The October Surprise in Context

" The philosophical divide within the U.S. National Security establishment, especially the CIA, became quite serious in the aftermath of Watergate. To make matters worse, the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, his campaign promise to clean the "cowboy" elements out of the Central Intelligence Agency and his "human rights" policies alarmed the faction of the CIA loyal to George Bush. Bush was CIA director under Richard Nixon. Finally, the firing of CIA Director George Bush by Carter, and the subsequent "Halloween Massacre" in which Carter fired over 800 CIA covert operatives in 1977, angered the "cowboys" beyond all measure. That was Carter's October surprise, 800 firings on Halloween 1977.

Bush and his CIA coverts were well aware of the Shah's terminal cancer, unknown to President Carter. The team had an elaborate vested interest to protect. They were determined to keep Iran intact and communist-free and put George Bush in the White House.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

Hence, the Islamic Fundamentalists were the only viable choice through which the Bush covert team could implement its own private foreign policy. The results: the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the fall of President Carter, and the emergence of something called the "New World Order." Mansoor's documents show step-by-step events:

1. In 1974, the Shah of Iran was diagnosed with cancer.

2. In 1975, former CIA director, and the U.S. Ambassador to Iran, Richard Helms learned of the Shah's cancer through the Shah's closest confidant, General Hossein Fardoust. The Shah, Helms and Fardoust had been close personal friends since their school days together in Switzerland during the 1930s.

3. On November 4, 1976, concurrent with Jimmy Carter's election as President, CIA Director George Bush issued a secret memo to the U.S. Ambassador in Iran, Richard Helms, asking:

"Have there been any changes in the personality pattern of the Shah; what are their implication pattern for political behavior? Identification of top military officers that most likely play key roles in any transference of power if the Shah were killed...who will be the leading actors? How will the Shah's pet projects, including the economic development program, be effected by his departure?"

4. By July 1977, anticipating trouble ahead, the Bush covert team issued preliminary script for the transition of power in Iran. According to John D. Stemple, a CIA analyst and Deputy Chief Political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Iran, "A ten page analysis of the opposition written by the embassy's political section in July 1977 correctly identified Bakhiar, Bazargan, Khomeini and Behesti as major actors in the drama that begin unfolding a year later."

5. Contrary to this analysis, in August 1977, the "official wing" of the CIA fed President Carter a 60-page Study on Iran which concluded:

"The Shah will be an active participant in Iranian life well into the 1980s...and there will be no radical changes in Iranian political behavior in the near future."

6. On October 31, 1977, president Carter made good on his campaign promise to clean the "cowboys" out of the CIA. He fired over 800 covert operatives from the Agency, many of whom were loyal to George Bush. Carter's presidency split the CIA. It produced in them, among whom were "many well-trained in political warfare, a concerted will for revenge." By the end of the 1970s many of these special covert operatives had allied themselves with George Bush's candidacy, and later with Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign.

7. On November 15, the Shah of Iran visited Washington, D.C. Carter toasted his guest, "If ever there was a country which has blossomed forth under enlightened leadership, it would be the ancient empire of Persia."

8. On November 23, Ayatollah Khomeini's elder son, Haji Mustafa, died mysteriously in Najaf, Iraq. According to professor Hamid Algar, he was "assassinated by the Shah's U.S.-instituted security police SAVAK...the tragedy inflamed the public in Iran." Ayatollah Khomeini placed an advertisement in the French Newspaper Le Monde which read: "thanking people for condolences that had been sent of the murder of his son". He also "appealed to the army to liberate Iran, and to the intellectuals and all good Muslims to continue their criticism of the Shah".

9. December 31, 1977, Carter visited the Shah in Iran. He toasted the Shah for maintaining Iran as "an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world." Ironically, that so-called stability evaporated before the champagne lost its fizz.

10. On January 7, 1978, an insidious article entitled Iran and the Red and Black Colonialism, appeared in the Iranian daily newspaper Ettela'at. It castigated the exiled Khomeini, and produced a massive protest riot in the Holy City of Qum the next day. The clergy had little choice but to rally to Khomeini's defense. The Qum incident shifted many of the clergy from a position of support for the Shah's monarchy to an active opposition. That "dirty trick" perpetuated by General Fardoust was the trigger that sparked Islamic movement participating in the anti-Shah democratic Revolution. John D. Stempel, characterized Fardoust's importance to the Alliance: "it is hard to over estimated the value of having a mole in the inner circle of the Shah."

11. On February 3, a confidential communiqué from the U.S. Embassy clearly reflected the vision of the Alliance: "Though based on incomplete evidence, our best assessment to date is that the Shia Islamic movement dominated by Ayatollah Khomeini is far better organized, enlighten and able to resist Communism than its detractors would lead us to believe. It is rooted in the Iranian people more than any western ideology, including Communism."

12. April 1978, Le Monde "identified Khomeini's Liberation Movement of Iran as the most significant force in the opposition followed by the Shi'ite Islam joins the reformist of progressive critics of the Shah on the same ground. In fact, this analysis was contrary to what Mohaammad Tavassoli, leader of the Liberation Movement of Iran, expressed to John D. Stempel on August 21, 1978: "The nationalist movement in Iran lacks a popular base. The choice is between Islam and Communism...close ties between the Liberation Movement of Iran and the religious movement was necessary. Iran was becoming split by Marxist and the religious."

