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------------------------------------------------

TERRY REED / JOHN CUMMINGS INTERVIEW
 
Hour 1
 
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On April 27, 1994, on Tom Donahue's now defunct shortwave radio 
program, "America's Town Forum", Donahue's guests were Terry Reed 
and John Cummings. Reed and Cummings are the authors of the 
bestseller, *Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA*.
 
Because Donahue offers audio cassette tapes of his shows for 
those who wish to purchase them, I sent a check to Mr. Donahue 
for a tape of that night's show. Unfortunately (although Mr. 
Donahue *did* finally send the tape of another show, featuring 
Larry Nichols), the tape did not arrive after I had waited a 
reasonable time. So I again wrote to Mr. Donahue et al., 
including a photocopy of the cancelled check I had sent them and 
demanding my tape.
 
I waited. Still no reply. Eventually I just gave up on ever 
getting the tape. I was not too ticked off at Mr. Donahue because 
I knew he was going through other troubles at the time. I figured 
he was just not well organized.
 
Today, finally, after more than 4 months, after I had long since 
given up on getting the Reed/Cummings tape, today, finally, it 
arrived. I have just made a backup of the tape and am now 
prepared to transcribe it.
 
Before I start, here is some info that was included with the 
tape:
 
  Address to write to Tom Donahue: As of July 21, 1994
  Letters only -- No post cards or packages.
 
  Tom Donahue #24979077  C1
  Mansfield Law Enforcement Center
  1601 Heritage Parkway, Mansfield, Texas  76063
 
  At this time Tom does have access to a telephone, however he 
  can only call "collect". He can't make local calls or 800 
  calls, just collect calls. If you would like to give your 
  permission for Tom to call you collect, do so by writing to 
  Tom at the above address.
 
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TOM DONAHUE:
Good day. Welcome, America. Tom Donahue program. Thanks so much 
for joining us.
 
Well many "viewer rats" are celebrating "Tricky Dick Day". Um, I 
always have, and will, have respect for the President and the 
*presidency* -- the actual office. The office holder at that time 
and, I guess, the "statesman at large" -- I feel he caused a lot 
of great damage to this country: regional government, for one; 
selling out our POWs; took him 5 years to get us out of [the] 
Vietnam war, when he [had] promised in his first term we'd be 
out. He was a Rockefeller stooge and a Kissinger associate for 
many years, until even *they* turned on him. {1}.
 
But so much for Nixon... Tricky Dick Nixon Day. We have two very 
special guests. And the book is absolutely a blockbuster. It's 
everything it's cooked up to be. The book is, *Compromised: 
Clinton, Bush and the CIA*. How the presidency was co-opted by 
the CIA. Terry Reed and John Cummings. Indeed, it's my privilege 
and pleasure to have you on "America's Town Forum".
 
 
TERRY REED:
Thank you very much, Tom. This is Terry speaking. [CN Note: The 
interview was conducted via a 3-way phone hookup.]
 
 
JOHN CUMMINGS:
Hi, this is John...
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K. Hi, John.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Hi! And it's a pleasure to be here.
 
 
DONAHUE:
We're gonna start off with Terry [Reed] first.
 
Terry, why... I guess, whoever selected the title, it's a great 
title. Explain to our listeners what you mean by "compromised" 
when it comes to Clinton, Bush *and* the CIA.
 
 
REED:
Well not only is that a word that's in the media a lot now, but, 
having been in Air Force intelligence, that's a word used 
considerably in, you know, intelligence training: talking about 
compromising classified material. But I felt it was a very 
appropriate title in that both George Bush and Bill Clinton 
compromised themselves, um made themselves open for attack, by 
being mutually involved in a clandestine operation which was CIA- 
backed and run out of the state of Arkansas.
 
So that's basically the core, the core premise behind the title.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Some would be astonished that you would refer to *Clinton* being 
connected in any way, shape, or form with intelligence agencies. 
Many see Clinton as a coward and someone that shirked his duty 
{2} and was not involved with *any* military or intelligence 
apparatuses in this country -- except, maybe outside the country, 
such as the KGB.
 
 
REED:
Well actually, I think if people will study it closely, there's a 
rumor circulating that Bill [Clinton] was actually working for 
the CIA station chief out of London, a man by the name of Kurt 
Meyer(sp?), and during his trips to the USSR (which, you know, 
became a matter of public debate during the '92 campaign on what 
he was doing there). But I don't find it shocking at all to find 
politicians involved with intelligence operations, since that's 
typically how the CIA is trained to penetrate and subvert foreign 
governments, is, you compromise politicians and get them on your 
side, normally through blackmail.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Um-hmm [understands].
 
Let me ask you about your background. Why don't you fill our 
listeners in, give us kind of a biographical sketch?
 
 
REED:
O.K. I was a true "baby boomer", born in 1948, raised in 
southwest Missouri, 21 miles from Harry Truman's birthplace and 
hometown, Lamar, Missouri. I'm from Carthage, Missouri. I'm the 
oldest of 6 children, raised to be patriotic and serve my 
country. I did so. I was in Air Force intelligence for 8 years. I 
was in Thailand, in a top-secret outfit called, "Task Force 
Alpha", that oversaw the secret war in Laos; the "deniable war" 
that Richard Nixon was running -- very apropos day to be 
discussing...
 
 
DONAHUE:
Yeah. Another prize, another accolade, that should be passed 
along to Nixon for that, huh?
 
 
REED:
Yeah. Yeah, I feel, just as you stated, that he really let the 
veterans down as well as the country. He tried to be a statesman 
and a commander-in-chief simultaneously. And I don't think you 
can do that.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Well I think he said it best on "60 Minutes", this was a replay 
of his interview with Mike Wallace, in 1968, where he stated 
emphatically that he'd rather be off writing books and lecturing 
and maybe even being a student again at Oxford University [sic] 
-- though he didn't go there. Clinton did. But he [Nixon] said he 
got "caught by the political virus", and he said, "When it 
catches you, there's no way..."
 
 
REED:
"...there's no antidote", I believe is what he said.
 
 
DONAHUE:
..no. Wait a minute. Yeah....
 
 
REED:
"There's no drug." Yeah, I saw that interview.
 
But yeah, I was in intelligence, in support of Air America's 
operations over in Thailand. And that's where I met several of 
the key players that would later surface in the Iran-Contra 
scandal, you know, years later, in 1986.
 
But after becoming disillusioned with peacetime military, I got 
out, honorably, and went into a field, a very technical field, 
which just by accident... I mean, I chose it, I was attracted to 
it, then found out once I was in it that it was full of KGB and 
all kinds of espionage activity. So I was "resurrected" and 
recruited to work undercover for both the FBI and CIA, monitoring 
the pilfering of defense department secrets to Moscow by both 
Hungarian firms as well as the Japanese.
 
And in the course of doing that, I met an undercover agent who 
was using the code name John Cathey, in Oklahoma in 1982.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Let me stop you right there. We've gotta take our break. When we 
come back, we want the rest of the story.
 
Terry Reed. John Cummings. The book is *Compromised*.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
DONAHUE:
We're back. Tom Donahue, "America's Town Forum", patriotism in 
action.
 
In order to have a better phone sounding quality, we're gonna 
have Terry out of the mix for just a few minutes here, and we're 
gonna stay with... Uh, actually, we're gonna stay with Terry 
[Reed] and come back to John Cummings in just a minute or two.
 
Um, Terry, let's talk about this [John] Cathey figure. Who was 
that?
 
 
REED:
Well I was up to 1982. And through the result of working for a 
little over a year and a half with the FBI in Oklahoma City, this 
operation I was working on expanded overseas. And they had to 
bring in the CIA and I was introduced to this guy, John Cathey, 
who subsequently becomes Oliver North, the man reporting to the 
National Security Council on the famous Toshiba case, the case in 
which Toshiba Machine Tool was stealing American propeller 
technologies. The Soviets wanted quiet-running propellers for 
their nuclear submarines. And we had invented that and they were 
using this Japanese machine-tool company to gain access to that 
technology. That's how I came into play with Oliver North in 
1982.
 
 
DONAHUE:
How long-standing was your relationship with Oliver North?
 
 
REED:
Well, for quite a while. It went on through, I must say, mid-to- 
late '85, when I moved to Mexico. I was sort of handed off into 
another operation that had found its genesis in western Arkansas. 
But North and I, being veterans, hit it right off. And 
philosophically we agree. I think if you read the book you know 
(as I believe you have) right in the beginning, we start off with 
an Oliver North conversation and our mutual disdain for...
 
 
DONAHUE:
..Nixon and Kissinger.
 
 
REED:
Nixon and Kissinger. Yeah.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Um-hmm [understands].
 
 
REED:
But our attraction came primarily not only through our 
philosophical alignment but our shared war stories and what not.
 
But it put me in a perfect position in 1983, late 1983, to be 
introduced to a man by the name of Barry Seal, Adler Berriman 
Seal, who was also a CIA operative working out of a little town 
called Mena, Arkansas, in western Arkansas. So that's where the 
story sort of launches off into I think what is probably the most 
explosive element of the book.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Absolutely. And we have Oliver North running for the United 
States senate.
 
 
REED:
Um-hmm [understands].
 
 
DONAHUE:
Many feel he was set up and betrayed in the Iran-Contra affair. 
But so many don't know his role in this {3}... And I'll let you 
spell it out. What *was* Oliver North's role in Mena, Arkansas?
 
 
REED:
Well I consider this, him, the oversight agent. Certainly 
reporting directly either to CIA director Casey or to someone 
very close to him. The support that we received and the materiel 
we had access to was just *phenomenal*. This was *not* a real low 
key operation, even though it was in a very remote region of 
western Arkansas.
 
But the Oliver North that *I* knew was sort of a very loose, 
business manager type that didn't micro-manage anything but let 
[Barry] Seal pretty much run the operation. And I was just, of 
course, subordinate to Seal. And primarily my job, initially -- 
I'm a 3,000-hour plus flight instructor -- my job was to train 
Nicaraguan nationals to fly aerial delivery aircraft, the very 
same type of aircraft that was shot down, that exposed, the whole 
Iran-Contra affair. That C-123 aircraft was the type of aircraft 
that, ultimately, my students would be upgraded to down in 
Nicaragua -- down in Honduras, actually -- once they graduated 
from the basic program we had set up in Arkansas.
 
 
DONAHUE:
And was Mena, Arkansas, chosen for its topography and also 
Governor Clinton, and they felt he would cooperate in 
paramilitary operations?
 
 
REED:
The way I answer that, Tom, is I grew up in southwest Missouri. 
And there was a *phenomenal* difference between the economy of 
Missouri and Arkansas [when] I was a child. In fact, I've lived 
along the border of Mexico and the U.S., and it was almost the 
same radical difference when you crossed that state line back 
when I was a younger man. You were in beautiful country, but very 
impoverished. *Something* was holding the state back 
economically. I, as a young man, didn't know what that was. But I 
later came to understand its archaic banking laws, and a thing 
called the Arkansas Usury Law that prevented banks in the state 
from lending out money that exceeded 10 percent interest, and a 
law that prevented their banks from having linkage to banks 
outside the state, pretty much kept a ruling elite in power in 
Little Rock and elsewhere. And kept the majority of the populace 
impoverished.
 
 
DONAHUE:
You call it a Banana Republic.
 
 
REED:
We make a term that, certainly the political environment that 
existed in Arkansas, even in the '80s, the early '80s, was very 
comparable to a third world government environment in that you 
had a very small, ruling elite.
 
 
DONAHUE:
L.J. Davis says the same...
 
 
REED:
Yeah.
 
 
DONAHUE:
..after his investigation.
 
 
REED:
I think he stole that from our book. But...
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K. But he gave a lot of credit and attribution to both of you 
during his interview with us.
 
