimately span-ning 16 nations). In July 1940 Eichmann proposeddeporting all Jews to Madagascar, but the plan wasnever implemented. Meanwhile, he supervised theestablishment of ghettos in occupied Poland and col-lected statistics from roving Einsatzgruppen murderteams. Eichmann coordinated the WANNSEE CONFER-ENCE in January 1942, where Nazi leaders ham-mered out details of the impending “final solution,”

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and he thereafter served as technical manager of theensuing HOLOCAUST, a veritable accountant of massmurder. Although he later tried to portray himself asno more than a middle-rank bean counter, Eichmanntold one colleague “he would leap laughing into thegrave because the feeling that he had five million peo-ple on his conscience would be for him a source ofextraordinary satisfaction.”

The THIRD REICH’s collapse left Eichmann at riskof prosecution for WAR CRIMES, but the Allies wereslow to close the net, and he escaped to ARGENTINA

in 1950 with assistance from the ODESSA network.There, Eichmann lived in ease and affluence as“Ricardo Klement” for a decade when agents of theIsraeli MOSSAD learned his whereabouts and kid-napped him on May 11, 1960. Transported toISRAEL, Eichmann was placed on public trial. Hetried to minimize his crimes, asking the court, “Whyme? Why not the local policemen, thousands ofthem? They would have been shot if they had refusedto round up the Jews for the death camps. Why nothang them for not wanting to be shot? Why me?Everybody killed the Jews.” Eichmann’s judges werepredictably unmoved by his argument, convictinghim on all charges and imposing a sentence of death.He was hanged at Ramleh Prison on May 31, 1962.

ELECTION 2000The 2000 presidential election takes dubious honorsas the most controversial political contest in U.S. his-tory, eclipsing the corrupt bargain struck by RUTHER-FORD B. HAYES in 1877 and John Kennedy’s narrow(MAFIA-assisted) victory over RICHARD NIXON in1960. The controversy endures to this day.

By 8:00 P.M. on election day (November 7), allmajor TV networks forecast that Vice President AlGore would defeat Republican contender George W.Bush, but late-breaking events in Florida (wherebrother Jeb Bush reigned as governor) cast the elec-tion into chaos. Both sides anxiously awaited talliesfrom the Florida panhandle, where reports of defec-tive ballots and voting machines vied with rumors ofoutright fraud in progress. On November 9 Gore’steam requested a hand count of votes from four dis-puted Florida counties, and a circuit judge orderedPalm Beach County not to certify its disputed results.The state’s machine count was completed on Novem-ber 10, giving Bush a microscopic lead of 327 ballotsamid 6 million cast. With hand counts proceeding on

November 12, Bush attorneys (led by James Baker,once secretary of state under President George H. W.Bush) filed a federal motion to halt the recount. Thatmotion was rejected on November 13, whereuponFlorida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (a Bushcampaign leader) announced that she would notextend the 5:00 P.M. deadline on November 14 forreceiving all votes. On November 15, while mediareports shrank Bush’s lead to 286 votes out of 6 mil-lion, Harris asked the state supreme court to haltmanual recounts. On November 16 Bush attorneysfiled their second motion to halt the recounts, andthey were again rejected. One day later the FloridaSupreme Court blocked Harris from certifying aBush victory, and on November 21 the judgesordered hand counts to continue. Bush running mateDICK CHENEY suffered his fourth heart attack onNovember 22 and was rushed into cardiac surgery.

The action shifted to Washington on November23, 2001, when the U.S. SUPREME COURT agreed tohear Bush’s appeal of his lawsuit’s two-time rejection.Back in Florida Katherine Harris disqualified all votesfrom Palm Beach County and then certified Bush’svictory by 537 votes. Gore’s lawyers filed a new legalaction, contending that Harris wrongfully disquali-fied thousands of mostly black Democratic votes. InWashington the Supreme Court heard oral argumentson December 1. Seven days later the Florida SupremeCourt ordered manual recounts in all disputed coun-ties, a ruling canceled one day later by a 5–4 decisionof the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 12, 2000,the same five-judge majority (all appointed either byBush’s father or by predecessor RONALD REAGAN)effectively certified Bush as the president-elect. (Evenso, Bush lost the popular vote by some 539,000 bal-lots, but his “victory” in Florida assured a majoritywhere it mattered, in the U.S. Electoral College.)

The Supreme Court majority’s argument, that aFlorida recount would cause Bush “irreparableharm”—that is, loss of the White House—struckmany observers as a blatant payoff for the lifeappointments bestowed by prior Republican presi-dents. Justice Antonin Scalia proved that suspicioncorrect when he wrote, in approving Bush’s plea for aban on recounts, that “the issuance of the stay sug-gests that a majority of the Court, while not decidingthe issues presented, believe that the petitioner [Bush]has a substantial probability of success.” Further-more, the Court’s majority declared that its “logic”in supporting Bush would have no future application

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to any other case but was strictly “limited to thepresent circumstances, for the problem of equal pro-tection in election processes generally presents manycomplexities.” As author Vincent Bugliosi noted,“This point . . . all alone and by itself, clearly andunequivocally shows that the Court knew its deci-sion was not based on the merits or the law, and wassolely a decision to appoint George Bush President.”Justice John Stevens III affirmed that view in his dis-senting opinion when he wrote, “Although we maynever know with complete certainty the identity ofthe winner of this year’s presidential election, theidentity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’sconfidence in [this Court] as an impartial guardian ofthe rule of law.” Unmentioned in that opinion werethe blatant conflicts of interest that should havecaused two pro-Bush justices to abstain from hearingthe case: A son of Justice Antonin Scalia wasemployed by the law firm that filed suit on Bush’sbehalf, while the wife of Justice Clarence Thomasworked for the Heritage Foundation, busily vettingfuture Bush appointees at the time her husbandhelped appoint Bush to the Oval Office.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

EL RUKNSIn the early 1960s Chicago’s most notorious STREET

GANG was the Blackstone Rangers, founded by agroup of 12–15-year-old youths in the Woodlawnghetto and led by Jeff Fort. By 1967 Blackstone wasthe first ghetto gang to “go national,” with chaptersin Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Gary, Indiana. Twoyears later, during brief political flirtation with theBLACK PANTHER PARTY, the gang became a target ofthe FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’s (FBI) illegalCOINTELPRO operations. G-men used agents provoca-teurs to incite violent dissension between the twogroups, but J. EDGAR HOOVER’s plan to have theRangers kill local Panther boss FRED HAMPTON failed,leaving the job to members of the CHICAGO POLICE

DEPARTMENT. Fort later renamed his gang the Black P.Stone Nation and then El Rukns after he converted toIslam while serving time on federal drug charges.

Religious epiphany did not prevent the El Ruknsfrom engaging in criminal activity, however. Some-time in 1985–86, NATION OF ISLAM leader Louis Far-rakhan adopted the gang as a kind of personal honorguard, reportedly introducing them to one interna-tional audience as his “angels of death” (not to be

confused, presumably, with DEATH ANGELS). In duecourse, El Rukns leaders met agents representingColonel MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFFI of LIBYA andallegedly accepted $2.5 million in return for a prom-ise to commit acts of TERRORISM in the United States.El Rukns defenders, meanwhile, insist that the street-wise gangsters “didn’t know what they were gettinginto” and were led astray by a mixed bag of foreignextremists, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)“moles,” and various FBI-police informers. Someversions of the story claim that Qaddaffi shipped arocket launcher to the gang, but U.S. agents inter-cepted the package and replaced its trigger mecha-nism with a tracking device and then followed it togang headquarters. A different story, advanced byfederal prosecutors at trial, was that the gang pur-chased an “inert” U.S.-made rocket launcher from anundercover FBI agent on July 31, 1986. Five dayslater G-men raided the gang’s headquarters andseized a small arsenal of weapons, including thedefective bazooka. Fort and six others were subse-quently convicted of conspiracy to commit terroristacts. Defendant Melvin Mayes evaded arrest and fledinto hiding.

Federal officers were still patting themselves onthe back for that coup when certain problems withtheir case leaked to the media. It was disclosed thatprosecutor William Hogan, Jr.—reportedly a veteranof both the U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA—had favored certain prosecution witnesses not onlywith immunity from prosecution but also with non-stop liquor, drugs, and women while they spun theirtales in custody. On at least one occasion, the “wit-nesses” were also allegedly removed from prison onHogan’s orders to enjoy a respite from confinementat Chicago’s Federal Building. Intimations of perjuryswirled around the case, while Hogan cast himself asan abused middleman in the proceedings. If anyimpropriety occurred, he told the press, the wrong-ful acts had been arranged and supervised by hissuperiors. That coterie, in turn, included federaljudges in Chicago who, according to Hogan, weredeeply immersed in corruption themselves. One ofthe accused jurists, whose estimated net worthtopped $140 million in some stories, admitted underoath in an unrelated proceeding that he had not fileda valid income tax return in three decades. Nocharges were finally filed against Hogan, and despitevarious expressions of public outrage, all appealsfrom the convicted El Rukns were denied.

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EL SALVADORSPAIN conquered the Central American region ofmodern El Salvador in 1525 and ruled with typicalbrutality until September 1821. Numerous revolu-tions and border wars with neighbors consumedmost of the years from independence to 1931 when aseries of military juntas assumed control through1979. Civil war erupted in the 1970s between theruling right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance(ARENA) and a mixed bag of leftist groups spear-headed by the Farabundo Martí National LiberationFront (FMLN). Despite an abysmal record of humanrights violations, “moderate” dictator José NapoleónDuarte (1984–89) received massive infusions of U.S.military aid, justified by President RONALD REAGAN

as an attempt “to halt the infiltration into the Ameri-cas, by terrorists and by outside interference, andthose who aren’t just aiming at El Salvador, but, Ithink, are aiming at the whole of Central and possi-bly later South America and, I’m sure, eventuallyNorth America.” Still, despite rural massacres andpervasive use of torture, Duarte failed to crush theinsurgents, and he was replaced in 1989 by ARENAstrongman Alfredo Cristiani. A cease-fire agreementleaving ARENA firmly in command of the govern-ment was signed in January 1992 after 12 years ofwar and 75,000 deaths. In 2000 President FranciscoFlores approved construction of a U.S. military basein El Salvador, presumably to interdict COCAINE

shipments bound for North America.

EMPRISE CorporationOn June 2, 1976, Arizona journalist Don Bolles wasmortally wounded in Phoenix when a bomb explodedbeneath his car. As bystanders rushed to help him,Bolles gasped out, “They finally got me. The MAFIA.Emprise. Find John Adamson.” By the time he diedon June 13, a crack team of reporters was pursuingthe story that led Bolles to his death. The Mafia wasalready well known, represented in Arizona since1946 by the Detroit-based Licavoli family. Bolles hadbeen investigating Licavoli ties to an illegal racingwire service and to Kemper Marley, Arizona’s topliquor dealer. Stories written by Bolles that exposedMarley’s role as supplier of booze served at variousdog-racing tracks had forced Marley to resign fromthe State Racing Commission. Emprise Corporationmanaged those dog tracks, but as reporters soon dis-covered, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Emprise began in 1915 with brothers Charles,Louis, and Marvin Jacobs selling peanuts and pop-corn at theaters and minor-league ballparks in Buf-falo, New York. By 1930 they were major-leagueconcessionaires, expanding to racetracks in 1939 andairport restaurants two years later. Such rapidadvancement in mob-dominated entertainmentspheres came with a price tag. In 1966–67 Lou Jacobs“loaned” $712,000 to Michigan Mafiosi AnthonyZerilli and Anthony Giordano (owners of a racetrackwhere Emprise ran concessions), and the mobstersused that money to buy an illegal hidden interest in aLAS VEGAS casino. Lou Jacobs was dead by 1972when a federal jury in Los Angeles convicted Empriseof conspiracy and slapped the corporation with a$10,000 fine. That was pocket change to CEOJeremy Jacobs, who expanded the firm’s range intonational flea-market concessions four years later.Moved by adverse publicity from the Bolles bombing,Jeremy Jacobs changed the company’s name toDelaware North Companies and sought a presiden-tial pardon from President Jimmy Carter in 1977,claiming that the firm had severed all underworld ties.Carter refused to oblige, but the snub proved nohandicap to business. In 1992, under PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush, Delaware North inked a lucra-tive contract to manage concessions in U.S. nationalparks. By 2001 the company ranked 153rd in theForbes Private 500, with an estimated $1.5 billion inannual revenue. One of Delaware North’s many sub-sidiaries is Sportsystems, the largest owner–operatorof parimutuel facilities in the United States. Estimatesof Jerry Jacobs’s personal net worth average $400million, but reporters note that “because his businessis so private, the estimate may be low.”

Privacy also surrounds the financial and politicalconnections of Emprise/Delaware North. Few casualobservers know that the firm is a major stockholder inBally Manufacturing, world’s largest producer ofcasino slot machines. In Arkansas, whereEmprise/Delaware runs dog tracks, the firm and fam-ily were once substantial donors to Governor BillClinton. The family’s Marine Midland Bank of Buf-falo, New York, also has extensive business ties to theBush family—and, according to various Internet con-spiracy Web sites, with a “British and Chinese royalty-owned” bank in Hong Kong, directed by “the reputedNorth American chief of the Red Chinese SecretPolice.” (“He has a direct link by FAX to the WhiteHouse,” we are warned.) Meanwhile, speaking to the

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Boston Globe in 2001, disgruntled ex-employee LarryMoulter said of Jeremy Jacobs, “There’s no soul there.He runs his business and his life by the numbers.”

Emprise was never directly linked to the Bollesmurder case. Phoenix police theorized that KemperMarley sought revenge on Bolles, employing localcontractor Max Dunlap, who in turn hired grey-hound breeder John Adamson to plant the bomb(assisted by plumber James Robison). Adamsonpleaded guilty to second-degree murder on January15, 1977, accepting a 20-year prison term in returnfor testimony against Dunlap and Robison. At theirtrial in July 1977 Dunlap’s attorney fingered Phoenixlawyer Neal Roberts as the plot’s mastermind. OnNovember 6, 1977, both defendants were convictedof murdering Bolles and of plotting to kill two moreMarley enemies. Both were sentenced to die, but Ari-zona’s Supreme Court overturned their convictionsin February 1980. Charges against both men weredismissed in June 1980 when Adamson refused totestify at a second trial. Accordingly, Adamson’s pleabargain was revoked, and a jury convicted him offirst-degree murder in October 1980. His death sen-tence was overturned in May 1986, then reinstated,and then reversed again in December 1988. Newmurder charges were filed against Robison inNovember 1989 and against Dunlap in December1980. They were granted separate trials, with Dun-lap convicted in April 1993 and sentenced to lifewith no parole for 25 years. Robison was acquittedin December 1993, despite admissions on the witnessstand that he asked a fellow inmate to murder JohnAdamson. In 1995 he received a five-year sentencefor soliciting criminal violence. Adamson wasreleased into the federal witness protection programon August 12, 1996. Kemper Marley, never chargedin the case, died of cancer on June 25, 1990.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; CLINTON, BILL AND

HILLARY.

ENDOVASCULAR TechnologiesEndoVascular Technologies Incorporated is a sub-sidiary of Guidant Corporation, based in MenloPark, California. One of its major products was afabric graft that was surgically inserted through inci-sions in the human groin to reinforce weak spots orbulges in the aorta. Roughly one-third of the devicesshipped by the manufacturer malfunctioned beforethe product was recalled and corrected in 2001,

claiming at least 12 lives and forcing dozens of otherpatients to undergo emergency surgery to repair thedefects. Federal law required EndoVascular to informthe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of seriousmalfunctions in its product, and while the firmreported 172 cases, it illegally concealed 2,628 oth-ers. Company sales representatives also entered oper-ating rooms and coached surgeons through untested,unapproved procedures to break off part of thedefective device and extract it from various patients.When a subject died during one such operation,seven employees sent an anonymous letter to theFDA, triggering an investigation that led to a recallof the product in early 2001.

While the product was reportedly corrected andreturned to the market in 2001 with FDA approval,EndoVascular would not escape prosecution for itsoffenses. In filing charges, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryandeclared, “Because of the company’s conduct, thou-sands of patients underwent surgeries without know-ing the risks they faced, and their doctors—throughno fault of their own—were unprepared to deal withthose risks.” In July 2003 EndoVascular Technolo-gies pleaded guilty on 10 felony charges, includingselling a “misbranded” medical device and making afalse statement to the Food and Drug Administra-tion. The firm agreed to pay a fine of $92.4 millionto settle the case. Parent company Guidant (a 1990sspin off of the Eli Lilly PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY)declared $612 million in profits for 2002 on totalsales of $3.2 billion.

ENRONFounded in 1985 the Enron corporation began totrade natural-gas commodities four years later andlaunched the first global commodity-trading Web sitein November 1999. Nine months later Enron chair-man Kenneth Lay contributed more than $290,000 tothe campaign fund of GOP presidential candidateGeorge W. Bush. It came as no surprise, therefore,when Lay was appointed as an advisor to President-elect Bush’s transition team in January 2001, whileEnron backer Patrick Wood III became Bush’s chair-man of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.Top Bush advisor Karl Rove waited another sixmonths to divest himself of Enron stock worth$100,000, all the while meeting with Enron officialsto plan the new administration’s energy policy(including tax cuts and expanded drilling in protected

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areas). On October 16, 2001, following conversa-tions between Lay and Commerce Secretary DonaldEvans, Enron stunned investors with a report of $618million in losses and a $1.2 billion reduction in share-holder equity. The SEC launched an investigation intorumored conflicts of interest, while the INTERNAL

REVENUE SERVICE revealed Enron’s $50,000 campaigncontribution to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

The scandal spread from there. In November 2001Enron filed documents with the SEC “revising” itsfinancial statements for the past five years to accountfor $586 million in losses. A month later the com-pany filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, dis-missed 4,000 employees and borrowed $1.5 billionto keep operating while in bankruptcy. The JUSTICE

DEPARTMENT announced a criminal investigation ofEnron on January 10, 2002, but Attorney GeneralJOHN ASHCROFT recused himself on grounds thatEnron had donated $57,499 to his Missouri politicalcampaigns in 1999–2000. Twelve days later an ex-Enron employee revealed mass shredding of docu-ments after the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) investigation was announced in October 2001.Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents began topursue that claim on January 23, 2002, and Ken Lay

resigned as Enron’s CEO the same day. On January25 former Enron vice chairman J. Clifford Baxterwas found dead in his car, an apparent suicide.

With Attorney General Ashcroft sidelined, the Jus-tice Department instructed President Bush to preserveall documents related to his dealings with Enron, andWhite House aides agreed. Skeptics questionedwhether the warning came too late, but Senate inves-tigators were preoccupied with Kenneth Lay and hisassociates as past and present Enron executivesclaimed their Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid giv-ing testimony. The White House also favored stonysilence, prompting the General Accounting Office tofile an unprecedented lawsuit against Vice PresidentDICK CHENEY on February 23, 2002, demandingrelease of documents detailing his involvement withEnron and President Bush’s energy task force. (At thiswriting, in January 2003, Cheney was appealingcourt orders to release those documents.) In March2002 Army Secretary Thomas White—another ex-Enron executive, holder of 200,000 companyshares—publicly denied any improper contact withEnron colleagues; at the same time, he released a listof 44 previously undisclosed phone calls to Enronofficials preceding sale of his stock.

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A panel of legal witnesses is sworn in to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on the financial collapse of Enron Corporation, focusing on the inside and outside legal advice the company received concerning its business conduct. (Ron Sachs/Corbis)

In April 2002, while President Bush belatedlycalled for imprisonment of dishonest corporate exec-utives, the House passed accounting reform legisla-tion including stricter oversight and disclosureprovisions. August 2002 saw the first Enron convic-tion as former executive Michael Kopper pleadedguilty to money laundering and wire fraud. Threeweeks later, on September 13, 2002, three Britishbankers were indicted on wire-fraud charges relatedto the Enron case. Andrew Fastow, Enron’s one-timechief financial officer, was indicted by a federal grandjury on October 31, 2002. His charges included 78counts of wire and mail fraud, money laundering,and conspiracy to inflate Enron’s profits.

Revelation of Enron’s illicit activities continued in2003. On February 4 former Enron trader JeffreyRichter pleaded guilty on two felony counts in Cali-fornia, including conspiracy to commit wire fraudand lying to the FBI. Prosecutors charged that Richter“was in charge of trading schemes that defraudedCalifornia consumers” by manipulating the state’senergy market and falsifying information, therebycreating a near-catastrophic power shortage in Cali-fornia during 2000, while Enron’s profits increased15-fold. (State authorities are seeking an $8.9 billionrefund in that price-gouging conspiracy.) On March13, 2003, two more former Enron executives—KevinHoward and Michael Krautz—surrendered inHouston to face charges of securities fraud, wirefraud, and lying to the FBI. The SEC further chargedthe pair with falsifying records and quarterly reportson an Internet video scheme that authorities describeas “a sham from its inception.” On May 1, 2003, thenumber of Enron indictees reached 19 as federal pros-ecutors in Houston charged seven more defendants(including Andrew Fastow’s wife) with various countsin the same “pump-and-dump” stock manipulationplot. With trials and additional charges pending, itremains to be seen whether Enron’s convoluted plotswill further stain the Bush White House.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

ENVIRONMENTAL Protection Agency (EPA)Created by President RICHARD NIXON in 1971, theEPA has been a source of controversy ever since. Inthe agency’s own words, it was launched because“[T]he federal government was not structured tomake a coordinated attack on the pollutants thatharm human health and degrade the environment.

The EPA was assigned the daunting task of repairingthe damage already done to the natural environmentand to establish new criteria to guide Americans inmaking a cleaner environment a reality.” Its firstchief under Nixon, William Ruckleshaus, laterserved briefly as director of the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI) and as deputy attorney general(fired by Nixon for refusal to collaborate in theWATERGATE cover-up).

While any agency started by Nixon is naturallysuspect, the EPA ostensibly has no mission other thanprotecting Earth’s environment and thus safeguardinghuman life. In that pursuit, however, it frequentlyclashes with the same polluting industries that havesupported far-right groups in the United States sincethe turn of the last century. It is no surprise, therefore,that various MILITIA groups and factions of the “WISE

USE” MOVEMENT denounce the EPA as a tool of ZOG,COMMUNISM, or the NEW WORLD ORDER. Coopera-tion between the EPA and various branches of theUNITED NATIONS provide further “evidence” of somevast, vague conspiracy afoot, and criticism of the EPAis further encouraged by conservative leaders (likeGeorge W. Bush) who favor OIL drilling in nationalparks, relaxation of air pollution standards, andother profit-minded schemes to roll back conserva-tion efforts that span 30 years. Another sore pointwith far-right conspiracists is the EPA’s friendly rela-tionship with private environmentalist groups such asthe Sierra Club. As one anonymous Internet scribesummarizes the menace:

It’s really no surprise that many millions of tax dollars

go out in grants each year to the very environmental

groups wanting every little critter and bug in the world

protected by law. In fact, it is quite common in Wash-

ington for a department or agency to give funds to pri-

vate, nonprofit groups, which then turn around and

spend the money to advocate and lobby for more funds

for the granting agency. That taxpayer funded a merry-

go-round is the big joke among eco-whackos. They got

us coming and going.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

EQUATORIAL GuineaDescribed by some modern observers as Africa’sworst dictatorship, Equatorial Guinea was once thedomain of forest-dwelling Pygmies. Portuguese

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invaders seized control in the 17th century but cededtheir colony to SPAIN in the 18th century. Britainbriefly supplanted Spanish rule (1827–44) beforeMadrid regained control, ruling Spanish Guinea untilindependence was granted in October 1968. Presi-dent Francisco Nguema—a self-described “UniqueMiracle”—ranks among Africa’s worst despots of alltime. In 1971 a UNITED NATIONS report declared thathis regime was “characterized by abandonment of allgovernment functions except internal security, whichwas accomplished by terror; this led to the death orexile of up to one-third of the population.” In August1979 Nguema was finally ousted and executed by anephew, Lt. Col. Teodoro Obiang, who remains inpower today. Obiang retains many of his uncle’s bru-tal methods, but he has slowly modernized thenation’s economy, aided by discovery of off-shore OIL

in the 1990s. As recently as 2002, 68 of Obiang’spolitical opponents received stiff prison terms oncharges of plotting to overthrow the government.

ERITREAEritrea was part of ETHIOPIA until the 16th centurywhen it was occupied by troops of the OttomanEmpire. Italian troops captured a strip of coastalland in 1885, and the Treaty of Uccialli (1889) gaveITALY sovereign power in part of the region. Romenamed the land after the Red Sea, Mare Erythraeum,and ruled until Britain captured the land in 1941.The territory was administered as a UNITED NATIONS

trust until September 1952 when it was federatedwith Ethiopia. November 1962 saw Eritrea formallydeclared an Ethiopian province, but a war of inde-pendence instantly erupted, dragging on for the next32 years. A coup toppled Ethiopia’s dictatorship in1991, and soldiers of the Eritrean People’s LiberationFront soon captured the Eritrean capital (Asmara). In1993 a referendum on Eritrean independence pollednear-unanimous votes for a break with Ethiopia.Ethiopia recognized Eritrea’s sovereignty in May1993, but the new era of cooperation was short-

lived. In May 1998 border disputes exploded intomilitary conflict, claiming an estimated 80,000 lives.It remains to be seen if either side will respect thenew border established by an international boundarycommission on April 2002.

ETHIOPIAOriginally called Abyssinia, Ethiopia was home tothe oldest known ancestors of Homo sapiens. It isalso sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest state with a royaldynasty claiming direct descent from King Solomon.Ethiopia’s influence peaked in the fifth century beforeit was weakened by feudal wars and isolated by therising tide of Islam. Emperor Menelik II routed anItalian invasion in 1896 and thereafter expanded hisnation by conquest. A cousin of Menelik’s, TafariMakonnen, was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I in1930 (and subsequently worshiped as a living god bymembers of the Rastafarian sect). ITALY invadedEthiopia a second time in October 1935 and droveSelassie into exile seven months later. He returned topower at the end of World War II and sparked a bit-ter 40-year conflict by incorporating ERITREA as partof Ethiopia in 1952. Selassie was deposed in Septem-ber 1974, with control of the government seized by aProvisional Military Administrative Council (alsoknown as the Derg). In 1977 Lt. Col. Mengistu HaileMariam assumed dictatorial power, waging ruthless“red terror” against Eritrean rebels and other dis-senters. Thousands were killed before the Soviet col-lapse of 1991 deprived Mengistu of his primarysupport, and he was driven from office. In April1996, 68 former military leaders were tried oncharges that included genocide and crimes againsthumanity. New fighting soon erupted betweenEthiopia and independent Eritrea (1998–2000) andcost another 80,000 lives before a cease-fire wasdeclared. Meanwhile successive cycles of droughtand famine have made Ethiopia an internationalsymbol of natural disasters compounded by humans’inhumanity to fellow beings.

FALSE Memory SyndromeThe label False Memory Syndrome (FMS) wascoined in 1993 as a means of discrediting variouspsychologists (and their patients) who wereinvolved in therapy related to childhood sexualabuse. FMS believers maintain, in essence, thatwhile some memories of traumatic events may beunconsciously suppressed on rare occasions, belat-edly “recovered” memories of childhood molesta-tion are nearly always “confabulated,” typicallywith the assistance of therapists who are promotingsome personal agenda. Despite its scientific sound,FMS remains unrecognized as a “syndrome” todayby the American Psychological Association (APA)and its definitive Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.Critics note that most FMS proponents are eitheraccused child molesters or well-paid professionaldefense witnesses, suggesting that they may besomewhat biased. Indeed at a 1993 conference onmultiple personality disorder, Dr. Richard Lowen-stein (a psychiatrist at the University of MarylandMedical School) denounced the fledgling FalseMemory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) as “media-directed, dedicated to putting out disinformation.”Some of the foundation’s past and present leadersinclude:

Peter and Pamela Freed, who founded the FMSFafter their daughter, University of Oregon psy-chology professor Jennifer Freed, accused Peter

of molesting her throughout childhood. Jen-nifer notes that her father “told various peoplethat I was brain damaged,” while her motherenlisted Dr. Harold Lief (her personal therapist,later an FMSF board member) to convince Jen-nifer that her memories were false. “Heexplained to me,” Jennifer recalls, “that he didnot believe I was abused. At times I am flabber-gasted that my memory is considered ‘false,’and my alcoholic father’s memory is consideredrational and sane.” No criminal charges wereever filed against the Freeds.

Dr. Martin Orne, a colleague of Lief’s at the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania and a fellow FMSFboard member, was also a participant in MIND-CONTROL experiments carried out by the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) in the1960s. Conspiracist Alex Constantine and oth-ers view Orne’s FMSF involvement with deepsuspicion, charging that the CIA itself perpe-trates child abuse and creates cults for varioussinister reasons.

Ralph Underwager, another founding FMSFmember and longtime professional defensewitness in molestation cases, “voluntarily” leftthe foundation’s board of advisors followingan interview with the Dutch pedophile journalPaidika, in which he stated that pedophiliawas not only a “responsible” lifestyle but also“part of God’s will.” Underwager’s wife (and

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coparticipant in that interview) remained onthe foundation’s board after his departure.

Richard Ofshe, a psychology professor and professional defense witness in criminal cases,suffered damage to his credibility when hispublisher falsely advertised him as a PulitzerPrize winner. (Ofshe was never nominated,much less awarded a Pulitzer.) With fellowFMSF board member Margaret Singer, Ofsheonce filed a $30-million lawsuit against theAPA under federal racketeering statutes, claim-ing that APA spokespersons used “repeatedlies” to “discredit them and impair theircareers.” The case was dismissed.

Elizabeth Loftus, a psychology and FMSF boardmember, has served as a paid defense witnessfor such defendants as serial killer Ted Bundy,“Hillside Strangler” Angelo Buono, and Seattlemass murderer Willie Mak, assuring juries thateyewitnesses to the defendants’ crimes wereeither lying or the victims of “false” memories.(Loftus now acknowledges her “error” in thosecases.) A New York Times review of her mem-oirs suggested that “Her testimony would beless controversial if she could distinguishbetween the innocent and the guilty and reserveher help for the former.” In April 1983 Loftusfaced a lawsuit from U.S. Navy Lt. Nicole Taus(against whom Loftus testified in a child-cus-tody case), accusing Loftus and other parties of“invasion of privacy, defamation, libel per se,negligent and intentional infliction of emotionaldistress and damages.”

There is no doubt that some defendants in divorceand/or criminal cases have been falsely accused ofvarious crimes. Whether the false accusations weremalicious or “sincere” (that is, the product of deludedmemories) is a matter for courts and qualified psy-chotherapists to decide. At the same time, organiza-tions created by and for accused criminals and theirhired defenders are natural targets of suspicion—particularly when they recruit spokespersons linkedto well-documented CIA conspiracies. The contro-versy in this area will doubtlessly continue.

FARBEN IndustriesFor decades, I.G. Farben was an industrial colossusof GERMANY and the world at large, dominating

much of Earth’s chemical business through a formi-dable array of patents. Its maze of international car-tels included such giants as Kuhlmann (in FRANCE),Imperial Chemical Industries (Great Britain), Monte-cantini (ITALY), Aussiger Verein (Czechoslovakia),Boruta (POLAND), and Mitsui (JAPAN). In the UnitedStates, its proud partners included DUPONT, DowChemical, and STANDARD OIL. Those prestigious U.S.firms were not put off by Farben’s collaboration withADOLF HITLER, and in some cases their trade contin-ued even during World War II in blatant defiance offederal statutes.

Hitler despised Farben for its international charac-ter, but he dared not offend the masters of a chemicalempire whose products included synthetics of oil,rubber, nitrates, and various fibers, along with vac-cines, sera, and a range of medicines. Before war’send, Farben would also supply the THIRD REICH withmuch of its gasoline, rocket fuel, and the poison gasused to carry out Hitler’s “final solution to the Jew-ish question” in the HOLOCAUST. Even before Hitler’srise to power, Farben’s influence on German politicswas so profound that Gustave Stresemann, chancel-lor and foreign minister during the Weimar Republic,once said “Without I.G. and coal, I can have no for-eign policy.” In the wake of World War II, Alliedinvestigators preparing briefs for the NuremburgWAR CRIMES tribunal would say, “Without I.G.’simmense productive facilities, its far-reachingresearch, varied technical experience and overall con-centration of economic power, Germany would nothave been in the position to start its aggressive war inSeptember 1939.”

Germany’s defeat revealed Farben’s complicity inNazi war crimes ranging from slave labor to full-blown genocide. Twenty-four of the conglomerate’sexecutives were indicted for war crimes, branded asthe “Devil’s chemists.” Defendant Max Brügge-mann was severed from the case due to illness,while the other 23 defendants faced trial on August27, 1947. The proceedings consumed 11 months,resulting in a mixed verdict on July 30, 1948. Tenof the defendants were acquitted on all charges; theremainder were convicted on various counts andreceived prison terms ranging from one to eightyears. Most of Farben’s assets were seized at war’send, but its shares were traded on the German stockexchange until 1952 when the firm was finally liq-uidated. Even that was not really the end, however:In 2003 while most of Germany’s leading industries

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contributed DM10 billion to a much-belated fundfor compensation of surviving slave-labor victims,Farben’s trustees remained tight fisted and defiant.On September 17, 2003, chief trustee Otto Bern-hardt announced that a possible buyer had beenfound for the company’s property portfolio, whichmakes up the bulk of its remaining DM21 million($10 million) of assets. If and when the sale wasapproved and completed, Farben would finallycease to exist.

FASCISMFascism ranks (with COMMUNISM) as one of the“isms” that generated global turmoil during the 20thcentury, producing vast carnage around the world.With its variant form, NATIONAL SOCIALISM, fascismsparked a series of events that lit the fuse for WorldWar II and that continue causing grief for countlessvictims to the present day. In essence fascism is a far-right ideology that places loyalty to “nation” (typi-cally defined in racial/cultural terms) above any othersense of duty or obligation. It champions the triumphof a new “elite,” motivated by a charismatic leaderand supported by brute force to crush opponents(broadly including socialists, feminists, gays, paci-fists, and a broad range of racial/religious minori-ties). While fascist regimes may vary somewhat intheir mode of operation, they are typically known for belligerent militarism, overt favoritism for theMILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, curtailment of civilrights, simple-minded scapegoating, jingoistic poli-tics, and general xenophobia. An obsession with“national security” often extends to aggressive mili-tary action in the guise of “self-defense,” includingfabrication of “threats” and “attacks” by smaller,weaker nations.

ITALY was the first nation to adopt a fascist formof government in 1922 under Benito Mussolini.HUNGARY followed two years later with the rise ofthe brutal Iron Guard. ADOLF HITLER broughtNational Socialism to GERMANY in 1933 and threeyears later teamed with Mussolini to support Fran-cisco Franco’s right-wing revolt against SPAIN’srepublican government. Meanwhile, military leadersand the BLACK DRAGON SOCIETY imposed a form offascist rule in JAPAN. The Great Depression encour-aged extreme remedies to global privation, andbefore World War II erupted in 1939, fascist move-ments were active throughout Europe and North

America, while certain South American nations wereopenly sympathetic to Hitler.

It might be supposed that the massive destructionand loss of life suffered by so many nations by war’send in 1945 should have buried fascism forever.Sadly, such is not the case. Neo-fascist movementsthrive worldwide, taking advantage of racial animos-ity and economic difficulties to advance their ownagendas in nations as diverse as Canada, GreatBritain, the United States, Russia, and Poland. InGermany, where public advocacy of Nazi doctrinesor display of Nazi symbols was outlawed in 1946,multiple organizations openly agitate for institutionof a FOURTH REICH. Wherever they operate, a poten-tial for violence exists, ranging from individualassaults to acts of terrorism like the OKLAHOMA CITY

BOMBING of 1995. In the United States, fascist com-mingling with “all-American” groups such as the KU

KLUX KLAN has advanced to the point where manyKlansmen have abandoned their nominal faith inChristianity to pursue the Odinist faith of their sup-posed Nordic ancestors. On a broader scale somecritics charge that the United States itself has a kindof fascist government, obsessed with “homelanddefense,” prone to invading smaller nations for“defensive” reasons that later prove false, corruptalliances within the military-industrial realm, andtraditional support for brutal right-wing dictatorsthroughout the so-called Third World.

FATAHOrganized in 1956, Fatah served for many years asthe military arm of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Libera-tion Organization. A publication of January 1969described it as “the expression of the Palestinian peo-ple and of its will to free its land from ZIONIST colo-nization to recover its national identity.” To that endand depending on the observer’s point of view, Fatahguerrillas engaged in numerous acts of resistance orTERRORISM against ISRAEL. At its peak strength in thelate 1960s and early 1970s, Fatah had an estimated10,000 to 15,000 men under arms, supported bycontributions from various Middle Eastern nations.In 1970 after Palestinian guerrillas were driven fromJORDAN by King Hussein’s army, hard-core Fatahmembers organized the BLACK SEPTEMBER group tocarry out acts of vengeance. Fatah suffered anotherembarrassing defeat in August 1982 when Israeliinvaders drove Palestinians out of Lebanon, forcing

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them to scatter throughout the Arab world. As aresult, dissidents left Fatah to organize new groups,including the Popular Front for the Liberation ofPalestine and the Fatah Revolutionary Council. Itsrole in Middle Eastern violence declined steadilythereafter until Arafat was widely viewed (and frequently condemned by former comrades) as a“moderate” in the 1990s.

FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation (FBI)Prior to 1908 the U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT had nodetectives or enforcement agents of its own. Thoughcharged with prosecuting federal crimes, the attorneygeneral had to hire private investigators or borrowagents from the Treasury Department’s SECRET SERV-ICE. That practice was banned by Congress in 1907following various scandals that left Justice effectivelyneutered. Attorney General Charles BONAPARTE pro-posed creation of a small detective force in 1908, butCongress rejected the idea and refused funding.Undeterred by legality, Bonaparte waited for Con-gress to adjourn and then created the force on hisown with approval from President Theodore Roo-sevelt. When federal lawmakers returned from vaca-tion, they were outraged by Bonaparte’s arrogantaction, but they reluctantly permitted the small forceof “special agents” to survive.

The future FBI had no name until March 1909when it was christened the Bureau of Investigation.(Federal was added in 1935.) Its duties were initiallyconfined to solving crimes committed on federalproperty, but it received a boost in 1910 with pas-sage of the WHITE SLAVE Act. Ostensibly written tocrush organized prostitution, the new law in fact wasused primarily against private individuals, castingFBI agents as moral arbiters and filling their fileswith reams of potential blackmail ammunition. By1915 the bureau was actively (though illegally) pur-suing ANARCHISTS, “radicals,” and labor organizers,a practice codified by the Alien and Espionage Actsof 1917. One year later the bureau staged its firstmass arrests, as agents joined forces with right-wingvigilantes to jail thousands of alleged draft dodgersacross the country. (Only a handful of bona fide“slackers” were found.) In the wake of World War Iand RUSSIA’s revolution, FBI leaders helped whip upthe country’s first Red Scare and staged the PALMER

RAIDS, jailing thousands of suspected communistsand “enemy aliens.” (One of every thousand persons

arrested was later deported; the rest were releasedwithout charges or apologies.) When not castingdragnets, bureau agents were assigned by AttorneyGeneral HARRY DAUGHERTY to harass and frame U.S. Senators investigating the TEAPOT DOME scandaland other corrupt activities of President WARREN

HARDING’s “Ohio Gang.”By 1924 corruption within the Justice Department

was so notorious that Attorney General HarlanStone was appointed to clean house. Curiously hischoice for the FBI’s new director was J. EDGAR

HOOVER, a man deeply involved in the very corrup-tion and political persecution that Stone sought toerase. During the next 48 years, Hoover would runthe bureau as a one-man show (some said a “cult ofpersonality”), largely oblivious to orders from hisnominal superiors. His agents would commit asmany criminal offenses as they solved, includingthousands of illegal break-ins, wiretaps, and frame-ups as well as various acts of harassment that werecast in terms of “neutralizing” groups and individu-als that Hoover deemed “subversive.” In the 1930s

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Theodore Roosevelt, founder of the FBI (Library of Congress)

bureau agents (dubbed “G-men” by the FBI’s public-ity department) pursued small-time bandits and kid-nappers while ignoring organized crime. Indeed until1961 Hoover publicly insisted that the MAFIA did notexist. Some researchers claim the mob blackmailedHoover into selective blindness, holding photos ofthe FBI director in drag at gay parties, while othersnote his lifelong (very profitable) friendship with amotley collection of gamblers, bootleggers, and cor-rupt business people who shared his hatred for allthings liberal or “Red.”

In the 1950s, driven by obsessive enmity againstany form of social or political dissent, Hooverlaunched the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO campaigns, aregimen of surveillance and “dirty tricks” thatincluded anonymous letters and phone calls, burgla-ries, false arrests, fabrication of evidence, andfinally incitement to murder. Agents were com-mended (and sometimes received “merit pay”) forstirring up violent conflict among target groupssuch as the BLACK PANTHER PARTY and the NATION

OF ISLAM. In one bizarre scheme, dubbed “Opera-tion Hoodwink,” G-men tried (in vain) to start ashooting war between the Mafia and the Commu-nist Party. In the 1960s, under pressure from Presi-dent LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, Hoover reluctantlyused similar tactics against the KU KLUX KLAN

(although he still suppressed critical evidence in theBAPBOMB case and other racist crimes).

Hoover’s death (some say murder) in May 1972might have permitted some change for the better atFBI headquarters, but President RICHARD NIXON sawthe bureau as a potential tool for extending his per-sonal power (or at least deflecting prosecution for theWATERGATE conspiracy), and a half-century ofHoover’s influence left most high-ranking FBI offi-cials indoctrinated with his own peculiar standardsof “justice.” Directors Clarence Kelley (1973–78)and WILLIAM WEBSTER (1978–87) conducted theirown illegal covert campaigns against dissidentgroups including the AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT

and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of ElSalvador. Director William Sessions (1987–93) wasfired by President Bill CLINTON when he refused tostep down over charges of abusing his authority.Replacement Louis Freeh (1993–2001) supervisedinvestigation of a series of disasters including theWORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING, the OKLAHOMA

CITY BOMBING, and persistent charges of evidencetampering at the FBI’s laboratory. Director Robert

Mueller (2001– ) has thus far been an active partic-ipant with Attorney General JOHN ASHCROFT inundermining civil liberties through endless “terroristalerts” and the USA PATRIOT ACT. Ashcroft surprisedhis critics by resigning after President Bush wonreelection in November 2004.

See also COMMUNISM.

FEDERAL Emergency Management Agency(FEMA)President Jimmy Carter created FEMA in July 1979by means of an executive order (No. 12148) mergingvarious disaster-relief and civil-defense groups into asingle entity. With director John Macy at the helm,FEMA began to develop an Integrated EmergencyManagement System including “direction, controland warning systems which are common to the fullrange of emergencies from small isolated events tothe ultimate emergency—war.” In the quarter-century since its creation, FEMA has confronted afull range of crises, ranging from hurricanes andearthquakes to the Cuban refugee crisis of 1980–81,toxic contamination at Love Canal, the Three MileIsland nuclear accident, and the PENTTBOM attacksof September 11, 2001. Along the way, it has alsoinspired no end of far-right conspiracy theories.

It is sometimes difficult to know whether fringeconspiracists are fabricating “evidence” or they aresimply confused. Various Internet Web sites, forinstance, cite erroneous numbers for Carter’s execu-tive order establishing FEMA. One gives the numberas 11051 (an emergency management order issued byPresident John Kennedy, 18 years before FEMA wasborn) and then “quotes” nonexistent languageempowering FEMA to carry out “the SEIZURE OFALL AMERICAN PEOPLE for work forces underfederal supervision, including SPLITTING UP OFFAMILIES if the government has to.” ConspiracistHarry V. Martin calls FEMA “the most powerfulorganization in the United States,” adding that:

Some people have referred to it as the “secret govern-

ment” of the United States. It is not an elected body; it

does not involve itself in public disclosures; and it even

has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars.

After noting that FEMA’s responsibilities cover“many new disasters [sic] including urban forest fires[sic], home heating emergencies, refugee situations,

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urban riots, and emergency planning for nuclear andtoxic incidents,” Martin goes on to claim that:

Three times since 1984, FEMA stood on the threshold

of taking control of the nation. Once under President

REAGAN in 1984, and twice under President Bush in

1990 and 1992. But under those three scenarios, there

was not a sufficient crisis to warrant risking Martial

Law. Most experts on the subject of FEMA and Martial

Law insisted that a crisis has to appear dangerous

enough for the people of the United States before they

would tolerate or accept complete government

takeover.

The “experts on FEMA,” like those who call itAmerica’s “secret government,” remain anonymous.Two more specific FEMA conspiracy theoriesinvolved malicious tampering with statistics in theJanuary 1994 Northridge (California) earthquakeand claims that FEMA response teams stood ready inNew York City the night before “9/11.” In the firstcase, conspiracists claim that FEMA and the U.S.Geological Survey falsified the Northridge quake’smagnitude, reporting it as 6.7 on the Richter scale,rather than 8.0. The reason: to save Washington bil-lions of dollars in emergency relief funds. In fact,while various other seismologists confirmed theUSGS reading of 6.7, the complaints stemmed froman erroneous rumor making the rounds in Los Ange-les. According to that story, FEMA was required tohand out home-reconstruction grants (rather thanloans) in the event of an earthquake measured at 8.0or greater. Since no such rule exists, in fact, avoidingit becomes superfluous.

The 9/11 conspiracy theory evolved from a state-ment by FEMA spokesman Tom Kenney, who toldnewsman Dan Rather on September 13, 2001,“We’re currently one of the first teams that wasdeployed to support the city of New York in this dis-aster. We arrived late Monday night [10 September]and went right into action on Tuesday morning [11September].” Such a statement suggests advancenotice of the terrorist attacks, and thus raises thequestion of U.S. government complicity. FEMA’sanswer, when it came, was simple and direct: “TomKenney simply mixed up his days of the week, saying‘Monday’ when he meant ‘Tuesday’ and ‘Tuesday’when he meant ‘Wednesday.’” Bland denial carriedno weight with conspiracists, but a reporter with theBoston Herald called Kenney’s home on Cape Cod

and spoke to his wife, who confirmed that Kenneydid not leave for New York until September 11. Shealso “added wryly that it was typical of her husbandto confuse dates.”

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

FIJIFiji consists of 332 islands in the South Pacific,located 1,900 miles east of Australia. Only 110 of theislands are inhabited, but the largest have boastedhuman populations from the second millennium B.C.In 1874 Fijian chiefs “offered” their islands to Eng-land, and the British Crown graciously accepted.Large-scale cultivation of sugarcane began in the1880s with more than 60,000 indentured (slave)laborers imported from INDIA during the next 40years. De facto slavery was abolished in 1920, but theIndians remained, and racial conflict with indigenousFijians is a recurring theme of the archipelago’s mod-ern history. Fiji was granted independence in October1970. In October 1987 military leaders staged a coupto forestall election of a coalition government domi-nated by Indians. Ensuing waves of ethnic discrimina-tion caused thousands of Indian-Fijians to leaveduring the next decade. A new constitution providedfor a multiethnic cabinet in 1998, and Fiji’s firstIndian prime minister took office the following year,but racial tensions endured, fueled by economic prob-lems. In May 2000 soldiers invaded Parliament andheld it captive for two months, demanding a return togovernment control by ethnic Fijians, but the insur-rectionists were captured in July and charged withtreason. Coup leader George Speight was sentencedto death in February 2002, but the sentence was latercommuted to life imprisonment.

FINDERSOn February 5, 1987, police in Tallahassee, Florida,received an anonymous telephone complaint thattwo “well-dressed men” were behaving strangelywith six unkempt children in a local park. Officersarrived on the scene to find the children millingabout a blue van with Virginia license plates, appar-ently supervised by Washington, D.C., residentsDouglas Ammerman and Michael Houlihan. Themen refused to answer any questions, instead pre-senting officers with a card bearing instructions on

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the Fifth Amendment’s right to silence. The children,a mixed group of boys and girls age two throughseven, proved more talkative. They claimed to be enroute to Mexico for enrollment at a school for“smart kids.” Under questioning, the kids could notidentify themselves or their custodians. They pro-fessed total ignorance of such common devices as toi-lets and telephones, explaining that they werecompelled to live outdoors and received food only asa reward for pleasing their keepers. Officers notedthat the children were unwashed, were withoutunderwear, and were covered with insect bites. Thevan contained maps, books, letters, and a foul-smelling mattress.

Ammerman and Houlihan were jailed on multi-ple child abuse charges, while Tallahassee policecontinued their investigation. U.S. Customs agentswere summoned on suspicion that the prisonersmight be involved in child pornography. In custody,Ammerman and Houlihan claimed they were thechildren’s teachers in transit to Mexico where theyplanned to erect “a school for brilliant children.”Within hours of the arrest, detectives in Washingtonphoned their Florida counterparts, relating theirsuspicion that the prisoners and the children mightbe involved with “a cult group” called the Finders.Washington police had obtained search warrantsfor two local properties owned by the group, andthey invited customs agents to join in the search onFebruary 6. Affidavits filed in support of the war-rants included an informant’s statement “describing‘blood rituals’ and sexual orgies involving children,and an as yet unsolved murder in which the Findersmay be involved.”

The search proceeded as scheduled on February6, 1987. The evidence collected included a stockpileof photos, many of them nudes, “at least one ofwhich was a photo of a child ‘on display’ andappearing to accent the child’s genitals.” One photoalbum contained:

a series of photos of adults and children dressed in

white sheets participating in a “blood ritual.” The ritual

centered around the execution of at least two goats.

The photos portrayed the execution, disembowelment,

skinning and dismemberment of the goats at the hands

of the children. This included the removal of the testes

of a male goat, the discovery of a female goat’s

“womb” and the “baby goats” inside the womb, and

the presentation of a goat’s head to one of the children.

Also seized were “numerous documents whichdescribed explicit sexual conduct between the mem-bers of the community known as Finders,” largequantities of children’s clothes and toys, and“numerous files relating to activities of the organi-zation in different parts of the world.” (One filebore the label “Pentagon Break-in.”) According to aCustoms report on the raid, “Cursory examinationof the documents revealed detailed instructions forobtaining children for unspecified purposes. Theinstructions included the impregnation of femalemembers of the community known as the Finders,purchasing children, trading, and kidnapping.” In a“computer room,” the raiders found a detailedsummary of the Tallahassee arrests, while “otherdocuments identified interests in high-tech transfersto the United Kingdom, numerous properties underthe control of the Finders, a keen interest in terror-ism, explosives, and the evasion of law enforce-ment.” One of the properties contained “a largelibrary, two kitchens, a sauna, hot-tub, and a ‘videoroom.’ The video room seemed to be set up as anindoctrination center.”

The case seemed promising, even potentiallyexplosive, but no charges were ever filed against theFinders. On April 2, 1987, Washington policeadvised customs agents that “the investigation intothe activity of the Finders had become a CIA internalmatter. The [Washington police] report has been clas-sified SECRET and was not available for review.”Customs was further informed “that the FBI hadwithdrawn from the investigation several weeksprior and that the FBI Foreign Counter IntelligenceDivision had directed [Washington police] not toadvise the FBI Washington Field Office of anythingthat had transpired.” In short, as Customs summa-rized the case, “No further information will be avail-able. No further action will be taken.” In the wordsof one Tallahassee detective, “They dropped this caselike a hot rock.”

What happened? JUSTICE DEPARTMENT investiga-tors posed that question in December 1993 with theannouncement of an “ongoing investigation” into“unresolved matters” surrounding the case. Chiefamong those questions was the record of interferenceby the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. CIA head-quarters predictably dismissed the notion as “hog-wash,” blaming it on “a simple mix-up with D.C.police.” Their only link to the Finders, agencyspokespersons insisted, was the fact that “a firm that

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provided computer training to CIA officers alsoemployed several members of the Finders.” Floridacongressman Tom Lewis remained unconvinced, ask-ing reporters, “Could our own government havesomething to do with this Finders organization andturned their backs on these children? That’s what allthe evidence points to. And there is a lot of evidence.I can tell you this: We’ve got a lot of people scram-bling, and that wouldn’t be happening if there wasnothing here.”

Perhaps, but those questions remain unanswered.More than a decade after the Justice Departmentprobe was announced, no reports have been issued,no determinations published. Conspiracists speculatethat the Finders case is evidence of U.S. governmentcomplicity in founding cults and committing unspeci-fied acts of child abuse, perhaps including youthfulindoctrination into SATANISM. Federal spokespeopledenounce those claims as paranoid fear mongering,but they do nothing to explain what happened withthe Finders or why.

FLUORIDATED waterFluoride is a mineral that naturally occurs in mostwater supplies. In the early 1940s U.S. scientists dis-covered that fluoride may help prevent tooth decay,thereafter theorizing that fluoridation (“adjustment”of fluoride content in water by artificial introduction)might eliminate many dental problems nationwide.In 1945 officials of Grand Rapids, Michigan, volun-teered their city as a test site. Local water was fluori-dated to a level of one part per million, and an11-year study found that the cavity rate amongGrand Rapids children decreased by 60 percent.

The first conspiratorial alarms over fluoridationwere raised in the late 1950s by members of the far-right JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. Birchers believed thatfluoridation was a communist plot to destroy thebrains of American patriots and thus sap their will toresist when the United States was finally invaded (byRUSSIA, CHINA, the UNITED NATIONS, or whomever).No invasion was forthcoming, nor did droves offluoridated zombies suddenly desert the faith of theirfathers to champion a Red America (though, theoret-ically, every unwelcome trend in the past 50 yearscould presumably be traced to fluoride-damagedbrain cells). The furor did not halt fluoridation’sprogress, and by 1999, 140 million Americans livedin fluoridated communities, where cavities in chil-

dren decreased 20–40 percent and adult cavitiesdeclined 15–35 percent.

At the same time, another 80 million U.S. resi-dents live in communities where fluoridation hasbeen publicly rejected, and the controversy endures.In November 1999 impending fluoridation surfacedas the hot-button issue of local elections in Con-nersville, Indiana—the state’s largest nonfluoridatedcommunity—and safe-water activists worldwidehave rallied to question (or condemn) the fluorida-tion process. Perennial White House hopeful RalphNader has joined the chorus, declaring that if “theonly objective” of fluoridation is to prevent child-hood tooth decay, “you don’t expose all people tofluoridated water.” Sierra Club spokespeople speakof “valid concerns” surrounding fluoridated water,and the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) describesitself as “[a]n international coalition working to endwater fluoridation and alert the public to fluoride’shealth and environmental risks.” The FAN’s InternetWeb site makes the following points:

1. The vast majority of Western Europe hasrejected water fluoridation.

2. The fluoride chemical added to water is anunprocessed, industrial waste product from thepollution scrubbers of the phosphate fertilizerindustry.

3. A growing body of evidence indicates thatwater fluoridation is both ineffective andunnecessary.

4. Fluoride’s “benefits” are primarily topical, notsystemic. Thus, there is no need to swallow fluoride.

5. Two-thirds of U.S. communities, when giventhe chance to vote, have voted against fluorida-tion. More than 60 U.S. communities haverejected water fluoridation since 1999.

6. Excessive exposure to fluoride has been linkedto health problems, including arthritis, hipfracture, hypothyroidism, cancer, Alzheimer’sdisease, and reduced IQ.

7. Children are receiving too much fluoride today,not “too little.” There is a need to reduce, notincrease, current exposures.

8. As a result of excess exposure to fluoride, near-epidemic numbers of children are developing den-tal fluorosis (a poisoning of tooth-forming cells).

See also COMMUNISM.

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FORD Motor CompanyBorn in 1863 Henry Ford left his family’s Michiganfarm at age 16 and settled in Detroit, working as anapprentice in a machine shop. He built his firstmotor car (the “Tin Lizzie”) in 1896 and raisedenough money to start his own company three yearslater. Despite financial and technical setbacks, he per-severed and in 1907 earned $1.1 million in profitsfrom sales of his Model A car. Two years later hefocused on production of the Model T alone, refiningassembly-line production until complete assembly ofthe car required only 1 hour 33 minutes. By 1916 theModel T’s retail price had dropped to $360. Fordhad achieved a true success and became a hero in theprocess. One public-opinion poll ranked him as thethird-greatest man in history, trailing NAPOLEON

BONAPARTE and JESUS CHRIST. Ford was so rich thatwhen son Edsel turned 21, Ford took him to a pri-vate vault and gave him $1 million in gold. By 1940his company controlled more than 50 percent of theU.S. automobile market.

There was, however, a darker side to the Americandream-come-true. After his heavy investments inpacifism failed to halt World War I, Ford turned topolitics with a bizarre anti-Semitic slant. Beginning inMay 1918 his Dearborn Independent newspaperpublished a series of articles headlined “The Interna-tional Jew: The World’s Problem,” which repeatedand elaborated on charges contained in the fraudu-lent PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION. Ford’sdiatribes were later released in book form andenjoyed brisk sales, assisted by the KU KLUX KLAN

(and it remains a “classic” volume today among neo-Nazis and white supremacists). Ford donated moneyto ADOLF HITLER in the 1920s, and he was singledout for special praise in Mein Kampf, while a largephoto of Ford decorated Hitler’s Munich office. In1923 when rumors of a Ford presidential campaignsurfaced, Hitler told reporters, “I wish that I couldsend some of my shock troops to Chicago and otherbig American cities to help.”

Slapped with an epic libel suit, Ford apologizedfor the worst of his rants in 1927, blaming them onthe Independent’s staff, but his devotion to far-rightpolitics and Nazi-related business did not waver.Ford bitterly opposed the NEW DEAL of PresidentFranklin Roosevelt and opposed labor unions in anyform. When the United Automobile Workers (UAW)tried to organize Ford plants, the company hiredMAFIA goons to battle the union through a series of

bloody clashes that included multiple murderattempts on the UAW’s REUTHER BROTHERS. In 1940,after a meeting with Nazi agents, Ford and son Edselsupplied GERMANY with fleets of five-ton militarytrucks but refused to build aircraft engines forBritain. Edsel served on the board of FARBEN INDUS-TRIES’s U.S. branch and supervised Ford operationsin Nazi-occupied FRANCE. In 1941 Henry Fordresumed his public attacks on Jews, and after thePEARL HARBOR attack he hired Charles Lindbergh,spokesman for the AMERICA FIRST COMMITTEE, as acompany “consultant.” Ford continued businessdealings with the THIRD REICH throughout WorldWar II: A financial statement from occupied Franceshows a Ford profit of 58 million francs.

Ford died in 1943, but the company he foundedhas seen no end of controversy and alleged conspira-cies in recent years. In the 1960s defective fuel tanksin the Ford Pinto caused multiple deaths and

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Auto tycoon Henry Ford employed mobsters and Nazis in his long-running war against labor unions and “theInternational Jew.” (Author’s collection)

hideous injuries, highlighted by U.S. Senate investi-gations in 1965. Ford paid out millions to settle civillawsuits out of court and spent millions more onlobbying against tighter federal safety standards,until a full-blown scandal erupted in the 1970s.(Nearly 9,000 persons burned to death in fiery Pintocrashes by 1972.) Ford’s “cost-benefit analysis”determined that safety improvements would makePintos too expensive for the average buyer—anargument that persuaded successive secretaries oftransportation under Presidents RICHARD NIXON

and Gerald Ford (no relation to the family). Phrasedanother way, in the calculation of sales versus law-suits, Ford placed a $200,000 price tag on eachhuman life, while maimed burn victims were valuedat $67,000 per head.

Washington belatedly imposed new safety stan-dards in 1977, and Ford recalled a total of 1,530,000defective vehicles in June 1978, but further scandalswere waiting. In 2001 federal investigators claimedthat a lethal combination of Ford Explorer vehiclesand Firestone tires had caused “at least five” of 174deaths and 80 injuries under study from roll-overcrashes in four-wheel-drive sport-utility vehicles.Ford and Firestone loudly blamed each other, sever-ing a 95-year business relationship, while Ford ulti-mately paid out $3 billion to replace 13 million tireson its SUVs, citing “an unacceptable risk to our cus-tomers.” (Firestone countered with charges that theExplorer’s design contributed to explosive tire fail-ure.) A new lawsuit, filed in January 2003 by theNational Police Association (representing more than1,000 police unions nationwide), accused Ford ofnegligent failure to correct a Pinto-type problem thatcaused Crown Victoria police cars to explode inflames when struck from behind. Court papers citedthe recent death of New York State Trooper RobertAmbrose and seven similar cases, all blamed on theCrown Victoria’s fuel tank.

FOSTER,VinceArkansas attorney Vince Foster was a longtime inti-mate of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who served in 1993as their number-two White House counsel. At 1:00P.M. on July 20, 1993, Foster left his Washingtonoffice, advising one of his aides that he expected toreturn later and mentioning that he had left somecandy on his desk if the aide wanted it. Five hourslater Foster was found dead in Virginia’s Fort Marcy

Park, apparently killed by a gunshot fired into hisbrain through the mouth. U.S. Park Police quicklydeclared the death a suicide, but many naggingdoubts remain. They include (but are not limited to)the following:

The gun(s): The man who found Foster’s bodyinsisted, under FBI grilling, that he saw no gunin either of Foster’s hands. Officially, Foster diedwith a .38-caliber revolver clutched in his rightfist, found there by police. The weapon was an80-year-old army model; it was, in fact, com-posed of parts from two different revolvers. Its6-shot cylinder held two cartridges, one ofwhich had been fired. No fingerprints werefound on the weapon’s outer surfaces, a circum-stance that Federal Bureau of Investigations(FBI) lab technicians explained by claiming thatFoster had not perspired prior to death. (Bodyoil, the source of fingerprints, is not dependenton sweat, and the day’s temperature topped 95degrees.) Two fingerprints found underneath thegun’s removable hand grips were never identi-fied; indeed, no effort was made to trace them.Although the bulky pistol was fired inside Fos-ter’s mouth, its recoil did not damage his teeth,and no blood or tissue “blowback” was foundon the weapon or on Foster’s hand. When Fos-ter’s wife went looking for his silver .22-caliberpistol at home, she found it inexplicablyreplaced with a gun she had never seen before.

Other forensic evidence: FBI experts found no“coherent soil” from the park on Foster’sshoes, though he walked 700 feet from his caron unpaved trails to the site of his death. Hairsand carpet fibers found on his clothing werenever identified or traced to their source.Although the pistol did not fall from his hand,Foster’s glasses were found 19 feet from thebody on the far side of dense shrubbery. (Policesuggested that they “jumped” when he wasshot.) Foster’s autopsy report describes an exitwound at the back of his head, though ambu-lance technicians and the doctor who certifiedhis death saw none. One attendant did see asmall “entrance” wound in Foster’s neck belowthe jawline, a discovery that is missing from theautopsy report. Missing, too, are all crime-scene photographs and X-rays from theautopsy. Dr. James Beyer, who performed the

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autopsy, initially said that the X-rays showedno bullet fragments inside Foster’s head, but helater denied taking X-rays at all.

White House activities: White House spokesper-sons claim that the Clintons first learned of Foster’s death at 8:30 P.M., but Arkansasauthorities say that they were notified of theshooting by a minor presidential aide at 6:15P.M. White House staffers refused a policerequest to seal Foster’s office pending a search,and officers sat passively outside through thenight while various aides paraded through theroom. In the wake of that sideshow Foster’s fileindex was missing along with an uncertainquantity of documents that were removed fromhis files and safe while police watched.

Foster’s depression: The suicide theory hinges onFoster’s state of mind. Police found a short list of

psychiatrists in Foster’s wallet, all of whomdenied knowing or speaking to Foster. Authori-ties missed the alleged suicide note the first timethey searched Foster’s briefcase. A second searchrevealed the message, torn into 28 pieces (withone piece missing). When reassembled, the noteread less like a suicide message than a list of rea-sons for returning to Arkansas (which, in fact,Foster’s wife had requested he write). Its contenthardly mattered, though, since no fingerprintswere found on the shredded note and threehandwriting analysts (one of them from Oxford)declared the note a forgery after comparing it to12 known samples of Foster’s handwriting.

Right-wing conspiracists rank Foster high on the ever-growing “Clinton death list,” while othertheorists note Foster’s suspicious European travels

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This photo shows Vince Foster’s thumb on the trigger of the weapon with which he killed himself as the Whitewateraffair was brought to the public’s attention. (ABC News/Corbis)

and financial transactions, speculating on a possiblelink to shady figures outside the Washington Beltway.Whatever the truth about Foster’s death, it remainsnearly as controversial today as the JFK and RFK

ASSASSINATIONs.See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY.

FOUR Pi movementIn 1969 while gathering material for a book on theCharles Manson case, journalist Ed Sanders encoun-tered reports of a sinister SATANIC cult alleged topractice human sacrifice in several parts of Californiaand to lure youthful members from college campusesthroughout the western half of the United States. Thecult was allegedly a spin off from the weird ProcessChurch of Final Judgment and took its name—“FourPi” or “Four P”—from the parent group’s “powersign” (four Ps arranged in the shape of a stylizedswastika). According to Sanders the group initiallyboasted 55 members, of whom 15 were middle aged,the rest consisting of men and women in their earlytwenties. The group’s leader—dubbed the “GrandChignon” or “Head Devil”—was said to be a wealthyCalifornia businessman who exercised his power bycompelling younger members to act as slaves andmurder random targets on command. The centralobject of the cult was to promote “the total worshipof evil.”

Organized in northern California during 1967, theFour Pi movement (according to Sanders) held itssecret gatherings in the Santa Cruz Mountains, northof San Francisco. Rituals included the sacrifice ofdogs as well as human beings. Beginning in June1968, police in San José, Santa Cruz, and Los Gatosbegan to find canines skinned and drained of bloodwithout apparent motive. The director of a SantaCruz animal shelter told reporters, “Whoever is doingthis is a real expert with a knife. The skin is cut awaywithout even marking the flesh. The really strangething is that these dogs have been drained of blood.”

That blood, according to Sanders and a self-described member of the cult, was drunk by wor-shipers in nocturnal ceremonies; so was the blood ofhuman victims slain on a dragon-festooned altar,stabbed to death with a custom-made six-bladedknife. Each sacrifice climaxed with removal of the victim’s heart, which cultists divided among them-selves and devoured. Victims were chiefly hitchhikers,runaways, and homeless drifters, though Sanders

chronicled one murder of a willing volunteer. Corpseswere incinerated in a portable crematorium, mountedon a truck, while armed guards and attack dogspatrolled the ritual sites.

In early 1969 the cult reportedly moved south-ward, shifting operations to the Santa Ana Moun-tains near Los Angeles. The following year, a drifternamed Stanley Dean Baker was arrested at Big Surfollowing a hit-and-run accident. In custody, he toldpolice, “I have a problem. I’m a cannibal.” Bakerproduced human bones to prove his statement anddirected authorities to the grave of his latest victim,Montana park ranger James Schlosser, whose heartBaker had extracted and consumed. Baker waslinked to a second murder by bloody fingerprints atthe scene, but prosecutors delayed that trial so longthat the case was thrown out of court. From his cell,Baker spoke openly of his activities with the Four Picult, but no one cared to listen. He was sentenced tolife imprisonment for the Schlosser homicide andparoled to parts unknown in 1985.

Six years before Baker hit the streets, imprisonedserial killer David (“Son of Sam”) Berkowitz smug-gled a letter out of prison describing his intimateknowledge of the Four Pi cult’s chapter in New York.Berkowitz claimed that the group was involved in the1976–77 “Sam” shootings in New York City, as wellas the gruesome (still-unsolved) 1974 murder of co-edArlis Perry at California’s Stanford University. Citingnames, dates, and places to confirm his story,Berkowitz also predicted a string of future crimesfrom his cell, but he stopped talking in July 1979 aftera near-fatal incident wherein his throat was slashed bypersons unknown. Subsequently the man whomBerkowitz named as the cult’s number-one killer—William Mentzer—was sentenced to life in jail for theCalifornia murder of millionaire movie producer RoyRadin. Mentzer was also suspected (but nevercharged) in several other contract killings. (Mentzerdenies any knowledge of cults or additional murders.)

Journalist Maury Terry pursued the Berkowitzstory and confirmed much of what Ed Sanders wrotea decade earlier. He documented links between thecult and Charles Manson’s homicidal “family” andsuggested connections to various unsolved murdersacross the United States. According to Terry the culthad more than 1,000 members nationwide in 1979and controlled a small (unnamed) college in the LosAngeles area. Various conspiracists have also linkedthe Four Pi cult to the unsolved Zodiac murders of

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1966–70 (a connection suggested by Stanley Baker)and to “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski. If Terryis correct, the cult is deeply involved in WHITE SLAV-ERY, child pornography, and the international nar-cotics trade. To date, no other living members of thecult have been identified or charged with any crimes.

FOURTH ReichThe collapse of the THIRD REICH in 1945, unfortu-nately, did not mark the end of FASCISM or NATIONAL

SOCIALISM as political ideologies. Thousands of Nazislinked to WAR CRIMES and genocidal actions duringthe HOLOCAUST escaped prosecution at the end ofWorld War II. Some, like ADOLF EICHMANN and JOSEF

MENGELE (and perhaps MARTIN BORMANN), escapedto South America with the aid of ODESSA and otherunderground networks. Others, including KLAUS BAR-BIE, were adopted by the U.S. government as anticom-munist allies under PROJECT PAPERCLIP. Countlessothers were simply ignored by postwar Germanauthorities, resuming their normal lives as entrepre-neurs, politicians, even police officers and judges.Ambiguous evidence and Russian intransigence raiseddoubts in many minds as to whether ADOLF HITLER

himself had really died in 1945.Considering the global losses suffered during

World War II, it is entirely natural that freedom-loving people everywhere should fear the rise of a“Fourth Reich” in Europe (or anywhere else). In thepast half-century, those fears have been exacerbatedby a variety of trends and events, including:

1. The slow leak of revelations, from the latter1940s to the present day, exposing war crimi-nals who slipped through the net in 1945,including some who settled in the United Statesand others who were actively employed by U.S.government agencies.

2. The survival of prewar fascism in “neutral”Spain until 1975, accompanied by the rise ofneo-fascist military juntas (most supported, ifnot created, with U.S. aide) in nations rangingfrom Greece to Central and South America.

3. The proliferation of neo-fascist groups inEurope from the 1950s onward, includingorganizations in Germany (where any displayof pro-Nazi sympathy remains a criminaloffense) that were seemingly sheltered by sym-pathetic police and prosecutors.

4. Reports from Nazi outposts, such as Chile’sCOLONIA DIGNIDAD, where old-school fascistsput down roots in the bad old days and haveflourished (often with local government protec-tion) ever since.

5. The reunification of Germany in 1990, fol-lowed by new waves of neo-Nazi skinheadviolence against minorities and increasinglybelligerent activity by various far-right politicalparties.

6. The collapse of Soviet communism in 1991.Though long a goal of anticommunists world-wide, the USSR’s dissolution only exacerbatedRussia’s economic crises while clearing theway for organization of neo-fascist groups inthe mold of those found throughout WesternEurope.

It seems unlikely, at first glance, that Hitler’s Reichwill ever rise again, and yet students of history recallthe conditions that brought Hitler to power in 1933:economic crises, obsessive fear of “enemy aliens”coupled with demands for “national security” at anycost, erosion of constitutional liberties by crusadingleaders, and a final acceptance that “war is the healthof the state.” Those problems still exist, and if assome suggest that the would-be “saviors” of thenation have traded their brown shirts and jackbootsfor thousand-dollar suits, the disguise only makesthem more dangerous.

FRANCEArchaeological evidence indicates that France hasbeen continuously occupied by humans since Pale-olithic times. Greek and Phoenician invaders arrivedin about 600 B.C., followed by Julius Caesar in 57B.C. Rome then ruled France until the Franks invadedduring the fifth century A.D. Successive kings ruledFrance (or portions of it) from 751 to 1789 when theFrench Revolution and ensuing Reign of Terrorplunged the country into a nightmarish bloodbath.Military hero NAPOLEON BONAPARTE emerged as con-sul in 1799 and was elevated to emperor five yearslater. Two catastrophic wars with GERMANY

(1914–18 and 1940–45) left French power muchdiminished worldwide. After World War II, commu-nist members of the wartime anti-Nazi resistancemade a strong bid to control the government,opposed by a motley coalition of rightists covertly

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supported by the United States. In the late 1940s theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY forged an alliancewith Corsican gangsters and HEROIN smugglers tocrush left-wing unions in France and disrupt pro-Communist meetings. Dismantling its foreign empirewas a bloody ordeal for France, including brutal warsof attrition in ALGERIA and Southeast Asia. Right-wing terrorists of the Secret Army Organization(OAS) made several attempts to kill President CharlesDeGaulle after he freed Algeria, and PresidentJacques Chirac survived a similar attack by neo-fascist elements as recently as July 2002. A year laterFrance was rocked by a bizarre sex-and-murder scan-dal linking politician and antipornography crusaderDominique Baudis to convicted serial killer PatriceAlegre. Testimony from a prostitute alleges thatBaudis participated in sadomasochistic orgies in the1990s and that he murdered a 23-year-old transves-tite blackmailer. Baudis denies the charges and hassued the prostitute for slander; Alegre—serving lifeon five counts of murder and six counts of rape—insists that Baudis was involved (with a judge andseveral police officers) in the slaying. As revealed sofar in “l’affair Alegre,” the serial slayer provideddrugs and hookers for a series of orgies allegedlyinvolving various prominent Frenchmen. Baudis hasdemanded an official investigation to clear his name.

See also COMMUNISM; FASCISM; JULIUS CAESAR.

FRANKENFOODSFor years, U.S. scientists have conducted geneticexperiments on various fruits, grains, and vegetables,trying to produce crops that are more prolific, lesseasily spoiled on the shelf or in transit, and (at leastpresumably) more nutritious. Conspiracists dub theresultant hybrid-mutant products “Frankenfoods,”suggesting that corporate “mad scientists” may be onthe verge (unwittingly or otherwise) of unleashing abiotechnical catastrophe—indeed, a veritable enemywithin. Charges range from the relatively benign(claims that genetically altered produce has less fla-vor or nutrient value than normal items) to theextremes of science-fiction (fears that consumptionof Frankenfoods may produce genetic abnormalitiesin humans or lead to MIND CONTROL via somemethod as yet undescribed). Whatever the tone ofprotest, the controversy shows no sign of abating.

The scientific case was not helped when PresidentGeorge W. Bush joined the fray, denouncing various

European nations for their embargoes on geneticallyaltered foods from the United States. A die-hard friendof agribusiness with no perceptible scientific knowl-edge (he denies the existence of global warming andhas fought to increase the “acceptable” level of arsenicin U.S. drinking water), Bush was seen by many inEurope as pitchman who would say anything in sup-port of wealthy campaign contributors. In June 2003,addressing a biotechnology conference in Washington,Bush criticized the European Union (EU) for refusingto accept genetically modified foods, adding a claimthat their refusal somehow contributed to starvation.“For the sake of a continent threatened by famine,”Bush said, “I urge the European governments to endtheir opposition to biotechnology. We should encour-age the spread of safe, effective biotechnology to winthe fight against global hunger.” Reijo Kemppinen, aspokesman for the European Commission, replied:“The fact is that we in Europe have chosen to do somethings differently from the United States. As regards[Frankenfoods], we simply believe that it is better tobe safe than sorry.” Bush countered with threats of aformal complaint to the World Trade Organization,while EU spokesmen declared that Bush’s claims con-cerning African famine “are simply not true.” Thecontroversy endures, while prophets of doom awaitthe first evidence of biological disturbance in Franken-food consumers.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

FREEDOM ridesThe “freedom ride” movement was designed to testcourt orders that required racial desegregation ininterstate transportation. The first rides were organ-ized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in1947 after the U.S. SUPREME COURT ordered inte-grated seating on interstate buses. Several COREmembers were arrested in southern states despite thecourt’s ruling, but the demonstrations passed with-out much fanfare.

Such was not the case in 1961 when a new courtruling ordered desegregation of all terminal accommo-dations related to interstate commerce. CORE and theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee planneda new series of freedom rides, opposed by the KU KLUX

KLAN (KKK) and racist police. J. EDGAR HOOVER,meanwhile, insisted that the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) could not protect freedom ridersbecause it was “not a police agency.” Instead, Hoover

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decreed, the bureau would “fulfill its law enforcementfunction” by keeping state and local police informedof the riders’ itinerary—even when those officers wereknown as members or friends of the KKK.

An integrated team of freedom riders left Wash-ington, D.C., aboard two buses on May 4, 1961. Thefirst violence occurred on May 9 at Rock Hill, SouthCarolina, where white thugs assaulted three demon-strators. By then FBI headquarters knew that policeand Klansmen in Alabama were planning a violentreception for the freedom riders. BIRMINGHAM

POLICE commissioner EUGENE (“BULL”) CONNOR

promised that police would grant the Klan 15 min-utes of mayhem at the local bus station when free-dom riders arrived on May 14. Connor wanted theriders beaten until they “looked like a bulldog gotahold of them”; he also specifically ordered thatblack demonstrators be stripped of their clothing sothat police could arrest them on charges of indecentexposure when they fled the terminal naked. Policewere nowhere to be seen on May 14 when Klansmenattacked the Greyhound bus at Anniston, beat itspassengers, and then set the bus on fire. When theTrailways bus reached Anniston, Klansmen rushedaboard and beat several of the riders, permanentlydisabling Dr. Walter Bergman. FBI agents watchedand took notes as the bus, with Klansmen stillaboard, proceeded on its way to Birmingham.

Another racist mob was waiting at the Trailwaysterminal in Birmingham. Police kept their promise,giving the terrorists time to beat the demonstrators,black bystanders, and various journalists before thefirst squad car arrived. Bull Connor explained hisdepartment’s failure by noting that May 14 wasMother’s Day and claiming most officers were athome with their families. Those riders who were stillable to travel, reinforced by others, continued to thestate capital at Montgomery on May 20, 1961.Despite FBI warnings of Klan riot plans, Police Com-missioner Lester Sullivan stationed no men at the busdepot. Another melee erupted, again with G-men onthe sidelines snapping photographs and taking notes.Attorney General Robert Kennedy finally dispatched500 U.S. Marshals to Montgomery where they held amob of 3,000 racists at bay outside Rev. Ralph Aber-nathy’s church on the night of May 21. Four Klans-men were arrested on May 22, and federal judgeFrank Johnson issued a sweeping injunction againstfurther violence by various Klan factions. On Sep-tember 1, 1961, a federal grand jury indicted nine

suspects for their role in the Anniston Greyhoundattack. Five defendants were convicted in January1962 and received one year’s probation in return fortheir promise to sever all ties to the Klan. No onewas ever punished for the riots in Birmingham andMontgomery.

More than two decades later, in 1983, injuredfreedom riders Walter Bergman and James Peck suedthe FBI for collaborating with Bull Connor and theKKK. A federal court found the FBI liable for injuriessuffered by Bergman and Peck. On February 17,1984, Bergman was awarded $45,000 in damages,while Peck received $25,000.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

FREEMASONSFreemasonry is an international fraternal order thatwas founded in England in 1717, though memberstheoretically trace their group’s history to the ancient

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Anti-Masonic author William Morgan mysteriously vanished in 1826, while writing an exposé on Masonic ritual. (Author’s collection)

builders of King Solomon’s temple. (Other sourceslink Freemasonry to the crusading KNIGHTS TEM-PLAR, noting that the order’s youth division is namedfor Templar chief Jacques Demolay.) It is organizedin “lodges,” complete with rituals and recognitionsigns that are presumably kept secret from the worldat large (but widely published through the centuries,sometimes with fictional additions designed to makethe group seem sinister). Many U.S. presidents, otherofficials, and highly placed captains of industrythroughout the world have been Freemasons—which, combined with the society’s air of nominalsecrecy guarantees no end to conspiracy theories sur-rounding the order.

Anti-Masonic agitation may be dated with somespecificity to 1826 and a series of claims made by oneWilliam Morgan of Batavia, New York. Dependingon the source, Morgan was either a 30-year veteranof Masonic lodges who “broke ranks” or a flagrantliar who conceived plans for revenge after his mem-bership application was rejected. In either case, beforehis book was published, Morgan was kidnapped bypersons unknown and disappeared forever. (Years

later, a Mason named Henry Vance confessed on hisdeathbed that he and two other lodge members hadmurdered Morgan and dumped his body in the Nia-gara River.) The book was released in 1827, filledwith blood-curdling descriptions of supposedMasonic rituals and vengeance oaths, whichprompted an investigation of the order by New YorkState legislators in 1829. The committee’s final reportopened with a gratuitous attack on JESUITS and thenwent on to complain that Freemasons:

have recently made demonstrations of a power, aston-

ishing in its effects, upon the social and political com-

pact of a character such as the friends of free

institutions cannot fail to deplore.

A deluge of accusation and condemnation fol-lowed, trumpeted by such newspapers as the Anti-Masonic Beacon (in New York City) and theAnti-Masonic Inquirer (Rochester). Many of thecharges were recycled accusations that formerly hadbeen leveled against Jesuits or other institutions ofthe CATHOLIC CHURCH. Critics of the order also note

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“A French Lodge of Freemasons for the Reception of a Master.” Copied from the very rare original print, published in 1745(Bettmann/Corbis)

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that Albert Pike, a high-ranking Mason, helpedcompose the original KU KLUX KLAN’s constitutionand may have been the terrorist group’s “granddragon” in Arkansas during RECONSTRUCTION. Inmore recent times Freemasons have been blamed forcarrying out London’s JACK THE RIPPER murders of1888. Author Stephen Knight, who premiered thataccusation, buttressed his argument by claiming thatthe fraudulent PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF

ZION—a document forged by czarist secret police toincriminate Jews—was actually a Masonic hand-book for world domination. More recently still,Freemasons have been implicated by some critics incases of satanic ritual abuse against children.Another perennial allegation links the Masonicorder to the shadowy ILLUMINATI who have beenaccused of masterminding every revolution on Earthsince the mid-18th century.

See also TERRORISM.

Albert Pike, a prominent Freemason, is often credited withdrafting the original Ku Klux Klan’s constitution. (Author’scollection)

GABONPORTUGAL “discovered” Gabon in 1472, followed bythe NETHERLANDS (1593) and FRANCE (1630). TheFrench established their first permanent colony there in1839 and absorbed the rest of Gabon as a French terri-tory in 1888. The captive nation finally won independ-ence in August 1960 and elected its seeminglyindestructible president, Omar Bongo, in 1967.Through dictatorial means, in the guise of periodic“free” elections, Bongo has remained in power to thepresent day. Prior to 1990 he ran unopposed in elec-tions staged every five years. In that year strikes andriots forced creation of a “transitional constitution”that legalized multiparty elections, but the move hadno effect on Bongo’s winning streak (and, in fact,increased the president’s term in office to seven years).Bongo’s most recent election, in 1998, was marked byclaims of fraud from his opponent and general disinter-est from the outside world. Gabon is rich in OIL, whichfattens Bongo’s coffers and the bank accounts of for-eign investors. According to the French weekly L’AutreAfrique, Bongo presently owns more real estate inParis than any other foreigner.

GAINESVILLE 8 See LEMMER, WILLIAM.

GAMBIAPORTUGAL was the first European power to explorepresent-day Gambia in 1455, but FRANCE edged out

the competition in 1681. British slave traders were notfar behind, and human bondage was the nation’s chiefsource of revenue before slavery was outlawed in1807. Gambia became a British Crown colony in1843 and an independent nation within the BritishCommonwealth in February 1965. Full independencefollowed in April 1970, but it brought no semblanceof security. In July 1994 a military coup deposed five-term President Jawara, replacing him with CaptainYayah Jammeh. Jammeh suspended the constitutionand banned all political parties, easily winning thenext rigged election in September 1996. Seven monthslater, Jammeh returned Gambia to “civilian” rule—with himself as president, empowered to censor thepress and impose other autocratic restrictions on dis-sent. Jammeh crushed a coup by his own bodyguardsin January 2000; student riots broke out three monthslater (also brutally suppressed). Meanwhile, corrup-tion and mismanagement in Gambia’s crucial peanutindustry caused the export system to collapse, leavingfarmers unpaid and unable to sell a bumper crop ofthe nation’s chief commodity. In 2001 Jammeh legal-ized opposition parties in Gambia, but the move failedto block his reelection for another term as president.

GEMSTONE FileThe so-called Gemstone File is said to be a 1,000-page collection of reports or correspondence pennedby American gemologist Bruce Roberts between the

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1960s and 1975, summarizing a series of supposedconspiratorial events that shaped world history acrossfour decades. (One critic calls it “the most notoriousrant in conspiracy history.”) According to Roberts—and freelance author Stephanie Caruana, who drafteda “skeleton key” summarizing the larger file—Greekshipping magnate Aristotle Onassis was the keyplayer in a global cast of characters including everyU.S. president from 1933 onward, plus supportingplayers from the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY anda host of other groups operating on both sides of thelaw. The narrative culminates in 1975, the yearbefore Roberts died of lung cancer, when “[PresidentGerald] Ford, [HENRY] KISSINGER, and [Nelson]Rockefeller squat like toads on the corpse of America.Other players (or victims) in the ultimate chess gameinclude Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, MEYER LAN-SKY, Joseph Kennedy, billionaire HOWARD HUGHES

(allegedly kidnapped by Onassis), LYNDON JOHNSON

(ordered by Onassis to ignore conspiracy evidence inthe JFK ASSASSINATION), J. EDGAR HOOVER (murderedwith a dose of “sodium morphate” in a slice of applepie), RICHARD NIXON, and the DEATH ANGELS, whichwas prosecuted for San Francisco’s “Zebra” murdersin 1974. Some Gemstone believers maintain thatBritish author Ian Fleming used Onassis as the modelfor fictional supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in threeJames Bond novels. Most skeptics agree with thejudgment of one critic who dismisses the whole narra-tive as “a big pile of crap.”

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY; ROCKEFELLER CLAN.

GENERAL Electric CompanyGeneral Electric (GE) is the brainchild of ThomasAlva Edison, inventor of the incandescent electriclight. In 1890 Edison consolidated his various busi-nesses into the Edison General Electric Company.Two years later Edison General merged with its pri-mary rivals to become the General Electric Company,headquartered at Schenectady, New York. Today, GEis a huge multinational firm that is involved in a widevariety of markets and activities spanning more than100 nations. Among other interests, GE is sole ownerof the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) andthus a major power in transmission of news andentertainment worldwide. In 2003 GE had thelargest market capitalization of any firm on Earth. Itemployed more than 300,000 persons and reportedrevenue (in 2001) of $126 billion.

As with all vast multinationals, there is more toGE than we find in raw corporate statistics—and thefirm’s top executives are unhappy when glimpses ofthat secret side become public. In 1998 they foughtto block publication of author Thomas O’Boyle’sbook At Any Cost: Jack Welch, General Electric andthe Pursuit of Profit. That volume revealed, amongother things, that members of GE’s plastics divisionwere notorious party animals, playing “demolitionderby” with rental cars and trashing various hotelsso thoroughly that some asked them not to return.Such infantile capers pale by comparison to some ofGE’s other transgressions, however. Some of thoseactivities include:

1928–1940—GE joined various other U.S. indus-trial giants in financing ADOLF HITLER’s rise topower in GERMANY while providing technologi-cal assistance to the Nazi-allied KRUPP ARMS

company. GE engaged in price fixing withKrupp to manipulate the price of tungsten car-bide, charging U.S. industries 12 times the priceper pound that Hitler was required to pay. In1935–36 a GE subsidiary (the Carboloy Com-pany) made $694,000 in profits from businesswith the THIRD REICH, while GE received$754,000.

1946—GE vice president Zay Jeffries wascharged with conspiracy to monopolize themarket in tungsten carbide. Codefendantsincluded W. G. Robbins (president CarboloyCompany) and ex-GE trade manager GustavKrupp (already jailed in Germany for WAR

CRIMES). At trial in 1947 the defendants wereconvicted on five counts. Judge John Knoxdeclared, “Competitors were excluded by pur-chase and by boycott; prices on unpatentedproducts were fixed, future patent rights wereforced into the pool, world markets weredivided, and on occasion prices were fixedbeyond the scope of any asserted patent pro-tection.” Still, Judge Knox ignored the prose-cution’s request for harsh punishment, finingGE and Carboloy a mere $20,000 each whileindividual defendants paid a wrist-slap fine of$2,500 each.

1961—GE pleaded guilty in federal court to pricefixing and paid a fine of $372,500.

1977—The firm was convicted again of pricefixing.

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1979—After Alabama authorities sued GE fordumping toxic waste in rivers, corporatelawyers settled the case out of court.

1981—GE was convicted of establishing a $1.25million fund to bribe public officials in PUERTO

RICO.1985—GE pleaded guilty to 108 counts of fraud

on a Minuteman missile contract with the U.S.government. The chief engineer of GE’s spacesystems division was also convicted of perjury.The firm paid a $1 million fine.

1985—In a separate case, GE pleaded guilty tofalsifying employee time cards.

1989—GE paid the U.S. government $3.5 millionto settle five civil lawsuits on charges of con-tractor fraud at a jet-engine plant, where com-pany thieves altered 9,000 daily labor vouchersto inflate Pentagon billings.

1990—GE was convicted of criminal fraud forcheating the U.S. Army on a contract for battle-field computers. The firm paid a $16 millionfine, of which $11.7 million was used to settlegovernment complaints that GE had padded itsbids on 200 other military and space contracts.The company was thus “penalized” an averageof $58,000 for each fraudulent multimillion-dollar contract it received.

1991—GE led all other U.S. companies in cita-tions received from the Occupational Safetyand Health Administration (OSHA). Whilecompany spokesman Jack Batty told reporters,“We’re always trying to do better,” his firmreceived more than 1,400 citations of federalworkplace safety laws spanning a nine-yearperiod. Finally, GE paid a meager $151,003 inpenalties for 382 of those violations (25 percentof the total), for an average of $46 per day ofviolating federal statutes.

1993—GE was among 90 firms and individualsconvicted of various felonies in “Operation IllWind,” a nationwide investigation of corrup-tion in defense industries during the years1986–90. The final settlement involved $190million in fines, penalties, and foregone profits(that is, reductions of the usual egregious over-billing).

1999—Soon after George W. Bush announced hispresidential candidacy, GE CEO Jack Welchmet with key Bush adviser Karl Rove, emergingfrom that conference to tell associates “a Bush

administration would initiate comprehensivederegulation of the broadcast industry, thusresulting in huge new profits for NBC.” Variouscommunications companies thereafter funneledat least $9.8 million into Bush campaign cof-fers. Bush tried to keep his promise, appointingMichael Powell as chief of the Federal Commu-nications Commission to modify FCC regula-tions (thereby allowing media moguls to ownmore TV stations without facing antitrustcharges), but Congress blocked the move inJuly 2003. Bush watchers expect the assault onlongstanding guidelines of media ownership tocontinue.

GENERAL Motors CompanyThis multinational giant was born as the OldsMotor Vehicle Company in 1897 and rechristenedwith its present name under CEO William Durant in1908. One year later, bankers rejected Durant’srequest for a $9.5 million loan to buy out the rivalFORD MOTOR COMPANY. That defeat proved nogreat hardship, however, and in December 1955General Motors (GM) became the first U.S. com-pany to report profits in excess of $1 billion. Today,it is the world’s largest manufacturer of motor vehi-cles, producing 15 percent of all cars and trucks onEarth in 2002. Its worldwide operations and brandsinclude Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden,Hummer, Oldsmobile (scheduled for closing in2004), Opel, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Vauxhall.Overseas, GM also owns substantial shares of AlfaRomeo, Daewoo, Fiat, Isuzu, Lancia, Subaru, andSuzuki. Aside from vehicles, GM’s subsidiariesinclude ACDelco, Allison Transmission, GeneralMotors Electro-Motive Division (producing diesel-electric locomotives), and Hughes Electronics(including DirecTV).

By this point in our narrative, it comes as no sur-prise that various conspiratorial skeletons may befound lurking in GM’s closet. Some of its unsavoryactivities include the following:

1930s—GM’s Industrial Relations Departmentcollaborated with the DETROIT POLICE DEPART-MENT and other law enforcement agencies toharass employees deemed “radical” or “com-munist” for their allegiance to mainstreamlabor unions. Illegal raids and mass arrests were

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commonplace in Michigan company townssuch as Dearborn, Flint, and Pontiac.

1931—GM formed a business alliance with FAR-BEN INDUSTRIES in GERMANY that would endurebeyond the start of World War II. By 1939, GMhad invested $30 million in various Farbenplants.

1936—Proving that support for ADOLF HITLER

was not strictly business, GM executive AlfredSloan visited Der Führer in Berlin. Uponreturning to the United States, he fundednational speaking tours by various Nazi sup-porters, including Governor Eugene Talmadgeof Georgia.

1938—GM collaborated with OIL and the DUPONT

chemical empire to supply the THIRD REICH

and JAPAN with gasoline and other materialscritical to their respective war machines. War-related transactions continued beyond thePEARL HARBOR attack, and in fact went onunpunished through 1945. When U.S. troopshit the beach at Normandy on D-day, they metNazi troops in tanks and other vehicles manu-factured by GM’s Opel subsidiary. In 1967,after prolonged negotiation, the U.S. govern-ment granted GM a $33 million tax exemptionin reparation for the “troubles and destructionoccasioned to its airplane and motorized vehi-cle factories in Germany and Austria in WorldWar II.”

1940s—GM allegedly conspired to buy and shutdown streetcar lines in cities across the UnitedStates, thus forcing purchase of their dieselbuses as an alternative form of mass trans-portation. GM apologists deny the charge andterm it an “urban legend,” but certain factsremain undisputed. National City Lines(NCL), a GM subsidiary, purchased the LosAngeles Railway in 1944 and replaced itsfamous “red cars” with buses. Nationwide col-laboration between GM, Greyhound, StandardOil, Mack Trucks, and Firestone Tire and Rub-ber had dismantled 100-plus streetcar systemsin 45 cities from coast to coast. In 1947 GMand NCL were charged under the ShermanAntitrust Act with conspiracy to form a mass-transit monopoly and conspiracy to monopo-lize sales of buses and supplies to companiesowned by NCL. In 1949 they were acquittedon the first count but convicted on the second.

Each corporate defendant was fined a paltry$5,000, while their convicted executives werefined one dollar each.

1994—GM and two other corporate defendantspaid more than $1 million to settle a federalcharge of procurement fraud. As in the 1940scase the penalty amounted to a fraction of their government-contracts profits that wereobtained by fraudulent means.

See also COMMUNISM.

GEORGIAGeorgia, on the Black Sea, became a kingdom inabout 4 B.C., and by the reign of Queen Tamara (A.D.1184–1213) its territory included all of Transcauca-sia. Tamerlane and the Mongols decimated Georgia’spopulation in the 13th century, and the country hasnever truly recovered. Through the 16th and 17thcenturies, TURKEY and Persia (now IRAN) battled forcontrol of the bloodstained landscape; RUSSIA arrivedto “save” Georgia in the 18th century, but the priceof protection was virtual slavery. Following the Russ-ian Revolution of 1917, Georgia joined ARMENIA

and AZERBAIJAN to form the short-lived anticommu-nist Transcaucasian Federation. That alliance dis-solved in 1918, whereupon Georgia proclaimedindependence. Four years later, with its defiant for-mer allies, Georgia was annexed by the Soviet Unionas part of a new Transcaucasian Soviet SocialistRepublic. It became a separate Soviet republic in1936, forcibly transformed under JOSEPH STALIN

from an agricultural to an industrial, urbanized soci-ety. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, Georgia onceagain declared independence. President Zviad Gam-sakhurdia was deposed nine months later (January1992), amid charges of jailing political opponents,muzzling the press, and generally abusing humanrights. Armed conflict with rebels in AbkhaziaProvince (1992–93) prompted Georgian leaders toseek military aid from Russia, but Russian troopsfailed to suppress the rebellion. Eduard Shevard-nadze was elected president in 2000, winning 83 per-cent of the national vote, but international observersfound the election “marred by irregularities.” In2002 Georgia imported U.S. military advisers, amove sanctioned by President George W. Bush in hispursuit of alleged AL-QAEDA terrorists.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM.

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GERMANYBased on actual performance, Germany wasarguably the most dangerous nation of the 20th cen-tury, but its imperial adventures did not begin withthe outbreak of World War I in 1914. In the fourthand fifth centuries A.D., German invaders finished offthe ailing Roman Empire. In the eighth century, aloose coalition of German warlords (led by theFranks) organized the Holy Roman Empire in con-junction with the CATHOLIC CHURCH, maintaining itsgrip on Europe at large until 1806. Prussia was thebackbone of German militarism, its officers chieflyresponsible for the outbreak of World War I. Defeatin that conflict failed to chasten Germany, and ADOLF

HITLER soon employed a mixture of racism andxenophobia to launch his fanatical THIRD REICH.Early German victories in World War II might havebeen permanent but for Hitler’s insanity and obses-sive pursuit of a HOLOCAUST against Jews and other“inferiors.” Defeated once again, Germany wasdivided after 1945, with the eastern zone under com-munist control, while the west (under U.S. guidance)restored many “ex”-Nazis to leadership positions.West German chancellor Willy Brandt, winner of aNobel Peace Prize for his foreign policies, was forcedto resign in 1974 after an East German spy wasrevealed among his top aides. After the collapse ofCommunism, Germany’s two halves were reunited inOctober 1990. Dedicated Nazi watchers warned thatthe move might be dangerous in light of recent right-wing terrorist incidents that targeted foreigners andracial minorities throughout Germany. Thoughbanned by law, expressions of pro-Nazi sentimentare increasingly common in the German fatherland,with proponents of a FOURTH REICH found amongstreet-prowling skinhead gangs and “better” ele-ments alike.

See also COMMUNISM; TERRORISM.

GESTAPOGestapo is an abbreviation for Geheime Staatspolizei(“secret state police” in Germany), arguably the mostnotorious SECRET POLICE organization of all time. Itwas created in 1933, after ADOLF HITLER’s Nazi Partyseized control of GERMANY. Hermann Göring, thenPrussian minister of the interior, detached the espi-onage and political units of the Prussian police tocreate his new organization, staffed with thousandsof zealous Nazis. Göring formally took command of

the force on April 26, 1933, and retained that postuntil the Gestapo merged with HEINRICH HIMMLER’s“elite” SS in April 1936. Under that arrangement,the Gestapo merged with Germany’s Kriminalpolizei(or Kripo, “criminal police”) to form a new Sicher-heitspolizei (or Sipo, “secret police”). In 1939 theSipo merged again, this time with the German army’sintelligence unit known as Sicherheitsdienst (or SD,“security service”) to create a new Reich SicherheitsHauptamt (RHSA, “Reich Security Central Office”).New commander Reinhard Heydrich subsequentlyorganized the WANNSEE CONFERENCE where Nazileaders planned out details of the HOLOCAUST. Dur-ing World War II Gestapo units known as Einsatz-gruppen (“task forces”) were dispatched throughoutoccupied nations to round up Jews and other “unde-sirables,” either killing them on the spot or deportingthem to concentration camps. Gestapo agents wereschooled in torture techniques, and they widelyabused the power of Schutzhaft (“protective cus-tody”) to detain suspects without charges or trial. Ineffect, Gestapo actions were above the law; as Nazijurist Werner Best declared, “As long as the[Gestapo] . . . carries out the will of the leadership, itis acting legally.” The Gestapo was formallyexempted from administrative courts where Germancitizens could sue the government to compel obser-vance of various statutes. At its peak the Gestapoincluded some 45,000 agents. Following the THIRD

REICH’s collapse in 1945, the entire agency wascharged en masse with crimes against humanity.Nonetheless, many active members escaped punish-ment altogether and resumed administrative roles inpostwar Germany.

GHANAMajor African civilizations flourished in parts ofmodern-day Ghana through the 19th century, butthey were under constant pressure from Europeaninvasion and exploitation. PORTUGAL was first toarrive (1470), followed by Britain (1553), theNETHERLANDS (1595), and SWEDEN (1640). Britaincontrolled Ghana’s “Gold Coast” by 1820, butresistance from the interior’s Ashanti rulers was notfinally crushed until 1901. Ghana was liberated fromthe British Empire in March 1957 and became arepublic in July 1960. Premier Kwame Nkrumahsoon angered the United States by taking policies of“nonalignment” seriously, trading on equal terms

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with the United States, RUSSIA, and CHINA. In Octo-ber 1965 he published a book blaming the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY for various coups and othersubversive actions throughout Africa and the ThirdWorld at large. Washington immediately cut off for-eign aid to Ghana, and four months later Nkrumahwas deposed by a military coup financed from CIAheadquarters. (Right-wing author John Barron laterclaimed that “the copious files of the Nkrumahregime” revealed that “the KGB had converted Ghanainto one vast base for subversion, which the SovietUnion fully intended to use to capture the continentof Africa.” Strangely, not one page from those “copi-ous files” has yet been produced.) Coups multipliedduring the next 13 years, until Lt. Jerry Rawlingsseized power in June 1979 and permitted the electionof civilian president Hilla Limann in July. Unsatisfiedwith the result Rawlings charged Limann with cor-ruption and staged another coup in December 1981.GOLD is Ghana’s largest source of foreign exchange,but waffling international prices pushed the industryto near-collapse in 1999 before it was bailed out byinvestors from SAUDI ARABIA. President John Kufuo,inaugurated in 2001, is the nation’s first democrati-cally elected leader, but it remains to be seen whetherhe can hold office long enough to rescue his countryfrom poverty and corruption. In June 2003 ex-presi-dent Rawlings announced publicly that 15 membersof Kufuo’s parliament had participated directly in theserial murders of 34 women who were slaughtered inGhana between 1994 and 2000. While pursuing theclaim, Ghana’s Inspector General of Police, NanaOwusu-Nsiah, said he was “profoundly disap-pointed with the utterances and conduct of the for-mer president.”

GIANCANA, Sam (1908–1975)A native of Chicago, born in 1908, Sam (“Momo”)Giancana was described in one police report as “asnarling, sarcastic, ill-tempered, sadistic psy-chopath.” Those traits served him well as a memberof the notorious 42 Gang and later as a contractkiller for the PROHIBITION crime syndicate led by AlCapone. A prime suspect in three murders by age 20,Giancana used his ruthless talents to rise swiftlythrough MAFIA ranks and dominate Chicago’s (somesay the nation’s) underworld by the late 1950s. Atthe same time he was acutely conscious of the mob’spublic image and once allegedly issued a murder

contract on Desi Arnaz for producing The Untouch-ables, a TV program that portrayed members of theCapone gang as vicious thugs. (The contract was notcarried out.)

In 1960 Giancana’s influence was critical to thepresidential election of John Kennedy. “Momo”guaranteed a Democratic majority in Illinois bymeans of massive vote fraud and later claimed creditfor putting Kennedy in the White House. During thenext two years he also collaborated with members ofthe CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) on plotsto assassinate Cuban leader FIDEL CASTRO. Instead ofthe rewards he expected, however, Giancana foundhimself on a mob “hit list” prepared by AttorneyGeneral Robert Kennedy, followed day and night byFEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) agents whoalso targeted Giancana for illegal bugging and wire-tapping. In June 1963 Giancana took the unprece-dented step of suing the bureau for harassment.Private investigators filmed G-men in their “lock-step” surveillance of Momo—at church, on the golfcourse, during cemetery visits—and Judge RichardAustin ruled in the plaintiff’s favor, fining Chicagoagent-in-charge Marlin Johnson $500 and orderingG-men to track Giancana from a “reasonable dis-tance” in the future.

Giancana’s recorded threats against the Kennedybrothers made him a prime suspect in the 1963 JFK

ASSASSINATION, but FBI Director J. EDGAR HOOVER’sinstant “lone-gunman” announcement precluded anyserious investigation of mob ties to the killing. Gian-cana’s name was mentioned again in 1968 followingthe RFK ASSASSINATION, but again the FBI failed topursue suggestions of conspiracy. Giancana wasscheduled as a critical witness when the CHURCH

COMMITTEE launched its investigation of FBI andCIA irregularities, but he never had a chance to tes-tify. On June 18, 1975, Momo was murdered in thebasement of his Oak Park, Illinois, home by a gun-man who shot him seven times in the head.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

GILCHRIST, JoyceJoyce Gilchrist obtained her degree in forensic chem-istry in 1980 while employed in the Oklahoma CityPolice Department’s crime lab. She worked on some3,000 cases between 1980 and 1999, and in 1985she was named the department’s “civilian employeeof the year.” Legendary Oklahoma City district

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attorney Bob Macy dubbed Gilchrist “Black Magic”for her skill in persuading jurors to convict. “It wasin reference to a homicide case,” Gilchrist later told60 Minutes II, “where the defense attorney referredto me in his closing argument as a sorcerer . . . andstated that I seemed to be able to do things with evi-dence that nobody else was able to do.”

And that was the problem.In 1987 forensic chemist John Wilson of Kansas

City warned the Southwestern Association of Foren-sic Scientists (SAFS) that Gilchrist offered “scientificopinions from the witness stand which in effect posi-tively identify the defendant based on the slightest bitof circumstantial evidence.” Convinced that Gilchristhad presented false evidence in court, Wilson ulti-mately testified against her in three separate murdercases. “When I read the transcripts and saw what shewas saying,” Wilson told reporters, “I was reallyshocked. She was positively identifying hair, andthere’s no way in the world you can do that withoutDNA.”

The SAFS subsequently censured Gilchrist forethics violations, and in 1988 the Oklahoma Crimi-nal Court of Appeals overturned Curtis McCarty’smurder conviction, based on the fact that Gilchristgave the court “personal opinions beyond the scopeof scientific capabilities.” In 1989 the same appellatecourt overturned another murder conviction, findingthat Gilchrist had improperly used hair analysis totestify that James Abels had been “in very close andpossibly even violent contact” with the victim. Still,Gilchrist was promoted to supervise the OklahomaCity crime lab in 1994 and continued to testify incriminal cases through the remainder of the decade.It was only in August 1999 after her rebuke by fed-eral judge Ralph Thompson that her career began toimplode. At issue was the rape-murder conviction ofAlfred Brian Mitchell, sentenced to death largely onthe strength of Gilchrist’s scientific testimony. JudgeThompson labeled her testimony “untrue” and over-turned Mitchell’s rape conviction. As a result policeremoved Gilchrist from the lab in March 2000 andassigned her to administrative work. Seven monthslater the Association for Crime Scene Reconstruc-tion expelled Gilchrist for misrepresented evidencein court. On April 25, 2001, Oklahoma AttorneyGeneral Drew Edmondson announced a review ofseveral capital cases that hinged on Gilchrist’s testi-mony. A FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION reportpublished on the same date alleged that Gilchrist

misidentified hairs and fibers or gave testimony“beyond the limits of forensic science” in at leasteight felony cases. Most ominous was the reportedfact that Gilchrist’s testimony had sent 23 defen-dants to death row, with 11 of those inmates subse-quently executed.

On September 25, 2001, Gilchrist was dismissedfor “laboratory mismanagement, criticism fromcourt challenges and flawed casework analysis.” InOctober 2001 a federal grand jury subpoenaed evi-dence from 10 of Gilchrist’s murder cases, includingnine wherein defendants had been executed. Despitethe insistence of Oklahoma’s attorney general that “Iam personally satisfied that no innocent person wasexecuted,” grave doubts remain. No charges havebeen filed against Joyce Gilchrist for perjury or anyother criminal offense, but cases like hers and that ofFRED ZAIN have shaken the faith of many Americansin the modern system of capital punishment.

GODFREY, Howard See SECRET ARMY

ORGANIZATION.

GOLDPrior to the discovery of OIL, gold was the mostcoveted natural resource on Earth. Explorers riskedtheir lives and fortunes in pursuit of the preciousmetal, discovering “new” continents in the processand moving swiftly to subjugate their native peo-ples. When Spanish conquistadors invaded the NewWorld, slaughtering thousands and enslaving tensof thousands more, they openly declared theirmotive as pursuit of the Three Gs—Gold, Glory,and Gospel (forcibly converting “heathens” to thedoctrines of the CATHOLIC CHURCH). Centurieslater, the U.S. government pursued a similar policy,violating its “sacred” treaties with aboriginal tribesthe moment trespassing prospectors found thesmallest trace of gold on “Indian” land. Dutch andBritish masters did the same in Africa, draftingwhole black nations into slavery, herding them enmasse into mines that spanned the continent fromthe Congo to Johannesburg.

The lust for gold was not confined to its pursuit inmines and rivers. Once it was refined and coined,people and nations alike still grappled to corner the market and horde as much of the yellow metal as brute force or trickery would permit. One of

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the more infamous efforts was the BLACK FRIDAY

CONSPIRACY, hatched by robber barons Jim Fisk andJay Gould, which sparked a nationwide financialpanic in 1869. The U.S. government established itsgold standard four years later, codified by federalstatutes in 1897 and 1900. That standard remainedin place until 1935 when President Franklin Roo-sevelt and Congress discarded the gold standard infavor of “managed” paper currency. Private collec-tion of gold bullion is now banned by law in theUnited States, though gold remains a medium ofexchange between nations. South Africa, the UnitedStates, Australia, and Canada are the world’s majorgold-producing nations: In 1990 they produced 75percent of the world’s total gold supply. By the end of2000, however, that figure slipped to 58 percent,with dramatic increases from Argentina, Ghana,Indonesia, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and Tan-zania. A World Gold Council, funded by major goldproducers around the globe, actively promotes goldto potential buyers in various markets, ranging fromindustry to personnel apparel.

GRATHWOHL, Larry C.Ranked among “the most militant members” of theWeatherman Underground terrorist group in thelate 1960s, Larry Grathwohl was in fact a FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION informant whose activi-ties, by his own admission, went far beyond simplyobserving and exposing the criminal acts of others.Habitually armed with a .357 Magnum revolverand a straight razor, Grathwohl advertised himselfto fellow Weathermen as a demolitions expert andoffered bomb-making classes for radicals of the“New Left.” He went further still, in fact, and laterconfessed to the New York Times that he partici-pated in the 1969 bombing of a Cincinnati publicschool.

On March 6, 1970, a federal grand jury in Detroitindicted Grathwohl and 12 other Weathermen forconspiracy to bomb various military and police facili-ties. A subsequent indictment, issued on December 7,1972, dismissed charges against Grathwohl andanother defendant, while adding radicals to the list.Despite the serious nature of the charges, including theMarch 1970 firebombing of a Cleveland police offi-cer’s home and a conspiracy to plant bombs in fourstates, none of the defendants were ever tried. Grath-wohl, meanwhile, vanished into the federal witness

protection program and later published a sensationalaccount of his exploits titled Bringing Down America:An FBI Informer with the Weathermen (1976).

GREECESophisticated nation-states that were organized inGreece at about 2000 B.C. loosely merged to createthe entity known as Classical Greece circa 750 B.C.Greece reached its pinnacle of glory in the fifth cen-tury B.C., but foreign wars weakened the union,inviting conquest, and it was reduced to the status ofa Roman province by the second century B.C.TURKEY seized Constantinople in 1453 and made therest of Greece a Turkish province seven years later.Greek rebels rose against the Turks in 1821 and wontheir independence (supported by Britain, FRANCE,and RUSSIA) in 1827. Under King George I(1863–1920), Greece forcibly expanded its territoryby seizures from the crumbling Turkish empire. Afailed struggle with Turkey after World War I toppledthe Greek monarchy and sent King George II intoexile. A short-lived republic was toppled by militarycoups, and George II returned to lead the countryonce again—until GERMANY and ITALY arrived toconquer Greece in 1941. Resistance to fascist rulecentered around the Greek Communist Party and itsmilitary arm, the People’s Liberation Army (ELAS).In 1944 ELAS soldiers helped British troops driveGerman and Italian forces out of Greece.

That victory should have been cause for celebra-tion, but Allied leaders were already focused on theworld’s next great conflict, that between Commu-nism and the “Free World.” At once, British troopsand right-wing Greeks turned on the ELAS with avengeance, driving its leaders into hiding (whiletelling the world that a “Communist revolt” was inprogress). The guerrilla war dragged on through1946, and that August witnessed an admission fromBritish spokespeople that 228 war criminals of theNazi SS had been retained by the Crown to hunt left-ists in Greece. The “rebellion” was finally crushedwith U.S. assistance, reducing Greece to the status ofa virtual client state. Washington was alarmed in1964 when liberal George Papandreou won electionas prime minister, but a quiet campaign orchestratedby Greek royalty and the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY drove Papandreou from office in July 1965.He was favored to win reelection in April 1967, butGreek military leaders staged a coup two days before

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the scheduled vote, imposing martial law completewith censorship, widespread torture, and executionof an estimated 8,000 political prisoners per month.Shortly before that coup, UNITED NATIONS officialGerassimos Gigantes was present when PresidentLYNDON BAINES JOHNSON addressed the Greekambassador in regard to Greece’s ongoing troubleswith Turkey in CYPRUS:

Listen to me, Mr. Ambassador. Fuck your Parliament

and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus

is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant,

they may just get whacked by the elephant’s trunk,

whacked good. . . . We pay a lot of good American dol-

lars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Min-

ister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and

Constitutions, he, his Parliament and his Constitution

may not last very long.

In June 1973 a U.S. Army general called Greece’smilitary dictatorship “the best damn governmentsince Pericles,” but it could not last. Another coupousted dictator George Papadopoulos five monthslater, and the junta collapsed entirely in 1974 after afailed offensive against Turkey. (At a trial for crimesagainst humanity in 1975, various defendants testi-fied to the U.S.’s guiding role in the 1967 coup andthe atrocities that followed.) Greece has been ruledby elected civilians since 1974 but not without inter-nal strife. Tension with Turkey continues in Cyprusand elsewhere, while the economy lags well behindthose of other nations in the European Union. Leftistrebels of the 17 November (17N) movement havewaged guerrilla war against the Greek governmentsince 1977 and have been blamed for 20-odd politi-cal assassinations. Announcement of a “crackdown”on the group in summer 2002 brought no guaranteeof peace.

See also COMMUNISM; FASCISM.

GREEK Orthodox ChurchThough divorced from the CATHOLIC CHURCH in theearly ninth century, the Greek Orthodox Churchshares many (if not all) beliefs of its parent sect. Overtime, it has avoided many of the self-inflicted woundssuffered by Roman Catholicism concerning financialirregularities and PEDOPHILE PRIESTS, but the scandalthat emerged in spring 2003 was equally serious,involving an alleged assassination plot within the

highest councils of the church. According to a pressrelease of May 23, 2003, the church’s Patriarch ofJerusalem, Eireneos I, had filed a lawsuit against hismost senior cleric (Metropolitan Timothy ofVostron) for hiring a Palestinian death squad to mur-der Eireneos. Eireneos cited jealousy as the motivesince Timothy had once been a contender for the topslot in Jerusalem’s branch of the church. Timothy’sGreek attorney Giorgious Alfantakis denied allcharges and alluded to plans for a libel suit againstEireneos in ISRAEL. Archbishop Christodoulous,leader of the church in GREECE, appealed for “appro-priate solutions” to the case, but no resolution hadbeen found as of press time for this volume.

GRENADAGrenada occupies 131 square miles of land in theCaribbean. Its original Arawak occupants wereslaughtered by rival Caribs, who in turn were deci-mated when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1498.FRANCE claimed the island in 1672, ruling untilBritish forces captured it in 1762. Slavery flourisheduntil 1833, and Grenada remained a British posses-sion until February 1974. The Marxist New JewelMovement staged a coup in 1979, replacing PrimeMinister Eric Gairy with Maurice Bishop. Alleged tobe a protégé of FIDEL CASTRO, Bishop was in turndeposed and killed by military officers on October19, 1983. Six days later, on orders from PresidentRONALD REAGAN, U.S. troops invaded Grenada andseized control of the island.

Various explanations were offered for that exer-cise in gunboat diplomacy. First, White Housespokespersons claimed that U.S. action wasrequested by the Organization of Eastern CaribbeanStates, but that excuse fell flat when Prime MinisterTom Adams (of Barbados) revealed that Americanagents had approached him on October 15, seekingsupport for an invasion. Next, Reagan cited the“overriding importance” of evacuating U.S. medicalstudents from Grenada in the face of unspecified“danger”—only to later admit that evacuationsaboard charter flights began the day before the inva-sion. Finally, Reagan claimed Grenada was “aSoviet-Cuban colony being readied as a major mili-tary bastion to export terror and undermine democ-racy,” asserting that “we got there just in time.” Noevidence of such a military buildup was forthcoming,and Reagan’s press secretary for foreign affairs

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resigned three days after the invasion, citing “dam-age to his personal credibility.” Leaders of the OECSlater admitted receiving CIA payments before theinvasion “for a secret support operation.”

In the wake of the U.S. assault, Herbert Blaize waselected prime minister, while his party captured 14out of 15 seats in Parliament. While Blaize and com-pany thanked Ronald Reagan “from the bottom ofour hearts,” the lone opposition winner resigned inprotest against “vote rigging and interference in theelection by outside forces.” International observerssubsequently documented charges of censorship andhuman-rights violations against the “increasinglyauthoritarian” Blaize regime. In 1995 Dr. KeithMitchell became prime minister with a substantialmajority vote for his New National Party. Four yearslater the U.S.-supported NNP won all 15 seats inGrenada’s Parliament.

GUARDIANS of the Oglala NationBased on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, theGuardians of the Oglala Nation group, aptly knownas GOON, was created in November 1972 by Oglalatribal president Richard Wilson, an outspokenenemy of the AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT (AIM).Initially bankrolled by a $62,000 donation from theBureau of Indian Affairs, GOON existed (in Wilson’swords) to create “an auxiliary police force . . . tohandle people like [AIM leader] Russell Means andother radicals.” The group came into its own duringAIM’s siege at Wounded Knee, joining federal offi-cers to fire some 20,000 rounds of ammunition atAIM activists during a one-sided “battle” on March26, 1973. After the siege was broken they launched athree-year series of reprisals at Pine Ridge, killing atleast 69 AIM members or supporters and injuringmore than 300 by mid-1976. A series of GOONprovocations, followed by FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) arrests of AIM members, cli-maxed on June 26, 1975, with a shootout thatclaimed the lives of Agents Jack Coler and RonaldWilliams. Two AIM members who admitted firing onthe agents were acquitted at trial on a self-defenseplea, but G-men finally convicted suspect LeonardPeltier with testimony from “witness” Gregory Clif-ford, who was facing trial for rape until the FBI dis-missed those charges in return for his assistance inthe Peltier prosecution. Clifford disappeared into thefederal Witness Protection Program after Peltier’s

trial, but he resurfaced in March 1987, receiving a45-year prison term for the brutal sex murder of aColorado woman.

Peltier’s incarceration did not end the GOONcampaign. In January 1976 GOON members mur-dered Oglala tribal attorney Byron DeSersa at PineRidge. Two suspects in that case, Charles Wintersand Dale Janis, plea-bargained for reducedmanslaughter charges and received two-year prisonterms; their codefendants, Richard Wilson’s son andson-in-law, were acquitted on grounds of “self-defense” (though DeSersa was admittedly unarmedwhen they shot him). Another GOON member,Benny Richards, was suspected in the February 1979arson slaying of AIM leader John Trudell’s wife andthree children. That case remains officially unsolvedtoday, along with the majority of crimes committedby GOON vigilantes at Pine Ridge.

GUATEMALAOnce the site of a sophisticated Mayan civilization,Guatemala was conquered by SPAIN in 1524 andwould not regain a semblance of independence until1839. Dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera ruled thecountry with an iron hand from 1898 to 1920, fol-lowed by General Jorge Ubico Castaneda. Ubico wasoverthrown in 1944, permitting Guatemala a 10-year glimpse of democracy under liberal presidentsJuan Arévalo (1945–51) and Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán(1951–54). Arbenz ran afoul of U.S. investors whenhe championed land reform in a nation where 2.2percent of the population owned 70 percent of allland and agricultural workers earned $87 per yearfor their labors. When the neocolonial United FruitCompany demanded $16 million for its property inGuatemala, Arbenz offered $525,000. Arbenz effec-tively sealed his own fate with a public statementthat “Foreign capital will always be welcome as longas it adjusts to local conditions, remains always sub-ordinate to Guatemalan laws, cooperates with theeconomic development of the country, and strictlyabstains from intervening in the nation’s social andpolitical life.”

In Washington, President Dwight Eisenhower andthe DULLES BROTHERS decided Arbenz was a “com-munist” and marked him for removal at gunpoint. InMarch 1953 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY per-sonnel began to funnel arms and cash to right-wingmilitary officers in Guatemala, their efforts climaxed

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by a coup that deposed Arbenz in June 1954. A yearlater, the New York Times frankly reported that“The United States has begun a drive to scuttle a sec-tion of the proposed Covenant of Human Rights thatposes a threat to its interests abroad”—specifically aclause that “declares in effect that any country hasthe right to nationalize its resources.” One militaryjunta swiftly followed another in Guatemala after thefall of Arbenz, each new regime more brutal and cor-rupt than the last. Shortly after one such revolt, inMarch 1963, journalist Georgie Anne Geyer wrote:“Top sources within the Kennedy administrationhave revealed that the U.S. instigated and supportedthe coup.” A nonstop reign of terror by the army andits covert death squads wreaked havoc throughoutGuatemala, prompting armed guerrilla responsefrom the targets of repression. At least 50,000 per-sons (some estimates double that figure) “disap-peared” or were murdered by government forcesbetween 1966 and the alleged cut-off of U.S. militaryaid in 1978; countless others were arrested, impris-oned, and tortured. Even without U.S. support,Guatemala’s agony dragged on until December 1996with a minimum of 200,000 reported dead in LatinAmerica’s longest-running civil war. In 1999 aGuatemalan truth commission found the armyresponsible for 97 percent of all atrocities committedsince the 1960s, while leftist rebels were blamed for 3percent. President Alfonso Portillo Cabrera apolo-gized for his nation’s brutal history in August 2000and vowed to prosecute those responsible for WAR

CRIMES and to compensate the victims. Still, theprocess was sluggish at best. Four death-squad mem-bers accused of murdering ROMAN CATHOLIC BishopJohn Gerardi in 1998 were twice convicted in2001–02, only to have their verdicts reversed onappeal, while prosecutor Leopoldo Zeissig wasdriven from Guatemala by death threats. In July2003 Guatemala’s Constitutional Court ruled thatformer dictator Efrain Rios Montt (blamed for17,000 murders and the destruction of 400 ruralcommunities during his brief reign in 1982–83)could not be legally barred from seeking the presi-dency in November.

GUINEASusu tribesmen arrived in the region of modern-dayGuinea in about A.D. 900, building a sophisticatedcivilization by the 13th century. FRANCE arrived to

“protect” the country in 1849, renaming it FrenchGuinea, and then made it a part of French WestAfrica in 1895. Independence came in October 1958under Marxist president Sékou Touré, who sus-pended diplomatic relations with France in 1965 andaligned his country with RUSSIA. Bauxite exportsbrought relative prosperity, and Touré was twicereelected to seven-year terms in 1974 and 1981. Hisdeath in March 1984 created a power vacuum thatwas swiftly filled by military rebels under ColonelLansana Conté. After five years of dictatorship,Conté announced a surprise shift to multipartydemocracy, and voters approved a new constitutionin 1991. The benefit for Conté was a repeal of presi-dential term limits, clearing the way for a third-termelection in 2003. Despite the outward trappings ofdemocracy, Conté continues to run Guinea with aniron hand while staging military forays into war-tornLIBERIA.

GUINEA-BISSAUExplorers from PORTUGAL “discovered” modern-day Guinea-Bissau in 1446 and soon transformedthe offshore Cape Verde Islands into a center of thebrutal slave trade. The first serious revolt againstPortuguese colonial rule began in 1956 with foun-dation of the African Party for the Independence ofGuinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. An 18-year guer-rilla war ensued, climaxed by a grant of independ-ence for Guinea-Bissau in August 1974. Luis Cabralwas installed as president, ruling the country until amilitary coup deposed him in November 1980. Thechange brought no relief as new premier JoãoBernardo Veira was accused of corruption, cronycapitalism, and failure to alleviate Guinea-Bissau’sabject poverty. Veira aroused further discontentwhen he imported troops from GUINEA and SENE-GAL to combat antigovernment rebels. Even so, by1998 the insurrectionists controlled most of thecountry and parts of the capital (Bissau) itself. Acease-fire agreement was crafted in November1998, but Veira’s refusal to disarm his private secu-rity guard prompted the rebels to depose him inMay 1999. Independence leader Kumba Yaláemerged as Guinea-Bissau’s new president in 2000following a period of military rule, but his popularsupport thus far has failed to raise Guinea-Bissaufrom its status as one of the world’s poorestnations.

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GULF of Tonkin incidentOn August 2, 1964, North Vietnamese torpedoboats allegedly attacked the U.S. destroyer Maddoxwhile that ship was on routine patrol in the Gulf ofTonkin. Two days later a similar attack was report-edly directed at the USS Turner Joy. President LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON appeared on national television that evening to announce that U.S. air-craft would retaliate for the unprovoked attacks bybombing targets in North VIETNAM. On August 7the U.S. Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolu-tion with only two negative votes (from ErnestGruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon).That resolution gave Johnson a virtual blank checkfor military escalation in Southeast Asia, authoriz-ing him “to take all necessary measures to repelany armed attack against the forces of the UnitedStates and to prevent further aggression.” The restis tragic history: More than 55,000 Americans andat least 1 million Vietnamese killed during the nextdecade, while untold thousands more werewounded, maimed, left homeless, or otherwisetraumatized forever.

Six years elapsed, and Johnson was retired to pri-vate life before investigative journalists and politi-cians confirmed what antiwar activists had longsuspected—that is that the “Gulf of Tonkin incident”was a complete and utter lie, concocted by the Penta-gon and the White House as a means of securingapproval for a massive military commitment inSoutheast Asia. Today, with the benefit of hindsightand multiple exposés, we know the following facts tobe true:

1. The USS Maddox and Turner Joy were notengaged in anything resembling “routine sur-veillance” of North Vietnam; in fact, thoseships were engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers, synchronized withattacks on North Vietnam that were coordi-nated by the South Vietnamese navy and theLaotian air force. Scholar Daniel Hallin writesthat concerted attacks on North Vietnamoccurred on August 1, 1964, as “part of acampaign of increasing military pressure onthe North that the United States had been pur-suing since early 1964.” In those circum-stances any “aggressive” moves made byNorth Vietnam would constitute self-defense,and yet . . . .

2. The reported attacks never happened at all.Captain John Herrick, commanding the Mad-dox, informed his superiors that the initialreport of a PT-boat attack resulted from“freak weather conditions” and “almost totaldarkness,” coupled with an “overeager sonar-man” who “was hearing [the] ship’s own pro-peller beat.” Squadron commander JamesStockdale later told the press, “I had the bestseat in the house to watch that event, and ourdestroyers were just shooting at phantom tar-gets. There were no PT boats there. . . . Therewas nothing there but black water and Amer-ican fire power.” Johnson himself acknowl-edged as much in 1965 when he said, “For allI know, our Navy was shooting at whales outthere.”

3. The deception was deliberate, not a mistake.Author Tom Wells notes that the U.S. media“described the air strikes that Johnsonlaunched in response as merely ‘tit for tat’—when in reality they reflected plans the admin-istration had already drawn up for graduallyincreasing its overt military pressure againstthe North.” Author Daniel Hallin adds thatU.S. journalists possessed “a great deal ofinformation available which contradicted theofficial account; it simply wasn’t used. The daybefore the first incident, Hanoi had protestedthe attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraftand South Vietnamese gunboats. It was gener-ally known . . . that ‘covert’ operations againstNorth Vietnam, carried out by South Viet-namese forces with U.S. support and direction,had been going on for some time.”

4. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was writtenbefore the alleged attacks. This revelationcomes from George Ball, a member of John-son’s inner circle who served as undersecre-tary of state in 1964. According to Ball aresolution endorsing “all measures, includingthe commitment of force” was drafted in June1964, but it was not submitted for ratificationuntil after Johnson accused North Vietnam of“open aggression.” In 1995 ex-Secretary ofDefense Robert Strange McNamara recalled a1964 comment from Ball affirming that“many of the people who were associatedwith the war . . . were looking for any excuseto initiate bombing.”

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GULF WarIn late July 1990 SADDAM HUSSEIN conferred withApril Gillespie, then U.S. ambassador to IRAQ, andinformed her that he planned to invade KUWAIT (apart of Iraq’s Basra Province until 1899 when GreatBritain severed it from Iraq and claimed Kuwait as a colony). Gillespie raised no objections, and theinvasion proceeded on August 2. In short order apublicity campaign was mounted by professionaladvertisers condemning Iraqi WAR CRIMES in Kuwait.The most sensational claim involved allegations thatIraqi soldiers removed infants from hospital incuba-tors and smashed their heads against the wall.Months later, TV Guide and other media outletsidentified the source of those accusations as aKuwaiti actress (and, some claimed, the Kuwaitiambassador’s daughter).

True or false, the claims roused public opinionagainst Iraq. One month after the invasion, on Sep-tember 6, President George H. W. Bush sent 125,000U.S. troops to neighboring SAUDI ARABIA. Iraqrequested negotiation on specific terms—guaranteedaccess to the Persian Gulf (cut off when Britain cre-ated Kuwait); settlement of border disputes in theRamala oilfield (95 percent Iraqi territory); and aKuwaiti plebiscite on possible reunion with Iraq—but Bush refused and sent another 800,000 troopsbetween November 1 and November 8, 1990. (In theUnited States, meanwhile, public opinion pollsshowed that 75 percent of the population wasopposed to war with Iraq, even if sanctions failed toresolve the conflict.) On November 29, under U.S.pressure, the UNITED NATIONS authorized use of mili-tary force to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Six days later,ISRAEL threatened to launch a unilateral attack if theUN failed to move against Iraq. Finally, on January16, 1991, a coalition dominated by U.S. forceslaunched “Operation Desert Storm,” expelling Iraqitroops from Kuwait in short order.

Or did they?Soon after the last shots were fired, French

philosopher Jean Baudrillard aired his theory thatthe Gulf War never occurred. The whole sequence ofevents, in Baudrillard’s view, was a media charadeconcocted to dazzle a global audience “increasinglydivorced from the truth.” Critics scoffed at Bau-drillard’s claim, noting that he had also predicted (in1990) that the war would not occur. His otherclaims—that the year 2000 never happened and thatDisneyland somehow conceals “the unreality of

America”—admittedly did nothing to enhance Bau-drillard’s credibility. Still, conspiracists of the sortwho believe that APOLLO PROJECT technicians fakeda series of trips to the Moon were inclined to takeBaudrillard more seriously.

Assuming that the Gulf War did occur, it stillprovides fertile ground for conspiracy theories.President Bush clearly coveted Kuwaiti OIL, just ashis son’s craving for Iraqi petroleum reservesinspired OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM 11 years later.In the wake of battle, thousands of U.S. combat vet-erans displayed symptoms of an unknown diseasethat was soon labeled Gulf War Syndrome. Penta-gon spokespersons ardently denied that Iraqi troopshad used chemical weapons during the brief con-flict, but skeptics recalled similar denials in respectto AGENT ORANGE and the VIETNAM War. At length,physicians surmised that the various symptoms dis-played by Gulf vets might derive from breathingtoxic fumes around Kuwaiti oilfields, allegedlytorched by retreating Iraqi troops. Once again, thePentagon was caught lying, however. Between 1996and 2003 the American Gulf Veterans Associationcollected “numerous reports from veterans statingthat U.S. forces were responsible for setting the oilwell fires at the end of the Gulf War.” In March2003 the AGVA released one veteran’s affidavit,which read in part:

We were mustered into the briefing tent at which point

a gentleman whom I first had thought to be an Ameri-

can, but I was concerned because he was wearing a

UN uniform and insignias, began to brief us on the

operation. There was concern that America, the Amer-

ican public, might see this conflict as an unnecessary

thing, and we were asked to do this, or we were

ordered to do this in order to sway any American pub-

lic opinion to remove any doubts whatsoever that Sad-

dam Hussein and his regime were a terrible evil that

had to be dealt with.

After that briefing, said the anonymous soldier,troops were issued explosives and ordered to deto-nate specific oil wells, resulting in widespread fires.The soldier admitted, “I carried out my missionparameters and then I withdrew and concealedmyself until such a time as the front moved past me.”Spokespeople for the George W. Bush administrationhave thus far ignored the accusations, and membersof his father’s administration have no comment.

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GUYANADuring the age of exploration, Britain, FRANCE, andHolland all established colonies in the region of pres-ent-day Guyana. Dutch settlers were dominant bythe 17th century, but the Napoleonic wars broughtdrastic change, and the new colony of British Guianawas created in 1831. Slavery remained legal foranother three years, followed by mass importationof cheap labor for large foreign-owned plantations(with the result that 93 percent of Guyana’s currentpopulation is of African or East Indian descent).British Guiana was made a Crown colony in 1928,with “home rule” granted in 1953. Dr. Cheddi Jaganwas elected the nation’s first president on a platformof social reform, but talk of workers’ rights and pub-lic education prompted Britain to unseat the newgovernment by military force five months later withan announcement that “Her Majesty’s Governmentare not prepared to tolerate the setting up of communist states in the British Commonwealth.”CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) personnelinfiltrated the country to bribe labor leaders, ensur-ing that any unions that were permitted to functionwould rubber-stamp sweetheart contracts proposed

by international investors. When Jagan was elected asecond time, in 1957, the CIA organized massdemonstrations against him, erupting into wide-spread strikes and rioting. A change of governmentin England offered hopes for freedom in 1964, butthe New York Times reported that the Labor Party,“bowing to United States wishes,” had “ruled outearly independence for British Guiana.” Liberationcame two years later, and the country resumed itstraditional name. President Forbes Burnham ruledfor the next 21 years until his death in 1985. Duringthat time Guyana earned a reputation as a haven foroff-beat foreign cultists, climaxed by mass murderand suicide at Jonestown in 1978. In a nation rackedby bitter racial antagonism and violence, CheddiJagan finally captured the presidency in 1992, but heachieved little in terms of relieving Guyana’s grimpoverty. Bharrat Jagdeo, an ethnic East Indian,assumed the presidency in 1999, and Guyana’s eco-nomic stagnation continued. Jagdeo’s reelection in2001, amid accusations of widespread voter fraud,sparked race riots among Afro-Guyanese who con-sider him the enemy.

See also COMMUNISM; JONESTOWN MASSACRE.

H

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HAARPHAARP is the High-frequency Active AuroralResearch Project that is described by its creators as“a scientific endeavor aimed at studying the prop-erties and behavior of the ionosphere, with partic-ular emphasis on being able to understand and useit to enhance communications and surveillancesystems for both civilian and defense purposes.” Ifthe prospect of converting Earth’s atmosphere intoone vast listening device were not alarmingenough, conspiracists insist that HAARP’s truegoal is to “superheat” the ionosphere with poten-tially catastrophic results. As described on theInternet Web site “60 Greatest Conspiracies,”HAARP’s huge transmitter (based at a 23-acrecomplex near Gakona, Alaska) “zaps the earth’sionosphere with high-frequency radio waves” andthus dramatically increases its temperature. Somealarmists have dubbed HAARP “the Pentagon’sdoomsday death ray,” blaming it for a variety ofworldwide disasters (including the crash of TWA

FLIGHT 800). Theorists charge (and federal sourcesdeny) that HAARP’s destructive potential includesdisruption of aircraft and missile guidance sys-tems, “weather modification plots and perhapseven MIND-CONTROL experiments.” Environmen-talists, for their part, question the advisability oftampering with the ionosphere for any reasonwhatsoever.

