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- In the golden state of California, there lies a valley
of plenty. Twenty-five miles long and ten miles wide, it too is golden.
Rich in history, endowed with natural beauty, enriched by the finest
universities, this valley draws the finest minds and the hardest workers
in the world.
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- Its history begins on August 5, 1775. The story is
best told by a book published in 1940 as part of the American Guide Series,
entitled San Francisco - The Bay and Its Cities [pages 19 and 20]:
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- As darkness fell on August 5, 1775, the San Carlos,
having sent a launch ahead to find anchorage, sailed cautiously through
the Golden Gate and anchored for the night. On August 7 it moved to
a new anchorage on the north side of Raccoon Strait and a week later to
another in Hospital Cove off Angel Island.
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- The hardy band of settlers whom Juan Bautista de Anza
led through incredible hardships all the way overland from Tubac in
Sonora province had arrived on the present site of San Francisco with
a platoon of soldiers and two priests by the time the San Carlos sailed
a second time through the Golden Gate. With the assistance of the ship's
carpenters and crew, Lieutenant Jose Joaquin Moraga's soldiers were able,
on September 17, 1776, to raise the standard of Carlos III of Spain
over the quarters of the commandant (commander) in the Presidio. The
occasion was celebrated with a high mass, the firing of cannon, and
the chanting of a fervent Te Deum.
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- The opening and dedication of the new Mission San
Francisco de Assisi (later known as Mission Dolores) on the grass-clad
slope near a small lake, dolefully named by the padres Laguna de los
Dolores (Lake of the Sorrows), was delayed until October 8, 1776 because
of the absence of Moraga on an exploring expedition. Moraga's expedition
observed the feast-day of Saint Francis by proving conclusively that
the Golden Gate was the only entrance to San Francisco Bay. "At
length, " exclaimed Padre Serra on his arrival at the new mission
the following year, "our Father St. Francis has advanced the sacred
cross.... to the very last extremity of California; to go further requires
ships."
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- Unfortunately, St. Francis' new mission lacked adjacent
arable land. Anza's poverty-stricken settlers, and the few who came
after them, soon found the fertile Santa Clara Valley to the south more
suitable for them than the wind-swept sandy wastes of the area dedicated
to their patron saint. Therefore, on January 12, 1777, the new Mission
Santa Clara was founded down the peninsula. And three miles south of
it arose the first purely civil settlement in California --- the pueblo
(town) of San Jose.
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- Before the close of the century two more Franciscan
missions had been established in the Bay area: Mission Santa Cruz, on
August 28, 1791, and Mission San Jose de Guadalupe, on June 11, 1797..
The lands which reminded Anza's settlers of the fertile valleys of
Valencia soon brought prosperity to these adobe outposts of Catholicism......
San Francisco - The Bay and Its Cities American Guide Series - Illustrated
Hastings House - publishers - New York - 1940
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- This, then, was the beginning. One hundred years later
the foremost industry was the product of that fertile land the pueblo
of San Jose rested upon. Peaches, pears, cherries and apricots were grown
in such quantities that a man named John Z. Anderson, former operator
of a line of freight teams between California and Nevada, converted a
railroad freight car into the first refrigerator car, by packing ice around
boxes of cherries. Now the bountiful produce from the Santa Clara Valley
was shipped as far away as Chicago, Illinois. In 1939 the industry
employed between 15,000 and 30,000 people at work in the orchards, canneries,
packing houses, and drying yards.
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- As late as the 1950's this agricultural heaven was called
"The Valley of the Heart's Delight". Orchards stretched across
the long, narrow valley as far as the eye could see; each spring the valley
was painted in pinks and whites by the trees overladen with blossoms awaiting
the heavy fruit that would follow. In the 1950's this Horn of Plenty
was the 10th largest growing area in the United States.
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- World War II was over, the soldiers were home, and life
in the Valley was good. Few clouds were on the horizon but there were
shadows. The influx of post-war student growth was taxing the universities
located there. The finances, faculty and staff of the colleges were strapped.
The obvious question was where to find the money to absorb the people
eager to learn.
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- Stanford University, located on the western boundary
of Palo Alto, California, was just one college facing dire circumstances.
