-Caveat Lector- http://www.cjr.org/year/93/3/spooky.asp May/June 1993 | Contents BIG STORIES, SPOOKY SOURCES by Chip Berlet Berlet is an analyst at Political Research Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he studies authoritarianism, bigotry, and the far right. For an investigative journalist, reporting on official misconduct involving covert operations, intelligence-gathering, and national security issues is like competing in a potato-sack race in a minefield. All officials tend to be suspicious of the motives of nosy journalists; government spokespersons frequently deny first and dissemble later; meanwhile, actual spies tend to keep their mouths shut. As a result, sources for such stories frequently come from a murky netherworld of ex-intelligence agents, retired military officers, and self-anointed investigators. Some offer valuable information along with frustrating fantasies; some are well-meaning but confused; others are professional or amateur charlatans. A few are brilliant paranoid crackpots. Some people just plain lie. Over the past three years, this reporter has interviewed or read the relevant writings of more than fifty investigative reporters and researchers spanning the political spectrum. Most of them thought one should not minimize the continuing reality of illegal and unethical conduct by government and private intelligence operatives. But even those who agreed that tough reporting on these subjects help defend constitutional safeguards added that they have grown very weary of hearing the same unproved or debunked conspiratorial stories over and over again. "A lot of stories with conspiratorial themes have gone a great distance with very few credible witnesses," says Michael Kelly of The New York Times. "Some reporters use a much lower standard of evidence with these stories. They are tempted to take what they can get, and overlook the fact that the source has been convicted twice for perjury and on alternate Tuesdays he thinks he is Napoleon Bonaparte." If many of the key sources for conspiracy stories are unreliable, why are so many journalists tempted to use them? One reason is that, in an age of official denials, many journalists give unofficial sources the benefit of the doubt. Another is that, in some cases, the tales these sources tell provide a fairly clear-cut explanation of what may otherwise be a confusing welter of conceivably related events. In short, they provide a story line. A third reason is that they can usually supply details that seem to substantiate their version of events. When the details provided by two or three such sources mesh, the theory gains in credibility and the story built on it may gain wider attention in the media. Meanwhile, talk radio shows, interviews on small FM stations, even messages posted on computerized information networks contribute to keeping the theories alive -- and building an audience that wants to hear more. The following look at a selection of individuals and groups that have served as sources for recent conspiracy stories may help to point up the problems they can pose for journalists in both the print and broadcast media. Several spooky sources contributed to the October Surprise story line, according to which the 1980 Reagan-Bush presidential campaign made a deal with the Iranians to delay the release of American hostages until after the November elections, to help assume the defeat of Jimmy Carter. A key figure in that story, and one whose usefulness as a source has been attacked and defended in these pages, was former Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe (see "The October Surprise: Enter the Press, CFJ, March, 1992 / April, 1992, and "October Surprise: Unger v. Weinberg," Letters, May, 1992 / June, 1992). One journalist who took Ben-Menashe's allegations more seriously than most was Craig Unger, author of an October 1991 Esquire article titled "October Surprise." Following several attacks on the Surprise theory, Unger wrote a long, interesting article called "The Trouble With Ari," which appeared in The Village Voice in July 1992. There, more clearly than in his Esquire piece Unger explains the dilemma source of this kind poses for the journalist. After reminding readers that some of Ben-Menashe's claims can be corroborated and that he was "the guy who started talking about the clandestine American arms pipeline to Iraq's Saddam Hussein . . . long before the story started breaking in the press this spring," Unger writes: Ari has put five or six dozen journalists from all over the world through roughly the same paces. His seduction begins with a display of his mastery of the trade crft of the legendary Israeli intelligence services. A roll of quarters handy for furtive phone calls, he navigates the back channels that tie the spooks at Langley to their counterparts in Tel Aviv. His astute analyses and mindboggling revelations can stir even the most jaded old hand of the Middle East. . . . But trust him at your own risk. . . . Listen to him, trust him, print his story verbatim -- then sit around and watch your career go up in flames. Another oft-cited source in the October Surprise story was Michael Riconosciuto, who provided many tantalizing leads to investigative reporter Danny Casolaro before the free-lancer's death, which was ruled a suicide (see "The Octopus File," CJR, November, 1991 / December, 1991). Riconosciuto claimed to have specialized knowledge in computer science and software design, the kind of knowledge that, he said, made him useful to intelligence operatives. Casolaro was looking into the alleged theft by the Justice department of a prifately owned software program called Promis. Riconosciuto offered an explanation: he told Casolaro that someone in the Justice department had given the software to American intelligence agencies in Canada and abroad. One form of payment, he told the journalist, was the orchestration of the release of the American hostages being held in Iran. Riconosciuto went on to weave a tale involving the Cabazon Indian reservation in southern California, purportedly the site of a supersecret research and testing base for weapons of interest to intelligence operatives. Casolaro began to see the reservation as part of a globe-spanning entity of untold power, which he called The Octopus. Jerry Uhrhammer of the Tacoma, Washington, Morning News Tribune was the only reporter to cover Riconosciuto's three-week-long drug trial, held in Tacoma in April 1991. In the July, 1992 / August, 1992 IRE Journal, Uhrhammer wrote: Any reporter who checked the court file prior to Riconosciuto's trial could have found documents that offered a psychiatric explanation for [his] conspiracy tales. Psychiatrists who examined him in 1972, prior to his first drug conviction, portrayed him as a mentally unstable person who had trouble discerning between fact and fiction. Uhrhammer added: I have been dismayed and appalled by some articles in which Riconosciuto is quoted as a primary source, if not sole source, in support of some conspiracy theory, but without any warning to the reader