HAITIHaiti was occupied by Arawak natives until Christo-pher Columbus arrived in December 1492, swiftlyannihilating them by the sword, slave labor, and disease. SPAIN ruled the island until ousted byFRANCE in 1697. The island’s population of 480,000African slaves revolted in 1791, led by Pierre-Dominique Toussaint Louverture and declaring inde-pendence in 1801. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE brieflysuppressed the rebels, but they triumphed in 1804under leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and the newcountry resumed its original Arawak name. Sadly,the revolution wrecked Haiti’s economy, and dis-putes with neighboring Santo Domingo (now theDOMINICAN REPUBLIC) further retarded developmentunder a series of corrupt dictators. In 1905 Haiti“accepted” a U.S. customs receivership which lasteduntil 1941 and included 19 years of occupation byU.S. Marines to ensure “stability” on behalf of for-eign investors. After World War II Haiti enjoyed fouryears of democratic government, which was subse-quently wiped out in 1949 by the ascension of mili-tary strongman Paul Magliore. In 1957 Magliorewas eventually replaced by François (“Papa Doc”)Duvalier, a sadistic tyrant whose secret police—theTonton Macoutes—used a mixture of voodoo andraw brutality to suppress dissent. In the early 1960selements of the MAFIA tried to unseat Duvalier,replacing him with a ruler more amenable to tourism

(that is, gambling), but Duvalier hung on with U.S.support until 1971, succeeded by son Jean-Claude(also known as “Baby Doc”). In the 1980s, alreadyone of the world’s most crowded nations, Haitibecame one of the first to suffer from the spreadingAIDS epidemic. When popular rebellion finally droveBaby Doc from the country in February 1986, he fledwith satchels of loot aboard a U.S. Air Force jet.

While publicly committed to democracy in Haiti,Washington granted $30 million in military aid toHaitian army in 1986–87. In the 21 months betweenBaby Doc’s flight and the elections scheduled for November 1987, Haitian soldiers killed more peo-ple than Duvalier had slaughtered in the past 15 years.Throughout the election campaign, CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY personnel were “involved in a rangeof support for a range of candidates.” Violence post-poned the balloting from November 1987 to January1988, whereupon the army’s candidate declared vic-tory in a process widely viewed as fraudulent. Blood-shed continued for the next two years, climaxed bythe election of charismatic reformer Jean-BertrandAristide. Elected in 1990, Aristide weathered one coupattempt before his inauguration in February 1991.Seven months later, another military coup massacredAristide’s supporters; U.S. troops returned again toimpose “order.” UNITED NATIONS peacekeepers fol-lowed American troops and remain in Haiti today. Arebellion in 2004 finally drove Aristide from office,and he remains in exile as of this writing.

HAMMARSKJÖLD, Dag (1905–1961)Swedish native Dag Hammarskjöld, born in 1905,was an outstanding student at Uppsala University.Fascinated with political economy, he served vari-ously as the governor of Uppland, prime minister ofSweden, a member of the Hague Tribunal, and chair-man of the Nobel Foundation. In 1953 he was electedsecretary general of the UNITED NATIONS (UN) andwas reelected to a second term in 1957. Much of histime in office was devoted to a futile quest for peacein the Middle East where ISRAEL and her Arab neigh-bors were in constant conflict. In July 1960 the focusshifted toward the Belgian Congo where rebellionand mass murder threatened the stability of all ofAfrica. On September 18, 1961, while returning froman emergency conference in Leopoldville, Ham-marskjöld’s plane crashed near the border separating

Katanga and North Rhodesia killing all 16 personsaboard. Three separate inquiries concluded that thecrash was caused by pilot error, but the investigatorsdid not exclude “other possibilities.”

Conspiracy theories flourished for the next fourdecades, including a 1992 claim by two former UNofficials that Hammarskjöld’s plane was shot downby mercenaries hired by a consortium of Belgian,British, and U.S. mining companies with large invest-ments in the Congo. In August 1998 spokespeoplefor SOUTH AFRICA’s Truth and Reconciliation Com-mission announced that official letters dating fromthe apartheid era described a conspiracy to kill Ham-marskjöld. The letters were written by officers of theSouth African Institute for Maritime Research, afront for that nation’s military intelligence apparatusunder the former white-supremacist government, anddetailed a murder plot hatched between British Intel-ligence (MI5) and the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY (CIA). One letter states that “In a meetingbetween MI5, special ops executive and the SAIMR,the following emerged—it is felt that Hammarskjöldshould be removed.” The same letter went on to saythat “Allen DULLES [then director of the CIA] haspromised full co-operation from his people.” A sec-ond document outlined plans to sabotage Ham-marskjöld’s aircraft with explosives planted in thewheel bay, primed to detonate when the landing gearwas retracted on takeoff. In light of past disclosures,few observers were persuaded by a British declara-tion that “intelligence agents of the United Kingdomdo not go around bumping people off.” Ham-marskjöld, perhaps, had the last word on the subjectin a poem penned during his college days. He wrote:

Tomorrow we shall meet,

Death and I,

And he shall thrust his sword

Into one who is wide awake.

HAMPTON, Fred (1948–1969)An Illinois native, born in 1948, Fred Hampton wasby all accounts a remarkable young man. At age 18he organized and led a successful campaign to deseg-regate Chicago swimming pools under auspices ofthe National Association for the Advancement ofColored People. A year later he was affiliated withthe more militant BLACK PANTHER PARTY, marked by

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the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) as adangerous radical. Chicago agent-in-charge MarlinJohnson opened a file on Hampton in late 1967 thatexpanded to 12 volumes and some 4,000 pages dur-ing the next two years. In February 1968 Johnsonrequested wiretaps on Hampton’s mother; threemonths later Hampton was listed in the bureau’sAgitator Index as a “key militant leader.” By thattime Hampton faced local charges of stealing ice-cream bars valued at $71. He was convicted in thatcase, drawing a prison term of two to five years, buthe was released in August 1969 on an appeal bond.

The FBI was not idle while Hampton fought thetheft case in court. Between December 1968 and April1969 members of the bureau’s illegal COINTELPRO

team used anonymous letters to provoke a gang war between Hampton’s Panthers and members ofthe Blackstone Rangers. WILLIAM O’NEAL, a bureauinformant and agent provocateur, was installed assecurity chief of the Illinois Panthers in February1969, later serving as Hampton’s personal body-guard. G-men raided the Chicago Panther office onJune 4, 1969, ransacking the building and arrestingeight persons in an alleged search for federal fugitives(none of whom were found on the premises).

Soon after that raid, FBI leaders approached mem-bers of the CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT, askingthem to conduct additional Panther raids. A series ofviolent clashes ensued, leaving two police officersand two Panthers dead by the end of July and ninepersons jailed on various felony charges. Followingthe second police raid on July 30, “mysterious” firesbroke out in the Panther office and caused extensivedamage. A third raid, on October 21, 1969, left theremodeled office in shambles once again. Through-out that series of attacks, authorities found nothingto support FBI claims that the Chicago Panthers hadstockpiled illegal weapons.

On November 9, 1969, Chicago agents learned thatHampton was scheduled for promotion to serve as thePanther Party’s national chief of staff if incumbentDavid Hilliard was imprisoned for threatening Presi-dent RICHARD NIXON. Accordingly, G-men turned upthe pressure on local police to destroy Hampton, acampaign that gathered steam after November 13when another shootout in Chicago killed two Panthersand two police officers. Eight days later agents metwith representatives of Illinois State’s Attorney EdwardHanrahan and provided them with information col-lected by William O’Neal. The package included a

detailed floor plan of Hampton’s apartment, with vari-ous objects helpfully labeled—including “Fred’s bed.”That same day, November 21, 1969, the Chicago fieldoffice reported to FBI headquarters that “[o]fficials ofthe Chicago police have advised that the department iscurrently planning a positive course of action relativeto this information.”

On the night of December 3, 1969, someunknown person sedated Fred Hampton with a doseof secobarbitol before he went to bed. Hampton wasunconscious at 4:45 the next morning when stateand local police stormed the apartment. PantherMark Clark was killed by the first police gunshot asofficers burst through the door. Dying, he triggeredthe only shot fired from a Panther weapon thatmorning, a shotgun blast into the floor. Police sweptthrough the apartment, firing an estimated 90 shotsat unarmed targets. Fred Hampton died in his bed,shot twice in the head at close range with a pistol,execution style. Five other Panthers were wounded inthe fusillade, and various tenants of the apartmentwere charged with “attempted murder.”

In the wake of Hampton’s death, one member ofthe raiding party (Sgt. Daniel Groth) told reporters,“Our men had no choice but to return fire” duringthe raid. Ballistic evidence soon gave the lie to thatclaim while critics dubbed Hampton’s killing anassassination. Agent M. Wesley Swearingen sup-ported that claim, later testifying under oath that amember of the bureau’s Racial Squad told him, “Wegave [police] a copy of the detailed floor plan . . . sothat they could raid the place and kill the whole lot.”

Agent-in-charge Johnson was blasé in his publicstatements—“What they did with the informationwas none of our concern.”—but he cabled Hooveron December 11 to boast that “The raid was basedon information furnished by the informant. . . . Thisinformation was not available from any other sourceand subsequently proved to be of tremendousvalue.” He requested a $300 bonus payment forWilliam O’Neal, which Hoover personally approvedon December 17, 1969, “for uniquely valuable serv-ices which he has rendered over the past severalmonths.” (In all, O’Neal earned $30,000 from theFBI between 1969 and 1972.)

To preserve appearances, Agent Johnson requesteda federal grand-jury investigation on December 13,1969, to determine whether police had violated any-one’s civil rights during the Hampton raid. AttorneyGeneral John Mitchell assigned Assistant Attorney

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General Jerris Leonard to chair the hearings, whichbegan on December 21. Four months later, an FBImemo of April 8, 1970, disclosed that “AAG JerrisLeonard . . . advised SAC Marlin Johnson in strictestconfidence that no indictments of police officers areplanned. . . . The above is based on an agreementwhereby Hanrahan will dismiss the local indictmentsagainst the BPP members.” The police, in return forabsolution, agreed to keep silent regarding FBIinvolvement in the raid.

Members of the Clark and Hampton families werenot satisfied with the grand jury’s findings. In 1970they filed a $47.7 million lawsuit against Hanrahanand others, charging conspiracy to violate the civilrights of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. (A newgrand jury indicted Hanrahan and 13 police officersfor conspiracy in August 1971, but the charges werelater dismissed.) Nearly a decade passed before evi-dence uncovered in that case revealed the bureau’scentral role in Hampton’s death. Attorneys for theplaintiffs persuaded ex-Agent Swearingen to testify,and the defendants finally settled with a payment of$1.85 million in November 1982. One attorney inthe case described that settlement as “an admissionof the conspiracy that existed between the FBI andHanrahan’s men to murder Fred Hampton.”

HANSSEN, Robert (1945– )A Chicago native, born in 1945, Robert Hanssenwas the only son of a brutal police officer who con-stantly humiliated him while hounding him tobecome a doctor. After graduating from Knox Col-lege, Hanssen enrolled at Northwestern University’sdental school in 1966 and studied there for two yearsand then dropped out shortly after his marriage inAugust 1968. He ultimately earned a master’s degreein business administration from Northwestern(1973) and became a certified public accountant. Hethen spent two years with the CHICAGO POLICE

DEPARTMENT’s Internal Affairs division. Hanssenjoined the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)in January 1976, spending two years on white-collarcrime investigations in Indiana, where his supervisors“thought Bob Hanssen walked on water.”

Still he was dissatisfied; he was anxious for a foreign-intelligence assignment to make use of theRussian he studied in college. Transferred to NewYork City in 1978, Hanssen organized a major sting operation to capture Soviet spies, but he was

disappointed once again. As a colleague recalled,“He set up this squad . . . and well over half the FBIguys called in from home. They didn’t want to workon Sunday, so the Russians got away.” Thereafter,Hanssen apparently resented the bureau and decidedto betray it for profit. In 1979 he accepted $20,000from Russian military intelligence (GRU) to revealvarious FBI secrets, including the identity of Russiandouble-agent Dmitri Polyakov (executed in 1988after he was betrayed a second time by CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY [CIA] traitor ALDRICH AMES).Hanssen’s career as a spy was nearly ruined in 1980when his wife caught him writing a letter to hisRussian paymasters and he confessed his illicit activ-ity. In lieu of surrendering to the bureau, however,Hanssen consulted a Catholic priest who advisedhim to stop spying, seek counseling, and give theSoviet money to charity.

Religious vows notwithstanding, Hanssen keptspying until 1981 when he was transferred to FBIheadquarters as a supervisory agent. Two years laterhe was transferred to the FBI’s Soviet Analytical Unitin Washington and then back to New York City as asupervisor in 1985. Aware that G-men did not moni-tor mail sent to the homes of KGB officers who werestationed in the United States, Hanssen wrote toagent Viktor Charkashin in October 1985 and offeredto sell classified data for $100,000. His letter—signed “B”—proved his worth by naming three KGBagents secretly serving the United States. Two weresubsequently executed; the third was sentenced to 15years in a Russian labor camp.

During the next 15 years Hanssen emerged as oneof Russia’s most valuable spies in the United States.He betrayed entire espionage networks while evadingdetection by his fellow G-men. Returned to head-quarters as an intelligence analyst in 1987, he bur-rowed deeper, using his spare time and advancedcomputer skills to expose high-level secrets of theFBI, the CIA, and the NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY.Moscow was delighted, and his coworkers werenone the wiser. G-men had their first clear chance tocapture Hanssen in 1990 when brother-in-law MarkWauck, a Chicago FBI agent, grew suspicious ofHanssen’s cash reserves. Wauck told his superiorsthat Hanssen kept unusual amounts of money athome and that he suspected that Hanssen was spyingfor Russia. The bureau did nothing, and Hanssencontinued his illegal operations for another decade.He earned a small fortune from the Soviets but

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wisely resisted the urge to indulge in extravagantspending. (One deviation from that cautious patternwas his expensive romance with a stripper, whom heonce flew to Hong Kong when there for an inspec-tion tour of the FBI legal attaché’s office.)

In the end it was a Russian double-agent whobetrayed Robert Hanssen. In the latter part of 2000 aKGB source supplied G-men with some of the mate-rial furnished by Hanssen since 1985. The source didnot know Hanssen’s name, but fingerprints werelifted from one of the plastic bags that contained cer-tain documents. Thus identified, Hanssen was placedunder surveillance (with his office bugged) fromDecember 12, 2000, through February 5, 2001, andagents noted the location of a “dead drop” where heleft information for his Russian contacts. WhenHanssen was arrested en route to make anotherdelivery on February 18, 2001, he asked the agentswho surrounded him, “What took you so long?”

Hanssen confessed his crimes in custody and bar-gained with federal prosecutors to escape the deathpenalty. On July 6, 2001 he pleaded guilty to 13counts of espionage; 10 months later, on May 9,2002, he received a prison term of life withoutparole. Former FBI/CIA Director WILLIAM WEBSTER

was appointed to investigate Hanssen’s long career asa spy, producing a report highly critical of thebureau’s failures (including laps in reviewing itsagents’ financial records). A month before his finalsentencing, it was reported that Hanssen had pro-vided “valuable aid” in closing some of the bureau’ssecurity loopholes against future spies.

HARDING, Warren Gamaliel (1865–1923)A political product of the corrupt OHIO GANG, WarrenHarding served as a state legislator (1899–1903),lieutenant governor (1904–05), and U.S. senator(1915–21) before his inauguration as president.Harding was elected on a promise to restore “nor-malcy” in America after the turmoil of World War Iand the PALMER RAIDS, but instead he brought newlevels of corruption to the capital, revealed after hispremature death, in the TEAPOT DOME scandal.(Harding’s secretary of the interior, Bernard Fall,would be the first cabinet member convicted ofcrimes committed while in office.)

The Bureau of Investigation’s (BI) growth stalledunder Harding and new chief WILLIAM J. BURNS, withthe agent force expanding from 346 to 401 while

support staff was cut from 294 to 189. (The budgetalso deceased, from $2,342,751 in 1921 to$2,166,997 in 1923.) Many of the new agents were“dollar-a-year men,” appointed to the BI by politicalcronies who were anxious to fill their pockets withgraft. Attorney General HARRY DAUGHERTY used thebureau as a blunt instrument to punish striking rail-road workers in 1922 and sent agents to raid theoffices of his critics in Congress. PROHIBITION

enforcement languished while bootleg gangs tooktheir first steps toward establishment of a nationalcrime syndicate.

President Harding, meanwhile, amused himselfwith mistress Nan Britton (who bore his child out ofwedlock in 1919) and his personal bootlegger. Sev-eral historians claim (and one reports as fact) thatHarding joined the KU KLUX KLAN soon after hisinauguration. The Klan’s “Imperial Wizard” con-firmed those reports, and while his word is naturallysuspect, Klan members nationwide held mourningceremonies in August 1923 after Harding died whiletraveling. Various accounts of his last hours attributeHarding’s death to food poisoning, a stroke, or pos-sible assassination by persons unknown. For yearsafterward, Ohio Klan leaders posted an honor guardat his gravesite.

HARDY, Robert W.On August 22, 1971 FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION (FBI) Director J. EDGAR HOOVER joined Attor-ney General John Mitchell to announce the arrest of20 anti–VIETNAM War activists in or near the Cam-den, New Jersey, federal building. Five days laterMitchell announced the indictment of 28 defendantson charges of destroying government property, inter-fering with the Selective Service System, and conspir-acy to destroy records from the Camden draft board,the FBI’s resident agency, and the Army Intelligenceoffice. The defendants (including four Catholicpriests and a Lutheran minister) called themselves“America’s conscience”; critics and defenders alikedubbed them the “Camden 28.”

At trial, the government’s key witness was RobertHardy, an FBI informant who approached thebureau in June 1971 with word that a group of“friends” planned to burglarize the Camden draftboard. G-men later claimed that they employedHardy in hopes of capturing the persons who hadraided an FBI office at Media, Pennsylvania, three

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months earlier, removing and publicizing documentsthat exposed the bureau’s illegal COINTELPRO opera-tions, but in fact Hardy’s activities went far beyondproviding inside information on a criminal conspir-acy. At trial, the Camden defendants testified thatthey had abandoned their burglary plan as hopelessbefore Hardy joined the group and resurrected theidea. Hardy himself, under oath, admitted proposinga break-in, offering his “expertise at breaking andentering,” and providing “90 percent” of the toolsused to invade the federal building. Defense attor-neys urged the jury to acquit all 28 defendants if theFBI had gone to “intolerable lengths” that were“offensive to the basic standards of decency andshocking to the universal sense of justice.” Afterthree days of deliberation, the panel acquitted all 28defendants on all charges.

HARE KrishnasThe International Society of Krishna Consciousness(ISKCON) was founded in 1966 by Indian “swami”A.C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada and Americanacolyte Keith Ham (also known as KirtananandaBhaktipada). From all appearances, Prabhupada wasan amiable pacifist who was content to oversee aManhattan curio shop while his young disciplesshaved their heads, donned saffron robes, andbegged for money to the tune of “Hare Krishna”chants. Keith Ham ran ISKCON behind the scenes,and in the words of one associate he soon “decidedthat Swami Prabhupada was an old fart who didn’tknow as much as [Ham] did about marketing a newidea.” In pursuit of that goal Ham purchased 130acres of land outside Moundsville, Virginia, in 1968and named it New Vrindaban, expanding the settle-ment to 2,800 acres by 1983. Local opposition,including several incidents of violence, finallyprompted Swami Prabhupada to ask his flock:

When New Vrindaban has been attacked twice, thrice,

why are you not keeping guns? Where violence is, there

must be violence. We are not followers of Gandhi’s phi-

losophy. Ours began on the fields of war. If somebody

attacks you, you must protect yourselves to the best of

your ability.

Accordingly, Ham began to stockpile weaponsand recruiting a team of enforcers more notable fortheir criminal records than any devotion to prayer.

Swami Prabhupada died in 1977, dividing his globalreligious empire among 11 gurus, each with his ownreligious turf. Keith Ham promptly declared his 10rivals “in maya” (that is, living in sin) and launcheda latter-day crusade to consolidate the cult under hispersonal control. The first known ISKCON murderclaimed disciple Steve Bovan at Newport Beach, Cal-ifornia, in October 1977. Six hours later, anotherlocal California ISKCON guru Alexander Kulik wasarrested with $1.5 million worth of HEROIN in hispossession. In February 1980 police raided anotherISKCON compound, north of San Francisco, confis-cating an arsenal of illegal weapons and explosives.Back at New Vrindaban, polygamous guru Dennis(“Dharmatma”) Gorrick made a killing throughfraud, including mass sales of counterfeit sportsmemorabilia. Between 1983 and 1985 ISKCONbanked $10 million from sales of bootleg T-shirts,caps, and other items bearing likenesses of famous(and copyrighted) cartoon characters.

Internal squabbling over those illicit profitssparked further dissension in the cult, resulting inassaults, homicides, and other violent acts. In Janu-ary 1986 raiders from New Vrindaban stole threecars, 23,000 books, and $15,000 in cash from a rivalISKCON compound at Berkeley, California. Sued forthe thefts in court, Ham was forced to pay $40,000in damages. In 1986 New Vrindaban enforcer TomDrescher was convicted of killing two wayward dis-ciples. Ham and two cohorts were indicted in May1990 on three counts of racketeering, six counts ofmail fraud, and one count of conspiracy. He dis-missed the charges as “absurd,” but a jury disagreed,convicting him in 1991. His appeal in that case wassuccessful, but a second jury convicted him again in1996, and Ham was finally consigned to prison.

HAYES, Rutherford B. (1822–1893)Ohio native Rutherford Hayes was born in October1822 and graduated from Harvard Law School atage 22. He entered politics in 1857 as Cincinnati’ssolicitor general, but his career was interrupted bymilitary service in the Civil War. Back in civilian life,he served in the House of Representatives (1865–67)and as Ohio’s governor (1868–72, 1876–77). TheRepublican Party chose Hayes as its presidential can-didate in 1876, but he failed to win a majority of thepopular vote in that November’s election, which wasmarked by widespread racist TERRORISM in the

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southern states. The final count showed Democraticcandidate Samuel Tilden with 4,300,590 votesagainst Hayes’s 4,036,298. Neither candidate hadthe requisite 185 electoral votes to carry the contest—though Tilden had 184 to Hayes’s 165. Twenty criti-cal votes were disputed in three southern states(Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) wherewhite supremacists had staged widespread acts ofviolence and “carpetbag” governments stood accusedof fraudulent tabulations. While Congress undertooka recount of the votes, Hayes met secretly withDemocratic leaders from the South (including theformer “grand dragon” of Georgia’s KU KLUX KLAN).A compromise was reached whereby Samuel Tildensurrendered his claim to the White House in returnfor Hayes’s promise to end RECONSTRUCTION inDixie. Southern state governments thus returned towhite rule and the drive for racial segregation began,

while Hayes was inaugurated on March 4, 1877.His single term in office was distinguished bybloody government suppression of labor unions inthe country’s first significant railroad strike. Hayesdeclined to seek reelection in 1880, and he subse-quently died in January 1893. The next candidateto occupy the White House despite losing the popu-lar vote would be another Republican, George W.Bush in ELECTION 2000.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

HEROINHeroin is a drug processed from morphine, a deriva-tive of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum)which was discovered in 1854. Morphine was widelyused as a painkiller during the U.S. Civil War, thoughits addictive quality was not widely recognized untilthe postwar years. Heroin was developed in 1874and initially was marketed as a safe, nonaddictivesubstitute for morphine. By the time doctors discov-ered their mistake in that regard, thousands ofpatients were addicted to the new drug that is widelyknown today as “H,” “horse,” “skag,” or “junk.”Opiates were banned by the Dangerous Drugs Act of1920, but legislation simply moved production out-side the United States without reducing the supply.From the 1920s onward, members of the MAFIA

and other syndicated crime groups supplied an ever-growing addict population with their drug ofchoice. Primary sources of heroin today include LatinAmerica, Southeast Asia (the “Golden Triangle” ofLAOS, MYANMAR, and THAILAND), and Central Asia (the “Golden Crescent” or TURKEY, IRAN,and AFGHANISTAN). In 1999 federal authoritiesacknowledged 104,000 new heroin users in theUnited States. The following year 1.2 percent of theU.S. population—some 3.4 million people—admittedusing heroin at least once in their lives. In 2000 Mex-ican “brown” heroin cost $13,200 per kilogram onaverage, while pure “China white” from SoutheastAsia cost between $50,000 and $200,000 per kilo.

The most alarming aspect of America’s heroin epi-demic is not the drug’s availability, per se, but therole often played by U.S. government agencies in theglobal narcotics traffic. During World War II NavalIntelligence and the OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES

collaborated with Mafia bosses in the United Statesand ITALY to defeat America’s fascist enemies. Oneprice of that collaboration was protection of Mafia

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Republican candidate Rutherford Hayes negotiated a bargain to claim the White House after he lost the 1876presidential election. (Author’s collection)

rackets including the heroin trade. In the early daysof the cold war, the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

(CIA) worked hand-in-hand with Corsican herointraders to suppress left-wing activists in FRANCE, ajoint effort that opened the United States to the noto-rious “French Connection.” Two decades later inVIETNAM, the CIA struck similar bargains withopium warlords in Asia, transporting shipments ofheroin into the United States on protected AIR AMER-ICA flights. As recently as 2001, when PresidentGeorge W. Bush sent troops to topple the Talibangovernment of Afghanistan, suppression of herointraffic was billed as a secondary reason for the inva-sion. In fact, however, heroin exports have tripledunder the new “free” regime in Kabul. Criticalobservers suggest that such traffic could not existwithout protection from highly placed officials onboth sides of the Atlantic.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; FASCISM.

HESS, Rudolf (1894–1987)Rudolf Hess was born at Alexandria, Egypt, in April1894, the son of a prosperous German exporter-wholesaler. He lived in GERMANY from age 14 andvolunteered six years later for military service inWorld War I. Wounded twice in combat, he emergedfrom the army to join the right-wing Freikorps, amercenary force employed to crush communistuprisings in postwar Germany. He also joined theThule Society, a group of anti-Semitic occultistsprominent in National Socialist circles. Hess joinedthe Nazi Party in July 1920 and three years laterparticipated in ADOLF HITLER’s abortive revolution.In prison, Hitler dictated Mein Kampf to Hess andsoon ranked Hess among his closest friends. WhenHitler seized power in 1933, he named Hess DeputyFührer, the third most powerful man in Germany(after Hitler and Hermann Göring). Subsequenttitles bestowed upon Hess included Reich Ministerwithout Portfolio, member of the Secret CabinetCouncil, and member of the Ministerial Council forReich Defense. In 1939 Hess was even designated tobe Hitler’s successor after Göring. Because of hisbashful and unassuming nature, however, Hess wassometimes overshadowed by his nominal subordi-nate, MARTIN BORMANN.

On May 10, 1941, with World War II well under-way, Hess boarded a Messerschmitt fighter planethat had been fitted with extra fuel tanks and

embarked from occupied France on a 900-mile flightto Great Britain. His alleged intention was to meetthe Duke of Hamilton (a brief acquaintance from the1936 Berlin Olympics) and negotiate peace betweenEngland and Germany prior to Hitler’s impendinginvasion of RUSSIA. Hess navigated within 30 miles ofthe Duke’s home near Glasgow, Scotland, and thenbailed out of his plane at 6,000 feet and parachutedinto a Scottish farmer’s field. British authorities dis-missed the unauthorized peace plan and clappedHess in prison, while Hitler denounced Hess as amentally unbalanced traitor. In 1945 Hess wasreturned to Germany as a defendant in the Nurem-berg trials. He received a life sentence for WAR

CRIMES and remained in Spandau prison until 1987when he allegedly committed suicide at age 92.

Hess’s flight to Scotland was so strange that itinevitably spawned a host of conspiracy theories.Nearly two decades after his death, doubts still lingerconcerning his mission, his motive—and, indeed, hisvery identity. Some conspiracists claim that Hess wasin league with a clique of British Nazi sympathizerswho planned to seize the government and dictatepeace terms favorable to the THIRD REICH. Othersmaintain that the real Rudolf Hess never left Ger-many, but rather that a doppelganger made the flightand subsequently maintained the charade for 56years without blowing his cover. Dr. Hugh Thomas,a consultant surgeon in the Royal Army MedicalCorps during 1970–78, looked after Prisoner Num-ber 7 at Spandau and insisted that the man jailedthere was not Rudolf Hess. (An alternate doppel-ganger theory claims that Hess did fly to Scotlandhimself but died in custody before war’s end and wasreplaced by a look-alike volunteer.) Some scenariosadd a twist at the end, suggesting that “Hess”planned to reveal his true identity in 1987, where-upon he was murdered by custodians at Spandau toensure eternal silence. Various alleged cohorts ofHess in his far-fetched peace plan died during WorldWar II in a series of “accidents” that easily mighthave resulted from sabotage. British authorities, nat-urally, deny any knowledge of such a conspiracy.

See also COMMUNISM; NATIONAL SOCIALISM.

HIMMLER, Heinrich (1900–1945)Born at Munich in October 1900, Heinrich Himmlerserved in World War I as a teenager and then earneda degree in agriculture from Munich Technical High

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School in 1922. After working briefly as a fertilizersalesman, he joined the Nazi Party and participatedin ADOLF HITLER’s failed revolution of November1923. Between 1925 and 1930 he served as theparty’s propaganda minister, interrupted briefly by afailed attempt at poultry farming. In January 1929Himmler was named to lead the SS, Hitler’s “elite”black-shirted bodyguards. By the time Hitler seizedcontrol of GERMANY in 1933, SS membership hadballooned from 200 to 52,000, a force that wouldplay a key role in the coming HOLOCAUST. In April1934 Himmler donned a new party hat as chief ofthe GESTAPO, while retaining command of the SS.Himmler established the first Nazi concentrationcamp (at Dachau) in 1933 and afterward supervisedthe expansion of camps throughout occupiedEurope. In 1937 he declared, “There is no more liv-ing proof of hereditary and racial laws than in a con-centration camp. You find there hydrocephalics,squinters, deformed individuals, semi-Jews: a consid-erable number of inferior people.”

In addition to his racial fanaticism, Himmler wasalso a dedicated occultist who pursued black-magicrituals at Wewelsburg Castle in a basement chamberconstructed by slave laborers. He was a firmbeliever in such off-beat theories as the notion of aHOLLOW EARTH inhabited by perfect examples ofthe “superior” Aryan race, and Himmler’s agentsspent substantial time seeking the entry to thatnetherworld on the polar ice cap. Back in Germany,meanwhile, he established Aryan breeding centers,declaring in 1939 that “it will be the sublime taskof German women and girls of good blood actingnot frivolously but from a profound moral serious-ness to become mothers to children of soldiers set-ting off to battle.” After the WANNSEE CONFERENCE,Himmler and ADOLF EICHMANN methodicallyundertook Hitler’s final solution to the “Jewishquestion,” supervising the wholesale murder of 6million Jews and other “undesirables” includingGypsies, Slavs, gays, and the mentally ill. Capturedand indicted for WAR CRIMES in 1945, Himmlercommitted suicide by poison prior to trial. Hislegacy survives in a speech delivered to an SS audi-ence in 1943:

One principle must be absolute for the SS man: we must

be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of

our own blood and to no one else. What happens to the

Russians, what happens to the Czechs, is a matter of

utter indifference to me. Such good blood of our own

kind as there may be among the nations we shall

acquire for ourselves, if necessary by taking away the

children and bringing them up among us. Whether the

other peoples live in comfort or perish of hunger inter-

ests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our

Kultur. Whether or not 10,000 Russian women collapse

from exhaustion while digging a tank ditch interests me

only in so far as the tank ditch is completed for Ger-

many. We shall never be rough or heartless where it is

not necessary; that is clear. We Germans, who are the

only people in the world who have a decent attitude to

animals, will also adopt a decent attitude to these

human animals, but it is a crime against our own blood

to worry about them and to bring them ideals. I shall

speak to you here with all frankness of a very grave

matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite

frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly. I

mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of

the Jewish people. . . . Most of you know what it means

to see a hundred corpses lying together, five hundred, or

a thousand. To have stuck it out and at the same time—

apart from exceptions caused by human weakness—to

have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us

hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has

never been written and shall never be written.

HINDENBURG disasterIt was the largest airship ever built, 804 feet long,capable of ferrying 158 crew members and passen-gers across the Atlantic from GERMANY to North orSouth America. Supported by huge bags of hydrogengas, the dirigible Hindenburg was the pride of ADOLF

HITLER’s Nazi regime until May 6, 1937, when itexploded and burned during docking maneuvers atLakehurst, New Jersey. In the space of 37 seconds,35 of the 97 persons aboard perished in flames whileonlookers watched in horror and newsreel camerascaptured the disaster for posterity. Investigators onboth sides of the Atlantic concluded that the fire wasa simple accident, leaking hydrogen ignited by acharge of static electricity—but was it true?

As with most disasters of modern times, conspir-acy theories surfaced within hours of the Hindenburgexplosion. Some theorists believed (and still maintaintoday) that saboteurs destroyed the blimp in a homi-cidal bid to embarrass Nazi Germany. Captain Pruss,commander of the Hindenburg, was one of thosewho blamed the disaster on sabotage, but Hitler’s

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regime and the U.S. administration of PresidentFranklin Roosevelt seemed equally eager to close theinvestigation without pointing fingers. One suspectoften named in conspiracy theories is Joseph Spah, asurviving passenger who frequently visited his dog inthe Hindenburg’s baggage compartment (and thushad ample opportunity to plant a bomb). Anothersuspect, crewman Eric Spehl, died in the fire and wasposthumously credited with anti-Nazi attitudes. Nosolid evidence indicts either suspect (or anyone else),but speculation on causes of the fire still continues. In1998 spokespeople for the National Hydrogen Asso-ciation blamed weather conditions and an “unortho-dox” landing for the explosion. As explained in theNHA’s publication:

Observations of the incident show evidence inconsistent

with a hydrogen fire: (1) the Hindenburg did not

explode, but burned very rapidly in omnidirectional

patterns, (2) the 240-ton airship remained aloft and

upright many seconds after the fire began, (3) falling

pieces of fabric were aflame and not self-extinguishing,

and (4) the very bright color of the flames was charac-

teristic of a forest fire, not a hydrogen fire (hydrogen

makes no visible flame). Also, no one smelled garlic, the

scent of which had been added to the hydrogen to help

detect a leak.

Conspiracists remain unpersuaded as they havefor the past seven decades, noting that a bomb blastwould preclude any lingering aroma from a slowleak, with or without garlic.

HISS, Alger (1904–1996)Baltimore native Alger Hiss graduated from lawschool in 1929 and four years later joined PresidentFranklin Roosevelt’s NEW DEAL as an attorney for theAgricultural Adjustment Administration. In 1935 heshifted to the State Department’s Trade Agreementsdivision. By 1944 Hiss was promoted to serve asdeputy director of the State Department’s Office ofSpecial Political Affairs, in charge of establishing thepostwar UNITED NATIONS (UN). A year later heserved as secretary general of the San Francisco con-ference that established the UN. In 1939 formerCommunist Party member Whittaker Chambers toldState Department officials that Hiss and other NewDealers were members of a secret CP cell in Washing-ton, D.C. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)

agents delayed their first interview with Chambersuntil May 1942 and recorded a series of conflictingstatements during the next three years. In all state-ments Chambers denied any knowledge of spying.

FBI agents tapped the Hiss’s telephones fromDecember 1945 through September 1947, but theylater admitted that “no espionage activities by Hisswere developed from this source.” Hiss was calledto testify before the HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES in August 1948, and when hedenied knowing Chambers, HUAC brought themtogether on August 17. Confronted with his accuser,Hiss admitted knowing Chambers as “George Cross-ley,” a freeloader who rented an apartment fromHiss in the mid-1930s and skipped without payinghis bills. Hiss denied any communist ties under oathand challenged Chambers to repeat his charges outside the shelter of Congress. This Chambers did10 days later on television’s Meet the Press, and Hissresponded with a slander suit for $50,000.

Chambers had thus far continued to deny anyknowledge of espionage, including new denials in adeposition to Hiss’s attorneys on November 4, 1948.He changed his story two weeks later, though, pro-ducing a sheaf of 69 documents allegedly passed tohim by Hiss for later delivery to a Soviet agent.(Chambers failed in the latter part of his mission,allegedly hiding the documents for a decade at thehome of a relative in Baltimore.) The stash included69 typed digests of various State Department reportsand four short notes in what appeared to be Hiss’shandwriting. Since all the documents were datedbetween January 1 and April 1, 1938, Chambers wasforced to change his testimony once again, nowclaiming that he left the party on April 14, 1938. FBIheadquarters helped by suppressing reports of hisearlier contradictory statements.

On December 1, 1948, HUAC member RICHARD

NIXON telephoned FBI headquarters to report thatChambers “did not tell the FBI everything he knew”in previous debriefings. There were documents,Nixon reported, that would “substantiate and vindi-cate his position which have up to this time notbecome publicly known.” That night Chambers ledHUAC staffers to a rural property where theyextracted five rolls of microfilm from a hollowpumpkin. Two of the rolls revealed various StateDepartment documents, some of them in code. OnDecember 15, 1948, a grand jury indicted Hiss ontwo counts of perjury. Specifically he was charged

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with lying under oath when he denied passing docu-ments to Chambers and when he denied knowingChambers after January 1, 1937.

The prosecution hit a snag in January 1949 whenChambers told G-men that he would not testify thatHiss belonged to the Red cell in Washington since“he was not sure Alger Hiss was in the group.”Worse yet, a memo to Hoover (dated February 2,1949) reported: “It is not clear at this time if Cham-bers can testify that he received these particular 69documents from Hiss, but upon establishing the factsof this situation, decision can therefore be reached asto who is in the position to introduce these docu-ments.” While Chambers waffled, FBI agents scouredthe countryside for Hiss’s old typewriter, a Wood-stock bearing the serial number 230099. It wasfinally located in Washington, and members of theHiss defense team were stunned when a report fromthe FBI’s laboratory matched the machine to 68 ofthe documents furnished by Chambers. One reporthad been typed on a Royal machine, the discrepancynever explained since Chambers insisted all 69 hadbeen typed at home by Hiss’s wife. (Another FBIreport, exonerating Priscilla Hiss as the typist, wasillegally withheld from the defense.) Two decadeslater, reminiscing in the Oval Office, President Nixonconfided to aides, “The typewriter was always thekey. We built one in the Hiss case.”

Hiss’s first trial ended with a hung jury in June1949. He was convicted on January 20, 1950, at asecond trial and received concurrent five-year prisonterms on each perjury count. Hiss served 44 monthsand was released in November 1954. While remain-ing philosophical—he told reporters that “threeyears in jail is a good corrective for three years atHarvard”—Hiss fought tirelessly for vindicationthroughout the rest of his life. He was disbarred anddivorced but ultimately won reinstatement to theMassachusetts bar in 1975. Hiss died on November15, 1996, with heated debate still continuing aboutthe details of his case.

See also COMMUNISM.

HITLER, Adolf (1889–1945)The future champion of GERMANY’s “Master Race”was neither German nor visibly superior to any of hispeers. Born in Austria on April 20, 1889, AdolfHitler was a moody, mentally unstable child who leftschool at age 16 to endure “five years of misery and

woe” as a failed would-be artist. During that time hecultivated a pathological hatred of Jews, encouragedby such groups as the mystic-racist Thule Society.Hitler’s mental state was not improved by a poison-gas attack that left him hospitalized during WorldWar I, and he fumed impotently over the subsequentVersailles Treaty, blaming Jews, “traitors,” and com-munists for Germany’s defeat on the battlefield.Drawn inexorably to the fascist creed of NATIONAL

SOCIALISM, Hitler rose by 1919 to command Ger-many’s Nazi Party. He is credited with adopting theswastika as that party’s emblem and for leading ahalf-baked revolution against the Bavarian govern-ment in November 1923. That episode sent him toprison, where he spent his time dictating a long-winded political rant (Mein Kampf, “My Struggle”)to comrade RUDOLF HESS. Back on the street by 1925Hitler rallied his ever-growing mob of disciples andwatched the Nazi Party win increasing power in theGerman Reichstag (legislature). He was appointedchancellor of Germany in January 1933 and sixmonths later seized absolute power as Germany’sdictator.

Despite his predictions that the THIRD REICH

would endure for a thousand years, Hitler clung topower (and to life) for only 12 years after his rise toultimate power in Berlin. Within those dozen years,he captured most of Europe, invaded RUSSIA, andplunged the Earth into World War II. Hidden behindhis military adventures, Hitler also planned and car-ried out the Holocaust, his genocidal plan to rid theplanet of Jews and other “undesirables” by means offorced labor, starvation, and mass murder. In hismadness Hitler was finally unable to carry out hiscampaign for world conquest, driven by occultbeliefs and racist obsessions to make a series of tacti-cal blunders that ensured Germany’s ultimate defeat.On April 29, 1945, with enemies advancing onBerlin from all sides, Hitler dictated his last politicaltestament: “Above all I charge the leaders of thenation and those under them to scrupulous obser-vance of the laws of race and to merciless oppositionto the universal poisoner of all peoples, internationalJewry.” The next day he committed suicide with hisbride of 24 hours, Eva Braun. Because their bodieswere cremated and the charred remains were foundby Russian soldiers, rumors circulated in the Westfor many years that Hitler had escaped toARGENTINA (or even to the inside of a HOLLOW

EARTH) where he allegedly plotted the rise of a

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FOURTH REICH with vanished comrades MARTIN BOR-MANN, ADOLF EICHMANN, and JOSEF MENGELE. Thematter of his death is now well settled, but the Holo-caust and the Nazi looting of occupied Europe stillrank among the most grandiose criminal conspiraciesof all time.

See also COMMUNISM; FASCISM; HOLOCAUST AND

HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

HOLLOW EarthScience-fiction authors from Jules Verne to EdgarRice Burroughs are famous for their novels of elabo-rate and perilous worlds existing beneath our feet inthe hollow bowels of Earth. Their stories haveamused generations of readers and moviegoers, butmost fans of the genre would be surprised to learnthat some persons believe devoutly in the theory of ahollow earth inhabited by anything and everythingfrom living dinosaurs and missing links to fugitive

Nazis, genetic supermen, and/or alien visitors fromsome distant planet. Conspiracists who buy hollow-earth theory commonly tack on a government con-spiracy of silence aimed at deflecting the public fromknowledge of whatever lurks below.

British astronomer Edmund Halley (of Halley’scomet fame) in 1692 was one of the first to proposea hollow earth. His study of Earth’s fluctuating mag-netic field convinced Halley that the planet was hol-low and contained smaller concentric sphereswithin, swaddled in a gaseous atmosphere whoseescape through polar ice created the aurora borealis.Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler revised Halley’stheory, replacing the multiple orbs with an internalsun that is 600 miles wide and lights an advancedsubterranean civilization. Scottish mathematicianJohn Leslie proposed dual inner suns (named Plutoand Prosperine), while American John Symmessought money for a polar expedition to find the hid-den world’s secret gateway. Symmes failed in hisquest, but a U.S. expedition to the South Pole soughtthat entry port in 1838. Its members found no gap-ing chasms, but they saw enough of Antarctica toname it the Earth’s seventh continent. Eight yearslater, the discovery of frozen mammoths in Siberiasparked author Marshall Gardner’s belief that theprehistoric elephants had emerged from a worldbelow ground.

Some theorists apparently believe that Earth’smodern civilization exists on the inside of a hollowplanet. ADOLF HITLER tested that theory duringWorld War II, dispatching a team to the Baltic Seawhere Dr. Heinz Fischer aimed a telescopic cameraat the sky in hopes of photographing British war-ships across the hollow interior of a concave Earth.(He failed.) Other unverified stories claim that HEIN-RICH HIMMLER sponsored Arctic expeditions insearch of the portal to inner Earth where, hebelieved, a race of Aryan supermen waited to jointhe THIRD REICH’s military effort. Postwar authorErnst Zundel, most (in)famous for his role in out-spoken Holocaust denial, published a book assertingthat Hitler and his entourage had escaped to innerEarth via ARGENTINA and the South Pole, thereestablishing a secret base from which to launchUFOS. The vast weight of geological evidence refutesthe hollow-Earth theories, but hard-core conspir-acists assume such “evidence” is fabricated to con-ceal the buried truth.

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

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John Cleves Symmes (1780–1829) was an early proponentof the hollow-Earth theory. (Author’s collection)

HOLOCAUST and Holocaust denialIn 1920 fascist leader ADOLF HITLER promised aGerman audience that he would someday supervise“the removal of the Jews from the midst of our people.” Thirteen years later, on seizing control ofthe German government, Hitler launched the sys-tematic persecution of Jews that would lead to his“final solution”—the calculated murder of millionswithin Nazi-occupied territory. That 12-year cam-paign of genocide is broadly referred to as the Holo-caust, or in Hebrew as the Shoa (“catastrophe”).Before Hitler killed himself in April 1945, Naziadministrator ADOLF EICHMANN estimated that theTHIRD REICH had destroyed 6 million Jews alongwith lesser numbers of Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals,the mentally ill, and other “undesirables.”

The first Nazi concentration camps were built in1933, patterned on 19th-century prison camps usedin SOUTH AFRICA. (By 1945 the Nazis had establishedno fewer than 37 different kinds of concentrationcamps, each with a distinct purpose and class of pris-oners.) In 1935 Jews were denied German citizenshipand forbidden to marry non-Jews. By the time Hitlerstarted World War II in 1939, Jews in GERMANY

were barred from owning land and practicing mostprofessions. Those not penned in camps were con-fined to urban ghettos. Full-scale mass murder ofJews began in 1941 with Hitler’s invasion of Russia.By year’s end Nazi reports detailed the slaughter of1.4 million Soviet Jews, but the killing pace wasinsufficient to satisfy Hitler. The WANNSEE CONFER-ENCE of January 1942 formalized plans for the mas-sacre of Jews on an assembly-line basis. Whileable-bodied prisoners were worked to death as slavesand others were singled out for bizarre medicalexperiments under perverse physicians such as JOSEF

MENGELE, millions more were marked for executionat a series of death camps in occupied Poland. Thosecamps—Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka—were literal death factories where incoming Jewswere routed directly from railroad cattle cars to largegas chambers that were disguised as showers ordelousing rooms. Two million were gassed atAuschwitz alone, their corpses trundled into crema-toria that blazed around the clock.

Exposure of the Holocaust to public scrutiny in1945 left various Nazi leaders to face trial for WAR

CRIMES, while others escaped through the ODESSA

network or made themselves useful to the U.S. intel-ligence community as anticommunist spies in the

cold war era. Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped fromSouth America in 1960 for trial and execution inISRAEL. In that televised trial Eichmann downplayedhis role in the Holocaust but freely admitted thatmillions were killed under Hitler’s regime. Similarconfessions had already been obtained from captiveNazi leaders in 1945–47 while tons of documentaryrecords, films, and photographs proved the grimfacts of the Holocaust beyond the smallest vestige ofa reasonable doubt.

Or so it seemed, at least, until the 1970s when asmall but vocal group of “revisionist” authors(chiefly propagandists for one or another neo-Nazifringe group) launched a wave of Holocaust denial inthe world media. Spearheaded by the so-called Insti-tute for Historical Review (IHR), these self-styledscholars mounted a propaganda campaign to down-play Hitler’s crimes, in effect “rehabilitating” theNazi regime while blaming various alleged “distor-tions” and “lies” on the worldwide “Jewish media.”Among the Holocaust-denial movement’s primaryclaims are the following:

1. While some Jews admittedly died in concentra-tion camps, their number has been much exag-gerated by anti-Nazi propagandists, inflatedfrom perhaps 100,000 to the “impossible” fig-ure of 5–6 million.

2. Of those who died in Nazi custody, a few werelegally executed for various “crimes” (asdefined by racist Nazi statutes), while the vastmajority succumbed to disease in crowdedcamps or ghettos. Allied bombing raids on“innocent” Germany left kindhearted Naziswithout sufficient food or medicine to properlycare for their prisoners.

3. Most evidence of Nazi atrocities is fabricatedby Jews or those in their employ. Films andphotos of mass graves at various concentrationcamps really depict German civilians killed byAllied bombers at Dresden, while Nazi recordsof the Holocaust are clever forgeries. Nazi offi-cers who confessed to war crimes were “tor-tured,” “brainwashed,” and so on.

4. Finally, where evidence of deliberate murder isundeniable, the crimes occurred withoutHitler’s knowledge or approval, even in defi-ance of direct orders to the contrary from DerFührer. Sadly, all such records of Hitler’s con-cern for the Jews and other prisoners have been

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lost, presumably destroyed by the very Jewswho malign his memory.

While such assertions are patently ridiculous (andbanned by law in some countries, including Germanyitself), public-opinion polls in the 1980s and 1990srevealed that Holocaust denial was making inroadswith the U.S. public at large. One author who nevermissed an opportunity to minimize Hitler’s evil wasBritish historian David Irving, whose works includeThe Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitler’s War(1975), The War Path (1978), and Goebbels: Master-mind of the Third Reich (1996). In 1993 authorDeborah Lipstadt labeled Irving “one of the mostdangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial,” andhe subsequently filed suit for libel in London. After a10-week trial, in April 2000, Judge Charles Grayagreed with Lipstadt’s claims that Irving was “aracist, an anti-Semite, an active Holocaust denier,who associates with right-wing extremists.” JudgeGray also found that “Irving has for his own ideo-logical reasons persistently and deliberately misrepre-sented and manipulated historical evidence. For thesame reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwar-rantedly favorable light, principally in relation to hisattitude towards and responsibility for the treatmentof the Jews.” As the loser in that case, Irving wasliable for court costs in the amount of £2 million($3.7 million). He also faced possible extradition toGermany on criminal charges of racial incitement,following a speech he delivered to a neo-Nazi audi-ence. The IHR remains supportive of Irving and con-demns the various attacks on his work as characterassassination.

See also FASCISM.

HONDURASHonduras was inhabited by Mayan natives whenChristopher Columbus arrived on the scene in1502. Slaughter by Spanish conquistadors followed,and the country remained a colony of SPAIN until1821 when it declared independence and joined afederation of Central American states. Secedingfrom the federation 17 years later, Hondurasachieved true independence. A clash with neighbor-ing NICARAGUA brought U.S. Marines to “restoreorder” in 1907, followed by five more invasions toprotect American investments in 1911, 1912, 1919,1924, and 1925. Dictator Tiburcio Carias Andino

finally established “stability” in 1932, with pocketsfull of U.S. dollars. In 1954 the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY (CIA) used Honduras as a launch-ing pad for the destruction of GUATEMALA’s lawfullyelected government. EL SALVADOR invaded Hon-duras in 1969, waging a fierce border war that left5,000 persons dead before the invaders withdrew.In the 1980s Honduras reprised its role as a CIAstaging area for terrorist attacks on a neighbor—this time targeting Nicaragua with raids by CONTRA

guerrillas. President Ricardo Maduro, inauguratedin 2002, promised to curb crime and public corrup-tion, but critics regard his beefed-up army andpolice force, both increasingly oppressive, as areplay of the nation’s earlier dictatorships.

HOOVER, J. Edgar (1895–1972)Long-time FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)director J. Edgar Hoover was born in Washington,D.C., on January 1, 1895. He earned a law degreein night school but never practiced. Two monthsafter the United States entered World War I, in July1917, Hoover accepted a draft-exempt job as aclerk with the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, assigned to theAlien Enemy Bureau. He was promoted on July 1,1919, to serve as special assistant to Attorney Gen-eral A. Mitchell Palmer, a move that placed Hooverin charge of the Red-hunting General IntelligenceDivision, where he organized and supervised thePALMER RAIDS of 1919–20. On August 22, 1921,Hoover was promoted again, to serve as the bureau’sfirst assistant director under WILLIAM J. BURNS.Scandals surrounding the administration of Presi-dent WARREN HARDING ultimately doomed Burns,but Hoover emerged unscathed from the wreckageat Justice, and he was appointed acting director ofthe bureau on May 10, 1924. He became full-timedirector on December 10, 1924, and held that posi-tion until his death on May 2, 1972, almost 48years later. Under seven presidents and 16 attorneysgeneral, Hoover exercised near-dictatorial power,relying on FBI files to influence, amuse or blackmailhis superiors and to guarantee that he remained inoffice. He briefly cherished higher ambitions, pursu-ing a failed campaign to become a U.S. SUPREME

COURT justice in 1948 and launching an abortivepresidential bid in 1956, but Hoover’s command ofthe FBI gave him more covert authority than mostpublic officials in the United States.

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While admirers hailed that fact and looked toHoover as the savior of conservative America, hisflaws were both profound and numerous. One obvi-ous problem was strident racism, exemplified byobsessive campaigns to “prevent the rise of a ‘mes-siah’” in the black community. His pathological big-otry was revealed when Attorney General TomClark asked Hoover to investigate the attemptedmurder of (white) labor leader Victor REUTHER in1949. The strange answer came back: “Edgar saysno. He says he’s not going to get involved every timesome nigger woman gets raped.” Hoover was alsocorrupt, a fact effectively hidden from the publicuntil three years after his death. During his tenureas FBI director he used bureau agents to remodeland maintain his home while ghost writers in theCrime Records Division prepared various booksand magazine articles for publication over Hoover’sby-line. Income from book and film royalties aloneexceeded $200,000, “donated” to the FBI Recre-ational Association and other funds that Hooverand his top aides used as private slush funds. Withconstant companion Clyde Tolson, he accepted freevacations and gambling junkets each year (officiallydescribed as “inspection tours”) with millionairecronies Clint Murchison, William Byars, Sr., andothers picking up the tab. Those same friends alsoguaranteed no-loss investments for Hoover in oiland natural-gas corporations, while members oforganized crime funneled cash into the “nonprofit”J. Edgar Hoover Foundation.

Hoover’s mental health was also open to question.A hypochondriac who secretly consulted dozens ofphysicians for imaginary ailments, Hoover nurturedan obsessive fear of disease on par with that ofHOWARD HUGHES, outfitting his home and office withspecial “bug lights” designed to “electrocute” germs,and he displayed an “almost demented” reaction toflies in his office. Assistant Director WILLIAM SULLI-VAN was assigned to scour the media for articles ontreatments that were alleged to prolong human life“no matter how farfetched the claim” while Hooverdisplayed peculiar fear of letting anyone step on hisshadow. By the mid-1960s a private nurse wasemployed to give Hoover daily “massive injections ofsome substance to keep him going.” In 1970 Timemagazine reporter Dean Fischer found Hoover men-tally confused, noting that he “had difficulty inresponding to a question . . . without losing himselfin a forest of recollections” from the 1930s.

Hoover’s death on May 2, 1972, was officiallyblamed on “hypertensive cardiovascular disease,”but rumors persist to this day that he may have beenmurdered. During the WATERGATE investigation,journalist Mark Frazier reported in the HarvardCrimson that a series of break-ins at Hoover’s homehad been “directed by G. Gordon Liddy,” a formerG-man and key player in RICHARD NIXON’s criminalCommittee to Reelect the President. According toFrazier’s report the first burglary was intended to“retrieve documents that were thought to be used aspotential blackmail against the White House.” Whenthat effort failed, a second break-in was staged.“This time,” Frazier wrote, “whether through mis-understanding or design, a poison of the thiophos-phate genre was placed on Hoover’s personal toiletarticles.” No autopsy was performed, and a deathcertificate was routinely issued on May 5, 1972.Liddy later denied any knowledge of the Hoover bur-glaries, much less a murder plan.

See also JFK ASSASSINATION; RFK ASSASSINATION.

HOUSE Committee on Un-American Activities(HUAC)The House Committee on Un-American Activities,or HUAC, was created in 1938, with Rep. MartinDies as chairman, to investigate subversive activitiesin the United States. At the time fascist groups suchas the German American Bund and the CHRISTIAN

FRONT were a primary concern, but the far-rightpolitical leaning of Dies and company ensured thatmost of those investigated over the next 30-oddyears would be suspected members or associates ofthe Communist Party. HUAC’s disregard for lawand the U.S. Constitution was revealed a monthbefore its first hearings opened on July 6, 1938: Staffmember E. K. Gubin told FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) agents that Dies had ordered“certain of the Investigators to confiscate anythingthat they wanted in any business office to which theymay be sent and . . . not worry particularly aboutlegal procedure.” A case in point occurred in May1940 when HUAC raiders illegally seized two tonsof documents from the Communist Party and theInternational Workers Order in Philadelphia. By thetime three leaders of the raid were jailed and thedocuments returned by order of a federal judge,HUAC staffers had already photocopied the papersfor future reference.

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At about the same time, Chairman Dies made thecritical mistake of criticizing J. EDGAR HOOVER andthe FBI, suggesting that G-men were less than effi-cient in their pursuit of Reds. On November 22,1940, Attorney General Robert Jackson accused Diesof interfering with the bureau’s work, but the feudcontinued for another year until Hoover aideEdward Tamm privately confronted Dies with evi-dence of a recent $2,000 bribe. Henceforth, whileDies continued his verbal assaults on the New Deal,he never again criticized the bureau; in fact, asdescribed by journalist Curt Gentry, HUAC soonbecame “almost an adjunct of the FBI,” dominatedand manipulated by Hoover “for his own purposes.”

The pattern emerged most obviously under Chair-man J. Parnell Thomas when the FBI providedHUAC with classified files and testimony from suchinformants as Elizabeth Bentley who had outlivedtheir covert usefulness or failed to make their chargesstick in court. Targets including William Remingtonand Harry Dexter White were subjected to publiccharacter assassination by HUAC when G-menfound no evidence required for criminal charges, andcountless lives were ruined in the process. Rep.RICHARD NIXON joined HUAC in 1947 and subse-quently made a national reputation with his pursuitof witness ALGER HISS. Chairman Thomas spokefondly of the HUAC-FBI partnership in July 1948,telling Congress: “The closest relationship existsbetween this committee and the FBI. . . . I think thereis a very good understanding between us. It is some-thing, however, that we cannot talk too muchabout.” (Nor would it save Thomas in 1949 when hewas convicted of padding his payroll and was sen-tenced to three years in prison.)

HUAC continued to serve the FBI under variouschairmen through the years. In 1950, prior to publi-cation of a critical FBI history, the committee grilledauthor Max Lowenthal’s publisher in a failedattempt to find Red connections. During 1965–66,deviating from its pattern of investigating only left-wing targets, HUAC subjected the KU KLUX KLAN tosimilar treatment. In the process, Chairman EdwinWillis (from Louisiana) deplored Klan violence andunderestimated membership by 66 percent, simulta-neously praising the FBI’s anti-Klan work and exon-erating “respectable” segregationists from anyinvolvement in TERRORISM.

In 1969 HUAC was officially renamed the HouseInternal Security Committee (HISC), but its perform-

ance under Chairman Richard Ichord ran true toform. The committee worked with G-men and NixonWhite House aides to investigate “New Left” targets,but the WATERGATE scandal and subsequent exposuresof federal corruption left the HISC bereft of publicsupport. One of its last investigations, into charges ofalleged FBI malfeasance, may best be described as awhitewash. The 1974 report ignored any mention ofillegal COINTELPRO operations, blamed recent FBIproblems on “an inept [Nixon] Administration” andwarned of the danger presented by any future “severerestrictions placed upon the FBI.” The committee wasformally abolished by Congress in January 1975, itsfiles transferred to the National Archives under sealfor a minimum of 50 years.

HOUSE Select Committee on AssassinationsPublic skepticism concerning lone-assassin verdictsin the 1963 JFK ASSASSINATION and the 1968 murderof MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., was not assuaged bythe WARREN COMMISSION’s report in 1964 (on thedeath of President John Kennedy) or by the FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’s (FBI) MURKIN investi-gation (of King’s assassination). Revelations of crimi-nal activity by G-men and agents of the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, exposed by the U.S. Senate’sCHURCH COMMITTEE in 1975–76, added fuel to vari-ous conspiracy theories surrounding the murders.Congress responded to those widespread doubts inSeptember 1976, authorizing a new investigation ofboth crimes by a House Select Committee on Assassi-nations. The committee was specifically created toanswer four questions:

1. Who assassinated President Kennedy and Dr.King?

2. Did the assassin or assassins in either case haveassistance—was there a conspiracy?

3. Did the responsible federal agencies performadequately in sharing information prior to eachassassination, in protecting President Kennedyand Dr. King, and in conducting their investiga-tions of the assassinations?

4. Was there a need for new legislation or foramending existing legislation with respect toassassinations?

Chaired by Ohio congressman Louis Stokes, thecommittee questioned 335 witnesses in public or

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executive sessions, conducting a total of 4,924 inter-views. Immunity orders were secured for 165 wit-nesses, and two—Chicago mobsters SAM GIANCANA

and JOHN ROSELLI—were murdered by personsunknown before they could testify. The committeepublished its findings in January 1979, and whilevarious questions remained unanswered (includingthe role of organized crime in President Kennedy’smurder), the report found “a high probability” ofmultiple gunmen in JFK’s slaying. “A likelihood ofconspiracy” was also found in Dr. King’s death, withtwo deceased suspects named as possible sponsors ofan alleged murder contract, executed by confessedassassin JAMES EARL RAY.

The committee’s report exonerated both the FBIand the CIA of direct participation in either slaying,but the bureau did not escape criticism. In respect toPresident Kennedy, committee members found thatthe JUSTICE DEPARTMENT “failed to exercise initiativein supervising and directing” the FBI’s assassinationinquiry. Specifically, while the bureau’s investigation ofLEE HARVEY OSWALD prior to November 1963 was“adequate” and its probe of his role in JFK’s murderwas “thorough and professional,” the FBI was ranked“deficient” in sharing its data with other agencies andfurthermore “failed to investigate adequately the pos-sibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President.”

Evidence of federal malfeasance was more volumi-nous in Dr. King’s case where committee membersfound that the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaigns “grosslyabused and exceeded its legal authority and failed toconsider the possibility that actions threatening bod-ily harm to Dr. King might be encouraged by the pro-gram.” The bureau had performed “a thoroughfugitive investigation” in pursuit of James Earl Ray,but once again G-men had “failed to investigate ade-quately the possibility of a conspiracy in the assassi-nation.” Beyond that failure, the FBI had“manifested a lack of concern for constitutionalrights in the manner in which it conducted parts ofthe [King] investigation.” Specific “investigativeexcesses” noted by the committee included illegalinterception and photocopying of several lettersexchanged between defendant James Earl Ray andhis attorneys. G-men also interviewed Ray on at leastone occasion without legal counsel or mandatoryadvice concerning his right to stand silent. The com-mittee presumed that those actions were promptedby “pressure from above” in the form of demandsfrom Director J. EDGAR HOOVER.

Ultimately, the House committee’s investigationsolved nothing. Its 792-page report failed to con-vince lone-assassin devotees, while its failure to iden-tify living suspects in either assassination rendered itsproconspiracy verdicts effectively impotent. None ofthe committee’s recommendations for new legislationwere ever enacted by Congress. Controversy sur-rounding both crimes (and the RFK ASSASSINATION,ignored by the committee’s inquiry) endures to thepresent day.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

HUGHES, Howard (1905–1976)Future billionaire recluse Howard Hughes was bornin Houston, Texas, in December 1905. His fatherwas the founder and president of Hughes Tool Com-pany, a thriving business that accustomed youngHoward to luxury from infancy onward. ThoughHughes never graduated from high school, timelydonations from his father permitted him to auditclasses at Cal Tech University. Higher education wasabandoned with his father’s death in 1924 asHughes plunged headlong into managing HughesTool at age 19. From that financial base he movedon to Hollywood film producing, aeronautics, andconstruction. (One of his projects, the Texas Theaterin Dallas, witnessed the arrest of alleged presidentialassassin LEE HARVEY OSWALD in November 1963.)By the mid-1930s, while America wallowed in the Great Depression, Hughes was well on his wayto making billions out of millions and rubbingshoulders with countless influential politicians andindustrialists in the process. Exposure of a secretloan from Hughes nearly ended RICHARD NIXON’spolitical career in 1952. His ties to the MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX were legion and legendary,including frequent interaction with the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) on various covertschemes. At the same time Hughes was no strangerto the MAFIA, cheerfully doing business with anyonewho could multiply his already vast fortune. In 1953Hughes founded the Hughes Medical Institute inDelaware, gifting it with shares of Hughes Aircraft(thus making his lucrative weapons industry a tax-exempt “charity”).

By the early 1960s Hughes had developed a para-noid phobia of germs, retreating into near-totalseclusion, but his quirks did not prevent him fromrunning his empire with an iron fist. In 1966 he

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invaded LAS VEGAS and set about purchasing numer-ous hotel-casinos, perpetuating a myth that he“cleaned up” the town while the former criminalmanagement of his new acquisitions remained intact.Two years later Hughes declared, “I am determinedto elect a president of our choosing this year and onewho will be deeply indebted, and who will recognizehis indebtedness. Since I am willing to go beyond alllimitations on this, I think we should be able to selecta candidate and a party who knows the facts of polit-ical life. . . . If we select Nixon, then he, I know forsure, knows the facts of life.” Nixon was in factselected and emerged victorious in a narrow racemarked by the June 1968 RFK ASSASSINATION. By thetime Nixon’s administration foundered on theWATERGATE conspiracy, Hughes had left the UnitedStates for a closely guarded hospital ward in theBahamas. There he remained until April 5, 1976,when he died en route to a Houston hospital, aboardhis private jet.

Or did he?Conspiracy theories surround Hughes’s final days,

including allegations in the GEMSTONE FILE that hewas kidnapped by Greek shipping magnate AristotleOnassis. Others contend that Hughes faked his owndeath and went underground, still clutching thereigns of power in some shadow government thatmanipulates most major events in America and theworld at large. Likewise, his name features in count-less conspiracy theories spanning a half-century fromthe 1920s to his presumed death, including multipleinteractions with the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION, the CIA, organized crime, and various foreignplotters. The billionaire’s passion for privacy ensuresthat most of those theories shall remain speculation,and nothing more.

HUNGARYThe Roman Empire occupied present-day Hungaryin 14 B.C., followed by Magyar invaders in 896. In1241 a devastating Mongol invasion killed roughlyhalf of Hungary’s population. The nation reboundedunder King Louis I the Great (1342–82), but a cen-tury of destructive warfare with TURKEY ensued after1389. In 1526, after a stunning defeat by Turkishtroops, Hungary accepted Hapsburg rule to escapeTurkish occupation. Still, sporadic warfare withTurkey continued until 1699. A revolt against theHapsburg monarch was bloodily suppressed in 1848.

World War I briefly liberated Hungary in 1918, but ashort-lived republic was followed by communist ruleunder tyrant Belá Kun until Romanian troops occu-pied Budapest in August 1919. Hungary allied withNazi GERMANY in World War II, but Hungarian fail-ure to participate enthusiastically in ADOLF HITLER’s1941 invasion of Russia prompted Hitler to install apuppet government for the remainder of the war. In1948 with support from Russian troops, the Com-munist Party seized control of Hungary and ruled thenation until 1989. An anti-Communist revolt wasswiftly crushed in 1956 after 190,000 persons fledthe country. Subsequent leaders gradually liberalizedtheir policies until October 1989 when Hungary’sconstitution was amended to permit multiparty elec-tions. Russian troops withdrew in June 1991, leavingHungary to struggle with a failing economy. PrimeMinister Péter Medgyessy, elected in 2002, wasembarrassed by revelations that he had served as aspy in the Communist era, but an official investiga-tion “did not uncover any untoward behavior” dur-ing his years as a secret agent.

See also COMMUNISM.

HUSSEIN, Saddam (1937– )The man described by President George W. Bush as“Hitler revisited” was born at Tikrit, Iraq, on April28, 1937. The son of poor farmers, he grew up inAuja, a village of mud-brick huts located northwestof Baghdad. Saddam Hussein joined the socialistBaath Party at age 19 while enrolled at Baghdad’sMustanseriya University, and he made his mark threeyears later as a participant in the attempted assassi-nation of Prime Minister Abudul Karim Kassim. Sad-dam was shot in the leg during that escapade, but heescaped Iraq and lived abroad for several years. In1968 he helped lead the revolt that brought theBaath Party to power under Gen. Ahmed HassanBakr, who rewarded his efforts with the vice presi-dency. In that post Saddam built an elaborate net-work of SECRET POLICE to weed out dissidents. In1979 he deposed Bakr and assumed control of Iraq.

The 1980s were a heady decade for Saddam,armed and supported by the United States underPresidents RONALD REAGAN and George H. W. Bushto pursue a ruthless eight-year war against neighbor-ing IRAN. Washington ignored Saddam’s WAR

CRIMES and flagrant human-rights violations, includ-ing near-genocidal suppression of Iraq’s Kurdish

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minority. Washington remained supportive in July1990 when Saddam informed U.S. AmbassadorApril Gillespie of his plans to invade KUWAIT (aprovince of Iraq until British occupation forces sev-ered it from the larger nation in the late 19th cen-tury). The invasion proceeded on August 2, 1990,whereupon Bush suddenly reversed himself and pre-pared to expel Iraqi troops from OIL-rich Kuwait.The first GULF WAR, in early 1991, left Saddam inpower but surrounded by hostile forces, his nationsubjected to crippling economic sanctions. Tensionbetween Iraq and the United States continued duringthe next 12 years as leaders in Washington conve-niently forgot their role in supporting Saddam’s“evil” regime. Rumors of an Iraqi plot to assassinatePresident Bush in 1991 proved groundless, butBush’s son apparently believed them and would bidehis time to seek revenge.

The PENTTBOM attacks of September 11, 2001,exacerbated tensions between the United States andSaddam. President George W. Bush pronounced Iraqone-third of a mythical AXIS OF EVIL, also includingits mortal enemy Iran and the completely unrelatedstate of North KOREA. Additionally, Bush cited Iraqities to the AL-QAEDA terrorist network and claimsthat Saddam had developed various “weapons ofmass destruction” for use against ISRAEL and othertargets. Neither claim was substantiated after U.S.troops invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. OPERATION

IRAQI FREEDOM toppled Saddam’s regime and killedhis sons, but Saddam himself proved as elusive as hadOsama bin Laden during the earlier U.S. invasion ofAFGHANISTAN.

The search for Saddam Hussein in occupied Iraqquickly became a comedy of error with no end insight. Initial Pentagon reports that Saddam had beenkilled by a “smart bomb” attack on his commandbunker proved false: there was no such bombing,and indeed no such bunker. Iraqi politician AhmadChalabi cited “credible information” pointing toSaddam’s postwar survival on May 12, 2003, whichwas confirmed a month later by Iraqi prisoners ofwar who testified that Saddam had escaped the U.S.bombardment of Baghdad. On June 10 unsubstanti-ated rumors claimed Saddam had fled with $1.3 bil-lion from Iraq’s Central Bank and that he hadoffered cash bounties for the death of U.S. soldiersfrom a hideout in northern Iraq. An alleged ultima-tum from Saddam surfaced on June 14; it warned“all foreign citizens and those who came with the

cowardly occupiers . . . to leave Iraq.” Paul Bremer,head of the U.S.-led administration in occupiedIraq, told reporters two weeks later, “I’m assuminghe’s still alive, and we will get our hands on him,dead or alive.” On July 3, U.S. authorities offered a$25 million reward. Four days after that bountywas posted, an audio tape was broadcast over theArabic satellite network Al-Jazeera calling Iraqis tocontinue resistance against U.S. occupation forces.Saddam was finally found alive in a bunker nearTikrit on December 14, 2003. But even as PresidentBush proclaimed his capture a military triumph,armed resistance against U.S. occupation troopscontinued at full force.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY.

HUSTON PlanNamed for White House aide Tom Charles Huston,the Huston Plan was an attempt by PresidentRICHARD NIXON to coordinate and consolidatedomestic surveillance of his perceived political ene-mies throughout the United States and abroad. Themove began on June 5, 1970, when Nixon met withthe four chiefs of U.S. intelligence: FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) Director J. EDGAR HOOVER;Director Richard Helms of the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY; Vice Admiral Noel Gaylor of theNATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY; and Donald Bennett,director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Pro-claiming that the nation was beset by an “epidemicof unprecedented domestic TERRORISM,” Nixonappointed the four chiefs to an ad hoc committee fordevelopment of “a plan which will enable us to cur-tail the illegal activities of those who are determinedto destroy our society.” Hoover was placed in chargeof the committee, with Huston serving as WhiteHouse liaison.

Huston’s relationship with Hoover broke downthree days later when he met with the chiefs andrejected Hoover’s bid to prepare “a historical sum-mary of unrest in the country up to the present.”Contradicting Hoover before his peers, Huston dis-missed any review of “the dead past,” insteaddemanding a list of techniques for use against left-wing radicals in “the living present.” While Bennett,Helms, and Gaylor cautiously agreed, Hoover balkedat revealing the FBI’s illicit methods. In a memo toAssistant Director WILLIAM SULLIVAN dated June 6,1970, Hoover declared:

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For years and years I have approved opening mail

and other similar operations, but no. It is becoming

more and more dangerous and we are apt to get

caught. I am not opposed to doing this. I am not

opposed to continuing the burglaries and the opening

of mail and other similar activities, providing

someone higher than myself approves of it. . . . I no

longer want to accept the sole responsibility. [If] the

attorney general or some other high ranking person

in the White House [approves] then I will carry out

their decision. But I am not going to accept the

responsibility myself anymore, even though I’ve done

it for many years.

Historian Theodore White praised Hoover’s standas a lone hero’s resistance to Nixon’s criminal activi-ties, but in fact it was nothing of the kind. Hooversimply refused to place himself at risk for a corruptadministration that might use him as a scapegoat.Coordination of domestic spying through the WhiteHouse was thus derailed by Hoover’s instinct forself-preservation, while the nation’s chief practitionerof such techniques became an icon to civil libertari-ans. It was Hoover’s last coup before his death inMay 1972. Tom Huston was replaced in Nixon’sfavors by John Dean, and the Nixon regime movedon to the fatal morass of the WATERGATE scandal.

IBMThe International Business Machines Corporation(IBM) was created in 1924 when leaders of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company optedfor a less cumbersome title. Four years later, IBMjoined in the pseudoscientific eugenics movement,funded by the ROCKEFELLER Foundation and otherwealthy benefactors, which aimed at launching afull-scale domestic campaign of ethnic cleansingacross the United States. IBM’s contribution to theracist movement was the preparation of early com-puter punch cards that would classify Americansaccording to such categories as “race descent,”“nativity and citizenship,” and “kin in institutions.”The Carnegie Institution’s notorious Jamaica RaceCrossing Project introduced the punch-card systemin 1928 as a tentative means to purging the Earth ofnonwhites. Connecticut authorities subsequentlyfailed in their attempt to index (and forcibly sterilize)11,900 residents who were classified as “sociallyinadequate,” but the IBM punch-card system wassoon adopted by ADOLF HITLER and his SS as a meansof eliminating “undesirables” from Europe. Inves-tigative journalist Edwin Black broke the sordidstory seven decades later at the dawn of a new mil-lennium in his book IBM and the Holocaust. IBMchairman and CEO Lou Gerstner fielded inquiriesfrom various concerned investigators when the corporation’s history went public, announcing thathis firm had “deposited the relevant archives” with

New York University and Hohenheim University inStuttgart, Germany. In February 2001 five Holocaustsurvivors living in New York sued IBM on charges

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Herman Hollerith invented one of the first adding machinesand then became a founder of the IBM corporation.(Author’s collection)

that the company “knowingly supplied technologyused to catalog death-camp victims and aided in thepersecution, suffering and genocide” of Nazi victimsduring World War II. Attorney Michael Hausfield,speaking for the plaintiffs, said that “Hitler couldnot have so quickly and efficiently identified androunded up Jews and other minorities, used them asslave laborers and ultimately exterminated them,without IBM’s assistance.” The plaintiffs droppedtheir lawsuit a month later after German authoritiesestablished a $5 billion reparations fund for Holo-caust survivors and their families.

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

ILLUMINATIThe original Illuminati (“Enlightened Ones”) wasfounded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a disillusionedJESUIT and professor of canon law at the Universityof Ingolstadt, Germany. Borrowing heavily from therituals of Freemasonry, the group was an elitist revo-lutionary group with strong occult overtones, min-gling magic and politics in a scheme to abolish allmonarchies and form an “ideal” one-world govern-ment—led, of course, by the Enlightened Ones.Debate continues regarding possible links betweenthe Illuminati and the American Revolution (whichalso began in 1776) with proponents of the theorynoting that several founding fathers were also high-ranking Masons. At least one proposed link, sug-gested by J. Gordon Melton in his Encyclopedia ofReligions, may now be laid to rest. Melton claimsthat the Illuminati “was present in England as theHell-Fire Club headed by Sir Francis Dashwood,”himself a personal friend of Benjamin Franklin, butelementary research proves that Dashwood’s blas-phemous society dissolved in 1762, well beforeWeishaupt’s group was born.

A quarrel between Weishaupt and disciple BaronVon Knigge led to exposure of the Illuminati’s revo-lutionary goals in 1885. Weishaupt fled Germany,and his organization was banned by law in Bavaria(along with the Freemasons). Historians still debatewhat happened to the group from that pointonward, arguing the merits of a Jesuit priest’s allega-tion (published in 1797) that blamed the Illuminatifor the French Revolution’s “reign of terror.” Thesame publication linked Weishaupt’s occultism tothe dishonored KNIGHTS TEMPLAR and beyond thatto the Islamic ASSASSINS CULT. More recently, author

David Icke found a “remarkable resemblance”between Illuminati documents and the PROTOCOLS

OF THE ELDERS OF ZION (forged by Russian SECRET

POLICE in the late 19th century).No date is available for the Illuminati’s dissolu-

tion, if indeed it ever disbanded. Melton confirmedthe group’s existence in 1978 with public offices inSan Francisco and Nantes, FRANCE, but neitherresponded to queries seeking information about theorganization’s activities. Conspiracists, meanwhile,suggest that the Illuminati is active behind the scenesof most (if not all) major world events and institu-tions. Anti-Semites equate it with the so-called Jewish World Conspiracy, while others speak ofSATANISM or a guiding hand behind the NEW WORLD

ORDER. A typical Internet broadside, devoid of sup-porting evidence, insists that:

The Illuminati are elite men, those on the top, who con-

trol the International Bankers to control, for evil pur-

poses, the entire world. Their agent[s] are bred,

educated, and trained to be placed behind the scenes at

all levels of government. As experts and advisers, they

mould government policy so as to further the secret plans

of their masters. They lure people away from God by

offering them money, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Those who direct the Illuminati are against Christ

and for Satan. They always remain in the dark, uniden-

tified, and generally unsuspected. They use all peoples

to serve their diabolical purposes. They divide to con-

quer, supplying arms and money to both sides, instigat-

ing people to fight and kill each other, in order to be

able to achieve their objectives. they foster the terrorism

of atomic warfare and deliberately cause world famine.

Their primary goal is to form a one world government

to have complete control of the entire world, destroying

all religions and governments in the process.

In short, a one-size-fits-all conspiracy encompass-ing the Earth and all upon it. What conspiracistcould ask for more?

ImCLONE SystemsImClone Systems is a biotechnology firm, self-described as “dedicated to the development of noveltreatments for cancer and cancer-related disorders.”Its flagship product, the drug Erbitux, failed toreceive approval from the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration in December 2001, whereupon the

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company’s stock collapsed. As luck would have it,numerous ImClone executives dumped their stock onunwitting buyers before the FDA’s decision wasannounced after the close of trading on December28, 2001. ImClone’s founder and CEO, Dr. SamuelWaksal, warned his father and daughter of theimpending collapse, permitting them to sell sharesworth $10.6 million before stock prices plummeted.ImClone vice president Ronald Martell sold $2.1million in shares before the disaster, and corporatecounsel John Landes sold $2.5 million. Celebritystockholder Martha Stewart (whom Dr. Waksaldated after first enjoying a relationship with herdaughter) also managed to unload $2.3 million inshares before the collapse. Dr. Waksal was arrested in2002 for illegal insider trading. On June 10, 2003,federal judge William Pauley sentenced Dr. Waksal toseven years in prison plus fines and back taxes of$4.3 million. Martha Stewart received a five-monthprison term for her role in the scandal.

INDIAOne of the world’s oldest civilizations flourished inthe Indus Valley between 2600 and 2000 B.C. Aryaninvaders introduced new language and religion in1500 B.C., and King Asoka (269–232 B.C.) forciblyunited most of the Indian subcontinent for the firsttime. PORTUGAL “discovered” India in 1498 and helda virtual monopoly on trade for the next century.Muslim invaders captured Delhi in 1526 and formedthe Mogul empire, which lasted until 1857. Theircollapse was accelerated by the British East IndiaCompany, established at Surat in 1612, which bur-rowed and subverted from within, finally consolidat-ing England’s power throughout the subcontinent.Following the last gasp of independence in the SepoyMutiny (1857–58), India was formally declared aBritish colony.

Indian nationalism blossomed after World War I,spurred by the leadership of Hindu lawyer Mohan-das Gandhi and his Indian National Congress Party.Peaceful demonstrations goaded British rulers intocruel atrocities that shamed London on the stage ofworld opinion. Still, independence was stalled byBritish intransigence and the onset of World War IIwhen India was menaced by invaders from JAPAN.Britain finally granted India her independence inAugust 1947, but the victory was tainted by the par-titioning of mostly Muslim northern districts into a

new nation, PAKISTAN. Bloody religious warfareerupted, leaving thousands dead and millions home-less as refugees sought shelter with their respectivecoreligionists. At the same time, armed conflict flaredover conflicting claims to the princely states ofJammu and Kashmir. Gandhi’s assassination broughtJawaharlal Nehru to power in 1949, forging a repub-lican state that angered the United States by standingfirm for nonalignment during the cold war.

Religious and political strife persists throughoutIndia. In 1975 an Indian court found Indira Gandhi’s1971 landslide election as prime minister invalid dueto fraud. Rather than leave her post, Gandhideclared martial law and arrested many of her oppo-nents. The prisoners were freed in 1977, in time for anew election that unseated Gandhi, but she staged apolitical comeback in 1980. Four years later Gandhifielded troops against Sikh guerrillas at Amristar,prompting mass desertions by Sikhs in the army. TwoSikh members of Gandhi’s bodyguard assassinatedher in October 1984, whereupon she was succeededby her son. Sikh and Muslim TERRORISM continueswhile Indian troops sporadically assault guerrillabases in Kashmir and threaten neighboring Pakistanwith nuclear weapons. Suicide bombings are com-mon, including a blast in December 2001 that killed14 persons in the Indian parliament. Lethal riotingbetween Muslims and Hindus flares sporadicallydespite (or because of) the election of a Muslimprime minister, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, in July 2002.On the religious front, members of the Sadhu sectwere jailed in 2003 for multiple acts of human sacri-fice, while the AGHORA CULT continues to practicecannibalism without official interference.

INDONESIADiverse cultures and religions flourished throughoutthe Indonesian archipelago’s 18,000 islands whenHindu priests and traders arrived in the first and sec-ond centuries A.D. Muslim invasions began in the13th century, and most island inhabitants wereforcibly converted during the next 200 years. PORTU-GAL “discovered” Indonesia in the early 16th century, holding a near-monopoly on trade until the Dutch arrived to seize the archipelago in 1595. Establishment of the Java-based Dutch UnitedEast India Company secured the Dutch strangleholdon exports of coffee and spices. FRANCE, underNAPOLEON BONAPARTE, briefly claimed the islands in

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1811 but returned them to Dutch control five yearslater. Indonesia was made an integral part of theDutch empire in 1922, a fact ignored by Japaneseinvaders who craved new OIL resources during WorldWar II. After JAPAN’s surrender, nationalist rebelsfought their returning Dutch masters for freedom.Full sovereignty through “union” with the Nether-lands was granted in December 1949, but Indonesiabroke the deal in February 1956, seizing Dutch prop-erty throughout the islands.

Thus began the next great struggle for Indonesianhearts and minds. President Sukarno adopted a concept of “guided democracy” (that is, dictator-ship) under which the Indonesian Communist Party(PKI) gained dominant influence. Alarmed, CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY leaders plotted Sukarno’souster by means ranging from bungled assassinationattempts to circulation of pornographic films star-ring Sukarno look-alikes. After eight years of falsestarts, in October 1965, a U.S.-supported militarycoup deposed Sukarno and slaughtered an estimated500,000 alleged communists throughout Indonesia.(In 1990 former U.S. diplomats admitted compilinglists of suspected Reds, which they furnished to theIndonesian army’s executioners.) General Suharto—a neofascist who had previously served Dutch colonialists and collaborated with Japanese invadersduring World War II—imposed a brutal dictatorship(armed and supported from Washington). In 1975Indonesia invaded EAST TIMOR, ultimately murder-ing another 200,000 persons. Economic failuresprompted antigovernment riots in 1997, chiefly targeting Indonesia’s prosperous Chinese minority.Suharto resigned in May 1998, and Indonesia wit-nessed its first democratic election in June 1999.Ethnic, religious, and political violence continuesthroughout Indonesia while ex-President Suhartododges scheduled court dates on charges of corrup-tion. In August 2002 President George W. Bushannounced a $50 million grant of military aid toIndonesia to help the chaotic nation “fight TERROR-ISM.” Based on past performance, critics fear theguns and money may be used to inaugurate a newage of brutal repression.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM; FASCISM.

INTERNAL Revenue ServiceThe IRS traces its history to 1862 when Congressappointed the commissioner of internal revenue and

enacted a wartime income tax to fund the Civil War.That tax was briefly revived in 1894, but the U.S.SUPREME COURT ruled it unconstitutional the follow-ing year. That roadblock was dismantled in 1913when the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitutionempowered Congress to enact an income tax. Taxrates have fluctuated during the past 90-plus years(peaking at a top rate of 77 percent in 1918), and theIRS was overhauled in the 1950s to (theoretically)eliminate political patronage while replacing corrupthacks with career professional employees. Today,only the IRS commissioner and its chief counsel areappointed by the president, with confirmation fromthe Senate, but controversy still dogs the U.S.’s pri-mary tax-collection agency.

There is no doubt that the IRS has enjoyed acheckered career. In the 1930s, while J. EDGAR

HOOVER and the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

still denied the MAFIA’s existence, IRS investigatorsused tax-evasion charges to imprison such notoriousgangsters as Chicago’s Al Capone, Cleveland’s MorrisKleinman, and New Jersey’s Irving (“Waxey Gordon”)Wexler. Unfortunately, the agency’s crime-fightingrecord was sullied on several fronts. Presidents rang-ing from Herbert Hoover to RICHARD NIXON andRONALD REAGAN used IRS audits to harass politicalenemies, and the IRS itself was frequently abusive totaxpayers without any evidence of outside motiva-tion. Its ancillary agency, the BUREAU OF ALCOHOL,TOBACCO, AND FIREARMS, enjoys a similar reputationfor riding roughshod over civil rights, sometimes with fatal results. Periodic scandals dating from theTruman era to the present day reveal widespread corruption, conflicts of interest, and other unseemlyconduct by IRS administrators and agents from coastto coast. Successive efforts at reform have failed tostem the flood tide of complaints. Hard-core conspir-acists, meanwhile, insist that the IRS is a tool of ZOG

or some other shadow group acting behind the scenesto destroy U.S. freedoms and inaugurate a brutal NEW

WORLD ORDER. Among fringe groups of the right, thevery concept of an income tax itself is damned as aform of COMMUNISM.

INTERNATIONAL Brotherhood of TeamstersArguably the most notorious labor union in U.S. his-tory, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters(IBT) was organized in August 1903 in a conventionheld at Niagara Falls, New York. Cornelius Shea was

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elected general president and held that office until1907 when he was unseated by Boston organizerDaniel Tobin. Tobin, in turn, ran the union and nur-tured strong ties with the MAFIA until 1952 when heretired and was succeeded by Dave Beck. (The unionhonored Tobin by creating a new position, “presi-dent emeritus,” which paid the same $50,000 yearlysalary received by active-duty general presidents.)

Nationwide links between the Teamsters Unionand various mobsters were already well known tolaw enforcement (albeit ignored at FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION [FBI] headquarters, where DirectorJ. EDGAR HOOVER denied the existence of organizedcrime in America), but those corrupt ties becamepublic knowledge under Dave Beck’s regime. Senateinvestigations of the union propelled brothers Johnand Robert Kennedy to national prominence in 1957and sent Beck to federal prison for five years. Beck’sreplacement, James Hoffa, was questioned in thesame public hearings and nurtured a hatred of theKennedys that may have led directly to the JFK ASSAS-SINATION of November 1963. Hoffa was sentencedto an eight-year prison term for jury tampering in1964, remaining at large for three years until hisappeals were exhausted with a rebuff from the U.S.SUPREME COURT.

Despite incessant publicity surrounding theunion’s mob ties, multimillion-dollar “loans” to LAS

VEGAS casinos, and felony convictions of numerousTeamster officials, national politicians still courtedthe IBT’s money and 1.4 million voting members.President RICHARD NIXON was elected with Teamstersupport and rewarded Hoffa successor FrankFitzsimmons with a private sweetheart contract: Tokeep Teamster votes and guarantee Fitzsimmons con-trol of the union, Nixon granted clemency to Hoffain 1972 but barred him from holding any unionoffice for the next 10 years. Hoffa was fighting thatrestriction when he disappeared in 1975, a presumedgangland murder victim.

Fitzsimmons ruled the Teamsters for anotherdecade, long enough to see another presidentialhopeful, RONALD REAGAN, pledge his support to theunion in exchange for cash and votes. Reagannamed IBT Vice President Jackie Presser (an eighth-grade dropout, racketeer, and FBI informant) as a“senior economic adviser” to his White House tran-sition team, while lavishing praise on the union atlarge. (Reagan told one IBT gathering, “I want to bein team with the Teamsters.”) Fitzsimmons died of

cancer in May 1981, replaced as general presidentby Reagan ally Roy Williams. Less than two weeksafter his election Williams was indicted for conspir-acy to bribe Nevada Senator Howard Cannon. Con-victed of attempted bribery in 1982 he remained freeon appeal after resigning his union presidency. (In1985, still seeking leniency, Williams turnedinformer and provided details on the IBT’s long sym-biotic relationship with organized crime.)

Jackie Presser replaced Williams as Teamster pres-ident in April 1983, continuing the union’s supportfor President Reagan and successor George H.W.Bush. Presser’s links to the bureau finally could notprevent his May 1986 indictment for racketeeringand embezzling $700,000 through a “ghost”employee scam. Six months later four Mafia leaderswere indicted for rigging Presser’s IBT election andcontrolling his decisions in office. Mounting legalbills and failing health at last persuaded Presser tostep down as president two months before his deathin July 1988. William McCarthy replaced him aspresident, while FBI memos continued to describe theunion as “substantially controlled” by leaders oforganized crime.

In 1988 the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT filed a civil rack-eteering lawsuit against the Teamsters Union, code-named “Liberatus” after the FBI investigation thatcollected information on mob infiltration of the IBT.Union leaders and Justice officials reached a settle-ment on March 13, 1989, agreeing that the union’snext general president would be chosen in 1991 bypopular vote of convention delegates (as opposed torigged election by the union’s national committeecomposed of or influenced by racketeers). Thebureau’s Web site hails “Liberatus” as a major vic-tory, claiming that it “has been largely successful atremoving extensive [underworld] influence” from theIBT, but the 1991 election of president Ronald Careywas overturned six years later, and Carey was barredfrom seeking reelection in November 1997 ongrounds of corrupt campaign funding. Carey waslater indicted on seven counts of perjury concerningthat campaign, charges alleging that he lied to a fed-eral grand jury and to various other bodies estab-lished to end mob control of the union. Thoughacquitted at trial in October 2002, Carey was barredfrom IBT office while James Hoffa, Jr., assumed con-trol of the union that was once led by his father fromprison.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

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INTERPOLFormally known as the International Criminal PoliceOrganization, Interpol was created in 1924 withheadquarters in Vienna, AUSTRIA. Austrian policeeffectively dominated the early organization, andInterpol fell under Nazi control in the 1930s. Germangeneral Kurt Daluege was elected vice president ofInterpol in 1937 (and subsequently executed for warcrimes in 1946). At about the same time, FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) Director J. EDGAR

HOOVER sent Assistant Director H. Lane Dressler toan Interpol meeting in London. Dressler recom-mended that the United States join Interpol, andAttorney General Homer Cummings passed the rec-ommendation to Congress in 1938, two weeks afterADOLF HITLER annexed Austria. Congress authorizedpayment of the $1,500 yearly dues on June 8, 1938.

FBI participation in Interpol was limited by theapproach of World War II in Europe. G-men wereinvited to attend Interpol’s 1939 conference in Berlin,which was held under the auspices of SS leader HEIN-RICH HIMMLER, but the U.S. State Departmentdeclined the invitation. Reinhard Heydrich, chief ofHitler’s Security Police (SD) became Interpol’s newpresident, and the group’s headquarters moved to theBerlin suburb of Wannsee in December 1941, oneday after the PEARL HARBOR attack in Hawaii. There,Interpol shared quarters with the GESTAPO anddevoted itself primarily to hunting Jews and otherrefugees from German occupation. Heydrich wasassassinated in June 1942 and replaced six monthslater by Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Despite a pledge to“continue the strictly nonpolitical character” ofInterpol, Kaltenbrunner followed Heydrich’s exam-ple and was sentenced to death for war crimes at theNuremberg trials.

On the eve of the THIRD REICH’s collapse, Interpolofficials transferred their files to neutral Switzerland.The organization resurfaced in 1946 with much of itswartime leadership intact, although a new charterbarred investigations of a racial, religious, or politi-cal nature. Delegates from the U.S. JUSTICE DEPART-MENT were invited to the first postwar conference atBrussels in May 1946, but Attorney General TomClark officially declined. Spokespersons for the StateDepartment accepted, however, and the conferenceelected J. Edgar Hoover as Interpol’s vice president.President Florent Louwage of the Belgian PoliticalPolice had worked directly under Kaltenbrunner andled Interpol for the next decade.

FBI membership in the “new” Interpol was termi-nated in 1950 when Hoover learned that Czechpolice officials had used the organization to trackdown political defectors in West GERMANY. Unableto tolerate Reds as he did “reformed” Nazis, Hooverresigned his vice presidency of Interpol for “specialreasons” on November 26, 1950. The U.S. TreasuryDepartment joined Interpol in 1958 (at an inflatedyearly rate of $25,000, which was approved by Con-gress), but the FBI remained aloof. Echoes of Inter-pol’s Nazi past were heard in 1968 when SS veteranPaul Dickopf became president. By the time heretired four years later Interpol had a new Frenchheadquarters and nearly 2 billion Swiss francs in itsbank account, most of it contributed by supportersin Switzerland, BRAZIL, and VENEZUELA. Dickopf’svice president was Eugene Rossides from the U.S.Treasury Department. Another T-man on Interpol’sexecutive committee was Edward Morgan, who hadbeen driven from office in 1974 for his role in theWATERGATE scandal.

That same year, Director Clarence Kelley sent Asso-ciate Director Nicholas Callahan as the first FBI repre-sentative to attend an Interpol conference since 1958.Interpol was reeling from exposure of charter viola-tions in Northern Ireland (where it helped track politi-cal terrorists) and in the BAHAMAS (where it helpedpoliticians deport “undesirable” delegates to a BlackPower Conference in 1969). FBI leaders resisted thelure of formal membership until January 1985 whenInterpol officially repealed the charter ban on politicalinvestigations to permit activity in cases of TERROR-ISM. Four years later Interpol was further embarrassedby news that its Mexican representative, FlorentinoVentura, belonged to a drug-dealing voodoo cult thatwas responsible for 25 gruesome murders aroundMatamoros. By 1994 when bureau liaison washanded to the FBI’s International Relations, officialsestimated that 90 percent of international policeinquiries bypassed Interpol entirely. One journalistdescribed Interpol as “far from being the slick andsophisticated organization of popular mythology.”Another was more cynical, reporting: “They justhaven’t been the same since der Führer died.”

IRANThe land of modern-day Iran was shared by Medesand Persians until 558 B.C. when Cyrus the Greatousted the Medes and founded the Persian Empire.

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A series of wars expanded Persian territory intoINDIA before GREECE conquered the empire in 330B.C., followed by the Seleucids (312–302 B.C.), theParthians (247 B.C.–A.D. 226), and Arab Muslims(641). Britain and RUSSIA fought for control of Iranthroughout the Qajar dynasty (1794–1925). RezaKahn seized power in 1921 and changed his name toReza Shah Pahlavi four years later. Iran’s alliancewith the THIRD REICH during World War IIprompted British-Russian occupation in 1941, sup-planting the Shah with his more pliable son,Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Prime MinisterMossadegh, elected in 1951, moved to nationalizeIran’s OIL industry and drove the young shah intoexile, but U.S. troops joined in a coup to topple himin 1953, restoring the shah to his throne. Pahlavi’spostwar campaign of Westernization alienated Iran’sShi’ite Muslim clerics, but dissent was ruthlesslysuppressed by terrorist secret police (the SAVAAK).A declaration of martial law failed to stifle armedrebellion in 1978, driving the Shah and his familyfrom Iran in January 1979. Exiled cleric AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini returned to establish a Muslimtheocracy, imposing strict religious laws and ban-ning political parties throughout Iran. In November1979 Muslim activists seized the U.S. embassy inTehran and held 52 staff members hostage for thenext 14 months. Their release was negotiated byaides to presidential candidate RONALD REAGAN, theOCTOBER SURPRISE arranged to ensure Reagan’s election, with release of the hostages stage-managedto coincide with his January 1981 inauguration.During the next eight years, Reagan vilified Iran and funneled military aid to IRAQ for a series of wars with Khomeini’s regime, while at the same time arranging secret (and illegal) arms sales to Iran in support of Reagan’s (equally illegal) CONTRA

raids on NICARAGUA. The resulting IRAN-CONTRA

scandal led to indictment of several presidentialaides, all of whom were later pardoned by PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush. Khomeini died in June 1989and was succeeded as supreme leader by AyatollahKhamenei. Liberal reform candidates won surprisingvictories in elections held during 1997 and 2000, butIran’s clerical and military rulers have thus farblocked most efforts to relax theocratic rule. Rela-tions with the United States had relaxed somewhatby 2001 when the PENTTBOM attacks of September11 prompted President George W. Bush to a freshround of scapegoating. While the terrorist raids were

conducted by agents of AL-QAEDA, led by Osama binLaden and operating from AFGHANISTAN, Bushunaccountably blamed the incidents on a mythicalAXIS OF EVIL including Iran, Iraq, and North KOREA.In May 2003 Bush declared that Iran was stockpil-ing “weapons of mass destruction”—the same alle-gation falsely leveled against Iraq prior to the U.S.invasion that toppled SADDAM HUSSEIN’s regime—and announced plans to “destabilize” the Iraniangovernment. On June 20, 2003, Bush spokespeopleannounced that Washington “reserves the right touse military action to stop Iran making nuclearweapons,” while Tehran accused the United States ofwaging “a baseless propaganda war.”

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

IRAN-CONTRA conspiracyPresident RONALD REAGAN (1981–89) was dedicatedto elimination of leftist governments wherever theywere found on Earth, and none crystallized his obses-sion more clearly than the legally elected Sandinistaregime in NICARAGUA. Determined to overthrow thatgovernment by any means available, Reagan andVice President George H. W. Bush funneled cash andmilitary aid to a group of right-wing terrorists(dubbed “contras”) that were created by the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) in November1981. Contras staged brutal raids in Nicaragua,slaughtering civilians, raping nuns, and otherwisebehaving in the manner of fascist juntas throughoutthe Third World. Their crimes were so egregious thatCongress banned further U.S. aid to the movement in1984. Reagan and Bush pursued their illegal war indefiance of federal statutes, seeking cash for thecostly campaign from various alternate sources.COCAINE sales covered some of the costs, but theWhite House also arranged illegal sale of arms toIRAN and then engaged in a war with IRAQ (whomthe United States also supported), funneling cashfrom the sales to contra leaders in Central America.

Exposure of the plot began on October 5, 1986,when Nicaraguan soldiers shot down a contra supplyplane and captured its American pilot. One monthlater, on November 3, a Lebanese newspaper brokethe story of secret U.S. arms sales to Iran. Reaganissued a series of false denials but then, on November25, 1986, admitted arms sales to Iran with a diver-sion of cash to the contras. Reagan, still denying any

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personal knowledge of the conspiracy, appointed acommission to investigate the scandal. Both housesof Congress soon formed their own committees,while special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh wasappointed to seek indictments against Iran-contraprincipals. CIA chief WILLIAM CASEY died before histestimony was obtained, while others (including Lt.Col. Oliver North) committed perjury in an effort tosoft-pedal the plot. Former national security advisorJohn Poindexter floated the preposterous tale that hehad initiated the Iran-contra network without con-sulting President Reagan. Defendants ultimatelycharged in the case included:

Carl Channell, head of North’s covert fund-raisingefforts. On April 29, 1987, he pleaded guilty toconspiracy to defraud the United States.

Richard Miller, Channell’s public relations con-sultant. He pleaded guilty to identical chargeson May 6, 1987.

Oliver North, indicted on 12 felony counts,including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. gov-ernment. He was convicted on three counts inMay 1989; received a three-year suspended sen-tence and a $150,000 fine (reversed on appeal).

Robert McFarlane, Poindexter’s successor;pleaded guilty, on March 11, 1998, to with-holding information from Congress. Subse-quently indicted on charges similar to North’s,he was convicted in 1989, fined $20,000, andgiven two years’ probation.

John Poindexter, convicted on five counts of lyingto Congress in April 1990 and sentenced to sixmonths in prison (reversed on appeal).

Richard Secord, a retired U.S. Air Force generalinvolved in arms sales to Iran; charged withperjury, obstruction, false statements, and con-spiracy to defraud the United States. OnNovember 8, 1989, he pleaded guilty on onecount of lying to Congress.

Albert Hakim, owner of a company that facili-tated arms transfers to Iran; charged withbribery and conspiracy to defraud the UnitedStates. On November 21, 1989, he pleadedguilty on one count of “illegally supplement-ing” a government employee’s salary.

Clair George, Fiers’s superior at CIA headquar-ters; indicted on 10 counts of perjury. His caseended in a mistrial; jurors convicted him on twoof five counts at his second trial.

Joseph Fernandez, CIA station chief in Costa Rica;indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.Charges were dismissed when President Bush’sattorney general refused to permit disclosure ofclassified evidence at trial.

Thomas Clines, an ex-CIA agent who funneledarms to the contras; indicted on tax charges. Ajury convicted him on four felony counts onSeptember 18, 1990, and he received a 16-month prison term.

Alan Fiers, Jr., chief of CIA covert operations inCentral America (1984–86). On July 9, 1991,he pleaded guilty to withholding informationfrom Congress.

Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state whopleaded guilty on October 7, 1991, to with-holding information from Congress.

Duane Clarridge, another CIA agent; indicted onseven perjury counts in November 1991.

Caspar Weinberger, former secretary of defense;indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruc-tion.

On December 24, 1992, one month before leav-ing office, President Bush pardoned defendantsAbrams, Clarridge, Fiers, George, McFarlane, andWeinberger, thus ensuring that none would servetime or feel inclined to testify against their superi-ors in Washington. Lawrence Walsh’s final report,published in 1994, scored Reagan and Bush (bothout of office by then) for their illegal activities, butneither ex-president was ever charged with anyoffense.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; FASCISM; TERRORISM.

IRAQKnown in ancient times as Mesopotamia (“landbetween the rivers”), Iraq occupies most of theland between the Tigris and the Euphrates.Advanced civilization existed here as early as 4000B.C., conquered by Persia’s Cyrus the Great in 538B.C., then by GREECE (331 B.C.), and finally byArab Muslims (A.D. 640). Mongols pillaged thecountry in 1258, followed by repeated Persian andTurkish invasions during the 16th–18th centuries.TURKEY ruled the country from 1831 until WorldWar I when British occupation troops arrived,renaming the region Iraq and granting independ-ence to its monarchy in 1932. Avid Iraqi flirtation

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with ADOLF HITLER brought British troops backduring World War II. Iraq was a charter member ofthe Arab League in 1945 and three years laterjoined in an Arab assault on ISRAEL. A militarycoup led by Abdul Karem Kassim toppled themonarchy in July 1958; a military junta that forgedalliances with RUSSIA was installed. Kassim wasoverthrown and killed in March 1963 in a coupstaged by the Ba’ath Socialist Party, followed by aseries of juntas and coups that finally installed SAD-DAM HUSSEIN as president in July 1979.

Hussein’s regime soon developed a reputation forruthless repression and ethnic cleansing of Kurdishminorities. Official U.S. support remained unwaver-ing while Hussein waged war against neighboringIRAN through the 1980s while Presidents RONALD

REAGAN and George H. W. Bush turned blind eyes toSaddam’s TERRORISM at home. Bush funneled moneyto Iraq as late as January 1990, flaunting a congres-sional embargo on further aid to Saddam. On August2, 1990, Saddam told U.S. Ambassador April Gillespie that he planned to invade Kuwait (severedfrom Iraq by British fiat in 1899), and Gillespieraised no objection. As the invasion proceeded, how-ever—placing Saddam in control of OIL reserves esti-mated at 15 percent of the world’s total—Bush had achange of heart and rushed troops to Saudi Arabiawhile ordering Iraq to withdraw. The resultant GULF

WAR of January 1991 drove Iraq from Kuwait butfailed to topple Saddam’s dictatorship. It remainedfor another Bush to take up that crusade 12 yearslater in the guise of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Fol-lowing the September 11, 2001, PENTTBOM attacks,President George W. Bush accused Iraq of complicitywith AL-QAEDA terrorists and named the country aspart of a mythical AXIS OF EVIL (also including Iranand North KOREA). In March 2003 Bush accusedIraq of illegally stockpiling “weapons of massdestruction,” then he invaded the nation and droveSaddam into hiding, establishing a pliable regimewhile U.S. petroleum companies (including VicePresident DICK CHENEY’s colleagues at HalliburtonCorporation) began to pump Iraqi oil. No weaponsof mass destruction were found in the war’s after-math, leaving Bush to blame his CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY director and various foreign sourcesfor providing “faulty intelligence.” Likewise, nolinks between Saddam and al-Qaeda have yet beendiscovered.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

IRELANDIreland was inhabited by Picts until the fourth centuryB.C. when Celtic invaders subjugated the native popu-lace. Norse invaders ravaged the country from 795 to1015. In the 12th century the pope delivered Irelandto the British Crown as a papal fief, and England’sHenry II was acknowledged as “Lord of Ireland” in1171. Religious warfare began in 1690 with Protes-tant King William III (of Orange) defeating CatholicKing James II, and it has continued to the present day.Anti-British agitation and demands for home rule cli-maxed during World War I with the Easter Rebellionof April 1916. Britain triumphed in that struggle, butguerrilla warfare continued, and Ireland declareditself a republic in 1919. The Irish Free State wasestablished as a British dominion in December 1922,while six northern counties (modern Northern Ireland) were retained by the Crown. The IRISH

REPUBLICAN ARMY failed to prevent that partition,but its long war against Britain would continue intothe 21st century. Civil war rocked Ireland prior tofinal acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but therepublic survived and in 1937 changed its name toEire, with a new constitution. Corruption and briberyscandals haunted the dominant Fianna Fáil Party atthe dawn of a new century, but its candidates stillscored major electoral victories in 2002.

IRGUNThe first modern terrorist group in the Middle Eastwas not an Islamic fundamentalist movement butrather the Zionist organization Irgun Tsvai-Leumi(“Military-National Organization,” in Hebrew).Created in 1931 the Irgun denounced any moderateefforts to negotiate creation of a Jewish state inPalestine, instead demanding the immediate evacua-tion of Arab natives and British occupation troopsalike. The Irgun was funded secretly by leaders of the Polish government, ironically including anti-Semites who hoped that the establishment ofISRAEL would promote a mass evacuation of PolishJews. During Palestine’s so-called Arab revolt of1936–39, Irgun members and associates killed3,112 Arabs (versus 329 Jews murdered by Arabs).Four years later, led by Menachem Begin (laterprime minister of Israel), the Irgun merged with theIsraeli Defense Force and broadened its criminalactions to target British officials. Its more notoriousactions include the following:

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April 25, 1946—Seven British soldiers died in anIrgun raid on an arsenal in Tel Aviv.

July 22, 1946—A bomb explosion at Jerusalem’sKing David Hotel, headquarters of British civiland military authorities, killed 91 persons(including 17 Jews).

September 9, 1946—A Tel Aviv bombing killedtwo British officers.

October 8, 1946—An Irgun land mine outsideJerusalem killed two British soldiers andwounded 15.

October 31, 1946—Irgun bombers struck theBritish embassy in Rome.

November 17, 1946—An Irgun mine in Tel Avivkilled three policemen and a Royal Air Forcesergeant.

July 12, 1947—Irgun kidnappers abducted twoBritish soldiers. The captives were hanged onJuly 30.

September 29, 1947—The Irgun bombed a policestation in Haifa, killing eight policemen andtwo Arab civilians.

December 29, 1947—Irgun commanders lobbedgrenades into a Jerusalem café, killing 11 Arabsand two British police officers.

Irgun TERRORISM did not end with the creation ofIsrael in 1948. On April 9 of that year, joined bymembers of the equally brutal Stern Gang (led byYitzhak Shamir, another future Israeli prime minis-ter), Irgun gunners invaded the Arab village of DeirYassin, murdering 100–120 of the town’s 750unarmed residents. Perhaps dissatisfied with the bodycount, Irgun propagandists’ broadcast reported that254 had been killed (a figure often repeated in laterhistories, denounced in Israel as an “Arab exaggera-tion”). Other atrocities followed, with Irgun leadersmarching under the motto: “As in Deir Yassin, soeverywhere.” Chaim Weizmann, first president ofIsrael, described the action as “a miraculous clearingof the land.” Those Irgun terrorists who did not enterpolitics were absorbed by the new Israeli army.

See also ZIONISM.

IRISH Republican Army (IRA)The IRA has its roots in the Easter Rising of 1916when Irish nationalists fought to throw off theyoke of British colonial rule. That effort failed, butagitation for freedom continued, culminating in adeclaration of independence from Britain in 1919.The resulting conflict, with troops of the new IRAbattling British soldiers and native “loyalists”(mostly Church of England Protestants) dragged onuntil 1921, climaxing with partition of IRELAND

into its present form, while the six counties of Ulsterremained British under the name of NORTHERN

IRELAND. That disappointment sparked a brutalcivil war within Ireland itself that lasted until1924. The IRA hung on as a dissident organization,pledged to liberating Northern Ireland from Britishrule, until President Eamon de Valera banned thegroup in 1936.

Driven underground by de Valera’s edict, the IRAcarried its fight to Britain with a series of bombingcampaigns and other armed actions in England and

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The southern wing of the King David Hotel, which was theheadquarters of the British army in Palestine, was blownup by the Zionist terrorist organization Irgun in 1946.British personnel disregarded a telephoned warning; as aconsequence, 92 people died. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis)

Northern Ireland. Sporadic activity, chiefly raids onarsenals, continued throughout the 1940s and 1950swhile the IRA’s political wing (Sinn Fein) worked tocrystallize nationalist sentiment in both parts ofdivided Ireland. Renewed warfare was conductedduring 1958–60, but dissension split the organiza-tion during the next decade, as Marxist influencecaused some hard-line members of the CATHOLIC

CHURCH to challenge their fundamental beliefs. In1969 the IRA formally split, with a majority follow-ing the new Provisional wing toward a new genera-tion of armed struggle, while the Official IRA optedfor a more moderate approach (declaring a perma-nent cease-fire in May 1972). Moderation was thelast thing many nationalists craved, however; anarmed struggle (or TERRORISM) escalated steadilyduring the next two decades. As a new millenniumdawned, peace talks and cease-fires offered cause foroptimism, but radicals on both sides (includingProtestant guerrillas from the Ulster Volunteer Force

and similar groups) seemed unable to break theingrained habit of violence.

ISRAELKnown until 1948 as Palestine, the region of present-day Israel was ruled by two kingdoms (Israel andJudah) until successive invasions by Assyrians, Baby-lonians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, and Greeksdrove most Jews from the region by A.D. 135. Arabsseized Palestine from the Byzantine empire in 634–40and ruled until the 20th century, challenged only by aseries of Crusades launched by the CATHOLIC

CHURCH between the 11th and 13th centuries. Britishforces drove the Turks from Palestine in World War I,and a League of Nations mandate granted the regionto England in 1923. Leaders of the Zionist movement,seeking a Jewish homeland in the Middle East since1896, received conditional support from Britain withthe 1917 Balfour Declaration, which said:

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This young man in Belfast, Ireland, reads a mural supporting the IRA. (Ed Kashi/Corbis)

His Majesty’s Government view with favor the estab-

lishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish

people . . . it being clearly understood that nothing shall

be done that may prejudice the civil and religious rights

of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Further declarations in 1918 assured PalestinianArabs of self-rule in their homeland, but those prom-ises fell by the wayside after World War II and thepublicized horrors of the Holocaust. While the IRGUN

and other Zionist groups mounted campaigns of TER-RORISM to drive British forces from Palestine, worldopinion called for the immediate creation of a Jewishstate. Thus Israel was born in March 1948. This wasimmediately followed by military “land-cleansingoperations” in April and May, driving countlessArabs from their homes. War erupted with Israel’sArab neighbors in May 1948, ending eight monthslater after Israel had increased its land mass by 50percent. In 1956 Israel invaded EGYPT to supportBritain’s claim on the Suez Canal. Another “defen-sive” war in 1967 doubled Israel’s size, at the expenseof LEBANON and JORDAN. Various Arab groups there-after launched guerrilla campaigns against Israel, andIsrael responded with bombing raids and mechanizedinvasions of her neighbors, assassinated enemiesabroad, and ruthlessly suppressed Arab dissent athome. Supported by the United States and Britain,Israel is presently the only Middle Eastern state per-mitted unfettered development of nuclear weapons.Various peace negotiations spanning a quarter-cen-tury have failed to rescue the troubled “Holy Land”from incessant violence and religious intrigue.

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL;ZIONISM.

ITALYThe Etruscan civilization dominated Italy from theninth century B.C. until it was toppled by Romans 600years later. For the next seven centuries, until barbar-ian invaders sacked the Roman empire in the fourthand fifth centuries A.D., Rome essentially controlled the“known world’s” history. From 800 onward variousfeudal warlords and leaders of the CATHOLIC CHURCH

struggled fiercely for control of Italy. NAPOLEON BONA-PARTE unified Italy and crowned himself king in 1805,but Austria usurped French control 10 years later.Nationalist uprisings were crushed in 1820–21 and1831, but the impulse for freedom could not be denied.

A series of revolts and royal decrees unified Italy oncemore between 1860 and 1870. Although allied withthe victors in World War I, Italy was disappointed byits small colonial acquisitions and frightened by therise of COMMUNISM in Russia. In 1919 fascist leaderBenito Mussolini organized a militant movement to“rescue Italy from Bolshevism,” leading his black-shirted troops in a march on Rome. Named as premierin October 1922, Mussolini soon transformed the Ital-ian government into a dictatorship and forged analliance with ADOLF HITLER’s Nazi GERMANY in 1936.By that time Italy had conquered ETHIOPIA (1935) andcraved new targets. A major obstacle to Mussolini andhis comrades was the MAFIA, which had been deeplyentrenched in Italy since the 13th century throughalliances with corrupt politicians. While Mussolinitried to destroy the pervasive crime syndicate, U.S.mobsters (including CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO andMEYER LANSKY) joined forces with the U.S. military ona plan to invade Italy in World War II.

Defeated by the Allies in 1944, Italy rejectedmonarchy two years later and declared itself a repub-lic. Open elections including Communist candidatesdid not appeal to the United States, however, and dur-ing 1947–48, the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

spent millions of dollars to suppress leftist politicalgroups in Italy, including use of Mafia goons to intim-idate “Reds.” In the 1970s a rash of terrorist attacksby extreme left- and right-wing groups (including thenotorious Red Brigades) destabilized the Italian gov-ernment, and while most of those cliques were sup-pressed by the early 1980s, endemic scandal andcorruption marked a series of “revolving door”administrations during the next two decades. Mafiainfluence remains strong throughout Italy, despiteperiodic show trials and pledges of reform. Right-wing billionaire Silvio Berlusconi was named primeminister in June 2001, while critics aired charges ofMafia ties and challenged the wisdom of placingItaly’s number-one media mogul in charge of the gov-ernment. Berlusconi won acquittal in 2002 at his trialfor bribery and tax fraud, but the controversy sur-rounding his administration endures.

See also FASCISM; TERRORISM.

IT&TBrothers Hernand and Sosthenes Behn founded theInternational Telephone and Telegraph Corporation(IT&T) in 1920 as a holding company for their several

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Caribbean-based communications firms. It grew rap-idly from there and by the 1930s held stock in sev-eral German armaments companies, including a28-percent share of Focke-Wolf which producedfighter planes for ADOLF HITLER’s Luftwaffe. At theoutbreak of World War II, IT&T leaders refused anopportunity to repatriate their profits earned in GER-MANY and continued doing business with the THIRD

REICH. According to author Anthony Sutton in WallStreet and the Rise of Hitler: “IT&T’s purchase ofsubstantial interest in Focke-Wolfe meant that IT&Twas producing German planes used to kill Americansand their allies—and it made excellent profits out ofthe enterprise.” Charles Higham adds in Tradingwith the Enemy, that even after the PEARL HARBOR

attack, Hitler’s military employed IT&T to make“switchboards, telephones, alarm gongs, buoys, air-raid warning devices, radar equipment, and 30,000fuses per month for artillery shells used to kill Britishand American troops.” Furthermore, Higham writes,“IT&T supplied ingredients for the rocket bombsthat fell on London . . . high-frequency radio equip-ment, and fortification and field communication sets.Without this supply of crucial materials, it wouldhave been impossible for the German air force to killAmerican and British troops, for the German armyto fight the Allies in Africa, Italy, France, and Ger-many, for England to have been bombed, or forAllied ships to have been attacked at sea.”

Those offenses went unpunished while IT&Texpanded further in the postwar years. During the1960s and 1970s it became one of the world’s domi-nant multinational firms, owning a variety of compa-nies that included the Sheraton hotel chain, Levitthome builders, and Hartford Fire Insurance. Thecompany’s propensity for backing homicidal right-wing dictators surfaced again in the early 1970swhen President Salvador Allende nationalized IT&Tholdings in CHILE. Corporate leaders huddled withleaders of President RICHARD NIXON’s administration(chiefly HENRY KISSINGER) and the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY, hatching a plan to destroy Chile’seconomy and foment revolt within the Chilean army.Allende was deposed and murdered on September11, 1973, and replaced by the brutal junta of Gen-eral Augusto Pinochet. (Seventeen days later, left-wing activists bombed IT&T’s headquarters in NewYork City, in a gesture of protest.)

IT&T no longer exists in the form that sparked somuch scandal and protest during the Nixon years.The firm sold off its telecommunications holdings in1987 and eight years later split into three companies:ITT Hartford Group Inc. (insurance); ITT IndustriesInc. (defense electronics and auto parts); and a“new” ITT Corporation that merged with StarwoodHotels and Resorts in 1997. In theory, at least, thecompany no longer wields life-and-death powerthroughout the Third World.

JACK the RipperArguably the most infamous serial killer of all time,London’s “Jack the Ripper” murdered and mutilatedat least five hard-luck prostitutes (some place thetally higher) in the autumn of 1888. The stalker gothis nickname from the signature appended to varioustaunting letters mailed to police and the press—most(or all) of which are now considered fakes, writtenby kooks or headline-hungry journalists. After hislast confirmed murder—the victim was Mary Kelly—on November 9, the Ripper packed away his knifeand left historians to speculate on his identity. It isthe mystery that makes Jack so intriguing with newbooks and articles about his crime spree publishedevery year.

Inevitably, conspiracy theories have grown uparound London’s notorious bogeyman. The first,proposed in 1928, claimed that the Ripper was aRussian doctor, one Alexander Pedachenko, whocommitted the murders in league with czarist SECRET

POLICE, as a form of anti-British TERRORISM. Nosolid evidence supports the case, and Pedachenko isnow generally dismissed as a viable suspect.

The next Ripper plot, advanced in 1962, involvesa royal conspiracy of silence. In this scenario Jackwas Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward (“Eddie”),Duke of Clarence and Heir Presumptive to thethrone of England. Driven mad by syphilis or homosexuality (theories differ), the would-be kingallegedly ran amok in London, whereupon his family

buried the evidence and consigned him to a sanitar-ium (where he died in 1892). There are at least fourmajor problems with this theory. First, no evidenceexists linking Prince Eddie to the murders. There islikewise no proof that he suffered from syphilis, andwhile he may in fact have been gay, that arguesagainst his guilt since gay serial killers typically tar-get same-sex victims. Finally, official records showthat Eddie was far from London on the dates of allfive Ripper homicides (though one would expectnothing less from a royal cover-up).

A variation of the Eddie theme, proposed byforensic psychiatrist David Abrahamson in 1992, hasthe prince joining a homicidal tag-team with hisalleged gay lover, supposed woman-hater James K.Stephen. (Stephen alone is also named as the Ripperby other researchers.) Abrahamson claimed that filesobtained from Scotland Yard betray Edward andStephen as the killers; yet London police deny pro-viding Abrahamson with any such material.(Another cover-up?) Abrahamson’s account is alsorife with historical errors—and, once again, no con-crete evidence has surfaced linking either suspect tothe crimes.

The mother of all Jack conspiracy theories wasfloated by author Stephen Knight in 1976. Accordingto Knight, Prince Edward (no longer gay) secretlymarried a Catholic commoner named Annie Crookand fathered a child by her before the royal familyintervened. Discovering the prince’s faux pas, high-

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ranking members of the British government movedto clean up the scandal, clapping Annie Crook into alunatic asylum and murdering the five prostituteswho witnessed the illicit marriage. Those murderswere allegedly performed by a three-man team,including Sir William Gull (physician-in-ordinary tothe queen), artist Walter Sickert, and coachman JohnNetley. All three killers were FREEMASONS (as werethe police who covered up their crimes), and the vic-tims were disemboweled in accordance with“Masonic ritual.” Knight’s tale was a sensation in itsday, and it inspired the Sherlock Holmes film Murderby Decree, but it is full of gaping holes.

First, Dr. Gull was 72 years old when Jack plied hisblade and was partially disabled by the first in a seriesof strokes that would finally kill him in 1890. Further,Knight based most of his anti-Masonic “revelations”on the PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION, a noto-rious forgery concocted by Russian agents to vilifyJews. (How Knight shifted the focus of the Protocolsfrom Jews to the Masonic lodge is not explained.)Further, prevailing law in England at the time permit-ted the queen to nullify any marriage between aBritish heir and a member of the CATHOLIC CHURCH.If this were not sufficient to defuse the plot, researchrevealed in 1988 that Annie Crook was not aCatholic but rather a loyal Anglican from birth. Acurious footnote to the Knight-Masonic plot surfacedin 2002 when mystery novelist Patricia Cornwellnamed Walter Sickert (minus Gull and Netley) as theRipper in her final solution to the case. Sadly, as inthe many other efforts to reveal Jack’s true identity,the Cornwell opus was long on speculation andfatally short on evidence.

JACKSON, George LesterBorn in Chicago on September 23, 1941, futureblack activist George Jackson moved to Los Angeleswith his family at age 14. A series of juvenile arrestsclimaxed in 1957 when Jackson was convicted ofstealing $71 from a local gas station. He received anindeterminate sentence of one year to life in stateprison, with his case slated for annual review. Duringthe next 13 years, while waiting in vain for parole,Jackson studied the political writings of FIDEL CAS-TRO, MAO ZEDONG, and other modern revolutionaryfigures. He also corresponded with leaders of theBLACK PANTHER PARTY and was named a “field mar-shal” in that organization, working nonstop to

politicize nonwhite inmates at Soledad. For thatoffense, some say, his jailers marked him for death.

On January 16, 1970, a white guard at Soledad,John Mills, was killed by unknown inmates in retali-ation for the recent fatal shooting of three black pris-oners. Prison authorities charged Jackson, JohnCluchette, and Fleeta Drumgo with the murder, andthe case soon became a radical cause célèbre. A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for August 7, 1970, atthe Marin County courthouse, while sinister maneu-vers went on behind the scenes. Louis Tackwood, ablack undercover agent of the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) and the LOS ANGELES POLICE

DEPARTMENT (LAPD), later testified that his controlagents tried to arrange a jailbreak from the court-house, using informer MELVIN SMITH to arm andencourage a Black Panther raiding party. In fact, thePanthers refused to participate, and Jackson’s hear-ing was canceled. Unaware of the change, Jackson’steenage brother arrived in court with a bagful ofguns but saw only strange faces. Frustrated, he seizedthe courtroom, armed three prisoners unrelated tohis brother’s case, and left the courthouse with agroup of hostages including Judge Harold Haley,prosecutor Gary Thomas, and three jurors. Thegroup had barely entered Jackson’s van before a fir-ing squad of guards from San Quentin prison “coin-cidentally” arrived and riddled the van with bullets.Dead in the wreckage lay Jackson, Judge Haley, andtwo of the liberated convicts, while Gary Thomaswas crippled for life.

Legal maneuvers delayed George Jackson’s trialuntil August 1971. Three days before the proceed-ings were scheduled to begin, on August 21, violenceerupted once again, this time at San Quentin (whereJackson was housed pending trial). According to offi-cial statements, Jackson left his cell to meet attorneySteven Bingham and passed through two searches enroute to the meeting. Returning from the visitorsroom, Jackson allegedly drew a .38 caliber revolver(later changed to a large 9-mm automatic pistol)from beneath an Afro wig where the weapon lay bal-anced on his head. Chaos ensued, with Jackson killedby prison snipers while three guards were murderedby inmates. Steven Bingham, charged with smugglingthe gun (or guns) to Jackson in his briefcase (again,despite prison searches), fled into hiding andremained a fugitive until the 1980s. On his surrender,Bingham was tried and acquitted on all chargesrelated to the case. Meanwhile, George Jackson had

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become a martyr to the black nationalist movement,and his Soledad codefendants were convicted ofkilling John Mills. Informer Louis Tackwood testifiedfor the defense at that trial. When asked the natureof his last assignment for the FBI and LAPD, hereplied: “The assassination of George Jackson.”

JACKSON State College massacreThe month of May 1970, following disclosure ofPresident RICHARD NIXON’s covert military campaignin CAMBODIA, witnessed demonstrations on cam-puses and in cities across the United States. The offi-cial response was unusually harsh, including theshooting of 13 students (with four killed) byNational Guardsmen at KENT STATE UNIVERSITY onMay 4 and police shootings of 86 African Americans(six fatally) in Augusta, Georgia, on May 11.Demonstrations at Mississippi’s all-black JacksonState College were marked by scattered incidents ofrock and bottle throwing on May 13, and tragedystruck on the following day when a squad of localpolice and Mississippi Highway Patrol officersopened fire on campus, killing two persons andwounding 12 more.

Both police departments involved in the shootinghad long histories of racist violence toward blacksand of friendly collaboration with the KU KLUX

KLAN, a mindset emphasized when Highway PatrolInspector Lloyd (“Goon”) Jones radioed a call forambulances to transport wounded “niggers” fromthe campus. Officers involved in the shooting imme-diately collected their empty shell casings andreloaded their weapons to make it appear as if noshots had been fired—this, despite the casualtiesand evidence of 400 bullet holes in the women’sdormitory of Alexander Hall, aside from other dam-age caused by gunfire. When questioned later, eachand every officer present initially denied firing hisweapon, a circumstance that led the archconserva-tive Mississippi-Louisiana Press Association to passa resolution condemning the official conspiracy ofsilence.

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) investi-gation of the shooting (code-named JACKTWO)quickly identified pellets of No. 1 buckshot atAlexander Hall and confirmed that only Jacksonpolice officers had been armed with shotguns onMay 14. All officers involved had denied firing theirguns or collecting spent shells at the scene, but the

threat of grand jury subpoenas prompted certainhighway patrol officers to produce a number of shot-gun shells fired by city police. (Meanwhile, the statepatrol officers had destroyed their own shell casings.)Confronted with irrefutable evidence, several officersfinally admitted firing their weapons but claimedthey had done so only in response to “sniper fire”from Alexander Hall. FBI Director J. EDGAR HOOVER

made a premature announcement on May 18, report-ing that there seemed “to be substantial proof . . .that there was sniper fire on the troops [sic] from thedormitory before the troops fired.” In fact, there wasnone, as confirmed by Hoover’s agents when theirinvestigation was completed.

President Nixon, declaring himself “deeply sad-dened” by the Kent and Jackson shootings,appointed a President’s Commission on CampusUnrest—better known by the name of its chairman,former Pennsylvania governor William Scranton—toinvestigate the incidents. The Scranton Commission’sreport on Jackson State, published on October 1,1970, called the shooting “an unreasonable, unjusti-fied overreaction.” It also accused the Mississippilaw officers of lying and concealing or destroyingvital evidence. The report concluded “that a signifi-cant cause of the deaths and injuries at Jackson StateCollege is the confidence of white officers that if theyfire weapons during a black campus disturbance theywill face neither stern departmental discipline norcriminal prosecution or convictions.”

That expectation was borne out by subsequentevents. Although lying to FBI agents is itself a federaloffense, punishable by a maximum $10,000 fine and10 years in prison, G-men deviated from their nor-mal routine of obtaining signed statements in thiscase, thereby exempting all suspects from prosecu-tion. A federal grand jury was convened in June1970 under Judge Harold Cox (a racist known fordescribing Mississippi blacks as “chimpanzees”), butit returned no indictments after Cox advised thepanel that student demonstrators “must expect to beinjured or killed.” A Hinds County grand juryacknowledged that initial statements taken frompolice were “absolutely false” but decided that anyindictment of police for perjury or worse would be“unwarranted, unjustified and political in nature.”Instead, the panel chose a black bystander, 21-year-old Ernest Lee Kyles, and indicted him on October14, 1970, for arson and inciting a riot. (Chargeswere later dropped for lack of evidence.)

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Despite claims of “sadness” evoked by the shoot-ings in May 1970, President Nixon and companyresented any efforts to exonerate the victims. VicePresident SPIRO AGNEW denounced the ScrantonReport as “pabulum for the permissivists” and calledon J. Edgar Hoover for any derogatory material“that can ameliorate some of the impact.” Civilrights activist Ralph Abernathy was a particular tar-get of Agnew’s wrath, the vice president seekinginformation to “destroy his credibility.” (Hooveragreed with Agnew that Abernathy, successor to Dr.MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., as chief of the SouthernChristian Leadership Conference, was “one of theworst.”) Overall, as noted by the Southern RegionalCouncil in The New South, “People here think thatthe way the police handled the students at JacksonState is the way Nixon and Agnew want the studentstreated.”

Litigation arising from the Jackson State shootingsdragged on for more than a decade. Relatives of slainvictims Phillip Gibbs and James Early Green, assistedby an ad hoc Lawyers Committee for Civil RightsUnder Law, sued state and local police for $13.8 mil-lion in federal court. At trial, two officers admittedlying in their FBI interviews, and five G-men testifiedthat there was no evidence of sniper fire aimed atpolice, but an all-white jury ruled in favor of thedefendants on March 22, 1972. The U.S. Court ofAppeals in New Orleans ratified that verdict with aconvoluted judgment in October 1974: The panelruled that there was a sniper on campus; then itdeemed that the police reaction “far exceeded theresponse that was appropriate,” finally declaring that“sovereign immunity” exempted Mississippi policefrom any lawsuits regardless of their behavior. InJanuary 1982 seven justices of the U.S. SUPREME

COURT voted against reopening the case.

JAMAICAJamaica was inhabited by Arawak Indians whenChristopher Columbus arrived in 1492; he deci-mated the population and claimed the Caribbeanisland (which he called St. Iago) for SPAIN. Spanishrule endured until 1655 when Britain seized control.Pirates operated freely from the capital, Port Royal,until an earthquake flattened it in 1692. Africanslaves were imported to replace the slaughteredArawaks on great sugar plantations, and armedbands of escapees (called Maroons) harassed British

masters until slavery was finally abolished in 1833.Emancipation and a depression caused by fallingsugar prices sparked a revolt in 1865 that the Britishsuppressed. Jamaica became a Crown colony in1866, a status that remained in effect until Londongranted autonomy in May 1953. Nine years laterJamaica became independent. Poverty, corruption,and rampant crime remain serious problems, includ-ing drug exports to the United States and an interna-tional proliferation of Jamaican gangs (dubbed“posses”), notorious for their quick-trigger mayhem.Many of the drug-dealing criminals incorporate avariant form of Vodun, called obeah, into their illicitactivities; obeah used charms and curses to intimi-date superstitious enemies. At the end of the day,however, their primary faith resides in firepower andcold, hard cash.

JAMES, Jesse See UNDEAD OUTLAWS.

JAPANTraditional Japanese believe they ordained their firstemperor, Jimmu, in 660 B.C., but the nation’srecorded history begins in A.D. 400 when Kyoto’sYamato family seized control of central and westernJapan. Warrior clans known as samurai soon rose toprominence, and their historic influence survivestoday in certain elements of Japanese culture. Firstcontact with the West came in 1542 when a lost shipfrom PORTUGAL found Japan accidentally. Soon, aparade of traders and missionaries deluged the archi-pelago, but wary shoguns of the Tokugawa period(1603–1867) banned foreigners outside of the Dutchtrading post at Nagasaki. Japan’s self-imposed isola-tion was shattered in 1853 when a U.S. fleet arrivedin Tokyo Bay to open trade channels at gunpoint.Reluctant acceptance of those extortionate termsdoomed Japan’s feudal shoguns as the nation rapidlywesternized, becoming the dominant power in Asia.Multiple wars with CHINA and RUSSIA proved Japan’smilitary superiority over much larger neighbors. Fur-ther expansion into the Pacific followed Japan’salliance with the victors in World War I. Beginning in1931 Japan embarked on an imperial adventure thatled inevitably to the PEARL HARBOR attack of Decem-ber 1941. A string of early victories in World War IIreaffirmed Japan’s strength, but the tide turned in1942–43, and U.S. introduction of nuclear weapons

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in 1945 sealed the warrior nation’s fate. In the wakeof that conflict, various Japanese military leaderswere prosecuted for WAR CRIMES. With the threat ofCOMMUNISM looming in China, the United Statesforged alliances with Japanese YAKUZA gangsters tosuppress labor unions and left-wing political partiesthroughout Japan. Postwar reconstruction ironicallyplaced Japan in a powerful economic position by the1960s, emerging as a world leader in electronics,automobiles, and computer technology. Amid thebonanza, members of the Yakuza crime syndicatesalso prospered, expanding worldwide with narcotics,WHITE SLAVERY, and investment in Western commer-cial properties (including LAS VEGAS casinos). FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION spokespersons estimatethat Yakuza mobsters presently outnumber membersof the rival MAFIA around the world by a factor of10 to 1. Straying widely from its traditional Bud-dhist roots, Japan in recent years has also become ahaven for off-beat religious sects, including thehomicidal apocalyptic cult known as AUM SHIN-RIKYO (“Supreme Truth”).

JESUITSThe Society of Jesus is a religious order of theCATHOLIC CHURCH, founded in 1540 by St. IgnatiusLoyola. Its common “Jesuit” name was first appliedas a term of reproach by critics who claimed thatmembers of the society invoked the name of JESUS

CHRIST with blasphemous frequency. As dictated byvarious papal bulls that were issued between 1540and 1585, the Jesuit order is a body of priestsorganized for apostolic work, adhering to the rulesof the Catholic Church and relying on alms for sup-port. Today, the Society of Jesus is among thelargest Catholic religious orders, with more than20,000 Jesuits serving the Vatican in 112 nations onsix continents. They are heavily involved in educa-tion, as witnessed by the naming of Chicago’s Loy-ola University and Loyola Marymount University(in Los Angeles).

Throughout their history the Jesuits have beenaccused of plotting various conspiracies againstProtestants. The order was not (as some still claim)initially created as a military unit to oppose theReformation, but repeated exposure of that lie hasnot laid to rest persistent claims of Jesuit subversionin America and elsewhere. During the 17th century,various wars between Native Americans and British

colonists were blamed on “vagrant and Jesuiticalpriests” who “made it their business . . . to go fromSachem to Sachem to exasperate the Indians againstthe English.” New York ordered all Jesuits out of thecolony on November 1, 1700, but their exile onlymade the specter of an ecclesiastical conspiracy morecompelling. Each new frontier atrocity was brandeda “popish plot,” thus absolving colonists of responsi-bility for the sorry state of race relations in America.Jesuits were also instrumental (say conspiracists) increating the original ILLUMINATI movement and pro-moting revolutions across 18th-century Europe.

