E-Systems
“In the councils of
government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential
for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
- President Diwight D.
Eisenhower’s farewell address
E-Systems (now owned by
Raytheon) - which boasts an impressive bevy of former high-ranking CIA, NSA
and DoD personnel - is a major government contractor allegedly involved in
some very dirty
business.[1]
Some of the people on E-Systems’
personnel roster include former NSA Director (and CIA Deputy Director) Admiral
Bobby Ray Inman, former CIA Deputy Director Peter Moreno (Director of the
Agency’s Technical Services Division), and former CIA Director Admiral W.
F. Raborn, who also sits on the board of Wackenhut - a large
quasi-governmental security/intelligence firm loaded with former CIA and FBI
people - also reportedly involved in some highly questionable covert
activities.
E-Systems’ CEO from 1989 to 1993,
E. Gene Keiffer, a former Marine, was described as a “prominent figure
among intelligence community
contractors.[2]
E-Systems has collaborated with the U.S.
intelligence community, including the military and the CIA, since 1947. As their
press release states:
“A leader in systems integration,
E-Systems business areas include reconnaissance and surveillance systems;
specialized aircraft modification; command, control, and communications;
electronic imaging; and other information-based
technologies....”[3]
E-Systems’ contracts include Air
Force One - the Presidential jet, and the so-called nuclear Doomsday Plane.
They also produce navigation equipment, air-traffic control systems, and
electronic border security systems.
E-Systems has nine divisions, the
largest being its Greenville plant. Sales were $1.99 billion dollars in 1991,
and $2.1 billion in 1992.[4]
Yet E-Systems denies any involvement
with the CIA. As Daniel Brandt of Public Information Research
writes:
“E-Systems president John W. Dixon
insists that “we have never done any business with the CIA,” even
though other former top CIA officials are among the senior executives at
E-Systems, and Dixon himself was a member of the Association of Former
Intelligence Officers in 1983. Okay, we’ll assume that they work together
out of love of country to prevent excessive corporate
profiteering....”[5]
Contrary to Dixon’s claims,
E-Systems purchased the CIA’s front company, Air Asia, in 1975 - a
company that had been involved in countless covert operations in Southeast Asia
(not to mention drug smuggling). The purchase “gave E-Systems the largest
aircraft repair-and-maintenance facility in Southeast Asia and a vast network of
CIA affiliations.”[6]
Fraud
As one of Raytheon’s press
releases states:
We at Raytheon are proud of our
reputation for excellence, a reputation based on our commitment to the highest
ethical
standards....[7]
One of E-System’s projects, in
conjunction with the German government, was the Egrett spy plane. As a German
news agency reports, E-Systems was under investigation for bribing several
high-ranking German Defense Ministry officials for the $600 million dollar
contract, including a former Air Force general. The prosecutor’s office in
Bonn confirmed the allegations. U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney (an alleged
drug user and pedophile and friend of alleged drug user and pedophile George
Bush) quickly fired off a letter to his German counterpart in an effort to push
the project through.[8]
Nor did the Egrett escape its share of
disaster. As former E-Systems engineer Winfred Richardson states under oath:
“Parts for the Egrett were sent
back to us and an extremely large amount of defective parts were found. King
Faud‘s and the President‘s planes were kited up and sent to San
Antonio to be installed. The Egrett crashed with loss of
life....”[9]
As Brett Lambert, a defense electronics
industry analyst states: “E-Systems is able to pull the right strings in
the Pentagon. Ninety-five percent of the nations’ defense companies
wouldn’t be able to get the Secretary of Defense to write a letter to a
foreign government to promote their
program.”[10]
Interestingly, in February of 2000, the
European Parliament issued a report accusing the U.S. of using the NSA’s
Echelon world-wide eavesdropping posts for commercial spying to help American
companies win lucrative contracts over European competitors. The NSA’s
operations are supervised by the
CIA.[*]
Regarding the CIA, Richardson states:
“One of the committees I was giving testimony to, informed me that every
tentacle they went down of the CIA when they were investigating it - they
ran into E-Systems.”[11]
This is highly significant, since
President Reagan’s Executive Order 12333, which privatized many covert
intelligence operations, placed them out of the scrutiny of Congress and nosy
FOIA requesters. Not surprisingly, CIA Director Bill Casey, CIA Deputy Director
for Operations Ted Shackley, and former CIA Director George Bush reportedly
attended the December 5, 1980 meeting to draft E.O. 12333, which states:
“Agencies within the Intelligence
Community are authorized to enter into contracts or arrangements for the
provision of goods or services with private companies or institutions in the
United States and need not reveal the sponsorship of such contracts or
arrangements for authorized intelligence purposes....”
Shackley and Bush are alleged to have
been deeply involved in decades worth of CIA drug smuggling (as well as
other nefarious activities such as mass murder). Casey was the architect of the
Contra guns-for-drugs operation.
Curiously, a Raytheon press releases
states:
Raytheon Company places the highest
value on People, Integrity, Commitment and
Excellence....[12]
Many of E-Systems’ former
employees don’t agree. As Richardson writes:
“I have government documents
showing government investigators found approximately one hundred million dollars
in rip-offs at E-Systems, and estimated the total rip-offs at 25 to 30 percent
of all contracts, which is approximately three billion dollars a
year.”
According to his civil suit against
the company, they were, or are, involved in:
Witness intimidation, harassment and
terminating whistleblowers. Impeding a criminal investigation of E-Systems and
government personnel. Mischarging, defective parts and/or workmanship, record
altering, witness harassment and intimidation by E-Systems personnel, Federal
agents and Hunt County Sheriff’s Dept. and others unknown or unnamed,
bribery of government officials (U.S. and foreign), espionage against the United
States and treason committed by E-Systems officials, conspiracy to cover-up the
RICO activities, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Government. Record altering by
E-Systems and government officials. Possibly murder and/or attempted
murder.[13*]
Richardson would become a central figure
in the burgeoning E-Systems scandal.
“The way I fell into what was
going on, was I was a liaison planner with access to the whole field, the whole
process,” says Richardson, “all the way from where they keep
records, to where they’re doing the designs, scheduling the work, the
contracts - everything. I had access to all of it - enough to where I
had a working knowledge of what they were
doing.”[*]
Billy Wayne Rath, another E-Systems
employee who worked with Richardson, states in his own affidavit:
“...it was well known that Mr.
Richardson was a stickler for having things produced correctly and on time, and
one remark he made a lot that if you signed something and it was wrong then you
were guilty. This fit company standards also which he took
seriously.”[14]
Rath was fired for whistle-blowing. The
DoD and General Accounting Office (GAO) confirmed that Richardson was also
terminated for blowing the whistle. According to a GAO investigator contacted by
the author, “Winfred appears to have been entitled to whistleblower
protection and he never got it.... there did appear to be fraud involved....
That there was dirt going on... I’m
convinced.”[*]
E-Systems would call Richardson a
“disgruntled” former employee. A congressional source familiar with
the case would call Richardson’s claims
“credible.”[15]
One example of the harassment
perpetrated against E-Systems employees who cooperated with Senate investigators
was Terry Briggs. Briggs, a security guard and a nine-year E-Systems employee,
was fired for removing his shoe while propping up an injured leg during a break.
“There’s no doubt in my mind
that I was fired because I was talking to the investigators,” Mr. Briggs
says. “Whenever they fire you for having your shoe off after nine years
[of employment], what else could it
be?”[16]
In 1990, E-Systems was charged by the
Pentagon of defrauding the Army on military radio contracts. As a result of the
settlement, the company agreed to set up an anonymous “hotline” for
employees to report fraud and other ethics abuses. Yet a subsequent report by
the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency claims E-Systems violated their
probation agreement by providing “inaccurate and incomplete” reports
on internal ethics
investigations.[17*]
Former E-Systems Assistant Director of
Security John Lanting told The Dallas Morning News that the company
distributed letters urging employees to report the names of people who had
talked with federal investigators. The letters, distributed in 1992 and
‘93, were signed by Vice President and General Counsel James Crowley.
Lanting believed the letters constituted “borderline” obstruction of
justice.