But unlike its neighboring universities, Stanford was land rich and cash
poor. The Stanfords had endured a great deal of hardship and rejection
to maintain this university named in honor of their son. However, when
the Stanfords dedicated "The Farm" to the University, an unbreakable
provision disallowed any portion of the 8,000+ acres being sold. The
solution was to create long-term leases that enabled the emerging high
technology companies to find homes on property located very close to the
centers of learning. Allegiances between the professors, the students,
and the new companies were a natural outgrowth of the new "industrial
parks" located close to college campuses.
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- In 1951 Varian Associates signed the first long-term
lease with Stanford University. Brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian had
worked rent free in a Stanford Laboratory during World War II; it was
there that the Varian Brothers developed their Klystron tube. There was
mutual trust between the university and the owners of the company. In
1953 Varian Associates moved into the first "high technology campus"
filled with low profile buildings surrounded by wide expanses of lawns
and outside benches that encouraged the workers to enjoy the abundant
California sunshine.
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- This first industrial park became the prototype of industrial
parks that spread southward swallowing up the orchards. Companies such
as Westinghouse Electric, Sylvania, Fairchild Semiconductor and Shockley
Transistor filled the valley southward toward the giant IBM campus which
occupied the narrow southern tip of the valley where San Jose disappears
and the garlic fields of Gilroy begin.
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- The 1950's and 1960's saw a new life form take over
the valley. By 1973 this Valley of the Heart's Delight had been renamed.
It 1972 the fertile valley became known the world over as Silicon Valley,
a term coined by electronic writer, Don Hoeffler. So the Valley had a
new name and a new breed of men: engineers who followed the teaching of
the Stanford Dean and Provost known as the Intellectual Father of Silicon
Valley, Frederick Emmons Terman. Terman was an acknowledged visionary
who saw the future and it was NOW. He urged his followers and his students
to stay and work in the very valley they were creating. He was a mentor
to such notable Silicon Valley icons as David Packard and William Hewlett.
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- The turbulent and historical times of the 1960's and
1970's rubbed off on the valley's new company founders. Few engineers
left to don the stuffed white shirts of the "safe" electronic
companies of the East Coast. They found the stimulation of new discoveries
preferable to the 9-5 stifling society of the east coast. The well-established,
large companies located on the Atlantic sea shore were anathemas to these
curious, adventuresome explorers graduating from the ever-expanding universities
bordering the Pacific ocean.
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- Certainly it was the technology, the opportunities,
the economics - it was all of these things. But just as important was
the freedom of the California life style that creative minds thrive on
as they reach for their goals. Gone were the three-piece suits. Blue
jeans and sports shirts replaced white shirts and ties. Mercedes became
rare and sports cars were found in every new company's parking lot. It
did not matter if the innovative engineers had the time to drive the cars,
see their wives, or go home at night to kiss their children goodnight.
This was the thrill of "The Soul of the New Machine". This
was Silicon Valley -- they had created it -- they loved it!
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- Then the 1980's struck!! Powers to be in the government
and the pentagon became paranoid and frightened by this strange culture
that worshipped work and innovation. The technology was moving too fast
for the pentagon's old and slow machines. Creative geniuses sought private,
closely-held companies with IPO's just around the corner. No one seemed
interested in secure, defense work any more. Newly elected President
Ronald Reagan's first executive order was the re-instatement of "Operation
Exodus", a continuation of the export restrictions on high technology
that had been rejected by the United States Congress. The brakes were
being applied. The Evil Empire still existed in the President's mind and
the Cold War had just been re-ignited.
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- The rivers of gold flowing from the valley would soon
become rivers of blood.
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- THE RIVERS OF GOLD BECOME RIVERS OF BLOOD AS 'STAR WARS'
BECOMES 'BRILLIANT PEBBLES' AND FINALLY TURNS INTO DUMB ROCKS.
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- The Murder Of Lee Scott Hall, Design Engineer, At The
Lawrence Livermore Laboratories
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- "Hall had been trying to bring attention to a miscalculation
in a multi-million dollar installation of super laser beams that is part
of the ignition facility....... Police Detective Charlie Garrison said,
"We think Lee Hall is the only one who knew to this day exactly what
the problem is and its fix". San Francisco Chronicle Article, 2-15-2000
By Mike Weiss http://www.sfgate.com
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- During a speech about Grenada in March 1983, President
Ronald Reagan announced his idea for a space-based missile shield to protect
the United States from incoming missiles. Following a meeting with physicist
Edward Teller who was adamantly against any agreement to freeze the development
of nuclear arms, Reagan urged full speed ahead and set in motion a project
that startled even his closest Pentagon advisers. In the era of George
Lucas' Star Wars movie craze, Reagan dubbed his Strategic Defense Initiative,
"Star Wars".
