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David Wise, author and CIA expert who exposed ‘invisible government,’ dies at 88

By Matt Schudel

October 9 at 10:44 PM

David Wise, a journalist and author who became one of the country’s foremost authorities on espionage, writing books on the CIA, turncoat spies and whether intelligence agencies had become an unaccountable “invisible government,” died Oct. 8 at a Washington hospital. He was 88.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Joan Wise.

Mr. Wise was a reporter for the old New York Herald Tribune newspaper, which assigned him to its Washington bureau in 1958. He became best known for his coverage of the world of spycraft, writing more than 10 nonfiction books about the Cold War era and beyond, as well as three novels.

b6b1d5d02456237a88b0ba36550d7a15-178x300 David Wise, author and CIA expert who exposed ‘invisible government,’ dies at 88In one of his first books, the best-selling “The Invisible Government,” written with journalist Thomas B. Ross in 1964, Mr. Wise wrote about the excesses of intelligence agencies, including the CIA, and its role in orchestrated coups in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s.

“We felt very strongly that there were two governments in the United States: one in the civics texts and the other in the real world,” Mr. Wise told the New York Times in 1988. “We thought the intelligence agencies were important to our security. But we were troubled about a system based on the consent of the governed when the governed didn’t know to what they have consented.”

Before “The Invisible Government” was published, the CIA surreptitiously acquired a copy of the galleys and summoned the authors to a meeting with the agency’s director, John A. McCone. Ross and Mr. Wise were told their book was a breach of national security. They were handed a list of 10 items stamped “Top Secret” and were told the information was not allowed outside CIA headquarters.

The authors said all the information in the book came from unclassified sources, and that they intended to publish their book without any changes. After some hesi­ta­tion, one of McCone’s assistants then took a pair of scissors and cut the words “Top Secret” from the page, and Ross and Mr. Wise were free to go.

“I later obtained part of my file under the Freedom of Information Act, and learned that a whole ‘task force’ had been assigned to me,” Mr. Wise told The Washington Post in 1981. “One phrase stated that the agency ‘should contact such assets as it has in the press to try to secure unfavorable book reviews, and so discredit author.’ They also ran a legal study to see if they could lawfully buy up the entire first printing.”

He also noted that the CIA’s legal counsel had called the book “uncannily accurate” — in large part, Mr. Wise later said, because one of his primary sources was Allen W. Dulles, the CIA’s founding director.

For more than 40 years, Mr. Wise continued to write books — including three novels — that exposed the tactics, blunders and dangers of a security state. He was “generally described,” as journalist Evan Thomas wrote in the Times, “as the best-sourced, most knowledgeable author of books on espionage.”

During the 1970s, Mr. Wise warned of the erosion of personal liberties and public accountability in his books “The Politics of Lying: Government Deception, Secrecy, and Power” and “The American Police State: The Government Against the People.”

READ MORE AT THE WASHINGTON POST

Filed Under: News and Views

Erdogan demands that Saudis prove missing journalist left their consulate alive

By Erin Cunningham and
Kareem Fahim

October 8 at 10:47 PM

ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded Monday that Saudi Arabia prove that journalist Jamal Khashoggi left the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on his own, as Saudi officials have repeatedly asserted, after he disappeared last week while inside the mission.

Erdogan’s comments were his most direct suggestion yet of potential Saudi culpability in Khashoggi’s disappearance. But other Turkish officials have said they believe that Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents inside the consulate.

“Do you not have cameras and everything of the sort?” Erdogan said of the consular officials. “They have all of them. Then why do you not prove this? You need to prove it.”

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Saudi ambassador to urge “full cooperation” in the investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance, the official Anadolu news agency said Monday.

The ambassador was called to the ministry in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Sunday, the agency said. It was the second time Turkey summoned the ambassador since Khashoggi failed to emerge after a visit to the consulate on Oct. 2.

Turkish officials have said they believe Khashoggi, 59, a critic of the Saudi leadership and a contributor to The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, was killed by a team of 15 Saudis flown in specifically to carry out the attack. Saudi authorities have called the allegation “baseless.”

How Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance could affect U.S.-Saudi tie

The Post’s Karen DeYoung explained why the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi could change the U.S. and Saudi Arabia relationship. (Joyce Lee/The Washington Post)

In his first remarks about the disappearance, President Trump told reporters Monday afternoon that he was concerned. “I don’t like hearing about it. Hopefully that will sort itself out. Right now, nobody knows anything about it, but there’s some pretty bad stories going around. I do not like it,” Trump said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a statement issued late Monday, said that “we have seen conflicting reports on the safety and whereabouts” of Khashoggi. Repeating Trump’s expression of “concern,” Pompeo, who had just returned from a trip to Asia, called on the Saudi government “to support a thorough investigation of Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and to be transparent about the results of that investigation.”