that his credibility is suspect or nonexistent. Free-lance reporter Jonathan Littman spent four months investigating charges regarding the Cabazon Indian reservation, including those circulated by Casolaro, who had been using Riconosciuto as a source. Littman wrote a fascinating three-part series for the San Francisco Chronicle on how outsiders were abusing tribal sovereignty. Littman and Chronicle reporter Michael Taylor also wrote a story about Riconosciuto's claims about several murders linked to persons associated with the Cabazon reservation. "We had to throw out tons of stuff from Riconosciuto wholesale," says Taylor. In addition to individual sources such as these, there are organizations that disseminate conspiracy theories through every segment of the media. Despite their political differences, these organizations tend to reinforce one another. "There has been some odd communion of the minds between the far left and the far right in viewing the world as one vast and varied conspiracy," says Michael Kelly, "and that communion has exponentially increased the ability of looneys of various stripes to get their nonsense into print. These people have started a sort of referral service: they all refer people to each other. So what you are doing is chasing a rumor around a closed circle." Listen to talk radio, for example, and chances are that when the talk turns to conspiracy the same sources will be cited: the Christic Institute; the right-wing, anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby and its Spotlight newspaper; and Lyndon LaRouche publications, including Executive Intelligence Review and The New Federalist (formerly New Solidarity). These groups were among the first to provide pieces of the Iran-contra puzzle. But, as Kelly observes, "the true nuggets were usually mixed into a great stew of falsities and improvabilities." The Christic Institute is something of a rarity among advocacy groups: starting out on the left of the political spectrum, over the years it was drawn into the conspiracy theories woven by theradical right. The case that made the institute famous, or infamous, in the journalistic community was Avirgan v. Hull, also known as the La Penca case, after the Nicaraguan town where, in 1984, a bomb exploded during a press conference held in the headquarters of dissident contra leader Eden Pastora. The assassination attempt left three journalists dead and more than a dozen wounded. Among the wounded was American free-lancer Tony Avirgan, who, with his journalist wife, Martha Honey, subsequently brought suit against several individuals whom they believed responsible for the bombing. One was John Hull, an American living in Costa Rica who was widely thought to be helping to train and supply contra groups in neighboring Nicaragua. The suit was dismissed by a federal district court in Miami in 1988. Avirgan issued a statement explaining why he felt that the Christic Institute and its general counsel, Daniel Sheehan, bore at least "partial responsibility for the dismissal." It read, in part: As plaintiffs in the suit, Martha Honey and I struggled for years to try to bring the case down to earth, to bringing it away from Sheehan's wild allegations. Over the years, numerous staff lawyers quit over their inability to control Sheehan. . . . The case, before it was inflated bySheehan, was supposed to center on the La Penca bombing. On this, there is a strong body of evidence . . . enough evidence to get a reluctant Costa Rican judiciary to indict two CIA operatives, John Hull and Felipe Vidal, for murder and drug trafficking. Unfortunately, little of this evidence was successfully transformed into evidence acceptable to U.S. courts. It was either never submitted or was poorly prepared. In large part, this was because Sheehan was concentrating on his broad, 30-year conspiracy. The conspiracy Avirgan refers to was spelled out in a two-page circular sent out to promote the sale of the "Affidavit of Daniel P. Sheehan," filed in 1986 and revised in early 1987. The circular began: For the last 25 years a Secret Team of official and retired U.S. military and CIA officials has conducted covert paramilitary operations and "anti-communist" assassination programs throughout the Third World. . . . The international crimes committed by this group in the name of the United States are at the heart of the Iran-contra scandal. . . . For a quarter century this group has trafficked in drugs, assassinated political enemies, stolen from the U.S. government, armed terrorists, and subverted the will of Congress and the public with hundreds of millions of drug dollars at their disposal. [Emphasis in original.] The leaders and chief lieutenants of the Secret Team are defendants in a $ 17 million civil lawsuit filed in May 1986 by the Christic Institute on behalf of U.S. journalists Martha Honey and Tony Avirgan. . . . Among the twenty-nine defendants named were retired Generals Richard Secord and John Singlaub, businessman Albert Hakim, Colombian druglord Pablo Escobar, and contra leader Adolfo Calero. In a thoughtful analysis of the Christic Institute's lawsuit, David Corn observed in the July 2-9, 1988, Nation that the institute "deserves credit . . . for recognizing the Iran-contra scandal and its significance early on." He added: "It has kept the investigative fires burning, sought to hold individuals accountable for their roles in the affair, and probed issues overlooked by the congressional investigating committees (including the contra drug connection and the La Penca bombing. . . .)" The institute's "advocacy of the Secret Team theory," on the other hand, struck Corn as a serious flaw. It might be handy for raising money in direct-mail solicitations but it presented problems for people who prefer evidence to rhetoric. (This past February, Avirgan and Honey filed a motion seeking Sheehan's disbarment.) The institute no longer uses the term "Secret Team" -- a term that gained currency as the title of a 1973 book by retired Air Force Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty: The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World. The Liberty Lobby's Spotlight elaborated on Prouty's thesis, weaving into it a conspiracy theory that saw a "dual loyalist" Jewish influence at work in U.S. foreign policy. By the mid-1980s, a number of critics of U.S. intelligence operations, including Prouty, Mark Lane, and Victor Marchetti, had adopted positions similar to Spotlight's. In 1991, Prouty was listed as a member of the Liberty Lobby's Populist Action Committee, as was also Pauline Mackey, national treasurer for the 1988 David Duke Populist party presidential campaign. Prouty's Secret Team was recently republished by Noontide Press, the book and distribution arm of the Institute for Historical Review, a group best known for promoting the theory that the Holocaust is essentially a hoax perpetrated byews to benefit the state of Israel. It is interesting to note in passing that Prouty was an adviser for Oliver Stone's JFK -- a conspiracy-theory movie that sparked renewed interest in