By the way... What Caused Colby's Canoe to flip in 1996?

[Jan Klimkowski]

For Vietnam, Phoenix, & Sarin being used by the US against American soldiers, see Operation Tailwind.

MSM broadcast the piece, then claimed it was all shome mishtake, to do with false and failing memories, and fired the naughty journalists.

ORDER WAS RESTORED. DAMMIT.

Here's wiki for an introductory overview:

On 7 June 1998 a controversial version of the above events was broadcast during the premiere of the Cable News Network's NewsStand CNN & Time in a report entitled Valley of Death. The segment alleged that Operation Tailwind had been devised simply to eliminate a group of Americans who had defected to the enemy and were holed up in a Laotian village. The broadcast went on to claim that sarin had been utilized during the operation. According to Valley of Death, the agent had been sprayed from aircraft twice—once to prep the village and once during the extraction. It also claimed that over 100 men, women, and children had been killed during the attack on the village.

The broadcast (and the ensuing 15 June Time magazine article) seemed to have reliable credentials. Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of Tailwind, stated that nerve agents had been used, and not just during this operation. Former SOG Lieutenant Robert Van Buskirk (one of the three platoon leaders) and three of the participating SOG sergeants allegedly lent testimony to support the allegations as edited and presented in the televised and published investigative report.

Van Buskirk stated that the Hatchet Force was exposed on the Landing Zone ("LZ") when the teargas agent was deployed to drive the enemy back. He also stated that he saw his men (who were not equipped with gas masks) convulsing when the wind blew the agent back upon the LZ. One key point of proof was missing from the broadcast: the North Vietnamese Army, who had chemical warfare units stationed in southern Laos at the time, made no comment on what would have been a propaganda coup of gigantic proportions.

The reports, which indicated that war crimes had been committed, caused the Pentagon to launch its own investigation. It concluded the claims made in the program were false. Van Buskirk, it seemed, had forgotten the episode for 24 years and had only recently recalled his repressed memory and was also suffering from psychological problems. Admiral Moorer was 86 years old at the time of the story and living under assisted-care retirement. The difference between nerve gas and tear gas may no longer have been clear to him.


Fallout
CNN and Time magazine then undertook an internal investigation which, after three weeks, concluded that the journalism was "flawed" and the report should be publicly retracted and apologies made. Two key CNN producers of the report, April Oliver and Jack Smith, were fired outright. Senior producer Pam Hill resigned. Reporter Peter Arnett was reprimanded and soon left for HDNet and then NBC.

The producers, Oliver and Smith, were chastised but unrepentant. They put together a 77-page document supporting their side of the story, with testimony from military personnel apparently confirming the use of sarin. Active and retired military personnel consulted by the media, including CNN's own military analyst, USAF Major General Perry Smith (ret), noted that a particularly strong non-lethal formulation of "CS" teargas was indeed used during Tailwind, but that it should not be confused with sarin, which is categorized as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations [1].

In early July 1998, CNN News Group Chairman, President and CEO Tom Johnson issued a statement describing the findings of the internal investigation. He pledged acceptance of the findings and reiterated that the allegations in Valley of Death and related reports "cannot be supported." He said there was insufficient evidence that sarin or any other deadly gas was used, nor could CNN confirm that American deserters were targeted or even at the camp in Laos.

After their dismissal from CNN, Oliver and Smith ardently maintained the truth of their work and both brought lawsuits against their former employer. Oliver was the first to settle out of court for a reputed $1 million [2]. Smith fought longer but also eventually settled for an unknown amount [2]. By June 2000, less than two years later, none of the executives responsible for hiring and firing the two, including Johnson, remained with CNN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_T...ontroversy

[Jan Klimkowski]

More on Tailwind, and CNN hiring the CIA via Kroll to "investigate" it....

CNN'S CIA Connection: New 'Tailwind' Controversy p.10
By allan wolper
Publication: Editor & Publisher
Date: Saturday, July 25 1998

E&P
has learned that ex-CIA agents from the Vietnam War era participated in the
internal CNN review that caused CNN to retract its story about nerve gas attacks in Laos

Wolper is a professor of journalism at Rutgers University and an E&P reporter.
Editor & Publisher has learned cNN used ex-CIA officials who were on active duty during the Vietnam War to investigate its broadcast charging the U.S. military with using nerve gas to kill American defectors in Laos.
The CNN story, which also appeared in Time magazine, claimed the alleged secret mission in September 1970, called "Operation Tailwind," was a CIA-approved operation.
April Oliver and Jack Smith, the CNN producers who were fired in the wake of the story's retraction, contend that using the CIA to investigate itself undermined CNN's internal probe.
E&P's revelations about the ex-CIA operatives, originally published on the E&P Web site on Monday, were a topic at the Wednesday press conference held by Oliver and Smith on the mezzanine of the Freedom Forum's Newseum in New York. "The fact that the CIA was involved is a big story," said Oliver. Earlier, she noted that "those officials would have a vested interest in not confirming what we had found."
Floyd Abrams, the First Amendment attorney who ran the CNN investigation, told E&P he had hoped the former CIA officials would unearth "information that might support the broadcast."
Abrams concluded there was not enough information to confirm the nerve gas thesis and advised CNN and Time to "retract the story and apologize," which they did. Abrams angrily denied that his report was tainted by the use of ex-CIA operatives.