Michael Eberhardt, who
became an E-Systems attorney after working as an investigator in a government
probe of the company, said the company just wanted to help workers “learn
more about the process,” and determine the allegations it was
facing.[18]
Yet Richardson, Rath and Briggs would be
only three of at least 15 cases of retaliation against E-Systems whistleblowers
and witnesses.[19]
As Richardson states: “... we’re talking about billions of dollars;
we’re talking about four crashed airplanes and fifty to a hundred dead
people.”[20]
That was in 1993.
Drug
Smuggling
As previously mentioned, E-Systems
portrays itself as a model of public integrity and community service. As their
press release states:
“We creatively apply our expertise
to enhance the communities where we live and work, addressing current needs and
opening new doors of
opportunity.”[21]
One of those doors of opportunity,
reportedly, is drug smuggling. According to statements of former E-Systems
employees and agents at the Northeast Texas Drug Interdiction Task Force,
E-Systems developed sophisticated electronic systems to enable drug planes to
cross the U.S. border without tripping NORAD Early Warning and other
surveillance systems.
As Rath states: “The electronic
holes used to avoid radar involves a ground proximity following system tied into
the plane’s yoke and pedometer - sort of an autopilot that allows the
plane to fly low and follow the ground’s contour. We put them on 24
aircraft - including the Combat Talon Two aircraft.”
Rath explains that they were ostensibly
installed on planes as a result of the failures at Desert One - President
Carter’s ill-fated 1980 hostage rescue attempt in Iran that resulted in
the deaths of eight
servicemen.[*]
“This was all Joint Operations
Command and Special Forces stuff,” says
Rath.[22]
Another E-Systems employee named Rick
(not his real name) who was terminated for blowing the whistle, is a former
self-described CIA operative who flew for Air America in Southeast Asia and for
Southern Air Transport in Central and South America - both well-known CIA
drug courier
lines.[*] He
states that Oliver North was one of his
bosses.[*]
A pilot, mechanic and small arms and
explosives expert, Rick worked for E-Systems from 1986-91 as an assembler and
inspector, working on “classified” aircraft such as
“Casper” and “The Ghost” - both C-47 gunships used
in Central America. He eventually became disenchanted with the operations.
Describing how infrared systems are used
to fly low and make drops, Rick states: “E-Systems is probably one of the
biggest drug drops there is in this area,” and says that Hunt County is
another. “The drops are made at E-Systems and Lake Tawakoni. We’re
talking bale-of-hay-sized coke shipments.... The planes’ N-numbers are
always repainted after coming
in.”[23]
Billy Rath explains about the drops:
“if an airplane crashes, or let’s say a drug airplane that was
seized, and you want to assume a different tail number, you just paint a new
tail number on it. It’s like assuming a new identity using a death
certificate. The crashed plane doesn’t stay on the FAA computer that long.
You simply wait for it to die on the computer then you resurrect the tail
number....”[*]
According to all three former employees,
the drugs were flown by E-Systems using government planes on contracts let by
Air Force Special Operations Command
(AFSOC).[*] As
Rath states in his affidavit:
“We had several NSA contracts,
which were let under Air Force Special Ops contracts and orchestrated by Mr.
Bobby Harris. One of these contracts was Flame Dancer, part of the Contra
aircraft (C-47 Gunships delivered to South America, Sandinistas), and Team Casa
aircraft that has slide in and slide out tail numbers. I also worked on North
Sea, another of the black programs, which was tied to Desert TEA and Woodstock,
which provided a large amount of electronic technology that borders on [whether]
it should have been released or not to foreign nationals, possibly compromising
our ability to defend ourselves with others having this
knowledge....””[*]
Team Casa were the C-47s used by Oliver
North in his CIA/NSC illegal guns-for-drugs
operation.[*] As
Richardson says: “We turned them into gunships. They were sent down to
Florida, they put the guns in them, then sent them down south. They were painted
with wash-off paint.”
Tony Hughs, was the program
manager who handled all the black world programs, according to Rath, using DET-2
money. Says Rath: “We were building Ollie North’s gunships.”
North testified before Congress that
“Private Donors” paid for the planes and the modifications. This was
little more than subterfuge. Private Donor was the code name for the Special Ops
contracts!
“Buffalo and Montana were two
planes that were used,” says Rath. “The points of contact at AFSOC
were Sergeant Sprague and Colonel Manning Crump, commander of DET-2 (Air Force
Detachment Two in Majorsfield, Texas).”
Sprague and Crump now work for
E-Systems.
Kent Williamson, an attorney for the
Northeast Texas Drug Interdiction Task Force gave sworn testimony in a court
case about E-Systems’ drug-smuggling:
Q: How are you employed, Mr. Williamson?
A: I’m a prosecutor with the
Northeast Area Drug Interdiction task force.
Q: Do you know who E-Systems
is?
A: Yes.
Q: And who are they?
A: They’re probably the biggest
supplier in Hunt Co.
Q: What type business do they
have?
A: They do U.S. Government contracts on
airplanes, I believe.
Q: And as part of their defense
contracting, are they able to have planes fly in and out of the country, do you
know?
A: I would assume that they would. I
don’t know for sure
Q: Have you received any information
from any source that there may be some type of illegal activity by any E-Systems
pilots or any pilots flying for E-Systems - specifically, any information
that would indicate that any of their pilots were using their planes to bring
cocaine back into the United States?
Interestingly, FBI Deputy Director
Oliver “Buck” Revell was transferred to the Dallas office as SAC
around the same time as the drug-smuggling allegations broke - which began
heating up with Senate hearings in June of 1991. (Revell was sent to
Dallas in the summer of 1991.) Although Richardson alleges that Revell was sent
there to keep a lid on the case, Revell vehemently denied any involvement with
E-Systems.[24]
Yet at least one E-Systems
whistleblower, Michele Cooper, had gone to Danny James, Revell’s
subordinate at the FBI’s National Security Section with allegations of
national security violations at E-Systems. For her honesty, James threatened to
file charges on her - a standard FBI/DoJ tactic to silence whistleblowers.
(See Chapter XX)
Other FBI agents who were contacted
reportedly include Dan Birmingham, Jim Loun, David Malone, Max Higher, Kevin
McQuery and Kenneth Pisano. According to Richardson, all were told about the
drug drops as well as the fraud and harassment. Richardson claims to have seen
FBI reports on drug dealers tied in with E-Systems and Hunt County going back to
1982. Some of those named at the meeting were so dangerous - allegedly
involved in so many murders - that Richardson almost begged me not to
mention their names.[25]
Although Buck Revell denied any
involvement with E-Systems, Richardson alleges that Revell’s son works at
E-Systems - bragging that his father got him the job. A check with
E-Systems’ personnel office revealed a Michael A. Revell in their
employment.[26]
As Richardson states: “I have
tapes of a meeting I had here at my home with OSI (Air Force Office of Special
Investigations) Agent Richard Bollinger, IGDCIS Special Agent Chris Hallien, FBI
Special Agent Mark Briant and Hunt County Judge Dan Robertson. The meeting was
to prove how much the FBI knew about the drug smuggling and the illegal
technology sale to a foreign country and other RICO actions!
“Three police officers who agreed
to testify about witnessing the drug drops by the government planes that were
operated under the AFSOC lost their jobs and have been blacklisted. The DoJ
tried to have it (the meeting) classified because of national
security.”
Bob Weatherford, and Mike and Lori
Lockridge, all East Tawakoni police officers, were the three who witnessed the
drug drops. Weatherford said he saw the package being picked up by a Hunt County
squad car, whereupon part of the drugs were given to a motorcycle gang. All
three have since been forced to resign. Prior to their resignations, they were
to attend a meeting at Richardson’s house along with agents Bollinger,
Hallien, Briant and Judge Robertson. Although they didn’t show, Richardson
feels the fact that they were to attend the meeting was leaked by Bryant.
As Hallien said at the meeting, two
government investigators, Michael Eberhardt and Clardy (first name unknown) were
leaking information to E-Systems. As Hallien says, “... if you want to
call it a leak to E-Systems it is through
Clardy....”[27]
Eberhardt would later become an
E-Systems attorney.[28]
Weatherford would subsequently be chased
while taking pictures of a suspected drug dealer’s home. When he radioed
for back-up, it was refused. One of the dealers was related to Hunt County
Sheriff Bobby Young. Young subsequently “jumped all over Bob Weatherford
and refused to let him use his jail anymore and refused to let him use the radio
because he was arresting the wrong people.” As Robertson said, “In
this county it will get you in trouble real quick.”