conspiracy theories -- and was the model for the film's Colonel X, who, as played by Donald Sutherland, moves around Washington, D.C., warning that the entire military-industrial complex contracted the JFK hit. Another major source of conspiracy theories are the LaRouchians -- followers of former presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, presently serving a jail term for mail fraud and tax evasion. The LaRouchians are perhaps best known for their theory that Great Britain's political leaders are basically puppets of Jewish banking families and that Queen Elizabeth and others are in league with these families to control the smuggling of drugs into the U.S. Back in the early days of the Reagan administration, the LaRouche information-gathering operation received a tribute from the National Security Council's senior director of international affairs, Dr. Norman Bailey, who called it "one of the best private intelligence services in the world." (The La Rouchians' links to the NSC's staff were terminated after producer Pat Lynch exposed the relationship in a 1984 segment of NBC's short-lived First Camera news program. LaROuche sued NBC, including Lynch and correspondent Mark Nykanen; free-lancer Dennis King; this author; and the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith for defamation. A jury ruled that characterizing LaRouche as an anti-Semite, "small-time Hitler," cult-leader, and crook was not defamation.) Severla journalists who published early Iran-contra stories say that the LaRouchians were important players in the traditional Capitol press corps game of trading tips and theories and sometimes swapping sources and documents. Herb Quinde, an intelligence policy analyst for the LaRouchians, confirms that he and other LaRouchian investigators were then, and are now, in constant touch with journalists and researchers across the political spectrum. The LaRouchains' Executive Intelligence Review even gets a footnote acknowledgment from Ben Bradlee, Jr., in his Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North. There he acknowledges the help of EIR in decoding the short-hand used by North in his notebooks. The largest audience for unverified conspsiracy theories seems to be listeners to small or alternative radio stations, where interview programs and talk shows create a universe seldom sullied by fact or logic. Most radio conspiracy peddlers use standard propaganda techniques. One is to mesmerize the audience with details concerning various relationships among key villains while sliding past the fact that there is little or no evidence connecting the anecdotes. Another technique is to suggest that if one event follows another, the first event caused the second: CIA chief William Casey went to Paris to talk about hostages; the hostages were released after the election; therefore the deal was cut in Paris. The sequence warrants investigation, but in itself proves nothing. A third technique is to present affidavits as proven fact rather than untested claims. Secret sources with "inside information" and "high-level" contacts are ubiquitous. Pyramiding is popular: conclusions drawn from one set of facts are ter referred to as facts on which another level of the conspiracy may be constructed. One of the most popular such programs is Chuch Harder's For the People, aired by more than 140 AM and FM stations, and also on short wave and satellite frequencies. The Sun Radio Network, essentially owned by Liberty Lobby, carries a popular daily program that churns the conspiracies du jour: Tom Valentine's Radio Free America. Midwest bureau chief for Spotlight, Valentine is a member of the advisory board of Liberty Lobby's Populist Action Committee. According to Shelly Shapiro, director of Holocaust Survivors and Friends in Pursuit of Justice, the Sun Radio Network is one of the most significant sources of anti-Jewish and pro-fascist propaganda in the U.S. On the left of the spectrum, Pacifica Radio Network affiliates KPFA-FM in San Francisco. KPKF-FM in Los Angeles, and WBAI-FM in New York City air long hours of conspiracy-mongering discussions. Pacifica affiliates and scores of small FM stations play tapes by or air interviews witha cast of characters including John Judge, David Emory, Sherman Skolnick, Bo Gritz, and Craig Hulet (aka K. C. Depass). These "experts" weave webs so intricate they make a Hitchcock plot seem like a script for Mr. Rogers: cures for IDS and cancer are intentionally being suppressed by a government/media plot; Naval Intelligence secretly controls the U.S.; the CIA arranged the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas confrontation. Perhaps most farcical is Hulet's analysis of the book Report from Iron Mountain, which he presents as a secret document outlining the necessity for a war-based economy. In fact, the book is a brilliant satire of the military-industrial complex by author Leonard Lewin (editor of A Treasury of American Political Humor). Nevertheless, Hulet and his audience regularly discuss the book as if it were an official document. Is it worth a journalist's while to try to check up on claims made by conspiracy theorists? Michael Taylor of the San Francisco Chronicle, who reported on goings-on at the Cabazon Indian reservation, says, "I will talk to anybody, no mater how outlandish their theory, and see what is documentable." Jonathan Marshall, the Chronicle's economics editor, says that "sometimes [the LaRouchians] are a source of good leads -- their work on Panama has been of particular use." But, he adds, "given their history, I never take [their information] at face value." Marshall says that he will sometimes pursue LaRouchian leads, "and then do my own independent research." If the lead pays off, he considers it his own effort and does not credit the LaRouchians -- in part, he admits, because doing so might hurt his credibility as a journalist. "If you look across the board at cultish groups that do 'research,'" he says, "you find sometimes that they have found amazing documents that do, in fact, check out. But," he hastens to add, "documents are one thing, accepting their analysis is simply not responsible." cjr | archive | resources | contact | search | subscribe http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/hulet.htm Investigative Report On Craig Hulet, aka KC dePass By Richard Hatch and Sara Diamond September 25, 1991 Introduction During the build-up, prosecution, and aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, a previously obscure right-wing conspiracy theorist named Craig Hulet became a West Coast celebrity, largely via appearances on community radio stations, including: KPFA in Berkeley, KPFK in Los Angeles, KUSP in Santa Cruz, KVMR in Nevada City, and KBOO in Portland. KPFA made Hulet tapes a fundraising premium. Pacifica Archives in Los Angeles sold a high volume of Hulet tapes. There is no reason to believe that radio programmers were aware of the facts in this report when they began featuring Hulet, and we have no intention of damaging the reputations of the stations involved. Research