 
REED:
O.K. That's good. I would sure have liked to have had honorable 
mention in his article, since he did, in fact, use our book as 
one of his research guides. But I guess that's journalism, if 
John Cummings agrees with me.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Well, at least he's giving you credit throughout interviews he's 
doing...
 
 
REED:
Great.
 
 
DONAHUE:
..coast to coast. So I feel very much... Well, we'll talk more 
about that when we come back.
 
Our special guests, John Cummings and Terry Reed.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
TOM DONAHUE:
We're back. Tom Donahue, "America's Town Forum", patriotism in 
action.
 
Terry Reed, John Cummings, the authors of *Compromised: Clinton, 
Bush and the CIA* -- How the presidency was co-opted by the CIA.
 
And gentlemen, I have to admit I wish I had the time to read 550 
pages of small, fine print that's in this book, and all the 
documentation. I didn't. I've scanned it. Some day I will [read 
it.] I highly recommend it though.
 
 
TERRY REED:
Great. If I could just finish with that one thought here, Tom, 
about why Clinton may have done this: You know, certainly, if he 
assumed power and became Governor, he had a *full* agenda of 
trying to turn that state around. And certainly, if he wanted, if 
he had this secret ambition all along to become President, he had 
a lot of work cut out for him. He had to build an industrial base 
and literally drag Arkansas up into the 20th century. And I think 
one way he did that is by, through cooperation with the CIA -- 
which we get into deeply in the book, about the money laundering 
aspects and actually government, certain industries, getting 
involved in the manufacturing of weapons components.
 
So anyway, with that said, I'd like you to talk to John 
[Cummings]. John's a great journalist and came to me, hounded me 
for 2 years, to do this book. And I finally gave in. And, but 
John's responsible for forcing me to sit down and put this thing 
together with him. So...
 
 
DONAHUE:
One more question before we bring John into the discussion here: 
What *was* going on in Mena, Arkansas? In a nutshell, tell us 
what transpired and what you observed.
 
 
REED:
O.K. Let's talk about what was supposed to have happened versus 
what I think *did* happen.
 
 
DONAHUE:
All right.
 
 
REED:
Certainly as I... I was working there for approximately 15 
months, flight training. In the course of doing that, I became 
aware that Barry Seal was flying weapons down to staging areas in 
Central America. The weapons components, that were going into 
making the completed weapon, were being drawn from National Guard 
armories, in Arkansas, with the exception of some critical parts 
that do have "tracking" built in -- for, not only for D.O.D. 
[Department of Defense] purposes, but also for Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms [i.e., ATF]. Those pieces, that you literally could 
not pull out of the Army inventory without triggering some kind 
of an audit, were being built, initially, by a company called 
Iver Johnson Firearms, which was up north of Little Rock.
 
So you had weapons procurement, and assembly and manufacture. You 
had the transportation of those weapons. You had the *contra* 
pilot training, that I was involved in. And later I discovered 
that Seal was flying back in cash, in large quantities, on his 
way back in from Central America.
 
That's what I saw, were those elements.
 
 
DONAHUE:
What about the drug connection? What about drugs for arms? Did 
that happen?
 
 
REED:
Well I'm not gonna say it didn't happen. I didn't observe it in 
Arkansas.
 
Now later on in the book, when I get down into Mexico and get on 
the other end of the pipeline -- I was on the receiving end of 
the pipeline up in Arkansas, and certainly those operations that 
I just outlined were very compartmentalized, and not a lot of 
overlap in personnel, with the exception of probably me. Because 
of my background in manufacturing, I was able to sort of get an 
overview of 3 facets of the operation. But once I went down to 
Mexico: Yes. I came head to head with the fact that the people 
that had sent me down there were trafficking *heavily* in 
cocaine. That resulted in me divorcing myself from this entire 
thing. And I think it's what's been causing me a lot of pain and 
suffering ever since.
 
 
DONAHUE:
I understand the small banks in Mena and surrounding communities 
were *swelling* with cash deposits.
 
 
REED:
Yeah. This IRS agent Bill Duncan, who we have in the book and who 
was on this Pat Robertson show yesterday -- I don't know if you 
saw...
 
 
DONAHUE:
No, I missed that.
 
 
REED:
..Pat Robertson did a 26-minute news segment on this whole story 
yesterday and Bill Duncan was sort of the centerpiece of that 
show. Because through his investigation, his investigative 
efforts, you realize not only did this *happen*, just as we say 
in the book, but secondarily, the containment mechanism that's 
been put in place to keep this thing from going to court and 
getting people charged for the money laundering aspects that 
Duncan discovered is what I think is most interesting now. 
Because that *does* show Clinton being involved in the short- 
circuiting of funding for the grand jury. It shows him turning a 
blind eye to requests coming from prosecutors, you know, 
requesting state funds. Just by his share of... Well, just by his 
attitude of...
 
 
DONAHUE:
He put the kabosh on it [i.e., put a lid on it, stopped it from 
happening].
 
 
REED:
Yeah. He certainly did. He became part of the mechanism that 
hammered the hammer, hammered the...
 
 
DONAHUE:
I never thought an IRS agent could be a hero, but maybe [laughs], 
maybe... Maybe one of the Internal Robbery Services best and 
brightest might have been a hero!
 
 
REED:
Well he's a C.I.D. agent, which is an undercover type...
 
 
DONAHUE:
[laughs] I've dealt with 'em, believe me! Most of 'em are morons, 
but nevertheless, uh...
 
 
REED:
[laughs]
 
 
DONAHUE:
..We'll talk about the IRS another day, Internal Robbery 
Service. We've done enough hammering on them.
 
We're gonna come back, and bring John Cummings into the mix. The 
book is *Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA*. Don't go away. 
Back in seconds.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
If you'd like to join us, the talk line number, our Town Forum 
line, coast-to-coast, is 1-800-298-TALK. 1-800-298-8255.
 
John, how'd you get involved with Terry Reed? And, it's a mammoth 
book. I know you're a prolific writer, an award-winning writer. 
You worked for *Newsday* and you've authored or penned several 
books.
 
 
JOHN CUMMINGS:
Well. I came to Terry, following a trail that really started 
many, many years ago, when I, as a very young reporter, was 
assigned to cover Cuba and the Cuban exile machinations which 
climaxed in the Bay of Pigs. And in the course of observing this 
in Florida, I watched the CIA co-opt local officials and even the 
Governor at the time, in Florida, to make sure that their 
operations were not interfered with and that they could operate 
with impunity.
 
And so I came to this gradually, knowing, you know, what the 
telltale signs were.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Um-hmm [understands].
 
 
CUMMINGS:
If you say this to people, just like I just did, well they say it 
sounds implausible. But when you observe it over many years, you 
begin to see that they use the same methods over and over.
 
I was following Adler Berriman Seal, Barry Seal, whom Terry 
mentioned. Now I knew him basically as a drug trafficker. I 
believed him to be a drug trafficker who was a CIA asset, of 
which there are many -- they use smugglers for many reasons -- 
but it turned out that he was really a CIA asset whose *cover* 
was being a drug trafficker. And when I got to Arkansas -- and I 
followed him up to Arkansas -- I began to see telltale signs of 
an intelligence operation: an airfield out in the middle of the 
woods, that nobody knew anything about.
 
And the more I dug, the more convinced I became that, obviously, 
this was an intelligence operation. It was being protected, 
certainly, by the federal government. But when you operate in any 
area, you have to make sure that the state understands, and co- 
operates with you. And I was really curious about that. And to 
cut it short, I came across Terry [Reed], who at that time was 
under indictment in Wichita, Kansas. And I approached him and we 
began to talk. And I began to see, you know. *He* showed me the 
connection between Oliver North, Barry Seal, and the whole 
operation. At first, he did not talk to me about Bill Clinton; it 
was much later on. And then I came to realize -- I had seen both 
[political] parties "in bed with each other" in Florida, and 
here, once more, was yet another local official, or a Governor, 
who made a pact with the Devil.
 
Um, you mentioned before, the "virus" that bit Nixon. I call it a 
power trip. And once somebody gets on that track...
 
 
TOM DONAHUE:
An aphrodisiac. Yeah.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
..Yeah, yeah... they want power and they do what they have to to 
achieve it. And he made *his* Faustian deal with the CIA. Which 
he probably felt was good for his state.
 
 
DONAHUE:
George Bush was a former director of the CIA. And George Bush... 
I guess you never leave the CIA. You always have ties or 
connections in some way unless you really t'eed them off and 
you're running for your life.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well, there's an old saying. There's an old saying, "When does a 
CIA asset cease to be a CIA asset?" And the answer is, "When he's 
arrested." {4}.
 
And uh, but Terry, when I met Terry, he was not like the other 
CIA, uh many of the CIA assets I had met. And it was very clear 
to me that there was much more to this story. And of course Terry 
eventually was acquitted of this charge, which was one of the 
reasons I came to believe him. Because when I first heard his 
story I greeted it with the same skepticism I would use with 
anyone. But Terry's story checked out and the things he told me 
were true. He *was* in the places he said he was. And I came to 
see him as a kind of a "Rosetta Stone" {5} for me, as someone 
who's been searching along this path for many years.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Hmm, I see. Now how... What are Bush's ties here? Is CIA 
background and the fact that he was vice-President at this 
time... How much "hands on" do you think Bush had with the Mena, 
Arkansas operation?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Lawrence Walsh says in his final report that George Bush was 
knowledgeable and involved...
 
 
DONAHUE:
In the loop.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
I'm sorry?
 
 
DONAHUE:
He was in the loop, right?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
He was not only in the loop. *I* think, from what I can see, he 
was in day-to-day charge of the operation.
 
 
DONAHUE:
That was my impression: the loop master.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Yeah! And certainly (and Terry will get to this in a few 
moments), at this meeting at this army base outside Little Rock, 
where Bill Clinton attended, there was a CIA man, sent from 
Washington, who turns out to be none other than William Barr, who 
became George Bush's attorney general! And here was the man, 
sittin' here, tellin' Bill Clinton the way things were gonna be!
 
Now Terry was a witness to that, and he can tell it much better 
than I can. But there you have it all, right there.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Amazing. Amazing.
 
But you feel both of, vice-President Bush (and later, President 
Bush), and Bill Clinton, were in on this? They were privy to what 
the operation was to accomplish?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Certainly. As was Ronald Reagan, in my opinion.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Ronald Reagan, if... I would believe he might have been out of 
the loop. I suspect he may have been.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well, whether he had daily briefings or not I don't know. He 
certainly... If he was out of the loop it was because -- It's 
like I heard on a television show recently, in a drama, he said, 
the President was sitting there with the CIA director and he 
said, "There are times when there are certain things a President 
just doesn't want to know." And he said, "And this is one of 
them." And this could be one of those situations.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Well the *contra* effort, there was an obsession there with 
Reagan, and he was still wanting to fight communism. And so if he 
was told this was an operation that would benefit him, I'm sure 
he would have given total acceptance and approval.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well Reagan was obsessed with this policy and he was determined 
to see it succeed. I mean, he wore a t-shirt that says, "I am a 
*contra*." I mean, the message was pretty clear.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Why was Barry Seal selected? Why was he put in charge of the 
operation?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well, I can give you my answer. (I think Terry probably knows much 
better.) He was a businessman, an expert with airplanes -- there 
probably wasn't a better pilot around. And he had been recruited 
way back in the early '70s, early on, by the agency. And he's a 
man who had worked his way into the confidence of the very top 
level of the Medellin cartel. I mean, he was an ideal man. Plus 
he was, from the way *I* learned of Barry Seal, from what Terry 
tells me, he was just a natural born leader and a very 
intelligent man.
 
 
DONAHUE:
What about the Bush brothers? Bush's sons. Didn't they have 
connections to the Medellin cartel?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well, Barry Seal alludes to that in our book. We... Terry didn't 
go into that in great detail. I can tell you that when... Before 
Seal died, he made some audio tapes of some meetings...
 