13. On April 26, the confidential minutes of the U. S. Embassy Country team meeting welcomed Bush, Reagan and Thatcher.

14. On May 6, Le Monde became the first western newspaper to interview Khomeini in Najaf, Iraq. Khomeini acknowledged his compatibility with the strategic imperatives of the Bush covert team, "we would not collaborate with the Marxists, even to the overthrow of the Shah."

15. The same month, Khomeini's old ally from the failed 1963 coup (that resulted in Khomeini's arrest and major uprising in June 1963 and his subsequent exile to Iraq) General Valliollah Qarani sent his emissary to meet Khomeini in Najaf. Qarani had been a major CIA asset in Iran since the 1953 coup. Seeing another chance to gain power for himself, he advised Khomeini, according to former Iranian President Abol Hassan Bani-sader:

"if you settle for the Shah's departure and don't use anti-American rhetoric, Americans are ready to take him out."

16. In August, the Bush team sent its own point man to meet the exiled Ayatollah in Najaf. Professor Richard Cottam carried excellent credentials. During the 1953 coup, he had been in charge of the CIA's Iran Desk, also, he had been in close contact with Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi in the U.S. since 1975. Curiously, he admitted to Bani-sadr in 1987, that he had not been working for the Carter Administration. Cottam's visit must have had an impact, because Iran suddenly began to experience a series of mysterious catastrophes:

In Aberdeen, Fundamentalist supporters burned down a theater killing the innocent occupants, blaming it on the SAVAK and the Shah.
There were riots in Isfahan that resulted in martial law.
On August 27, one of Khomeini's rivals among the Shia Islamic faithful outside of Iran, Ayatollah Mosa Sadr mysteriously disppeared. According to an intelligence source he was killed and buried in Libya.
17. By late August, the Shah was totally confused. U.S. Ambassador Sullivan recorded the Shah's pleadings over the outbreak of violence:
"he said the pattern was widespread and that it was like an outbreak of a sudden rash in the country...it gave evidence of sophisticated planning and was not the work of spontaneous oppositionists...the Shah presented that it was the work of foreign intrigue...this intrigue went beyond the capabilities of the Soviet KGB and must, therefore, also involve British and American CIA. The Shah went on to ask 'Why was the CIA suddenly turning against him? What had he done to deserve this sort of action from the United States?"

18. September 8, the Shah's army gunned down hundreds of demonstrators in Teheran in what became known as the "Jaleh Square Massacre".

19. On September 9, President Carter phoned the Shah to confirm his support for the Shah, a fact that enraged the Iranian population.

20. A few days later, Carter's National Security aide, Gary Sick, received a call from Richard Cottam, requesting a discrete meeting between him and Khomeini's representative in the U.S., Dr. Yazdi. Sick refused.

21. Khomeini for the first time, publicly called for the Shah's overthrow.

22. In Mid-September, at the height of the revolution, "one of the handful of Khomeini's trusted associates", Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Beheshti, secretly visited the United States among others, he also meet with Yazdi in Texas. Beheshti was an advocate of the eye-for-an-eye school of justice.

23. In early October 1978, the agent for the Bush covert team arranged to force Khomeini out of Iraq.

24. October 3, 1978, Yazdi picked up Khomeini in Iraq and headed for Kuwait. According to Gary Sick, he received an urgent call from Richard Cottam, learning for the first time that Khomeini had been forced out of Iraq. Sick was told that Khomeini and his entourage were stuck in no man's land while attempting to cross the border. Cottam was requesting White House intervention to resolve the issue. Sick respond, "there is nothing we could do".

25. October 6, Khomeini's entourage, having gotten back through Baghdad, popped up in Paris. According to Bani-sadr, "it was Khomeini who insisted on going to Paris instead of Syria or Algeria". Whoever helped Khomeini out of the Kuwaiti border impasse had to have been on good terms with both the French and Saddam Hussein.

26. December 12, Yazdi made a trip to the U.S. to promote Khomeini and his Islamic Republic. Yazdi met secretly with Henry Precht on an unofficial capacity. Precht was the Director of the Iran Desk at the State Department and one of the Bush team's main choke points in the Carter Administration. Later Precht and Yazdi appeared together for televised discussion of Iran. Yazdi assured the American public that Khomeini had not really called for a "torrent of blood", and that the "election would be absolutely free". The Islamic Republic "would enjoy full freedom of speech and the press, including the right to attack Islam.

27. December 28, Cottam visited Khomeini in Paris where he noted that U.S. citizen Dr. Yazdi was the "leading tactician in Khomeini's camp" and apparent "chief of staff". Khomeini was not interested in the Mullahs taking over the government. Also noted that "Khomeini's movement definitely plans to organize a political party to draw on Khomeini's charisma. Cottam thinks such a party would win all Majlis seats."

28. Leaving Paris, Cottam slipped into Teheran, arriving the first week in January 1979, to prepare Khomeini's triumphal return to Iran.

29. January 4, 1979, Carter's secret envoy, General Robert Huyser arrived in Iran. His mission was to prevent the "fall of the Shah". According to Huyser, Alexander Haig, ostensibly a strong Shah supporter-inexplicably, "took violent exception to the whole idea." Huyser recalled that "General Haig never gave me a full explanation of his strong objections." Huyser also revealed that Ambassador Sullivan "had also expressed objections." Two pro-Shah advocates opposed to the prevention of the Shah's fall.