into Hulet's impressive-sounding biography and thematic claims has revealed a pattern of misrepresentation and distortion. In addition, his claimed personal connections indicate that he is engaged in a far-right political recruitment project. The accompanying article by Chip Berlet lends further credence to this hypothesis. The Craig Hulet case study is a classic example of how the far-right, through rhetoric and deception, seeks to confuse progressives and build a mass following based on ignorance and anti-elite resentments. Methodology This report and attached exhibits document the known facts about the problematic aspects of Craig Hulet's background and political presentations. Our sources include the following: Craig Hulet lecture video tape, Portland, April 12, 1991 Craig Hulet lecture video tape, San Francisco, July 10, 1991 Craig Hulet lecture video tape, Santa Cruz, July 11, 1991 Craig Hulet interview tapes, KUSP in Santa Cruz July and Aug.1991 independent fact-checking and reporting by Chip Berlet independent fact-checking by Sara Diamond Organization We have organized the following pages into four categories of criticism: 1. "Facts" about Hulet's claimed background that don't appear valid. 2. Areas of Hulet's biography which cannot be independently verified. 3. Elements of Hulet's presentation which are factually untrue, or simply ridiculous. 4. Hulet's statements about other political activists. Some of these statements are false and have the effect of "covering" for far-right and racist political activists, while subtly encouraging listeners to subscribe to their theories and writings. Evidence and Discussion 1) Discrepancies in Hulet's claimed background and associations * In his KC & Associates brochure [Exhibit B] Hulet claims he worked 13 years as "corporate director under the name Pen and Quill." In a slightly different brochure he claims he was "President and CEO of Pen and Quill; Houston and Los Angeles." In order to be a corporate director, there must be a corporation to head. Pen and Quill was a legally registered corporation in Texas from 1980 to 1984. On February 20, 1984, Pen and Quill was dissolved by the State of Texas for non-payment of taxes. [See Exhibit C] The authorities in Texas could provide no additional information on what sort of business Pen and Quill was. Hulet could not have been President and CEO for thirteen years. Pen and Quill was never registered in the State of California, according to the Secretary of State's office in Sacramento. * "Published columnist and political cartoonist. Articles frequently appear in national publications...Reprints of Hulet's articles appear in a host of news digests." [See Exhibit B] See Chip Berlet's article "Right-wing conspiracists make inroads into left" [The Guardian, September 11, 1991, page 3] regarding Hulet's misrepresentation of published articles. * In his brochure, Hulet claims articles in International Combat Arms. International Combat Arms, published by Petersen Publishing in Los Angeles, ceased publication in 1989. On August 8, 1991, Sara Diamond spoke with numerous people at Petersen Publishing to see if any had heard of Mr. Hulet, including the payroll secretary who checked her records; no one had. Several days later, Diamond spoke with Joan Carroll, secretary to Tom Siatos, former publisher of International Combat Arms and current publisher of Guns and Ammo. Carroll had checked around her office and was unable to find any International Combat Arms articles by Craig Hulet. * Institute for World Research [See below for Hulet's role in this claim] Hulet claims to have assembled an advisory board for the Institute for World Research (IWR). The list appeared in "The Gnomes of Zurich." [Exhibit D] On September 12, 1991, Sara Diamond telephoned two of Hulet's supposed advisory board members: Lewellyn Rockwell, head of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama; and former Congressman Ron Paul in Lake Jackson, Texas. Both are leaders of the libertarian movement; Paul ran for President in 1988. Both Rockwell and Paul said they knew of Craig Hulet. Both said emphatically that they had never even heard of the IWR, let alone had they served on its board. Both said that they never worked with Hulet and could not recall talking with him except casually on the phone. * Hulet claims that his mail drop is guarded by big, tough Libyans who protect him from "beady-eyed crackers" who seek him out. [San Francisco, July 10, 1991] ==="I have a drop box run by Libyans, a great bunch of guys. They're my security when I do public speaking lectures in that red-neck country...So when you go looking for me as KC dePass in Seattle, you're not going to find KC dePass. You're going to find a six-foot six, two hundred forty pound Libyan, that all he says, when you say 'I'd like to speak to Mr. KC dePass'--he goes 'put in box'. And there's always like six or eight Muslims sitting in the back room talking to him...So, like, you come looking for me, you're gonna find a little army there." Chip Berlet found no "army"--only a commercial mail drop. Berlet also had no difficulty finding Hulet's wife Kathy. Kathy's public exposure at her frame shop The Artful Nuance would make her an easy target for the "beady-eyed crackers" Hulet fears. She is his "exclusive press agent" because she is his wife. 2.Areas of Hulet's personal biography which cannot be independently verified Hulet has made a variety of biographical claims that cannot be validated without further documentation. Hulet has provided no such documentation, nor independently verifiable facts on the following: * Hulet claims he worked for the National Security Council for three years, on "domestic" operations. Hulet has never offered any concrete evidence that he has worked for the NSC. In the materials we have reviewed, Hulet has never specified which three years he was employed by the NSC, whom he reported to, in which city he performed these duties, whether or not he held a security clearance, nor any other specific information. * Former publisher and Editor "The Brief" [Exhibit B] A literature search for periodicals titled "The Brief" was made through the Melvyl computerized catalogue of the nine-campus University of California library system. The catalogue also includes the California State Library, California Research Library and the Stanford University Library system. While records of periodicals called "The Brief" were found in the catalogue, none of these periodicals were published by the IWR. The Reference Desk librarian at the University of California at Berkeley could find no current record of any newsletter or similar periodical titled "The Brief". This publication appears to have been too ephemeral to have been catalogued by any public body. * Former editor of the newsletter "Caveat" of the IWR [Exhibit B] A computerized search for periodicals titled "Caveat" was performed as described for ""The Brief"". No publications by the IWR were found in this case, either. The Reference Desk at the University of California at Berkeley could find no current record of