 
DONAHUE:
How did he die?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
He was assassinated, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1926 [sic] by 
the, uh the assassins were Columbians...
 
 
DONAHUE:
You said "'26". Uh, you meant 19-what?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Did I say "'26"?
 
 
DONAHUE:
Yeah.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
1986.
 
 
DONAHUE:
1986. O.K.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
I beg your pardon. And he was assassinated. And I think he was 
assassinated because he became a major liability for both George 
Bush and Bill Clinton -- just as Terry became. And one of the 
reasons that Terry, as he mentioned, did this book, was to get 
this story out so that he didn't end up in an alley like Barry 
Seal.
 
 
DONAHUE:
This book is his "insurance policy".
 
 
CUMMINGS:
In a way. That's one of the arguments I used with Terry: to tell 
him that he would be safer with this story out than keeping it to 
himself.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Um-hmm [understands].
 
We're gonna take our break. We'll come back. We're gonna continue 
our discussion, our interview. Both gentlemen will be with us the 
rest of this hour and next on many of these fine stations. Listen 
up. And we'll be right back.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
TOM DONAHUE:
We are back. Tom Donahue, "America's Town Forum", patriotism in 
action.
 
We're talking with Terry Reed and John Cummings. The book is 
*Compromised*, and we're gonna make this book available through 
our organization. [...Donahue extols the book...]
 
Um, you have a list that your publisher sent to me: The key 
figures in *Compromised*. And many of them are the same figures 
we're hearing in the Clinton cabinet, and through Whitewater, and 
beyond "Whitewater rafting".
 
Let's talk about some of these figures and how they play a role 
and what the media *should* be looking for, beyond "Whitewater 
rafting".
 
 
TERRY REED:
Are you speaking to me now, Tom?
 
 
DONAHUE:
Who do we have now?
 
 
REED:
This is Terry.
 
 
DONAHUE:
All right, Terry. Go ahead.
 
 
REED:
Well I was actually thrust right into play with a lot of the key 
people that are now surfacing in Whitewater. Uh, Seth Ward, a man 
that I believe *USA Today* described as the mystery man in the 
Whitewater scandal, a man that was deeply involved in the land 
acquisitions and I think was a director of Madison Financial 
Corporation.
 
Uh, Seth. Of course Seth's son-in-law is Webb Hubbell, number 2 
man, was number 2 man or 3 man in Justice, that as you know 
resigned. {6}.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Yep.
 
 
REED:
Bob Nash, a key Clinton economic aide, was a man that I directly 
reported to. Nash is now with the Department of Agriculture; 
another person that got a nice, fat-cat job.
 
 
DONAHUE:
And Bob Nash was the former director of the Arkansas Development 
and Finance Authority [ADFA], where Larry Nichols once worked.
 
 
REED:
That's correct. Yeah, the same cast of characters keeps 
reappearing throughout not only the Clinton administration but in 
this book. Because *I* was put into play with them in a totally 
different capacity. I saw this operation from the inside out, and 
John [Cummings] reports about it from the outside in, which is 
quite an interesting style. We're being told that it's very 
effective to describe what was in the news during that time frame 
and what the headlines of Arkansas read, [and] what was going on 
behind the scenes, that were generating the cover-up of the Mena 
scandal and things like that.
 
But John and I did not start out to write an *Iran-Contra* 
book... I mean a Whitewater book. We were... I was working on 
this through my memoirs, trying to get down on paper what was 
happening to me as a result of my criminal indictment. And I was 
keeping good notes, and just sort of to have a good record, 
'cause things get pretty distorted in a courtroom environment.
 
 
DONAHUE:
I want to get into that, in just a couple minutes here. And I 
jumped ahead, myself. I want to go back to the Bush brothers.
 
 
REED:
O.K.
 
 
DONAHUE:
The Bush sons. And also, you talk here about "Bond Daddy" Dan 
Lasater. He was also involved with drugs. And let's talk about 
the drug figures that you know, and what you *do* know, and share 
that with us.
 
 
REED:
O.K. Lasater's name... I met, in fact the first day I met Barry 
Seal, he was in the company of Dan Lasater and Roger Clinton. 
Roger was the driver for Dan Lasater at the time; was his 
chauffeur in Little Rock. But Lasater, the moment the money 
laundering connection started to develop I realized it was 
Lasater that, where Seal was doing all his "banking", and taking, 
you know, initially briefcases full of cash for deposit there. 
And then later on, duffel bags full of cash.
 
A bond trader, that worked for Lasater, was a man by the name of 
Finis {7} Shellnut. Now Finis is Seth Ward's, or was Seth Ward's, 
son-in-law at the time. And Seth Ward owned a piece of property 
west of Little Rock called the "Triple S Ranch". And that is the 
ranch in which Seal was jettisoning the large, large... what's 
called a B-4 bag in the military, a large duffel bag, that can 
hold about $3 million, complete with radio transmitters so you 
can locate it. That money was being kicked out of Seal's planes 
onto the Triple S Ranch. And the man that was retrieving the cash 
was Finis Shellnut and, who worked for Lasater. And I feel that 
was the direct conduit from that point into Lasater's company.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Does anybody know where this money went to? Has anybody been on 
the money trail?
 
 
REED:
Oh yeah. I think that's what the federal people are doing right 
now. You've got creation of ADFA, Arkansas Development Finance 
Authority, cropped up in the middle of all this. And the source 
of the funding has always been secret. ADFA's records only show 
what they loan out.
 
When they have a bond issue, primarily at the state bank, for 
practical purposes its mandate was to attract and finance 
industry for Arkansas. What it became was a vehicle to loan money 
to friends of Bill Clinton and a way to get quiet "campaign 
contributions" [a.k.a. "bribes"] back, as L. J. Davis pointed out 
in his article. I believe it was 25 percent? Or one-fifth, I 
guess it was, of the 1990 campaign chest for Clinton came back to 
him in the form of "contributions" from the recipients of ADFA 
loans. So I think that's a style that you're gonna see developing 
more and more, surfacing more and more, throughout the 
investigations {8}, is how Bill was able to *stay* in power, and 
keep his campaign chest full, while people that tried to surface, 
to compete with him, were literally strapped for cash.
 
 
DONAHUE:
This is quite an incestuous web there in Arkansas, and the same 
web or cast of characters have moved on to Washington, D.C., to 
run the country.
 
 
REED:
Yeah, we've been told, this is a phrase that we were -- now I'm 
gonna steal from someone else -- but on the surface, it looks 
like a game of chess. But what you have to do is look vertically 
-- and it becomes a game of vertical chess -- to see the 
relationships *under* the table of the King and the Queen and the 
pawns, and see how they're co-orbiting with each other. And not 
only... I mean incest is a sort of a worn-out term these days, 
but that certainly does fit the style of politics and banking 
that exists in Arkansas. It's just hand in hand; it's like 
wearing a glove.
 
 
TOM DONAHUE:
Back to George Bush and his sons: What do you know there? What, 
what's... Because this book *does* focus on Bush *and* Clinton, 
let's talk about their knowledge, or their involvement or 
complicity, in the drug trade.
 
 
TERRY REED:
Well first of all, I'll whet your audience's appetite and use 
this as an opportunity to tell you there is another book in the 
works. This book [*Compromised*] became gargantuan, as you 
mentioned several times, and we had to finally, you know, lop it 
off at some point to get the thing to press.
 
But to answer that question, one has to study Barry Seal, and 
know something about intelligence, as it works anyway. And it's 
not like on TV. And it's not like the James Bond movies. You go 
to intelligence school to learn how to compromise people, how to 
blackmail them, how to get dirt on them. It's a very ugly 
business when you get into the mechanics of how it actually 
functions.
 
Seal was a master at that. A photographic memory, literally. I 
never saw him write a clearance, an aircraft clearance radio 
frequency, down. A new frequency was stored in his memory as if 
it was a computer database. And as I worked with him and he 
basically became my intelligence mentor, to teach me the civilian 
side, how it functioned, and I was teaching him a few things 
about manufacturing and, so we were cross-sharing information. 
But I grew to really admire Seal's ability to stay one step ahead 
of people that were either trying to control him, neutralize him, 
or whatever. I think that style, though, is what lead to his 
death.
 
He did share with me, on a trip coming back from Panama, he was 
confiding in me. (This was about 3 months before he was killed.) 
He was confiding in me that he had the ultimate "neutralizing 
weapon" -- as he always called blackmail material -- 
"neutralizing material". He had gained information, originally 
from the DEA, and then information that he had actually confirmed 
firsthand, that the Bush kids were "dirty", as he put it. They'd 
been *caught*, actually, ensnared, in a trap. And of course the 
agents involved, once they realized who they had caught, let 
everybody go.
 
 
DONAHUE:
We have Jeb Bush running for Governor in the great state of 
Florida. We have George W. Bush here in Texas. Are either of 
those two involved in anything like this, or perhaps in the past?
 
 
REED:
Yes. Through corporate linkage, which we're gonna define in 
detail in the next book. But one must go back and think about the 
fact that Zapata Petroleum had strong linkage to Mexico. I'm not 
saying this as a teaser, but that's where our book is gonna begin 
is, where Zapata came from. (Of course, that's what George Bush 
ran down in Texas [i.e. Zapata Petroleum].) And *who* was the 
connection in Mexico with Pemex that allowed Zapata to get its 
drilling rights. And Seal, during that period of time was, in 
fact, hauling drugs *for* the CIA and DEA, out of Mexico. And 
that put him in a position to learn some of the players.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Let's further expound on the Bush connection, here. Mr. Bush, 
former President, and his sons, and the "Bush crime family", if 
you will. And then we'll come back, right after this break.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
Tom Donahue, "America's Town Forum". We're speaking with Terry 
Reed and author John Cummings, the authors of *Compromised: 
Clinton, Bush and the CIA*. How the Presidency was co-opted by 
the CIA. And a picture of "Billy Boy" and "Skull & Bones" are on 
the front.
 
 
REED:
[chuckles]
 
 
DONAHUE:
The book is available, we're gonna make it available through our 
organization {9}. [...extols book and gives info on how to 
order...]
 
Back to the Bush brothers and "King George" himself; let's talk 
specifically -- their involvement.
 
 
REED:
Well, I'm reading right now... Have you seen a copy of the *New 
Federalist* newspaper?
 
 
DONAHUE:
No, I haven't.
 
 
REED:
The current issue is dated April 18th. You ought to try to get a 
copy of that. It's a well put-together article.
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K.
 
 
REED:
It can be received through P.O. Box 889, Leesburg, Virginia  
22075. {10}.
 
 
DONAHUE:
That's the official research arm of Lyndon LaRouche {11} ...
 
 
REED:
That's correct.
 
 
DONAHUE:
..and his group.
 
 
REED:
Now what they did, they took our book and quite interestingly 
enough {12}, turned the whole scandal over and literally lit a 
blowtorch on George Bush and family. And just to give you an idea 
about this meeting I was talking about: I'd flown down to Panama, 
to a meeting, and we were at a very critical juncture of 
launching the Mexican operation. We were actually discussing 
pulling the operation out of Arkansas and moving it down to 
Guadalajara. And Seal and I had flown down together to attend 
this meeting...
 
 
DONAHUE:
Because of the political connections in Arkansas, and the banks, 
and everything that was needed financially, the topography and 
the way it was set up, it *was* a good training base, wasn't it?
 
 
REED:
Oh very!
 
 
DONAHUE:
Similar to Central America.
 
 
REED:
Yeah, it was. My students commented on the mountainous region 
being very similar in topography, *and* climate. In the Spring, 
the fog, the way it hangs in the valleys. And we would practice 
penetrating the fog layer and using that for camouflage to fly 
low-level for our aerial delivery sorties. It was a very 
interesting place. Uh, they have mosquitoes down there the size 
of small birds, you know.
 