Anti-Jesuit (and broader anti-Catholic) sentimentin the United States was not eliminated by the Rev-olutionary War. Nativist organizations rangingfrom the KNOW-NOTHING MOVEMENT of the 1840sto the modern KU KLUX KLAN have railed againstalleged papal schemes for world domination. Mod-ern critics of the order note that FIDEL CASTRO waseducated by Jesuits (along with millions of otherstudents throughout the world), and Jesuit agentshave been named as prime movers behind the JFK

ASSASSINATION. (When asked why Rome would killAmerica’s first Catholic president, conspiracistsreply that John Kennedy had secretly broken withthe church and planned to “turn American.”)Adopting a tongue-in-cheek view of those wide-ranging conspiracy theories, one Internet Web sitefacetiously claims that “Jesuits also caused theAmerican Civil War, the Bermuda Triangle disap-pearances, and the shortage of Green M&Ms.”Given the climate of the times, some theorists willdoubtless take that joke as gospel truth.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

JESUS ChristThe central figure of the Christian religion is JesusChrist, a carpenter-prophet allegedly born atNazareth (in present-day ISRAEL) in about 33 B.C.The dominant event in Christian dogma is his sup-posed crucifixion and resurrection from the dead atage 33. Given the pivotal (and often violent) role ofChristianity in global events since that supposeddrama unfolded, it is only natural that a variety ofconspiracy theories have grown to surround thefigure of Jesus and the crowning moment of his lifeon Earth.

The earliest Christian conspiracy theories focuson the execution and alleged resurrection of Jesus.

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Skeptics note that to this day there is no record ofeither event outside the four “gospels” that open theNew Testament. Those books of unknown author-ship, apparently written 50–100 years after the sup-posed events, contradict each other so frequentlyand fundamentally that they must be dismissed assources of fact (vs. myth). To date, among the onlyextra-biblical references to Jesus’ crucifixion andresurrection is that allegedly penned by OrthodoxJewish historian Flavius Josephus in his Antiquitiesof the Jews, written 70–90 years after the event. Inone brief passage of that lengthy text, Josephusclaims that Jesus was “the Christ” and that he was“restored to life” three days after his public execu-tion. It seems strange that Josephus would acceptJesus as the Christ (that is, Messiah) when a basictenet of Orthodox Judaism insists that the Messiahhas yet to appear on Earth. In fact, all reputablescholars presently regard the passage as a subse-quent interpolation (that is, forgery) inserted bysome unknown Christian author long after Jose-phus’s death to strengthen the case for their faith.

As for the supposed resurrection, two conspiracytheories prevail among skeptics. The simplest is thatJesus’ disciples stole his body from its tomb and laterlied about his various posthumous appearances, thus“fulfilling” a prophecy spun from thin air. A twist onthat plot, suggested by author Hugh Schonfield inThe Passover Plot (1967), claims that Jesus wasdrugged to simulate death during his crucifixion andthen was revived afterward in a hoax resurrection.

Debate over the death of Jesus is a moot point ifhe never lived at all, an argument advanced by vari-ous scholars through the years. Persistent skeptic G.A. Wells and others note, once again, that there isno public record of Jesus’ birth, life, or supposedmiracles outside the four contradictory gospels.(Again, the brief forged passage from Josephus isexcluded on the grounds of unreliability.) Biblicalcritics note that the legend of Jesus, including hisunlikely virgin birth and his later sacrifice on Cal-vary, contain elements lifted from much older mythsand religions. Christian apologists were encouragedin 2003 when an ancient ossuary was unearthed inJerusalem’s Old City, bearing the inscription:“James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” If authen-tic, it would have provided the first extra-biblicalevidence that Jesus ever lived. Unfortunately for thefaithful, archaeologists dismissed the artifact asfraudulent in June 2003.

JFK assassinationAt 12:30 P.M. on November 22, 1963, PresidentJohn F. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in amotorcade through Dallas, Texas. Governor JohnConnally, riding in the same limousine, was alsowounded but survived his injuries. At 1:15 P.M.DALLAS POLICE officer J. D. Tippit was shot andkilled in suburban Oak Cliff before multiple wit-nesses. Authorities captured Tippit’s suspectedkiller, LEE HARVEY OSWALD, at a nearby theater;they later accused him of murdering PresidentKennedy. At 12:21 P.M. on November 24 Oswaldwas shot and killed by nightclub owner JACK RUBY

during a “routine” transfer from one jail to another.Ruby was convicted of Oswald’s murder and sen-tenced to die, but cancer claimed his life before hecould be executed.

Millions of words have been published aboutthose seemingly straightforward events; yet virtuallyevery detail of the crimes remains a subject of heateddebate to this day. Despite three official investiga-tions, two criminal trials, and 40-odd years of jour-nalistic argument, a definitive verdict in the JFKassassination remains elusive.

The first government investigation of the crimewas ordered by President LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON

and conducted by a “blue-ribbon” panel named afterits chairman, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice EarlWarren. Other members of the WARREN COMMISSION

included Senators Richard Russell and John Cooper,Representatives Hale Boggs and Gerald Ford, formerCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) director AllenDulles, and former Assistant Secretary of State JohnMcCloy. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)Director J. EDGAR HOOVER was not included, but heguided (some say controlled) the investigation. Infact, Hoover delivered his verdict to the media onNovember 25, 1963, stating that “Not one shred ofevidence has been developed to link any other personin a conspiracy with Oswald to assassinate PresidentJohn F. Kennedy.” He never wavered from that judg-ment, and the Warren Commission echoed Hoover’sfindings when its report was completed on September27, 1964.

Pronouncement of the lone-assassin theorydemanded some curious “logic,” however. Multiplewitnesses had reported gunshots fired from a “grassyknoll” in front of the president’s limousine ratherthan from the Texas Book Depository buildingbehind Kennedy where Oswald allegedly lay in wait.

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Physicians at Parkland Hospital seemed to confirmthat testimony with their initial description of an“entrance wound” in Kennedy’s throat. FBI marks-men, testing the alleged murder weapon, first had torepair its defective telescopic sight, and even then itwas incapable of firing three aimed shots within thetime frame dictated by films and audio recordings ofthe murder.

The Warren Commission’s greatest leap of faithwas seen in its acceptance of the so-called “magicbullet theory.” Simply stated, the commission foundthat lone gunman Oswald fired three shots atKennedy’s limousine. One shot missed the carentirely, while another was the fatal head shot cap-tured in Abraham ZAPRUDER’s famous home movieof the assassination. That left one shot to account forall the nonfatal wounds suffered by Kennedy andConnally together—and what a shot it must havebeen, if we believe the commission’s report. Offi-cially, the bullet entered Kennedy’s back and exitedthrough his throat; then it pierced Connally’s back,came out through his chest, shattered his wrist, andburied itself in his thigh. Later, at Parkland Hospital,the slug was found on an abandoned stretcher, hav-ing apparently fallen from Connally’s leg woundunnoticed.

That theory had numerous problems. First, physi-cians had described the hole in Kennedy’s throat asan entrance wound, while another relatively shallowwound in his back was probed with a finger andfound to be empty. If those early reports were accu-rate, then Kennedy was shot at least three times(including the fatal head shot), while a fourth bulletmust have struck Connally—and Oswald could notbe the lone shooter. To eradicate that problem, thecommission rewrote history, and medical reportswere altered or “lost.” In the final version the shal-low back wound disappeared, and Kennedy’s posturewas contorted to permit a gunshot in the back to exitthrough his throat. From there, the slug followed animpossible zigzag course to strike Connally at a dif-ferent angle and inflict his various wounds. Thus itwas written: Oswald’s first shot wounded Kennedyand Connally, his second missed, and the third shat-tered Kennedy’s skull.

But more problems remained.First, Connally and his wife denied that that the

first shot inflicted his wounds. Connally heard thefirst shot, he insisted, and turned to look at Kennedybefore a second bullet struck him in the back. (All

rifle bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, soConnally could not have heard the shot thatwounded him before the bullet struck.) To explainthat anomaly, the commission fabricated a “delayedreaction” on Connally’s part, but the story stilllacked credibility. The bullet in question—Commis-sion Exhibit 399—was “basically intact,” accordingto ballistics experts who examined it. It had not shat-tered or “mushroomed” on impact; in fact, it wasdescribed in several reports as “pristine.” And yet,the bullet that struck Connally left fragments in hiswrist and thigh—fragments that are not missing fromthe bullet found at Parkland Hospital.

Having thus “resolved” the central mystery ofKennedy’s assassination with an impossible scenario,the Warren Commission had no problem disposingof the other troublesome evidence. It ignored the“grassy knoll” witnesses and others who disputedthe description of J. D. Tippit’s killer, along with thevoluminous evidence of “lone gunman” Jack Ruby’sconnections to organized crime. It reported Oswald’s“communist” activities while failing to mention hisapparent role as a paid FBI informant, his closeworking relationship with a retired G-man in NewOrleans, and his association with known members ofthe right-wing MINUTEMEN organization. Reports ofhis appearance with still-unknown companions atcritical times and places were dismissed as lies or“mistakes.” CIA photographs of an unidentified manwho used Oswald’s name on visits to the Russianembassy in Mexico City were filed and forgotten.Oswald’s 1959 defection to the Soviet Union washighlighted, but the commission had no interest inhow he was able to return home so easily in 1962after renouncing his U.S. citizenship and marryingthe daughter of a reputed KGB officer. Jack Ruby’soffer to reveal a conspiracy in return for safe passageto Washington was rejected.

In fairness to the commission, its final verdict wasinfluenced as much by ignorance as by dishonesty.The FBI and CIA withheld much critical information,only revealed since the 1970s, and more presumablyremains unknown today. The commission neverlearned that both Oswald and Ruby were FBIinformants. It had no knowledge of the CIA’s longcampaign to murder Cuban leader FIDEL CASTRO,acting in concert with leaders of the AmericanMAFIA. Nor was it told that several of those high-ranking mobsters—including SAM GIANCANA

(Chicago), CARLOS MARCELLO (New Orleans), and

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SANTOS TRAFFICANTE (Miami)—had threatened Pres-ident Kennedy’s life in 1962–63. Similar threats wereon record from leaders of the Cuban exile commu-nity and at least one prominent member of the KU

KLUX KLAN.In 1967 New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garri-

son announced that he had uncovered a conspiracyin the Crescent City. Oswald had lived in NewOrleans for a time, and Garrison uncovered his linksto the city’s wealthy far-right political fringe. Some ofthe suspects were already dead, including Mafia pilotand self-styled superpatriot David Ferrie who “com-mitted suicide” soon after he was interviewed byGarrison. Still, Garrison filed charges against defen-dant Clay Shaw, a CIA associate with links to Ferrieand others including Klansmen, foreign agents, and acurious sect called the Orthodox Old CatholicChurch of North America. Shaw was also a stock-holder in the shadowy Permindex company, accusedby French president Charles DeGaulle of financingright-wing attempts on his life in 1962. Jurorsacquitted Shaw on March 1, 1969, and he died inNew Orleans on August 14, 1974. Life magazine,meanwhile, accused Garrison of taking bribes fromlocal mobsters in an exposé that failed to prevent hiselection as appellate judge. Today, students of theJFK assassination remain bitterly divided as towhether Garrison’s probe was an honest attempt tosolve the case or a “disinformation” campaign to dis-credit conspiracy researchers.

Calls for a congressional investigation climaxed inSeptember 1976 with the creation of the HOUSE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS. The com-mittee’s report, published in 1979, concluded that“acoustical evidence establishes a high probabilitythat two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy”and that therefore Kennedy “was probably assassi-nated as a result of a conspiracy.” Investigatorsaccepted Oswald’s role as one shooter, but they were“unable to identify the other gunman or the extent ofthe conspiracy.” That said, the panel ruled out vari-ous plotters, including the Russian and Cuban gov-ernments, anti-Castro exiles “as groups,” andorganized crime “as a group.” The FBI, the CIA, andthe SECRET SERVICE were exonerated of murder, butthey were found to have “performed with varyingdegrees of competency in the fulfillment of theirduties.” Specifically, the Secret Service was “defi-cient” in protecting Kennedy; the FBI “was deficientin its collection and sharing of information with

other agencies and departments”; and the CIA “wasdeficient in its collection and sharing of informationboth prior to and subsequent to the assassination.”

Today there are at least 10 prominent theories ofwho killed JFK and why. Oswald figures in all ver-sions, his role varying from that of prime mover tohapless scapegoat. The major theories and suspectsinclude:

1. Oswald, the lone assassin. Defended mostrecently by author Gerald Posner in CaseClosed (1993), the lone Oswald/lone Ruby sce-nario can only be accepted by ignoring moun-tains of contrary evidence.

2. Oswald and the Secret Service. This theory,proposed by author Bonar Menninger in Mor-tal Error (1992) keeps Oswald as a would-belone assassin but calls the fatal Kennedy headshot an accident, triggered by Secret Serviceagent George Hickey from another car in thepresident’s motorcade. Thus, while the SecretService did not conspire to kill Kennedy, Men-ninger finds a plot to hide the truth of theshooting and thus protect the agency’s reputa-tion (already tarnished by reports of agents ona late-night drinking spree the night before theshooting). Supporters of the theory note thatMenninger was never sued for libel after nam-ing Agent Hickey as the accidental triggerman.

3. Fidel Castro. President Kennedy supported the1961 BAY OF PIGS INVASION and subsequentlysanctioned various attempts on Castro’s life bythe CIA, Mafia leaders, and anticommunistexiles. Author Gus Russo theorized, in Live bythe Sword (1998), that Castro finally tired ofthe murder attempts and retaliated with a moresuccessful attack of his own. Oswald was theprimary triggerman, linked to Castro via hisinvolvement with the leftist Fair Play for CubaCommittee (FPCC). Acceptance of this theoryrequires believers to ignore the fact thatOswald’s FPCC chapter was a one-man organi-zation that shared office space with retired FBIagent Guy Banister and a host of far-rightactivists who hated Castro.

4. The Russians. Kennedy humiliated RussianPremier Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962with the Cuban missile crisis, and some theo-rists believe the Soviet Union struck back a yearlater in Dallas. Unfortunately for proponents of

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this theory, any scenario involving Oswald asthe primary shooter must first explain how hemanaged to defeat the laws of physics in Dal-las, using an obsolete rifle and an inoperativetelescopic sight.

5. The CIA. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, JFKunleashed FBI raids to close guerrilla trainingcamps in the United States where CIA agentsand others prepared Cuban exiles for illegalraids on their homeland. CIA director AllenDulles (later a member of the Warren Commis-sion) resigned in September 1961 whileKennedy reportedly threatened to dismantlethe agency itself. It seems entirely logical that“rogue” CIA officers, long accustomed to for-eign assassinations and other criminal activity,might have staged a preemptive strike againstthe president to save themselves (and, in theirview, America). Variations on this theme incor-porate conspirators from the Mafia, anti-Cas-tro groups, and various far-right organizations.

6. The Mob. Leaders of organized crime workedhard to elect John Kennedy in 1960, and hebetrayed them two months later by appointingbrother Robert as attorney general to mount anunprecedented federal campaign against rack-eteers nationwide. In addition to the variousMafia leaders, Teamster’s Union presidentJimmy Hoffa and several of his aides threat-ened both Kennedy brothers. The mob hadcenturies of experience with murder and dis-posal of witnesses. Jack Ruby’s long associa-tion with the underworld makes nonsense ofhis original claim that he shot Oswald to spareJacqueline Kennedy from testifying at Oswald’strial. Variations of the Mafia scenario involveCIA elements who employed the mob to killFidel Castro and anti-Castro Cubans whopromised resumption of mob-controlled gam-bling in Cuba should Castro be deposed.

7. Anti-Castro Cuban exiles. This angry cliqueblamed Kennedy for “sabotaging” the Bay ofPigs invasion and disrupting plans to kill Cas-tro. The exiles’ capacity for violence has beendemonstrated by a series of unsolved murdersand terrorist acts committed by such radicalgroups as ALPHA 66 and Omega 7. Cuban linksto the CIA, the Mafia, and far-right paramili-tary groups offered no shortage of potentialassassins in 1963. Exile leader José Aleman

discussed assassination plans with Floridamobster Santo Trafficante, and a Miami pam-phlet dated April 15, 1963 declared: “Onlythrough one development will you Cubanpatriots ever live in your homeland again asfreemen. . . . [I]f an inspired Act of God shouldplace in the White House within weeks a Texanknown to be a friend of all Latin Americans.”

8. The FBI. J. Edgar Hoover hated the Kennedysand feared that they would dismiss him if Johnwas reelected in 1964. Oswald and Ruby areboth identified in FBI files as bureau inform-ants, a fact Hoover concealed from the WarrenCommission. Hoover was also friendly withvarious mobsters on the Kennedy hit list,accepting cash, free vacations, and no-lossguaranteed investment tips for a 30-yearperiod, during which he denied the existence oforganized crime in America. On November 24,1963, he told White House aide Walter Jenk-ins, “The thing I am most concerned about . . .is having something issued so we can convincethe public that Oswald is the real assassin.”

9. The U.S. MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. Pen-tagon leaders and defense contractors weretroubled by President Kennedy’s rumored plansto disengage the United States from the Viet-nam conflict, and his murder came only daysafter the assassination of South Vietnamese dic-tator Ngo Dinh Diem in what many observersnow consider a coup d’état supported by theU.S. military and CIA. In this scenario, high-ranking generals and the corporate leeches whogrow fat on military cost overruns had billionsto gain and nothing to lose by killing a presi-dent whom they considered “soft on commu-nism.” Lyndon Johnson is often cast as acoconspirator in variants of this scenario.

10. The far-right “lunatic fringe.” The day beforeKennedy’s arrival in Dallas, associates of right-wing oilman H. L. Hunt purchased a full-pageadvertisement in a local newspaper declaringthat JFK was “Wanted for Treason.” That atti-tude prevailed throughout the right wingnationwide, with groups such as the Minute-men, the KKK, the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, theChristian Crusade, and the White CITIZENS’COUNCIL blaming Kennedy for a “communisttakeover” in Washington. Proponents of thistheory suggest that Kennedy signed his own

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death warrant in 1963 when he declared that“no one industry [that is, OIL] should be per-mitted to obtain an undue tax advantage overall others.” Jack Ruby, like Lyndon Johnsonand J. Edgar Hoover, was a known crony ofTexas oilmen.

See also COMMUNISM; DULLES BROTHERS; KENNEDY

DYNASTY.

JOHN Birch SocietyThe premier organization of America’s radical rightin the cold-war era, the John Birch Society (JBS) wasfounded in December 1958 by candy manufacturerRobert H.W. Welch. The group is named for JohnBirch, a Baptist missionary killed by Chinese commu-nists in August 1945, whom Welch proclaimed “thefirst victim of World War III.” The JBS describesitself as “dedicated to restoring and preserving free-dom under the United States Constitution.” Restor-ing is the operative term since members of the JBSbelieve that the United States has been controlled bycommunists since the early 1950s (if not earlier) andthat the traitors ruling Washington, D.C., haveturned the U.S. population into virtual slaves.

From its humble beginnings with 11 charter mem-bers, the JBS grew rapidly in the early 1960s, drawingfinancial support from wealthy ultraconservatives inindustry. By 1964 when it rallied behind presidentialcandidate Barry Goldwater and his motto that“extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,” the JBShad an estimated annual income of $5 million, withmembership estimates ranging from 60,000 to100,000. The group was influential in several states,including the South (where it joined forces with theCITIZENS’ COUNCILS to oppose racial integration as a “Red conspiracy”) and California under the right-wing regime of Governor RONALD REAGAN

(1967–75). Alabama governor GEORGE WALLACE

publicly boasted of JBS membership, and otherright-wing politicians of the day were either cordialtoward the group or else parroted its propagandawithout attribution.

Despite its efforts to seem reasonable, however,the JBS was publicly tarred with the brush of its ownextremism. Its spokespeople were among the first toclaim that FLUORIDATED WATER was a Russian MIND-CONTROL device, and some JBS publications (sharedwith groups including the KU KLUX KLAN) lapsed into

thinly veiled anti-Semitism. Welch himself chargedthat President Dwight Eisenhower, CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY chief John Dulles, and SUPREME

COURT Chief Justice Earl Warren were “dedicated,conscious agents of the Communist conspiracy.” TheUNITED NATIONS was a tool of that conspiracy, Welshsaid, collaborating with the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN

RELATIONS, the Rockefeller family, and other sus-pects to press the dreaded goal of a “one-world gov-ernment.” On his death in 1983, Welsh wassucceeded by ex-Congressman Lawrence PattonMcDonald (a cousin of World War II general GeorgeS. “Blood and Guts” Patton, Jr.). The group remainsactive today, continuing its “educational” efforts inprint and on the Internet, but the society is a shadowof its former self with the glory days of the 1960s(hopefully) lost beyond recall.

See also COMMUNISM; DULLES BROTHERS.

JOHN Paul I (1912–1978)Albino Luciani was born in Italy, attended variousseminaries, and was ordained as a priest of theCATHOLIC CHURCH in June 1935. Thereafter, he rosesteadily through the ecclesiastical ranks until PopePaul named him a cardinal in March 1973. Finally,in August 1978, he was elected pope by the Vatican’scollege of cardinals. Church watchers described thenew pope John Paul I as a compromise candidate,chosen on the third ballot when quarreling factionssplit between two other candidates, Cardinal Gio-vanni Benelli and Cardinal Sergio Pignedoli. In thewake of that narrow (and surprising) victory, JohnPaul reportedly told the assembled cardinals, “MayGod forgive you for what you have done on mybehalf.” He declined the pomp and ceremony of astandard papal coronation and thus lost the respectof some high-ranking Vatican officers. British authorJohn Cornwell noted that the pope’s subordinates“treated him with condescension,” and one criticlikened John Paul to the actor Peter Sellers (of bum-bling Pink Panther fame). In private, he repeatedlyasked colleagues, “Why did they pick me?”

Catholics worldwide were shocked when JohnPaul suddenly died on September 28, 1978, afteronly 33 days in office. Rumors of foul play immedi-ately circulated throughout Rome and beyond, exac-erbated by a series of lies from the Vatican aboutJohn Paul’s death. Church spokespersons falsified thetime his body was found and strangely claimed that

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it was discovered by a papal secretary when in fact anun found the corpse while bringing John Paul a cupof coffee. The same announcement claimed his willand other personal effects were never found when infact the papers were held by his sister’s family. Hisdeath was blamed on “heavy smoking,” but JohnPaul was a nonsmoker. Strangest of all, the pope’sbody was embalmed within 24 hours, thus violatingItalian law.

Two major conspiracy theories surround the deathof John Paul I, though the second is relativelyinnocuous. Author David Yallop, in his book InGod’s Name (1985), suggested that the pope’s mur-der sprang from corruption in the VATICAN BANK andthat institution’s involvement with elements thatincluded Freemasonry and the MAFIA (a theme laterincorporated as a subplot in the film Godfather 3).Two years later, author John Cornwell was invitedby the Vatican to investigate (and presumably todebunk) conspiracy theories surrounding John Paul’sdeath. Cornwell’s final report (A Thief in the Night,1989) concluded that John Paul did die of naturalcauses but that two aides moved his body in a clumsybid to make the death seem sudden, thus concealingthe pope’s chronic illness (and, by implication, theirpossible “guilt” in failing to provide medical care).Both aides deny Cornwell’s supposition, and the Vatican damned his report with faint praise. Calls for exhumation of the pope’s body for a full postmortem continue.

See also FREEMASONS.

JOHN Paul II (1920–2005)On May 13, 1981, while riding in a motorcadethrough St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope John PaulII was struck by three bullets fired from the crowd of20,000 spectators. Two bystanders were alsowounded, and the pope barely survived six hours ofemergency surgery. The gunman, a 23-year-old Turknamed Mehmet Ali Agca, was captured at the crimescene with the pistol used in the shooting. He alsocarried several notes scrawled in Turkish, one ofwhich read: “I am killing the pope as a protestagainst the imperialism of the Soviet Union and theUnited States and against the genocide that is beingcarried out in El Salvador and Afghanistan.”

Police declared that Agca’s message reflected the“third position” doctrine of the Gray Wolves, a neo-fascist organization that denounced both superpow-

ers while engaging in acts of TERRORISM and bloodystreet fighting with left-wing students in TURKEY.Subsequent investigation showed that Agca was infact a member of the Gray Wolves, though heclaimed that he acted alone in St. Peter’s Square.Authorities failed to verify eyewitness claims of a sec-ond dark-haired gunman who was seen fleeing thesquare seconds after the shooting. In July 1981 Agcawas convicted of attempted murder and received asentence of life imprisonment.

The case seemed to be solved, but in 1982 a storysurfaced among Western journalists that the SovietKGB had conspired with Bulgarian assassins to killJohn Paul II, out of fear that the Polish-born pontiffwould encourage anti-Communist rebellion in hishomeland and throughout Eastern Europe. Thestory came primarily from U.S. intelligence sourcesand played nicely into new president RONALD REA-GAN’s view of RUSSIA as an “evil empire.” MehmetAgca soon adopted the new theory, presumably hop-ing that exposure of the “Bulgarian connection”would win his release from prison as a cooperativewitness. Italian authorities launched a new investi-gation, climaxed by the arrest of four Turks andthree Bulgarians, but all were released “for lack ofevidence” in 1986 after Agca contradicted himselfrepeatedly in court (and further claimed that he wasJESUS CHRIST). The Soviet-Bulgarian plot was finallydebunked in 1990 by Melvin Goodman, a formeranalyst for the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

(CIA). Testifying before the U.S. Senate, Goodmandeclared for the record that “the CIA had no evi-dence linking the KGB to the plot” against JohnPaul II. In retrospect, the “Bulgarian connection”appears to be one more example of Reagan-eradeception on a par with the IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIR-ACY. No further investigation of the Gray Wolveswas pursued, although that group continued terror-ist activities throughout the 1990s.

See also COMMUNISM; FASCISM.

JOHNSON, Lyndon Baines (1908–1973)Texas native Lyndon Johnson won his first electionto Congress (financed by OIL tycoons and assisted by flagrant voter fraud) in 1936. He served six termsin the House before he was elected to the U.S. Senatein 1948 (by which time his talent for enlisting thedead to vote alphabetically had earned him the nick-name “Landslide Lyndon”). Soon after his arrival in

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Washington, Johnson purchased a home across thestreet from FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)director J. EDGAR HOOVER, who shared many ofLBJ’s wealthy friends and political views.

Hoover provided his first known service to John-son in 1956 when G-men suppressed evidence ofvote fraud in the Texas primary elections. Six yearslater, while Johnson served as vice president underPresident John Kennedy, Hoover buried an FBIreport detailing the Texan’s alliance with various“hoodlum interests.” Following the November 1963JFK ASSASSINATION, Hoover joined LBJ in a concertedeffort to suppress conspiracy rumors, producing anovernight judgment that suspect LEE HARVEY OSWALD

was the president’s lone assassin. Hoover’s politicalservice to Johnson included extensive surveillance oncritical journalists, civil rights leaders, Republican

Party leaders, and opponents of the VIETNAM War. Inreturn for such favors, Johnson granted Hoover theultimate reward: exemption from retirement at age70 as required by federal law. Mounting protestagainst the Vietnam war persuaded Johnson not toseek renomination in 1968. Stricken with a heartattack on January 22, 1973, Johnson died en routeto a San Antonio hospital.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

JONESTOWN massacreOn November 18, 1978, the world was shocked bynews emerging from the jungles of Guyana. Accord-ing to the first reports, 911 members of a cult knownas the People’s Temple had committed suicide at Jon-estown, a community named for their guru, Rev. JimJones. Subsequent accounts revealed that some of thecultists—and a group of visitors led by Californiacongressman Leo Ryan—had been shot by Jones’sbodyguards, apparently on orders from thedemented messiah. Today, while the body countremains unchallenged, little else is certain in the sagaof the Jonestown massacre, and some conspiracistsdescribe the event as a case of government MIND

CONTROL run amok.Although he later claimed to be the reincarnation

of VLADIMIR LENIN and JESUS CHRIST, Jim Jones madean unlikely savior. Born in 1931, the son of an Indi-ana KU KLUX KLAN member, Jones revealed an earlyobsession with religion. By age 12 he was preachingto congregations of younger children and practicingfaith healing on neighborhood pets. Defrocked bythe Methodist Church in 1954, Jones opened hisown interracial congregation in Indianapolis, dubbedthe People’s Temple Full Gospel Church. One ofthose who helped him found the church was child-hood friend Daniel Martine, later a torture instructorfor the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) inSouth America. On the side Jones also practiced tele-pathic communication with extraterrestrials, prophe-sied imminent nuclear war, and suffered unexplainedfainting spells. He also joined the Communist Partybut kept that news secret when his congregationjoined the Disciples of Christ.

In 1962 Jones led his congregants to Brazil, osten-sibly seeking a refuge from Armageddon. It may becoincidence that Dan Martine was then employed asan interrogation specialist by Brazil’s SECRET POLICE,but several of Jones’s new neighbors suspected him

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“Landslide Lyndon” Johnson earned his nickname by riggingTexas elections in which votes were recorded using namesof people buried in cemeteries. (Library of Congress)

of working as a CIA agent, noting that he “lived likea rich man” and claimed to receive “a monthly pay-ment from the U.S. government.” When Jones tiredof Brazil, he moved his church to Ukiah, California,where local government officials strangely permittedJones to act as legal guardian for numerous statemental patients. Jones’s next stop was San Franciscowhere Mayor George Moscone appointed him toserve on the city’s housing board.

In 1973, at about the same time that the CIAallegedly discontinued its “MKULTRA” mind-controlprogram and Jones was detained for propositioningan undercover policeman in a porno theater, the Peo-ple’s Temple paid $650,000 for a 27,000-acre plot ofjungle land in Guyana that later became Jonestown.(Years later, some reporters claim the money camefrom alleged CIA agent Philip Blakely.) Jones delayedmoving the cult there until August 1977, two weeksafter New West magazine published a scathingexposé of his alleged bisexual escapades and finan-cial double-dealing in the cult. The weirdness onlyworsened in Jonestown, described by the San Fran-cisco Chronicle in early 1978 as a “jungle outpost”where “the Rev. Jim Jones orders public beatings,maintains a squad of 50 armed guards, and hasinvolved his 1,100 followers in a threat of mass sui-cide.” Government sources claim that Jones trans-ferred $500,000 to the Soviet embassy in Guyanawhile promising his flock that their next stop wouldbe RUSSIA. At the same time, he ordered “whitenight” drills in preparation for raids by “CIA merce-naries.” When Congressman Ryan’s delegationarrived in November 1978 to investigate claims ofhuman-rights abuses at Jonestown, it triggered theslaughter that claimed nearly 1,000 lives.

In retrospect, conspiracists cannot agree if the Jonestown massacre resulted from a plot by Russianagents or the CIA. Most seem to blame the agency,however, claiming that Jonestown was a mind-control experiment conducted in a venue wherepesky civil libertarians could not intervene. Oneacknowledged CIA agent, Richard Dwyer, was pres-ent at Jonestown and survived the holocaust: On onetape recording of Jones’s final remarks, the maniacmessiah is plainly heard commanding, “Get Dwyerout of here!” Joseph Holsinger, an aide to Congress-man Ryan, also believed that Jonestown was awholly owned subsidiary of the CIA. He based thatconclusion in equal parts on Dwyer’s presence inJonestown and on a 1980 report entitled “The Penal

Colony” from a professor at U.C. Berkeley. Theauthor of that document contended that the CIA didnot abandon its mind-control program in 1973 (asagency spokespersons claimed in sworn congres-sional testimony) but rather shifted its focus towardcreation and manipulation of religious cults andpolitical extremist groups (including the SYMBIONESE

LIBERATION ARMY). As Holsinger told the world in1980, “I believe that it is possible that Jonestownmay have been a mind-control experiment, that LeoRyan’s congressional visit pierced that veil andwould have resulted in its exposure, and that ourgovernment or its agent the CIA deemed it necessaryto wipe out more than 900 American citizens to protect the secrecy of the operation.” (The CIAdenies any involvement at Jonestown or in any othercriminal activities.)

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The People’s Temple Cult mass suicide, orchestrated byReverend Jim Jones at Jonestown, Guyana, claimed thelives of 913 people. (Bettmann/Corbis)

JORDANThe territory of modern-day Jordan was variouslyheld in ancient times by Assyrians, Babylonians, Per-sians, and Seleucids. Rome conquered the region inA.D. 106 and was supplanted by Arab warlords in633–36. TURKEY absorbed Jordan and held it untilWorld War II shattered the Ottoman empire. Britaintook control under the Palestine mandate of 1920and then liberated Jordan in 1946 out of gratitudefor loyal support in World War II. King Abdullah Iwas assassinated in 1951 and was succeeded by sonTalal, but Talal’s mental illness prompted Jordanianleaders to depose him in 1952, replacing him withhis son Hussein. King Hussein was forced to performa delicate balancing act, trapped between the fledg-ling state of ISRAEL and Palestinian activists whosought the return of their ancestral homeland. Agita-tion increased after Israel seized Jordanian territoryin 1967, and Palestinian guerrillas virtually con-trolled some sectors of the country until 1971 whenHussein defeated the rebels and drove them intoneighboring LEBANON. Jordan’s opposition to theGULF WAR of 1991 strained relations with the UnitedStates, but Hussein ultimately signed a peace treatywith Israel in June 1994. (A clause naming Hussein“custodian” of Islamic shrines in Jerusalem furtheroutraged Palestinian Arabs.) In January 1998, dyingof cancer, King Hussein deposed his brother Hassan(heir apparent for 34 years) and named son Abdullahthe new crown prince. Abdullah ascended to thethrone when his father died on February 7, 1999. In2002–03 Jordan faced more heat from the UnitedStates for its refusal to collaborate with another inva-sion of IRAQ.

JULIUS Caesar (100 B.C.E.–44 B.C.E.)Thanks to William Shakespeare, Roman emperorJulius Caesar ranks with U.S. president JohnKennedy as one of the world’s most famous assassi-nation victims. Every schoolchild in the English-speaking world knows that Caesar was assassinatedon March 15, 44 B.C.E., by a group of aristocraticconspirators including Marcus Junius Brutus andGaius Cassius Longinus. Ironically, both plottersowed their lives to Caesar, who had pardoned themon capital charges of supporting his rival (Pompey)in a recent civil war. The knife-wielding killers, stillsmeared with Caesar’s blood, rushed from the mur-der scene to the Forum Romanum where they were

hailed as saviors of the republic. Rome’s senatehastily passed an amnesty for the assassination,while Caesar’s supporters (including Marcus Anto-nius) hurried to reconcile with the killers and thussave themselves. Ironically, Caesar’s dictatorship hadproduced Rome’s era of greatest prosperity and sta-bility, the very conditions his murderers claimed todesire. He had increased the number of Roman sena-tors from 500 to 900, while expanding the empiredramatically through various military campaigns.With Caesar’s death the Roman Empire began a slowbut irreversible decline into decadence and squalor,climaxed by barbarian invasions that shattered Cae-sar’s dream for all time.

JUSTICE DepartmentWhile Congress authorized appointment of a U.S.attorney general in 1789, the department was not cre-ated until 1870 in the middle of the tumultuousRECONSTRUCTION era. Even then, federal prosecu-tions were so rare that the Justice Departmentrequired no detective force of its own for anotherdecade. As responsibilities expanded with passage ofthe Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and the ShermanAnti-Trust Act (1890), various attorneys general usedagents of the Pinkerton Detective Agency on a part-time, case-by-case basis. That relationship was sev-ered in 1892 when Pinkerton’s brutal strikebreakingactivities prompted a congressional ban on temporaryhiring of individuals already employed in the privatesector. For the next 16 years Justice borrowed SECRET

SERVICE agents from the Treasury Department untilfurther abuses led Congress to ban that practice inMay 1908. Two months later, in defiance of congres-sional opponents, Attorney General Charles Bona-parte created a detective force that would become theFEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI).

Passage of the Mann and Dyer Acts in 1910 and1919 further broadened the Justice Department’sauthority, but investigations took an increasinglypolitical (and often personal) turn after the RussianRevolution of 1917. Fear of ANARCHISTS and theCommunist Party prompted creation of an AlienEnemy Bureau in 1917, closely followed by AttorneyGeneral A. Mitchell Palmer’s Red-hunting GeneralIntelligence Division and the sweeping PALMER RAIDS

of 1919–20. J. EDGAR HOOVER, employed with theJustice Department since 1917, escaped censure for his role in those activities and was appointed

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assistant director of the bureau under Attorney General HARRY DAUGHERTY. Unfortunately, Daugh-erty and the rest of President WARREN HARDING’sOHIO GANG were so corrupt that Justice soon becameknown as “the Department of Easy Virtue.” Exposureof the TEAPOT DOME scandal nearly sent Daughertyto prison, but Hoover concealed his own involve-ment in those crimes and was appointed director ofthe bureau under Attorney General Harlan Stone.

During the next 48 years, Hoover’s relationshipwith his nominal superiors at Justice dependedchiefly on the latitude that various attorneys generalgranted to him in pursuit of his personal agendas.Between 1925 and 1960 most attorneys generalavoided exercising any supervision over Hoover andthe FBI; a few actively encouraged expanded domes-tic surveillance in violation of prevailing federal law.Attorneys general who tried to impose some restrainton the bureau, including Robert Kennedy, wereopposed and publicly reviled by Hoover at everyturn. By the end of Hoover’s life, it seemed that his-tory had come full circle, with Justice mired inanother morass of corruption under PresidentRICHARD NIXON.

In the wake of Hoover’s death and the WATERGATE

scandal that toppled Nixon’s administration, leadersat Justice have vacillated on priorities and the desir-ability of continuing widespread FBI spying. AttorneysGeneral Edward Levi and Griffin Bell emphasizedprosecution of MAFIA leaders and issued guidelinesrestricting domestic surveillance on political groups,

while successors William Smith, Edwin Meese, andRichard Thornburgh took the opposite approach,condemning “subversives” and “terrorists” whilemobsters and white-collar criminals were largelyignored. Attorney General Janet Reno was accused ofpolitical partisanship in protecting President Bill Clin-ton from various investigations, but the same must besaid for attorneys general serving Presidents RONALD

REAGAN and George H. W. Bush.In November 2001 President George W. Bush

and Attorney General JOHN ASHCROFT announced a“wartime reorganization” of the Justice Departmentto treat TERRORISM as a top priority. Ashcroft’s“blueprint for change” reassigned 10 percent of thedepartments headquarters staff to “front-line” fieldoffices nationwide while declaring that nonpoliticalcases would take a backseat. “We cannot do every-thing we once did,” Ashcroft told reporters,“because lives now depend on us doing a few thingsvery well.” Critics suggested that the shift in priori-ties was not only a response to the PENTTBOM

attacks of September 11, 2001, but also meant aretreat from cases that held little interest for theBush White House, including prosecution of corpo-rate crime.

John Ashcroft announced his resignation from theoffice of Attorney General in November 2004 andwas replaced by Alberto Gonzales, whose nomina-tion was confirmed in February 2005.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; CLINTON, BILL AND

HILLARY; COMMUNISM; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

KAL Flight 007On August 31, 1983, Korean Airlines (KAL) Flight007 left New York City with 269 passengers and crew members aboard bound for touchdown at Seoul, KOREA. After refueling at Anchorage,Alaska, the Boeing 747 resumed its long journey, flying southwestward toward Seoul-Kimpo Airport.Strangely the pilots plotted a course that would carrythem 300 miles off-course to the west, invadingRussian air space over the Kamchatka Peninsula, theSea of Okhotsk, and Sakhalin Island. Another KALflight had made a similar mistake in April 1978 andwas forced by Russian fighter planes to land at Mur-mansk. This time the Soviet reaction would be moresevere. Just before dawn on September 1, two fighterplanes from Dolinsk-Sokol airbase intercepted KAL-007 and fired a single air-to-air missile with cata-strophic effect. One minute 46 seconds later theairline crashed at sea, 34 miles off Moneron Island,killing all aboard.

President RONALD REAGAN immediately capital-ized on the disaster to promote his anticommunistagenda, branding the “Korean airline massacre” an“act of barbarism,” “inhuman brutality,” and a“crime against humanity [that] must never be forgot-ten.” Soviet spokespeople claimed that their pilotsthought the airliner was a military aircraft and thatviolations of Russian air space justified the shoot-down. Investigators from the International Civil Avi-ation Organization concluded that KAL-007’s course

deviation was accidental, a result of human error insetting the automatic pilot. Naturally the incidentproduced its share of conspiracy theories with twoproposed scenarios standing out above the rest.

French aviation expert Michel Brun aired the mostoutlandish conspiracy theory in 1995 with publica-tion of his book Incident at Sakhalin: The True Mis-sion of KAL Flight 007. According to Brun, the jet’scourse deviation was intentional, and the airlinerwas accompanied by several U.S. military aircraftwhen it violated Russian air space. Presumably itsmission was to gather some kind of secret intelli-gence unavailable to the United States via its fleet ofspy planes and orbiting satellites. Brun claims that atwo-hour aerial dogfight then ensued, during whichSoviet pilots shot down 10 U.S. warplanes, killing atleast 30 air force and navy personnel. Flight 007,meanwhile, cleared Sakhalin island and flew southover the Sea of Japan for some 45 minutes before itwas destroyed off Honshu, Japan “by means and forreasons which remain to be established.” Equallyvague are the U.S. motives for choosing to risk warwith Russia in 1983 and the means by which the epicbattle was concealed from public view.

Beside Brun’s theory, the dominant alternative sce-nario seems positively tame. The “no crash” theoryapparently sprang from an article written by right-wing author John Barron for Reader’s Digest maga-zine in January 1984 contending that KAL 007 didnot crash immediately as reported in the press but

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rather stayed aloft for at least 12 minutes, graduallydescending from an altitude of 35,000 feet until itsfinal crash. From that assertion, it was a short step tosuggesting that the plane never crashed at all butrather landed safely on Soviet soil. Authors writingfor the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY were first to float thattheory, claiming that the aircraft and all 269 personsaboard were being held in Russian custody. Theunsolved riddle, then and now, was Moscow’smotive for forcing down the plane and imprisoningits passengers. No-crash theorists suggest that onlyone person aboard KAL 007 was actually targetedon September 1, 1983; the rest were simply witnessesto the abduction who were permanently silenced byconfinement to Soviet prisons. More than twodecades after the incident, the supposed “real target”remains unidentified and his (or her) mission stillundisclosed.

See also COMMUNISM.

KELLY, George “Machine Gun” See UNDEAD

OUTLAWS.

KENNEDY dynastyOften described as “American royalty,” the Massa-chusetts-based Kennedy clan has captivated publicopinion in the United States for more than a half-cen-tury. Their fabulous wealth, occasional scandals, andheart-rending tragedies played out in the atmosphereof a media circus ensure that the family name (andinfluence) is recognized throughout the world.Inevitably, given their power and persistent cravingfor more, the Kennedys have been cast both as vil-lains and victims in a long-running chain of conspira-cies and/or conspiracy theories that continue to thepresent day.

The family’s roots lie in Ireland, and its patriarchwas Patrick Joseph Kennedy (1858–1929), a child ofIrish immigrants born in Boston. At age 22 Patrickborrowed money from his family to buy a run-downsaloon in a slum neighborhood. Although himself ateetotaler, Patrick grew wealthy from liquor sales,launching his own wine and spirits importation busi-ness (P.J. Kennedy and Company) in 1885. Patrickmarried the daughter of another wealthy business-man and soon turned his eyes toward politics, win-ning election to the Massachusetts state senate in1892. Soon, partnered with fellow state senator and

future Boston mayor John Francis (“Honey Fitz”)Fitzgerald, Patrick became one of Boston’s mostinfluential politicians.

Patrick’s son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy (1888–1969), did even better for himself and for the fam-ily. In 1914 he married Rose Fitzgerald, daughterof Honey Fitz, and ultimately sired nine children.Named as manager of a prestigious investment firmin 1919, Joseph quickly mastered the tricks of WallStreet and became a megamillionaire, providen-tially retiring just before the stock market crash of1929. By that time, Joseph was deeply involved inPROHIBITION-era bootlegging, partnered with thelikes of MEYER LANSKY and other MAFIA figures.Joseph also produced motion pictures and blos-somed into a Hollywood mogul, making littleeffort to conceal his romantic liaisons with variousstarlets. Deeply immersed in Democratic Party pol-itics, Joseph was appointed chairman of the Securi-ties and Exchange Commission in 1934, going on

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Questions linger to this day concerning the 1963 assassi-nation of President John F. Kennedy. (Library of Congress)

to ban the very speculative practices that made himrich. In 1937 President Franklin Roosevelt namedJoseph ambassador to Britain, but his die-hard isolationism and seeming admiration for ADOLF

HITLER led him to resign three years later.Determined to see his son(s) in the White House,

Joseph began to groom firstborn—Joseph, Jr.(1915–44)—as a future president. Eldest daughterRosemary was a thorn in Joseph Senior’s side,threatening embarrassment with her independentand rebellious personality until 1941 when Joseph,Sr., arranged for her to receive a prefrontal lobot-omy at a Washington, D.C., hospital. Having con-cealed the plan from his own family including wifeRose, Joseph, Sr., next had to disguise the resultswhich left Rosemary partially paralyzed and unableto speak coherently. Joe, Sr., spread the tale thatRosemary had gone into seclusion at a midwesternconvent, maintaining that fiction until the true storybroke in 1958.

Joe, Sr.’s, presidential plans were threatened duringWorld War II when Joseph, Jr., died in action and FED-ERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION director J. EDGAR

HOOVER caught next-eldest son John FitzgeraldKennedy (1917–63) enjoying an affair with a Nazi spyfrom GERMANY. Joe, Sr., ended that relationship andhad John shipped to the Pacific, where he became adecorated hero for saving the crew of his PT-boat inAugust 1943. Injuries from that incident sent Johnback to civilian life where he won election to Congressin 1946 followed by a victorious Senate campaign in1952. Ironically, considering his father’s longtime (andongoing) Mafia connections, John served as a drivingforce behind Senate investigations of the mob-linkedINTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS.Younger brother Robert Francis Kennedy (1925–68)served as counsel for those hearings and performed asimilar function for the Red-hunting committeechaired by Sen. JOSEPH MCCARTHY. Despite his mem-bership in the CATHOLIC CHURCH (still controversial inmany parts of the United States at midcentury), JohnKennedy won the Democratic presidential nominationin 1960 and narrowly defeated RICHARD NIXON in aNovember election that was marked by charges ofwholesale vote fraud. Chicago tipped the balance forJFK with a collaborative effort by Mayor RICHARD

JOSEPH DALEY and his Mafia allies.Prior to John’s inauguration, father Joseph insisted

that the president-elect choose brother Robert as hisattorney general. JFK agreed, despite misgivings, andRobert soon initiated the federal government’s firstfull-scale assault on organized crime. Ironically, atthe same moment, the Kennedy brothers and leadersof the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)employed Mafia leaders in their campaign to deposeor assassinate Cuban leader FIDEL CASTRO. JFKinherited the BAY OF PIGS conspiracy from predeces-sor Dwight Eisenhower, but he allowed the invasionof CUBA to proceed with disastrous results, prompt-ing Cuban-exile members of such groups as ALPHA

66 to denounce him as a traitor. On other fronts JFKpressed for black civil rights in the South (thus out-raging the KU KLUX KLAN and the CITIZENS’ COUN-CILS), threatened to dismantle the CIA, launchedsecret bombing raids in LAOS, and reportedly consid-ered withdrawing U.S. military forces from VIETNAM.His private life included many adulterous affairs,including one with actress MARILYN MONROE andanother with the sometime lover of Chicago mobboss SAM GIANCANA. Thus surrounded by enemies

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Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassi-nated by Sirhan Sirhan, on June 5, 1968. (Library of Congress)

and intrigue, it was perhaps no great surprise whenthe JFK ASSASSINATION ended his brief presidency onNovember 22, 1963.

Successor LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON despised theKennedy clan and soon dismissed Robert as attorneygeneral. Undaunted, RFK won election to the Senateas a “carpetbag” candidate in New York. Buildingupon his brother’s popularity with young and minor-ity voters, Robert launched a campaign against theVietnam War which he hoped would propel him intothe Oval Office. President Johnson declined to runfor reelection in 1968, and Robert Kennedy soonemerged as the Democratic front-runner in a heatedcampaign. He won the crucial California primaryelection on June 4, 1968, but gunmen waited for himin the hotel where his victory celebration was held,and the RFK ASSASSINATION ensured that Vice Presi-dent Hubert Humphrey would become the party’snominee (defeated in November by Richard Nixon).

The youngest surviving Kennedy brother, Edward,had campaigned for JFK in 1960 and took hisbrother’s place in the Senate two years later (wherehe remains at this writing). Democratic Party leadersconsidered him a strong candidate for the 1972 pres-idential election, but those hopes were dashed onCHAPPAQUIDDICK Island in July 1979 after Edwardcrashed his car in a canal and left female companionMary Jo Kopechne to drown in the vehicle. Familyinfluence saved him from prison, but he was con-victed on the minor charge of leaving an accidentscene, and the scandal would haunt him forever,scuttling Edward’s last attempted White House racein 1980. Nor do scandals and allegations of conspir-acy end with the immediate Kennedy family. In 1991William Kennedy Smith (grandson of Joseph, Sr., andRose) was accused of rape in Florida, winningacquittal in a trial where some cynics claim jurorsvoted for celebrity rather than evidence. A decadelater in June 2002 Michael Skakel (a nephew ofRFK’s widow) was convicted in Connecticut for the1975 bludgeon murder of 15-year-old Martha Mox-ley. Critics claim that Kennedy influence stalled thetrial for 27 years, but in the end it would not saveSkakel from a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.

KENT State University shootingsIn May 1970 revelation of President RICHARD NIXON’scovert military action in CAMBODIA sparked demon-strations on college campuses across the United States.

Students at Ohio’s Kent State University rioted on thenight of May 1, prompting Governor James Rhodes toimpose an 8:00 P.M. curfew. The National Guardoccupied the campus after demonstrators burned theROTC building on May 2, and another demonstra-tion was in progress on May 4, 1970, when troopsopened fire with high-powered rifles, killing four stu-dents and wounding another nine.

President Nixon described himself as “deeply sad-dened” by the deaths at Kent State and others in a similar shooting at Mississippi’s JACKSON STATE

COLLEGE. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)agents were assigned to investigate the Ohio incident(code-named KENFOUR), while Nixon appointedan independent President’s Commission on CampusUnrest (better known by the name of its chairman,former Pennsylvania governor William Scranton) todo likewise. G-men eventually submitted some 8,000pages of testimony to the Scranton Commission,while Director J. EDGAR HOOVER complained to theU.S. Senate Appropriations Committee that theinvestigation cost $274,100 in overtime. (Staff mem-bers at Kent State complained to their representativesin Congress that G-men spent much of that timeexamining classroom lesson plans and probing thepolitical beliefs of various professors.) Long beforethat investigation was finished, though, Hoover tele-phoned White House aide Egil Krogh to report that“the students invited and got what they deserved.”

What they got, according to Hoover’s own agents,was an undisciplined and indiscriminate burst ofgunfire lasting for 11 seconds, including at least 54(and perhaps 61) shots fired by 29 of the 78 guardmembers present. None of the four students killedhad been demonstrators; they were shot at distancesbetween 85 yards and 130 yards from the guardmembers, two with their backs turned and one whilelying prone on the ground. Of the nine studentswounded, only one appeared to be an active demon-strator, shot while making “an obscene gesture” tothe guard member from 20 yards away; the rest wereshot at distances ranging from 37 yards to 250 yardsfrom the guns. A JUSTICE DEPARTMENT summary ofFBI reports likewise disposed of claims that theguard believed themselves to be under sniper fire.

At the time of the shootings, the National Guard clearly

did not believe that they were being fired upon. No

Guardsman claims he fell to the ground or took any

other evasive action and all available photographs show

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the Guard at the critical moments in a standing position

and not seeking cover. In addition, no Guardsman

claims he fired at a sniper or even that he fired in the

direction from which he believed the sniper shot. Finally,

there is no evidence of the use of any weapons at any

time in the weekend prior to the May 4 confrontation.

If the physical evidence were not enough, sixguard members (including a captain and two ser-geants) also “stated pointedly that the lives of themembers of the Guard were not in danger and that itwas not a shooting situation.” As for the 11 guardmembers who later expressed mortal fear, the Scran-ton Report concluded: “We have some reason tobelieve that the claim by the National Guard thatthey thought their lives were endangered by the stu-dents was fabricated subsequent to the event.” Areport in the Akron Beacon Journal, published onMay 24, 1970, corroborated that claim of conspir-acy with a quote from one guard member: “The guyshave been saying that we got to get together andstick to the same story, that it was our lives or them,a matter of survival. I told them I would tell the truthand couldn’t get in trouble that way.”

Reactions from Washington were predictably hos-tile. Vice President SPIRO AGNEW called the ScrantonReport “pabulum for the permissivists,” while thecommander of Ohio’s National Guard found the FBIinvestigation results “just unbelievable.” Even J.Edgar Hoover did not seem to trust his own agents inthis case, responding to an article in the Akron BeaconJournal with a letter that read in part: “I can assureyou that any comments you may have seen in thenews media to the effect that the FBI drew conclusionsindicating guilt on the part of National Guardsmen inthe shooting at Kent State University are absolutelyand unequivocally false.” Despite the FBI’s reportedconclusions and those of the Scranton Commission,an Ohio grand jury refused to indict any guard mem-bers, instead condemning student “agitators” andKent State professors who encouraged an “overem-phasis on dissent.” As for the guard members, thepanel’s report found that they “fired their weapons inthe honest and sincere belief . . . that they would sufferserious bodily injury had they not done so.”

KENYASeafaring Arab traders established settlements alongKenya’s coast in the eighth century A.D., thriving

until they were overrun by PORTUGAL in the early1500s. British troops arrived to “protect” the coun-try in 1890, and it was made a Crown colony in1920 and christened British East Africa. Nationaliststirrings began after World War II and erupted intofull fury with the Mau Mau uprising of 1952–56.Kenya won full independence in December 1963,with rebel leader Jomo Kenyatta released fromprison to become the nation’s first president. One-party rule endured from 1964 until 1992 whenriotous demonstrations forced President Daniel arapMoi to permit pluralistic democracy. Subsequentelections have left Moi in power despite rampantofficial corruption, a faltering economy, and a seriesof natural disasters that rocked Kenya in 1997–98.In the face of crisis, Moi has become increasinglyautocratic, including a 1995 arrest order for anyonewho publicly insulted him. In August 1998 suspectedAL-QAEDA terrorists bombed the U.S. embassy inNairobi, killing 243 persons and wounding morethan 1,000. In 1999 deepening scandal and recessionprompted Moi to name high-profile critic RichardLeakey head of Kenya’s civil service, but Moireversed the move and sacked Leakey in 2001. Par-liament rejected anticorruption legislation that sameyear, prompting most foreign nations to slash or can-cel foreign aid payments. Transparency Interna-tional, a global watchdog group, routinely listsKenya among the world’s 10 most-corrupt nations.

KGBEvery dictatorship requires some form of SECRET

POLICE to maintain its power, and Soviet RUSSIA wasno exception. Beginning as the Cheka underVLADIMIR LENIN, Moscow’s chief intelligence agencylater became the Government Political Administra-tion (GPU) and then was renamed the Peoples Com-missariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in 1934.Under that name, it carried out JOSEPH STALIN’spurges of the 1930s. Between January 1935 and June1941 an estimated 19.8 million persons starved todeath. NKVD archives, opened in the 1990s, reveal atotal of 799,455 executions in Russia between 1921and Stalin’s death in 1953, but the statistics do notseparate political prisoners from common criminals.(Anticommunist authors typically blame Stalin for 5million to 100 million deaths, but none cite reliablesources.) After World War II the NKVD received itsnew and most infamous name, branded Komitet

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Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for StateSecurity). Until its dissolution in 1991 it served notonly as Russia’s internal secret police but also as thenation’s primary foreign intelligence and counterin-telligence body—in effect, as if the U.S. governmenthad merged the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

and the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. Onebranch of the KGB, known as SMERSH (an acronymof the Russian phrase “death to spies”), carried outassassinations and was publicly exposed in authorIan Fleming’s James Bond novels. The collapse ofRussian COMMUNISM in 1991 prompted Moscow’snew leaders to ditch the KGB label and create a“new” spy agency, labeled the Central IntelligenceService (CSR). That body incorporated most of theold KGB’s foreign operations and assets, promptingcritics to claim that nothing had changed at head-quarters. While various KGB officers faced trialacross the former Soviet Union for crimes againsthumanity, some outside observers maintain that Rus-sia’s spies still behave much as they did in the darkcold war years.

KING, Martin Luther, Jr.Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., recognized the dangersof his calling as America’s foremost black civil rightsleader of the 1960s. He was constantly harassed andthreatened by the KU KLUX KLAN and by agents of theFBI under director J. EDGAR HOOVER. In 1967 afterKing broadened his campaign to call for peace in VIETNAM, President LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON

complained, “That goddamned nigger preacher maydrive me out of the White House.” As a prelude tohis second march on Washington, King joined astrike by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.There, at 6:01 P.M. on April 4, 1968, he was killed bya rifle shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

Seconds after the shot, two witnesses saw amasked man leap from a brushy embankment acrossthe street, running with a rifle-like object in his hand.Around the block on South Main Street Guy Canipesaw a stranger pass his amusement shop and drop abundle in the recessed doorway. Glancing out,Canipe saw a rifle and other objects as a white FordMustang sped from the scene. Memphis police wereon alert for the white Mustang by 6:25 P.M., but aseries of spurious CB radio broadcasts lured them tothe west side of town—while the killer, they wouldlater say, fled southward into Alabama and beyond.

The hunt for Dr. King’s killer began on SouthMain Street with the Remington rifle and other itemsthat had been discarded moments after the shooting.FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) agentsrushed the weapon evidence to Washington, whereanalysts later claimed that 26 fingerprints were foundon various items, but only three were clear enoughfor identification. It was April 19, more than twoweeks later, when FBI clerks identified the owner ofthose prints as James Earl RAY, a habitual thief whohad escaped from Missouri’s state prison on April23, 1967. Hoover’s G-men had no jurisdiction in thecase until Ray was charged with the federal crime ofconspiring to violate King’s civil rights. By definitiona conspiracy requires at least two plotters, but gov-ernment spokespersons later dismissed the charge asa ruse to get FBI agents involved in the manhunt.There was never any evidence, they now insist, ofmore than one participant in King’s murder.

And yet. . . .For a lifelong bungler who spent 14 of his 40

years in prison, James Earl Ray was suddenly gracedwith amazing luck. Since his escape from prison,although unemployed, Ray had traveled to Canadaand Mexico, studied dancing and bartending in LosAngeles, vacationed in New Orleans, and finally set-tled in Atlanta near Dr. King’s home. The rifle foundin Memphis was purchased in Birmingham onMarch 29, 1968. After the slaying he had fled oncemore to Canada, renting rooms in the name of PaulBridgman (a real-life Canadian who physicallyresembled Ray) and obtaining passports in the namesof Ramon Sneyd and Eric Galt (again, living Canadi-ans who both resembled Ray). On May 6, 1968, heflew to London and from there to Lisbon, Portugal.Ray returned to London on May 18, 1968, and wasplanning to leave for Belgium when British policearrested him at Heathrow Airport.

On his return to Memphis, Ray initially retainedattorney Arthur Hanes, Sr., a former FBI agent andone-time mayor of Birmingham who was best knownas a defense lawyer for Klansmen charged with mur-dering civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo. Hanesfinanced the defense by signing a $40,000 book con-tract with author William Bradford Huie. As a prel-ude to his book (He Slew the Dreamer, 1969), Huiewrote three articles about the case for Look maga-zine, published in November 1968 and April 1969.The first two installments described a plot bywealthy right-wing conspirators to kill King “for

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maximum bloody effect” during the 1968 electioncampaign, concluding: “Therefore, in this plot, Dr.King was the secondary, not the primary target. Theprimary target was the United States of America.”The third article amazingly reversed Huie’s previousclaims, insisting that Ray had killed King on his ownin a quest for “criminal status.” Finally, in a strangeattempt to resolve his flip-flop, Huie wrote:

[T]here are large conspiracies and little conspiracies. In

large conspiracies, rich and/or powerful men are

involved. Small conspiracies involve only little men. . . .

I believe that one or two men other than James Earl

Ray may have had foreknowledge of this murder, and

that makes it a little conspiracy. But if there was a con-

spiracy, I now believe that James Earl Ray was proba-

bly its leader, not its tool or dupe.

By the time Huie penned those words, Ray hadpleaded guilty to King’s murder and accepted a 99-year prison term. Ray made his plea on March 10,1969, and instantly regretted it. He spent the rest ofhis life in prison, filing fruitless motions for a jurytrial, telling anyone who would listen that he hadbeen framed for King’s assassination by a shadowycohort he knew only as “Raoul.” Ray died on April23, 1998, still pleading for a day in court.

In fact, there is copious evidence that Ray had anaccomplice in King’s murder—if he fired the fatalshot at all. Between April 1967 and June 1968 Rayspent $10,000 on travel and living expenses; yet heheld only one short-term job at minimum wage. OnMarch 28, 1968, Ray purchased a rifle in a Birming-ham sporting-goods store allegedly to go deer hunt-ing with his brother. He exchanged the gun for alarger .30-06 weapon the next day, explaining thathis “brother” had told him he bought the wrongweapon. Eyewitnesses in Memphis described a gun-man who bore no resemblance to Ray. After King’smurder, while Ray was hiding in Toronto, witnessessaw him with an unidentified man on three occa-sions. The last time, shortly after a “fat man” visitedhis apartment, Ray paid cash for an airplane ticket toLondon. When Ray’s car was found in Atlanta, theashtray overflowed with cigarette butts—but Ray didnot smoke.

Beginning in September 1976 the HOUSE SELECT

COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS spent two and a halfyears investigating the murders of King and PresidentJohn Kennedy. The committee’s final report con-

cluded that “on the basis of the circumstantial evi-dence available . . . there is a likelihood that JamesEarl Ray assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., asa result of a conspiracy.” Ray’s argument, mean-while, was that he did not murder King at all. Heclaimed to be a “patsy” who was used to buy therifle which was afterward discarded, complete withhis fingerprints, to divert attention from the realkiller(s). The House committee acknowledged “thelikelihood of a financial motive” behind King’s mur-der, finally blaming a pair of wealthy Missouriracists, John Sutherland and John Kauffmann, whohad died in 1970 and 1974 respectively. Proof wassadly lacking, thanks to FBI negligence in 1968–69.As described by ex-Agent Arthur Murtagh, G-men inAtlanta cheered reports of King’s murder, and thosefarther afield were actively discouraged from report-ing conspiracy leads. In Los Angeles, Agent WilliamTurner was advised by his superiors that Hoover“didn’t light any candles when King was killed,” andso the case was closed.

KISSINGER, Henry (1923– )A German native who was born Heinz AlfredKissinger on May 27, 1923, America’s future secre-tary of state emigrated to the United States with hisfamily in 1938, to escape ADOLF HITLER’s persecutionof Jews. On arrival in New York he changed hisgiven name to “Henry” and quickly emerged as anoutstanding student in public school. Kissingerearned a Ph.D. in international relations from Har-vard University and joined the faculty there in 1958,remaining until he became President RICHARD

NIXON’s assistant for national security affairs in1969.

While privately describing Nixon as a “basketcase” and “meatball mind,” Kissinger reveled in hisnew powers and never hesitated to enlist FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION assistance in pursuanceof his broadly-defined duties. In May 1969, afternewspapers reported Nixon’s illegal bombing cam-paign in CAMBODIA, Kissinger ordered Director J. EDGAR HOOVER to “make a major effort” to iden-tify the government sources. He singled out fourState Department officials for illegal wiretapping,subsequently using those taps to spy on Secretary ofState William Rogers and Secretary of DefenseMelvin Laird. In June 1969 after protests disruptedNelson Rockefeller’s tour of Latin America,

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Kissinger ordered the bureau to investigate“whether they were spontaneous and came fromwithin the countries . . . or whether there was a pat-tern of conspiracy initiated from outside of thesecountries that led to the disturbances.” (Hoover, asalways, blamed the demonstrations on a globalcommunist plot.)

In September 1970 Hoover warned the WhiteHouse of a plot by anti-VIETNAM War activistsDaniel and Philip Berrigan to kidnap Kissinger.While Kissinger scoffed at the story and AttorneyGeneral John Mitchell refused to file charges,Hoover went public with the accusations twomonths later and forced the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT topursue a costly, ultimately futile trial. More seriousin Kissinger’s mind was media exposure of the Pen-tagon Papers in October 1971. As later described byWhite House aide H. R. Haldeman, “Henry gotNixon cranked up, then they started cranking eachother up until they were both in a frenzy.” Theensuing investigation included a series of illegalbreak-ins that prefigured the administration’sWATERGATE scandal.

Kissinger succeeded Rogers as secretary of state onSeptember 22, 1973, and remained to serve underPresident Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned in dis-grace. His “shuttle diplomacy” in Southeast Asia andthe Middle East won Kissinger a Nobel Peace Prize,along with such superlative media descriptions as“the 20th century’s greatest diplomatic technician”and “the most admired man in America.” AfterFord’s defeat in 1976, Kissinger joined the faculty ofGeorgetown University and later chaired a commit-tee on Central America for President RONALD REA-GAN in 1983 (during the IRAN-CONTRA scandal). Inthe mid-1980s Kissinger emerged as a “statesman forhire,” leading Kissinger Associates with offices inWashington and New York City. Despite “a com-plete lack of experience in business,” he repaid$350,000 in startup loans within two years andearned a handsome profit in the bargain.

Despite the honors heaped upon Kissinger for hisdiplomatic service, critics have raised serious ques-tions concerning his involvement in the Vietnam War,the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY’s role in top-pling the elected government of CHILE (1973), andatrocities committed by U.S.-financed forces in EAST

TIMOR. A book summarizing his alleged “warcrimes”—The Trial of Henry Kissinger, by Christo-pher Hitchens—became a surprise best seller in

2001. A year later President George W. Bush namedKissinger to lead an “independent” probe into theterrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but the planwas derailed by Kissinger’s business interests.Kissinger initially promised to “go where the factslead us,” vowing that “We are under no restrictionsand we will accept no restrictions,” but he quicklychanged his mind when ordered to disclose his list offoreign clients (thus avoiding any real or apparentconflicts of interest). Kissinger met with survivors ofthe “9-11” attacks on December 13, 2002, andagreed to publish his client list, but he changed hismind hours later and resigned from the commissionthat same afternoon.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; ROCKEFELLER CLAN.

KMART bankruptcyWhen the giant Kmart retail chain declared bank-ruptcy on January 22, 2002, most observers regardedit as a personal tragedy for laid-off employees andcommunities where stores were forced to close. ByJanuary 2003, however, a somewhat different pictureemerged from an internal investigation by Kmart’sown law firm (Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &Flom). That review depicted a firm deeply divided,perhaps crippled by misconduct at the highest levelsof management. According to a summary of theinvestigation, Kmart executives had “engaged in abroad pattern of abusive practices—like cutting offpayments to suppliers, dispensing generous loans to themselves, and masking personal air travel as‘store visits’” in the months before bankruptcy wasdeclared.

The year-long investigation was sparked by aflurry of anonymous letters to Kmart headquartersdetailing alleged abuses within the company, and itrevealed “a corporate free-for-all” climaxed by near-collapse of the chain in 2001. Among the specificactivities detailed in the law firm’s final report, thefollowing stood out:

• Fraudulent handling of vendors: Kmart suppli-ers were pressured for cash, known in the tradeas “vendor allowances,” but often went unpaidfor their merchandise. Those payments finallymade were sometimes reduced or delayed in afailing effort to improve Kmart’s cash flow. Ven-dors were “purposefully denied access” to com-puter programs showing their account status,

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and “deceptive responses were given to vendorswho inquired concerning the reasons they werenot being paid.”

• Manipulation of financial statements: Investiga-tors found that Kmart executives pressured sub-ordinates to make “unrealistic” forecasts of thefirm’s financial prospects, punishing those whorefused with demotions. The same shady dealershired unqualified aides at excessive salaries andaltered company books to conceal their activi-ties. One former executive ordered $850 millionworth of merchandise for Kmart stores withoutauthorization, in a flub that “substantially con-tributed to Kmart’s liquidity crisis in the fall of2001.”

• Travel mania: Some Kmart officers were appar-ently obsessed with traveling around the coun-try at company expense, covering their tracks“by loading aircraft with Kmart personnel whootherwise had no need to travel.” WhileKmart’s finances took a nose-dive, travel-happyexecutives spent $12 million on new jet planes.

• Tapping the till: Kmart executives took $24 mil-lion in personal loans from the company, whilethe chain’s account books began to fill up withred ink. Investigators found that “managementfailed to disclose” crucial details of the internalloan program, that actual loans “deviated incertain significant respects from what the com-mittee approved,” and that records were alteredafter the fact to conceal those activities. Kmart’sformer CEO received a $5 million “retentionloan,” while the former president was given $3million, and 23 other executives (all of whomsubsequently resigned or were fired) receivedloans ranging from $300,000 to $2.5 million.At the time the internal report was filed in Janu-ary 2003, only two loan recipients had repaidthe money they received (a total of $1,050,000).

Kmart leaders coupled the shocking revelationswith a sweeping reorganization, including assurancesthat two of its largest investors (ESL Investments andThird Avenue Value Fund) would supply a minimumof $140 million when the chain emerged from bank-ruptcy on April 30, 2003. By that time it was esti-mated that some 55,000 Kmart employees wouldhave been dismissed from their jobs. The ink wasbarely dry on that announcement when Kmartdeclared, on January 23, 2003, that new CEO Julian

Day would receive a $1 million bonus for service tothe firm, as soon as Kmart emerged from bankruptcy.Day’s contract further entitled him to use a companyplane and to receive four times his base salary ifKmart reached certain financial targets in the future.Day replaced James Adamson, who was scheduled toreceive $3.6 million in severance pay in April 2003.

KNIGHTS TemplarThe Knights Templar (“knights of the temple”) was amonastic military order created by the CATHOLIC

CHURCH at the end of the First Crusade (ca. A.D.1099–1100) to protect Christian pilgrims en route tothe Holy Land. As the Crusades dragged on and mul-tiplied, the Templars became a front-line fightingforce and graduated from living on alms to collectingloot in battle while drawing financial support fromthe Vatican and various European monarchies. Inpart, the Templars’ power stemmed from the factthat they were immune to any authority but thepope’s. At the same time, their swelling ranks andcoffers made the order a kind of principality withinitself. They essentially invented modern banking,loaning money to impoverished royals throughoutEurope and collecting handsome interest in defianceof a papal ban on “usury.” After 200 years in thegame the Templars were rich and powerful enough todefy kings and popes alike—and therein lay theirweakness.

In 1307 King Philip IV of France needed money tocontinue his long-running war against Edward I ofEngland. Rather than borrow cash from the Tem-plars, he decided to take it by force, a conspiracy inwhich he had the full support of Pope Clement inRome. On October 13, Philip ordered the Templarsarrested en masse on charges of heresy. He claimed(and some historians agree) that the order haddrifted so far from its Catholic roots that it hadadopted a covert form of SATANISM. Specific accusa-tions against the Templars included charges that theyheld secret rituals in which they spat and trampledon the crucifix, practiced homosexual acts in defianceof Scripture, and worshipped a pagan deity known asBaphomet. (Never clearly defined, Baphomet hasbeen described in various accounts as an Arabicdemon, an avatar of Satan, or the mummified headof a deceased Templar grand master). Convictionwas a foregone conclusion, and the Templars’ sentence included forfeiture of all worldly goods in

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addition to mass execution. The order’s last grandmaster, Jacques de Molay, was burned alive onMarch 19, 1314. Legend has it that he cursed KingPhilip and Pope Clement from the stake, command-ing both persecutors to join him within a year. Trueor false, history records that Clement died within amonth of de Molay’s execution, followed by Philipseven months later.

Officially the Templars were no more, but vari-ous historians insist that the knights are with usstill. Supposed heirs to the Templars’ spirituallegacy, proposed in different published accounts,include the ROSICRUCIANS, the FREEMASONS (whoseyouth auxiliary is named for Jacques de Molay),and the sex-magic cult known as Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Eastern Temple) that was once headed by self-styled “Great Beast 666”

Aleister Crowley. One version of the story claimsthat Templars found the Holy Grail (a gobletallegedly used by JESUS CHRIST at the Last Supper),and that modern members of the order are physicaldescendants of Jesus himself. Another school ofthought regards their legacy as Satanic, completewith Baphomet and other Far Eastern deities ordemons invoked to work harmful magic in modernsociety. In fact, a modern body of Knights Templardoes exist, affiliated with the Masonic lodge as aself-described charity. Its Internet Web site may befound at http://www.knightstemplar.org.

KNOW-NOTHING movementIn the mid-19th century, many white Protestant citi-zens of the United States were concerned about therising tide of immigrants. That fear was felt moststrongly in cities on the eastern seaboard where largenumbers of Irish Catholics arrived during the 1840s.Local nativist societies were soon organized to com-bat “foreign” influence and uphold “American”standards. In New York, those groups merged toform the American Republican Party in 1843, soonrenamed the Native American Party (NAP). Themovement went national two years later with a plat-form that called for immigration bans and elimina-tion of recent immigrants from public office. Sincesome of their activities were illegal, including physi-cal attacks on immigrants and incitement of full-scaleurban rioting, members of the movement werewarned to say they “knew nothing” in case of arrest.From that defiant answer came the common nick-name of their movement—one that critics foundappropriate on an entirely different level. Politically,the movement peaked in 1854 when it swept elec-tions in Massachusetts and Delaware, nearly captur-ing control of New York State. The same yearwitnessed Know-Nothing riots against Catholics inKentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, NewHampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio.

The Know-Nothing movement’s inherent bigotrybackfired in June 1855 when southern delegatesseized control of the national council in Philadelphiaand passed a resolution calling for the maintenanceof slavery. The following year, Know-Nothingspokespeople were among the loudest supporters ofthe proslavery Kansas-Nebraska Act, a move thatcost the party thousands of northern members. Abo-litionists defected to the newly formed Republican

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This image depicts the Knights Templar being burned at the stake, known as the Death of de Molay, 1314.(Bettmann/Corbis)

Party, and while the NAP attempted to elect MillardFillmore to the White House, its national power wasbroken. Its legacy, including paranoid hatred ofCatholics and local organization in chapters knownas “clans,” was transmitted to another generation ofterrorists with the rise of the KU KLUX KLAN in thelate 1860s.

See also CATHOLIC CHURCH; TERRORISM.

KOREAKorea’s first recognized settlements appeared inabout 6000 B.C., and national folklore maintainsthat the country’s first civilization (Choson) wasfounded in 2333 B.C. CHINA enslaved Korea as a vas-sal state in the 17th century, isolating it from contactwith the outside world until JAPAN defeated China inthe Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95. Korea wasbriefly granted independence but then was annexedby Japan in 1910. Thousands of Korean womenwere kidnapped to serve the Japanese military as sexslaves during World War II, while nationalists athome continued agitation for freedom. RUSSIA

invaded Korea in 1945, and Japan’s surrender a fewdays later left the nation divided along the 38th par-allel, with Soviet troops in the north and U.S. forcesto the south. The partition was made permanent in1948 with establishment of a Communist regime inNorth Korea (under Kim Il Sung) and a “free” gov-ernment in South Korea (under right-wing dictatorSyngman Rhee).

Bitter antagonism between the two Koreas hasbeen constant since that time. In 1949 alone, NorthKorea blamed the south for 2,617 armed incursionsto carry out murder, kidnapping, pillage, and arsonas a means of fomenting social disorder. AmbassadorPhilip Jessup, touring the 38th parallel in April 1950,described a state of “constant fighting” that included“very real battles” of 2,000 soldiers or more. No oneknows who fired the first shots on June 25, 1950,before North Korean troops crossed the parallel toinvade South Korea. Kim Il Sung later claimed thatthe attack followed two days of incessant artillerybombardment, while Rhee and U.S. spokespersonscalled the invasion a “surprise attack” that waslaunched with Russian complicity. In any case theundeclared Korean War dragged on until June 1953,including WAR CRIMES on both sides and drawingChinese troops into the battle when U.S. forcesadvanced on China’s border with North Korea in

September 1950. The eventual cease-fire agreementleft national boundaries unchanged and did nothingto relieve tension between the two hostile regimes.With Russian and Chinese assistance, North Koreadeveloped a potent nuclear arsenal, while U.S. troopspropped up Syngman Rhee’s corrupt regime in theSouth. The collapse of European communism in1991 and China’s increasing westernization leftNorth Korea largely isolated, with leaders still vow-ing to reunite their ancestral homeland. South Korea,meanwhile, has ample problems of its own, includingglobal condemnation for human rights abuses, bun-gled military coups, the 1996 conviction of PresidentRoh Tae Woo on bribery charges, and a plummetingeconomy. In 2001, President George W. Bush namedNorth Korea as part of a mythical AXIS OF EVIL

(with IRAN and IRAQ). Whereas baseless charges ofstockpiling “weapons of mass destruction” sent U.S.troops to Iraq in 2003, however, Bush showed nosuch inclination to tangle with North Korea’s nucleararsenal. Combat continues along the 38th parallel,meanwhile: 30 North Koreans and 5 South Koreanswere killed in an exchange of fire in June 2002, andfresh fighting was reported in July 2003.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM.

KRUPP ArmsBorn in 1870 Gustav Krupp von Boh-len und Hal-bach built a huge family fortune in GERMANY bymanufacturing military arms and munitions. In thechaotic years after World War I Krupp initiallyremained aloof from ADOLF HITLER’s Nazi Party, buthe ultimately recognized the profits to be earnedfrom endless conflict and evolved into what someobservers have called a “super-Nazi.” Althoughheadquartered at Essen, Krupp Arms had factoriesthroughout Germany, and the firm soon followedTHIRD REICH troops into occupied Poland. There, asthe Holocaust gathered momentum toward a “finalsolution of the Jewish question,” Krupp built a fac-tory at Auschwitz with part of the facility inside thedeath camp’s barbed-wire perimeter. Krupp madeextensive use of slave labor during World War II, itsfactories absorbing 73,000 prisoners of war and for-eign captives by September 1944. Treatment of Jewson the assembly lines was particularly brutal, and therisks increased as Allied planes began to bomb Ger-man war plants. (At Krupp factories the air raid shel-ters were reserved for “Aryans.”) At war’s end,

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various Krupp executives were among those indictedfor WAR CRIMES. Gustav Krupp’s senility saved himfrom trial, but son Alfred was convicted of usingslave labor, stripped of his holdings, and sentenced to12 years in prison. Gustav died in 1950, but his fam-ily had nothing more to fear from German justice. In1951 a general amnesty released the nation’s corpo-rate criminals from prison and restored their for-tunes. Alfred Krupp resumed control of the familybusiness and finished his life in the affluent style hepreferred.

See also COMMUNISM; HOLOCAUST AND HOLO-CAUST DENIAL.

KU Klux KlanAmerica’s oldest still-active terrorist group wasorganized at Pulaski, Tennessee, in spring 1866 as asocial club for Confederate veterans of the recentCivil War. The founders chose its name from theGreek word kuklos (“circle”), popularized by thesouthern college fraternity Kuklos Adelphon, andadded clan spelled with a K for uniformity. Whendrinking—which was often—they pursued the famil-iar southern sport of frightening blacks and dressingin ghostly costumes to play “pranks” on recentlyfreed ex-slaves. Members flocked to the KKK, and its“harmless fun” acquired political motivations in1867 with the imposition of Congressional RECON-STRUCTION on an unwilling South. Reorganizedalong military lines, led by Confederate cavalryleader (and prewar slave trader) Nathan BedfordForrest, the Klan’s “Invisible Empire” soonexpanded to include active chapters in 12 states.(The old Confederacy only had 11 states, but Klans-men also organized in Kentucky, a former slave statenominally loyal to the Union during the war.) Duringthe next six years, Klansmen waged ceaseless guer-rilla war against blacks, “radical” Republicans, andanyone else who showed the least sympathy forracial equality. Several thousand murders resulted,with many times that number of victims wounded,whipped, castrated, branded, or otherwise assaultedin the name of preserving “home rule.” Congress andPresident Ulysses Grant finally passed new legislationto suppress the KKK, bringing a number of Klans-men to trial for their crimes, but the group emergedvictorious in 1877 when a corrupt political bargainplaced RUTHERFORD B. HAYES in the White Houseand ended Reconstruction in the South.

Southern historians revered the Klan for its role in“redeeming” Dixie from mythical “black anarchy,”and its legend grew over time as veteran Klansmenmoved into various high political offices. (By 1915one of them was chief justice of the U.S. SUPREME

COURT.) Director D. W. Griffith’s epic motion pictureBirth of a Nation cast Reconstruction Klansmen asheroes in 1915 and was publicly endorsed by Presi-dent Woodrow Wilson and other respected officials.In Atlanta defrocked minister William Simmonsrevived the KKK to cash in on the movie’s publicity,but his new fraternal order languished throughWorld War I, recruiting fewer than 5,000 members inGeorgia and Alabama. In 1920 Simmons employed apublicity firm to boost Klan expansion, and thegroup expanded nationwide with a new list of ene-mies that appealed to bigots in every corner of thenation. Aside from blacks, the modern KKK also

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Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first“grand wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan. (Author’s collection)

despised Catholics, Jews, “radicals,” labor unions,most recent immigrants—the list was virtually end-less. By 1921 membership had risen to 100,000 withno end in sight. Three years later, Klan watcherspegged the number somewhere between 3 millionand 5 million dues-paying Klansmen.

Those numbers gave the KKK substantial politicalclout, and Klan leaders were not afraid to use it. Var-ious states—from Alabama and Georgia to Oregon,Colorado, and Indiana—were dominated by Klans-men in office during the 1920s. Klan legislators sup-ported PROHIBITION (though rarely observing itstenets) and campaigned to ban parochial schools. Atthe grass-roots level the KKK was both a social and avigilante organization, resorting to brutal violence inalmost every state where it organized. Whippings,torture, and murders created scandals from Califor-nia through Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia,

Florida, and Oklahoma (where the governor wasimpeached for declaring martial law to fight Klanraiding parties). Such episodes, combined with recur-ring financial chicanery and sex scandals within theKlan hierarchy, whittled Klan membership during theGreat Depression. The KKK was a shadow of its for-mer self by 1944 when a federal tax lien closednational headquarters, but local chapters clung stub-bornly to life across the South.

After World War II the Klan revived in an atmos-phere of racist resentment against the black civil rightsmovement. Politicians such as Dixiecrat Strom Thur-mond and the Georgia TALMADGE DYNASTY took fulladvantage of Klan support, ignoring a new rash ofviolence in the South while the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION remained largely aloof. Mayhem esca-lated after 1954 with the Supreme Court’s order fordesegregation of public schools, but the Klan was also

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Bill Wilkinson (in suit) served as an FBI informer while leading America’s most violent KKK faction in the 1980s. (SouthernPoverty Law Center)

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fragmented, its former strength divided among asmany as two dozen scattered groups at any given time.In the 1960s Klansmen left their bloody mark on suchracial battlegrounds as Birmingham, Alabama (sceneof the BAPBOMB murders in 1963); Bogalusa,Louisiana; St. Augustine, Florida; and in Mississippi,where virtual anarchy reigned during 1964–67. Presi-dent LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON finally forced J. EDGAR

HOOVER to investigate the Klan in 1964, and theresultant COINTELPRO harassment campaigns greatlyweakened the KKK as an effective force. Once again,however, only a handful of Klansmen were prosecutedfor major crimes. It remained for personal scandalsand belated public revulsion over Klan brutality tobreak the movement’s back.

Klan influence since the 1970s has been relativelyminor and dispersed among a myriad of competing(often mutually hostile) factions, but it is a grave mis-take to rate the KKK as harmless or defunct. Since theearly 1980s Klansmen have been active in variousneo-Nazi terrorist groups, including the ultraviolentSILENT BROTHERHOOD. Inspired by THE TURNER

DIARIES and other extremist screeds, the Klansmen,“lone-wolf” guerrillas, and affiliated skinhead gangshave been responsible for hundreds of violent actsduring the past two decades. Timothy McVeigh, exe-cuted for the OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING of April1995, was once a Klansman before he drifted into themilitia movement. With more than 300 right-winghate groups active in the United States at last report,there is no doubt that such incidents will continue.

See also CATHOLIC CHURCH; TERRORISM.

KUWAITKuwait belonged to IRAQ’s Basra Province until 1897,when Britain arrived to “protect” the region, redraw-ing its boundaries and installing a military garrison.

Coincidentally or otherwise, petroleum prospectorssoon “discovered” that Kuwait sat atop OIL reservescomprising 20 percent of Earth’s total supply. Full-scale pumping began at once and continues to thepresent day. Britain granted Kuwait full independ-ence in 1961, while offering continued military aidon request to members of the ruling al-Sabah family(which received 50 percent of all oil profits). By 1968 the al-Sabah clan felt confident enough, in thewords of Time magazine, that it “sought to establishdominance among the sheikdoms and emirates of thePersian Gulf.”

In July 1990 Iraqi president SADDAM HUSSEIN pub-licly blamed Kuwait for declining Middle Eastern oilprices. That same month, Saddam informed U.S.Ambassador April Gillespie of his plans to reclaimKuwait as a part of Iraq. Gillespie offered no objec-tions in the conversation that was secretly taped bySaddam, and that acquiescence proved embarrassingwhen Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. WhenPresident George H. W. Bush demanded that Iraqwithdraw, Saddam replied with a list of demandsincluding guaranteed access to the Persian Gulf (cutoff by Britain in 1897), settlement of boundary dis-putes in the Rumala oil field (95 percent inside Iraq),and a Kuwaiti plebiscite on the issue of reunion withIraq. Bush rejected all terms and in January 1991launched the GULF WAR to expel Iraq from Kuwait.The effort was successful, though it left Saddam stillin power and thereby set the stage for a later Bush towage OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM in 2003. Kuwait,meanwhile, remains in the grip of the al-Sabah fam-ily and rigid Islamic regulations. In 1999 the emirgranted women the right to vote and to seek politicaloffice, but Parliament rejected the decree. Three yearslater, coeducation was banned within the nation’sonly university.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

LANSKY, Meyer (1902–1983)One of America’s foremost criminals was born MaierSuchowljansky in 1902 at Grodno, RUSSIA (now inPOLAND). As Jews, he and his family were constantlyat risk from anti-Semites such as the BLACK HUN-DREDS, who mounted bloody pogroms throughoutthe Polish Pale of Settlement. The Suchowljanskyclan moved to New York in 1911 where Maier soonAnglicized his name to Lansky (and where immigra-tion officials arbitrarily pegged his birth date as July4). While still in school Lansky befriended anotheryoung Jew, hoodlum Benjamin (“Bugsy”) Siegel.Together, they faced extortion from Sicilian delin-quent CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO, but Luciano soadmired their fighting spirit that the three becamelifelong friends. On leaving school, Lansky ostensiblybecame an apprentice toolmaker, but his real life wasstreet crime, graduating to organized bootleggingwith the advent of PROHIBITION in 1920.

During the next 14 years, Lansky and his partnersbecame millionaires, smuggling liquor in conjunctionwith illegal gambling, prostitution, and HEROIN traf-fic. In the process Lansky planted outposts in CUBA

that would blossom after World War II into lavishmob-owned casinos. During 1930–31 when Lucianowaged war in New York to “Americanize” theMAFIA, Lansky and Siegel did their part by forgingnational alliances with syndicates of different nation-alities. In the Great Depression their empireexpanded to include gambling concessions in Florida

and New Orleans, where covert partner HUEY LONG

offered protection for a price. Siegel moved west tomanage syndicate operations in California during thelate 1930s; he planted the mob’s flag in LAS VEGAS,Nevada, a decade later. When his first casino failedto prosper there and Siegel was accused of stealingfrom the combination, Lansky approved his oldfriend’s murder and went on to prosper in alliancewith mobsters from Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, andNew York in legalized gambling.

The 1950s and 1960s brought turmoil to Lansky’sworld when FIDEL CASTRO closed mob casinos inCuba. Lansky collaborated with the CENTRAL INTEL-LIGENCE AGENCY in its failed attempts to kill Castro;then he shifted his sights to the nearby BAHAMAS andbuilt lavish gambling resorts around Nassau. He isalso considered a prime suspect in the JFK ASSASSINA-TION of 1963. Throughout his career, he served onlyone 30-day jail sentence (for gambling), but theINTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE planned to change thatin 1970 with an indictment for income-tax evasion.Lansky fled to ISRAEL, claiming sanctuary under thatnation’s Law of Return, but Israeli leaders finallyexpelled him. In 1973 a Florida jury acquitted Lan-sky of ducking his taxes, and additional charges weredropped on grounds of his poor health. Lung cancerclaimed his life at Miami Beach, on May 15, 1983.Published accounts of his estate’s secret value varyfrom $4 million to some $400 million. Thoughknown to fellow mobsters since the 1920s as the

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“Little Man,” Lansky’s record of achievementremains nearly unrivaled in organized crime.

LAOSThe Lao people migrated from southern CHINA in theeighth century A.D., founding the Lan Xang kingdom600 years later. Invaders from THAILAND conqueredthe region of present-day Laos in the 18th century,followed by conquerors from FRANCE in 1893.French colonial rulers incorporated Laos into thelarger realm of Indochina (including modern CAMBO-DIA and VIETNAM). JAPAN conquered the region dur-ing World War II, and its example encouraged astrong nationalist movement against the resumptionof French colonial rule in 1946. Semiautonomy wasgranted in 1949, followed by full independencewithin the French Union two years later. In 1951exiled Prince Souphanouvong organized a commu-nist liberation movement, the Pathet Lao, in NorthVietnam. In 1957 Pathet Lao forces merged with theLaotian royal army, but the agreement failed twoyears later, and armed struggle resumed. Beginning in1961, despite a cease-fire agreement in Laos, Presi-dent John Kennedy launched covert bombing raidsagainst Pathet Lao bases from South Vietnam, whileCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY mercenary forceswaged war on the ground. A new agreement in 1973reinstated government collaboration with the PathetLao, but Red leaders would not be fooled a secondtime, seizing control of the country in 1975. TheCommunist regime retains power today, though arevised constitution (1991) deleted references tosocialism while retaining one-party rule. Since March2000 the Laotian capital (Vientiane) has been shakenby a series of unsolved bombings, generally attrib-uted to anti-Communist Hmong tribal guerrillas.Northern Laos lies within the “Golden Triangle” ofSoutheast Asia where drug lords affiliated with theChinese TRIAD syndicates produce and export tons ofHEROIN each year.

See also COMMUNISM; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

LAS VegasLas Vegas, Nevada, is a city founded, built, and nur-tured on conspiracy. Illegal gambling was a mainstayof the local economy before state legislators bowedto the inevitable and legalized “gaming” in 1931, butthe town that would someday be known as “Lost

Wages” lagged behind Reno in popularity and popu-lation for another 16 years. It took the postwarMAFIA to recognize the profit potential of Las Vegas,a five-hour drive from Los Angeles. Casinos hadalready sprouted downtown along Fremont Street—also known as “Glitter Gulch”—under the steward-ship of Texas bootlegger and murderer Benny Binion,but the first great gambling palace on The Strip (LasVegas Boulevard) was launched by a consortium ofNew York gangsters in 1946. Bugsy Siegel was thefront man, bankrolled with drug money from child-hood friends MEYER LANSKY and CHARLES “LUCKY”LUCIANO, building the Fabulous Flamingo as the firsttrue Sin City resort.

Financial problems, skimming from his partnerschief among them, sent Siegel to an early grave inJune 1947, but the Flamingo prospered, and othercrime families soon emulated New York’s example.During the next dozen years, Cleveland mobstersbuilt the Desert Inn and Stardust hotel-casinos;Chicago’s “Outfit” bossed the Riviera; New Eng-land’s Patriarca family helmed the Dunes; Lanskyand Frank Costello split their take from the Tropi-cana, while Costello and Brooklyn mobster Joe Ado-nis shared control of the Sahara. The Sandshotel-casino set a record for being “controlled bymore mobs than any other casino in Nevada,” host-ing silent partners from Boston, Chicago, Cleveland,Detroit, Galveston, Houston, Jersey City, Los Ange-les, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York,Newark, San Francisco, and St. Louis. Nearly allthose casinos and most of the other landmarks in LasVegas were bankrolled by low-interest loans from themob-controlled INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF

TEAMSTERS.The money game, today as in the 1940s, plays

three ways in Vegas. First, where common gamblersare concerned, all odds are weighed heavily in favorof the house so that significant winners are few andfar between. Second, the “skim”—that portion ofdaily receipts stolen from casino counting rooms andspirited away to hidden owners out of state beforeearnings are reported to the INTERNAL REVENUE

SERVICE—puts millions of untaxed dollars in thehands of mobsters and their “straight” front men.Finally, the casino culture serves all comers as a hugecash laundry, devouring billions a year fromswindlers, drug dealers, pimps, and other unsavoryplayers, spitting out “clean” cash that finds its way into political coffers, Wall Street transactions,

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tax-deductible charity donations, and covert opera-tions carried out by various intelligence agencies.

From the early 1950s onward Las Vegas has beena launching pad for presidential campaigns. Thecity’s power brokers were instrumental in financingPresidents John Kennedy, LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON,RICHARD NIXON, RONALD REAGAN, George H. W.Bush, and his son. In the early 1960s, much of theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY’s illegal war againstFIDEL CASTRO was plotted in Nevada casinos anddirected by Mafia collaborators SAM GIANCANA andJOHN ROSELLI. Nixon’s notorious “plumbers” fun-neled WATERGATE hush money through Las Vegas inthe early 1970s. Ten years later only the names andfaces had changed when the Reagan-Bush teamsought covert support for their IRAN-CONTRA CON-SPIRACY. In the middle of it all, HOWARD HUGHES

arrived to “clean up the town,” but his purchase ofmultiple casinos was mere window dressing, a bil-lionaire playing Monopoly® with real-life buildings.A tarnished innocent of sorts where gambling wasconcerned, Hughes left known mobsters in charge ofthe casinos he leased or purchased, seemingly oblivi-ous to the fact that they were robbing him blindwhile he hid in his Desert Inn penthouse, gobblinggourmet ice cream and obsessing over germs.

The short-lived Hughes invasion (1966–70) wasnot the only effort to “clean up” Las Vegas. The citygoes through cyclic phases, superficially transformedfrom Sin City to a “family place” and back again.Behind the neon, though, even such family-orientedhotel-casinos as Circus Circus had mobsters, Team-sters, and sundry Wall Street sharks lurking in thebackground. Occasional FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION raids, prosecutions, and breathless newspa-per exposés reveal the “surprise” of mob involvementin the city at predictable intervals, but nothing reallychanges. In 1998 federal agents cracked an interna-tional drug and money-laundering conspiracy thatwas centered in Las Vegas, resulting in 140 arrests onthree continents. A year later Las Vegans turned outin force to elect new mayor Oscar Goodman—a localattorney best known for his ardent defense of notori-ous mobsters, including the late Chicago hit manTony (“The Ant”) Spilotro. Sociologists have termedLas Vegas “the First City of the 21st century,” andmob watchers call it the “shadow capital” of theUnited States. Based on the city’s growth, its wealth,and its sinister connections, both may be correct.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

LEBANONAt the close of World War I, FRANCE received aLeague of Nations mandate to occupy Lebanon andneighboring SYRIA (both previously part of TURKEY).In 1920, France drew a border to separate mostlyMuslim Syria from the religious stew of Lebanon(where Christians were then dominant). Lebanonproclaimed independence in November 1941, butFrench troops remained in place until 1946. Anational pact provided for the country to operatewith a Christian president, a Sunni Muslim primeminister, and a Shi’ite Muslim as speaker of theNational Assembly. That agreement was tested after1948 by a flood of Palestinian refugees from ISRAEL.In 1954–55 Israeli leaders worked openly to sparkviolence between Lebanese Muslims and Christians,hoping thereby to weaken one of Israel’s Arab neigh-bors. When a religious civil war erupted in 1958 U.S.troops arrived to quell the fighting. Lebanon sur-vived and flourished in the early 1960s, with Beirutwidely hailed as “the Paris of the East.”

Unsatisfied with early results Israel intensified itsefforts to destabilize Lebanon. In May 1972 aftermembers of the Japanese Red Army killed 26 per-sons in Tel Aviv, Israel, “retaliated” by bombingLebanon, killing 100-plus civilians. Four monthslater, when BLACK SEPTEMBER gunmen killed nineIsraelis in GERMANY, Israel bombed Lebanon again,killing more than 400 civilians. Warfare betweenLebanese Muslims and Christians resumed in April1975, eventually reducing the elegant heart ofBeirut to a burned-out no-man’s land. An estimated40,000 persons were killed, with more than100,000 wounded, before a Syrian-dominated ArabDeterrence Force intervened to stop the carnage inNovember 1976. Citing recent terrorist attacks,Israel invaded Lebanon in March 1978, killing2,000 persons and driving 250,000 from theirhomes without the loss of a single Israeli soldier.Protests from Washington ended that “war,” butIsraeli troops returned in June 1982. By mid-Augustafter 124 air strikes against Beirut in nine days,President RONALD REAGAN called the Israeli bomb-ings “unfathomable and senseless,” coercing Israelinto a reluctant truce. Before Israeli troops with-drew, Christian guerrillas invaded two Palestinianrefugee camps that were surrounded by Israelitroops, and the guerrillas slaughtered hundreds ofunarmed civilians. (Israeli spokespersons deniedany responsibility for the crimes that they witnessed

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and permitted.) By the time Israel withdrew oncemore from Lebanon an estimated 50,000 personshad been killed, 85 percent of them civilians.

Religious warfare between private militias contin-ued until early 1991 when Lebanese and Syrian troopsfinally disarmed the worst offenders. Still, the isolatedBeqaa Valley remained a lawless district occupied byvarious guerrilla bands and well-armed farmers whocultivated opium poppies for conversion into high-priced HEROIN. Israeli bombing raids were repeated in1996 and 1999, while occupation forces remained inparts of Lebanon until May 2000. Syrian troops went home in the summer of 2001, but their departuredid not signal peace. Old antagonisms survive, andterrorist groups—chiefly Hezbollah—showed renewedstrength in Lebanon during 2002–03, massing forcesalong the nation’s border with Israel.

In February 2005 former Lebanese Prime MinisterRafik Hariri was assassinated in an attack widelyattributed to Syria. Massive public protests followedcalling for the dissolution of Lebanon’s pro-Syriangovernment and the withdrawal of Syrian troops.Counterdemonstrations sponsored by Hezbollah andSyria followed, but the protest movement continuedin Lebanon, and international pressure mounted forSyria to remove its military presence. In April, Syriafinally agreed, and the last Syrian troops leftLebanon on April 26, 2005.

See also TERRORISM.

LEMMER, WilliamA mentally unstable military veteran, William Lem-mer was threatened with a psychiatric dischargefrom the U.S. Army before he left the service of hisown accord. The turmoil had only begun, however:Lemmer’s estranged wife had him held for a sanityhearing after he wrote her a letter blaming VIETNAM

Veterans Against the War (VVAW) for the breakup oftheir marriage, threatening to “get” the group’smembers silently, in “tennis shoes” and with a“length of piano wire.” Police in Gainesville, Florida,detained Lemmer after he was found in possession oftwo loaded guns, and a local doctor recommendedpsychiatric treatment.

None of that apparently diminished Lemmer’svalue as a paid informant of the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) who was assigned to penetrateand disrupt the VVAW. His first action of recordoccurred on May 4, 1972, when 12 demonstrators

from the War Resisters League were jailed for enter-ing Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City toread an antiwar statement. Lemmer planned thedemonstration but did not participate. At trial all 12protesters were convicted of trespassing on a militaryreservation; four female demonstrators received pro-bation, while eight male defendants served an aver-age of four months in federal custody.

Lemmer’s greatest coup occurred in July 1972 andtargeted his enemies in the VVAW. Based on Lem-mer’s testimony to G-men and a federal grand jury inFlorida, eight VVAW activists (thereafter known asthe “Gainesville 8”) were indicted for conspiracy todisrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention inMiami. According to the charges filed against themthe defendants planned to attack the convention witha variety of weapons including crossbows, incendiarydevices, homemade grenades, automatic weapons,and bazookas. At trial in 1973, however, U.S. attor-neys produced no weapons other than slingshotsoffered for sale in any American sporting-goodsstore. Major Adam Klimkowski, chief of the MiamiPolice Department’s Special Investigation Unit fur-ther admitted under oath that one of his agents pro-posed acquisition of machine guns to the defendants,who flatly rejected the offer. Lemmer’s exposure asan FBI informant finally doomed the government’scase, and jurors deliberated less than four hoursbefore acquitting the defendants on all charges.

LENIN,Vladimir Ilyich (1870–1924)RUSSIA’s first Communist leader was born VladimirIlyich Ulyanov at Simbirsk on April 22, 1870. The sonof a civil-service officer, he distinguished himself instudy of Greek and Latin until May 1887 when his eld-est brother was hanged for participating in a plot tokill Czar Alexander III. The execution radicalizedUlyanov, who adopted the revolutionary name NikolaiLenin (allegedly a reference to the Lena River) andimmersed himself in radical politics. Before year’s endhe was arrested and expelled from Kazan Universityfor leading student protests. Independent study quali-fied him as a lawyer in 1892, but his devotion to armedrebellion persisted. Arrested again on December 7,1895, Lenin was held in jail for a year before authori-ties banished him to Siberia. He used the time to honehis rhetoric and published his first book on Marxism(The Development of Capital in Russia) before hisexile ended in 1900. Thereafter, Lenin traveled widely

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through Russia and Europe, publishing radical tractsand newspapers. In 1903 he led the dissident Bolshevik(minority) faction of the Russian Social DemocraticLabor Party, and three years later Lenin was elected tothe party’s presidium. Threats against his life fromright-wing monarchists prompted a move to Finland in1907, and Lenin spent the next decade roamingthrough Europe, spreading the ideology that WinstonChurchill once compared to a plague.

Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917, afterNicholas II was deposed. He fled once more in Julyafter a Bolshevik coup failed to seize control of thenation, but October brought him back to lead a suc-cessful revolt against the provisional government. OnNovember 8, 1917, Lenin was elected chairman ofthe Council of People’s Commissars—in effect, hebecame the new leader of Russia. He urged immedi-ate peace with GERMANY, sacrificing much of Rus-sia’s western territory in the March 1918 Treaty ofBrest-Litovsk. Five months later Lenin survived hisfirst assassination attempt, carried out by dissidentFanny Kaplan. Undeterred by danger Lenin securedvictory over anti-Bolshevik armies and U.S. invasionforces during the Russian Civil War of 1918–20. InMarch 1921 he crushed a naval mutiny at Kronstadtto consolidate his power. Success was fleeting,though, as a series of strokes between May 1922 andMarch 1923 left him partially paralyzed and forcedinto virtual isolation by the Russian Politburo. Afourth stroke claimed his life on January 21, 1924,whereupon the city of Petrograd was renamedLeningrad in his honor. Canny subordinate JOSEPH

STALIN filled the Russian power vacuum after Lenin’sdeath. Lenin’s corpse was embalmed and placed onpermanent display at the Kremlin in a glass coffin.

See also COMMUNISM.

LENNON, John (1940–1980)A Liverpool native, born October 9, 1940, musicianJohn Lennon organized a rock-and-roll quartet, theBeatles, with friends Paul McCartney, George Harri-son, and Pete Best in 1960. The group played variousBritish clubs before cutting its first record in 1962.Soon afterward, drummer Best was replaced byRingo Starr, and the rest is music history. Between1963 and early 1970 the Beatles took all honors asthe world’s most successful rock band, leading theso-called British invasion of the United States in1964 with an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show

that brought 72 million viewers to their TV sets.Lennon created a flap in March 1966 with an off-hand comment that the Beatles were “bigger thanJESUS CHRIST,” and more controversy flowed fromsongs apparently endorsing use of the psychedelicdrug LSD. McCartney left the Beatles in April 1970,and the band subsequently dissolved.

Lennon and second wife Yoko Ono, meanwhile,had settled in New York and embarked on a courseof public protest against the VIETNAM War. Thoseefforts and John’s continuing flirtation with illegaldrugs prompted federal efforts to attempt to expelLennon from the country. FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION agents shadowed the couple for twoyears, reporting on their every move and compilingvoluminous files that were released to publicscrutiny decades later under the Freedom of Infor-mation Act. On December 8, 1980, Lennon wasshot and killed outside his Manhattan apartment byMark David Chapman, whom authorities describedas an obsessive fan-turned-stalker.

Conspiracists still question Chapman’s motives and suggest that he was used by other forces in a plot to silence Lennon’s political protests. Officially,Chapman—a long-term mental patient—becameconvinced that Lennon was “a hypocrite” after read-ing some of the musician’s published poetry. Soonthereafter, Chapman allegedly “became frustratedand decided that the solution to his mental instabilitywould be to kill John Lennon.” To that end he flewfrom Hawaii to New York on October 29, 1980,armed with a pistol but no ammunition. Chapmanstaked out Lennon’s apartment, phoning his wifelong-distance on November 11 to confess his murderplan. She persuaded Chapman to come home, but hereturned to New York on December 5 and shotLennon three days later, hours after a previous side-walk encounter wherein Lennon autographed one ofhis albums for Chapman. (“Is that all you want?”Lennon asked. Chapman replied, “Thanks, John.”)Author Fenton Bresler in Who Shot John Lennon?(1989) rejected the lone-nut-assassin verdict, suggest-ing that the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY playeda guiding role in Lennon’s death. As Bresler summa-rized his case:

Lennon, the politically most active rock star of his gen-

eration . . . was shot dead outside his own home by a

killer who was merely a tool, a human gun used and

controlled by others to destroy a uniquely powerful

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radical figure who was likely to prove a rallying point

for mass opposition to the policies soon to be imple-

mented. . . . by the new United States government

headed by RONALD REAGAN.

LESOTHOEntirely surrounded by SOUTH AFRICA, the moun-tainous nation of Lesotho (formerly Basutoland) washeld under British “protection” from 1843 to 1966,when London finally recognized King Moshoeshoe IIas sovereign ruler of a parliamentary constitutionalmonarchy. Ntsu Mokhehle, head of the BasutolandCongress Party, claimed victory in 1970’s election,whereupon incumbent prime minister LeabuaJonathan promptly declared a “national emergency,”suspended the constitution, and clapped Mokhehleinto prison. In February 1990 after KingMoshoeshoe II refused to rubber-stamp the dismissalof several officials ousted by Justin Lekhanya, chair-man of Lesotho’s military council, Lekhanya strippedthe king of his executive powers, then drove him intoexile a month later. Moshoeshoe was replaced by hisson, inaugurated as King Letsie III, but furtherupheavals brought Moshoeshoe back to the thronein January 1995. New elections in May 1998sparked accusations of widespread vote fraud, andantigovernment riots erupted that autumn, quelledby troops from South Africa and BOTSWANA.Lesotho’s army mutinied at the same time, but it wasunable to expel the foreign soldiers. In the still-sus-pect parliamentary elections of 2002, the rulingLesotho Congress for Democracy scored 54 percentof the national vote, at least on paper.

LETELIER, Orlando (1932–1976)A native of CHILE, born April 13, 1932, Orlando Letelier pursued a life of politics and public service inhis homeland. In 1971 socialist president SalvadorAllende named Letelier as Chile’s ambassador to the United States, followed two years later by hisappointment to serve first as Foreign Minister, thenDefense Minister. Throughout that period, theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) was activelyinvolved in a conspiracy to topple Allende’s govern-ment on orders from President RICHARD NIXON andHENRY KISSINGER. After the military coup that killedAllende on September 11, 1973, Letelier was arrested,tortured, and then dispatched to a political prison

in Tierra del Fuego. Released in 1974 he moved hisfamily to Washington, D.C., and began a relentlesscampaign to restore Chilean democracy. Those effortsmarked him for death under a wide-ranging programof assassinations ordered from Concepción, under the code-name Operation Condor (a collaborativemass-murder effort also involving the U.S.-supporteddictators of ARGENTINA and URUGUAY).

On September 14, 1976, Letelier’s wife received atelephone call in Washington. The anonymous callerasked, “Are you the wife of Orlando Letelier?” Whenshe replied in the affirmative, the man corrected her:“No, you are his widow.” Seven days later Letelierand American aide Ronni Moffit were killed when abomb destroyed their car. Moffit’s husband, blownclear of the wreckage, publicly blamed Chilean SECRET

POLICE for the crime, but then-CIA Director GeorgeH. W. Bush falsely assured FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVES-TIGATION (FBI) agents that “reliable sources” in Chileruled out official involvement. In fact, Bush knew thedetails of Operation Condor, but his agency stilljoined in Chilean propaganda efforts, claiming leftistshad slain Letelier to make him a martyr for theircause. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT investigators identifiedthe actual killers within weeks, but prosecution wasdeferred until the CIA’s latest terrorist campaign wasscuttled by predictable leaks and scandals. The samebombers, including a clique of anti-Castro Cubanexiles who were linked to the BAY OF PIGS fiasco andthe JFK ASSASSINATION, subsequently bombed a Cubanairliner, killing all 73 persons aboard. According toFBI sources, that slaughter and Letelier’s murder wereplanned at the same meeting.

Those eventually convicted for killing Letelierincluded Michael Townley, a U.S. expatriate withclose ties to Chile’s secret police (DINA); GeneralManuel Contreras, former head of DINA; andanother one-time DINA officer, Brigadier GeneralPedro Espinoza Bravo. CIA documents releasedunder the Freedom of Information Act revealed thatBush’s agency was closely tied to Contreras beforeand after the murder. Townley and accompliceArmando Fernández were also granted visas by theU.S. ambassador to Paraguay at the urging of CIAagents and Paraguayan officials, despite full knowl-edge that they traveled on false passports. In 1991when Chile’s Supreme Court asked then-PresidentBush to answer questions surrounding the Leteliermurder, Bush refused to cooperate.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; FIDEL CASTRO; TERRORISM.

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LIBERAL mediaIt is an article of faith among American conservativesthat a pervasive and subversive “liberal” news mediaworks ceaselessly to vilify and nullify their “patri-otic” goals. The notion dates from RICHARD NIXON’stenure in the White House when investigative jour-nalists exposed the crimes of WATERGATE and helpedpropel one of the most corrupt executives in modernU.S. history into retirement. Ever since those daysright-wing officials and their propagandists feelobliged to blast the media whenever some new scan-dal is exposed. The fault, they seem to feel, lies notwithin the individuals revealed as power-hungrycriminals but rather with the men and women whoexpose them. In the heat of that debate, however, few spokespersons for left or right have bothered todiscover if the so-called liberal media truly exists.

In point of fact America’s media outlets areowned and dominated by corporations whose exec-utives are anything but liberal, and the bias ofthose owners influences every major policyespoused by newspapers and broadcasting net-works. At last count three-fourths of all majorstockholders in the ABC, CBS, and NBC networkswere banking institutions (including CHASE MAN-HATTAN and the MORGAN Guarantee Trust), whileright-wing mogul Rupert Murdoch owns the Foxnetwork outright. NBC is a subsidiary of GENERAL

ELECTRIC, which also has officers on the board ofdirectors for the Washington Post. Other control-ling voices on the Post and CBS include such finan-cial powerhouses as IT&T, IBM, COCA-COLA, AT&T,and the FORD MOTOR COMPANY. Ford also haswatchful executives on the boards of the New YorkTimes and the Los Angeles Times. What effect doesthat staunch conservative ownership have on newsreporting in America? A few examples from thepast two decades should suffice.

• Former Time magazine reporter Stuart Schoff-man described himself in the 1980s as “anapparatchik in the service of the corporation’sideas. It is only in retrospect that I realized I wasmouthing opinions not my own.”

• After Edward Roby, a reporter for United PressInternational, reported that U.S. OIL companieswere illegally claiming their business expenses inSAUDI ARABIA as tax credits (rather than ordinarydeductions), his employers barred Roby fromwriting any further stories about oil or taxes.

• Associated Press reporters Brian Barger andRobert Parry resigned in disgust after their edi-tors repeatedly spiked or emasculated storiesdetailing links between CONTRA acts of TERROR-ISM in NICARAGUA and the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY.

• During the 1984 presidential election, ABC edi-tors suppressed various stories critical ofRONALD REAGAN and the Republican Party,including items on the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION investigation of Labor SecretaryRaymond Donovan’s ties to the MAFIA.

• In 1991, when NBC stringer Jon Alpertreturned from IRAQ with video footage of civil-ian areas blasted by U.S. air strikes, networkpresident Michael Gartner barred use of thefootage and terminated Alpert’s 12-yearemployment with NBC.

• In the wake of ELECTION 2000 a survey con-ducted by the Pew Charitable Trust Project forExcellence in Journalism revealed that 56 per-cent of all stories published or broadcast aboutDemocratic candidate Al Gore were negative intone, versus 49 percent of the stories coveringopponent George W. Bush. Positive storiesabout Bush nearly doubled Gore’s figure, with24 percent versus 13 percent.

Other studies in recent years have shown that moremembers of the media identify themselves as liberalrather than conservative and that the majority tends tovote Democratic, but these studies have not establisheda connection between this and biased reporting. Somemedia assessments of the 2004 election found greaterpercentages of stories favoring John Kerry, while othersdepicted a more-balanced picture. Critics on bothsides argued against the validity of the research. As forthe liberal impact on government policy which is sooften condemned by commentators of the Rush Limbaugh–Sean Hannity persuasion, it apparently doesnot exist. In May 2003 George Bush publicly admittedthat he never reads newspapers nor watches newsbroadcasts on television, preferring instead the positivespin of hand-picked bulletins provided by his staff.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

LIBERIALiberia was founded in 1822 as Africa’s first repub-lic when members of the American Colonization

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Society began to ship freed slaves from the UnitedStates. During the next two decades some 12,000blacks were “repatriated” to a land that they hadnever seen before, initially christened Monrovia. In1847 the name was changed to Liberia (for “lib-erty”). Although U.S. deportees comprised only 5percent of the country’s population, they have his-torically dominated its politics and society. Govern-ment was modeled after that of the United Statesuntil April 1980 when a military coup ousted Presi-dent William Tolbert, Jr. The junta that replacedTolbert was notable for its corruption and brutal-ity—traits that prompted formation of a rebelgroup, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia(NPFL), in 1989. Dictator Samuel Doe was assassi-nated in 1990, but the civil war raged on until 1997,destroying much of Liberia’s infrastructure. CharlesTaylor was elected president in July 1997 with 75percent of the popular vote, and while internationalobservers pronounced the election relatively fair andhonest, Taylor behaved as a ruthless dictator inoffice. When not suppressing dissidents, Taylor sup-ported SIERRA LEONE’s Revolutionary United Front(RUF) in a bid to unseat that nation’s government.Liberia’s economy continued to decline, while non-stop fighting by a mixed bag of government andrebel armies continued at various points throughoutthe country, including troops from Sierra Leone andGUINEA. Domestic rebels, calling themselves Liberi-ans United for Reconciliation and Democracy(LURD), intensified attacks on Taylor’s governmentin 2002, while Taylor was accused of using blackmagic and cannibalism to thwart his many foes. TheUNITED NATIONS charged Taylor with WAR CRIMES

in June 2003, while U.S. President George W. Bushordered his military chiefs of staff to prepare plansfor armed intervention in Liberia. In early July 2003Taylor agreed to leave Liberia for a life of exile, buthe changed his mind on July 18, as rebels shelled thecapital (Monrovia), vowing to remain and face hisenemies. In August 2003, a comprehensive peaceagreement ended 14 years of civil war andprompted the resignation of former presidentCharles Taylor, who was exiled to Nigeria. TheNational Transitional Government of Liberia(NTGL), which is composed of rebel, government,and civil society groups, assumed control in October2003. Chairman Gyude Bryant, who was given atwo-year mandate to oversee efforts to rebuildLiberia, heads the new government. The United

Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which main-tains a strong presence throughout the country,completed a disarmament program for former com-batants in late 2004.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

LIBYAThe first inhabitants of Libya were nomadic Berbertribes. In the seventh century B.C. Phoenicians occupied the region’s eastern half, while GREECE

claimed the west. Invaders followed from Carthageand Rome before Libya was sacked by Vandals after A.D. 436. Beginning in the 16th century, whilenominally a part of the Ottoman Empire, Libyabred a voracious crop of pirates who terrorized the Mediterranean. The United States rejecteddemands for tribute in 1805, sending U.S. Marinesto “the shores of Tripoli” for a showdown thatscuttled the worst of the sea wolves. ITALY occupiedLibya in 1911 during hostilities with TURKEY, andresistance was effectively suppressed by the timeLibya officially became an Italian colony in 1934.World War II brought liberation from Italian occupation, and the UNITED NATIONS granted Libya independence in 1949. Discovery of OIL in1958 transformed the impoverished economy butonly worsened the corruption of Libya’s monarchy.On September 1, 1969, Colonel MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFFI deposed the king and installed himself asdictator, transforming Libya into a pro-Arab, anti-Western state with socialist trappings, aligned witha motley crew of allies that included Idi Amin ofUGANDA. Al-Qaddaffi’s reputed financial support for TERRORISM made him a target for internationalcondemnation, as well as occasional bombing raidslaunched by ISRAEL and the United States, wherePresidents RONALD REAGAN and George H. W. Bush pursued covert (and unsuccessful) plans totopple al-Qaddaffi’s regime. Rumors of Libyan “hitteams” stalking Bush proved false, but two Libyanintelligence agents were indicted for complicity inthe December 1988 bombing of an airliner overLockerbie, Scotland, which killed 259 passengersand 11 persons on the ground. In April 1999 afteryears of negotiation Libya surrendered the defen-dants for trial in the NETHERLANDS, where one wasconvicted of murder and the other was acquitted.In 2003 Libya agreed to pay relatives of theLockerbie victims $3 million to settle various

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damage claims. By that time al-Qaddaffi’s status asinternational bogeyman had largely faded, whileSADDAM HUSSEIN of IRAQ and the ever-elusiveOsama bin Laden claimed headlines as terroristmovers and shakers.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY.

LINCOLN, Abraham (1809–1865)With one exception, the assassinations and attemptedslayings of U.S. presidents and presidential candi-dates during the past 140 years have been officiallyexplained as the demented acts of solitary socialmisfits, “lone-nut” gunmen whose crimes hadinvolved no accomplices. The sole exception is theassassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. Inthat case multiple conspirators were named, con-victed, and punished for their plot—yet naggingquestions linger. Were the prosecutions thoroughand competent, or were they simply part of a larger,sinister whitewash?

The basic, unrefuted facts are these: Lincoln wasshot on April 14, 1865, while attending a play atFord’s Theater in Washington, D.C. The gunman,actor and Confederate zealot John Wilkes Booth,also stabbed a friend of Lincoln, Henry Rathbone, inthe arm before leaping to the stage below and break-ing his leg in the process. Simultaneously, conspira-tors Lewis Powell (or Paine) and David Heroldattempted to kill Secretary of State William Seward.Herold panicked and fled while the attack was inprogress, and Seward survived his wounds. A fourthplotter, George Atzerodt, aborted his mission to killVice President Andrew Johnson. Booth and Heroldescaped from Washington, fleeing to Mary Surratt’stavern in Maryland for traveling supplies. Their nextstop was the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, an apparentinnocent, who set Booth’s leg in ignorance of hisrecent crime. Lincoln died of his head wound at 7:22 A.M. on April 15, leaving Secretary of WarEdwin Stanton to coordinate the manhunt. Boothand Herold were traced to a barn near Port Royal,

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Conspiracy theories abound in the April 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (left). John Wilkes Booth (right)certainly murdered President Lincoln, but who were his accomplices? (Library of Congress)

Virginia, on April 26, where Herold surrenderedand Booth chose to fight. The barn was torched,and Booth was killed in a chaotic shootout. In daysto come eight alleged conspirators were jailed andtried before a military court. All were convicted on June 30, 1865, and four of them—Powell,Herold, Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt—were hangedon July 7. Dr. Mudd was sentenced to life impris-onment for conspiracy but was pardoned by Presi-dent Johnson in 1869. Samuel Arnold and MichaelO’Laughlen received life terms for joining Booth inan abortive plot to kidnap Lincoln before Booth sethis mind on murder. O’Laughlen died in prison,while Arnold was pardoned with Dr. Mudd. Defen-dant Edman Spangler, convicted of helping Boothescape from Ford’s Theater, was likewise pardonedin 1869.

And there, officially, the story ends. Predictablyconspiracists have long declared that nothing is assimple as it seems. Major alternative scenarios andsuspects in Lincoln’s murder include the following:

The Confederate plot: With the Civil War latelyended and scattered guerrilla fighting still ongoing in the South, suspicion of a Rebelplot to kill Lincoln was only natural. Codedletters found in Booth’s possession linked him to the Confederacy, and George Atze-rodt’s statement at trial (“misplaced” until1977) detailed Booth’s knowledge of a Southern plot to dynamite the White House.The murder, some feel, was staged in retalia-tion for a bungled Union effort to assassinateConfederate president Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. Conspiracists note that JudahBenjamin, the Confederate secretary of state,burned his records and fled to England beforeRichmond fell, remaining there until his death in 1884. In this scenario the abortiveBooth kidnapping plot was shelved when Yankee troops took Richmond (the Confeder-ate capital), and Lincoln was slain as an act ofrevenge.

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George Atzerodt (left) was hanged for his role in the Lincoln conspiracy of 1865, while alleged conspirator John Surratt(right) escaped conviction. (Author’s collection)

The Johnson plot: Seven hours prior to the assassi-nation, Booth visited Vice President Johnson’shotel in Washington and left a note for Johnsonwith the desk clerk, reading: “Don’t wish to dis-turb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.”Various authors contend that Booth knew Johnson from the latter’s days as governor ofTennessee, that Johnson attended Booth’s performances in Nashville, and that the twofriends kept a pair of sisters as mistresses, fre-quently appearing in public as a foursome. Lin-coln’s widow herself suspected Johnson ofcomplicity in the murder, writing to a friend onMarch 15, 1866: “That miserable inebriateJohnson had cognizance of my husband’s death.Why was that card of Booth’s found in his box?Some acquaintance certainly existed. I have been

deeply impressed with the harrowing thoughtthat he had an understanding with the conspira-tors & they knew their man. As sure as you & Ilive, Johnson had some hand in all this.” Certaincongressmen shared that suspicion, but a specialAssassination Committee created to seek proofof the charge revealed nothing.

The Stanton plot: Edwin Stanton is a popular suspect with modern conspiracy theorists.Author Otto Eisenschiml was the first to pub-licly accuse Stanton, in 1937, with a claim thatwar-hawk Stanton despised Lincoln’s laxRECONSTRUCTION policies and schemed toimplement a more radical program to punishprostrate Dixie. Eisenschiml further allegedthat Stanton shuffled Lincoln’s bodyguards to deny him adequate protection at Ford’s

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Dr. Samuel Mudd (left) received a life prison term for setting Booth’s leg after the Lincoln assassination. Edwin Stanton(right), Lincoln’s secretary of war, remains a prime suspect in some conspiracy theories. (Author’s collection)

Theater and that he knew of conspiratorialgatherings held at Surratt’s tavern. One ver-sion of the theory, filmed as The Lincoln Con-spiracy in 1977, went further still, claimingthat Stanton helped Booth escape from theUnited States to India while an impostor diedin the Virginia barn.

The Vatican plot: In 1886 ex-priest CharlesChiniquy alleged that Lincoln’s murder wascarried out by the CATHOLIC CHURCH in returnfor a $1 million payoff from Jefferson Davis.The contract was accepted, Chiniquy claimed,because “the JESUITS alone could select theassassins, train them, and show them a crownof glory in heaven.” Booth was thereafterrecruited and manipulated to ensure that thepope received his payday. Aside from cash,there was another motive: Lincoln had oncesuccessfully defended Chiniquy in court whenChiniquy’s bishop slapped him with libel andmorals charges in 1856. Lincoln was targeted,Chiniquy thought, for winning a victory overthe church. In 1924 author Burke McCartywrote: “In all the bloody history of the Papacy,perhaps in no one man, as in Abraham Lin-coln, was there concentrated such a multitudeof reasons for his annihilation by that system.”KU KLUX KLAN spokespersons touted the theoryfor decades, recycling it against Catholic presi-dential candidate John Kennedy in 1960, butno evidence of a Vatican plot has yet beenrevealed.

The bankers’ plot: This foray into thinly veiledanti-Semitism contends that Lincoln was mur-dered by a cartel of international bankers, ledby Europe’s Rothschild family, who opposed hiseconomic policies. In one version Lincolnenraged his future slayers by rejecting theiroffer of high-interest loans to finance the Unionwar effort. An alternate scenario claims that theRothschilds, like Stanton, desired harsh termsfor Reconstruction—in this case to forestall arevival of Southern agriculture and ensure con-tinued high prices for European exports to theStates. Booth is thus reduced to the status of anexpendable hired gun.

Other conspiratorial candidates, advanced overtime by largely forgotten theorists, include a coterieof U.S. financiers, the Copperheads (Confederate

sympathizers in the North), “radical” Republicans inCongress, the B’nai B’rith, the proslavery Knights ofthe Golden Circle, and even Mary Todd Lincoln.Historian Thomas Turner fairly summarized the situ-ation in 1999 when he wrote: “Those who continueto hope that the assassination may be ‘solved,’ in thesame manner as a murder mystery may be solved, aredestined to be disappointed. The century which haspassed, makes any new and definitive solution to thecrime doubtful. It is unlikely that a smoking gun willsurface even though there may still be new sourceswhich will be discovered.”

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

LIVESTOCK mutilationsIn autumn 1972 Swedish farmers and police werestartled by a wave of attacks on livestock, includingcalves, bullocks, and hogs. In each case the animals’throats were cut, and their hearts were removed.Footprints and tire tracks at some of the crime scenestold investigators that humans were responsible, butthe culprits eluded arrest. In March 1973 the ritualis-tic slaughter began at Shirksville, Pennsylvania, withtwo sheep killed and drained of blood. By year’s endthe plague had spread to Minnesota and Kansas;scores of cattle had been killed by unknown means,and various organs—typically eyes, ears, lips, udders,genitalia, rectums, and tails—had been removed withwhat some observers termed “surgical precision.”The carcasses were often bloodless, and some of thewounds appeared to be cauterized. By 1980 an esti-mated 8,000–12,000 had been killed and mutilatedacross 21 U.S. states and in the western provinces ofCanada. (Much higher estimates, including one of700,000 mutilations, were fabricated by variousauthors.) The trademarks of the deaths were mysteryand silence. A Kansas law officer reported in Decem-ber 1973 that “the large majority of these mutilationsoccurred near occupied houses,” without disturbingthe tenants. One cow had even been found in a mud-hole with no footprints or tire tracks at the scene.

Investigation of the deaths and mutilations pro-duced mixed results. An Oklahoma task forcereported in March 1975 that while all the animalsexamined had died of apparent natural causes, “It isthe opinion of the task force members that thehuman element can be attributed to individualsattempting to get in on a fad or to young people dis-secting dead carcasses for biological or experimental

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purposes. We are of the opinion that the humaninvolvement is a fad generated by publicity and isonly temporary.” A Colorado report, issued the sameyear, confirmed death by natural causes but blamedthe “surgical” mutilations on scavengers such as coy-otes. No explanation for the missing blood wasoffered in either report.

Farmers and frightened townspeople were notconsoled by the government verdicts. Some reportedUFO sightings in the vicinity of livestock mutilations,while others saw (and sometimes fired at) black“phantom” helicopters that were devoid of the vari-ous markings required by federal law. Sporadic live-stock mutilations continue to the present day notonly in the United States but also in Europe (wherehorses have been victimized in brutal knife attacksfor the past decade or more) and in Latin America(where residents frequently blame an unknown crea-ture called El Chupacabra, the “goat sucker”). Threemajor conspiracy theories attempt to explain theongoing death and mutilation of farm animalsaround the world. They include:

Alien experimentation: Just as extraterrestrialcreatures are sometimes accused of abducting,studying, and/or impregnating human beings,so they are suspected in some quarters of con-ducting long-term experiments on Earth’s live-stock. Aside from occasional UFO sightings orreports of unexplained lights in the sky abovefields where mutilated carcasses are later found,the evidence of alien involvement in such casesis largely negative: no tracks, no blood, nocause of death identified, no evidence of humanagency at work. Until such time as aliens arecaught red handed at their work, the claimremains unverifiable.

Cult activity: Police in Idaho, Montana, andAlberta, Canada, have reportedly uncoveredevidence linking some animal mutilations to theblood rituals of SATANISM. Blood tests revealthat some of the Canadian animals weredrugged prior to death and that items of occultritual paraphernalia have been recovered at cer-tain crime scenes. A handful of confessionsfrom unbalanced individuals (and one impris-oned bank robber) produced no convictions,but authorities remain convinced that small,localized cults are responsible for at least a fewof the mutilation cases.

U.S. government experiments: It is a measure ofthe average American’s mistrust of Washing-ton since VIETNAM and WATERGATE that manyfarmers who have been victimized by livestockmutilations blame their own government for conducting a wave of illicit experimenta-tion, presumably in furtherance of somechemical or biological warfare agenda. Elu-sive, unmarked helicopters suggest a level offunding typically beyond the reach ofdrugged-out would-be sorcerers, and officialdenials only strengthen the conviction of con-spiracists that something is amiss. In 1975 aLincoln County, Colorado, rancher found ablue plastic valise (described in some reportsas a “government bag”) lying beside his road-side mailbox. Inside the valise was a scalpel, acow’s ear, and part of its tongue, with severalarm-length latex gloves that were typicallyused by veterinarians during artificial insemi-nation of livestock. The bag was found oneday after a calf was mutilated on a neighbor-ing ranch, but the ear and the tongue had notcome from that animal. Separate investiga-tions by the county sheriff and the ColoradoBureau of Investigation failed to trace thebag’s owner. The government conspiracy theory was highlighted and “solved” in a1982 feature film Endangered Species starringRobert Urich, JoBeth Williams, and PeterCoyote.

LOCKHEED-MARTIN CorporationFrom the 1950s onward Lockheed Corporation hasbeen one of the U.S.’s top defense contractors, pro-ducing warplanes, missiles, guidance systems, andother high-tech tools of mass annihilation. It hasprofited hugely in the arms trade, often by pricegouging at taxpayers’ expense—as when a 1990sexposé revealed that Lockheed charged the govern-ment $640 for each plastic toilet seat installed onU.S. Navy vessels. Officials in Congress and the Pen-tagon raised no objections to such overcharging, per-haps because Lockheed also ranked among thenation’s top dispensers of political payoffs. The chi-canery continued (some say increased) after Lock-heed’s merger with competitor Martin Marietta tobecome Lockheed Martin in 1994. Some of the firm’ssuspect dealings include the following:

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1976—Revelation of Lockheed’s bribes to variousJapanese officials, including Prime MinisterTanaka Kakuei, unleashed the worst corrup-tion scandal in Japanese history since WorldWar II. Lockheed executives escaped punish-ment, but three Japanese politicians were con-victed at trial.

June 1993—Secretary of Defense William Perryand Undersecretary of Defense John Deutchapproved government handouts to Lockheed,Martin Marietta, and other defense firms ascompensation for “restructuring” costs due tomergers and/or acquisitions. The ruling, whichreversed a 40-year ban on such payments, wasclearly influenced by the fact that both Perryand Deutch were former Martin Marietta exec-utives. Both appointees of Bill Clinton hadreceived special waivers from the normal ethicscode that bars ex-corporate officials from doingbusiness with their former colleagues until 12months have elapsed from their severance.Under the new rule after its 1994 merger Lock-heed Martin submitted $855 million in bills toWashington, including $31 million in “trig-gered compensation” (that is, corporatebonuses) to various company executives. Nor-man Augustine, new president of LockheedMartin and former boss of the new Pentagonleaders, received $8.2 million from the publictreasury. (President Clinton subsequentlynamed Deutch to lead the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY. While there Deutch mishandledsecret documents so egregiously that he facedcriminal indictment. One of Clinton’s last offi-cial acts was an 11th-hour pardon sparingDeutch from prosecution.)

1994—Lockheed and General Dynamics jointlycontributed $1.5 million to various politicalcandidates in this election year, while receiving$1.9 billion in domestic and foreign militarycontracts—a tidy profit of 126,567 percent ontheir investment.

May 1994—The U.S. Equal Employment Oppor-tunity Commission sued Martin Marietta forillegal age discrimination in the layoffs of 2,000employees between 1990 and 1994. In Novem-ber 1996 the firm settled that case with anadmission of guilt, payment of $13 million inback salaries for those dismissed, and rehiringof those who had been illegally fired.

June 1994—The U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

indicted Lockheed for bribing an Egyptianpolitician in 1989. The company allegedly paid $1 million in 1989 to guarantee Egypt’spurchase of three cargo airplanes. Lockheedexecutives pleaded guilty in January 1995 andagreed to pay a $24.8 million fine—roughlyone-third of the profit they earned from sale ofthe aircraft.

December 1994—Martin Marietta pleaded guiltyto bribing a different Egyptian official in the1980s. Their $2.87 million payoff won the firmcontracts for radar equipment valued at $124million per year. The company’s fine of $5.87million was little more than a wrist slap in com-parison to its profits.

1995–96—Lockheed Martin dispensed $1.2 mil-lion to various political action committees dur-ing this round of U.S. elections. Speaker of theHouse Newt Gingrich received $10,000, thussecuring House approval for contracts on“stealth” aircraft that were priced at $160 mil-lion each.

March 2001—Lockheed Martin settled a federallawsuit based on charges that it overbilled theFederal Aviation Administration (FAA) millionsof dollars for office space in Maryland. Com-pany executives admitted the charges andagreed to a $10.5 million fine, but no moneychanged hands. Instead, Lockheed Martinagreed to give the FAA “offset credits” forfuture rent payments for the same offices.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY.

LONG, Huey (1893–1935)Louisiana native Huey Long was born in 1893 andquit school at age 17 to become a salesman. He laterattended the University of Oklahoma and TulaneUniversity, passing the Louisiana bar exam in 1915.After three years in private practice he was electedchairman of the state railroad commission, renamedthe Public Service Commission in 1921. Long failedin his first gubernatorial race (1924) but was suc-cessful four years later with the campaign slogan“Every man a king, but no one wears a crown.” Aspart of his folksy appeal, Long adopted the nick-name “Kingfish” from the popular Amos & Andyradio show.

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In office Huey Long combined traits of grassrootspopulism with abject corruption. He raised taxes onthe rich to finance public works while collaboratingwith MEYER LANSKY and members of the MAFIA toprotect illegal gambling in Louisiana. In 1929 Longdefeated an impeachment campaign and went on towin a U.S. Senate seat the following year. Long sup-ported Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential campaign in1932 but then became a strident critic of the NEW

DEAL when FDR failed to offer him a prestigious fed-eral appointment. Long announced his own run forthe White House in August 1935, but he would notlive to occupy the Oval Office.