30. On January 14, President Carter finally "authorized a meeting between Warren Zimmerman and Ibrahim Yazdi. On the same day, Khomeini, in an interview on CBS claimed, "a great part of the army was loyal to him" and that "he will be in effect the strong man of Iran."

31. On January 16, in an exact repeat of the 1953 CIA coup, Bush's covert team ushered the "eccentric and weak" Shah out of Iran.

32. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini staged his own version of a "triumphal return" in the streets of Teheran.

33. Khomeini moved quickly to establish his authority. On February 5 he named Mehdi Bazargan, a devoted Muslim and anti-communist, interim Prime Minister. Yazdi and Abbas Amir Entezam became Bazargan's deputies, Dr. Sanjabi Foreign Minister, and General Qarani was named military Chief of Staff.

34. On February 11, 1979, in seemingly a bizarre twist, General Qarani asked the Shah's "eyes and ears" General Hossien Fardoust for recommendations to fill the new top posts in Iran's armed forces. Outside of the Chief of SAVAK, all the other recommendations were accepted. Shortly after, General Fardoust became head of SAVAMA, Khomeini's successor to SAVAK.

35. On February 14, 1979, two weeks after Khomeini's return to Iran, the U.S. Embassy in Teheran was seized by Khomeini supporters disguised as leftist guerrillas in an attempt to neutralize the left. U.S. hostages were seized, but to the chagrin of Khomeini's Fundamentalist, the Iranian coalition government restored order immediately. Ironically, in the same day in Kabul, Afghanistan, the U.S. Ambassador was also kidnapped by fanatic Islamic Fundamentalists disguised as leftist guerrillas and killed in the gunfight.

36. On February 14, soon after the order was restored at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Khomeini's aide Yazdi supplied the Embassy with a group of Iranians for compound security. Ambassador Sullivan installed armed, and trained this Swat squad lead by SAVAK/CIA agent Mashallah Kahsani, with whom Sullivan developed a close working relationship.

37. By August, pro-Bush CIA official George Cave was visiting Iran to provide intelligence briefings to Khomeini's aides, especially Yazdi and Entezam. These intelligence exchanges continued until October 31, the day Carter fired Bush and the 800 agents. Then with all the Iranian officials who had restored order in the first Embassy seizure eliminated, the stage was set for what happened four days later.

38. On November 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy was taken again. Leading the charge was none other than Ambassador Sullivan's trusted Mashallah Kashani, the Embassy's once and former security chief.

With the evidence and documentation supplied by Mansoor, the alleged October Surprise would not have been necessary. President Carter was the target, in revenge for the Halloween Massacre, the night 800 CIA operatives and George Bush were fired by Carter. The man thrust, however, was to prevent a communist takover of Iran on the Shah's anticpated death."

Dave Emory
Anti-Fascist Archives #31:
The Iran-Contragate Scandal, Part III-A
The Destabilization of President Carter
(1987/06/28)




The manipulation of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80, and the role of American political figures in effect­ing it; the failure of the 'Desert One' hostage rescue attempt of April 1980 and the apparent 'October Surprise' deal to delay the release of the hostages and assure Carter's reelection defeat.

Pakistan Ambassador retired prematurely recently because he "didn'trealise his job was to kill people"

Things to Teach Your Children and Grandchildren

Who can tell me what this is..?

John Paul I: When in Rome.... Murder..?

FOIA Request: Senator Hilary Clinton visits Ground Zero, September 2001

Fearuring an, at best, ill-judged photo-op during the visit.

Too soon, Hilary.... Too soon...

Broadwell and "Friend"

Check this out.

My, don't they seem chummy?

JFK 2012 (playlist)

Secession Crisis: American Slavery was INCREDIBLY Profitable

911 is a Joke

JFK 2012: "Our Most Basic, Common Link...."

Give 'em hell, Jack... Wherever you are...

October Surprise: Carter Did What Was Right, Not What Was Popular

Leon Panetta, Henry Kissinger and Presidents Ford and Carter all weigh in on this one.

Although, what Kissinger would know about "moral convictions", I have no idea...

Anonymous Project Mayhem 2012: December 21st 2012

We cook your meals.
We haul your trash.
We connect your calls.
We drive your ambulances.
We guard you while you sleep. 

We do not forgive. We do not forget.

Do not... fuck with us. 

We are Legion - Expect us. - 11:11 21/12/2012

A Response to Congressman Ron Paul's Farewell Speech to Congress

"Benjamin Franklin claimed "only a virtuous people are capable of freedom."  John Adams concurred:  "Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." 

"A Society that boos or ridicules the Golden Rule is not a moral society.  All great religions endorse the Golden Rule.  The same moral standards that individuals are required to follow should apply to all government officials.  They cannot be exempt."

Congressman Dr Ronald Ernest Paul, 

November 14th 2012

"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am The LORD".

God, Leviticus 19:18

US Ambassador Adolph "Spike" Dubs (1920 – 1979)

"Special mention must be made of the Dubs affair."

In the wake of the Benghazi debacle, name of Spike Dubs took on renewed significance, as the previous most recent US Ambassador killed in the line of duty.

This is, of course, not true; Ambassador Arnold Lewis Raphael, was killed in the same (highly peculiar) C-130 crash that killed Pakistani President Zia on August 17, 1988, in circumstances which certainly amounted to an assassination.

The death of Zia took place at the height of both the fall-out from the Iran-Contra scandal and Operation Cyclone, (the "longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken", costing $630 million per year in 1987) and George Bush's presidential bid against Michael Dukkakis.