 
DONAHUE:
[chuckles] You were thinking about moving the operation.
 
 
REED:
It *was* moved, later. I was gonna read something to you, if you 
don't mind. Because what they [*New Federalist*] did was they 
took a lot of dialogue out of the book -- sort of condensed it.
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K.
 
 
REED:
It explains a lot.
 
But this is Seal talking to me. This is a quote:
 
    "Terry, I've been working with several federal 
    agencies," Seal began. "In the course of that business, 
    a person can't help but run across some *very* sensitive 
    information. It seems some major players in the Medellin 
    cartel, whom I personally know, ran across some 
    knowledge that's very valuable to both Republicans and 
    the Democratic party. It seems some of the, George 
    Bush's kids, just can't say 'no' to drugs. A guy in 
    Florida, who 'flipped' for the DEA, has got the goods on 
    the Bush boys. Now I heard this earlier from a very 
    reliable source in Columbia. But I just sat on it then, 
    waiting to use it as my 'trump card'. I got names, 
    dates, places, even got some tape recordings. I even got 
    surveillance videos catching the Bush boys red-handed. I 
    consider this stuff *my* 'insurance policy'. It makes 
    me, and my 'mole' on the inside that's feedin' the stuff 
    to me, invincible."
 
And that's the end of the quote. Now...
 
 
DONAHUE:
We've got the cocaine Bush boys, and we have "King Daddy" 
overseeing the heroin trade out of Burma and turning a blind eye 
to it.
 
We'll be back. Tom Donahue, with "America's Town Forum".
 
                        [End of hour 1]
 
 
--------------------------<< Notes >>----------------------------
{1} Regarding Nixon: It's hard to understand *why* Clinton 
ordered flags flown at half mast for *30 days* in honor of Nixon. 
To my knowledge, this was unprecedented. I don't think even JFK 
got the flag flown at half mast for 30 days. Talk about 
collective insanity: 30 days for fu**ing Nixon!!
 
{2} "...Clinton as a coward and someone that shirked his duty..." 
There were *many* who sought to avoid and/or avoided military 
service during the Vietnam era. They keep repeating this "Clinton 
the coward" stuff, and it's ridiculous.
   But *why*? Why are they drumming this into our heads, this 
"Clinton the coward that shirked his duty" baloney? Hypothesis: 
Are they conditioning us to swallow some future law that we *not* 
"shirk our duty"? Are they conditioning us to accept a re- 
instatement of the draft? Are they conditioning us to "not be 
'cowards' like Clinton"? Are they conditioning us to be cannon 
fodder for another one of their wars?
   Just conjecture. But then again, you tell me: Why all this 
"Clinton the coward who shirked his duty" repeated again and 
again?
 
{3} "But so many don't know his [Oliver North's] role in this..." 
But after all, every damn fart in the O.J. Simpson trial is just 
*so* much more important, *so* much more newsworthy, that of 
course "many don't know North's role in this". After all, *really 
important news* must take precedence.
 
{4} "When does a CIA asset cease to be a CIA asset? When he's 
arrested." From the old TV series, *Mission: Impossible*, "As 
always, if you are caught or captured, the secretary will disavow 
any knowledge of your actions."
 
{5} "Rosetta Stone" -- A key that unlocks a mystery. The original 
"Rosetta Stone" was discovered in Egypt by Napoleon's army. For 
ages, a way to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs had been sought, 
without success. The Rosetta stone had chiselled into it a 
message written both in ancient Greek *and* in the Egyptian 
hieroglyphs. This was the key that unlocked the hieroglyphs.
 
{6} Webb Hubbell was, as I recall, deputy attorney general. He 
may have been, in effect, Clinton's eyes and ears at the Justice 
Department -- moreso than Janet Reno anyway, who is not part of 
Clinton's bunch of Arkansas buddies that he brought with him to 
Washington.
 
{7} Finus: pronounced FI-nus, with a long "I" sound as in "high". 
For example, His Highness, Finus.
 
{8} "...throughout the investigations..." Was that what that was? 
That thing that flashed by this summer, that whitewash? Was that 
the "investigations"?
   What's Starr up to these days, or won't the media be covering 
that until after the November elections?
   BTW -- Get set for Clinton to invade Haiti right around 
election time. What a coincidence, huh?
 
{9} "The book is available..." No need to use Tom Donahue to get 
the book. It is available or can be ordered through your local 
bookseller. However, Donahue *does* offer audio tapes of past 
programs. Information I have, current as of July 21, 1994, reads 
(in part) as follows:
 
    Your tape order has been processed by volunteers...We 
    are sorry about the delay in getting your order filled. 
    [CN -- True, there was delay. Donahue's preoccupation 
    with his trial may have been why.] ...Tapes of past and 
    current shows (with fill-in host Bo Gritz) are still 
    available at $7.00 for both hours [CN -- Full price, 
    including postage]... Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery 
    although we hope to do it faster. For a list of shows 
    available send a self addressed stamped envelope to
 
    America's Town Forum
    P.O. Box 835
    Atlantic Beach, Florida 32233
 
    Most of each $7.00 tape goes for Tom's defense fund.
 
{10} *The New Federalist* is published weekly. Subscriptions are 
available at $20 for 50 issues, $35 for 100 issues. Make checks 
payable to "New Federalist" at New Federalist, PO Box 889, 
Leesburg, VA  22075. Note: It has good info, but I suggest 
reading it with "a grain of salt".
 
{11} In the past I have criticized LaRouche et al. This is not to 
say that they don't write some good articles. They *do* put out 
some excellent information, in my opinion. But be wary of turning 
your mind over to LaRouche, as some have done. For that matter, I 
would say to be wary, also, of turning your mind over to just 
about any "authority": Conspiracy Nation, television, Noam 
Chomsky, "experts", or you name it. The trick, it seems to me, is 
to think for yourself.
 
{12} "...they [*New Federalist*] took our book and quite 
interestingly enough..." Yes, I recall reading the *New 
Federalist* account of the Reed/Cummings book. By reading their 
account, you might miss the fact that this took place in Arkansas 
and that, according to the book, Bill Clinton has much to answer 
for. If one were to read only the *New Federalist* account of the 
book, one might go away with the impression that the book *only* 
features George Bush on the cover and not Bill Clinton as well. 
The *New Federalist* coverage, amazingly, neglects the 
Clinton/Arkansas angle. *WHY??* Why is LaRouche running 
interference for Clinton?


 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."
--------------------------------------------------------------


 
TERRY REED / JOHN CUMMINGS INTERVIEW
 
Hour 2
======
 
 
TOM DONAHUE:
Good day. Welcome, America. Tom Donahue program. Thanks so much 
for joining us.
 
Two special guests -- they were with us the first hour as well -- 
the co-authors of *Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA* (How 
the Presidency was co-opted by the Central Intelligence Agency).
 
We're gonna start off with Terry Reed, where we left off. And 
Terry, we left off with the Bush family, "The Bush crime family", 
as I call them, involved in the drug trade.
 
We know, through Bo Gritz and through many -- the Christic 
Institute and Lyndon LaRouche, among other authors and writers 
and journalists -- that we, 90 percent of the heroin trade came 
through, came from Burma, and that the CIA was found to be 
involved with General Koonsall(sp?). As a matter of fact, General 
Koonsall's greatest customer was the CIA. And he wanted [to get] 
out of the drug trade, but he just wanted some financial 
assistance from the international community.
 
And George Bush's cohorts, Theodore Shackley, Richard Armitage, 
were involved heavily. And Bush, I guess, acted like he didn't 
know anything. But you're saying that his sons were involved in 
cocaine peddling of some sort.
 
 
TERRY REED:
Well I'm saying, and I don't want to sound like a conspiracist, 
Tom, because that's where I really get cross-wired: with a lot of 
people that allege to know more than they claim they know.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Um-hmm [understands].
 
 
REED:
Let's go back to Thailand for a second. I can speak firsthand. I 
was in Air Force Intelligence. We had an intelligence courier 
service code-named, its code-name was "Scatback". And Scatback 
was a series of Lear jets that flew classified material base to 
base, just for intelligence purposes. And in 1970, Scatback was 
"busted" as they say: All the pilots were put on house arrest. It 
was found that they'd been couriering, in addition to classified 
material, cocaine... er, heroin. One of their landing points was, 
in fact, the M.T.(?), in Laos -- the headquarters of Air 
America's operations.
 
So *that's* firsthand. Now this transition to the Bush family: I 
can say this: John [Cummings] and I are deeply involved right now 
into the ongoing investigation of the people that were 
assassinated the very same day that Barry [Seal] was killed. In 
fact, within 2 hours of *his* death, 4 other people were killed 
worldwide. We're interviewing witnesses right now. We're pulling 
Zapata Petroleum records. And it's my premise, based upon talking 
to some other people that I can't mention over the radio here, 
that Seal, that the Zapata Petroleum, was hauling a lot more than 
petroleum. Certainly, you build a network of pipelines and 
tankers, and what better way to trans-ship cocaine than to have 
it submersed in crude oil.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Especially a company that was set up by, or at least we're told 
was set up by, George Bush in "pulling himself up from his 
bootstraps".
 
 
REED:
Yeah. Interesting "bootstraps".
 
 
DONAHUE:
How *was* that set up? What do you know about Zapata Oil?
 
 
REED:
Well, just from their records that have disappeared. As you 
probably know, the material that was all supposed to be part of 
the SEC [Securities Exchange Commission] public record when Bush 
announced his -- I think it was actually shortly after his 
pending place on the ticket, to run for vice-President. That 
material was all shredded, allegedly by "accident". But we have 
people in Houston, right now, that are piecing together what 
records that can be found. We're finding a very, very interesting 
linkage to Mexico and organized crime out of Mexico. Zapata 
[Petroleum] *was* given preferential treatment for drilling 
rights at a time when they were basically, were banned from doing 
so -- uh, I mean American corporations were. Zapata sold an oil 
rig to the ex-President of Mexico. There was just strong, strong 
connection there. And we're getting into, John and I are making 
the connection [in] the next book, into what, why Kiki Camarena 
-- if you remember the DEA agent that was tortured to death? In 
Mexico?
 
 
DONAHUE:
Um-hmm [affirmative]. Right.
 
 
REED:
Yeah, we've got a Mexican source that's telling us lots of 
interesting material that I really can't go into in this 
conversation, but we'll be happy to, once we get it fully 
organized and hopefully get our manuscript out there; we would 
love to talk about it.
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K. Let's talk about the Bush boys, the sons. And we were just 
starting to touch on that and we were out of time, in the first 
hour.
 
 
REED:
Well all I know is what Seal... At this point, all I know is what 
Seal told me: that there were surveillance videos and that he'd 
made his, you know, in intelligence parlance and police language 
you have what is called your "safe kit" -- material stashed 
somewhere to get you through an ordeal. To basically make you, as 
Seal said, "invinceible". Obviously, that didn't work for him.
 
But I do believe that with the combination of the audio tapes, 
that John Cummings and I presently have, a strong case can be 
made that they wanted Seal dead. In fact, the working title of 
this book is *Fatal Knowledge*. You can see from that title 
selection that the knowledge Seal was amassing, to keep him safe, 
ultimately led to his demise.
 
 
TOM DONAHUE:
O.K. For those listeners just joining us, give us an overview of 
your involvement with Barry Seal and what you were doing in Mena, 
Arkansas.
 
 
TERRY REED:
O.K. I met... I was introduced to Barry Seal through Oliver 
North. I met him in late 1983, in Arkansas. Seal sought me out -- 
he'd been told that I had certain talents, primarily 
manufacturing or flight training, so that I could contribute to 
the CIA's efforts to bypass the Boland amendment -- to train a 
small group of pilots, Nicaraguan nationals, to basically 
liberate {1} their country, to help fly aerial sorties, you know, 
fly supplies into the guerrilla warfare action, to supply their 
own soldiers in the field.
 
