UFPPC ( www.ufppc.org ) Digging Deeper CXXXIV: August 23, 2010, 7:00 p.m.

Joseph J. Trento, Prelude to Terror: Edwin P. Wilson and the Legacy of America's Private Intelligence Network (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005).

[Thesis. "The private intelligence network originally inspired by Paul Helliwell, created by Edwin P. Wilson, and taken over by Ted Shackley and his associated became the model for future major covert operations by the United States" (311). The CIA lied about its relationship with key player Edwin Wilson, convicted as a rogue to protect the agency's reputation.]

Introduction. Brief summary (ix-xv). Three men have been key sources: Dr. William R. Corson, James Jesus Angleton, and Robert Trumbull Crowley (xv-xvi).

Ch. 1: Allen Dulles and Prescott Bush. Allen Dulles privately recruited ex-Nazis and ran a "private intelligence service" out of 44 Wall Street, then brought his "networks and assets" to the CIA (1-3). Prescott Bush worked for the Thyssen-funded Union Banking Corporation (UBC), the largest Nazi front business in the U.S.; its stock was confiscated in 1942 with almost no publicity (3-7). Recruited to the CIA, Prescott Bush put his experience in clandestine financing to work and became a key intelligence liaison to President Eisenhower, as his designation personally to investigate a failed 1955 attempt on Zhou Enlai's life shows (7-12).

Ch. 2: Recruiting George H.W. Bush. George Herbert Walker Bush's independent business career was a myth (13-15). He began doing favors for the CIA in the late 1950s through his company Zapata-Offshore and assisted the anti-Castro Operation Mongoose (15-16). G.H.W. Bush cultivated a key relationship with Diaz Serrano, aide to

Lopez Portillo, who became president of Mexico (16-21). Got out of the oil business in 1965 (21-23).

Ch. 3: Spybiz. Paul Helliwell specialized in "the arcane craft of concealing secret business operations," starting in Asia and continuing in 1960 in Florida, cementing the CIA's relationship with organized crime (24-27). Theodore Shackley emerged from the debacle of the Bay of Pigs operation to run a covert war against Cuba (27-30). He ran the secret war in Laos beginning in July 1966 funded by opium (30-33). Edwin Paul Wilson, Thomas Clines, and Erich von Marbod grew in stature by assisting Shackley in Laos (33-35). Others (35-38).

Ch. 4: Secret War Buddies. As part of the CIA's European trade-union infiltration, Wilson became the political asst. of the AFL-CIO's boss (39-40). Then Wilson "became the new Paul Helliwell," ran Air America (41). In 1968 Wilson, his cover blown by a Soviet agent on Sen. Eastland's staff, "struck off on his own" (43).

Ch. 5: The Ice Man. Shackley, "the Ice Man," was made station chief in Saigon (44-47). Shackley orchestrated the coup in Chile that overthrew Allende (48-50).

Ch. 6: Wilson Branching Out. The CIA distrusted Henry Kissinger, set Thomas Moorer to spying on him (51-52). Wilson was tasked to penetrate TF-157, a secret naval task force handling communications for Kissinger (52-55). Wilson assisted SAVAK in Iran (55-58).

Ch. 7: The CIA under Fire. Watergate led to investigations of the CIA; William

Colby relied on Shackley for cover-up, fired J.J. Angleton (59-64).

Ch. 8: New Old Boy at the CIA. G.H.W. Bush ambassador to China (65-66). Head of CIA (66-69).

Ch. 9: Picking Up the Pieces. With contacts from Frank Terpil, Wilson set up a working relationship with Libya; his goal was to make money, using CIA connections in hopes of business expansion (70-77).

Ch. 10: Murders at Home and Abroad. Orlando Letelier's 1976 murder in D.C. was part of Operation Condor, a joint S. African, Israeli, S. Korean, Chilean, etc. "murder-and-assassination rampage" (78; 78-82).

Ch. 11: Operation Watchtower. The Bush-Noriega relationship "may have been the first attempt by America's private intelligence network to finance operations in this hemisphere with drug operations, as they had done in Laos" (83). Bush agreed to Noriega's demand to be cut into the CIA's drug operation; Edwin Wilson was made the scapegoat for Operation WATCHTOWER (a secret CIA-Israeli operation in Colombia) (83-86).

Ch. 12: Setting Up Wilson. Confused negotiations were under way involving assassination plots when in the aftermath of the Letelier murder the CIA "labeled Wilson a former CIA agent who had left the Agency and gone rogue" (93; 87-93).

Ch. 13: Politicizing Intelligence. The June 1976 decision, when G.H.W. Bush was head of the CIA, to set up an outside group of intelligence experts ("the B Team") to evaluate Soviet strategic strength "eventually allowed the ultimate privatization of American Intelligence" (94). The mysterious John Arthur Paisley, subject of an entire book

by Trento and his wife Susan, entitled Widows (96-97).