Whoever arranged for Zia's plane to crash at the height of the CIA's cross-border collaboration with Osama Bin Laden (aka Tim Osman) is unclear and open to debate - what is clear from a quick look at Raphael's background and who was appointed to replace him is indicative of the fact that he was likely not much missed by either the Reagan administration or the Bush campaign.

So, Raphael died in post, but is not considered to have been killed in the line of duty, even though that's self-evidently what happened in his case.

He was, however, killed on Ronald Reagan's watch - Dubs was killed during the Carter Administration.

Officially, then, Dubs was the last US ambassador killed in the line; he was a perfect storm of Democratic weakness and national ineptitude; he was kidnapped by Islamic extremists and killed by gunfire during a "rescue" attempt by the Communist regime of Afghanistan the very same day the first (failed) takeover of the US Embassy in in Tehran was attempted by "students" loyal to the Ayatollah Kohmeni (of which more later), following the self-exile of the Shah of Iran, during the interegnum of the secular republic of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan.

But who was Dubs? His name and references to his death and the manner of it, a key precursor of Brezinski's recommendation to Carter to begin arming the Afghan Islamic resistance in opposition to the Communists with the aim of drawing the Soviets into direct intervention, these things appear curiously absent from the record, even on the internet - this is the only photo I have been able to find of Dubs and there is precious little material indicating precisely what he may have been up to when he was kidnapped and killed a la Chris Stevens.

Fortunately for us and for history, the KGB at the time (and Cryptome subsequently) were keeping close tabs on the situation


The KGB in Afghanistan by Vasiliy Mitrokhin

(Original available at http://cryptome.org/kgb-afghan.htm; http://cwihp.si.edu/pdf/wp40.pdf)



"This paper is one of a series of Working Papers published by the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Established in 1991 by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) disseminates new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War as it emerges from previously inaccessible sources on "the other side" of the post-World War II superpower rivalry.

Special mention must be made of the Dubs affair.

The Cheka Was anxious about the appointment of Dubs as ambassador to Afghanistan. When he bad been in Moscow as a First Secretary at the embassy he had been closely covered.

The KGB considered that Dubs knew the region well and that he was connected to the CIA and trusted by them. His accreditation was therefore viewed as part of the USA's desire to influence the new

Afghan government and to make sure that Afghanistan did not become too close to the USSR. Dubs had been [instrumental] in strengthening American positions and influence in the Middle East and the region of the Persian Gulf and was one of the people behind the idea of the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran triangle.

[ Editors' Note: US Ambassador Adolph "Spike" Dubs was kidnapped and killed on 14 February 1979.]

That same day... This happened:





On 3 August 1978 the Resident in Kabul, Osadchy, received a telegram about Dubs which, as well as mentioning the above, expressed the fear that "it cannot be ruled out that in his contacts with the Afghan leadership, Dubs will take advantage of his 'deep' understanding and knowledge of the situation in the USSR and Soviet foreign policy. This, in our view, is one of the most dangerous aspects of his activities." The Residency wrote to the Center in the same vein that the American embassy in Kabul under Dubs was actively engaged in spreading propaganda amongst the people and the intelligentsia and was trying to make them believe that the USSR was occupying the country with a view to using it as a bridgehead for spreading its influence to India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia. Leaden clouds driven by the Cheka were thickening and automatic hail would follow.

The mystery around [the events concerning] Dubs' death has not yet been solved. This is what [we know] happened. On 14 February 1979 some unknown people seized Dubs on the street and took him to the Hotel Kabul. The terrorists demanded that Bahniddin Bals and Faizani of the Setame Melli group should be released in return for the release of the ambassador (both Bals and Faizani had been shot iminediately after the April Coup). On the advice of the KGB, Amin ordered an assault group to storm the hotel room and kill the terrorists. The assault team, dressed in protective Soviet vests and armed with Kalashnikovs, showered the room where the terrorists and hostage were with bullets. Dubs was fatally wounded and died. He had at least two bullet wounds. Two of the terrorists were killed, one was taken prisoner, and the other managed to escape. It became clear that the four terrorists had had only three pistols.

At the time of the assault, [present] in the hotel were S. G. Bakhturin (code name 'Volgin'), the security assistant to the ambassador and First Secretary; Yu. I. Kutepov ('Krabs'), Second Secretary; and A. S. Klushnikov, an adviser on crime prevention with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DRA. During the operation they had suggested that they stall for time, not inform correspondents, not enter into negotiations with the terrorists but liquidate them instead and keep prying eyes away from the hotel. They did not allow the Americans, who had come to the hotel, to take any of the used bullet shells. In case the room was to be examined by experts, a gun of unknown origin similar to a Kalashnikov was planted in the room and registered as taken from the terrorists.

On the following day Osadchy and Yuly visited Amin on instructions from the Center to agree on how to justify the affair to the Americans. They agreed to express their condolences to the Americans, to lower flags on government buildings and to print photographs of the four terrorists in the newspapers. In order to frustrate requests from the Americans to question the detained terrorist and hunt down the one who escaped, it was decided to shoot the one who had been detained and to shoot another prisoner pretending that he was the fourth terrorist. The story that all four kidnappers had been killed during the assault would be fed to the newspapers. During the night both the doomed men were executed. If the Americans were to ask for an explanation for the involvement of Soviet advisers in the operation to capture the terrorists, Amin, Sarwari and Tarun were to say that the Afghan side had independently and without consultation decided to take radical action to deal with the terrorists and that there had been no Soviet advisers present at all.