'Preposterous'
"That is preposterous and utter nonsense," said Abrams, who was involved in the 1971 Pentagon Papers court case. "The very idea that we tapped into the intelligence community was a sign that the report was not flawed. I "That is preposterous and utter nonsense," said Abrams, who was involved in the 1971 Pentagon Papers court case. "The very idea that we tapped into the intelligence community was a sign that the report was not flawed. I know that the reporters were deeply committed to their story. My view is that they were wrong."
Abrams said he did not mention the role the ex-CIA members played in his investigation because they did not come up with any information he could use in his 54-page report.

'Independent Investigators'
The Abrams report noted only that "we have utilized the services of independent investigators retained by us."
The New York Times said Abrams told reporters in a conference call after he announced his findings, that he used "enlisted former intelligence officers" from Kroll Associates to help him in his investigation.
Elaine Wood, managing director of Kroll Associates, a division of Kroll-O'Gara, confirmed that five former CIA officials were involved in the CNN investigation.
"The people at Kroll have the highest integrity," said Wood, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan. "We were told to use our sources to find information and report back whether it turned out to be in favor of or against the broadcast."
Wood, who supervised the CNN investigation for Kroll, noted that the agency was not asked to perform a news analysis.
"We were asked to investigate and find facts," she said. "Our job was not to comment on the judgment made in the CNN piece. One of the things that impressed me about the assignment was that we were given no restrictions on how far we could go. It was a profoundly moving assignment to walk back on a piece of history, to speak to the people who lived during that period."
Kroll provided the following thumbnail descriptions of its investigative team members:
u Brian Jenkins, a former Green Beret in Vietnam who briefed Henry Kissinger several times, recently left Kroll to start his own consulting agency.
u Charles Englehart, a vice president in Kroll's Washington, D.C., office, joined Kroll last year after a 30-year career in the CIA. His wife, Deidre, works in CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.
u Ted Price joined Kroll in 1995 after 35 years in the CIA, including a stint as chief of clandestine services.
u Norb Garrett, head of the Kroll London office, spent 30 years with the CIA. He served as director of CIA congressional affairs from 1989 to 1991 before retiring from the agency.

u David Rosenthal, a former senior vice president from Merrill Lynch who spent 20 years with the CIA, joined Kroll in 1989.
Wood said everyone who worked on the investigation was asked beforehand whether there was anything in their past that might influence their research.
"Any person who could not answer that question would not have been allowed to work on the project," she said.
At first, Wood suggested that E&P speak to Englehart about how his wife's current employment at the CIA might have compromised the investigation.
"Charley said he doesn't want to dignify that kind of charge with a reply," Wood said after speaking to Englehart. "His wife is an overt employee of the CIA and not affected by the CNN investigation."
Wood added that Charles Englehart's role in the investigation involved "unclassified document research. He was not a source on any of the people data that we turned over to Floyd Abrams."

No Journalists
Smith said the CIA involvement in Abrams' investigation, combined with the use of CNN attorney David Kohler, showed the report lacked integrity.
"Kohler originally approved the script," he said. "How can he be independent? That's another reason why the Abrams' report has a taint to it. We begged CNN to find a dean of journalism to replace Kohler, but they
wouldn't do it. We wanted a journalist to be involved.'
"Now," said Smith, "we find out from (E&P) that officials who were in the CIA when this all took place also were involved in the investigation. No one told us about that."
Abrams said Kohler's prepublication review of the CNN story should not have disqualified him from investigating the methods used to produce it. "The only potential conflict Kohler had as the lawyer who cleared the story might have been a desire to defend it to the point where it was no longer defensible," Abrams noted.
He said Kohler's original legal analysis of the story was accurate. "The story is legally defensible now and it was legally defensible then," Abrams said.
He added that he did not know why CNN did not bring in a journalist to participate in his independent investigation. "That's something you can ask CNN," he said.
Steve Hayworth, director of public affairs at CNN, said Abrams did not need a journalist to help him decide whether there was enough evidence to support the story.
"We wanted Mr. Abrams' ability to judge evidence," Hayworth said. "The story had already been vetted by journalists. We wanted the story to be true. There is no question that the report we aired should not have been allowed on the air."

