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"But,
You Don't Understand,
My Case Is Different!"
Advice and Experience for Whistleblowers
Looking for Help
[Appeared as the Lead Essay in the March
31, 2000 issue of From The Wilderness]
by Michael C. Ruppert
Richard Taus earned three Bronze Stars
and seven Air Medals flying helicopters in Vietnam. Taus
later
became a highly decorated FBI Agent in New York while also
serving as a Reserve Army Instructor for the U.S. Army
Command
and General Staff Colleges. In the 1980s, before the Iran-Contra
scandals, Taus uncovered massive illegal covert operations
that led directly to Bill Casey, Oliver North and Vice
President
George Bush through a contract spook outfit called "The
K Team." Undaunted by pressure from higher-ups - including
one of my favorite bad guys, FBI Assistant Director, Oliver
"Buck" Revell - to cease and desist his investigations,
Taus refused to yield. His investigations led to drugs, money
laundering, weapons smuggling, political corruption and into
the heart of the CIA.
Taus was so persistent that, when his cover
as a soccer coach got him too close to powerful political
circles, he was railroaded into 32 to 90 years in the infamous
Dannemora prison for child molestation. This, notwithstanding
the fact that the trial Judge disallowed evidence that the
families of the boys who made the charges initially, had their
own criminal investigations disappear after Taus was convicted.
I believe Rich Taus. He has provided me
with very helpful information and much of what he has told
me has been solidly corroborated through other sources. I
want to share with you a letter Rich wrote to me recently.
Dear Mike,
Received your FTW issue
of Jan. 28 s [actually Feb 25] yesterday.
Nary a mention of my plight since we first corresponded. I
noted extensive coverage of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson's
case and even a full-page for DEA Agent Cele Castillo. At
least they have someone crying in the wilderness for them.
Last year you mentioned
holding off on my story, using it as a "knock-out" blow.
If my appeal succeeds, every news organization in the country
will be after my story. If it does not succeed, you
and people who opposed government corruption will have
lost an ally who could have helped you by telling his story.
Sincerely yours,
Richard Taus
Brad Ayers is both a former CIA and
DEA Agent. In the 1980s, while working for the DEA in
South Florida
he entered aircraft being operated by CIA proprietary
Southern Air Transport and actually removed, and booked
into evidence,
samples of cocaine residue. Despite enormous pressure
that eventually led to wanted posters being circulated
on him,
implying that he was a cop killer, Brad Ayers survived
relentless persecution and attempts to silence him.
Brad now lives in
semi-seclusion in the Midwest. After reading my story
on Ed Wilson Brad wrote:
Dear Mike,
I have just received
the January 28th issue of your newsletter...
You know a good bit of
my history, all well documented and substantiated by bon
fides, military, CIA and DEA records as well as personal FOIA
request-responses.
In all of your extended
discourse on the CIA-Reagan/Bush war on drugs revelations,
you've never mentioned my 85-6 entry of aircraft at Southern
Air Transport (SAT) and Pan Aviation or the Joe Price affair.
I'm not looking for attention, but is this not testimony worthy
of inclusion in the sordid history you seem intent on publishing?
What moves me to write
at this time, most specifically, is your reference to two
individuals with whom I've had some extended personal experience.
The first is Ted Shackley who was my boss at JM WAVE and the
second is Dan Sheehan of the Christic Institute who I had
direct contact with during my DEA/war-on-drugs/Iran-Contra
testimony in Washington in 1986 and 1987 (suggested inquiry,
common connection to Jack Blum).
You apparently have
pretty good book on Shackley, but you should know
that Sheehan is
as phony as a three dollar bill with a Janus agenda.
I could go into detail but what the hell! Others to watch
for - Gene
Wheaton and Bo Gritz - both have been operating
with two-faced
agendas...
Good luck,
Brad Ayers
I also have complete faith in and concur
with the conclusions of Brad Ayers.