As soon as the Cheka got rid of Amin, the disinformation service planted a new version of the death of Ambassador Dubs in the foreign press.

"During investigations into the crimes of the CIA agent Amin, it has become known that the four 'terrorists' were members of an Islamic Slifite organization and that they were reacting to Amin's unjustified mass repression. By eliminating Muslims, Amin was acting as an imperialist agent and the terrorists were therefore prepared to take extreme measures in order to make the Americans acknowledge this. They had planned to kidnap the American ambassador and to force him under the threat of death to reveal his cards and acknowledge the ties between the embassy of the USA in Kabul and Amin. When Dubs was in the hands of the terrorists in the Kabul Hotel, Amin gave orders for the otherwise needless assault and ordered that no mercy should be shown. During the shooting Ambassador Dubs was fatally wounded, one terrorist killed and another wounded. Two were captured but they were killed on the following day. They were liquidated by Tarun at Amin's orders. Tarun himself was killed in unexplained circumstances on 14 September 1979.

By kidnapping Dubs, the group of extremists, who were members of an Islamic organization, intended to force the American ambassador to speak about Amin's co-operation with the Americans and to expose him as a CIA agent. Amin took measures to eliminate all the members of the group and to save himself from exposure. The conduct of the Carter administration was shocking. It found it easy to sacrifice the fife of the American ambassador in order to keep secret Amin's connections with the CIA."

In February 1980 the Residency used the commarider of the People's Militia, Azhar Abdullah Samad (the agent 'Fatekh'), in an attempt to disseminate more disinformation on the Dubs affair. According to the results of the investigation proved that the Americans were involved in the death of the ambassador. A newspaper article "On Whose Conscience is the Death of Ambassador Dubs?" laid the blame on the Americans.

The story of how Amin became a CIA agent is as follows. A handwriting specialist was in one of the KGB operational groups sent to Afghanistan. After Amin's death a note with a CIA telephone number in Amin's handwriting was found in [Amin's] notebook. On 16 February a KGB adviser gave Babrak this notebook and showed him the entry. Babrak declared that this was yet finther definite proof that Amin was connected with American intelligence.

It was suggested to Babrak that the government of the DRA should ask the American administration to hand over the CIA and FBI files on H. Amin who had studied in the USA and that notices should be put in the press through the embassies in Paris, London, Rome and Bonn asking anyone who had any information on Amin to send it to the authorities. The reason for these requests was to be the investigation into the death of Taraki and Amin's involvement in it.

The KGB also targeted personnel from other countries, not just the United States. A FRG citiz.en, who worked for theUN in a veterinary laboratory in Mazar-I-Sherif, and two West German diplomats were targeted, as was the Indian ambassador. [Four names excised.] The latter had had close relations with Taraki and Amin who had trusted and liked them. The Residency considered this dangerous to Soviet interests, as he advocated an independent and non-aligned Afghanistan. It fed false stories through the special [propaganda] organs, which depicted the ambassador in a bad light to Taraki and Amin.

For over two years a listening operation (Letter "Z") was carried out on the accommodation of fourteen Chinese specialists working at a textile plant in Kabul. The Residency maintained that the Chinese were engaged in serious work to sabotage Soviet influence in Afghanistan, and that they were showing interest in Soviet citizens. Andropov was informed and a Letter "Z" device was set up in January 1977. The accommodation of the Chinese, (target "Gnezdo" [nest]), adjoined the residence of a Soviet doctor, Sheptukhe. His entrance to the building was next door to that used by the Chinese specialists. Members of the 14th Department of the FCD installed a microphone in the wall of the doctor's bedroom, which was next to the living-room room of the Chinese specialists. A control point with a tape recorder was hidden in a bedside cupboard in the same room. To process the material Chinese language specialists from Institute T of the FCD, S.S. Huseinov and G.V. Ruchkin, a Directorate K151 operational officer, were sent to Kabul. The Residency and Center combed the mass of papers looking for a hidden meaning in the everyday chatter. In April 1979 the Chinese went home and the listening devices were removed.

____________________

151 Author's Note: Directorate K, the counter-intelligence directorate, combined all the counterintelligence sections working abroad, including the former 9th and 10 departments, Service 2 of the FCD, sections of the 2nd Chief Directorate and the 3rd Directorate of the KGB. Its role was to organize active offensive work to infiltrate the special services and to cover Soviet citizens and specialists abroad.
At the end of 1963 the agent network, then Service 2, had 1,037 agents. 224 were foreigners, 33 stateless and 780 Soviet citizens. There were 55 agents working on Russian émigrés, 23 on Ukrainian émigrés, 5 on Belorussian émigrés, 21 on Lithuanian émigrés, 16 on Latvians, 11 on Estonians, 17 on Armenians and 33 on the other nationalities of the USSR, There were then 39 agents in the Federal Republic of Germany, 23 in the USA, 21 in France, 10 in Libya, 11 in Belgium and 11 in Austria.

In 1963 there were 104 people in the central apparatus, excluding people working abroad and in different organizations. The monthly salary bill was 20,684 rubles, made up as follows: 360 rubles for the head of Service 1,340 rubles each for the three deputy heads, 260 rubles each for the eleven senior assistants, 220 rubles each for the 17 assistants, 190 rubles each for the 47 senior operative staff, 170 each for the operatives, 160 for the proof-reader, 110 rubles for the secretary, 110 rubles for the chief office clerk, 110 rubles each for the two shorthand typists, 98 rubles for the senior typist and 87 rubles each for the two typists.