Even Bryant admitted: “He (Young)
has done a lot and gotten away with
it.”[29]
After another meeting at
Richardson’s home at which Bollinger, Hallien, Briant and Robertson met,
they were followed by Hunt County
Deputies.[30]
At the meeting Hallien told Richardson
that E-Systems hired people to follow investigators who were looking into the
company’s improprieties in Florida. As Hallien states: “... we know
E-Systems followed around the investigators down in Florida. They’re doing
it with you people now.... although they hired the people down there in Florida,
in a sense they didn’t have to hire anybody, they had them right there in
their pocket.”[31]
As for whistleblower Michele Cooper,
both she and her son wound up dead.
The
Harassment
Regarding the “highest value on
People, Integrity, Commitment and Excellence” that Raytheon touts, their
press release adds:“Not only do these
themes define our business practices, they define our Community Relations
programs as
well...”[32]
Indeed. All three whistleblowers I spoke
to alleged extreme harassment, including surveillance, break-ins, death threats,
murder and attempted murder by E-Systems and possibly the National Security
Agency.
As Richardson states: “We have
been broken into so many times my family feels it is commonplace. We were
followed and harassed by the Hunt County Sheriffs Department which sent three
squads of deputies to my daughter’s birthday party.
“It has also been confirmed that
the DISC (Defense Industrial Security Command) agent at E-Systems is one of the
Feds. He was following and harassing
people.”[*]
As Richardson’s lawsuit states:
“The Defendants’ legal staff
and others used threats and intimidation to get employees to give false
information to investigators, as well as instructing employees [in] what to say,
and threatening to fire them if they deviated. This has been confirmed by
investigators, but the AUSA’s (Assistant U.S. Attorneys) involved refused
to do anything about
it.”[33]
Richardson claims he suffered major
harassment when E-Systems learned that he had tapes of Michele
Cooper’s - who had personal knowledge of illegal covert operations at
E-Systems.
“Louis Sams at E-Systems called
Richard Bollinger at OSI and told him that I had Michele’s disks,”
says Richardson. “Sams was the one who set up Senior Special Agent Chris
Hallien at
IGDCIS.”[*]
That - and their belief that
Richardson was taking pictures of E-Systems personnel changing tail numbers on
drug planes - resulted in them placing a “wanted” poster with
his and Sams’ pictures on it at the Hunt County Sheriff’s office.
Both Sam’s and Richardson’s wives would be followed by unmarked Hunt
County Sheriff’s cars.
“They put all the pictures of me
up in the Sheriff’s Department and told all the deputies I was possibly a
terrorist and to use extreme caution,” says Richardson. “It was an
obvious attempt to have me legally
murdered.[34]
“Well Chris Hallien came in and
started investigating. Chris was probably the most honest person you’ll
ever meet. He had gotten upset because of some of the stuff they had done to us
and the way they were jacking with us. And one of the deputies told me that
Bobby Young, former Sheriff, told him not to worry about Chris, because
E-Systems is going to have him indicted.”
According to Rath, E-Systems attorney
Nancy Hampton (then a paralegal) would ask FBI Agent Danny James to press
extortion charges against Richardson. As Richardson’s lawsuit
states:
“Defendants General Council sent
AUSA Lynn Hastings a memo stating; “It appears Mr. Richardson went to
Congress and the Washington press.” AUSA Hastings then called the
defendant in to her office and threatened to file charges on me if I talked to
any current or former E-Systems employees, congressional committees or the
press....”[35]
“I called Bollinger, I called
Hallien, I called the House and Senate Oversight Committees,” says
Richardson, “and told all four of them what the deputy told me. They all
laughed and said, ‘Hey, Hallien’s a 30-year agent. He’s got a
blemish-free record - never anything.’
“Well they went in front of grand
jury and got sealed indictments against him. Paul Coggins (U.S. Attorney for the
Northern District of Texas - his wife was one of Clinton’s aides)
called Chris personally when stuff started to happen and told him they declined
to prosecute. [But] he had to retire, and they told him if he ever spoke to any
of us, the indictments would be unsealed and he’d be put in jail and loose
his
retirement.”[*]
As previously mentioned, another
E-Systems employee who was threatened, harassed and terminated was Billy Rath. A
20 year employee, Rath worked as a machinist, assembler, and senior estimator.
After Richardson blew the whistle, Rath became caught up in the drama. As Rath
states: “I was a go-between between Rich and Nancy Hampton. Nancy knew
that we were friends. We had worked together a long time, on a number of major
programs....
“Well, I was pulled into office
after office by her. Anytime I would have any conversations with Rich I would
have to approach her. Automatically the tape recorder was turned on....”
Rath was told to stay in touch with
Richardson and report back to Hampton verbally and in writing. The reports were
supplied to Personnel Director Tom Coffee. As Rath states in his affidavit:
“These written reports had to be
written favorable to the company, which meant I was to make Mr. Richardson sound
as bad as possible which included altering the truth. It was this [or] I would
lose my
job.”[*]
Richardson told Rath that he would only
be satisfied when people were behind bars. When Hampton heard this, “she
stated this was extortion and picked up the phone and called the FBI and
informed them she wanted to file extortion charges against Mr.
Richardson,” says
Rath.[36]
The person she called was Special Agent
Danny James, Buck Revell’s subordinate.
That was when Rath and his family began
having real problems. His wife and children were run off the road on three
different occasions - each time by brand new unlicensed sport utility
vehicles.
“Anytime [Richardson] would come
over to my house, my family would catch hell for it,” says Rath. “At
first I didn’t put it together, But after the wife and kids kept getting
run off road everytime he showed up - for the next two days after he showed
up - I started putting two and two together. Especially when it’s new
cars with no license tags - dealer’s cars.
“The second time, my wife was run
plum off the road, almost through a fence. My kids were crying; my wife was
hysterical.
“The next day I went into Nancy
Hampton’s office and said, ‘Look, it’s funny - everytime
Rich comes over to my house this happens.’ Well she whips the phone up and
dials an in-house number:
“I’ve got Billy Rath here in
my office and he is complaining about his wife and kids being run off the road
on numerous occasions. Is it ours?” After the answer, she was still on the
phone and looked at me and said “It’s not ours. Must be
NSA.”[37*]
Shades of “Enemy of the
State.”
“All the bombings, my wife getting
run off the road - all occurred within two weeks of one another,” says
Rath. “That tells me that whoever was sent in here was probably NSA, and
they had a window [of time]. And it happened during union negotiations, during
contract time....”
Rath believes at least some of the cars
involved came from Greenville Ford - which had a contract with
E-Systems.[*] The
owner of Greenville Ford is Vernon Williams.
After Rath was terminated, Williams gave
him a job. E-Systems apparently didn’t know Rath was working for Williams.
As Rath states: “I was given a cubicle on the front of the floor. One day
in walks [E-Systems Security Director] Bob Amick with a big canvas bag. He walks
straight into Vernon William’s office.”
When Amick came out, the bag was empty.
“He was laundering money through
the Ford dealership!” says Rath. “When he saw me - and buddy,
you should have seen his face when he saw me - he turned as white as a
sheet. And he was trying to hide that bag. It was funny as shit. He knew that I
knew.”
Amick would also appear like clockwork
whenever Rath stopped at the food service truck outside the E-Systems plant.
“Amick would always be there to
strike up a conversation,” says Rath. “This began in 1993, around
the same time Nancy Hampton began tasking me to keep tabs on Rich.... Everytime
I’d go to that truck, that guy’d come out.”
Within months, the serious harassment
began. One day Rath came to work to find his office ransacked. His boss, Allen
Little, took him to meet George Parnell and Bill Davies - who answered to
Bob Amick. They claim to have discovered pornography on his computer. Rath
claims that no porn was on his
computer.[38]
After E-Systems used sex to fire Rath,
they used it to set him up. Says Rath: “AFLC, which is a division of the
Air Force out here, they have their little party girls who go out in the vans
whenever the Air Force boys come down. And one of those was thrown at me; I did
not know she was tied to E-Systems.... It turned out her husband worked
[there]....
“She lived with me for two weeks
before I figured out what was going on,” says Rath, “and she kept
pumping me for information. And everything was pertaining to E-Systems.... This
was Allen and Sandy
Nicholson....”[*]
It was Nicholson who allegedly set Rath
up on the pornography charges.
