-Caveat Lector-
Allegations Regarding Vince Foster, the NSA, and
Banking Transactions Spying, Part XII
by J. Orlin Grabbe
Did you every think of having your own country? Consider the
advantages. No export controls. You could manufacture your own armaments.
Do biological warfare research. Even build casinos. Hey, do whatever you
wanted!
You could also avoid those pesky ITAR restrictions. Cryptology
software is classified as a munition by the U.S. State Department. This
designation is found in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. So
software products that use cryptography can't be exported without State
Department permission. (The State Department, however, turns all such
decisions over to the National Security Agency [NSA].)
For convenience, locate your country in the middle of California.
And run an interstate freeway right through it! Say Interstate 10, which
goes from Los Angeles to Phoenix.
A dream? No, consider it done. It's called the Cabazon Indian
nation, located near Indio, California. This little nation of two dozen
individuals is very entrepreneurial. They've set up the Cabazon Arms
Corporation, the Cabazon Security Corporation, the Cabazon Trading Company,
the Cabazon Gas & Oil Corporation--lots of interesting companies come and
go in this nation.
Maybe you could make a deal with them, and set up your own ventures!
But you'll find someone got there ahead of you. Namely, a private security
firm called Wackenhut. Wackenhut is a funny outfit. Among other things, it
provides security to nuclear installations and to U.S. military bases, jobs
previously held by the U.S. Marine Corps.. And its officers have included
an amazing number of ex-CIA or NSA people. Bill Casey was an outside counsel
to Cabazon. Admiral Stansfield Turner, whose Saturday Night massacre in 1977
provided Wackenhut with a number of ex-CIA employees, has served on the
Board of Directors, as has ex-Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. One Vice
President of Wackenhut, Robert Chasen, had been CIA head of station and Vice
President of ITT during the time of Allende.
Have these people, too, considered the advantages of having their
own country? Yes, it seems they have. They seem to have taken over the
Cabazon Indian nation. And they don't want any competition from you, thank
you.
But the corporate rulers are very good to this little tribe. They've
put everyone in a medical and drug treatment program! And they are very
strict about seeing that each person shows up regularly to take their
medicine!
It was at the Cabazon Indian nation that modifications were first
made to the PROMIS software for installation of a surreptitious surveillance
mechanism. (Another modification would take place in Little Rock, Arkansas,
to tailor the PROMIS software for use by banks.)
The modifications were made by a guy called Michael Riconosciuto.
Riconosciuto was a bright guy who, at age 16, showed up at Stanford's
Cooper Vapor Laser Laboratory, having built his own argon laser. His family
were friends of Richard Nixon. Riconosciuto became an expert on explosives
and software. In an affidavit he states:
"1. During the early 1980's, I served as the Director of
Research for a joint venture between the Wackenhut Corporation
of Coral Gables, Florida, and the Cabazon Band of Indians in
Indio, California. The joint venture was located on the
Cabazon reservation. . . .
"3. The Cabazon Band of Indians are a sovereign nation. The
sovereign immunity that is accorded the Cabazons as a
consequence of this fact made it feasible to pursue on the
reservation the development and/or manufacture of materials
whose development or manufacture would be subject to stringent
controls off the reservation. As a minority group, the Cabazon
Indians also provided the Wackenhut Corporation with an
enhanced ability to obtain federal contracts through the 8A
Set Aside Program, and in connection with Government-owned
contractor-operated (GOCO) facilities. . . .
"6. Among the frequent visitors to the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint
venture were Peter Videnieks of the U.S. Department of Justice
in Washington, D.C., and a close associate of Videnieks by the
name of Earl W. Brian. Brian is a private businessman who lives
in Maryland and who has maintained close business ties with the
U.S. intelligence community for many years. . . .
"7. In connection with my work for Wackenhut, I engaged in some
software development and modification work in 1983 and 1984 on
the proprietary PROMIS computer software product. The copy of
PROMIS on which I worked came from the Department of Justice.
Earl W. Brian made it available to me through Wackenhut after
acquiring it from Peter Videnieks, who was then a Department
of Justice contracting official with responsibility for the
PROMIS software. I performed the modifications to PROMIS in
Indio, California; Silver Spring, Maryland; and Miami, Florida.
. . .
"8. The purpose of the PROMIS software modifications that I made
in 1983 and 1984 was to support a plan for the implementation of
PROMIS in law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide.
Earl W. Brian was spearheading the plan for this worldwide use
of the PROMIS computer software. . . .
"11. In February 1991, I had a telephone conversation with Peter
Videnieks, then still employed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Videnieks attempted during this telephone conversation to persuade
me not to cooperate with an independent investigation of the
government's piracy of INSLAW's proprietary PROMIS software being
conducted by the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of
Representatives. . . .
"13. Videnieks also outlined specific punishments that I could
expect to receive from the U.S. Department of Justice if I
cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee's investigation."
(Affidavit of Michael J. Riconosciuto, March 21, 1991.)
