AS
PUBLISHED IN THE November/December, 1999 issue
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS
SUBJECT WE RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING ITEMS
- Extracts and Commentary, Vol. II
CIA's IG Report
- Albert Vincent Carone The Missing
Link Between The CIA and The Mob
- The Tyree Papers
- CIA, Drugs and The Impeachment
- A Subscription to From The Wilderness
Questionable Document Causes Stir
Bill Casey Drug Letter Ordered Sealed By U.S. Judge
by
Michael C. Ruppert
For months now we have been telling you
about a letter, purportedly written by Ronald Reagan's CIA
Director, William Casey, that admits direct CIA involvement
in the drug trade during the Contra War years. The letter
appeared anonymously, via the U.S. Mail in the hands of
Dee Ferdinand, daughter of deceased CIA operative Albert
Carone who has been trying to recapture personal funds,
pensions and benefits due her and her family after her father's
1990 murder. Not sure what to do with the letter she contacted
retired CIA executive Ted Shackley and read him the contents.
That was last spring. Shackley (according to Ferdinand,
as reported in June) after hearing the letter told Ferdinand
to "call the CIA and the FBI and tell them that you
have this letter. Ask them to come pick it up because you
are not supposed to have it."
Ferdinand gave the letter to her attorney,
Ray Kohlman of Massachusetts, who also represents former
Green Beret William Tyree (see Wilson story this issue).
Kohlman immediately forwarded the letter to both Agencies,
retaining a copy for his records. After six months of no
response on the letter's authenticity from either agency
Kohlman and Tyree filed it as an exhibit in a motion for
a new trial for Tyree. A copy was sent to FTW at that time.
FTW subsequently provided a copy to staff members from the
House permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. [We have
heard nothing back.]
While FTW believes strongly in the factual accuracy of the
letter, especially insofar as dates, names and mission names
are concerned, we cannot completely overcome our distrust
of the letter's obvious butchery of the English language and
misspelling of words like McFarlane and Ilopango.
Even taking into account that the letter was dated (12/9/85)
at a time when Casey would have been impaired by the cancerous
brain tumor that took his life exactly five months later,
it was difficult to believe that Richard Nixon would have
affixed his signature to such a document. To FTW, the letter
is plausible because, almost literally with his dying breaths,
Bill Casey failed to mention head man George Bush and gave
the impression that drug trafficking was an expediency of
the Cold War rather than an economic perquisite of the privileged
class. The letter was continuing a cover up and it admitted
guilt only for the dead and dying, or the enemies of Bill
Casey and George Bush.
We decided, after interviewing people
close to Casey, not to print the letter in October because
we could not vouch for its authenticity - one way or the
other. We still can't. The Casey letter was also introduced
by Tyree in a second suit against the Department of the
Army, last August. (Tyree v. U.S. Department of the Army,
99-CV-2709) and events in that case have since forced us
to change our mind.
On November 8th, United States
District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who is presiding
in the Army suit, unilaterally, and without any request
by either Tyree, or the Army, or the CIA, ordered
the Casey letter sealed. Tyree's attorney, Ray Kohlman (also
participating in the MLK lawsuit in Memphis) was flabbergasted.
He told FTW, "In all the cases involving classified
material I have ever seen or been involved with, I have
never seen a judge seal a document without being asked to
do unless there was something in it, even in cases like
this. It is a clear indication that the judge believes that
the letter is, in some measure, the real thing."
Given these developments FTW feels compelled to show you the
letter without further comment. While we are convinced that
the factual material contained therein is correct, we
remain unconvinced as to the letter's authorship. Given the
judge's action in sealing it, the American people have a right
- and an urgent need - to know.
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