Yet the harassment didn’t stop.
Rath was arrested on a warrant for assault with a deadly weapon - a
charge filed by Sandy Nicholson. As Rath’s affidavit states:
“We separated the first week in
December 1997. I thought everything was fine until approximately two weeks
before Hunt County Deputies came to my house and arrested me. Mr. Nicholson
called and informed me that he had helped them burn me once and was fixing to do
it again. I didn’t know what he meant by that until I was arrested two
weeks later....”[39]
During Rath’s court hearings,
Judge Richard Beacum changed the court dates without notifying him, then had him
picked up for missed appearances. That made Rath even more
suspicious.
“I went to try to get a copy of
[Beacum’s] campaign contributions, knowing he was tied with Raytheon
Systems Political Action committee, and was denied access... (a violation of the
Freedom of Information
Act).”[40]
“He protects that because he
doesn’t want us to know who is main contributor is,” says Rath.
“We know; it’s E-Systems!
“Any of their henchmen who get in
trouble, they run it through his court, and automatically they get slapped on
the wrist.”
As Richardson adds about Judge
Beacum:
“Judge Beacum was also the
visiting judge when the pedophile that molested my daughter was captured after
jumping probation and was wanted for over six years. Judge Beacum ruled [that]
the pedophile had not broken any laws and turned the pedophile
loose.”[41]
But the harassment against Rath
continued. As Rath says: “I got fired on trumped up charges and I
couldn’t make payments on my car. Well then they went and tried to make it
a felony.... The local DA, Duncan Thomas, writes me a letter:
“You need to get in touch with my
office immediately, The fact that you have not gotten in touch with the credit
union at E-Systems could be a
felony.”[*]
As Rath states: “I thought I was
building aircraft for my country, to protect my kids, the well-being of the
United States of America.... I worked diligently, climbed up the company ladder,
achieved a goal that I thought was reputable in the community. All of a sudden I
found out that I was working for a company building what I thought were weapons
of war, but was in fact making more drug addicts walk around the
streets - to fund these operations.
“One wonders why in the great
United States of America and all that we were promised, inalienable rights,
etcetera - why a company like this is allowed to stay in business,”
adds Rath. “The way they run things - it’s not right, it’s
broken families up, it’s broken homes up. It’s caused a lot of
people a bunch of money who really didn’t deserve it.”
The terrorism used against Rath’s
family caused his 20-year marriage to end in divorce.
“I’ve had friends like Leo
Salis that have been killed,” says Rath. “I’ve had friends who
have had their houses bombed over what I’m talking about. There’s
one guy there in Personnel who had his foot blown off.”
Both Rath and Richardson believe
E-Systems Security Director Bob Amick was directly involved in the harassment
and murder.
As previously stated, “Rick”
was another E-Systems employee who was terminated - for blowing the whistle
on falsifying records, working on aircraft that didn’t exist and
manufacturing defective parts.
He was ultimately set up on explosive
charges - allegedly an attempt to kill the man who fired him. As Rick
states: “E-Systems will pretty much do what they have to do to get the
attention off them.... You don’t fool with these guys. They’ll snap
your neck in the middle of a
crowd.”[*]
As Richardson explains: “My
brother was a retired Dallas cop. We were talking about this and I said,
‘Don’t you realize these people will kill you?’ He said,
‘Yes, I have reason to believe that they have the ability to,’ then
he added, ‘You’re just being paranoid. They wouldn’t spend
this kind of money to do this.’
“Well he and I were sitting there
fishing, and a new pick-up pulls up. Two guys in suits get out and start opening
up cases with electronic gear, and they start turning their antennas and playing
with it. And he nudged me, and he wanted to know if it was
them.
“On another trip down there with
some friends, we get back, there’s a roll of Heavenly Soft toilet paper
sitting on the truck. Now why would they spend the kind of money to basically
jack with us?”
Richardson believes the message was,
“Heavenly Soft toilet paper... ‘we’re going to wipe your
ass.’ It’s just a way of jacking with you. I’ve had three
heart-attacks and two bypass surgeries. They do not want me to relax, and going
down there would be relaxing. They want to keep me tensed up. That way I could
have another heart-attack and die.”
Harrassment Against the
Author
Soon after my attorney, Mike Johnston,
began talking to Richardson, he had his office broken into - at least twice.
The first time they broke into his file storage locker, took off his lock, and
replaced it with a high-tech looking lock. The building manager had never seen
it before and had no idea where it came from.
The second time they left him a tape
recording of a conversation between two unidentified men with his voice dubbed
onto it. He believes the implication being that he had illegally recorded a
phone conversation, and if he doesn’t back off, they’ll take him
down for wire statute violations.
Several days before I was scheduled to
meet with Richardson, I walked outside to find all my tires slashed. Richardson
told me that two people connected with his case had their tires slashed in a
similar manner.
Recently, Richardson’s radiator
hose was removed from his pick-up.
Shortly after I appeared on a nationally
syndicated radio show to discuss the harassment, Richardson’s e-mail box
was jammed with thousands of messages - from homosexual news groups and
others. He believes the messages were a form of harassment by computer hackers
working for E-Systems and the NSA. Shortly thereafter, his computer went down
with a virus.
When I sent Richardson copies of a U.S.
Customs report on the “Finders” - a pedophile group tied into
the CIA - Richardson got a message that displayed fireworks and said
“Happy ‘99!” A virus then swept through his
computer.
When I e-mailed a completed draft of
this story to Billy Rath, he said it had been intercepted and rewritten to make
it look “as though a 12 year-old had written it.” This had the
effect of creating distrust between me and my source.
While Richardson and I were sitting in
Rick’s frontyard, he received a call from a relative in foreign
country - an intelligence operative. The caller said, “Rick, they know
they’re there (meaning myself and Richardson). Watch your six.”
We had been there less than 15
minutes.
Regarding surveillance by satellite,
Richardson says: “They’ve got a code - XR-7546 or whatever. They
can pull it up and see exactly what you’re doing on the road. But you lock
in on a unit, and that computer will track it.”
But wouldn’t other employees catch
sight of illegal operations such as survielling citizens? Not according to
Richardson. “It’s compartmentalized. They catch you snooping and
you’re history. You focus on what you’re
doing.”
The
Murders
All three former E-Systems employees
told me about approximately half-a-dozen murders connected to
E-Systems.[*]
As Richardson explains, if they really
want to get to you they murder your family members.” Richardson was very
close to his brother. He died of a “fast-acting cancer” in August of
‘96.[*]
“E-Systems was trying to control
people,” adds Rick, “and they did a damn good job.”
Mark Biggerstaff was Richardson’s
daughter’s boyfriend. Biggerstaff was found hanged on the last day of
school. It was the first time he had gotten to take his truck to school after
turning sixteen. Documents obtained from the Greenville Police Department state
that the perpetrators listened to his heart and took his pulse to make sure he
was dead before calling for help.” The police claimed he
accidentally hung himself.
Richardson himself has suffered several
attempts on his life. As he writes:
“There was an attempt to blow me
up back in ‘87 when I first went to the government.... The [Air Force]
Colonel gave our names to the company as well as the information after promising
to keep it in confidence.... He also stated to me in his most menacing voice
that ‘I was messing with hundreds of millions of dollars and was in more
danger than I had ever been in my life’(!) this was Col. Manning Crump, at
the time Commander of Det-2 at E-Systems! Crump admitted under oath he had given
my name and information to E-Systems! He later admitted under oath going to work
for E-Systems before he retired....”
Richardson describes the story about the
attempt to bomb his house: “Bob Amick called the guards together and told
them he wanted to know what I was doing and where I was going and who I was
seeing, where I lived, what kind of cars I drove, my license plate
numbers - to gather together all of this information and bring it back to
him.
“After he gets this
information - I was driving an old red ‘72 pick-up - and I had
some trouble with it so I took it over to my mother’s house and worked on
it over there. And she just lived across the road from me - but she had big
hedges that covered the yard so you couldn’t see where the truck was.
“Well my neighbor happened to have
one also, and this was in ‘86 or ‘87. But even then, ‘72s were
rare enough, for a street a block long to have two of them the same color was
unusual.
“Well Bob Amick came down there;
his car was seen in front of my house one night. He backs back down the street
with his lights out and all this kind of stuff.
“Anyway the next day, the trailer
house that had the red pick-up like mine... it blew up. The house blew
up!”
