this was a hot subject a long time ago on the list, here's a book with the scoop ------- Forwarded Message From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu> To: rre@weber.ucsd.edu Subject: PROFS Case: Book on White House e-mail Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 12:50:49 -0500 (EST) From: Eddie Becker <ebecker@cni.org> Subject: PROFS Case: Book on White House e-mail NEW BOOK PROVIDES NARRATIVE ON PROFS CASE ALONG WITH REMARKABLE PRIMARY DOCUMENTS. Following Press Release 11/22/96 REVELATIONS FROM --WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL: THE TOP SECRET COMPUTER MESSAGES THE REAGAN/BUSH WHITE HOUSE TRIED TO DESTROY, Edited by Tom Blanton (New York: The New Press, 256 pp. plus 1.44 megabyte computer disk), distributed by W.W. Norton & Company. For more information, contact: Tom Blanton (o) 202/994-7000, (h) 301/718-6543, nsarchiv@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu SECRET SUPPORT FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN Top Reagan administration officials, including Colin Powell, presided over covert intelligence support to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, including targeting information on Iranian civilian infrastructure for Saddam's SCUD missiles. In secret e-mail messages, National Security Council staffer William Cockell recommended -- and Deputy National Security Adviser Alton Keel agreed -- they cover-up the assistance to Saddam, because "it is difficult to characterize this as defensive assistance." [pp. 36-41] Subsequently, while Powell served as Deputy National Security Adviser in 1987, the Reagan administration discussed a "shopping list" of pro-Iraq actions in order to "stiffen them up." [pp.235-237] HELPING NORIEGA "CLEAN UP HIS IMAGE" Three months after Seymour Hersh and The New York Times exposed Manuel Noriega's involvement in drugrunning and murder, Noriega approached the National Security Council staff with an offer to assassinate the Nicaraguan Sandinista leadership. Oliver North relayed the offer to his boss, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, writing that "you will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship." Poindexter replies, "I have nothing against him other than his illegal activities" and approves a North meeting with Noriega -- as does Secretary of State George Shultz. The bottom line? The White House agrees to help Noriega "clean up his image" in return for Panamanian sabotage operations against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. [pp. 23-25] THE WHITE HOUSE SENDS A COCAINE CONSPIRATOR TO CLUB FED Top Reagan administration officials from the White House, Pentagon, and Justice Department just said yes to a reduced prison sentence (in a minimum security facility) for a Honduran colonel and sometime CIA asset who was convicted of cocaine trafficking and conspiracy to assassinate the civilian president of Honduras, because otherwise the colonel might "start singing songs nobody wants to hear" about covert operations in Honduras. [pp. 42-48] SECRET DEALS WITH LOBBYISTS ON A CONTROVERSIAL CONGRESSIONAL VOTE The White House struck a secret deal with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in the spring of 1986 to avoid an AWACS-style all-out battle on a Saudi arms deal vote, and in return got AIPAC's help on foreign aid funding and on the Iran- contra scandal. But National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher warned, "whatever one may think of the jewish leadership, the 'masses' are rarely if ever swayed by what the rational, reasonable leaders say. instead, it is the israel right or wrong demagogues at the grassroots level that will try to take advantage of the leadership's pusillanimity." [pp. 150-157] HIDDEN FAILURES OF THE POLYGRAPH (PRECURSORS OF ALDRICH AMES) According to the National Security Council's top counterintelligence official in 1985, career FBI agent David Major, two out of the 48 individuals indicted, arrested and/or convicted of espionage against the U.S. in the years 1975-85, had successfully deceived the CIA's favorite screening tool, the polygraph (lie detector) -- a 4% error rate. (Aldrich Ames subsequently beat the polygraph twice.) [p.220] ROSS PEROT'S EGO RIDES AGAIN Ross Perot "sandbagged" the Reagan White House at a 1986 Congressional hearing on the POW-MIA issue, according to the lead White House staffer on the issue, Col. Richard Childress, who also wrote, "he has played into Hanoi's hands for his ego and doesn't even know it." [p. 162] MORE WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL STORIES * Then-Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin personally arranged with Oliver North for secret shipments of captured PLO weapons to Central America in September 1986, with the approval of the National Security Adviser. Rabin also commented, according to North's e-mail, "at some length about his low opinion of our intel service [CIA] - both in terms of coverts ops and intelligence collecting," and promised "no more Pollards." [pp. 119-122] * The regular breakfast meetings in the Reagan administration of the National Security Adviser, the Secretary of State (George Shultz), and the Secretary of Defense (Caspar Weinberger) often degenerated into what staffers called "slugfests." p. 193 * Contrary to claims in a recent autobiography, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane did not anticipate the collapse of the Soviet Union and craft U.S. policy accordingly to pressure the Soviets, rather, in his 1984 e-mail, McFarlane wrote "it will not change ideologically and therefore our task is to establish a basis for peaceful competition with them." p.189 * At the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Vice President George Bush proposed a "7-point peace plan" during a Middle East trip in 1986, only to have it shot down by White House and State Department opposition back in Washington. p. 200 * While serving as Deputy National Security Adviser to President Reagan in 1987, Colin Powell lived in an alarmed house at Fort McNair which "scared hell out of the family initially and then became amusing when the MPs assaulted the house every time the alarm misfired." p. 211 * White House staffers joked about CIA Director William Casey's renowned "mumbles," writing, "The last time he told Goldwater we were going to 'lay some mines in Nicaragua,' Goldwater thought he said we were going to 'pay some fines for some joggers.'" p. 214 END - ------- End of Forwarded Message ------- End of Forwarded Message