any newsletter or similar periodical titled "Caveat." * "Articles frequently appear in national publications: 'Financial Security Digest'..." [Exhibit B] As for "Caveat" and "The Brief"," no trace of "Financial Security Digest" could be found, so articles probably cannot appear in this publication either. * Former Public Affairs Radio Host KGRZ [Exhibit B] The current manager of KGRZ, who joined this 1000 watt Montana-based station in 1986, told Chip Berlet that Hulet was not a public affairs host since he arrived. It is possible that Hulet worked at KGRZ prior to 1986. * KC & Associates "A network of professional political researchers and consultants..." [Exhibit B] No other associates have ever been heard from. No one besides the Hulets and their legal agent were listed in Pen and Quill's corporation papers. There is nothing wrong with starting a business with yourself and calling it "Associates." However, a "network" of professional political researchers should have some verifiable existence. * "Former Director: Institute for World Research" === "I spent five years as a director of a small privately funded, private institute for world research." [KUSP tape, August 23, 1991] Hulet claims he was the IWR director for five years. The only known physical trace of the IWR is a piece of stationary obtained by a colleague. The Institute had a mailing address in Missoula, Montana. Sara Diamond called the Montana Secretary of State's office in Helena on August 8, 1991 and was told that an "Institute for World Research" was never incorporated in the state. In the tapes we have studied, Hulet has disclosed virtually nothing about the IWR. He has named Antony Sutton as a member of the board of advisors, and has referred to a "Doctor Ioffe" as another board member. As discussed above, two of the "advisory board members" listed in Exhibit D, Lewellyn Rockwell and Ron Paul, both say emphatically that they never served on the board and never heard of the IWR. Both Rockwell and Paul are long-time activists on the Right and are very familiar with public and private policy analysis groups. 3. Elements of Hulet's presentations that are inaccurate or simply ridiculous See also Chip Berlet's article, Exhibit A * In reference to a book on the Bay of Pigs operation [San Francisco talk July 10, 1991], Hulet said: === "There are some things in there that you can't argue with. The Bay of Pigs wasn't called the Bay of Pigs. Its original operational name was the Zapata plan. The freighters used to transport the anti-Castro Cubans, one was called the Houston, one was called the Zapata, and one was called the the Barbara J. Now all of this could be called coincidence...They went into the Zapata swamps in Cuba, it was later called the Bay of Pigs because it was a slaughter." Hulet is correct that the Bay of Pigs invaders landed at the Zapata swamps and that two of the ships were the Barbara J. and the Houston. In several books about the Bay of Pigs, including one which Hulet apparently cites, no mention of the Zapata could be found. It should be pointed out that Barbara Bush, the apparent subject of a Hulet conspiracy theory about the ships, goes by the name Barbara Pierce Bush. Her maiden name was Barbara Pierce and she apparently has no middle name. What does the "J." stand for in Hulet's theory? As to whether it was "later called the Bay of Pigs because it was a slaughter", the Baha de Cochinos has been called that since Columbus "discovered" the Bay was home to wild pigs; furthermore, the actual landing zone is called Playa Giron by the Cubans. * Also in San Francisco [San Francisco talk July 10, 1991], Hulet said: === "That's what has been so hard, getting documents on it. It isn't just CIA, this is NSC memoranda. You can't get them. The Senators, nobody can get them. That's why they're never gonna nail George Bush for anything. The guy's been CIA since the late 50s and early 60s. And if my hunch is right and Stockwell's right, this guy was always a major player, and that means he also knew that Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA or why would Hoover have debriefed him about the Cubans in Miami?" NSC memoranda are no harder to get than any other classified materials. For example, the so-called "PROF" notes from the NSC were prominently featured in the investigation into the Iran-Contra affair and many have been publicly released. In that case, "the Senators" did get them. Many NSC memoranda from other administrations have been declassified and are publicly available. Here Hulet asserts that Bush has been CIA since the late 1950s. But in other discussion of the memo, published in part by the "Nation," on a "George Bush" of the CIA, Hulet admits that no one has been able to validate the memo vis the President. Hulet is playing fast and loose. * Again in San Francisco, Hulet said: === "Now with all that being true...Here's the first thing John Kennedy did... He went upstairs to the Oval Office, and he signed an executive order...He abolished the OCB. That was his first act as President. That's why the front page of the New York Times and you'll hear Jim Garrison quote it, he writes it in his book. John Kennedy was quoted that 'I'm gonna tear the CIA in a thousand pieces.' That wasn't an idle threat, he did it. I have an NSC committee document from the Jackson Committee, Scoop Jackson's committee on the NSC. In it they explain how John Kennedy ceased all CIA functions all over the world. He didn't say he was going to tear the CIA apart and bring it under control, he did it." Standard sources on the intelligence community verify that President Kennedy did abolish the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) and the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities. But Kennedy did so because he "considered them useless, impediments, bureaucratic obstructions to a vigorous, activist foreign policy." [See "The Man Who Kept the Secrets" by Thomas Powell, Pocket Books, New York, 1979, page 169] Kennedy sought to more tightly control covert operations, not to eliminate them. Declassified documents show that in early 1963, at least 550 covert operations were underway. A June 30, 1961 memorandum for the President from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. discusses in detail the problems with the CIA and a potential reorganization of the CIA into two arms which would each get a "blameless title" like the "National Information Service." One of these agencies would continue "covert political operations" and "paramilitary activities." Clearly, Kennedy did not "tear the CIA apart." The CIA continued to function on an incredible number of projects up to the end of the Kennedy administration. * In Santa Cruz [KUSP tapes July 11, 1991], Hulet said regarding a published US government report on intelligence activities: === "You have to go to the Federal Depository library, get an original and copy it, because it was never published because they didn't sign it. It was never available to the public. You'll have to get it yourself. .. they went after the John Birch Society, the Black