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- From 1983 to 1985 Edward Teller and his colleague, Lowell
Wood, lobbied anyone who would listen, telling the world that SDI was
the greatest thing since Reagan's jelly beans. A sales pitch was necessary
because the first stage deployment would cost the taxpayers about $15
billion. A fully deployed space-based system would cost $150 billion,
IF the technology was realistic and IF the project could be brought in
on time.
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- By the middle of May 1988, countless scientists were
openly questioning the viability of "Star Wars". The cost in
1988 was $12 billion and constantly climbing.
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- Senator Barbara Boxer, D-San Rafael, described the SDI
as the president's "astrological dream...a dream of laser weapons
powered by nuclear explosions, particle beam weapons, chemical rockets
and space-based interceptors parked in 'garages' in orbit".
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- It was an exciting, accurate description and it fired
an imaginative mind. The Evil Empire still represented to the US, in
the minds of its citizens and in the eyes of the President. a very real
threat to our daily existence.
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- An article by Robert Scheer that appeared in the Los
Angeles Times Magazine on July 17, 1988 told of the dissent of scientists
who were responsible for engineering the program. Entitled "The
Man Who Blew the Whistle on Star Wars," it quoted the featured subject
of the article, Roy Woodruff. Woodruff was head of Lawrence Livermore
Laboratories "R" Division, the scientists and technicians responsible
for developing an actual working laser. Woodruff stated, "We were
not in an engineering phase then and we are not today".
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- One of the biggest military research projects of all
time, Star Wars was constantly re-invented by its backers. On February
16, 1991, The Baltimore Evening Sun's editorial drew its readers' attention
to the subtitle of the 1964 anti-war classic film "Dr. Strangelove",
which was: "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb".
The editorial continued:
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- That pretty much tells what has happened in the first
two weeks of the Persian Gulf war; the brass hats have succeeded in
getting the romance of weaponry back on track by daily touting the dazzling
feats of planes and missiles.
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- So it comes as no surprise that proponents of "Star
Wars" have seized the moment to urge that their favorite weapons
system be restored to the prominence it had in the Reagan administration
before it was quietly relegated by President Bush to the deep freezes
of the Pentagon's contingency planning sections.
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- The argument goes like this: Since the Patriot missiles
have proved to be so successful in shooting down Iraqi "Scud"
missiles, then let's build "Star Wars" right away - and hang
the cost - so we can shoot down all ballistic missiles.
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- That argument is about as ludicrous as saying that
now that we've put astronauts on the moon, let's put a few on the sun.
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- In 1999, the SDI organization's response to such criticism
was to change the name of the project from "Star Wars" to "Brilliant
Pebbles" and delay deployment two years until fiscal 1995. It was
also announced that the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories would remain a
key part of the newly named project that critical scientists were already
dubbing "Dumb Rocks".
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- The fact that SDI, by 1995, would violate the U.S.-Soviet
treaty limiting anti- ballistic missiles was pushed aside and forgotten.
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- By 1992 the Cold War was evaporating. Silicon Valley's
Sun Microsystems hired Russian scientist Boris A. Babayan to set up a
laboratory in Moscow for their company. Babayon had created the supercomputers
used to design nuclear weapons for the Soviet space program and its military.
The times they were a-changin'!
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- By 1994 even the scientists at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories
were moving to protect their income by spinning off companies to use the
technology developed from the Lab's Brilliant Pebbles project development
in 1992. Admitting that the Star Wars effort was unlikely ever to be deployed,
it was speculated that spin offs such as WorldView Imaging Corp. could
employ the technology and profit from it.
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- In 1996, Gary Chapman, director of the 21st Century
Project at the University of Texas, writing for the Los Angeles Times,
said:
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- One panel was charged with looking at the computer
requirements for a system that would necessarily be controlled remotely
and at speeds beyond human capacities for reaction.