Ch. 14: Bush and the Safari Club. George H.W. Bush succeeded while head of the CIA in switching reliance for regional intelligence from Israel to Saudi Arabia (99). An informal intelligence network was set up outside the U.S. with the help of Saudi Intelligence head Sheikh Kamal Adham after Watergate; at this time "worldwide covert operations for the Agency were funded through a host of Saudi banking and charity enterprises" (101; 100-01). Ed Wilson supported this network (101). This network, which included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran, was called the Safari Club (101-03). With Bush's "official blessing," Adham set up "the biggest clandestine money network in history " in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) (104; the operation of this bank, busted by French authorities in 1991, is still not understood [370n.4]).

Ch. 15: Stansfield Turner Takes Over. Carter made war on the CIA and lost (107-09). Carter tried to end Israel's special relationship with the CIA, but Shackley went around him and became the Mossad's man at the agency (109-11).

Ch. 16: The Setup. Shackley set out to "create a totally private intelligence network using CIA assets until President Carter could be replaced" by taking over Wilson's assets and discrediting Wilson (113-15). One of Trento's best sources is Shirley Brill, with the CIA since 1960 and in an affair with Tom Clines during this period (116-19). Wilson did not realize Shackley was out to get him until after he was in prison (119-22).

Ch. 17: Missing the Rogue Elephant. Turner axed 823 CIA operatives in the 1977 Halloween massacre; Clines left the agency and Shackley was demoted

(123-26). Roberta "Bobbi" Barnes became Wilson's paymaster and mistress (126-27). Wilson's dealings with Libya (127-30). API in Mexico (130-31). The Carter-Turner effort to reform the CIA was doomed (131-32). When Carter cut loose Somoza, CIA rogues began backing reactionary elements in Central America (133-37).

Ch. 18: Change Partners. Wilson's operations; good relations with Israelis in 1977 (138-44).

Ch. 19: The Takeover. Shackley believed that he would be CIA director in a George H.W. Bush administration, and Wilson agreed to help him "take things private" (145). Shackley used Don Lowers and Neil Livingston to outmaneuver Wilson (145-50). Wilson formed dozens of front companies and ran them out of his townhouse in D.C.; he hoped to profit from the 1978 Camp David settlement and buy his way back into the CIA (150). In December 1978, Wilson, Shackley, von Marbod, Clines, and Richard Secord met; Wilson agreed to put up $500k and set up two companies, Arcadia in Switzerland and International Research and Trade (IRT) in the U.S. (150-54).

Ch. 20: Carter Blindsided. Carter lost control of U.S. intelligence: "President Carter's inner circle was cut off from the intelligence they needed to conduct a successful foreign policy" (158; 157-58). Wilson supplied hundreds of identities of Iranians being trained in Libya to SAVAK (159). Wilson knew of "revolutionaries from scores of countries" who were being trained in Libya, but Wilson's information on them was withheld from the Carter administration (160). In 1979, Israel decided to compromise Carter through his brother Billy (160-64). Carter, clueless, was an outsider in his own government (164-65). "Shackley was prepared to use every resource . . . to help remove Carter and Turner from

office" (165). Shackley had "his men on the President's National Security Council Staff, having recruited Zbigniew Brzezinski to the CIA in 1960, when he was at Columbia (166 [Trento says Brzezinski was "a graduate student" in 1960, but he was in his 30s and on the faculty at Columbia, having finished his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1953]). The funding of Islamic resistance in Afghanistan failed to anticipate that this would strengthen Islamic fundamentalism (167-68).

Ch. 21: 7777 Leesburg Pike. "[H]undreds of angry intelligence officers" supported George H.W. Bush's presidential bid in 1980 (169). Right-wing lobbyist Richard Viguerie's offices at 7777 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church, VA, became the "headquarters for the private CIA" (172; 170-72). Shackley now turned on Wilson, who became a fugitive, while Clines used EATSCO (the Egyptian American Transport and Services Corporation) to cut Wilson's company out of business (172-80).

Ch. 22: The Fatwah and Richard Helms. Dawud Salahuddin (born David Theodore Belfield), an American Black Muslim recruited to be an assassin for the Islamic Revolution, assassinated Iranian exile Ali Akbar Tabatabai'e in D.C. on July 22, 1980, carrying out a fatwah conveyed by Gen. Hosian Fardust when the latter came to the U.S. for secret negotiations about the hostages (181-94).

Ch. 23: The Drowning of a President. "Carter's most secret operations were thoroughly penetrated by Bush partisans," which doomed his efforts to free U.S. hostages in Iran (200). Trento regards as proven allegations that Republicans negotiated a delay in the American hostages' release until Reagan's inauguration (201-11).

Ch. 24: The Winners. "Bush turned the new administration toward the private intelligence network that he had come to know so well" (214). The Reagan administration "quickly split into two intelligence factions: Bush and the rogues versus Casey, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. In the middle was Bobby Ray Inman" (216). "Casey was not kept informed of all the secret operations. Bush was running his own operations out of the executive office" (221). The Max Hugel scandal (a businessman made director of operations by Casey (218-23).