panthers, racist groups, Identity groups, liberal groups, communists, Jane Fonda, everybody, they went after everybody." Here Hulet refers to the reports of the US Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, popularly known as the Church Committee Report. These documents were published as committee prints, number 94-755. Like many committee prints, they quickly went out of print. There is little mysterious about this. A 48 page excerpt of the committee's conclusions was published in "The Intelligence Community: History, Organization and Issues." [Tyrus Fain, editor, R.R. Bowker Company, New York 1977.] Hulet seriously distorts the contents of the Committee findings. While the CIA and other agencies may have surveilled and infiltrated a wide range of groups, the main targets of their covert operations were the Black liberation movement and the anti-war movement. These movements and the left in general were subjected to vicious attacks. Liberal organizations were frequently supported by the CIA, as in the case of the National Student Association. * Hulet's conspiracy theory, laid out in Santa Cruz [KUSP tapes July 11, 1991]: === "And this goes back to a theory, which I think is a true theory, and it was told to me that it was quite true for the three years that I worked for the Group, that only 5,000 white American males run the US and have any power whatever. Anybody else who looks they are part of the system, are just pencil pushers for the other 5,000, no matter how powerful you may think those people are. If you're not locked into something like the Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, Wolf's Head, some of the other fraternities at Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Harvard. If you're not locked into this system, and I do call it what they call it, I don't call it that because I'm a radical. They refer to it as the group, as a brotherhood. And if you're not part of it, you're not a player, period. You're simply a useful idiot that gets used, and that includes whether you're rightwing or leftwing, because they also have their people placed on the left, the far left, progressive movement, environmentalist, they have their people everywhere." Hulet thinks that 5,000 well-connected white men run the United States and that they "have their people everywhere." He claims that he was told that this theory was true while working for the "Group", i.e. the National Security Council. Who told him this? What evidence does he have for the number 5,000? How do "their people" know what to do, how do they coordinate their actions? 4. Hulet's statements about other political activists. These statements are often false and have the effect of "covering" for far-right and racist political activists, such as Antony Sutton, while subtly encouraging listeners to subscribe to their theories and writings. For example, with regard to an author's reference to a "CIA-Yale" group, Hulet said: === "Now I got the impression that he was trying very hard not to mention that all of the individuals surrounding the Kennedy assassination belonged to a Yale fraternity called Skull and Bones...Only 15 per year are allowed to join and they have to be seniors. About six years ago somebody at Yale set a large packet of documents on this organization called Russell Trust, called Skull and Bones or the Order, they sent it to Tony Sutton, Antony Sutton, myself and a flakey character in Houston, I won't use his name because I think he's an FBI agent....and it was the membership list for this organization... But what I'm saying, and this is a letter, I got a letter from Tony Sutton some years ago cause Tony's on my board of advisors of the Institute and Tony sent a letter out to me and some other researchers when we were working together quietly behind the scenes. === "Every time you turn around the CIA director, deputy director, people in the NSC, leading embassy personnel... [are former Skull and Bones] and Tony said we have a problem here. He's not a conspiracy theorist but this one shook him. He's got a bad reputation because when he did a lot of his research the John Birch Society adopted his books as gospel, so a lot of people on the left thought Tony was a Bircher, so they attacked Tony rather than realizing the John Birch Society also sells Holly Sklar's book Trilateralism. So does the neo-Nazi group that publishes Spotlight newspaper, Noontide press publishes one of Fletcher Prouty's book. So now this notion that if you're even in the same room with a Bircher, somehow it rubs off on you, that's leftist paranoia, and we need to grow up about this, OK?. Tony Sutton's one of the most credible researchers and I've known him for 12 years. He's credible, he's honest, and the man is intensive in his research. [San Francisco talk, July 10, 1991] === "And there is a little organization, that has gotten a lot of strange press, because the researcher was accused of being a Bircher, which he was not. His name is Antony Sutton, A-N-T-O-N-Y, Tony Sutton, he's from England. A lot of his books were adopted by the John Birch Society's American Opinion bookstores, so a lot of people on the left made the assumption, and it's a wrong assumption that therefore Sutton was a Bircher. Tony Sutton and I have known each other 12 years. He was on my board of advisors. No, he's not a Bircher, and no he's not a conspiracy theorist. He's very up front about all of it. He did a lot of work on the Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, and especially on the banking industry and the multinational corporate connections to a lot of these things. " [KUSP tapes July 11, 1991] According to Chip Berlet [See Exhibit A], Hulet says he cites Sutton's work in support of his theories because it was a choice between Sutton and Holly Sklar. Hulet rejects Sklar because she's a "Marxist." But the above quotes make it clear that Hulet used Sutton because he's a friend and collaborator. Sklar's compilation "Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management" contains a footnote criticizing Sutton for his belief that the New Deal constituted a plot by a "fascist-socialist government that would eliminate competition." In fact, Sutton proposes a number of bizarre conspiracy theories which range from "possible advanced alien technology" recovered by the US government to Illuminati infiltration into the educational system, which is controlled by the Order. [See Berlet article, Exhibit A] Even in one of Sutton's more conventional books, "The Diamond Connection," he slips in the following proposal: === "…but in no sense do South Africans understand the full globalist intent of the American 'aristocracy.' If the U.S. elite wants to control South Africa diamonds, then it can do so indirectly, simply by allowing a Marxist takeover of South Africa and then trading advanced U.S. technology--in brief, a Soviet military takeover behind a Cuban screen with tacit approval of the U.S. elite." This is consistent with Sutton's other works, in which he proposes that the United States elites have secretly promoted Marxist regimes