Turkey has yet to make any evidence public. The private Turkish broadcaster NTV reported Monday that police had requested access to the Saudi Consulate. It was unclear whether the police were granted access or whether they would search the diplomatic mission in Istanbul’s Levent district at a later date.

A report Monday in the daily newspaper Sabah said investigators were also focused on a convoy of diplomatic vehicles that departed from the consulate on the day Khashoggi vanished. A U.S. official said that Turkish investigators believe Khashoggi was probably dismembered and his body removed in boxes and flown out of the country.

Members of Congress, where there has long been bipartisan skepticism about Saudi Arabia, have issued statements and tweets demanding answers from Riyadh. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in a string of tweets Monday that “if there is any truth to the allegations of wrongdoing by the Saudi government it would be devastating to the US-Saudi relationship and there will be a heavy price to be paid—economically and otherwise.”

Graham, who played golf Sunday with Trump at the president’s course in Sterling, Va., said that he had consulted with Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) over their “shared concerns regarding the whereabouts and treatment” of Khashoggi.

In a statement sent to journalists Monday, Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, said that reports the kingdom had detained or killed Khashoggi were “absolutely false and baseless . . . I don’t know who is behind these claims, or their intentions,” he said, “nor do I care frankly.”

“What we do care about is Jamal’s wellbeing and revealing the truth about what occurred,” the ambassador said. “Jamal has many friends in the Kingdom, including myself, and despite our differences, and his choice to go into his so called ‘self-exile,’ we still maintained regular contact when he was in Washington.”

The Saudi government, he said, was “fully cooperating” in the Turkish government’s investigation. “Jamal is a Saudi citizen whose safety and security is a top priority for the Kingdom.”

In a meeting Sunday night with The Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan, the ambassador said it was “impossible” that such a crime could be covered up by consulate employees “and we wouldn’t know about it.”

Khalid told Ryan that Khashoggi, who was once close to the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, had “always been honest” and that his criticism of the current Saudi leadership “has been sincere.”

During the meeting, Ryan expressed The Post’s “grave concern” about Khashoggi’s disappearance, and said the news organization would view any Saudi government involvement in his disappearance as a flagrant attack on one of its journalists.

Read more at The Washington Post

Filed Under: News and Views

CAPA presents The Last Witnesses – Revealing The Truth Symposium November 15, 2018

39200756_1893044574075811_709826088208957440_n CAPA presents The Last Witnesses - Revealing The Truth Symposium November 15, 2018

‎CAPA presents The Last Witnesses – Revealing The Truth Symposium

Citizens Against Political Assassinations presents “The Last Witnesses – Revealing The Truth” Symposium on Thursday, November 15 from Noon to 9:00pm at the historic Dallas courthouse, now the Old Red Museum located in Dealey Plaza. The event will feature witnesses from Dealey to Parkland to Bethesda and beyond who either have not previously testified or will supplement prior testimony to complete gaps in the existing historical record.

The symposium will also be streamed LIVE.

Full speaker list, schedule, streaming details and ticket purchase information to be released soon at our website: https://capa-us.org or at our Facebook Event page. Submit questions at our website’s “Contact” page.

Ticket Prices:
Full Day Non-CAPA Members: $75
Full Day CAPA Members: $50
Evening Hours Only (6-9pm): $25
Streaming Full Day Non-CAPA Members: $39.99
Streaming Full Day CAPA Members: $19.99

Filed Under: News and Views Archives

Clemente Letter to Sen. Grassley RE Nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to Supreme Court

 

Click on page to view.

Angela-letter-p1-230x300 Clemente Letter to Sen. Grassley RE Nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to Supreme Court

Clemente-to-Grassley-p2-229x300 Clemente Letter to Sen. Grassley RE Nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to Supreme CourtClemente-to-Kavanaugh-p3-230x300 Clemente Letter to Sen. Grassley RE Nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to Supreme Court

RELATED:

Brett Kavanaugh Repeatedly Ruled in Favor of the Security State, Most Recently for the CIA — and Against Me by Jefferson Morley

Filed Under: News and Views

Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO

“…there are different ways of thinking of Oswald as an asset.”