Fortunately no one was hurt. Richardson
explains that his house and his neighbor’s house were very close together.
“They were going by the
truck,” says Richardson.
“When [Loneoak Police Chief] Larry
Osborn heard about it, he called the FBI to investigate - to see if it was a
bomb.... Well it’s several weeks before the FBI ever gets there. Then they
tell Larry, ‘Oh, well it’s been so long now we wouldn’t be
able to find anything.’
“They didn’t investigate!
“This is all a matter of
record - Senate Oversight and House
Oversight.[*] They
came down and took witness statements, documents... they have the whole nine
yards on all of this.”
A GAO investigation found rather minor
cases of fraud. While a congressional investigation was opened on E-Systems, it
never went anywhere.
“It was an open investigation
until the Republicans gained the majority in the House and Senate,” says
Richardson, “then they just shut it down.... The first thing the
Republicans did before they were even sworn in was let all the committee members
go and close all the investigations....
“This is an election year,”
adds Richardson. “If they don’t get Prince George (George Bush, Jr.)
and his court jesters in, they’re in deep
shit.”[*]
Interestingly, the Greenville
Herald-Banner reported that one of the first places little George went on
his presidential fund-raising trip was to
E-Systems.[*]
Little George would also be a regular
guest on a plane from Barry Seal’s drug smuggling fleet.
As for Bob Amick: “Amick is still
connected,” says Richardson, “through the NSA. He was in the
Pentagon for years before he retired from the military. John Lanting was his
assistant.
“Lanting eventually rolled over
and talked. He’s now in hiding.” (See letter from Lanting to
Amick in Appendix)
Interestingly, Amick’s name was
listed on the attendee roster of the Seventh Annual Symposium and Exhibition on
Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. The agenda featured topics such
as joint warfare, effective application of psychological operations forces, and
counter-terrorism, among
others.[42]
As previously mentioned were at least 15
other E-Systems witnesses and whistleblowers.
Michele Cooper had briefed former NSA
(and CIA) Director Admiral Bobby Ray Inman - then a civilian consultant to
E-systems - on at least six black budget operations. Cooper allegedly knew
about sales of systems overseas to Iraq (that allowed them to spy on enemy troop
movements during their war with Iraq, which Richardson believes was subsequently
used to spy on and target our own troops during Desert Storm) and the bribery of
officials.
As previously mentioned, Cooper had gone
to Danny James - “Buck” Revell’s subordinate - at the
FBI’s National Security Section, with allegations of national security
violations at E-Systems. James threatened to file charges on her.
Richardson had some of Cooper’s
computer disks.
“These disks scared them so bad
they brought a computer expert down to open them,” says Richardson,
“but there was nothing on them.... Cooper was the one who blew the whistle
on Bobby Ray Inman.”
Cooper and Richardson were subpoenaed to
testify at Inman’s confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense. Inman
backed out before the hearings were held.
“He didn’t want to answer
questions,” says Richardson.
Cooper’s son was killed in 1994.
Police said the boy died from sniffing glue. Yet police found no glue
when they searched his room.
Michele Cooper died four years later, of
fast-acting cancer.
As for Inman, Richardson claims
he’s “a sociopathic pedophile,” and “one of the most
cold-blooded killers in the country - worse than George Bush,” one of
his friends. Bush has been alleged to be a pedophile by at least several known
eyewitnesses, including a number of child prostitutes who testified in the
Franklin Credit Union case, and mind-control/prostitute victim Cathy
O’Brien and her young
daughter.[*]
E-Systems employee Leo Salis Had
information concerning drug drops and the illegal use of PROMIS software. His
wife Dolores was followed and harassed. Her son and daughter-in-law were
run off the road - totaling their car. Her daughter was abducted and raped.
Salis had a bomb put in his car that
malfunctioned and set it on fire. Several days later he came into work to find a
fake bomb in his desk. As Salis states in a tape-recorded
affidavit:
It should be noted that a firebomb went
off in my car as I was driving to work on Tuesday, June 9, 1992. This occurred
in the timeframe that I was meeting with Mr. Murray. Ostracization by management
increased when I returned to work after the firebombing. E-Systems security
denied in the first hour or two of the bombing, and without further
investigation, that the incident could have anything to do with my employment at
E-Systems. The morning of September 14, I discovered a device attached to my
desk. Again E-Systems security responded inappropriately. Instead of
investigating any motives or even the events surrounding the discovery of the
device, they chose to interrogate me, accusing me of setting the device myself.
Greenville Police Investigator, Lt. Fortenberry, has behaved strangely, too,
refusing to talk to me unless I first take a polygraph, a notoriously inaccurate
and unreliable instrument. At this point in time I do not know if the device I
found in my desk was a hoax or an armed bomb. The firebomb I had in my car did
go off. Also I overheard a fireman coming out of the building saying that they
had found a bomb and that it was “hot” whatever that means. Neither
security nor the police will tell me if the device was armed, so I have no
choice, considering the information I am working with, but to assume that the
device was armed and that two serious attempts have been made on my life in the
past three months....
The behavior of security and the police
(The city of Greenville has an economic interest in E-Systems) causes me to
suspect that they and management, especially mid-management may be trying to
kill or discredit me so that I cannot bear witness to the conduct of the
company.[43]
Salis died mysteriously after an
operation.
“A few days after Delores Salis
came to see me,” says Richardson, “three men from NSA came to see
her and wanted to know what we talked about and how many times we had
met,” says Richardson. “She told them about the things that had been
happening to them, and they told her it had the fingerprints of the CIA all over
it. They stated - when she asked if all the whistleblowers all had to die:
’no it would bring down too much heat.”
His widow subsequently became engaged to
E-Systems employee Robert Hunt. Hunt has a security videotape of his
house being broken into. He claims the perpetrators were E-Systems employees
trying to find sensitive tapes and documents. Like the author, Hunt had his
tires slashed, except in his case the perpetrators beat him up and left him for
dead. When he got back to Texas he found his empty wallet in his
bathroom.[44]
Lewis Sams’ boss, Mike Todd, who
worked on the “Woodstock” program, was found with a dog collar
around his neck in 1991. His death was ruled “accidental
Asphyxiation.”
Some other E-Systems witnesses and
whistleblowers:
• Gerald Kinworthy.
Kinworthy - one of E-Systems’ henchmen - had given information
about being forced to falsify government records. He was killed when someone
tampered with the tie-rods on his car.
• Troy Fitch. Fitch was the
director of quality, and involved in Richardson’s termination. As Rath
states: “Troy was the ethics guy out there. If you had knowledge of any
wrongdoing regarding shoddy parts, air-worthiness, etc. you went to him,
You’d be surprised at what some supervisors would put on company aircraft
if they’re on a deadline to get them out the door. Well, Troy went right
to the quality control people and told them what was going on. And the guy just
basically paid him lip service.” Fitch, who was in his late 50s, died of a
fast acting. “He went down quick,” says Rath.
• Don Myers. Myers was Director of
Human Relations. He had testified that the company could be shut down because of
their actions against Richardson. “He had given the names of the people
who were at the meeting when it was decided to terminate me,” says
Richardson. “The company was afraid he was going to talk.”
Myers had a stroke but survived.
• Vince Mahan. Mahan, who worked
under Tom Coffee in Personnel, had a bomb put in his truck which blew off his
foot. Mahan had told E-Systems that he would be truthful when questioned
by investigators. Mahan died from a stroke shortly after testifying in
Richardson’s arbitration hearing.
• Former Texas Atty. General Jim
Maddox’s brother, a UAW union rep., was killed the same day after leaving
union negotiations with E-Systems. He was hit by an 18-wheeler near Rockwall,
Texas.
• David Parker, an Attorney In
Rockwall, was to meet his girlfriend at his house for lunch. When he got there
he found her dead. He believed that individuals from “Division Five”
at E-Systems were responsible for the murders. Although E-Systems denied that
they have a Division Five, says Richardson, “Everything has to have a code
word.”
• Bill Keen. Keen was an E-Systems
engineer and a friend of Richardson’s. Keen had his car rammed, then they
tried to run him over. When he shot out the assailants’ radiator, he was
arrested for shooting at them. Although the Garland police interrogated
the assailants, they were never arrested.
• A Vice President of Finance, had
his house blown up. He immediately left Texas for parts
unknown.