In 1971 there were 2,885 Soviet people in Afghanistan, including members of their families. By 1973 the figure had risen to 4,000. In Kabul alone there were 1,390. The KR Directorate then had 75 agents and 90 trusted contacts there.

A large number were military advisers or military specialists. On 1 March 1973 at a meeting in Moscow the military advisers and military attaches were ordered to increase their influence in the countries where they were stationed and to select candidates for military training in the Soviet Union.
In 1980 the KR group of ten operational officers were cultivating relations in the embassies of the US, People's Republic of China and the NATO countries. They had 18 agents and 44 foreign trainees. The agents were allocated thus: 8 on the situation in the country, 5 on the situation in the provinces, 6 on the Americans, 3 on the government, 4 on the armed forces of the DRA, 6 on the local special services and a number of agents and trainees to expose the Mujahedin and their ties with international organizations.

The KGB also suspected its socialist friends and compatriots of anti- Sovietism and treachery. 'Contact' was an operational analytical system, recording contacts between Soviet citizens and members of the embassies of Poland, Bulgaria, the GDR and CSSR. There were reports on joint drinking sessions [receptions] and trips outside the city. The members of these embassies were trying to develope their acquaintances with Soviet citizens. They displayed an inappropriate curiosity about the Soviet military losses in Afghanistan, tried to find out what the advisory apparatus was doing and so on. Bogoroditsky, Vasilyev and Yuldashev paid a high price for their careless friendship with the Bulgarians Bratan, Rozalis and Tikhomir. They were sent home.

The KR counter-intelligence operational attention covered the apparatus of the Chief military adviser and specialists from the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the armed forces. The group received many signals about off-duty contacts by the military advisers and attempts by the Afghans to be on close tenns with the advisers and to have a good time with them. It was noted that some of the military personnel had been affected by ideological sabotage. They listened to The Voice of America and Deutsche Welle radio stations and approved the ideas of Sakharov152 and his associates.

____________________

152 Editors' Note: Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov, Soviet nuclear physicist, an outspoken advocate of human rights and civil liberties. In 1975 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Chekists did not relax. They let their imagination run wild in letters to the Center about the supposed threat to the USSR from the Western countries and from the People's Republic of China. They wrote that the enernies were strengthening and developing their cooperation in Afghanistan, coordinating their actions to subvert the position of the Union, involving the governments of the Islamic countries to hostile propaganda, that they regarded the Soviet international assistance to the healthy forces in Hungary, CSSR and Afghanistan as aggression, making a fuss about the Afghan question and distorting the aims and principles of Soviet-Afghan cooperation.

[Three lines excised.]

[They wrote that] the Afghan Fund was set up in the USA to support the bandits; that the British organized a public viewing in India of an anti-Soviet fihn showing the savagery of Soviet soldiers and that the Iranian special services were involved in anti-government attacks in Herat.153

____________________

153 Author's Note: A member of the KGB Representation was present at the interrogation of rebels in Herat.

____________________


A KGB adviser worked in the investigation department of KHAD.

The senior member of the group of Party advisers, S.V. Koz1ov, suggested ways to work with the people and to forward ideas for political propaganda.

The name 'limited contingent' for the occupation forces can be seen as an active measure. Its aim was to deceive people, to suggest that their numbers were less than they were and that it was a modestly armed force with a limited role.

Active measures encompass all agent operational acts aimed at influencing the various spheres of the political life of the targeted countries, their foreign policy and the resolution of international problems. Their aim is to confuse the opponent, to undermine and weaken his position, to thwart his plans and the realization of his goals. They try to influence the internal and external situation in the targeted countries in a way which is beneficial to the intelligence service, to weaken the political economic military and ideological position of the opponent, to disrupt their plans and intentions and to create conditions which are beneficial to the Soviet Union. Active operations are the same as active measures but the term is usually applied to large-scale operations.

The USA is compromised everywhere and whenever possible. In the middle of the 1960s the Americans showed the film Exodus in Kabul. This was used as an excuse to instill anti-American feelings in the government. The Arab press published very critical reviews and reports on the film and the Zionist, pro-Israeli sympathies of the USA. In 1984 Ogonyok published a booklet entitled 'Jackals in a pack of wolves' about the CIA and NTS in Afghanistan. The cover gave the name of the author, Boris Vladimirovich Marbanov, and described him as an historian. His photograph shows a young man with a fashionable beard and glasses. The booklet did not contain facts or proof of anything and the author was not an historian but a Chekist and member of the disinformation service. His surname was not Marbanov but Banov. His beard was not his own and the glasses came from the KGB stores.

One cannot disagree with Lenin who said that "in politics honesty is the result of strength, hypocrisy the result of weakness."

Military service in Afghanistan was at first counted as two years for every year of service there. From 1983 this was raised to three years for every year of actual service. Those disabled were given the privileges awarded to soldiers disabled during the Second World War.
This was all bitter slander on the capitalist wolf, as it was the Socialist hare who devoured a stallion!

[Four lines excised.]

The number of staff in the embassies was as follows: the USA 19, the People's Republic of China 11, the FRG 20, France 10 and Great Britain 12. The British also had two people working in the Nur eye hospital and two with an international organization.