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- A member of this panel was David L. Parnas, world-renowned
software engineer and professor of computer science in Canada (although
Parnas was a U.S. citizen and a longtime Pentagon consultant). Parnas
spent two days listening to Air Force briefings, then in June 1985 he
resigned from the advisory panel, concluding that the fundamental computer
requirements for strategic defense could never be satisfied.
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- Parnas, an eminent scientist, was shamefully called
a "traitor" by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in 1985.
Will the Republicans insist in 1996 that we ignore the limitation of
computers in order to be considered patriotic Americans?
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- Many crimes were committed against United States scientists
by their own government during the Cold War years of the 1980's. The
vast majority of those crimes were executed to support political agendas
such as Star Wars and Operation Exodus. The orders came from the highest
political powers in Washington D.C. and were carried out by the U.S. Department
of Justice, state and local district attorney's offices and their supporting
law enforcement agencies.
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- In 1988 a brilliant software engineer and programmer
was arrested and tried under federal Operation Exodus laws for the theft
of Saxpy Computer's technology. The motive behind the decision to prosecute
Anderson under federal law, for what amounted to a state crime, was the
Federal Government's desire to capture the man they called "The Techno
Bandit of the Decade", the infamous Charles McVey. This author
wrote the following letter to various newspapers at that time:
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- * Editor: There was a reporter on your staff who
has been covering the Kevin Eric Anderson case since his arrest on October
22, 1987. Diane Brooks has exhibited the qualities of compassion, understanding,
objectivity, and commitment in covering this story that the vast majority
of the American public wishes were inherent in every reporter covering
every story.
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- Kevin has been in prison, presumed innocent, now for
seven months. He has been there held without bail through a series
of manipulations masterminded by U. S. Joseph Russoniello and his underlings,
Leland Altschuler and Dale Zusi. The vast majority of the media has
cooperated by refusing to publish anything in his defense even though
they have been deluged with letters and documentation supporting the
contention that Kevin Eric Anderson is innocent, and was, in fact, entrapped
by the Justice Department after they had been made aware of Kevin's
desires to cooperate with them as early as 1985.
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- The true guilty parties in this case are those people
who have prostituted our legal system to serve their own egos and career
ambitions. The end result in simply greed: justice has nothing to do
with it.
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- So long as we, as a people, continue to allow the
imprisonment and control of the best and brightest minds in our country
by the overly ambitious prosecutors, the lingering fears of the Cold
War, and the myth that is "Star Wars", we will continue to lose
the high-tech race to our competitors. We must regain the freedom of
the creative mind to realize the potential of our dreams.
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- We firmly believe that Kevin Anderson is innocent
of the charges brought against him. We further believe that if he had
been given his constitutionally guaranteed right to reasonable bail,
his constitutionally guaranteed right to the presumption of innocence,
the right to see his only child, the day-to-day love and support of his
family and his many friends, he would prove his innocence.
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- * In reply to a horrendous hit piece written by someone
named Joshua Hammer in the Los Angeles Times Magazine dated June 5, 1988,
this writer wrote the following poem to comply with the demands of the
publisher who limited all letters to the editors written in defense of
Kevin Anderson to very few words:
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- For Kevin Eric Anderson: Who loves poems and poets:
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- In a far off land there is a lonely man Held so he won't
run wild. True he is fed and given a bed, Taxes pay for his defense and
child. But the baby cried for the father denied, He is seven months in
jail. Justice aside, the judge replied, "Star Wars" orders -
held without bail.
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- Political prisoners are in other lands, you see We
live in the land of the brave and of the free.
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- Twelve years later, I would stand by every word I wrote
in 1988. Careers, politics, money, secrecy, power and prestige are all
at stake when an honest engineer endangers an ill-advised but heavily-financed
project. It is a very real possibility that murdered design engineer
Lee Scott Hall is the victim of the politically charged atmosphere surrounding
the myth that is "Star Wars".
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- How did our scientists lose their freedom and why were
they targeted?
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- OPERATION EXODUS--THE EXECUTIVE ORDER THAT STRANGLED
SILICON VALLEY
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- The I.B.M Slogan
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- Who are we? Who are we? The International Family. We
are T.J. Watson men - We represent I.B.M. Are we right? Well, I should
smile! We've been right for a very long while.