On September 8, 1935, en route to a special Sun-day session of the state legislature at Baton Rouge,Long was confronted in the capitol lobby by Dr. CarlWeiss, a local physician and son-in-law of Judge Ben-jamin Pavy, a longtime opponent of the Kingfish.Weiss brandished a pistol and gunfire erupted. Whenthe smoke cleared, Weiss’s corpse bore 32 gunshotwounds from Long’s bodyguards—29 in the backand two in the head—while Long was shot once inthe abdomen. Rushed to Our Lady of the Lake Sani-tarium, Long underwent a two-hour emergency sur-gery by Dr. Arthur Vidrine, but the surgeonoverlooked a damaged kidney, and Long died at 4:06A.M. on September 10. Every aspect of Long’s deathremains shrouded in mystery. Weiss’s motive for theshooting is unknown, and some authors contend thatLong was shot—accidentally or otherwise—by oneof his own quick-trigger henchmen. At the hospitalDr. Vidrine claimed that a .22-caliber bullet hadpassed completely through Long’s body, but withoutthe slug his estimate of caliber is dubious, at best.Decades later, crime reporter Hank Messick allegedthat Meyer Lansky told friends in New York, “Thedoctors were paid to let him die.”

Long’s notorious corruption spawned two novels—All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren and Sin-clair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here. The Kingfish alsospawned a political dynasty in the Pelican State.Widow Rose completed Long’s term in the Senate,while younger brother Earl Kemp Long served threeterms as governor. “Uncle Earl’s” regime was markedby strong support for racial segregation, public dal-liance with stripper Blaze Starr, and confinement to amental institution. (Discovering that state law did notbar a governor from holding office in an asylum, Longfired the hospital’s director and replaced him with acrony who ordered Long’s release.) In 1960 Earl was

elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, but hedied before taking office. Meanwhile, from 1948 to1986 Huey’s son Russell Long served Louisiana in theSenate where he opposed civil rights legislation andled the charge in favor of tax breaks for billion-dollarindustries. Fellow party members elected Russell asthe Senate’s Democratic whip in 1965, but they weresoon embarrassed by his public drunkenness andstripped him of his leadership position four years later.Actor Walter Matthau portrayed Russell Long inOliver Stone’s film JFK (1991), depicting an allegedconspiracy in the JFK ASSASSINATION.

LOS Angeles Police Department (LAPD)From its beginnings in the late 1880s, the LAPD hasharbored deep strains of racism, first against Mexi-can Americans and then against Asians and blacks.Like most other police departments it has also beenhistorically allied with major business interests tosuppress early labor unions in the guise of fightingANARCHISTS and “radicals.” Some critics still main-tain that LAPD officers collaborated with the fledg-ling FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) toframe innocent unionists for the 1910 bombing ofthe Los Angeles Times. In the 1920s those agencies(though bitter enemies in later years) cooperated tocrush the Industrial Workers of the World.

Chief James Davis ran the LAPD from 1926 to1938, with a four-year interruption (1929–33) occa-sioned by exposure of widespread corruption in theranks. Reform never lasted long in L.A., and whenDavis returned to power he promoted Capt. EarlKynette (lately disgraced for coercing bribes out ofpimps and prostitutes) to lead a new Red Squad,devoted to smashing COMMUNISM in the City ofAngels. As defined by Davis and Kynette (as well aslater LAPD leaders), Reds included anyone who criti-cized police brutality or corruption. In 1938 Kynetteand an accomplice were imprisoned for the near-fatalbombing of a private investigator who had been hiredby a local reform group, the Citizens’ IndependentInvestigating Committee. In the wake of that scandalthe L.A. city council denied Mayor Frank Shaw’srequest for $90,000 to continue Red Squad opera-tions, and the team lapsed briefly into inactivity.

Police corruption, however, continued in LosAngeles without interruption, with high-ranking officers enriched by payoffs from the local MAFIA.Gambling, prostitution, and narcotics traffic were

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protected, while minorities, the unemployed, and thehomeless were routinely tortured with “third-degree” tactics and packed off to prison. ChiefWilliam Parker had begun his LAPD tenure as amember of the Red Squad in 1927, and he revivedthe unit as soon as he took charge of the force in1950. His long-running feud with J. EDGAR HOOVER

barred local officers from the FBI’s police academyuntil Parker died in 1966, but Parker needed no helpin running L.A. with an iron hand. A hard-drinkingreactionary he expanded illegal surveillance of “radi-cals” on every front, indoctrinated his troops withliterature from the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, and dis-missed residents of city ghettos as “monkeys in azoo.” Legend has it that visiting members of organ-ized crime were beaten and run out of town byParker’s elite gangbusters, but organized crime stillflourished in the hands of such mobsters as MickeyCohen and Jack Dragna.

Thomas Reddin took the helm of LAPD afterParker’s death, remaining only until 1969 when hedecamped to become a radio commentator for$100,000 per year. Replacement Edward Davis (norelation to James) proved even more extreme thanParker: Mending fences with the FBI, he launched anew wave of oppression against “leftist” groups inL.A., with special attention to militant blacks in suchorganizations as the BLACK PANTHER PARTY. Withhelp from Washington, Davis used agents provoca-teurs to spark a deadly shooting war between Pan-thers and the rival United Slaves, led by policeinformant Ron Karenga. Another full-time informer,LOUIS TACKWOOD later testified that LAPD and theFBI conspired to murder Panther spokesman GEORGE

LESTER JACKSON in prison. Davis updated the RedSquad, renaming it the Public Disorder IntelligenceDivision, and two PDID detectives were jailed inFebruary 1970 while posing as student radicals atUCLA. While right-wing bombings by the KU KLUX

KLAN and allied groups proliferated in Los Angeleswith 152 blasts in 1975 alone, Davis ignored thethreat and branded peaceful opponents of the VIET-NAM War as “terrorists.”

In April 1975 L.A.’s police commission announcedthe destruction of some 2 million SECRET POLICE filescompiled on 55,000 groups and individuals during thepast half-century. The move earned cautious praise,but widespread spying continued without letup. InFebruary 1978 one month after Chief Davis resignedto launch an ill-fated gubernatorial race, LAPD offi-

cers were caught photographing participants in a citycouncil meeting. New chief Daryl Gates faced a seriesof lawsuits from surveillance and harassment victimsduring 1978–81 that exposed further illicit policeactivities. In July 1983 he sought to defuse civic angerby renaming the PDID the Anti-Terrorist Division, butcosmetic changes brought no reform. In February1984 the city council approved a $1.8 million settle-ment with 144 plaintiffs in various lawsuits, whileordering LAPD to refrain from further spying exceptin cases where “a reasonable and articulate suspicion”suggested that targets were “planning, threatening,attempting or performing a significant disruption ofthe public order.” In a subculture where deception andevasion are routine, civil libertarians find no reason tobelieve that LAPD surveillance activities are anythingshort of business as usual.

Pending new political exposures, though, LAPDcritics must be satisfied with an unending series ofscandals involving bribery, detectives moonlightingas contract killers, sexual abuse of teenagers enrolledin the department’s Explorer program, drug theftsand sales, rape of female prisoners, fabrication ofevidence against innocent defendants in the RampartDivision, televised beatings of unarmed prisoners—in short, more business as usual. On March 27,2003, the Los Angeles Times reported that threemen, once members of the LAPD Explorer program,had accused Deputy Police Chief David Kalish ofmolesting them in the 1970s. The claims accompa-nied civil lawsuits which remain unresolved at thiswriting. Daryl Gates spoke for most of his colleagueswhen he told reporters, “You have a man with . . . aremarkable, impeccable record and distinguishedcareer; along comes a 20-year-old accusation. Youcould wait until the investigation is complete. If adecision is made and it’s against him—fine. Butbefore a decision is made, it’s highly inappropriate.”

LSDThe hallucinogenic drug Lysergic acid diethylamide,better known as LSD or acid, was synthesized in 1938by Albert Hofmann, a chemist employed by Switzer-land’s Sandoz PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY, whileHofmann was trying to create a new blood stimulant.Five years later, on April 16, 1943, Hofmann acciden-tally absorbed some LSD through his fingertips andexperienced the world’s first “acid trip,” which hedescribed as a two-hour “uninterrupted stream of

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fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense,kaleidoscopelike play of colors.” Dr. Max Rinkelbrought LSD to the United States in 1949, and itquickly fell into nefarious hands. By 1951 the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) had begun its firstLSD experiments under the code-name MKULTRA,and the U.S. Army was not far behind with “Opera-tion Third Chance.” Both agencies were anxious todevelop new “truth serums” for interrogation pur-poses, but the CIA went further yet, employing LSDand other hallucinogens in protracted studies aimed atall-out MIND CONTROL of assassins and other human“assets.”

The CIA-Army LSD experiments were conductedsecretly, and while LSD itself was not an outlawedsubstance in the 1950s or early 1960s, governmentuse of the drug clearly violated a wide range of state and federal statutes. Numerous subjects, bothmilitary and civilian, were drugged without theirknowledge or consent and then subjected to abu-sive interrogation and other manipulative ordeals.On the side, when not attempting to program“Manchurian candidates,” the CIA hatched anabortive plot to embarrass FIDEL CASTRO by impreg-nating his favorite cigars with LSD, thus promptinghim to rave incoherently in public. The army, mean-while, employed LSD as a punitive device, as in the1961 case of James Thornwell, a 22-year-old blacksoldier suspected of stealing classified documents inFrance. After six weeks of confinement, brutal beat-ings, and near-starvation, Thornwell was fed LSDwithout his knowledge, after which, army docu-ments reveal, interrogators threatened “to extend[his hallucinatory] state indefinitely . . . even to apermanent condition of insanity.” Thornwellproved to be innocent, after all, and in the 1970s hesued the U.S. government for $10 million. TheHouse of Representatives approved a $650,000“compromise settlement” in 1980.

Meanwhile, Congress was rethinking LSD. In1962 new federal regulations designated acid anexperimental drug and restricted testing, producingthe first batch of arrests for unauthorized experi-mentation. Acid hit the streets of America in 1963,and California became the first state to ban it bylaw in October 1966. Congress followed suit withfederal legislation in 1967, too late to stop the sky-high “Summer of Love” in San Francisco and else-where. By 1970 an estimated 1–2 million Americanshad tried LSD at least once, while such stars as

JOHN LENNON sang its praises. The CIA’s bizarrehandling of acid was exposed by the CHURCH COM-MITTEE in 1975–76, by which time MKULTRA andsimilar programs had allegedly been discontinued.Some conspiracists believe that LSD or the equiva-lent may have been used to produce a robot gun-man in the RFK ASSASSINATION of 1968 and thatacid may have been a motivating factor in the SYM-BIONESE LIBERATION ARMY’s peculiar war on afflu-ent society. LSD remains on the international list ofcontrolled substances today, though some puristsclaim that “true acid” no longer exists. The DrugEnforcement Administration reports that thestrength of LSD samples obtained currently fromillicit sources ranges from 20 to 80 micrograms ofLSD per dose. This is considerably less than the lev-els reported during the 1960s and early 1970s,when the dosage ranged from 100 to 200 micro-grams, or higher, per unit.

LUCIANO, Charles “Lucky” (1897–1962)A native of Sicily, Salvatore Lucania was born in1897 and moved to the United States with his familyat age 10. He was a racketeer even in childhood,offering “protection” from himself to other young-sters at rates of one or two cents per day. Two whoresisted him and thereby earned Lucania’s respectwere MEYER LANSKY and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel,his future partners in organized crime. As CharlesLuciano, Lucania joined New York’s notorious FivePoints gang and was suspected of several murders bythe time PROHIBITION arrived in 1920. Working withArnold “The Brain” Rothstein, Luciano and com-pany grew rich from bootlegging, gambling, andprostitution, with a sideline in HEROIN sales. In themid-1920s Luciano joined the MAFIA as an ally ofNew York’s ruling capo, Joe “The Boss” Masseria.By 1928 Masseria was locked in a war for control ofthe city with rival Salvatore Maranzano, a circum-stance that gave Luciano, Lansky, and Siegel achance to advance their own agenda. Luciano had anarrow brush with death and earned his “Lucky”nickname when he survived a one-way ride in themiddle of that war; also he outlived the “MustachePetes” who kept the U.S. Mafia mired in Old Worldtraditions. With allies of all nationalities, he firstkilled Masseria and then Maranzano, a clean sweepthat left Luciano effectively installed as New York’s“Boss of Bosses.” At the same time he surrendered

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enough power to avert further bloodshed, chairing aseries of underworld conventions that spread syndi-cated crime from coast to coast.

Despite that triumph Luciano’s reign was shortlived. In 1936 special prosecutor Thomas Deweycharged Luciano with WHITE SLAVERY and securedhis conviction at a trial that some historians stillregard as a frame-up. Luciano received a sentence of30–50 years in prison, serving 10 before negotiationswith the U.S. military secured his freedom. The keyto opening Luciano’s prison cell was OPERATION

UNDERWORLD wherein Lucky and his mob allies col-laborated with the federal government to facilitate aU.S. invasion of Sicily while suppressing Axis TER-RORISM on the New York docks. In return for serv-ices rendered, Luciano was paroled and deported in1946, but he soon resurfaced in CUBA, meeting withU.S. mob leaders to coordinate expansion in LAS

VEGAS and on other fronts. HARRY ANSLINGER

secured Luciano’s expulsion from Cuba, but Lucianoremained active in the Mafia and international nar-cotics traffic for the remainder of his life. A murderplot against Luciano failed in Italy when word leakedback to the United States that he was working on hismemoirs, but Luciano survived until 1962 when aheart attack in Naples claimed his life.

LUMUMBA, Patrice (1925–1961)A farmer’s son, Patrice Lumumba was born atKatako Kombe in the Kasai Province of the BelgianCongo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), onJuly 2, 1925. From age 18 to 33 he worked variouslyas a nurse’s aide, a postal clerk, and a volunteerlibrarian while immersing himself in organized laborand politics. During the same years Lumumba servedas secretary and then president of the Association forAfrican Government Employees and as a member ofthe Comité de L’union Belgo-Congolaise. In October1958 he founded the National Congolese Movement,and on June 23, 1960, Lumumba became theCongo’s first African prime minister. Seven days laterthe region declared independence, but freedom hit asnag on July 31, 1960, when Katanga Provinceseceded under Col. Joseph-Desiré Mobutu. By mid-September Mobutu had neutralized his politicalopposition in Katanga and looked forward to rulinga larger empire.

Lumumba, meanwhile, pursued a policy of nonalignment with Western colonial powers and

openness to aide from RUSSIA that would leadinevitably to his death. On October 10, 1960, nervous Congolese colleagues placed him underhouse arrest, guarded by officers of the UNITED

NATIONS and the AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS.Lumumba bridled at confinement, leaving his resi-dence for Stanleyville on November 27. Five dayslater he was arrested there and delivered toMobutu’s troops in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa),transferred to a prison camp at Thysville onDecember 3, and moved from there to Katanga’smain prison at Elizabethville on January 17, 1961.There, after an all-night torture session, Lumumbawas murdered along with two colleagues namedMpolo and Okito. Mobutu subsequently overranthe Congo and ruled it until May 1997 with aregime so corrupt that it drove a nation rich in natural resources to virtual bankruptcy.

Lumumba’s assassination clearly was carried outby Mobutu, but conspiracists have long suspectedwhite hands eagerly at work behind the scenes. Oneearly suspect was the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY (CIA), which was deeply immersedthroughout the 1950s and 1960s in similar “execu-tive actions” from CUBA to VIETNAM. It is knownthat CIA agents worked closely with Belgian mili-tary officers and SECRET POLICE in the Congo toforestall the alleged advance of COMMUNISM in sub-Saharan Africa, and when the CHURCH COMMITTEE

turned a spotlight on CIA crimes during 1975–76, amemo from former CIA Director Allen Dulles wasrevealed, reading:

In high quarters here, it is the clear-cut conclusion that

if [Lumumba] continues to hold high office, the

inevitable result will [have] disastrous consequences . . .

for the interests of the free world generally. Conse-

quently, we conclude that his removal must be an

urgent and prime objective.

Did the agency arrange Lumumba’s death, as ithad sought to do with FIDEL CASTRO and so manyothers? Some modern scholars believe so, while oth-ers place the full weight of blame on Belgian officialswho collaborated with Mobutu to effect Lumumba’sliquidation. Today, we know that Belgian police com-missioner Gerard Soete and his brother personallydismembered Lumumba’s corpse with a hacksaw anddissolved it in sulfuric acid. Interviewed decades lateron Belgian television, Soete proudly displayed two

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teeth and a bullet that he claimed to have salvagedfrom Lumumba’s remains. CIA station chiefLawrence Devlin was briefed on the events, Belgiansources maintain, because the agency “had activelydiscussed this thing for weeks,” but the guiding handsbehind the crime apparently were not American.

See also DULLES BROTHERS.

LUSITANIAOn May 7, 1915, British Cunard Line’s passengersteamer Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a Ger-man submarine in the North Atlantic. The nine-year-old “floating palace,” considered “the acme ofcomfort” for transatlantic passengers, was initiallyrocked by an explosion “like a million-ton hammerhitting a steel boiler a hundred feet high and a hun-dred feet long.” Moments later a second and more-powerful explosion ripped through the ship, and itsank within 20 minutes. Only 764 of the 1,965 per-sons on board were still alive when rescue boat’sresponded to the doomed liner’s distress signal.

Such events were not uncommon in those monthsof World War I, but the Lusitania sinking was criti-cal since the loss of American lives on board pushedthe isolationist United States closer to war withGERMANY. Conspiracy theories flourished withindays of the tragic event, and they thrive today,despite the passage of nearly nine decades. First, onMay 1—the same day that the Lusitania sailed fromNew York—the German embassy published anunprecedented warning in newspapers across theUnited States. It read:

Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage

are reminded that a state of war exists between Ger-

many and her allies and Great Britain and her allies;

that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the

British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice

given by the Imperial German Government, vessels fly-

ing the flag of Great Britain, or of any of her allies, are

liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers

sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her

allies do so at their own risk.

Also on May 1 the British Admiralty knew thatGerman submarines were en route to British waters,blocking the Lusitania’s path. A conference on May5, chaired by First Lord of the Admiralty WinstonChurchill, examined disposition of those submarines,including the same U-20 that later sank the Lusitania.Instead of warning the Lusitania’s captain, Britishleaders withdrew the escort ship Juno from harm’sway and failed even to tell the Lusitania that she hadbeen abandoned. Some documents related to thatjudgment call were finally released for public scrutinyin 1976, but many more remain classified as topsecret to this day.

Another linchpin of Lusitania conspiracy theoriesis the second explosion that doomed the great ship,shortly after the German torpedo struck. Officially,the blast was caused by ocean water striking heatedboilers in the engine room, but some researchersclaim that the Lusitania was illegally carrying armsand ammunition to England in clear violation of U.S.neutrality laws. In addition to her passengers, theLusitania was scheduled to transport a cargo ofGOLD bullion, platinum, diamonds, and other pre-cious stones, but no trace of that rich cargo was everfound, and shipping invoices reveal no evidence oftreasure on board the liner. Instead, conspiracistsallege, the ship was hauling a cargo of three-inchartillery shells and millions of rifle cartridges thatwere disguised as bales of fur and crates of cheese. Iftrue, Churchill and company possessed a doublemotive for their secrecy surrounding the Lusitania’sfate, simultaneously concealing their violation ofU.S. law and their callous sacrifice of some 1,200lives in a bid to place U.S. troops in the trenches ofEurope. Until such time as the last secret files areopened, no definitive solution to the Lusitania riddleis possible.

MADAGASCARNatives of INDONESIA inhabited this island off the east coast of Africa in about 700 B.C. and established a monarchy that ruled the land untiltroops from FRANCE arrived to “protect” Mada-gascar in 1885. The island became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958 and graduated to independence two years later.Philibert Tsiranana was elected president in 1959,but a military coup drove him from office in May1973. In June 1975 leaders of the junta announcedtheir intent to follow a socialist program, national-izing banks, insurance companies, and most natu-ral resources. The new regime was characterized bycensorship and repression of dissent, climaxed by asuspicious election that confirmed dictator DidierRatsiraka as president in 1989. Riots followed,resulting in formation of a multiparty system, butcorruption endures, and the rigged presidentialelection of December 2001 produced so muchprotest that martial law was declared in February2002. For the next five months Madagascarboasted two rival presidents and two capitals untilRatsiraka fled to France. Much of the populationremains mired in superstition, highlighted in May2003 when 42 defendants received life prison termsfor looting 300-plus tombs and stealing humanremains that they sold to practitioners of blackmagic.

MAFIADeliberate mystery surrounds the origin and opera-tions of the crime syndicate known as the Mafia. Notwo sources agree on the term Mafia’s ethnic roots ordefinition, and estimated dates of the group’s founda-tion range from the 13th to the 19th century. In anycase the Mafia as recognized today is an ethnic crimesyndicate composed of oath-bound members of Ital-ian ancestry. (Membership was initially restricted toSicilians but broadened in the 20th century toinclude mainland Italians.) The old-line Mafia, or“Honored Society,” remains a potent force in Italy,where public murders of judges, prosecutors, andinvestigative journalists rival the crimes of COLOM-BIA’s militant COCAINE cartels. Sporadic prosecutionhas jailed various Mafia leaders throughout Italy, butsuccessive pronouncements of the society’s demisehave all proved premature. Sicilian mobsters cur-rently play a key role in global HEROIN traffic, serv-ing as middlemen between the Chinese TRIADS, theFrench UNIONE CORSÉ, and various syndicates in theUnited States.

The U.S. Mafia is a hybrid organization, oftendubbed La Cosa Nostra (“Our Thing”). The latterterm was first publicized by informer Joseph Valachiin the early 1960s and then adopted by the FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION when J. EDGAR HOOVER

could no longer defend his 40-year fable that theUnited States harbored no organized crime. In fact,the modern American crime syndicate is a product of

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PROHIBITION when various ethnic gangs fought for control of bootleg turf and then merged in theinterest of peace and mutual profit. Between 1929and 1934 a series of “crime conventions” were heldin major American cities, dividing the nation into ter-ritories ruled by local syndicates. In the processMafia leader CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO killed offhis old-line competition (dubbed “Mustache Petes”)and modernized the society’s structure to permit collaboration with non-Italian criminals such asMEYER LANSKY and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Thenew mob’s enforcement arm, dubbed MURDER

INCORPORATED by the press, was organized to carryout assassinations on a national scale.

Federal prosecution of Mafia leaders has beenmore successful since J. Edgar Hoover died in early1972, but as in Italy, periodic announcements of thesyndicate’s destruction always prove inaccurate.Presidents RICHARD NIXON and RONALD REAGAN

both cultivated friendships with known syndicatemembers and leaders of mob-infiltrated unions,including the INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF

TEAMSTERS. Ongoing scandals of police and politicalcorruption from California to Washington, D.C.,and all points in between clearly demonstrate thatorganized crime is alive and healthy in the UnitedStates of America.

MALAWIBritish explorer David Livingstone “discovered” theAfrican region of modern-day Malawi in the 1850s,paving the way for Cecil Rhodes’s British SouthAfrica Company to “develop” the region in 1884.Conflict with Arab slavers during 1887–89 promptedBritain to annex the district, dubbed Nyasaland, in1891. The slavers were soon annihilated, but British“protection” endured through the early 1950s whenNyasaland was merged with Northern and SouthernRhodesia to form a new federation. Black Africansprotested the imperial move, and Nyasaland finallyemerged as independent Malawi in July 1964. Newprime minister Hastings Banda quickly established apolicy of “one party, one leader, one government andno nonsense about it,” ruthlessly suppressing all dis-sent. In 1971 Banda became president for life, a posthe maintained despite sometimes violent oppositionuntil May 1994 when Bakili Muluzi won the nation’sfirst-ever free election. Despite an easing of repressionand a landslide reelection victory in 1999, Muluzi’s

regime has been tainted with corruption—includingaccusations that high-ranking officials illegally sold160,000 tons of reserve maize in 2000, plunging thenation into famine two years later. In January 2003residents of rural Malawi were panicked by rumorsof vampires at large, using syringes to drain their vic-tims of blood. Dressed like classic MEN IN BLACK, theprowlers spread such terror that mob violenceerupted in Balantyre, where rioters stoned the gover-nor and three priests for allegedly collaborating withthe night-stalking fiends.

MALAYSIAModern Malaysia includes the Malay Peninsula ofSoutheast Asia plus the states of Sabah and Sarawakon the island of Borneo, for a combined land massslightly larger than New Mexico. Humans first popu-lated the region in about 2500 B.C.E., dwelling peace-fully until the clash between Islam and Hinduismintroduced religious warfare in the 15th century A.D.British and Dutch traders arrived in the early 19thcentury, establishing commerce so lucrative thatBritish troops were sent to “protect” the region inthe 1880s. Japanese invasion interrupted British ruleduring World War II, but colonial rule was reestab-lished via a “semiautonomous federation” in 1948.Native insurgents fought to expel the Brits, where-upon London declared a state of emergency thatlasted until 1960. Malaysia finally won independencein September 1963, but turmoil continued in theform of race riots against wealthy Chinese and Indi-ans. Vietnamese “boat people” arrived to exacerbatethe problem in 1978, prompting imposition of stiffnew restrictions on immigration. Financial crises andallegations of official corruption continue, as dorumors of widespread black magic—including ani-mal (and human) sacrifice—throughout the ruralcountryside. Since the 1990s Malaysia has been amajor center of high-seas piracy with attacksreported throughout the Indian Ocean and SouthChina Sea.

MALIMost of arid Mali is consumed by the Sahara. Criss-crossed by caravan routes since A.D. 300, the regionwas ruled by the Malinke Empire from the 12th tothe 16th century. MOROCCO conquered the Tim-buktu region in 1591 and ruled it for the next two

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centuries. French colonists seized control in the late19th century and ruled French Sudan until June 1960when formation of the independent Sudanese Repub-lic was announced. After a brief, abortive mergerwith Senegal, the Republic of Mali emerged threemonths later. Mali’s leaders created consternation onboth sides of the cold war by accepting aid impar-tially from the United States, RUSSIA, and CHINA. Inthe late 1960s, President Modibo Keita launched apurge of his conservative opponents and dramati-cally expanded Chinese influence in Mali. A militaryjunta ousted Keita in November 1968 and ruled Malifor the next two decades, waging a short border warwith neighboring Burkina Faso in May 1985. Dicta-tor Moussa Traoré was ousted in 1991, followed byMali’s first democratic election the following year.

MAO Zedong (1893–1976)The communist ruler of CHINA from 1949 to 1976was born in Hunan Province on December 26, 1893.Mao served in Hunan’s provincial army during the1911 revolution and then went on to graduate fromHunan Normal School as a certified high-schoolteacher in 1918. Quickly immersed in revolutionarypolitics, Mao attended the first congress of the Chi-nese Communist Party in 1921 and was elected tothe party’s central committee two years later. Anabortive Red alliance with nationalist Kuomintang(KMT) leader CHIANG KAI-SHEK (Jiang Jieshi) col-lapsed in 1927 when Chiang and his TRIAD support-ers launched a nationwide reign of “white terror”against communists. Mao found refuge with guerril-las in the Jinggang Mountains of southeastern Chinawhere he served as chairman of a fledgling ChineseSoviet Republic during 1931–34. KMT forces killedMao’s first wife in their effort to eradicate the Redbastion and thereby propelled Mao’s troops into a12-month “long march” from Jiangxi to Shaanxi innorthwestern China. From his new stronghold Maoled Communist resistance against Japanese invadersfrom 1937 to 1945 while most Allied support wentto Chiang’s corrupt KMT regime. War’s end broughtno peace to embattled China, and Chiang’s forceswere driven off-shore to TAIWAN in 1949.

For the next 27 years, Mao ruled Red China in thestyle of Soviet dictator JOSEPH STALIN, ruthlessly sup-pressing dissent in all forms while driving neofeudalChina headlong into the 20th century. Mao’s “GreatLeap Forward,” a campaign to collectivize agriculture

and promote small-scale rural industry, was sabo-taged in part by withdrawal of support from RUSSIA,coupled with unprecedented droughts that starvedmillions of Chinese peasants to death by 1960. Redleaders Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping then tried tostrip Mao of his powers while leaving him in office asa figurehead, but Mao struck back with a new “Cul-tural Revolution,” handing power to young andfanatical Red Guards who established kangaroo tri-bunals and executed thousands of political heretics.Mao announced the end of the Cultural Revolutionin 1969, but China’s official state history marks thebrutal campaign’s end at Mao’s death from Parkin-son’s disease on September 9, 1976. More upheavalensued as rivals sought to fill the power vacuum leftby Mao’s passing, and while many of his draconianmethods are today repudiated in China, Mao himselfis widely revered as a quasi-godlike figure, verging onthe mythical. For millions of Chinese, Mao remains ahero known as the “Four Greats”—Great Teacher,Great Leader, Great Supreme Commander, and GreatHelmsman.

See also COMMUNISM.

MARCELLO, Carlos (1910–1993)A native of Tunis, born Calogero Minacore on Feb-ruary 6, 1910, teenager Carlos Marcello emigratedto the United States and logged his first arrest (forbank robbery) in New Orleans in 1929. That chargewas dropped, but 1930 saw him sentenced to nineyears in prison for assault and robbery. Released in1935 he was jailed again for peddling narcotics threeyears later. Despite his record, Marcello served only10 months on that charge and emerged from prisonto forge a lucrative partnership with New YorkMAFIA boss Frank Costello. Together, operating inconjunction with MEYER LANSKY, Marcello andCostello monopolized illegal gambling in Louisiana.By the end of World War II Marcello was the undis-puted crime boss of New Orleans, wielding influencethroughout the Gulf States.

In March 1959 Marcello appeared before a U.S.Senate committee investigating organized crime.One member of the panel was Senator John Kennedy,whose brother Robert served as the committee’scounsel. Two years later, with JFK in the WhiteHouse and Robert Kennedy serving as attorney gen-eral, Marcello found himself on a government hitlist of mobsters marked for prison or deportation.

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Lacking evidence for trial, in April 1961 theKennedys had Marcello arrested and forciblydeported to Guatemala (falsely listed as his birth-place on official documents). Marcello soonreturned to the United States, seething with hatredfor the Kennedys, frequently discussing his plans tomurder the president. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION informant Edward Becker advised federalagents that Marcello “clearly stated that he wasgoing to arrange to have President Kennedy mur-dered in some way.” Another informant reportedthat Marcello planned to take out “insurance” onthe contract by “setting up a nut to take theblame.” Shortly before the JFK ASSASSINATION ofNovember 22, 1963, Dallas mobster JACK RUBY

telephoned Marcello and Florida mobster SANTOS

TRAFFICANTE, ostensibly to discuss union business.Days later Ruby shot and killed alleged assassin LEE

HARVEY OSWALD in the Dallas police station,allegedly acting from grief and sympathy for thepresident’s widow.

G-men conducted a perfunctory investigation ofMarcello after the assassination, informing the WAR-REN COMMISSION that they “did not believe CarlosMarcello was a significant organized crime figure.”Rather, agents claimed, Marcello earned his living“as a tomato salesman and real estate investor.” Thecommission, accordingly, reported no criminal linkbetween Ruby and Marcello. Three years after Dal-las, Marcello was jailed for assault in New YorkCity. A protracted legal fight ended with convictionand a two-year prison sentence, but he served a meretwo months and was released in March 1971. TheHOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

found no proof of Marcello’s involvement in the JFKassassination, but committee counsel G. RobertBlakey later named him as a prime suspect inBlakey’s book, The Plot to Kill the President (1981).A New York Post report echoed that charge in Janu-ary 1992, naming Santos Trafficante and union bossJames Hoffa as coconspirators. Marcello died a freeman on March 3, 1993.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

MARCOS, Ferdinand (1917–1989)The wealthy son of a Filipino politician, born Sep-tember 11, 1917, Ferdinand Marcos won renown asa public speaker at the University of the PHILIPPINES,where he also distinguished himself on the school’s

shooting team. His marksmanship became an issue inthe 1930s when he was tried and acquitted oncharges of murdering one of his father’s politicalrivals. Marcos fought Japanese invaders duringWorld War II, but political biographies hailing hiswartime heroism were revealed as gross exaggera-tions verging on hagiography. Marcos served as anaide to Manuel Roxas, first president of the postwarindependent Philippines, and then went on to servein the House of Representatives (1949–59) and theSenate (1959–65). A suspicious landslide victoryinstalled Marcos as president of the Philippines in1965, a post he used (with wife Imelda) to suppressdissent and to loot his nation’s treasure during thenext two decades. A series of terrorist bombings in1972 prompted Marcos to declare martial law, andhe assumed dictatorial powers the following year.Widespread corruption, nepotism, and bureaucraticineptitude were hallmarks of the Marcos regime—none of which prevented U.S. President RONALD

REAGAN from hailing Marcos as a shining examplefor anticommunist leaders worldwide. The publicassassination of rival candidate BENIGNO AQUINO

sparked a groundswell of opposition that finallydrove Marcos and his wife into exile in February1986. The fugitives settled in Hawaii, while bothwere indicted for embezzlement by U.S. authorities.Marcos died from kidney failure, prior to trial, onSeptember 28, 1989. Imelda Marcos was acquittedof all charges in Hawaii during 1990, but a Filipinojury convicted her of bribery in 1993.

See also COMMUNISM; TERRORISM.

MARIJUANAUsed for many purposes throughout recorded his-tory, marijuana (Cannabis) was initially cultivatedin CHINA for its edible seeds (6000 B.C.E.), then forhemp fibers used in clothing (4000 B.C.E.), andfinally as a form of medicine (2727 B.C.E.). In colo-nial America hemp was deemed so useful that Vir-ginia’s House of Burgesses passed legislation in1762 penalizing farmers who refused to plant mari-juana. Future president GEORGE WASHINGTON wasan early hemp farmer, but invention of the cottongin in 1793 ultimately lowered cotton prices to thepoint that hemp was doomed as America’s fiber ofchoice. Far from vanishing, however, marijuana wassoon recognized for medicinal uses, employed by1840 as a recognized treatment for pain, gout, loss

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of appetite, migraines, hysteria, depression, and ahost of other maladies.

It was marijuana’s recreational usage, however,that alarmed religious fundamentalists and the legis-lators who craved their votes. El Paso, Texas, passedthe first law banning sale or possession of marijuanain 1914, followed by California (1915), Texas(1919), Louisiana (1924), New York (1927), andGreat Britain (1928). Still, marijuana did not achievedesignation as a full-blown “menace” until 1930when antidrug crusader HARRY ANSLINGER rose tocommand the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslingerlaunched a national propaganda campaign denounc-ing Cannabis as a “murder weed” that drove users tofrenzied outbursts of homicidal violence. Despite apaucity of evidence, yellow journalists scrambledaboard the bandwagon and joined a groundswellthat produced the federal Marijuana Tax Act of1937. Subsequent legislation, passed in 1951 and1956, increased penalties to the present level: twoyears to life in prison and a $20,000 fine.

Public opinion on marijuana remains deeplydivided, but most physicians recognize its value intreating glaucoma and the side effects of chemother-apy. In 1972 the Shafer Commission recommendedthat Cannabis should be legalized as a prescriptiondrug, but the suggestion was ignored. In 2001 Attor-ney General JOHN ASHCROFT took time away fromhis “War on TERRORISM” to arrest California physi-cians and their patients who employed marijuanaunder state legislation permitting medicinal use. Cul-tivation of illicit marijuana and smuggling of ship-ments from MEXICO or other countries meanwhileremains a lucrative trade in the United States.

MAURITANIAMALI’s largest western neighbor was “discovered”by PORTUGAL in the 15th century, but FRANCE

seized control 300 years later and established thethriving colony of French West Africa. Mauritaniawon independence in November 1960 and enteredthe UNITED NATIONS in 1961 over strenuous objec-tions from MOROCCO which claimed the territory asits own. Inevitable ethnic bloodshed followed untilMauritania and Morocco divided the SpanishSahara region (now Western Sahara) between themin 1975. Indigenous Saharawi rebels, organized asthe Polisario Front, instantly declared war on bothcountries, inflicting sufficient damage to topple the

Mauritanian government of Ould Daddah in 1978.Mauritania withdrew from Western Sahara the fol-lowing year, but ethnic clashes continued at home.Torn between the dominant Moorish–Arab northand largely black south, Mauritania launched aborder war against SENEGAL in 1989. At home,despite legal abolition of slavery in 1980, the prac-tice still thrives among wealthy Arabs who prey onblack Mauritanians. By 1993 the U.S. State Depart-ment estimated that there were some 90,000 slavesin the country. Nine years later a violent movementdemanding greater freedom for blacks in Maurita-nia was officially suppressed, and its politicalparty—Action for Change—was formally banned.

McCARRAN ActPassed by Congress over President Harry Truman’sveto on September 23, 1950, the Internal SecurityAct is more commonly known by the name of its primary sponsor, longtime Nevada Senator PatrickMcCarran. A product of the Red Scare that followedWorld War II, the McCarran Act authorized deportation of alien radicals; barred CommunistParty members from holding passports or workingin defense industries; required communist or com-munist-front groups to register as “foreign agents”with a newly created SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES

CONTROL BOARD; required the publications of saidgroups to be labeled as Communist propaganda;and authorized detention of “dangerous radicals”during national emergencies declared by the presi-dent. Such legislation provided an illusion of secu-rity by focusing national attention on outspokenleftist groups while ignoring the threat of covertespionage agents. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Director J. EDGAR HOOVER enthusiastically sup-ported Senator McCarran not only in his Red-huntingpursuits but in his public denials that the MAFIA

existed in the United States.See also COMMUNISM.

McCARTHY, Joseph (1908–1957)Wisconsin native Joseph Raymond McCarthy joinedthe U.S. Marine Corps in 1942 and served in thePacific theater. An airman who never saw combat,McCarthy later billed himself as “Tail-Gunner Joe,”and an accidental injury became a “war wound.”Those heroic trappings failed to place McCarthy in

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the U.S. Senate on his first attempt in 1944, but hewas more successful two years later, supported byWisconsin’s Communist Party.

In Washington McCarthy befriended J. EDGAR

HOOVER, frequently dining with the FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) director and joining Hooveron “inspection tours” of race tracks. In February1950, after a series of reckless speeches claiming thatthe State Department was riddled with Communistspies, McCarthy sought help from Hoover to sup-port his fabricated charges. Hoover agreed, orderinghis staff to “review the files and get anything you canfor him.”

McCarthy’s habitual lies and exaggerations ren-dered support for his charges impossible. AssistantFBI Director WILLIAM SULLIVAN recalled, “We didn’thave enough evidence to show there was a singleCommunist in the State Department, let alone 57cases”—or 205, as McCarthy later claimed. Still, G-men searched for evidence to help McCarthy whileHoover’s ghost writers drafted his speeches. Hooverbiographer Curt Gentry observes: “‘McCarthyism’was, from start to finish, the creation of one man,FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.” Hoover’s clandestinesupport reaped benefits for the bureau includingmore money, more agents, and broader authorityunder new laws enacted to curb the “Red menace.”

McCarthy launched his last televised hearings inMarch 1954 with disastrous results for himself. OnDecember 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censureMcCarthy for “contemptuous conduct” and abuse ofprivilege. Though still a senator, he was a brokenman thereafter. McCarthy’s bid to nominate Hooverfor president in 1956 failed to renew his former closeties with the FBI. McCarthy died of an alcohol-related liver ailment on May 2, 1957.

See also COMMUNISM.

MEMPHIS Police DepartmentMemphis, Tennessee, is often hailed as “liberal”southern city, but its police department has nevershared that image. A year after the Civil War, betweenApril 30 and May 2, 1866, Memphis police officersled a bloody race riot that left 46 blacks and twowhite “radicals” dead, with 90 black-owned homes,four churches, and two schools burned to the ground.Many Memphis officers went on to join the KU

KLUX KLAN both during RECONSTRUCTION and the1920s when Memphis was branded the U.S. “murder

capital;” it boasted a homicide rate in excess of 50per 100,000 population. Despite their facade ofmorality, Klan cops were strangely unable to preventwidespread PROHIBITION violations in that era or toshut down the city’s wide-open red-light district.

A generation later local police were still more con-cerned about civil rights protests than organizedcrime. The department’s Domestic Intelligence Unit(DIU) mounted surveillance on groups ranging fromthe “fairly militant” NAACP and Dr. MARTIN

LUTHER KING, JR.’s, Southern Leadership Conferenceto the BLACK PANTHER PARTY. In 1968 when Dr. Kingarrived in Memphis to lead protests for the local san-itation workers’ union, Memphis P.D. was run byChief Frank Holloman, a 25-year veteran of the FED-ERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) who spent hislast eight years with the bureau in charge of J. EDGAR

HOOVER’s private office. Holloman mounted round-the-clock surveillance on King in Memphis and thenwithdrew it on April 4, 1968, shortly before a snipermurdered King in full view of a recently dismantledlookout post. Diverted by CB radio “hoaxes” andother false leads, Holloman’s officers somehow per-mitted the assassin to escape.

Even then, illegal surveillance of Memphis citi-zens and visitors continued until 1976 when theAmerican Civil Liberties Union sought access to DIUfiles. With the case still pending in court MayorWyeth Chandler ordered the files destroyed, andsome 180 boxes of documents were burned on Sep-tember 10. Unfortunately for the cover-up, policedepositions revealed much of DIU’s illicit activity,and another stash of documents was found in thebasement of an abandoned police station. In Sep-tember 1978 Memphis police agreed to dismantletheir “Red Squad” and accepted an injunction bar-ring surveillance of legitimate groups.

That settlement brought no end of scandal toMemphis, however. Four high-ranking officers werefired in July 2000 on charges stemming from a jointstate and federal probe of alleged police corruption.Three years later in October 2003 federal indict-ments charged 16 defendants with stealing confis-cated money, drugs, and weapons from the policedepartment’s “secure” property room. Thosearrested included Kenneth Dansberry, a 21-yeardepartment veteran serving as shift supervisor in theproperty room, and senior inventory control clerkEdward Johnson. FBI agents also seized the homeand vehicles of a civilian suspect, Eric Brown, who

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was allegedly involved in sale of contraband pilferedfrom the police department. “Audit problems” atheadquarters reportedly dated from 1999, but theinvestigation needed four years to produce results.On December 18, 2003, two more indictments wereissued, charging police supervisors Alnita Campbelland Jacqueline Layrock with accepting some$148,000 in bribes to conceal the ongoing thefts.

The department suffered yet another black eye inSeptember 2003 when Governor Phil Bredesengranted a surprise stay of execution for convictedcop killer Philip Workman. Workman had robbed afast-food restaurant in 1983, fleeing as policearrived. Shots were exchanged, killing Lt. RonaldOliver and wounding a second officer. At trial twopolice officers and alleged witness Harold Davisclaimed that they saw Workman shoot Oliver. ShelbyCounty Medical Examiner O.C. Smith helped theprosecution with a claim that he had matched thefatal bullet to Workman’s pistol. Davis recanted histestimony in 2001, admitting that he lied in pursuitof cash rewards and that police coached him to pro-duce his sworn statement and then illegally concealedhim from defense attorneys prior to trial. Investiga-tion of those claims revealed “new” X-ray evidencethat had been hidden by O.C. Smith for nearly twodecades and that cast serious doubt on his trial testi-mony. Workman’s appeal is ongoing, defense lawyersclaiming that Lieutenant Oliver was killed by police“friendly fire” and that his fellow officers conspiredto hide that fact by sending Workman to his death.

MENGELE, Josef (1911–1979)The THIRD REICH’s “Angel of Death,” Josef (“Beppo”)Mengele, was born on March 16, 1911. He studiedphilosophy in Munich and obtained his Ph.D. in1935 with a dissertation on human racial differences.From there, Mengele went on to study medicine atFrankfurt University, progressing to a post with theschool’s Department of Hereditary Biology andRacial Hygiene. Mengele secured his second doctor-ate in 1938 with a dissertation on “clan examina-tions at lip-jaw-palate-cleft.” By that time he wasalso a member in good standing of ADOLF HITLER’sNazi Party. He joined the “elite” SS in 1938 andserved in various units until 1942 when he waswounded in RUSSIA. Pronounced unfit for combat,Mengele volunteered to serve as chief medical officerat the Auschwitz death camp in POLAND. There, he

earned his infamous nickname for a series of sadisticexperiments involving twins. He also greeted trainsfilled with newly arrived inmates and personallyselected those marked for execution in the camp’s gaschambers.

Mengele was captured in 1945 and held briefly asa prisoner of war; then he was released by carelessAllies who failed to recognize him. He remained inGermany for the next four years and then escaped toARGENTINA with help from the ODESSA network and sympathetic leaders of the CATHOLIC CHURCH.Despite long-running investigations and severalfailed attempts to capture him for trial on WAR

CRIMES charges, Mengele eluded his hunters, pro-tected by various pro-Nazi politicians in Argentina,BRAZIL, and PARAGUAY. He reportedly drowned whileswimming on February 7, 1979, but his identity wasnot confirmed by DNA tests until 1992. While stillalive in semipublic exile, Mengele bridged the gapfrom fugitive to literary villain with fictional starringroles in the films Marathon Man (1976) and TheBoys from Brazil (1978).

MEN in BlackOn June 21, 1947—three days before pilot KennethArnold saw a group of UFOS soaring past MountRainier, Washington, and coined the term flyingsaucers—harbor patrolman Harold Dahl experienceda similar sighting at nearby Maury Island. Dahl andhis son saw six metallic, circular objects 100 feet indiameter, flying over Puget Sound. One of the UFOswobbled in midair and disgorged a chunk of hotdebris that fell to Earth, injuring Dahl’s son andkilling his dog. The next morning a man dressed in ablack suit visited Dahl’s home and drove the witnessto a local café for breakfast. The stranger describedDahl’s experience in graphic detail, as if he had beenthere himself, and remarked that the accident “shouldnot have happened,” adding cryptically: “I know agreat deal more about this experience of yours thanyou will ever want to believe.” In parting, the manwarned Dahl to keep silent about the event, implyinga threat to Dahl and his family if secrecy was notmaintained.

During the past half-century, UFO witnessesthroughout the United States and around the worldhave reported similar encounters with menacingblack-clad strangers, enshrined today in urban folk-lore as the Men in Black (MIB). Hollywood cashed

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in on the stories with a pair of blockbuster science-fiction films in 1997 and 2002, but the reality of MIBvisits is far from the comedic experience portrayedby actors Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The sev-eral hundred witnesses who have described suchinterviews by cryptic, vaguely Asian-looking visitorsunanimously describe their interrogators as hostileand menacing, threatening injury or worse to thosewho will not recant UFO sightings.

Is there a secret agency committed to suppressingnews of close encounters with UFOs and their occu-pants? If so, the group is not confined to the UnitedStates, for MIB sightings are also on file from variousother countries, including BULGARIA, CHINA, Eng-land, FRANCE, IRELAND, ITALY, MEXICO, and RUSSIA.Likewise, MIB harassment is not strictly limited toUFO witnesses. In 1966 an MIB who called himself“Jack Brown” visited residents of Point Pleasant,West Virginia, who had reported sightings of a largewinged creature nicknamed “Mothman.” Two yearslater in Scotland three MIB grilled researcher AlistairBaxter about his investigation of the Loch NessMonster. Reports of MIB activity continue to thepresent day, but no official agency on Earth admitsresponsibility for any of the incidents.

MEXICAN MafiaCalifornia’s first known PRISON GANG, the MexicanMafia (or “Eme”) was organized in 1956–57 by His-panic inmates from East Los Angeles who were con-fined at Duel Vocational Institute. Initially the groupwas formed for self-defense against rival inmates anda racist prison staff. Members of the Mexican Mafiatraditionally come from southern California, whileHispanic inmates in northern California align them-selves with a hostile gang called NUESTRA FAMILIA

(“our family”). The gangs are bitter rivals to this day,with scores of murders linked to their long-runningfeud. On the side, both alternately fight and collabo-rate with white and black gangs, including the pow-erful ARYAN BROTHERHOOD and the BLACK

GUERRILLA FAMILY. Warring Hispanic gangs also pio-neered the use of “colors” with Eme members wear-ing red bandanas and Nuestra Familia soldierssporting blue long before those colors were adoptedby the CRIPS AND BLOODS.

From cell-block skirmishes the Mexican Mafiasoon expanded into contraband smuggling in prison and from there to criminal operations on

the outside. Supported by comrades in the “freeworld” and corrupt prison guards who clear theirshipments for a price, Eme smugglers provide avariety of goods and services to customers behindbars. Drugs are their basic stock in trade, alongwith alcohol and weapons. Extortion remains apopular racket with all prison gangs, and contractmurders may be carried out on either side of prisonwalls for a price. California gang watchers reportthat Mexican Mafia members commonly boast tat-toos reading “Eme,” “Aztlan,” “Mexikanemi,”“Sur” (South), “Sureño” (“Southerner”), the initials“MM,” and the number “13.” The gang’s symbol isan eagle perched atop a war shield with crossedmachetes. A splinter group in Arizona prisons,dubbed the New Mexican Mafia, is considered hostile to the parent clique.

In May 1997 a federal jury in Los Angeles con-victed 12 Eme members of running a drug-and-crime ring from prison. Specific charges in the29-count indictment included five murders, variousattempted murders, racketeering, drug trafficking,extortion, and conspiracy. All 12 faced terms of lifeimprisonment on conviction in that case. Evidenceproduced at the six-month trial suggested that theMexican Mafia had 400 identified members whotook their orders from inmates confined in maxi-mum security at Pelican Bay. The original chargesnamed 22 defendants, a number that was whittled to13 after one defendant was killed, seven morepleaded guilty on reduced charges, and one wasdropped from the list to face state felony charges inOrange County. A single defendant among theremaining 13 was acquitted at trial. Despite theirvictory in court, prosecutors warn that the gangremains active and dangerous.

MEXICOMexico’s original rulers—the Mayas, the Olmecs,the Toltecs, and the Aztecs—were slave-tradingwarlords who practiced human sacrifice and ritualcannibalism on a wholesale basis. Spanish conquis-tadors arrived to “civilize” the country at swordpoint in 1519–21, looting and enslaving Mexico’sformer elite and peasants alike. “Native” Mexicansrevolted against Spanish rule in 1810 and won inde-pendence of a sort in 1821. During the next 56years, Mexico endured two emperors (one of themFrench) and several home-grown dictators who

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changed governments every nine months on aver-age. In the process, roughly half of the country’stotal area was stolen by the United States during theimperial war of 1846–48.

Modern times have been no more peaceful forMexico. Dictator Porfirio Diaz (1877–80 and1884–1911) practiced brutal repression, but hisouster brought no peace. Repeated incursions byU.S. troops and a civil war in 1920 failed to bringsignificant reform. Mexican students rebelledagainst the country’s increasing militarization in the1960s, resulting in the October 1968 massacre of300-plus dissidents in Mexico City. (Authoritiesclaimed self-defense but finally admitted—in 2003—that the slaughter had been a calculated act ofrepression.) Today, pervasive political corruptionand a thriving drug trade undermine any claims ofprogress below the Rio Grande. Federal drug-enforcement agents have participated in assassina-tion of reform presidential candidates and even in aborder-hopping cult that practiced human sacrificearound Matamoros in 1985–89. Mexican drug car-tels reap an estimated $50 billion yearly from salesin the United States, with 40 percent of all U.S.HEROIN supplies, 70 percent of all South AmericanCOCAINE, and 80 percent of the U.S. MARIJUANA

inventory flowing through Mexico. While some20,000 Mexican soldiers are committed full-time toeradicating drugs, the traffic flourishes, and Mex-ico’s first appointed “drug czar”—Gen. Jesús Gutiér-rez Rebollo—was fired in 1996, after barely 10weeks in office, for accepting bribes from Mexico’slargest narcotics cartel.

MIAsWhen President RICHARD NIXON withdrew U.S.combat troops from VIETNAM in 1972, an uncertainnumber were left behind, rated either as missing inaction (MIA) or as prisoners of war (POW). In1973, before the WATERGATE scandal drove himfrom office in disgrace, Nixon assured the U.S. pub-lic that all living POWs in Southeast Asia had beensafely released. Nonetheless, an additional 717MIAs were repatriated after 1973, including theremains of 40 deceased servicemen. It was not until1979 that Vietnamese authorities released U.S.Marine Corps Private Bobby Garwood, who wascaptured at China Beach in 1965. Garwood main-tained that other POWs still survived in custody, but

the Pentagon swiftly branded him a traitor, thus dis-crediting his testimony.

Whatever the truth of Garwood’s report, itremains an article of faith with many U.S. citizensthat captive service members remain in communistprisons today, secretly suffering while Washingtonignores their plight. Officially, the Pentagon lists1,866 identified MIAs in Indochina as of February29, 2004—including 620 U.S. Air Force personnel,591 U.S. Army, 382 U.S. Navy, 239 U.S. MarineCorps, and 35 civilians—but all are presumed to bedead. Between 1973 and 2003, military investiga-tors received 1,952 firsthand sightings of livePOWs, with another 5,090 hearsay reports. Of thefirsthand accounts, 1,909 are officially “resolved,”including 532 dismissed as fabrications and 1,377allegedly correlated with sightings of known (andrecovered) MIAs. No further investigation isplanned for the remaining 43 “live sighting” reportslogged since 1973.

Official explanations notwithstanding, a body ofanecdotal evidence apparently supports the notionof POWs languishing in prison camps scatteredacross Vietnam, CAMBODIA, and LAOS. JerryMooney, an employee of the NATIONAL SECURITY

AGENCY who through 1976 tracked POW reportsfrom Indochina, claimed knowledge of some 300surviving prisoners. In 1986 the Wall Street Journalreported that Vietnamese officials had offered toexchange 57 live POWs for $4 million in U.S. for-eign aid, but President RONALD REAGAN rebuffedthe offer as a form of extortion. (That excuse wasespecially ironic in light of the OCTOBER SURPRISE

ransom deal with IRAN, which helped secure Rea-gan’s election in 1980.) Four years later, in 1990,Truong Chinh—former head of the VietnameseSECRET POLICE—allegedly told author WilliamStevenson, “We had thousands of Americans afterthe release of 1973. Until 1985, I knew aboutgroups of Americans in several locations. It is possi-ble we shall embarrass the American governmentsomeday by sending some back.”

While Hollywood produced several action filmsdepicting rescue of American MIAs from SoutheastAsia—Uncommon Valor (1983), Missing in Action(1984), Missing in Action 2 (1985), and Rambo:First Blood II (1985)—attempts to find MIAs in reallife have proved disappointing. Texas billionaire H.Ross Perot launched the first such expedition in1973, with additional funding from actors John

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Wayne and Clint Eastwood, but his mercenariescame back empty-handed. Perot tried again in 1983,this time with former Green Beret Bo Gritz incharge, but the count of rescued prisoners remainedat zero. The Reagan administration confused mat-ters further by denying that any POWs survived inAsia; he then warned private searchers that theirefforts “could jeopardize the lives of prisoners stillliving there.” A confrontation with President GeorgeH. W. Bush ultimately launched Perot’s ownabortive race for the White House, with recovery ofMIAs a major goal of his candidacy. In their lastmeeting Perot allegedly told Bush, “I go looking forprisoners, but I spend all my time discovering thatthe [U.S.] government has been moving drugsaround the world and is involved in illegal armsdeals. I can’t get at the prisoners because of the cor-ruption among our own covert people.”

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM.

MI5Britain’s equivalent of the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVES-TIGATION is the Security Service, more commonlyknown as MI5 (for Military Intelligence). Created inthe wake of World War I MI5 is primarily responsi-ble for internal security, while sister agency MI6 han-dles foreign intelligence matters. Both agencies spunoff from the now-defunct Secret Service Bureau,founded in 1909. Collaborating with the SpecialBranch of London’s Metropolitan Police, MI5 soonfound itself embroiled in conflict with the IRISH

REPUBLICAN ARMY. Its reputation suffered when IRAmembers penetrated MI5, identified its agents in IRE-LAND, and killed nearly all of them in a bloody purgeof informers. MI5 was more successful at detectingAxis agents during World War II, but emphasis soonshifted to RUSSIA and opposition to COMMUNISM asMI5 acquired responsibility for security operationsthroughout the dwindling British Empire. For all itswartime success against GERMANY, however, MI5suffered further setbacks during the long cold war,highlighted by the 1963 revelation that Soviet dou-ble-agent ADRIAN “KIM” PHILBY had penetrated thegroup’s highest levels. An official pretense that MI5does not exist was finally abandoned in the 1990s,and the agency has openly recruited via newspaperadvertisements since 1997, but many questionsremain concerning its cloak-and-dagger activities,both at home and abroad.

MI6MI6, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service(SIS), is Britain’s equivalent of the U.S. CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, tasked with maintainingexternal security and collecting intelligence fromother nations. It may collaborate with domestic secu-rity agents from sister service MI5, but theoreticallythe operatives of MI6 perform no cloak-and-daggermissions on British soil. Represented in fiction by IanFleming’s heroic James Bond, Agent 007, the menand women of MI6 generally deal with less dramaticand earth-shaking matters, but they are indeed occa-sionally licensed to kill.

MI6 began life in 1909 as the Secret ServiceBureau. Its first director was Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, whose final initial (“C,” not “M” as inthe Bond novels) became the coded designation forhimself and his successors in command. Mixed suc-cess against GERMANY in World War I led to reor-ganization as MI6 in 1921, while domestic securitychores were handed off to MI5. “Passport controlofficers” assigned to each British embassy world-wide served as the eyes and ears of MI6, coordinat-ing espionage against friends and enemies alike.After World War II, the agency’s primary focus wasRUSSIA and the long cold-war campaign to blockglobal advancement of COMMUNISM. Still, for all itsbest efforts, MI6 could not prevent the BritishEmpire from being whittled down, with majorlosses in INDIA, KENYA, Palestine, and MALAYSIA.Since 1994, MI6/SIS activities have been subject tooversight by Parliament’s Intelligence and SecurityCommittee, but critics maintain that (as in theUnited States) much illegal activity has been con-cealed from or tacitly encouraged by Her Majesty’sgovernment. The most serious accusation in recentyears involves the charge that MI6 agents may havemurdered DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES on ordersfrom the royal family.

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL complexOn January 17, 1961, in his farewell address to theU.S. voters who twice elected him president, DwightEisenhower sounded a prophetic warning for thefuture and coined a term still popular among con-spiracists. While noting that “Our arms must bemighty, ready for instant action, so that no potentialaggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruc-tion,” Eisenhower also sounded a cautionary note:

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This conjunction of an immense military establishment

and a large arms industry is new in the American expe-

rience. The total influence—economic, political, even

spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every

office of the Federal government. We recognize the

imperative need for this development. Yet we must not

fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil,

resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very

structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard

against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,

whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial

complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of mis-

placed power exists and will persist.

Many researchers believe that Eisenhower’swarning was too little and too late. They point tohuge corporations such as GENERAL ELECTRIC and

LOCKHEED MARTIN, repeatedly convicted of defraud-ing the U.S. government, yet still favored withmultibillion-dollar defense contracts, while others(such as the UNITED FRUIT COMPANY and IT&T) havecovertly influenced foreign policy to the point oftoppling “Third World” governments. America’slong nightmare in VIETNAM is seen by some histori-ans as a cynical exercise in war profiteering, and acase can be made that OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

was in fact a war for OIL, launched by PresidentGeorge W. Bush on behalf of billionaire supportersin the petroleum industry.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

MILITIASIn normal terms a militia is any body of citizensenrolled for military service, summoned periodicallyfor drills and training, but who serve full-time onlyin emergencies. Among the 50 U.S. states, that func-tion is fulfilled by National Guard units, typicallymobilized during riots or natural disasters, some-times federalized as reinforcements for regular U.S.troops as in the VIETNAM War and OPERATION IRAQI

FREEDOM. In the 1990s, however, a different breed of“patriot militias” came to prominence in America,driven by antigovernment feelings and sporadicallyengaged in covert warfare against the very regimethat legitimate militiamen are pledged to defend.

The 1960s MINUTEMEN provided a foretaste offar-right militia activity but then collapsed after itsleaders were jailed for conspiracy to rob banks andbomb police stations. The FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) briefly created its own terroristmilitia in 1970, but exposure of the SECRET ARMY

ORGANIZATION’s federal ties brought no end ofembarrassment to Washington. Another quarter-cen-tury elapsed before the next outbreak, in 1994, ofparamilitary patriotism. Fueled by anger at the lossof life in federal sieges at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, andWaco, Texas, and spiked with paranoia over rumorsof a NEW WORLD ORDER, crackpot “patriots” andwhite supremacists joined ranks from coast to coast,forming “citizen’s militias” in various states. The firstrecognized group was John Trochmann’s Militia ofMontana, officially inaugurated on January 1, 1994,but the Michigan Militia soon outstripped its compe-tition with an estimated 6,000 members.

At their peak in 1996, 858 “patriot” groups wereactive throughout the United States, declining to 171

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President Dwight Eisenhower sounded a warningagainst the vast “military-industrial complex” in 1961.(Library of Congress)

(45 of them overt militias) in 2003. That decline wasdue in equal parts to false predictions of disaster(ranging from foreign invasions to Y2Kaos) and toprosecution of militia members for various acts ofTERRORISM. Militia plots and crimes during the peakof “patriot” activity included the following:

April 19, 1995: The OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING

claimed at least 168 lives. Militia associatesTimothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were con-victed for that crime.

September 12, 1995: “Patriot” Charles Polk wasindicted for plotting to bomb the INTERNAL

REVENUE SERVICE building in Austin, Texas. Hereceived a 21-year prison term in 1996.

November 9, 1995: Oklahoma ConstitutionalMilitia leader Willie Lampley, his wife, and athird defendant were charged with plotting tobomb various targets, including abortion clin-ics, gay bars, welfare offices, and the SouthernPoverty Law Center. The defendants, with afourth arrested later, were sentenced to prisonin 1996.

April 26, 1996: Two leaders of the Militia-at-Large of the Republic of Georgia [sic] werejailed for manufacturing bombs. By year’s endboth were serving eight-year prison terms.

July 1, 1996: Twelve members of Arizona’s ViperTeam militia were charged with plotting tobomb government offices in Phoenix. At trial10 defendants pleaded guilty, one was con-victed, and the twelfth was acquitted. Sentencesranging up to nine years were imposed.

July 29, 1996: Washington State Militia leaderJohn Pitner and seven followers were arrestedfor making pipe bombs. Pitner and four otherswere convicted on weapons charges and sen-tenced to prison, while charges against theremaining defendants ended with a mistrial.

October 11, 1996: Seven members of the Moun-taineer Militia were jailed for plotting to bombthe FBI’s national fingerprint center in West Vir-ginia. Four were convicted at trial, with leaderFloyd Looker receiving an 18-year prison term.

March 26, 1997: Michigan militia activist Bren-don Blasz was charged with plotting to bomban IRS office, a television station, and federalarmories. Blasz plea-bargained for a three-yearsentence by renouncing the militia movementand providing evidence against his comrades.

April 27, 1997: An explosion near Yuba City, California, landed seven militia activists in jailon various charges. Leader William Robert—previously convicted of rape, burglary, andassault—received a sentence of 25 years to life.

July 4, 1997: Two militiamen were captured nearFort Hood, Texas, one hour before theyplanned to invade the army base and kill non-existent foreign troops said to be quarteredthere. Five others were arrested later, all linkedto a militia group called the Third ContinentalCongress. All were convicted on various stateand federal charges.

March 18, 1998: Three members of the NorthAmerican Militia were jailed in Michigan.Charges include conspiracy to bomb publicbuildings and an interstate highway, murderingfederal agents and a black radio host, and pos-sessing illegal weapons. Leader Ken Carter, amember of the Aryan Nations, turned state’sevidence in return for a five-year sentence. Hisconfederates stood firm at trial and were con-victed, drawing terms of 40–55 years.

July 30, 1998: Militiaman Paul Chastain wasarrested in South Carolina on various drug,weapons, and explosives charges. In 1999Chastain received a 15-year prison term, afteradmitting plots to kill U.S. Attorney GeneralJanet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh.

December 4, 1998: Two members of the SanJoaquin County Militia were jailed in Sacra-mento, California, charged with conspiring tobomb two propane tanks containing 24 milliongallons of flammable gas. A third defendant,militia leader Donald Rudolph, pleaded guiltyto conspiracy in the same case during January2001. Rudolph also admitted that he plotted tomurder a federal judge.

December 8, 1999: Donald Beauregard, leader ofa militia coalition called the Southeastern StatesAlliance, was charged with a terrorist conspir-acy to bomb power plants in Florida and Geor-gia. He pleaded guilty on multiple charges andreceived a five-year prison sentence.

MILOSEVIC, Slobodan (1941– )Born on August 20, 1941, future Serbian strongmanSlobodan (“Sloba”) Milosevic began his professional

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life as a globe-trotting banker from Belgrade; then heshifted gears to replace Ivan Stambolic as partyleader of Serbia’s League of Communists ofYugoslavia in September 1987. May 1989 witnessedhis election to Serbia’s national assembly, followedby victorious presidential campaigns in December1990 and December 1992. Milosevic’s rise to powercoincided with the collapse of Eastern EuropeanCommunism and the rise of various nationalistmovements, complete with neo-Nazi views on “eth-nic cleansing.” Milosevic’s regime enthusiasticallypursued genocidal campaigns against various minori-ties during the civil war in BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA, acampaign that later saw him and many of his under-lings indicted for WAR CRIMES.

Before that happened, though, he stubbornlyfought to retain power in Serbia. Defeated in thecountry’s November 1996 presidential election,Milosevic contested the results for three months,finally stepping down on February 4, 1997. Consti-tutionally barred from seeking a third presidentialterm in Serbia, he next assumed the presidency of theYugoslav Federation in July 1997. OpponentVojislav Kostunica defeated Milosevic in September2000. Milosevic was arrested on April 1, 2000, andcharged with corruption and abuse of power. Serbianauthorities delivered Milosevic to the UNITED

NATIONS International Criminal Tribunal for the For-mer Yugoslavia in June 2000, and his charges weresoon upgraded to include war crimes and genocide.Milosevic’s trial began at The Hague, NETHERLANDS

on February 12, 2002, and was still in progress atpress time for this volume. Milosevic denounced theongoing trial as an “evil and hostile attack” by hisenemies, while a nonstop stream of media storiesdetailed bizarre and criminal activities by other mem-bers of his family.

MIND controlWhile various forms of psychological warfare havebeen used for centuries to disrupt morale amongenemy troops, the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY (CIA) carried experimentation to new levelsin the 1950s with its MKULTRA mind-control pro-gram. CIA Director Allen Dulles secretly authorizedMKULTRA in April 1953, including a variety ofexperiments using hypnotism, LSD, and other drugson subjects who were sometimes unaware of theirselection to “participate” in covert tests. The project’s

goal was to produce some sure-fire means of invad-ing and controlling minds at will, thereby obtainingcoveted intelligence, debilitating rivals, or unleash-ing “robot” assassins. In 1958 a CIA auditorwarned his superiors that “Precautions must betaken not only to protect operations from exposureto enemy forces but also to conceal these activitiesfrom the American public in general. The knowledgethat the agency is engaging in unethical and illicitactivities would have serious repercussions in politi-cal and diplomatic circles.”

The CIA destroyed many MKULTRA documentsin 1972 when the program allegedly ended, butenough remained for the CHURCH COMMITTEE todocument agency abuses three years later. Today, weare assured, no such programs are operated by theU.S. government. Conspiracists reject that statementas false, some of them maintaining that mind-controlexperiments continue in the form of religious cultsand other fringe groups secretly sponsored fromWashington. The 1970s SYMBIONESE LIBERATION

ARMY is frequently cited as one such example, alongwith the People’s Temple mass suicide in JON-ESTOWN, Guyana. Some researchers also claim thatgovernment agencies are responsible for acts of ritualchild abuse linked to SATANISM, allegedly conductedto produce victims with multiple personalities. Asevidence they note that Dr. Martin Orne (a psycholo-gist involved in the MKULTRA experiments) was anearly member of the FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME

Foundation that was created in the 1980s to defendaccused child molesters. Several researchers have alsospeculated that mind-control techniques may havebeen used on gunman Sirhan Sirhan in the 1968 RFK

ASSASSINATION.See also DULLES BROTHERS.

MINUTEMENA forerunner of the 1990s Militia movement, theparamilitary Minutemen organization was foundedin 1959 by Missouri chemist Robert BolivarDePugh. Members stockpiled weapons in prepara-tion for an expected invasion of the United States byRussian, the Chinese, or the UNITED NATIONS mili-tary forces. Many who joined the group were alsomembers of the KU KLUX KLAN or other racistgroups, promoting agendas that were not restrictedto simple anticommunism. (Dennis Mower, secondin command of the California Minutemen, was a

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close friend of KKK “Wizard” Samuel Bowers, whowas later convicted of multiple murder and sen-tenced to life imprisonment.)

In October 1966, 199 Minutemen were jailed forconspiracy on the eve of scheduled raids against vari-ous “leftist” targets in New York. Two years later,the organization was publicly linked to William Hoffand Paul Dommer, two associates of the KKK andNational States Rights Party who were convicted ofconspiracy and violent acts against blacks. The sameyear, 1968, found DePugh a fugitive from federalcharges in Seattle where he and other Minutemenhad plotted to bomb a police station and to rob fourbanks. Captured in July 1969 DePugh received an11-year sentence and was paroled in May 1973,declaring that prison had taught him “a little humil-ity.” While DePugh was imprisoned, G-men recruitedsome of his California veterans for a terrorist groupsponsored by the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,the SECRET ARMY ORGANIZATION, linked to bomb-ings and attempted murders around San Diego.

See also MILITIAS.

MISSISSIPPI PlanWhite-supremacist Democrats devised the “Missis-sippi Plan” to “redeem” the Magnolia State fromRECONSTRUCTION in 1875. Federal power had brokenthe KU KLUX KLAN by that time, and Republicans—some of them black—remained in public offices thatex-Confederates coveted for themselves. Since manyMississippi counties boasted black majorities thatwere enfranchised under the Constitution’s FifteenthAmendment, racist whites fell back on the time-hon-ored technique of TERRORISM to win the election thatthey otherwise would have lost.

The plan’s goal was to bar blacks from voting. InVicksburg, blacks staging a Fourth of July paradewere mobbed by whites; two of them were mur-dered. The same month brought rumors of blackrevolt to Water Valley, where white gunmen turnedout to massacre unarmed freedmen. In August twoblacks were shot and wounded at a Republicanmeeting in Louisville. Later that month riders fromAlabama joined Macon’s white terrorists to kill atleast a dozen blacks. Democrats revolted in YazooCity, driving their Republican sheriff from thecounty and conducting a “lynching bee” thatslaughtered every black Republican leader in the dis-trict. At Clinton 500 terrorists stormed a Republican

picnic, killing three whites and an estimated 30blacks. A “minor skirmish” at Satartia left onefreedman dead. Coahoma County witnessed sixpolitical murders before the black sheriff fled for hislife. Noxubee County’s Republican nominee fortreasurer was assassinated in broad daylight beforescores of witnesses.

On election day, with white terrorists posted as“poll watchers” throughout Mississippi, Republicanmajorities evaporated. In Yazoo City, where 2,427GOP ballots had been cast in 1873, only seven wererecorded in November 1875. Twelve Republicanswere bold enough to vote in Tishomingo, while onlyfour found the nerve in Kemper County, two in Utica,and none at all Auburn. Statewide, Democrats carriedthe election at gunpoint, while federal authoritiesraised no significant protest. A year later Mississippi’scampaign tactics—renamed the “Shotgun Plan”—were used throughout the South in a bloody bid todefeat Republican presidential candidate RUTHER-FORD B. HAYES, forcing an electoral compromise thateffectively ended Reconstruction in Dixie.

MOLASKA CorporationMillionaire bootleggers mourned the demise of PRO-HIBITION in December 1933—so much, in fact, thatsome resolved to continue the lucrative trade inuntaxed booze even when liquor sales became legiti-mate once more. The largest single vehicle for suchactivities was Molaska Corporation, created 10 daysbefore Repeal on November 25, 1933. The owners,masked by front men, included New York mobsterMEYER LANSKY and two Cleveland associates, MoeDalitz and Sam Tucker. Lansky’s father-in-law,Moses Citron, served the corporation as assistanttreasurer.

Ostensibly created to import Cuban molasses(hence its name), Lansky ensured the steady flow ofmolasses with a personal visit to Cuba where hebribed and befriended the U.S.-supported dictatorFulgencio Batista. At home Molaska went beyondthat legal function to erect giant distilleries atZanesville, Ohio, and Elizabeth, New Jersey. TheZanesville plant turned out an estimated 20,000 bot-tles of untaxed 190-proof whiskey per day, while theNew Jersey plant worked on a somewhat smallerscale. Treasury agents raided the Zanesville plant onJanuary 19, 1935, pronouncing its equipment worth“at least $250,000.” Raiders struck the New Jersey

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still a short time later, and Molaska quietly declaredbankruptcy. None of its owners were touched by thescandal, much less charged with any crime.

MONGOLIASandwiched between Siberia and CHINA, Mongoliacomprises an area slightly larger than Alaska, with apopulation smaller than that of Los Angeles. Thename Mongol derives from an aggressive tribe, origi-nally led by Genghis Khan, which once ravaged Asiaand Europe as far west as the Black Sea andprompted China to build its Great Wall as a means ofdefense. Chinese Manchu rulers conquered Mongo-lia in the 17th century and held sway until theirexpulsion in 1912. Russian troops, aided by Mongo-lian communist rebels, arrived in 1921 and estab-lished a Red republic three years later. Theoreticallyindependent since 1945 Mongolia frequently sup-ported RUSSIA in political and military disputes withthe country’s traditional Chinese enemies. Mongo-lia’s democratic revolution, launched in 1989, pro-duced a multiparty (though still chiefly Communist)government in August 1990. Current rulers, com-bined as the Mongolian People’s RevolutionaryParty, still oppose movements for “radical” reform.

See also COMMUNISM.

MONROE, Marilyn (1926–1962)Arguably the most famous movie actress of all time,Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortensenon June 1, 1926. After spending two years in anorphanage (1935–37), she moved through a series offoster homes and married for the first time at age 16.She graced her first national magazine cover in April1944 and signed a contract with Fox studios fourmonths later, officially adopting her world-renownedscreen name at the same time.

Monroe was as famous for the details of her per-sonal life as for any work on stage or screen. Biogra-pher Anthony Summers suggests a love affair withrising political star John Kennedy in the early 1950s,and any such liaison would have drawn attentionfrom the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI).Ex-agent G. Gordon Liddy told Summers, years later,that “[t]he stuff on the [Kennedy] brothers and Mon-roe was very, very closely held” in Director J. EDGAR

HOOVER’s personal files. Monroe certainly enjoyed abrief affair with Kennedy after the 1960 presidential

election, reportedly meeting him more than once atthe home of Kennedy brother-in-law Peter Lawford.Hoover, in turn, warned President Kennedy thatLawford’s home “had very likely been bugged by theMAFIA,” but he neglected to mention that G-menwere also bugging the actor’s residence. JFK report-edly saw Monroe for the last time on May 19, 1962,in New York City.

The break-up did not signal an end to Monroe’slinks with the Kennedy clan, however. She soon pro-claimed herself in love with the president’s brother,Attorney General Robert Kennedy, once claimingthat Robert had promised to leave his wife andmarry Monroe. Recounting other conversations withthe high and the mighty, Monroe told friends that theKennedys wanted to replace Hoover with a new FBIdirector, but the move had been postponed until afterJFK won reelection in 1964. Monroe’s housekeeperafterward claimed that Robert Kennedy visited Mon-roe’s home on June 27, 1962. Six weeks later, onAugust 4, 1962, the actress was found dead from anapparent prescription drug overdose, variouslyreported as accidental, suicide, or murder.

Monroe’s death was rife with suspicious circum-stances: enigmatic phone calls to friends in her finalhours, canceled dinner plans, and eyewitness reportsof Robert Kennedy visiting her home with a man whocarried a doctor’s bag. Stories about her death conflictand contradict each other. Publicist Arthur Jacobswas allegedly summoned to Monroe’s home at 11P.M. on August 4, told that she was “dead or at thepoint of death,” yet housekeeper Eunice Murray didnot call Monroe’s doctor until 3:30 A.M. The doctorarrived at 3:40, but police were not alerted until 4:25A.M. Meanwhile, ambulance attendants claim theycarried Monroe from her home to a local hospital at2 A.M., leaving her death at home unexplained.

Coroner Thomas Noguchi found eight milligramsof chloral hydrate in Monroe’s blood and 13 milligrams of pentobarbital (Nembutal) in her livertissue, both amounts “well above fatal doses.” Oddly,though, Noguchi found “absolutely no evidence ofpills in the stomach or the small intestine,” and a“painstaking” search revealed no needle marks.Noguchi did report a “purplish discoloration” ofMonroe’s colon, prompting speculation by DistrictAttorney John Miner that “some portion of the drugswere introduced into the large intestine rather thanbeing swallowed.” Another curious aspect, noted byNoguchi, was a fresh bruise spanning Monroe’s lower

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back and hip which “might have indicated violence.”Such oddities notwithstanding, Noguchi concludedthat Monroe had committed suicide.

LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT (LAPD) ChiefWilliam Parker raised eyebrows at headquarterswhen he removed the case from detectives in theRobbery-Homicide Division and assigned it to the“spooks” in LAPD’s Intelligence Division. From thatpoint onward, future chief Tom Reddin recalled, noone outside of Intelligence “knew a bloody thingabout what was going on.” Mayor Sam Yorty askedto see the police file on Monroe but was told that it“could not be found.” Forty years later the file is stillmissing, its fate officially unknown. Conspiracistsspeculate that Monroe was murdered to prevent rev-elation of pillow-talk secrets shared by the Kennedybrothers, including various plots to assassinate FIDEL

CASTRO.See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

MORGAN dynastyThe patriarch of this dominant clan in internationalbanking was Junius Spencer Morgan (1813–60), aBritish subject who founded London’s house of J.S.Morgan and Company. Son John Pierpont Morgan(1837–1913) was born in Connecticut and educatedin Boston and at the University of Göttingen. During1857–60 J.P. Morgan served a brief apprenticeship atthe New York City banking house of Duncan, Sher-man & Co. and then moved on to serve as agent andattorney for his father’s partner, George Peabody,during 1860–64. A succession of lucrative partner-ships followed, climaxed with creation of J.P. Morgan& Co. in 1895. Affiliated banking firms—includingPhiladelphia’s Drexel & Co.; Morgan, Harjes & Co.in Paris; and Morgan, Grengell & Co. in London—made Morgan the first great international banker, afinancier with a controlling share of countless enter-prises. In the 1890s he funded the creation of theU.S. Steel Corporation, which absorbed AndrewCarnegie’s holdings and others to become the world’sfirst billion-dollar corporation. In 1895 Morgan also supplied the U.S. government with $62 millionin GOLD to support a bond issue and restore thetreasury surplus of $100 million. Seven years later Morgan purchased several Atlantic steamshiplines to create the first great transatlantic shippingcombine. Morgan’s banks were also instrumental infinancing America’s transcontinental railroads—and

they profited hugely from every scheme the railroadsused to swindle landowners and farmers, coast tocoast. Morgan’s pivotal involvement in industry andthe strike-breaking tactics of management made hima primary target of radicals and ANARCHISTS in theearly 20th century. In September 1920, a wagonloadof explosives shattered windows in the House ofMorgan, on New York’s Wall Street, but Morgan, Jr.,escaped injury and the crime remains unsolved. Mod-ern incarnations of the Morgan dynasty include theglobal banking house of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.,placed on federal probation in 2001 for its “leadingrole” in ENRON and other financial scandals. Anotherbranch, Morgan Stanley, was severed from J.P. Mor-gan to comply with NEW DEAL monopoly statutes in

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Banker Junius Morgan (1813–90) founded one of America’sgreat financial dynasties. His son John Pierpont Morgan, Sr.,(opposite page, top) (1837–1913) compounded the family’s fortune to become one of the richest men on Earth. JohnP. Morgan, Jr., (opposite page, bottom) (1867–1943) continued in his father’s footsteps and survived an anarchistbombing attempt on his life in 1920. (Author’s collection)

1935. In 1997, Morgan Stanley merged with DeanWitter Discover & Co., maintaining offices in theTwin Towers complex that was leveled in the PENT-TBOM attacks of September 11, 2001.

See also CHASE MANHATTAN BANK.

MORMONSMormonism—or the Church of Latter-Day Saints(LDS)—is an offshoot of mainstream Christianityconceived by “prophet” Joseph Smith, Jr., in theearly 19th century. According to Smith, as explainedin the 1830s, he experienced a series of visionsincluding personal conversations with Jehovah, JESUS

CHRIST, and various angels, all of whom selected himto revive “Christ’s true church” on Earth. Theirdetailed message was found, Smith said, on ancientgolden plates unearthed near his home in New York,which he translated with a special “peeping stone.”Eight other witnesses allegedly saw the gold plates,which strangely no longer exist. Critics point tocourt records, documenting Smith’s involvement invarious fraudulent treasure hunts prior to his greatrevelation, but believers generally ignore or deny thatsuspicious history.

Smith formally founded his church in April 1830and two months later produced a “new translation”of the Bible, which he called the Book of Mormon.His revision of the classic King James text, continu-ing for the remainder of his life, raised hacklesamong fundamentalist Christians and sparked perse-cution of Mormons wherever they settled. From NewYork, Smith led his flock to Ohio (1831–38), butmob action later prompted his flight to Missouri.There, further anti-Mormon violence—climaxed bythe bloody Haun’s Mill massacre—drove Smith andcompany to Nauvoo, Illinois. Smith fared no betterthere, lynched with his brother by a mob on June 26,1844. The prophet’s mantle fell next upon BrighamYoung, who led the faithful on a cross-country trekto find their promised land in the West. They chosepresent-day Utah, known to Mormons in those daysas Deseret, and established a theocracy that soonfound itself in conflict with the ever-expandingUnited States of America.

In the latter 1850s a “Mormon War” eruptedbetween Washington and Young’s regime in SaltLake City. A Mormon militia, the Danites (or“avenging angels”) ambushed U.S. troops, assassi-nated “gentile” travelers, and generally transformed

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Utah into a free-fire war zone during 1857–58. Nofinal tabulation of casualties is available, but thewar’s most notorious incident occurred at MountainMeadows in 1857. There, a wagon train of 140immigrants bound for California was attacked byDanites and an allied war party of Paiute Indians.The Mormons offered safe passage through their ter-ritory but then slaughtered the travelers as soon asthey disarmed. Only 17 children were spared,handed off to Mormon families for adoption. WhileSalt Lake authorities later admitted their responsibil-ity for the massacre, another 17 years elapsed beforea single defendant—Danite fanatic John Doyle Lee—was charged with the crime. Convicted alone, Leewas executed in 1877.

One major sticking point between Mormons andthe U.S. government was the LDS practice ofpolygamy, announced by Joseph Smith as “divinewill” in the early 1840s. Plural marriage was offi-cially repudiated by Mormon leaders before Utah’s

admission to the Union, but an uncertain number ofMormons still follow the custom today, strangelyunmolested despite their defiance of various bigamystatutes. Some outspoken polygamists have beenexcommunicated, but that religious punishment hasonly compounded their difficulty. Several outcastgroups now claim a “true prophet” as their leader,waging bloody internecine war against competingrivals across the United States and northern Mexico.One such cult, founded by exiled Mormon ErvilLeBaron, survived via theft and has committeddozens of murders from the 1960s through 1988,prompting journalists to dub LeBaron “the MormonManson.”

MOROCCOThe Berber homeland of Morocco was annexed byRome in A.D. 46, overrun by Vandals in the fifth cen-tury, and invaded by Muslim Arabs in 685. Native

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MOROCCO

Joseph Smith (left) abandoned a dubious business career to found the Mormon Church, following “divine revelations,”while Brigham Young (right) led the Mormon faithful to Utah and later fought a full-scale war against the U.S. governmentfor territorial supremacy. (Author’s collection)

Berbers accepted the new creed so enthusiasticallythat they joined the Arabs to invade SPAIN in 711 butthen revolted to expel Arab rulers in 1086. For thenext 200 years, until their expulsion in the 13th cen-tury, Berbers dominated large areas of MoorishSpain. At home, the Alawite dynasty—alleged linealdescendants of the prophet Muhammad—seizedcontrol of Morocco in 1660 and rule it to this day.Coveted by both sides during two World Wars,Morocco suffered French meddling in 1953 withthe ouster of Sultan Mohammed V, but nationalistupheaval secured his return two years later. In 1956both France and Spain recognized Morocco’s inde-pendent sovereignty, freeing the country to quarrelwith MAURITANIA over the right to rule and plunderSpanish (now Western) Sahara. Spain withdrewentirely from that territory in 1976, and Mauritaniasurrendered its final claims three years later. Rebelsof the Polisario Front then waged ceaseless waragainst Moroccan occupation forces until 1991when the UNITED NATIONS brokered a negotiatedcease-fire. Still, in 2002, King Mohammed VIdeclared that he “will not renounce an inch of”Western Sahara to native rule. In July of that yearMorocco flexed its military muscles by invading asmall, uninhabited island claimed by Spain offMorocco’s Mediterranean coast, but it could nothold the prize and Spanish troops soon routed theusurpers. On May 16, 2003, terrorist bombingskilled 40-odd victims at several targets in down-town Casablanca, including the Spanish consulateand a Jewish community center.

See also TERRORISM.

MOSSADThe Mossad (“institute” in Hebrew) is ISRAEL’s secretintelligence service. Created by Prime Minister DavidBen Gurion on April 1, 1951, as the Institute forIntelligence and Special Tasks, it was subsequentlyknown as the Central Institute for Coordination andthe Central Institute for Intelligence and Security.Headquartered in Tel Aviv the Mossad has primaryresponsibility for intelligence collection (spying),covert action, and counterterrorism. The institute isnaturally secretive about its personnel, but variouspublished membership estimates suggest a headquar-ters staff of 1,200 or more, with as many as 35,000agents worldwide (allegedly including 20,000 activespies and 15,000 “sleepers”).

Given Israel’s history of conflict with her Arabneighbors, the Mossad’s primary focus is Arab statesand militant organizations worldwide, but the insti-tute also spies on friendly nations (including theUnited States), and its agents were once well knownfor pursuit of Nazi fugitives who escaped thedefeated THIRD REICH after World War II. (Chiefamong Mossad’s triumphs in that regard was the1960 capture of ADOLF EICHMANN in ARGENTINA.)Mossad has also conducted state-sponsored terroristcampaigns against Arabs and others who are per-ceived as enemies of Israel, committing assassina-tions throughout the world. The institute’s WRATH

OF GOD was established in 1972 to punish BLACK

SEPTEMBER terrorists responsible for slaying Israeliathletes at the Munich Olympics, and while that unitwas ostensibly disbanded by 1979, assassinations inthe name of “self-defense” continue. More recentvictims, acknowledged or alleged, include Abu Jihad(a ranking member of the Palestine Liberation Orga-nization, killed in Tunis, 1988), GERALD VICTOR BULL

(murdered in Belgium during 1990 while preparing a“super gun” for IRAQ), and Khalid Meshaal (a leaderof the paramilitary group Hamas in JORDAN, injectedwith poison by an Israeli hit team, 1997).

Mossad’s six acknowledged departments includeCollections (in charge of espionage), Political Actionand Liaison (collaborating with friendly intelligenceservices), Special Operations (charged with “sensi-tive” tasks including murder and sabotage), Psycho-logical Warfare (including propaganda anddeception), Research (responsible for analysis andcollating of raw intelligence), and Technology (devel-opment of advanced equipment to assist Mossad).

See also TERRORISM.

MOTORCYCLE gangsAmerica’s first motorcycle gangs were organized inthe late 1940s by disaffected veterans of World WarII. The most famous of the gangs (or “clubs,” asthey prefer) is the Hells Angels, borrowing its namefrom a U.S. bomber squadron in Europe. Duringthe next two decades “outlaw” bikers—so called bylegitimate clubs that promote “family-style” outings—were viewed by police and civilians as nomadicbands of drunken, drug-addled hoodlums whoroamed the countryside at will, pausing to hazesmall towns and rape any women unlucky enoughto cross their path. By the early 1970s, however, a

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new vision of motorcycle gangs emerged, depictingthem as the latest evolutionary phase of organizedcrime.

And organized they surely are. With chapters span-ning the globe, the “Big Four” motorcycle gangs—Hells Angels, Bandidos, Pagans, and Outlaws—dominate the trade in bootleg methamphetamines(“speed” or “crank”) while maintaining lucrativesidelines in illegal weapons distribution and WHITE

SLAVERY. Many gang chapters run strip clubs, mas-sage parlors, and similar “sex-work” operationswhere young women—either from the gang’s “oldlady” ranks or kidnapped from the streets—aredrugged and put to work in circumstances reminis-cent of a concentration camp. Murders are frequentin the gang milieu. Hells Angels gunmen wear apatch that reads “Filthy Few” to denote memberswho have killed “for the club.” The various gangsalso perform contract murders and “muscle” servicesfor traditional crime syndicates such as the MAFIA. Atlast count, the major gangs were organized through-out North and South America, Europe, Australia,and parts of Africa.

Although some 900 outlaw biker gangs were rec-ognized in the United States during the 1970s, thefollowing groups achieved dominance in a chaoticfield and retain it today:

Hells Angels: Operating with the motto “Threecan keep a secret if two are dead,” the Angelshave expanded from their northern Californiaroots of 1947 to control a multimillion-dollarempire based on illicit, commercial sex and fear.They fight sporadically with other gangs forturf and over insults to inflated egos. No finaltally for gang murders is available, but hun-dreds have died in the long-running warbetween Hells Angels and rival members of theOutlaws gang. Canadian enforcer Yves(“Apache”) Trudeau confessed to 46 murdersat his arrest in the early 1980s. In December2003 state and federal agents staged coordi-nated raids against Hells Angels in Alaska, Ari-zona, California, Nevada, and Washington: Atleast 57 gang members were arrested in thesweep, which climaxed a two-year investigationinto drugs and gun smuggling.

Outlaws: This gang, founded in Chicago in 1959,presently maintains an estimated 34 chapterswith 900 members in the United States and

Canada. Sadistic mistreatment of women is acommon theme in Outlaw crimes, coupled witha marathon war against the larger and strongerHells Angels. Between 1974 and 1984 Outlawgunmen killed at least 95 persons in the statesof Florida and North Carolina alone, accordingto official estimates. Aside from commercialsex, significant sources of income include drugsales, gun running, mail fraud, and armed rob-bery. The gang’s motto is apt: “God forgives,Outlaws don’t.”

Bandidos: With 30 chapters and an estimated 500members, this gang operates throughout theUnited States and boasts a thriving offshoot inAustralia. Its motto—“We are the people ourparents warned us about”—seems humorous atfirst glance, but organized crime has been adeadly serious business for the Bandidos since1966. Texas-based and steeped in Angloracism, the gang’s constitution includes a pro-vision that “no fat Mexicans” may join thegroup. Official corruption protects the gang’sdrug trade in much of the United States, butterror is employed where money fails. Gangmembers wounded U.S. Attorney Jim Kerr ofTexas in a November 1978 machine-gunambush, and they were also blamed for theassassination of federal judge John Wood,killed by a sniper in May 1979. In September1984 a skirmish between Bandidos and rivalCommancheros left 7 dead and 21 woundedoutside Sydney, Australia.

Pagans: This gang evolved from another—theSons of Satan—in the early 1970s and todayhas some 900 members in 44 chapters along theEastern Seaboard. Its war with the rival War-locks gang claimed 15 lives in Pennsylvaniaduring 1974–75, and the same era saw Paganslinked to the serial murders of six women and ahalf-dozen Mafia-related bombings in the Key-stone State. Prodigious drug profits are supple-mented by income from mob “muscle” work inlabor racketeering and the pornography trade.

MOZAMBIQUEPORTUGAL “discovered” Mozambique—alreadyoccupied by Bantu tribes and Arab traders—in 1498and colonized the area in 1505. Lisbon held sway bytypically repressive measures until 1963 when a

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native guerrilla movement arose to challenge thecolonial regime. Some 40,000 Portuguese troops wereassigned to hunt the “terrorists” by 1973, but theyfailed at their task, and a cease-fire was arranged inSeptember 1974, followed by full independence inJune 1975. Guerrilla leader and first presidentSamora Moises Machel ran the new republic untilOctober 1986 when a plane crash claimed his life. Bythat time a new band of native rebels supported bywhite-racist SOUTH AFRICA—the MozambiqueNational Resistance—had virtually paralyzed govern-ment operations. President Joaquim Chissanó aban-doned the state’s long-term shift toward socialism in1989, thereby granting victory of a sort to the rebels(and, some said, to the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY under President George H. W. Bush). InNovember 1995 Mozambique became the first non-former British colony to join the British Common-wealth, but its problems continued. Famine and aseries of natural disasters during 2000–01 promptedPresident Chissanó to cancel his reelection campaign,whereupon independence hero Armando Guebuzawas chosen to lead Mozambique into a bleak future.In February 2004 a group of Catholic nuns in Nam-pula complained of receiving “some very clearthreats” to their lives after they publicly denounced aring of criminals trading in the sex organs of mur-dered children. The Sisters Servants of Mary Immacu-late claim to have spoken with intended victims whoescaped from the ritual-murder cartel, bearing photosof slaughtered children with their genitals excised foruse in black magic ceremonies.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; CATHOLIC CHURCH; TERRORISM.

MURDER IncorporatedBetween 1929 and 1934 prominent racketeers andbootleggers from every major U.S. city convened peri-odically to discuss formation of a cohesive nationalcrime syndicate. As a result of those meetings, leadersof the MAFIA and other ethnic gangs divided the coun-try into “territories”—discrete regions where individ-ual gangs or “families” reigned supreme. As an aideto gangland discipline the mobsters also established aBrooklyn-based team of contract killers, later dubbed“Murder Incorporated” by various reporters.

Murder Inc. grew from the “Bug and MeyerMob,” operated during PROHIBITION by gangstersBenjamin (“Bugsy”) Siegel and MEYER LANSKY, who

provided non-Italian gunmen during CHARLES

“LUCKY” LUCIANO’s war to “Americanize” theMafia. Under the new syndicate, control of theBrooklyn hit team was ceded to labor racketeerLouis (“Lepke”) Buchalter, assisted by MafiosoAlbert Anastasia (dubbed the “Mad Hatter” and the“Lord High Executioner”). The hit squad’s premiergunmen included Frank (“The Dasher”) Abban-dando, Louis Capone, Martin (“Bugsy”) Goldstein,Vincent (“Chicken Head”) Gurino, Seymour (“BlueJaw”) Magoon, Harry (“Happy”) Maione, Abe(“Kid Twist”) Reles, Harry (“Pittsburgh Phil”)Strauss, Allie Tannenbaum, and Charles (“The Bug”)Workman. All were credited with multiple murders,and Strauss alone is commonly deemed responsiblefor 100–150 slayings. Gunmen were paid a constantsalary plus fees of $1,000 to $5,000 per slaying, withpromises of legal representation and support fortheir families in the event they were arrested.

In 1940 New York district attorney Burton Turkusarrested Goldstein, Reles, and gunman Dukey Maffe-tore on murder charges. Believing that they would bemurdered to ensure their silence, the trio turnedstate’s evidence to save themselves and furnished evi-dence against their former comrades. Several MurderInc. gunmen were executed as a result of that testi-mony, and Lepke Buchalter himself took a seat inNew York’s electric chair on November 12, 1944—the only leader of organized crime ever executed byjudicial process in the United States. Albert Anastasiaescaped prosecution—either through official negli-gence or a corrupt deal with the prosecutor’s office;reports vary—and Lepke’s execution did not saveAbe Reles from mob retribution.

Although held under 24-hour police guard atConey Island’s Half Moon Hotel, Reles still met thefate shared by many informers. On November 12,1941, he plunged from the window of his room, leav-ing a dangling rope of knotted sheets behind, anddied on impact with another rooftop, several storieslower. No one believed his death was suicide, andReles had no motive to flee custody, but the detectiveson the guard detail had a novel theory: Kid Twist wasa practical joker, they said. Perhaps he climbed fromhis window with intent to sneak in through anotherroom and thus surprise them with his clever wit.Twenty years after the fact Lucky Luciano confirmedwhat reporters had long suspected: The detectivesguarding Reles were paid $50,000 to murder “thecanary who sang but couldn’t fly.”

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MUSLIM BrotherhoodFounded in 1928 after the collapse of the OttomanEmpire, the Muslim Brotherhood (or Society of Mus-lim Brothers) is a fundamentalist Islamic organiza-tion with “a political approach to Islam.” The groupopposes secular trends in Islamic nations, seeking areturn to basic principals of the Koran and a com-plete rejection of Western influence. Its motto reads:“Allah is our objective. The Prophet [Muhammad] isour leader. Koran is our law. Jihad [holy war] is ourway. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

From its beginnings as a youth organization inEGYPT, the Muslim Brotherhood expanded into SYRIA

by 1935 and today claims active branches in 70nations. The group was banned by law in Egypt aftera member assassinated Prime Minister MahmudNokrashi on December 28, 1948; police killed thegroup’s Egyptian leader two months later. Anothermember tried to kill Egyptian president Gamal AbdelNasser in October 1954, resulting in the arrest ofsome 4,000 Muslim Brothers. Syria’s branch of theorganization was banned for subversive activities in1958, revived in 1961, and then banned again in1963. Still the movement endured, leading strikes andconducting terrorist actions, killing 83 cadets at theAleppo artillery school in 1979, and attempting tomurder President Hafez al-Assad in June 1980. Assadthen launched a full-scale military purge of the Broth-erhood, killing an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 mem-bers and associates by February 1982. While theSyrian branch then dissolved, other members weresuspected in the public assassination of Egyptian president ANWAR AL-SADAT. A decade later, authoritiesin RUSSIA claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood was akey element in the Chechen revolt, and Brotherhoodmembers applauded the establishment of fundamen-talist Taliban rule in AFGHANISTAN. Spokespeople forthe Muslim Brotherhood claim active chapters in 70nations worldwide, though some are forced to oper-ate as covert cells.

See also TERRORISM.

MYANMARHistorically known as Burma, the Southeast Asiancountry of Myanmar was overrun by Kublai Khan’sMongol raiders in the 13th century. The Burmeseresisted incursions by European traders until the 19thcentury when agents of the British East India Com-pany waged three successive wars to capture natural

resources. Britain finally annexed Myanmar in 1886and bestowed formal colonial status in 1937. A keybattleground during World War II, Burma was liber-ated in January 1948. Leftist general Ne Win staged acoup in 1962, thereafter brutally suppressing opposi-tion as he charted the “Burmese way of socialism.” Aquarter-century of privation and brutality sparkedpublic uprisings in 1987–88 that were ruthlesslycrushed by the State Law and Order Council. Burma’smilitary rulers officially changed the country’s namein 1989, but the change brought no reform. Ruralguerrilla movements, led by ethnic Karens alongMyanmar’s border with THAILAND, have fought fordecades to secure basic rights. Meanwhile, govern-ment troops and the private armies of various HEROIN

warlords defend the nation’s primary (albeit illegal)cash crop. Despite a self-imposed ban on items manu-factured in Myanmar, described as a blow againstthat nation’s dictatorship, President George W. Bushpromoted his 2004 reelection campaign with sloga-neering T-shirts made in Burmese sweatshops.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

MY Lai massacreThe most notorious of American WAR CRIMES inVIETNAM occurred on March 16, 1968, when soldiers from Charlie Company, commanded byLieutenant William Calley, murdered at least 347Vietnamese civilians at My Lai, one of nine hamletssurrounding the larger village of Song My. None ofthe victims was armed, most being women, chil-dren, infants, and the elderly. Before death somevictims were tortured and raped. The slaughterended only when an army helicopter crew landedand intervened. The pilot, Warrant Officer HughThompson, Jr., threatened to open fire on Calley’ssoldiers if the massacre continued, and his gunners—Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn—supportedthe threat by aiming their machine guns at thekillers.

A preliminary “investigation” by Col. Oran Hen-derson failed to produce any disciplinary action, andthere the matter rested for six months until TomGlen, a soldier from the 11th Light Infantry’s“Butcher’s Brigade,” wrote a letter to his member ofCongress detailing various U.S. atrocities againstVietnamese civilians. Maj. Colin Powell—later U.S.commander in the GULF WAR and Secretary of Stateunder President George W. Bush—dismissed Glen’s

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charges with the observation that “relations betweenAmerican soldiers and the Vietnamese people areexcellent.” That administrative whitewash suppressedany further discussion of the incident until November12, 1969, when journalist Seymour Hersh broke theMy Lai story in print. Eight days later photos of themassacre in progress appeared in the Cleveland PlainDealer and were broadcast nationwide.

Belatedly, on March 17, 1970, 14 officers werecharged with suppressing evidence related to the MyLai massacre. All were eventually acquitted. Lieu-tenant Calley was convicted of murder and sentencedto life imprisonment, but President RICHARD NIXON

ordered his release from prison two days after theverdict was rendered. (Calley ultimately served threeand one-half years house arrest for his crime, anaverage of four days for each victim murdered.) Attrial Calley accused his commander, Capt. ErnestMedina, of ordering the massacre, but Medinadenied the charge at trial and was acquitted. Thirtyyears after the case, helicopter crewmen Thompson,Andreotta, and Colburn received the SoldiersMedal—the U.S. Army’s highest award for braverynot involving contact with the enemy—for their rolein stopping the slaughter. Their intervention was officially credited with saving 11 lives.

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NAMIBIAPortuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias “discovered”the African region of modern-day Namibia in the late15th century, but GERMANY seized control of thecolony in 1884 and massacred most of the indigenousGerero tribesmen in 1908. Boer and British forcesfrom SOUTH AFRICA seized the territory during WorldWar I, and the Treaty of Versailles made it a SouthAfrican mandate in 1920. Ever fond of ruling blackmasses, the whites-only government of South Africasought to incorporate Namibia as part of its territoryin 1946, but that move was rejected by the UNITED

NATIONS (UN). Nonetheless, legislation passed in1949 drew the country ever closer to Pretoria andunder the thumb of apartheid’s racist masters. SouthAfrica ignored a 1968 UN order to withdraw troopsfrom Namibia, thereby earning condemnation fromthe International Court of Justice. Despite emptythreats of UN intervention if they failed to institutetransfer of power to native Namibians by May 1975,South Africa’s leaders hung on for another 14 years,brutally crushing all forms of dissent. Namibia’s first-ever free elections were held in November 1989, withSam Nujoma installed as the country’s first presidentin February 1990. Still, turmoil continues: In 1999combat erupted between Namibian troops and sepa-ratists in the Caprivi Strip, a narrow stretch of landalong the Zambezi River; in 2000 Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo announced government plansto “eliminate gays and lesbians from the face of

Namibia,” and wholesale arrests of suspected homo-sexuals began in January 2001.

NATIONAL Security Agency (NSA)The NSA is America’s top official eavesdropper,responsible for collecting and analyzing “signal intel-ligence” from all forms of public and private com-munications via radio, telephone, the Internet, “andotherwise intercepted forms.” Its covert budget rivalsthat of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA),and it ranks as the world’s single largest employer ofmathematicians who are hired to digest and crackvarious codes. Although active under various namessince World War II and operating under its currenttitle since 1952, the NSA “puzzle palace” has main-tained a much lower profile than the CIA and otherU.S. intelligence agencies, and its existence was offi-cially denied by Washington for nearly two decadesafter the war. (One shopworn joke suggests that theinitials NSA stand for “No Such Agency.”) Directedby a series of generals and admirals since 1952, theNSA collaborated with corresponding agencies inAustralia, Britain, and New Zealand to maintain aglobal web of electronic ears, including the ECHELON

network. Civil libertarians condemn the NSA for vio-lating individual and group privacy rights; conspir-acists go further, suggesting manipulation orsuppression of data, widespread “disinformation”campaigns, and attempts at MIND CONTROL. NSA

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spokespeople, for the most part, are content to saynothing at all.

NATIONAL SocialismNational Socialism is a variant form of FASCISM,most infamous as GERMANY’s political system duringthe years 1933–45. Its primary vehicle was theNational Socialist German Worker’s (Nazi) Party, ledby ADOLF HITLER. Nazis believe that a nation is thehighest creation of a race; therefore, great nationsowe their power to great races. More specifically,Hitler and company advanced the Aryan “masterrace” as predestined rulers of the world, imbued witha divine right to subjugate weaker countries and“inferior” or “mongrel” races. The proof of superi-ority lay in warfare, in a theoretical world whereMight literally makes Right. Races without nationsof their own—specifically Jews and Gypsies in the1930s—were denounced as “parasitic” and markedfor extermination during the Holocaust. Despitetheir espousal of the “Socialist” label, Nazis shunnedall trappings of the typical socialist welfare state, dis-missing such programs as COMMUNISM. Germanindustrial giants such as FARBEN INDUSTRIES andKRUPP ARMS were not nationalized under Nazi rule,but rather profited hugely from their military con-tracts with the government while reaping benefitsfrom captive slave labor.

Despite Germany’s crushing defeat in 1945 and theexposure of Hitler’s WAR CRIMES, National Socialismendures as an extremist political movement in manynations today—including Germany, where it isbanned by law. Elements of Nazism have influencednationalistic and anti-Semitic groups from RUSSIA

throughout Europe to the Western Hemisphere. The“100-percent American” KU KLUX KLAN has praisedHitler since the late 1920s, and many Klan factionstoday are little more than neo-Nazi cliques. TheSouthern Poverty Law Center reported 65 neo-Nazigroups acting in the United States during 2002.Strangely, Nazism also enjoys a fan base of sorts inthe heart of Africa where black leaders in UGANDA

and ZIMBABWE have expressed admiration for Hitler.See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

NATION of IslamThe Nation of Islam (NOI), better known as theBlack Muslim sect, was founded in Detroit during

1930 by an itinerant evangelist named Wallace Fard.He preached a curious amalgam of Islam and sciencefiction, wherein “blue-eyed devils” (whites) were“grafted” from “Original Man” (blacks) by a pre-historic mad scientist. Doubts remain as to whetherFard himself was black or white, and one Chicagonewspaper report later described him as “a Turkish-born Nazi agent [who] worked for ADOLF HITLER inWorld War II.”

Fard vanished mysteriously in June 1934 and wasreplaced by disciple Elijah Muhammad. Muham-mad was arrested by FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION (FBI) agents for sedition in 1942, spendingfour years in federal prison. FBI surveillance on theNation of Islam continued for the next threedecades. In 1963 bureau memos claimed credit forthe rift between Muhammad and prominent NOIminister MALCOLM X. Federal harassment intensi-fied in 1967 when FBI Director J. EDGAR HOOVER

launched an illegal COINTELPRO campaign “toexpose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwiseneutralize” six black organizations, including theNOI. Hoover’s goal was to “prevent the rise of a‘messiah’ who could unify, and electrify, the mili-tant black nationalist movement.”

The movement split with Muhammad’s death in1974, one faction led by Louis Farrakhan, whileMuhammad’s son controlled a smaller off-shoot ofthe NOI. In early 1995 G-men accused QubilahShabazz, Malcolm X’s daughter, of hiring a killer toslay Farrakhan. Reporters trumpeted allegationsthat Farrakhan may have plotted Malcolm’s deathin 1965, but no proof of either conspiracy wasforthcoming. Evidence revealed that Michael Fitz-patrick, Farrakhan’s alleged would-be killer, actu-ally proposed the plot to Shabazz, while sheresisted the suggestion. In the past, it was dis-closed, Fitzpatrick had been jailed on cocainecharges and was once expelled from an ANARCHIST

group for carrying weapons to meetings and urgingthe group to plot bombings—in short, the typicalbehavior of an FBI agent provocateur. Shabazz’sattorney William Kunstler told the press, “There’sa puppeteer pulling the strings and there are lots ofpuppets out there.” Retired FBI agent Dan Scott,meanwhile, admitted “handling” Fitzpatrick as aninformant in the 1970s and called him “a highlycredible witness.” The charge against Shabazz wasdropped, thereby renewing rumors of an abortiveFBI frame-up.

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NETHERLANDSAfter centuries of conquest by various invaders—Rome’s JULIUS CAESAR, FRANCE, and SPAIN—theNetherlands (or Holland) finally won independence in1648. Anxious for profit and payback, it soon devel-oped into one of the world’s great trading nations andproceeded to build its own empire in the Dutch EastIndies (now INDONESIA). ADOLF HITLER ignored pleasof neutrality during World War II, subjugating theNetherlands along with the rest of Western Europe. Inthe meantime Japanese troops seized most of Hol-land’s Asian holdings, thus burning imperial bridgesthat could never be rebuilt. In 1949 Holland grantedindependence to the Dutch East Indies but retainedthe western half of New Guinea until 1963 when that,too, was surrendered to Indonesia. Stubborn refusalto liberate the South Moluccas Islands prompted actsof TERRORISM by separatists in Holland during the1970s, but the Dutch “empire” today stands reducedto the Caribbean islands of Aruba and the Nether-lands Antilles (Bonair and Curaçao). In 1999 Hollandstartled the world by legalizing euthanasia. Two yearslater WAR-CRIMES trials involving leaders of the for-mer YUGOSLAVIA convened in Holland at The Hague.Some observers called that move ironic, based on thenegligence of Dutch UNITED NATIONS (UN) troopsassigned as peacekeepers in BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA. InApril 2002 Wim Kok’s government resigned follow-ing publication of a report that Dutch troops failed toprevent a 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims at theUN “safe haven” near Srebrenica. One month laterKok’s replacement as prime minister—right-winganti-immigrant spokesman Pim Fortuyn—was pub-licly assassinated.

Immigration was also a factor in the November2004 assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo VanGogh, director of Submission, a film critical ofIslamic culture. Van Gogh’s alleged killer, MohammedBouyeri, whose trial began in January 2005, was aMuslim with reported ties to Islamic radicals and terrorists who may have had a hand in plotting themurder.

NEW DealIn U.S. history the term New Deal described Presi-dent Franklin Roosevelt’s (FDR) legislative attackon the Great Depression, intended to provide bothimmediate relief and long-term reforms in Americansociety. Stemming from the stock market crash of

1929, within four years the ensuing depressionincreased U.S. unemployment from 3 percent to 25 percent, while cutting industry’s output by 33percent. Shockwaves from the Wall Street fiascospread worldwide with varying effects. While Englandlaunched its first experiment with a planned nationaleconomy, ADOLF HITLER seized power in GERMANY,and Benito Mussolini tightened fascist controls overITALY’s corporate state. At home, right-wing criticsdenounced Roosevelt’s “new deal for the Americanpeople”—announced on the campaign trail in July1932—as a rush toward Socialism or COMMUNISM

on a par with JOSEPH STALIN’s ongoing collectiviza-tion efforts in RUSSIA. Extremist groups such as the KU KLUX KLAN, meanwhile, deplored FDR’sadministration for including Jews and members ofthe CATHOLIC CHURCH in high-ranking positionswhile making marginal concessions to black civilrights. New Deal initiatives condemned by wealthyindustrialists and right-wing propagandists includedthe following:

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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was accused by manyof his critics of using his New Deal programs to createsocialism in the United States. (Library of Congress)

U.S. bank holiday (1933), closing all banks untilthey were certified by federal auditors—a stepcondemned as “un-American” interference withfree enterprise.

Civilian Conservation Corps (1933), created toemploy unskilled young adults with the federalgovernment—denounced by social Darwinistsas upsetting a “natural balance” of success andfailure.

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (1933),providing breadlines and other aid for unem-ployed Americans in crisis—panned as a leaptoward state socialism.

Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933), which stabi-lized prices by paying farmers not to grow certain crops. While publicly condemned asanother assault on “natural order,” the act and later farm subsidy programs fattened thebankrolls of some wealthy planters, includingmany southern congressmen and senators whowere opposed to welfare for poor urban families.

Public Works Administration (1933), a counter-part to the Civil Conservation Corps, employ-ing middle-aged skilled workers on publicprojects—and condemned for identical reasons.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (1933),established to prevent future bank failures andinsure personal savings accounts—thus infuriat-ing sticky-fingered bankers.

Security and Exchange Commission (1933), a newwatchdog for Wall Street, despised by convictedand suspected inside traders.

Social Security (1935), providing financial assis-tance to the elderly, disabled, and unemployed—denounced by conservatives as more socialism,while such professional bigots as Eugene TAL-MADGE condemned the program as a giveawayto “shiftless” African Americans.

National Labor Relations Act (1935), outragingmanagement across the United States by grant-ing labor unions the legal right to exist.

Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), another allegedblow to “free enterprise,” establishing a 40-hour work week and the first U.S. minimumwage, fixed at 40 cents per hour.

Right-wing ideologues complain to this day thatFDR’s New Deal “destroyed” American freedom,although countless wealthy Americans have profitedimmensely from government programs in the decades

since the 1930s. Some crusaders still fight to roll backNew Deal programs 70-odd years after the fact.Texas governor George W. Bush, for example, frozehis state’s minimum wage at $3.35 per hour whilefederal standards increased to $5.15. As president, hestill seeks to “privatize” Social Security and Medicaidby removing taxpayers’ money from federal accountsand gambling it on the same stock market whosecrash in 1929 unleashed the Great Depression.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; FASCISM.

NEW Haven Police DepartmentWith a population of some 130,000, New Haven,Connecticut, barely qualifies as a “second-tier” city,but its police department was once second-to-none inillegal surveillance of political dissenters and minori-ties. Illicit wiretapping officially began in 1943,expanded in the late 1950s, and reached itsOrwellian apogee under Chief James Ahern during1968–70. By the time local journalists exposed theillicit eavesdropping in January 1974, an estimated3,000 targets had been placed under surveillance,with police intercepting more than 10,000 telephonecalls. Also implicated in the criminal campaign wereagents of the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

(FBI), officers of the Connecticut State Police, andemployees of the Southern New England TelephoneCompany (headquartered in New Haven). Mediaexposés prompted a February 1974 investigation byNew Haven’s Board of Police Commissioners, whosehearings “disclosed irrefuted [sic] evidence of a long-standing massive illegal wiretap operation conductedby the New Haven Police Department, during whichmany thousands of telephone calls were monitored.”Board counsel M. Mitchell Moore told reporters,“The number of people whose conversations havebeen intercepted is absolutely mind-boggling.” Oneof those targets was State Senator Joseph Lieberman,later elected to the U.S. Senate (1988) and chosen asthe Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate (inELECTION 2000).

The most egregious case of surveillance in NewHaven involved the local chapter of the BLACK PAN-THER PARTY. Court testimony revealed that policehad wired the apartment where FBI informer AlexRackley was murdered in 1969, but they failed torescue him from death by torture at the hands of fel-low radicals. Attempting to correct that oversight,prosecutors charged Panther boss Bobby Seale with

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conspiracy in Rackley’s slaying, but a judge dis-missed all charges against Seale and codefendantErica Huggins in May 1971. Four other Pantherspleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, while defen-dant Lonnie McLucas won reversal of his felony con-viction on appeal in 1975.

When New Haven’s wiretap network wasexposed, the U.S. Department of Justice promptly“investigated” and “exonerated” all FBI agentsinvolved in the campaign. Still, four G-men wereincluded, including Chief Ahern and various otherpolice officers, when 52 surveillance subjects filedfederal lawsuits in May 1977. Fourteen monthslater, Judge Jon Newman ordered release of wiretaprecords, thereby identifying some 3,000 victims.The case attained “class action” status in 1983 with1,238 plaintiffs, and Southern New England Tele-phone quickly settled out of court for $150,000(while still denying any wrongful acts). New Havenauthorities held out until April 1984 when they set-tled for $1.75 million. Chief Ahern’s own commen-tary revealed the folly of such indiscriminatesurveillance, which is still pursued today under theUSA PATRIOT ACT. He said:

We collected very little political data; we were not inter-

ested in it. Local police departments don’t have the

sophistication to gather political information and they

wouldn’t know what to do with it if they got it. If they

pass it on, it’s generally useless. Anybody who would

listen to their ideas about who’s politically dangerous

would have to be crazier than they are most of the time.

See also JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.

NEW Orleans Police DepartmentNew Orleans, Louisiana, is known as the “Big Easy”for a reason. Throughout its history an atmosphereof laissez-faire corruption has enveloped the CrescentCity, miring politicians, jurists, and police in amorass of payoffs and selective blindness where viceand organized crime are concerned. The city’s mostnotorious lynching, of 11 suspected MAFIA membersin 1891, followed the October 1890 murder of PoliceChief David Hennessy by unknown assassins. Ini-tially exalted as a martyr, Hennessy is now widelyregarded as a crooked cop who backed one mob“family” against another and paid with his life forthe error. While that crime caused an acrimonious

rift between the United States and ITALY, it failed todrive the Mafia or graft out of New Orleans.

In the 1930s “Kingfish” HUEY LONG collaboratedwith New York mobsters MEYER LANSKY and FrankCostello to promote illegal gambling in New Orleans,protected by corrupt police. Organized crime in the Crescent City was later controlled by CARLOS

MARCELLO, a mob boss whose reach extended toTexas where he was implicated in the JFK ASSASSINA-TION and the murder of LEE HARVEY OSWALD by long-time mob member JACK RUBY. Indeed, many leadsfrom President Kennedy’s murder led back to NewOrleans where District Attorney Jim Garrison filedconspiracy charges against businessman Clay Shaw (a sometime employee of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY) in 1967. Shaw was acquitted at trial, whilethe LIBERAL MEDIA devoted itself to branding Garri-son as a Marcello employee.

When not engaged in covering for mobsters, NewOrleans police were zealous enforcers of racial-segre-gation statutes through the late 1960s, perenniallyunable to capture white terrorists affiliated with theKU KLUX KLAN and the CITIZENS’ COUNCILS. Womenof all races likewise suffered at the hands of NewOrleans’s finest under a sadistic practice that crimereporter Hank Messick dubbed “rape by rank.” Asrevealed by Messick in his 1971 biography of MeyerLansky, New Orleans cops often lined up to rapeattractive female prisoners, with captains going first,trailed by lieutenants, sergeants, and lowly patrol-men. In the 1960s local police diverted their atten-tion to “radicals,” mounting illegal surveillance onhundreds of targets, then (in the words of the city’schief intelligence officer) distributing their informa-tion to “every conceivable authority that might havean interest in causing prosecution or further investi-gation of these persons.”

By the 1980s incessant scandals dogged NewOrleans police. Aside from mundane corruption, twoofficers received death sentences in separate murdercases; a third cop was suspected (then exonerated) inthe serial murders of 24 black women. Cycles ofreform and relapse apparently changed nothing during the next two decades. On July 1, 2003, USAToday reported that a local grand jury was assigned toinvestigate “an overzealous clean-out” of the policeevidence room. Missing items included critical evidence in ongoing rape and murder investigations.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

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NEW World OrderVarious world leaders have been credited with coin-ing this controversial phrase during the past three-quarters of a century. The candidates include dictatorADOLF HITLER (1930s); the Duke of Windsor, for-merly King Edward VIII of England (1940); Presi-dent Dwight Eisenhower (1956); presidentialcandidate Nelson Rockefeller (1968); PresidentRICHARD NIXON (1972); TRILATERAL COMMISSION

member Richard Newton Gardner (1974); presiden-tial candidate Jimmy Carter (1976); and RussianPresident Mikhail Gorbachev (1988). Despite thatconfusion, most users of the term today trace its ori-gin to a speech delivered by President George H. W.Bush before the UNITED NATIONS (UN) on September11, 1990. Addressing concerns raised by IRAQ’srecent invasion of KUWAIT before launching the GULF

WAR to repel (but not unseat) SADDAM HUSSEIN, Bushtold the UN:

A new partnership of nations has begun. We stand

today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis

in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, offers a rare oppor-

tunity to move toward an historic period of coopera-

tion. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective—a

New World Order—can emerge. . . . When we are suc-

cessful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this

New World Order, an order in which a credible United

Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the

promise and vision of the United Nations’ founders.

Conspiracists, chiefly members or adherents offar-right U.S. MILITIAS, saw Bush’s statement as a callfor establishment of the same “one-world govern-ment” that members of the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY andother reactionary groups had predicted since the1950s. Researchers debate the significance of suchevents as COMMUNISM’s collapse in RUSSIA and theratification of free-trade agreements to the progressof a hypothetical New World Order, but no hard evidence of any trend toward one-world governmentexists today. Likewise, while some researchersviewed the timing of Osama bin Laden’s catastrophicPENTTBOM attacks—11 years to the day after Bush’sspeech to the UN, son and successor George W. Bushseemed intent on isolating the U.S. rather than forg-ing a global alliance. In announcing his invasion ofIraq, curiously dubbed OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM,Bush, Jr., declared the United Nations “irrelevant” toU.S. military actions abroad—a move that failed to

deter some critics from casting him as another agentof the globe-girdling conspiracy.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY; ROCK-EFELLER CLAN.

NEW York Police Department (NYPD)From its establishment in the 19th century, the NYPDhas been embroiled in controversy concerning endemiccorruption and systematic illegal harassment of politi-cal dissenters. Graft and criminal activity by officers atevery level of the force were predictable in a city whereTAMMANY HALL and the TWEED RING set a nationalstandard for corrupt political machines, enlisting mem-bers of the MAFIA and various STREET GANGS to sub-vert the democratic process while protecting crime ofevery kind. Full-scale investigations of corruptionamong New York’s “finest” were mounted in 1875and 1884, with an 1886 report on flagrant vice, declar-ing that “obviously, such conditions prevailed becauseof police graft.” Police Superintendent William Murrayled the pack in those days and blithely refused toexplain how he had banked $300,000 ($6 million intoday’s dollars) on a yearly salary of $3,500. In 1912Lieutenant Charles Becker was sentenced to death forarranging the contract murder of a gambler who blewthe whistle on police shakedowns. PROHIBITION onlyexacerbated police corruption in the Big Apple, assticky-fingered cops competed for payoffs from boot-leggers, including the leaders of the East Coast’s BIG

SEVEN combination. In 1941 MURDER INCORPORATED

prosecution witness Abe Reles “accidentally” fell to hisdeath from a hotel window while under guard by sixNYPD officers; years later, mob boss CHARLES

“LUCKY” LUCIANO admitted that the guards were paid$50,000 to give Reles the toss. Investigation of the“French Connection” HEROIN pipeline revealed morecrooked cops in 1962, followed by similar revelationsin 1970 and a full-scale investigation of cops “on thepad” by New York’s Knapp Commission in 1972.Nothing had changed by 1992 when a group ofHarlem officers dubbed the “Dirty Thirty” sold protec-tion to ghetto drug dealers, beating and robbing thosewho declined the “service.”

On the political front President William McKin-ley’s murder by an anarchist in 1901 launched theNYPD’s first campaign to drive all “radicals” out ofthe city. The Anarchist Squad, formally established in1906, soon broadened its attacks to include laborunions of all kinds. The city’s first Bomb Squad was

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created in August 1914 to infiltrate leftist organiza-tions, and two years later newspapers revealed thatthe NYPD had tapped at least 350 phones since1895. In 1919 the Bomb Squad collaborated withFEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) agents andright-wing vigilantes in the PALMER RAIDS. Between1930 and 1960, the Red Squad and the Bureau ofSpecial Services (BOSS) shared information with theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY and Military Intelli-gence. In one such case 13 members of the BLACK

PANTHER PARTY were accused of plotting terroristattacks throughout New York City and environs;they were indicted largely on the word of paidinformers. The case collapsed at trial in May 1971when jurors needed only 90 minutes to acquit eachdefendant on all 156 felony counts.

In fact May 1971 was a turning point for illegalpolice surveillance and harassment in New York, asplaintiffs in the Handschu case accused BOSS (latelythe Special Services Division) of countless constitu-tional abuses. In February 1973 a federal courtdeclared that infiltration of political organizationsrequired a “probability of certain crimes being com-mitted” by the subjects. Thousands of NYPDdossiers on private citizens were then allegedlydestroyed, but the case dragged on until March 1985when Judge Charles Haight approved a settlementpackage that barred NYPD from further politicalspying. Nonetheless, old habits die hard, and sum-mer 1987 brought revelations that the illicit surveil-lance continued, at least in respect to black activistswho criticized police racism. Police spokespeopleadmitted the violations in December 1987, and thenew accusations were upheld by court findings inJuly 1989. Today, in the wake of the tragic PENT-TBOM attacks and passage of the USA PATRIOT ACT in2001, full-scale political surveillance has resumed inNew York City.

See also ANARCHISTS; BUSH DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

NICARAGUAThe U.S. government has long regarded Nicaragua,in Central America, as one of its unofficial posses-sions. Throughout the 20th century U.S. troops were repeatedly dispatched to invade Nicaragua insupport of American business interests and the“friendly” rulers that supported them with taxbreaks, kickbacks, and supplies of virtual slavelabor. The first such invasion occurred in 1909,

followed by arrival of a “small” U.S. Marine detach-ment that remained in Nicaragua from 1912 to1925. The troops returned in 1927 to pursue freedom-fighter César Augusto Sandino, this time remainingto wage war through 1933. General AnastasioSOMOZA Garciá finally assassinated Sandino, where-upon he was rewarded with appointment (in 1936)as dictator for life. Few regimes in the WesternHemisphere have been more brutal, more corrupt—or more ardently supported by Washington. At hisdeath in 1967 Somoza was succeeded by his equallycorrupt and ruthless brother, Anastasio SomozaDebayle. Twelve years later, an insurgent movementnamed for Sandino—the Sandinistas—launched astruggle to unseat Somoza, driving him from thecountry on July 17, 1979. A liberal Sandinista gov-ernment was installed two days later, but it soonfaced opposition from Washington. Three days aftertaking office in January 1981 President RONALD

REAGAN suspended U.S. aid to Nicaragua, citing(false) reports that the Sandinistas (with aid fromRUSSIA and CHINA) were fomenting revolution in EL

SALVADOR. Reagan’s remedy was a long-runningcampaign of state-sponsored terrorism againstNicaragua, coordinated by the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY and carried out by Somoza support-ers dubbed “contras.” Congress subsequentlybanned funding of the contra criminals, but Reaganand Vice President George H.W. Bush continued illegal funding of the campaign via covert channelsin the IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIRACY. After nearly adecade of terrorism and economic destabilizationanti-Sandinista forces won the general election of1990 and installed Violetta Barrios de Chamorro aspresident. Perhaps predictably, the flagrant corrup-tion of that regime soon disillusioned even right-wing business interests in Nicaragua, and newpresident Arnoldo Alemán was elected in 1996.Alemán lost his reelection bid in 2000 and wasindicted two years later on charges of stealing $10million from the government during his four years inoffice. Nicaragua remains one of the poorest nationsin the Western Hemisphere today.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

NICOTINEDiseases related to use of tobacco kill thousands ofAmericans and millions of persons worldwide everyyear. The addictive properties of nicotine, a drug

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naturally occurring in tobacco, have been recog-nized for generations; yet spokespersons for varioustobacco companies and their lobbyists from theWashington-based Tobacco Institute insist to thisday that the case against tobacco is “unproved.” Inthe 1990s assembled presidents of the United States’largest tobacco producers went so far as to swearunder oath before Congress that they did not believethat their product was addictive. That bizarre per-formance ended with the publication of internaldocuments proving that several firms had secretlyincreased nicotine levels in their cigarettes with theapparent goal of hooking lifelong addicts at ayounger age. With those damning documents inhand, President Bill Clinton’s Medicaid administra-tion filed federal lawsuits against the tobacco indus-try in November 1998 to recover tobacco-relatedhealth-care costs on behalf of 46 U.S. states. (Fourother states settled their claims separately.) Majortobacco firms approved out-of-court settlementstotaling $206 billion, but the lion’s share of thatamount remained unpaid when ELECTION 2000

arrived to make the U.S. safe for nicotine purveyors.That year’s presidential race was critical to U.S.

tobacco companies, a fact made clear by the indus-try’s donation of at least $13,954,557 to Republicancontender George W. Bush. (Democrats, meanwhile,received a relatively paltry $2,096,881 from twotobacco companies.) Bush’s sympathy for bigtobacco was suggested by the fact that three of histop campaign staffers—including chief adviser KarlRove, confidante Charles Black, and business liaisonofficer Kirk Blalock—were former employees ofBush’s top contributor, the Philip Morris tobaccocompany. The industry reaped its rewards as soon asBush took office, courtesy of a 5-4 vote by the U.S.SUPREME COURT. As Secretary of Health and HumanServices, Bush appointed ex-governor of WisconsinTommy Thompson, who cheerfully accepted$72,000 and several free international vacationsfrom Philip Morris while in office (1993–2000).Another Bush appointee, JOHN ASHCROFT, was afriend of big tobacco who in 1998 cast the sole dis-senting vote against a U.S. Senate committee’s deci-sion to approve debate on a tobacco settlement bill.As attorney general, Ashcroft did everything withinhis power to scuttle the Clinton-era JUSTICE DEPART-MENT’s tobacco litigation. Howard Beales, appointedby Bush to head the Federal Trade Commission’sconsumer protection bureau, was a former consult-

ant for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco (Bush’s fourth-largestcontributor in 2000), who once penned an articledenying that his company’s “Joe Camel” advertise-ments were directed at minors. Meanwhile, Bush’strade office reversed Clinton’s policy of limiting U.S.tobacco exports, attacking South KOREA’s tariff onU.S. cigarettes as “unfair treatment” of Philip Morrisand R.J. Reynolds.

Those moves might have seemed ill advised in Jan-uary 2003 when the Journal of Clinical Investigationreported that nicotine was not only addictive butalso a major cause of lung cancer in smokers. Fivemonths later the Centers for Disease Controlannounced that Marlboro cigarettes (produced byPhilip Morris and ranked as top sellers in 13 foreigncountries) contained “significantly higher levels” ofthe carcinogen nitrosamine than did any otherbrand. CDC spokespersons called their findings “thelatest example of the tobacco industry’s reckless dis-regard for the health” of its customers, but cigarettepurveyors and their political allies had no comment.While the American Society of Clinical Oncologistscalled for an immediate $2-per-pack tax increase oncigarettes to curb smoking, predicting that tobacco-related disease will kill 1 billion victims in the 21stcentury (compared to a mere 100 million in the20th), Bush partisans opposed all efforts by theWorld Health Organization to curb smoking or tostop tobacco advertising aimed at children.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; CLINTON, BILL AND

HILLARY.

NIDAL, Abu (1935– )Before Osama bin Laden captured headlines as theworld’s preeminent terrorist bogeyman in the mid-1990s, Abu Nidal was the alleged prime moverbehind many Arab attacks against ISRAEL and U.S.interests abroad. Born Sabry Khalil Bana in 1935, ason of prosperous middle-class parents in Jaffa,Palestine, Nidal saw his family uprooted with thou-sands of other Arabs when the state of Israel wasestablished in 1948. The Banas settled in LEBANON

where Sabry studied at American University. In 1967he joined FATAH and quickly rose to a command rankin that militant organization and assumed the nameAbu Nidal (“Father of the Struggle,” in Arabic).Seven years later doctrinal squabbles with YasserArafat led Nidal to create his own Fatah Revolution-ary Council, which tried to assassinate Arafat in

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1974. Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organizationretaliated with a contract on Nidal, and the twogroups remained antagonistic through the 1980s.Nidal’s agents were ultimately blamed for killingPLO representatives in England, FRANCE, KUWAIT,and PORTUGAL.

That fratricidal conflict did not keep Nidal fromhis primary targets, however. At various times hisguerrillas operated as members of the Arab Revolu-tionary Brigades, Black June, and the RevolutionaryOrganization of Socialist Muslims, coupling attackson Israel with hits on Jews, Egyptians and Jordani-ans in AUSTRIA, France, and ITALY. All told, someanalysts believe that Nidal’s hunters may havekilled 900 persons in 20 nations. Much of Nidal’sfinancial support in the 1970s and 1980s allegedlycame from Libyan dictator MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFFI, but Nidal also maintained guerrillatraining camps in Lebanon and SYRIA. With a pri-vate army of 500 fighters in 1985, Nidal told aKuwaiti journalist, “Give me $400 million and infive years I’ll change the face of the Middle East.”Nidal’s fate is uncertain, surrounded by rumor anddisinformation. He apparently survived a heartattack and cardiac surgery in 1992, and subsequentreports of his death from cancer are generally dis-missed as false. In 2002 another story circulatedthat Nidal had committed suicide (or had been shotby SADDAM HUSSEIN’s police) in Baghdad, IRAQ.Thus far, that tale remains unsubstantiated, butWestern intelligence agents no longer regard Nidalas a “player” on the Middle Eastern stage.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY.

NIGERAn arid land inhabited primarily by nomadic tribes,Niger was annexed by FRANCE in 1896 to become apart of French West Africa. Though often rootless itsnatives resented the move and rebelled frequently butto no avail. French troops suppressed dissent by anymeans necessary, and Niger became a formal Frenchcolony in 1922. So Niger remained until 1959 whenits people successfully opposed assimilation into theFrench community and declared independence. Ura-nium mining fattened the country’s coffers, whilesimultaneously luring the greedy to seats of power.Military putschists ousted President Hamani Diori in1974, but their regime was so corrupt and incompe-tent that famine ensued, placing two million persons

at risk of starvation. Civilian government wasrestored in 1976, but another military coup reversedthat decision in January 1996. Seven months later arigged election installed junta leader Ibrahim BaréMaïnassara as head of a corrupt and ineffectual gov-ernment. Maïnassara’s own bodyguards killed him inApril 1999, and democratic elections were held inNovember. In July 2002 mutinous soldiers seized thecapital (Niamey) and several army garrisons,demanding back pay and improved work conditions,but their revolt was crushed with three mutineerskilled and 220 arrested.

NIGERIABritish forces seized the Lagos region of Nigeriafrom the Fulani Empire in 1851 and overran the restof the country by 1886. In 1914 on the eve of WorldWar I London formally announced creation of theColony and Protectorate of Nigeria. So it remaineduntil the grant of independence, on October 1,1960, but freedom brought no end of problems tothe country. With 250 ethnic and linguistic groupsperpetually at odds, there was—and is—no shortageof upheaval in Nigeria. Rioting prompted a militarycoup in 1966 while Muslim Hausas slaughteredChristian Ibo tribe members in eastern Nigeria. Thatregion declared independence as Biafra in May 1967but surrendered in January 1970 after 31 months ofgenocidal civil war. An OIL boom in the 1970sbrought prosperity and encouraged a return to civil-ian government, but another military coup reversedthat trend in 1984. Dictator Ibrahim Babangidapromised a reversion to civilian rule in 1993, but theresults of that year’s election displeased him, so hevoided the results. The ruling junta’s corruption,brutality, and general incompetence promptedUNITED NATIONS inspectors to declare in 1996 thatNigeria’s “problems of human rights are terrible andthe political problems are terrifying.” Still, its strongmilitary established Nigeria as a superpower in WestAfrica, enabling it to intervene at will in the civilwars of LIBERIA and SIERRA LEONE. Iron-handedrepression continues at home, where writer KenSaro-Wiwa was hanged in 1995 for criticizing thepresent regime. A general amnesty for political prisoners in May 1999 was closely followed by the suspicious death of opposition leader MashroodAbiola, jailed since 1993. A return to “democratic”rule in 1999 has not resolved Nigeria’s official

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corruption or extravagance—epitomized by the con-struction of a $330 million soccer stadium in 2001,consuming the entire national budget for health andeducation. Incessant fighting between Christians andMuslims has killed more than 10,000 Nigerianssince 1999, despite government vows to “crackdown” on domestic TERRORISM. The April 2003presidential election was marked by more bloodshedand widespread accusations of fraud. Abroad,Nigerian gangs are now ranked among the mostaffluent and brutal HEROIN dealers in Europe andthe United States.

NIGHT of the Long KnivesA year after ADOLF HITLER ascended to power aschancellor of GERMANY, conflict developed betweenHitler’s subordinates for dominant positions in thenew THIRD REICH. Aligned on one side of the strugglewere Hermann Göring, SS chief HEINRICH HIMMLER,and GESTAPO leader Reinhard Heydrich; opposingthat cartel was Ernst Röhm, commander of Hitler’sbrown-shirted Sturmabteilung (“storm troopers,” orSA). Already under pressure from National Socialistbackers to dispose of Röhm because Röhm and someof his leading SA subordinates were homosexuals,Hitler accepted fabricated evidence from Himmlerthat Röhm planned a putsch to unseat Hitler andmake himself the new Führer of Germany. On thenight of June 29–30, 1934, memorialized as theNight of the Long Knives (Nacht der langen Messerin German), Hitler led an SS strike force to arrest andexecute an uncertain number of SA members. Röhmwas among those killed, with estimates of the finalbody count ranging from 77 victims (the official tab-ulation) to 400 or more. Hitler legalized the slaugh-ter retroactively with a Law Regarding Measures ofState Self-Defense passed on July 3, its single para-graph declaring the “measures taken” against Röhmand company “legal State self-defense.” Hitler pub-licly announced the massacre on 13 July, claimingthat 61 persons had been executed, 13 shot whileresisting arrest, and three committed suicide. Inreporting the purge, he said:

If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort

to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this:

In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the Ger-

man people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of

the German people.