They were matched by the following, in the Soviet side: 250 were at the embassy, 103 in the Soviet trade office, 3,504 staff and 1,600 translators in the advisory apparatus, and 1,476 civilian specialists and translators in the civil service and trade departments. One should also remember the 100,000 plus serving in the army of the Limited Contingent of Troops.

The Kremlin expected the West to react sharply and decisively to its actions in Afghanistan. Andropov even warned Chekists to watch out for American war preparations. But as early as January 1980 the KGB; began to receive hopeful reports 'Of Special Importance' about a lack of unity in the Western ranks over Afghanistan.

Detailed information on the results of a visit by Bahr154 to the USA at the request of Chancellor Schmidt155 were received from a source in government circles in the FRG. During his ten days there Egon Bahr, the Federal Secretary of the Social Democrats, met Benson, Brzezinski,156 Kissinger,157 Shulman158 and the lawyer Peter Edelman159 who was a confidante of Senator Edward Kennedy.160 He found out their ideas about the new situation in the Middle East. From his short trip to the USA, Bahr gained the impression that three factors governed the situation: uncertainty, the desire for strong leadership and a growing fear of war with the Soviet Union The reason for this was "the general loss of faith in the power of America politically, economically and militarily." This feeling was strengthened by the failure of the administration to react in a sensible and decisive way to the events in Afghanistan and Iran. From his conversations in the USA, Bahr was convinced that the actions of the Washington administration were dictated primarily by "Carter's pathological wish to be elected for a second term" and were a consequence of the lack of a united view of the key contemporary problems among the President's advisers.

____________________

154 Egon Bahr, leading foreign policy and arms control expert of the (West) German Social Democratic Party and member of the (West) German parliament.
155 Editors'Note: Helmut Schmidt, West German Federal Chancellor 1974-1982.

156 Editors' Note: Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter.

157 Editors' Note: Henry A. Kissinger, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.

158 Editors' Note: Dr. Marshall Shulman, special advisor with the rank of ambassador to the Secretary of State for Soviet Affairs from 1977-80.

159 Editors' Note: Peter Edelman, Issues Director of Sen. Edward Kennedy's presidential campaign.

160 Editors' Note: Edward M. Kennedy, US Senator (D-MA) since 1963, a prominent figure in the Democratic Party from the 1970s; last surviving brother of President John F. Kennedy.

____________________


Bahr found Brzezinski extremely pleased with himself "Jimmy and I have done a good job!" he boasted to Bahr. The Presidents National Security Adviser was, in Bahr's words, intoxicated with "the surprise effect of an attack on the Soviet Union." In order to calm him down Bahr noted that it was known in Bonn that the Soviet Union had taken possible Western reactions into account when it had decided to move into Afghanistan and that it was well-prepared for it. "Didnt we catch the Russians unaware?" Brzezinski asked with disappointment.

After a pause he began to talk about future relations between the USA and USSR. Brzezinski expressed his belief that the Afghan conflict would fizzle out in five to six months. "The United States," he declared, "will then be ready to agree to a neutral regime in that country; that is, of course, if the Soviets do not establish bases there." By then, Brzezinski maintained, if the conflict with Iran could be settled, it would be possible to return to the SALT-II and other treaties. This would be possible, Brzezinski stressed, if measures were adopted to strengthen the Western world. Brzezinski cited serious moral and material support for Pakistan and Turkey from America's NATO allies as one such measure. The National Security Adviser suggested that London should be responsible for Pakistan and Bonn for Turkey.

On American policy towards the USSR, Brzezinski declared that "the offensive against the Soviet Union will continue and the West will make it understood in each case that it does not intend to forgive or leave anything unpunished." Regarding US relations with the People's Republic of China, Brzezinski stated that "the Chinese card will be an active instrument of American foreign policy." "We will give China everything except for arms," he declared. Summarizing Brzezinski's position, Bahr declared that the Presidents adviser "had learned nothing from his position, was full of anti-Sovietism as before and would try to use any opportunity to damage relations between the USA and USSR and to flex American muscles."

Four Years Later: Hank Paulsen: "This is The End"

Paulsen and Geithner give the Banksters a reality check as they stare deep into the abyss...

Obama KNEW.

Executive Summary Brief - Benghazi

Is Tom Donilon one of the White House moles?

"Also Wednesday, the White House denied a widely circulated report that quoted former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich saying a "fairly reliable senator" told him that there exists a series of emails from the office of National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to a counterterrorism group on the night of the Benghazi attack ordering them to "stand down" rather than mobilize assets to respond to the attack.

"Neither the President nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi during the attack," NSC Spokesman Tommy Vietor told The Cable by email."

Gingrich is a arch deceiver and the very Devil incarnate, but he does not make things up, especially not when it's something so readily verifiable and electronically logged in exact detail as an exchange of emails originating from a White House computer.

I quote Col. L. Fletcher Prouty (Ret.):

"The Cuban Study Group's Report makes it appear that there was some doubt and some lack of understanding about this operation. At the combat level where it really mattered there was absolutely no misunderstanding.

Without introductory comment, the Report states starkly:

"At about 9:30 P.M. on 16 April, Mr. McGeorge Bundy, Special

Assistant to the President, telephoned General C. P. Cabell

of CIA to inform him that the dawn air strikes the following

morning should not be launched until they could be conducted

from a strip within the beachhead." [NOTE: That Bay of Pigs

site had been selected, because--among other advantages--

there was a suitable air-strip on the beach. The Brigade's

B-26's would operate from there once it had been secured.