around the world. (Hulet also addressed the subject of South Africa in his "Gnomes of Zurich." He bemoaned the establishment of a US ban on loans to South Africa and complained about the unwarranted bad publicity the apartheid regime was getting in the US press.) Sutton's book "How the Order Controls Education," spins a wild web of conspiracy ranging from the look-say reading instruction method to the Illuminati. He tempts us with "a forthcoming volume" on the "infiltration of the Illuminati into New England." Aside from Hulet, Sutton does have his supporters. Gary North, a Reconstructionist Christian, dedicates his book "Conspiracy" to Sutton. Sutton's work is dealt with at length in "Conspiracy" as a sterling example of conspiracy theory. The introduction to Sutton's book "Energy, The Created Crisis" was written by another supporter, Senator Steven Symms (R-Idaho) who blasted "the socialistic legislation flowing through Congress." Symms continued to rant that the energy crisis of the 1970s was "a contrived scheme to greatly increase government control and to further the cause of an egalitarian feudalistic society." In another example of covering for far-right ideologues and activists, Hulet claims to have been in touch with former John Birch Society leader Congressman Larry McDonald: === "This has gotten me in trouble, some guys on the far left, well you know... I've only said one thing about Larry McDonald and it's very simple. Before he got on the plane, the KAL 007 flight, he got on the phone and he called a whole bunch of people, researchers, analysts, people of all shapes and sizes, stripes and colors. I happened to get a phone call from him when I was in Montana and he debriefed me for 90 minutes. Everything about the de-briefing told me he knew he was a dead man. Larry McDonald had a food taster, he had personal private security, not because he thought the communists were gonna kill him. Because he was attacking these men. Yes he was to the right, there's no question. But he was dead on target about the men I'm describing, who they are, how they operate, and why they are doing it, he was right on target. And by the way this garbage about how he was the head of the John Birch Society is not true. He was asked to be the head of the John Birch Society. He never even got that far. He died in the KAL flight. And what he told me in that debriefing, that if he ever did become the head of the John Birch Society, his first act was gonna clean house, gonna end the red-necked cracker, racist, Jew-hating, BS conspiracy theories. He was also producing a series of movies for cable TV about this subject. No, I didn't agree with every view he had, what I am telling you he was to the right and our government assassinated him." [Santa Cruz lecture, July 11, 1991] Hulet denies that Larry McDonald was the head of the John Birch Society. According to "Shootdown" by R.W. Johnson [Viking, New York, 1986 pgs 2 and 124], Larry McDonald was "head of the John Birch Society" and "the most right-wing man in Congress." Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI, by Ross Gelbspan [South End Press], identified McDonald as "the Chairman of the John Birch Society." Hulet is wrong about McDonald's status. But Hulet's endorsement of McDonald's political analysis is the most troubling aspect of this quote. According to "Peddlers of Crisis" by Jerry Sanders [1983, South End Press], McDonald was "a member of the John Birch Society" who attacked the liberal Center for Defense Information as a front for Moscow. This is a typical example of McDonald's political tactics. McDonald was also a founder of Western Goals. In its statement of purpose, McDonald wrote: === "In the field of Marxists, terrorism and subversion, Western Goals has the most experienced advisors and staff in the United States...The Foundation has begun the computerization of thousands of documents relating to the internal security of our country and the protection of government and institutions from Communist-controlled penetration and subversion." [See Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI, by Ross Gelbspan, South End Press, p. 77] Western Goals would become involved in a scheme in which Los Angeles Police Department intelligence files which had been ordered destroyed were transferred to a Western Goals computer system. Eventually the LAPD paid $1.8 million in a suit brought by the subjects of the files. Apparently Hulet has no problem with McDonald's spying on the left. [Gelbspan, pp. 170-72] The board of Western Goals was composed of many extreme right political activists. The most famous of these was General John Singlaub, who helped with the Reagan administration's war on Nicaragua. Singlaub also worked with death squad elements through his leadership of the World Anti-Communist League. Hulet's endorsement of Larry McDonald as being "right on target" is reprehensible. * In San Francisco, Hulet distorted facts about Fletcher Prouty: === "So does the neo-Nazi group that publishes Spotlight newspaper, Noontide Press publishes one of Fletcher Prouty's book. So now this notion that if you're even in the same room with a Bircher, somehow it rubs off on you, that's leftist paranoia, and we need to grow up about this, OK?. Tony Sutton's one of the most credible researchers and I've known him for 12 years. He's credible, he's honest, and the man is intensive in his research." [San Francisco talk July 10, 1991] Hulet clearly is implying that Fletcher Prouty is not a right-winger and that the fact that his book is published by Noontide Press is some sort of coincidence. In fact, Prouty is a member of the Liberty Lobby's Populist Action Committee. Noontide Press is a publishing affiliate of the Liberty Lobby, the largest neo-nazi organization in the United States. Prouty is an activist for Liberty Lobby and frequently appears at events with anti-Semitic activists. * On the Federal Reserve System, Hulet told his Santa Cruz audience: === "For some reason the Left has tended to ignore one of the most significant areas of research that can be done in the United States, and that is the Federal Reserve system. The rightwing, because its always had a populist strain and a anti-banking mentality, going back to the 1800s, they've done research into it. But because it's rightwing research the Left has said well, then they're crazy, they're talking about Jews, and we're not going to listen to them and we're not going to look at it. Wrong, they should be looking at it because much of what they said is true, if you can get past the looney tune anti-Semitic stuff. The Jews own the federal reserve system, the Jews run the international banks, the Jews run all banks. Ok, that's, of course, horse manure. But the Federal Reserve system is the most significant institution in the world right now." [KUSP tapes July 11, 1991] Here Hulet urges people to consume anti-Semitic propaganda, even though he admits that the authors are full of "looney tune" ideas. He claims that one must explore this distasteful material because there are no other sources. The computerized