Early this month a man named Roy G. contacted
me via e-mail and virtually demanded that I immediately begin
an investigation into rampant CIA connected drug corruption
in Belize. Roy, who had lived and worked in the area, claimed
to have detailed knowledge of corruption and complicity on
the part of U.S. Government and Belizean officials. After
several exchanges with Roy I concluded that his experience
was probably entirely valid and that his life might be in
some jeopardy as a result of having come forward but that
- since he had no hard documentation or government records
to substantiate his claims - I did not have the resources
to investigate his story. After advising him of this, Roy
wrote me back saying, "You're just like
all of the major media!" He then accused me of being cavalier,
lazy and not caring about whistleblowers' welfare.
Just a week earlier an MD from Texas
named Steve e-mailed me about CIA involvement in drugs
in Panama.
He started to solicit my help then began telling me what
to do and to read so that I could prove CIA complicity
in drugs
moving through Panama and Texas. He wanted to lecture
me on how to play one political party against the other.
After
I had told Dr. Steve that I was not in a position to help,
he e-mailed me fourteen different messages with more than
one hundred pages of material and - probably because he
had
watched too many spy movies - started giving me suggestions
on how to proceed with my investigation. I had to e-mail
him
back and politely threaten to have him blocked at my server.
There is John Carman, a former Customs Agent,
and a really nice guy, who for more than two years has wanted
me to write about his horrific saga of CIA connected corruption
at the Mexican border. John, a licensed PI with a concealed
weapons permit, was recently set up to be arrested on phony
weapons charges in front of his own child.
There is a former CIA case officer, whose
name I dare not mention, who has been reaching out to me for
almost a year. This case officer, having resigned from the
Agency's Directorate of Operations, is living in a horrible
limbo, unable to work and now meeting with lawyers to find
out what he/she can and cannot disclose to me without being
instantly jailed.
There is my good friend and trusted source,
Gary Eitel, a decorated helicopter pilot from Vietnam, attorney
and former CIA pilot who blew the whistle on CIA's movement
of C-130s through the Forest Service and into the drug trade.
He writhes in agony under civil and criminal charges as a
former Oakland PD narc, with connections to CIA and DoJ torments
his family in a small Washington State township.
There are the bothers Lamb, Walter and David,
who struggle while one is imprisoned and the other free but
living in fear because of revelations they made leading directly
to drugs, the CIA and George Bush.
There was the "sexy blonde" named Brenda
who e-mailed me and insisted that I meet her and her blue
jeans outside an Orange County Court immediately because
she
had hard evidence of CIA and drugs and the way business
names link to specific operations.
I could go on and on and on.
Since FTW has been in print I have received
pleas for assistance from no less than 75 people with tragic
and heartbreaking stories of corruption, whistle blowing,
harassment, retaliation and sacrifice. I have been contacted
by maybe 25 more who were, in my opinion, certifiable nut
cases. And I have been contacted by maybe 15 who were, in
my opinion, disinformation agents, seeking to lead me down
a garden path and into ambushes of one kind or another. That
makes 115 contacts in two years or roughly five per month.
Each of those five has provided me with from between 10 and
2000 pages of documents to read. And these do not take
into account my ongoing commitments to Bill Tyree, from
whom I
have more than 1,200 pages, Dee Carone Ferdinand and my
dear friend, former DEA Agent Celerino Castillo.
A human heart can contain only so much suffering.
To all of the wonderful, courageous
victims who have reached out to me I must tell you honestly
that if I were to tell anyone's story
about years of sacrifice and torment - of pain, disillusionment,
humiliation and betrayal - it would be my own. I would do
that for no other reason than that I have been at it far longer
than any of you have (24 years since 1976) and I have suffered
as much as any of you - except the ones who have been murdered
like Col. Jim Sabow, or those who have been imprisoned like
Bill Tyree and Richard Taus. I am selfish and I want sympathy
and consolation for my sacrifice. I want someone to make it
better for me too. What I have discovered is that we have
to do this ourselves.