On July 26, 1934, the SS was formally severedfrom the SA, with Himmler appointed as Reichs-führer, answering only to Hitler. Victor Lutzereplaced Röhm as chief of the dwindling SA, his unitsoon marginalized and effectively emasculated withinthe Nazi state.

See also NATIONAL SOCIALISM.

NIXON, Richard (1913–1994)Born in ultraconservative Orange County, Califor-nia, on January 9, 1913, Richard Nixon was raisedas an evangelical Quaker by his mother, who hopedhe would become a missionary. Instead, he gradu-ated from law school in 1937 and was threatenedwith disbarment during his first case by a judge whoaccused him of mishandling a client’s funds. Nixonabandoned his religion’s pacifist tenets in 1942 tojoin the U.S. Navy, from which he was discharged in1946 with the rank of lieutenant commander. Henext found work as an attorney for the Pepsi-ColaCompany but soon turned his eye to politics wherehis dearth of ethics earned him the nickname“Tricky Dick.”

In November 1946 Nixon defeated incumbentCalifornia congressman Jerry Voorhis in a cam-paign where Nixon falsely branded his opponent“soft on COMMUNISM.” In the House of Represen-tatives (1947–50) he served as a member of theHOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES andearned a Red-hunting reputation in the ALGER HISS

case. In 1950 Nixon moved up to the U.S. Senate,defeating incumbent Helen Gahagan (whom hedubbed the “Pink Lady” for alleged Communistsympathies). Republican presidential candidateDwight Eisenhower chose Nixon as his runningmate in 1952, but exposure of Nixon’s personalcorruption (including a slush fund collected fromdonors who included billionaire HOWARD HUGHES)threatened the campaign until Nixon offered a tear-ful quasi-apology on television. As vice president(1953–61), Nixon faced riotous mobs in LatinAmerica and scored points with conservatives foran acrimonious debate with Russian Premier NikitaKhrushchev. Supported by major OIL companiesand the INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAM-STERS, Nixon ran for president in 1960 and lostnarrowly to John Kennedy in an election swayed by the Chicago MAFIA and Mayor RICHARD JOSEPH

DALEY’s corrupt political machine.

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Embittered by that loss, Nixon ran for governor ofCalifornia two years later and in the wake of thatdefeat told reporters, “You won’t have Dick Nixonto kick around any more.” Retired to the practice oflaw (which coincidentally placed him in Dallas,Texas, on the morning of the JFK ASSASSINATION),Nixon forgot his vow in 1968 and opposed VicePresident Hubert Humphrey in another race for theWhite House. Victorious that time, he escalated theU.S. war in VIETNAM while selling ambassadorshipsto the highest bidders and issuing a near-record num-ber of pardons to members of organized crime.Domestic antiwar protests prompted Nixon to con-ceive the HUSTON PLAN for sweeping illegal surveil-lance, but the plot was scuttled by jealous FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Director J. EDGAR HOOVER.“Tricky Dick” reappeared with a vengeance in the

1972 election campaign, with a COMMITTEE TO

REELECT THE PRESIDENT which specialized in “dirtytricks” including burglary, illegal wiretaps, smearcampaigns, and an abortive plot to burn the BROOK-INGS INSTITUTION. Nixon’s chicanery climaxed in theWATERGATE scandal, which failed to prevent hisreelection but nonetheless doomed his presidency. Asdetails of the far-flung political conspiracy emergedand Vice President SPIRO AGNEW resigned to facecriminal charges in Maryland, the U.S. House con-vened to vote on charges of impeachment. Nixonavoided that humiliation by resigning from office onAugust 9, 1974, and received a preemptive pardonfrom Vice President Gerald Ford for any and allcrimes he may have committed.

Back in semiprivate life, Nixon sought to rehabili-tate himself as a public speaker and author of vari-ous “nonfiction” books that cast his career in afavorable light. Strangely, many doyens of the so-called LIBERAL MEDIA appeared to accept his newpersona, consulting Nixon as a senior statesman on avariety of political and foreign policy issues. Follow-ing his death from a stroke on April 22, 1994, Nixonwas honored with services in Washington, attendedby President Bill Clinton and four predecessors. Sig-nificantly, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library inYorba Linda, California, contains only Nixon’s pre-and postpresidential papers. All documents from hisWhite House years remain in Washington, archivedas criminal evidence.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY; KENNEDY

DYNASTY.

NOAH’S ArkEvery Jew and Christian knows the Old Testamenttale of Noah and the flood that was allegedlyunleashed by God to cleanse the Earth of sin. Fore-warned of the impending disaster, Noah supposedlybuilt a wooden ship (the Ark) to divine specifica-tions, approximately 425 feet long, 71 feet wide, and43 feet tall. Within that craft, on three interior deckswith a total floor space of some 90,500 square feet(by a generous estimate), Noah collected two speci-mens “of every living thing of all flesh,” male andfemale, to repopulate Earth after the deluge. Theo-logical debate endures to this day concerning suchmatters as (a) how animals from distant continentsreached Noah’s boatyard in the Middle East; (b) howhe crowded millions of specimens (many mutually

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Richard Nixon’s long career of financial and political corruption climaxed with the notorious Watergate scandal. (The White House)

hostile) into the ship, together with six weeks’ foodfor each creature (including carnivores); and (c) howhe accommodated thousands of freshwater and salt-water aquatic species. Those arguments do not con-cern us here since no persuasive evidence suggeststhat the flood of Genesis ever occurred, but thesearch for proof of Noah’s great adventure nowincludes a rumor of conspiracy.

In modern times sundry explorers haveannounced discovery of Noah’s moldering ark atvarious points between TURKEY’s Mount Ararat andETHIOPIA, but each in turn fell short of proving hiscase. An explanation for those failures wasadvanced by the Russian newspaper Pravda on Jan-uary 30, 2003. According to that article, Noah’sArk was located by the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY (CIA) sometime in the late 1940s and“secretly delivered to the territory of some U.S. mil-itary base.” Alleged ex-CIA employee Dino Bru-gioni was quoted with respect to classified photosof “three huge curved beams” found on MountArarat, but the article further alluded to “notoriousdeclassified materials” dating from 1992 thatallegedly described a covert operation “supportedby the late astronaut James Irvin” that “lasted forseveral years.” Questions unanswered by thebreathless exposé include the motive for CIA inter-est in biblical relics and the simple mechanics ofwooden beams surviving some 6,500 years, exposedto harsh weather. Pravda itself apparently haddoubts about the story, asking its readers: “Couldthis be true? Goodness knows.”

NO Gun Ri massacreOn June 25, 1950, military forces from NorthKOREA crossed the 38th parallel into the southernhalf of that once-united country, driving both U.S.and South Korean forces farther southward by theday. U.S. commanders, frightened by the prospectof Communist infiltrators among the hordes of flee-ing civilians, issued secret (and illegal) orders toshoot any civilians who approached U.S. militaryunits in the field. Those orders were carried outwith a vengeance on July 26–29, 1950, when U.S. armed-service members killed an estimated 400 civilians at No Gun Ri village. Evidence of the slaughter was concealed until September 1999when U.S. veterans finally confessed the killings to Associated Press reporters. Subsequent official

documentation revealed that 83 percent of the vic-tims were women, children, and elderly men; a full20 percent were described as infants and childrenunder 10 years of age. While humanitarians world-wide condemned the massacre and the 49-yearcover-up, reports of similar events began to surface.

Sung Yong Park, a minister of the KoreanMethodist Church and representative of the Con-gress for Korean Reunification, claims to possessevidence of 37 other massacres committed by U.S.forces in South Korea. Park calls No Gun Ri as “thetip of the iceberg” in U.S. WAR CRIMES of the Koreanconflict, citing other cases that include: a U.S. AirForce bombing of Iksan on July 11, 1950, that left54 civilians dead and 300-plus wounded; killings of64 victims, with 43 wounded, at Chojang-ri on July29, 1950; army demolition of bridges spanning theNaktong River that killed hundreds on August 3,1950; bombings around Bobuk-myon that killed 49and wounded 90 on January 19, 1951; the slaying of100 persons, with another 100 wounded, at Jangji-rion August 20, 1950; air raids on a cavern shelternear Youngchoon that killed 300 victims on January20, 1951; the bombing of Kumsung-myon thatkilled 17 and wounded 21 at 1951’s lunar new-yearcelebration; and the shooting of 90 civilians by U.S.troops at Changnyong-up (date uncertain). Parkalso refers vaguely to “countless massacres”allegedly committed by U.S. and South Koreanforces in North Korea before the war’s end, but nospecific evidence has been produced to documentthose charges.

See also COMMUNISM.

NORWAYAfter ADOLF HITLER’s troops invaded Norway inApril 1940, Norwegian Maj. Vidkun Quislingearned eternal infamy—and saw his surname short-listed as a synonym for traitor—by collaboratingwith the THIRD REICH to subjugate his fellow coun-trymen. That choice sent him to the gallows onOctober 24, 1945, condemned for treason and WAR

CRIMES. In the 1990s Norway was rocked by a seriesof church fires and grisly murders, apparently bymembers and fans of various “black metal” rock-and-roll bands committed to the outré tenets ofSATANISM. Several defendants were imprisoned inthose cases, but the panic inspired by their strangecrimes endures.

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NUESTRA FamiliaThe Hispanic PRISON GANG known as NuestraFamilia (“our family”) was organized in the mid-1960s by inmates who were subjected to harassment,extortion, or worse by the powerful MEXICAN MAFIA.By the time Puerto Rican convict Robert (“Babo”)Sosa was elected “general” of the clique in 1972, anestimated 30 prisoners had died in feuding betweenthe two gangs. Three years later Nuestra Familia cre-ated its first free-world “regiment” in Fresno, Califor-nia (where members sometimes call themselves theFresno Bulldogs). With coffers fattened by drug salesand contract murders-for-hire, Nuestra Familia some-times allied itself with the BLACK GUERRILLA FAMILY

to battle soldiers of the Mexican Mafia and the

ARYAN BROTHERHOOD. General Sosa was deposed in1980, reportedly for ordering “needless murders,”but the gang stayed strong with an estimated 800members two years later. Various criminal activities,including “cowboy operation robberies” outsideprison walls, have resulted in several racketeeringprosecutions of Nuestra Familia members. In 2001,21 alleged members were charged with multiplefelonies in a case dubbed Operation Black Widow,wherein 11 defendants pleaded guilty prior to trial.Like their enemies in the Mexican Mafia, NuestraFamilia members observe a “once in, never out” codeof honor. Their motto allegedly reads: “If I lead, fol-low me. If I hesitate, push me. If they kill me, avengeme. If I am a traitor, kill me!”

OAKLAND Police DepartmentIn the 1940s the Oakland Police Department wasrenowned as one of the most corrupt and brutal law-enforcement agencies in the United States. Black pris-oners were routinely beaten in custody, and patrolofficers sometimes rolled drunks in broad daylightwith witnesses present. An investigation by Califor-nia’s state legislature forced the police chief to quitunder fire, while one of his subordinates drew a termin state prison, but broader reform awaited theappointment of reform chief Wyman Vernon. Vernondid his best to weed out grafters while bringing Oak-land up to speed on scientific modes of crime fight-ing. His eventual replacement, Edward Toothman,boasted in 1965 that 40 percent of all Oaklandpolice had one or more years of college education—well above the U.S. average, at the time—but thatrosy image of progress concealed grave problems.

Education notwithstanding, Oakland P.D.remained 97 percent Caucasian in a city whoseblack population was rapidly climbing past 25 per-cent. African Americans who made the cut stillfaced discrimination in assignments and promotion,while the department’s “elite” motorcycle unitremained a staunch bastion of white supremacy.Despite a departmental ban on political activity,police bulletin boards were routinely covered withcrude racist “jokes” and recruiting literature for thefar-right JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. Such views were evi-dently shared by Toothman, as he ordered officers

to infiltrate antiwar groups and to remove “offen-sive” Playboy magazines from Oakland news-stands. On October 15, 1965, while peacefulprotests against the VIETNAM War proceeded incities across the United States, Oakland policeformed a human “Berlin Wall” across the BayBridge to block approaching marchers from theirturf. Strangely, the barrier did not prevent membersof the Hells Angels MOTORCYCLE GANG from slip-ping through to maul demonstrators in full view ofpolice, and the officers moved to “restore order”only after blood was shed.

Public outcry over that episode prompted ChiefToothman’s premature retirement, listing his housefor sale with a “Caucasians only” rider in the con-tract, but his emergency replacement was scarcelybetter. Under Chief Charles Gain, Oakland P.D.regained its reputation as a head-cracking strikeforce, teeing off with nightsticks and chemical Maceto assault 2,500 protesters and journalists at theOakland draft board on October 15, 1967. By thattime the force was also embroiled in a virtual guer-rilla war with the BLACK PANTHER PARTY, with offi-cers harassing party members at every turn (andonce riddling Panther headquarters with gunfire in adrunken, midnight, drive-by shooting). That conflictclaimed several lives and earned Oakland’s “finest”no end of opprobrium, ending only when the Pan-ther Party was reduced by attrition to a ghost of itsoriginal size.

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Oakland’s law-enforcement problems did not endwith the tempestuous 1960s. Recent scandals involv-ing the city’s police include the following:

Early 1990s—Police sergeant Thomas Alipio,leader of the Oakland P.D. “Wolf Pack,” facedmultiple accusations of brutality, burglary, andfalsifying official payroll records. No criminalcharges were filed, but Alipio was fired afterclaiming Fifth Amendment privileges whenquestioned under oath about his alleged crimi-nal activities. He went on to serve with the EastPalo Alto department and to face new accusa-tions there.

March 1, 2000—Oakland resident Rory Keller-Dean filed a $10 million lawsuit against theOakland P.D. and individual officers, claimingthat one policeman forced her to have sex withhim on more than 25 occasions between August1997 and September 1999, often while his part-ner was “present as a lookout.” Once, inAugust 1997, the chief offender also allegedlyforced Keller-Dean to perform fellatio on agroup of on-duty cops near the entrance ofAlameda’s Coast Guard Island. Trial in thatcase was pending as this volume went to press.

November 2, 2000—Four Oakland officersknown as The Riders (or Rough Riders in someaccounts) were charged with 48 felony countsthat included kidnapping, assault with a deadlyweapon, assault under color of authority, andfiling false police reports; another 15 misde-meanor counts were also added to the shoppinglist. Those charges climaxed a three-monthinvestigation into allegations that rogue copswere beating drug suspects and planting evi-dence to secure their conviction in court. Policechief Richard Ward recommended dismissal forall four defendants after a rookie cop assignedto the team reported their illegal activities. Oneof the accused promptly fled to Mexico, whilehis codefendants remained to face trial on 35charges. In September 2003 jurors acquitted theofficers on eight counts while failing to reach averdict on 27 other charges. A retrial is plannedon those counts but has not yet been scheduled.

April 7, 2003—Reverting to the classic 1960sstyle, Oakland police fired rubber bulletsagainst unarmed, nonviolent demonstratorsprotesting President George W. Bush’s invasion

of IRAQ under the guise of OPERATION IRAQI

FREEDOM. No tabulation of injuries was pub-lished, but an estimated three dozen marcherswere arrested.

October 5, 2003—Relatives and neighbors of 20-year-old Terrence Mearis claimed that he wasasleep when police stormed his Oakland apart-ment and shot him dead in his bedroom. Theshooters, members of yet another “crime-reduc-tion team” targeting alleged violent criminalsand drug suspects, claim that they possessed awarrant and that Mearis “struggled” with themon his bed before he was shot. No charges werefiled in that case.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

OCTOBER SurpriseAt his inauguration on January 20, 1981, PresidentRONALD REAGAN promised “an era of nationalrenewal” in the United States. Within 20 minutes, asif responding to the impact of those words, Iranianauthorities released 52 American hostages held incaptivity since November 4, 1979. While officials inIRAN had agreed “in principle” to liberate thehostages on November 4, 1980 (election day), theirrelease was delayed an additional 11 weeks, thusrobbing incumbent Jimmy Carter of a diplomatic vic-tory that might have secured his reelection. In the cli-mate of post-WATERGATE Washington, rumorspredictably blamed the fortuitous timing of the pris-oners’ release on covert political chicanery by Rea-gan and Vice President George H. W. Bush (formerdirector of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

(CIA). Subsequent public and private investigationsof the so-called October Surprise—referring toalleged (and illegal) Republican negotiations withIran’s Ayatollah Khomeini—raised more questionsthan they answered, while revealing the followingsuggestive facts:

• In 1981, while investigating charges that Rea-gan staffers stole White House briefing bookson the eve of a televised presidential debate,Congress discovered that the GOP had estab-lished an elaborate spy network that collecteddata on the Carter campaign and trackedCarter’s efforts to free the hostages. That pro-gram was coordinated by Reagan campaign

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manager William Casey (a veteran of the OFFICE

OF STRATEGIC SERVICES, appointed in 1981 tohead the CIA).

• In 1988 former Iranian vice president Abolhas-san Bani-Sadr spoke from exile in Paris and toldreporters that Bush had flown to FRANCE andsealed the hostage bargain on the weekend ofOctober 18–19, 1980. Other alleged witnesses—including a mixed bag of arms dealers, spies, andother shady characters—confirmed Bush’s pres-ence in France with William Casey for meetingswith Iranian officials. One witness, Iranian armsdealer Jamshid Hashemi, described two earliermeetings with Casey in SPAIN during July andAugust 1980. According to Hashemi, Bush fun-neled ransom payments and illicit arms ship-ments to Iran before the November 1980election with assistance from ISRAEL. Israeliinvolvement in the plot was confirmed by ex-MOSSAD agent Ari Ben-Menashe, who servedas his nation’s military intelligence liaison withIran during 1979–80.

• With various investigations of the October Sur-prise underway, self-described Oregon armsdealer Richard Brenneke claimed inside knowl-edge of the hostage negotiations, including per-sonal sightings of Bush and Bush aide DonaldGregg at a Paris confab with Iranian leaders.While some details of his story were provedfalse—financial records placed Brenneke in theUnited States when he claimed to be travelingabroad—he was acquitted of perjury charges infederal court, following indictment by the Bush-Reagan JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.

• Another alleged participant in the hostagenegotiations, Oswald LaWinter, was quicklyunmasked as a one-time college professor who had been convicted for smuggling nar-cotics into the United States. Confronted withthat fact by journalists, LaWinter declaredthat Republican plotters had paid him$100,000 “to mount a disinformation cam-paign” and to “make sure that the media lostinterest, and that the [October Surprise] storywas discredited.”

• Senate investigators sought to question WilliamCasey about his alleged involvement in the plot,but his death from a brain tumor frustrated thatinquiry. When Casey’s relatives surrendered var-ious documents under subpoena, the late spy’s

passport and his diary pages for the dates inquestion were missing.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

ODESSAODESSA is an acronym for the Organization derEhemaligen SS-Angehörigen (Organization of For-mer SS Members), which aided the escape of Nazisindicted for WAR CRIMES during World War II andthe Holocaust. Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal laterdiscovered that the escape apparatus had been cre-ated in August 1944 when high-ranking Nazis real-ized that they were bound to lose the war. Stolenwealth worth billions of dollars at 21st-century rateswas first smuggled out of occupied Europe to safehavens in Switzerland and the Americas before fugi-tives followed their ill-gotten gains into exile. A pri-mary escape course, known to fugitives as the “B-B”route, led from Bremen, GERMANY, through Austriato the seaport of Bari, ITALY. From there, with collab-oration from corrupt officials, war criminals escapedto the Middle East or South America. An alternate“Monastery Route” was operated by clerics of theCATHOLIC CHURCH (chiefly Franciscans), who hidNazis on the run in various European monasteriesuntil they could reach Vatican City and flee Europefrom there. ADOLF EICHMANN and JOSEF MENGELE

were two of the most notorious runaway Nazis,though some researchers claim an even bigger fish—MARTIN BORMANN himself—also escaped to SouthAmerica with help from ODESSA. An affiliated net-work known as Die Spinne (The Spider) existed pri-marily to furnish Nazi fugitives with false passportsand other necessary documents.

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

OFFICE of Strategic Services (OSS)Prior to World War II, U.S. intelligence activitieswere carried out on an ad-hoc basis by variousdepartments of the army and the navy with little collaboration and occasional hostility between therival branches. That changed in June 1942 whenPresident Franklin Roosevelt created the OSS, com-manded by New York attorney William (“WildBill”) Donovan. Even then, however, the OSS didnot have total command over foreign intelligencecollection, as FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

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(FBI) Director J. EDGAR HOOVER—a bitter enemy ofDonovan since the 1920s—was permitted to controlU.S. espionage activities in Latin America. Bothgroups investigated cases of alleged enemy spyinginside the United States, but their incessant rivalryjeopardized efficient operations. On one occasion,FBI agents arrived with wailing sirens outside a for-eign embassy in Washington, alerting securityguards to the presence of OSS burglars inside andnearly costing the prowlers their lives. In anothernotorious case both agencies burglarized editorialoffices of the magazine Amerasia to retrieving docu-ments apparently stolen from government files, butthe illegal entries scuttled any hope of prosecution.President Harry Truman dissolved the OSS in Octo-ber 1945, transferring its functions to the State andWar Departments. Two years later, those duties wereassigned to the fledgling CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY. Donovan was once again proposed forleadership, but a malicious whispering campaignorchestrated by G-man Hoover prevented Dono-van’s confirmation.

OHIO GangThis nickname describes a group of shady politiciansfrom the Buckeye State, led by fixer HARRY DAUGH-ERTY, who achieved their greatest triumph with the 1920 election of President Warren Harding.Daugherty managed Harding’s campaign and wasrewarded with appointment to serve as attorneygeneral, whereupon he transformed the U.S. JUSTICE

DEPARTMENT into a laughingstock widely known asthe “Department of Easy Virtue.” Another memberof the clique, Bernard Fall, used his post with theInterior Department to precipitate the TEAPOT DOME

scandal. Harding himself was an affable rogue whowelcomed his mistress to the White House, savoredbootleg liquor during PROHIBITION, and reportedlyjoined the KU KLUX KLAN (KKK) in a special GreenRoom ceremony shortly after his inauguration.While Harding’s team is generally regarded as themost corrupt U.S. administration prior to RICHARD

NIXON’s, the scandals were not exposed until afterHarding’s death on August 2, 1923. Various expla-nations have been advanced for his sudden demise,and while accidental food poisoning is the mostcommon candidate, some conspiracists believeHarding was murdered. In any case the KKKmourned his passing with motorcades nationwide,

and armed Klansmen long stood guard over Hard-ing’s grave at Marion, Ohio. Following his death,successor Calvin Coolidge fired Daugherty, and vari-ous members of the Ohio Gang were prosecuted fortheir crimes.

OILChinese prospectors drilled the first oil wells in A.D.347, plumbing 800-foot depths with bits attached tobamboo poles. Nine centuries later explorer MarcoPolo witnessed mining of seep oil in Medieval Persia(now IRAN). In the 16th century oil was used as fuelin Polish street lamps. The United States laggedbehind foreign competitors, reporting its first discov-ery of oil as an undesirable by-product of Pennsylva-nia brine wells in 1815, waiting another 35 yearsbefore oil from hand-dug pits around Los Angeles

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President Warren Harding was the most visible memberof the corrupt “Ohio Gang.” (Author’s collection)

was distilled for use in lamps by General AndreasPico. The first oil well in North America was drilledin 1858 in Ontario, Canada. A year later EdwinDrake drilled the first U.S. well, all of 69 feet deep, atTitusville, Pennsylvania. By 1861 “bulk boats”—thefirst oil barges—were transporting crude along theAllegheny River.

Today, world governments and industry dependon oil as beating hearts rely on blood. Despitedecades of research and U.S. government “initia-tives” that were meant to develop alternative energysources, petroleum—a fossil fuel that produces vari-ous toxic pollutants, resulting in a wide variety oflong-range calamities including acid rain, globalwarming, and destruction of the Earth’s ozonelayer—Big Oil remains supreme on the world stage.In the United States, oil-rich families such as the Bushand Rockefeller clans have dominated politics fordecades—through donations, through lobbyists, andoften through election of their sons to high politicaloffice. In ELECTION 2000, for example, oil companiesdonated $5,291,212 to “conservative” Republicansversus $1,354,038 to “liberal” Democrats. BothPresident George W. Bush and Vice President DICK

CHENEY have long-standing ties to the oil industry—Bush as the chairman of several failed companies,and Cheney as CEO of Halliburton Corporation,which profited hugely from its White House ties during OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

Aside from the GULF WAR and the subsequent U.S.invasion of IRAQ, oil affects U.S. foreign and domes-tic policy in a variety of ways. One of the world’sprimary oil-producing nations, SAUDI ARABIA, is runby a dynastic regime that supports TERRORISM

throughout the world. Its native sons include terror-ist leader Osama bin Laden (whose father andbrothers were business partners of the Bush clan inoil), and 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sep-tember 2001 PENTTBOM attacks. That catastrophicincident climaxed an eight-year series of attacks onU.S. forces and facilities that began with the 1993WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING, all traceable toSaudi Arabian fanatics bankrolled by petro-dollars.Prior to the 9/11 raid that claimed his life, FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Deputy Director JohnO’Neill told reporters: “The main obstacles to inves-tigate [sic] Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporateinterests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia init. . . . All the answers, everything needed to disman-tle Osama bin Laden’s organization, can be found in

Saudi Arabia.” Indeed, on September 11, 2001,when all U.S. flights were reportedly grounded, onecivilian aircraft was permitted to fly: a jet evacuatingmembers of the bin Laden family from the UnitedStates to Saudi Arabia, their passage arranged byFBI officials acting in conjunction with the BushWhite House and the Saudi ambassador, Prince Ban-dar. The bin Ladens were visiting America that dayfor meetings with the Carlyle Group, an investmentfirm that is well connected to Republican leaderswhose Chairman Frank Carlucci served as RONALD

REAGAN’s secretary of defense.See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY; ROCK-

EFELLER CLAN.

OKHRANACzar Alexander III created the Okhrana (“guard”) ashis SECRET POLICE force in 1881, hiring thousands ofspies to infiltrate and undermine various peasant andworker’s organizations throughout RUSSIA. Countlessalleged subversives were executed, imprisoned, exiled(like JOSEPH STALIN), or otherwise harassed (likeauthor Leo Tolstoy) on the basis of accusations fromOkhrana informers. By the turn of the 20th century,the Okhrana had become the most powerful andfeared intelligence service on Earth, with agents oper-ating throughout Europe and elsewhere, frequentlyengaged in acts of TERRORISM and assassination tar-geting enemies of the Czar. A deep strain of anti-Semitism also infested the Okhrana, and it wasresponsible for publication of a malicious forgerytitled the PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION, out-lining an alleged Jewish plot for world domination.For all its cloak-and-dagger acumen, however, theOkhrana could not save Czar Nicholas II in 1917,when revolutionaries led by VLADIMIR LENIN toppledthe Russian monarchy. Soviet secret police inheritedthe Okhrana’s files and later expanded on its methods,surpassing the efficiency of their old rivals with thenew and improved KGB.

OKLAHOMA City bombingAt 9:02 A.M. on April 19, 1995, a Ryder rented truckloaded with 4,800 pounds of homemade explosivesdetonated outside the Arthur P. Murrah FederalBuilding in Oklahoma City. It demolished the edifice,killing at least 168 persons (some reports say 169)and injuring 850. After the WORLD TRADE CENTER

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BOMBING of 1993 public assumptions first blamedIslamic militants for the crime, but perceptionsswiftly altered. Within 90 minutes of the blast, 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh was stopped by a statetrooper in Noble County, 60 miles north of Okla-homa City, for driving a car with no license plate.McVeigh was arrested when the officer noticed a pis-tol concealed under his shirt and jailed McVeigh atPerry, Oklahoma, pending criminal charges. A searchof the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)national computer registry disclosed no open war-rants on McVeigh.

Meanwhile, a team of 1,000 federal agents comb-ing the blast site found a serial number for the Rydertruck and traced it to renter “Robert Kling,” whosename and address both proved to be false. Agents

obtained a description of Kling and an unnamedmale companion and, searched local motels, discov-ering that Kling’s description matched visitor TimMcVeigh who had rented a room on April 14. A sec-ond computer check located McVeigh in his jail cellat Perry and traced his “home address” to a Michi-gan farm owned by James Nichols. James’s brother,Terry Nichols, was a friend of McVeigh’s from mili-tary service in the GULF WAR, but neither Nicholsmatched the description of “John Doe No. 2” fromOklahoma City. (That unknown suspect has yet to beidentified.)

Investigation of McVeigh’s background revealedthat he was once a member of the KU KLUX KLAN,later was attracted to the radical Militia Movement,and became obsessed with studying THE TURNER

DIARIES, a neo-Nazi novel that depicts truck-bombattacks against the U.S. government. McVeigh andTerry Nichols were apparently fixated on the FBIsiege of a religious cult’s compound at Waco, Texas,where 76 members of the Branch Davidian sect diedby fire on April 19, 1993. Investigators alleged thatMcVeigh and Nichols timed the Oklahoma City blastto occur on the anniversary of that tragic event. Asearch of Terry Nichols’s home revealed explosives,blasting caps, blue plastic barrels similar to thoseused in the truck bomb, and a receipt for 2,000pounds of ammonium nitrate (used in constructingthe bomb).

On August 11, 1995, a federal grand jury indictedboth suspects for conspiracy and for the murders ofeight federal agents killed in the bombing. Jurorsconvicted McVeigh on all counts, on June 2, 1997,and recommended a death sentence on June 13.Terry Nichols faced trial in November 1997, butsince prosecutors could not place him at the crimescene, he escaped conviction on murder charges andreceived a life prison term. On May 10, 2001, sixdays before McVeigh’s scheduled execution, FBIspokespersons admitted that the bureau had “inad-vertently” misplaced thousands of documents rele-vant to his case, thereby illegally withholding themfrom McVeigh’s attorney. Attorney General JOHN

ASHCROFT granted a 30-day stay of execution, but acourt review of the documents revealed no mitigatingevidence, and McVeigh was executed by lethal injec-tion on June 11, 2001.

Eight years after the blast in Oklahoma City, con-spiracists remain convinced that McVeigh andNichols did not act alone. Aside from the still-elusive

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Jackie Zachmeier from North Dakota reads the description explaining the spray-painted message left by rescuers during the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995,as she toured the Oklahoma National Memorial in Oklahoma City, June 9, 2001. (Reuters/Corbis)

John Doe No. 2, defense attorney Steven Jonesbelieves that FBI agents deliberately altered or con-cealed evidence in the case. “They short-circuited thesearch for the truth,” Jones told reporters in Febru-ary 2003. “I don’t doubt Tim’s role in the conspiracy.But I think he clearly aggrandized his role, enlargedit, to cover for others who were involved.” FBI docu-ments released since McVeigh’s execution includerecords showing that he telephoned Elohim City, anultra-right-wing compound in Oklahoma, on April5, 1995—at a time when the camp’s residentsincluded fugitive members of the neo-Nazi AryanNations. Those fugitives, wanted for bank robbery,reportedly left Elohim City on April 16, 1995, andtraveled to a site in Kansas near the point whereMcVeigh assembled his truck bomb. One of the rob-bers, Kevin Peter Langan, was interviewed by FBIagents after his arrest in 1996. According to Lan-gan’s attorney, Kevin Durkin, “The Justice Depart-ment came to us through the assistant U.S. attorneyand said, ‘We believe your client knows about Okla-homa City and we want to talk to him. We want towork out a deal.’” Langan declined to collaborate,and no other suspects have yet been charged in theOklahoma City case.

Alternative scenarios, advanced by some Internettheorists, include a possibility that McVeigh andother right-wing activists were hired (or duped) byMuslim militants into planting the Oklahoma Citybomb or that federal agents themselves are to blame.The latter theory claims the Murrah bombing was akind of REICHSTAG FIRE event, coordinated by Presi-dent Bill Clinton to justify a nationwide crackdownon “patriot” militia groups—which, in fact, did notoccur. If others than McVeigh and Terry Nicholswere involved in the bombing, those culprits who arestill at large were almost certainly members of theneo-Nazi lunatic fringe.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY; MILITIAS.

OMANMigratory Arabs inhabited the region of modern-dayOman during the ninth century B.C.E. and convertedto Islam 1,600 years later. Successive occupations byPORTUGAL (1508–1648) and TURKEY (1648–1741)finally produced a successful revolt against foreigninvaders, led by Sultan Ahmad ibn Sa’id, whosedescendants rule Oman today with an absolutemonarchy. Oman’s sultans and imams (Muslim lead-

ers) clashed incessantly during the first half of the20th century until the last imam was deported in1959. On July 23, 1970, a palace coup ended the 38-year rule of Sultan Sa’id bin Taimur and placed hisson on the throne, accompanied by vows to modern-ize the government and use Oman’s OIL wealth forpublic benefit. Oman joined the UNITED NATIONS in1971, but progress at home is difficult to judge. Along border conflict with YEMEN was finally settled in1997, the same year in which Oman’s women weregranted suffrage. In 2001 some 20,000 British troopsused Oman for a military “training exercise,” whichsome critics viewed as a not-so-subtle act of intimi-dation against the monarchy and/or its neighbors.

O’NEAL, William (fl. 1968)Chicago resident William O’Neal was arrestedtwice in early 1968 for auto theft and for imperson-ating a FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)agent. To avoid prison he joined the bureau’s COINTELPRO program as a paid informant inside theBLACK PANTHER PARTY chapter led by FRED HAMP-TON. His assignment included provoking dissensionbetween Panthers and various Chicago STREET

GANGS, a ploy that produced several shootings. Asthe chapter’s “security chief,” O’Neal devised plansto bomb city hall and execute police informers in ahomemade electric chair, but Hampton rejectedboth schemes. In Hampton’s absence O’Nealwhipped one Panther and encouraged others tocommit armed robberies. Finally he helped authori-ties plan a raid on December 4, 1969, whereinHampton and comrade Mark Clark were killed byofficers of the CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT. Sub-sequent investigation proved that Hampton wassleeping when shot and that he may have beendrugged before raiders arrived. In the wake of thatraid O’Neal’s FBI handlers paid him a “meritbonus” for his “valuable service” to the Bureau.

OPERATION Iraqi FreedomAccording to the testimony of his intimate advisors,President George W. Bush began seeking excuses for aU.S. invasion of IRAQ within hours of his January2001 inauguration. No excuse for military actionthen existed—Iraq had been defeated in the GULF WAR

10 years earlier and had been subject to harsh eco-nomic sanctions ever since, and Iraq was effectively

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contained within its borders by hostile neighbors andU.S.-enforced “no-fly zones.” Also, while terroristsfrom the AL-QAEDA network, led by Osama bin Laden,were linked to numerous attacks on U.S. personneland installations, none of those incidents were trace-able to Iraq. Indeed, President Bush—whose familyshared lucrative OIL interests with bin Laden’s fatherand brothers—complained that his predecessor, Presi-dent Bill Clinton, had been “obsessed” with pursuitof al-Qaeda, and Bush reportedly ordered federalagents to “back off the bin Ladens.”

One day after the September 11, 2001, PENTTBOM

attacks, executed by al-Qaeda terrorists from SAUDI

ARABIA, Bush ordered White House counterterror-ism coordinator to “Go back over everything, every-thing. See if Saddam did this.” Clarke replied, “ButMr. President, al-Qaeda did this,” whereupon Bushreplied, “I know, I know, but see if Saddam wasinvolved. Just look. I want to know any shred.”

When Clarke reminded Bush that the FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION and CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY had already searched in vain forsuch links, the president “testily” ordered, “Lookinto Iraq, Saddam.” The search for clues wasrepeated, again in vain, and no excuse for an inva-sion of Iraq was found. Frustrated in that effort,Bush and company launched a new campaign toportray Iraq as a global threat, based on claims thatSaddam had stockpiled “weapons of mass destruc-tion” (WMD). Those claims included the followingpublic statements:

August 26, 2002—Vice President DICK CHENEY

told the Veterans of Foreign Wars, “Simplystated, there is no doubt that Saddam Husseinnow has weapons of mass destruction.”

September 12, 2002—Bush told the UNITED

NATIONS General Assembly, “Right now, Iraq is

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Deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was found in a hole on property in Al Dawr, near his hometown of Tikrit. “I amSaddam Hussein, president of Iraq, and I am willing to negotiate,” were Hussein’s words when he was found by membersof Special Forces. (Cheryl Diaz/Dallas Morning News/Corbis)

expanding and improving facilities that wereused for the production of biological weapons.”

September 19, 2002—Secretary of Defense Don-ald Rumsfeld told Congress, “No terrorist stateposes a greater or more immediate threat to thesecurity of our people and the stability of theworld than the regime of Saddam Hussein inIraq.”

November 23, 2002—White House press secre-tary Ari Fleischer told assembled journalists, inregard to Saddam’s alleged stockpile of WMD:“If he declares he has none, then we will knowthat Saddam Hussein is once again misleadingthe world.”

January 9, 2003—Fleischer told another pressconference, “We know for a fact that there areweapons there.”

January 26, 2003—White House spokesman DanBartlett told CNN News, “What we know fromUN inspectors over the course of the last decadeis that Saddam Hussein possesses thousands ofchemical warheads, that he possesses hundredsof liters of very dangerous toxins that can killmillions of people.”

January 28, 2003—In his State of the Unionaddress, Bush told America, “Our intelligenceofficials estimate that Saddam Hussein had thematerials to produce as much as 500 tons ofsarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent. The Britishgovernment has learned that Saddam Husseinrecently sought significant quantities of uraniumfrom Africa.”

February 10, 2003—White House spokesmanScott McClellan told reporters, “This is aboutan imminent threat.”

March 16, 2003—On NBC’s Meet the Press, DickCheney announced, “We believe [Hussein] has,in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

March 17, 2003—Addressing a national audi-ence, Bush declared, “Intelligence gathered bythis and other governments leaves no doubtthat the Iraq regime continues to possess andconceal some of the most lethal weapons everdevised.”

U.S. and British troops launched a full-scale invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. Their rapidadvance toward Baghdad was accompanied by moreconfident WMD rhetoric, including these statementsfrom Washington:

March 21, 2003—Ari Fleischer told the press,“Well, there is no question that we have evidenceand information that Iraq has weapons of massdestruction, biological and chemical particu-larly. All this will be made clear in the course ofthe operation, for whatever duration it takes.”

March 22, 2003—General Tommy Franks, com-manding the troops in Iraq, declared, “There isno doubt that the regime of Saddam Husseinpossesses weapons of mass destruction. And asthis operation continues, those weapons will beidentified, found, along with the people whohave produced them and who guard them.”

March 22, 2003—Pentagon spokesperson VictoriaClark told reporters, “One of our top objectivesis to find and destroy the WMD. There are anumber of sites.”

March 23, 2003—Kenneth Adelman, a member ofBush’s Defense Policy Board, told the Washing-ton Post, “I have no doubt we’re going to findbig stores of weapons of mass destruction.”

March 30, 2003—Donald Rumsfeld assured ABCNews, “We know where they are. They’re inthe area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east,west, south, and north somewhat.”

April 9, 2003—White House spokesmen RobertKagan told the Washington Post, “Obviouslythe administration intends to publicize all theweapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find—and there will be plenty.”

April 10, 2003—Ari Fleischer told a Washingtonpress conference, “Make no mistake—as I saidearlier—we have high confidence that they haveweapons of mass destruction. That is what thiswar was about and it is about. And we havehigh confidence it will be found.”

April 24, 2003—President Bush announced, “Weare learning more as we interrogate or have dis-cussions with Iraqi scientists and people withinthe Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyedsome, perhaps he dispersed some. And so wewill find them.”

May 3, 2003—Bush advised journalists, “We’llfind them. It’ll be a matter of time to do so.”

May 4, 2003—Colin Powell told the press, “I’mabsolutely sure that there are weapons of massdestruction there and the evidence will be forth-coming. We’re just getting it just now.”

May 31, 2003—Bush proclaimed that WMD had,in fact, been found in Iraq, telling the press, “You

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remember when Colin Powell stood up in frontof the world, and he said Iraq has got laborato-ries, mobile labs to build biological weapons. . . .They’re illegal. They’re against the UnitedNations resolutions, and we’ve so far discoveredtwo. And we’ll find more weapons as time goeson, But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or bannedweapons, they’re wrong. We found them.”

Within hours of that confident statement, inspec-tors declared that the “mobile labs” in question con-tained no evidence of weapons—and indeed, no traceof any Iraqi WMD had been found by the time thisvolume went to press in 2005. By then, administrationspokespersons had begun to backpedal, compound-ing their earlier misstatements with more distortions.Their disclaimers included the following:

May 4, 2003—Donald Rumsfeld, having detailedwhere WMD might be found on March 30,now told Fox News, “We never believed thatwe’d just tumble over weapons of mass destruc-tion in that country.”

May 12, 2003—National Security Adviser Con-doleezza Rice told Reuters journalists, “U.S. offi-cials never expected that we were going to opengarages and find weapons of mass destruction.”

May 13, 2003—Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commanding the 101st Airborne Division inIraq, told reporters, “I just don’t know whetherit was all destroyed years ago—I mean, there’sno question that there were chemical weaponsyears ago—whether they were destroyed rightbefore the war [or] whether they’re still hidden.”

May 14, 2003—Apparently forgetting DickCheney’s remarks of March 16, (above), Rums-feld told the U.S. Senate, “I don’t believe any-one that I know in the administration ever saidthat Iraq had nuclear weapons.”

May 27, 2003—Concerning other WMD, Rums-feld told the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,“They may have had time to destroy them, andI don’t know the answer.”

May 30, 2003—One day before President Bushdeclared that WMD labs had been found, Lt.Gen. James Conway—commanding the 1stMarine Expeditionary Force in Iraq—told jour-nalists, “It was a surprise to me then—itremains a surprise to me now—that we have

not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some ofthe forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it’s notfor lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually everyammunition supply point between the Kuwaitiborder and Baghdad, but they’re simply notthere.”

January 31, 2004—Scott McClellan told reportersat the White House, “I think some in the mediahave chosen to use the word imminent. Thosewere not words [sic] we used. We used graveand gathering threat.” In fact, McClellan him-self had described the Iraqi threat as “immi-nent” on February 10, 2003 (see above). Otherswho described the “imminent” threat includedDon Bartlett (on January 26, 2003) and AriFleischer (on May 7, 2003).

With the supposed Iraqi WMD missing, Bush andcompany changed tunes again, claiming the war wasjustified because Saddam had oppressed his own peo-ple for decades. The true motive for invading Iraqremains elusive—except, perhaps, to the conspiracistswho point out that Dick Cheney’s colleagues at Hal-liburton Corporation received a secret, no-bid con-tract to provide oil technology in occupied Iraq, aservice for which Halliburton admittedly overchargedthe U.S. government at least $6.3 million in 2003.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; CLINTON, BILL AND

HILLARY; TERRORISM.

OPERATION UnderworldThe first official collaboration between elements of theU.S. government and the MAFIA occurred in 1942when military leaders grew concerned about potentialAxis sabotage of Allied ships berthed at the New YorkCity waterfront. Recognizing that mobsters led byCHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO effectively controlled allcommerce on the New York docks, agents of NavalIntelligence approached “Socks” Lanza, covert lord ofthe Fulton Fish Market, for an introduction to hisboss. Lanza referred the agents to MEYER LANSKY,who in turn carried their offer to Luciano—thenimprisoned at Dannemora, New York, on WHITE

SLAVERY charges. Thus was born Operation Under-world, in which Luciano promised to assist the Alliedwar effort in return for certain favors. The payoff forLuciano included immediate transfer to a kinder, gentler lockup in Albany, together with a promise ofparole at war’s end. In return he mobilized his gang-

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sters to eliminate suspected waterfront saboteurs—and, some say, also provided Mafia contacts to facili-tate the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily.

Most historians today dispute the published claimthat U.S. tanks landing on Sicily bore flags emblazonedwith the letter L (for Luciano), but there is no doubtthat native Mafiosi led by Don Calogero Vizzini aidedoccupation forces by eliminating obstacles and execut-ing Fascist leaders. After Sicily was conquered, DonVizzini and other prominent Mafiosi were appointedto serve as mayors in various towns as a means of pre-serving “law and order.” In that capacity they furtherserved Allied interests—and set the stage for later coldwar conflicts in Italy—by liquidating Communists andother left-wing elements of the resistance movementwho had risked much in combat with the Nazis. NewYork mobster Vito Genovese, a Luciano lieutenant hiding in Italy to avoid murder charges at home, madea fortune from U.S. troops in black-market transac-tions before he was finally arrested and deported toNew York for trial. (He was acquitted, after crucialwitnesses vanished or changed their stories.)

Naval authorities kept their bargain with Lucianoat war’s end, arranging his release and deportation toItaly in 1946. After a lavish send-off party in NewYork, attended by high-ranking mobsters from allparts of the United States, Luciano lived briefly in Italybut then illegally returned to CUBA under the protec-tion of U.S.-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista.From Havana he organized new distribution routesfor HEROIN entering the United States, a conspiracyinvolving the lucrative “French Connection” withmembers of the UNIONE CORSÉ. Although Lucianowas soon forced back to Italy, primarily through theefforts of early “drug czar” HARRY ANSLINGER, hisenterprise prospered. In 1946 America harbored anestimated 20,000 heroin addicts—barely 10 percent ofthe world total that was acknowledged in the 1920s—but the numbers rapidly increased thereafter. In retro-spect some analysts suggest that while OperationUnderworld helped win the war in Italy, it launchedanother conflict—the so-called War on Drugs—whichcontinues to the present day with no end in sight.

See also COMMUNISM; FASCISM.

OPIUM warsWith the publicity surrounding modern “wars ondrugs” around the world, it seems incredible that anynation would declare war on another to promote

narcotics traffic. Yet England did precisely that ontwo occasions in the 19th century. In both cases Lon-don’s target was CHINA, a vast market where Britishmerchants began to smuggle opium in the 1820s tooffset expenses of purchasing Chinese tea for sale inEngland. Opium was banned by law in China at thetime, and Chinese authorities enforced that statute in1839, destroying a large shipment of British drugsstockpiled at Canton (now Guangzhou). In retalia-tion for that action Britain launched the First OpiumWar (1839–42), dispatching gunboats and troops toCanton and other Chinese seaports, overwhelmingnative forces to “open” forcibly broader trade(including opium traffic) between Britain and China.As a result of that invasion, China signed the Treatyof Nanjing (1842) and the Supplementary Treaty ofBogue (1843), providing full British trading and resi-dency privileges in the ports of Canton, Fuzhou, Jin-men, Ningbo, and Shanghai. Other Western powerssoon followed Britain’s example, extorting traderights from China at gunpoint and establishing“spheres of influence” where foreign authoritiesreigned supreme on Chinese soil.

The Second Opium War erupted in 1856 after an“illegal” search of the British ship Arrow at Cantonby Chinese authorities seeking smuggled opium. Chi-nese submission to the Treaty of Tianjin (1858)opened 11 more seaports to Western trade, legalizedopium traffic, established Western trade legations inBeijing—and ironically sanctioned the presence ofChristian missionaries throughout China. The short-lived peace was broken once again in 1859 whenChina’s vain attempt to bar Western diplomats fromBeijing brought a combined force of British andFrench troops to invade the Chinese capital and burnthe imperial summer palace. The Beijing conventionsof 1860 that forced China to reaffirm all previoustreaties with the West formally ended the SecondOpium War in 1860—and thus paved the way for anationalistic rebellion by “Boxer” guerrillas fourdecades later. In the meantime, millions of Chinesewere addicted to British opium, and London foreversurrendered its claim to the moral high ground.

ORANGEBURG massacreIn February 1968 black students from South Car-olina State University launched protests against awhites-only bowling alley in Orangeburg. On Febru-ary 5, police fired on the unarmed demonstrators,

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killing three and wounding 27 as they fled. Officialstatements claimed the shooting occurred “only afteran extended period of sniper fire from the campusand not until an officer had been felled during hisefforts to protect life and property.” Yet no weaponswere found, and the only police officer injured wasaccidentally struck by a piece of lumber while tryingto douse a bonfire. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION (FBI) agents found several .22-caliber bulletsembedded in the wall of a nearby warehouse butcould not determine when they were fired. Examina-tion of the scene did prove the slugs originated froma point more than 100 feet away from where thedemonstrators had been shot.

The conduct of G-men involved in the case washighly suspect. At least three agents witnessed theshooting but claimed they were elsewhere whenquestioned by JUSTICE DEPARTMENT investigators.Attorney General Ramsey Clark was “distressed” bythe bureau’s obstructionist tactics. “It was a shame,”he later said, “that we probably had quite a bit oftrouble with a number of FBI agents as to what theysaid at different times and we had trouble getting allthe interviews we wanted. We also had a terribly dif-ficult time finding out where the FBI people were onthe night of February 8—where they were, what theywere doing, whether they were eyewitnesses.”

Nine police admitted firing on the demonstratorsin their statements to FBI agents. Lt. Jesse Spell—soon promoted to captain—declared, “I ordered mysquad to fire their weapons to stop the mob;” yetnone of the admitted shooters could recall a verbalorder, and most of their 30 victims were shot in theback while running away. A federal grand juryindicted the nine officers on December 19, 1968, forviolating civil rights by means of summary punish-ment inflicted “under color of law.” Their trial con-vened in May 1969. That proceeding was marked bya clash between FBI agents as two of them testifiedfor the defense and another was called to rebut thestatements of his fellow G-men. All the defendantswere acquitted, prompting further criticism of policeand the bureau.

ORGAN theftA solitary tourist visiting some exotic country unex-pectedly meets a beautiful woman, and they spend aromantic evening together. Next morning the travelerwakes shivering in a bathtub filled with ice, gripped

by pain from a crudely stitched abdominal incision.On the floor beside the bathtub sits a telephone. Anote taped to the wall nearby instructs the victim tocall for medical help, explaining that one of his kid-neys has been removed.

That story, with variations, has circled the globecountless times via Internet channels, inspired by (orinspiring) a series of novels and Hollywood films inwhich venal doctors and criminal accomplices stealvital organs from unwilling donors and then sellthem to wealthy patients awaiting transplants. Eachtime the tale surfaces, authorities dismiss it as ahoax, denying that any such thing has occurred inreal life.

And yet . . .On February 18, 2000, the Law Society of Thai-

land announced its intent to file criminal chargesagainst five doctors at Bangkok’s VachiraprakarnHospital, claiming that the physicians used falsedocuments to obtain kidneys from brain-deadpatients and offered the organs for sale to othersawaiting transplants. The racket was exposed afterrelatives of the unconscious donors discovered thattheir signatures had been forged on forms grantingpermission for the surgery. Thai authorities revokedthe medical license of Dr. Sirot Kanchanapan-chaphol, described in press reports as one of thecountry’s top surgeons, and suspended four allegedaccomplices pending further investigation of thecharges. On August 30, 2000, two of the physiciansand a former hospital administrator were chargedwith conspiring to murder two comatose patientswho died after their kidneys were removed. Chargesagainst a fourth suspect were dropped after heagreed to testify against the others.

Five months before that scandal broke, on Septem-ber 16, 1999, Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevitannounced an official investigation into press reportsthat an “organ MAFIA” had performed unauthorizedsurgery on deceased earthquake victims in Cinarcik.Some 15,500 people died in Cinarcik’s earthquake ofAugust 17, followed by claims that corpses in themorgue had been stripped of their organs for sale. Ifthat was not sinister enough, spokespersons for theTurkish Interior Ministry also alleged that an uniden-tified “30-strong group” was kidnapping youngearthquake orphans, along with elderly and disabledpersons, to forcibly extract their organs for sale.

In China, even though Beijing authorities declarethat “any form of trade in human organs is strictly

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against related Chinese law,” allegations dating from1996 claim that various organs are routinelyextracted from prisoners executed by the state.According to Amnesty International, China—whichexecutes thousands of inmates each year—switchedfrom firing squads to lethal injection in 2001 becausechemical deaths “may facilitate the removal oforgans from executed prisoners for transplantation.”Chinese statutes specify that organs from deceasedconvicts may be used for medical purposes “if no oneclaims the body or the family refuses to bury it.” Infact, however, U.S. congressional investigators chargethat evidence of outright organ sales to “foreignersor wealthy Chinese is substantial, credible and grow-ing.” Livers from deceased inmates are reportedlysold for an average price of $43,000.

In a grisly variation on that theme, California’sOrange County Register reported on April 16, 2000that corpses donated to nonprofit tissue banks in theUnited States were being dismantled for piecemealsale to private research facilities, earning an averageof $220,000 per cadaver. While the National OrganTransplant Act of 1984 bars sale of human tissue forprofit, it permits an undefined “reasonable charge”for collection and processing of body parts. AsArthur Caplan, a professor at the University of Penn-sylvania’s Center for Bioethics, told the Register,“People who donate [remains] have no idea tissue isbeing processed into products that per gram or perounce are in the price range of diamonds.”

OSWALD, Lee Harvey (1939–1963)Alleged double-murderer Lee Harvey Oswald,accused (but never convicted) of the 1963 JFK ASSAS-SINATION and the peripheral murder of Dallas police-man J. D. Tippit, was a native of New Orleans andwas born on October 19, 1939. Before age 18 helived in 22 different homes and attended 12 differentschools, rating a psychological diagnosis of “person-ality pattern disturbance” when he was 14 years old.After high school Oswald joined the U.S. MarineCorps and learned to speak Russian while stationedin Japan. He subsequently defected to RUSSIA, whereKGB agents initially suspected him of spying for theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA). To forestalldeportation from Russia, in 1959 Oswald renouncedhis U.S. citizenship and then attempted suicide.Russian authorities allowed him to remain in Minskand granted Oswald permission to marry Marina

Prusakova, reputed daughter of a KGB officer. Themarital knot was barely tied, however, when Oswaldchanged his mind about COMMUNISM and returnedto the United States in 1961 with Marina and theirinfant daughter in tow. Strangely, American authori-ties raised no objection to his return—yet anotherpiece of circumstantial evidence supporting theoriesthat Oswald was a CIA agent whose defection hadbeen staged for reasons unknown.

Settling in Dallas Oswald quickly found work witha graphic arts firm, Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, which alsodid highly classified work for the U.S. government.Oswald later told a friend that the CIA arranged hisjob specifically to work on maps of CUBA, where theagency was then engaged with members of the MAFIA

in plots to murder President FIDEL CASTRO. In April1963 Oswald moved to New Orleans and foundwork at the Reily Coffee Company, where employeesrecall him incessantly questioning Cuban coworkers.On the side he formed a local one-man branch of thepro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, whichstrangely shared office space with ex-FBI agent GuyBanister, a right-wing activist involved in the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. About the same timeOswald used the alias “Alek J. Hidell” to purchasetwo mail-order guns: an obsolete 6.5-millimeter Ital-ian Mannlicher-Carcano and a .38-caliber revolver.He then moved back to Dallas and found work at the Texas School Book Depository, from which heallegedly shot President Kennedy—and where his riflewas found, near a sixth-floor window—on November22, 1963. Soon after the assassination, Oswaldallegedly used his pistol to kill Officer Tippit on aDallas street before he was cornered and captured ina nearby movie theater.

In custody, Oswald steadfastly denied killingeither Kennedy or Tippit, insisting that he was “justa patsy” and that while he was charged with bothcrimes, he would never stand trial. On November 24as officers attempted to transport him to the countyjail Oswald was shot and killed by transplantedChicago mobster JACK RUBY in the basement of DAL-LAS POLICE DEPARTMENT headquarters. Rubyclaimed that the shooting was motivated by his sym-pathy for widow Jacqueline Kennedy and a desire tospare her from testifying at Oswald’s murder trial.The WARREN COMMISSION accepted that tale at facevalue while ignoring Ruby’s lifelong involvement inorganized crime. Although the commission namedboth Oswald and Ruby as lone killers, the HOUSE

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SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS later foundthat JFK “was probably assassinated as the result ofa conspiracy.” Evidence supporting Oswald’s claimof innocence—or, at least, suggesting that he wasmanipulated to the point of being charged and thenkilled by Ruby—includes the following items:

• A famous photograph of Oswald posing withhis mail-order rifle, published in Life magazine,reveals evidence of possible tampering. Specifi-cally, the divergent angles of shadows seen onOswald’s face and behind his body suggest thatOswald’s head was spliced onto the shoulders ofsome unknown man.

• Substantial published evidence suggests thatOswald was an agent of the CIA and simultane-ously served the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) as a paid informant. Both agencies deniedany significant knowledge of Oswald during theWarren Commission investigation, and subse-quent testimony indicates that files linkingOswald to the bureau were destroyed.

• Between September 27 and October 3, 1963,Oswald visited Mexico City, including analleged stop at the Cuban embassy where hesupposedly requested information on travel to

Havana. At that time the Cuban embassy wasunder constant CIA surveillance, with visitorsphotographed on arrival and departure. Theman identified as Oswald in agency photos fromSeptember 1963 bears no resemblance to thereal-life Oswald, a discrepancy that remainsunexplained to this day.

• Several weeks before the JFK assassination, anunknown man using Oswald’s name created adisturbance at a Dallas rifle range, firingrepeatedly at other shooters’ targets. Witnesseswho observed and spoke to the man agreedthat he did not resemble Oswald, though herepeatedly identified himself by name. TheWarren Commission dismissed the incident asirrelevant.

• Two weeks before the assassination, anotherunknown man used Oswald’s name while payingan Irving, Texas, gunsmith to mount a telescopicsight on an Italian rifle that was similar (but notidentical) to Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano. Ananonymous caller informed FBI agents of theevent on November 24, 1963, and G-mendeemed it “a bona fide transaction,” but theWarren Commission once again dismissed theevidence as meaningless.

PACKER, Horace (fl. 1969)Seattle FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)informant Horace Packer was hired in 1969 to infil-trate the STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. Helater admitted supplying campus radicals (at FBIexpense) with drugs, weapons, and the paint used tovandalize Seattle’s federal courthouse in February1970. That incident resulted in federal indictments ofdefendants known locally as the “Seattle Eight.” Attheir trial Packer testified that his FBI handlers toldhim to “do anything to protect my credibility” as aninformant. Pursuant to those orders, Packer used ille-gal drugs, including LSD and MARIJUANA, and wasjailed several times during violent demonstrations.All charges against the Seattle Eight were eventuallydismissed, marking one in a series of judicial defeatsfor the FBI and President RICHARD NIXON’s “law andorder” administration during the early 1970s.

PAKISTANPakistan was one of the two original successor statesto British INDIA that was created when that formercolony split along religious lines in 1947. In theoryIndia became a Hindu nation, while Pakistan—widely split into East and West sections—was aMuslim state. Problem areas remained, includingHyderabad and Junagadh (both predominatelyHindu, but with Muslim rulers), but the real bone ofcontention was Kashmir. India claimed the region in

connivance with its Hindu ruler, while the largelyMuslim populace sought unity with Pakistan. Thedispute has produced four bloody wars thus far, in1948–49, 1965–66, 1971, and 1999. Further prob-lems arose in March 1971 when separatists in EastPakistan proclaimed their land a new, independentnation called BANGLADESH. Civil war raged, withIndian troops intervening to support the rebels, andPakistan (no longer West) was defeated in December1971. The defeat failed to topple Pakistan’s rigidmilitary government, and the first experiment withcivilian elections failed in March 1977 when Pak-istan’s junta declared fraudulent the landslide victoryof the Bhutto Pakistan People’s Party. The resultantprotests and riots only tightened military rule, andwhile President Zulifikar Ali Bhutto was convicted in1977 for killing a political rival three years earlier,strongman Mohammed Zia al-Huq soon took hisplace, imposing martial law from September 1978 toDecember 1985. On August 19, 1988, President Ziadied when his air force plane exploded in midair.The state then gave civilian government another try,resulting in a shaky series of ineffective governmentsclimaxed by another military coup in October 1990.While India conducted a series of nuclear tests alongPakistan’s border, Pakistan detonated its own A-bomb in May 1998. Former prime minister NawazSharif was convicted of hijacking and TERRORISM inApril 2000, receiving dual terms of life imprison-ment. A rash of pro-Pakistani suicide bombings

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erupted in October 2001, killing 38 persons in Kash-mir by year’s end, while another blast in the Indianparliament left 14 dead. In June 2003 the govern-ment of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Provinceannounced plans to segregate women in universitiesto and “encourage” men to grow beards as symbolsof loyalty to Islam.

Despite ongoing U.S. occupation in 2005 andunqualified praise from the White House for GeneralPervez Musharraf’s regime, Pakistan remains ahotbed of alleged conspiracy. In late 2004 a CIAreport announced that an arms-trafficking networkled by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan had providedIRAN with “significant assistance” toward building anuclear arsenal, including designs for “advanced andefficient” weapons components. Former CIA directorGeorge Tenet dubbed Khan “at least as dangerous asOsama bin Laden.”

As for BIN LADEN himself, British intelligencesources maintain that at press time for this book, thefugitive terrorist was “being given safe haven withthe help of Pakistani officials.” Musharraf’s vow tostamp out Islamic terrorism within his borders ranghollow, as Taliban factions remained active in severalparts of the country and two other militant groups—the Army of Muhammad and the Army of the Pure—escaped official detection by the simple expedient ofchanging names. Mystery surrounds an allegedattempt to murder General Musharraf in December2004. The plot’s alleged ringleader was killed byPakistani security forces in what Time magazinecalled “a dubious shoot-out,” then a second leadingsuspect “disappeared” from custody during an unex-plained “security lapse.” Nationwide manhuntsproved unavailing, while international observersquestioned the plot’s reality.

PALMER RaidsIn February 1919 Attorney General Thomas Gregoryannounced plans to deport at least 7,000 “alienANARCHISTS and trouble makers” before year’s end.The apparent need for such action was reinforcedduring April and June by a series of bombings thatwere blamed on unknown radicals. One target wasnew Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who fol-lowed through on the his predecessor’s plan. To carryout the purge, he enlisted young J. EDGAR HOOVER,then in charge of the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT’s Red-hunting General Intelligence Division.

Hoover staged the first arrests on November 7,1919, the second anniversary of the Russian revolu-tion. The Labor Department issued 600 arrest war-rants for “illegal aliens”; legal niceties were ignoredduring simultaneous raids in 12 cities nationwide.No figures were published for total arrests, but sev-eral thousand persons were detained, most withoutvalid warrants. The New York Times reported fromManhattan that “[a] number in the building werebadly beaten by the police during the raid, theirheads wrapped in bandages testifying to the roughmanner in which they had been handled.” Of thosearrested 249 were deported aboard the SS Buford(dubbed the “Soviet Ark”) on December 21, 1919.

By that time Palmer and Hoover had planned thenext round of arrests, targeting the Communist Party(CP) and the Communist Labor Party. On December16, 1919, Hoover prepared 3,000 blank arrest war-rants and then ordered his spies in the radical move-ment to arrange party meetings nationwide onJanuary 2, 1920, to “facilitate the making of arrests.”Agents were advised to obtain legal warrants “ifabsolutely necessary”; otherwise, Hoover wrote, “Ileave entirely to your discretion as to the methods bywhich you gain access to such places.” On theappointed day at least 10,000 persons were arrested;some 6,500 of them released when they proved U.S.citizenship. Hoover claimed that 3,000 of those jailedmade “perfect” deportation cases, but only 556 werefinally expelled from the United States Gleeful mediareaction to the raids changed sharply in February1920 with exposure of a Hoover memo warning hissuperiors that there was “no authority under the lawpermitting this Department to take any action indeportation proceedings relative to radical activities.”In April federal judge George Anderson denouncedthe bureau for maintaining a “spy system [that]destroys trust and confidence and propagates hate.”

Congress investigated the raids between June1920 and January 1921. Hoover defended the drag-nets but later changed his tune. In 1940 one ofHoover’s aides told reporters that Hoover “was notin charge of, and had nothing to do with, the mannerin which the arrests were made of the so-called radi-cals under the administration of Attorney General A.Mitchell Palmer.” Seven years later Hoover himselftold the New York Herald Tribune, “I deplored themanner in which the raids were executed then, andmy position has remained unchanged.”

See also COMMUNISM.

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PANAMAThe southernmost Central American nation, Panamahas long been a pawn of U.S. interests in the region.Initially ruled by SPAIN (1502–1821) and then byCOLOMBIA (1821–1903), Panama struggled in vainto find its own identity. Between 1850 and 1900, thesmall nation suffered through 40 different regimes,50 major riots, five abortive secessions from Colom-bian domination, and 13 U.S. military interventions.At last, after Panamanians agreed to grant the UnitedStates rights to dig a shipping canal across theirnation, Washington threw its weight behind one last,successful bid for independence from Colombia.Freedom from Washington, however, would notcome so easily. Treaties bound Panama to its contractwith the United States, and the Canal Zone was offi-cially deemed American soil until December 31,1999. Meanwhile, the regime of President RONALD

REAGAN and Vice President George H. W. Bush sup-ported military dictator Manuel Noriega, head ofPanama’s SECRET POLICE and a “former” ally of theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. During the 1980sNoriega installed a series of puppet presidents to dohis bidding, but he ultimately quarreled with Wash-ington, whereupon the United States “discovered”his alleged involvement in COCAINE smuggling andindicted him in 1988. In December 1989 former allyBush sent 24,000 U.S. troops to kidnap Noriegafrom Panama City and carry him north, where hewas later convicted and imprisoned on narcoticscharges. In his absence the United States installedcompliant successor Guillermo Endara as president.Wholesale smuggling of drugs and weapons contin-ues unabated throughout Panama, while periodicinvasions by Colombian guerrillas and securityforces have raised concerns for the nation’s stability.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

PAN Am Flight 103On December 21, 1988, just 38 minutes after takingoff from London, Pan America Airlines Flight 103exploded in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland. Theblast and crash killed all 259 persons aboard and 11more on the ground. On December 28 investigatorsconfirmed that the blast was caused by a bomb in theplane’s luggage compartment. In August 1989 Presi-dent George H. W. Bush created a commission toreview the case. The commission’s report, which wasissued in May 1990, offered no solution but

described Pan Am’s security lapses and decried thelack of a “national will” to fight TERRORISM. (PanAm ceased operations on December 4, 1991, and inJuly 1992 was convicted of “willful misconduct”facilitating the crime.)

Suspicion initially focused on IRAN and SYRIA, twonations said to promote terrorism abroad. Uncon-firmed reports persist that British authorities identi-fied two Syrian suspects in 1990 and that Bushintervened with demands that the searchers redirecttheir attention to LIBYA. On November 15, 1991,authorities indicted two Libyan suspects, LameenKhalifa Fhimah and Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi.Both were employees of Libyan Arab Airlines, butU.S. spokespersons branded them covert intelligenceagents of Libyan dictator MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFFI.

A global tug-of-war ensued over the suspects.Qaddaffi announced plans to try them in Libya,while the UNITED NATIONS imposed sanctions toforce their surrender. In September 1993 Libyaoffered to release Fhimah and al-Megrahi for trial inSwitzerland, but prosecutors demanded surrender inScotland or the United States Qaddaffi then pro-posed that a Scottish court conduct its trial at TheHague, NETHERLANDS. Suppressed U.S. intelligencedocuments surfaced in January 1995 suggesting thatIran was responsible for the bombing; Washingtondownplayed the report, and FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) spokespeople offered a $4 mil-lion reward for capture of the two indicted suspects.In July 1998 all parties finally agreed on trial at TheHague, but negotiations concerning where the sus-pects would serve time (if finally convicted) stalledthe case for another eight months. Fhimah and al-Megrahi were delivered to The Hague on April 5,1999, but did not enter their not-guilty pleas untilFebruary 2000.

The Lockerbie trial, convened on May 3, 2000,spanned nine months. It included review of declassi-fied CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) files andtestimony from a CIA double agent who allegedlysaw one of the defendants smuggle a “suspicious”suitcase through British Customs on the evening ofthe explosion. Prosecutors claimed that the explo-sives were stashed at the Libyan Arab Airlines officeon Malta, and Libyan defector Abdul Majid Giakasolemnly informed the court that Qaddaffi was an“international Freemason.” (Defense attorneys coun-tered by noting Giaka’s bid for the $4 million FBIreward.) Palestinian guerrilla Mohammed Abu Talb,

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jailed for bombing a Danish synagogue in 1985,appeared in court and denied any link to the Locker-bie blast. Finally, on January 31, 2001, the courtreached a split decision, convicting al-Megrahi andacquitting Fhimah. On March 27, 2004, BritishPrime Minister Tony Blair announced a new era offriendship with Muammar Qaddaffi as he welcomedLibya’s strongman to London for the public signingof an OIL contract worth “several hundred millionpounds.” In return for the lucrative contract,Qaddaffi vowed to join the “War on Terrorism” anderadicate AL-QAEDA cells in Libya—assuming anycould be found.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; FREEMASONS.

PARAGUAYInitially inhabited by Guaraní Indians, landlockedParaguay was “discovered” by European explorersin the early 16th century and soon boasted a thrivingcolony of Spanish JESUITS. The natives rebelledagainst SPAIN in 1811, expelling foreign masters infavor of 60 years as a “nominal republic” underthree successive dictators. The last, Francisco López,waged hopeless border wars with ARGENTINA,BRAZIL, and URUGUAY that wiped out half ofParaguay’s male population in 1865–70. A new con-stitution, adopted in 1870, failed miserably in itsgoal of preventing bloodshed and dictatorship. Rela-tive stability was not achieved until 1912, followedby the Chaco War (1932–35) that won Paraguaymore western territory at BOLIVIA’s expense. Duringand after World War II the country was a haven forfugitive THIRD REICH felons, including Auschwitz“doctor” JOSEF MENGELE. Neo-Nazi dictator AlfredoStroessner tortured and murdered thousands of per-sons between 1954 and 1989 with full support fromthe United States. A military coup finally deposedStroessner, whereupon Gen. Andres Rodriguez becameParaguay’s first elected president in some three-quar-ters of a century. Raul Cubas Grau won the May1998 presidential contest, but he was driven fromoffice the following year on charges of complicity inthe assassination of Vice President Luis Argaña. Theopposition Liberal Party won its first major electionin August 2000, but official efforts to try various for-mer officials for human-rights violations have lan-guished. Protracted economic recession sparkedrioting in July 2002, which in turn prompted thegovernment to declare martial law under a “state of

emergency.” Poverty and a legacy of violence ham-string Paraguay’s efforts to enter the 21st century.

PEARL HarborOn December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked theU.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii,inflicting catastrophic losses on anchored ships of thePacific fleet. That “day of infamy” propelled theUnited States into World War II against JAPAN andGERMANY while the country demanded answersabout the sneak attack. Officially, investigatorsplaced sole responsibility for the deadly surprise oncommanders in Hawaii, Admiral Husband Kimmelland General Walter Short. Subsequent revelations,however, demonstrate that high-ranking officials inWashington either knew or should have known ofthe impending raid well in advance.

One watchdog who dropped the ball was FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) Director J. EDGAR

HOOVER. On August 12, 1941, double agent DusanPopov (serving both the German secret service andBritain’s MI6) contacted G-men in New York explain-ing that his latest assignment for the THIRD REICH

involved transmission of data on Pearl Harbor toADOLF HITLER’s Japanese allies. New York’s agent-in-charge acknowledged that Popov’s information“spells out in detail exactly where, when, how andby whom we are to be attacked,” but he found thedata “too precise” and opined that “it sounds like atrap.” Still, Hoover came to meet Popov—but not toassess his information. Rather, the puritanical FBIleader launched into a tirade against Popov’s “play-boy” lifestyle, haranguing Popov until his face“turned purple.” Hoover declared, “I can catch spieswithout your or anyone else’s help,” and as Popovleft the office, Hoover shouted after him, “Good rid-dance!” When Hoover reported a bare-bones outlineof the interview to President Franklin Roosevelt onSeptember 3, 1941, he omitted any mention of PearlHarbor or an impending attack.

While Hoover’s FBI clearly failed in its duty toalert the president, some conspiracists claim thatFDR was well aware of the impending Japaneseraid and that he welcomed it as a sure-fire means ofeffecting American entry into the war. According tothat scenario Roosevelt connived in the Pacificfleet’s destruction from 1940 (when he ordered thefleet to Pearl from its secure base at San Diego, Cal-ifornia) to February 1941 when FDR told Secretary

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of State Cordell Hull that he “might not mind los-ing one or two cruisers” to justify a declaration ofwar. At least seven other specific warnings ofimpending attacks on Pearl Harbor reached Wash-ington between January 27 and December 4, 1941.By December 1, 1941 (if not earlier), U.S. cryptolo-gists had cracked Japan’s military codes and werethus theoretically able to predict all troop move-ments ordered from Tokyo.

Instead of “one or two cruisers,” the Japaneseattack on December 7 sank or badly damaged 18U.S. warships, including the battleships Arizona,Oklahoma, and West Virginia. At nearby airfields188 planes were destroyed on the ground. A total of2,403 service personnel and 107 civilians died in theraid, but U.S. allies were overjoyed when Washing-ton declared war on Japan the following day.

PEDOPHILE priestsWhile popes and other leaders of the CATHOLIC

CHURCH have been dogged by sex scandals sinceMedieval times, no amount of consensual philander-ing by “celibate” clerics produced the explosive reac-tion engendered by revelations in the latter half of the20th century. Between 1950 and 2000 church leadersreceived 10,667 complaints of child molestation bypedophile priests across the United States, involving4,392 clergymen (4 percent of the total employed). Asreported by a committee of 12-member NationalReview Board in February 2004, 6,700 complaintswere substantiated while roughly 1,000 were dis-missed as false charges; another 3,300 cases wereclosed without investigation because the allegedoffenders were deceased. By the end of 2002 theAmerican church had spent $573,300,000 on litiga-tion, counseling and other “responses” to the scandal(including hush money for victims bribed into silence).Some 700 pedophile priests were removed from theirpulpits during that period, but most were simplytransferred to new churches (sometimes after “treat-ment” by the SERVANTS OF THE PARACLETE), and manyof those committed new offenses in successiveparishes, protected by their superiors who subvertedcriminal prosecution at every turn. Eighty percent ofthe identified victims were male, but some molesters—like Father John Porter, with 125 known victims infour states—raped boys and girls alike. Thus far, nobishops have been prosecuted for aiding and abettingpedophile priests.

The United States is not unique in its problemwith pedophile priests. During the past two decades,similar cases involving Catholic clergyman have beenreported from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada,England, Haiti, Ireland, New Zealand, and thePhilippines. In no case to date have church leaderswillingly cooperated with civil authorities to prose-cute priests for their crimes against children.

PENDERGAST, Tom (1872–1945)A native of St. Joseph, Missouri, born in 1872, TomPendergast moved to Kansas City in the 1890s,learning the basic tenets of corrupt ward politicsfrom his brother James, a saloon keeper and political“fixer.” By the time James died in 1911 Tom had afirm grip on the local Democratic Party’s reins.Through dealings with the MAFIA and ethnic STREET

GANGS, collaborating with corrupt police and politi-cians, Pendergast ensured that Kansas City remained

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President Harry Truman was one of many politicians who owed their allegiance and careers to boss Tom Pendergast. (Library of Congress)

notoriously “wet” throughout PROHIBITION. Illegalgambling also flourished, while votes were bought orfabricated to keep Pendergast’s allies in office. Inreturn fat government contracts were awarded tovarious Pendergast firms, including the Ready MixedConcrete Company, which profited hugely from NEW

DEAL civic-works projects during the Great Depres-sion. By that time Pendergast’s political machinedominated the whole Show Me State, with “BossTom” hand-picking most of Missouri’s successfuloffice holders. Pendergast’s great triumph was theselection of U.S. Senator (later President) Harry Tru-man, a one-time haberdasher from Independence.Reformers sniped incessantly at Pendergast, but theirefforts were fruitless until 1939 when he was con-victed of evading income tax on some of his gam-bling bribes. Pendergast served 15 months in prisonand then retired to Kansas City, where he lived justlong enough to see Truman succeed Franklin Roo-sevelt as president in 1945.

PENTTBOMAt 8:40 A.M. on September 11, 2001, the FederalAviation Administration (FAA) informed U.S. mili-tary authorities that American Airlines Flight 11,bound from Boston to Los Angeles, had beenhijacked. Three minutes later an identical messagewas broadcast concerning United Airlines Flight 175,also traveling from Boston to L.A. At 8:45 A.M.Flight 11 crashed into Tower 1 of New York City’sWORLD TRADE CENTER (WTC), killing all 92 personsaboard. Flight 175 struck Tower 2 of the WTC at9:03 A.M., killing all 65 persons aboard and precipi-tating the collapse of both towers for a total esti-mated death toll of 2,792. And still the grim newskept coming. At 9:24 A.M., the FAA announced thatAmerican Airlines Flight 77 had been hijacked whileen route from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles. Itcrashed into the Pentagon 16 minutes later, killing all64 persons aboard and another 124 on the ground.At 9:45 A.M. a telephone operator received a cell-phone call from United Airlines Flight 93, ostensiblybearing 40 passengers and crew from Newark to SanFrancisco. The caller reported a hijacking anddeclared that the passengers were preparing to fightback. The plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylva-nia, at 10:37 A.M., killing everyone aboard.

Those are the raw details of America’s worst-everterrorist attack, a case code-named PENTTBOM by

the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI).Authorities later identified the hijackers as 19 Arabmembers of AL-QAEDA, 15 of them from SAUDI ARA-BIA, presumably directed by fugitive Osama binLaden. A so-called 20th hijacker, Moroccan citizenMounir Motassadeq, was arrested in Germany andconvicted of conspiracy in February 2003, but anappeals court overturned that verdict in March2004, citing the refusal of U.S. authorities to supplya key witness. Yet another suspect, Zacarias Mous-saoui, was confined in the United States pending trialwhen this work went to press.

Confusion surrounding the “9/11” PENTTBOMevents predictably spawned a host of conspiracy the-ories, exacerbated by the secretive behavior of Presi-dent George W. Bush. Within 24 hours of theattacks, Bush ordered White House counterterrorismexpert Richard Clarke to seek links between theattacks and SADDAM HUSSEIN in IRAQ. Whenreminded that no such links had been found, Bushrepeated the order. Retired General Wesley Clarkconfirmed that presidential misdirection in an inter-view on Meet the Press. According to Clark, “Therewas a concerted effort to pin 9/11 and the terrorismproblem on Saddam Hussein. I was on CNN [onSeptember 11], and got a call at my home [fromWhite House staffers] saying, ‘You got to say this isconnected to Saddam Hussein.’ I said, ‘I’m willing tosay it, but what’s your evidence?’ And I never got anyevidence.” After failing to capture bin Laden inAFGHANISTAN, Bush later used the spurious 9/11argument as one justification for invading IRAQ inOPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

Critics cited further evidence of stalling in the 14-month delay between 9/11 and Bush’s creation of aspecial commission to investigate the attacks. OnNovember 27, 2002, Bush named HENRY KISSINGER

to chair the commission, but problems arose sur-rounding Kissinger’s secret roster of foreign clients.On December 13, 2002, Kissinger announced thathe would publicly identify those clients; then hechanged his mind and resigned from the commis-sion. From that day forward the Bush administra-tion was repeatedly accused of “stonewalling” itsown commission, withholding crucial documentsunder claims of executive privilege. Bush and VicePresident DICK CHENEY agreed to answer selectedquestions during a two-hour session in April 2004but only on condition that no tapes or transcriptswere preserved.

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That strange performance prompted Ellen Mari-ani, widow of a 9/11 victim, to file a federal lawsuitagainst the Bush administration. Mariani’s complaintcharged that Bush, Cheney, Attorney General JOHN

ASHCROFT, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, andothers had possessed sufficient advance knowledge toprevent the PENTTBOM attacks, but they took nosteps to avert the disaster. The charge seemed absurdon its face, but a White House security report, grudg-ingly released in April 2004 (and greatly censored,even then), revealed that the FBI and the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY had warned Bush of suspi-cious al-Qaeda activity in the United States no laterthan August 6, 2001. That report bore the unam-biguous title “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in theUnited States.”

One of many conspiracy theories surrounding thePENTTBOM attacks contends that Bush and com-pany allowed the raids to proceed—much as Britainallegedly sacrificed the LUSITANIA in 1915 andFranklin Roosevelt ignored warnings of the 1941PEARL HARBOR attack—to advance the timetable of a“war on terrorism” that included the conquest ofIraq and looting of that nation’s OIL reserves whiledistracting Americans from the ENRON scandal, adepressed economy, and other political hot potatoes.Those reaping immense profits from the Bush terrorcampaign included Dick Cheney’s former colleaguesat Halliburton Corporation, various petroleum com-panies, and the U.S. MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

PENTTBOM conspiracy theories are not limitedto presidential negligence and greed, however. Somego even further, claiming that traitorous elementswithin the U.S. government engineered the raids andfalsely blamed al-Qaeda. French author ThierryMeyssan, in his book The Big Lie (2002), asserts thatvarious potential victims of the 9/11 raids were “con-veniently invited to a charity lunch in Nebraska” orotherwise evacuated on the day of the attacks, thusreducing the anticipated body count by some 50 per-cent. Meyssan also questions reports of the Pentagonplane crash. “What became of American AirlinesFlight 77?” he asks. “Are the passengers dead? If yes,who killed them and why? If no, where are they?”Meyssan’s questions are echoed on various InternetWeb sites that claim that Flight 77 is either “missing”or never existed at all.

Another skeptic, Dr. Thomas Olmsted, claims thatautopsy reports and other official documentsobtained from the Armed Forced Institute of Pathol-

ogy (AFIP) via the Freedom of Information Act provethat there were “no Arabs on Flight 77.” He citesvarious discrepancies in published tabulations of thepassengers and crew on board (56, 58, or 64) andautopsy reports demonstrating that “no Arabswound up on the morgue slab.” If true, that leavesonly two possible explanations: (a) The five al-Qaedahijackers have posthumously disappeared, or (b) theFBI was less than honest on September 27, 2001,when it televised photos of the five alleged terroristsaboard Flight 77. Olmsted makes no attempt toexplain his data, simply presenting it as fact.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

PERUOnce the heart of a vast Inca empire, Peru was con-quered by SPAIN in 1531–33. The nation declaredindependence in July 1821, but Spanish forces resis-ted expulsion for another three years. Incessantbloodshed stained the next century with frequentrevolutions, another war against Spain (1864–66),and the ill-conceived war of the Pacific waged againstneighboring CHILE (1879–83). Two decades of dicta-torship ended in 1945 with the election of PresidentJosé Bustamente y Rivero, but a military juntareplaced Bustamente in 1948 and ruled Peru for thenext 20 years. Quasi-Marxist Gen. Juan VelascoAlvarado seized the reins of power in October 1968,but concessions to U.S. business interests could notsave him from another coup in 1975. Democracy ofa sort returned to Peru in May 1980, but rebels ofthe Shining Path continued their guerrilla waragainst the state, while traffic in COCAINE corruptedgovernment at every level. President Alberto Fuji-mori, elected in 1990, cited the narcotics trade andTERRORISM as excuses for suspending Peru’s consti-tution, dissolving Congress, and imposing state cen-sorship on the news media. Twice reelected (1995and 2000), Fujimori waged border war againstECUADOR and watched the climatic disaster of ElNiño inflict deadly droughts on Peruvian farms. InSeptember 2000 Fujimori’s chief intelligence officerwas videotaped in the act of bribing a congressman.Hounded by calls to resign, Fujimori left office inNovember and fled to JAPAN, where his secret dualcitizenship protected him from extradition. “Cen-trist” Alejandro Toledo was elected president in2001, but his plans to privatize utilities and court

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further foreign investments produced widespreadrioting by his one-time supporters in 2002.

PHARMACEUTICAL companiesThe manufacture and sale of prescription drugs is a megabillion-dollar global industry, dependentin large part on politicians for its continuingwealth. Legislation determines the standards ofacceptability for medication in the United Statesand elsewhere, while likewise regulating patents,testing, foreign sales, and a host of other variablesvital to the industry. It comes as no surprise, then,that pharmaceutical companies are huge financial supporters of pliable candidates and friendly political parties. In ELECTION 2000, two U.S. drugcompanies—Bristol-Meyers Squibb and Glaxo Welcome—gave $2,127,950 to the RepublicanParty, supporting the campaign of presidentialhopeful George W. Bush.

With so much money riding on the line, it alsocomes as no surprise that pharmaceutical firmsengage in a variety of shady or borderline unethicalpractices to maximize profits. Aside from exposés ofDRUG DUMPING in Third World nations and allegedsuppression of low-cost CANCER CURES, the follow-ing stories made headlines during the first adminis-tration of George W. Bush:

• January 4, 2003: Writing for the British Med-ical Journal, author Ray Moynihan claimedthat drug companies sought to “medicalize”various female sexual problems under theumbrella term female sexual dysfunction (FSD)to create a market for remedial drugs—ineffect, a female version of Viagra. Spokespersonsfor the pharmaceutical industry, which hasfunded all studies of FSD to date, claim that 43percent of all women suffer from some form ofsexual dysfunction. Moynihan noted that thealarming statistic, first reported in 1999,emerged from a survey of 1,500 Americanwomen who were questioned regarding sex-related problems (lack of desire, lack of vaginallubrication, and so on) occurring during theprior two months. Authors of the original studyagreed with Moynihan that occasional lack ofdesire or other sexual problems are completelynormal and may spring from countless causesbeyond the reach of medication.

• January 20, 2003: Republican Party benefactorGlaxo Smith Kline issued an ultimatum toCanadian pharmacists—who sell $1 billion inprescription medicines to U.S. customers eachyear at prices 20–80 percent below the standardAmerican rates—demanding that the cross-bor-der trade be ended. In effect Glaxo threatenedto cut off supplies of U.S. drugs to Canadianretailers if prices were not raised north of theborder—a demand that spoke volumes regard-ing industry “concern” for ailing customers.

• February 22, 2003: Documents produced incourt revealed that Bayer Corporation execu-tives knew of critical problems with the firm’strademark anticholesterol drug (Baycol) yearsbefore the product was pulled from pharmacyshelves in 2001. Baycol was linked to 100deaths and 1,600 nonfatal injuries before itwas withdrawn from sale, thus spawning thelawsuit against Bayer and its British marketingpartner, GlaxoSmithKline. A spokesperson forGlaxo told the New York Times that “promo-tion of Baycol was fully consistent with theproduct label that the (U.S. Food and DrugAdministration) approved.” Unfortunately,that approved label failed to mention thatusers of Baycol were placed at heightened riskof contracting a rare and life-threatening mus-cular disease.

• June 21, 2003: As noted elsewhere in this vol-ume, U.S. pharmaceutical giant ASTRAZENECA

pleaded guilty in federal court to a felonycharge of health-care fraud, settling criminaland civil accusations of illegal marketing with alump payment of $355 million.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

PHILADELPHIA Police DepartmentCivil libertarians mark the Philadelphia PoliceDepartment (PPD) as the epitome of law-enforcementagencies that sacrifice law in pursuit of ultraconser-vative “order.” Philly’s long war against the Leftdates from the late 19th century and spans most ofthe 20th. It began in earnest during 1902 whenMayor Samuel Ashbridge mobilized his men againstANARCHISTS who recruited from among the unem-ployed. So successful were police in “the suppressionof seditious utterances” that Ashbridge deemed his

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city “freer from the objectionable class of peoplethan any other large city in the country.” A decadelater, anarchists and other radicals were routinelydenied permits for public gatherings and jailed if theyattempted to proceed without the necessary paper-work. In 1919 the PPD organized a “bomb squad”with carte blanche to stem the “mounting tides ofBolshevism in America.” Two years later, police com-missioner William Mills added a “gas squad” com-posed of World War I combat veterans who wererecruited to tear-gas dissidents and labor unions withan order that “all meetings of a radical character willbe prohibited or broken up.” From 1930 to 1960 thecity’s Red Squad collaborated with FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) agents to spy on supposedsubversives, infiltrating 6,000 “radical” meetings by1937. In April 1940 the squad joined members of theHOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES toraid Communist Party headquarters without war-rants, illegally carting off two truckloads of docu-ments and literature.

Police commissioner Howard Leary was a liberalby most police standards, accepting scrutiny from thenation’s first civilian review board in 1958 and creat-ing a Civil Disobedience Squad (CDS) to coordinatepeaceful public demonstrations. In 1966 successorFrank Rizzo changed everything with a hard-line, farRight view of law enforcement designed, in his ownwords, to “make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.”Under Rizzo the CDS was converted to a SECRET

POLICE surveillance team, targeting a wide range ofgroups that included the BLACK PANTHER PARTY andSTUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. Brutality waswidely recognized and tolerated under Rizzo, whosemen favored black “radicals” with public stripsearches and marched them nude to paddy wagons infull view of television cameras.

While Rizzo charged various leftist groups withplots against the city and himself (none ever provedin court), he and his staff were strangely unable tocope with organized crime, as practiced by theAngelo Bruno MAFIA family. Bruno reigned supremein Philadelphia throughout Rizzo’s terms as policecommissioner (1966–72) and mayor (1972–80).Scandals including rampant police brutality andcorruption finally drove Rizzo from office, and hewas defeated in two subsequent mayoral races(1983 and 1987). Then he suffered a fatal heartattack before voters could reject him a fourth time,in 1991.

In 1995 a major scandal erupted in the PPD’s 39thDistrict where officers were accused of robbing drugdealers, making false arrests, and filing false reports.The usual modus operandi involved corrupt copsraiding drug houses, stealing money from the dealers,and beating anyone who stood in their way. By mid-1997, five officers were convicted on various felonycharges in a case where one presiding judge declaredthat police had “squashed the Bill of Rights into themud.” Thousands of drug convictions are still underreview in Philadelphia; some 300 of them overturnedat last count. As a result of the scandal, in September1996 the city reached an agreement with various civilrights groups who threatened class-action lawsuitsagainst the police department. The agreement, super-vised by federal judge Stewart Dalzell, mandated twoyears of independent oversight, coupled withappointment of an Integrity and Accountability Offi-cer to monitor PPD’s Internal Affairs Division andthe department’s rather ineffective Ethics andAccountability Division.

See also COMMUNISM.

PHILBY, Adrian “Kim” (1912–1988)The son of a British diplomat and born in India onJanuary 1, 1912, Adrian (“Kim”) Philby discoveredCOMMUNISM at Trinity College, Cambridge, andvolunteered to spy within England for RUSSIA. Hisoffer was quickly accepted by Soviet intelligence(OGPU), and he became a member of a spy ringdubbed the Cambridge 5, including comradesAnthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross, andDonald Maclean. While working as a journalist in1940, Philby joined Britain’s MI6 intelligence serv-ice, working closely with agents of the U.S. OFFICE

OF STRATEGIC SERVICES. At war’s end he was sta-tioned in TURKEY and later became first secretary atthe British embassy in Washington, D.C. Back inEngland by 1950 he warned Burgess and Macleanof a British “mole hunt” the following year, therebypermitting their escape to Russia. Philby’s doublelife was not exposed until January 1963 with thedefection of a high-ranking KGB officer, and Philbytoo escaped to the Soviet Union. His actionsresulted in a shakeup in the British secret service touncover other “moles,” and the tightening of secu-rity procedures and protocols in the future. In 1965he received one of Russia’s highest awards, the RedBanner Order, and three years later published a

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memoir titled My Silent War. At his death on May11, 1988, Philby was honored with a hero’s funeralby the Soviet government.

PHILIPPINESNative tribes occupied this chain of islands in rela-tive harmony before Ferdinand Magellan arrived in1521. SPAIN claimed the Philippines in 1542 andruled for the next 350 years until U.S. forces seizedthe islands in 1898. Filipinos were briefly grateful,until they realized that Washington had no inten-tion of granting them independence. Nationalistleader Emilio Aguinaldo subsequently launched aguerrilla war against the new occupiers, marked bybrutal excesses that prefigured America’s later per-formance in VIETNAM. Aguinaldo was captured in1901, and “peace” was restored the following year,except for pockets of Islamic Moro resistance in thesouthern islands. In 1934 the Tydings-McDuffie Act

scheduled transfer of power to a native Filipinogovernment in 1946, and while World War IIthreatened that schedule, the Philippines stillachieved independence in July of the target year.Successive compliant presidents welcomed a strongU.S. military presence on the island and encouragedvarious forms of vice—including widespread trafficin child prostitutes—that catered to foreign visitors.President FERDINAND MARCOS (1965–86) and wifeImelda were the worst of a bad lot, so brutal andcorrupt that even the charade of a revised constitu-tion (1972) and imposition of martial law could notquell domestic upheaval against the criminalregime. Public dissatisfaction peaked in August1983 with the murder of opposition leader BENIGNO

AQUINO, whose widow launched a “People Power”movement to drive Marcos from office. Widespreadelection fraud tarnished the last Marcos victory inFebruary 1986, and the husband-wife dictators fledinto exile three weeks later. New president CorazonAquino survived several coup attempts and heldoffice until 1992. Her successors have sufferedlong-running guerrilla warfare with the MoroNational Liberation Front, whose rebels seek toestablish a separate Islamic state in Mindanao.Another rebel group, Abu Sayyaf, reportedly hasties to AL-QAEDA and fugitive plotter Osama binLaden. In 2002 President George W. Bush dis-patched U.S. troops to the Philippines, ostensibly totrain native soldiers for their role in the global“War on TERRORISM.”

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY.

PHINEAS PriesthoodThe neo-Nazi terrorists who call themselves PhineasPriests draw inspiration from an obscure Bible story,reported in Numbers 25:6–13. According to thatfable, Phinehas averted divine retribution on ISRAEL

and earned his people a “covenant of peace” withGod by murdering two mixed-race lovers, an Israeliteman and a Midianite woman. Ironically, modernPhineas Priests seek to follow his example (whilehabitually misspelling his name) by waging a covertguerrilla war against Jews, whom they regard as inter-national conspirators and enemies of the “Aryan”race. Modern Phinean philosophy was first set forth in1990 by North Carolina white supremacist RichardKelly Hoskins in his book Vigilantes of Christendom.While putting a whites-only twist on the biblical myth,

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Nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo opposed U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the Spanish-AmericanWar. (Author’s collection)

Hoskins declared: “As the kamikaze is to the Japan-ese, as the Shiite is to Islam, as the Zionist is to theJew, so the Phineas priest is to Christendom. . . . [I]tmakes little difference whether you agree or disagreewith the Phineas Priesthood. It is important that youknow that it exists, is active, and in the near futuremay become a central fact in your life.”

Hoskins identified members of the 1980s SILENT

BROTHERHOOD as Phineas Priests, though the groupitself made no such claims. Mainstream Americafirst heard of the Phineas Priesthood in 1991 whenlongtime KU KLUX KLAN member Byron De La Beck-with faced his fourth murder trial in the 1963 slay-ing of Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers.A prospective witness in that case expressed fear ofretribution from Phineas Priests if he testified againstBeckwith. “You don’t know when they’re going tostrike,” the man told reporters. “There is nothingquite so dangerous as a religious fanatic who thinkshe’s doing the Lord’s will.” Self-styled PhineasPriests have amply proved that point during the past decade with a series of crimes that include thefollowing cases:

August 1991: Police in Muskogee, Oklahoma,captured gunman Walter Thody in a high-speedchase and shootout after a local thrift shop was robbed for the second time in six weeks. Incustody, Thody—a convicted counterfeiter—confessed the holdups to reporters and claimedhe was a Phineas Priest. According to Thodysome $52,000 stolen in the first robbery wasused to fund an impending war against Jews inthe United States. Thody received a life prisonsentence in 1992.

October 1996: Federal agents arrested four self-described Phineas Priests in Seattle, chargedwith stealing $108,000 in two local bank rob-beries. In addition to bombing the two banksthey robbed, the Seattle defendants also deto-nated explosive charges at a local newspaperand at a Planned Parenthood office (demon-strating the group’s opposition to legal abor-tion). Life sentences were imposed ondefendants Charles Barbee, Robert Berry, andJay Merrell, while a fourth accomplice was sen-tenced to 55 years.

August 1999: Buford Furrow, Jr., a former officerof the Aryan Nations, invaded a Jewish com-munity center in Los Angeles, wounding two

adults and three children with gunfire. Hourslater Furrow shot and killed a Filipino-Americanpostman who was selected at random. In thewake of his murder conviction, various pub-lished reports described Furrow as a PhineasPriest.

September 1999: Gunman Larry Ashbrookstormed a Baptist church in Fort Worth,Texas, killing seven worshippers before heshot himself. Ashbrook left a note that read:“My life has been destroyed by these people—Air Force personnel, Tarrant County sheriff’sdeputies, the Klan.” Early reports from Christ-ian fundamentalist spokespersons describedAshbrook as a raving atheist, but author JohnCraig informed authorities that he had inter-viewed Ashbrook during research for his 1997book on the radical right, Soldiers of God.Craig identified Ashbrook as a self-describedPhineas Priest, but FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVES-TIGATION spokespersons dismissed any thoughtof investigating Ashbrook’s political connec-tions. Local authorities were likewise blasé on the matter, telling the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that background research on Ash-brook was pointless since “We’re not doing abiography on the subject.”

See also TERRORISM.

PHOENIX ProgramUntil specifically prohibited by law from plottingacts of murder, the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY (CIA) conducted or “encouraged” homi-cides around the world. In some cases “executiveaction” programs (targeting chiefs of state) werelaunched against foreign leaders whose numberincluded FIDEL CASTRO of CUBA, Africa’s PATRICE

LUMUMBA, and Rafael Trujillo in the DOMINICAN

REPUBLIC. Most CIA killings, however, targeted rel-ative nonentities who were marked as Communistagents or other “enemies” of the United States. Themost egregious of all CIA murder campaigns wasthe Phoenix Program, a long-running guerrilla warcarried out in war-torn VIETNAM and neighboringcountries from 1968 onward. Phoenix was con-ceived by CIA leader William Colby to “neutralize”members of the Viet Cong infrastructure—a vagueclass including known or suspected VC officers,

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enlisted men, political activists, tax collectors, andany village leader suspected of Communist sympa-thies. South Vietnamese president Nguyen VanThieu made the program official and providednative officers to assist the CIA and U.S. ArmyIntelligence with the campaign of kidnapping, tor-ture, and murder. Field assassins were most fre-quently recruited from the ranks of Navy SEALS orArmy Special Forces (“green berets”).

Internal documents, revealed years later, showthat leaders of the Phoenix Program set themselves agoal of “neutralizing” 1,800 victims per month dur-ing 1969. Official cover-ups make any final bodycount speculative, but a spokesperson for the U.S.Defense Department, testifying before Congress in1973, admitted that 26,369 South Vietnamese civil-ians were killed by Phoenix assassins while the oper-ation was under direct U.S. control between January1968 and August 1972. According to the samesource, another 33,358 persons were seized anddetained without trial by Phoenix agents. WilliamColby offered different figures in 1973, admitting20,587 Phoenix murders through the end of 1971,with 28,978 persons “captured” and another 17,717“rallied” to support South Vietnam’s corrupt mili-tary regime under pain of death if they refused. SouthVietnamese agents assumed responsibility forPhoenix—renaming it the Special Police InvestigativeService—after President RICHARD NIXON withdrewU.S. combat troops in 1972, but some investigatorsmaintain that CIA agents remained with the Phoenixeffort until South Vietnam fell in 1975. Seven yearsafter that defeat, a former Phoenix gunman testifiedthat Phoenix teams had also been assigned to murderU.S. military personnel who were deemed “securityrisks.” The witness opined that those criminal ordersdid not issue from “division” but from some higherauthority within the CIA or the collaborating Officeof Naval Intelligence.

See also COMMUNISM.

PIKE CommitteeEstablished on February 19, 1975, the House SelectIntelligence Committee—better known by the name ofits chairman, New York congressman Otis Pike—wasthe House counterpart of the U.S. Senate’s CHURCH

COMMITTEE. While the Church Committee focusedprimarily on illegal (and frequently sensational) activi-ties of the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)

and the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), thePike Committee took a more subtle approach byreviewing the “intelligence community’s” expensesand effectiveness. That angle of attack promptedimmediate hostility from President Gerald Ford, aswell as leaders of the FBI and CIA. When the investi-gation was complete, the same Congress that hadauthorized the probe voted to suppress its findings.The full report has never been published, but CBSnewscaster Daniel Schorr was suspended for leakingportions of it to the Village Voice. Mainstream news-papers, including the New York Times and the Wash-ington Post, refused to publish the extracts indeference to “national security.”

POLANDGreat Poland was founded in A.D. 966 and mergedwith Little Poland in 1047. Lithuania was added tothe mix via royal marriage in 1386, and the PolishEmpire’s power peaked during the 15th and 16thcenturies with military victories over GERMANY, RUS-SIA, and TURKEY. That glory vanished in the 18thcentury, however, as a weak monarch permitted landgrabs by Russia, Prussia, and AUSTRIA between 1772and 1795. Popular revolts failed to expel theinvaders, but Poland was more-or-less reconstitutedafter World War I—a circumstance that left GermanFührer ADOLF HITLER seething for revenge. TheTHIRD REICH’s invasion of Poland sparked WorldWar II in September 1939, and Poland soon becamethe designated killing ground for European Jews dur-ing the Holocaust. While concentration campssprouted throughout occupied Europe, Hitler’s dedi-cated extermination camps—Auschwitz, Belzec,Sobibor, and Treblinka—were all located in Poland.Ravaged by German occupation, Poland fell underRussia’s de facto control after 1945, with a Commu-nist government in place and 70,000 square miles ofeastern soil ceded to the Soviet Union by treaty. ThePolish “people’s democracy” persecuted members ofthe CATHOLIC CHURCH and suppressed organizedlabor until 1980 when Lech Walesa’s union Solidar-ity wreaked havoc with the already shaky economy.The arrest of Walesa and other Solidarity leadersonly delayed the inevitable communist collapse, andSolidarity won a stunning political victory in 1989,seizing effective control of the government. Walesawas elected president in 1990, but his influencewaned during the next five years, and a Communist

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candidate defeated him in 1995. Despite membershipin NATO, Poland has lately drawn closer to Russiaonce more in its ongoing quest for political stability.

See also COMMUNISM.

POLLARD, Jonathan (fl. 1985)In November 1985 FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION agents arrested U.S. Navy intelligence analystJonathan Pollard on charges of selling classifiedmaterial to Israeli agents. Spokespersons for ISRAEL

issued an immediate apology, declaring that the oper-ation was unauthorized. According to that state-ment, “the close and special relationship offriendship” between the United States and Israel pro-hibits any covert activities, and “spying on theUnited States stands in total contradiction to our pol-icy.” Joint investigation of the case allegedly provedthat Pollard’s contacts were not agents of MOSSAD

but rather members of “a small, independent scien-tific intelligence unit” which was subsequently dis-banded with return of the purloined documents. Attrial on espionage charges, Pollard denied spyingagainst the United States, insisting that he sold onlymilitary data vital to Israel’s defense (includingdetails of Soviet arms shipments to SYRIA, develop-ment of nuclear weapons in PAKISTAN, air-defensesystems in LIBYA, and development of chemicalweapons in IRAQ). Nonetheless, Pollard was con-victed and sentenced to life imprisonment, while hiswife received a five-year sentence for assisting him.Despite initial denials of complicity, Israel grantedPollard citizenship and requested presidentialclemency in 1988. Pro-Israeli groups and individualscontinue agitation for his release, though all appealsto date have been rejected.

PORTUGALThe Roman Empire conquered Portugal in A.D. 140but later proved incapable of defending the coastlineagainst Viking raids. In 1143 the nation won inde-pendence from Moorish SPAIN, and three centurieslater launched its surprising career as a global colo-nial power. By the mid-16th century, Lisbon’s kingruled BRAZIL (where Portuguese remains the primarylanguage), along with major parts of Africa,Indochina, Malaya, and Persia. Spanish troopsinvaded Portugal in 1581 and occupied it for thenext six decades. By the time the Portuguese monar-

chy was restored in 1640, European rivals hadusurped most of the nation’s colonies abroad. Cor-rupt King Carlos (1889–1908) named João Francothe nation’s de facto dictator in 1906, two yearsbefore Carlos and his heir were assassinated in Lis-bon. Successor king Manuel II was ousted by revolu-tionaries in 1910, and Portugal became aFrench-style republic until 1926 when another rebel-lion placed Antonio Oliveira Salazar in command.He ruled as virtual dictator until 1970, presidingover the collapse of Portugal’s last foreign outpostsin India and Africa. That struggle lasted longest andclaimed the most lives in ANGOLA, where nativesfinally won freedom in 1975. Portugal surrenderedits last tiny colony, the Chinese port of Macao, inDecember 1999.

POSSE ComitatusThe Posse Comitatus movement (“power of thecounty,” in Latin) dates from 1969 when two sepa-rate groups were founded by far-right extremistsHenry Beach and William Potter Gale. Beach, aretired Oregon dry cleaner, had joined the pro-NaziSilver Shirt Legion in the 1930s, while Gale (a retiredarmy officer who despised and concealed his Jewishheritage) had previously led the California Rangers,a paramilitary group affiliated with the KU KLUX

KLAN. Both men espoused a doctrine claiming thatthe highest level of legitimate authority in the UnitedStates is county government, represented by anelected sheriff. Any higher levels of administration—that is, state and federal governments—were deemedillegal, which entitled Posse members to withholdtaxes, drive cars without state licenses, ignore vari-ous firearms regulations, and otherwise flout estab-lished law as they saw fit. Neo-Nazi leaders set theanti-Semitic tone for Posse propaganda, whichdenounced ZOG—the “Zionist Occupation Govern-ment” in Washington, D.C.—and blamed most ofthe world’s financial woes on Jewish financiers.

State and federal authorities predictably dis-agreed with Posse philosophers, and while themovement spread rapidly among disaffected grass-roots Americans—attracting an estimated 50,000members in 23 states by 1976—Posse members and supporters often found themselves in troublewith the law. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

agents launched an investigation of the movementin 1975 after Arkansas disciples threatened to kill

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Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. Wisconsin Posseleader James Wickstrom staged several abortivepolitical campaigns before he was convicted on afederal counterfeiting charge. Three Colorado mem-bers were imprisoned for manufacturing explosives,while others went to jail on tax-evasion andweapons charges. On February 13, 1983, Posse stal-wart Gordon Kahl killed two U.S. marshals andwounded three others in a shootout near Medina,North Dakota. Months later, Kahl was traced to anArkansas hideout where a second pitched battleclaimed his life and that of the county sheriff. Posseinfluence declined in the 1990s, as surviving mem-bers defected to join the Militia movement. A sur-vey of American hate groups, published by theSouthern Poverty Law Center in spring 2004, foundno active Posse groups surviving.

See also ROCKEFELLER CLAN.

PRISON gangsIronically, some of the strongest and deadliest crimi-nal gangs in the modern United States were organ-ized behind prison walls and are run today byinmates who are serving long sentences. They are pri-vately acknowledged to control most activities insome large penal institutions, ranging from contra-band smuggling and contract murders to inmate jobassignments and conjugal visits. Official denialsnotwithstanding, their continued operation andinfluence strongly suggests widespread official negli-gence (at best) or deep-seated corruption (at worst).

The four primary U.S. prison gangs are the ARYAN

BROTHERHOOD (combining neo-Nazi politics withdrug smuggling and racketeering), the BLACK GUER-RILLA FAMILY (sworn enemies of the Aryan Brother-hood since the late 1960s), and two rival Hispaniccliques, the MEXICAN MAFIA and NUESTRA FAMILIA

(“Our Family”). Despite their common ethnic roots,the latter groups are bitter enemies, sometimes forg-ing alliances with the Aryan Brotherhood or theBlack Guerrilla Family in fratricidal warfare. Racialanimosities vie with common greed in the world ofprison gangs to produce a never-ending cycle of mur-der and reprisal. Black Guerrilla Family membershave also allied themselves with militant AfricanAmerican groups such as the BLACK PANTHER PARTY,while Aryan Brotherhood members collaborate withoutside racist groups including the KU KLUX KLAN

and various neo-Nazi cliques.

PROHIBITIONThe “noble experiment” of Prohibition—banningalcoholic beverages in the United States—was not asudden onslaught. Religious groups and nativist fac-tions (who despised foreign-born brewers) begantheir campaign for a “dry” America in mid-19thcentury. Three of the 48 states banned booze by1905 with that number increasing to nine by 1912and 26 by 1916. The Eighteenth Amendment to theU.S. Constitution, banning liquor nationwide, wasratified on January 16, 1919, and took effect oneyear later, with penalties for violation imposed bythe Volstead Act of October 28, 1919. The firstliquor hijacking by bootleggers occurred in Chicagominutes after midnight on January 16, 1920, andthe next 14 years witnessed a virtual orgy of illicitdrinking that surpassed any temperance worker’swildest nightmares. In most major cities from coastto coast the number of covert saloons (dubbed“speakeasies” after the ostensible need for secrecy)increased 10-fold, while the MAFIA and other ethnicgangs abandoned normal pursuits to grow rich fromthe proceeds of smuggling. Thus was born America’snational crime syndicate, beginning with the EastCoast’s BIG SEVEN combination and expandingthrough a series of semipublic “crime conventions”held during 1929–32. Corrupt police and politicianslikewise fattened on proceeds from the liquor trade,while hundreds of gangland murders (includingChicago’s notorious ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE)went forever unsolved. Mob leaders such asCHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO and MEYER LANSKY gottheir start in Prohibition and expanded from illegalalcohol to make fortunes in gambling, narcotics, andracketeering.

A new federal statute, the Blaine Act of February17, 1933, sounded the death knell of Prohibition inthe United States, and the Eighteenth Amendmentwas repealed by year’s end with ratification of theTwenty-first Amendment. Three holdout states—Kansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma—were still “dry”in 1948, and Mississippi remained the most stubborn,repealing state prohibition statutes only in 1966. Afew “dry” towns and counties still remain, scatteredacross the U.S. map, but the laws have little effect.Strangely, the experiment taught lawmakers little ornothing. The same spirit, reborn as a national (thenglobal) “War on Drugs,” has created vast new crimecartels while failing in every respect to curtail trade inMARIJUANA, COCAINE, and HEROIN.

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PROJECT PaperclipAlmost before the final shots of World War II werefired, Allied intelligence agencies launched a con-certed treasure hunt for German military and scien-tific inventions, including rocket and jet-enginetechnology. Both sides in the coming cold war bene-fited greatly by picking through the ruins of ADOLF

HITLER’s war machine, but the U.S. War Depart-ment’s Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA)scored a particular triumph with a covert operationknown as Project Paperclip, authorized by PresidentHarry Truman in September 1946. Under terms ofthat project the United States welcomed the techni-cians who had built Hitler’s V-2 rockets and usedthem to pulverize England. President Truman’s origi-nal order specifically barred recruitment of anyonefound “to have been a member of the Nazi partyand more than a nominal participant in its activities,or an active supporter of Nazism or militarism”; yetrecruitment of die-hard fanatics proceeded apace.Samuel Klaus, the State Department’s JIOA repre-sentative, complained that many of the scientistsenlisted were “ardent Nazis,” but JIOA DirectorBosquet Wev overruled that protest, declaring that“the best interests of the United States have beensubjugated to the efforts expended in ‘beating adead Nazi horse.’” Furthermore, Wev cautioned,Soviet RUSSIA posed a “far greater security threat tothis country than any former Nazi affiliations whichthey may have had or even any Nazi sympathies thatthey may still have.” Nazis imported under ProjectPaperclip included:

Arthur Rudolph, director of the Mittelwerk fac-tory at Dora-Nordhausen concentration camp,where 20,000 slave laborers died. A NationalSocialist since 1931, Rudolph was described inAllied files as “100% Nazi, dangerous type,security threat. . . . Suggest internment.” TheJIOA found “nothing in his records indicatingthat he was a war criminal or an ardent Nazi orotherwise objectionable.” Rudolph became aU.S. citizen, designed the rocket used in theAPOLLO PROJECT moon landings—and fled toWest Germany in 1984 when his record of WAR

CRIMES was reopened.Werner von Braun, Hitler’s technical director at

the Peenemunde rocket research center from1937 to 1945 and developer of the deadly V-2rocket. He later worked on guided missiles

for the U.S. Army, served as director ofNASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, andbecame a national celebrity in the 1960s asone of Walt Disney’s “World of Tomorrow”experts. In the 1970s he served as associatedirector of National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA).

Kurt Blome, another Nazi scientist who admittedexperimenting on concentration-camp inmateswith plague bacilli. Blome was acquitted ofwar crimes at Nuremberg in 1947 (althoughmost observers accepted the fact of his guilt).Two months after that acquittal Blome was inMaryland, consulting with the U.S. military ongerm warfare. The U.S. Army Chemical Corpshired him in 1951 to continue his life’s workand passion.

Walter Schreiber, a Nazi major general who,according to Nuremberg testimony, “assigneddoctors to experiment on concentration campprisoners and had made funds available forsuch experimentation.” Only Schreiber’s deten-tion in Russia (1945–48) spared him from trialas a war criminal. He next surfaced at the AirForce School of Medicine at Randolph Field,Texas. Columnist Drew Pearson revealedSchreiber’s crimes in 1952, whereupon the U.S.government arranged passage for Schreiber tojoin his daughter in ARGENTINA.

Hermann Becker-Freysing, convicted and sentencedto 20 years imprisonment at Nuremberg forconducting experiments on Dachau inmates,including force-feeding of seawater that waschemically treated to make it “drinkable.” Evenbefore his trial Becker-Freysing was paid by the U.S. Air Force to report on his sadisticexperiments.

Siegfried Ruff, a codefendant with Becker- Freysingat the Nuremberg “Doctor’s Trial,” where henarrowly escaped conviction on charges ofkilling 80 inmates in a low-pressure chamberdesigned to simulate altitudes above 60,000 feet.Like Becker-Freysing, Ruff was sought (andpaid) by the U.S. Air Force in the interests of“national security.”

Reinhard Gehlen, while not a scientist, was one of the THIRD REICH’s top intelligence officerswho were linked to the torture and murder of countless victims. The CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY (CIA) recruited him in 1950 to

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coordinate its secret war against COMMUNISM

in Europe.KLAUS BARBIE, the Nazi “Butcher of Lyon” and

another prized CIA intelligence asset, whoseassociation with the U.S. intelligence servicespared him trial and execution for war crimes.

By 1955 more than 760 German scientists weregranted U.S. citizenship, their dossiers “sanitized” toremove any taint of active involvement with Hitler’sgenocidal regime. A 1985 exposé in the Bulletin ofAtomic Scientists revealed that author Linda Hunthad secured more than 130 files on Project Paperclipimmigrants and that she found that every one “hadbeen changed to eliminate the security threat classifi-cation.” Some conspiracists maintain that the post-war scientific looting of Germany also revealedsecrets concerning UFOS which remain classified tothis day.

See also NATIONAL SOCIALISM.

PROTOCOLS of the Elders of ZionProduced by czarist agents of the OKHRANA in 1905,this fraudulent volume pretends to reveal the minutesof a secret Jewish conference held sometime in thelate 19th century, wherein conspirators outlined theirplans for world domination and destruction ofChristianity. In the 1920s anti-Semitic millionaireHenry Ford used the Protocols as a basis for hisseven-year media assault on “the International Jew,”thereby influencing such diverse elements as the KU

KLUX KLAN and the National Socialist movement, ledin GERMANY by ADOLF HITLER. Various editions ofthe forgery remain in print today, widely circulatedby neo-Nazi groups whose uneducated membersaccept it as a legitimate blueprint for an ongoing con-spiracy helmed by ZOG in Washington, D.C. British

author Stephen Knight put a new twist on the Proto-cols in 1976, describing it as a document producedby FREEMASONS and suggesting a Masonic plotbehind the crimes of unidentified 19th-century serialkiller JACK THE RIPPER. Unaccountably, Knight’s taleignored both the original forger’s attribution of theProtocols to Jewish authors and seven decades ofdocumentation proving the volume a fake.

See also NATIONAL SOCIALISM.

PUERTO RicoChristopher Columbus “discovered” the Caribbeanisland of Puerto Rico in 1493, bestowing the twinplagues of slavery and lethal disease on its peacefulArawak natives. Spain occupied the island for thenext four centuries until U.S. forces seized it forWashington in 1898. It remains an unincorporatedU.S. territory today with Puerto Rican residentswho officially became U.S. citizens in 1917. Someare outspoken in their wish to have Puerto Ricobecome the 51st American state, but others areequally passionate in their desire for complete inde-pendence. That struggle, long and violent, hasincluded an attempt to kill President Harry Truman(November 1950), a raid on the U.S. Capitol thatwounded five congressmen (March 1954), and aprotracted series of terrorist acts throughout theUnited States since the mid-1960s. Conversely, the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) hasalso waged a long-running illegal campaign to disrupt nationalist organization. That effort includedCOINTELPRO-style harassment (one FBI memoboasted of provoking a political candidate’s near-fatal heart attack) and support for right-wing deathsquads that assassinated opposition leaders. Thestruggle continues, with no end in sight.

See also TERRORISM.

QADDAFFI, Muammar al- (1942– )Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddaffi was born in1942 and as a child came to admire the nationalistcreed of EGYPT’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. Qaddaffi grad-uated from the University of LIBYA in 1963 andjoined the army two years later, commissioned as anofficer. In September 1969 he led a military coup thattoppled the monarchy of King Idris I, thus establish-ing himself as Libya’s commander-in-chief and chair-man of the Revolutionary Command Council. Hisregime mixed Arab nationalism, revolutionarysocialism, and Islamic fundamentalism in a mannerguaranteed to frighten Western leaders and investors.U.S. and British military bases in Libya were closedduring 1970, while Qaddaffi seized the property ofhis nation’s Italian and Jewish communities. StrictKoranic law was imposed, including bans on gam-bling and alcoholic beverages and a statute requiringthat the hands of thieves be severed. In 1973Qaddaffi nationalized all foreign OIL assets, thusearning for himself eternal enmity from multina-tional petroleum companies. In 1977 Qaddaffi’stroops seized a strip of land in CHAD, along Libya’ssouthern border. A full-scale invasion followed twoyears later. Qaddaffi’s proposal to merge the twocountries was rejected, and while his troops with-drew in 1981, they returned for another period ofoccupation during 1983–87.

Since seizing power in 1969, Qaddaffi has beenwidely accused of sponsoring terrorist activities

around the world. Israel is a primary target, but histastes appear to be eclectic. At various times in the1970s and 1980s, Qaddaffi was accused of financingthe IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY and other groups unre-lated to the Palestinian struggle. In May 1986 aright-wing army officer in SPAIN, Col. Meer de Rib-era, claimed that he had negotiated with Qaddaffi forarms and money to carry out attacks on U.S. targetsthroughout Europe. That assertion came fourmonths after Robert Oakley, head of the U.S. StateDepartment’s antiterrorist unit, publicly admittedthat no evidence existed linking Libya to recent ter-rorist attacks in AUSTRIA and ITALY. Some skepticsfeel that Col. Ribera’s “revelations” were a trifle toofortuitous—perhaps concocted out of thin air by theRONALD REAGAN White House to excuse a 1986bombing raid that missed Qaddaffi but killed orwounded several of his children.

Whatever the truth of those allegations, twoLibyan intelligence officers were indicted for plot-ting the December 21, 1988, bombing of an airlinerthat killed 270 persons at Lockerbie, Scotland.Qaddaffi stalled surrender of the suspects—LamenKhalifa Fhimah and Ali al-Megrahi—until April1999 whereupon they were tried for mass murder inthe NETHERLANDS. (Megrahi was convicted, whilejurors acquitted Fhimah.) As a result of that belatedcooperation, the UNITED NATIONS lifted its seven-year economic sanctions on Libya, though some U.S.and British sanctions remain in place. In September

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2000 Libyan mobs rioted against black Africans liv-ing in the country, killing hundreds and promptingseveral other nations to launch airlifts to repatriatetheir citizens. The bloodshed struck a telling blowagainst Qaddaffi’s efforts to portray himself as aleading African statesman.

Since the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion ofIraq, Qaddaffi has emerged as a surprise favorite ofsome Western diplomats, professing an abandonmentof terror tactics while bringing Libya into closer contact with the world community at large. The permanence of his about-face remains to be seen.

AL-QAEDAThe organization known as al-Qaeda (“the base,” inArabic) was created in 1989 as Soviet troops leftAFGHANISTAN and colleagues of U.S.-sponsored guer-rilla leader Osama bin Laden searched for new targets.The early members were “Arab Afghans,” importedto fight against RUSSIA in the 1980s, armed and trainedby the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY with financialsupport from SAUDI ARABIA. By 1996, al-Qaeda had adozen training camps scattered across Afghanistan,with agents reputedly active in 40–50 nations world-wide. The group’s current targets include ISRAEL andany nation perceived to support Israel’s continued sur-vival. Acts of TERRORISM attributed to al-Qaeda byvarious (often contradictory) sources include theWORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING in New York (1993);the killing of 19 U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia (1996);bombings of U.S. embassies in KENYA and TANZANIA

that killed 253 persons (1998); a suicide attack onthe USS Cole in Yemen (2000); and the catastrophicPENTTBOM skyjackings that killed more than 3,000persons on September 11, 2001.

The final incident prompted President George W.Bush to invade Afghanistan and overthrow al-Qaeda’sallies in the Muslim-extremist Taliban government,but Osama bin Laden slipped through the net andremains at large at this writing (in May 2005), presumably plotting new terrorist actions. Somesources blame al-Qaeda for killing Israeli tourists inKenya (2002) and for a coordinated spate of bomb-ings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2003). U.S. authori-ties, engaged in a seemingly endless “war on terror,”insist that al-Qaeda remains an active menace toworld peace, including threats of “dirty” nuclearweapons. President Bashar Al-Assad of SYRIA, mean-while, questioned the group’s very existence in May

2003. “Is there really an entity called al-Qaeda?”Bashar asked Kuwaiti journalists, rhetorically. “Wasit in Afghanistan? Does it exist now?” Bashar ques-tioned how Osama bin Laden “cannot talk on thephone or use the Internet, but he can direct commu-nications to the four corners of the world,” deemingthe scenario “illogical.”

Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003,al-Qaeda contributed to Iraqi resistance forces bycoordinating terrorist attacks and supporting insur-rectionist elements. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a ter-rorist leader thought to have links to al-Qaeda, wasidentified as a key leader in the Iraqi resistancemovement. He remained free as of this writing.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; BUSH DYNASTY.

QATARThis small but affluent monarchy on the Persian Gulfwas once ruled by the sheikhs of BAHRAIN, butnatives rebelled against the absentee despots in 1867,prompting helpful British authorities to installwealthy Muhammad ibn Thani al-Thani as the rul-ing emir. TURKEY’s attempted invasion was repulsedin 1893, and in 1916 al-Thani “allowed” his countryto become a British protectorate. In the 1940s dis-covery of OIL beneath Qatar’s desert sands broughtfabulous riches to some, and today petroleumexports account for 80 percent of the nation’sincome. Border skirmishes with SAUDI ARABIA weresettled via tense negotiations in December 1992.Crown Prince Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani deposedhis father in June 1995, allegedly for his resistance toeconomic and political reform. Women’s suffragewas granted for the first time in 1999. Qatar is hometo Al Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television networkwhich has carried many public statements from fugi-tive terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; TERRORISM.

QUISLING,Vidkun (1887–1945)With BENEDICT ARNOLD, Norway’s Vidkun Quislingholds the dubious distinction of entering history as aman whose name is synonymous with treason. Theson of a Lutheran minister and born July 18, 1887,Quisling was commissioned as a major in the Nor-wegian army, worked briefly in RUSSIA toward reliefof that nation’s great famine in the 1920s, and servedas Norway’s defense minister during 1931–33. During

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that time he converted to NATIONAL SOCIALISM and inMay 1933 joined Johan Hjort to create NasjonalSamling (National Unity), Norway’s fledgling Naziparty. The party enjoyed modest success in that year’selections, garnering 27,850 votes nationwide, but astrong shift toward anti-Semitism and support forADOLF HITLER during the next two years cost thegroup critical support. By the time Hitler invadedNorway in April 1940, membership in Nasjonal Sam-ling had dwindled to about 2,000, but Quisling wasthe only member who counted. On April 9, 1940,

during a news broadcast about the invasion, Quislingannounced formation of a pro-German governmentin Oslo with himself at its head. Quisling’s expecta-tions of an endorsement from Berlin were dashed fivedays later, however, when German occupation troopsinstalled Josef Terboven as the new Reichskommissarof Norway, answering directly to Hitler. Quisling lingered on as Terboven’s prime minister, recognizedas a front man and puppet for the German regime. At war’s end Quisling was charged with treason, convicted, and executed on October 24, 1945.

RABIN,Yitzhak (1922–1995)Yitzhak Rabin was born in Jerusalem in March1922, the son of militant Zionists who were active inthe Haganah guerrilla movement. Rabin in turnjoined ISRAEL’s army and served in uniform for 27years, retiring as chief of staff. Among other actions,he commanded Israeli troops in Galilee during the1956 war with EGYPT, later admitting that his sol-diers illegally deported between 3,000 and 5,000Arab citizens of Israel to SYRIA during that conflict.Retiring from the army, Rabin was appointed toserve as Israel’s ambassador to the United States(1968–73); then he returned to seek elective office asa candidate of the Israeli Labor Party. From a seat inthe Knesset (legislature), he advanced to serve asminister of labor under Golda Meir, and then wonelection as prime minister on June 2, 1974. Electivedefeat in May 1977 sent him back to the Knesset(1977–84, 1990–92), and he rebounded with elec-tion to a second term as prime minister in June 1992.At the behest of U.S. President Bill Clinton, Rabinreluctantly entered negotiations with Palestinianleader Yasser Arafat in 1993 and agreed to tentativecease-fire plans which secured him a joint NobelPeace Prize (with Arafat and Israeli Foreign MinisterShimon Peres) in 1994. Rabin’s plans to regain con-trol of the Israeli government were cut short onNovember 4, 1995, when an extremist Israeli gun-man shot him down at a rally in Tel Aviv.

See also CLINTON, BILL AND HILLARY; ZIONISM.

RASPUTIN, Grigory (1872–1916)Czarist RUSSIA’s most notorious “holy man” was bornGrigory Yefimovich Novykh, a son of Siberian peas-ants, in 1872. Illiterate throughout his life, he enjoyeda religious conversion at age 18 and joined theKhlysty sect, a cult convinced that communion withGod was best achieved during marathon bouts of sex-ual intercourse. Enthralled by that doctrine, Novykhpromptly changed his surname to Rasputin(“debauched one,” in Russian) and embarked on aquest for further enlightenment that carried himthrough GREECE and Jerusalem. Back in St. Peters-burg by 1905 Rasputin won an introduction to CzarNicholas and Czarina Alexandra and somehow per-suaded them that he alone could heal their hemophil-iac son Alexis. A fringe benefit of his presence in theroyal court was Rasputin’s abrupt “discovery” thatwealthy women could be healed of any ailment by atumble in his bed. Czar Nicholas, initially disgustedby Rasputin’s semipublic excess, banished the “madmonk” from court, but Alexandra demanded hisreturn and cherished his advice so zealously that somecritics suspected Rasputin of dictating royal policy.

The problem came to a head in 1916, midwaythrough World War I, when Nicholas declared hisintent to take personal command of Russia’s failingarmy. Convinced that Rasputin’s nefarious influencewould soon propel matters from bad to worse, aclique of military officers led by Felix Yusupov plot-ted the monk’s assassination as a means of rescuing

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the monarchy. The plotters struck on December 29,1916, when Yusupov invited Rasputin to dine at hishome. There, poisoned cake and wine failed to dropRasputin in his tracks, so Yusupov drew a pistol andshot his victim at close range. After collapsing brieflyto the floor, Rasputin rose again and lurched into thegarden, where conspirator Vladimir Purishkevichmet him with a second burst of pistol fire. Notingthat the monk still lived, the would-be killers pushedhis body through an ice hole on the Neva River,where Rasputin finally drowned. Sadly for Nicholasand Alexandra, Rasputin’s exit came too late to savethem from the wrath of revolutionaries led byVLADIMIR LENIN.

RAY brothersDespite humble beginnings, the Ray brothers—James, John, and Jerry—emerged in later life as piv-otal figures (or scapegoats) in the assassination of Dr.MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Today, some conspiracistsbelieve the brothers murdered Dr. King, while othersinsist they were framed for that crime (and others) aspart of an elaborate whitewash.

James Earl Ray was born in 1928, followed bybrother John in 1933 and Jerry in 1938. All com-piled criminal records in the 1950s, including convic-tions for auto theft, grand larceny, and armedrobbery. James was serving 20 years for a Missouriholdup when he escaped from prison on April 23,1967. Ten years later, authorities noted that Johnpaid a visit to James on April 22 and surmised thathe somehow had a hand in the escape. A routinewanted poster was issued for James; then authoritiespromptly forgot about him until April 19, 1968when FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)spokespersons named him as a suspect in King’s mur-der. Arrested in London on June 8, 1968, Rayreturned to the United States and pleaded guilty toKing’s slaying on March 10, 1969, receiving a 99-year prison term. (Ray’s first attorney, supplanted byPercy Foreman, was Arthur Hanes, a former FBIagent and ex-mayor of Birmingham who representedmembers of the KU KLUX KLAN charged with murder.)

The story might have ended there, but Jamesrefused to disappear quietly. He proclaimed himself apatsy, set up by conspirators and coerced into aguilty plea by Texas lawyer Percy Foreman (formercounsel for JACK RUBY), who loaned money tobrother Jerry contingent on a guilty plea with no

“unseemly conduct” from James. On March 12,1969, an FBI agent visited James, seeking “coopera-tion” in a broader conspiracy investigation. When hedeclined to help, the G-man threatened that James“should expect his brothers to join him in prison.”

Jerry Ray was subsequently tried and acquitted ofa Georgia shooting, but John was less fortunate. G-men arrested him for bank robbery in October 1970,claiming that he gave a lift to three bandits who stole$53,000 in a Missouri holdup, between the time theyditched their first getaway car and then picked upanother. Charged with the robbery itself were JamesBenney, Ronald Goldstein, and Jerry Miller. Policekilled Benney in Oregon, and Miller remains at large,but Goldstein was captured and returned to Missourifor trial. Convicted, he received a 13-year sentence,while John Ray got 18 years from Judge WilliamWebster (later head of the FBI and the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY) for the lesser crime of aidingGoldstein’s escape. Stranger still was that Goldsteinwas acquitted of the charges at a second trial whileJohn languished in prison through 1977, describinghimself as “the only prisoner . . . serving a sentencefor picking up a person who was found not guilty ofrobbing a bank.”

Soon after John’s release, the HOUSE SELECT

COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS questioned allthree brothers, concluding that the Rays conspiredto kill Dr. King in expectation of a financial“bounty” offered by two wealthy St. Louis racists,John Kauffmann and John Sutherland. Both allegedplotters were already dead, and no hard evidenceof their involvement in the murder was produced.No additional charges were ever filed in the Kingassassination.

REAGAN, Ronald (1911–2004)Actor Ronald Reagan signed with Warner Brothersstudios in 1937 and spent World War II makingpropaganda films for the U.S. Army. During the1940s and 1950s he also served as an FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) informant (codename “T-10”), reporting on alleged Communistactivities in Hollywood. In 1947 he appeared as afriendly witness before the HOUSE COMMITTEE ON

UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES. Reagan announced hisswitch to the Republican Party in 1962, and he wassubsequently twice elected governor of California(1967–75).

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Reagan’s tenure in Sacramento was a preview ofhis later performance as president. Already linked tovarious MAFIA figures, he established a pattern ofappointing ultraconservative friends to high officeand persecuting political dissenters. Reagan pro-claimed his willingness to crush campus demonstra-tions with violence—“If they want a bloodbath, let itbe now!”—and declassified FBI documents laterrevealed his collaboration with the bureau and theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) in illegaldomestic surveillance campaigns at the University ofCalifornia. Those activities included harassment ofstudents, faculty, and regents, coupled with a drive tooust UC President Clark Kerr. To that end deroga-tory information was fabricated and leaked to thepress with several reports dispatched to the WhiteHouse. Assistant FBI Director Cartha DeLoach saidthat Reagan was “very helpful” to the FBI, whileinsisting that the bureau gave Reagan “no specialtreatment.”

Running for president in 1980, Reagan solicited aidfrom various members of organized crime, includingthe corrupt INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAM-STERS. Reagan and running mate George H. W. Bushheld closed-door meetings with Teamster officials—most of them under indictment—and Teamster vicepresident Jackie Presser (also an FBI informant) was a“senior economic adviser” to Reagan’s transitionteam, despite his status as an eighth-grade dropoutfacing federal charges of corruption.

While Reagan announced a “vigorous war” oncrime in and a parallel “war on drugs,” his actionsbelied public statements. Reagan’s courtship of theTeamsters continued unabated, while Nevada mobinvestigations by the FBI and the INTERNAL REVENUE

SERVICE were sharply curtailed. Raymond Donovan,a New Jersey contractor with known mob connec-tions who raised $600,000 for Reagan’s 1980 cam-paign, was nominated to serve as Secretary of Labor.Reagan took credit for the conviction of 1,100 mob-sters indicted under President Jimmy Carter, but herefused to allow any new undercover operationsagainst organized crime in 1982. The White Housealso slashed budgets for federal law enforcementacross the board, forcing dismissal of 434 employeesfrom the DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, andReagan tried to eliminate the BUREAU OF ALCOHOL,TOBACCO, AND FIREARMS. Overall, federal investiga-tive agencies lost a total of 19,609 employees in1981–82, prompting sources as diverse as the U.S.

Coast Guard and the American Civil Liberties Unionto dub the White House war on crime and drugs “afraud.”

Only in the field of political repression did Reaganfavor aggressive investigations. His administrationescalated illegal FBI harassment tactics againstPuerto Rican nationalists and mounted widespreadsurveillance on critics of the IRAN-CONTRA scandal.One of Reagan’s first official acts was pardon of twoFBI members who were convicted in 1980 of author-izing illegal break-ins. On March 30, 1981, would-be assassin, John Hinckley, Jr., shot PresidentReagan. The president survived the shooting, but atenuous link between the Hinckley family, who weredonors to President Reagan’s campaign, and NeilBush, the son of Vice President George HerbertWalker Bush, fueled theories that Hinckley was abrainwashed pawn in a coup attempt meant to installformer CIA director Bush as president.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM.

RECONSTRUCTIONPresident ABRAHAM LINCOLN and successor AndrewJohnson initially sought lenient terms for readmis-sion of secessionist states to the Union followingDixie’s defeat in the Civil War. Instead of displayingcontrition, however, the South elected former Con-federate leaders to Congress, passed a series of dra-conian “Black Codes” that returned newly freedslaves to a state of de facto bondage and gloatedover the death toll of bloody race riots in Memphisand New Orleans. Furious Republicans in Congresspassed a series of Reconstruction Acts betweenMarch 1867 and March 1868 that dissolved all-white state governments below the Mason-DixonLine, mandated black civil rights in a new federalstatute (passed over President Johnson’s veto),divided the conquered South in to five military dis-tricts, and demanded ratification of two constitu-tional amendments (upholding black citizenshipand suffrage) from any state that wished to rejointhe Union.