Michael Riconosciuto's ties to the National Security Agency are
illustrated in the testimony of Robert Nichols:
"Robert Nichols told . . . about an incident in the early
1980's when a colonel from the NSA Headquarters at Fort
George G. Meade, Maryland, allegedly flew out to the
Cabazon Reservation for the day for the single purpose
of assuring that FBI agents, investigating a triple
homicide of the Vice Chairman of the Cabazon Tribe and
two associates, did not attempt to probe the classified
U.S. government work being performed under the auspices
of the Wackenhut-Cabazon Joint Venture.
"Robert Nichols also told . . . about having accompanied
Michael Riconosciuto on a visit to a classified NSA
contractor facility in the Silicon Valley and to have
observed Riconosciuto's apparently unrestricted and
unescorted access to both the contractor's employees
and to offices within the contractor facility that
were prominently marked as off-limits to any unescorted
visitors.
"Robert Nichols also told . . . about frequent alleged
telephone conversations at the Wackenhut-Cabazon Joint
Venture between Michael Riconosciuto and Bobby Inman.
Bobby Inman served in the early 1980's consecutively as
Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" ("Inslaw's
Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report, Memorandum in
Response to the March 1993 Report of Special Counsel
Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United
States Responding to the Allegations of INSLAW, Inc."
--hereafter *Bua Rebuttal*).
The modified software was marketed around the world by Earl
Brian, one-time owner of Financial News Network (sold to NBC), UPI, and
the Hadron Corporation. Brian was a friend of Ronald Reagan's Attorney
General Ed Meese:
According to Ari Ben-Menasche, Brian marketed the PROMIS software
to Israel in conjunction with Robert McFarlane, Reagan's National Security
Advisor:
"3. In 1982, the Israeli Prime Minister's Anti-Terrorism Advisor
was Mr. Rafael Eitan.
"4. In a meeting that took place in December 1982 in Mr. Eitan's
office in the Kirya in Tel Aviv, Israel, Mr. Eitan told me that he
had received earlier that year in the United States, from Mr. Earl
W. Brian and Mr. Robert McFarlane, PROMIS computer software for the
limited use of the IDF's Signals Intelligence Unit for intelligence
purposes only. Mr. Eitan stated on this occasion, and on earlier
occasions as well, that he had special relationships with both Mr.
Brian and Mr. McFarlane." (Affidavit of Ari Ben-Menashe, March 21,
1991).
According to Richard Babayan, Brian also made a sales presentation
(and later sale) to Iraq, in conjunction with Richard Secord,
"2. . . . I attended a meeting in Baghdad, Iraq, in October or
November, 1987, with Mr. Abu Mohammed of Entezamat, an intelligence
and security organ of the Government of Iraq. Mr. Abu Mohammed is a
senior ranking official of Entezamat and a person with whom I had
had extensive dealings over the previous three years
"3. During the aforementioned meeting with Mr. Abu Mohammed, I was
informed that Dr. Earl W. Brian of the United States had recently
completed a sales presentation to the Government of Iraq regarding
the PROMIS computer software. Furthermore, it is my understanding
that others present at Dr. Brian's PROMIS sales presentation were
General Richard Secord, of the United States, and Mr. Abu Mohammed.
"4. In early to mid-1988, in the course of subsequent visits to
Baghdad, Iraq, I was informed that Dr. Earl W. Brian had, in fact,
provided the PROMIS computer software to the Government of Iraq
through a transaction that took place under the umbrella of Mr.
Sarkis Saghanalian, an individual who has had extensive business
dealings with the Government of Iraq since the late 1970's in the
fields of military hardware and software. (Affidavit of Richard H.
Babayan, March 22, 1991.)
The sale of the PROMIS software was the one of the principal topics
that Danny Casolaro was investigating at the time of his death either late
Friday, August 9, or early Saturday, August 10, 1991. On Saturday around
noon he was found dead in his room, Room 517, at the Sheraton Martinsburg
Inn in Virginia.
According to an affidavit signed by a friend of Casalaro on
March 15, 1994 (hereafter *F Affidavit*), Casolaro had documents received
from an NSA employee named Alan Standorf that were classified "top secret"
and "SCI".
SCI, or Sensitive Compartmented Information, is a more restrictive
classification than Top Secret. "Sensitive Compartmented Information is data
about sophisticated technical systems for collecting intelligence and
information collected by those systems" (NFIB Security Committee, "Sensitive
Compartmented Information: Characteristics and Security Requirements," June
1984).
"The systems that generate SCI are imaging and signals
intelligence satellites; aircraft such as the U-2 and
RC-135; submarines involved in Special Navy reconnaissance
missions; and ground stations involved in the interception
of foreign signals. Information about imaging and signals
intelligence satellites also falls into the SCI category"
(Jeffrey T. Richelson, *The U.S. Intelligence Community*,
Westview Press, 1995).
By its nature SCI-type information could reveal the characteristics
of the systems that collect the information, which makes such these systems
vulnerable to countermeasures. Countermeasures could destroy the ability to
collect this type of information in the first place. Or the mechanism, once
known to the other side, could be used by the other side to feed
disinformation into the collected data.