catalog system for the University of California lists 255 books on the subject of the Federal Reserve System; 197 of these are at the University of California at Berkeley. Several books on the Federal Reserve system are also available at the Berkeley Public Library. Clearly there is no need to read vile anti-Semitic tracts in order to learn about the Federal Reserve System. In study groups formed to discuss Hulet's theories, Eustace Mullins has been promoted as an expert writer on the Federal Reserve System. Mullins' book "The Biological Jew" is an eighty-five page diatribe about Jewish "parasites" filled with statements such as the following: "we must remember that there is no Jewish crime per se, since the existence of the Jewish parasite upon the host is a crime against nature" and "the Jew has always functioned best as a panderer, a pornographer, a master of prostitution." Hulet's unwillingness to condemn such material outright can lead his audience to tolerate it. * The Posse Comitatus In his Santa Cruz and Portland, Oregon talks, Hulet brought up the Posse Comitatus: === "One of my jobs years ago, I took a contract to investigate a group in Montana, to see if they were a genuine threat to the international global community. It's called the Posse Comitatus, they're not the same as the Aryans Nations in Hayden Lake. They were a North Dakota, Wisconsin, Montana based tax-protest system. They had an interesting belief system that it was Jews that were running the IRS. And they based this on the Congressional Directory by seeing how many names were Smith. You know, Jews change their names. And they of course owned semi-automatic weapons. They had AK-47s, semi-automatics HK 93s, 91s, Uzis, nine millimeters, MAC-10s, they had a lot of weapons…In any one group, in isolated areas there would be 34-35 of these characters. === "Their goal in life was to lynch Federal judges that try to issue IRS decrees on their group...My MOS in the military was 45J-20, I was weapons expert, everything from Vulcan cannons on gunships to .45 automatics. These guys were buying AK-47s and HK93s and trying to sight them using screwdrivers. You see there's these little tools that come to adjust the sights...These guys couldn't hit bull in the ass with a banjo. These guys are no threat, they're kooks with rifles, so what they're not the enemy. You don't have to go around and disarm the entire country because a half-dozen racist looney tunes in Montana are packing weapons... === "If you're not about that and you got a problem that those cowboys in Montana are packing guns and have targeted Jews, if that's what you're concerned with, or you're afraid that some idiot some sniper is going to off your kid, then you have already become a slave up here." Hulet gives the impression that the Posse Comitatus is a laughable collection of rural kooks. In fact, the Posse is an underground organization of violent racists and anti-Semites. Shoot-outs between Posse members and law enforcement officers have led to deaths on both sides. Posse member Gordon Kahl killed two U.S. marshals; Kahl shot one of them point-blank in the head as he lay wounded. Contrary to what Hulet admits, Posse membership spans 23 states. Wisconsin Posse leader James Wickstrom won 16,000 votes in a 1980 run for US Senate. Posse membership and ideology also overlap closely with the Aryan Nations and Identity Christianity. [See "Armed and Dangerous," by James Coates, Hill and Wang, New York, 1987, "The Silent Brotherhood," by Kevin Lynn and Gary Gerhardt, The Free Press, New York, 1989 and "Bitter Harvest," by James Corcoran, Penguin Books, 1990] * Connection to neo-nazis The September 8, 1986 edition of the Spotlight newspaper carried an advertisement [exhibit E] for a seminar and banquet organized by the "Anglo-European Fellowship" on the "Political, Economic, and Moral problems" facing "western civilization." Craig Hulet was listed as a speaker, along with Lawrence Patterson, Ivor Benson, David Irving, Lt. Col. Arch Roberts, and Eric Butler. Benson is a South African writer "whose fanatical support for apartheid goes beyond that of most Afrikaners." [See Derrick Knight, "Beyond the Pale: The Christian Political Fringe," 1982, CARAF Publications, Lancashire, England pg 153] Eric Butler ran the Australian League of Rights and has been regarded "as a mentor by active racists and anti-Semites throughout the English-speaking world." [Beyond the Pale, pg 23] Archibald Roberts directs the Fort Collins, Colorado-based Committee to Restore the Constitution, a long-time fixture on the racist Right. Its membership includes veteran conspiracists Eustace Mullins, Don Bell, Revilo P. Oliver, and, until recently, Antony Sutton [See Exhibit F]. David Irving is a "historical revisionist" whose theory that the Holocaust never occurred has made him popular with the Liberty Lobby. Patterson is a financial "expert" who currently sits on the Liberty Lobby's Populist Action Committee. If Hulet claims that he somehow accidentally fell in with this crowd, he should have a very detailed explanation of how that happened. Conclusion All of the above establishes the dubious credibility and political integrity of Craig Hulet. Clearly, progressive media outlets have an ethical obligation to protect their audiences from exploitation by such persons. This is true even if large numbers of ill-informed people are willing to purchase tapes or other products. As Chip Berlet reports in the "Guardian," progressive media outlets are not the only vehicles through which the far-right has begun to recruit from among left-wing government critics. We do feel, however, that alternative media professionals bear a particular responsibility in informing people of the Right's strategies, tactics, and objectives. The first step is for community activists and progressive journalists to become better informed ourselves. For more information "Right Woos Left: Populist Party, LaRouchian & Other Neo-fascist Overtures to Progressives and Why They Must be Rejected" by Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates. Send $4 to PRA, 678 Massachusetts Ave., Suite 205, Cambridge, MA 02139 Coalition for Human Dignity, P.O. Box 40344, Portland, OR 97240, (503) 335-0207. CHD is preparing its own report on Craig Hulet, Bo Gritz, and disruptive far-right activity in Oregon. People Against Racist Terror (PART), P.O. Box 1990, Burbank, CA 91507, (818) 509-3435, produces an excellent newsletter, "Turning the Tide", on racist activity in southern California. PART is researching the efforts of Bo Gritz and the Populist Party to recruit in the Los Angeles area. Center for Democratic Renewal, P.O. Box 50469, Atlanta, GA 30302, (404) 221-0025. National clearinghouse on far-right movement activity. CDR produces "The Monitor" newsletter and has topical reports available on the Populist Party, Identity Christianity, the far-right's homophobic agenda, and LaRouchian and Moonie disruption of the African-American community. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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