Southern Democrats responded with a wave ofTERRORISM, carried out by members of the KU KLUX

KLAN (KKK) and similar night-riding groups. Whilecast in the role of reluctant vigilantes devoted to pre-serving “order” and “protecting white womanhood”from lecherous freedmen, the KKK and its allies wereovertly political, attacking (and frequently murdering)

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white Republicans—dubbed “carpetbaggers” or“scalawags”—as often as they did alleged black“criminals.” All Southern states were readmitted tothe Union by July 1870, but self-styled “conserva-tives” still plotted to “redeem” the South from whatDemocratic Party leaders called “black rule.” In1874 the paramilitary WHITE LEAGUE staged a coupd’état in New Orleans and toppled the city’s Republi-can administration, but federal troops quicklyrestored the lawful government. It remained for pres-idential candidate RUTHERFORD B. HAYES to endReconstruction with the Compromise of 1877,exchanging a promise to scuttle black aspirations fora ticket to the White House after he failed to secure amajority vote in the 1876 election. (Modern conspir-acists frequently compare that corrupt political bar-gain to the outcome of ELECTION 2000.)

Withdrawal of troops from the South still left theproblem of black citizenship to be resolved by fairmeans or foul. The U.S. SUPREME COURT effectivelyrevoked the gains of Reconstruction between 1873and 1896 with a series of rulings that repealed civilrights legislation, permitted racial segregation atevery level of society, and limited enforcement of theFourteenth Amendment to actions undertaken bystate officials (rather than private parties). Thus,until the 1960s no conspiracy to strip blacks of theircivil rights, no matter how extensive or well organ-ized, would merit federal prosecution unless itincluded officials acting “under color of law”—andeven in those cases, the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT provedextremely reluctant to file charges against whiteoffenders in state government. It would remain for anew climate and a “Second Reconstruction” to dis-mantle “Jim Crow” legislation in the latter half ofthe 20th century, with southern politicians and ter-rorists fighting progress every step of the way.

REICHSTAG fireLess than one month after ADOLF HITLER took officeas chancellor of GERMANY, fire gutted the Reichstag(Parliament) building in Berlin. Hitler called theblaze “a God-given signal” and hastened to meetwith President Paul von Hindenburg on February 28,emerging from their confab with near-dictatorialpowers for the “defense” of Germany. Immediately,Hitler decreed a suspension of all rights to personalliberty, including freedom of speech and the right toassemble. Blame for the fire fell on suspect Marinus

van der Lubbe, a mentally defective Dutchmanarrested at the scene on February 27. At trial, van derLubbe was accused of joining in a Communist con-spiracy to destabilize the German government, andconviction brought him a sentence of death. A sec-ond “suspect,” a Berliner named Bernstein, wasspared execution but received 50 lashes for member-ship in the Communist Party, with another 50 addedbecause he was “also a Jew.”

Modern historians are divided as to whetherHitler and his National Socialists lit the Reichstagfire themselves or if it was simply a fortuitous acci-dent. In either case the blaze and subsequent showtrial led inevitably to the Holocaust and World WarII. A similar fabricated event in 1964, the GULF OF

TONKIN INCIDENT, led to dramatic escalation ofAmerica’s military role in the VIETNAM War. Some21st-century conspiracists also accuse PresidentGeorge W. Bush of plotting or permitting the Sep-tember 11, 2001, PENTTBOM attacks as a modernReichstag fire, thus facilitating passage of the USA

PATRIOT ACT, pursuance of an unproductive “War onTERRORISM,” and the acquisition of huge OIL profitsvia OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM; HOLOCAUST

AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL; NATIONAL SOCIALISM.

REUTHER, Walter (1907–1970)With younger brothers Roy and Victor, WalterReuther was the son of a socialist brewer in WestVirginia who migrated to Detroit and found workwith the Ford Motor Company. In 1932 he was firedfor his efforts to organize a chapter of the UnitedAuto Workers (UAW), subsequently affiliated withthe Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).After Walter’s dismissal he spent time in RUSSIA withbrother Victor (ironically working at a Ford plant inthe Soviet Union) and then returned to the UnitedStates to carry on the fight for labor. Ford’s manage-ment fought back with every weapon available,including MAFIA thugs employed to intimidate unionmembers. In May 1937 Reuther and several dozenUAW members were beaten by mobsters on the Fordpayroll. A year later in April 1938 two masked gun-men invaded Reuther’s home, tried to abduct him,and were foiled when a guest escaped and summonedhelp. Another decade passed before the mob struckagain, wounding Reuther in his home with shotgunblasts during April 1948. Victor, the next target, was

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shot in the head at his home in May 1949, one dayafter corrupt Detroit police ordered him to dispose ofhis “noisy” watchdog.

Two days after Victor was wounded the U.S. Sen-ate adopted an unprecedented and unanimous reso-lution calling for a Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) investigation of the crimes. Attorney GeneralTom Clark ordered Director J. EDGAR HOOVER topursue the case but took no action when Hooverrefused. (In a conversation with UAW attorneyJoseph Rauh, Clark explained, “Edgar says no. Hesays he’s not going to get involved every time somenigger woman gets raped.”) Instead of firing Hooveron the spot for insubordination (and possible insan-ity), Clark failed to pursue the matter. Years later,after Clark had been appointed to a lifetime seat onthe U.S. SUPREME COURT, his acceptance of Mafiabribes was revealed in the press.

Under Walter Reuther the UAW grew into Amer-ica’s largest union with 1.2 million members by theearly 1950s. Despite false accusations of COMMU-NISM during the Red Scare promulgated by SenatorJOSEPH MCCARTHY and Representative RICHARD

NIXON, Reuther was elected president of the CIO in1952 and negotiated its merger with the powerfulAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL) three yearslater. FBI agents continued routine (and illegal) sur-veillance of the Reuther brothers, adding their sup-port for black civil rights and a global nucleartest-ban treaty to the family’s list of “radical” sins.Agents of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)also monitored Reuther’s foreign travel, recordingany comments that “might be construed as contraryto the foreign policy of the United States.”

While most published accounts claim thatReuther’s life was relatively peaceful from the 1950sonward, some conspiracists believe that he wasmarked for death by powerful forces inside theUnited States. In October 1968 Walter and VictorReuther narrowly escaped death when their smallprivate plane crashed on its approach to Dulles Air-port in Washington, D.C. Investigators blamed amalfunctioning altimeter for that incident, and a sim-ilar verdict was announced in May 1970 when Wal-ter, his wife, and four others died in a plane crashnear Michigan’s Emmet County Airport. In the wakeof that tragedy Victor Reuther told author MichaelParenti, “I and other family members were convincedthat both the fatal crash and the near-fatal one in1968 were not accidental.” According to Parenti and

colleague Peggy Norton, “disturbing evidence” ofconspiracy in Reuther’s death includes the followingpoints:

• In January 1970, White House staffer EgilKrogh (later convicted in the WATERGATE con-spiracy) requested a copy of Reuther’s FBI filefor President Nixon. When questioned aboutthe request in 1985, Krogh “couldn’t remem-ber” the incident.

• An examination of Reuther’s plane by theNational Transportation Safety Board revealedseven “coincidental” defects in the aircraft’saltimeter, including (a) a screw with “torn andbroken threads,” detached from the unit’s criti-cal calibration arm; (b) an “incorrect pivot”installed at one end of a rocking shaft; (c) arocking stone missing from the same shaft’sopposite end; (d) a ring jewel installed off-centerinside the altimeter; (e) an “incorrect” rear sup-port pivot on a second rocking shaft; (f) awrong-sized link pin installed on the altimeter’spneumatic capsule; and (g) an end stone onanother internal shaft that had been installedupside-down. As noted by Parenti, the simulta-neous accidental occurrence of so many prob-lems in one device is “close to impossible.”

• Earlier on the day Reuther died, singer GlenCampbell flew to Detroit aboard the same air-craft with no reported malfunctions.

• The runway selected by Reuther’s pilot, while lit,had no identifier lights and no visual approachpath indicator (VAPI), which informs approach-ing fliers of their proper flight angle. Since nowarning of the defect was issued, Parenti sug-gests that the VAPI light was broken a short timebefore Reuther’s plane arrived, presumably with-out the knowledge of airport officials.

See also DULLES BROTHERS.

RFK assassinationRobert Francis Kennedy ranks among America’smost controversial attorneys general. Nepotism wasone issue, after newly elected President JohnKennedy named his brother to the post in January1961. Another problem was the gap betweenKennedy’s liberal ideals and his actions in office—approving illegal FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

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(FBI) surveillance not only against corrupt unionofficials and MAFIA leaders but also supposed alliessuch as Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Kennedy is remembered for his pursuit of organ-ized crime, ironic in light of the role mobsters playedin securing JFK’s 1960 election. Teamster’s Unionpresident Jimmy Hoffa was a special target, finallyimprisoned for jury tampering, and he threatenedRFK’s life on several occasions. Similar threats weremade by Mafia bosses SAM GIANCANA (Chicago),CARLOS MARCELLO (New Orleans), and SANTOS

TRAFFICANTE (Florida). FBI Director J. EDGAR

HOOVER, who despised the Kennedys and feared theywould dismiss him, filed the threats without reportingthem to the White House or the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.President Kennedy was murdered on November 22,1963, and his alleged assassin was killed two dayslater by mobster JACK RUBY. Moments after the JFK

ASSASSINATION, Hoffa gloated, “Bobby Kennedy isjust another lawyer now.”

His judgment was correct. President LYNDON

BAINES JOHNSON was a close friend of Hoover’s whoalso loathed Robert Kennedy. Johnson retained RFKin office until September 3, 1964, but Mafia prosecu-tions declined by 72 percent in the wake of JFK’sdeath. Robert Kennedy won election to the U.S. Sen-ate in November 1964, and in 1968 he ran for presi-dent as an opponent of the VIETNAM War. Someobservers believed RFK would use his presidentialpowers to punish his brother’s killers. Kennedymoved one step closer to that goal on June 4, 1968,when he won California’s Democratic primary elec-tion. At midnight he delivered a victory speech at theAmbassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Fifteen minuteslater, his entourage passed through the hotel’skitchen en route to a scheduled press conference, butKennedy never made it.

In the kitchen a gunman intercepted the proces-sion, mortally wounding Kennedy and injuring fiveothers. More than 70 witnesses watched asKennedy’s bodyguards tackled the shooter, SIRHAN

SIRHAN. Unlike the chaotic JFK murder five yearsearlier, the Los Angeles crime seemed to be open-and-shut. Sirhan was captured at the scene with gunin hand, leaving a journal filled with maniacalscrawls of “RFK must die!” Convicted at trial he wassentenced to die; that sentence was commuted to lifeimprisonment in 1972.

Open-and-shut . . . but not quite. The second publicmurder of a Kennedy produced immediate suggestions

of conspiracy, and study of the evidence providedample fuel for speculation.

Ballistics was an instant problem, as in Dallas.Sirhan’s 22-caliber revolver held eight cartridges, butvictims and walls at the scene displayed marks fromat least 13 shots. LOS ANGELES POLICE resolved thatissue with a modified “magic bullet theory”—claim-ing that one slug had drilled two different ceilingpanels before striking a bystander—and by strippingthe kitchen of bullet-scarred panels and door frames.Photographs remained, however, forcing yet anotherwriggle when authorities dismissed the bullet marksas “nail holes.” In 1975 ballistics expert DeWayneWolfer testified under oath that he had matched themurder bullets to a revolver with the serial numberH-18602, whereas the serial number on Sirhan’sweapon was H-53725. Wolfer blamed a bystander inhis lab, whose name he could not recall, for givinghim the “incorrect” serial number. By the time headmitted his error, both guns had been destroyed.

Aside from the number of gunshots, there wasalso a critical problem of range and direction.Kennedy’s autopsy revealed three wounds: onbehind his right ear (the fatal shot) and two belowhis right arm, 1.5 inches apart; a fourth shot piercedthe right rear shoulder of his jacket without strikingflesh. All four shots were fired from behind, at aright-to-left angle. The head shot was fired at “amuzzle distance of approximately one inch,” mark-ing his flesh with a gunpowder tattoo. Meanwhile,eyewitnesses insist that Sirhan fired from in front ofKennedy, never coming closer than “three to sixfeet” from his target. Furthermore, Sirhan was tack-led after firing just two shots, the rest fired wildlywhile bystanders grappled for his gun.

Conspiracy leads multiplied with the statements ofwitnesses who recalled Sirhan stalking Kennedy inthe days before his murder. Several campaign volun-teers recalled Sirhan visiting Kennedy’s office in May1968, accompanied by a blonde woman and a manwho looked enough like Sirhan to pass as his brother.Similar sightings were logged from the AmbassadorHotel spanning several hours before the assassina-tion. Finally, within seconds of the shooting, multiplewitnesses reported a blonde woman in a polka-dotdress running from the scene, shouting, “We killedthe senator!” The woman was never identified, butwitness to her existence was “discredited” by L.A.police in a marathon interview best described asintimidating and coercive.

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If Sirhan did not act alone—if, in fact, he was neverin position to fire the fatal shots at all—who was thesecond gunman in RFK’s murder? A candidate namedin several published accounts is Thane Eugene Cesar, asecurity guard employed at the Ambassador Hotel. Ina 1969 interview Cesar claimed he was standingbehind Kennedy and to his right when Sirhan openedfire. He also admitted drawing his gun but denied fir-ing it. That statement was contradicted by DonaldSchulman, a reporter who stood behind Cesar in thekitchen and gave the following account to reporterJeff Brent moments later:

Schulman: A Caucasian gentleman [Sirhan] stepped out

and fired three times; the security guard hit Kennedy all

three times. Mr. Kennedy slumped to the floor. They

carried him away. The security guard fired back.

Brent: I heard about six or seven shots in succession. Is

this the security guard firing back?

Schulman: Yes, the man who stepped out fired three

times at Kennedy, hit him all three times, and the secu-

rity guard then fired back . . . hitting him.

Schulman’s report was admittedly confused sinceSirhan fired eight times and suffered no wounds fromreturn fire, but he stuck to his story of Cesar return-ing the would-be assassin’s gunfire. Months after thefact he confirmed that “the guard definitely pulledout his gun and fired.”

Cesar’s credibility took another hit when he wasinterviewed by police. He claimed that the gun hedrew (but did not fire) was a standard .38-caliberrevolver; yet authorities learned that he also owned a.22-caliber weapon of the same brand as Sirhan’s.Cesar told investigators that he had sold the .22three months before the shooting, but a bill of salelater surfaced bearing a date of September 6, 1968,three months to the day after Kennedy died in LosAngeles. The gun was found in 1993, dredged froman Arkansas pond, but no ballistics tests have beenperformed thus far.

Who was Thane Cesar? On the night of June 4,1968, he was assigned to the Ambassador Hotel byAce Guard Service, which carried him on its books asa temporary employee. Private investigator Alex Bot-tus reports that prior to the murder, “months andmonths” had passed since Cesar last worked for Ace.According to Bottus, Cesar had been jailed severaltimes in Tijuana, Mexico, but the charges were“fixed” in each case by California mobster John

Alessio. Bottus further claimed that Cesar’s “wholetrack record” demonstrated links to organized crimeand that Cesar had “connections like crazy.”

Conspiracy theories in the RFK assassinationfocus on most of the “usual suspects” from hisbrother’s slaying, including members of organizedcrime and the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA).Conspiracists suggest that Sirhan was “programmed”to kill Kennedy using CIA MIND-CONTROL tech-niques, and several published accounts name the lateDr. William Joseph Bryan, Jr., (a hypnotist withagency connections) as the likely culprit.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

ROCKEFELLER clanJohn Davison Rockefeller (1839–1937) was a nativeof Richford, New York, whose family moved toOhio in 1853. Two years later he began work as abookkeeper in Cleveland, graduating to the producecommission business in 1858. OIL investments fol-lowed, the first in 1862, and brother William Rocke-feller launched his own refinery in 1865; the brothersteamed with other investors to create the STANDARD

OIL Company in 1870. Employing cutthroat methodsin the classic “robber-baron” style, Standard Oilsoon gained a virtual monopoly on U.S. oil produc-tion, reaping fabulous profits for the Rockefellerclan. Rockefeller retired from the crude trade in1895, earning additional millions when he sold hisiron interests (including mines and Great Lakes oreships) to U.S. Steel. By 1901 John D. Rockefeller wasproclaimed the world’s richest man, his fortune esti-mated in the neighborhood of $900 million.

Some of that wealth was returned to the people viaphilanthropic donations, including Rockefeller’sestablishment of the University of Chicago (1892)and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research(1901), but enough remained to keep the family inregal style. Rockefeller’s only son, John, Jr.,(1874–1960) inherited most of his father’s vast for-tune when the elder Rockefeller died in 1937, but itremained for his heirs to put the family’s stamp onAmerican politics. Grandson Nelson Aldrich Rocke-feller (1908–79) worked in various family firmsbefore Dwight Eisenhower appointed him to the Pres-ident’s Advisory Committee in 1953. He subsequentlyserved as New York’s governor (1959–73) and as vicepresident of the United States under Gerald Ford(1974–77), but his lifelong pursuit of the presidency

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was frustrated by Republican primary defeats in1960, 1964, and 1968. Nelson Rockefeller suffered aheart attack on January 20, 1979, while engaged insex with mistress Megan Marshak and died when shefled the apartment without summoning aid.

Other political Rockefellers include Nelson’sbrother Winthrop (1912–73), who served as gover-nor of Arkansas in 1967–71; Winthrop Paul Rocke-feller (son of Winthrop, born in 1948), electedlieutenant governor of Arkansas in 1999; and JohnDavison Rockefeller IV (b. 1937), who has servedsuccessively as West Virginia’s secretary of state(1969–72), governor (1977–85), and U.S. Senator(1985 to present). Both Nelson Rockefeller and JohnD. IV were members of the TRILATERAL COMMISSION.During his lifetime Nelson Rockefeller also pro-moted widespread Christian evangelical work inSouth America and a “pacification” campaign thatreaped millions in new oil leases from the territory ofconverted and dispossessed Indian tribes.

ROMANIAMost of modern-day Romania lay within the Romanprovince of Dacia until A.D. 271 when the first ofmany barbarian invasions overran the territory. Loot-ing and sporadic massacres continued for the next900 years while the Romanian district known asTransylvania was annexed by neighboring HUNGARY

in the 11th century. TURKEY dominated the principali-ties of Moldavia and Wallachia by the 16th century,despite bloody resistance from the likes of Vlad Tepes(alias “Dracula”), who impaled thousands of his ene-mies while they were still alive. RUSSIA seized controlof Moldavia and Wallachia during the Russo-TurkishWar of 1828–29, and Romania did not win independ-ent nation status until 1881 after the Congress ofBerlin. Romania began World War I as a neutral butthen joined the Allies in 1916, thereby doubling itssize at war’s end with territorial acquisitions fromRussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. KingCarol II abolished Romania’s democratic constitution

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John D. Rockefeller (left) founded the Standard Oil empire, and later, financier William Rockefeller (right) helped toexpand the family dynasty. (Author’s collection)

in 1938 and proclaimed a royal dictatorship. Twoyears later, the government was reorganized on fas-cist lines with the brutal Iron Guard forming thenucleus of a new totalitarian regime. Russian incur-sions during June 1940 prompted Romania to forgean alliance with the THIRD REICH five months later.Romanian troops participated in ADOLF HITLER’sinvasion of Russia, while the Iron Guard massacredan estimated 270,000 Jews during the Holocaust.Hitler’s defeat brought Romania back into the Russ-ian orbit, and a communist government was installedin 1946. Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ruled his nationin the style of JOSEPH STALIN from 1967 to 1989,looting the Romanian economy to leave the countryvirtually bankrupt. A military coup deposed Ceaus-escu in December 1989, whereupon he was tried andexecuted for various crimes against humanity. Thecollapse of Soviet communism in 1991 left Romaniato flounder on its own, and while the country appliedfor membership in Europe’s Economic Union (EU)during 1995, inept baby steps toward financialreform make it unlikely that EU membership will begranted before 2007.

See also COMMUNISM; FASCISM; HOLOCAUST AND

HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

ROSELLI, John (?–1976)MAFIA celebrity John Roselli was born FilippoSacco in Italy, date uncertain. He worked forChicago mobster Al Capone during PROHIBITION

but then migrated to LAS VEGAS after World War IIas an ally of gambling czar MEYER LANSKY. In Sep-tember 1960 Roselli colleague SAM GIANCANA metwith Allen Dulles, director of the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY (CIA), to discuss collaboration inplans to assassinate Cuban leader FIDEL CASTRO.Roselli persuaded Florida mob boss SANTOS TRAF-FICANTE to join in the plot, but several failedattempts on Castro convinced Roselli that killingCastro would not necessarily liberate CUBA. Still,he played along with the scheme to protect himselffrom federal prosecutors, a scheme jeopardizedwhen Attorney General Robert Kennedy markedRoselli for deportation.

That threat was erased by the JFK ASSASSINATION

of November 1963, and Roselli lived in peace untilhe was subpoenaed by the CHURCH COMMITTEE in1975. Before that panel Roselli detailed CIA-Mafiaplots against Castro, along with his theory that a

CIA hit team in Cuba had been captured and“turned” to kill President Kennedy. After the hearingRoselli told columnist JACK ANDERSON: “WhenOswald was picked up, the underworld conspiratorsfeared he would crack and disclose information thatmight lead to them. This almost certainly would havebrought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. SoJACK RUBY was ordered to eliminate Oswald.” Whileauthorities ignored Roselli’s theory, the mob did not.Roselli vanished from his Florida home in July 1976and was found 10 days later, floating in an oil drumon Miami’s Dumfoundling Bay. He had been stran-gled; his legs had been hacked off and shoved intothe drum atop his corpse. The crime remains offi-cially unsolved.

See also DULLES BROTHERS; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

ROSENBERG, Julius and Ethel (1918–1953; 1915–1953)The cold war’s most sensational espionage casebegan in September 1945 when cipher clerk IgorGouzenko defected from the Soviet embassy inOttawa, Canada. Gouzenko brought with him acache of documents and names of numerous Russianagents: twenty one were ultimately prosecuted, nineof them were convicted, and 50 more resigned fromvarious government posts or were transferred to non-sensitive positions. While searching the home of sus-pect Israel Halperin, officers of the Royal CanadianMounted Police discovered a notebook containingthe name and address of Klaus Fuchs, a Germanphysicist living in Scotland. Copies of the notebookwere sent to FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

(FBI) headquarters and Britain’s MI5; yet four yearselapsed before Fuchs was jailed as a spy.

According to FBI spokespeople, G-men followedthe trail from Fuchs to Philadelphia chemist HarryGold and from there to David Greenglass, a soldierat the Los Alamos nuclear test site. Greenglass, inturn, implicated his wife and his sister Ethel Rosen-berg, together with Ethel’s husband Julius. Green-glass also named Julius Rosenberg as the head of avast Russian spy ring inside the United States

In fact, however, Greenglass was suspected ofstealing uranium samples—a common pastime forsoldiers at Los Alamos—and he confessed that rela-tively petty crime one day before Klaus Fuchs namedHarry Gold as his American contact. FBI agentsshowed Greenglass’s photo to Gold by pure chance,mixed with pictures of other members of the Los

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Alamos staff, and they were surprised when Goldpicked him out as a spy. Greenglass subsequently fin-gered Rosenberg as the agent who seduced him intotreason, but he denied Ethel’s involvement until Feb-ruary 25, 1951, 10 days before commencement ofher trial.

Julius Rosenberg was arrested on July 17, 1950.That same day, a JUSTICE DEPARTMENT memo urgedthe FBI to “consider every possible means to bringpressure on Rosenberg to make him talk . . . includ-ing careful study of Ethel Rosenberg, in order thatcharges may be placed against her, if possible.” Twodays later, J. EDGAR HOOVER informed his superiorsthat “[t]here is no question that if Julius Rosenbergwould furnish the details of his extensive espionage

activities it would be possible to proceed againstother individuals.” Hoover added that “proceedingagainst his wife might serve as a lever in this matter.”The only stumbling block to that scenario was a totallack of evidence against Ethel Rosenberg. Still, agentsarrested her on August 11, 1950, and she was held inlieu of $100,000 bond.

Once committed to the frame-up, authoritiesspared no energy in concocting their case. Twentyhigh-ranking officials discussed the matter on Febru-ary 8, 1951, with Justice spokespersons confessingthat the case against Ethel was “not too strong.”Still, they declared, it was “very important that shebe convicted too and given a stiff sentence.” Prosecu-tors sought “the strongest judge possible,” finally

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Julius Rosenberg (with glasses) and his wife Ethel are escorted into U.S. court in New York for the opening of theirtrial as key figures in the Klaus Fuchs atomic spy ring. The Rosenbergs received the death penalty for their role inthis case. (Bettmann/Corbis)

choosing Irving Kaufman, a former U.S. attorneywho reportedly “worshipped J. Edgar Hoover.”

David Greenglass made the case in February whenhe changed his story to implicate Ethel. Forgettinghis original statement, Greenglass now “remem-bered” sessions at his sister’s apartment where shewatched him pass notes to Julius and afterward“typed them up” in the bedroom. Agents grantedGreenglass a private meeting with Harry Gold tocoordinate their statements, and both men promptlyturned state’s evidence against the Rosenbergs,thereby escaping the electric chair. Ruth Greenglassalso joined the prosecution team, contradicting herprevious statements to support David’s newbornmemories.

The Rosenbergs and codefendant Morton Sobellfaced trial for their lives in March 1951. Defenseattorney Emanuel Block refused to cross-examineHarry Gold but then tackled David and Ruth Green-glass without knowledge of their earlier conflictingstatements. Julius and Ethel were the only defensewitnesses; both denied spying. Then Julius torpedoedtheir case by pleading the Fifth Amendment to ques-tions concerning his alleged Communist ties. Allthree defendants were convicted on March 29, 1951.Four days later, Hoover wrote to Attorney GeneralHoward McGrath, recommending death for JuliusRosenberg and Sobell, with 30 years imprisonmentfor Ethel. In retrospect it seems that no one believedthat the executions would be carried out. The electricchair was simply one more “lever,” intended tosqueeze names and secrets out of Julius Rosenberg.As retired Hoover aide Robert Lamphere confessedin June 1978, “We didn’t want them to die. Wewanted them to talk.”

Judge Kaufman had other ideas. On April 5,1951, he condemned both Rosenbergs and sentencedSobell to 30 years in prison. All appeals were denied,and the double execution was scheduled for June 18,1953. Six G-men invaded Sing Sing Prison thatmorning, waiting in cells on death row for a last-minute confession, but Julius Rosenberg kept silentand the executions proceeded on schedule.

See also COMMUNISM.

ROSICRUCIANSThe origins of Rosicrucianism are obscured by leg-end and deliberate obfuscation, but most accountslink it directly to the mystical KNIGHTS TEMPLAR.

French documents dating from the mid-17th centuryclaim that the Order of the Rosy Cross was foundedin 1188 by Jean de Gisors, an ex-Templar, a vassalof King Henry II, and first grand master of a Tem-plar splinter group called the Order of Sion. Con-flicting reports name the movement’s founder asGerman occultist Christian Rosenkreuz (d. 1484),while other accounts claim that Rosenkreuz wasmerely the pseudonym of a more famous historicalfigure. (Proposed candidates include Sir FrancisBacon.) Whatever its beginnings, the Rosicrucianorder did not surface publicly until the 17th century,with publication of various “manifestos” during1614–16. By 1623 when elusive members of theRose-Croix plastered Paris with posters announcingtheir presence “visibly and invisibly in this city,”most observers deemed the movement affiliated with(if not identical to) Freemasonry.

That association prompted allegations of conspir-atorial activity that endure to the present day, credit-ing Rosicrucians with a leading role in momentousevents from the breakup of the Holy Roman Empireto the Protestant Reformation to the French Revolu-tion. Known members of the order include DanteAlighieri (author of The Divine Comedy), Dr. JohnDee (British scientist and spy for Queen Elizabeth I),and Robert Fludd (a principal translator of the HolyBible for King James I). Modern incarnations of theRosicrucian order worldwide include the Confrater-nity of the Rose Cross, Fraternitas Rosae Crucis,Societas Rosicruciana, Rosicrucian Order CrotonaFellowship, Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, Rosi-crucian Fellowship, Order of the Temple of the RosyCross, and Lectorium Rosicrucianum.

See also FREEMASONS.

ROTHSCHILD familyWhenever anti-Semitic conspiracists gather to railagainst international bankers and the “Jewish worldconspiracy,” discussion swiftly and inevitably turns tothe European Rothschild family. The clan’s patriarch,Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), was born inthe ghetto of Frankfurt-am-Main, GERMANY, andbecame a self-made millionaire with the establishmentof the family’s first finance house. In the latter 18thand early 19th centuries the Rothschild empire spreadthroughout Europe as Mayer stationed his sons in var-ious capital cities, keeping their money in the familywith a series of arranged marriages to close relatives.

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Those sons and their financial headquarters includedAmschel Rothschild (1773–1855) in Frankfurt-am-Main, Saloman Rothschild (1774–1855) inVienna, Nathan Rothschild (1777–1836) in London,Kalmann Rothschild (1788–1855) in Naples, andJakob Rothschild (1791–1868) in Paris. The family’srole in financing European industry, railroads, andthe Suez Canal produced royal titles that werebestowed by rulers of the British and Austro–Hungarian Empires. The Rothschild name becamesynonymous with luxury, and in the process itinspired hatred from thousands of bigots whoregarded Judaism as the root of all worldly evil.

The Rothschilds were also ardent supporters ofZIONISM, with Baron Edmond James de Rothschildstanding as a patron of the first Zionist settlementin Palestine at Rishon-LeZion). In 1917 Lionel Walter Rothschild was the addressee of Britain’sBalfour Declaration, which committed England tosupport creation of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. The advent of ADOLF HITLER and hisTHIRD REICH saw the Rothschilds hunted and harried throughout occupied Europe, their estateslooted of artwork and other property valued in themillions of dollars. Some of that stolen propertywas never recovered, and it presumably residestoday in the same Swiss banks where Nazi lootersstashed their swag between 1933 and 1945. Someconspiracists—particularly anti-Semites—see theRothschild dynasty’s hand at work in epic eventsspanning the past two centuries. The family is vari-ously accused of financing America’s Civil War andthe assassination of Abraham Lincoln, bankrollingWorld Wars I and II (despite crushing family lossesto Hitler’s Third Reich), and has emerged as a primemover in some descriptions of the “New WorldOrder.” Most such theories boil down to a claim ofJewish plans for world domination, as outlined inthe bogus Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Despitethat persecution, the family endures and retains itslavish lifestyle. Modern incarnations of the Roth-schild financial empire include London’s N.M.Rothschild and Sons, La Compagnie FinancièreEdmond de Rothschild in Paris, plus the premierBordeaux wineries of Château Lafite Rothschildand Château Mouton Rothschild. In the 1980sbefore his conviction for fraud, far-right U.S. presi-dential hopeful Lyndon LaRouche accused theRothschilds of financing the global HEROIN traffic,but his evidence was ephemeral, at best.

RUBY, Jack (1911–1967)Chicago native Jacob Rubenstein was born in 1911,variously claiming birth dates between March andJune. That deception set the tone for a life of crime,beginning with teenage apprenticeship to MAFIA

bookies and corrupt labor unions. His friends andbusiness partners in Chicago comprised a rogue’sgallery of gamblers, racketeers, and contract killersknown to law-enforcement agencies from coast tocoast. As Jack Ruby, he served in World War II with-out seeing combat and then celebrated his return tocivilian life by relocating in Dallas, Texas. There,Ruby ran a series of nightclubs where drugs andprostitutes were readily available. Several arrests onassault and concealed-weapons charges failed to curbhis friendship with officers of the DALLAS POLICE

DEPARTMENT. In 1959–60 Ruby was active in theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY’s campaigns againstFIDEL CASTRO, and he visited Florida mobster SAN-TOS TRAFFICANTE while Trafficante was brieflydetained in CUBA.

Ruby would surely be forgotten today but for hisrole in the 1963 JFK ASSASSINATION. A week beforePresident John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas,Ruby visited LAS VEGAS, Nevada, and spent time atthe Stardust casino, then owned by Cleveland mob-ster Moe Dalitz. During the same period his tele-phone records reveal calls to Santos Trafficante inFlorida and to Mafia boss CARLOS MARCELLO inNew Orleans. On November 24, 1963, Ruby shotand killed alleged assassin LEE HARVEY OSWALD inthe Dallas police station, his act beamed worldwideby television cameras at the scene. In custody, Rubyclaimed that he shot Oswald in a fit of grief and sym-pathy for JFK’s widow to spare Jacqueline Kennedythe ordeal of testifying at Oswald’s trial. Later, heexpressed fear for his life and offered proof of a con-spiracy to the WARREN COMMISSION in exchange forsafe passage to Washington, D.C., but the commis-sion refused to see Ruby outside of Dallas.

Conspiracists dismiss Ruby’s “sympathy” motiveand regard Oswald’s slaying as a mob-type executionthat was designed to silence the accused assassin. Asevidence, they point to Ruby’s lifelong Mafia associa-tions and eyewitness testimony of his movements dur-ing November 22–24, 1963. Witnesses reportedseeing Ruby at Parkland Hospital while JFK wasundergoing futile surgery in an attempt to save his life,and Ruby also surfaced at a police press conferenceheld on November 23. There, when District Attorney

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Henry Wade incorrectly identified Oswald as a mem-ber of a nonexistent Free Cuba Movement, JackRuby—captured again on camera—spoke up from theback row to correct Wade. “Fair Play for Cuba,”Ruby called out, and Wade quickly agreed. The War-ren Commission subsequently ignored witnesses whoplaced Ruby and Oswald together in the weeks priorto Kennedy’s murder. Convicted of Oswald’s murderon March 14, 1964, Ruby was sentenced to death, butthat verdict was overturned on appeal, citing pretrialpublicity. Ruby died in jail on January 3, 1967, whileawaiting retrial. Conflicting reports blame his deathon cancer and a pulmonary embolism.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

RUSSIAN MafiaThis generic name is commonly applied to variousgangs of organized criminals operating from RUSSIA

since the fall of COMMUNISM with outposts all overthe world. Comparison with the Italian MAFIA ishabitual but not entirely accurate. While the Russiansyndicates are hierarchical and ruthless in their disci-pline, many consist primarily of former military menor agents of the “defunct” KGB. In addition to thenormal Mafia rackets—drugs, prostitution, gam-bling, extortion, wholesale theft, and fraud—the sev-eral Russian Mafias are said to deal in heavy militaryweapons bought or stolen from impoverished statesof the former USSR. Some investigators fear that themerchandise may include chemical or nuclearweapons that are offered for sale to the highest bid-der in a world overrun by fanatical terrorists.

During the past decade, Russian mobsters havereportedly waged brutal war against Italian Mafiafamilies and the Japanese YAKUZA while forging closealliances with South American COCAINE cartels.Inevitably, though, gang warfare yields to collabora-tion for mutual profit, and the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION reports several Russian crime syndi-cates presently active on U.S. soil. They reportedlysmuggle illegal immigrants along with arms andother contraband, a traffic that (at least theoretically)opens America’s borders to penetration by terroristsor international fugitives. At last count, U.S. authori-ties estimated that the several Russian Mafias possess100,000 hard-core members and a larger but unspec-ified number of associates cooperating on illicit dealsin various nations.

See also TERRORISM.

RUSSIA/USSRVast Russia has historically straddled the fencebetween “civilized” Europe and the “inscrutable”East. Its name derives from Viking raiders who pene-trated the region in the latter part of the ninth cen-tury A.D. Mongol invaders followed in 1240,ravaging the landscape and leaving control of thenation fragmented among rival dukedoms. DukeIvan III expelled the Mongols in the 15th century,leaving his son—Ivan the Terrible—to rule unitedRussia as the country’s first czar (a post that com-bined dictatorship with “divine” leadership of theRussian Orthodox Church). Successive despotsexpanded Russia’s territory to include the Crimea,Ukraine, part of POLAND, Finland, Bessarabia, andSiberia. Czar ALEXANDER I defeated NAPOLEON

BONAPARTE’s invasion of Russia in 1812–13 and thencreated the Holy Alliance to suppress Europe’s risingliberal movement. ALEXANDER II expanded Russia’sborders to the Pacific and into central Asia, whilelaunching widespread persecution of Russian Jewsby the BLACK HUNDREDS and similar organizations.

The stress of World War I highlighted czarist cor-ruption and the weird influence of mystic “prophet”GRIGORY RASPUTIN over the Russian royal family.Revolutionaries forced Nicholas II to abdicate inMarch 1917, and the royal family was massacred inJuly 1918. By that time VLADIMIR LENIN’s Bolshevikmovement had overthrown the provisional govern-ment of Alexander Kerensky to make Russia the firstnominally Communist state on Earth. In fact, how-ever, the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR) never progressed beyond “temporary” Com-munist Party dictatorship to achieve true commu-nism as conceived by theorist Karl Marx (nor, forthat matter, has any other nation). PresidentWoodrow Wilson was worried enough by develop-ments in Russia to order an invasion of that countryin 1918, and U.S. occupation troops remained insome far-northern regions as late as 1920 withoutachieving their goal of toppling Lenin’s regime. Thatunprovoked invasion (ignored in most U.S. historybooks) doubtless did much to influence Russia’s rela-tions with the United States in decades to come.

Dictator JOSEPH STALIN emerged triumphant fromthe power struggle following Lenin’s death in Janu-ary 1924, and he ruled the USSR with an iron handuntil his own demise in 1953. During that periodStalin first signed a nonaggression pact with ADOLF

HITLER and then fought a desperate war against

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Hitler’s THIRD REICH after German troops invadedRussia in 1941. Although an ally of the UnitedStates, FRANCE, and Britain during the remainder ofthe war, Stalin was understandably mistrusted in theWest where many leaders—including FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) director J. EDGAR

HOOVER regarded Stalin as a greater threat thanHitler’s Axis of Steel. FBI agents devoted much oftheir wartime effort to tracking alleged Russianagents inside the United States while Nazi spies—andmany real-life Soviet “spooks”—were ignored. The1945 YALTA CONFERENCE granted Stalin permissionto dominate much of Eastern Europe after WorldWar II, a strategic decision which in retrospect didmuch to launch the subsequent cold war. For theremainder of his life, Stalin was blamed (sometimesinaccurately) for every Communist advance or out-break on the planet, including civil war in dividedKOREA and the “loss” of CHINA to COMMUNISM

under MAO ZEDONG. While he was clearly brutal andcorrupt, employing KGB agents abroad just as Wash-ington used the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY,there is likewise no doubt that Stalin’s global influ-ence was exaggerated by Western states leaders,intelligence leaders, and fiction writers to advancetheir personal agendas.

Stalin’s death brought a change to the cold war,but tension between the United States and the USSRnever ceased. Each step forward in the form oftreaties and accords was countered by some crisis inHUNGARY, GERMANY, CUBA, VIETNAM, CZECHOSLO-VAKIA, or AFGHANISTAN. Committed to opposingevery “Russian” move around the world, Washing-ton supported many Third World despots as brutalas Stalin himself, while arming bands of “freedomfighters” who would later be denounced as terroristswhen they turned on their former benefactors anddemanded true independence. President RICHARD

NIXON, himself a one-time congressional Red-hunter,surprised the world by improving diplomatic rela-tions with Russia in the early 1970s, but anyprogress made during that decade was reversed byPresident RONALD REAGAN in the 1980s. Committedto a simplistic view of Russia as a worldwide “evilempire,” Reagan pursued his anticommunist agendawith a series of illegal campaigns that included covertarms deals in the Middle East and a long-runningprogram of state-sponsored terrorism in CentralAmerica. Some historians credit Reagan and succes-sor George H. W. Bush with the collapse of Russian

communism in 1991, but in fact Russia’s economyhad been teetering on the brink of implosion foryears. Its final breakdown had little or nothing to dowith Reagan-Bush foreign policy.

President Boris Yeltsin led the new Russia from1991 to 1999, despite attempted coups, brushfirewars in various provinces, and his own declininghealth that was exacerbated by alcoholism. TheChechen-Russian war of 1994–96 ended in a bloodystalemate, while a newly emboldened RUSSIAN MAFIA

flagrantly corrupted every level of business and gov-ernment in the country. In the new millennium, asPresident George W. Bush seemed intent on turningback U.S. policies to those of his mentor Ronald Rea-gan, Moscow is increasingly at odds with Washing-ton. Some observers feel that Bush’s rejection oflong-standing nuclear-weapons treaties with Russiaforetell a new cold war in the making—or worse.Meanwhile, Russia is plagued by sinister problems athome. In April 2003 police reported that 88,000 per-sons were currently listed as missing nationwide.During the past 15 years authorities acknowledgedthe discovery of 41,292 corpses—one for every3,500 Russians in a nation of 145 million people. Inthe first six months of 2002 Russian police identifiedonly 13,000 of the 57,000 corpses under study bythe Ministry of the Interior.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

RWANDAThe original inhabitants of Rwanda were Pygmieswho now comprise only 1 percent of the nation’spopulation. European explorers arrived in 1854, andRwanda was annexed as part of German East Africain 1890. During World War I, Belgian troops occu-pied the country and remained to rule it with a post-war mandate from the League of Nations, along withBURUNDI, as Ruanda-Urundi. The region became aUNITED NATIONS trust territory in 1946, adminis-tered as part of the Belgian Congo until that countrywon independence from BELGIUM in 1960. Ethnictension between the rival Tutsi and Hutu tribes(which curiously share a common language, culturaltraditions, and prior history of intermarriage)sparked civil war after the Belgians departed, drivingmany of the formerly dominant Tutsi into exile.When Rwanda finally became an independent nationon July 1, 1962, Hutus held the reins of power. Tutsiopposition materialized as the Rwandan Patriotic

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Front (RPF) organized in UGANDA to overthrowHutu rule. RPF guerrillas invaded Rwanda in Octo-ber 1990 touching off another civil war that theoret-ically ended with peace accords in August 1993. Acoalition government was planned, but ethnic vio-lence exploded once more in April 1994 after aplane crash killed the presidents of Rwanda andBurundi. (Most analysts now believe the plane wasshot down by Hutus who opposed the impendingpolitical coalition.) Hutu officials launched a genoci-dal campaign against Tutsi tribes members inRwanda, led by the Interahamwe militia, whichslaughtered at least 800,000 victims in 100 days.While global superpowers remained aloof andUnited Nations (UN) forces withdrew entirely after

losing 10 men in combat, RPF soldiers fought backin a 14-week civil war that routed the Hutu govern-ment and sent 1.7 million Hutus into exile. Hutumilitia, in turn, staged guerrilla raids into Rwandafrom Zaire (now the Democratic Republic ofCongo) (DRC). In September 1998 a UN tribunalbelatedly sentenced former prime minister JeanKambanda to life imprisonment for genocide—thefirst-ever conviction obtained under the GenocideConvention of 1948. A four-year war betweenRwanda and the DRC was settled by peace accordsin July 2002. On July 31, 2003, 105 defendantswere convicted of genocide in a mass trial held atGikongo, southern Rwanda. Another 100,000 geno-cide suspects are currently in jail awaiting trial.

SADAT, Anwar al- (1918–1981)Egyptian president and martyr Anwar al-Sadat wasborn in 1918 in a village 40 miles north of Cairo.EGYPT in those days was a British colony, and Sadatinherited a hatred of imperial rule. His early heroeswere a mixed group that included Turkish liberatorKemel Ataturk, Indian pacifist Mohandas Gandhi,and ADOLF HITLER, whom Sadat admired for chal-lenging Britain. In the mid-1930s Sadat trained at aBritish military school in Egypt, learning battle tac-tics while he forged a lifelong friendship with nation-alist classmate Gamal Abdel Nasser. Together, Nasserand Sadat founded a revolutionary group that top-pled British rule in Egypt two decades later. WithNasser installed as Egypt’s first president, Sadatserved as minister of public relations, helping Nasserto chart a course of nonalignment with the West andfrank hostility toward ISRAEL. On Nasser’s death inSeptember 1970 Sadat ascended to the presidency asa relative unknown. He angered many Arabs by pro-posing peace with Israel (in return for the with-drawal of Israeli troops from captured lands) and byexpelling Soviet advisors after RUSSIA spurned hispleas for military aid. When Israel refused to aban-don the occupied Sinai peninsula, Sadat struck onOctober 6, 1973, and regained a portion of the lostterritory by force.

Economic problems ultimately led Sadat to seek anew accord with Israel, traveling to the United Statesin 1978 for negotiations that forged a peace treaty

between the two nations a year later. That effort wonSadat a Nobel Peace Prize—and the undying enmityof Muslim fundamentalists at home. As Sadat hadonce schemed against British colonial rulers, so ele-ments of his own army now plotted to destroy him.On October 6, 1981—a date chosen to commemo-rate the Suez attack of 1973—assassins struck whileSadat reviewed a military procession in Cairo. Foursoldiers led by Lieutenant Khaled el-Sambouliopened fire on the reviewing stand with automaticweapons, killing Sadat and seven others and wound-ing an additional 28 victims. Police investigation ofthe slaughter uncovered a widespread conspiracywith 24 defendants placed on trial between Novem-ber 1981 and March 1982. Twenty-two of the defen-dants were convicted, 17 were sentenced to lifeimprisonment, and five were condemned to death.Sambouli and codefendant Abbas Mohammed wereshot by a military firing squad on April 15, 1982,while three other defendants—Abdel Farag, AtayaReheil, and Abdul Salam—were hanged.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW’s Day massacreThis 16th-century religious slaughter of ProtestantHuguenots in FRANCE sprang from a failed assassina-tion plot. Catherine de Médicis, a royal member of theCATHOLIC CHURCH, opposed the influence ofHuguenot leader Comte Gaspard de Coligny on herson, King Charles IX. Never one to shrink from

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bloodshed in pursuit of power, Catherine plotted tomurder Coligny on August 22, 1572, but the initialplan was foiled by faulty marksmanship, leaving Col-igny with a nonfatal bullet wound. Two days later, onSt. Bartholomew’s Day, prominent Huguenots gath-ered in Paris for a wedding celebration—and, perhaps,to plot revenge against Coligny’s would-be killers.Catherine opted for a preemptive strike, sending thugsto invade Coligny’s sickroom; he was stabbed to deaththere, dragged through the streets, and then dismem-bered under the supervision of a high-rankingCatholic leader, Henry, duc de Guise. At the same timeother prominent Huguenots were massacred at theLouvre where they were ostensibly lodged under KingCharles’s protection. At that point a royal call forpeace failed to stop the bloodshed, and religious may-hem continued for the next three days, spilling beyondParis into neighboring provinces. At least 3,000Huguenots were killed in Paris and an estimated50,000 murdered nationwide. Coligny’s head was sentto Pope Gregory XIII, who ordered a special medalstruck in honor of the occasion.

The sectarian violence ordered by Catherine andCharles on St. Bartholomew’s Day continued longafter, like a Frankenstein monster running out ofcontrol. The massacre triggered France’s Fourth Warof Religion between Catholics and Protestants(1572–73) during which Huguenots gained politicalascendancy in southwestern France. Henry de Guisebecame one of the most powerful men in France,wielding more power than Catherine de Médicis her-self, briefly honored with the title “King of Paris”during the Eighth War of Religion (1585–89), alsoknown as the War of the Three Henrys. On Decem-ber 25, 1588, Henry was waylaid and murdered bymembers of King Henry III’s royal guard, who alsokilled his brother, Cardinal Louis of Lorraine, thefollowing day. Henry III, in turn, was stabbed todeath by a Dominican monk, Jacques Clement, in1589. French Catholic leaders hailed Henry’s murderas “the noblest of God’s doings since the Incarnationof JESUS CHRIST,” while Clement’s mother was hon-ored for giving birth to the assassin.

ST.VALENTINE’S Day massacreChicago recorded 703 gangland murders during PRO-HIBITION, while countless other victims disappearedon “one-way rides” or were slain in Chicago’s sub-urbs. Even CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO, boss of New

York’s MAFIA, described Chicago in the 1920s as “agoddamn crazy place.” The heart of the problem was “Scarface” Al Capone and his endless war tosuppress rival bootleggers. Capone killed numerouscompetitors, but his longest-running campaigninvolved the North Side gang run by George(“Bugs”) Moran. Finally, Capone took advantage ofMoran’s larcenous nature to set a trap that wouldwipe out the North rival leadership once and for all.

The bait was a shipment of whiskey, supposedlystolen from Capone en route to Chicago. An inter-mediary offered the load to Moran, and delivery wasscheduled for the morning of February 14, 1929—St. Valentine’s Day—at Moran’s primary warehouseon North Clark Street. Capone imported two membersof Detroit’s Purple Gang to watch the garage andtelephone a waiting strike team when Moran arrived.Unfortunately, the spotters had Moran’s descriptionbut no photograph. Around 10:30 A.M. on D-Day,they marked the arrival of a man resembling Moranand made the fatal call.

In fact, the visitor was actually Dr. ReinhardSchwimmer, a Chicago optometrist and “gangstergroupie” who enjoyed spending time with the NorthSide crowd whenever possible. Also present werebrothers Frank and Pete Gusenberg, Adam Meyer,James Clark, Al Weinshank, and John May. Moranhad overslept and was running late to the meeting.As he approached on foot, shortly before 11:00 A.M.,Moran saw a police car stop in front of his garageand fled the scene, thus saving his own life. Inside thegarage, two men in police uniforms brandishedweapons and ordered all present to stand against abrick wall. Next, two or three other men dressed incivilian garb entered the warehouse. Before the vic-tims recognized their peril, a storm of fire from .45-caliber Thompson submachine guns cut them down.Two of the dead or dying men were also blasted inthe face at close range with a sawed-off shotgun.

While Moran and Capone traded public accusa-tions in the slaughter’s aftermath, Chicago Prohibi-tion administrator Frederick Silloway aired analternate theory, claiming that the shooters were cor-rupt police officers, threatened with exposure byMoran after they stole a shipment of his whiskey. Inany case, the massacre effectively destroyed the NorthSide gang. One of the Tommy guns used on St. Valen-tine’s Day was found in December 1929 after policearrested hitman Fred (“Killer”) Burke in Michigan.Burke denied any part in the slaughter and was never

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charged with the crime, instead receiving a life sen-tence for the murder of a Michigan police officer.

SAMOAPolynesians settled on the Samoan islands around1000 B.C.E., and they remained unspoiled by civiliza-tion until traders from FRANCE and the NETHER-LANDS arrived some 2,800 years later. In the late19th century an international treaty between theUnited States and GERMANY recognized the “para-mount interest” of both nations in Samoa (navalbases), thereafter dividing the archipelago into Amer-ican Samoa and Western Samoa (ruled by Germany).Surprise competitor New Zealand seized WesternSamoa in 1914, and in 1946 those islands became aUNITED NATIONS trust—still ruled from Auckland. Bythat time a native resistance movement called Mau(“strongly held view”) had taken root in Samoa, agi-tating for full independence and winning that goal onJanuary 1, 1962. Forty years later New Zealand for-mally apologized for the injustices suffered bySamoans under foreign rule. Germany and theUnited States have yet to follow suit.

SAN Francisco Police DepartmentFrom PROHIBITION through the 1940s, the San Fran-cisco Police Department (SFPD) harbored as manycorrupt officers as any other force in the country.Chief Frank Ahern vowed to change that image in the1950s, cracking down on local gambling so zealouslythat his officers soon found themselves raiding seniorcitizens’ bridge clubs. Thomas Cahill was appointedchief on Ahern’s death in 1958 and soon shifted thedepartment toward an emphasis on political surveil-lance and harassment of supposed leftists and “radi-cals.” The first salvo in that battle was fired on May13, 1960, when police used clubs and fire hosesagainst nonviolent students protesting a local appear-ance by the HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN

ACTIVITIES. Of 64 persons arrested in that melee, allbut one were later released without charges.

Cahill failed to learn his lesson, driving SFPD everfarther to the right. Throughout the 1960s morepolice were assigned to political surveillance in SanFrancisco than to investigation of organized crime,and Cahill created a special two-man “obscenitysquad” to harass local theaters and rock-concert pro-moters. Persistent reports of racist brutality were

filed against SFPD, while KU KLUX KLAN posters blos-somed on departmental bulletin boards, and somehigh-ranking officers boasted of membership in theJOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. San Francisco suffered threedays of rioting in September 1966 after a whitepolice officer shot and killed an unarmed teenage carthief in the Hunters Point ghetto. A bloody policeassault on student protesters against the VIETNAM

War, staged on January 10, 1968, went largely unno-ticed because both local newspapers were on strike.The following year, SFPD tear-gassed and raidedBLACK PANTHER PARTY headquarters, arresting 16persons on various petty or trumped-up charges.

Complaints against San Francisco’s “finest” con-tinue to the present day. The sampling of cases listedbelow is representative.

• January 1999: Police captain George Staskoreceived a hero’s funeral after he died in a single-car crash. Following the ceremony, journalistsrevealed that Stasko’s blood-alcohol contentwas three times the legal limit when he crashedinto a redwood tree. Critics denounced thecover-up.

• August 1999: An inspector was suspended for90 days when he pleaded guilty to charges aris-ing from a 1997 testing scandal that wreakedhavoc with department promotions. Dismissalwas held in abeyance for five years, “pendinggood behavior.”

• March 2003: Ten officers were indicted onfelony charges arising from a November 2002off-duty brawl at a fast-food restaurant. Thosecharged with obstructing justice and othercounts included Police Chief Earl Sanders;Assistant Chief Alex Fagan and his son Alex, Jr.;Deputy Chief David Robinson; and DeputyChief Greg Suhr. Alex Fagan, Jr., and two othercops were involved in the original fight, afterwhich department brass sidelined the case.Charges were filed only after FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION agents announced their owninvestigation of the incident. All counts againstChief Sanders were dropped on March 11, butthe other cases were unresolved at press time forthis book.

• September 2003: A federal court overturnedthe 1989 murder conviction of alleged STREET

GANG member John Tennison. That rulingaccused police and prosecutors of illegally

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suppressing exculpatory evidence and coach-ing two witnesses to lie under oath. Theburied evidence included memos authorizing a$2,500 payment to one witness, videotapedinterviews with an alternative suspect, poly-graph tests indicating that another prosecu-tion witness lied in court—and the confessionof the actual killer, obtained two weeks afterTennison was convicted.

SATANISMWhile Satanism is technically defined as worship of the Biblical Satan (also known as Lucifer), thelabel has been applied throughout history—oftenerroneously—to a wide variety of non-Christian religions. Early popes branded any deviation fromtheir dictates as satanic heresy and often punishedsuch transgressions with death. Celebrations of a lewd and sometimes violent “black mass,” com-monly inverting and deriding rituals of the CATHOLIC

CHURCH, have been reported throughout Europefrom Medieval times, expanding into the New Worldwith the march of colonialism. Britain’s 18th-century“hellfire clubs” were more concerned with drunkensex than demonology, but thousands of human bonessupported the confessions of Catherine Deshayes,executed at Paris in February 1680 on charges of sac-rificing infants for wealthy clients. In 1912 Spanishauthorities executed Marti Enriqueta, a self-styledwitch, for slaying children and using their remains asingredients for love potions. Cult leader Sila Wongsinwas shot in 1959 in Thailand for sacrificing childrenduring devil-worship ceremonies. Two decades later,suspect Laxman Giri died in jail while awaiting trialon similar charges in INDIA.

In the 1980s various U.S. jurisdictions wererocked by allegations of satanic ritual abuse involving numerous children, some of them suppos-edly molested and otherwise menaced with cultmumbo-jumbo in nursery schools and day-care cen-ters across the country. The most famous such trial,involving staffers from the McMartin Preschool inManhattan Beach, California, ended with acquittalof one defendant and a mistrial for another, butother defendants were convicted or pleaded guilty ascharged in Bakersfield, California; Boston, Massa-chusetts; Carson City, Nevada; Denver, Colorado; ElPaso, Texas; Miami, Florida; San Diego, California;and Wenatchee, Washington. Similar convictions

were recorded in Canada, England, and Australia.Roughly one-third of those verdicts were overturnedon subsequent appeals, but defendants in the remain-ing cases are still imprisoned in various states. Con-troversy surrounding the charges endures, sparkingallegations of “witch hunts” or a global satanic con-spiracy involving drugs, child pornography, andthousands of human sacrifices each year.

SAUDI ArabiaSaudi Arabia is the ancestral home of both the Arabpeople and the Islamic religion. Those distinctionshave not spared it from turmoil and conspiracy, how-ever; quite the reverse, in fact. A long succession offoreign invasions and jihads (holy wars) betweendivergent Muslim sects have made the ArabianPeninsula one of the Middle East’s bloodiest battle-grounds. The modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia wascreated from scratch by King Ibn Saud (1882–1953),a descendant of Wahhabi rulers who were drivenfrom power by EGYPT and TURKEY in 1818. Saudseized Riyadh in 1901 and established himself as thehead of the Arab nationalist movement, expandingfrom his base of power to conquer most of present-day Saudi Arabia by 1932. OIL was discovered fouryears later, enriching the Saud family beyond itspatriarch’s wildest dreams. Ibn Saud’s successor, sim-ply Saud, was deposed by Crown Prince Faisal in1967. Faisal, in turn, was murdered by a relative in1975. As a leading member of Organization of Petro-leum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Saudi Arabiashares responsibility for manipulation of oil priceson a global scale. It has also supported (albeit pas-sively) many past attacks on ISRAEL that were carriedout by Palestinians and other Arab nations. Still, thekingdom enjoys a close relationship with Western oilcompanies, and it provided a base of operations formilitary action against IRAQ during the 1991 GULF

WAR. That same support was not forthcoming in2003 when President George W. Bush launched anunprovoked assault on Iraq under the sobriquet ofOPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

SAVINGS and Loan scandalDescribed by some observers as the greatest theft in U.S. history, the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s sprang from government deregulation of

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savings-and-loan institutions, steadily relaxing gov-ernment controls on lending until corrupt leaders ofvarious S&L firms were caught looting their compa-nies. In 1989 President George H. W. Bush began afederal bailout of the failing firms, a move sparked inpart by familial self-interest, which will ultimatelycost U.S. taxpayers $1.4 trillion by 2033.

S&L deregulation crept up on America by slowdegrees through a series of federal statutes passedbetween 1978 and 1981, permitting broader invest-ments in land-development, construction, and educa-tion loans, providing tax incentives for real-estateinvestment, and undercutting federal supervision ofS&L firms. The real S&L rip off bonanza beganunder President RONALD REAGAN in September 1981when the Federal Home Loan Bank Board grantedfailing S&L’s permission to issue “income capital cer-tificates” that made insolvent firms appear to befinancially sound. Between 1981 and 1985 Reaganalso slashed the Bank Board’s regulatory and supervi-sory staff while S&L assets increased by 56 percentduring the same period (and some firms, notably inCalifornia and Texas, expanded by 300 percent). InJanuary 1982 the Bank Board cut S&L net worthrequirements from 4 to 3 percent of total deposits.Prior to Reagan, federal law required a minimum of400 stockholders for any S&L, including at least 125from the “local community,” while barring any indi-vidual ownership exceeding 10 percent and any“controlling group” with more than 25 percent—allrules discarded by Reagan’s Bank Board in April1982. Deregulation was completed in December1982 with passage of the Garn–St. Germain Deposi-tory Institutions Act, further expanding the power ofS&Ls to invest in risky ventures. That plan wascoauthored by the Garn Institute of Finance—namedfor Senator Jake Garn—which received $2.2 millionfrom S&L industry executives.

The bubble burst in March 1984 with the failureof Empire Savings in Mesquite, Texas, costinginvestors—and later taxpayers—an estimated $300million. Reagan’s Bank Board responded in Aprilwith a bid to eliminate federal deposit insurance onS&L brokered deposits—thus leaving investors tosink unaided—but the courts rejected that attempt tooff-load government responsibility. S&L failures inOhio prompted a “bank holiday” in March 1985—America’s first since the Great Depression—but S&Lfailures spread to Maryland by May, costinginvestors another $185 million. By 1987 Texas S&Ls

represented more than 50 percent of all nationallosses, with 14 Texas firms among the top 20 losers.In February 1988 the Bank Board introduced a“Southwest Plan” to consolidate and package failingTexas S&Ls for sale to the highest bidder, thus (theo-retically) minimizing government losses from depositinsurance payments. Under the Southwest Plan, theBank Board ultimately sold 205 S&Ls with assets(on paper) of $101 billion.

Still, the financial hemorrhage continued nation-wide, and the S&L scandal became a major cam-paign issue in 1988 when George H. W. Bush waselected president. By that time son Neil Bush had runthe Silverado S&L Company into bankruptcy afteronly three short years as director, and Neil’s brotherJeb had defaulted on a $4.56 million loan fromBroward Federal Savings in Sunrise, Florida. Presi-dent Bush unveiled the federal bail-out plan within amonth of his January 1989 inauguration, shiftingregulation of S&Ls to a new Office of Thrift Supervi-sion, while a Resolution Trust Corporation was cre-ated to “resolve” insolvent firms. Silverado’s CEOreceived 3.5 years in prison on pleading guilty totheft of $8.7 million from investors, but Neil Bushsettled his case for $50,000 (40 percent of one year’ssalary at Silverado) while taxpayers bore the brunt ofthe losses. In Florida, auditors examined the officebuilding that Jeb Bush had financed with his $4.56million loan, deciding its fair market value was$500,000. Bush and other investors repaid thatamount, leaving taxpayers to cover the remaining$4,060,000. Despite that record Bush was electedgovernor of Florida, later helping brother Georgewin the White House in ELECTION 2000. Today, someconspiracists suggest that President Bush, Sr., mayhave launched the GULF WAR in 1990 to distractattention from the S&L scandal and more specificallyfrom the role his sons played in that fiasco.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

SCHOOL of the AmericasThe School of the Americas (SOA)—dubbed the“School of Assassins” by critics—has trained morethan 60,000 Latin American soldiers and SECRET

POLICE officers in various “security” techniquessince it was founded in Panama in 1946. Specializedcourses include sniping, psychological warfare,commando tactics, and interrogation techniques(that is, torture). Panama ousted the school in 1984,

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whereupon its campus was relocated at Fort Ben-ning, Georgia—home of the U.S. Army SpecialForces (“Green Berets”). At the time PanamanianPresident Jorge Illueca denounced the SOA publiclyas the single “biggest base for destabilization inLatin America.” Its grim work continues todayunder a new name, the Western Hemisphere Insti-tute for Security Cooperation.

The SOA’s most traveling tutor was Daniel Mitri-one, Sr., who operated in the guise of a spokesmanfor the U.S. Office of Public Safety. First assigned toBRAZIL, Mitrione ended his career in URUGUAY, wherehe was kidnapped and executed by Tupamaro guer-rillas in August 1970. While the RICHARD NIXON

White House praised Mitrione’s “devoted service tothe cause of peaceful progress in an orderly world,”details of his double life began to surface. ManuelHevia described a torture class for Uruguayan policeofficers that Mitrione conducted in the basement ofhis home, where several unnamed victims were bru-tally murdered.

Mitrione’s son, Daniel, Jr., followed his father’sfootsteps into law enforcement as an agent of theFEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION. On March 14,1985, he pleaded guilty to possessing and distribut-ing 92 pounds of COCAINE as well as taking bribes toignore other drug shipments. He received a 10-yearprison sentence, which was waived on condition thathe return $1 million in illegal assets and testifyagainst various accomplices. Mitrione ultimatelyspent three years in a monastery maintained by theCATHOLIC CHURCH for discipline of wayward priests.

SCIENTOLOGYVolumes have been written on the history and theol-ogy of this controversial cult, founded by science-fic-tion author L. Ron Hubbard in 1952 as the HubbardAssociation of Scientologists and later renamed theChurch of Scientology. Best known for recruiting astellar celebrity cast that includes Tom Cruise, LisaMarie Presley, Kelly Preston, and John Travolta, Sci-entology offers a curious blend of fantasy and poppsychology, with devotees striving to “clear” them-selves of prenatal infestation by “Thetans” (definedas alien spirits banished from Earth some 75 millionyears ago by the intergalactic despot Xenu). Achiev-ing “clear” status via long-term “auditing” is a costlyprocess, estimated by Time magazine in 1991 to aver-age $300,000 per client. By 1987—again, according

to Time—the church allegedly banked $503 millionper year from its faithful adherents (a figure hotly dis-puted by church spokespersons). Without furtherdebating on Scientology’s religious merits, any surveyof conspiracies would be remiss in omitting the fol-lowing facts, documented from court records andlaw-enforcement agencies worldwide:

1969—The church was stripped of its tax-exemptstatus by the INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE (IRS).Three years later, T-men announced that Hub-bard’s church owed $1 million in unpaid taxesfor the years 1970–72. By March 1980 the bill(with penalties) had increased to $1.5 million.

July 1977—FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

agents raided church offices in Los Angeles andWashington, D.C., seizing 48,000 documentsstolen from the IRS and other agencies by Scientology’s covert “moles.” In August 1978nine leaders of the church were indicted forstealing government files and bugging federaloffices. All were convicted in October 1979,receiving prison terms of four to five years and$10,000 fines.

1980—L. Ron Hubbard was indicted in Tampa,Florida, for an alleged conspiracy to take overthe town of Clearwater via fraudulent realestate purchases and a bizarre plot to frameMayor Gabriel Cazares on hit-and-run chargesafter Cazares opposed the land grab. Hubbardcould not be found, but estranged son RonaldDeWolff presented evidence that his father hadskimmed $100 million from church coffersbetween 1970 and 1982.

1983—Canadian police raiders seized 250,000documents from the church office in Toronto.In 1992 Scientology became the first churchever tried for criminal offenses in Canada,charged with infiltrating Ontario’s provincialgovernment and three police departments in the1970s. The church and three members wereconvicted at trial and fined $250,000.

November 1996—Jean-Jacques Mazier, once thetop-ranking Scientologist in FRANCE, was con-victed of fraud and manslaughter, receiving an18-month prison sentence for his role in thesuicide of cult member Patrice Vic. Fourteenother Scientologists were also convicted ofembezzlement and fraud, receiving suspendedsentences.

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SEATTLE 8 See PACKER, HORACE.

SECRET Army OrganizationIn February 1970 members of the disintegrating MIN-UTEMEN organization created a new “Secret ArmyOrganization” (SAO) based in San Diego, California.In autumn 1971 the SAO launched a local terroristcampaign, beginning with a spate of anonymousphone calls and threatening letters. On November13, a car was firebombed at the home of PeterBohmer, a college professor who participated inprotest rallies against the VIETNAM War. On January6, 1972, SAO gunmen fired rifle shots into Bohmer’shome, wounding a female visitor. The attacks contin-ued until June 1972 when an SAO bomb wrecked alocal porno theater.

Police then arrested William Yakopec, a formermember of the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, soon unravelingthe SAO’s curtain of secrecy. Identified memberincluded San Diego firefighters and police officers,some of them serving as paid FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) informants. The real shockcame at Yakopec’s bombing trial when SAO memberHoward Godfrey testified that he had been an FBIinformant since 1967. Godfrey testified that FBIagents had approved all his SAO activities, includingdelivery of illegal weapons and explosives used in thetheater bombing (supplied to Godfrey by the bureau).In fact Godfrey had planned the theater bombinghimself with FBI encouragement, and he drove thegetaway car when colleague George Hoover shot upProfessor Bohmer’s house. After the shooting Godfreygave the rifle and his jacket to FBI Agent Steve Chris-tiansen, who destroyed the garment and hid theweapon for six months before delivering it to localpolice. Another informant, retired San Diego copJohn Raspberry, claimed that his FBI contacts orderedhim to “eliminate” and “get rid of” Bohmer, whomthey deemed a threat to national security. Obliging toa fault, Raspberry said he would have gladly mur-dered Bohmer if his orders had been more specific.

The SAO fiasco ultimately had no consequencesfor the FBI. While Yakopec, George Hoover, and athird terrorist went to prison, Howard Godfrey wasrewarded for his “service” with a job in the Califor-nia fire marshal’s office. (He was later indicted forplanting a bomb on a busy road near his home,phoning a threat to authorities, and then volunteer-ing to lead the investigation.) Agent Christiansen

escaped prosecution and retired to Utah. He refusedto discuss the case with reporters but told them,“The FBI is taking good care of us.”

See also TERRORISM.

SECRET policeThroughout history, all autocratic regimes—andmany “democratic” ones—have employed secretpolice agencies to collect intelligence on enemies andoften to go further still, harassing, imprisoning, tor-turing, and sometimes murdering opponents of thestate. Whether the government in question is amonarchy, a military junta, or some version ofdemocracy, secret police share certain universaltraits. By definition they operate clandestinely, oftenexceeding their lawful authority and engaging inactivities that might be prosecuted if they were notshielded by the power of the state. Seldom satisfiedfor long with mere collection of data, most suchagencies progress in time toward proactive (andoften illegal) harassment of perceived enemies. “Dis-information”—that is, deception of adversaries, thegeneral public, and even their own masters—is anearly universal trait of secret police agencies. Inextreme cases the sworn upholders of law becomecriminals themselves, committing acts of sabotageand personal violence, sometimes collaborating withcovert vigilante groups or elements of organizedcrime to suppress their opponents.

Americans are long accustomed to hearing reportsof secret police activities in other countries. Familiarexamples include the OKHRANA of czarist RUSSIA andthe Soviet KGB; the GESTAPO of Nazi GERMANY;CHILE’s brutal DINA; SOUTH AFRICA’s Bureau of Spe-cial Services (BOSS); BRAZIL’s Department of Politi-cal and Social Order; Britain’s MI5; East Germany’sStasi; the MOSSAD of ISRAEL; and IRAN’s homicidalSAVAK. They may not be aware that many agents ofmilitary regimes in Latin America have been trainedin torture and assassination techniques at the U.S.-sponsored SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS. Likewise,most Americans would probably deny the existenceof secret police organizations inside the UnitedStates, but they would be mistaken.

Nationwide, most large U.S. cities have harboredpolice units that are dedicated to surveillance andharassment of “subversives.” Examples covered inthis volume include the BALTIMORE POLICE DEPART-MENT, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT, DENVER POLICE

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DEPARTMENT, DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT, LOS

ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT, NEW HAVEN POLICE

DEPARTMENT, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT, OAK-LAND POLICE DEPARTMENT, PHILADELPHIA POLICE

DEPARTMENT, and SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPART-MENT. Various police departments and officials in theSouth have historically collaborated with the racistCITIZENS’ COUNCILS and KU KLUX KLAN to persecuteAfrican Americans, including the ATLANTA POLICE

DEPARTMENT, Birmingham’s public-safety commis-sioner EUGENE (“BULL”) CONNOR, and Alabama’sstate police under Governor GEORGE WALLACE. TheCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), though barredfrom domestic spying by its 1947 charter, frequentlyengaged in illegal activities on the home front, andany bar to such behavior was lifted in 2001 with pas-sage of the sweeping USA PATRIOT ACT.

A prime offender, throughout its 95-year history,has been the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI).From harassment of minorities, labor unions, and“radicals” in the years before World War I, throughcollaboration with the vigilante American ProtectiveLeague in 1920, through the far-ranging COINTELPRO

campaigns launched by J. EDGAR HOOVER in 1956 andcontinuing until his death, the bureau has committedthousands of illegal break-ins, planting microphonesand tapping telephones, stealing and reading privatecorrespondence, harassing and entrapping suspected“revolutionaries” on various minor or trumped-upcharges. At its worst, the FBI facilitated Klan assaultson civil rights workers during the 1961 FREEDOM

RIDES; framed members of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY

and alleged associates of organized crime for murdersthey did not commit; tried to orchestrate an all-outwar between the MAFIA and the Communist Party;and created a right-wing terrorist group, the SECRET

ARMY ORGANIZATION, which planted bombs andattempted to murder liberal college professors. The1970s CHURCH COMMITTEE exposed much illegalactivity by the CIA and the FBI, but more recent inci-dents involving EARTH FIRST!, the CISPES CASE, andsimilar examples of “overzealous” law enforcementsuggest that little has truly changed.

See also COMMUNISM.

SECRET Service, U.S.The U.S. Secret Service was created in July 1865 as abranch of the Treasury Department designed to sup-press counterfeit currency. During RECONSTRUCTION,

some Secret Service agents were also dispatched toinvestigate terrorist acts committed by the KU KLUX

KLAN. Its better-known assignment, guarding thepresident against assassins, began after an ANAR-CHIST shot President William McKinley in 1901.That role expanded to protection of major presiden-tial and vice-presidential candidates in 1968 afterthe RFK ASSASSINATION in Los Angeles. Additionally,Secret Service agents sometimes guard the presidentagainst embarrassment by removing peaceful pro-testers from public gatherings (as when several stu-dents were removed from an Ohio State Universitygraduation ceremony for silently turning their backson the speaker, George W. Bush). Perennial hostilitybetween the Secret Service and the FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION was exacerbated by the JFK ASSAS-SINATION in 1963, when both agencies failed todetect alleged threats from accused killer LEE HAR-VEY OSWALD. A quarter-century later, those failureswere highlighted by the HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE

ON ASSASSINATIONS. On June 17, 2002, an article in the conservative news magazine U.S. News and World Report detailed numerous allegations ofillegal, incompetent, or negligent behavior by Secret Service agents. Nine months later the agencywas transferred from Treasury to the Department ofHomeland Security, ostensibly in the interest ofstreamlining and coordinating liaison with otherdepartments. As this book went to press, the SecretService had 5,000 employees, including 2,100 “spe-cial” agents, 1,200 uniformed employees, and 1,700technical or administrative personnel.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

SENATE Internal Security SubcommitteeEstablished in January 1951 as the U.S. Senate’s version of the Red-hunting HOUSE COMMITTEE ON

UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES, the Senate Internal Secu-rity Subcommittee (SISS) enjoyed a close workingrelationship with the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION’s (FBI) Crime Records Division, which created a “special squad” to assist with variousinvestigations. FBI Assistant Director Louis Nicholsdeemed the relationship “very satisfactory,” operat-ing “to the mutual benefit of both the [JUSTICE]DEPARTMENT and the bureau, as well as Congressand the general public.”

Those benefits were realized in various ways. TheFBI provided files on various “disloyal” groups and

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individuals, including a March 1953 list of “subver-sive persons” at 56 American universities. In May1958 as part of a new campaign against “use oflawyers and courts to further Communist Propa-ganda,” the bureau furnished details on “pertinentsubversive activities” by 70 lawyers who had repre-sented Communist Party members. Investigation of“un-American activities” fell out of favor in the1970s, following exposure of lawless domestic sur-veillance in the WATERGATE scandal and before theCHURCH COMMITTEE. In 1977 the SISS was quietlymerged with the Senate Criminal Activities Subcom-mittee and thereafter ceased to exist.

See also COMMUNISM.

SENEGALPortuguese traders “discovered” Senegal in the 15thcentury, and French rivals moved in to stir the pot200 years later. By the early 1700s offshore GoréeIsland was a major shipping center for the Atlanticslave trade, launching millions of African captives onunwelcome one-way trips to the New World. A see-saw struggle for control of Senegal, fought betweenBritain and FRANCE, ended with French victory in1840, and Senegal was merged into the larger colonyof French West Africa in 1895. In 1946 it graduatedto the status of a French “overseas territory,” thesame legal fiction used to perpetuate colonialism inALGERIA and Indochina. Granted independence onJune 20, 1960, Senegal joined an ill-fated federationwith MALI that collapsed four months later. The colo-nial legacy lingers in economic stagnation and“flawed” elections that have sparked rebellion inSenegal’s southern Casamance Province, where theMovement of Democratic Forces waged a bloodycampaign for independence. In 1998 Amnesty Inter-national reported that numerous citizens have beenmurdered by the government and buried in secretmass graves. Negotiations held in the following yearproduced a tentative Casamance cease-fire, but 80percent of the province’s arable land is presentlyseeded with land mines.

SERVANTS of the ParacleteOrganized in the 1960s to provide refuge and treat-ment for troubled priests, the Servants of the Para-clete (holy spirit) describe themselves as “theM.A.S.H. unit of the CATHOLIC CHURCH.” Head-

quartered at Jemez Springs, New Mexico, the grouphas offered therapy to hundreds (or thousands) ofpriests suffering from such maladies as alcoholism,depression, drug addiction, and simple loss of faith.Sadly for all concerned, the Paracletes have alsotreated numerous PEDOPHILE PRIESTS, shipped toNew Mexico from parishes across the United Statesand Canada, but their success rate in such casesleaves much to be desired.

Not that the Paracletes themselves admit to anyfailures: In 1986 group therapist, Dr. Jay Feierman,wrote to Rev. Michael Jamail in the Diocese of Beau-mont, Texas, claiming that “Our recidivism rate forbehavior which would be considered criminal is 0percent to the best of our knowledge.” That asser-tion, unrivaled by any other psychiatric facility onEarth, somehow ignored the fact that Paracletealumni included such serial offenders as Father JamesPorter (125 victims in four states) and Father DavidHolley (serving 275 years in prison for molesting 10New Mexico children after his release from the JemezSprings facility). At the time of his arrest in 1989 Hol-ley was identified as the fifth Paraclete graduate jailedfor multiple sex crimes in New Mexico alone.

Indeed, it had by then become traditional forpedophile priests to remain in the Land of Enchant-ment following their “cure” at the Paraclete center,with reassignment to some New Mexico parishaccepted as standard procedure. An exception wasFather Porter, who made his first stop at JemezSprings in 1967 and then transferred to a parish atBemidji, Minnesota. A spokesperson for the Servantsof the Paraclete advised Porter’s new bishop thatPorter had suffered an unspecified “breakdown,”including “some moral problems . . . for which hewas not responsible,” but no mention was made ofhis molesting 68 children in Massachusetts. Porter’ssubsequent crimes were likewise forgiven, sendinghim back to the Paraclete center twice more. Neithervisit helped, and his long record of felonies somehowslipped Doctor Feierman’s mind when he claimed arecidivism rate of “0 percent.”

Attorney Bruce Pasternak, with 39 civil actionsfiled against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and variouspedophile priests by 1993, described New Mexico as“the ecclesiastical dumping ground of the CatholicChurch.” He also dubbed the Paraclete center a“pervert pipeline,” used by Catholic leaders toobstruct justice in numerous cases of child molesta-tion. Santa Fe Archbishop Robert Sanchez retired

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with the exposure of his five adulterous affairs,explaining that he had covered for pedophile priestsbecause he “didn’t know it was a crime” to violatechildren. In November 1993, 17 of David Holley’svictims settled out of court with the Paraclete centerfor an undisclosed “very substantial amount” ofcash. In December 1994, six Catholic properties inNew Mexico were sold to pay off 135 damageclaims, expected to top $50 million.

SEYCHELLESThe Seychelles Archipelago, comprising some 100islands in the Indian Ocean, northeast of MADAGAS-CAR, was uninhabited when agents of the British EastIndia Company dropped anchor in 1609. Soon theislands became a favorite refuge for pirates, a prob-lem allegedly resolved when French authoritiesclaimed dominion in 1756. Britain seized control ofthe islands in 1814, finally granting independence in1976. First president James Mancham was deposed ayear later by Prime Minister France-Albert René,who proclaimed a one-party socialist state. Return-ing to its pirate roots, Seychelles has catered openlyto criminals and fugitives since 1996 when its Eco-nomic Citizenship program offered passports to allcomers at a price of $25,000. At the same time,another statute granted immunity from criminalprosecution to any person who invested $10 millionor more in Seychelles.

SHABAZZ, Qubilah See NATION OF ISLAM.

SHAMIR,Yitzhak (1915– )A native of POLAND, born in 1915, Yitzhak Shamirwas an early convert to the tenets of militant ZION-ISM. In 1935 he abandoned legal studies in Warsawand emigrated to British-controlled Palestine,enrolling at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.Between classes he joined the terrorist group knownas IRGUN Zvai Leumi, participating in various anti-British paramilitary actions during the next fiveyears. In 1940 Shamir left the Irgun and followedcomrade Avraham Stern into a new clique variouslyknown as Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Freedom Fightersof Israel) or the Stern Gang. Decades later, in January1983, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz revealed thatShamir and other Stern Gang leaders had attempted

to negotiate with ADOLF HITLER in 1941, offering toform a Jewish state in Palestine “on a national andtotalitarian basis, which will establish relations withthe German [THIRD] REICH” and protect Nazi inter-ests in the Middle East against Britain and U.S. allies.Hitler’s preoccupation with the Holocaust scuttledthat bargain, but Shamir and company continuedtheir intrigue against Britain regardless.

Imprisoned in 1941 Shamir escaped two yearslater and resumed his duties as a Stern Gang leader.In November 1944 his assassins killed Lord Moyne,Britain’s minister of state in EGYPT. With Hitler’sdefeat in 1945, the Stern Gang joined Irgun agents to“recruit” homeless European Jews for immigrationto Palestine. Their methods were forceful, to say theleast, and Israeli archives name 40 Jews who weremurdered by Zionist thugs for resisting the move.British authorities arrested Shamir again in 1946 andexiled him to a prison camp in Eritrea, but heescaped once more in 1947 and resumed commandof the Stern Gang. In September 1948 he ordered theassassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, a savior of20,000 Jews during World War II, who had latelybeen appointed as UNITED NATIONS mediatorbetween ISRAEL and Arabs in the Middle East.Shamir remained as the Stern Gang’s leader until itdisbanded in 1949; then he moved on to a post withthe MOSSAD. A member of fellow terrorist Men-achem Begin’s Likud party, Shamir was elected to theKnesset (Parliament) in 1973. Ten years later he suc-ceeded Begin as prime minister of Israel. In and outof power during the next decade, Shamir announcedan “unrelenting” quest for peace in October 1991but scuttled negotiations one day later with a verbalassault on leaders of SYRIA—who responded by pro-ducing old “Wanted” posters from the Bernadotteassassination, naming Shamir as a fugitive terrorist.Defeated for reelection in 1992, Shamir steppeddown as leader of his party and resigned from theKnesset four years later.

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL;TERRORISM.

SIERRA LeoneThough barely half the size of Illinois, Sierra Leonehas problems enough to agitate heads of state allover the world. Portuguese explorers were first onthe scene to abuse and corrupt aboriginal peoples;then British troops arrived in 1787 to make Freeport

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a haven for runaway slaves and black veterans ofBritain’s armed forces. That “altruistic” effort evapo-rated in 1808 when London claimed the Senegalcoast as a British colony, extending royal “protec-tion” to the interior by 1896. Independence wasgranted in April 1961, followed by military over-throw of the elected civilian government six yearslater. In 1991 the fledgling Revolutionary UnitedFront (RUF) demanded multiparty elections within90 days, but the corrupt regime declined to dismantleitself and a guerrilla war erupted, spanning the nextdecade. By the time peace was formally declared in2002, at least 50,000 persons had been slaughtered,while thousands more were systematically raped,blinded, and mutilated in a long-running campaignof TERRORISM. Both sides in the war used children as soldiers, with UNITED NATIONS (UN) observersreporting that 25 percent of all government troopswere teenagers below age 18. On the rebel side,many children across Sierra Leone have told HumanRights Watch that they were forced at gunpoint totorture, kill, and cannibalize helpless victims. TheUN presently maintains its largest peacekeepingforce (17,000 troops) in Sierra Leone, where theoret-ically some 45,000 combatants have been disarmed.President Ahmad Kabbah, responsible for manyatrocities in his own right, was reelected in May2002 with 70 percent of the popular vote. An eco-nomic sidebar to the bloody conflict in Sierra Leoneinvolves RUF capture of the nation’s fabulous dia-mond mines. So many “conflict diamonds” have infact been sold abroad to finance rebel campaigns thatU.S. traders are now barred by law from purchasinggems from Sierra Leone—a restriction that has thusfar done nothing to end the trade in “hot ice.”

SILENT BrotherhoodSpawned by decades of racist propaganda, the SilentBrotherhood (also known as The Order) was Amer-ica’s first hard-core neo-Nazi terrorist group. Its lead-ers publicly declared war against ZOG—the “ZionistOccupation Government” in Washington, D.C.—and supported themselves by armed robbery, distrib-uting their loot to like-minded fanatics around thecountry.

The Silent Brotherhood’s founding father, Texasnative Robert Jay Mathews, drew his inspirationfrom THE TURNER DIARIES (1978), a racist novel thatalso prompted Timothy McVeigh to carry out the

OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING of a federal building inApril 1995. Mathews recruited his followers fromthe KU KLUX KLAN (KKK), the Aryan Nations, andsimilar groups. Organized in October 1983 thegroup soon robbed a Seattle video shop and thencranked out stacks of counterfeit $50 bills so inferiorthat member Bruce Pierce was arrested on his firstattempt to pass the money.

Next, the brotherhood turned to bank robberyand armored truck holdups, with greater success.Between December 1983 and July 1984 membersstole more than $3.9 million, donating much of the loot to the KKK, Aryan Nations, White AryanResistance, and various CHRISTIAN IDENTITY sects.Brotherhood members also murdered Alan Berg, aJewish radio host in Denver, and killed one of theirown as a suspected informer.

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION agents discov-ered the Silent Brotherhood’s existence on July 16,1984, when Mathews dropped a pistol registered tosidekick Andrew Barnhill at the scene of a Californiaheist. Another member, Thomas Martinez, agreed tobetray his comrades in October 1984, thus avoidingcounterfeiting charges. Martinez arranged a meetingwith Mathews for November 29 in Portland, Ore-gon, but Mathews shot his way out of the trap andescaped. Furious at the betrayal, Mathews penned adeclaration of war against the U.S. government,signed by nine of his cohorts.

Instead of launching new offensives, though, the“warriors” fled into hiding. Mathews and four oth-ers were cornered by G-men at a compound onWhidbey Island, Washington, on December 7, 1984.His companions surrendered, but Mathews fought tothe death, incinerated when flares set fire to hisammunition stockpile. Twenty-eight members of thebrotherhood were indicted for various crimes. Ofthose, 15 pleaded guilty; five received suspended sen-tences, while 10 others faced prison terms rangingfrom six months to 20 years. Twelve were convictedat trial, their sentences ranging from five years to 250years in prison.

A copycat group, the Order II, surfaced in early1986. Its members were affiliated with the AryanNations and their activities—counterfeiting, severalbombings, and at least one murder—were confinedto the vicinity of that group’s Idaho headquarters.Five members were indicted on federal racketeeringcharges in October 1988. All pleaded guilty andreceived prison terms ranging from six to 20 years.

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SILKWOOD, Karen (1946–1974)In 1972 Karen Silkwood worked as a lab technicianat the Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation’s CimarronRiver plutonium plant in Oklahoma. As a member ofthe Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW),she was assigned in August 1974 to study the plant’shealth and safety standards. Silkwood soon foundevidence of hazardous leaks, spills, and missing plu-tonium; then she suffered an unnerving series of“accidental” exposures to dangerous radiation at herworkplace—and, strangely, in her home. One dayafter the third such incident, on November 13, 1974,Silkwood scheduled a secret meeting with her unionsupervisor and a reporter from the New York Times.She claimed to have incriminating documents liftedfrom Kerr-McGee’s files, but Silkwood never reachedthe rendezvous. At 8:00 P.M. Silkwood died in a sin-gle-car crash on Highway 74, seven miles south ofCrescent, Oklahoma.

Police found no documents in Silkwood’s car andno evidence of a collision with another vehicle. Anautopsy revealed .35 milligrams of methaqualone(Quaalude) per 100 milliliters of Silkwood’s blood—nearly twice the recommended dosage for inducingsleep—at the time she died. Another 50 milligrams ofundissolved methaqualone was found in her stomach.Relatives and OCAW spokespeople charged that Silk-wood was murdered, presumably by someone actingon Kerr-McGee’s behalf, but the accusations remainunsubstantiated. The OCAW further charged Kerr-McGee with producing faulty fuel rods, falsifyinginspection records, and jeopardizing employee safety.The Cimarron plant closed in 1975 after journalistsreported that 44–66 pounds of plutonium had been“misplaced.” Silkwood’s family sued Kerr-McGee ona wrongful-death complaint, and while jurorsawarded her estate $10.5 million in 1979, that verdictwas subsequently overturned on appeal. Seven yearslater, with a new trial pending, Silkwood’s familyaccepted a $1.38 million settlement. Two books onSilkwood’s case and a 1984 feature film made a casefor murder and conspiracy, but no suspects have beenidentified to date.

SIMPSON, O.J. (1947– )On the night of June 12, 1994, a knife-wieldingassailant slaughtered Nicole Brown Simpson and afriend, Ron Goldman, outside Simpson’s home in theaffluent Brentwood district of Los Angeles, California.

In the course of that attack, the killer was also appar-ently injured, leaving traces of his or her own bloodat the murder scene. DNA tests identified that bloodas belonging to Nicole’s estranged husband, ex-foot-ball player and actor Orenthal James Simpson. Fur-ther investigation revealed bloodstains containingDNA from both victims in O.J. Simpson’s car andhome. Coupled with a history of domestic abuse,that forensic evidence should have been sufficient toconvict Simpson, but jurors (described by prosecutorMarcia Clark as “moon rocks”) chose to ignore theDNA tests, acquitting Simpson at trial in 1995.Apparently the panel accepted Simpson’s argumentthat he was framed by the LOS ANGELES POLICE

DEPARTMENT while the “real killer” escaped.Simpson was later found responsible for the dou-

ble slaying in a civil lawsuit, filed by Goldman’s fam-ily, but frame-up theories persist. One alternateexplanation for the murders, floated during Simp-son’s trial, claims that Nicole owed money tounnamed COCAINE dealers from COLOMBIA, whokilled her as an object lesson to future rip-off artists.Another theory blames convicted serial killer GlenRogers for the slayings. Author and private investi-gator Joyce Spizer states the case against Rogers inher book The Cross Country Killer (2001). Spizer’sevidence includes the following items:

• In January 1994 Rogers was hired to paintNicole’s Brentwood home.

• In June 1994 Rogers telephoned a friend to saythat he was “partying” with Nicole and that heplanned “to take her down.”

• Rogers allegedly confessed the murders toanother friend, claiming that he killed Nicolebecause she “dropped him to go back to O.J.”When asked about the missing murder weapon,Rogers drew a knife from his boot and said,“I’ve got it right here.”

No one has yet explained how Rogers could haveplaced O.J.’s blood at the crime scene and thenplanted items stained with the blood of both victimsinside Simpson’s car and home on the night of theslayings.

SIRHAN, Sirhan (1944– )A Palestinian Arab born in Jerusalem on March 19, 1944, Sirhan Sirhan was four years old when the

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creation of ISRAEL uprooted his family from theirancestral home. Settled in the United States eightyears later, the Sirhans kept abreast of Middle East-ern events, and young Sirhan apparently despisedZIONISM. Prosecutors later claimed that he was out-raged by Israel’s easy victory over her Arab neigh-bors in the 1967 Six-Day War and that he seethedwith resentment over Senator Robert Kennedy’s pub-lic support for Israel. A year later, in June 1968,Sirhan was captured at the scene of the RFK ASSASSI-NATION with a smoking pistol in his hand. Dozens ofwitnesses agreed that he had fired a burst of shots atKennedy. Further supporting that case—and overrid-ing critical anomalies in the ballistics evidence—wasa diary filled with endless repetition of the phrase“RFK Must Die!” and other odd scribblings, such as“Pay to the order of of of of of . . . this and that.”

At trial, Sirhan denied any memory of Kennedy’smurder or various events preceding it, including themanic jottings in his diary. Jurors were unimpressed,convicting Sirhan of murder and recommending exe-cution. He was formally sentenced to die, but his sen-tence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1972.Although legally eligible for parole, Sirhan has seenhis bids for freedom rejected 13 times.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

SKULL and BonesSkull and Bones is a secret society based at Yale Uni-versity, reportedly established in December 1832.The vast wealth of its members established the Rus-sell Trust Association, which manages the society’sreal-estate holdings (including “The Tomb,” adjacentto Jonathan Edwards College). According to Skulland Bones tradition, member Prescott Bush and agroup of fellow “Bonesmen” pillaged the grave ofApache warrior Geronimo, stealing his skeletalremains and bringing them back to The Tomb. Mem-bers are purportedly forbidden to discuss the group,but some sport a Skull and Bones lapel pin by whichthey are identified. Prospective members are selectedduring their junior year at Yale, often as “legacies”of established Skull and Bones families, and rumorspersist that each member receives a large cashbequest at graduation that binds him to the societyand its orders in perpetuity.

While membership in Skull and Bones is supposedto be a closely guarded secret, various prominentmembers have been identified in the media during

recent years. They include ultraconservative journal-ist William F. Buckley, Jr., Presidents George H. W.Bush and George W. Bush, Senator John Chaffee,Russell Davenport (editor of Fortune magazine),Henry Davison (senior partner of Morgan GuarantyTrust), Artemus Gates (president of Time, UnionPacific, and Boeing Corporation), Senator John Kerry(Democratic presidential nominee in 2004), andHarold Stanley (founder of Morgan Stanley). GeorgeW. Bush, in a February 2004 interview, described thesociety with his usual eloquence: “It’s so secret, wecan’t talk about it.” Given that secrecy and the ten-dency of Skull and Bones members to win commandpositions in the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, thesociety has become a focus of conspiracy theories ona par with the TRILATERAL COMMISSION and theCOUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. A Hollywoodsend-up of the society, in The Skulls (2000), includesthe blanket observation of one excluded character:“If it’s elite and secret, it’s got to be bad.”

See also BUSH DYNASTY; MORGAN DYNASTY.

SMERSHEx-spy and best-selling novelist Ian Fleming exposedthe Russian intelligence group known as SMERSH(from smyert shpionam, “death to spies”) in his1953 novel Casino Royale. During the next decade,fictional SMERSH agents kept Fleming’s Agent 007busy with schemes for global domination or annihi-lation, but few readers knew that the agency trulyexisted as the KGB’s Fifth or Ninth Division(accounts vary), tasked with chores including espi-onage, sabotage, and murder. In fact SMERSH wasdivided into five sections, with duties including (1)detection of dissidents in the Red Army, (2) intelli-gence collection, (3) collation and dissemination ofintelligence, (4) investigation and apprehension ofcivilian suspects, and (5) summary tribunals whoseauthority allegedly included imposition of deathpenalties without appeal. While the grandioseschemes of Fleming’s SMERSH—including robberyof Fort Knox and long-distance diversion of U.S.guided missiles—existed only on paper or celluloid,it is generally accepted that the agency’s killersclaimed hundreds or thousands of victims world-wide throughout the cold war. Their most promi-nent victim may have been fugitive Bolshevik LeonTrotsky, killed in Mexico on orders from JOSEPH

STALIN, in August 1940.

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SMITH, Melvin (fl. 1969)On December 8, 1969, four days after police killedFRED HAMPTON and Mark Clark in a raid on theChicago office of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY, offi-cers of the LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT

staged a similar raid on the Panther office in L.A.Six party members were wounded, and a total of13 were arrested, including local leader Elmer(“Geronimo”) Pratt and his security chief, Melvin(“Cotton”) Smith. Police claimed that they werelooking for a cache of automatic weapons, recentlystolen from the Marine Corps base at CampPendleton, but none were found. Still, the L.A.Panthers were charged with conspiracy to possessillegal weapons, plus conspiracy to assault andmurder police.

At trial in 1971 Melvin Smith testified for the stateagainst his comrades. Prosecutors claimed that hehad only turned state’s evidence since his arrest, butinformer LOUIS TACKWOOD revealed that Smith hadbeen his FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION contactin the Panther Party since early 1969. Smith’s liedamaged the prosecution’s case, winning acquittalson the assault and attempted-murder charges, butPratt and eight other defendants were still convictedof conspiring to stockpile nonexistent weapons. Sus-picion lingers that Smith may have coordinated theDecember 1969 raid, as informer WILLIAM O’NEAL

did in Chicago the night Fred Hampton was slain.

SMITH ActAlthough the Declaration of Independence guaran-tees U.S. citizens an “unalienable right” to over-throw their government by armed force, America’selected leaders forbid any such action under penaltyof prison or death. One such law, the Alien Registra-tion Act (more commonly known by the name of itsauthor, Virginia congressman Howard Smith), waspassed by Congress on June 28, 1940. It imposed afive-year prison term (later increased to 20 years) onanyone who “knowingly or willfully advocates,abets, advises or teaches the duty, necessity, desirabil-ity or propriety of violently overthrowing” the U.S.government or any state government. The law wasinitially used against Nazi sympathizers duringWorld War II, but none of the 56 defendants indictedduring 1942–44 were convicted.

With the onset of the cold war, FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION Director J. EDGAR HOOVER presented

Attorney General Tom Clark with a 1,350-page his-tory of the Communist Party, seeking Smith Actprosecution of party leaders. In February 1948 the HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

contacted Clark, demanding to know why no indict-ments had yet been filed. A federal grand juryindicted 12 members of the party’s national board onJune 29, 1948, but Clark sealed the indictments for amonth and announced them on July 20 when five ofthe 12 were arrested in New York City. Hooverfreely admitted that the arrests were “a politicalmove . . . timed to break just before the [Henry] Wallace for President convention in Philadelphia” asan embarrassment to Wallace. Eleven defendantsfaced trial in January 1949 and were convicted ninemonths later. Their convictions were upheld by theU.S. SUPREME COURT in 1951, and another 126 partymembers were charged during the next three years,with 93 convicted at trial.

The Supreme Court unexpectedly reversed its viewon Smith Act prosecutions in 1957, overturning allbut the original 11 convictions with a judgment thatmere advocacy of revolution should not be prose-cuted. The JUSTICE DEPARTMENT thereafter agreedthat future indictments must include “an actual planfor violent revolution” instead of mere theory. Alater attempt to prosecute neo-Nazi leaders for sedi-tion, relative to their involvement with the SILENT

BROTHERHOOD, resulted in the April 1988 acquittalsof all defendants. Still, the Smith Act remains ineffect today, reminding Americans that the Declara-tion of Independence has no practical relevance inmodern society.

See also COMMUNISM.

SNUFF filmsA topic of enduring controversy in the media andlaw-enforcement community, “snuff” films—cinematicrecords of actual murders—allegedly represent theultimate obscenity, combining homicide and pornog-raphy for a select, perverted audience. Reports ofsuch movies and videotapes have circulated since the late 1960s, including claims that members oforganized crime and practitioners of SATANISM profitby recording gruesome deaths. Skeptics acknowledgethat certain sadistic predators have filmed the slaughter of their victims, but they maintain that no commercial snuff films exist. Believers counterthat assertion with a body of anecdotal evidence

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suggesting the existence of an affluent, sadistic clientele for whom mundane pornography lacks therequisite “kick.”

As far back as June 1977, Sgt. Lloyd Martin, chiefinvestigator for the LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPART-MENT’s sexually abused children’s unit, described anetwork of kidnappers who smuggled Mexican boysinto the United States for sale to violent pedophiles.According to Martin, specially designed vehicles car-ried human prey across the border in hidden com-partments. “They bring them in eight at a time underthe floorboards,” Martin told reporters. “Then theytake them to a motel and clean them up. It’s gettingmore violent. It’s as if the kids aren’t enough. Nowthere’s a need for blood.”

Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, founder of theOdyssey House refuge for abused children, agreedthat foreign victims were being smuggled into theUnited States and sold “primarily for the purpose ofkilling. An American youngster has a school recordand a family. But if a child has been taken off thestreets of Guadalajara or Acapulco, it’s much easier.There are thousands of these nameless, faceless chil-dren whose parents may have been told that the childis going for adoption and whose parents may agreesimply because they want to afford that child a betterlife than they had. So here is a man in a Cadillac wholooks nice. And they never hear from that childagain.”

In 1980 the NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT

reported persistent rumors of eight-millimeter snufffilms selling for $1,500 each or screening for $300per head at private showings. No movies were seized,but at about the same time, Associated Press reportsnoted the unsolved mutilation-murders of severalprostitutes in ARGENTINA, where local police sug-gested that the crimes may have been filmed. Detec-tive Joseph Horman of NYPD’s Organized CrimeControl Bureau explained that some of the films mayonly simulate murder, while others depict real events.Unconfirmed reports are on file of such films beingshot in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, NewOrleans, and Houston.

Do snuff films exist?In 1970 Charles Manson, Bobby Beausoleil, and

other members of the Manson “family” freelyadmitted that films were made of homicidal cultactivities in southern California. An informant fromthat era, speaking to author Ed Sanders, claimedpersonal knowledge of Manson films depicting both

animal and human sacrifice. One reel allegedly por-trayed the slaughter of a dog, while another fea-tured a cat blown apart with powerful “M80”firecrackers. The final reel depicted a nude, decapi-tated woman lying on a beach while hooded, black-robed figures circled the corpse, “throwing bloodall over.”

A decade later, in 1981, convicted “Son of Sam”gunman David Berkowitz told prison confidants thatat least one “Sam” attack—the July 1977 shooting ofRobert Violante and Stacy Moskowitz—wasrecorded on videotape for the private collection of aSatanic “Mr. Big,” later identified by Berkowitz asNew York millionaire Roy Radin. In October 1981Berkowitz accurately predicted the Halloween mur-der of photographer and suspected drug dealerRonald Sisman, allegedly killed because he plannedto trade the Moskowitz tape for judicial leniency in apending COCAINE case. The tape was never found,and Roy Radin was himself murdered before policecould question him.

In June 1988 Satanists John Jones and Jason Rosewere charged with the murder of victim MelissaMeyer in Springfield, Oregon. Both killers were con-victed, thanks in large part to the videotape they pre-served of their sacrifice, found when police searchedRose’s home.

In 1993 investigative journalist Yaron Svoray infil-trated a gang of West German neo-Nazis andreported their activities—including collection ofsadistic snuff films—in a subsequent book (InHitler’s Shadow, 1995). A viewing of one such filmset Svoray on the trail of its producers, and he laterclaimed (in Gods of Death, 1997) to have foundsnuff films on sale in Europe, produced using femalevictims from war-torn BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA. Svo-ray’s account was dramatic, but it produced noindictments and the films remained elusive.

See also SATANISM.

SOLOMON IslandsAnthropologists believe the Solomons Archipelagohas been inhabited since roughly 2000 B.C.E. Spanishexplorers dropped by in 1568, but they found the cli-mate so inhospitable that no other Europeansreturned for two centuries. Britain and GERMANY

divided the islands in 1886, but Germany’s defeat inWorld War I left London solely in charge. JAPAN cap-tured the islands in 1941, and the Solomons subse-

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quently witnessed epic battles on land and sea duringWorld War II. Britain regained control of the islandsin 1945, finally granting independence 21 years later.Since 1999 the large island of Guadalcanal has suf-fered a bout of ethnic cleansing, with some 20,000Malaitan tribe members expelled by the dominantIsatabus. Tension peaked in June 2000 when theMalaita Eagle Force stole a cache of police weapons,seized control of Honiara, and forced Prime MinisterBartholomew Ulufa’alu to resign. Civil war was nar-rowly averted by a shaky cease-fire agreement, butthe Solomons still suffer from widespread banditryand general lawlessness.

SOMALIAArab and Persian trading posts dotted the coast ofmodern-day Somalia from the seventh centuryonward, while nomadic tribes populated the interior.TURKEY seized the northern coast in the 16th century,while sultans of Zanzibar captured the south. Britainand FRANCE vied for control between the mid-19thcentury and World War I. In 1920 England and ITALY

joined forces to “protect” the region, but Italy’sdefeat in World War II left London to control thewhole nation. An active nationalist movement forcedBritain to institute representative government in1957, followed by a grant of independence threeyears later. President Abdi Rashid Ali Shermarke wasassassinated in October 1969 as the army seizedpower, dissolved the legislature, and jailed all gov-ernment leaders. New president Mohamed SiadBarre leaned heavily toward RUSSIA and aided insur-gents fighting to topple the rulers of neighboringETHIOPIA. Defeated in an eight-month war withEthiopia that wiped out most of his army, Barre fledthe country in January 1991 while anarchy ensued.The country had no working government between1991 and August 2000, a decade of chaos ruled byrival warlords and militias, marked by carnagewhich UNITED NATIONS (UN) forces and some30,000 U.S. troops could not control. An estimated50,000 Somalians died in combat during 1992–94,while another 200,000 starved to death. Fugitive ter-rorist Osama bin Laden found Somalia inviting as aheadquarters for his AL-QAEDA network in the 1990sbefore moving on to AFGHANISTAN. Unhampered bya $25 million reward for his capture or death, binLaden used Somalia as the launching pad for attackson U.S. embassies in KENYA and TANZANIA. Ameri-

can troops withdrew from Somalia in March 1994,leaving 19,000 UN peacekeepers behind. A fragilenew government was seated in August 2000, butafter a full year in office, it controlled only 10 per-cent of the Somalian countryside. The nation’sblighted economy was further stricken in November2001 after Washington froze Somalian assets in theUnited States to prevent financing of al-Qaeda. Fewobservers find any reason for hope that conditions inSomalia will improve.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; TERRORISM.

SOMOZA dynastyAnastasio Somoza was born at San Marcos,NICARAGUA, in 1896. The son of a rich coffeeplanter, educated in the United States, he returnedhome in his twenties as an ardent supporter of theU.S.-supported regime. Fearing a leftist victory in theNicaraguan elections of May 1926, President CalvinCoolidge sent troops to “protect” U.S. citizens andproperty, sparking a seven-year civil war capped byan uneasy truce between President Juan BautistaSacasa and rebel leader Augusto Sandino in January1933. Although Sandino and his comrades weregranted amnesty, Somoza plotted to kill them, a goalhe achieved without President Bautista’s knowledgeon February 21, 1934. Three years later Somoza leda military coup that deposed Bautista, installing him-self as dictator of Nicaragua. He remained in thatpost, supported by U.S. money and military aid, untilhe was assassinated in Léon by poet Rigoberto LópezPérez, on September 21, 1956.

Somoza’s elder son, Luis Somoza Debayle, suc-ceeded his father as dictator of Nicaragua with Wash-ington’s stamp of approval. Terminal illness promptedhis resignation in 1967, whereupon younger brotherAnastasio Somoza Debayle ascended to the presidencyvia a suspicious electoral landslide. Anastasio, Jr., wasa 1946 graduate of New York’s West Point MilitaryAcademy, appointed by his father to lead theNicaraguan National Guard in a classic example ofSomoza nepotism. Newly enacted legislation barredSomoza from succeeding himself as president in1972, but he remained a corrupt power behind thescenes, effectively seizing control of the country onDecember 23, 1972, after martial law was declaredin the wake of a catastrophic earthquake. Thatshake-up killed 10,000 Nicaraguans, but Somozawas more concerned with personal profit, skimming

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millions of dollars from the flood of international aid pouring into his country. Incidentally, the quakealso placed Somoza in contact with billionairerecluse HOWARD HUGHES, whose home in Managuawas leveled. Somoza was pleased to install Hughes asa guest at his country villa, while picking the tycoon’sbrain and pockets.

Despite cautious opposition from the CATHOLIC

CHURCH, Somoza was elected to another term aspresident in 1974. He soon faced opposition from anarmy of Sandinista rebels (named for the murderedSandino), and increased U.S. military aid this timefailed to dam the hostile tide. On July 17, 1979,Somoza fled to exile in Miami and later moved fromFlorida to PARAGUAY. Assassins found him there onSeptember 17, 1980, effectively canceling any plansfor resurrection of the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua.

SOUTH AfricaThe Dutch East India Company landed SouthAfrica’s first European settlers on the Cape of GoodHope in 1652, thereby inaugurating a dynasty ofracism and violence against indigenous peoples.Known as Boers or Afrikaners, the new arrivalstried to establish an independent state in 1795, butBritish forces arrived that same year to seize controlof the colony, making the “protectorate” permanentin 1814. Liberation of black slaves in 1833prompted 12,000 Boers to begin a “great trek” intothe interior, driving native tribes before them ontheir way to establish an Orange Free State and therepublic of Transvaal. Discovery of diamonds in1867 and GOLD in 1876 drove Cape Colony primeminister Cecil Rhodes to plot annexation of theBoer territories, fabricating an “outlander” rebel-lion and military “rescue” mission in 1895. Defeatforced Rhodes to resign, but Britain was victoriousin the Boer War of 1899–1902, uniting its capturedlands as South Africa in 1910. Organized politicalactivity among native Africans began two yearslater, with formation of the AFRICAN NATIONAL

CONGRESS (ANC).South Africa fought with the Allies in World War

II, but it simultaneously welcomed Nazi fugitivesfrom the THIRD REICH and refused to sign the post-war Universal Declaration of Human Rights. White“nationalists” soon established a cradle-to-gravesystem of apartheid (racial separation) that reducedSouth Africa’s true natives to de facto slave status,

subject to humiliating discrimination, police brutal-ity, and systematic exile or assassination of resist-ance leaders. Blocked at every turn from achievingreform through democratic channels, the ANCfinally turned to armed struggle, thus resulting inimprisonment of its leaders as “terrorists.” Racistprime minister H. F. Verwoerd was assassinated, buthis successors proved no more compassionate.Another quarter-century of persecution and blood-shed followed before F. W. de Klerk inaugurated asystem of cautious reform in 1989. Two years laterParliament scrapped the country’s apartheidstatutes, and former ANC leader Nelson Mandelabecame South Africa’s first black president in 1994.In 1997 a Truth and Reconciliation Commissionopened hearings on South African human-rights violations committed between 1960 and 1963, permitting those responsible to escape punishmentvia public confession. Some who refused, like thepolice physician labeled “Dr. Death” and a detectivechief dubbed “Prime Evil,” played dumb on the witness stand and were sentenced to life terms inprison for multiple murders. At the same time, socialupheaval in South Africa turned the tables on one-time oppressors as roving black gangs lootedwhite-owned farms and murdered their proprietors.A sweeping AIDS epidemic, acknowledged for thefirst time in 2000, spread largely unchecked as President Thabo Mbeki rejected Western medicine,complaining that the plague had been exaggeratedby PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES in pursuit of profit.

See also TERRORISM.

SPAINSpain was conquered by the Roman Empire in 206B.C.E., and then by Visigoth barbarians in A.D. 412,and by Muslims in 711. Christian incursions fromFRANCE and dissent among Islamic warlords com-bined to oust the last Muslim rulers in 1492. At thesame time, Jews were expelled from Spain, and theRoman CATHOLIC CHURCH monopolized religionunder pain of death for “heretics.” Spanish explorers“discovered” the Western Hemisphere in the late15th century, launching a brutal conquest of aborigi-nal peoples that overwhelmed Central and SouthAmerica. Spain’s empire soon girdled Earth, but cap-turing territory proved easier than holding it. A seriesof revolutions in the Western Hemisphere droveSpain from most of its possessions there by the

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1830s, while a war with the United States in 1898cost Madrid its colonies in CUBA, PUERTO RICO, andthe PHILIPPINES.

At home, Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera pro-claimed himself dictator of Spain in 1923. KingAlfonso XIII revoked the dictatorship seven yearslater, but strong military opposition forced him toflee the country in 1931. A new left-wing constitu-tion declared Spain a workers’ republic, breaking uplarge estates, secularizing schools, and wholly sepa-rating church from state, but the reform was toomuch for some Spaniards to bear. In July 1936 fas-cist army officer Francisco Franco Bahamonde led amutiny against the government, sparking a three-year civil war that claimed nearly a million lives.Nazi GERMANY and fascist ITALY supported Franco,using Spain as a proving ground for their newarmies and weapons, while JOSEPH STALIN senttroops from RUSSIA to aid the republic. Most othernations remained aloof and kept silent as FASCISM

triumphed in Spain. Franco ruled with an iron handin the name of the Falange Party until his death onNovember 20, 1975. Reforms proceeded then, butmany Spaniards were impatient with their sluggishpace. In the Pyrenees region, Basque separatistslaunched a guerrilla war for independence that con-tinues to this day, with thousands killed in acts ofTERRORISM spanning the past 30 years and no endto bloodshed in sight.

SRI LankaIndo-Aryan immigrants from India populated theisland of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka (“resplendentisland”), in the fifth century B.C.E., forming the Sin-halese ethnic group that dominates the country today.Migrants from the Tamil region of India, Sri Lanka’ssecond-largest ethnic group, began to arrive in thethird century B.C.E. Struggles for power betweenthose factions engulfed the island until PORTUGAL

took possession in 1505, followed by the NETHER-LANDS (1658–1796) and Britain (1796–1948). Cen-turies of colonial domination failed to eliminate theold ethnic rivalries, however, and fighting began anewwith the advent of independence after World War II.Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike championedSinhalese dominance from 1956 until his assassina-tion by a Buddhist monk in 1959. Still, the Sinhalesecontrolled Sri Lanka’s government, prompting anoutbreak of bloody Tamil resistance in 1983. During

the next 18 years, Sri Lanka’s civil war claimed atleast 62,000 lives. Rebel groups including the TamilTigers were relentless in their opposition to the reign-ing government, while oppressive countermeasuresresulted in still more bloodshed. Negotiators fromNORWAY brokered a fragile cease-fire agreement inFebruary 2002, followed by an August announce-ment lifting a legal band on the Tamil Tigers. Peacetalks continue in an atmosphere fraught with mistrustand deep-seated hostility.

SSADOLF HITLER created the Schutzstaffel (“ProtectiveCorps”) or SS as an elite paramilitary unit of GER-MANY’s Nazi Party in 1925 under commanderJulius Schreck. Successive leaders of the groupincluded Joseph Berchtold (1926–27), Erhard Hei-den (1927–29), and HEINRICH HIMMLER (1929–45).The SS had only 280 members when Himmler tookcommand, but membership increased to 52,000 byDecember 1932 and topped 250,000 the followingyear, as dedicated Nazis closed ranks to do theirpart for the fatherland and racial purity. Adoptingthe motto “My honor is loyalty,” SS membersparaded in the same brown-shirted uniforms astheir rivals in Hitler’s Storm Troop (SA), but Himm-ler changed the dress code to jet-black in 1932 witha grinning silver skull featured on caps and otheraccessories. More than a quarter-million zealots hadenlisted with the SS by the time World War II beganin September 1939.

The SS performed multiple functions withinHitler’s THIRD REICH. Reinhard Heydrich, Himm-ler’s second in command, organized an intelligenceservice (the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD), whose agentswere among the best in Europe, some of them laterrecruited by the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

AGENCY as part of PROJECT PAPERCLIP. Members ofthe Waffen (“armed”) SS divided their time betweenfront-line combat and mass murder of “inferiorraces” in occupied Europe. Heydrich chaired theWANNSEE CONFERENCE in 1941, charting a detailedblueprint for the Holocaust, and SS members staffedthe various Nazi concentration camps where whole-sale murder was carried out with assembly-line effi-ciency. SS doctors such as JOSEF MENGELE performedall manner of “scientific” experiments on campinmates—both Jews and captured prisoners ofwar—in pursuit of methods to expand the so-called

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master race. Under Himmler’s supervision, the SSalso established breeding facilities where “ideal”Aryan females (blond, blue-eyed, and healthy)engaged in marathon sex with members of the elitecorps, hoping to increase Aryan numbers by sheerperseverance.

Near the end of World War II, with German defeatclearly inevitable, a group of SS officers fled toARGENTINA and established the well-funded ODESSA

network, which subsequently helped Mengele,ADOLF EICHMANN, KLAUS BARBIE, and many others(perhaps including MARTIN BORMANN) escapeadvancing Allied forces. Himmler boldly moved tostrike a bargain with the Allies in April 1945 andwas declared a traitor, but Hitler could not reach himfrom the Führerbunker in Berlin. Karl Hanke brieflyreplaced Himmler as chief of the SS, but the ink wasbarely dry on that proclamation when Czech parti-sans killed Hanke outside Breslau. Himmler was cap-tured and charged with WAR CRIMES, but he escapedtrial via suicide in custody. Allied judges at Nurem-berg declared the SS a criminal organization ratherthan a military unit, noting in their verdict that a pre-sumption of guilt attached to anyone “who had beenofficially accepted as members of the SS . . . whocame or remained members of the organization withknowledge that it was being used for the commissionof acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the [LondonWar Crimes] Charter.”

President RONALD REAGAN created an interna-tional controversy in April 1985 when he visitedWest Germany and laid a floral wreath at a cemeteryin Bitburg where certain SS troops were buried.White House spokespersons initially claimed thatboth German and Nazi troops were buried in thegraveyard, but that claim was quickly disproved by asurvey of the headstones. In the face of mountingcriticism, Reagan defended his act as “morallyright,” claiming that German soldiers “were victims,just as surely as the victims in the concentrationcamps.” Reagan added, “I know all the bad thingsthat happened in that war. I was in uniform for fouryears myself” (making army training films in Holly-wood). Finally, Reagan named the inspiration for hisBitburg visit as 13-year-old Beth Flom, the allegedauthor of a letter that “urged me to lay the wreath atBitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Ger-many.” In fact, Flom’s letter had asked Reagan not tomake the cemetery visit.

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

STALIN, Joseph (1879–1953)RUSSIA’s most notorious dictator was born Iosif Wis-sarionovich Dzhugashvili at Gori, in Georgia, onDecember 21, 1879. His initial calling to the Ortho-dox priesthood was scuttled at age 20 when he wasexpelled from a seminar in Tiflis for espousing Marx-ist politics. Thereafter, he allied himself full-time withrevolutionary communists and took the surnameStalin (“steel”) to symbolize his unyielding resolve.Exiled as a strike organizer from 1903 to 1917,Stalin returned to take part in the Russian revolutionled by VLADIMIR LENIN and emerged in 1922 as sec-retary-general of the Russian Communist Party. AtLenin’s death, he vied with rival Leon Trotsky forcontrol of the Soviet Union, driving Trotsky to exilein MEXICO (where he was subsequently slain by Stal-inist assassins).

As Russia’s undisputed ruler, Stalin presided overa series of five-year plans to expand industry and col-lectivize farms. The latter campaign, like that pur-sued in CHINA under MAO ZEDONG a generationlater, resulted in countless deaths from starvation. Atthe same time Stalin and chief henchman LAVRENTY

PAVLOVICH BERIA instituted a series of party “purges”and show trials that decimated opposition to Stalin’sautocratic rule. In 1939 Stalin signed a nonaggres-sion pact with German dictator ADOLF HITLER,thereby freeing Russian troops to invade Finland andPOLAND, but Hitler broke the thieves’ bargain toattack Russia in 1941. Millions more died during thenext four years before the THIRD REICH was defeatedand Stalin used concessions from the YALTA CONFER-ENCE to extend Russian domination over much ofEastern Europe. The ensuing cold war cast Stalin (atleast in Western propaganda) as the bogeymanbehind a communist conspiracy to dominate theplanet. On March 1, 1953, Stalin collapsed after din-ing with Beria and Nikita Khrushchev and otherparty leaders. He died four days later, ostensibly of acerebral hemorrhage, though some conspiracistsbelieve that he was poisoned. Khrushchev emergedvictorious from the new power struggle and presidedover a “de-Stalinizing” process that effectively erasedthe man of steel from official Russian history.

Debate continues over Stalin’s role as a global con-spirator and domestic mass murderer. Various pub-lished accounts claim that Stalin (deliberately orotherwise) starved some 6 million people to deathduring Russia’s great famine of 1932–33 and thatanother five million died (either executed outright or

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in labor camps) during the Stalinist purges of1936–38. Author Olga Shatunovskaia blames Stalinfor 19.8 million deaths during 1935–40, whileArthur Koestler places the Russian body count at20–25 million, and William Rusher cites “100 mil-lion people wantonly murdered” between 1917 and1996. Those undocumented estimates were chal-lenged by the release of Russian SECRET POLICE

archives in 1993, revealing a total of 799,455 legalexecutions throughout Russia between 1921 and1953. That total included nonpolitical defendants(murderers, bandits, and so on), as well as Nazi pris-oners of war and Russians who collaborated withGerman invaders during World War II. Labor-campdeaths are more difficult to calculate, but the sameRussian archives reveal a total of 2,022,976 politicalprisoners incarcerated in January 1939. About onemillion of those were released to fight Germaninvaders in 1941, while in-camp deaths averaged 92per 1,000 prisoners in 1944. By the year of Stalin’sdemise, that rate had declined to three deaths per1,000 inmates.

See also COMMUNISM.

STANDARD OilThe Standard Oil refining company was founded byJohn D. Rockefeller and a group of partners in 1863.Within five years it was Earth’s largest refiner ofcrude OIL, and by 1870 Standard had launched acampaign of buying or breaking all competitors. By1878 Rockefeller’s company owned 90 percent of allU.S. refining facilities. It reorganized as the StandardOil Trust, one of America’s greatest (and most infa-mous) monopolies, in 1881. Eleven years later Ohio’sstate attorney general won the first antimonopolycase against Standard Oil, but two more decadespassed before the Rockefeller petroleum empire wasbroken up by federal courts under terms of the Sher-man Antitrust Act.

That drastic legal action was preceded by count-less complaints and journalistic exposés of Stan-dard’s ruthless methods. Author Ida Tarbell wrote a19-part series on Standard Oil for McClure’s maga-zine, running from November 1902 to October1904, published in book form as The History of theStandard Oil Company during the latter year. Herfinal assessment—“They had never played fair, andthat ruined their greatness for me”—struck a chordwith countless readers, and Tarbell’s book placed

fifth on a list of the 20th century’s top 100 works ofjournalism, compiled in 1999.

Division of the Standard empire created a bewil-dering pack of smaller (but no less lucrative) firms,including Standard Oil of California, Colorado,Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ken-tucky, Louisiana Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska,New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Brazil (owned byStandard Oil of New Jersey). A total of 32 compa-nies sprang from the break-up of Standard Oil, andeven under federal scrutiny their methods wereoften ruthless. In April 1914, during a strike byemployees at the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fueland Iron Company, state militia forces surroundeda strikers’ tent city at Ludlow and sprayed theunarmed civilians with machine-gun fire, killing six persons. The strikers armed in self-defense, andby the time President Woodrow Wilson sent U.S.

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Journalist Ida Tarbell’s “muckraking” reportage helpeddismantle the Standard Oil monopoly. (Author’s collection)

troops to Colorado on April 29, 1914, 74 personshad been killed.

In the latter half of the 20th century, StandardOil’s various companies evolved into Atlantic Richfield Oil (Arco), Continental Oil (Conoco),Exxon, Mobil, and Esso. Their influence is stronglyfelt from Congress and the White House to LatinAmerica, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. In thelate 1990s U.S. journalists revealed that ExxonMobilhad paid President Jose Eduardo dos Santos millionsof dollars for oil concessions in ANGOLA, money usedto prolong that shattered nation’s epic civil war. In2003 ExxonMobil paid the U.S. government$50,000—a pittance—to settle accusations of illegaltrading with SUDAN.

See also ROCKEFELLER CLAN.

STREET gangsStreet gangs are as old as urban civilization, typicallyrecruiting children of immigrant, minority, and/orlow-income families. In many cases gangs themselvesbecome surrogate families for orphans and offspringof abusive or absentee parents. Where poverty breedscrime, street gangs have traditionally practiced theftand then graduated to extortion from local mer-chants. In many cases ethnic rivalries and battles forcontrol of a specific “turf” produce violent gangwars, escalating in lethality as new weapons becomeavailable.

Street gangs in the United States graduated fromnuisance status in the 19th century when New York’sTAMMANY HALL and other political machines enlistedstreet toughs for various errands. The gangs’ mostcommon service was provided on election day whenthey haunted polling places, stuffed ballot boxes, andharassed their employer’s rivals. In return, politicalbosses protected the gangs from police and allowedtheir daily criminal activities to proceed within pre-scribed limits. Gang influence grew exponentiallywith the advent of PROHIBITION in 1920, as formersmall-time hoodlums turned bootleggers and soonbecame millionaires. Gang warfare continued, butregional and then national collaboration increasedunder leaders such as CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO

and MEYER LANSKY. By the mid-1920s a ganglandconsortium called the BIG SEVEN dominated EastCoast liquor traffic, and the combination was trans-formed into a national crime syndicate by the adventof repeal in 1933.

As 19th-century gangsters aged and grew wealthy,turning the tables on politicians who had once com-manded and corrupted them, new generations ofstreet toughs sought an opportunity to follow thatexample. As their elders profited from outlawed alco-hol, younger criminals turned to the drug trade as asource of profit. By the early 1970s two black gangsspawned in southern California—the CRIPS AND

BLOODS—were ready to expand nationwide and bat-tle for control of the ghetto COCAINE trade. By the1990s, 750 gangs claimed 80,000 members in LosAngeles alone; Albuquerque, New Mexico, had 43Hispanic gangs with 5,000 known members; Cleve-land had 100 active gangs; and the U.S. JUSTICE

DEPARTMENT found gangs operating in 80 percent ofall cities with 100,000 or more residents. Between1993 and 1996 federal racketeering charges werefiled against 225 members of 11 New York Citygangs. In July 1995 the arrest of 10 youths from the142nd Street Lynchmob cut Harlem’s murder rate byan astounding 54 percent. Still, mayhem continueswith no end in sight: Minneapolis had 19 murders inthe first six months of 2002, with 17 described bypolice as gang-related killings.

STUDENTS for a Democratic Society (SDS)Foremost among countless “New Left” groups of the1960s, the SDS was founded in 1960 to advance lib-eral-left ideology throughout American society.Communist Party leader Gus Hall described the SDS as a group the party had “going for us,” andFEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) Director J. EDGAR HOOVER henceforth never mentioned SDSwithout including Hall’s comment as “proof” of asinister conspiracy. The organization grew from10,000 members in October 1965 to 80,000 inNovember 1968 and led its first student demonstra-tions at Columbia University in April 1968. A full-scale FBI COINTELPRO operation was launchedagainst the New Left on May 9, 1968, with the SDSand founder Tom Hayden named as key targets ofthe illegal disruption campaign.

It is impossible to say how much credit the FBIdeserves for the final SDS break-up in June 1969.More than 2,000 members attended the group’snational convention in Chicago, split by argumentsover the role of women and racial minorities in the“worldwide fight against U.S. imperialism.” Theresult was a fatal rift, with militant members seceding

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to join a new Weather Underground faction, whileothers gravitated toward the Progressive Labor Party.The SDS clung tenuously to life for a few moremonths, but it had essentially ceased to exist by thetime aides to President RICHARD NIXON named it apriority target of the abortive HUSTON PLAN in June1970. A year later the burglary of an FBI residentagency at Media, Pennsylvania, revealed bureauinvestigation and harassment of the SDS, along withmany other groups and individuals.

The Weather Underground Organization (WUO)—more commonly known as the Weathermen—wasone of four factions surviving the 1969 SDS. Thegroup took its name from the lyrics of a popularBob Dylan song, Subterranean Homesick Blues:“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Having pledged themselves torevolution, members of the WUO wasted no timeputting their program in action. The group’s semiof-ficial history claims credit for Chicago’s “Days ofRage” riots in October 1969 and for 17 bombings inseven states.

Despite those claims of violent action, questionsremain concerning the WUO’s responsibility forvarious crimes. Subsequent trials and release of doc-uments under the Freedom of Information Act showthat the group’s more outrageous crimes were oftenplanned and carried out by FBI or police agentsprovocateurs. One such, FBI hireling HORACE

PACKER, provided Seattle Weathermen with drugs,weapons, and the ingredients for Molotov cocktails;he also furnished the paint that was used to deface afederal courthouse in February 1970. At trialPacker testified under oath that G-men knew of hiscrimes and told him to “do anything to protect my credibility.” Another FBI provocateur, LARRY C.GRATHWOHL, was ranked among the WUO’s “mostmilitant members” in Detroit where he gave bomb-making lessons to fellow radicals. Yet anotherbureau agitator, THOMAS TONGYAI, recruited riotersfor the Chicago “Days of Rage,” provided otherradicals with weapons, and volunteered to plantvarious bombs.

The WUO suffered a fatal rift in the summer of1976. Gender, race, and organizational issuesprompted a split in the ranks, producing the CentralCommittee and its rival the Revolutionary Commit-tee. At year’s end the Revolutionary Committeeexpelled its more “conservative” critics and threemonths later created a Prairie Fire Organizing Com-

mittee to speak for the WUO “above ground.” Fivemembers surrendered in New York in November1977, and others slowly surfaced throughout thenext two decades, with the last arrest reported in1996. The federal campaign backfired in 1978 whenFBI officials Edward Miller and W. Mark Felt wereindicted for authorizing illegal break-ins. Both wereconvicted in 1980 but then were pardoned monthslater by President RONALD REAGAN.

See also COMMUNISM.

SUBVERSIVE Activities Control BoardCreated by the MCCARRAN ACT in September 1950,the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB)existed to identify and register the members of“Communist-action, Communist-front or Commu-nist-infiltrated” organizations. To that end the SACBrelied primarily on FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGA-TION files and hearings that featured a variety ofbureau informants, professional ex-Communists andhostile witnesses subpoenaed from suspect groups.Although bound in theory by federal rules of evi-dence, SACB hearings mimicked those of the HOUSE

COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES (HUAC)and the SENATE INTERNAL SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE

by providing a forum for rumor, innuendo, and character assassination.

A series of U.S. SUPREME COURT rulings in1956–57 curtailed the SACB’s perceived campaignof “outlawing the Communist Party withoutbecoming involved in the constitutional complica-tions of actual outlawry,” and while its influencefaded thereafter, the board persevered in its heavy-handed efforts through the 1960s. On occasion itwas able to assist kindred spirits, as in its investiga-tion of the National Committee to Abolish HUAC,but the SACB generally failed to intimidate “NewLeft” activists and organizers of VIETNAM Warprotests. Public discontent with domestic surveil-lance and the broadening WATERGATE scandalprompted abolition of the SACB in 1973. The attor-ney general’s list of subversive organizations wasabolished the following year.

SUDANThis troubled African nation shares a history of conquest with its neighbors, successive military andreligious invasions stirring the pot from 2600 B.C.E.

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until the 19th century when first EGYPT (1874) andthen Britain (1898) conquered the region. Known asAnglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1898 to 1955, thecountry won independence in January 1956. Oldrivalries endured, however, with endemic bloodshedoccurring between Muslim Arabs in the north and amixed bag of Christians and black animists to thesouth. Matters went from bad to worse when Gen.Ibrahim Abboud seized power in November 1958,suspending the nation’s fragile democracy in favorof a hard-line military junta. That move touched offa 17-year civil war, highlighted by another militarycoup in 1969. The latest strongman, Col. JafaarMohammed al-Nimeiry, permitted presidential elec-tions (which he easily won) in 1972. Uneasy peacedescended on Sudan, enduring until 1983 whenNimeiry proclaimed the nation an Islamic funda-mentalist state, instituting a rigid code of law lifteddirectly from the Koran. Osama bin Laden and AL-QAEDA found the new atmosphere congenial forplotting acts of foreign TERRORISM, but Christianand animist resistance continued. Another civil warerupted, dragging on for 19 years and claiming anadditional two million lives. A cease-fire wasannounced between the government and the SudanPeople’s Liberation Army in July 2002, but peaceseems unlikely to last. A separate problem in Sudanis the question of widespread, continuing slavery.According to a BBC report issued in May 2003, atleast 11,000 persons have been kidnapped in slaveraids across Sudan in the past 20 years. About10,000 of those victims are still missing and pre-sumed to be enslaved by unknown masters. Protestsfrom the UNITED NATIONS and various foreign coun-tries have failed to curb the trade in human flesh.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY.

SULLIVAN, William (1912–1977)William Sullivan joined the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) in August 1941, winning pro-motion three years later to supervise foreign opera-tions of the bureau’s Special Intelligence Serviceduring World War II. Nicknamed “Crazy Billy” byfellow G-men, he subsequently transferred to theDomestic Intelligence Division, and in 1956 hepenned the monograph that launched the FBI’s first illegal COINTELPRO campaign against theCommunist Party. In his post at Domestic Intelli-gence (Division 5) Sullivan ran the intelligence side

of the JFK ASSASSINATION case, the 1968 investiga-tion of Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.’s, slaying, andmost of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operationsagainst black militants, the “New Left” and the KU

KLUX KLAN. He was a pivotal figure at headquar-ters, regarded by many observers as Hoover’s heirapparent to command of the bureau. His reply:“I’m not a Judas, Mr. Hoover, and you certainlyaren’t Jesus Christ.”

Fired on the spot for insubordination, Sullivanchaired the new Office of National Narcotics Intelli-gence from May 1972 to June 1973 and then retiredto a New Hampshire farm. His testimony before theCHURCH COMMITTEE and the PIKE COMMITTEE in1975–76 exposed FBI chicanery spanning threedecades, but any possibility of Sullivan addressingthe HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

was canceled on November 9, 1977, when he wasshot and killed in New Hampshire. Authoritiesnamed the shooter as a policeman’s son and calledSullivan’s death a hunting accident. Conspiracistsquestion that verdict.

See also COMMUNISM.

SUPREME Court, U.S.As the only federal court required by the U.S. Con-stitution, the U.S. Supreme Court has original juris-diction in “all cases affecting ambassadors, otherpublic ministers and consuls, and those in which aState shall be a party.” Appellate jurisdictionextends to all cases, arising from state or lower fed-eral courts, in which some issue of federal law isasserted. Supreme Court justices are appointed bythe president, with mandatory confirmation by theU.S. Senate. Unless impeached by Congress, theyserve for life.

The Court achieved its current influence underChief Justice John Marshall (1801–35), whose rulingin Marbury v. Madison (1803) was the first todeclare a federal law unconstitutional. Marshall methis match in President Andrew Jackson when theCourt barred Jackson’s policy of Indian removal.“John Marshall has made his decision,” Jacksondeclared. “Now let him enforce it.” No other presi-dent has thus defied the Court, although RICHARD

NIXON came close in 1974 with his desperateattempts to suppress the WATERGATE scandal. Mostpresidents now seek to fill Court vacancies with ideo-logical comrades to advance their domestic agendas.

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During the NEW DEAL era, Franklin Roosevelthatched a “court-packing” scheme to increase theCourt’s size, but Congress rebuffed the idea. Morerecently, Presidents RONALD REAGAN, George H. W.Bush, and George W. Bush have defied the Constitu-tion’s ban on religious tests for federal appointees byimposing a “litmus test” that requires judicial nomi-nees to uphold “Christian values” and oppose legalabortion.

Supreme Court decisions are frequently controver-sial. During and after RECONSTRUCTION, the Courtsystematically undermined federal civil rights laws,restricted the privileges of nonwhite citizens, andfinally approved wholesale racial segregation inPlessy v. Ferguson (1896). A half-century later, theCourt reversed its stand on race, declaring schoolsegregation unconstitutional and moving on fromthere to strike down most forms of discrimination inpublic accommodations. The Court’s most contro-versial judgment of modern times was rendered in

Bush v. Gore, which effectively appointed George W.Bush as president in ELECTION 2000.

The Court has also been a target of various illegalplots in modern times. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION Director J. EDGAR HOOVER coveted appoint-ment to the Court and campaigned secretly forpresidential loser Thomas Dewey in 1948, based onDewey’s promise to make him chief justice. Failingthat, Hoover bugged, wiretapped, and burglarizedcourt offices while recruiting informers on the clericalstaff and filing covert reports from at least one justice(Lewis Powell, 1972–87). Hoover also aided theNixon administration’s unsuccessful bids to impeachJustices William Douglas (1939–75) and Abe Fortas(1965–69). Douglas outlasted both Hoover andNixon, later revealing that he had penned his resigna-tion in 1969 before the clandestine assault persuaded

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Chief Justice Roger Taney issued the Supreme Court’sendorsement of slavery. (Author’s collection)

Chief Justice Edward White was an admitted member ofthe Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan. (Author’s collection)

him “to stay on indefinitely until the last hound doghad stopped yapping at my heels.”

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

SUPPRESSED inventionsAside from alleged CANCER CURES discussed else-where in this volume, conspiracy literature is repletewith examples of miraculous inventions and discov-eries that have reportedly been suppressed via collu-sion between industry and corrupt governmentofficials, chiefly to safeguard the profit margins ofOIL producers, PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, andother greedy capitalists. A partial list includes:

• Lester Hendershot’s “fuel-less generator” or“free energy machine,” invented circa 1927–28.Three decades of foiled patent attempts andalleged government harassment ended withHendershot’s death (a supposed suicide) onApril 19, 1961.

• Henry Moray’s “radiant energy device,” devel-oped in the 1920s to tap a global “sea ofenergy” for unlimited power at little or no costto consumers. From 1927 onward, Moray’splans were rejected by the U.S. Patent Office,allegedly at the behest of legislators bribed bypublic utility companies. By 1939 Moray hadreportedly produced a 55-pound unit that pro-duced enough electricity to run a large factory.When buyers from RUSSIA expressed interest inMoray’s designs, he suffered threats, sabotage,and attempts on his life by unknown assassins.