That was the plan; but it was predicated upon the

destruction of Castro's jet aircraft first.]

Gen Cabell and Mr Bissell tried to persuade Secretary Rusk to permit the dawn D-Day strikes.

"The Secretary indicated that there were policy

considerations against air strikes before the beachhead

airfield was in the hands of the landing force..."

The Secretary added, with reference to the air strikes that

President Kennedy had ordered, "They were not vital."

The Report continues:

"The order cancelling the D-Day strikes was dispatched to

the departure field in Nicaragua, arriving when the pilots

were in their cockpits ready for take-off."

That CIA Air Operations chief in Nicaragua is an old friend of mine. After he had received that order from General Cabell, he called me at my home, at about 2 A.M. on the morning of April 17th and told me about that catastropic order. I could hear the B-26 engines roaring nearby. He urged me to call the CIA command section and convince them to cancel it. We all knew that the entire operation depended upon that air strike. I called them; but as we all know now, that order was never reversed, and as the Cuban Study Group reported:

"The cancellation of the strikes planned at dawn on D-Day...was probably the most serious of the causes of failure of the operation as it eliminated the last favorable opportunity to destroy the Castro Air Force on the ground."

Sometime later, I met my CIA friend who had called me that night. He had been absolutely shattered by that reversal. He told me, "If I had gotten on my bicycle, and left the operations tent after that call those fired-up Cubans would have revolted and taken off. If they had left they would have destroyed those jets. The Brigade's landing would have succeeded."

The Bundy Brothers were lifetime CIA and served in the Kennedy and Johnson White Houses both, key advocates for (among other things) escalating the war in Vietnam.

The CIA are alleged to have completely dropped the ball in Benghazi when the complete reverse appears to be true.

Who is this Tom Donilon? And why does he appear to be interdicting vital on-the ground intelligence coming in to the White House, not passing it on to the President and issuing his own instructions?

Was Suicided Secret Service one of Rove's Moles?

Mexico, Obama detail, 22 year veteran of the Secret Service (hired under Bush I), suspended pending disciplinary for a technicality...

Okay, first impressions;

Okay, dead, suicided Secret Service agent's wife works in media for the last 15 years, has written for Vanity Fair and yet has 3 followers on Twitter and claims not to have figured out how to use it yet...?


Now, THAT'S suspicious...

Also, he was head of the White Plains, New York field office and yet was found dead in his car in DC.

Whose garage was he using to asphyxiate himself in? Did he call up a friend and ask to use theirs...? I don't get it.

Romney and Rove's October Surprise Redux: The Smoking Gun

Absolute proof of prior knowledge by the Romney Campaign of the Assault on the Benghazi consulate and the targeted assassination of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans on September 11th 2012.

This is the problem you have.

And it's not a small one.

Republicans murder people to win elections.

That has been true for over 50 years and it remains true now.

Not only is it true, its obvious.

You wouldn't think that an informed and enlighten population of the world's greatest democracy would need some Limey wiseass asshole to go around pointing out the bleedin' obvious to them at every verse end, but... Well, we are where we are.

It is what it is, yo.

Stone cold treason.

Mitt Romney and the White Supremecist Implications of Producerism

Calls to rally the virtuous "producing classes" against evil "parasites" at both the top and bottom of society is a tendency called producerism. It is a conspiracist na rrative used by repressive right wing populism. Today we see examples of it in the Tea Party and Republican Party rhetoric, some sectors of the Christian Right, in the Patriot movements and armed militias, and in the White Supremacist Right.

The Jacksonians were the first major U.S. movement to rely on producerism. Their vision of the producing classes included White farmers, laborers, artisans, slave-owning planters, and “productive” entrepreneurs; it excluded bankers, speculators, monopolists—and people of color. In this way, producerism bolstered White supremacy, blurred actual class divisions, and embraced some elite groups while scapegoating others.

After the Jacksonian era, producerism was a central tenet of the anti-Chinese crusade in the late nineteenth century. Kazin points out that as it developed in the nineteenth century:


...the romance of producerism had a cultural blind spot; it left unchallenged strong prejudices toward not just African-Americans but also toward recent immigrants who had not learned or would not employ the language and rituals of this variant of the civic religion. . . . Even those native-born activists who reached out to immigrant laborers assumed that men of Anglo-American origins had invented political democracy, prideful work habits, and well-governed communities of the middling classes.

In the 1920s industrial philosophy of Henry Ford, and Father Coughlin’s fascist doctrine in the 1930s, producerism fused with antisemitic attacks against “parasitic” Jews. Producerism, with its baggage of prejudice, remains today the most common populist narrative on the right, and it facilitates the use of demonization and scapegoating as political tools.

From Mitt's Sister in-law's Facebook

Romney and Rove's October Surprise Redux - 2012

The Romney Campaign issued prepared remarks attacking the White House response to the 9/11/2012 attack on the American Embassy, killing Hillary's close friend Chris Stevens 120 seconds after Hilary began speaking live on air.

That is not physically possible.

It would take almost 120 seconds to get to a laptop or an iPad, fire it up and TYPE that statement, let alone upload it - they knew what she was going to say before she said it.

The campaign had prior knowledge and live, up to the minute intelligence from down on the ground in Libya as to what was happening and who was dead BETTER than the White House and the State Department had access to, while the shooting was still occurring and the attack being repelled.