In Arkansas, I was part of an operation that flew guns, 
manufactured guns, and trained Nicaraguan pilots. Certainly it's 
now the contention of many that that also included flying cocaine 
back into the United States. All *I* saw was cash being flown 
back in. {2}.
 
But Seal and I became very close, became friends, throughout the 
course of my 15 months of training there. Barry was a very 
intelligent... As John Cummings said, he was an excellent pilot, 
a very intelligent businessman. I saw him in a totally different 
light than he's been portrayed, and I hope the book, 
*Compromised*, is actually giving him, rewriting the epitaph, or 
giving him the *proper* epitaph that I felt he deserved all 
along.
 
 
DONAHUE:
But he helped manage the operation, in Arkansas. I mean, he was 
really the "project manager", if you will.
 
 
REED:
Yeah, Barry reported to [Oliver] North, from what he told me. 
North provided the oversight and Seal provided the mechanics of 
it.
 
Seal had gone to Mena in 1982, to actually move his aircraft 
operation up there. He got in business with a man named Fred 
Hampton, and built a new hangar at the Mena airport. The company 
was called Rich Mountain Aviation, and in this new hangar was 
where the majority of the maintenance was done on, not only 
Seal's aircraft (which were numerous), but also aircraft 
belonging to other federal agencies, i.e., DEA and U.S. Customs, 
that were being modified for -- covertly -- for sting operations 
into the Medellin cartel and into Central and South America.
 
So it became a clandestine hub. *Beyond* Seal's operation, there 
was a lot of other intelligence activity going on in this little 
town of 5,000 people, only a few miles from the Oklahoma state 
line, in western Arkansas. {3}.
 
 
DONAHUE:
The name that Oliver North used, the last name was "Cathey"?
 
 
REED:
Yeah. C-a-t-h-e-y. I was introduced to him...
 
 
DONAHUE:
John Cathey.
 
 
REED:
Yeah. I was introduced to him in 19... February of 1982, as CIA 
agent John Cathey, based out of Toronto, Canada, and working on 
the illegal flow of our defense technology that was being 
pilfered by a combination of Japanese and Hungarian firms and 
bootlegging it to the USSR. That's what got me involved, 
initially, in the civilian side of intelligence gathering was 
because of my Air Force background and, quite frankly, it was 
because I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I 
was approached [and asked] if I wouldn't help monitor those 
efforts. And I actually did travel behind the iron curtain, on 
one occasion, to actually spy on them; to come back with 
information about their manufacturing capability as it relates to 
computer memory which is a critical element in weapons designs -- 
primarily the cruise missile technology that we see on TV today. 
That memory technology in those guided missiles, that are 
unjammable, comes from the actual machine tool industry. And most 
people don't realize.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Hmm. What were the major undercover projects that you were 
involved in, involved through, over the years?
 
 
REED:
Well, in 1980 I moved to Oklahoma and ultimately became the vice- 
president of the trading company, a small firm that was trading 
in technology. We were involved in retooling America. The oil 
business -- in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and southern Arkansas, 
primarily -- was growing rapidly and was retooling, was 
automating and modernizing. And my firm was signing trade 
agreements with Japanese and European firms and we were importing 
machine tools to... These were machine tools that run pretty much 
unmanned. The industry is referred to [as] computer and numerical 
control, or C&C. And the C&C machine tools had very sophisticated 
memory in that day. In 1980, it was referred to as "bubble 
memory". And bubble memory technology had actually been developed 
by the United States Navy. The U.S. Navy, working on a grant, had 
been putting together the bubble memory technology to work with 
torpedoes for... The torpedoes would actually turn corners.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Um-hmm [understands].
 
 
REED:
And, you know, not have to go straight line trajectory.
 
The U.S. Air Force wanted that same memory technology to put into 
cruise missile technology, which in 1980 was still a pretty young 
industry.
 
But the civilians had access, through this joint venture, the 
civilian machine tool builders had access to this memory 
technology. And I was sitting there in the middle of a field 
that, quite frankly, all I cared about in 1980 was making up for 
my lost time, monetarily, from my 8 years of the U.S. Air Force 
time.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Would you say your most infamous project (or famous, to some) 
would have been the Mena, Arkansas training... the *contra* 
pilots? And also, what you found to be *beyond* just a training 
ground for *contras*.
 
 
REED:
Well as far as total voluntary participation, yes.
 
I found the travelling behind the iron curtain to be the most 
*stimulating*, from an *exciting* point of view, thinking about 
the consequences of getting caught. I didn't feel anyone was 
gonna get caught at Mena. Certainly you had the Arkansas state 
police, and the FBI, were actually running cover for this 
operation! The U.S. attorney's office in western Arkansas became 
the "black hole" of data. All federal authorities were reporting 
their findings about what we were doing to a U.S. attorney that 
was not indicting anyone.
 
So the interesting part that I've witnessed is, how fragile our 
system is.
 
 
DONAHUE:
And surprisingly, the only person that tried to blow the lid on 
this was IRS undercover agent, or CID agent, Bill Duncan.
 
 
REED:
Well, there were more than him. But we certainly detailed a lot 
of his information, since a lot of it's public record and he 
cooperated with John [Cummings] and myself. But the local sheriff 
there, a man by the name of Al Hadaway... Al Hadaway and his 
deputy, Terry Capehart(sp?), were on this thing from the very 
outset, and were surveilling, you know, everyone coming and 
going, taking photographs and diligently giving their material to 
the FBI. What *they* didn't know was, the FBI was "in on it" and 
was taking their information and literally doing nothing with it 
other than cataloging it in Little Rock...
 
 
DONAHUE:
So the sheriff thought by cooperating and passing this 
information along to the feds, he had done his duty.
 
 
REED:
Yes! That's correct. We have secret, classified messages that I 
have been able to get through my court discovery {4} in which 
they're saying, you know, they've notified the sheriff not to 
seize certain aircraft; that the DEA does, in fact, have a vested 
interest in some of Seal's aircraft.
 
So you have the right hand of law enforcement fighting the left 
hand. {5}. It's a very interesting situation to see it all fall 
apart and not work as a result of the White House's wishes to 
circumvent Boland.
 
 
DONAHUE:
We want to talk about consequences to one's actions -- especially 
if you go public, like you have. And let's talk about what 
happened to you: your indictment, your court case.
 
We'll be back with that, and we'll also bring into the mix John 
Cummings, investigative reporter *extraordinaire*.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
TOM DONAHUE:
Welcome back. The book is *Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the 
CIA*. How the Presidency was co-opted by the CIA. Terry Reed, 
John Cummings, are our guests. We'll be going to your phone calls 
in just a few minutes.
 
The book is available (I think) through some of the bookstores. 
{6}. But we're making it available to our listeners. [...gives 
info on how to order book...]
 
I want to go straight to John Cummings, investigative reporter 
and co-author of this book. John, why did Terry [Reed] come under 
attack? There are consequences when you speak out.
 
 
JOHN CUMMINGS:
Well Terry, of course, has a lot of knowledge that's very 
detrimental to some very big people -- namely, George Bush and 
Bill Clinton.
 
But a point I wanted to make, above and beyond that, is one of 
the fascinating aspects to this story. And I know everyone's 
focusing on Bill Clinton being involved, and George Bush. But a 
very parallel story is occurring south of the border, south of 
*your* [i.e. Texas] border, with Mexico. One of the people...
 
 
DONAHUE:
You mean our "NAFTA Neighbor"?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Huh?
 
 
DONAHUE:
Our "NAFTA Neighbor".
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Your "NAFTA Neighbor", that's how...
 
And Terry was put in play with a man, he was a young, aspiring 
Governor (like Bill Clinton) of a state in Mexico -- Michoacan -- 
and now he's the leading candidate, or *a* leading candidate, for 
the President of Mexico. And that's Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.
 
And he was put into play, with Terry, by the CIA so that they 
could set up some kind of permanent facility in Mexico for the 
production of arms and other activities.
 
And I... To me, it's fascinating that you have this parallel 
story of a Governor in Arkansas, and the Governor of Michoacan. 
And this is a man who the polls say, if they don't have a rigged 
election this time, could be the President of Mexico by the end 
of this year. {7}.
 
 
DONAHUE:
So it wouldn't be stretching the point to say that many 
Presidential creations, here and abroad (or, to the south of our 
border), are... they're CIA creatures, or creations.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well many leaders in small, third-world countries *are* CIA 
creations. I mean, we have 'em all over Latin America. Uh, as far 
as I know, this is the first one in the United States. But I 
could be wrong about that.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Hmm. Interesting. And your involvement with Terry Reed: I know 
you touched on it in the first hour, but expound on that. Why are 
you involved with Terry and working with him so closely?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Because it's a story I've been searching for for a long time! 
Ever since 1961, when the Bay of Pigs turned into such a 
disaster. And it's the confluence of political influence with 
intelligence operations, both [political] parties being "in bed 
together", and the confluence of guns and drugs.
 
And Terry was talking before about the people in Arkansas who 
*were* trying to investigate. And it's interesting (and we have 
it in the book): there's a photo of Terry, taken by one of the 
local police, standing in front of the hangar at the Mena 
airport, in 1984 -- just at the time he said. In fact, it was a 
very key piece of evidence for me, that made me convinced that 
the story (this was early on), that the story he was telling me 
was true.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Why was Terry indicted? What's the circumstances there?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well, when Terry found out about the drugs in Mexico being run 
out of his hangar, he said, "I'm no longer," (you know), "gonna 
be part of this. That's not something I want to be involved in." 
And at that point he made what he thought was an honorable exit 
from Mexico, only to find out that certain people in Arkansas, 
along with the Justice Department, had targeted him for 
indictment. And possibly death.
 
 
DONAHUE:
And, to be indicted for what reason?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
He was indicted for allegedly stealing his own airplane and then 
collecting the insurance on it. Which of course was untrue, and 
he was acquitted by a judge of that charge -- after the 
government, after two-and-a-half years, announcing it had no case 
and it had no evidence.
 
 
DONAHUE:
And about that time...
 
 
CUMMINGS:
..decided to shut him up. I mean they were trying to close his 
mouth.
 
 
DONAHUE:
So Terry was speaking out at that time.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
No, but they were afraid. Terry wasn't speaking out at that point 
in time, but they were afraid he would.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Because he said, "No more," and he...
 
 
CUMMINGS:
[There has been contention for who will speak (above). Now 
Cummings interrupts] I'm sorry. They considered him a "whistle 
blower" I guess.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Or if not, a potential whistle blower because...
 
 
CUMMINGS:
A potential whistle blower.
 
 
DONAHUE:
..he separated himself and was parting ways.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Yes. And I'm sure George Bush, who was running for election at 
that point in time, did not want to have Terry Reed talking, nor 
did Bill Clinton either, in Arkansas.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Bottom of the hour pause here. Right back. Stay tuned.
 
[...break...]
 
Tom Donahue, "America's Town Forum," patriotism in action. Terry 
Reed, John Cummings, are our special guests. The book is 
*Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA*. How the Presidency was 
co-opted by the CIA.
 
Are we ready for calls, gentlemen? Or John, did you want to say 
anything more before we...
 
 
CUMMINGS:
No, that was the only point I wanted to make -- about Mexico.
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
I thought it would be of some interest. Particularly...
 
 
DONAHUE:
What was the time line (before we go to the calls) on the 
indictment and Terry being cleared of those charges?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well, it was two-and-a-half years.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Give us the exact dates on those.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
He was indicted, I believe, on June 1st, 1988... That's right.
 