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- To Our I.B.M. Engineers (Tune: "Mademoiselle -from
Arnentieres")
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- 1. We're proud of all our Engineers in I.B.M. No problem
in unsolvable to these great men. We thank and praise our engineers,
the whole wide world unites in cheers To the Engineers of I.B.M.
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- 2. Each year they perfect new machines for I.B.M.
Superior products all the time for businessmen. We thank and praise our
Engineers, the who wide world unites in cheers To the Engineers of I.B.M.
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- --1931 Edition "Songs of the I.B.M.
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- In the middle 1950's high tech campuses filled industrial
parks and the orchards in The Valley of the Heart's Delight" were
stolen - one by one. From Mt. View to the southern boundaries of San Jose
eager, young men pushed the boundaries of science inventing new and faster
machines.
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- The fever that infected the hardware and software engineers
and programmers was not the same thirst that left the venture capitalist
panting for more. The desire for wealth was not the initial impetus driving
the eager entrepreneurs. The challenge was to build a faster, cheaper
machine than the mighty IBM. The battle cry was "Bury Big Blue";
everyone wanted to be on the "BBB" team.
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- IBM was the gargantuan giant, a company where everyone
wore business suits and sang theme songs. Big Blue was the darling of
the United States government protected by pyramid patents, lawless lawyers,
entrenched engineers, maniacal managers and priceless press releases.
In 1970 IBM was the Berlin Wall shielding America from the war-mongering
communists of the Evil Empire. The export laws that applied throughout
the 1970's included advanced technology such as IBM's 360 and 370 mainframe
computers. However, during the early 1970's IBM was doing business with
the USSR exporting the 360 and 370 series apparently in compliance with
US export law. In fact Big Blue maintained a small office in Moscow to
comply with the warranty guarantees extended to purchasers of their equipment.
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- After the tragic, turbulent decade of The 60's, America
was looking forward to The Serene 70's. The political assassin- ations
that made the United States look like the unstable third world countries
it was always criticizing were now a distant memory.
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- The youthful revolution that ended US involvement in
the hated Vietnam War wound down as swiftly as the helicopters departed
the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. Sitting in the White House, President
Johnson had said, "If we do not end this war they (the anti-war
protesters) will come over the wall". Seeing a nation that needed
healing, this same President made the decision to not seek a second term.
Perhaps he sensed that a new leader relatively unknown, who was not
connected with the people, places, and events of the past, might lead
the nation he loved to a new beginning.
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- When the peanut farmer from Georgia was elected, the
nation was still frightened, divided and insecure. But when Jimmy and
Rosalynn Carter walked down the broad streets of Washington DC on that
brisk inaugural day, the nation caught its breath and heaved a sigh of
relief. If this president and his first lady had the courage to walk
among their fellow citizens knowing their country's shameful past, then
how could the people not be open and full of courage and hope.
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- On the West Coast in California, the adventurous men
of Silicon Valley embraced this new, down-to-earth President. This new
breed abandoned politics feeling the country was safe in Carter's hands.
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- Hackers returned to their computers; programmers returned
to endless hours of staring at a green screen; hardware engineers kept
draftsmen busy producing huge schematics; software geniuses wrote ever
more exotic software. All was right with their world. "The Soul
of a New Machine" was within their grasp. The race to "Bury
Big Blue" was back on track.
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- It was in the late 1970's that the sleeping behemoth.
IBM, woke from its long, contented slumber, raised its monstrous head,
sniffed around and smelled competition. Old dinosaurs are slow to react
to new enemies. Heavily fed with government dollars, it is easy to become
passive and unaware of the mouse biting at the heel of the elephant.
That is why so many engineers had a framed picture of a mouse on their
office walls. The small mouse had his finger pointed skyward and the
caption read "the mouse that roared". Welcome to Silicon Valley,
circa 1976.
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- Soon a new war would erupt on American soil. A war
to dislodge the entrenched companies of Silicon Valley and replace them
with the innovative companies of the future. The technology was advancing
too rapidly for the old corporations to respond without the assistance
of the US government. By 1980 the CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI and local law enforcement
would all be working together to harness the energy of technology advancing
so fast it threatened the status quo. When President Ronald Reagan took
office in 1981, his first Executive Order was to continue the export control
act known as "Operation Exodus".
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- OPERATION EXODUS - THE CHOKEHOLD ON SILICON VALLEY
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- Is this the telex (5 pages) for the October Surprise
$MULTIBILLION GOLD Payoff?