Amtrak Derailment
As previously mentioned,
E-Systems/Raytheon has been the target of numerous allegations regarding illegal
covert activities. These illegal activities were made possible by President
Reagan’s Executive Order 12333. Apparently, the allegations go beyond
fraud, drug-running and murdering employees.
On his August 19, 1995 radio address,
President Clinton complained that Congress still had not passed
“his” Anti-Terrorism Bill. “It’s hard to imagine what
more must happen to convince Congress to pass that bill,” Clinton warned,
in the manner of an ominously veiled threat.
Then just two months later, on October
9, the nation witnessed its first attack on a passenger train, when
Amtrak’s “Sunset Limited” was derailed while enroute from
Phoenix to San Diego. The derailment, caused by sabotage, resulted in over 100
injuries, including one death.
The terrorists left behind a cryptic
note, calling themselves the “Sons of the Gestapo.” The mainstream
press quickly jumped on this latest “terrorist” attack, coming as it
did only six months after the Oklahoma City bombing. While no one, including
law-enforcement officials, had ever heard of the “Sons of the
Gestapo,” the purveyors of deception immediately played it up as the
obvious work of a “Right-wing” militia group.
FBI officials were more cautious
however, speculating that the attack may have been the result of a
“disgruntled employee.” Exhaustive searches through numerous
data-bases revealed no group called “Sons of the Gestapo,” and only
someone with the technical knowledge necessary to disable a warning system on a
railroad track would be capable of executing such a stunt.
It may not have mattered however. In the
aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, any such attack on American citizens
would be excuse enough to push the Anti-Terrorism Bill through Congress. And the
press and anti-militia activists such as the ADL and the SPLC were eager to jump
on the militia connection. “Sons of the Gestapo,” they asserted,
could only be the pseudonym for a Right-wing hate-group.
Yet law-enforcement officials had only
an enigmatic message to guide them. The note left behind by the saboteurs
rallied against the ATF and FBI for their actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge, and
stated, “This is not Nazi Germany.”
Why anyone would attack a passenger
train to exact revenge on government officials for killing innocent civilians
(or blow up babies as revenge for killing children) is beyond credulity. Yet, as
in the Oklahoma City case, this was the message that the saboteurs - and the
government-controlled press - wanted us to believe. America was filled with
hateful Right-wing extremists who would do anything - kill anyone, women,
children, babies - to pursue their violent anti-government
agenda.
As Attorney General Janet Reno announced
in the Oklahoma City case, so the local U.S. Attorney, Janet Napolitano would
declare: “We are going to pursue every bit of evidence and every lead very
thoroughly... until we find the person or persons who committed this
crime.”[45]
While the FBI swarmed through Maricopa
County, interrogating local residents and harassing the few isolated
“desert rats” who inhabited the surrounding countryside, a
real investigation was being conducted by a lone Maricopa County Sheriff.
With the assistance of Craig Roberts, a retired Tulsa police officer with
military intelligence experience who worked on the Oklahoma City investigation,
the Sheriff was able to uncover some amazing information.
What they found was that other than
rescue vehicles, there were no vehicle tracks entering or exiting the crash
site. Moreover, the site itself was extremely remote, being near the summit of
the rugged Gila Bend Mountains, which surrounded the site to the east, north,
and west. It was there, along a sharp S-curve, that the perpetrators had pulled
29 spikes from the tracks, causing the fatal crash.
Why had the perpetrators chosen such a
remote location, Roberts wondered? Had they picked a more accessible spot, he
reasoned, it would have surely lessened their chances of being caught, as all
they would have had to do was drive to the nearest highway. In this case, the
nearest road was Highway 8, 38 miles away, necessitating a difficult drive over
rugged terrain, at the same time as law-enforcement officers would surely be on
a heightened state of alert.
What Roberts and his sheriff partner
also discovered was that 90 minutes away by air, in Pinal County, was a
mysterious air-base known as Marana. The locked-down facility was owned by
Evergreen, Inc., a government contractor reportedly involved in drug smuggling
during the Iran-Contra
period.[*]
The base, located off of Highway 10
between Phoenix and Tucson, was the site of strange night-time training
maneuvers involving black and unmarked military-type helicopters. Passersby had
also witnessed black-clad troops dropping into the desert en mass, using
steerable black “Paracommander” parachutes.
This began to raise some interesting
possibilities. Had the perpetrators been dropped into the site by air, then
picked up by chopper? Roberts was an experienced pilot who was Special Forces
trained and, as he says, “knew how Third World guerrilla units were
trained in railway sabotage.”
They observed that it would have been
easy for a helicopter to fly low through the mountain passes, avoiding radar,
and insert and extract a team. As Roberts noted, “A full moon, wind out of
the south at 8 knots, and a clear sky... would be an ideal night for air
operations.”[46]
The possibilities of a covert
paramilitary commando team being responsible for the attack raised more than a
few eyebrows at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, until they began
investigating a lead provided by a sympathetic FBI agent that several hikers had
seen a small group of parachuters drop into the desert that night. They also
discovered the following information:
“...a VFR target squawking 1200
that left Tri-City airfield in Albuquerque on a southwest course, climbed to
10,500 feet, then, when it was exactly due east of the Amtrak site, turn due
west and flew a course line that took it one mile south of the site. But just
before arriving over the site, it dropped to 8,500 feet. After crossing the
target zone, it turned on a southwesterly course towards California at 8,500
feet. Albuquerque contacted the Los Angeles Center which tracked the aircraft to
a landing at Montgomery Field in San Diego.... It crossed the valley south of
the bridge at 1940 hours (7:40 p.m.)”
Since the winds that night were at 8
knots out of the south, a drop one mile from the target site would compensate
for wind drift. Moreover, such a flight is not required to file a flight plan
listing its passengers, and an aircraft flying out of Albuquerque, squawking on
transponder 1200 wouldn’t look particularly suspicious.
When they checked with the refueler at
Montgomery Field, the records indicated that the “N” number checked
to a Beechcraft, registered to Raytheon. Raytheon owns E-Systems. As previously
mentioned, E-Systems allegedly developed sophisticated systems to create
electronic “holes” which would allow planes to cross the border
without tripping the NORAD Early Warning Systems. E-Systems, which is reputed to
have “wet-teams,” was directed by former NSA Director and CIA Deputy
Director Bobby Ray Inman.
While it is possible a jump was made
from the twin-engine Beechcraft, a plane commonly used for such purposes, it
still left the problem of the team’s extraction. With the radar track
information, the Maricopa Sheriff then went to the Air Force at Yuma, who
monitor the Aerostat radar drug balloons. The DEA balloons have
“look-down” capability for detecting low-flying aircraft. The Master
Sergeant at Yuma agreed to help out. A short time later he called
back.
“Sorry,” he said. “We
can’t help you out.”
“What? Why?” asked
Jack.
“The plug’s been
pulled.”
“What does that
mean?”
The sergeant sounded very uncomfortable
when he replied. “We really wanted to check this out, but all I can say is
the balloons were down that night.”
“Why?” asked
Jack.
“Maintenance.”
“All of them?” asked Jack,
incredulously.
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant
sounded very nervous.
“Why?”
“All I can tell you is that they
were ordered down for maintenance. It came from above my pay
grade.”
One has to wonder what “above my
pay grade” means. Why would all the balloons be ordered down for
maintenance? Obviously, a cover-up was in progress.
It was beginning to sound suspiciously
like the hurried demolition of the Oklahoma Federal Building, to prevent any
independent forensic analysis of the bomb site. Or the Secret Service removing
President Kennedy’s protective bubble from his limousine; failing to
secure the windows and rooftops along the parade route; and changing the route
at the last minute.
Like the two foregoing examples, only
the government - or shadow elements within the government - had the
capability of pulling that off. No “lone nut” or criminal syndicate
could order such last-minute changes, or orchestrate such a massive and
well-executed cover-up. Moreover, no militia group could order all the radar
balloons down on the night of the attack.
As a Maricopa County resident stated to
the Arizona Republic regarding the FBI’s so-called militia theory,
“Buddy, you can’t get three people out here to get together on what
kind of pickup to drive, and you think we’re going to form a
militia?”