 
DONAHUE:
'88. O.K.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
And he was acquitted by a judge on November the 9th, 1990.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Hmm. O.K. And obviously George Bush would have been deeply 
concerned about this information getting out if... He wouldn't 
have been President. And certainly Clinton knew of *his* 
Presidential hopes and aspirations.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well it's particularly true, because one of the people who was 
Terry's superior in Mexico was a man named Felix Rodriguez, who 
boasts openly about his relationship with George Bush.
 
 
TOM DONAHUE:
Give us a little background on Mr. Rodriguez. Many other guests 
have talked about him.
 
 
JOHN CUMMINGS:
Mr. Rodriguez?
 
 
DONAHUE:
Yeah.
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well Mr. Rodriguez is a very fabled character in the Cuban exile 
community, in Miami. He is the man, his claim to fame, is he's 
the man who caught Che Guevara. Or, not caught him, but who went 
to interrogate him for the CIA. He cut off Che Guevara's hands -- 
some say before Guevara was killed -- as proof that they did in 
fact have *the* Che Guevara. And since that time, he has 
travelled in some very important circles -- particularly in 
Florida and in the circle of George Bush and others -- as "the 
great anti-communist patriot".
 
 
DONAHUE:
Hasn't he been indicted, and the finger pointed at Mr. Rodriguez 
by many Latin American countries, as a major drug runner?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
He's never been indicted. He has been *accused* of being involved 
in drug operations, but... something he has steadfastly denied. 
{8}.
 
 
DONAHUE:
How about the Noriega connection to Bush? Have you done much 
research in that area?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well not beyond what, not really much beyond what was talked 
about. In the book [*Compromised*], Terry [Reed] talks about 
Rodriguez discussing with [Oliver] North and others about finding 
a substitute funding for Arkansas' money laundry, out of Panama. 
This was after the agency was threatening, agency [CIA] had 
decided to leave Arkansas. And Terry can tell you about that much 
better than I.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Let me just... We'll touch on that before we go to the calls.
 
Terry, when did the Mena, Arkansas operation shut down? And where 
has it moved to?
 
 
TERRY REED:
Well for all practical purposes, it was over by December of 1985 
-- the flight training aspects of it. We graduated 24 students. 
So the pressure was off to get some Nicaraguans at the controls 
of the aircraft in Central America. In fact, they were going 
along to be upgraded into C-123 aircraft, in like an "OJT", or 
"on the job training" program down there.
 
 
DONAHUE:
How about the drug and money-laundering aspects of this 
operation?
 
 
REED:
Well, by that point... See, my information gets a little sketchy 
as of September of '85 because, what happened was, the decision 
was made to put together... These are very business oriented 
people that are involved in this decision making, and they wanted 
to see what would be necessary to put together what is called a 
"front company", a CIA proprietary, to run on Mexican soil. It 
would pretend to be a high-technology trading company, as I was 
familiar in running. So I was tasked with putting together a 
business plan, to see how that would all transpire.
 
My direct knowledge of what was going on in Arkansas in 1986 is 
simply that the cash flights were still occurring when I left 
Arkansas in the spring of '86. It was still ongoing, but we 
certainly were making every effort to move the entire operation 
offshore.
 
 
DONAHUE:
So it looks like Mexico could really be the primary training base 
and source of... I guess that would be the actual location.
 
 
REED:
Yeah I actually moved there and lived there for the better part 
of 19 months. And right at a little town south of Guadalajara, 
called Chapala, a beautiful little retirement community. I lived 
there and my wife taught school there and I had... My third son 
was actually born in Guadalajara.
 
But up at the Guadalajara airport, my company, *Maquinaria 
Internacional* [International Machinery], was based to, on the 
surface, be trading in machine tools and high technology -- 
automating Mexico to get their export economy built up. But in 
reality, we were warehousing and storing guns, and had plans to 
build this manufacturing facility, that John had mentioned, down 
in a little town, Morelia, Mexico -- the capital of the state of 
Michoacan.
 
 
DONAHUE:
So our "NAFTA Neighbor" will be the next Mena. I mean, that's 
where we can operate out of.
 
 
REED:
Well, let me take the other side of that story. I mean, I think 
we're buying Mexico. I think what's going on here is, Mexico's 
becoming our colony. Our 51st state, someday, is slowly to be 
acquired through... Of course my background goes back to 
intelligence linkage, but I think Cardenas is the man for the 
job. I certainly hope my book does not interfere with him *being* 
President of Mexico. Somebody needs to disrupt something with the 
PRI [Mexico's ruling political party since at least the 1930s], 
certainly the most corrupt, evil political outfit *I've* ever run 
across. And I can say that firsthand: I lived there. They're to 
be feared.
 
But I'm not saying that I'm for the CIA acquiring all foreign 
governments [i.e., Cardenas is allegedly a CIA asset]. But I 
think Cardenas is the man for the job down there.
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K. Let's go straight to phone calls. Jeff, in Dallas: Go ahead, 
Jeff.
 
 
JEFF:
Good morning, gentlemen.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Direct your question to either Terry Reed or John Cummings.
 
 
JEFF:
Mr. Reed, do you recall the name of the DEA agent who was 
tortured?
 
 
REED:
Yes. "Kiki" Camarena. Enrique Camarena.
 
 
JEFF:
O.K. Wasn't he from Texas?
 
 
REED:
I believe he was from southern California. (I think my memory 
serves me correctly.)
 
Yeah, he was killed in 1985, prior to me moving there [i.e., to 
Mexico]. Yes, he and his pilot, his DEA-assigned pilot, were both 
tortured to death. And of course that's been the subject of a lot 
of speculation on what he really knew, and why they did what they 
did, and, actually, who was there during the interrogation. And I 
don't believe anybody... I believe there's some people in prison 
for his death. But as you recall, they released the Mexican 
doctor that actually administered drugs to him to keep him awake 
during his interrogation. [The Mexican doctor] was, you know, 
kidnapped off the streets of Guadalajara and brought up into the 
U.S. and was later released, I believe.
 
 
JEFF:
Uh-huh. Well I think his name should be remembered and people 
should know that...
 
 
REED: Well I do, as well.
 
 
JEFF:
..that he died, you know, for a cause. {9}. And -- What was his 
name? His last name, once more?
 
 
REED:
Camarena. Enrique Camarena.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Thank you, Jeff.
 
 
JEFF:
All right.
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K. We're gonna move on to Jack, in the great state of 
Massachusetts. Go ahead, Jack.
 
 
JACK [Phone caller]:
Hi. I have a couple of quotes for you gentlemen.
 
 
TOM DONAHUE:
All right.
 
 
JACK:
And a couple of questions: one on Bush, one on Clinton and the 
CIA.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Mmm-hmm [understands].
 
 
JACK:
First quote comes from Elie Wiesel -- you know, the holocaust 
man, the great Elie Wiesel? -- who says that the CIA should be 
abolished! The quote is, "The CIA should be eliminated."
 
I guess, you know, one wonders... The abuses...
 
 
DONAHUE:
So does former President Harry Truman...
 
 
JACK:
That's right. Yeah.
 
 
DONAHUE:
..or did.
 
 
JACK:
Anyway. Also, another quote is from, I guess the second leading 
man in the government, the Speaker of the House, leader of 
Congress, Jim Wright, when he was the Speaker from Texas. And he 
said that the CIA (this is about a year before he was forced 
out), he said, "The CIA causes all these riots and troubles and 
assassinations and wars all around the world." I don't know if 
you remember that famous quote or not.
 
My two questions, though, uh the first one on Bush and one on 
Clinton: Do you remember that, in the late '80s, that this 
memorandum came out about George Bush? It said that there was *a* 
"George Bush", who was a CIA agent or operative, in Dallas the 
day that the President, our beloved President Kennedy...
 
 
DONAHUE:
..either the CIA or the government reported to Bush. Um...
 
 
JACK:
Bush denied this emphatically, that he was the "George Bush" 
agent for the CIA. I mean, God forbid he was the trigger man or 
whatever. But the point is that, you know, that that was 
reported. That memorandum. I was wondering if your two guests had 
heard *that*.
 
 
DONAHUE:
All right. Thanks, Jack.
 
 
JACK:
And my question [cut off]...
 
 
DONAHUE:
I want to go back to our guests here on this.
 
Uh, George Bush's connections. Some have alluded he was involved 
somehow, maybe even on the fringes, of the Kennedy assassination, 
and he was in the CIA at that time.
 
 
TERRY REED:
Well I have no personal knowledge of that, of course. But I 
think... I say this about... To address the question about the 
CIA: We, right in the front of the book... I went to the Harry 
Truman archives, the library, and found a letter that we put 
right in the front of the book, about Truman's views on the CIA. 
Because Harry Truman is the man that formed the CIA. {10}.
 
Now I, like Harry Truman, feel that the CIA's mission was to gain 
intelligence. And I think we still need that, especially now, 
with the USSR no longer in business and the fight over plutonium 
and everything else that's going on. {11}. But I don't think that 
the CIA's mandate should be to *tamper* with foreign governments. 
I think, as Harry [Truman] indicated in that letter, in the front 
of the book, (which is a real short letter, I'll read one 
paragraph...)
 
 
DONAHUE:
Why don't you do that.
 
 
REED:
It says, "The CIA was set up by me for the sole purpose of 
getting all the available information to the President." Period. 
"It was *not* intended to operate as an international agency 
engaged in strange activities. Sincerely yours, Harry S. Truman."
 
Being a man that speaks rather directly -- and I think I'm the 
same way. I was raised near his home and we're taught to speak 
pretty straight in southern Missouri -- I agree with Harry.
 
 
DONAHUE:
He commissioned it. He was the architect of this, believing that 
this agency would serve the President and the Congress and give 
the information we needed on potential enemies or perceived 
enemies at that time. But it is now an agency completely out of 
control, that doesn't seem to report to anyone and has a 
*massive* budget. My understanding is a $30 billion budget?
 
 
REED:
Well its budget is even classified, right?
 
But no, it [CIA] wasn't even to report to Congress, Tom, it was 
just to him [Truman]. If you study the history of when he took 
over the Presidency -- Roosevelt was such a strong President and 
had been in office for so long, when Harry assumed the office, he 
didn't trust the people around him. They were disobedient. They 
lied to him; he caught them lying. Because, as he put in one of 
his letters that I've read, the Department of Agriculture had a 
better worldwide intelligence network than he did! He was caught 
between the military lying to him, and the Department of 
Agriculture, which had agents in the field monitoring crops 
around the world. It was an amazing environment when he took 
over. And I think it was almost a coup environment. So he formed 
the CIA, literally with a handful of people. I believe it was, 
initially, 5 guys. And then it grew into 8 or 10. And then, of 
course, it just kept mushrooming...
 
 
DONAHUE:
And it became a greater creature, a monster, if you will, than 
all others put together, or combined.
 
 
REED:
But he had it under control, until Congress took it over. 
Congress became jealous of the fact that he had access to 
information and they didn't. And a major play was made to 
basically turn it into a federal agency. And they were successful 
in doing that.
 
 
DONAHUE:
O.K. Let's -- and I just want to thank the sponsor. We're not 
gonna take the "time out" here except just to thank Swiss America 
Trading [...]
 
Bill Clinton. His involvement. *When* did he know? *What* did he 
know? How much involvement in this Mena, Arkansas, either 
operation or cover-up, do you believe the President to be?
 
 
REED:
Well John [Cummings] and I devoted 3 chapters and 31 pages to a 
meeting that took place in the spring of '86. I don't profess, 
Tom, to have been in charge of this operation. I just sort of 
acquired knowledge, as anyone would over 15 months or so.
 