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- President Ronald Reagan's first executive order, Operation
Exodus, extended the stringent requirements of the Export Administration
Act of 1979 and added strict enforcement for violations of the Act. The
choke hold would effectively strangle the vibrant economy created by the
West Coast's high tech industry.
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- When it became apparent that the order would severely
limit their marketing ability, the newly rich of Silicon Valley made their
voices heard all the way to Washington D.C. They were shouting, "We
have the products. Let us sell them in an unrestricted world market."
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- Quietly the giant corporations whispered in the ears
of politicians, "Remember us -- we support the old slow technology
used by the Pentagon. The defense of the United States is at stake. We
have faithfully supported you; don't abandon us now. Without government
contracts, these upstarts can't last; their technology can be acquired.
Just give us time. We will catch up".
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- From the west came the siren song of Silicon Valley
seducing the bureaucrats. Like the thunderous waves of the Pacific Ocean
breaking on the rocks of Big Sur, the tempting beauty of a new dawn relentlessly
wore away the resistance of politicians sunning themselves on the sandy
beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The magic of Initial Public Offerings
(IPOs) rocked the tranquility of the New York Stock Exchange, creating
thousands of instant millionaires attired like the rebels of the '60s.
A new, militant voice, not belonging to the military, emphatically told
the entrenched government officials, "Give our industry our freedom
and we will give you a new, vital economy".
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- The United States Congress listened. The Congress would
not approve Operation Exodus. It is obvious that newly elected President
Reagan knew of their decision. Within days of taking the Presidential
oath, Ronald Reagan circumvented the will of Congress and issued his
first executive order, Operation Exodus.
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- Who, then, had this President's ear? The history of
the 1980s tells the story. Reagan's ear was owned by the military industrial
complex. Promoting myths such as Star Wars, scientists like Edward Teller
appealed to Reagan's belief in the Apocalypse. Rabid anti-communists
convinced the executive branch of government that Russian missiles would
soon rain from the skies over America. The President's fears assured
a massive national debt in future years as the country spent billions
for fanciful weapons to defeat a mythical enemies. That debt would guarantee
that Reagan's Vice-President, former CIA Director George W. Bush Sr.,
would be a one term president. The battle cry now became "It's
the economy, stupid!"
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- Has any citizen wondered how their newly elected President
"gets up to speed" so rapidly that he is able to take over
the most important job in the world without missing a heartbeat? The
United States allegedly has an unrestrained media - why haven't they ever
asked that question? Why doesn't CNN do a twenty minute piece exploring
that question? Shouldn't A&E do a one or two hour special to explore
that never addressed question? Shouldn't every American want to know
how these extraordinary men who are our presidents learn their job so
quickly?
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- If the question is never asked, it is possible the answer
might be that we do not have a democracy after all. We might have a form
of government that simply submits to the dictates of world politics by
placing a different figurehead on America's throne as events dictate.
In the year 2000, as Bush Jr. seeks to be elected to Bush Sr.'s former
position, it is time to ask the question, "Is the keeper of the flame
-- the gatekeeper of the secret government?"
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- President Kennedy's bloody assassination on the streets
of Dallas in November of 1963 proved to the majority of Americans that
no president is safe from the very agents and agencies sworn to protect
him. Presidents are isolated from the citizens that elect them and "protected"
by people with their own agendas. The President of the United States
is probably the most venerable of all America's citizens. Individuals
who seek that position do so because they passionately want power and
control. If they disclose the gatekeeper's secrets when elected, they
find they have neither.
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- Assuming the keeper and the gatekeeper share and protect
the same horrible truths, one must ask, "What was happening in the
world in the 1970s that persuaded newly elected President Ronald Reagan
to endanger the economy and well being of the nation he swore to protect
and serve?
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- The following history of George Bush Sr. in the 1970s
first appeared in an article in the Progressive Review during the 1992
campaign. It can be read in its entirety on line at http://prorev.com/bush.html
:
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- George Bush Sr. had first been elected to public office
in 1966 when his close friend, Robert Mosbacher collected the money
for his campaign by chairing "Oil Men for Bush".
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- In 1970 Bush ran for the United States Senate losing
to Lloyd Bentsen, despite receiving $112,000 in contributions from Nixon's
White House slush fund.