Obviously, no militia would benefit from
such an attack. And what about the “Sons of the Gestapo?” As Roberts
wrote: “...as an old Southeast Asia hand (a marine sniper during Vietnam),
I remember that one of the terms used by Phoenix Program assassins working under
MACV-SOG (Military Advisory Command, Studies and Observations Group) was a
twisted bar-room version of the last acronym. “Yeah,” a drunk
trooper would mention. “I’m SOG... a son of the
Gestapo.”[47]
The Phoenix assassination program, as
previously discussed, was organized by the CIA’s William Colby, Ted
Shackley, and fielded by General John Singlaub. Singlaub commanded Second
Lieutenant Oliver North. Shackley, Singlaub, and North would go on to
orchestrate the secret and illegal Iran-Contra operation, smuggling drugs into
this country at such places as Mena, Arkansas... and
Marana.[*]
Curiously, whenever Iran-Contra drug
shipments came in for the California run, the drug balloons under
“Operation Watchtower” were shut down. Could this be the same
mechanism that shut them down the night of the attack?
Then, in September of 1997, a
confidential FBI memo intended for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix
was accidentally faxed to the Arizona Republic, the Associated Press, and
other news media. The memo states that the FBI’s prime suspect is “a
man with law enforcement and firefighting experience who recently moved out of
Arizona.”[48]
Apparently, the “Sons of the
Gestapo” note left behind was a “false flag,” a distraction
designed to serve a political purpose. In this case, that purpose - like the
Oklahoma bombing which preceded it - was to connect the Amtrak attack with
the Patriot/Militia movement. Considering the reaction of the mainstream press,
it appears they - with the help of E-Systems - have largely
succeeded.
Conclusion
As for the case of Winfred Richardson
and the others? As Richardson states in his lawsuit:
“I was informed a couple of weeks
after President Clinton’s election in November 1992 that word had come
down from Washington for the DoJ to decline on all issues before Clinton is
sworn in.... [On] January 10 1993, days before President Clinton was sworn in,
the DoJ declined on all issues.”
Indeed, upon taking office, Clinton
fired all U.S. Attorneys and replaced them with people loyal to him. As
Richardson adds:
“The DoD refuses to do anything
about the confirmed firing of Defendant’s employees for blowing the
whistle and/or giving information....
“The DoD admitted to Government
Affairs, and an employee of the DoD confirmed it to the Plaintiff, [that] the
DoD has never ruled in favor of a defense contractor
whistleblower.[*]
“The Defendant’s council
mentioned to the judge, in a telephone meeting, that due to the amount of monies
involved a settlement was impossible, as if this was a reason for the judge to
throw out this complicated case. The government’s estimate of the
rip-off’s is 25 to 30 percent of all contracts, and this company is/was
doing over three billion dollars a year in business with the government. The
Defendant never tried to settle, and why should they when they own enough
political influence and officials to get away with
anything....”[49]
[1].
E-Systems became an LTV spinoff in 1972. E-Systems was purchased by Raytheon in
1995 for $2.2 billion dollars.
[2].
“He is a member of the Association of Old Crows, a society of electronic
warfare specialists through which many intelligence community ties are made and
maintained.” Gregg Jones, “E-Systems President Maintains Low
Profile,” Dallas Morning News, 10/21/92.
[3].
Press release, 1995 annual report.
[4].
Dallas Morning News, 10/18/92; Gregg Jones, “Germans Delay
E-Systems Contract,” Dallas Morning News, date
unknown.
[5].
Daniel Brandt, Namebase, no date provided. “When E-Systems bought Air Asia
from the CIA in 1975, they pointed out that their intelligence contracting was
with the Air Force, not the CIA, and that former CIA director William Raborn, a
director of E-Systems, was not involved in the purchase.”
[6].
“Behind the Veil of E-Systems,” Greenville Herald-Banner,
date unknown.
[7].
http://www.raytheon.com/ethics/
[8].
Gregg Jones, “Germans Delay E-Systems Contract,” Dallas Morning
News, date unknown; Gregg Jones, “E-Systems President Maintains Low
Profile,” Dallas Morning News, 10/21/92.
[9].
United States and Winfred Richardson v. E-Systems, Case No. 3:90-CV-0607-P.
Plaintiff’s Answers to Defendants’ First Set of
Interrogatories.
[10].
“E-Systems Chief Called Influential: Experts say Keiffer can rally
Pentagon support,” Defense News, date unknown; Gregg Jones,
“E-Systems President Maintains Low Profile,” Dallas Morning
News, 10/21/92.
[*] The
U.S. State Department denies such spying took place and will not even
acknowledge the existence of the top-secret Echelon project. The NSA runs
Echelon with Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand as a series of listening
posts around the world that eavesdrop on the phone conversations, faxes, and
e-mails of suspected terrorists, drug lords and hostile foreign governments. But
to find out what the bad guys are up to, all electronic communications,
including those of the good guys, must be captured and analyzed for key words by
super computers.... As former NSA employee Mike Frost says: “My concern is
no accountability and nothing, no safety net in place for the innocent people
who fall through the cracks.” As an example of those innocent people,
Frost cites a woman whose name and telephone number went into the Echelon
database as a possible terrorist simply because she told a friend on the phone
that her son had bombed in a school play. (“Echelon Bombshell: NSA Accused
of Spying on US Politicians,” Drudge Report, 2/24/00.
“Thatcher Linked to Spy Order on Ministers,” Reuters,
2/24/00.)
[11].
Winfred Richardson, interview with author. All quotes, interview with
author.
[12].
http://www.raytheon.com/community/
[13].
United States and Winfred Richardson v. E-Systems, Case No. 3:90-CV-0607-P.
Plaintiff’s Answers to Defendants’ First Set of
Interrogatories.
[*] One
example of overcharging, as Richardson states in his lawsuit, were “$6,000
to $12,000 trashcans that hang under the [airplane’s] lavatory.”
Some of the defects he describes lead to fatalities.
[*] See
Affidavit of Billy Wayne Rath, below.
[14].
Affidavit of Billy Wayne Rath, copy in author’s
possession.
[*]
Gregg Jones of the Dallas Morning News wrote stories about E-Systems in
December of ‘92. “Well the Editor of the Dallas Morning News
gets a call from someone at E-Systems complaining about Gregg Jones writing the
stories - accused him of yellow journalism and blah, blah, blah, and the
editors backed off.” (See Gregg Jones, “E-Systems Coming Out of the
Shadows,” Dallas Morning News, 10/18/92.)
[15].
“Behind the Veil of E-Systems,” Greenville Herald-Banner,
date unknown.
[17].
“Report Alleges E-Systems Violated Pact,” Associated Press, date
unknown.
[*] The
reporting employee had the choice of providing his or her name.
[18].
“E-Systems Ex-Security Chief Accuses Officials of Improprieties,”
Associated Press, quoted in the Greenville Herald-Banner, date
unknown.
[19].
The filed affidavit of Granville Gwin states; “You’ve reported us to
the OFCCP, NLRB and other government agencies and we are terminating you for
it.” (“United States of America, ex rel, Winfred E. Richardson v.
E-Systems Inc. Brief In Support Of Appeal Plaintiff, Case No.
99-10682.)
[20].
Transcript of meeting attended by Winfred Richardson, mark Bryant (FBI), Special
Agent Rick Bollinger (OSI), Special Agent Chris Hallien (DCIS), Ran Robertson,
Justice of the Peace, Hunt County, Texas, 5/25/93, copy in author’s
possession; Winfred Richardson, interview with author. Transcript of meeting
attended by Winfred Richardson, mark Bryant (FBI), Special Agent Rick Bollinger
(OSI), Special Agent Chris Hallien (DCIS), Ran Robertson, Justice of the Peace,
Hunt County, Texas, 5/25/93, copy in author’s possession; Winfred
Richardson, interview with author.
[21].
http://www.raytheon.com/community/.
[*]
That attempt was a joint services operation, involving the Marines, the Army and
other military services and intelligence agencies.
[22].
Billy Wayne Rath, interview with author. All quotes, interviews with
author.
[*]
Rick also claims to have been involved in Operation Eagle Claw - the
military hostage rescue attempt in Iran in 1980, an unsuccessful attempt in
which several servicemen died. He provide impressive detailed information about
the operation. (See Chapter XX).
[*] One
of Oliver North’s key associates was John Hull. Rick states that the
Jojoba Plantation - John Hull’s ranch in Costa Rica - was owned by
former E-Systems employees. According to Costa Rican authorities, the Hull ranch
figured prominently as a staging point in the Contra guns-for-drugs
operation.
[23].
“Rick,” interview with author.
[*] As
Rath states: “There are certain airplanes seized in drug busts,
okay - and there’s certain airplanes like 707s and 737s that get
brought in, and they need money to bring them up (retrofit them) as snoop
airplanes if you will - counterintelligence airplanes. And where some of
that money comes from would surprise you.”
[*]
Independent witnesses, including Dr. John Reiman, a former Lieutenant Colonel in
the Air Force, back up these allegations.
[*]
North Sea, another “black world” program which began 10 years ago,
involved planes with removable tail numbers. Desert TEA was a Saudi Arabian
contract using encryptors, that, according to Rath, shouldn’t have been
sold to a foreign country.
[*]
C-47 is the military designation for a DC-3.
[*]
Investigators had to sign secrecy agreements not to disclose the classified
operator of the aircraft.
[24].
Oliver “Buck” Revell, statement to author during deposition. The
Dallas transfer ostensibly was the result of a demotion by FBI Director William
Sessions.
[25].
Transcript of meeting attended by Winfred Richardson, mark Bryant (FBI), Special
Agent Rick Bollinger (OSI), Special Agent Chris Hallien (DCIS), Ran Robertson,
Justice of the Peace, Hunt County, Texas, 5/25/93, copy in author’s
possession.
[26].
E-Systems Personnel Office, interview with author.
[27].
Transcript of meeting attended by Winfred Richardson, mark Bryant (FBI), Special
Agent Rick Bollinger (OSI), Special Agent Chris Hallien (DCIS), Ran Robertson,
Justice of the Peace, Hunt County, Texas, 5/25/93, copy in author’s
possession; Winfred Richardson, interview with author.
[28].
“Report Alleges E-Systems Violated Pact,” Associated Press, date
unknown.
[31].
Transcript of meeting attended by Winfred Richardson, mark Bryant (FBI), Special
Agent Rick Bollinger (OSI), Special Agent Chris Hallien (DCIS), Ran Robertson,
Justice of the Peace, Hunt County, Texas, 5/25/93, copy in author’s
possession.
[32].
http://www.raytheon.com/community/.
[*] As
Richardson states: “One reason for the heat is I am fixing to file suit
against the DoD, the DoJ, and Congressmen Dick Armey and Joe Barton as well as
others for being involved in the conspiracy and cover-up,” says
Richardson. “The fact that my que tam action (whistleblower lawsuit) was
kept sealed over six years proves there are problems.”
[*] As
Richardson states in his lawsuit: “In a conversation with Mr. Sams and his
wife I was informed: the government had threatened to file criminal charges
against him if he didn’t drop his wrongful termination suit against
E-Systems. Mr. Sams was called before a grand jury and told what to say, and
that if he deviated the government would file the criminal charges against him,
and this testimony was used to get an indictment against SSA Hallien, which
forced his retirement.”
[34].
“United States of America, ex rel, Winfred E. Richardson v. E-Systems Inc.
Brief In Support Of Appeal Plaintiff,” Case No. 99-10682; This author
heard a tape-recording between Louis Sams and Hunt County Sheriff Bobby Young
discussing the pictures.
[35].
Ibid. “SA Richard Bollinger, SA Ed Dowling and ‘Carlos’
[were] at the meeting and will confirm this.”
[*] The
same thing happened to this author when he blew the whistle on corruption at the
Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office, which was supervising a grand
jury “reinvestigating” the Oklahoma City bombing!
[*] See
Affidavit of Billy Wayne Rath in Appendix.
[36].
Affidavit of Billy Waye Rath.
[*]
Rath believes she admitted it to him “because she didn’t want to
lose me as a contact.”
[*] As
Rath states, “E-Systems never took bids from different dealers to get a
low price; they just all came from this Ford dealership.”
[38].
Affidavit of Billy Wayne Rath.
[*]
Richardson also claims he was introduced to his former attorney by a confirmed
E-Systems plant - Ike Ellis. Ellis stated that an attorney had recommended
Lance Baxter to him. Ellis was claiming problems with E-Systems at the time and
had filed a civil action himself, which he later dropped. Ellis later admitted
that he was planted by E-Systems and that was is a friend and neighbor of
E-Systems President and General Manager Brian Cullen. Ellis and Richardson both
retained Baxter to represent them. Ellis thereupon dropped his suit shortly
after filing. Richadson subsequently discovered that Baxter was the attorney who
did the filing for E-Systems! As Richardson states: “If the Defendant
controls the attorneys for both sides it is understandable the Plaintiff has not
got anywhere.” ( “United States of America, ex rel, Winfred E.
Richardson v. E-Systems Inc. Brief In Support Of Appeal Plaintiff, Case No.
99-10682.)
[39].
Affidavit of Billy Waye Rath.
[41].
“United States of America, ex rel, Winfred E. Richardson v. E-Systems Inc.
Brief In Support Of Appeal Plaintiff, Case No. 99-10682.
[*] In
the Oklahoma City bombing case, when State Representative Charles Key collected
13,000 signatures on a petition to have a new grand jury impaneled, State
Attorney General Drew Edmonson in concert with certain state lawmakers, moved to
alter the petitioning process. When former federal grand juror Hoppy Heidelberg
began hearing testimony of witnesses in his “common law” grand jury,
Edmonson moved to make it a crime.
[*] On
July 23, 1990, E-Systems pleaded guilty to a 3-count information charging
conspiracy to defraud and false claims in connection with a contract to provide
VRC-12 radios to the Army. The VRC-12 radio is the Army’s principal
vehicular borne tactical communications system used by soldiers and commanders
in the field. On August 27, the Army and E-Systems entered into an
administrative agreement in lieu of suspension or debarment based on assurances
from E-Systems regarding specific actions it had taken and would continue to
take to maintain its status as a responsible contractor. On August 11, 1993, the
Army Procurement Fraud Division, coordinating with Defense Logistics Agency
asked DCMDS to conduct a compliance review of the agreement between the Army and
E-systems. On April 15, 1994, the DCMAO Dallas legal office reported the results
of its review to the Army. The review concluded that E-Systems had not complied
with either the spirit or the letter of the administrative agreement. (Defense
Procurement: E-Systems’ Reporting of Alleged Wrongdoing to Army’s
Fraud Division, Letter Report, 05/16/96, GAO/OSI-96-6).
[*]
Billy Rath and Rick provided separate, independent corroboration. Rath does not
know Rick.
[*]
Glen Key, Richardson’s nephew, also came down with cancer at the same
time. The author has witnessed several deaths of investigators who suddenly
developed fast-acting cancers after revealing sensitive information. These
individuals were middle aged with no family history of cancer.
[*]
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, House Committee on Energy and
Commerce.
[*]
The preparer of the GAO Report on E-Systems, SA William Davis, stated that he
had been forced to rewrite the report, watering it down, several times in order
to make it acceptable to the Republicans.
[*] As
Richardson adds: “We built three planes (C-9s) for Vice-President Bush
that didn’t go through proper
channels.”*
[42].
Check on Amick run through Namebase. Revised Agenda and Attendee Roster.
Sponsored by the SO/LIC Division of the American Defense Preparedness
Association. Washington Sheraton, Washington DC, 12-14 December 1995. 36
pages.
[*] See
The Franklin Cover-Up by Senator John DeCamp, and Trance-Formation of
America, by Mark Phillips and Cathy O’Brien.
[43].
Recorded statement of Leo Salis, transcript in author’s
possession.
[44].
Robert Hunt, interview with author. Hunt verified the accuracy of the story, but
was afraid of talking further.
[45].
Roberts, Op Cit., p. 395.
[*] A
former FBI agent, also set up on false charges to silence him, believes
Evergreen used a 747 to smuggle drugs out of Albania at the close of the
Kosovo/Serbia conflict.
[*] In
fact, Singlaub is known to control at least one airfield in
Arizona.
[48].
“FBI accidentally faxes memo on Amtrak suspect,” Associated Press,
9/4/97.
[*]
Allegedly a report was given to Government Affairs that there is an agreement
between the DoD and DoJ not to prosecute certain government
contractors.
[49].
“United States of America, ex rel, Winfred E. Richardson v. E-Systems Inc.
Brief In Support Of Appeal Plaintiff,” Case No. 99-10682.