But telling you about my suffering will
not change a damn thing. That is why I have never become so
self-indulgent in these pages as to describe, in detail, my
own life experience. And telling others about your sufferings
will not change anything either. Iran-Contra is old news.
Only those stories that impact present-day affairs
have the potential to change the course of history, to
drive a wedge - to make the Midianites fight each other.
For those
like Rich Taus and Brad Ayers I was only too happy, last
October, to copy my records and correspondence, my files
and data on
them for two investigators from the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence. I was honored to be able to
tell
the Committee staffers that open hearings on Volume II
of the CIA Inspector General's report should include their
testimony
as well as mine and that of Cele Castillo.
But when it comes to the pages of this
newsletter - where I had to just cut back in length to
save on postage
to pay an employee - I will publish only those stories
that help to crack the edifice of silence and the illusion
of legality
that imprisons all whistleblowers
. If there's one thing that drives me mad it is a newcomer
demanding that I go back and repeat the mistakes I made
fifteen and twenty years ago for their benefit - and at
my expense.
For the scores of people who insist that if they can just
get to 60 Minutes everything will
be OK - because their case is different - I ask you to
look
someplace else for help.
60 Minutes visited
me in 1986. The producer admitted that my story was true.
She later admitted that it would never get aired. I later
consulted for two segments of 60 Minutes for
Producers Marly Klaus and Jan Legnitto. One of my subscribers
is an Emmy Award winning former CBS News producer who nearly
was tarred, feathered and scalped for trying to tell the
truth
about TWA 800. Where does she go for help? Another one
of my subscribers is a former Chief of Staff to a Congressman
who suffered the same fate. Where does she go for help?
To
Congress?!
I have never seen a war won by fighting
to rescue one victim at a time. Wars, whether for good or
evil, have been won only when the generals exploited weaknesses
in systems, armies, strategies and philosophies - not in individual
warriors.
As "The General" at From
The Wilderness I have to husband my limited financial
and emotional resources and use them to achieve the best
ends
that I can- for everyone. Not one of the whistleblowers
who has contacted me, especially those in prison, is ever
far from my consciousness - especially when I try to go
to
sleep at night. I have been able to help a few whistleblowers
tangibly. But, as with the CIA, my successes are better
left
unheralded and unbroadcast. I am truly doing the best that
I can.I have not taken a full day off in two months. I
have
no medical insurance, no savings, no pension.The rent
is a question mark every month. And I am having the time
of my
life.
In the meantime Ed Wilson has just asked
for contempt charges against 14 of the biggest legal names
in and out of government. And his attorney is moving for
summary
judgement because Judge Lynn Hughes, in Houston, is sitting
on Wilson's explosive motion to dismiss the conviction
and
not rendering a decision. One Federal Judge, Stanley Sporkin,
has already retired and two more, one on the U.S. Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals, are on the verge of having their rights
read to them and of being accused of perjury and of withholding
exculpatory evidence. The CIA risks being exposed as having
deliberately armed Moammar Qadaffy at the instigation of George
Bush. Retired CIA Associate Deputy Director of Operations
(ADDO) Ted Shackley stands on the verge of being exposed for
perjury and worse. And the Department of Justice is close
to being exposed, in open court, of having hidden crimes by
high-ranking members for more than 17 years. Now that's the
kind of edifice crumbling upheaval that may eventually
lead to letting a lot of innocent people out of prison
- not just
one. But only If it is pursued and capitalized upon.
Edwin Wilson writes to me:
Dear Sir:
I have received your January
28 issue and thank you for a favorable article.
My problem is this place
[Federal Penitentiary, Allenwood, Pa.] makes it almost impossible
to communicate. So I ask you to stay in touch with [Attorney
David] Adler who has better, up to date, information than
I. Also, I want to cooperate with you.
By the way, the article
you sent me is missing pages 6&7. Some machine also hates
me!
Many thanks,
Ed Wilson
08237-054
Michael C. Ruppert
Publisher/Editor
3-31-00
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