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- To keep George Bush Sr. in the public eye, President
Nixon named him Ambassador to the United Nations in 1971.
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- Returning the favor Bill Liedtke collected $700,000
in anonymous contributions for the Nixon campaign in 1972. The contribution
consisted of cash, checks and securities that Liedtke delivered to the
infamous Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) the day before
such contributions became illegal. Liedtke said that he did this as
a favor for Bush Sr.
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- In 1973 George Bush Sr. is named GOP National Chairman
and brings into the party far right supporters such as the Heritage
Groups Council, an organization with a number of Nazi sympathizers.
Watergate tapes recorded by Nixon and his aide, HR Haldeman show that
Nixon is concerned that Watergate might expose the "Bay of Pigs
thing". Nixon also speaks of the "Texans" and the "Cubans"
and mentions Bush's friend "Mosbacher". In another tape,
Nixon decides following his re-election to get signed resignations from
his whole government so he can centralize his power. Says Nixon to
John Erlichman: "Eliminate everyone, except George Bush. Bush will
do anything for our cause."
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- In 1974 Bush is named special envoy to China.
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- In 1976 President Jerry Ford names George Bush CIA
Director, his fourth political patronage job in a little over five years.
Bush later claims this is the first time he ever worked for the CIA.
At his confirmation hearings, Bush says, "I think we should tread
very carefully on governments that are constitutionally elected."
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- Bush holds first known meeting with Noriega. Noriega
starts receiving $110,000 a year from the CIA.
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- Noriega is found to be working for the Cubans as well,
but he keeps his CIA gig.
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- Bush sets up Team B with the CIA, a group of neo-conservative
outsiders and generals who proceed to double the agency's estimate of
Soviet military spending.
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- Senate committee headed by Frank Church proposes revealing
the size of the country's black budget -- intelligence spending that,
in contradiction to the Constitution, is kept secret even from the Hill.
According to journalist Tim Weiner, Bush argues that the revelation
would be a disaster and would compromise the agency beyond repair.
By a one vote margin the matter is referred to the Senate. It never
reaches the floor.
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- Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier is assassinated
by Chilean secret police agents. CIA fails to inform FBI of pending
plot and of assassins' arrival in US. CIA claims the hit was the work
of left-wingers in search of a martyr.
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- Bush writes internal CIA memo asking to see cable
on Jack Ruby visiting Santos Trafficante in jail. In 1992 Bush will
deny any interest in the JFK assassination while CIA head.
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- Bush claims nuclear war is winnable.
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- In 1977 Philippine dictator Marcos buys back Robert
Mosbacher's oil concession. Mosbacher claims he was swindled. Philippine
officials say they never saw any expenditures by Mosbacher on the project.
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- On August 7, 1977 CIA director Stansfield Turner called
a meeting of his people and announced that the Agency had not reduced
proportionately now that the Vietnam War had ended. He announced deep
cuts that would target more senior than junior officers. The pink slips
went out on October 31, 1977. Angry rebuttals by the DDO employees,
to the "Halloween Massacre" at Langley were echoed by the media
who claimed that Turner was striking at the heart of the service, that
he was jeopardizing its covert action capability and cruelly dumping patriotic
Americans.
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- In 1978 Bush, Mosbacher and Jim Baker become partners
in an oil deal.
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- That same year a Washington Post article by Bob Woodward
and Walter Pincus states: "According to those involved in Bush's
first political action committee, there were several occasions in 1978-79,
when Bush was living in Houston and traveling the country in his first
run for the presidency, that he set aside periods of up to 24 hours and
told aides that he had to fly to Washington for a secret meeting of
former CIA directors. Bush told his aides that he would not divulge his
whereabouts, and that he would not be available." Former CIA chief
Stansfield Turner denies such meetings took place.
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- On the other side of the world Iran was experiencing
a political upheaval that would soon rock American politics. During the
Presidency of Richard Nixon military support increased for the Shah of
Iran, whose position of power was shaky. The CIA felt it was essential
to maintain the Shah in power. When Jimmy Carter took office in 1977
massive Muslim religious demonstrations were taking place and it was soon
apparent that the Pahlavi throne would fall. During 1978 into early 1979,
riots took place in several Iranian cities. Ultimately this revolution
would make Ayatollah Hominy the head of the volatile country of Iran.
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