But basically, I couldn't see how this could be going on, at the 
level it was, without state involvement. After I was involved a 
little on the light of a year, I received an "accidental 
promotion" as I call it, or a "field promotion", and was then put 
in play with this guy, Bob Nash, who was a cabinet-level officer 
of Clinton's government [in Arkansas.] He [Nash] wanted to know 
how many flights were being flown, what the status of the 
training was. So I knew at that point that the state was at least 
"in the loop" from an informational level.
 
But the meeting in the spring of '86, that Clinton attended as we 
were pulling out of Arkansas: He [Clinton] showed up unannounced, 
uninvited. Bob Nash was supposed to attend to represent the 
state, but he [Clinton] showed up to complain about certain 
things -- and it takes a long time to discuss that. But 
basically, he was in trouble politically that year and did not 
want to be left with the "baggage", of the residue, of this 
operation, coming out and blind-siding him during what was 
turning out to be a very contested political uphill battle for 
him in the spring of '86.
 
So based upon that meeting and the conversation that ensued, I 
can say he knew all about it. Certainly he didn't appear to be 
doing so hard to complain about the withdrawal of something if 
you weren't aware of its presence to begin with. {12}.
 
 
TOM DONAHUE:
Well George Bush, I think it's been proven beyond a shadow of a 
doubt, was "in the loop". Ollie North reported to him, George 
Bush, "Mr. CIA". He was vice-President. He was put in place to 
keep Reagan in check. {13}.
 
And so, it almost seems that the perfect successor to George Bush 
would be Bill Clinton, *because* of his involvement -- not only 
through Bilderbergs and TriLats [Trilateral Commission] and CFR 
[Council on Foreign Relations] -- but because of what he knew and 
to keep those secrets, secret indeed, in Arkansas.
 
 
TERRY REED:
That's exactly correct. I had lunch about 3 weeks ago with some 
very interesting people in Washington. One of these men was the 
actual drafter of what is called the "Reagan Doctrine". And he 
made a statement that I thought was interesting. He said, you 
know, George Bush would not have survived a second term. The 
Iran-Contra affair was going to nail him in the first quarter of 
the first year of his second term. At the rate Walsh [Lawrence 
Walsh] was moving -- which, as this man said, was with the speed 
of a glacier, uh he was going in a certain direction. And it was, 
you know, the moment he nailed "Cap" Weinberger in (what, I 
believe it was what, October or November of 1992?), the moment he 
got to the President's men, the President was next. And that 
decision had been made that Bush would basically *not* be re- 
elected.
 
 
DONAHUE:
And Bush pardoned all the President's men.
 
 
REED:
Yes. I mean, what you've got is a President that, I mean, was 
*told* to basically throw the match. You know, go out there as a 
prize fighter and go out in the first round. Don't fight back.
 
As they sat there -- and these were Republican handlers! These 
people, one is Dr. Jack Wheeler(sp?), who helped draft the Reagan 
Doctrine. And I have no reason not to believe him as he sits 
there and says, "These decisions were made. And [we] decided we 
wanted Clinton in because we could control him, and eliminate him 
in his first 4 years, and get a Republican back in after 4 
years." And I thought, "Now this sounds like a master 
intelligence plan to me." So I subscribe to that theory right 
there.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Well many of us saw that George Bush didn't campaign. There was 
no fight put up. He was a beleaguered horse to be put out to 
pasture. But what you're saying *beyond* this -- and many 
conspiracy theories that I *do* subscribe to -- is that he was 
told, that George Bush was told, that it was his time to move on, 
and Bill Clinton *was* selected at the Bilderberg meeting to be 
the most likely candidate if the American people... The American 
people still had to fit into the equation: they have to get the 
right media, publicity, and certainly the right campaigning to 
engineer this. But *you're* saying here that because of Iran- 
Contra, because of the report that was due to be released, and 
because of Mena and other things, George Bush *had* to leave. I 
mean, there was...
 
 
REED:
That's right.
 
 
DONAHUE:
..I mean, he knew his political fortune was spent. And they 
thought they could keep Bill Clinton in check and they had enough 
dirt on him, the higher-ups that run this government behind the 
scenes, that Clinton was the man. He was selected.
 
 
REED:
Well there was a famous study done by NASA, they were studying 
the intelligence of chimpanzees -- you ever remember reading 
about that? -- where a chimpanzee played tic-tac-toe with a 
rhesus monkey. And the reward for winning was a banana. And the 
tic-tac-toe game was dominated by the chimpanzee to the point 
[that] the rhesus would quit to play, would quit playing.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Right.
 
 
REED:
And the chimp figured out he had to throw the game occasionally 
to keep the rhesus' interest.
 
And I compare that to the Republicans being in the White House 
for 12 years. If you stay in 16 [years], the people are gonna 
probably get a pretty good idea that, I mean, the Democrats are 
gonna field a strong candidate, probably seize power for at least 
8 [years]. But if you allow a weak Democratic candidate to 
elevate himself to that position {14}, chances are he'll only be 
in 4 [years]... or less, as I think this is gonna turn out to be. 
And the Republicans *will* be back in '96, if not sooner. And I 
think that's the way it's gonna play out, personally.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Well actually, it would have to be '96. Although we might have Al 
Gore replacing Billy Boy soon.
 
The millstone, truly, beyond "Whitewater rafting" {15}: Is it 
gonna be Mena, Arkansas? Or is it gonna be... And I guess Mena as 
well as the bond peddling that went on.
 
 
REED:
Well the first money audit of Arkansas is occurring right now. 
There's never been a money audit into Arkansas' financial 
business. Uh, there's... No one's ever had subpoena power to pull 
back the layers of these relationships. And it's mine and John's 
[John Cummings'] theory, and we certainly didn't intend our book 
to be the vehicle to be used as a roadmap to "nuke" Bill Clinton. 
But I think that's what it's gonna turn out to be is, our book is 
already being compared to *Uncle Tom's Cabin* {16}. Sort of a 
scarey statement, but it's becoming the research vehicle to 
describe the behind-the-scenes relationships, the atmosphere in 
Arkansas (for those that didn't live there in 1985, '86). The 
atmosphere is captured there to understand that you're dealing 
with this vertical chess game [i.e. many levels]. And I think, 
what I've been saying, is Whitewater's gonna turn into 
Blackwater. As the relationship of the CIA is exposed, that's 
what's gonna ultimately destroy Bill Clinton, I think.
 
 
DONAHUE:
It's gonna be Deepwater for him, indeed. Deep "do-do". Quicksand, 
if you will.
 
Terry Reed, John Cummings. We're gonna come back with their final 
words. And we can squeeze a call or two in as well. Right back.
 
[...commercial break...]
 
TOM DONAHUE:
We're back. Tom Donahue, "America's Town Forum".
 
Clinton is a man of many contradictions. And I certainly think 
that this book proves that he was a CIA asset. A CIA connection 
here for sure. Maybe this might be his *darkest* secrets 
unveiled. But we find many bodies that are showing up. Uh, Barry 
Seal, among others.
 
I want to go back to a final word from John Cummings before we go 
to Terry [Reed]. Go ahead, John.
 
 
JOHN CUMMINGS:
I just wanted to make the point, you were talking before about 
"bringing the American people into the equation" and the decision 
to go for Bill Clinton and the "getting the right media" -- One 
of the things, obviously, that had to be done was to silence 
Terry and to trash him and to keep him from talking. And *Time* 
magazine did that for Clinton at a very critical time in the 
Presidential campaign in 1992.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Didn't he use his best friend, Strobe Talbott, his former 
roommate and who became ambassador-at-large and now second-in- 
command at the State Department?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
That's the... That's who Strobe Talbott is.
 
And *Time* magazine, you know... It's astounding. A lot of people 
pick it up and they said, "Why did they spend a whole page 
trashing a guy that no one ever heard of?" {17}. And Mr. Clinton 
obviously was very worried. One more scandal after Gennifer 
Flowers and he was finished.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Is *Compromised* the true story of Bill Clinton's political 
sellout to the CIA?
 
 
CUMMINGS:
Well I mean, Bill Clinton obviously did business with the CIA -- 
either for himself or because he felt he needed to do it for his 
state. To me, I think of it as Bill Clinton's Faustian deal, 
which just about everyone has to make to rise in the political 
power world.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Bill Clinton denounces the '80s as the "decade of greed", and we 
now know that he and Hillary participated greatly in that. He 
also denounced the Iran-Contra figures and the mission and 
purpose. And lo and behold! Bill Clinton pops up!
 
 
CUMMINGS:
More political hypocrisy.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Hypocrisy indeed.
 
John, I thank you for your participation today in the Town Forum. 
And Terry, uh I want to take a quick call here. Alan, from 
Boston. Go ahead, Alan.
 
Alan, you still with us?
 
 
ALAN:
Hello?
 
 
DONAHUE:
Go ahead, Alan.
 
 
ALAN:
Hi. You know, I do find it somewhat amusing that both of your 
guests and yourself will criticize Clinton and Bush, but you 
exempt President Reagan from any culpability or criticism in this 
whole matter! I mean, it's under his stewardship that this policy 
was invented!
 
 
DONAHUE:
Uh, I would agree "under his stewardship".
 
 
ALAN:
But you exempt him from any criticism here just because he's a 
right-wing icon!
 
 
DONAHUE:
No he's not... I... He's no hero to me!
 
 
ALAN:
I mean, it makes no sense to me!
 
 
DONAHUE:
Well let me ask our guests, and see what they think.
 
Reagan's involvement. Do you think Reagan knew very much? Was 
he... It *is* under his watch.
 
 
TERRY REED:
Well let me talk about the Reagan Doctrine. This man, Jack 
Wheeler, who wrote the Reagan Doctrine (which was secret, by the 
way, because you couldn't make it public because the Soviets 
would know what our plans were)... The plan was to bankrupt the 
USSR in 8 years. They figured out that the USSR would, in fact, 
as he put it, "engage in mindless, senseless violence around the 
world." They *would* get involved in Vietnam-style action as a 
way of promoting their own policies. And the Reagan Doctrine 
*was*, in fact, encouraging that kind of behavior: Afghanistan, 
Angola, Nicaragua were examples of that. {18}.
 
 
DONAHUE:
One final note: On Ollie North -- Did Reagan sell him out? And 
also, should people support Ollie North for United States Senate?
 
 
REED:
Well I... Was he a scapegoat? Certainly. Did he take a fall? Yes. 
He was basically the G. Gordon Liddy of that scandal. Would I 
vote for him? Yes. He's qualified, he's a liar. {19}.
 
 
DONAHUE:
Hmm... O.K.
 
I hope that you'll be in peace. I hope that you'll be in good 
health. Because many that have exposed Bill Clinton found 
themselves, not only their reputations besmirched (which they 
try), but dead. I hope that you don't end up in a body bag.
 
And I thank you, Terry Reed, John Cummings. The book is 
*Compromised*. It's available through us [...] Well worth your 
time and read, when you have the time!
 
Tom Donahue, for "America's Town Forum".
 
 
--------------------------<< Notes >>----------------------------
{1} "...to train a small group of pilots, Nicaraguan nationals, 
to basically liberate..." Depending on your point of view, this 
could also be read as "liberate", i.e., that there was nothing to 
liberate, that the Sandinistas were, in fact, the good guys.
 
{2} "All *I* saw was cash being flown back in." Here Reed means 
while he was in Arkansas. When he later went down to Mexico and 
saw that cocaine was being warehoused for shipment to the U.S., 
at that point he divorced himself from the operation.
 
{3} Mena, "...this little town of 5,000 people..." Future major 
tourist attraction? See where it all happened! Bring the kids!
 
{4} "...court discovery..." I think this means that, because Reed 
was under indictment at the time, because a defendant is entitled 
to any evidence that will help prove his innocence, then prior to 
trial Reed went through a "discovery process" during which he had 
access to information that could be used in his defense. (Note 
that Reed was later found "Not guilty".)
 