One variety of SCI information is produced by the Defense Mapping
Agency:
". . . 80 percent of DMA's [the Defense Mapping Agency's]
9,500 employees hold Sensitive Compartmented Information
(SCI) clearances. SCI data is employed in producing the
data that allow the targeting of cruise missiles by Terrain
Contour Matching (TERCOM). Such data are also required for
precise specification of target location in the Single
Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) and for accurate target-
ing of U.S. warheads" (Richelson).
Another variety may be found at the NSA:
"The NSA's COMSEC responsibilities also include ensuring
communications security for strategic weapons systems such
as the Minuteman missile so as to prevent unauthorized
intrusion, interference, or jamming. In addition, the NSA
is responsible for developing the codes by which the President
must identify himself in order to authorize a nuclear strike"
(Richelson).
Casolaro had other documents related to BCCI and the sale of
PROMIS, according to the *F Affidavit*:
--Casolaro had documents proving that the PROMIS software
was modified by Michael Riconosciuto.
--Casolaro had copies of wire transfers of money from
accounts held at the World Bank and BCCI and paid to
Earl Brian at shell companies in the Cayman Islands and
Switzerland.
--Casolaro had copies of checks drawn on BCCI accounts and
paid to shell accounts held by Richard Secord and Earl Brian.
--Casolaro had copies of documents of arms, gold, and software
shipments cleared for export by Peter Videnieks at U.S. Customs.
--Casolaro had a document that Casolaro alleged showed the
involvement of Bobby Inman and Robert McFarlane in the sale
of PROMIS to Israel.
--Casolaro had meetings in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania
with a number of individuals of Arabic origin, including
Iman Mashhad.
--Casolaro had documents showing shipments to and from Pakistan
by air that were approved by William Casey, and related documents
with notes from Peter Videnieks.
--Casolaro had documents related to "First American Bankshares"
[Financial General Bankshares = First American ?] showing
monies paid to officials in Justice and Treasury.
On August 9, the last day of his life, Danny Casolaro said he had
arranged a meeting with Peter Videnieks and Robert Altman to trade them
documents for further documents regarding the sale of the modified PROMIS
software. (Robert Altman--see Part X in this series--has served as an
attorney to Bert Lance, as the president of BCCI-controlled First American,
and as head of the Resolution Trust Corporation.)
Casolaro picked up two packages of documents he had given to a
friend for safe-keeping. The exchange was to take place at a meeting said
to have been arranged by a covert intelligence operative of the U.S. Army
Special Forces named Joseph Cuellar.
"Danny had told me that meeting had been arranged
by Joseph Cuellar. That he was to meet with someone
from Sen. Byrds office and from the I.R.S., plus
Peter Videnieks and Robert Altman. He was to exchange
some documents that was to their interest in order to
get more info on Promis. He had told me that Altman
only agreed after he was told papers would be sent to
Robert Morgenthau" (*F Affidavit*)
Some background on Casolaro's relationship with Joseph Cuellar
is detailed in the *Bua Rebuttal*:
"Casolaro also told the Hamiltons [Mr. and Mrs. Bill Hamilton of
INSLAW] about a series of meetings he had had during the final
months of his life with a covert intelligence operative of the
U.S. Army Special Forces whose name is Joseph Cuellar. According
to Casolar, Cuellar, during a purportedly chance encounter at
Casolaro's neighborhood pub in mid-July 1991, asked Casolaro what
line of work he was in and, upon hearing Casolaro describe his
journalistic investigation of the INSLAW case, asserted that he
knew all about INSLAW because Peter Videnieks was one of his
closest friends. According to Casolaro, Cuellar also stated that
his ex-wife worked for Ms. Barbara Videnieks in Senator Byrd's
office. Casolaro told the Hamiltons that Cuellar had later
persuaded Peter Videnieks to meet Casolaro and discuss the INSLAW
case with him." (*Bua Rebuttal*)
The next day after picking up two packages of documents for the
meeting with Videniecks and Altman, Danny Casolaro was found dead in his
hotel room at the Sheraton. Several days later a friend of Casolaro's who
had attended two meetings between Casolaro and Cuellar received a phone
call from Cuellar:
"Lynn Knowles, a friend of Casolaro's, attended at least two
of the meetings between Casolaro and Cuellar . . . [Lynn
Knowles said] that she and Cuellar had spoken by telephone
several days after Casolaro's death and that Cuellar said
the following to Knowles, in words or substance:
'What Danny Casolaro was investigating is a
business. If you don't want to end up like
Danny or like the journalist [Anson Ng] who
died a horiffic death in Guatemala, you'll
stay out of this. Anyone who asks too many
questions will end up dead.'" (*Bua Rebuttal*)
Well, I don't want too ask too many questions myself, Mr. Cuellar,
so I'll ask just this one: Did you, in conspiracy with Peter Videnieks
and Robert Altman, murder Danny Casolaro?
[To be continued]
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