• Charles Pogue’s 200-mile-per-gallon carburetors,patented in Canada during 1935–36. Oil com-panies allegedly conspired to suppress theinvention, though stories persist that Pogue car-buretors were installed on some U.S. Armytanks during World War II—and then wereswiftly removed from circulation when thatconflict ended.

• Ivor Newberry’s high-mileage carburetor,patented in October 1940, which allegedly“delivers a truly dry vapor to the engine andproduces very little, if any, exhaust pollutions.”Again, oil companies are blamed for suppress-ing the invention.

• Hans Coler’s “Magnetotromapparat,” another“free-energy” device constructed in 1946 frommagnets, copper coils, and condensers. British

intelligence agents reportedly visited Coler andquestioned him about his invention, but its fateis unknown.

• Joseph Bascle’s carburetor, invented in the1950s and reportedly installed as standardequipment on a fleet of taxicabs in BatonRouge, Louisiana. It reportedly increasedmileage by 25 percent while reducing pollution45 percent.

• Robert Shelton’s high-mileage carburetor,patented in May 1961. The device—allegedlyenhancing mileage 800 to 1000 percent—wasnever commercially produced.

• Norman Colton’s “gravity electric engine,”designed to “draw electricity from the atmos-phere without the use of any fuel” beyondEarth’s gravitational field. Announced to themedia in July 1961, the device subsequentlyvanished without a ripple.

• Oliver Tucker’s high-mileage carburetor,patented in April 1972. The device reportedlyoffered 60–100 miles per gallon, another obvi-ous threat to oil company profits.

• A gas-water additive, presented to navy officialsby chemist John Andrews in May 1974. Thechemical allegedly permitted the mixture ofwater and gasoline without reducing combustibil-ity, thus promising gas prices in the neighbor-hood of two cents per gallon. When navybuyers tried to follow up with Andrews, theyallegedly found him missing from home, withhis laboratory ransacked.

• Guido Franch’s “water-to-gas miracle,” pio-neered around the same time as the Andrewswater additive. Franch’s invention was a“green powder,” derived from soaking coal insome unspecified liquid, which then trans-formed tap water into a fuel more efficientthan gasoline.

• Joseph Yater’s rooftop heat-to-electricity con-verter, built to capture “fluctuation voltage” (thestatic heard on radios and amplifiers) for conver-sion into electric power while employing solarheat. Government scientists allegedly took cus-tody of Yater’s invention in September 1975,promising a working model within six months;then they dismissed the project as “impractical.”

• Tom Ogle’s “vapor fuel system,” created tobypass traditional carburetors and to offer 100miles per gallon with “no exhaust pollution

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emission.” Ogle reportedly sold his invention toSeattle’s Advance Fuel Systems in 1981, andnothing more has been heard of it since.

SURINAMENamed for its original inhabitants, the Surinen Indi-ans, Suriname was “discovered” by SPAIN in 1593and subsequently settled by invaders from theNETHERLANDS and Britain. African slaves furnishedfree labor for large plantations until slavery wasbanned in 1863. As Dutch Guiana, the realm wasgranted self-government in 1950, followed by fullindependence in 1975. Between those two events, aseries of brutal race riots, exacerbated by unemploy-ment and inflation, rocked the country. A militarycoup toppled Suriname’s civilian government in1980, and Holland severed foreign aid two yearslater after the junta massacred 15 journalists, politi-cians, lawyers, and union officials. A racial insurrec-tion led by the mostly black Jungle Commandoorganization threatened destabilization before newelections were held in May 1991. The junta surren-dered most of its power, and longtime dictator DésiBouterse announced a series of economic reforms in1997. By year’s end Dutch authorities announcedBouterse’s indictment for COCAINE smuggling, amove that highlighted Suriname’s role as a center ofinternational drug trafficking. Bouterse fled into hid-ing with his considerable bankroll, but he was con-victed and sentenced in absentia by a Dutch court.He remains at large today.

SYMBIONESE Liberation ArmyIn March 1973 black ex-convict Donald DeFreezesettled in Oakland, California, and proclaimed him-self “field marshal” of a new radical group, the Sym-bionese Liberation Army (SLA). The nameapparently derived from a novel by Sam Greenlee,The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1959), which por-trays an armed insurrection in Chicago’s ghetto anduses the term symbiology in passing to describe col-laboration among disparate organisms. Befitting theoccasion, DeFreeze renamed himself “Cinque,” afterthe leader of a 19th-century slave revolt.

The SLA’s battle plan involved Cinque givingorders to a handful of naive young radicals. Despiteits professed dedication to oppressed minorities, theSLA apparently had no black members other than

DeFreeze. His disciples were unanimously white andthoroughly ashamed of it, to the extent that theyshunned their given “slave names” and adoptedmore exotic monikers. Female recruits—comprisingseven of the SLA’s 11 members—went even further inrejecting their ethnicity, affecting dark makeup andAfro wigs to make themselves “look black.”

The SLA made its first move on November 9,1973, when two members ambushed Oakland’s blackschool superintendent Marcus Foster and killed himin a fusillade of cyanide-tipped bullets. The gunmenwere captured on January 10, 1974, charged withmurder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION agents took over the SLA’scase on February 5, 1974, when four masked mem-bers kidnapped 19-year-old Patricia Hearst (grand-daughter of newspaper magnate William RandolphHearst) from her Berkeley apartment. Ransom lettersfrom the SLA demanded that Hearst’s family providefree food for ghetto residents in northern California,but compliance failed to end the nightmare. Authori-ties and Hearst’s relatives were stunned on April 15,1974, when SLA members robbed a San Franciscobank of $10,960. Security cameras captured theevent—and revealed one of the armed bandits to bePatricia Hearst. Federal arrest warrants namedHearst as a material witness to the robbery; thosenamed as active participants included DeFreeze,Nancy Perry, Patricia Soltysik, and Camilla Hall. Onthe same day state authorities indicted SLA membersWilliam Wolfe, Angela Atwood, William Harris, andEmily Harris for giving false information on theirCalifornia driver’s license applications.

While the Hearsts insisted that Patricia had beenbrainwashed by her captors, an audio tape arrivedon April 24. In that recording Hearst identified her-self as “Tania,” called her father a “pig,” anddenounced the brainwashing claims as “ridiculous.”Randolph Hearst dismissed the tape as a product ofcoercion, but a federal grand jury disagreed, indict-ing Patricia for bank robbery on June 6, 1974.

By that time half of the SLA’s soldiers were alreadydead. Authorities traced DeFreeze and company toLos Angeles on May 17, 1974, surrounding thegang’s rented hideout. A pitched battle erupted andthe house caught fire. Hours later, police and fire-fighters removed the charred remains of DeFreeze,Wolfe, Perry, Hall, and Soltysik from the rubble.“Tania” Hearst remained at large for another 15 months, during which the SLA robbed another

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California bank, stealing $15,000 and killing cus-tomer Myra Opsahl. On September 18, 1975, G-mencaptured William and Emily Harris in San Fran-cisco’s Mission District. Moments later agents raideda nearby apartment where they found Patty Hearstand fugitive Wendy Yoshimura (wanted for conspir-acy to bomb a Naval ROTC center in 1972). Afterpsychiatric testing found her competent for trial,Hearst was convicted of bank robbery and sentencedto seven years imprisonment but was paroled afterserving 28 months.

SLA survivors William and Emily Harris wereconvicted in August 1976 of snatching two hostagesduring the April 1974 robbery of a Los Angeles gunshop. Two years later they pleaded guilty to areduced charge of “simple kidnapping” in Hearst’scase. With credit for time served, William Harris wasparoled on April 26, 1983; his wife was released onemonth later on May 27. SLA fugitive Kathleen Soliahremained at large until June 1999 when she wasfinally captured in Minnesota. A guilty plea oncharges of attempted murder earned Soliah a sen-tence of 20 years to life, imposed on January 18,2002. The sole remaining SLA fugitive, James Kil-gore, was arrested in Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA onNovember 8, 2002. News of Kilgore’s capture was“coincidentally” announced by G-men one day afterfour of his SLA comrades—Sarah Olson, MichaelBortin, William Harris, and his ex-wife Emily Montague—pleaded guilty to the Opsahl murder inSacramento. Those defendants received prison termsranging from six to eight years.

The SLA’s politics and criminal antics were sopeculiar that some modern conspiracy theoristsbelieve the group was a U.S. government creation,organized specifically to embarrass left-wingactivists and to justify repressive police action. In

that scenario DeFreeze-Cinque was allegedly sub-jected to MIND-CONTROL experiments at Vacaville,presumably conducted by the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY or a similar clandestine group, and“programmed” to follow the course that led to hisfiery destruction.

SYRIABetween 1500 B.C.E. and A.D. 1516 Syria was con-quered by Egyptians, Hebrews, Assyrians,Chaldeans, Persians, and Greeks, Romans, Arabs,Mongols, and Turks. The country remained a Turk-ish province until World War I when it became aFrench mandate via the League of Nations. National-ist demonstrations in 1939 prompted FRANCE to sus-pend the constitution and impose military rule. Theend of World War II saw British troops installed topreserve “order,” finally departing after a revolutionbroke London’s power in September 1961. A peren-nial enemy of ISRAEL, Syria lost territory to the Jew-ish state in 1967 and 1973, regaining some of it vianegotiations chaired by HENRY KISSINGER in 1974. Atabout the same time, Syria sent troops to intervene inLEBANON’s religious civil war, a commitment of some25,000 soldiers that would endure until summer2001. (Some Syrian troops remain in the Lebanesehinterlands today, though all were withdrawn fromBeirut.) In the meantime, Syria acquired a reputationfor supporting TERRORISM throughout the MiddleEast and abroad, a circumstance that led U.S. Presi-dent George W. Bush to threaten economic sanctions(with a hint of possible invasion) during 2003. Thusfar, those threats have not been realized, and Syriahas adopted a more moderate course—at least forpublic consumption.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

TACKWOOD, LouisAn African-American resident of southern Califor-nia, Louis Tackwood was hired in 1969 to serve asan informant for LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT’sCriminal Conspiracy Section (CCS), acting in collab-oration with the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

(FBI). He was assigned to infiltrate the BLACK PAN-THER PARTY and to report on its activities while dis-rupting the group by any means available, frustratingits proposed alliances with other “New Left” organi-zations, and entrapping Panthers in various criminalacts. Tackwood’s first assignment was to spark ashooting war between the Panthers and RonKarenga’s United Slaves, an effort that claimed sev-eral lives within a year.

When not fomenting murder in the streets, Tack-wood disrupted Panther alliances with the STUDENTS

FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY and joined police inframing party members for murders they did notcommit. One such victim, Elmer (“Geronimo”)Pratt, served more than a quarter-century in prisonbefore he was finally vindicated and released. Duringthe same period Tackwood also had contact withDonald DeFreeze, a black prison inmate and allegedsubject of government MIND-CONTROL experimentswho later formed the SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY.

Tackwood describes his final CCS-FBI missionbefore he went public in 1971 as a plot “to killGEORGE LESTER JACKSON,” a Panther Party spokesmanwho was serving time in San Quentin Prison. Tack-

wood was not the triggerman, but he allegedly partici-pated in an official conspiracy to slay Jackson during astaged prison break, occurring on August 21, 1971.According to Tackwood, “It was a plot, see, betweenthe CII and the guards. The guards hate him, they hatehis guts. He’s accused of killing a guard, rememberthat. And they hate him, at least some of them do.They harass him at all times, give him all the hell theycan, illegally. Then they kill him. Poor old George.”Tackwood blew the whistle on his employers inautumn 1971 with sworn courtroom testimony and apublished memoir, The Glass House Tapes. He subse-quently passed a polygraph test, administered by for-mer FBI agent Chris Gugas, suggesting (if notabsolutely proving) that his tale was true.

TAIWANChinese settlers first inhabited this offshore island inthe seventh century A.D., displacing its Malayan abo-rigines. PORTUGAL dispatched explorers in 1590,naming the island Formosa (“the beautiful”), butSPAIN and the NETHERLANDS divided its territory in1624. Dutch forces drove the Spaniards out in 1641and ruled alone until Chinese troops captured For-mosa 20 years later. JAPAN took a turn in 1895,remaining until their defeat in World War II handedthe island back to CHINA. Four years later, after hisdefeat by communist forces under MAO ZEDONG,Generalissimo CHIANG KAI-SHEK retreated to Formosa

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with his nationalist followers and proclaimed hisshrunken stronghold the Republic of China. A suc-cession of U.S. presidents honored that fiction, treat-ing Taiwan as the only “real” China while Chiangand his 600,000 soldiers schemed in vain to recap-ture the mainland. Despite repeated terrorist raidsinto China, Chiang saw his dreams collapse in Octo-ber 1971 when his rivals were belatedly admitted tothe UNITED NATIONS and Taiwan was expelled.Throughout Chiang’s belligerent reign (1949–87),Taiwan served as a haven for TRIAD mobstersengaged in narcotics smuggling, money laundering,and various other criminal activities. Little changedwith the advent of his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, and tothis day Taiwan has enjoyed only two “free” presi-dential elections (in 1993 and 2000). Chiang’s far-right Kuomintang Party remains dominant onTaiwan, committed to separation from the People’sRepublic of China at any cost. Sporadic saber rat-tling continues on both sides. On March 18, 2004,while riding in a campaign motorcade, PresidentChen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu werewounded by unknown gunmen in an apparent assas-sination attempt.

See also COMMUNISM; TERRORISM.

TAJIKISTANMountainous Tajikistan was part of the PersianEmpire until Alexander the Great arrived to takecharge in 333 B.C.E. Arab invaders appeared on thescene 300 years later, converting the populace toIslam at sword point. Uzbeks and Afghans next triedtheir hand at ruling the region before RUSSIA struckwith overwhelming force in the 1860s. Tajikistanwas still a Russian property in 1924 when the com-munist masters of Moscow declared a new TajikAutonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Six decadeslater, with Russian communism teetering on thebrink of collapse, Tajikistan declared its sovereigntyin August 1990. The following year, its leaders sup-ported an attempted coup against Soviet presidentMikhail Gorbachev, but that faux pas did notexclude Tajikistan from the Commonwealth of Inde-pendent States, organized in December 1991. Estab-lishment of a parliamentary republic in November1992 brought no end to conflict, however, as Islamicrebels and democratic forces rose in arms against theRed-dominated government. Some 60,000 personsdied in the ensuing civil war, which officially ended

on June 27, 1997. Despite that cease-fire, sporadicbloodshed continues while the war-ravaged countrysuffers in abject poverty.

See also COMMUNISM.

TALMADGE dynastyEugene Talmadge was a stereotypical racist dema-gogue of the American South, born in MonroeCounty, Georgia, to a family of wealthy planters onSeptember 23, 1884. He earned a law degree in1907 and combined legal practice with farminguntil 1920 when he plunged headlong into Democ-ratic Party politics. Any Georgian candidate ofpromise in the 1920s was a member of the KU KLUX

KLAN (KKK), and Talmadge was no exception.Unlike many political Klansmen, however, “OldGene” took his bigotry seriously, admitting yearslater that he had personally flogged at least oneAfrican-American victim. During his first term asGeorgia’s governor (1933–37) Talmadge assailedPresident Franklin Roosevelt’s NEW DEAL as asocialist campaign that favored “niggers” over ruralwhites, and he declared martial law to crush a strikeby the United Textile Workers. Financial scandalsdogged his second term in the governor’s mansion(1941–43), but rural “wool hats” and “crackers”remained fiercely loyal, empowered beyond theirnumbers by a Georgia statute that granted equalvoting strength to each county regardless of totalpopulation. True to form, Talmadge pardoned con-victed Klan floggers and appointed a KKK leader toserve as the chief of his state police, the GeorgiaBureau of Investigation. In 1946, running hard for athird term as governor, Talmadge confronted blackvoters for the first time. A Klan delegation visitedhis office, seeking advice on the best way to frus-trate black suffrage, whereupon Talmadge scrawleda one-word note: “Pistols.” Elected once more on atide of Klan TERRORISM, Talmadge died unexpect-edly on December 21, 1946, three weeks before hisscheduled inauguration.

Georgia Klansmen mourned Old Gene’s passingand furnished the largest floral wreath at his funeral.Within hours of his death, KKK Grand DragonSamuel Green declared that “the Klan has lost one ofthe best friends it ever had.” Fortunately for thewhite knights, 23-year-old Herman Talmadge wasready and willing to take his father’s place, assistedby a coup of sorts when state legislators (including

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many Klansmen) voted to install him as governorunder terms of an obscure Georgia statute. GrandDragon Green subsequently appeared as an honoredguest at Herman’s 1948 birthday party and receiveda standing ovation when he delivered a racist tiradeto state lawmakers. Talmadge served as governoruntil 1955 and as one of Georgia’s U.S. senatorsfrom 1957 to 1981. In both offices he maintainedfamily tradition by opposing any expansion of blackcivil rights. Fellow senators censured Talmadge forfinancial improprieties in 1979 in a scandal that pro-duced his first electoral defeat one year later. Hethereafter returned to Georgia and practiced lawuntil his death on March 21, 2002.

TAMMANY HallTammany Hall is the popular name given to aDemocratic political machine that ruled New YorkCity politics from 1854 until the election of MayorFiorello LaGuardia 80 years later. Its origins datefrom 1786 when the Tammany Society of NewYork City was founded as a social and fraternalorganization and became increasingly politicizedduring the next 12 years until it emerged as thechief vehicle of Jeffersonian ideals in the Big Apple.Tammany’s bonds to the Democratic Party tight-ened through the early 19th century, and it emergedas the controlling factor in local ward politics underPresident Andrew Jackson. William (“Boss”) Tweedand his cronies in the notorious TWEED RING

ruled Tammany from 1858 to 1871, their flagrantcorruption sparking a reform movement that failed to unseat the society’s power brokers. Underleaders John Kelly (1872–86), Richard Croker(1886–1902), and Charles Murphy (1902–24),Tammany forged enduring bonds with the MAFIA

and various ethnic STREET GANGS to buy or coercevotes in crucial elections, paying off with cash,political patronage, and immunity from arrest. Thatprotection was especially vital during PROHIBITION

when bootlegging profits filled political coffers inNew York and nationwide. Tammany Hall suffereda dual setback in 1932 when corrupt Mayor JamesWalker was forced out of office and rival FranklinRoosevelt was elected president of the UnitedStates, while repeal of Prohibition dried up much ofthe society’s illicit income in 1933. Despite its wan-ing influence under the NEW DEAL and the SecondWorld War, however, Tammany enjoyed a minor

renaissance under boss Carmine DeSapio (1949–61).Its final defeat was administered by Eleanor Roo-sevelt, who blamed DeSapio for defeating her son(Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.) in his 1954 campaign tobecome New York’s attorney general. With wealthyfriends, Mrs. Roosevelt created the New York Com-mittee for Democratic Voters, opposing DeSapioand Tammany Hall, and the society dissolved in themid-1960s.

TANZANIAArab traders were the first outsiders to settle thisEast African country in A.D. 700, supplanted byPORTUGAL in 1500 and OMAN in the 17th century.German troops arrived in 1885, merging Tanzaniawith BURUNDI and RWANDA to become German EastAfrica. That colony survived until World War Iwhen Britain occupied the region as a League ofNations mandate and later as a UNITED NATIONS

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“Boss” Richard Croker ran Tammany Hall for 16 years.(Author’s collection)

trust territory. As Tanganyika the country won inde-pendence from Britain in December 1961. Its namewas changed in October 1964, following a mergerwith the offshore island of Zanzibar. UGANDA

invaded Tanzania in November 1978, provoking atwo-year war that killed thousands on both sides.On August 7, 1998, agents of the terrorist group AL-QAEDA bombed the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam,killing 10 persons in an attack that was coordinatedwith an even more destructive bombing in KENYA.More than 1 million citizens of Tanzania arepresently infected with AIDS, and the lethal epidemicshows no signs of abating. In July 2003 Tanzanianauthorities announced the nation’s latest crimewave: a thriving trade in human skin. According topolice reports, supported by a grisly public displayof body parts in Dar es Salaam, southern Tanzaniahad suffered a two-year rash of brutal murders inwhich victims were skinned and their hides sold toblack-magic practitioners outside the country. AsGloria Machube, spokeswoman for the chiefchemist’s office, told BBC News on July 6, “Peopleare skinned and the skin is used for their rituals.” In2001 police filed murder charges against 13 mem-bers of one skin-smuggling ring, but the crimes con-tinue unabated.

See also TERRORISM.

TAYLOR, Zachary (1784–1850)A cousin of founding father James Madison andborn in Virginia on November 24, 1784, ZacharyTaylor served as a U.S. Army major in the War of1812, as a colonel in the Black Hawk War (1832),and as a general in the Mexican War (1846–48).Those campaigns earned him the nickname “OldRough and Ready,” while securing his election aspresident in 1848. Taylor occupied the WhiteHouse at a critical juncture in U.S. history, with thenation bitterly divided over slavery. Although him-self a slaveholder, he denounced the institution as“a social and political evil,” opposing expansion ofslavery into new territories or states. He con-demned the Compromise of 1850, which removedinterstate slave trading from federal jurisdictionand permitted expansion of slavery into westernterritories, responding to southern threats of secession with a pledge that he would hang defect-ing traitors “with less reluctance than I hangedspies and deserters in Mexico.” On June 17, 1850,

Taylor threatened use of U.S. troops in Texas ifslaveholders there attempted to invade the Terri-tory of New Mexico.

Just more than two weeks later, on July 4, 1850,President Taylor attended a groundbreaking cere-mony for the new Washington Monument. Journal-ists noted that he was “to all appearances, sound inhealth and in excellent spirits . . . in the full enjoy-ment of health and strength participating in thepatriotic ceremonies.” That evening, however, hesuddenly sickened, dying on July 9 under circum-stances that sparked rumors of poisoning. Officialspokespersons blamed Taylor’s death on a combina-tion of overexposure to “broiling sun,” combinedwith a meal of cherries and iced milk to produce afatal case of gastroenteritis. In fact, however, reportsof the event describe Taylor seated in shade “under[a] broad awning,” and nothing on his final menuqualified as dangerous. No autopsy was conductedprior to Taylor’s burial at Louisville, Kentucky.

The immediate reaction of Taylor’s political enemies encouraged speculation that he may have

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Conspiracists dispute the official verdict that PresidentZachary Taylor died from eating cherries and milk. (Author’scollection)

been assassinated. Henry Clay, a key author of thepending compromise on slavery, wrote to relatives,“I think [Taylor’s death] will favor the passage of theCompromise bill.” Co-author Daniel Websteragreed, confiding to friends that “I think the countryhas had a providential escape from very considerabledangers.” A decade after Taylor’s death, PresidentAbraham Lincoln received letters suggesting thatTaylor was poisoned, urging Lincoln to be carefulwhat he ate and drank in Washington. Despite stri-dent opposition from the so-called LIBERAL MEDIA, aforensic examination of Taylor’s remains was finallymade in 1991. On June 26, of that year Kentuckystate medical examiner George Nichol told the pressthat Taylor died of “natural” causes, despite traces ofarsenic found in his remains; in fact details ofNichol’s report ignored by the media include findingsthat Taylor’s hair contained 1.9 parts per million ofarsenic (three to nine times the modern “acceptable”level), while Taylor’s nails contained 3.0 parts permillion of arsenic (five to 15 times the modern

normal level). Nichol’s report also contained the following passage, universally ignored in mediaaccounts of Taylor’s “natural” death:

The symptoms and duration of Zachary Taylor’s disor-

der are historically and medically compatible with acute

arsenic poisoning and many natural diseases. Symptoms

begin within 30 minutes to 2 hours after ingestion. The

symptoms include nausea, vomiting, severe abdominal

cramping, pain, burning epigastric pain, and bloody

diarrhea. Death usually results within 24 hours to 4

days. . . . Lastly, the symptoms which he exhibited and

the rapidity of his death are clearly consistent with

acute arsenic poisoning.

The leap from that finding to a conclusion thatTaylor died from “natural” causes rival the WARREN

COMMISSION’s “magic-bullet theory” in the JFK

ASSASSINATION. It would be unfair to say that thecase against cherries and iced milk has been provedin Taylor’s death.

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Senators Henry Clay (left) and Daniel Webster (right) hated Taylor for opposing Clay’s “great compromise” on slavery inthe United States. (Author’s collection)

TEAPOT Dome conspiracyIn 1920 Congress passed the Oil Land Leasing Act,permitting private companies to lease oil-drillingrights on reserves owned by the U.S. Navy. The fol-lowing year, on May 31, 1921, President WARREN

HARDING issued an executive order transferring con-trol of those reserves from the navy to the InteriorDepartment, which was controlled by SecretaryAlbert Fall, a member of Harding’s corrupt OHIO

GANG. Two months later, without competitive bid-ding (and in return for a $100,000 bribe), Fallgranted drilling rights on the 40,000-acre Elk Hills,California, reserve to an old friend, Edward Dohenyof Pan American Petroleum. In April 1922 anotherof Fall’s cronies, Mammoth Oil boss Harry Sinclair,obtained exclusive drilling rights to the 9,481-acreoil reserve at Teapot Dome, Montana. Fall’s payoffin that case included $70,000 in cash and $233,000in Liberty bonds.

Rumors of Fall’s corruption soon reached the earsof Montana senators Thomas Walsh and BurtonWheeler, but Attorney General HARRY DAUGHERTY

sidetracked requests for a JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

investigation. There matters rested until August 2,1923, when President Harding died unexpectedly inSan Francisco. Senator Wheeler opened a formalinvestigation of the suspect oil leases in October1923, while Walsh launched a Senate probe of theJustice Department three months later. Daughertyand FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION DirectorWILLIAM J. BURNS did their best to obstruct the inves-tigation, with help from Assistant Director J. EDGAR

HOOVER.Walsh and Wheeler became primary targets. G-men

orchestrated a frame-up of Wheeler on false corrup-tion charges, but he was acquitted and pressed onwith the inquiry, scoring a major coup againstDaugherty and Burns with the testimony of ex-AgentGaston Means. President Calvin Coolidge firedDaugherty on March 28, 1924, while Harry Sinclairwas fined $1,000 and sentenced to three months injail for contempt of Congress. Still, another threeyears elapsed before the U.S. SUPREME COURT

annulled Sinclair’s and Doheny’s oil leases in 1927.Doheny and Fall faced trial for conspiracy in

November 1926, but both were acquitted. Fall andSinclair faced identical charges in October 1927,with agents from the Burns Detective Agency harass-ing jurors. That activity produced a mistrial, and Fallwas deemed too sick for trial when Sinclair was

retried and acquitted in April 1928. Fall was finallyconvicted of bribery on October 25, 1929, fined$100,000, and sentenced to a year in prison.

TELEVANGELISTSTelevangelists are the ministers who preach and pleadfor cash around the clock on various TV networks,reaching—and sometimes swindling—millions ofviewers around the world. Controversial at best,sometimes outrageous, they have parlayed religioninto a multibillion-dollar broadcasting empire duringthe past half-century while making their influence feltin right-wing political circles. Wealth and power,however, do not protect God’s self-proclaimedspokespersons from human failings. Even as theywere courted by Presidents RONALD REAGAN, GeorgeH. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, various stars of the“Christian Right” found themselves mired in scan-dals involving fraud and corruption, adultery, andextremist politics verging on TERRORISM. Prominentexamples include the following:

Oral Roberts: In the 1980s Roberts told his audi-ence of private talks with God, includingthreats from the Almighty that Roberts wouldbe “called home” unless he raised $8 million byMarch 31, 1987. Two months later he claimedpowers to raise the dead. Son Richard Roberts,himself a televangelist, vouched for Oral’s claimof having resurrected a dead child, but proofremains elusive at this writing.

Jim Bakker: Bakker launched TV’s PTL (“Praisethe Lord”) Club with wife Tammy Faye in the1970s, selling lifetime “partnerships” in a reli-gious theme park while squandering the cashon perks that included $200,000 yearly salaries,a $4 million “bonus” for Jim, a $600,000 Cali-fornia home, four condominiums, a RollsRoyce, and an air-conditioned doghouse. Expo-sure of Jim Bakker’s sexual affairs forcedBakker to resign in March 1987, and he waslater convicted of fraud in North Carolina,receiving a 45-year prison sentence. Paroled in1993, he is back on TV today with new wifeLori, selling a revised message of faith.

Jimmy Swaggart: Louisiana’s Jimmy Swaggartranked among Jim Bakker’s most outspokencritics in early 1987, but his own TV empire wasrocked by scandal a year later after Swaggart

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was found consorting with prostitutes. Swag-gart broadcast a tearful apology to his familyand flock, vowing to accept any disciplinarymeasures imposed by his church but thenreneged on that promise when church governorsbanned him from further lucrative TV broad-casts. When police caught Swaggart withanother prostitute, he warned the congregation,“God says it’s none of your business!”

Benny Hinn: Faith-healer Hinn has been a light-ning rod for controversy since the 1980s,dogged by accusations of fakery in healing cere-monies and misuse of funds. In 1997 he hiredMario Licciardello to investigate charges of“wrongdoing and corruption concerning thehandling of offering money” received from TVviewers, but Licciardello soon turned the tablesby “demanding money to keep him fromrevealing what he knows about allegations oftheft and corruption at Hinn’s World OutreachCenter.” A court gag order silenced Licciardello,pending resolution of that dispute, but a newscandal erupted in December 1998 with mediarevelations that two of Hinn’s aides had diedfrom HEROIN overdoses.

Robert Tilton: Tilton built a lucrative TV empirein the 1980s based on faith healing, speaking“in tongues,” and pay-as-you-go prayerrequests. The business collapsed in 1991 whenreporters followed tips to Tilton’s trash binsand found thousands of prayer requests hisstaff had discarded after removing cash andchecks. ABC’s PrimeTime Live reported thatTilton earned $80 million a year from gullibledonors, sparking lawsuits and investigationsthat drove him off the air. Divorced from hisfirst wife in 1993, journalists found him in May2003 living “comfortably” in Florida, broad-casting again, and collecting mail-in donationsto the tune of $1,000 per hour.

Jerry Falwell: Falwell founded the “Moral Major-ity” in 1979 and threw its weight behindRepublican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan the following year. That effort veeredso far from charity that the INTERNAL REVENUE

SERVICE stripped Falwell of his tax exemption,but he still heads one of North America’slargest churches, and his penchant for contro-versy keeps his name in headlines. In the 1990sFalwell accused President Bill Clinton of drug

trafficking and murder. A decade later, heclaimed that the PENTTBOM attacks of Septem-ber 2001 were God’s judgment against “thepagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists,and the gays and the lesbians who are activelytrying to make that an alternative lifestyle” inAmerica.

Pat Robertson: Biographer Rob Boston describestelevangelist Pat Robertson as “the most dan-gerous man in America.” Robertson establishedthe Christian Broadcast Network in 1960,expanding into 180 nations and 71 languagesby the close of the 20th century. He subse-quently founded the Christian Coalition as athinly veiled political machine and launched anabortive campaign for the Republican presiden-tial nomination in 1988. At last report, Robert-son’s net worth was estimated between $800million and $1 billion, a fortune that shieldshim against most consequences of his eccentricbehavior. In 1985 and 1995 Robertson claimedthat his prayers alone had shielded Virginiafrom hurricanes. In 2001 he joined Jerry Fal-well in blaming the September PENTTBOMattacks on God’s wrath, and in October 2003the U.S. State Department condemned Robert-son for advocating terrorism. Specifically, hetold his audience, “If I could just get a nucleardevice inside Foggy Bottom [a Washington,D.C., neighborhood and sobriquet of the U.S.State Department], I think that’s the answer. Itlooks like Congress had better do something,and maybe we need a very small nuke thrownoff on Foggy Bottom to shake things up.”

TERRORISMNo two “experts” agree on the precise definition ofterrorism, though a broad consensus typically appliesthe term to any use of violence or intimidation toinfluence political, religious, or ethnic events. Someauthors distinguish between terrorism (practiced byfringe elements to destabilize society or illegally per-secute minorities) and terror (identical tacticsemployed by a state, such as the THIRD REICH), butsemantic nitpicking is irrelevant to the victims andhas no place in our present discussion.

The broad problem of terrorism is a matter of per-spective. Simply stated, one person’s terrorist isanother person’s freedom fighter, heroically battling

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for a worthy cause against hopeless odds. America’sfounding fathers were deemed terrorists in 18th-cen-tury London, and President RONALD REAGAN reversedthe formula 200 years later, comparing U.S.-supportedCONTRA murderers in NICARAGUA to George Wash-ington and Patrick Henry. The same conflict of inter-est is seen wherever political, racial, or religiousviolence occurs. Members of the night-riding KU KLUX

KLAN (KKK) were once hailed as heroes who“redeemed” the South from RECONSTRUCTION. TheIRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY waged a long war for “free-dom” in Northern Ireland, opposed by contract killersfrom the ULSTER LOYALIST CENTRAL COORDINATING

COMMITTEE. The modern Middle East has seethedwith violence for more than a half-century, beginningwith attacks by the IRGUN on behalf of ZIONISM andcontinuing to the present with a seemingly endless warbetween ISRAEL and various Arab groups from FATAH

and BLACK SEPTEMBER to AL-QAEDA.Problems arise when politicians and/or law-

enforcement leaders tailor definitions of terrorism tosuit a specific agenda and then skew their actions tosupport a predetermined outcome. In the 1960s cer-tain southern governors condemned nonviolent civilrights activists as “terrorists” and “extremists” whileignoring (or actively supporting) the KKK’s defenseof white supremacy. A decade later PresidentRICHARD NIXON applied the terrorist label to criticsof the VIETNAM War, whether or not their proteststurned violent. In the 1980s and early 1990s under“pro-life” Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush,the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) refusedto investigate bombings of women’s clinics ongrounds that such acts did not constitute “domesticterrorism.”

Indeed, while hailing itself as America’s first line ofdefense against terrorist threats, the bureau has amixed record (at best) in cases of political violence.Various bombings perpetrated by ANARCHISTS in1918–20 remain unsolved today, and many 1970sradicals were never captured despite their placementon an expanded version of the FBI’s famous “TenMost Wanted” list. Author James Moore, once anagent of the rival BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO,AND FIREARMS, describes the FBI’s performance interrorist cases:

FBI “achievements” in the field of terrorism generally

fall into two categories: cases they “adopt” without dis-

closing that the most critical aspects of the case were

actually accomplished by other agencies; and instances

where the “accomplishment” is described as “prevent-

ing a terrorist act.” The latter, translated into what the

FBI actually did, consists of having received a tip and

interviewing the alleged would-be terrorists—informing

them that “we know what you’re planning” and warn-

ing of the consequences, should they choose to carry out

the reported plot. Receiving tips is no accomplishment—

considering the $3.5 million the FBI paid to informers in

1975 and their mandate, which makes it every police

agency’s duty to report such rumors to the FBI. “Resolv-

ing” the situation through aggressive questioning and

dire warning is something any officer could do. Result:

No one knows whether there really was a plot, so no

one goes to jail.

Granting that Moore’s opinion of the bureau maybe skewed by longtime rivalry between federal agen-cies, there is still no denying that the FBI has alsobeen responsible for acts of terrorism on U.S. soil.Under J. EDGAR HOOVER’s illegal COINTELPRO pro-grams, launched in 1956, FBI agents have encour-aged and facilitated violent actions committed by ordirected against such groups as the CommunistParty, the MAFIA, the BLACK PANTHER PARTY, STU-DENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY, and the AMERI-CAN INDIAN MOVEMENT. A brutal vigilante groupactive on various midwestern Indian reservations,GUARDIANS OF THE OGLALA NATION (GOON), wasfinanced in large part by the FBI, and FBI informantsled several violent KKK factions between 1969 and1981. Worse yet, in 1970 the FBI created its ownright-wing terrorist group, the SECRET ARMY ORGAN-IZATION, which detonated bombs and attempted tomurder “radical” college professors in southern Cali-fornia. Such crimes pale in comparison to the PENT-TBOM attacks of September 11, 2001, but they stillraise fundamental concerns about the nature andoperation of SECRET POLICE agencies.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM.

TEXAS suicideTexas suicide is a term once applied to the suspiciousdeaths of individuals involved with notorious con manBilly Sol Estes in the Lone Star State. Estes, a closefriend and financial supporter of future presidentLYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, bilked the U.S. govern-ment for $20 million in 1960 via federal crop subsi-dies on nonexistent produce. An agent from the

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Department of Agriculture, one Henry Marshall, wasdispatched to investigate the case in 1961, but he“committed suicide” by shooting himself five times—with a bolt-action high-powered rifle. Three busi-nessmen linked to Estes subsequently died in theircars, from carbon monoxide poisoning, and thosedeaths were likewise ruled suicides. While Estes ulti-mately went to prison, the string of deaths receivedno further official scrutiny. Lyndon Johnson survivedthe scandal to become president in 1963 after the JFK

ASSASSINATION. That event, in turn, was followed byanother series of suspicious deaths, including severalthat fit the mold of classic “Texas suicide.”

THAILANDFormerly known as Siam, Thailand is rare amongThird World nations in having escaped protractedrule by foreigners. Britain gained a brief foothold in1824 but granted Thailand full independence in1896 as part of a treaty with FRANCE to create abuffer zone between Britain’s colony in MALAYSIA

and French Indochina. Japanese invaders seized con-trol of the country in 1941, but their puppet statecollapsed three years later, whereupon Bangkokrepudiated its tenuous bonds to the Axis. During thewar in VIETNAM, Thailand served as a well-paid stag-ing area for U.S. raids against various neighbors,including illegal strikes at CAMBODIA and LAOS. Atthe same time, large-scale HEROIN production andexportation made Thailand part of the infamous“Golden Triangle,” also including Laos and MYAN-MAR. That multibillion-dollar trade continues to thepresent day in concert with Thailand’s flagrant(though technically illegal) role as a center of globalsex-tourism, including ready availability of childprostitutes. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra,himself a billionaire telecommunications mogul, wasindicted on corruption charges in December 2000but won acquittal at his trial eight months later. Atthe same time, an aggressive new antidrug campaignwas launched from Bangkok, resulting in an esti-mated 2,300 deaths by June 2003. Critics of the gov-ernment program complain that many suspects aresummarily executed by covert death squads, oftengunned down on the streets or in their homes. Pre-dictably, the victims in the killing sprees have all beenaddicts or small-time street dealers, while wealthyThai drug lords remain securely under guard withprivate armies and protection from corrupt police. A

thriving black-magic subculture also exists in Thai-land, exposed for the first time in 1959 when self-styled sorcerer Sila Wongsin was executed forperforming human sacrifices of at least six children.In August 2003, 28-year-old Kittisak Laoprasert wasindicted for stealing human fetuses for sale to ritualpractitioners around Bangkok.

THIRD ReichNazi propagandists coined the term Third Reich(“empire” or “kingdom”) to describe their regime inGERMANY during the years 1933–45. According tothe National Socialist mythology espoused by ADOLF

HITLER, the First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire(800–1806), while the German Empire established in1871 comprised the Second Reich. Teutonic glorywas betrayed in World War I and languished underthe Weimar Republic (1919–33) until Hitler seizedpower and embarked on a suicidal course of worldconquest; in fact much of Nazi philosophy was basedon occult studies of the Thule Society and othergroups whose mystic trappings smacked ofSATANISM. Der Führer also referred to his regime asthe “Thousand-Year Reich,” but that title provedgrossly overoptimistic when Allied forces conqueredGermany in April 1945. Hitler’s sole “achievement,”in retrospect, was the ignition of a world war thatclaimed some 20 million lives, including five to sixmillion Jews and other “inferiors” slaughtered in theHolocaust. Today, neo-Nazis in Germany and else-where still dream of establishing a FOURTH REICH tocontinue Hitler’s genocidal work and “get it rightthis time.”

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL;NATIONAL SOCIALISM.

THUGGEEA cult devoted to the Hindu death goddess Kali arosein India during the 12th century and flourished dur-ing the next 600 years with acolytes known as thags(“deceivers”) ranging far and wide in search ofhuman sacrificial victims. Typically, the cultists dis-guised themselves as holy pilgrims and befriendedtravelers on rural highways, later strangling their vic-tims and mutilating their bodies before making offwith any valuables from the crime scene. Britishcolonial authorities tackled the cult in the 19th cen-tury, convicting 4,500 identified members of various

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crimes between 1830 and 1848—including 110defendants convicted of murder. While no definitivebody count is available, official estimates blamed thecult for 40,000 murders in 1812 alone, and onecultist named Buhram confessed to 931 slayings athis trial in 1840. Taking 1812 as the sect’s banneryear, with a murder rate 10 times the hypotheticalnorm, it is evident that thags must have killed at least2.4 million victims during six centuries of homicidalactivity. British colonists mispronounced thag asthug—now used in common parlance for any violentcriminal—and dubbed the ritual strangling processthuggee. While the cult was theoretically eradicatedin the late 1840s, rumors of its survival circulatedaround Calcutta in the late 1980s.

TITANICOne of history’s great maritime disasters occurred onthe night of April 14–15, 1912, when the Britishocean liner Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in theNorth Atlantic, claiming an estimated 1,512 lives.Ironically, the huge ship that was deemed “unsink-able” did not survive its maiden voyage, thanks inpart to faulty “watertight” compartments belowdecks. Aside from spawning countless books andfilms (including 1997’s box-office blockbuster), theTitanic disaster has also spawned a predictable cropof conspiracy theories. The most prolific theorist,with three books published so far, is British authorRobin Gardiner. His works raise various unansweredquestions about the Titanic catastrophe, rangingfrom mundane negligence (a fire burning uncheckedin one of Titanic’s coal bunkers before the shipsailed) to a bizarre bait-and-switch plot involving theliner’s sister ship Olympic.

Gardiner outlines the conspiracy as follows: OnSeptember 20, 1911, the Olympic collided with aRoyal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke, resulting in exten-sive damage to both ships. Two weeks of hard workwere required before the Olympic could sail to itsshipyard at Belfast for further repairs. Titanicremained unfinished at that time, with her maidenvoyage scheduled to begin on April 10, 1912, andthe lack of a functional ship had already cost theWhite Star Line some £250,000 in lost fares ($18.6million at current exchange rates). Gardiner main-tains that White Star’s owners chose to hastily repairOlympic and pass it off as the new Titanic to meettheir deadline and then dispose of it at sea to cover

up their fraud. No loss of life was anticipated, Gar-diner claims, because the rescue ship Californian wasdispatched in advance to a North Atlantic ren-dezvous point, there to await Titanic’s prearrangeddistress signal and safely offload those aboard. Onthe night of April 14, Gardiner says, Titanic’s look-outs were so distracted by their search for icebergsthat they overlooked a second (unnamed) rescue ves-sel sitting in their path, and that collision sent Titanicto the bottom. The original Titanic, meanwhile,allegedly returned to service as the “repaired”Olympic and spent another quarter-century at seawithout further incident.

TONGYAI, Thomas (fl. 1960s)Nicknamed “Tommy the Traveler” after his pen-chant for rambling around New York State, ThomasTongyai posed as a “New Left” radical when he vis-ited various college campuses in the late 1960s.Financed simultaneously by the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION and local police departments, Tongyaifurnished leftist student groups with radical speakersand literature, urging each audience in turn to killpolice, build bombs, and demolish selected targets.At one point Tongyai tried without success to organ-ize a Rochester chapter of STUDENTS FOR A DEMO-CRATIC SOCIETY, and he encouraged New Yorkstudents to visit Chicago in October 1969 for theWeather Underground Organization’s riotous “Daysof Rage.” An obsessive proponent of illegal violence,Tongyai habitually traveled with firearms and handgrenades, instructing campus dissidents in marks-manship and counseling them on construction ofbombs. Students at Hobart College apparently tookhis advice and bombed the campus ROTC office,whereupon Tongyai’s activity as an agent provoca-teur was revealed. Even so, he escaped indictment bythe grand jury that charged nine of his followers, andTongyai retired from undercover operations tobecome a policeman in Pennsylvania.

TRAFFICANTE, Santos, Jr. (1914–1987)The son of a high-ranking MAFIA member, SantosTrafficante, Jr., was born at Tampa, Florida, inNovember 1914. In the 1940s he joined MEYER LAN-SKY, CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO, and other mob-sters to establish gambling casinos in CUBA undercorrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista. In 1954, with his

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father’s death from throat cancer, Trafficante woncontrol of the Florida “family,” but the Cubanmother lode of untaxed cash dried up five years laterwhen FIDEL CASTRO seized control of the Caribbeanisland. Thereafter, Trafficante joined SAM GIAN-CANA, JOHN ROSELLI, and other mobsters inattempts to murder Castro, encouraged and aidedby members of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.Despite collaboration with the U.S. government,however, Trafficante soon became a major target ofAttorney General Robert Kennedy, and the Floridagangster remains a prime suspect in the 1963 JFK

ASSASSINATION. A few weeks before the president’smurder in Dallas, Trafficante allegedly told Cubanexile leader Jose Aleman, “Mark my word, this manKennedy is in trouble, and he will get what is com-ing to him. Kennedy’s not going to make it to theelection. He is going to be hit.” A longtime acquain-tance of Trafficante’s, JACK RUBY, shot and killedsupposed assassin LEE HARVEY OSWALD on Novem-ber 24, 1963, leaving telephone records that showcalls to Trafficante shortly before the Kennedy slay-ing. Two decades later Trafficante reportedly joinedin the IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIRACY organized by Pres-ident RONALD REAGAN and Vice President GeorgeH. W. Bush. The HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON

ASSASSINATIONS questioned Trafficante in 1978, buthe denied any knowledge of the JFK murder and thecommittee’s final report leveled no accusations. Traf-ficante died in March 1987 at age 72.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

TRENCHCOAT MafiaThe original Trenchcoat Mafia—completely unre-lated to the MAFIA crime syndicate—was a group ofdisaffected students at Columbine High School inLittleton, Colorado, self-named for their favoritestyle of clothing. Two fringe members of the outcastclique, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, invaded thecampus on April 20, 1999, armed with guns andhomemade bombs, killing 12 fellow students andone teacher before they committed suicide. Becausethe massacre occurred on ADOLF HITLER’s birthday,some observers blamed the crime on neo-Nazi atti-tudes, but no link to organized racist groups such asthe KU KLUX KLAN was ever proved. Likewise,rumors that Harris and Klebold specifically targetedathletes, Christians, or racial minorities seem to befalse. (The tale of one female victim allegedly shot

after the killers asked if she loved JESUS CHRIST hasbeen revealed as a hoax.) In the wake of theColumbine murders, numerous Internet Web sitessprang up purporting to represent the “real” Trench-coat Mafia.

TRIADSModern Triad crime syndicates, often described asthe Chinese MAFIA, began as resistance groupsopposing the Ch’ing Dynasty that ruled CHINA from1644 to 1911, seeking restoration of the previousMing Dynasty. Along the way, they practiced rob-bery, gambling, extortion, and murder, while learn-ing from China’s OPIUM WARS that illicit drugs are asource of great wealth. Triad leaders supported mili-tary ruler CHIANG KAI-SHEK (described by someresearchers as an oath-bound Triad member), andthey profited immensely under his corrupt regime.When MAO ZEDONG’s revolution drove Chiang fromChina in 1949, many Triad loyalists followed him toTAIWAN, while others operated throughout SoutheastAsia and farther afield.

The Triads (or “Tongs”) discovered North Amer-ica in the mid-19th century when thousands of Chi-nese were imported to build U.S. railroads and laborin mines. The opium trade followed them, withstrong sidelines in gambling and prostitution (oftendubbed WHITE SLAVERY). By the turn of the 20th cen-tury, gang wars raged in major cities from San Fran-cisco to New York between powerful Chinese cliquesincluding the Hop Sings, Suey Sings, and KwongDucks. Vigilante riots and a federal Chinese Exclu-sion Act curbed Triad influence for a time, but theVIETNAM War provided vast new markets for AsianHEROIN in the United States, and Triad smugglersseized the opportunity, soon expanding into otherareas of vice and “legitimate” investments in LAS

VEGAS, Nevada. Other illicit enterprises favored bythe Triads are smuggling undocumented aliens andweapons on a global scale.

As with any secret criminal society, hard data onTriad membership is difficult to obtain and is rarelytrustworthy. In 1989 the U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

named Hong Kong as the epicenter of Triad activitywith an estimated 100,000 members divided among50 gangs. The largest Hong Kong syndicates areknown as 14K and the Wo Group. On Taiwan theUnited Bamboo gang boasts some 15,000 members,while the Four Seasons Triad lags behind with an

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estimated 3,000. Triad groups reported active in theUnited States with varying numbers include 14K,Leun Kung Lok, Sun Yee On, Wo Hop To, and WoOn Lok. Their presence is strongly felt in Chinese-American communities from coast to coast wherespecial law-enforcement task forces have thus farfailed to stop invaders from the East.

TRILATERAL CommissionFounded in 1973 by wealthy private citizens fromthe United States, Canada, Japan, and various Euro-pean nations, the Trilateral Commission was created(in its own words) “to foster closer cooperationamong these core democratic industrialized areas ofthe world with shared leadership responsibilities inthe wider international system.” Established for athree-year period (and renewed by its members forsuccessive triennia to the present day), the group’sself-described initial purpose was:

to draw together—at a time of considerable friction

among governments—the highest level unofficial

group possible to look together at the key common

problems facing our three areas. At a deeper level,

there was a sense that the United States was no longer

in such a singular leadership position as it had been in

earlier post-World War II years, and that a more

shared form of leadership—including Europe and

Japan in particular—would be needed for the interna-

tional system to navigate successfully the major chal-

lenges of the coming years.

During the past three decades membership in theTrilateral Commission has been broadly expanded toinclude representatives from Mexico, other Pacific-Asian nations, and the growing cast of EuropeanUnion countries. “Globalization” is the goalespoused by the commission’s Internet Web site, andtherein lies the problem for conspiracists of sundrypolitical shadings, who lump the Trilateral Commis-sion with the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS andthe ephemeral NEW WORLD ORDER as a form ofglobal shadow government. Critics note that afounding member was David Rockefeller, heir toSTANDARD OIL billions and a longtime president ofCHASE MANHATTAN BANK. Plans for establishment ofthe Trilateral Commission were allegedly conceivedat gatherings of the BILDERBERG GROUP. According tocritic and ex-Senator Barry Goldwater, “The Trilat-

eral organization created by David Rockefeller was asurrogate—the members selected by Rockefeller, itspurposes defined by Rockefeller, its funding suppliedby Rockefeller. David Rockefeller screened andselected every individual who was invited to partici-pate.” The presumed goal is stated by an anonymousInternet theorist as follows:

The Commission’s purpose is to engineer an

enduring partnership among the ruling classes of

North America, Western Europe and Japan—hence

the term “Trilateral”—in order to safeguard the

interests of Western capitalism in an explosive world.

The private commission is attempting to mold public

policy and construct a framework for international

stability in the coming decades. To put it simply,

Trilateralists are saying: The people, governments and

economies of all nations must serve the needs of

multinational banks and corporations.

See also ROCKEFELLER CLAN.

TURKEYBetween 1900 B.C.E. and the 12th century A.D., theregion of modern-day Turkey was overrun and occu-pied by Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians,Romans, and troops of the Byzantine Empire. Turn-ing the tables between the early 13th century andWorld War I, the Ottoman Turkish Empire expandedto devour much of Central Asia, North Africa, andEastern Europe, challenging the strength of mightyRUSSIA. That empire’s strength began to falter withthe Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), suffered anotherblow with the Young Turks’ revolt (1909), andendured serious setbacks in losing wars with Italy(1911–12) and in the Balkans (1912–13). The last ina string of bad choices saw Turkey allied with GER-MANY and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WorldWar I, where crushing defeat brought an end for alltime to imperial dreams. Turkey’s modern bound-aries were drawn by the victors in 1923, with KemalAtatürk installed as president (1923–38). A quarrelwith GREECE led Turkey to invade CYPRUS in July1974, seizing 40 percent of the island. By that timeTurkey was a well-established source of HEROIN thatflowed to Europe and the Western Hemisphere, atrade established in the 1920s that flourishes to thepresent day. Home-grown rebels, including the Turk-ish People’s Liberation Army and the Kurdistan

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Worker’s Party (PKK), have conducted long-runningguerrilla campaigns against the ruling government inAnkara, campaigns that are regarded as TERRORISM

or struggles for liberation, depending on theobserver’s point of view. During the 1980s and 1990san estimated 35,000 persons died in clashes betweenthe PKK and Turkish military forces. AbdullahOcalan, a PPK leader, was sentenced to death onJune 2, 1999, following his conviction on charges oftreason and separatism. Two months later a cata-strophic earthquake left 17,000 Turks dead and200,000 homeless—a tragedy blamed in large parton corrupt cost cutting by construction companiesand government officials who were paid to look theother way.

TURNER Diaries, TheThe Turner Diaries is a futuristic racist novel published in 1978 by William Luther Pierce, underthe pen name “Andrew Macdonald.” It portrays a United States dominated by ZOG—the Zionist

Occupation Government—in which white separatistswage guerrilla warfare to preserve their bloodlineand the basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution. Onesuch warrior is Earl Turner, the novel’s narrator,who participates in various acts of TERRORISM

including a massive truck bombing in Washington,D.C. Prosecutors identify The Turner Diaries as the direct inspiration (or “blueprint”) for variousneo-Nazi crimes committed across America since theearly 1980s. The SILENT BROTHERHOOD (1983–85)took its alternate name—“The Order”—directlyfrom Pierce’s novel, and likewise emulated its tacticsfrom armed robbery to counterfeiting. A decadelater, MILITIA activist Timothy McVeigh studied the novel while he plotted the OKLAHOMA CITY

BOMBING with accomplice Terry Nichols. In June1998 three would-be members of the KU KLUX KLAN

in Texas dragged black victim James Byrd, Jr., todeath behind a pickup truck after telling him,“We’re starting The Turner Diaries early.”

William Pierce was a curious character, born in Atlanta on September 11, 1933. He earned a B.A.

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Dr. William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, sits before the Nordic Rune symbolizing white power. (Scott Houston/Corbis)

in physics in 1951 and then worked at Los AlamosScientific Laboratory before completing his Ph.D. in1962. At about the same time he joined the JOHN

BIRCH SOCIETY, but its conspiracy theories provedtoo tame for Pierce’s taste. In 1965 he abandonedteaching and any semblance of rational behavior,plunging headlong into the racist world ofNATIONAL SOCIALISM. After stints with the AmericanNazi Party and the neofascist Liberty Lobby, Pierceformed his own National Alliance in 1974. Six yearsafter publishing The Turner Diaries, he wroteanother novel, Hunter, dedicated to racist serialkiller Joseph Paul Franklin. In 1984–85 Piercereceived donations from the Silent Brotherhood,accepting cash looted from armored cars, but heescaped prosecution on those charges and amusedhimself with a series of mail-order brides from East-ern Europe. On the side Pierce established a near-monopoly on sales of European “white power”music in the United States and fraternized with a

Who’s Who of American racist leaders, including“former” Klansman David Duke. Pierce died on July23, 2002, his dreams of a FOURTH REICH still unful-filled, but his fictional musings continue to inspireracists around the world.

See also FASCISM.

TWA Flight 800On July 16, 1996, TWA Flight 800 crashed in the seaoff Long Island killing all 230 persons aboard. Eye-witness reports of a midair explosion and a “streakof light” pursuing the plan from ground level raisedthe possibility of TERRORISM, whereupon a FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) investigation wasinitiated in conjunction with the standard crashreview conducted by the National Travel SafetyBoard (NTSB). Nearly a decade after the event, manyfacts about the case remain obscure, contributing tocharges of an official cover-up.

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The reconstructed part of TWA Flight 800 sits in a hangar in Calverton, New York. Investigation of the explosion was themost expensive crash probe ever conducted by U.S. safety and law-enforcement investigators. (Reuters/Corbis)

One sticking point with critics of the FBI verdict isthe acknowledged presence of a “mystery boat” nearthe crash site. Radar plots contained in the NTSB’sfinal report place an unknown vessel 2.9 nauticalmiles from crash scene, tracked for 16 minutes whilespeeding out to sea. Despite 16 months of investiga-tion, including some 7,000 interviews, FBI headquar-ters reported that the bureau “has been unable toidentify this vessel.”

Crash investigators found chemical traces ofexplosives on various fragments of Flight 800, butFBI officials attributed them to a canine bomb-detec-tion exercise allegedly conducted on the aircraft fiveweeks earlier. In addition to trace evidence, at least89 crash victims had foreign objects resemblingshrapnel embedded in their corpses. FBI agents seizedall such fragments and submitted them for labora-tory analysis, but the objects and the lab reports havedisappeared. In October 2000 an FBI affidavitdeclared that the evidence could not be found despitea “thorough search.”

The NTSB held hearings on the crash in December1997, but FBI spokesmen objected to public disclo-sure of “any interviews or reinterviews of the 244eyewitnesses whose reports were examined by theCIA in connection with its analysis and to calling anyeyewitnesses to testify at the public hearing.” With-out objection, NTSB Chairman Jim Hall agreed tothe bureau’s demand for secrecy and excluded alleyewitness testimony from the hearing. Nor was theFBI’s suppression of evidence limited to public hear-ings. For 13 months after the crash, G-men withheldstatements of 278 witnesses from the NTSB itself—including all statements from witnesses who claimedthey saw a “streak” shoot upward from the groundor sea toward Flight 800 on the night it fell. Like-wise, a FBI letter dated August 25, 1998, declaredthat agents were “unable to locate” results of theirstudy to determine the origin of an alleged surface-launched object seen by witnesses before the crash.

In November 1996 ABC News reporter PierreSalinger suggested that a U.S. Navy missile wasresponsible for the disaster. Salinger cited radarimages and documented naval maneuvers in the areaon July 16, 1996, but the FBI and NTSB jointly dis-missed his theory. A January 1997 report from theBUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, AND FIREARMS con-cludes that Flight 800 crashed after a mechanical flawcaused its central fuel tank to explode. In May 1999ATF spokesman Andrew Vita told the U.S. Senate

that he “met resistance” from the FBI when he triedto submit that report, but G-men later endorsed thefindings. Senator Charles Grassley termed the crashinvestigation “a model of failure, not success”; he fur-ther dubbed the FBI’s performance “a disaster” andcharged that the bureau “risked public safety” bymanipulating crash-site evidence.

TWEED RingThe Tweed Ring takes its name from William MarcyTweed (1823–78), a political “fixer” and boss ofNew York City’s TAMMANY HALL in the mid-19thcentury. A bookkeeper and volunteer firefighter whograduated into corrupt ward politics in the early1850s, Tweed ended that decade as Tammany’sundisputed boss, a master of patronage and shadydeals throughout the Big Apple. In the process heserved at different times as an alderman, a memberof Congress, and a New York State senator, but

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“Boss” William Tweed of Tammany Hall created the notorious Tweed Ring. (Author’s collection)

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Tweed’s true gift lay in making deals behind thescenes. Collaboration with robber barons James Fiskand Jay Gould made Tweed a director of the ErieRailroad, but his principal source of income was the bottomless well of New York City graft. The so-called Tweed Ring—including Tweed, Mayor A. Oakey Hall, city chamberlain (treasurer) PeterSweeny, and comptroller Richard Connolly—ultimately bilked New York City of an estimated $30million via skimming from taxes and padded or ficti-tious charges. While reformers failed to break hishold on the city, in 1870 Tweed pressured the statelegislature to expand Tammany’s charter and pow-ers. Tweed’s downfall came about when new county

bookkeeper, M. J. O’Rourke, uncovered massivefraud and took his story to the New York Times.Crusading articles and a series of scathing cartoonsby Thomas Nast produced a groundswell of revul-sion, climaxed by Tweed’s indictment on corruptioncharges. A hung jury spared Tweed at his first trial,but a second panel convicted him, and Tweedreceived a 12-year prison sentence. That term wasreduced on appeal, and he served one year in custodybefore emerging to face further charges. This time,Tweed fled to CUBA and then to SPAIN, but he wasextradited for trial in 1876 and died in prison twoyears later. Tammany survived him and remained thedominant force in New York City politics until 1934.

UFOsReports of unidentified flying objects—UFOs—spanthe full range of human history from biblical times tothe present day. Ancient witnesses spoke of fiery“wheels” and chariots, while luminous “airships”filled the skies over North America in 1896–97, andAllied pilots recorded midair encounters with “foofighters” during World War II. Our modern fascina-tion with UFOs properly dates from June 24, 1947,when pilot Kenneth Arnold reported a formation ofunknown aircraft over Mount Rainier, Washington,and compared them to “flying saucers.” Barely twoweeks later, on July 8, a UFO allegedly crashed out-side Roswell, New Mexico, strewing the desert withdebris—and, some say, tiny not-quite-human corpses.

The first known UFO investigation by the U.S.government began one day after the supposedRoswell crash when Brig. Gen. George Schulgen ofthe Army Air Corps requested FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) assistance to determine if the“saucers” were part of a communist plot “to causehysteria and fear of a secret Russian weapon.”Director J. EDGAR HOOVER approved the inquiry,with one proviso: “I would do it, but first we musthave access to all disks recovered.” On July 30,1947, a memo from FBI headquarters to all bureaufield offices ordered G-men to “investigate eachinstance which is brought to your attention of asighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whetheror not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one, or

a prank.” Some two dozen reports reached Washing-ton during the next 60 days, most stamped with theheading “Security Matter—X.”

Thus began the FBI’s real-life X-Files, but Hooverwas not alone in pursuing the elusive saucers. OnSeptember 23, 1947, the U.S. Air Force launchedProject Sign with an identical goal. Active investiga-tion began on January 22, 1948, and culminated in aFebruary 1949 air-force report, admitting that 20percent of the sightings reviewed could not beexplained in terms of known aircraft or natural phe-nomena. Perhaps disgruntled by those findings, theair force named its next UFO investigation—begunon February 11, 1949—Project Grudge. That unit’sclassified 600-page report, released six months later,grudgingly listed 23 percent of all UFO sightings asinexplicable. Having said that, however, the air forceinvestigation strangely “lapsed more and more into aperiod of almost complete inactivity,” according toone member of the team.

The same could not be said for Hoover’s agents.On March 25, 1949, a memo from Washingtonadvised all FBI field offices: “For your confidentialinformation, a reliable and confidential source hasadvised the Bureau that flying discs are believed to beman-made missiles rather than natural phenomenon[sic]. It has also been determined that for approxi-mately the past four years the USSR has beenengaged in experimentation on an unknown type offlying disc.” Twelve months later, in March 1950,

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Agent Guy Hottel—commanding the Washington,D.C., field office—informed Hoover that anunnamed “investigator for the Air Force” had admit-ted recovery of three disabled UFOs in New Mexico,containing nine corpses of three-feet-tall alien beings.On December 8, 1950, an “urgent” cable to Hooverfrom the Richmond, Virginia, FBI declared thatagents of Army Intelligence “have been put on imme-diate high alert for any data whatsoever concerningflying saucers.”

Those startling bulletins notwithstanding, it wasMarch 1952 before the air force opened its lastknown investigation of UFOs, code-named ProjectBlue Book. This time around, air force researchersclaimed that only 1.8 percent of known sightingsremained unexplained, but their “explanations”—including swamp gas, mass delusions, and mistakensightings of the planet Venus—left many readersunconvinced. Project Bluebook officially ended in

December 1969 when Maj. David Shea declared thatfurther study of the phenomenon “cannot be justifiedeither on the ground of national security or in theinterest of science.” J. Edgar Hoover, meanwhile, hadwashed his hands of the saucer problem in July1966, advising one curious correspondent that “theinvestigation of unidentified flying objects is not, andnever has been, a matter within the investigativejurisdiction of the FBI.” (In fact, the last known FBIreport on UFOs was filed on January 18, 1967,reporting an alleged ALIEN ABDUCTION at Chesa-peake, Virginia.) Still, official denials frequently fellon deaf ears. A 1997 Time-CNN poll determinedthat 17 percent of U.S. residents believe in UFOabductions, while a 1992 Roper survey found 2 per-cent of the population (some 3.7 million Americans)convinced that they had been kidnapped by aliens.

Alien abductions, whether carried out as medicalexperiments, for purposes of racial hybridization, or

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Four brightly glowing, unidentified objects appeared in the sky at 9:00 P.M. on July 15, 1952, above a parking lot in Salem,Massachusetts. (Corbis)

for some other still-unfathomable motive, representonly one tier of conspiracy theories attached to theUFO phenomenon. Others include (but are by nomeans limited to) the following:

• Nazi UFOs emerging from a HOLLOW EARTH. In1976 author Ernst Zundel—a leading Canadianproponent of Holocaust denial—published aclaim that fugitive leaders of the THIRD REICH

retreated to ANTARCTICA in 1945, there estab-lishing subterranean bases replete with secrettechnology. UFOs are their airships, used tokeep surface dwellers under surveillance pend-ing establishment of a FOURTH REICH. Suchclaims have not forestalled Zundel’s convictionand imprisonment under Canadian hate-speechstatutes.

• LIVESTOCK MUTILATIONS. Since the mid-1960s,throughout the United States and elsewhere,UFO sightings have been reported in conjunc-tion with discovery of dead and mutilateddomestic animals, including cows, horses,sheep, and various other species. As withalleged abductions of human victims, themotive remains obscure, but most theories pre-sume an alien interest in studying life forms onEarth—a kind of intergalactic biology class.

• Alien domination of Earth with collaborationfrom human race-traitors. A common theme inthe popular X-Files TV series, this scenario waspioneered (or at least refined for widespreadpublic consumption) by author GeorgeAndrews in his 1986 book Extra-TerrestrialsAmong Us. According to Andrews, aliens withan appetite for conquest control earthly affairsthrough a “privileged elite class” that includesthe U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, cre-ated specifically to administer a global form of“corporate FASCISM.”

• Covert adoption of alien technology on Earth.A year after Andrews published his treatise onalien rule of the planet, other researchers coun-tered with publication of supposed Top Secretdocuments labeled MJ-12 (sometimes referredto as Majic-12 or Majestic-12). The papers inquestion comprise—or simulate—correspon-dence between President Harry Truman andhis secretary of defense, James Forrestal, relat-ing to the Roswell crash of July 1947. Pre-sented as smoking-gun proof that alien

spacecraft and corpses are in fact held by theU.S. government, at AREA 51 or elsewhere, theMJ-12 documents are cited in support of vari-ous theories involving adaptation of other-worldly technology to produce “stealth”airplanes, and so forth. Critics dismiss thepapers as clever fabrications, including too-precise copies of Truman’s signature photo-copied from more mundane documents.

• Alien mimicry of humankind. Finally, if aliensare not controlling humans, or at least con-tributing scientific marvels to our store ofknowledge, perhaps they have become humanbeings to rule Earth directly. A small but ardentbody of conspiracists believe that extraterres-trial beings pass for humans on a daily basis,while holding leadership positions in govern-ment and industry. Some theorists go furtheryet, suggesting that scaly creatures called “rep-tilians” have donned false faces (after the fash-ion of invaders in the TV science-fiction seriesV) to pose as men and women at the pinnacle ofpower on Earth.

See also COMMUNISM; HOLOCAUST AND HOLO-CAUST DENIAL.

UGANDABantu tribes occupied the region of present-dayUganda around 500 B.C.E., dividing the territoryamong three kingdoms (Ankole, Buganda, and Buny-oro) by the 14th century A.D. Arab traders and Euro-pean explorers arrived almost simultaneously in1844, and Uganda fell within the British “sphere ofinfluence” a half-century later by treaty agreementbetween England and GERMANY. Unlike other Britishpossessions, Uganda attracted few white settlers, butlarge numbers arrived from INDIA and PAKISTAN, sow-ing the seeds for future ethnic rivalry. Uganda wonindependence in October 1962, with Edward Mutesainstalled as the first president; Milton Obote becameprime minister. Four years later, aided by young armyofficer Idi Amin, Obote deposed Mutesa and seizedcontrol of the nation. Amin, in turn, ousted Obote inJanuary 1971, immediately expelling Asian residentswhile he launched a reign of terror against nativeopponents. In 1976 Amin declared himself presidentfor life. His tactics—including claims of cannibalfeasts with Amin’s ranking opponents on the menu—

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claimed an estimated 300,000 lives by 1977 accord-ing to Amnesty International. A curious sideshow ofAmin’s dictatorship included flirtation with Palestin-ian terrorist groups, culminating in the 1976 hijack-ing of a Lufthansa airliner from Europe to Entebbeairport where a flying squad from ISRAEL subse-quently freed the hostages. Exiled ex-president Obotelaunched an invasion of Uganda in 1980, whereuponAmin fled to SAUDI ARABIA. Obote reclaimed the pres-idency, but another military coup drove him from thecounty in July 1985. A major anti-Obote group, theNational Resistance Army, found itself excluded fromthe new regime, and its troops seized Kampala in Jan-uary 1986, installing leader Yoweri Museveni as pres-ident. Museveni is hailed for transforming postwarUganda into “an economic miracle” and for pursuinga largely successful campaign against AIDS. Nonethe-less, struggle continues with another rebel group, theLord’s Resistance Army (LRA), based in SUDAN. Thatlong war is now in its 18th year, with an estimated8,000 to 10,000 Ugandan children kidnapped toserve as LRA troops under “prophet” Joseph Kony.

See also TERRORISM.

UKRAINEUntil the 16th century A.D., Ukraine was known asKievan Rus, from which the name RUSSIA derives. Itspower peaked in the 10th century, crumbling withMongol invasions in 1240. POLAND dominatedUkraine from the mid-13th century until the Unionof Brest-Litovsk divided the region between Ortho-dox and Ukrainian Catholics. In 1654 Ukrainegranted sovereignty to the Duke of Muscovy inreturn for protection against Poland. The end resultwas annexation into Russia and the subsequent dec-laration of a Soviet republic in 1922. Coveted byGERMANY for its vast stores of grain, Ukraine wasravaged by ADOLF HITLER’s troops in World War II.Four decades later, in 1986, it suffered one of Rus-sia’s worst disasters at the CHERNOBYL nuclear plant.An independent nation since the collapse of RussianCOMMUNISM in 1991, Ukraine agreed to destroy itsstockpile of nuclear weapons three years later, butsome observers claim that those warheads have infact been sold by members of the RUSSIAN MAFIA andother outlaw groups on the international black mar-ket. Violent protests rocked the country in winter2001 as rioters demanded the resignation orimpeachment of quasi-dictator Leonid Kuchma.

President Kuchma was accused of plotting to murdera journalist who exposed government corruption, acharge supported by Kuchma’s voice on tape dis-cussing terms for the assassination. Kuchma’s partyfailed to win a clear majority in the April 2002 elec-tions, but his refusal to step down prompted anotherround of violent demonstrations, continuing sporadi-cally to the present day. In 2003 Kuchma devised ascheme to make Parliament responsible for futurepresidential elections, thereby disarming the broaderelectorate, but he dropped the plan under U.S. pres-sure in February 2004.

See also CATHOLIC CHURCH.

ULSTER Loyalist Central CoordinatingCommitteeIn 1998 Irish author Sean McPhilemy reported that aprivate organization, the Ulster Loyalist CentralCoordinating Committee (ULCCC), had collaboratedwith police officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary(RUC) to carry out terrorist murders of variousCatholic residents in Northern Ireland. Most of thevictims were members of organizations opposed tocontinued British rule in Northern Ireland, includingthe IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY and its Sinn Fein politicalarm. McPhilemy’s report on the ULCCC, updated in1999, alleged that rogue police officers and a pair ofprofessional killers hired by the committee—Robin(“The Jackal”) Jackson and Billy (“King Rat”)Wright, both deceased—murdered at least 166 vic-tims between August 1973 and May 1997. Of thosemurders, 101 were committed personally by RobinJackson, sometimes acting with accomplices. Cancerclaimed Jackson’s life in 1998, and while he is thusunavailable for questioning, McPhilemy concludesthat The Jackal “undoubtedly committed many moremurders” that remain unknown today.

A defecting ULCCC member, Ken Kerr suppliedMcPhilemy with 48 alleged committee members orassociates “who fully supported its murderous activi-ties.” Those named in print by McPhilemy—none ofwhom filed defamation actions when the charge waspublished—include: Frazer Agnew, ex-mayor of Car-rickfergus and member of the Ulster Unionist Party;Bill Abernethy, an Ulster banker, former RUC reserveofficer, and ULCCC chairman; Sammy Abraham, abusinessman in Tandragee, County Antrim; AlecBenson, a gunman for the loyalist Retaliation andDefence Group; Philip Black, a staff member in the

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computer science department at Queen’s University,Belfast; Alan Clegg, an RUC inspector and formerhead of the department’s Lurgan station; TrevorForbes, retired RUC assistant chief constable andhead of the RUC’s Special Branch; Robin Jackson,assassin; Alec Jamison, of the RUC’s “Inner Force”;Ken Kerr, ex-British soldier and a paramilitary loyal-ist; Cecil Kilpatrick, a former RUC reservist andmember of the Ulster Independence Committee; Gra-ham Long, ex-British soldier and a paramilitary loy-alist; Nelson McCausland, a Belfast city councilorand member of the Ulster Unionist Party; JohnMcCullagh, of the paramilitary Ulster Resistance;Isobel McCulloch, ULCCC secretary; Dean McCul-lough, member of the paramilitary Ulster VolunteerForce; Charles Moffett, an accountant who laun-dered money for illegal arms shipments; RichardMonteith, a Belfast attorney; Drew Nelson, attorney;Albert and David Prentice, brothers and private busi-nessmen; Hugh Ross, a Presbyterian minister andpresident of the Ulster Independence Committee;James Sands, a member of the RUC “Inner Force,”later turned informant; Lewis Singleton, attorney,partner of Drew Nelson, and member of the UlsterIndependence Committee; William Trimble, memberof parliament and leader of the Ulster Unionist Partysince 1995; Ian Whittle, of the RUC “Inner Force”;and Billy Wright, assassin. RUC detectives reportthat all alleged ULCCC members have been ques-tioned and deny any involvement in illegal activities.None has been charged with any crimes to date.

See also CATHOLIC CHURCH; TERRORISM.

UNDEAD outlawsAmericans adore flamboyant badmen—and badwomen, for that matter. Law-and-order protestsnotwithstanding, eccentric and “romantic” outlawsare revered in the United States, especially those castas “social bandits” who outwit authorities whileengaged in David-and-Goliath contests with despisedinstitutions—Old West railroads, Depression-erabanks, even the U.S. government itself. Some law-breakers transcend headlines and pass into legend.They are too colorful to die, spawning reports of sur-vival even after very public deaths. The most famousimmortal antiheroes include:

Jesse James (1847–1882): Arguably America’smost famous outlaw of all time, Jesse followed

elder brother Frank into a Confederate guerrillaunit at age 17 and never truly acknowledgedthe Civil War’s end. In 1866, back in civilianlife, the James brothers and their cousins fromthe Younger clan pioneered daylight bank rob-bery and soon branched out to rob trains. Adisastrous raid in Northfield, Minnesota, shat-tered the James-Younger gang in 1876, butFrank and Jesse escaped the trap and resumedtheir criminal activities with the Ford brothers,Bob and Charles, in 1879–81. On April 3,1882, after negotiating a $10,000 reward withMissouri’s governor, Bob Ford allegedly killedJesse at his home in St. Joseph.

Jesse was barely in the ground before a pro-cession of impostors surfaced, each in turnclaiming to be the “real” Jesse James. The mostpersuasive of the lot, 103-year-old J. Frank Dal-ton, died at Lawton, Oklahoma, in 1951, fourdecades before the invention of DNA tests thatmight have proved (or disproved) his claim. In1966 author Rudy Turilli published an accountof James-Dalton’s life, outlining a conspiracythat included Jesse’s wife and mother, Bob Ford,and Missouri governor Thomas Crittenden.Turilli claims the plotters arranged Jesse’s disap-pearance, while Ford shot another gang mem-ber, Charlie Bigelow, to take Jesse’s place in thecasket. In October 2003 DNA testing ruled outanother Jesse candidate, known in life as Jere-miah James of Neodesha, Kansas. Still, contro-versy over Jesse’s life and death continues,exacerbated in 1978 when the outlaw’s corpsewas exhumed and the bullet still lodged in hisskull was identified as .38 caliber—not the Colt.45 claimed by Bob Ford in his own account ofthe murder.

Billy the Kid (1859–1881): More than 120 yearsafter his alleged death in New Mexico, everyaspect of this Old West gunman’s life remainscontroversial, from his birth name (WilliamBonney or Henry McCarty) to his final bodycount (somewhere between 6 and 21 victims).Most of that carnage occurred during NewMexico’s infamous Lincoln County War(1878–81) when Billy allied himself with cattlebaron John Chisum against county bossLawrence Murphy and his cohorts. Sheriff PatGarrett, himself a former friend of Billy’sallegedly tracked down the Kid and shot him

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from ambush at Fort Sumner on the night ofJuly 14, 1881. As with Jesse James, however,stories quickly circulated that Bonney–McCartywas still alive. The best-known Billy, one Ollie(“Brushy Bill”) Roberts, died at Hico, Texas, in1950. After decades of controversy, in 2003,Lincoln County’s sheriff petitioned the courtsfor an exhumation order on Billy’s mother,Catherine Antrim, to compare her DNA withthat of Roberts and the body planted underBilly’s headstone at Fort Sumner. New Mexicogovernor Bill Richardson approved the plan inNovember 2003, but legal wrangling left thetests in limbo at press time for this volume.

Butch Cassidy (1866–?): Utah native RobertLeRoy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, differedfrom Jesse James and Billy the Kid in his reluc-tance to use deadly force. It hardly mattered,though, since other members of his rustling andtrain-robbing “Wild Bunch”—including Har-

vey Logan, Harry Tracy, and “Sundance Kid”Harry Longbaugh—were certified killers. WellsFargo detectives and local law officers deci-mated the gang by 1905 when Cassidy andLongbaugh fled to Bolivia, accompanied byLongbaugh’s lover, Etta Place. Six years later,after another series of holdups and narrowescapes, Butch and Sundance were allegedlytrapped and killed by Bolivian troops in a smallrural village. Various accounts claim both wereshot by soldiers, or that gravely wounded, Cas-sidy first killed his friend and then himself. Thebodies were identified by Percy Siebert, whobriefly employed Butch and Sundance at hisBolivian mine—but did he tell the truth?

In 1975 Cassidy’s sister, Lula Parker Beren-son, published a book claiming that her brotherreturned to the United States in 1910, travelingas William Thadeus Phillips. According toBerenson, Butch kept that pseudonym for the

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Stories persist that outlaw Jesse James (left) survived his alleged murder in 1882; Bob Ford (right) is variously creditedwith killing James or helping him fake his death. (Author’s collection)

remainder of his life, meeting frequently withrelatives and friends, fighting briefly as a merce-nary in the Mexican revolution, and then mar-rying and settling down in Spangle,Washington, where he finally died in 1937.Some historians find the story persuasive, butno DNA tests have confirmed it thus far. Asrelated by Berenson, Butch claimed that PercySiebert misidentified the Bolivian corpses “togive him and Sundance another chance” at life.No credible reports of Harry Longbaugh’s sur-vival have surfaced to date.

John Dillinger (1903–1934): Depression-era bankrobber John Dillinger was born in Indiana,eight years before Butch Cassidy allegedly met his fate in Bolivia. Unlike most of his felonious contemporaries in the 1920s and1930s, Dillinger’s flamboyant career lasted only11 months, but he crammed those days withdaring holdups, jailbreaks, and shootouts withlaw officers in six states. He was a living legend

at age 31 when a treacherous “woman in red”betrayed him to FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTI-GATION (FBI) agents, and he was riddled withbullets outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater onJuly 22, 1934.

Or, was he? In 1970, author Jay RobertNash claimed that Dillinger had paid a group ofmobsters and corrupt police officers to fake hisdeath, substituting look-alike Jimmy Lawrenceat the Biograph. In support of that claim, Nashproduced “Dillinger’s” autopsy report, notingdiscrepancies in height, eye color (brown, ver-sus Dillinger’s blue), and a chronic heart condi-tion unknown from Dillinger’s navy and prisonmedical records. Nash also traced the serialnumber of a pistol allegedly retrieved fromDillinger’s corpse and then displayed fordecades at FBI headquarters, and he found thatthe gun was manufactured months after theBiograph shooting. Finally, Nash produced letters written by the “real Dillinger” in 1959

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Some theorists believe that Billy the Kid (left) was killed by Sheriff Patrick Garrett (right) in New Mexico. (Author’s collection)

and 1963, together with a photo of theirauthor, but he never traced the suspect for aninterview. Skeptics maintain that 1930s-eracoroners’ reports were often filled with errors,making them unreliable for the most part. Asfor Dillinger’s missing gun, author WilliamHelmer suggests that J. EDGAR HOOVER claimedthe weapon as a personal keepsake, replacing itwith a “ringer” in the FBI trophy case.

“Machine Gun” Kelly (1895–1954): Chicagonative George Barnes, Jr., changed his surnameto Kelly in 1926 between arrests for bootleg-ging. Paroled from Leavenworth federal prisonin 1930, he graduated to bank robbery andallegedly received his famous nickname from

wife Katherine—who (legend has it) boughtGeorge a Tommy gun and nagged him intobecoming a proficient marksman. In July 1933,with accomplice Al Bates, Kelly kidnappedOklahoma oilman Charles Urschel and col-lected $200,000 ransom. At his arrest on Sep-tember 26, 1933, Kelly supposedly gave FBIagents their own headline tag, cowering beforetheir guns and pleading, “Don’t shoot, G-men!” (In fact, he was captured by Memphispolice, with the remark, “I’ve been expectingyou.”) Sentenced to life imprisonment, Kellyreportedly died of a heart attack, at Leaven-worth, on July 18, 1954.

That version of events remained unchallengeduntil 1988 when authors Jim Dobkins and BenJordan published Machine Gun Man: The TrueStory of My Incredible Survival into the 1970s.“Incredible” was the operative word, asDobkins and Jordan served up memoirs of thelate John H. Webb—allegedly Machine GunKelly in the flesh. Webb, conveniently deceasedby the time his story went to press, advanced afar-fetched tale of prison identity theft, whereinhe (that is, George Kelly) switched names withanother inmate who resembled him and thenclaimed the other man’s parole after his death.To accept the fable, readers must believe thatguards, clerks, and administrators at the federallockup either did not notice Kelly’s switch orsimply did not care.

UNION CarbideUnion Carbide is a chemical manufacturer, since Feb-ruary 2001 a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company(the world’s leading producer of napalm). Foundedin 1898 Union Carbide is best known for INDIA’sBhopal disaster of December 3, 1984, when 40 tonsof deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas escaped froma pesticide factory located in the heart of town. Morethan 2,000 residents of Bhopal died immediately,while at least 150,000 more (some reports say600,000) suffered grievous injury from the toxicfumes. Another 6,000 victims ultimately died fromexposure to the lethal fumes.

Investigation of the tragedy revealed that leakageoccurred when water was introduced into MIC hold-ing tanks at the Union Carbide factory, generatinglarge volumes of gas and forcing an emergency

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Some authors believe 1930s bandit John Dillinger fakedhis own death with help from the FBI and organizedcrime. (FBI)

release of pressure. Chemical “scrubbers” thatshould have captured and detoxified the MIC wereoff-line for repairs at the time, one of many safetyprocedures bypassed at the plant. Indian officialscharged that those vital safeguards were ignored inthe interest of cost cutting, and while Union Carbidestill denies that allegation, documents admitted dur-ing litigation in a New York federal court reveal thatUnion Carbide frequently exported “untested tech-nology” to its Bhopal facility.

Victims of the Bhopal disaster sued Union Carbidefor $3 billion, and while the firm settled that case outof court in February 1989 with a payment of $470million, corporate spokespersons still deny complic-ity in the deaths. (Officially, Union Carbide blamesthe leaks on TERRORISM or acts of “industrial sabo-tage” by persons unknown.) Warren Anderson,Union Carbide’s CEO in 1984, was charged with cul-pable homicide and was declared a fugitive from jus-tice by Bhopal’s chief judicial magistrate on February1, 1992. Extradition hearings were threatened butnever pursued, leaving Anderson to enjoy his retire-ment in America while denying any role in the disas-ter. Meanwhile, journalists report that little of the$470 million settlement ever reached survivors of theincident. Union Carbide sold its Bhopal plant to anIndian battery manufacturer in 1994; Dow Chemicalpurchased the rest in 2001 for $10.3 billion in stockand debt settlements. At last report, several hundredtons of toxic waste remain untouched at the Bhopalfactory, threatening residents to this day with newailments in an area where cancer rates are alreadyhigher than normal.

UNIONE CorséThe French crime syndicate commonly known as theUnione Corsé or Corsican MAFIA is based in Mar-seilles, but its tentacles extend worldwide. Spawnedon the island of Corsica—the French equivalent ofSicily, in terms of criminality, blood feuds, and anoppressive code of silence—the Unione Corsé estab-lished profitable drug-dealing outposts whereverFrance had colonies during the 20th century, includ-ing Indochina and North Africa. In the 1930sFrench fascists hired syndicate thugs to battle com-munist demonstrators in the streets. A decade later,under Nazi occupation, the Unione Corsé hired outto Red resistance fighters for the GESTAPO. In thepostwar era strategists from the U.S. CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY continued that tradition,using French mobsters to harass and disrupt left-wing labor unions. The U.S.-Corsican connectionswiftly established Marseilles as a center of HEROIN

production and export, obtaining morphine basefrom covert labs in LAOS, THAILAND, and VIETNAM.Corsican dominance of the Asian drug trade waschallenged after 1954 when French troops werereplaced by American forces in Vietnam, but theUnione Corsé retained a strong presence throughoutSoutheast Asia and established a close relationshipwith U.S. mobsters to complete the “French Connec-tion” to New York.

An alleged Unione Corsé connection to the 1963JFK ASSASSINATION surfaced 25 years after the fact, in1988, when the British Broadcasting Company aireda television series titled The Men Who KilledKennedy. One episode of that speculative seriesdetailed California author Stephen Rivele’s inter-views with Christian David, a Corsican gangsterimprisoned in the United States for drug trafficking.According to Rivele and the BBC, David agreed toshare his knowledge of President Kennedy’s murderin exchange for Rivele’s help in obtaining a lawyer.David claimed that in May or June 1963, he wasoffered the contract on JFK’s life in Marseilles byUnione Corsé leader Antoine Guérini. David declinedthe offer, but he subsequently learned details of themurder while traveling in Argentina on mob businessin 1965. Three shooters were involved, he told Riv-ele, but syndicate “honor” prevented David fromnaming those still alive. He offered the first name ofa deceased participant—“Lucien,” whom Rivele lateridentified as Corsican mobster Lucien Sarti, killed ina shootout with Mexican police in 1972.

After providing technical details of the Kennedyassassination—secret flights and border crossings,triangulated rifle fire in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza—David urged Rivele to grill another Corsican,Michel Nicoli, then hiding in the U.S. federal wit-ness-protection program. Rivele located Nicoli withhelp from Agent Michael Tobin in the DrugEnforcement Administration (DEA) and obtainedstatements corroborating David’s story. Nicoli alsoadded a twist with his declaration that the killers ofJFK were paid off in heroin, which they sold forcash with Nicoli’s help in Brazil. Agent Tobindescribed Nicoli to Rivele as the most reliableinformant Tobin had known during 30 years withthe DEA, opining that if Nicoli said something,

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“You could go to the bank on it.” Rivele concludedthat New Orleans mobster CARLOS MARCELLO—abitter enemy of the Kennedys who was illegallydeported by Attorney General Robert Kennedy in1962—contracted the JFK murder through Mar-seilles to divert suspicion from himself.

See also COMMUNISM; FASCISM.

UNION Station massacreNo event in FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

(FBI) history had a more profound impact than the“massacre” at Kansas City’s Union Station on June17, 1933. It propelled Congress to expand bureauauthority and powers, launching the “war on crime”that would make J. EDGAR HOOVER an internationalcelebrity. Another 30-odd years elapsed before thelegend was exposed as fiction.

The story begins with fugitive Frank Nash, cap-tured by G-men at Hot Springs, Arkansas, on June16, 1933. Because they lacked arrest powers, theagents recruited an Oklahoma police officer to givetheir raid tenuous legitimacy. More agents and localpolice waited to meet the party at Kansas City’sUnion Station escort Nash the final 30 miles to Leav-enworth Prison along back roads. The train withNash and company aboard arrived at 7:00 A.M. onJune 17. Moments later, as they piled into a pair ofwaiting cars, the law officers were ambushed andgunfire erupted. Nash was killed, along with FBIAgent Raymond Caffrey, Police Chief Otto Reed,Officer W. J. Grooms, and Officer Frank Hermanson.Agents Francis Lackey and Reed Vetterli werewounded; Agent Frank Smith escaped harm.

Patrolman Mike Fanning witnessed the ambushand fired at one of the shooters, a “fat man” who fellas if wounded. “I don’t know whether I hit him orwhether he fell to escape,” Fanning told reporters.“In any event he got up, fired another volley into thecar, and ran toward a light Oldsmobile car, whichroared west toward Broadway. As the car raced outof the parking lot I saw three men in it, but theremay have been more.” As the Oldsmobile escaped,Fanning said, “A 1933 Chevrolet car with more gun-ners swooped past [Caffrey’s] parked car and riddledit from the rear. I ran into the street, fired two shotsinto the back of that car, and rushed to the parkedChevrolet. I still didn’t know the men in it were offi-cers.” Thus, if Fanning was correct, there were twocars involved in the attack and at least six men—

three in the Oldsmobile, plus a driver and “moregunners” in the Chevrolet.

The problem for investigators was identifyingthose responsible and running them to earth. Eyewit-nesses were hopelessly confused. Surviving agentsSmith and Lackey disagreed on the number of assas-sins involved, but both initially reported that theyhad not seen the shooters’ faces. Agent Vetterli iden-tified one triggerman as Robert Brady, an escapedconvict and partner of bandit Harvey Bailey. Thatstatement meshed with testimony from twobystanders who named Bailey as one of the gunmen.One of those witnesses, Samuel Link, also named thegang’s wheelman as bandit Wilbur Underhill, but FBIreports described Link as delusional. Another shakywitness, Lottie West, identified one of the gunmen asbank robber Charles (“Pretty Boy”) Floyd, but herclaim was contradicted by others who named theman she saw as a Union Station employee.

Ballistics evidence was problematic. Souvenirhunters looted the crime scene before police securedit, leaving only a handful of cartridge cases behind,and those were useless without weapons for compar-ison. There were other shells, though, found insidethe FBI vehicle where Agent Lackey had fired tworounds from a 16-gauge shotgun, its cartridgesloaded with steel ball bearings in place of the usualbuckshot. Lackey’s first shot, whether accidentally orby design, had killed Frank Nash. Steel shotgun pel-lets also caused the fatal head wounds suffered byAgent Caffrey and Officer Hermanson, but G-menswiftly buried that evidence. Chief Reed was strucktwice in the head—once by a .45-caliber slug, andonce by a .38-caliber round. Either wound waspotentially fatal, but the order of impact was neverdetermined, and none of the five .38s carried by lawofficers that day were test-fired for comparison. Theothers killed or wounded at Union Station (Grooms,Lackey, and Vetterli) were all struck by 45-caliberbullets from submachine guns or pistols—but whodid the shooting?

Telephone records revealed conversations betweenNash’s wife and Missouri mobster Vernon Miller onJune 16. Miller was long gone when G-men searchedhis home, but fingerprints discovered there werechecked in vain against a list of fugitives includingHarvey Bailey, Wilbur Underhill, Pretty Boy Floyd,and frequent Floyd accomplice Adam Richetti. Muchlater, on February 13, 1934, agents “found” new fin-gerprints at Miller’s home and matched one to

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Richetti a month later. Assuming that Floyd must beinvolved with any action of Richetti’s, FBI headquar-ters named Miller, Richetti, and Floyd as the UnionStation killers. The second carload of assassins wasnever thereafter discussed.

Verne Miller was already dead by that time,beaten to death in Detroit on November 29, 1933,but agents arrested his girlfriend and held her incom-municado until she signed a statement naming Miller,Floyd, and Richetti as the killers. Floyd waswounded in the left shoulder, she said, thus explain-ing bloody rags found at Miller’s home. In October1934 Floyd and Richetti surfaced in Ohio. Richettiwas captured on October 19; Floyd was cornered byG-men three days later and killed in what one wit-ness described as a summary execution.

FBI ballistics experts allegedly matched one ofFloyd’s .45 automatics to a single shell casing foundat Union Station, but his autopsy raised new prob-lems. There was no shoulder wound, as described byMiller’s girlfriend, so agents extracted a new state-ment: This time the woman “remembered” that thebloody rags belonged to an entirely different fugitive.As for the rest of her story, she swore that Floyd’sshoulder wound “was the only part I wasn’t tellingthe truth about in the first statement.”

Hoover was satisfied, and Richetti was indictedfor killing Officer Hermanson. The only physical evi-dence offered at trial in June 1935 was the finger-print from Miller’s basement. Agents Vetterli andSmith changed their original statements and identi-fied dead suspects Floyd and Miller as theirassailants. Agent Lackey—Hermanson’s actualkiller—named Richetti as one of the assassins andfalsely denied firing any shots himself. Richetti wasconvicted on June 17 and executed on October 7,1938. The truth about his frame-up was revealed byauthor Robert Unger in 1997, including an FBIagent’s admission to federal judge William Becker:“Our agent sitting in the back seat pulled the triggeron Nash, and that started it. The machine gunnersdidn’t shoot first. Our guy panicked.”

UNITED Fruit CompanyOrganized in 1899 the United Fruit Company pro-vided a classic example of neocolonialism, rankingamong the earliest multinational corporations whose(often destructive) influence deeply penetrated theinternal government and policies of various Third

World nations. It is from United Fruit and its prede-cessors—including Boston Fruit and Cuyamil Fruit—that we recognize the term banana republic asdenoting a corrupt and brutal regime wherein pur-suit of profit and power override concerns for humanrights and quality of life.

United Fruit owned vast plantations throughoutCentral America, where it corrupted governments bymeans of brute force and wholesale graft, becominga virtual law unto itself. Its first overt display ofpower came in 1910 when the president of HON-DURAS refused United Fruit’s demands for favoredtax status. In short order a shipload of mercenarythugs sailed from New Orleans and toppled the Hon-duran government, installing a new president whoinstantly granted the firm a 25-year exemption fromany taxation.

GUATEMALA was another stronghold of UnitedFruit, known locally as Mamá Yunay (“MommyUnited”). There, while erecting schools for childrenof company employees, the firm effectively blockedgovernment construction of highways throughoutthe country, thus preserving its lucrative railroadmonopoly. In 1954, when President Jacobo ArbenzGuzman planned to nationalize company land forredistribution to peasant farmers, United Fruit andits bankers persuaded President Dwight Eisenhowerthat Arbenz was a dangerous Communist. At thecompany’s behest, Eisenhower mobilized the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY to support a coup d’étatagainst Arbenz, resulting in the overthrow of hisregime and a long-running civil war that claimed atleast 100,000 lives.

United Fruit dissolved in 1970, but its successorsstill maintain powerful influence in COLOMBIA,COSTA RICA, CUBA, Guatemala, Honduras, andPANAMA, where “dollar diplomacy” and suppressionof human rights often go hand in hand.

See also COMMUNISM.

UNITED NationsDuring World War I President Woodrow Wilson con-ceived the notion of a League of Nations, organizedto keep the peace and mediate global disputes with-out bloodshed. Wilson lobbied hard for the leagueand succeeded in winning the cooperation ofEurope’s leading postwar powers, but isolationists inthe U.S. Senate refused to approve its country’s par-ticipation. While the resultant league successfully

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resolved minor border disputes in the Balkans andCentral Asia, it had no military forces of its own andno legal authority to act against sovereign nations. Inthe 1930s it was thus unable to prevent aggressiveactions by the military governments of GERMANY,ITALY, and JAPAN that lit the fuse for World War IIand claimed an estimated 30 million lives in1939–45.

With that conflict still in progress, Allied leadersbegan negotiations for a new and more powerfulpeacekeeping organization to solve the world’sproblems. President Franklin Roosevelt suggestedthe name United Nations (UN), officially aired forthe first time in January 1942. From August toOctober 1944 representatives of the United States,FRANCE, CHINA, Britain, and RUSSIA met at theDumbarton Oaks Estate in Washington, D.C., tooutline the UN’s structure and duties. One partici-pant in those meetings, U.S. State Departmentemployee ALGER HISS, was later accused of espi-onage by the HOUSE UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES

COMMITTEE, a circumstance that prompted right-wing activists to denounce the United Nations as aprocommunist organization. Officially founded inSan Francisco on October 24, 1945, the UnitedNations held its first general meeting (with 51nations represented) in London on January 10,1946. Membership is open to all “peace-lovingstates,” a label sometimes honored more in thebreech than in observance. As this volume went topress, 191 nations belonged to the United Nations,many of them (including the United States, Russia,and ISRAEL) anything but peaceful.

From its beginning the United Nations has figuredprominently in a host of conspiracy theories. Some,like the allegations that sabotage caused UN Secre-tary DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD’s fatal plane crash, involveplots against selected individuals. Most such theo-ries, however, paint conspiracies on a grand scale.Since the 1950s, members of the JOHN BIRCH SOCI-ETY and similar far-right groups have maintainedthat UN leaders (including “traitors” in Washington)plot day and night to subvert U.S. sovereignty infavor of an insidious “one world government.”Those theories were revived in the 1990s, principallyby paramilitary militia groups, which cast the UnitedNations as the advance guard of a shadowy NEW

WORLD ORDER. Also, while the modern UnitedNations does have military units that are engaged aspeacekeepers at various points around the world, no

evidence has been produced thus far of any plot todominate the planet. In fact, as President George W.Bush prepared to launch OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

and topple the SADDAM HUSSEIN regime in 2003, UNopposition fell on deaf ears, and Bush declared theUnited Nations “irrelevant” in terms of U.S. foreignpolicy.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; COMMUNISM; MILITIAS.

USA PATRIOT ActIt was inevitable that the PENTTBOM attacks of Sep-tember 11, 2001, would produce new federal legisla-tion aimed at future acts of TERRORISM. Criticscharge, however, that the law enacted by Congressand signed by President George W. Bush on October26, 2001, is a leap toward erosion of basic civilrights. The law’s authors titled it the Uniting andStrengthening America by Providing AppropriateTools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism(USA PATRIOT) Act. Its major provisions includeexpansion of wiretaps and bugging; broader author-ity to search computers, increased FEDERAL BUREAU

OF INVESTIGATION access to confidential records;revival of banned domestic surveillance by the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY; detention of foreign“suspects” without charges; official designation of“terrorist” groups linked to deportation of alienmembers; secret searches of private property;removal of the long-standing legal barrier betweenforeign intelligence gathering and domestic criminalcases; increased federal access to banking records;expansion of border surveillance; and broadened def-initions of domestic terrorism including any attempt“to influence the policy of a government by intimida-tion or coercion.”

As administered by Attorney General JOHN

ASHCROFT, the Patriot Act has already sparked aseries of lawsuits. Mass detention of Muslim immi-grants who registered with immigration authoritiesas required by post-“9/11” regulations haveprompted class-action litigation by the AmericanCivil Liberties Union and other groups (still unre-solved as this work went to press). It seems certainthat various provisions of the law will face challengesin court for years to come. Such criticism notwith-standing, Ashcroft appeared before Congress in 2003and 2004 with complaints that he needed morepower to perform his duties.

See also BUSH DYNASTY.

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URUGUAYCharrúas aborigines inhabited Uruguay beforeinvaders from PORTUGAL arrived to “settle” theregion in 1680; nearly all indigenous people hadbeen exterminated by the time SPAIN seized control ofthe country in 1778. Uruguay threw off the Spanishyoke in 1811, but Portuguese invaders from BRAZIL

returned to assert dominance six years later. Finalindependence was won with help from ARGENTINA in1825, but the establishment of a republic failed toquell domestic bloodshed. A rebellion in 1836touched off a half-century of mayhem, including abrutal civil war (1839–51) and a war with PARAGUAY

(1865–70), sporadically interrupted by military

incursions from Argentina and Brazil. In 1973 a mili-tary coup toppled Uruguay’s civilian government,and for the next 12 years a military junta ruled thenation by means of TERRORISM and oppression, jail-ing or executing thousands of political prisoners.Finally, to avert a popular uprising, the juntarestored elections in November 1984 and relin-quished power four months later, leaving the countrya legacy of runaway inflation and crippling nationaldebt. At press time for this volume Uruguay was stillmired in recession. A commission established inAugust 2000 to investigate the disappearance of 160dissidents under the defunct military regime has yetto report its findings.

VATICAN BankFew institutions on Earth possess more wealth—most of it untaxed—than the CATHOLIC CHURCH.That wealth is managed and manipulated byRome’s Institute for Religious Works, more com-monly known as the Vatican Bank. Throughout thelatter half of the 20th century, recurring scandalsrocked the Vatican Bank as it was accused ofhoarding GOLD and other treasures stolen by agentsof the THIRD REICH during World War II, collabo-rating with fugitives accused of heinous WAR

CRIMES, paying hush-money to countless victims ofPEDOPHILE PRIESTS, and working with the MAFIA toreap vast profits from illicit enterprises. Some crit-ics go so far as to suggest that Vatican bankers andtheir criminal cohorts conspired to murder PopeJOHN PAUL I and replace him with a more pliablepontiff.

Public scandals surrounding the Vatican Bankinitially sprang from its relationship (and partialownership) of Banco Ambrosiano, an Italian finan-cial institution. Ambrosiano’s president, RobertoCalvi, was convicted on corruption charges in 1981but remained free on bail pending appeal of thatverdict. On June 11, 1982, Calvi fled ITALY with asuitcase full of documents. Those papers were miss-ing eight days later when authorities found Calvi’sbody hanging under Blackfriar’s Bridge in London,his pockets stuffed with bricks and $15,000 in cash.Calvi’s death was ruled a suicide in July 1982, but a

second inquest 12 months later returned an “open”verdict, admitting the possibility of foul play. Inves-tigators disclosed that Calvi had ties to the Mafia,the CAMORRA, and “P2,” a secretive right-winggroup of FREEMASONS in Rome. Twenty years afterhis death, a new forensic report officially declaredCalvi’s death a murder. At press time for this vol-ume, four suspects—including a known Mafiosoand Calvi’s Austrian lover—faced homicide chargesin that case. Other allegations against the VaticanBank during the past quarter-century include thefollowing:

1986—Italian police issued arrest warrants forCatholic Archbishop Paul Marcinkus (presi-dent of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989),charging financial irregularities. The felonycounts were later dismissed under a 1929statute barring Italian courts from prosecutingVatican officials. Pope JOHN PAUL II shelteredMarcinkus in Vatican City for seven years andthen packed him off to the United States, wherehe remains at press time for this work, servingas a parish priest in Arizona.

1990—Media reports linked the Vatican Bank to abribery scandal in Milan. As reported in thepress, private corporations had paid out $105million in bribes to various local officials, some$63 million of that amount laundered throughthe Institute of Religious Works in Rome.

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2001—Investigative journalists accused the Vati-can Bank of hiding more than $55 billion inillicit funds from various criminal cartels inItaly. Reporters for the London Telegraph andInside Fraud Bulletin called the Vatican aleading “cut-out” country with financial oper-ations active in Macau, Mauritius, andNauru. According to those reports, the Vati-can “ranked well ahead of such offshorehavens as the Bahamas, Switzerland, andLiechtenstein” in terms of global money laun-dering for swindlers, drug dealers, and otherfelons.

2002—Insurance commissioners in five U.S.states filed a $600 million federal racketeeringlawsuit against the Vatican Bank alleging that Catholic leaders aided and abetted insurance frauds committed by convictedswindler Martin Frankel. The lawsuits chal-lenged Vatican sovereign immunity—a con-cept that permits Vatican City, as the world’ssmallest “nation,” legally to conceal wrong-doing by its financial agents. Trial is pendingin that case.

VENEZUELAChristopher Columbus “discovered” Venezuela onhis third New World voyage in 1498, and laterSpanish explorers coined the name which means“Little Venice.” Simón Bolívar, who later liberatedmuch of South America from SPAIN, was born atCaracas in 1783 and joined in Venezuela’s successfulwar for independence (1810–21). Initially mergedwith COLOMBIA and ECUADOR as the Republic ofGreater Colombia, Venezuela became an independ-ent state in 1830. A string of unstable dictatorshipsfollowed, financed by the discovery of OIL in theearly 20th century. Leftist leader Rómulo Betancourtand his Democratic Action Party won control of thegovernment and drafted a new constitution in 1946,installing Rómulo Gallegos as Venezuela’s first dem-ocratically elected president a year later. Gallegoslasted all of eight months in office before a militarycoup replaced him with dictator Marcos PerézJiménez. Peréz, in turn, was ousted by another bandof rebels in 1958, and since that time oil-richVenezuela has ranked among the more stableregimes of Latin America. The United States was

alarmed when President Rafael Caldera Rodriguez(1969–74) legalized the Communist Party, estab-lished diplomatic relations with RUSSIA, and nation-alized foreign-owned oil and steel companies, but noarmed intervention was forthcoming. Economicrecession prompted President Hugo Chavez toexpand government authority in 1999, promptingcriticism that he had imposed a leftist dictatorship.Widespread strikes have swept the country sinceDecember 2001, including a massive antigovern-ment demonstration in April 2002 wherein 12 pro-testers were killed by police. A coalition of businessand military leaders next illegally drove Chavezfrom power, but he recaptured control of the gov-ernment two days later. Strikes continue in the oilindustry and other vital areas, while SECRET POLICE

harass labor leaders across the country.See also COMMUNISM.

VIETNAMPortuguese explorers “discovered” the region ofmodern-day Vietnam in the 16th century to establishtrading posts that were supplanted by Frenchcolonists 300 years later. Despite brief interruptionby JAPAN in World War II, FRANCE ruledIndochina—including the present nations of Viet-nam, CAMBODIA, and LAOS—from the 1880s until1954. Rebel leader Ho Chi Minh requested U.S. aidin liberating his country from French imperialforces, but President Harry Truman preferred tosupport France against Vietnam’s native people.When that effort failed and France was defeated,negotiators agreed that Vietnam would be divideduntil nationwide elections were held in 1955 toselect the next president. Ho Chi Minh won an over-whelming majority, whereupon Washington andpuppet ruler Ngo Dinh Diem reneged on the agree-ment, declaring that North and South Vietnamshould be permanently separated. Thus began thehopeless U.S. struggle to “save” Vietnam from itselfby means of supporting one corrupt tyrant afteranother. After eight years of brutal totalitarian rule,Diem lost U.S. favor and was assassinated onNovember 1, 1963. His replacements encouragedbroader U.S. involvement in Vietnam’s civil war, while they grew rich from HEROIN exportsfacilitated by the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.Dissent at home finally compelled PresidentRICHARD NIXON to withdraw U.S. combat troops

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from Vietnam in 1972, but the southern regimefought on until April 1975. All told, the war claimedat least 58,000 U.S. lives, while killing an estimated1.3 million to 3 million Vietnamese.

Ho’s victory in 1975 reunited Vietnam, but it didnot end the nation’s conflicts. Border fighting withCAMBODIA escalated through 1977, while CHINA

complained that its people were subjected to racistpersecution in Vietnam. Sixty thousand Vietnamesetroops invaded Cambodia and toppled the regime ofgenocidal dictator Pol Pot, while Chinese forcesinvaded northern Vietnam in 1979. Vietnamesetroops began to withdraw from Cambodia and Laosin 1988, though final peace accords between Cambo-dia and Vietnam would not be signed until October1991. The collapse of Russian COMMUNISM thatsame year left Vietnam as one of the few avowedly“Red” states remaining on Earth. Even there, how-ever, economic problems and a breakdown in Marx-ist theory prompted trends away from traditionalCommunist measures. Some critics insist that Vietnamstill conceals an uncertain number of U.S. POWs, for reasons unknown, but 30-odd years since the endof overt hostilities, the case is increasingly difficult to prove.

VOTESCAMElection fraud is a serious concern in any jurisdic-tion where a pretense of democracy exists.Throughout the world election outcomes are rou-tinely challenged on grounds of vote rigging, intimi-dation, and other corrupt practices that effectivelynegate popular suffrage. In some nations, particu-larly in the so-called Third World, rigged electionssometimes spark armed rebellions, toppling regimesthat claim legitimate authority even as their candi-dates are driven into exile or are dragged to the gal-lows. It would be comforting to think that theUnited States is immune to such foibles, but sadly,that is not the case.

From the TWEED RING and TAMMANY HALL toELECTION 2000, U.S. political contests have beenmarred by accusations of wholesale fraud and corruption—often with sufficient evidence to justify imprisonment of those responsible, thoughprosecutions are extremely rare. Two Americanpresidents—RUTHERFORD B. HAYES and George W.Bush—“won” their office in contests where theiropponents received clear majorities of the popular

vote, while most historians today concede that JohnKennedy stole the 1960 presidential election fromRICHARD NIXON with help from the MAFIA and corrupt Chicago mayor RICHARD JOSEPH DALEY.Kennedy’s running mate, LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON,was known in Texas as “Landslide Lyndon,” forthe frequency with which dead voters rose to casttheir eleventh-hour ballots in alphabetical order.Southern whites, meanwhile, complained of Repub-lican electoral malfeasance throughout RECON-STRUCTION, and they formed the KU KLUX KLAN toeradicate black suffrage by means of TERRORISM. Acentury later, the TALMADGE DYNASTY still ruledGeorgia by night-riding terror, while Missouri bossTOM PENDERGAST groomed Harry Truman for theWhite House. Political bosses from coast to coastrose or fell on their ability to deliver blocs ofvotes—from immigrants, saloons, graveyards, orlunatic asylums—variously “stuffing” or “losing”ballot boxes according to their needs.

The mechanics of election fraud changed radi-cally with the demise of paper ballots and the intro-duction of electronic voting machines in the 1970s.From that day to the present, some observers have alleged the existence of a national “Votescam”conspiracy, in which both major parties are accusedof stealing or fabricating votes in their pursuit ofpower. In 1988 Harvard University computerexpert Howard Strauss remarked to CBS News onthe subject of electronic vote counting: “Get me ajob with the company that writes the software forthis program. Then I’d have access to one-third ofthe votes. Is that enough to fix a general election?When it comes to computerized elections, there areno safeguards. It’s not a door without locks, it’s ahouse, without doors.” In short, U.S. voters maynever really know how many votes were cast in anygiven election or which candidate secured a legiti-mate majority.

Ironically, the scandals surrounding Election2000 actually may have exacerbated vote fraud inAmerica. The uproar over Florida’s “illegible” bal-lots and “hanging chads” in November 2000prompted a new wave of “reform” under PresidentBush, including passage of the federal Help AmericaVote Act, which delivered thousands of new elec-tronic voting machines to precincts across theUnited States. Votescam critic Victoria Collierdescribed those “Touch Screen Trojan horses” asfollows:

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These machines are not just unverifiable, they are

secretly programmed (their software is not open to

scrutiny by election officials or computer experts),

equipped with modems, accessible by computer,

telephone, and satellite. They are the final product

of decades of work by the election rigging industry.

When they are installed in every precinct in America,

our elections will finally become completely meaning-

less, nothing more than charades behind which criminal

thugs will wield the power of this nation.

The 2004 presidential election took place withoutthe controversy that had marred the 2000 vote.Afterward scattered claims of voting fraud weremade around the nation, but no evidence emerged tosupport specific claims relevant to “votescam.”

At press time for this volume, there are still nosafeguards on the system, a fact that encouragesconspiracists to fear the worst—and, perhaps, withgood reason.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

WALKER, John, Jr.John Walker, Jr., was a communications specialist andchief warrant officer in the U.S. Navy who sold himselfas a spy for RUSSIA in the 1960s, afterward recruitingfriends and relatives to continue theft of classified dataeven after Walker himself retired from the service in1975. As a cover for his spying on behalf of Commu-nists, Walker cultivated a right-wing image by joiningthe KU KLUX KLAN and the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY—bothof which were suitably embarrassed by his arrest in1985. Before FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

agents finally bagged Walker and his ring of accom-plices, the network deciphered more than one millionsecret messages for Moscow, earning Walker recogni-tion as one of the 20th century’s most effective anddangerous spies. Federal authorities completely over-looked Walker’s activities and relatively lavish lifestyle,fueled by more than $1 million in payoffs for stolenintelligence. It finally required a tip from Walker’s wifeto crack the ring, whereupon Walker and severalcohorts were convicted of espionage and imprisonedfor life. Son Michael Walker, a relatively minor playerin the network, turned state’s evidence to save himselfand was released from custody in February 2000.

See also COMMUNISM.

WALLACE, George (1919–1998)Alabama’s premier racist demagogue of moderntimes was born in Barbour County on August 25,

1919. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Force dur-ing World War II, Wallace plunged headlong into theCotton State’s one-party (Democratic) political sys-tem, winning election to the state legislature(1947–53) and a circuit judgeship (1953–58). Wal-lace set his sights on the governor’s mansion in 1958,challenging racist hard-liner John Patterson from theposture of a racial moderate, condemning Patterson’sopen alliance with the violent KU KLUX KLAN (KKK).Crushing defeat in that contest taught Wallace themost important lesson of his political career. “Theyout-niggered me that time,” he remarked to friends,“but they’ll never do it again.”

In 1962 Wallace courted Klan support and hand-ily won the election. Returning the favor, heappointed Klan members to various high-rankingposts (including command of Alabama’s state police)and streamlined parole for Klansmen convicted ofcastrating a black man in 1957. Wallace’s inaugura-tion address in January 1963 (written by formerKlan chief ASA EARL CARTER) hinged on a singlepromise to his white constituents: “Segregationtoday, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”To that end, he subverted federal investigations ofKlan TERRORISM (including the notorious BAPBOMB

case of 1963), denounced state attorney generalRichmond Flowers for “wasting time” on investiga-tions of KKK murders and vetoed legislation thatwould have imposed harsh penalties for illegal pos-session of dynamite by Klan bombers.

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State law barred Wallace from a second term in1966, so wife Lurleen campaigned for governor in athinly veiled charade to keep George in power. Itworked, and while Wallace busied himself with a runfor the White House in 1968—polling 9.4 millionvotes for the American Independent Party (organizedby members of the KKK, the CITIZENS’ COUNCILS,and the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY) that November—loyalstate legislators expunged the statutory ban on suc-cessive gubernatorial terms. Wallace returned to thegovernor’s mansion in 1971, serving as Alabama’schief of state through 1978 and again from 1983 to1987. His second run for the White House as an AIPcandidate was scuttled on May 15, 1972, whenwould-be assassin Arthur Bremer shot Wallace at apolitical rally in Maryland. Thereafter confined to awheelchair, Wallace subsequently retreated from his

hard-line racist and ultraconservative views, prompt-ing one Klan leader to complain in 1976 that Wallace“is not as white as he was in 1968. His mind hasdeteriorated, I’m sorry to say, along with his body.”Wallace died at a Montgomery, Alabama, hospital onSeptember 13, 1998.

WANNSEE ConferenceThis key event in the Holocaust occurred at GrossenWannsee, near Berlin, on January 20, 1942, whenleaders of the THIRD REICH met to plan details of ADOLF HITLER’s “final solution to the Jewish question.” Attendees included SS-Obergruppe führerReinhard Heydrich (chief of the GESTAPO); SS-Obersturmbannführer ADOLF EICHMANN; Dr. AlfredMeyer (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Ter-ritories); Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart (Reich Ministry for theInterior); Dr. Roland Freisler (Reich Ministry of Jus-tice); SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann (Race andSettlement Main Office); Dr. Erich Neumann (Headof the Four Year Plan Office); Dr. Martin Luther (For-eign Office); Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger (ReichChancellery); Dr. Josef Buhler (Governor of occupiedPoland); Dr. Karl Eberhard Schongarth (commanderof the Nazi intelligence service); Dr. Rudolf Lange(commanding the intelligence service in Latvia);Reichsamtleiter Dr. Georg Leibbrandt; SS-OberführerGerhard Klopfer; and SS-Gruppenführer HeinrichMuller (Gestapo). Surviving minutes of the meetingindicate that Nazi leaders planned to eliminate anestimated 11 million Jews from Europe. While nomention of mass murder was recorded on paper, theminutes refer to mass deportation of Jews to the Eastfor “appropriate labor . . . in the course of whichaction doubtless a large portion will be eliminated bynatural causes.” Furthermore, the “final remnantwill . . . have to be treated accordingly, because it . . .would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewishrevival.” Eichmann and other attendees, when triedfor WAR CRIMES after World War II, admitted that“extermination” of Jews and persons of “mixedblood” was bluntly discussed during the conference.

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

WAR crimesAll warfare includes some measure of atrocity, butleading nations of the Earth have tried for the past150 years to make mortal combat more “civilized.”

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Alabama governor George Wallace forged a closealliance with the terrorist Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s.(Florida State Archives)

A code of maritime law was established in April1856, followed eight years later by the Lieber Code,dictating proper behavior for the U.S. Army in themidst of America’s great Civil War. The first of manyGeneva Conventions occurred in August 1864, pro-ducing guidelines for “the Amelioration of the Con-dition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field.”Successive conclaves renounced the use of certainexplosives (December 1868); limited the use of toxicgas and expanding “dum-dum” bullets (July 1899);banned the discharge of projectiles and explosivesfrom balloons (October 1907); established laws ofnaval warfare (February 1909); banned toxic gasesand bacterial weapons (June 1925); codified treat-ment of captured soldiers (July 1929); bannedattacks on historic monuments and artistic or scien-tific institutions (April 1935); and protected civilianpopulations from “new engines of war as intro-duced” (1938).

Observance of those treaties was limited to signa-tories, and even they might violate the terms at anytime without fear of repercussions since no tribunalexisted to try war-crimes cases. The first such tribu-nal was established in August 1945 by the victors inWorld War II to prosecute defeated Axis leaders forwar crimes. First in the dock were 21 high-rankingofficials of the THIRD REICH, tried at Nuremberg,GERMANY, between November 1945 and December1946, for various crimes against humanity. Other tri-als followed, including both German and Japanesedefendants. Inspired by the horrors of the Holocaust,on December 11, 1946, the UNITED NATIONS (UN)General Assembly voted unanimously to make genocide (extermination of a race or ethnic group) acrime under international law. That resolution wasformally codified on December 9, 1947, when theUN unanimously adopted the Genocide Treaty.

A surprise holdout on ratification of that ground-breaking treaty was the United States. Citing various“omissions and inherent dangers” in the document,members of the U.S. Senate delayed approval of thetreaty until October 14, 1988. It was finally signedby President RONALD REAGAN on November 11,1988. Meanwhile, in 1949, the UN’s InternationalLaw Commission labored to establish an Interna-tional Criminal Court, but opposition from theUnited States and other nations finally doomed thateffort in 1954. Another 53 years elapsed before theinternational court was finally created, without U.S.participation, in April 2002. By that time, the U.S.

Congress and President George W. Bush had createda new international furor, demanding immunity fromwar-crimes prosecution for any U.S. troops assignedto a UN peacekeeping mission. Congress went fur-ther yet, passing a statute dubbed the Hague Inva-sion Act, which authorized use of military force tofree any U.S. soldiers arrested for war crimes. Thelaw also barred any U.S. agency from cooperatingwith the International Criminal Court and blockedU.S. military aid to any non-NATO signatory of theICC treaty. Critics suggest that the Bush administra-tion’s actions were calculated to give U.S. troops freerein in OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM, planned from themoment of Bush’s January 2001 inauguration andcarried out two years later in defiance of UN opposi-tion. In May 2004 U.S. soldiers faced courts-martialfor torture of Iraqi prisoners, while inquiries wereopened into the deaths of 37 detainees held by Amer-ican forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; HOLOCAUST AND HOLO-CAUST DENIAL.

WARREN CommissionFormally known as the U.S. Commission to Reportupon the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,the “blue-ribbon” Warren Commission was estab-lished by executive order from President LYNDON

BAINES JOHNSON on November 29, 1963. Its chair-man and namesake was Earl Warren, then chief justiceof the U.S. SUPREME COURT. Other members includedU.S. Senators John Cooper (R–KY) and Richard Rus-sell (D–GA); U.S. Representatives Hale Boggs (D–LA)and Gerald Ford (R–MI); Allen Dulles, former direc-tor of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA); andJohn McCloy, former president of the World Bank.U.S. Solicitor General James Rankin served as thecommission’s chief counsel, with 14 assistant counselsand 12 additional staffers. Proceedings began onDecember 3, 1963, and the commission delivered itsfindings to LBJ on September 24, 1964. After hearingtestimony from 552 witnesses and reviewing reportsfrom 10 federal agencies (including the CIA, the FED-ERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI), the SECRET

SERVICE and military intelligence), the Warren Com-mission declared that no evidence existed linkingeither alleged assassin LEE HARVEY OSWALD or hisslayer JACK RUBY to any conspiracy.

Various critics condemned the Warren Commis-sion’s findings as a “whitewash,” and in fact numerous

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discrepancies (deliberate or otherwise) have beenrevealed in the commission’s report and appendedvolumes of supporting evidence since 1964. Amongthe more egregious examples are the following:

• Apparent manipulation of the commission byFBI Director J. EDGAR HOOVER, who announceda “lone-assassin” verdict in the case withinhours of JFK’s murder and manipulated com-mission hearings (with help from FBI informantGerald Ford) toward that end throughout theproceedings.

• Suppression of evidence that both Oswald andRuby were paid FBI informants, each with sig-nificant links to violent right-wing extremistgroups and the MAFIA.

• Suppression of testimony from numerous witnesses who placed multiple gunmen at theJFK ASSASSINATION scene on November 22,1963.

• Manipulation of the ZAPRUDER FILM, whichincluded removal and rearrangement of criticalframes depicting bullet impacts on the president.

• Inexplicable rejection of Jack Ruby’s offer todocument a criminal conspiracy if the commis-sion would transport him safely from Texas toWashington, D.C. They refused, and he subse-quently died in jail, his story untold.

• Suppression of FBI evidence that proved thatOswald’s obsolete bolt-action rifle was inca-pable of firing three shots within the commis-sion’s mandatory lone-assassin time frame andfurther demonstrating that its telescopic sightcould not be focused on a target.

• Fabrication of a “magic-bullet theory” to explainmismatched wounds allegedly inflicted onKennedy and Texas Governor John Connallyby a single projectile, thereby defying the knownlaws of physics.

Scores of books—ranging from scholarly tomes tovirtual science fiction—have been published since1965, dissecting the commission’s many errors, omis-sions, and misstatements of fact. Still, leadingspokespersons for the so-called LIBERAL MEDIA stillchampion the Warren Report as the final solution toKennedy’s slaying.

See also DULLES BROTHERS; KENNEDY DYNASTY.

WASHINGTON, George (1732–1799)George Washington was a man of many parts: planter,surveyor, FREEMASON, slaveholder, early MARIJUANA

grower, revolutionary hero, first U.S. president, andFather of His Country all rolled into one. Addition-ally, Washington’s account books brand him as one ofAmerica’s first war profiteers—and a very creativeone, at that. In June 1775, when Washington wasappointed to serve as commander in chief of the Colo-nial Army, Congress offered him a salary of $500 permonth. Major generals, the next closest rank to Wash-ington’s, received only $166 monthly, and they (alongwith all other military personnel) were required “tofurnish their own Arms and Clothes.” Washington, allpatriotic magnanimity, declined the offer with the fol-lowing remarks to Congress:

As to pay, Sir, I beg leave to Assure the Congress that as

no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to

have accepted this Arduous employment (at the expense

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Supreme Court chief justice Earl Warren led the WarrenCommission to its “lone gunman” verdict in the JFKassassination. (National Archives)

of my domesttic [sic] ease and happiness) I do not wish

to make any Proffit [sic] from it. I will keep an exact

Account of my expenses. Those I doubt not they will

discharge, and that is all I desire.

Eight years later to the month, in June 1783,Washington submitted his expense account to Con-gress for reimbursement. Instead of the $48,000 hewould have earned for that period (at $500 permonth, with no allowance for clothing or weapons),Washington billed Congress for a whopping$449,261.51—more than nine times the originalsalary offered. Among the items reimbursed by Con-gress, we find the following:

• $175,754.39 for “household” expenses,including servants’ pay, groceries, laundry,and “sundries”

• $40,975 paid to spies for “secret service”• $27,665.30 for Martha Washington to visit her

husband in winter quarters at Valley Forge,

Pennsylvania, (where his soldiers spent the sea-son starving, often without coats or blankets)

• $9,607.74 for horses and supplies• $5,411.86 for visits to Congress in Philadelphia• $1,837.55 for wine• $1,439 for a custom-made carriage• $1,407.41 paid to barbers• $1,274 for a French telescope• $468 to purchase 20 pounds of tea “for public

use”

The latter item, while relatively trivial, is reminis-cent of later excesses committed by corrupt entrepre-neurs of the MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. WhenCongress approved the purchase of tea at $23.40 perpound in 1783, it paved the way for $300 bolts and$1,200 plastic toilet seats.

WATERGATEThe mother of all U.S. political scandals began onJune 17, 1972, when five burglars were captured inthe Democratic National Committee headquarters,located in the Watergate Office Building in Washing-ton, D.C. The five prowlers—Bernard Barker, Vir-gilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, James McCord,Jr., and Frank Sturgis—had broken into the sameoffice on June 16 and planted listening devices; theyreturned one night later to repair defective bugsand/or photograph Democratic Party documents(reports vary). Police searched the prisoners andfound a telephone number for E. Howard Hunt, anex-employee of the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

(CIA), more recently engaged as a strategist with theRepublican COMMITTEE TO REELECT THE PRESIDENT

(CREEP), a “dirty-tricks” unit organized by Presi-dent RICHARD NIXON’s White House staff. Nixon’spress secretary, Ron Ziegler, dismissed the affair as a“third-rate burglary,” but it would not be so easilyforgotten.

At his arraignment, burglar McCord identifiedhimself to the court as a CIA agent, thus intriguingWashington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and BobWoodward. Their investigation of the break-in,spanning several months, revealed that Nixon had asked the CIA to retard FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION (FBI) investigation of the burglarywith spurious claims of a “national security” risk. Infact, Bernstein and Woodward discovered that theWatergate burglary was only one of many illegal

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General George Washington turned a huge profit bydeclining a flat salary for his service in the RevolutionaryWar. (Author’s collection)

actions carried out by CREEP under the directionof Hunt and ex-FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy. Thoseconspiracies included an abortive plot to burn the BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, a bungled plan tomurder journalist JACK ANDERSON, burglaries andwiretaps targeting suspected leakers of Pentagonfiles to the New York Times, collection of illegalcampaign donations, and funneling of “hushmoney” to the Watergate burglars. An anonymousinformant, known as “Deep Throat” and recentlyidentified as former assistant director of the FBI,Mark Felt, exposed new dimensions of the plot thatwere essentially designed to undermine Americandemocracy.

Nixon won a second White House term beforemost of his staff’s criminal activity was revealed,

but he could not forestall the unfolding scandal.The five Watergate burglars, with codefendantsHunt and Liddy, faced trial in Washington on January 8, 1973. All except Liddy and McCordpleaded guilty on reduced charges; the two hold-outs were convicted of burglary, wiretapping, andconspiracy. Angered by evidence that the defen-dants were bribed to keep silent, Judge John Sirica pronounced 35-year prison terms for thedefendants, with an offer of leniency if theydecided to cooperate. That offer broke McCord,who promptly implicated CREEP and confessed to perjury.

McCord’s admission guaranteed further investi-gation of the broadening scandal. A committee ofthe U.S. Senate, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, was

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This diagram depicts the six members of Richard Nixon’s staff who resigned as consequences of the Watergate scandal,with President Nixon at the center. (Bettmann/Corbis)

impaneled to probe the Watergate morass. As expo-sures continued, including testimony that Nixon hadsecretly recorded every conversation with his staff,high-ranking administration members were impli-cated in the Watergate crimes. On April 30, 1973,Nixon demanded resignations from his two topaides, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman—bothof whom were subsequently indicted, convicted, andimprisoned. White House counsel John Dean wassacked for testifying honestly before the Ervin Com-mittee, and he went on to turn state’s evidenceagainst the president. While assuring the nation that“I am not a crook,” Nixon fought disclosure of theWhite House tapes and then released edited tran-scripts with a curious 18.5-minute gap in one record-ing (officially blamed on an “accidental” erasure byNixon secretary Rose Mary Woods).

The toll of Watergate-related convictions contin-ued, unrelenting. Vice President SPIRO AGNEW

resigned in disgrace on October 10, 1973, subse-quently pleading guilty to corruption charges datingfrom his term as governor of Maryland. The conspir-acy indictments naming Haldeman and Ehrlichmanon multiple counts of perjury and obstructing justiceexpanded to include Nixon staffers John Mitchell(once Nixon’s attorney general and in 1972 his cam-paign manager); Charles Colson (alleged mastermindof the Brookings Institution arson plot); CREEP boss Jeb Magruder; and a team of White House“plumbers”—Egil Krogh, Robert Mardian, KennethParkinson, and Gordon Strachan—who never letlegality obstruct their pursuit of whistleblowers orother White House “enemies.” Most pleaded guiltyon reduced charges, while the stubborn few wereconvicted and sentenced to prison.

That left Nixon, resolved to “fight like hell” forhis tarnished reputation. On March 1, 1974, a fed-eral grand jury secretly named Nixon as an “unin-dicted co-conspirator” with seven CREEP stalwarts.On July 24 the U.S. SUPREME COURT overruledNixon’s claims of “executive privilege” and orderedimmediate release of all White House tapes. By thetime Nixon complied on July 30, the House JudiciaryCommittee had voted three articles of impeachment,including abuse of power, contempt of Congress, andobstruction of justice. With conviction in the Senatevirtually guaranteed, Nixon resigned on August 9,1974. One month later, on September 8, successorGerald Ford issued a blanket presidential pardonshielding Nixon from prosecution for any crimes he

may have committed during his term as president.That pardon, in turn, was a major factor in Ford’sdefeat by Jimmy Carter when he sought election tothe White House in 1976.

WEBSTER, William (1924– )William Webster served with the U.S. Navy in WorldWar II and then practiced law in St. Louis from 1949to 1969, with an interval of naval duty during theKorean War and brief service as a federal prosecutorin Missouri (1960–61). President RICHARD NIXON

appointed Webster a federal judge in 1970, his casesincluding the peculiar bank-robbery prosecution ofdefendant John Larry Ray. In 1973 Nixon elevatedWebster to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, wherehe remained until President RONALD REAGAN chosehim to serve as FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

(FBI) director in February 1978.Webster’s tenure as director was marked by a mix-

ture of reform and repression. He emphasized diver-sity in hiring and expanded the FBI’s range ofundercover operations, stressing pursuit of white-collar crimes and the MAFIA until President Reagancurtailed those activities. Webster once boasted thatsince J. EDGAR HOOVER’s death in 1972, there hadnot been “a single proven case of a violation of con-stitutional rights” by FBI agents, but he ignored thebureau’s persecution of Puerto Rican nationalists andthe AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT. Likewise, at thetime he made that statement, Webster’s G-men werepursuing an identical campaign in the CISPES CASE

and harassing other critics of Ronald Reagan’s for-eign policy in Central America. Reagan, for his part,admired Webster enough to name him director of theCENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY in 1987. Websterleft the FBI on May 26 and spent four years in hisnew post, retiring in May 1991.

WHITE LeagueAn unmasked successor to the KU KLUX KLAN (KKK),the White League was a racist paramilitary grouporganized in Louisiana to “redeem” the state fromRECONSTRUCTION and restore “home rule” by whiteDemocrats. The movement’s epicenter was NewOrleans, first city in the South to integrate its policeforce, while 240 black ex-slaves served in variouspolitical posts. A typical recruiting flyer for theWhite League read:

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Can you bear it longer, that negro [sic] ignorance, solid-

ified in opposition to white intelligence, and led by car-

pet-bag and scalawag impudence and villainy, shall

continue to hold the State, your fortunes and your

honor by the throat, while they perpetuate upon you

indignities and crimes unparalleled?

Unlike the KKK, whose nightriders generallycontented themselves with individual slayings andassaults, the White League staged a full-dress coupd’état in New Orleans on September 14, 1874. Var-ious accounts of the battle between White Leaguersand state MILITIA list between 11 and 27 Republi-can defenders killed and at least 60 wounded, whilethe insurrectionists lost 16 dead and 45 injured.Legitimate forces were routed, and the WhiteLeague seized control of state offices, but GovernorWilliam Kellogg had telegraphed President UlyssesGrant while the fight was in progress. Grant dis-patched federal troops and a naval squadron of sixwarships to contain the rebellion, whereupon theWhite League surrendered and Governor Kelloggresumed his office on September 19. It wouldrequire the dubious election of President RUTHER-FORD B. HAYES in 1877 to finally restore white rule

throughout the South and inaugurate a system ofracial discrimination that endured through the mid-20th century.

WHITE slaveryOn July 6, 1885, Britain’s Pall Mall Gazette ran thefirst installment of a series titled “The Maiden Trib-ute of Modern Babylon,” detailing the allegedabduction and sale of young Englishwomen as sex-ual slaves in the Middle East. The series sparkedoutrage throughout Europe and the United States,while popularizing white slavery as a synonym forcompulsory prostitution. By the early 1900s theterm was used without regard for a victim’s race,although visions of white virgins subjected to rapeby nonwhites touched the rawest possible nerve in aracist society. On June 25, 1910, Congress passedthe White Slave Traffic Act, better known as theMann Act (after its primary sponsor, Illinois repre-sentative James Mann). The statute imposed a maxi-mum 10-year prison sentence and/or fines foranyone convicted of transporting females acrossstate lines “for the purpose of prostitution or for anyother immoral purpose.”

The latter phrase granted FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION agents free rein to investigate thesex lives of various public and private figures withno link to any prostitution syndicate, includingblack boxer Jack Johnson, KU KLUX KLAN leaderEdward Clarke, and musician Chuck Berry. Ironi-cally, the statute was rarely (if ever) used againstpimps or others who maintained stables of prosti-tutes (sometimes enforcing discipline by force or bydosing their “stable” with HEROIN). State lawswere used to prosecute MAFIA leader CHARLES

“LUCKY” LUCIANO for compulsory prostitution in1936, and he spent 10 years in New York prisonsbefore he was liberated in the wake of OPERATION

UNDERWORLD.Despite the best efforts of J. EDGAR HOOVER and

various local police chiefs, white slavery was noteradicated in America, and in fact it remains a globalproblem to the present day. During World War IIJapanese forces kidnapped and enslaved an estimated200,000 “comfort women” throughout the Far East,most of them dragooned at gunpoint from occupiedCHINA, KOREA, and the PHILIPPINES. A half-centurylater, “ethnic cleansing” in BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

included the kidnapping of at least 30,000 women

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This cartoon from Harper’s Weekly depicts the WhiteLeague’s alliance with surviving factions of the early KuKlux Klan. (Florida State Archives)

and girls, who were confined in officially sanctioned“rape camps” by Serbian soldiers. Other victimsfrom the fractured former state of Yugoslavia wereshipped abroad as prostitutes—more than 1,400 sentto England in 1998 alone, according to the BritishHome Office. In 1997 Russian authorities estimatedthat 10,000 females from the former Soviet Unionhad been enslaved since 1991 by members of theRUSSIAN MAFIA posing as legitimate entrepreneurs.

In the United States, meanwhile, members of vari-ous MOTORCYCLE GANGS are known to kidnapyoung women or “turn out” their own “old ladies”for service in strip clubs, massage parlors, and broth-els. In 1978 the Texas House Select Committee onChild Pornography investigated reports of “slaveauctions” conducted in Dallas, Houston, and else-where across the state, where children transportedfrom Mexico were allegedly sold to wealthypedophiles. At about the same time author RobinLloyd informed the U.S. House Select Committee onEducation and Labor of a reverse traffic in Anglochildren sold to Mexican pornographers, sometimesfor use in SNUFF FILMS. As recently as January 2003,police in Detroit broke up a ring that kidnapped vic-tims as young as 13 years of age and forced theminto prostitution.

WICCA lettersAllegedly intercepted by police after a 1981 meetingof the Witches International Coven Council in Mex-ico, the so-called Wicca letters are a bizarre outlinefor global domination by occultists, similar in manyrespects to the fraudulent PROTOCOLS OF THE

ELDERS OF ZION. Widely published—and presumablybelieved—by fundamentalist Christians, the docu-ment is dubious at best. No such organization as theWICC has been uncovered to date, and enumerationof conspiratorial goals in this manner would seem tobe a risky proposition. As normally presented, the“letters” read:

1. To bring about the covens, both black and white

magic, into one, and to have the arctress to govern

all—ACCOMPLISHED;

2. To bring about personal debts causing discord and

disharmony within families—ACCOMPLISHED;

3. To remove or educate the “new age youth” by:

a. infiltrating boys/girls clubs and big sister/brother

programs

b. infiltrating schools, having prayers removed, hav-

ing teachers teach about drugs, sex, freedoms

c. instigating and promoting rebellion against parents

and all authority

d. promoting equal rights for youth—ACCOM-

PLISHED;

4. To gain access to all people’s backgrounds and vital

information by:

a. use of computers

b. convenience

c. infiltration—ACCOMPLISHED;

5. To have laws changed to benefit our ways, such as:

a. removing children from the home environment

and placing them in our foster homes

b. mandatory placement of children in our day-care

centers

c. increased taxes

d. open drug and pornography market to every-

one—NOT YET ACCOMPLISHED;

6. To destroy government agencies by:

a. overspending

b. public opinion

c. being on the offensive always, opposing, demon-

strating, demoralizing—NOT YET ACCOM-

PLISHED;

7. Not to be revealed until all else has been accom-

plished. Target date for revelation—June 21, 1986—

the beginning of the Summer Solstice and great feast

on the Satanic calendar.

Author Art Lyons reportedly traced the Wicca Let-ters to a police “cult expert” in San Diego, California,but there the trail ended. Some ultraconservativesmight say that the listed goals were now “accom-plished;” yet no black magic Renaissance has yetoccurred in the United States.

WINTER Hill GangBoston’s mostly Irish Winter Hill Gang was organ-ized by James (“Whitey”) Bulger in the early 1960safter his parole from federal prison on a bank-robbery charge. By the decade’s end Bulger’s syndicatedominated racketeering, gambling, and drug sales inBoston and environs, edging out the local MAFIA’sAngiulo family for control of lucrative turf. Bulger’sascendancy was aided in equal parts by his ruthlesstemperament, his brother’s election to serve as presi-dent of the Massachusetts state senate, and collabo-ration from the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’s

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(FBI) Boston field office. G-man John Connolly, Jr.,was a boyhood acquaintance of the Bulger brothers,and he welcomed the chance to recruit Winter Hillgang leaders for the bureau’s “Top Echelon Infor-mant Program,” ignoring various criminal activitiesin return for tips about the Mafia. For the next threedecades, as detailed by FBI historian Robert Kessler,“the FBI ran a protection racket for the Winter HillGang in return for their information on the NewEngland Mafia and the ego gratification of recruitinginformants.”

Connolly and other agents also accepted cashfrom the gang while joining in the frame-ups of fourdefendants for a 1965 murder they did not commit.The victim in that case, small-time mobster EdwardDeegan, was killed by FBI informants Joseph Bar-boza and Vincent Flemmi, with the bureau warnedof their plan in advance. After failing to prevent themurder, Connolly and other G-men assisted Barbozaand Flemmi in accusing four innocent suspects—Louis Greco, Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati, andHenry Tameleo—of killing Deegan. All four wereconvicted at trial on perjured testimony and receivedlife prison terms. Greco and Tameleo died in cus-tody, while Limone and Salvati were finally exoner-ated and released in 2000. By that time Barboza wasdead, John Connolly was retired from the FBI, andWhitey Bulger was a globe-trotting fugitive fromjustice on narcotics charges. Barry Mawn, new agentin charge of the FBI’s Boston office, discovered in2000 that Connolly had warned Bulger of pendingfederal indictments in 1995, permitting his oldfriend to flee Boston. (As of November 2004 Bulgerremains a “Top Ten” fugitive, with a $10 millionprice on his head.)

At Connolly’s trial in May 2002, prosecutorsdescribed him as “a Winter Hill Gang operativemasquerading as an FBI agent.” Jurors convictedhim on bribery and other charges, resulting in a 10-year prison sentence. Another ex-agent fromBoston admitted similar crimes on the witnessstand, but the legal statute of limitations saved him from prosecution. At last report, Connolly and the FBI still faced wrongful-death lawsuits for some $35 million, filed by relatives of murdervictims John Callahan, Richard Castucci, and BrianHalloran. Plaintiffs in those cases charge that Con-nolly and other G-men leaked information to Bul-ger’s crew, which resulted in their loved ones beingmurdered.

“WISE Use” movementWise use is the deceptive term applied to a networkof groups and individuals active since the 1980s in acampaign to roll back environmental protection leg-islation in the United States and western Canada.Activist Ron Arnold, often named as the father ofWise Use and a self-styled follower of MohandasGhandi, once said of environmentalists, “We’re outto kill the fuckers. We’re simply trying to eliminatethem. Our goal is to destroy environmentalism onceand for all.” To that end various groups includingthe American Legislative Exchange Council, Peoplefor the West, the American Farm Bureau Federation,the Fairness to Land Owners Committee, the“Share” groups of British Columbia, and others are funded by industries involved in logging, mining,OIL or gas drilling, and agribusiness to oppose environmental legislation at the state and federal levels. An example of the movement’s honesty is seen in the misnamed Environmental ConservationOrganization, a group created by leaders of the Land Improvement Contractors Association to lobbyagainst conservation laws. Wise Use spokespersonstypically denounce organizations such as the SierraClub and the Wilderness Society as “hate groups,”while labeling individual environmentalists as “treehuggers,” “eco-Nazis,” “pagans,” and so forth.

In essence, Wise Use leaders are industry frontmen (and women) pursuing two broad goals: First,removal of all constraints on the use of private prop-erty, including present limits set for reasons of publichealth, safety, and environmental protection; second,unlimited access to all public lands for unrestrictedlogging, mining, drilling, motorized recreation (off-roading, snowmobiles, etc.), and any other commer-cial enterprise. Henry Yake, president of the BlueRibbon Coalition (supporting off-road motorcycleracing and similar activities), spoke for his colleaguesin July 1990 when he told the press, “Wilderness hasno economic value, no timbering, no oil and gas pro-duction, no mining, no livestock grazing, no motor-ized recreation.”

In 2001 Wise Use found champions in PresidentGeorge W. Bush and his Secretary of the Interior,Gale Norton (a millionaire former lobbyist for loggingand strip-mining companies). Norton’s hand-picked“ambassador to the West” is Deputy Secretary J.Steven Giles, formerly an energy industry lobbyist in Washington. The Bush-Norton-Giles regime haspursued a list of antienvironmental policies that

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“WISE Use” movement

includes widespread logging in national forests (“toprevent forest fires”), oil and gas drilling in nationalparks (“for national security”), passage of a federal“Clear Skies Initiative” that permits higher levels ofindustrial air pollution, increased levels of arsenic indrinking water, and reinstatement of an 1872 mininglaw that allows mining on public lands even in caseswhere “substantial or irreparable harm” to the envi-ronment may result.

In addition to their political efforts, Wise Usegroups do not shrink from criminal activity. In 1990unknown terrorists tried to kill EARTH FIRST! leadersJudi Bari and Daryl Cherney with a car bomb. Whenthat attack failed, agents of the FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION and the OAKLAND POLICE DEPART-MENT next tried to frame Bari and Cherney for plant-ing the bomb themselves—a conspiracy exposed infederal court when Earth First! sued the agenciesresponsible. Other environmentalists have also suf-fered threats, assaults, arson, and attempted murderby individuals espousing Wise Use rhetoric; G-menand some police departments remain curiously aloof,focused single-mindedly on “eco-terrorists” of theEARTH LIBERATION FRONT and similar groups. InApril 1992 a group of Wise Use thugs attackedFlorida environmentalist Stephanie McGuire, rapingher, slashing her with razors, and brandishingfirearms. McGuire’s life was saved when her dogattacked the rapists and drove them away, but TaylorCounty sheriff’s deputies dropped the case after per-functory investigation, and spokespersons for theFlorida Department of Law Enforcement hinted thatMcGuire’s wounds were “self-inflicted.”

A curious sidebar on the Wise Use movement is itslink to the Unification Church, led by KOREA’s Rev.Sun Myung Moon. The controversial Rev. Moon—once convicted of tax evasion in the United States,publicly linked to operations of South Korea’sSECRET POLICE, and also involved in the IRAN-CONTRA CONSPIRACY—supports the Wise Use agendain his ultraconservative newspaper, the WashingtonTimes. Moon’s American Freedom Coalition playeda pivotal role in the early Wise Use movement. RonArnold himself felt compelled to deny “Moonie” ties in 1989. Far-right politics aside, Moon’s interestin the Wise Use movement may be explained by a 1990 survey of the minister’s financial empire, published by the conservative U.S. News & WorldReport. According to that piece, at least 335 interna-tional companies were affiliated with Moon’s church,

producing everything from military weapons andcomputers to clothing and soft drinks. In the UnitedStates, Moon owned at least 150 companies involvedin media, real estate, and commercial fishing—including boats, canneries, processing, wholesale dis-tribution, and 65 sushi restaurants. In 1984 a reportfrom JAPAN’s national bar association declared thatMoon’s various high-pressure sales schemes hadbilked consumers out of some $165 million.

See also BUSH DYNASTY; TERRORISM.

WORLD Trade Center bombing (1993)At 12:18 P.M. on February 26, 1993, a massive explo-sion rocked the World Trade Center in Lower Man-hattan. The blast killed six persons, injured morethan 1,000, and trapped thousands more in the TwinTowers office complex while emergency workersswarmed over the scene. Initial speculation centeredon transformer explosion, but agents of the FEDERAL

BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) and the BUREAU OF

ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS discoveredremains of a car bomb in the basement garage. Avehicle identification number led G-men to JerseyCity, where the Ford van had been rented on Febru-ary 23 to Mohammed Salameh, a 25-year-old Pales-tinian from Jordan. Soon after the bombing, Salamehhad reported the van stolen and demanded a refundof his $400 fee. A background check on Salamehidentified him as a follower of Sheik Omar AbdelRahman, a cleric expelled from Egypt in 1981 foradvocating overthrow of the Egyptian government.

G-men were waiting on March 4, 1993, whenSalameh returned to the rental office. A search of hisapartment and a storage unit yielded chemicals simi-lar to those used in the bombing. The FBI lab, mean-while, had problems analyzing the crime-sceneevidence. Technicians squabbled over the bomb’scomposition, and one employee complained that“mistakes were made” in the process. Lab supervi-sors pressured the dissenters to keep silent whilestreet agents searched for more suspects. One ofthose, Ahmed Mohammed Ajaj, had been incarcer-ated since his arrest with bomb-making manuals atJFK Airport on September 1, 1992, but G-men stillnamed him as part of the plot. Another defendant,Mahmud Abouhalima, was captured in Cairo andreturned to the United States for trial. Together, theaccused were charged with conspiracy, explosivedestruction of property, and interstate transportation

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of explosives. Their trial began in September 1993and lasted five months and included testimony from207 witnesses. Jurors convicted the defendants onMarch 4, 1994; two months later Judge Kevin Duffysentenced them to matching 240-year prison terms.

With that victory behind them and two more sus-pects still hiding abroad, FBI leaders sought moreconspirators in New Jersey. They were encouragedby Emad Salem, a former Egyptian Army officer andconfidant of Sheik Rahman, who was also an inform-ant for the FBI and NEW YORK POLICE. Salem hadspied on the mosque’s congregation for nearly twoyears, and he now reported a series of terror attacksin the planning stage; targets included the UNITED

NATIONS building, the FBI’s New York field office,the George Washington Bridge, plus the Holland andLincoln Tunnels. He arranged for his comrades torent a “safe house” bugged by G-men, where theirevery word was captured on tape. Raiders arrestedfive of the would-be terrorists on June 24, 1994,allegedly while building bombs. Sheik Rahman andseven others were picked up later, all 14 chargedwith conspiracy to bomb New York landmarks andmurder various prominent persons in the UnitedStates and EGYPT.

The eight-month conspiracy trial began on January30, 1995. FBI lab technician Fred Whitehurst testifiedas a witness for the defense, describing various foren-sic reports as fraudulent. When Emad Salem took thestand, he admitted taping many conversations withhis FBI and NYPD handlers. Among the startling rev-elations on those tapes were a New York police offi-cer’s suggestion that Salem should demand a $1.5million informant’s fee from the FBI and “settle” for$1 million. Most shocking, however, was the dialogueindicating that FBI agents knew of the Trade Centerbombing in advance and did nothing to stop it.

On one tape, Agent John Anticev is heard tellingSalem to learn where the defendants stored theirexplosives, explaining, “We’ll just know where stuffexists and where it is, and then we’ll make our move.There’s no danger, you know. We can be sneaky andtake our time.”

After the Trade Center blast, on April 1, 1993,Salem rebuked Anticev for failing to prevent thebombing. “They told me that ‘we want to set this,’”he declared. “‘What’s the right place to put this?’You were informed. Everything is ready. The day andthe time. Boom. Lock them up and that’s that. That’swhy I feel so bad.”

According to Salem, Anticev’s FBI supervisor pro-posed a plan to arrest the bombers without damageto the World Trade Center. “He requested to meetme in the hotel,” Salem reminded Anticev on tape.“He requested to make me to testify and if he didn’tpush for that, we’ll be going building the bomb witha phony powder and grabbing the people who wasinvolved in it. But since you, we didn’t do that.”Later, speaking to Agent Nancy Floyd about Anticev,Salem told her, “He [Anticev] said, ‘I don’t think thatthe New York [FBI] people would like the things outof the New York office to go to Washington, D.C.’”Agent Floyd replied, “Well, of course not, becausethey don’t want to get their butts chewed.” Salemtold Floyd, “Since the bomb went off I feel terrible. Ifeel bad. I feel here is people who don’t listen.” Herresponse: “Hey, I mean it wasn’t like you didn’t tryand I didn’t try. You can’t force people to do the rightthing.”

Of the 15 defendants on trial, four pleaded guilty,one turned state’s evidence against his friends, andthe rest were convicted on October 1, 1995. Threemonths later Rahman and defendant El-Sayid Nosairreceived life sentences with no parole; the rest drewprison terms ranging from 25 to 57 years. While thetrial was still in progress, on February 7, 1995, fugi-tive Ramzi Yousef was captured in Pakistan andreturned to the United States. The last alleged plotter,Eyad Najim, was caught in Jordan and delivered toU.S. authorities on August 2, 1995. The pair facedtrial together in August 1997, and both were con-victed on November 12. Najim and Yousef received240-year prison terms; they were also slapped withuncollectable $250,000 fines and ordered to pay $10million in restitution to their victims.

WRATH of GodIn the predawn hours of September 5, 1972, Palestin-ian terrorists from the BLACK SEPTEMBER groupinvaded the Olympic compound in Munich, GER-MANY, where they killed two Israeli athletes and tooknine more hostage. Subsequently, while the invadersattempted to flee with their captives in helicoptersprovided by German authorities, police opened fireand a shootout ensued, killing all nine hostages, fivePalestinians, and one police officer. ISRAEL retaliatedthree days later with air strikes against suspected ter-rorist camps in LEBANON and SYRIA, killing at least66 Arabs and wounding hundreds more. Israeli

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troops also invaded Lebanon, ostensibly to engagePalestinian guerrillas hiding there. Unsatisfied withthat broad and rather indiscriminate response to theMunich massacre, Israeli Premier Golda Meir andDefense Minister Moshe Dayan created a secretretaliation force, officially known as Committee X,more commonly dubbed the Wrath of God (WoG).Its goal, simply stated, was to find and kill Palestin-ian resistance leaders—or failing that, to render themhelpless in exile.

To carry out that mission, Committee X draftedmembers of the MOSSAD’s kidon (“bayonet”) assassi-nation unit, led by Mike Harari. Operating from acovert base in Geneva, Switzerland, the Wrath ofGod set out to liquidate 11 specific targets, including:Kamal Adwan, FATAH’s chief of sabotage operationsin Israeli-occupied territories; Hussein al-Chir,alleged liaison between the KGB and the PalestineLiberation Organization (PLO) in CYPRUS; Dr. Basilal-Kubaisi, logistics officer of the Popular Front forthe Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); MohammedBoudia, a PLO agent in Europe; Abu Daoud (BlackSeptember); Dr. Wadi Haddad, alleged “chief terror-ist” of the PFLP; Mahmoud Hamshiri, a PLO mem-ber and suspected coordinator of the Munich raid;Kamal Nassir, chief spokesman for the PLO Execu-tive Committee; Ali Hassan Salameh, chief plannerof the Munich attack; Abu Yussuf, a high-rankingPLO leader; and Wael Zwaiter, a cousin of PLOleader Yasser Arafat, allegedly responsible for terror-ist acts in Europe.

Zwaiter was the first to die, gunned down byIsraeli assassins outside Rome on October 16, 1972.A telephone rigged with explosives killed MahmoudHamshiri on December 8, 1972. During the next fewmonths, Israeli counterterrorists killed al-Kubasi, al-

Chir, Boudia, and Zaid Muchassi (a late addition tothe list, who had replaced al-Chir on Cyprus). TheGeneva hit team was then recalled to Israel, but theWrath of God campaign was not finished. In April1973 Israel launched “Operation Spring of Youth,” awholesale murder campaign that killed at least 100Palestinian activists (while sending two Israeli hitmen home in caskets). Ali Hassan Salameh wasfinally traced to Lillehammer, NORWAY, on July 21,1973, but the assigned shooters killed an innocentMoroccan waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki, by mistake. Sixmonths later, on January 12, 1974, three Israeliassassins were killed during a second bungledattempt on Salameh, this time in Switzerland. On thethird attempt to snare Salameh, in London, onemember of the kidon team was killed in his hotelroom by a female assassin masquerading as a prosti-tute. Other WoG members avenged that slaying onAugust 21, 1974, when they tracked the womandown and killed her at her home near Amsterdam.Mike Harari then aborted the order to kill Salameh,but his insubordinate shooters pressed to a fourthbotched attempt wherein armed sentries routed athree-man Israeli team from Salameh’s hideout onGibraltar. It would be 1979 before Mossad huntersfinally overtook Salameh, killing him with a carbomb in the heart of strife-torn Beirut.

That murder was supposedly the last contract car-ried out by Wrath of God assassins, but rumors per-sist that the unit was never demobilized—or, at least,that it remained active much longer than Israeli lead-ers will admit. One victim often mentioned (but neverconfirmed by Israeli sources) is GERALD VICTOR BULL,murdered in Brussels during 1990 while engaged inmanufacturing a huge “super gun” for IRAQ.

See also TERRORISM.

X

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X, Malcolm (1925–1965)The son of an outspoken black separatist, MalcolmLittle was born in Omaha on May 19, 1925. Thefamily moved later to Michigan where Malcolm’sfather was killed by a streetcar on September 28,1931. (Malcolm suspected that the accident wasreally murder, planned by a faction of the KU KLUX

KLAN.) Convicted of larceny in January 1946, Mal-colm converted to the teachings of Elijah Muham-mad while in prison. Released in 1952 he joined theNATION OF ISLAM (NOI), adopting the name Mal-colm X. Three weeks later, on September 23, 1952,the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) begansurveillance of Malcolm that continued for the restof his life. G-men reported his 1961 meeting withGeorgia KKK leaders, his subscription to newsletterspublished by the Fair Play for CUBA Committee, andhis description of the 1963 JFK ASSASSINATION as acase of “chickens coming home to roost.” ElijahMuhammad expelled Malcolm from the NOI overthat episode, and the rift became irreparable in Feb-ruary 1964 when a former aide in New York warnedMalcolm of an NOI plot to bomb his car.

In March 1964 Malcolm told Ebony magazinethat Muhammad’s Black Muslims have “got to killme. They can’t afford to let me live. . . . I knowwhere the bodies are buried, and if they press me, I’ll

exhume some.” Death threats were by now routine,but they struck close to home when Malcolm’s housewas firebombed at 2:46 A.M. on February 14, 1965.One week later, on February 21, Malcolm was shotand killed while speaking at Harlem’s Audubon Ball-room. Early reports declared that three gunmen werecaptured at the murder scene, but police laterclaimed only two were arrested (with a third jailedtwo days later). All three suspects were linked to theNation of Islam. On the night of Malcolm’s death, anFBI informant gave G-men one of the pistols used inthe murder.

Suspects Talmadge Thayer, Norman 3X Butler,and Thomas 15X Johnson were indicted for murderon March 10, 1965. At trial in March 1966, Thayeradmitted that he and three others were hired to killMalcolm, but he insisted that Butler and Johnsonwere innocent. Johnson’s wife swore he was notpresent at the shooting, but jurors convicted allthree defendants on March 11. A month later, allthree were sentenced to life imprisonment. Conspir-acy theories suggest that Malcolm was slain bysome combination of the FBI, the CENTRAL INTELLI-GENCE AGENCY, and MAFIA leaders who resented hisJune 1964 call for “an all-out war against organizedcrime” in black communities across the UnitedStates.

YAKUZALike the Sicilian MAFIA which they emulate in manyways, JAPAN’s Yakuza crime syndicates sprang fromuncertain origins, obscured today by fantasy andfolklore. Some researches claim that the nameYakuza is numerical, deriving from Japanese termsfor the numbers 8 (ya), 9 (ku) and 3 (za). Together,they make 20, a worthless hand in the card gameoicho-kabu wherein players strive for a maximumhand of 19. Thus, the Yakuza welcomes recruitsdeemed worthless misfits by society at large, provid-ing them with a strong and lucrative “family.”

Various published accounts date the Yakuza’sbeginnings anywhere from 1612 to the mid-19thcentury. In the earlier version Yakuza pioneers werefreelance samurais known as ronin or kabuki-mono (“crazy ones”), who formed roving bands ofoutlaws in the manner of America’s Wild West twocenturies later. Another version holds that earlyYakuza were actually drawn from the ranks ofmachi-yakko (“city servants”), who armed them-selves to defend their rural communities against thekabuki-mono. Yet another version of historydescribed the Yakuza as rooted in a 17th-centuryalliance of urban gamblers (bakuto) and street ven-dors (tekiya) who swore loyalty among themselvesand prospered in defiance of prevailing law. Allsources agree that rival Yakuza syndicates werewell established throughout Japan by the mid-to-late 19th century, flourishing in support of various

right-wing nationalist groups between the 1920sand the end of World War II.

After Japan’s defeat in 1945, Allied occupationforces found it useful to collaborate with right-wingYakuza (unyoke) in opposition to leftists of commu-nist political parties and labor unions. As elsewherethroughout the world, the Pentagon and the CEN-TRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY forged alliances withorganized criminal groups to harass, torment, ormurder individuals perceived as tools of RUSSIA orCHINA in the cold-war game of world domination.Between 1958 and 1963 an estimated 5,200 Yakuzagangs operated throughout Japan, boasting an esti-mated total membership of 184,000, which exceededthe manpower of Japan’s postwar army. Modernmembership estimates, admittedly imprecise, typi-cally range between 90,000 and 100,000 active syn-dicate mobsters. Yakuza sources of profit run the fullgamut of organized criminal activities, includingprostitution and narcotics, smuggling of contraband(ranging from stolen property and weapons to illegalimmigrants), extortion, gambling, and all manner oftheft and fraud. Widespread corruption keeps thesyndicates in business, with a twist. Whereas theMafia and other ethnic syndicates usually operatebehind the scenes in legitimate business, it is notuncommon for Japanese corporate leaders to beidentified as friends or active members of the Yakuza.

Two things that set Yakuza mobsters apart fromtheir peers around the world are the practice of full-

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body tattooing and the finger-cutting ritual calledyubitsume. Tattoos tell a gangster’s life story whileidentifying his Yakuza gang or clan. Courage isdemonstrated by insistence that the tattoos be appliedwith primitive bamboo needles, an agonizing processthat may take years to complete a neck-to-ankles“suit” of colored images. In yubitsume, mobsters whohave failed at some task or embarrassed their clan offerapology be severing joints of their fingers one at a time,presenting the bloody appendages to their command-ing officer. Police and journalists thus find it possible toidentify Yakuza members—and to chart their relativeineptitude—by counting fingers that remain.

Worldwide today, the Yakuza is recognized as col-laborating with the Chinese TRIADS, the Mafia, andvarious other syndicated criminal groups to trans-port HEROIN, COCAINE, illegal weapons, sex slaves,and other contraband items in a 21st-century worldwhere boundaries have little meaning and moneyspeaks louder than ever to corrupt police and politi-cians. From LAS VEGAS to Toronto, London, Paris,and Hong Kong, the Yakuza have made their pres-ence felt without significant interference from law-enforcement agencies.

YALTA ConferenceOften cited as the unofficial beginning of the coldwar, the Yalta Conference of February 4–11, 1945,was a strategic meeting of the “Big Three” leaders inWorld War II—U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt,British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and SovietPremier JOSEPH STALIN. Convened at Yalta in theRussian Crimea, the meeting (whose full minutesremained classified until 1947) essentially outlinedAllied plans for the remainder of the war and dispo-sition of the postwar world. The attendees confirmedtheir insistence on GERMANY’s unconditional surren-der, with division of that nation into four zones gov-erned by Britain, FRANCE, the United States, andRUSSIA. Plans were also laid for a postwar UNITED

NATIONS organization, including France and CHINA

as dominant members. Stalin agreed to declare waron Japan within three months of Germany’s surren-der, in return for which Russia was granted jointcontrol (with China) of occupied Manchuria. As partof the Yalta agreement, U.S. and British forces inGermany slowed their advance west of the Rhine andpermitted Russian troops to capture Berlin, whereADOLF HITLER committed suicide in April 1945. Sub-

sequent Russian advances in Eastern Europe, the“loss” of China to COMMUNISM, and allegations of aU.N. plot to impose “one-world government”encouraged speculation that the Yalta Conferencewas part of a global “sell-out” to Stalin and the theo-retical Red conspiracy to dominate planet Earth.President Roosevelt, discouraged and in failinghealth, said of Yalta in the weeks before his death,“It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I could do.”

YEMENRoman legions invaded ancient Yemen in the firstcentury A.D. to capture the lucrative trading post atAden. Ethiopians and Persians followed in the sixthcentury, and Yemen converted to Islam in 628. TheRassite dynasty of the Muslim Zaidi sect dominatedpolitics in northern Yemen from the 10th centuryuntil 1962, while TURKEY occupied the land from1538 until 1918. In 1962 a pro-Egyptian militarycoup captured the country’s northern half and pro-claimed a Yemen Arab Republic, supported by EGYPT

and RUSSIA in its civil war against royalists in thesouth (aided by JORDAN and SAUDI ARABIA), endingwith defeat of the royalists in 1969. A new Republicof Yemen was born in May 1990, but traditionalnorth-south conflicts flared again four years laterwith the outbreak of another civil war. Once againthe superior northern forces emerged triumphant,but their victory brought no semblance of peace.Yemen’s first free election in decades was held inApril 1997 and witnessed an overwhelming victoryfor a party known as the General People’s Congress.Unsatisfied with that result, a radical Islamic group—the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army—began to kidnapWestern tourists in 1998–99. That struggle continuestoday, with rebel leader Zein Al-Abidine al-Mihdarbattling to overthrow the parliamentary governmentand establish a fundamentalist Muslim state on thepattern of IRAN. Meanwhile, in October 2000, 17U.S. sailors aboard the destroyer Cole were killedand another 37 wounded in a suicide attack by ter-rorists of AL-QAEDA, led by Osama bin Laden.

See also BIN LADEN FAMILY; TERRORISM.

Y2KAOS“Y2Kaos” was the nickname assigned by some con-spiracists to a chain reaction of disastrous events pre-dicted for January 1, 2000 (Year 2000 or Y2K). Prior

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to the event, it was presumed that many computerswould be unable to distinguish dates in the year2000 from those in 1900 since both are representedby a double 0 in mathematical shorthand (for exam-ple, 1/1/00). That failure, theorists declared, wouldcause a global “crash” of vital computers that con-trol every aspect of modern life from credit andfinance to utilities and military defense systems. Thepredictions for New Year’s Day 2000 ranged fromworldwide economic breakdowns and sweepingshortages of various commodities to invasions of the United States carried out under cover of the

presumed security blackout. While disaster waswidely predicted, principal spokespeople for theY2Kaos theory included U.S. MILITIA groups, right-wing Christian TELEVANGELISTS (led by Pat Robert-son), and various computer firms hawking softwaredesigned to prevent breakdowns on New Year’s Eve.In fact, nothing happened, either on January 1, 2000,or a year later when the 21st century actually beganon January 1, 2001. Thus, Y2Kaos slapped latter-day prophets with their greatest disappointmentsince Seventh-Day Adventists predicted the secondcoming of JESUS CHRIST in 1844.

ZAIN, FredSerologist Fred Zain was employed for 13 years atthe West Virginia State Police crime laboratory andlater in Texas before investigators turned up prob-lems with his work. Like JOYCE GILCHRIST, Zainnow stands accused of faking test results and testify-ing falsely under oath in felony cases, sendingnumerous innocent defendants to prison. Oncerevered as “a god” by West Virginia prosecutors,Zain was discredited in 1993 when West Virginia’sSupreme Court ordered a review of every case onwhich he worked, ruling that “as a matter of law,any testimonial or documentary evidence offered byZain at any time should be deemed invalid, unreli-able and inadmissible.”

Zain began his forensic career in 1977, building areputation as an expert who could solve the mostdifficult cases and assure prosecutors of convic-tions. Those prosecutors were presumably unawareof his tactics, but his supervisors should have beensuspicious. In some cases Zain testified to positiveresults for tests the lab could not perform since itlacked the proper equipment, and yet none of hissuperiors objected. In 1985 FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION lab directors warned Zain’s bossthat Zain had lied about his credentials to obtainhis job, but Zain was not dismissed. At least twoother lab employees also complained about Zain’smethods and were likewise ignored. Zain’s reputa-tion began to unravel in 1991 after an alleged rapist

convicted on Zain’s testimony was exonerated byDNA evidence.

Zain, meanwhile, had left West Virginia forTexas in 1989. Alerted by the West Virginia contro-versy, Texas prosecutors charged Zain with perjuryand jury tampering in one case, but the chargeswere dismissed because the statute of limitationshad expired. In 1994 Zain was indicted for perjuryin West Virginia. One count of the indictment wasdismissed prior to trial; jurors acquitted Zain of asecond charge and deadlocked on the third.Another West Virginia grand jury indicted Zain forfraud in March 1998, but a judge dismissed the casenine months later on grounds that the state couldnot be a victim of fraud. That ruling was reversed in1999, and Zain also faces a new charge in Texas,though legal delays have postponed both trialsbeyond press time. If he avoids prison time, Zainmust answer a $10 million civil lawsuit from JackDavis, a Texas resident falsely convicted of murderon Zain’s testimony.

ZAMBIABritish empire-builder Cecil Rhodes gained his firstfoothold in modern-day Zambia in 1889 when hewon mining concessions from King Lewanika of the Barotse tribe. White settlers quickly invaded theregion and seized control from indigenous peoples,ruling first in the name of the British SOUTH AFRICA

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Company and after 1924 as the British colony ofRhodesia. Between 1953 and 1964 Northern andSouthern Rhodesia were joined with Nyasaland(now MALAWI) as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. On October 24, 1964, NorthernRhodesia became the independent state of Zambia,affiliated with the British Commonwealth of Nationsunder President Kenneth Kaunda. Severance of ties to Britain in 1965 severely damaged Zambia’seconomy, a crisis exacerbated 10 years later by thecollapse of global copper prices. Meanwhile, in 1972President Kaunda outlawed all opposition parties,establishing himself as Zambia’s de facto dictator.Thus he ruled by brute force until 1991 when a seriesof riots and popular uprisings forced Kaunda to permit multiparty elections, thus ensuring his owndefeat by reform candidate Frederick Chiluba.Barred by law from seeking a third term in 2001,Chiluba handpicked successor Levy Mwanawasaand saw him installed as president in January 2002, despite loud complaints of wholesale electionfraud. Six months later, Mwanawasa asserted hisindependence by accusing Chiluba of stealing millions from the public treasury. (No criminalcharges were filed.) Famine threatened Zambia in2002, but Mwanawasa refused foreign donations ofgenetically engineered FRANKENFOODS, which hedenounced as “poison.”

ZAPRUDER filmDallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder was one ofseveral hundred eyewitnesses to the JFK ASSASSINA-TION on November 22, 1963. Unlike most of thosepresent, however, Zapruder had a Bell & Howell 8-millimeter movie camera with a telephoto lens, andhis 22-second film of President Kennedy’s murder isregarded by many observers as the most compellingevidence of a conspiracy involving multiple snipers.In its original form, the Zapruder film posed two crucial problems for the WARREN COMMISSION’slone-assassin verdict. First, it shows Kennedy struckby two separate shots within a time frame impossiblefor LEE HARVEY OSWALD’s antique bolt-action rifle.Likewise, the explosive impact of the second shot—with blood and brain tissue bursting from the backof Kennedy’s head—seems to indicate beyond doubtthat at least one shot came from in front of the presidential motorcade, while Oswald (allegedly)fired from the rear.

Further suggestions of conspiracy were raisedwhen the Warren Commission, in its final report,scrambled the order of frames from Zapruder’s filmto show JFK’s head jerking forward on impact from the second shot, a blatant manipulation of evidence which Federal Bureau of Investigationdirector J. EDGAR HOOVER dismissed as an innocent“printing error.” Further tampering occurred afterTime-Life Corporation purchased the Zapruder filmfor $150,000, keeping the master copy under wrapsand out of public view for years after the assassina-tion. On December 6, 1963, after Dallas physiciansreported finding a bullet entry wound in JFK’sthroat—a physical impossibility if Oswald was the

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Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, former Pentagon liaison officer,reviews the Zapruder film of the assassination of Presi-dent Kennedy, prior to a press screening where afterwardhe urged Congress to reopen the investigation.(Bettmann/Corbis)

only gunman—Life magazine retorted thatZapruder’s film “shows the President turning hisbody around to the right as he waves to someone inthe crowd. His throat is exposed—toward thesniper’s nest [behind him]—just before he clutchesit.” In fact, the film shows nothing of the kind. TheLife report was a complete fabrication, unchal-lenged while the film remained in Time-Life’s solepossession.

In 1971 researcher David Lifton viewed a copy ofthe Zapruder film at Time-Life’s Los Angeles office.He found “splices on the film that had never beenmentioned by Time-Life,” and reported that JFK’shead was “blacked out” in frames following thelethal head shot. Five years later, a lawsuit under theFreedom of Information Act forced the CENTRAL

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) to release various documents, including an admission that the CIA hadtaken custody of the Zapruder film “within days ofthe assassination.” Lifton later wrote:

In my view, previously unreported CIA possession of

the Zapruder film compromised the film’s value as evi-

dence: (1) the forward motion of Kennedy’s head, for

one frame preceding frame 313, might be the result of

an altered film, and if that was so, it made the theory

of a forward high-angle shot . . . completely unneces-

sary; (2) an altered film might also explain why the

occipital area [of JFK’s skull], where the Dallas doc-

tors saw a wound, always appears suspiciously dark,

whereas a large wound appears on the forward, right-

hand side of the head, where the Dallas doctors saw

no wound at all.

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY; JFK ASSASSINATION.

ZIMBABWEOnce known as Southern Rhodesia, the region ofpresent-day Zimbabwe was settled by Britishcolonists and missionaries in the 1850s, displacingNguni and Zulu tribes. The colony took its namefrom Cecil Rhodes, mogul of the British SouthAfrica Company and a dominant figure in 19thcentury colonization of southern Africa. AfterWorld War II the white rulers of Southern Rhodesia(or simply Rhodesia) voted to remain a Britishcolony, while neighboring states clamored for inde-pendence. Another 20 years passed before thewhite-minority government of Rhodesia declared

independence from Britain, in November 1965. Itsharsh racist policies mirrored those of neighboringSOUTH AFRICA, and the two states frequently col-laborated to suppress their black majorities. Insur-gent movements included the AFRICAN NATIONAL

CONGRESS, the Zimbabwe National Union (ZANU)and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU).In March 1978 Rhodesia’s white rulers finallyagreed to a transfer of power, with black Africansassuming control of the state at year’s end. Astrange dual government ruled Rhodesia until 1980when the first-ever biracial elections finally oustedwhite leaders from power. Still, at press time forthis volume, one-third of Zimbabwe’s arable landwas still owned by white farmers—an endangeredspecies increasingly under attack by black raiderswho are openly encouraged by President RobertMugabe. Claiming victims of both races in a longcampaign of domestic TERRORISM, Mugabe hasdeclared: “I am still the HITLER of the time. ThisHitler has only one objective, justice for his ownpeople, sovereignty for his people, recognition ofthe independence of his people. If that is Hitler,then let me be Hitler tenfold. Ten times Hitler, thatis what we stand for.” His “Green Bomber” youthmilitias are the spearhead of a ruthless domesticcampaign that has seen thousands of opponentsjailed, tortured, and killed while orchestrated acts of “random” violence purge whites and blackdissidents alike.

ZIONISMPrior to the early 1880s most European Jewishintellectuals agreed that the solution to anti-Semi-tism and related problems lay in full assimilation ofJews into the various countries where they resided.A shift in that viewpoint began with publication ofLeon Pinsker’s Self-Determination in 1882 andaccelerated with the release of Theodore Heizl’sThe Jewish State in 1896. Both authors proposedthe creation of a Jewish nation, preferably in Pales-tine, where they claimed a “divine right” of occu-pancy dating from Old Testament times. Thepolitical movement toward that end is termedZionism, and it culminated 52 years later in thecreation of ISRAEL.

Theodore Heizl became president of the ZionistWorld Congress in 1896, and he soon approachedthe sultan of TURKEY, requesting leave for Jews to

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occupy Palestine. Rejected on that front, he nextturned to Britain, but the offer of UGANDA as a Jew-ish homeland failed to excite much Zionist enthusi-asm. During the late 19th century, some 20,000 Jewsemigrated to Palestine in a movement dubbed theFirst Aliya (“ascent”). A Second Aliya followed RUS-SIA’s abortive revolution of 1905, and Zionists kepttheir sights fixed firmly on Palestine. In 1914 at aZionist meeting in London future Israeli presidentChaim Weizmann declared Palestine “a countrywithout a people for a people without a country”—somehow ignoring the fact that Palestine was fullyoccupied by Arab residents of long standing. Threeyears later, Weizmann was largely responsible for theBritish government’s Balfour Declaration, whichstated that:

His Majesty’s Government view with favor the estab-

lishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish

people . . . it being clearly understood that nothing shall

be done that may prejudice the civil and religious rights

of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Therein, however, lay the problem. Two yearslater in the wake of World War I, investigators ofPresident Woodrow Wilson’s King-Crane Commis-sion reported that 90 percent of Palestine’s inhabi-tants were non-Jews who opposed establishment of aJewish state. If granted Palestine, the commissiondeclared, “Zionists looked forward to a practicallycomplete dispossession of the present non-Jewishinhabitants . . . nor can the erection of such a JewishState be accomplished without the gravest trespassupon the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Furthermore, “NoBritish officer consulted by the Commissionersbelieved that the Zionist program could be carriedout except by force of arms. That of itself is evidenceof a strong sense of injustice of the Zionist pro-gram.” Finally, the commission declared, “The initialclaim, often submitted by Zionist representatives,that they have a ‘right’ to Palestine, based on anoccupation of two thousand years ago, can hardly beseriously considered.”

And yet, it was. In 1920 the League of Nationsmade Palestine a British “mandate.” That April anti-Zionist riots erupted, claiming the lives of 51 Jewishsettlers. A British commission of inquiry blamed thatoutbreak on “Arab disappointment in the non-fulfill-ment of promises of independence [dating from

1915] and to their fear of economic and politicalsubjugation to the Zionists.” Arthur Ruppin, head ofthe Jewish National Fund, spoke clearly for theZionists when he declared, “Land is the most neces-sary thing for establishing our roots in Palestine.Since there are hardly any more arable unsettledlands in Palestine, we are bound in each case of thepurchase of land and its settlement to remove thepeasants who cultivated the land.”

In fact by the time ADOLF HITLER seized power inGERMANY, few Palestinian Arabs were willing toentertain Zionist offers for land. Nonetheless,between 1933 and 1935 another 133,000 EuropeanJews fled the impending Holocaust and settled inPalestine. In 1938, a full year before the start ofWorld War II, Zionist spokesman David Ben Gurionspoke with surprising candor on his movement’sintentions. “In our political argument abroad,” hesaid, “we minimize Arab opposition to us, but let usnot ignore the truth among ourselves. We are theaggressors and they defend themselves.” AnotherIsraeli leader of the future, Menachim Begin, wasequally frank: “If this is Palestine and not the land ofIsrael, then you [Zionists] are conquerors and nottillers of the land. You are invaders. If this is Pales-tine, then it belongs to a people who lived herebefore you came.”

July 1938 witnessed the first wave of Zionist TER-RORISM in Palestine as members of the IRGUN para-military group detonated a series of bombs, killing76 Arabs. British authorities jailed an Irgun leader inthe wake of those attacks, whereupon the groupmurdered another 52 Arabs. In 1939 after Britainfixed Jewish immigration to Palestine at 15,000 newarrivals per year the Irgun slaughtered another 27Arabs. After World War II Zionist attacks extendedto British officials themselves. The most prominentvictim was Count Folke Bernadotte, head of theSwedish Red Cross who saved thousands of Jewsfrom Nazi concentration camps, appointed by theUNITED NATIONS on May 20, 1948, as a mediatorbetween Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Bernadotte wasmurdered by Zionist gunmen in September 1948 ondirect orders from future Israeli statesman YITZHAK

SHAMIR, then head of a terrorist organization knownas the Stern Gang. Other Zionist crimes from thatera include the April 1948 massacre of 254 Arabs inthe village of Deir Yassin. Irgun commanders issuedan order to their assassins—“As in Deir Yassin, soeverywhere”—while first Israeli president Chaim

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Weizmann called the act “a miraculous clearance ofthe land.”

It must be noted that Zionism does not representthe sole Jewish viewpoint in regard to Palestine orthe question of a Jewish state. Many religious Jewsinterpret God’s promise of a Jewish homeland asreferring to events after the advent of the Messiah—an occurrence which all orthodox Jews agree has notyet occurred. One contrary organization, NetureiKarta, issues fliers with a header addressed to Zion-ists: “Why do you violate God’s order? It will notsucceed!”

See also HOLOCAUST AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL.

ZOGZOG is an abbreviation for “Zionist OccupationGovernment,” a name applied by modern neo-Nazis since the early 1980s to the U.S. federal gov-ernment in Washington, D.C. According to suchgroups as the KU KLUX KLAN, the SILENT BROTHER-HOOD, POSSE COMITATUS, and various militia fac-tions, Jewish conspirators based in ISRAEL orelsewhere have captured control of the UnitedStates, including the presidency, Congress, and theSUPREME COURT, dictating subversive policies whichthreaten white supremacy and otherwise conformto the broad terms of world domination outlined inthe fraudulent PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION.No evidence supports this fascist fantasy, but it persists regardless, finding new adherents in theranks of gullible skinheads and other disaffectedyouth who seek scapegoats for personal failure.

See also FASCISM; MILITIAS; ZIONISM.

ZOMBIESBest known to moviegoers as rotting reanimatedcorpses, slow on their feet and hungry for humanflesh, zombies occupy a rather different place in the culture of their native HAITI. To worshipers of voodoo, any person may be subject to a cursethat kills and then allows the victim’s enemy to resurrect his prey, the undead zombie forced towork forever as a mindless slave. Of course,enlightened persons understand that no such creatures actually exist.

Or do they?On May 2, 1962, 40-year-old Clairvius Narcisse

died at a Haitian hospital. He was buried the following

day—then resurfaced in his native village during1980. Fingerprints confirmed his identity, but physi-cians could not explain his belated resurrection. Nar-cisse claimed that his brother hired a Vodun priest tocurse him in 1962 and that his “corpse” wasunearthed within hours of burial, after which hespent two years as a plantation slave in northernHaiti. With other zombies his brother rebelled andescaped in 1964, but he spent the next 16 years hid-ing in fear for his life until news reached him of hisbrother’s death.

Similar cases are well documented by Haitianphysicians, but they remained mysterious until1982 when Harvard botanist Wade Davis launcheda three-year study of zombification, tracing thepractice back to its native roots. Davis emergedfrom his study with malaria, hepatitis, and enoughmaterial for two books on voodoo, including adetailed breakdown of various “zombie” potionsderived from toxic plants and fish. Abrasive ingre-dients, ranging from ground glass to caustic plantresins, permit the toxins to penetrate human skin(as when victims walk barefoot over treated soil).The concoctions simulate symptoms of death with-out inducing full unconsciousness so that victimsare aware of their own “death” and interment. Tra-ditional belief in voodoo provides a supernaturalexplanation when the victims are unearthed andrevived with chemical antidotes, sometimes includ-ing drugs that promote amnesia and overcomephysical resistance.

Z/R RifleZ/R Rifle was the code name for one of several plotshatched by the U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

(CIA) in its campaign to murder Cuban leader FIDEL

CASTRO. Apparently hatched in the summer of 1961,Z/R Rifle involved CIA recruitment of MAFIA leadersincluding SAM GIANCANA, JOHN ROSELLI, SANTOS

TRAFFICANTE, and others. (Some researchers alsodescribe New Orleans mob boss CARLOS MARCELLO

and syndicate mastermind MEYER LANSKY as integralmembers of the plot.) Those notorious gangstersapparently joined in the conspiracy with full knowl-edge of Attorney General Robert Kennedy and presumably with the collaboration of President John Kennedy. Despite recruitment of such lethal tal-ent, however, all efforts at liquidating Castro failed.Author Gus Russo contends that the multiple murder

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attempts, albeit unsuccessful, drove Castro to plotand execute the JFK ASSASSINATION of November 22,1963, as an act of retaliation. Other researchers disagree, suggesting that the Z/R Rifle team itself was more likely responsible for Kennedy’s murder inDallas. In 1979 the HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON

ASSASSINATIONS officially absolved both Castro and

the CIA of any role in JFK’s murder. The same committee declared that “the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved inthe assassination of President Kennedy, but . . . theavailable evidence does not preclude the possibilitythat individual members may have been involved.”

See also KENNEDY DYNASTY.

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404

Boldface page numbers indicatemajor treatment of a subject. Page numbers in italics indicateillustrations.

AAbbas, Abu 1Abedi, Agha 38Abernathy, Ralph 5, 186Adamson, John 114, 115Afghanistan 1–2, 91

CIA in 67, 298 genocide 193heroin 156, 157terrorism 42 U.S. invasion 43, 59, 157, 168

African National Congress 2–3,229, 394

Agent Orange 3–4, 148Aghora cult 4Agnew, Spiro 4–5, 186, 202, 264Aguinaldo, Emilio 290, 290AIDS v, 5–6

Bayer Corp. 38 in Botswana 50in Tanzania 345

Air America 6–7, 67and Richard DuPont 103heroin traffic 157

AlabamaArmy of God 25 BAPBOMB case 35–37 , 211Citizen’s Council 62 freedom rides 132–133General Electric 138Ku Klux Klan 29, 35–37,

62–63, 88, 132–133, 209,210, 211, 375–376

George Wallace 375–376Albania 7

drug dumping 99and Egypt 111

Albigensian crusade 65Aleph cult 31Alexander I 7–8Alexander II 8, 46Algeria 8

and France 132

alien abductions 8–10, 359Allende, Salvador 73, 182Alpha 66 10, 64, 191America First Committee 10–11,

95and Ford Motor Co. 127

American Civil Liberties Union 95American Indian Movement

11–12, 84, 95, 107, 123, 145American Legion 12–13American Liberty League 12, 13

and DuPonts 101Ames, Aldrich 13, 153Ames, Maria 13Amin, Idi 360–361anarchists 14–16, 72, 122, 196Anderson, Don 25Anderson, Jack 16–17, 308Andreassen, Betty 9Anglican Church 17, 179Angola 17

CIA in 66 and Congo 87, 88 and Cuba 91 guerrilla bases 3oil 335

Animal Liberation Front 18–19Animal Rights Militia 19–20Anslinger, Harry 20, 100, 229, 235

and DuPonts 103Antarctica 21, 360anthrax conspiracies 21

Army of God 25Apollo Project 22, 148Aquino, Benigno 23, 234, 290Arab Communist OrganizationArafat, Yasser 1, 47, 121, 262Area 51 23, 360

and Apollo Project 2Argentina 23–24, 217

BCCI 39 gold 143Martin Bormann in 49Adolf Eichmann in 112Adolf Hitler in 160and Hollow Earth 161Josef Mengele in 237and Paraguay 284snuff films 329

ArizonaAnimal Liberation Front 18 Don Bolles murder 114–115Earp brothers 106Earth First! 107Emprise Corp. 114–115Mafia 114militia 242UFOs 9

Arkansasbackward masking 34 bombings 78 Clinton scandals 79 Crips and Bloods 90Emprise Corp. 114Vince Foster 128, 129Ku Klux Klan 135Posse Comitatus 293–294

Armed Islamic Group 8Armenia 24–25

and Azerbaijan 33and Georgia 139

Armstrong, Neil 22Army of God 25, 66Arnold, Benedict 25–26, 25Aryan Brotherhood 26, 294

and Mexican Mafia 238vs. Black Guerrilla Family 45,

266Aryan Nations 75, 291, 325Asahara, Shoko 30–31asbestos 26–28Ashcroft, John 28, 32, 123, 197,

272, 369and anthrax plots 21 and Camp Van Dorn massacre

61and Enron 116and tobacco companies 261

assassinations Alexander I 7–8 Alexander II 8, 46Alexander III (aborted) 215Salvador Allende 182 Jack Anderson (aborted) 17 Benigno Aquino 23 Yasser Arafat (attempted)

262–263Stephen Biko 41

Index

Don Bolles 114–115Napoleon Bonaparte 48–49 Gerald Bull 53–54 Julius Caesar 196King Carlos (king of Portugal)

293Fidel Castro (plots) 10, 17, 77,

101, 141, 396–397Anton Cermak 68 Charles DeGaulle (attempted)

132Henry de Guise 316Diana, Princess of Wales 96–97Samuel Doe 219Medgar Evers 78, 291Franz Ferdinand 31, 45, 49Louis Freeh (planned) 242Indira Gandhi 172Mohandas Gandhi 172 John Gerardi 146Sam Giancana 141Dag Hammarskjöld 151Fred Hampton 47, 72,

152–153, 328Warren Harding (alleged) 270 Henry III 316Reinhard Heydrich 175Adolf Hitler (aborted) 46 J. Edgar Hoover (alleged) 137,

164House Select Committee on

165–166, 279–280, 397George Jackson 184–185John Paul I (alleged) 192–193John Paul II (attempted) 193Laurent Kabila 87 John Kennedy 67, 68, 91, 93,

93–94, 101, 137, 141, 165–166, 174, 187, 188–192,

194, 179–180, 311–312, 366–367, 377–378Robert Kennedy 67, 68, 141,

243, 304–306, 327Martin Luther King 67, 68,

165–166, 203–204, 301Vladimir Lenin (aborted) 103,

216 John Lennon 67, 216–217 Orlando Letelier 217Abraham Lincoln 220–223, 311Huey Long 226Louis of Lorraine 316Patrice Lumumba 87, 229–230 William McKinley 14, 259 Francis Meloy 23 Lord Moyne 324Pervez Musharraf (attempted)

282

Gamal Nasser (attempted) 252Ngo Dinh Diem 372Marien Ngouabi 88 Francisco Nguema 118Manuel Noriega (aborted) 100Phoenix Program 291–292Yitzhak Rabin 300Grigory Rasputin 300–301Ronald Reagan (attempted)

302Janet Reno (planned) 242Walter Reuther (suspected)

304Franklin Roosevelt (attempted)

67 Anwar al-Sadat 111, 252, 315Vazgen Sarkissian 24 Sabina Slonkova 92 Joseph Smith 247Anastasio Somoza 330Joseph Stalin (aborted) 40 William Sullivan (alleged) 337Zachary Taylor (alleged)

345–346Leon Trotsky 327, 333Rafael Trujillo 98Harry Truman (attempted) 296Umberto I 14 George Wallace (attempted)

376John Wood 250Wrath of God 386–387Malcolm X 67, 388

Assassins cult 28–29, 171AstraZeneca 29, 288Atlanta child murders 30Atlanta Police Dept. 29–30Aum Shinrikyo 30–31, 187Australia

child molestation 318Echelon network 110motorcycle gangs 250

Austria 31–32Martin Bormann in 49 and Bosnia 45Allen Dulles in 100Adolf Eichmann in 111and General Motors 139Hitler born in 160Interpol 175and Italy 181Nazi Party 111 OPEC raid 62and Poland 292

“Axis of Evil” 32–33, 32, 59, 168,177, 178, 208

Azerbaijan 24, 33and Georgia 139

Bbackward masking 34Baden-Powell, Robert 50Bahamas 34

Howard Hughes in 167Interpol 175

Bahrain 34–35and Qatar 298

Baker, James II 42Baker, Stanley 130, 131Baltimore Police Dept. 35Bandidos motorcycle gang 250Bangladesh 35

BCCI 39and Pakistan 281

BAPBOMB 35–37, 43, 123Barbie, Klaus 37, 131, 296Barbie dolls 37Bari, Judi 107–108Bath, James 42Batista, Fulgencio 38, 64, 91, 277,

351Baxley, Bill 36, 37Bayer Corp. 38, 288Bay of Pigs 38, 67, 91, 101, 190BCCI conspiracy 38–39, 63

and bin Laden family 42Begin, Menachem 178Belarus 39Belgium 39–40

Gerald Bull in 53, 249and Burundi 57 and Congo 87and Interpol 175and Tanzania 344

Belize 40Beria, Lavrenti 40, 87Berkman, Alexander 15Berkowitz, David 130, 329Berrigan, Daniel 109, 205Berrigan, Philip 109–110, 205Big Seven 40Biko, Steven 41Bilderberg group 41, 47, 89, 353Billy the Kid 362–363, 364bin Laden family 42–43

and Bush dynasty 59 CIA support for 67Osama 1, 2, 42–43, 59, 67, 86,

168, 176, 220, 274, 282, 290, 298, 337, 390and PENTTBOM attacks

286–287 Birmingham Police Dept. 43,

132–133Black Dragon Society 43–44, 121Black Friday conspiracy 44–45,

143

Index

405

Black Guerrilla Family 45, 266,294

and Mexican Mafia 238and Huey Newton murder 47

Black Hand 45–46Italian 45 murders Franz Ferdinand 31,

45 Serbian 45–46

Black Hebrew Israelites 95Black Hundreds 46Black Legion 96Black Liberation Army 45Black Muslims Black Orchestra 46Black Panther Party 11, 45, 46–47,

90, 107, 123in Algeria 8 in Baltimore 35 and Black Guerrilla Family 294and Blackstone Rangers 113in California 184–185, 227,

267, 317, 328, 342in Chicago 72, 73, 151–152,

273in Connecticut 257–258in Denver 95in Detroit 96and George Jackson 184in Memphis 236in New York 260in Philadelphia 289

Black September 47, 121Blackstone Rangers 46, 72, 113Blanton, Thomas, Jr. 36–37Bohemian Club 47–48Bolívar, Simón 84Bolivia 48

Klaus Barbie in 37 and Chile 73 cocaine 81and Paraguay 284

bombings Alabama 35–37, 43, 88 Alpha 66 10 anarchist 14–16 Animal Rights Militia 20 Arab Communist Organization

23 Arkansas 78 Army of God 25 Black Hand 45Black Legion 96 Don Bolles 114–115Chile 182Confederate Underground 87 Cuban airliner 217Earth First! 107–108, 385

East Coast Conspiracy to SaveLives 109

federal statute on 54 Haymarket 14 Hindenburg 159India 172, 281–282Irgun 179Theodore Kaczynski 130Kenya 202, 345Ku Klux Klan 35–37, 88, 227militia 242Minutemen 244Morocco 249Oklahoma City 75, 121, 123,

242, 271–272Pan Am Flight 103 219–220,

283–284, 297Phineas Priesthood 291Russia 8 Secret Army Organization 321Tanzania 345Wall Street 16Weatherman Underground

143World Trade Center 123,

385–386Bonaparte, Napoleon 49–50, 127,

131, 150, 172, 181, 312Booth, John Wilkes 220–223, 220Bormann, Martin 37, 49, 131,

157, 161, 269Bosnia-Herzegovina 49–50, 243

annexed 45 and Croatia 91drug dumping 99snuff films 329

Botswana 50BCCI 39Boxer Rebellion 74, 277Boyce, William 50Boyle, Patrick 50Boy Scouts 50–51Branch Davidian sect 54–55Brazil 51

BCCI 39 and Bolivia 48 CIA in 194–195and Interpol 175Josef Mengele in 237and Paraguay 284and Portugal 17, 51secret police 194, 321

Brookings, Robert 51, 52Brookings Institution 51–52Bugliosi, Vincent 113Bulgaria 31, 52, 193Bull, Gerald Victor 52–53, 249,

387

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, andFirearms 54–55, 107, 173, 302,356

Burnett, Alfred 55Burns, William 55–57, 56, 154,

163and Teapot Dome 94, 347

Burundi 57and Belgium 40, 57and Rwanda 313

Bush dynasty 28, 57–58and bin Laden family 42–43,

59 and election 2000 112–113Enron scandal 115–117and General Electric 138George H. W. 42, 53, 57–58,

58, 70, 79, 82, 100, 112, 148,167, 176–177, 197, 211, 217,219, 240, 251, 259, 260, 268,302, 313, 318, 338, 347, 352

George W. 2, 23, 28, 32, 32,40, 42–43, 55, 58, 67, 69, 70,85, 103, 112–113, 115–117,123, 132, 138, 139, 148, 156,157, 167, 168, 173, 176, 177,197, 208, 218, 219, 241, 252,257, 261, 273–276, 286–287,288, 290, 318, 322, 338, 341,347, 369, 377, 384

and heroin trade 157in oil business 57–58, 241Iran-contra conspiracy 63, 100,

176–177, 260, 352Jeb 58, 318and Henry Kissinger 205and “liberal media” 218and Manhattan Institute 69 Neil 58, 318 and New World Order 259and October Surprise 268–269and Operation Iraqi Freedom

273–276and organized crime 57, 174 and PENTTBOM attacks

286–287Prescott 57 Samuel 57 Savings and Loan scandal 319in Skull and Bones Society 57,

58, 327supports Saddam Hussein 167,

177and Teamsters Union 174and televangelists 347and Third Reich 57and “Wise Use” movement

384–385

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

406

Butler, George 94Butler, Smedley 13Butterfield, Daniel 44, 45Byrd, James, Jr. 26

CCaesar, Julius 39, 196, 256Caesar, Thane 306Cagle, Charles 36California

American Indian Movement 11 Animal Liberation Front 18 Animal Rights Militia 19 Aryan Brotherhood 26 Black Panther Party 46, 47, 83,

184 Bohemian Club 47–48 Boy Scouts 51 child molestation 318Crips and Bloods 90 Death Angels 95Earth First! 106–108Earth Liberation Front 108earthquake 124Endovascular Technologies 115Enron 115–117FEMA 124Four Pi movement 130–131General Motors 139Hare Krishnas 155John Birch Society 192militia 242Minutemen 243–244organ theft 279People’s Temple 195Arlis Perry murder 130Phineas Priests 291prison gangs 26, 45, 238, 266Ronald Reagan 301–302savings and loan scandal 319Symbionese Liberation Army

340–341“Zebra” murders 95, 137

Cambodia 7, 60, 185, 204, 239and Thailand 350and Vietnam 373

“Camden 28” 154–155Camorra 60

and Catholic Church 66and Vatican Bank 371

Camp Van Dorn massacre 60–61Canada 52–53

Anglican Church 17 Animal Liberation Front 18, 19 Animal Rights Militia 19–20 arms research 52–53 and Benedict Arnold 26

asbestos 28Boy Scouts 51 cancer research 62child molestation 318Echelon network 110fascism 121livestock mutilations 223, 224motorcycle gangs 250oil 271Satanism 224Scientology 320Soviet spies 308

Canaris, Wilhelm 46cancer cures 61–62, 288Capone, Al 67, 141, 173, 308,

316–317Carlos the Jackal 62Carlsen, William 5Carlyle Group 42, 271Carter, Asa 62–63, 375Carter, Jimmy 123, 268, 302Case, Carrol 61Casey, William 63

founds Manhattan Institute 69Iran-contra conspiracy 177and October Surprise 269

Cash, Herman 36Casolaro, Danny 63–64, 80Cassidy, Butch 363–364Castro, Fidel 38, 64, 91, 98, 184

assassination plots 10, 17, 67,77, 101, 141, 200, 212, 308,352, 396–397

and Maurice Bishop 144and Jesuits 187and JFK assassination 189–192

Catholic Church 64–66, 134,192–193, 200

Anglican schism 17 and Klaus Barbie 37 and Berrigan brothers 109and Camorra 60 and Fidel Castro 64and conquest of New World

142Crusades 180and Dreyfus affair 98England 184Germany 140and Greek Orthodox 144Guatemala 146and IRA 180Italy 181Jesuit order 187Knights Templar 206–207and Lincoln assassination 223and Josef Mengele 237and Dan Mitrione, Jr. 320

and Odessa network 269pedophile priests 285,

323–324Poland 292St. Bartholomew’s Day mas-

sacre 315–316Servants of the Paraclete

323–324and Somalia 330and Somoza dynasty 331Spain 142, 331Vatican Bank 371–372vs. New Deal 256

Caulfield, John 52, 54Central African Republic 66Central Intelligence Agency v,

66–67, 97 and AIDS 5 Air America 6–7 , 103in Afghanistan 2 and Alfa 66 10 and Jack Anderson 16–17 in Angola 17, 66 Bay of Pigs invasion 38, 101and BCCI 38and Bilderberg group 41 and bin Laden family 42–43 in Bolivia 48 in Brazil 51 and Gerald Victor Bull 53–54 and George H. W. Bush 57 and William Casey 63, 69 campus surveillance 302and Chappaquiddick incident

69 in Chile 73, 217 and Church Committee 77,

165CISPES case 77 and Coca-Cola 81 and cocaine 82, 176in Costa Rica 89 and Council on Foreign

Relations 90 and Cuba 10, 38, 64, 77, 91,

101, 141, 228, 308, 352,396–397 and Allen Dulles 100–101and Richard DuPont 103in Ecuador 110and El Rukns 113and false memory syndrome

119, 120and Finders 125–126in France 132Gemstone File 137in Greece 143in Grenada 145

Index

407

Central Intelligence Agency (continued)

in Guatemala 101, 145–146,368

in Guyana 149in Haiti 151Dag Hammarskjöld murder 151and heroin 2, 7, 132, 157 in Honduras 163and Howard Hughes 166, 167and Huston Plan 168illegal domestic surveillance

322in Indonesia 173in Iran 101Iran-contra conspiracy

176–177in Iraq 178in Italy 181and JFK assassination 166,

188–192and Jonestown massacre

194–195and John Kennedy 200in Laos 213and Las Vegas 214in Lebanon 101and John Lennon 216–217and Lockheed Martin 225and LSD 227Lumumba assassination 229and Mafia 10, 77, 141, 308,

352, 396–397mind-control experiments 227,

243, 341“moles” in 13, 153 in Mozambique 250in Nicaragua 260and Noah’s ark 265and Manuel Noriega 283and NYPD 260and Lee Oswald 279–280and PENTTBOM 286–287Phoenix Program 291–292and Pike Committee 292Project Paperclip 37, 295–296and Ronald Reagan 302and Reuther brothers 304and Skull and Bones 327and Symbionese Liberation

Army 341and UFOs 360vs. communism 86vs. KGB 193and William Webster 381and Yakuza 389and Zapruder film 394Z/R Rifle 396–397

Cermak, Anton 67–68Chad 68, 297Challenger shuttle disaster 68, 85Chambers, Whittaker 159–160Chambliss, Robert 36, 37Chappaquiddick incident 68–69,

201Chase Manhattan Bank 69, 218Chechnya 69–70, 313Cheney, Dick 32, 70–71, 112, 116,

178, 274, 275, 286Chennault, Anna 5Chennault, Claire 6Cherney, Daryl 107–108Chernobyl disaster 39, 71Cherry, Bobby 36Chiang Kai-shek 71–72, 74, 233,

342–343, 352Chicago 7 72–73, 93Chicago Police Dept. 72, 93

and Black Panthers 47, 113,152–153, 273

and Robert Hanssen 153child molestation

Anglican church 17 Belgium 40 Boy Scouts of America 50–51 Catholic priests 17, 66, 285and false memory syndrome

119–120Freemasons 135satanic 135, 318

Chile 73–74and Bolivia 48 CIA in 66, 205, 217Colonia Dignidad 85, 131 and IT&T 182Letelier assassination 217Jonathan Moyle murdered 53and Peru 287secret police 217, 321

China 57, 74, 126Air America 6 BCCI 39 Black Dragon Society 43 Boxer Rebellion 74, 277and Gerald Victor Bull 53 and Chile 73 communism 71, 74, 86 and Ghana 141and Japan 186and Korea 208Kuomintang 71 and Mali 233Mao Zedong 233marijuana 234and Mongolia 245Nationalist 72

Opium Wars 277, 352organ thefts 278–279and Russia 313secret police 114and Taiwan 342–343terrorism 44 Triads 71, 82 in World War II 11

Christian Front 74–75, 164Christian Identity 75

and Aryan Brotherhood 26Christian Reconstructionism

75–76Church, Frank 76Church Committee 76–77, 84,

141, 165, 229CISPES case 77–78, 84, 123Citizens’ Councils 78–79, 191, 200

and John Birch Society 192Clanton gang 106Clark, Mark 152, 153, 273, 328Clark, Tom 43, 164, 304, 328Clinton, Bill and Hillary 79–80,

197, 261and Bilderberg group 41 and bin Ladens 42, 43, 274and China 74“death list” 129and FBI 123and Lockheed Martin 225and Oklahoma City bombing

273and Leonard Peltier 12

Cobain, Kurt 80Coca-Cola 80–81, 218cocaine 81–82, 100

Bahamas 34 Bolivia 48 and Chicago police 72 CIA 67 in Coca-Cola 81 Colombia 85 Crips and Bloods 90and Dallas police 94and Detroit police 96El Salvador 114and Iran-contra conspiracy 176Mexico 239Panama 283Peru 287and Russian Mafia 312and street gangs 335and Yakuza 390

COINTELPRO 72, 78, 82–84, 95,107, 109, 113, 123, 155, 165,166, 255, 296

Church Committee exposes76–77

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

408

Colby, William 7Colombia 84–85

BCCI 39 Coca-Cola 81 cocaine 81 and Ecuador 110heroin 2and Panama 283and Venezuela 372

Colonia Dignidad 85, 131Colorado

American Indian Movement 95anarchists 14Black Panthers 95Bureau of Investigation 224child molestation 318Earth Liberation Front 108FBI 95Ku Klux Klan 95, 210livestock mutilations 224police 95

Colson, Charles 51, 52Columbia shuttle disaster 68, 85–86Columbus, Christopher 34, 89, 91,

98, 144, 150, 163, 186, 296, 372Committee to Reelect the President

86, 164, 264, 379communism 86–87

Albania 7 Bulgaria 52 China 74, 187, 233 and CIA 66 confused with anarchism 14 Congo Republic 88 Cuba 64, 91 Czechoslovakia 92 and Detroit police 96and Dulles brothers 100–101and FBI 55, 82 and fluoridated water 126Germany 140, 303Greece 143Guyana 149Hungary 167Indonesia 173Italy 181Mongolia 245Nazis recruited by United States

to fight 37, 63, 100, 131, 295–296Poland 292–293and Reuther brothers 304Romania 308Russia 40, 91, 131, 203,

215–216, 312–313Serbia 243South Africa 3 Tajikistan 342

Ukraine 361Venezuela 62, 372 Vietnam 372–373Yugoslavia 91

Communist Party USA 55, 72, 82,123, 159, 164, 196, 236, 282,289

Comoros 87Confederate Underground 87“conflict diamonds” 17Congo (Democratic Republic) 87,

229BCCI 39and Rwanda 314

Congo (Republic) 88Connecticut

anthrax 21 Black Panthers 73, 257–258police 257–258

Connor, Bull 36, 43, 88and church bombings 35 and freedom rides 43, 88,

132–133conspiracy defined v–vicontras 63, 163, 176–177Costa Rica 89Cote d’Ivoire 89Coughlin, Charles 11, 74–75Council of Conservative Citizens

78–79Council on Foreign Relations

89–90, 192and Bilderberg group 41 and Dick Cheney 71 and Bill Clinton 80

Crips and Bloods 45, 82, 90, 335Croatia 90–91Cuba 17, 64, 91

and Angola 17 and Bolivia 48 Camp Delta 91 Camp X-ray 2 Joan Chesimard in 47 and Chile 73 CIA in 67, 101, 141communism 86 and Grenada 144and JFK assassination 189–192and Meyer Lansky 212and Lucky Luciano 229Mafia in 67, 141, 351–352Huey Newton in 47 terrorism 10

Cutler, R.B. 68Cyprus 91–92

Echelon network 110and Greece 144and Turkey 353

Czechoslovakia 92Farben Industries 120and Interpol 175

Czech Republic 92Czolgosz, Leon 14, 14

DDaley, Richard 72, 93, 200, 263Dallas Police Dept. 93–94

and JFK assassination188–192, 311

Daugherty, Harry 94, 122, 154,197

and William Burns 55Davis, Rennie 73Davis, William 94–95Dean, John 52, 169, 380Death Angels 95, 113, 137Defense Intelligence Agency 168DeGaulle, Charles 8, 132DelawareDuPont dynasty 101Dellinger, David 73DeLoach, Cartha 12–13Democratic Party 86, 141, 156,

199–201, 261, 271, 285,302–303, 344

Demolay, Jacques 134, 207, 207Denver Police Dept. 95–96Detroit Police Dept. 96

and General Motors 138Diana, Princess of Wales 96–97,

240Dies, Martin 164–165Dillinger, John v, 36, 72, 364–365,

365Djibouti 97–98Dodge City Peace Commission 106Dollfuss, Engelbert 31Dominica 98Dominican Republic 98

and Haiti 150Donovan, Raymond 302Donovan, William 66, 269–270Doyle, William 13Dreyfus affair 98–99Druffel, Ann 10drug dumping 62, 99, 288

Bayer Corp. 38Drug Enforcement Administration

99–100Duke, David 78Dulles brothers 100–101

Allen 66, 151, 191, 229, 243,308, 377

John 188, 192and Guatemala 145

Index

409

DuPont dynasty 101–103and American Liberty League

13, 101Éleuthère 101, 102and Farben Industries 120and General Motors 139Henry 102Henry Algernon 102Pierre-Samuel 102Richard 103

Dutroux, Marc 40Duvalier, François 150–151Duvalier, Jean-Claude 151Dzerzhinsky, Feliks 103

EEarp brothers 104–106

Morgan 105Virgil 105Wyatt 104

Earth First! 106–108and Denver police 96

Earth Liberation Front 107,108–109, 108

East Coast Conspiracy to SaveLives 109–110

East Timor 110, 173Echelon 110, 254Ecuador 84, 110–111

and Peru 287and Venezuela 372

Edison, Thomas 137Egypt 111, 315

Assassins cult 28Israel invades 181Lockheed Martin 225Muslim Brotherhood 252Stern Gang 324and Sudan 337

Ehrlichman, John 51, 52, 380Eichmann, Adolf 111–112, 131,

158, 161, 162, 269Eisenhower, Dwight 200, 241, 306

and John Dulles 101and Guatemala 145and John Birch Society 192and military-industrial complex

240–241and Richard Nixon 263and Trujillo assassination 98

election 2000 59, 112–113, 156,218, 271, 288, 303, 319

El Rukns 113El Salvador 77, 114

genocide 193and Honduras 163

Emprise Corp. 114–115

EndoVascular Technologies 115Engels, Friederich 86England 51

and Afghanistan 1 Anglican Church 17 Animal Rights Militia 19–20 and Bahrain 35 and Belize 40 Bilderberg group 41 and Botswana 50 Boy Scouts 50 and Gerald Victor Bull 53 and William Burns 55child molestation 318and Dominica 98Earth Liberation Front 108 Echelon network 110and Egypt 111Farben Industries 120fascism 121and Fiji 124Finders 125Freemasons 133and Gambia 136and Ghana 140and Greece 143and Guyana 149heroin in 2 Rudolph Hess in 49, 157Interpol 175and Iran 176and Iraq 177and Ireland 178, 179Jack the Ripper 183and Jamaica 186and Jordan 196and Kenya 202and Kuwait 148and Malawi 232and Malaysia 232marijuana 235MI5 240MI6 95, 97, 240, 289and Myanmar 252and Nigeria 262and Northern Ireland 178,

179–180Opium Wars 74, 277and Palestine 178–179PLO 262and Qatar 298Rothschilds 311and Senegal 323and Seychelles 324and Sierra Leone 324–325and Solomon Islands 329and Sudan 337and Syria 341

and Suriname 340terrorism 183and Zambia 392–393and Zimbabwe 394

Enron 115–117, 116and Dick Cheney 70

Environmental Protection Agency117

EOKA 91Equatorial Guinea 117–118Eritrea 118Ethiopia 98, 118

and Eritrea 118and Italy 181Noah’s ark 265and Somalia 330

“ethnic cleansing”Armenia 24 Bosnia-Herzegovina 49 Burundi 57 Côte d’Ivoire 89 Croatia 91 Fiji 124Rwanda 314Serbia 7Solomon Islands 330

eugenics 69, 170Evers, Medgar 78Exxon 69

FFall, Bernard 56, 154false memory syndrome 8,

l19–120, 243Farben Industries 69, 120–121

and DuPonts 101and Ford Motor Co. 127and General Motors 139

Farrakhan, Louis 255Angels of Death 113

fascism 121, 131American Legion 12 Brazil 51 Croatia 90 Fourth Reich 131Germany 13, 255Italy 13, 181

Fatah 47, 121–122Fayed, Dodi 97Fayed, Mohammed 97Federal Bureau of Investigation 11,

13, 52, 122–123, 154, 174, 194ABSCAM sting 63 and Alpha 66 10 and American Indian Move-

ment 11–12, 84 and American Legion 12

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

410

and Jack Anderson 16–17 anthrax plots 21 and Army of God 25 and John Ashcroft 28 and Atlanta child murders 30 and Baltimore police 35 BAPBOMB case 36–37 BATF merger 54, 55 and Berrigan brothers 109and bin Ladens 42–43 and Black Panthers 46–47, 55,

73, 83, 90, 113, 152–153, 184, 273and Blackstone Rangers 113 and Martin Bormann 49 Branch Davidian siege 54–55 and William Burns 55–56 and Chicago police 72 and Christian Front 75 and Church Committee 76–77 and CIA 67 CISPES case 77–78, 84 COINTELPRO 82–84, 95,

113, 152, 155, 296and Bull Connor 88 corruption 383–384creation of 14, 196 Crime Records Division 13 and Dallas police 94and Denver police 95–96and Detroit police 96and Earth First! 106–108and Earth Liberation Front

109and El Rukns 113and Enron 116, 117files on GOP 79 firearms purchase screening 28 foreign agents 13 and Vince Foster death 127frame-ups 43, 47, 107–108 and freedom rides 43, 132–133 and Joyce Gilchrist 142and Guardians of the Oglala

Nation 11, 145and Alger Hiss 159–160and J. Edgar Hoover 163–164and HUAC 83, 164–165and Howard Hughes 167and Huston Plan 168–169informants 36, 88, 143, 152,

154–155, 174, 184, 273, 280, 301, 328, 336, 351, 378,

386and Interpol 175and Jackson State College

shootings 185–186and Jewish Defense League 83

and JFK assassination165–166, 188–192, 234

and John Kennedy 200and Robert Kennedy 304–305and Kent State shootings

201–202and Martin Luther King

165–166, 203–204and Henry Kissinger 204and Ku Klux Klan 30, 83 and LAPD 226–227, 342in Las Vegas 214and John Lennon 216and Letelier assassination 217and Mafia 82, 173and Carlos Marcello 234and Joe McCarthy 16 Media, PA, burglary 154–155,

336and Memphis police 236and Daniel Mitrione, Jr. 320“moles” within 153–154and Nation of Islam 255negligence 13, 35–37,

153–154, 166and New Haven police 257and NYPD 260and Orangeburg massacre

277–278and Lee Harvey Oswald

279–280and PENTTBOM 286–287and Philadelphia police 289and Pike Committee 292and Posse Comitatus 293–294in Puerto Rico 83, 296and Ray brothers 301and the Rosenbergs 308–310and William Ruckleshaus 117and Russian Mafia 312and San Francisco police 317and Scientology 320and SDS 281, 335–336and Secret Army Organization

244, 321and Senate Internal Security

Subcommittee 322–323and Silent Brotherhood 325and Subversive Activities Con-

trol Board 336and Symbionese Liberation

Army 340and Teamsters Union 174and terrorism 25, 28, 54, 143,

241, 349and TWA Flight 800 355–356and Union Station massacre

367–368

and UFOs 358–360vs. Communist Party 55, 82, 86vs. Federal Bureau of Narcotics

20vs. New Left 84, 143, 351vs. Socalist Workers Party 83

and Walker spy family 375Larry Ward case 55and Warren Commission 234 Weaver siege 54 and William Webster 381and “white slavery” 382and Winter Hill gang 383–384wiretaps 5and World Trade Center bomb-

ing 385–386and Yakuza 187

Federal Bureau of Narcotics 20,99–100, 103

Federal Emergency ManagementAgency 123–124

Ferdinand, Franz 31, 45, 49Fiji 124Finders 124–126Fisk, Jim 44–45, 44, 143Fitzsimmons, Frank 174Florida

anthrax 21 asbestos 28BCCI 39 and Bush dynasty 58 Challenger disaster 68 child molestation 318Confederate Underground 87Death Angels 95“ear murders” 95FBI 215election 2000 112–113Finders 124–125“Gainesville 8” 215KKK 210, 211militia 242John Roselli murdered 308Savings and Loan scandal 319Scientology 320

fluoridated water 126, 192Flynn, William 16Fonda, Jane 73Ford, Edsel 127 Ford, Gerald 70, 128, 137, 188,

205, 264, 306, 377Ford, Henry 10, 75, 127, 127, 296Ford, Henry, II 41Ford Motor Co. 127–128

and GM 138and “liberal media” 218and Walter

Index

411

Forrest, Nathan 63Foster, Vince 80, 128–130, 129Four Pi Movement 130–131Fourth Reich 121, 131, 161

and Martin Bormann 49, 161and William Pierce 355

France 131–132and Algeria 8 asbestos 28 and Central African Republic

66 and Chad 68 and Comoros 87 and Congo 87, 88 and Côte d’Ivoire 89 Diana, Princess of Wales

96–97and Djibouti 97–98and Dominica 98and Dominican Republic 98Dreyfus affair 98–99Allen Dulles in 100DuPont dynasty 101and Egypt 111Farben Industries 120and Ford Motor Co. 127and Gabon 136and Gambia 136and Germany 98–99and Greece 143and Grenada 144and Guinea 146and Guyana 149and Haiti 150heroin 157Illuminati 171and Indochina 7, 60and Indonesia 172–173and Interpol 175and Italy 181 Knights Templar 206–207and Laos 213and Lebanon 214and Madagascar 231and Mali 233and Mexico 238Nazi occupation 37 and Netherlands 256and Niger 262PLO 262Rosicrucians 310Rothschilds 311St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre

315–316and Samoa 317Scientology 320and Senegal 323and Seychelles 324

and Somalia 330and Syria 341terrorism 62 and Thailand 350Unione Corsé 366–367Vichy regime 69and Vietnam 372

Franco, Francisco 121, 332Frankenfoods 132freedom rides 132–133Freeh, Louis 12, 37, 123, 242Freemasons 111, 133–135, 134

and Jack the Ripper 183–184and John Paul I 193and Knights Templar 207and Protocols of the Elders of

Zion 296Muammar al-Qaddaffi 283and Vatican Bank 371

Froines, John 73Fuchs, Klaus 308

GGabon 136

and Congo 88“Gainesville 8” 215Galman, Rolando 23Galvin, Thomas 79Gambia 137Garber, Stephen 22Garfield, James 45Garrison, Jim 190Gelb, Leslie 52–52Gemstone File 136–137, 167General Electric 137–138, 218,

241General Motors 138–139

and American Liberty League13

and Council on Foreign Rela-tions 90

and DuPonts 101Georgia (Republic) 24, 40, 139Georgia (U.S.)

anarchists 15 Animal Liberation Front 19 Army of God 25 Bureau of Investigation 30 Coca-Cola 81 Confederate Underground 87 General Motors 139Ku Klux Klan 13, 29–30, 156,

209, 210militia 242police 29-30, 185School of the Americas 320Talmadge dynasty 343–344

Germany 31, 37, 85, 100, 140Bosnia invaded by 49 and Bulgaria 52 and Burundi 57Czechoslovakia invaded by 92William Davis in 94–95 Allen Dulles in 100Echelon network 110Farben Industries 69, 101,

120–121fascism 13 and Ford Motor Co. 127and France 98–99, 131General Electric 137General Motors 139and Greece 143Holocaust 162and Hungary 167Illuminati 171and Interpol 175and Italy 181and IT&T 182Krupp Arms 101, 208–209and Namibia 254National Socialism 121, 157and Norway 265and Poland 292Red Army faction 62 Reichstag fire 303and Romania 308Rothschilds 310–311and Rwanda 313and Samoa 317sinks Lusitania 230snuff films 329and Solomon Islands 329SS 332-333terrorism 47, 62 Third Reich 11, 69, 94, 158,

160–161, 332–333, 350, 376and Uganda 360and Ukraine 361

Gestapo 37, 46, 140Adolf Eichmann 111

Ghana 140–141BCCI 39gold 143

Giancana, Sam 141, 166, 189,200, 305, 396

Gilchrist, Joyce 141–142Gillespie, April 168Godfrey, Howard 321gold 142–143

aboard Lusitania 230Black Friday conspiracy 44–45Wyatt Earp swindles 106Ghana 141and Morgan dynasty 246

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

412

South Africa 331Vatican Bank 371

Golden Crescent 156Golden Triangle 156, 213, 350Goldman, Emma 15Göring, Hermann 11, 140, 263Gould, Jay 44–45, 44, 143Grant, Tom 80Grant, Ulysses 44, 45Grathwohl, Larry 143, 336Greece 143–144

and Cyprus 91Greek Orthodox Church 144

and Iran 176and Iraq 177and Libya 219and Turkey 353

Greek Orthodox Church 144Grenada 144–145Guardians of the Oglala Nation

11–12, 145sponsored by FBI 11

Guatemala 40, 145–146and Bay of Pigs 38 BCCI 39 CIA in 66, 101and Richard DuPont 103and Honduras 163United Fruit Co. 368

Guinea 146and Liberia 219

Guinea-Bissau 146Gulf of Tonkin incident 147, 303Gulf War 148, 168, 177, 196, 211Guyana 149

Jonestown massacre 194-195

HHAARP 150Haider, Jörg 32Haiti 150–151

and Dominican Republic 98and Richard DuPont 103zombies 396

Haldeman, H. R. 205, 380Hall, James 36Halliburton Co. 70–71, 178, 271,

276Hammarskjöld, Dag 87, 151, 369Hampton, Fred 47, 72, 151–153,

273, 328Hanrahan, Edward 152–153Hanson, Ole 15Hanssen, Robert 153–154Harding, Warren 56, 154, 163,

197, 207, 207, 347and Harry Daugherty 94, 122

Hardy, Robert 154–155Hare Krishnas 155Harris, Katherine 112“Harrisburg 8” 109Hatfill, David 21Hayden, Tom 73Hayes, Rutherford B. 155–156,

156, 209, 244, 303, 382Haymarket bombing 14Haywood, William 16Held, Richard 84, 107Hell-Fire Club 171Hells Angels motorcycle gang

249–250, 267Helms, Jesse 78Helms, Richard 168heroin 81, 100, 156–157

Afghanistan 2 Bahamas 34 and CIA 131and Kurt Cobain 80 England 2France 131Laos 213Lebanon 214and Lucky Luciano 228and Mafia 231Mexico 239Myanmar 252Nigeria 263and Rothschilds 311Thailand 350and Triads 352Turkey 353and Yakuza 390

Hess, Rudolf 157, 160 murder conviction 49

Heydrich, Reinhard 140, 175, 263,332, 376

Hill, Barne and Betty 9Himmler, Heinrich 46, 111, 140,

157–158, 161, 175, 263, 332Hindenburg disaster 158–159Hiss, Alger 159–160, 165, 263,

369Hitler, Adolf 11, 31, 37, 39, 44,

49, 52, 57, 63, 85, 91, 100, 111,121, 140, 160–161, 167, 181,255, 298

alleged survival 131annexes Austria 175assassination attempts 46 and Martin Bormann 49 and Catholic Church 66 Chase Manhattan supports 69and DuPonts 101 and Farben Industries 120and Henry Ford 127

and General Electric 137and General Motors 139and Rudolf Hess 157and Heinrich Himmler 158and Hindenburg 158and Holocaust 162and IBM 170, 171and Iraq 177and IT&T 182and Joseph Kennedy 200Night of the Long Knives 263murder of Geli Raubal 49pact with Stalin 312and Reichstag fire 303and SS 332–333and Stern Gang 324

Ho Chi Minh 372–373Hoffa, James 174, 191, 234, 305Hoffman, Abbie 73Hoffman, Julius 73Hoke, Eldon 80Holliday, John “Doc” 105, 106Hollow Earth 161

and Antarctica 21and Heinrich Himmler 158and Adolf Hitler 160–161

Holocaust 49, 69, 86, 131, 140,160, 162–163

and Catholic Church 66 Croatia 90 denial of 161, 162-163and Adolf Eichmann 112and Farben Industries 120and Gestapo 140and Heinrich Himmler 158and IBM 170–171and Israel 181and Krupp Arms 208in Poland 292in Romania 308Wannsee Conference 376

Honduras 163and Richard DuPont 103

Hoover, Herbert 102, 173and Bohemian Club 47

Hoover, J. Edgar 28, 49, 55, 56,122–123, 163–164

and Spiro Agnew 186alleged murder of 137and America First Committee

11 and American Legion 12–13 and American Liberty League

13 and Jack Anderson 16–17 and Harry Anslinger 20 and Berrigan brothers 109and Black Panthers 46–47, 113

Index

413

Hoover, J. Edgar (continued)and Christian Front 75 COINTELPRO 76, 78, 82–84,

113and freedom rides 132–133homosexuality 123and HUAC 164–165and Huston Plan 168–169and Interpol 175and Jackson State College

shooting 185and JFK assassination 141,

188–192and Lyndon Johnson 194, 211and Robert Kennedy 305and Kent State shooting 201and Martin Luther King 203and King assassination 166,

203–204and Henry Kissinger 204and Mafia 123, 173, 174, 231and Pat McCarran 235and Joe McCarthy 236and Richard Nixon 5 and OSS 269–270and Palmer raids 16, 196, 282and Pearl Harbor attack 284racism 304and the Rosenbergs 309–310and Smith Act 328and William Sullivan 337and Supreme Court 338–339and Teapot Dome 94, 347and UFOs 358–360and Union Station massacre

367–368vs. anarchists 15vs. William Parker 227and Warren Commission 378and Zapruder film 393

House, Edward 89–90House Committee on Un-American

Activities 164–165and American Liberty League 13 and Detroit police 96and Alger Hiss 159–160and KKK 83and Richard Nixon 263and Philadelphia police 289and Ronald Reagan 301and San Francisco police 317

House Select Committee on Assassinations 10, 165–166, 190,

204, 279–280, 301, 397Hoxha, Enver 7Hoxsey, Harry 61–62Hubbard, L. Ron 320Hubbell, Webster 79

Hughes, Howard 164, 166–167kidnapped 137in Las Vegas 214and Somoza dynasty 331

Huie, William 203–204Hungary 31, 167

and Croatia 90and Romania 307

Hussein, Saddam 59, 62, 167–168,176, 177, 211

CIA supports 67Gulf War 148

Huston, Tom 168Huston Plan 168–169, 264Huxsoll, David 6

IIBM 170–171Idaho

BATF in 54livestock mutilations 224

Illinois Army of God 25 Black Hand 45 Black Panthers 83, 151–153Blackstone Rangers 113 Boy Scouts 50Earp brothers 104El Rukns 113Mormons 247

Illuminati 47, 135, 171, 187ImClone Systems 171–172India 172

Aghora cult 4 Assassins cult 29 BCCI 39 Bhopal disaster 365–366and Fiji 124human sacrifice 318and Iran 176and Pakistan 35, 281–282Thuggee 350–351and Union Carbide 365–366

Indiana asbestos 27Blackstone Rangers 113Earth Liberation Front 109 FBI 153KKK 194, 210UFOs 9

Indonesia 172–173and Clinton scandals 79and East Timor 110gold 143and Netherlands 255

Industrial Workers of the World15, 16, 72, 226

Inquisition 65Institute for Historical Review

162, 163Internal Revenue Service 173

and Jack Anderson 17 and BATF 54 and Enron 116and Meyer Lansky 212in Las Vegas 213, 302and Mafia 20, 302 New York City 40and Ronald Reagan 302and Scientology 320

International Brotherhood of Teamsters 173–174, 200

and Anton Cermak 67and JFK assassination 191 in Las Vegas 213and Mafia 232and Reagan-Bush regime 57,

232, 302Interpol 175

in Bolivia 37Iowa

America First Committee 11Iran 24, 175–176

Assassins cult 28–29 “Axis of Evil” 32–33, 59 and Azerbaijan 33 CIA in 66, 101and Egypt 111and Georgia 139heroin 156and Iraq 177October Surprise 268–269oil 270and Pakistan 282secret police 321

Iran-contra conspiracy 57, 67,100, 176–177, 193, 302

and William Casey 63 and Danny Casolaro 63Las Vegas funding 214and Santos Trafficante 352

Iraq 177–178Abu Abbas arrested in 1 “Axis of Evil” 32–33, 59 and Gerald Victor Bull 53 CIA in 67 in Gulf War 57, 148 Halliburton Co. in 70–71and Saddam Hussein 167–168invades Kuwait 54, 148, 168,

211and Iran 176and Jordan 196oil 274and Saudi Arabia 318secret police 167

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

414

U.S. occupation 273–276weapons of mass destruction

274–276, 293Ireland 178, 179–180Irgun 178–179, 395Irish Republican Army 66, 178,

179–180, 361in Algeria 8funded by Qaddaffi 297

Irving, David 163Islamic Salvation Front 8Israel 151, 168, 180–181, 187,

300, 324, 395–396 Arabs expelled 1 and Egypt 111Eichmann trial 112, 162and Greek Orthodox Church

144and Gulf War 148and Iraq 177and Jordan 196and Lebanon 214and Libya 219Mossad 249, 387spies in the U.S. 293and Syria 341terrorism 42, 47, 121, 214,

249, 261, 324, 395–396Wrath of God 386–387

Italy 181anarchists 14 Black Hand 45 Martin Bormann in 49 Gerald Victor Bull murder 53 and Eritrea 118and Ethiopia 118Farben Industries 120fascism 13, 121and Greece 143and Libya 219Mafia 45, 156–157, 231–232,

276–277Odessa network 269U.S. invasion 277Vatican Bank 371–372

IT&T 181–182, 218, 241in Brazil 51 in Chile 73 in Lebanon 23

JJack the Ripper 183–184

and Freemasons 135Jackson, George 184–185, 227, 342

and Black Guerrilla Family 45 and Black Panther Party 45

Jackson State shootings 185–186

Jacobs, Louis 114Jamaica 186

BCCI 39James, Jesse 365, 366Japan 186–187

Aum Shinrikyo 30–31 Black Dragon Society 43–44 and China 74 and East Timor 110Echelon network 110and Farben Industries 120fascism 121and General Motors 139and Indonesia 173and Laos 213Lockheed Martin 225and Malaysia 232Pearl Harbor attack 284–285and Solomon Islands 329–330and Taiwan 342terrorism 30–31, 43 in World War II 6, 11, 60Yakuza 389–390

Japanese Red Army 214Jesuits 65, 134, 171, 187, 223, 284Jesus Christ 64, 127, 187–188Second Coming of 76Jewish Defense League 83JFK assassination 93–94, 130,

188–192, 194, 279–280and Bay of Pigs 38 and CIA 67 and Cuba 10, 38, 64, 91and Giancana 141and James Hoffa 174and Jesuits 187and Meyer Lansky 212and Carlos Marcello 234and Onassis 137and Jack Ruby 311–312and Secret Service 322and Unione Corsé 366–367Warren Commission 377–378Zapruder film 393–394

John Birch Society 191, 192, 321and Dallas police 94and fluoridated water 126and KAL Flight 007 199and LAPD 227and William Pierce 355and San Francisco police 317

John Paul I 192–193John Paul II 193Johns-Manville Co. 26–27Johnson, Lyndon 93, 100,

193–194, 194, 201invades Dominican Republic

98

and Billy Sol Estes 349and Greece 144Gulf of Tonkin incident 147and Robert Kennedy 305and KKK 83, 123, 211and Onassis 137orders wiretaps 5

Johnson, Marlin 141, 152–153Jones, Alex 48Jones, Jim 194–195Jonestown massacre 149,

194–195, 195, 243Jordan 196

Black September 47Fatah 121and Israel 181, 249

Judas Priest 34Justice Department 56, 163,

196–197anthrax plots 21 and BATF 54, 55 and CIA 67 corruption 94and Detroit police 96drug enforcement 100and Enron 116FBI 77, 122and Finders 125, 126and Interpol 175and JFK assassination 166and Lockheed Martin 225and October Surprise 269and Smith Act 328and Teamsters Union 174under John Ashcroft 28vs. anarchists 15 vs. Animal Liberation Front

19

KKaczynski, Theodore 130KAL Flight 007 198–199Kansas

Earp brothers 104–106livestock mutilations 223

Kauffmann, John 203, 301Kellar, Oscar 56Kelly, George “Machine Gun”

365Kennedy, Stetson 30Kennedy dynasty 57, 199–201

Edward 68–69, 201 John v, 10, 38, 64, 65, 67, 79,

93, 101, 123, 141, 165–166, 187, 188–192, 199,

233, 304–305Joseph 40, 137, 199

Index

415

Kennedy dynasty (continued)Joseph, Jr. 200and Marilyn Monroe 245–246Patrick 199Robert 10, 20, 38, 68, 133,

141, 166, 191, 197, 200¸ 201,233, 245, 304–306, 308

Rosemary 200Kent State shootings 185, 201–202Kenya 202, 298, 345

and Somalia 330Kessler, Robert 36, 37, 77, 78KGB 40, 46, 103, 202–203

and Aldrich Ames 13 and Carlos the Jackal 62in Ghana 141and John Paul II 193and Lee Harvey Oswald 189and SMERSH 327vs. FBI 153–154

Khmer Rouge 60Khomeini, Ayatollah 176, 268Khrushchev, Nikita 7, 40, 263King, Martin Luther, Jr. 36, 186,

203–204, 236, 301and CIA 67FBI harassment 17

Kissinger, Henry 23, 204–205, 341and Bilderberg group and Bohemian Club 47 and Chile 73, 182Gemstone File 137kidnap plot 109 PENTTBOM investigation 286threats against 47

Kmart bankruptcy 205–206Knight, Stephen 135, 183, 296Knights Templar 134, 171,

206–207, 310Know-Nothing movement 65, 187,

207–208Kopechne, Mary Jo 68–69, 201Korea Japanese invasion 43Krupp Arms 208–209

and DuPonts 101and General Electric 137

Ku Klux Klan 29–30, 200,209–211, 210

anti-Catholicism 65, 187, 223 and Atlanta child murders 30 BAPBOMB case 35–37 and BATF 54and Byron de la Beckwith 291and Black Legion 96 and Asa Carter 62–63 and Christian Identity 75and Citizens’ Councils 78and Bull Connor 35

and Cuban refugees 10 Dominican invasion 98fascism 121and FBI 83, 123 and freedom rides 132–133and Freemasons 135and Henry Ford 127and Warren Harding 154and Rutherford B. Hayes 156and HUAC 165infiltration of police 29–30, 94,

185, 236 and JFK assassination 190and John Birch Society 192and Martin Luther King 203and Know-Nothings 208and Timothy McVeigh 272and Minutemen 243–244and New Deal 256and Albert Pike 135in Reconstruction 302–303and Silent Brotherhood 325and Eugene Talmadge 13, 29,

343 violence 43, 63 and John Walker 375and George Wallace 63and Malcolm X 388

Kuomintang 71, 233, 343Kuwait 211

Arab Communist Organization23

BCCI 39 Iraqi invasion 54, 148, 177PLO 262

LLansky, Meyer 137, 212–213

Bahamas gambling 34 and Cuba 91, 396 and Italy 181and Joseph Kennedy 199in Las Vegas 213and Huey Long 226and Lucky Luciano 228, 232and Carlos Marcello 233and Molaska Corp. 244–245and Murder Inc. 251in New Orleans 258and Operation Underworld

276–277in Prohibition 40, 294

Laos 7, 60, 213CIA in 66heroin 156MIAs 239and Thailand 350U.S. bombing 200, 350

LaRouche, Lyndon 311Las Vegas, Nevada 93, 213–214

and Apollo Project 22Howard Hughes in 167Meyer Lansky in 212Mafia in 22John Roselli in 308Jack Ruby in 311and Teamsters Union 174Yakuza in 187

Lay, Kenneth 115–116Lebanon 214–215

Arab Communist Organization23

BCCI 39 CIA in 101Fatah 121and Israel 181and Jordan 196terrorism 23

Lemmer, WilliamLenin, Vladimir 46, 86, 103, 202,

215–216Lennon, John 216–217

and CIA 67, 216and LSD 228

Lesotho 217Letelier, Orlando 217Lewinsky, Monica 79“liberal media” 218, 264Liberia 218–219, 262Libya 219–220, 293, 297–298

and El Rukns 113 Halliburton Co. in 70 invades Chad 68 Pan Am Flight 103 283–284sponsors terrorism 62

Liddy, G. Gordon 17, 164, 245Lincoln, Abraham 44, 220–223,

220, 302, 311Lindbergh, Charles 10–11, 95, 127Lithuania 103, 292livestock mutilations 223–224, 360Lockheed Martin 224–225, 241“lone gunmen” 68, 101, 141, 190,

279Long, Huey 225–226

and Meyer Lansky 212Los Angeles Police Dept. 226–227

and Black Panthers 47 frame-ups 47and George Jackson 184–185and Marilyn Monroe 246and RFK assassination 305and O.J. Simpson 326and snuff films 329and Louis Tackwood 342

Lott, Trent 78

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

416

LouisianaBlack Hand 45KKK 210, 211, 258Huey Long 225–226Mafia 233–234, 258White League 381-382

Love, Courtney 80LSD v, 17, 67, 101, 227–228, 243Luciano, Charles 228–229

on Chicago 316and Cuba 91and Italy 181 and Meyer Lansky 212and Mafia 232and Murder Inc. 251and narcotics 20 and Operation Underworld

276–277in Prohibition 40, 294and “white slavery” 382

Ludlow massacre 14Lukashenko, Aleksandr 39Lumumba, Patrice 87, 229–230Lusitania 230

MMacArthur, Donald 6MacGuire, Gerald 13Mack, John 9Madagascar 231

and Seychelles 324Mafia v, 60, 231–232

and Harry Anslinger 20and Apollo Project 22Arizona 114 and BCCI 38 and Fidel Castro 10, 64, 67,

101 and Catholic Church 66 and Cermak murder 68Chechen 70 and Christian Front 74 and CIA 67, 77, 101 and cocaine 82 and Communist Party 82 in Cuba 91 and Richard Daley 93and Raymond Donovan 218and FBI 82, 123, 173, 305and Ford Motor Co. 127, 303and Haiti 150Illinois 141and IRS 173in Italy 231and JFK assassination 189–192and John Paul I 193and Justice Dept. 197

and Joseph Kennedy 199and LAPD 226in Las Vegas 213–214and Lucky Luciano 228–229Michigan 114, 127and Marilyn Monroe 245in New Orleans 258Operation Underworld

276–277Philadelphia 289and Teamsters Union 174and Vatican Bank 371

Maine UFOs 9

Malawi 232Malaysia 232

and Thailand 350Malcolm X. See X, MalcolmMali 232–233

gold 143and Senegal 323

Mandela, Nelson 2, 3, 331Mandela, Winnie 3Manhattan Institute 69Mao Zedong 7, 71, 74, 87, 184,

233Marcello, Carlos 189, 233–234,

305, 367, 396Marcos, Ferdinand 23, 234, 290marijuana 81, 100, 101–103,

234–235, 239Martin, Harry 123–124Marx, Karl 86, 89Maryland

anthrax 21 corruption 5l police 35

Massachusetts anarchists 14 and Benedict Arnold 25 Chappaquiddick incident

68–69 child molestation 318Institute of Technology 9 Kennedy dynasty 199–201Prohibition gangsters 40 UFOs 9Winter Hill gang 383–384

Masterson, “Bat” 105, 106Mathews, Robert 325Mattel Toy Co. 37Mau Mau 202Mauritania 235

and Morocco 249Mauritius 39McCarran Act 235, 336McCarthy, Joseph 200, 235–236

and Jack Anderson 16

McKinley, William 14, 14McVeigh, Timothy 272–273

and Christian Identity 75and KKK 211

McWhorter, Diane 36Memphis Police Dept. 236–237Mengele, Josef 131, 161, 162, 237,

267, 284Rockefeller endowments 69

men in black 237–238Mentzer, William 130Mexican Mafia 26, 238, 266, 294Mexico 40, 238–239

Aldrich Ames in 13 and Costa Rica 89oil 94–95Lee Harvey Oswald in 189,

280Mormons 248

MIAs 239–240Michigan

Animal Liberation Front 18 Black Legion 96Black Panthers 96Communist Party 55Earth Liberation Front 108fluoridated water 126General Motors 138–139Mafia 114militia 242police 96

MI5 240Dag Hammarskjöld murder

151military-industrial complex 86,

121, 240–241and Howard Hughes 166and JFK assassination 191

military juntas 131Algeria 8 Argentina 24, 217Bolivia 48Brazil 51 Central African Republic 66 Chile 73–74, 85, 182El Salvador 113Ethiopia 118Greece 131, 143–144Guatemala 145–146Guinea-Bissau 146Haiti 151Honduras 163Indonesia 173Liberia 219Libya 219, 297–298Madagascar 231Myanmar 252Nicaragua 330

Index

417

military juntas (continued)Niger 262Nigeria 262Pakistan 281Paraguay 284Peru 287Portugal 293Sierra Leone 324Somalia 330Spain 332Suriname 340Uganda 360Uruguay 217, 370

militias 117, 241–242and Christian Identity 75

Miller, Emmett 78Miller, John 9Milosevic, Slobodan 50, 242–243mind control 67, 77, 101, 119, 132,

150, 194, 227, 243, 254, 305, 341Minnesota

American Indian Movement 11 Animal Liberation Front 19livestock mutilations 223

Minutemen 189, 191, 241,243–244

MI6 95, 240and Pearl Harbor attack 284and Kim Philby 289and Princess Diana 97

MississippiCamp Van Dorn massacre

60–61 Citizens’ Councils 78 Highway Patrol 185–186Jackson State College 185–186KKK 83 terrorism 244UFOs 9

Mississippi Plan 244Missouri

and John Ashcroft 28, 116and Enron 116political corruption 285–286Union Station massacre

367–368Mitchell, John 35, 86, 109, 152,

205Mitrione, Daniel 320M-19 movement 84–85Molaska Corp. 244–245Mongolia 245Monroe, Marilyn 200, 245–246Montana

livestock mutilations 224militia 241Teapot Dome 347

Morgan, William 133, 134

Morgan dynasty 69, 218 anarchist plots against 15, 16Junius 246, 246John P., Jr. 247John P., Sr. 246, 247

Mormons 247–248Morocco 248–249

BCCI 39and Mali 232and Mauritania 235

Mossad 249, 321and Adolf Eichmann 112and Stern Gang 324and Wrath of God 387

motorcycle gangs 249–250Moyle, Jonathan 53Mozambique 250–251

guerrilla bases 3Mudd, Samuel 220–221, 222Muhammad, Elijah 255Murder Inc. 232 251Murray, Charles 69Muslim Brotherhood 252Muslims

conquer Iraq 177invade India 172invade Indonesia 172invade Morocco 248invade Spain 331Shi’ite vs. Sunni 35, 214terrorism 42, 172, 252

Mussolini, Benito 7, 121, 181and American Legion 12

Myanmar 252opium 2, 156, 350

My Lai massacre 252–253

NNader, Ralph 126Naessens, Gaston 62Namibia 254Naqvi, Swaleh 38Nash, “Trigger” 29–30Nasser, Gamal 111, 252, 315National Aeronautics and Space

Administration 22, 68National Alliance 355National Rifle Association 54National Security Agency 51,

254–255Echelon network 110and Robert Hanssen 153and Huston Plan 168

National Socialism 49, 121, 131,160, 255

National States Rights Party 87,244

Nation of Islam 90, 123, 255Death Angels 95El Rukns 113and Malcolm X 388

NebraskaUFOs 9

Nepal 4Netherlands 256

Bilderberg group 41and Gabon 136and Ghana 140and Indonesia 172, 173and Japan 186Lockerbie bombing trial 219and Malaysia 232and Samoa 317and Sri Lanka 332and Suriname 340and Taiwan 342

NevadaApollo Project 22Area 51 23child molestation 318Las Vegas 22, 213–214

New Deal 256–257and America First Committee

11 and American Liberty League

13, 101and Martin Dies 165and Henry Ford 127and Alger Hiss 159and Huey Long 226and Eugene Talmadge 343

New HampshireUFOs 9

New Haven Police Dept. 257–258New Jersey

Black Panthers 47Hindenburg disaster 158–159 Prohibition gangsters 40, 173

New Left 84and FBI 143, 351and HUAC 165

New Orleans Police Dept. 258Newton, Huey 46, 47New World Order 25, 58, 90, 117,

171, 173, 241, 259New York

Animal Liberation Front 19 anthrax 21asbestos 28 Black Hand 45 Black Panthers 47, 83 Catholic Church 134Christian Front 75 Freemasons 134General Electric 137

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

418

Hillary Clinton 80Jesuits 134Robert Kennedy in 201Mafia 40 Minutemen 244Mormons 247Murder Inc. 251Operation Underworld

276–277“Son of Sam” murders 130,

329Tammany Hall 344Teamsters Union 173terrorism 286-287TWA Flight 800 355–356Tweed Ring 356–357UFOs 9

New York Police Dept. 96,259–260

bomb squad 15and Murder Inc. 251and snuff films 329and World Trade Center bomb-

ing 386New Zealand

Boy Scouts 50and Samoa 317

Nicaragua 89, 260CIA in 67 and Richard DuPont 103and Honduras 163Somoza dynasty 330–331terrorism 63, 67, 100

Nichols, James 272Nichols, Terry 272, 273nicotine 260–261Nidal, Abu 261–262Niger 262Nigeria 262–263

BCCI 39Night of the Long Knives 263Nixon, Richard 17, 93, 128, 197,

200, 263–264, 264, 380and Spiro Agnew 4–5 and American Indian Move-

ment 11 and BATF 54and Bay of Pigs 101and Berrigan brothers 109 and Black Panthers 152and Bohemian Club 47 and Brookings Institution 51–52 Cambodian invasion 60, 185,

201and campus shootings 186and William Casey 63 and Dick Cheney 70 and Chile 73, 182

and China 74 and CIA 67 Committee to Reelect the

President 86, 164conspiracy trials 84defies Supreme Court 337Drug Enforcement Administra-

tion 100Environmental Protection

Agency 117and FBI 123Gemstone File 137and Alger Hiss 159, 160and HUAC 159, 165and Howard Hughes 166, 167Huston Plan 168–169and IRS 173and IT&T 182and Henry Kissinger 204–205and Dan Mitrione 320and My Lai massacre 253and Walter Reuther 304and Teamsters Union 174, 232and Vietnam 372–373vs. “liberal media” 218Watergate 117, 123, 379–381

Noah’s ark 264–265No Gun Ri massacre 61, 265Noriega, Manuel 100, 283

CIA supports 67North, Gary 76North, Oliver 177North Carolina

Animal Liberation Front 19Phineas Priests 290

North Korea 74, 208“Axis of Evil” 32–33, 59, 168,

177, 178, 208communism 86

Norway 265, 298–299Nuestra Familia 238, 266, 294

OOakland Police Dept. 267–268

and Earth First! 107–108Oberg, James 22Obrien, Lawrence 16October Surprise 63, 176,

268–269ODESSA network 131, 162, 269

and Adolf Eichmann 112and Josef Mengele 237

Office of Strategic Services 66,269–270

and William Casey 63and Allen Dulles 100and Mafia 156–157

Ohio 55, 155Aryan Brotherhood 26 Blackstone Rangers 113Kent State shootings 201–202Ku Klux Klan 154Mormons 247political corruption 270Prohibition gangsters 173religious zealots 34Weatherman Underground 143

Ohio Gang 94, 122, 154, 197,270, 347

oil 142, 270–271Azerbaijan 33 Congo Republic 88Equatorial Guinea 118Gabon 136and General Motors 139Gulf War 148Halliburton Co. 70–71 Indonesia 173Iran 176and JFK assassination 191–192Kuwait 148, 168Libya 284Mexico 94–95OPEC 318Qatar 298and Rockefeller clan 306,

334–335Saudi Arabia 218, 318and suppressed inventions

338–339Teapot Dome conspiracy 347Texas 95

O.K. Corral gunfight 106Okhrana 271Oklahoma

KKK 210livestock mutilations 223militia 242Phineas Priests 291police 141terrorism 271–273

Oklahoma City bombing 75, 121,123, 211, 242, 271–273, 354

Oman 273and Tanzania 344

Omega 7 64, 191Onassis, Aristotle 137, 167O’Neal, William 47, 152, 273, 328OPEC 318

terrorist raid 62Operation Iraqi Freedom 1, 42, 59,

67, 168, 177, 211, 268, 273–276and DuPont dynasty 103and Halliburton Co. 70–71,

241, 271, 276

Index

419

Operation Underworld 229,276–277

Opium wars 74, 277, 352Orangeburg massacre 277–278Oregon

Animal Liberation Front 18, 19Earth Liberation Front 108,

109KKK 210Posse Comitatus 293

organ theft 278–279Orne, Martin 119Osbourne, Ozzy 34Oswald, Lee Harvey 94, 166,

188–192, 194, 279–280,311–312 377–378

Outlaws motorcycle gang 250Owsley, Alvin 12

PPacker, Horace 280, 336Pagans motorcycle gang 250Pakistan 281–282

and Afghanistan 2 and Bangladesh 35 BCCI 39and India 172nuclear weapons 293

Palestine Liberation Organization1, 23, 47, 121, 249, 262, 387

Palmer, A. Mitchell 15, 163, 196,282

Palmer raids 16, 28, 86, 96, 122,163, 196, 282

Panama 84, 89, 100, 283BCCI 39 and CIA 67 and Ecuador 110School of the Americas 319U.S. invasion 57

Pan Am Flight 103, 219–220,283–284, 297

Papua New Guineagold 143

Paraguay 284and Bolivia 48 Martin Bormann in 49Josef Mengele in 237Somoza in 331and Uruguay 370

Patriotic Salvation Movement 68Pearl Harbor attack 6, 11, 43, 101,

127, 139, 175, 182, 187,284–285

pedophile priests 144, 285protected by church 17, 66,

285, 323–324

and Servants of the Paraclete323–324

Peltier, Leonard 12, 145Pendergast, Tom 285–286Pennsylvania

livestock mutilations 223Prohibition gangsters 40

Pentagon Papers 51PENTTBOM 32, 42, 55, 59, 70,

123, 176, 286–287, 369and CIA 67and Iraq 168, 177, 274

People’s Temple 194–195Perón, Eva 23–24Perón, Juan 23–24Perry, Arlis 130Peru 287–288

BCCI 39and Chile 73cocaine 81and Ecuadorgold 143

pharmaceutical companies 29, 38,288

and Harry Anslinger 103cancer cures suppressed 61–62drug dumping 99and DuPonts 103Eli Lilly 115and LSD 227and suppressed inventions

338Philadelphia Police Dept. 288–289Philby, Kim 240, 289–290Philippines 23, 290Phineas Priesthood 290–291Phoenix Program 291–292Pierce, William 354–355, 354Pike, Albert 135, 135Pike Committee 292Pinochet, Augusto 73–74, 85, 182Poland 292–293

and Belarus 39Farben Industries 120fascism 121Nazi death camps 237and Ukraine 361

policeAtlanta 29–30 Baltimore 35 Birmingham 43, 132–133bombings by 43, 226 Chicago 72, 152China 114corruption 96Dallas 93–94Denver 95–96Detroit 96

frame-ups 35, 43, 47,107–108, 159–160, 383–384

Jackson, MS 185–186Ku Klux Klan infiltration

29–30, 95, 96, 236Los Angeles 184–185,

226–227Memphis 236–237Mississippi Highway Patrol

185–186New Haven 257–258New Orleans 258New York City 259–260Oakland 267–268Oklahoma City 141Philadelphia 288–289Red squads 35, 96, 226, 236,

259San Francisco 317–318secret 40, 46, 114, 140, 167,

171, 176, 183, 194,202–203, 217, 229, 239,271, 283, 319–320,321–322, 361–362

South Carolina 277–278vs. Ford Motor Co. 128

Pollard, Jonathan 293Pol Pot 60, 373Popular Front for the Liberation of

Palestine 23, 122Portugal 293

and Brazil 17, 51and East Timor 110and Equatorial Guinea

117–118and Gabon 136and Gambia 136and Ghana 140and Guinea-Bissau 146and India 172and Indonesia 172and Japan 186and Kenya 202and Mauritania 235and Mozambique 250and Oman 273PLO 262and Sierra Leone 324and Sri Lanka 332and Taiwan 342and Tanzania 344and Uruguay 370

Posse Comitatus 293–294and Christian Identity 75

Powell, Colin 31and My Lai massacre

252–253Pratt, Elmer 47

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

420

Presser, Jackie 174, 302Price, Richard 10Principi, Anthony 4prison gangs 294

Aryan Brotherhood 26 Black Guerrilla Family 45Mexican Mafia 238Nuestra Familia 266

Prohibition 20, 40, 54, 91, 93, 99,141, 154, 199, 212, 232, 294

Project HARP 53Project Paperclip 37, 63, 131,

295–296, 332and Allen Dulles 100

Protocols of the Elders of Zion171, 271, 296, 311, 396

and Henry Ford 127and Freemasons 135and Illuminati 171and Jack the Ripper 183and Wicca letters 383

Puerto Rico 296Alpha 66 10 Echelon network 110FBI in 83, 302General Electric 138

Purple Gang 316Purvis, Melvin 72

Qal-Qaddaffi, Muammar 219-220,

297–298and Carlos the Jackal 62and El Rukns 113 invades Chad 68and Pan Am Flight 103

283–284al-Qaeda 59, 86, 139, 176, 274,

298in Afghanistan 2, 42–43and Iraq 168, 177in Kenya 202PENTTBOM attacks 286–287in the Philippines 290and Somalia 330in Sudan 337in Tanzania 345in Yemen 390

Qatar 298Quisling, Vidkun 265, 298–299

RRabin, Yitzhak 300Rasputin, Grigory 300–301Raubal, Geli 49Raybestos-Manhattan 27

Ray brothers 301James Earl 166, 203–204Jerry 301John 301

Reagan, Ronald 42, 53, 57, 79, 81,192, 197, 301–302, 338

and Carlyle Group 271and William Casey 63 foreign policy 78, 114and “Evil Empire” 193honors SS dead 333invades Grenada 144–145Iran-contra conspiracy

176–177, 348, 352and IRS 173and Israel 214and KAL Flight 007 198and Henry Kissinger 205and Libya 219, 297and Ferdinand Marcos 234and Nicaragua 260October Surprise 176pardons convicted FBI agents

336and Russia 313supports Manuel Noriega 283supports Saddam Hussein 167,

177Supreme Court appointees 112and Teamsters Union 174and televangelists 347vs. BATF 54 “War on Drugs” 57, 81–82,

100and James Watt 76

Reconstruction 43, 135, 302–303and Rutherford B. Hayes

155–156and Justice Dept. 196and KKK 209and White League 381–382

Red Army faction 62Red Brigades 181Reichstag fire 303Reno, Janet 28, 61, 197, 242Republican Party 5, 57, 70–71, 79,

155–156, 194, 209, 215, 263,301–302, 305–306

Enron scandal 115–116and “liberal media” 218and oil companies 271and pharmaceutical companies

288and televangelists 348and tobacco companies 261

Reuther, Victor 164Reuther, Walter 303–304

and Ford Motor Co. 127

RFK assassination 130, 141, 166,167, 304–306, 327

and CIA 67, 243Rhode Island

and Benedict Arnold 25Rhodesia 50Rice, Condoleezza 276Rife, Royal 62Rizzo, Frank 289Roberts, Bruce 136Rockefeller clan 192, 306–307

anarchist plots against 15 and Bohemian Club 47 Chase Manhattan Bank 69 David 41 John D. 14-15, 69, 307Nelson 47, 137, 204, 294William 306

Rockefeller Foundation 90, 170Standard Oil 101, 271and Trilateral Commission 353

Romania 307–308Roper, Sam 29Roosevelt, Eleanor 137Roosevelt, Franklin 11, 74, 95,

137, 256–257, 256and Council on Foreign Rela-

tions 90“court-packing” plan 338and gold standard 143and Henry Ford 127 and Hindenburg disaster 159New Deal 159and OSS 269and Pearl Harbor attack

284–285plot to depose 13, 101and United Nations 369Yalta Conference 390

Roosevelt, Theodore 14, 122and Bohemian Club 47and FBI 122

Roselli, John 166, 214, 308, 396Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel

308–310, 309Rosicrucians 310

and Knights Templar 207Rothschild family 310–311

and Lincoln assassination 223Rove, Karl 115, 138, 261Rowe, Gary 88Rubin, Jerry 73Ruby, Jack 188-192, 279, 308,

311–312, 377–378and Dallas police 93–94and Mafia 234

Ruckleshaus, William 117Rudolph, Eric 25

Index

421

Rumsfeld, Donald 275, 276 and Bilderberg group 41

Rushdoony, Rousas 76Russian Mafia 60, 312Russia/USSR 126 , 312–313,

333–334and Afghanistan 1–2 and AIDS 6 and Angola 17 and Armenia 24 and Azerbaijan 33 and Belarus 39 and Black Dragon Society 43 Black Hundreds 46 and Bulgaria 52 Carlos the Jackal 62 and Chechnya 69–70 Cheka 103Chernobyl disaster 71 communism 40, 46, 86, 131,

215–216 and Cuba 64, 91 and Czechoslovakia 92 and Egypt 111, 315“evil empire” 193fascism 121and FBI 153-154and Georgia 139Germany invades 160, 167,

308and Ghana 141and Greece 143and Grenada 144and Guinea 146and Rudolf Hess 157and Iran 176and Jack the Ripper 183and Japan 43, 186Jews 46 and JFK assassination 190–191KAL Flight 007 198–199KGB 202-203Mafia 60, 312and Mali 233military intelligence 153Okhrana 8, 271and Poland 292, 293Grigory Rasputin in 300–301revolution (1917) 14, 15, 33,

103, 122, 301and Romania 307and Somalia 330and Syria 293and Tajikistan 342terrorism 62, 103and Turkey 353and Ukraine 361and Venezuela 372

Rwanda 313–314and Belgium 40 and Congo 87and Tanzania 344

Sal-Sadat, Anwar 111, 315St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre

65, 315–316St. Valentine’s Day massacre

316–317Samoa 317Sanchez, Ilich 62San Francisco Police Dept.

317–318satanism 318

and backward masking 34and Finders 126Four Pi movement 130–131and Illuminati 171and Knights Templar 206livestock mutilations 224Norway 265and snuff films 329and Third Reich 350

Saudi Arabia 318and Afghanistan 2 Idi Amin in 361BCCI 39 bin Laden family 42finances al-Qaeda 297and Ghana 141and Gulf War 148and Qatar 298terrorism 271, 274, 298

Savings and Loan scandal318–319

and Bush dynasty 57Scalia, Antonin 112, 113Schäefer, Paul 85Schonfield, Hugh 188School of the Americas 319–320Schrimer, Herbert 9Scientology 320Seale, Bobby 46, 73, 257–258“Seattle 8” 280Secret Army Organization (France)

8Secret Army Organization (U.S.)

241, 244, 321, 349secret police 40, 321–322

Brazil 194Chile 217Congo 229Germany 140Iran 176Iraq 167

and Jack the Ripper 183Northern Ireland 361–362Panama 283Russia 46, 171, 183, 202–203,

271School of the Americas

319–320Venezuela 372Vietnam 239

Secret Service 16, 322and William Burns 55 and Cermak murder 68and JFK assassination 190and Justice Dept. 196

Segal, Jakob and Lilli 6Senate Internal Security

Subcommittee 322–323Senegal 323

BCCI 39and Guinea-Bissau 146and Mali 233and Mauritania 235

Serbia Black Hand 45 communism 243and Croatia 90 ethnic cleansing 7, 242–243

Servants of the Paraclete 66, 285,323–324

Seychelles 324Shamir, Yitzhak 179, 324, 395Shaw, Clay 190Sierra Leone 324–325

and Liberia 219, 262and Nigeria 262

Silent Brotherhood 325–326and Christian Identity 75and KKK 211and Phineas Priests 291and The Turner Diaries 354,

355Silkwood, Karen 326Simpson, O.J. 326Sirhan, Sirhan 243, 305–306,

326–327skinheads 131, 211Skull and Bones 327

and Bush dynasty 57, 58Smersh 203, 327Smith, Joseph 247, 248Smith, Melvin 47, 184, 328Smith, William 77–78Smith Act 328snuff films 328–329, 382

from Bosnia-Herzegovina 49Socialist Workers Party 83Solomon Islands 329–330Somalia 98, 330

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

422

Somoza dynasty 330–331Anastasio 260

South Africa 2-3, 41, 50, 331African National Congress in

2–3and Gerald Victor Bull 53concentration camps 162and Lesotho 217and Mozambique 251and Namibia 254secret police 321Truth and Reconciliation Com-

mission 151South Carolina

asbestos 27militia 242Orangeburg massacre 277–278

South Dakota American Indian Movement

11–12, 145Guardians of the Oglala Nation

145Southern Christian Leadership

Conference 5, 72, 186, 236South Korea 198, 208

No Gun Ri massacre 265space shuttles 68, 85–86Spain 51, 331–332

and Argentina 23 and Bolivia 48 Martin Bormann in 49 and Chile 73 and Colombia and Cuba 91and Dominican Republic 98and Ecuador 110and El Salvador 114and Equatorial Guinea 118fascism 121gold 142and Guatemala 145and Mexico 238and Morocco 249and Netherlands 255and Panama 283and Peru 287and Philippines 290and Puerto Rico 296and Solomon Islands 329and Suriname 340

Sporkin, Stan 63Sri Lanka 332

BCCI 39SS 332–333

Adolf Eichmann 111and Gestapo 140in Greece 143Heinrich Himmler 158

and IBM 170and Interpol 175Night of the Long Knives 263Odessa network 269vs. Black Orchestra 46

Stalin, Joseph 7, 39, 40, 86, 139,202, 216, 233, 308, 327,333–334, 390

Standard Oil 69, 306, 334–335and DuPonts 101

Stanton, Edwin 222–223, 222Stern Gang 179, 324Stevenson, Gary 4Stewart, Martha 172Stone, Harlan 56, 122street gangs 335

Blackstone Rangers 113and cocaine 82 Crips and Bloods 90El Rukns 113

Strieber, Whitley 9Students for a Democratic Society

72, 281, 289, 335–336, 342, 351and Black Panthers 46

Subversive Activities Control Board235, 336

Sudan 336–337BCCI 39oil 335

Sullivan, William 164, 236, 337and Huston Plan 168–169

Sun Yat-sen 71, 74suppressed inventions 339–340Supreme Court 174, 303,

337–339and Boy Scouts 50election 2000 59, 112–113and J. Edgar Hoover 163and income tax 173and Jackson State College

shooting 186and KKK 209school desegregation 78, 210and Smith Act 328and Subversive Activities Con-

trol Board 336and Teapot Dome 347

Suriname 340BCCI 39

Sutherland, John 203, 301Swearingen, Wesley 46, 152Sweden

Animal Rights Militia 20and Ghana 140

Switzerland 24 banks 69, 311Allen Dulles in 100DuPonts in 101

and Interpol 175Nazis in 101

Symbionese Liberation Army 195,243, 340–341, 342

Symmes, John 161, 161Syria 62, 341

and Egypt 111and Lebanon 214, 215refugee camps 1and Russia 293

TTackwood, Louis 184, 185, 227,

328, 342Taiwan 71–72, 74, 342–343, 352Tajikistan 342Talmadge dynasty 343–344

Eugene 13, 29, 139, 210Herman 29

Tammany Hall 344and Black Friday conspiracy 45and street gangs 335and Tweed Ring 356–357

Tanzania 344–345gold 143and Somalia 330terrorism 298

Tap Pharmaceutical Products 29Tarbell, Ida 334, 334Tarr, James 50Tatum, Roosevelt 43Taylor, Zachary 345–346, 345Teapot Dome scandal 56, 94, 122,

154, 197, 347televangelists 34, 75, 347–348,

391Tennessee

Animal Liberation Front 19 Boy Scouts 51 Citizens’ Councils 78 King assassination 203KKK 78, 209

terrorism 32, 85, 348–349Afghanistan 2 Algeria 8 anarchist 14–16 anthrax plots 21 Arab Communist Organization

23 Argentina 24

Army of God 25 John Ashcroft and 28 Aum Shinrikyo 30–31 Austria 297Basque separatists 332and BCCI 38–39 bin Laden family 42–43

Index

423

terrorism (continued)Black Dragon Society 43 Black September 47 Citizens’ Councils 78 cocaine cartels 81 Confederate Underground 87 defined 348Earth First! accused of 106Earth Liberation Front

108–109El Rukns 113Equatorial Guinea 118Ethiopia 118Fatah 121–122FBI and 54, 143, 321France 62 Germany 49, 62 Gray Wolves 193Guardians of the Oglala Nation

11–12, 145 and Huston Plan 168India 172, 281–282Indonesia 173and Interpol 175Iraq 70, 177Ireland 178Irgun 178–179, 324Irish Republican Army

179–180Italy 297Justice Dept. and 197Kenya 298Ku Klux Klan 88 Libya 70, 219, 283–284,

297–298militias 242Morocco 249Muslim Brotherhood 252Nicaragua 63, 100Abu Nidal 261–262Nigeria 263Okhrana 271PENTTBOM 286–287Peru 287Philippines 290Phineas Priests 290–291Puerto Rico 296al-Qaeda 298, 337Reconstruction era 155–156,

302–303religious 75Russia 103 Saudi Arabia 271Scotland 283–284Secret Army Organization 321Shining Path 287Sierra Leone 325Silent Brotherhood 325–326

South Africa 3South Moluccas 256space shuttles 68 Spain 332“state-sponsored” 70Syria 341Tamil Tigers 334Tanzania 298 Turkey 354Uruguay 370“Wise Use” movement 385World Trade Center bombing

385–386Yemen 390Yugoslavia 7Zimbabwe 394Zionist 394–395

Terry, Maury 130Texas

Air National Guard 42, 57 Animal Liberation Front 19 Aryan Brotherhood 26 Boy Scouts 51 Branch Davidians 54–55 Bush dynasty 57–58 Challenger disaster 85 child molestation 318CISPES case 77 Wyatt Earp in 106JFK assassination 93–94Lyndon Baines Johnson

193–194KKK 210marijuana 235militia 242oil 57, 58, 95, 193Phineas Priests 291Savings and Loan scandal 319

Texas suicide 349–350Thailand 350

heroin l15human sacrifice 318and Laos 213organ theft 278

Third Reich 37, 49, 85, 100, 131,140, 350

and America First Committee11

and Argentina 23 and Austria 31 and Bush dynasty 57 and Croatia 90 and William Davis 94and DuPonts 101and Adolf Eichmann 111–112and Farben Industries 120and Ford Motor Co. 127and General Motors 139

and Rudolf Hess 157and Hollow Earth 161and Holocaust 162and Iran 176and IT&T 182and South Africa 3

Thomas, Clarence 113Thuggee 350–351Thule Society 160Tibet 74Tippit, J.D. 94, 188, 189Titanic 351Tobin, Daniel 174Tolson, Clyde 164Tongyai, Thomas 336, 351Trafficante, Santos 190, 191, 234,

305, 351–352, 396Trenchcoat Mafia 352Triads 342, 352–353

and Chiang Kai-shek 71, 74,233

and Sun Yat-sen 74and Yakuza 390

Trilateral Commission 47, 89,353

and Bilderberg group 41and Dick Cheney 71 and Bill Clinton 80and Rockefeller clan 307

Trujillo, Rafael 98Truman, Harry 66, 74, 101, 173,

235, 285, 286, 295, 296and Martin Bormann 49

Turkey 24, 353–354and Croatia 90 and Cyprus 91Allen Dulles in 100and Egypt 111and Georgia 139Gray Wolves 193and Greece 143, 144heroin 156and Hungary 167and Iraq 177and Jordan 196and Libya 219Noah’s ark 265and Oman 273organ theft 278and Qatar 298and Romania 307and Somalia 330and Yemen 390

Turner Diaries, The 354–355and Aryan Brotherhood 26and Oklahoma City bombing

272, 325and Silent Brotherhood 325

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

424

TWA Flight 800 355–356, 355and HAARP 150

Tweed Ring 344, 356–357

UUFOs 8–10, 358–360, 359

Area 51 23 and CIA 67and Hollow Earth 161and livestock mutilations 224and men in black 237–238Nazi aircraft 161

Uganda 360–361and Congo 87and Rwanda 314and Tanzania 345

Ukraine 361Chernobyl disaster 71

Ulster Defense Assn. 66Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating

Committee 361–362Ulster Volunteer Force 180Undead Outlaws v, 362–365Union Carbide 365–366Unione Corsé 366–367Union Station massacre 367–368United Arab Emirates 2United Arab Republic 111United Fruit Co. 145, 241, 349United Nations 31, 126, 368–369

and Afghanistan 2 and Angola 17 and Bangladesh 35 and George H. W. Bush 57 and Cambodia 60 and Central African Republic 66 and China 342and Congo 87 and Croatia 91 and Cyprus 91 and Dominican Republic 98and John Dulles 100–101and East Timor 110and Egypt 111and Environmental Protection

Agency 117and Equatorial Guinea 118and Eritrea 118Genocide Treaty 377and Greece 144and Gulf War 148and Haiti 151and Dag Hammarskjöld 151and Alger Hiss 159International Criminal Tribunal

243and Iraq 54

and Israel 324and John Birch Society 192and Liberia 219and Libya 219and Patrice Lumumba 229and Mauritania 235and Morocco 249and Namibia 254and Nigeria 262and Rwanda 313and Samoa 317and Sierra Leone 325and Somalia 330and Sudan 337and Taiwan 342and Tanzania 344–345and Yalta Conference 390

United Slaves 46, 227, 342Uruguay 217, 370

Martin Bormann in 49and Paraguay 284

USA Patriot Act 28, 59, 67, 77, 84,123, 322, 369

U.S. Steel and American Liberty League

13Ustachi 90-91Utah

Animal Liberation Front 18Mormons 247-248

VVarelli, Frank 77, 78Vatican Bank 66, 193, 371–372Venezuela 84, 372

Carlos the Jackal 62and Ecuador 110and Interpol 175

Vesco, Robert 89Videla, Jorge 24Vietnam v, 7, 51, 57, 60, 72, 93,

96, 154, 215, 372–373Agent Orange 3–4, 148communism 86and Richard DuPont 103Gulf of Tonkin incident 147heroin traffic 2, 157and Lyndon Baines Johnson

194MIAs 239–240My Lai massacre 252–253peace negotiations 5Phoenix Program 291–292

VirginiaBoy Scouts 50Hare Krishnas 155

Votescam 373–374

WWaldheim, Kurt 31Walker, John, Jr. 375Wallace, George 192, 375–376,

376and BAPBOMB case 36and Ku Klux Klan 29, 36, 63presidential campaign 78

Walsh, Thomas 56, 94Wannsee Conference 140, 158,

162, 376and Adolf Eichmann 111

war crimes 376–377Belgium 40Bosnia-Herzegovina 49–50,

243Cambodia 60East Timor 110and General Electric 137German 23, 37, 49, 94, 111,

120–121, 131, 137, 157,158, 162, 209, 295, 332–333Guatemala 146Japan 187Korea 208Liberia 219Norway 265South Korea 265United States 60–61, 265, 377

Ward, Larry 55“War on Drugs” 57, 81–82, 100,

294, 302Warren Commission 94, 101, 165,

188–192, 234, 311, 377–378,393–394

WashingtonAnimal Liberation Front 18Black Panthers 55child molestation 318FBI 55militia 242Minutemen 244Phineas Priests 291“Seattle 8” 280

Washington, George 387–379,379

and marijuana 234Washington, Raymond 90Watergate v, 35, 54, 165, 167,

169, 197, 379–381and Spiro Agnew 5and CIA 67and CREEP 86and Environmental Protection

Agency 117and FBI 123Las Vegas payoffs 214

Watt, James 76

Index

425

Weatherman Underground 72,143, 336, 351

Weaver, Randy 54Webster, William 381

and CISPES case 78, 123and Robert Hanssen 154and John Ray 301

Weiner, Lee 73Wenner-Gren, Axel 11West Virginia

Danny Casolaro murder 63–64militia 242Mothman 238

Wheeler, Burton 56FBI harassment 94Nazi contributions to 95

White League 303, 381–382, 382White Russia 39white slavery 122, 130, 187, 229,

352, 382–383Whitley, Matthew 81Wicca letters 383Williams, Wayne 30Wilson, Woodrow 100, 368

on “enemy aliens” 15invades Russia 312and KKK 209

Winter Hill gang 383–384

“Wise Use” movement 117,384–385

World Trade Center bombing 123Wounded Knee siege 11–12Wrath of God 47, 386–387Wyoming 70

XX, Malcolm 46, 255, 388

and CIA 67

YYahweh Ben Yahweh 95Yakuza 82, 187, 312, 389–390Yallop, David 193Yalta Conference 313, 333, 390“yellow peril” 11Yeltsin, Boris 69Yemen 390

and Oman 273Yon, Mike 4Young, Brigham 247–248, 248Y2Kaos 390–391Yugoslavia

absorbs Bosnia 49Abu Abbas in 1

communism 91conquered by Germany 90created 90terrorism 7war crimes 31

ZZain, Fred 142, 392Zaire 87Zambia 392–393

BCCI 39guerrilla bases 3

Zangara, Giuseppe 68Zapruder film 189, 378, 393–394Zevallos, Hector 25Zhou Enlai 71Zimbabwe 394

BCCI 39Zionism 178, 180, 311, 324, 394-

395Zodiac murders 130–131ZOG 117, 293, 396Zola, Émile 99zombies 396Z/R Rifle 396–397

The Encyclopedia of Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories

426