Ch. 25: Bush vs. Casey. Casey wanted to renew corporate-sponsored CIA activities; in early 1981 Robert T. Crowley, one of Trento's key sources, refused his request for help; Robert Gates, who had helped the Reagan-Bush campaign while working in the Carter White House, was at the meeting (Crowley considered him "a puppy raised by Casey") (224-26). Casey also tried to run a "private intelligence network" and sometimes Bush and Casey were using the same people (226-34).

Ch. 26: Embracing Saddam. As arms shipments to Iran proceeded, Bush and his friend Kamal Adham "established the 'tilt' toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. It was an arms merchant's wildest dream come true" (235). The U.S. dealt with Saddam through Sarkis Soghanalian, a Turkish-born Armenian arms merchant fluent in seven languages (237-43).

Ch. 27: Killing Sadat. Casey wanted to assassinate Qaddafi, angering Sen. Barry Goldwater, who went public with complaints (244-45). Trento insinuates that Sadat's vice president and protégé, Hosni Mubarak had motive (involvement in EATSCO corruption) and means (access to security procedures) needed

for arranging or allowing the assassination of Anwar Sadat (248-51).

Ch. 28: Luring Wilson Home. A con man named Ernest Keiser was used to lure Wilson back to the U.S., where he was arrested on June 15, 1982 (252-59).

Ch. 29: The EATSCO Cover-up. Theodore Greenberg was the assistant U.S. attorney who successfully convicted Ed Wilson while also covering up EATSCO involvement with the CIA (259-69).

Ch. 30: Ollie and the Network. William R. Corson, a source and friend of Trento (270-72). At an April 1984 lunch in the John Hay Room of the Hay-Adams Hotel, Ollie North, a former protégé, makes Corson realize that the Reagan administration had "got sucked into the old Ed Wilson crowd: Shackley, Secord, Clines" (277; 272-79).

Ch. 31: Off the Books and Out of Control. "The Reagan-Bush administration used the private intelligence network for foreign-policy activism [funding the Contras; arms in the Iran-Iraq war] for almost five years before severe consequences emerged"; Shackley was "at the center of it all" (280; 282; 280-85). Iran-Contra (285-89).

Ch. 32: Shakedown. Soghanalian's role in the network as an arms dealer (290-300). His prosecution (he spent 1991-1995 in prison) and subsequent career (300-10).

Legacy. The private intelligence network transformed how the U.S. did covert operations (311). Salahuddin joined mujahideen in Afghanistan (311-13). The private intelligence network partially funded and protected Pakistan's nuclear weapons program (313-29). The Bushes, the Saudis, and James Bath (330-37). The CIA's failure to anticipate

the collapse of the Soviet Union, its subsequent abandonment of the groups it had created or exploited, and the blind eye it turned to its Saudi benefactors were typical of the way it operated (337-40). U.S. reliance on "an illegal network of private businesses and secret alliances" led necessarily to failure in the important realm of counterintelligence (340). The origins of al-Qaeda were missed (341-44). The George H.W. Bush administration (344-50). Shackley died in 2002 (350). Clines is still active (350). Wilson's prosecution was exposed as a sham by a federal judge in Texas; he now lives with a brother in Washington State (350-51). [In 2007 he tried to sue those who had prosecuted him.] The ineffectiveness of the CIA at present (351-53). The "tragic results" of the flourishing of the Bush family (353-56).

Notes. 30 pp.

Bibliography. 6 pp.

Acknowledgments. Susan Trento, his wife, persuaded the author to pull together a narrative explaining "why U.S. Intelligence failed us so" (395). Bill Corson, Robert T. Crowley, James Angleton, David Belfield (Dawud Salahuddin), Sarkis Soghanalian, colleagues at the Public Education Center, editors (395-97).

About the Author. Joseph J. Trento is an investigative reporter with several decades experience and the author of The Secret History of the CIA. He has

worked for CNN, the Wilmington News Journal, and Jack Anderson. He has authored or coauthored other books on air safety, the U.S. space program, and intelligence matters.

[Additional information. Joseph J. Trento is on the board of the Public Education Center, which is devoted to supporting investigative reporting. Background information on him is hard to come by.]

[Critique. Based on a welter of incomplete reports that sometimes conflict, Prelude to Terror is a speculative account of the clandestine activity of a private intelligence network working sometimes with, sometimes at cross purposes to the U.S. government. It is captivating but not always coherent. Joseph Trento's narrative is fast-paced and often sketchy. His sourcing for his claims, sometimes spectacular, is often not transparent, and often is nothing but hearsay. Although Trento asserts he has thousands of pages of files from insiders, citation of documentary evidence is rare. While he has not proven his case that the structures he is describing are cohesive enough to justify being called a network, the notion does succeed in bringing many different events into a plausible overarching narrative. — The author offers no prescription for the ills he describes. — Trento's writing is workmanlike but is weak in the area of characterization, especially when it comes to the key figure of Ted Shackley.]