{5} "...the right hand of law enforcement fighting the left 
hand." Just like our "War on Drugs", where the CIA brings the 
drugs into the United States and the DEA tries to stop drugs 
from being brought into the United States.
 
{6} Yes, the book is available through the bookstores or can be 
ordered through them.
 
{7} Regarding Cuauhtemoc Cardenas: He did not win the election 
for President of Mexico.
 
{8} "He [Mr. Rodriguez] has been *accused* of being involved in 
drug operations, but... something he has steadfastly denied." 
Then again, if he *were* involved, what's he gonna say -- "Yes, 
it's true. (Sighs) You have caught me."
 
{9} "...he ["Kiki" Camarena] died, you know, for a cause." Yes, 
he died for a cause, but for whose cause? I recommend a couple of 
books by another DEA agent, Mike Levine (*Deep Cover*, and *The 
Big White Lie*). Mr. Levine was fortunate in that he finally saw 
through the sham of our "War on Drugs" and got out of it while 
still alive, unlike the unfortunate Mr. Camarena.
   From the October 26, 1993, "Conspiracy for the Day":
 
  [BFR -- Mike Levine, author of *Deep Cover* (see part 2 of 
  today's CfD) spoke at the university where I was an 
  undergraduate in 1991. Following are excerpts from the 
  student newspaper's report of his talk.]
 
  Former DEA Agent: "Drug war all a show"
  by Paul Kirk, Staff Reporter
 
  "The drug war's a sham," said former Drug Enforcement Agent 
  Mike Levine at the Holmes Student Center Tuesday night.
 
  Levine hinted that those in the DEA who come too close to 
  the political reality of the drug war sometimes mysteriously 
  lose their lives.
 
  Levine recalled the time a former agent, Sandy Barrio, was 
  accused by the DEA of drug smuggling. He died of strychnine 
  poisoning while awaiting trial.
 
  But Barrio's death certificate was fixed to read that he 
  died of asphyxiation on a peanut butter sandwich, Levine 
  said.
 
  "I threw my life to the winds believing in the war against 
  drugs. If I died, I believed I was dying for a just cause," 
  Levine said.
 
  "I realized the reality of what I was doing never quite 
  matched what the public was seeing," he said.
 
  Levine cited a mission which he followed into Asia during 
  the Vietnam War.
 
  The bodies of dead soldiers were being used for containers 
  to ship heroin back to the United States. Levine 
  investigated the deal all the way to the production line 
  where he was stopped by his superiors.
 
  Levine said he experienced such evasion techniques by his 
  superiors throughout his career. He said he watched the 
  values of the drug war plummet into oblivion.
 
  "DEA was designed to put itself out of business but that 
  doesn't happen. The opposite happens. It's always 'we need 
  more,'" he said.
 
  "The drug war programs are ill-conceived. All that 
  politicians are is parrots," said Levine.
 
  "It's all a show. 'We need more money. We're going to get 
  these guys,'" Levine said, mimicking the politicians. "The 
  drug war is the laughing stock of South America."
 
  Levine said the United States needs to direct the money 
  designated for the drug war toward domestic problems which 
  breed the drug problem. He said he believes small community 
  involvement is the key.
 
{10} "...Harry Truman is the man that formed the CIA." This is 
our Karma: Truman, representing us as our President, drops the 
bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In return, to pay off our Karmic 
debt, we get the CIA.
 
{11} "...with the USSR no longer in business and the fight over 
plutonium and everything else..." Could explain the reports of 
Russian military equipment being seen in the U.S., as is being 
thoroughly covered by *The Spotlight*. We know there is a Russian 
mafia that is "asset stripping", i.e., selling state property on 
the black market. Suppose the U.S. is buying Russian military 
equipment at bargain prices from the new Russian mafia: Would the 
U.S. government admit to this?
   U.S. government buys Russian military items from the Russian 
mafia, brings these items to the U.S., items are seen, alarm is 
sounded: Russian military equipment in U.S.! What will the U.S. 
government do, admit they bought the equipment on the black 
market? Or will they do their usual denials, and thereby 
(inadvertently) further inflame anxieties regarding the presence 
of Russian military equipment?
 
{12} From the book (*Compromised*, by Terry Reed & John Cummings):
 
    Now the meeting was starting to turn into a shouting 
    match. Terry [Reed] quietly observed that Clinton 
    appeared on the verge of losing his well-rehearsed, 
    statesman-like demeanor. Stopping investigations around 
    Mena had helped the CIA and its bosses in Washington, 
    but it had not solved any of the governor's local 
    political problems. And these same problems were 
    threatening to unveil the Mena operations. [Chapter 17, 
    "New Covenant", p. 230.]
 
{13} "He [Bush] was put in place to keep Reagan in check." Here's 
what Bo Gritz has to say (from Conspiracy for the Day, March 11, 
1994, *excerpts only*):
 
  In Mesa, I met with him [Cleon Skaas(?)] and I said, "Why in 
  the world did Ronald Reagan sell us down the tube by taking 
  George Bush as his running mate?" And I really didn't know 
  that Cleon knew Ronald Reagan rather well. But he told me: He 
  said, "Bo, George Bush was Ronald Reagan's greatest 
  opponent," (if you'll remember, back in the 1980 elections), 
  "and Ronald Reagan said he would never have him. Then, Ronald 
  Reagan was invited to New York to go see Rockefeller. When he 
  saw Rockefeller, he was told, 'If you do not take my head of 
  the Trilateral Commission'" (remember, the Council on Foreign 
  Relations, George Bush) "'as your running mate, the only way 
  you'll see the inside of the White House is as a tourist.'"
 
  "Now, when you read Kitty Calley's junk about the Reagan 
  family, even if one percent of it is true, you can see a man 
  with great vanity wouldn't want that dirty laundry exposed. 
  And who even knows the vice-President? So I honestly thought 
  Ronald Reagan said, 'Well, George Bush will never hurt any of 
  us. Because I'm going to be President.'"
 
  [...]
 
  Two months after he was inaugurated, two months is all that 
  Ronald Reagan lasted. March 30th, 1981, two months after his 
  inauguration in January of 1981, he was shot -- was he not? 
  And the news said that he was shot by John Hinckley, jr. and 
  that John Hinckley, jr. was some kind of a Jodie Foster 
  freak. And that he came out of nowhere, and that he shot 
  Brady in the head, and he shot a policeman in the neck, and 
  he shot a Secret Service man and blew him back over the 
  vehicle, and he shot Ronald Reagan. Right?
 
  [...]
 
  When Brady was shot, no question. Here we've got John 
  Hinckley, jr. Oh, by the way, is John Hinckley, jr. just some 
  kind of a "weirdo?" Isn't it strange that John Hinckley, sr. 
  is the owner of Vanderbilt Oil? And, of course, George Bush 
  is the owner of Zapata Oil. Was it a coincidence, then, that 
  John Hinckley, sr. and George Bush are neighbors *for years* 
  in Houston, Texas, working together? Is it any coincidence 
  that John Hinckley, sr., when you go back through the FEC, 
  the Federal Election Commission, his own record of giving 
  maximum donations every year to Mr. Bush even when he started 
  running for Congress. Well now, does that make his son, John 
  Hinckley, jr. seem a little bit less of a coincidence? I 
  think it does. Here's why:
 
  When the President was shot, if you'll remember, he was 
  pushed into the car by a man named Jerry Parr(sp?) that was 
  his Secret Service guard. Jerry Parr fell on top of him and, 
  I just saw in the *Reader's Digest* where Jerry Parr was 
  telling his "valiant story." And the limousine tore off, 
  didn't it? Now it was *five minutes later* that the ambulance 
  arrived and they put the Secret Service man, the Washington, 
  D.C. policeman, and Brady in the ambulance and *it* roared 
  off. Using normal time-rate/distance, who should have arrived 
  at George Washington University Hospital first? The President 
  should have. Well, who did? You know it's a trick question. 
  The ambulance arrived 15 minutes before the President. When 
  asked, "What happened?" the Secret Service simply responded, 
  "We got lost."
 
  The Secret Service does not get lost in Washington, D.C. They 
  don't get lost in most places of the world. And so, now the 
  investigation starts to get a little interesting. When they 
  take Ronald Reagan in, they can see that he... matter of 
  fact, his heart almost stopped. And he is convulsing; there's 
  blood on his lips. They know he's hurt... seriously. But they 
  can find no wounds. They X-ray him *3 times* and can find 
  nothing.
 
  Finally, a nurse notices a tiny entrance wound right at the 
  seventh rib, underneath the armpit. And a doctor takes a 
  probe, and by... very carefully, because they couldn't see it 
  on X-ray, the doctor is able to extract what he said was a 
  planchet, thinner than a dime, that was one-quarter inch from 
  Ronald Reagan's aorta.
 
  Now, Ronald Reagan says... as a matter of fact, let me just 
  see if I can just read it to you... best what Ronnie says. 
  I've got all this in the book... This came right out of a 
  newspaper:
 
    I knew I had been hurt, but I thought that I'd been hurt 
    by the Secret Service man landing on me in the car. As 
    it was, I must say it was the most paralyzing pain. I've 
    described it as if someone hit you with a hammer. But 
    the sensation, it seemed to me, came after I was in the 
    car and so I thought that maybe his gun or something had 
    broken a rib. I set up on the seat, and the pain 
    wouldn't go away -- and suddenly, I found I was coughing 
    up blood.
 
  Now you see, to almost anyone else you might say, "Well, just 
  some kind of a fluke." But I'm a skeptic. Because I know how 
  these things have happened ever since they "took out" John 
  Fitzgerald Kennedy. I think maybe JFK was the last honest 
  President that we had...
 
{14} "But if you allow a weak Democratic candidate to elevate 
himself to that position..." As also with Carter. Carter and 
Clinton, both Governors, both unfamiliar with the Washington 
scene, both novices.
   We have (1) JFK, a Democrat, gets killed; (2) Johnson is 
somehow controlled so a serious investigation of the JFK 
assassination doesn't happen; (3) Nixon, a Republican. No serious 
investigation of the JFK assassination; (4) Carter, a Democrat. 
Finally, an attempt is made at a serious investigation, but 
hidden forces seek to hamper it; (5) Reagan and Bush, no 
investigation; (6) Clinton. Claims to be a reincarnation of JFK, 
but why no investigation nor any moves in that direction? 
Instead, Clinton does a rare thing: promotes the movie "Line of 
Fire" which supports the official version of the JFK 
assassination. How often does a President go out of his way to 
endorse a movie?
   Also, after the movie "JFK" came out, reporters asked Bush 
what he thought of it. Here's Bush: "Huh? A movie called 'JFK' 
did you say?"
 
{15} "Whitewater rafting". This seems to be a euphemism for the 
public perception of Whitewater (i.e. a land deal gone sour) 
versus the deeper complexities of drug and gun running, murder, 
intimidation, etc. In other words, "Whitewater rafting" conjures 
up an innocent perception, or indeed a *surface* perception -- 
*rafting*. But beneath the surface there is much more.
 
{16} "*Uncle Tom's Cabin*" A bestselling book from the time of 
the American Civil War. The book had an enormous popular reaction.
 
{17} Regarding *Time* magazine: Also did a smear on Uri Geller in 
the 1970s; also praised Posner's *Case Closed* to the skies; also 
did a ridiculous story on Larry Nichols quite recently. As my 
uncle used to say: "*Life* [magazine] is for people who can't 
read. *Time* [magazine] is for people who can't think."
 
{18} Reed's answering of the caller's original question is cut 
off by Donahue due to time constraints.
 
{19} "[Ollie North] Would I vote for him? Yes. He's qualified, 
he's a liar." Reed's last statement is enigmatic. Because time 
has run out, clarification never follows the "He's qualified, 
he's a liar."


 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."
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(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Radio Free Michigan site by the archive maintainer.

 Protection of
Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu)