CIA Targets Education Forum, Conspiracy Section.

[Linda Minor]

I would really like to help... But at this late date its useless... I did go into detail with you and Jim Marrs long ago... And I have posted the total facts as to what I know or knew about OPS 40 and how it came into being..., I have been called a liar and a fabricator and now you want me to go into the details again..., I have done all I can in reference to OPS Forty.. In short... It started with forty people from the White House Situations Room meetings; with a meeting with some vets from the BoP. It was an Intel Operation and had nothing to do with assassinations or sabotage.... It was never a JM/WAVE Operation... It was a CUBAN OPERATION and pinned to WAVE STATION (Miami Station) It reported to two places The Pentagon and the White House (or I should say three) Langley. The 5412th group was the lead contact. And the CIA only acted as logistical support.

If you care to talk to JIM perhaps he can confirm (if he remembers) what we talked about when we numbered the FOIA documents we received from Bud Finisterwald Jr. One thing was the OPs forty and how it came into being.... but you guys did not believe what I had told you... You Pete, if I remember right, wanted it to be a JFK hit team and that I had flown them into Dallas... remember we had a falling out over that as well as other points of which you could not or would not buy at the time. You said I was, "holding out on you"... and being "less than truthful...". I remember.

Well, today I do not care to get into debates over any of that. Its like a dog chasing its tail.... perhaps it will be in the book Deep Cover Shallow Graves... and then again maybe not... it all depends. I wish I could help more... but I have no desire to get sucked into the JFK matter again... I am off to Mexico City. In my view A man has no future until he can escape or put the past behind him... the JFK matter has been covered by the "Experts" just read their books...

As an "amateur" historian, I have to agree 100% with what Tosh said. I have argued repeatedly that the OSS was not set up until 1939, and the CIA only came into being in 1947, yet they get blamed for everything bad going on in intelligence ops today. That just can't be. If one studies the reorganization statutes, it is obvious that the charts kept changing in order to roll old groups into new entities, but it seems that the chain of command on the old groups retained its own autonomy of secrecy not shared with anyone without the "need to know". So historians have to be content with tracing the money back to the original source and discover the truth in that way. Too many researchers have just stopped when they find links to CIA without going back prior to 1939.

Here's one thread from EF involving what Tosh said about Operation 40:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index....5861&st=30

Earlier in that thread:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index....5861&st=15
Operation 40: Part 3

In his autobiography, Spymaster: My Life in the CIA, Ted Shackley defended his relationship with Vang Pao. Shackley claimed that he attempted to “coexist with him without being seared by his breath”. He admitted that some would argue: “Coexist with narcotics traffickers! Just as we always thought! He should have been wiping them out.” Shackley goes on to point out: “only rogue elephants charge at everything in their path, and the CIA was never such an animal…. The mission that had been handed me was to fight a war in northern Laos against the Pathet Lao and the NVA and to interdict, along the Laotian part of the Ho Chi Minh Trial, the flow of military manpower and material from North Vietnam to the battlefields of South Vietnam. My plate was full.” (36)

Shackley’s critics argued that he went much further than co-existing with the drug traffickers in Laos. According to Edith Holleman and Andrew Love: “In addition to his opium trafficking operation, Vang Pao carried out an assassination program, on information and belief under the auspices of Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines. Partially funded by Vang Pao’s opium income, the program eliminated civilian functionaries and supporters of the Pathet Lao, as well as Vang Pao’s rival opium warlords.” Holleman and Love go onto argue that Shackley brought “Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero and Rafael Villaverde, along with Felix Rodriguez, to Laos, to train members of Vang Pao’s Hmong tribe to perform assassinations against Pathet Lao leaders and sympathizers.” (37)

Once again, members of Operation 40 were being funded from outside the CIA. Money was paid to eliminate people who posed a threat to their profits. David Morales and Carl Jenkins were also involved in this assassination program. Morales had told Ruben Carbajal that he had killed people in “Vietnam, in Venezuela, in Uruguay and other places”. (38) Jenkins was another member of what Gene Wheaton had called the CIA "off-the-reservation gang". (39) As Warren Hinckle and William Turner had pointed out in Deadly Secrets, members of Operation 40 were “assassins-for-hire”. In this case it was Vang Pao. Who else made use of this service? In 1968 two important political leaders were assassinated in the United States? Had they been victims of Operation 40?

In December, 1968, Shackley became Chief of Station in Vietnam and took over Phung Hoang (Operation Phoenix). In his autobiography, Shackley denied he was the “godfather of Phung Hoang”. In fact, Shackley claims he did not approve of this program that involved the killing of non-combatant Vietnamese civilians suspected of collaborating with the National Liberation Front. However, according to Shackley, the Director of the CIA, Richard Helms, insisted that “we are not free agents” and that the CIA rather than the United States Army had to run Operation Phoenix. (40) Other members of Operation 40 in Vietnam at this time included Thomas Clines, David Morales, Rip Robertson and Félix Rodríguez. Two other members of the “Secret Team” in Vietnam with Shackley were John Singlaub and Richard Secord.

Shackley claims that Phoenix was set up in November 1966. This was over two years before Shackley arrived in Vietnam. This is true. However, it was Shackley who turned it into an “assassination unit”.