A timely reminder from our ultimate scholar. Following is a 5 minute audio excerpt from Alan Dale’s telephone conversation with Professor Scott recorded December 2017:

LISTEN

DPatDoJFK-cover-200x300 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO1-300x268 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO2-300x129 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO3-300x296 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO4-300x241 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO5-259x300 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO6-300x244 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO7-300x242 Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks with Alan Dale about Robert Ronstadt, Industrial Security, and LHO

We are well advised to keep our minds open, to expand our awareness, to question what we think we know, and to practice humility in the face of bewildering complexities. Progress is possible when we admit that we don’t know.

Professor Scott’s works must be read.

Deep Politics and the Death of JFK

Amazon Author’s Page

peterdalescott.net

Transcript:

PDS: I’d like to make a comment on what you’ve been saying so far. At the very beginning you and I agreed that Oswald was an asset.

AD: Yes.

PDS: And then you went to the next step, where I don’t, and that was that he was an Agency asset.

AD: Mmhmm.

PDS: I’m not sure of that at all. In fact, sometimes I think he wasn’t.

AD: Mmhmm.

PDS: If you know my book, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, I lay out… I think he worked primarily with ONI and Marine G2. No one ever talks about Marine G2, but there is a Marine G2; they did have files on Oswald; we’ve never seen them, and they’re probably the biggest gap in the record that we have. He was that kind of asset at the beginning. The Agency knew what was happening, I think, and that Angleton did.

AD: Uh-huh.

PDS: You know that Jeff Morley says in The Ghost,  and I think he’s probably right, it was Angleton who was responsible for parking the Oswald material over in the Office of Security and not opening the 201, by the way. [See The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2018] And then, later on, there’s a long period there he’s not in touch with American agencies when he’s in Russia; and it’s not clear that he was doing much with them when he first comes back; but I think he was, like Robert Ronstadt – R-O-N-S-T-A-D-T – you can look him up in my index, [See p. 244, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, University of California Press, 1996 paperback edition] I think he was working for a private agency which was then reporting to the FBI on what we call Industrial Security. I think that’s what he was doing when he came back and that’s why he was at Jaggars, Chiles, Stovall which was doing work for the Army Security Agency, and that’s why he was at the Riley Coffee Company where people were being assembled to go and work in the NASA operation down in New Orleans.

AD: Mmhm.

PDS: I don’t think any of that was CIA. But I do think that whatever happened in Mexico City was certainly a CIA operation or with links to the CIA, because this man down there is a very odd figure but, I don’t think that was Oswald.

AD: Mmhm. Yeah.

PDS: I think that was somebody using Oswald’s I.D. but wasn’t Oswald.

AD: Well, thank you very much for all of that; I wrote down everything.

PDS: So, all I’m asking you to do is not back away from what you believe, but to enlarge it to see that there are different ways of thinking about Oswald as an asset.

AD: And to resist coming to conclusions prematurely based upon my own incomplete information, having incomplete, insufficient information to draw ultimate conclusions.

PDS: I think it’s very, very clear, by the way, when he first makes contact with the DRE in New Orleans, Carlos Bringuier, that’s a hostile action he’s doing. He’s behaving like somebody who wants to learn more about Bringuier; Bringuier was a CIA asset so that’s, to me, the evidence that Oswald was working for someone else. And I think he was working for the FBI, directly or indirectly; his paycheck, as I say, may have come from a private agency.

AD: Mmhm.

PDS: But I think the FBI had been charged with finding out more about the Lake Pontchartrain training camp; that was a high-priority for them because Bobby Kennedy had targeted people like Frank Sturgis as trouble-makers in that delicate year of 1963, and Sturgis – Fiorini, Frank Fiorini – has a link to that camp.

AD: Yes.

PDS: So, I feel quite strongly that at that moment Oswald was not working for the Agency but for some other agency. The most obvious candidate would be the FBI.

AD: Oh, boy. Thank you very much, Professor.

PDS: Does that make sense to you?

AD: It does indeed. What I’m always conscientious about, even as I’m addressing some of these complex areas, I’m aware that at no point have I had a complete understanding and that all of whatever my thinking, if not conclusions, whatever I’m thinking at any given moment is based absolutely and unquestionably upon insufficient information. We don’t have everything we need to come to conclusions.

PDS: All of us, all of us have to feel that way, Alan. Not just you.

AD: Yeah.

PDS: I mean, I too have to be aware that I’m working from very incomplete information.

Edited for length and clarity.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Alan Dale, JFK, Kennedy assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Peter Dale Scott, PRESIDENT KENNEDY

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