Oliver and Abrams
Oliver also said that Abrams and CNN misrepresented his role in the internal investigation, an assertion that Abrams denied.
"When he first came aboard, he said he would advise me on confidential sources and on First Amendment concerns," Oliver said. "I thought he was my lawyer. Then we find out he is the independent investigator."
Abrams denied that CNN retained him just to counsel Oliver and Smith. "I was not brought in to represent them," Abrams explained. "I was called in to look at the validity of the broadcast. I had hoped to mount a serious defense of the broadcast. In that sense, I was on their side."
Oliver said Kohler and an associate counsel read the briefing book a week before the broadcast and made suggestions that were added to the script. "Our script was cleared by the lawyers a week in advance," she said.
"David said he did not think that the story was a problem from a legal perspective."
The U.S. had signed a treaty restricting the use of chemical weapons and President Nixon had pledged a "no first use" policy on nerve gas. The Senate, however, had yet to ratify the treaty before the September 1970 nerve gas raid was supposed to have occurred.

The Kissinger Element
Oliver was stunned when she was told that Jenkins, a former associate of Henry Kissinger, was involved in the internal CNN investigation. Kissinger was Nixon's national security adviser in 1970.
"That would be very important if that were true," she said. "We sent Mr. Kissinger two letters and he refused flatly to take any of our calls. Then afterward he called up Tom Johnson (chairman and chief executive of CNN News Group) to complain about the story."
Jenkins, who served with the U.S. military's Special Forces unit in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967, said he briefed Kissinger three separate times on assorted issues. "I did not work for Dr. Kissinger," Jenkins said in a phone interview from his West Coast office. "I briefed him in 1968 during the transition of the Johnson administration to Nixon. I briefed him again in 1972 on terrorism when I worked for the Rand Corporation and once again in the
mid-80s. I have also briefed several other secretaries of state."

How It Started
The original CNN story was broadcast June 7 and a follow-up was aired on June 14 on the premiere edition of NewsStand: CNN & Time, both of which are owned by the Time Warner Co.
The Time magazine article that was published June 13 was written by Oliver and Peter Arnett, who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam War reportage at the Associated Press and acclaim for his work at CNN on the Gulf War.
Arnett was reprimanded for his role in the story after he said he narrated the script written by Oliver and was minimally involved in the program. "Peter was not just a face," said Oliver.
"He was active in the story in April and May. He did about 25% of the reporting. He interviewed three people on camera and did some calling around for us. Peter knew all our sources. He read all of our interviews. He was 100% on board before everything came apart."
Pamela Hill, the senior producer on NewsStand: CNN & Time, resigned shortly after Abrams issued his report.

•(Appearing at a Wednesday news conference at the Freedom Forum's Newseum in New York City, fired CNN producers Jack Smith and April Oliver charged CNN with "caving in to the Pentagon so that CNN can be on the front lines of the next war." The two criticized the internal report used by the cable network as a basis for the retraction of the "tailwind" nerve gas story. They also lambasted a report issued last week by the Pentagon that attacked their story as inaccurate.) [Photo & Caption]
•(Wolper is a professor of journalism at Rutgers University and an E&P reporter)

http://www.allbusiness.com/services/busi...738-1.html

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby????

Does anyone know the PIMARY source of this quotation, if in fact it is real?

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

http://www.amazon.com/William-Colby-CIA-...F8&s=books

New Prados book, looks to be different from his first Colby book, Lost Crusader. This one seems to focus more on Church and Pike? Tippycanoe hints?

[Jan Klimkowski]

I heard various rumours that he was involved in a big bad black gold deal in Switzerland that went wrong, but I have never seen an iota of evidence to support this.

Closer to home perhaps, was the Franklin Cover-Up written by his mate John DeCamp?

But it remains more than interesting bar talk to my mind. Colby hated water. He was terrified by the thought of boats. What induced him to try to paddle a caneo then? This seemed to me at the time to be a punishment killing, filling him with dread terror prior to being forcibly drowned.

Yup. It's intriguing, isn't it. Colby was also legal counsel to spooky Phoenix Program bank Nugan Hand. After Frank Nugan was assassinated, Colby's business card was "found" on his body.

Found? Or placed?

David - very interesting observations about Colby's fear of water.

It does bear the hallmarks of a public execution perpetrated by one elite faction against another. Or, alternately, as punishment for disobeying the rules.

A slaughter charged with symbolism for those with eyes wide open.

Or Open Eyes....

Bump for this thread too, in the light of the following:

http://swans.com/library/art15/barker32.html

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=2376

[Phil Dragoo]

Peter

You are perhaps referring to Target Patton by Robert Wilcox. The fact that great lengths were gone to in order to destroy the original crime scene, the Cadillac limousine, is reminiscent of another assassination, is it not.

Colby's canoe accident presents some similar features of interest to the suicide of Paisley.

A friend called to my attention the death by inhalation of shotgun of John Millis in a bathtub of the Breezeway Motel in Virginia. Mike Ruppert commented on it in http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/politics/john_millis.html

Ruppert's fellow whistleblower John Carman http://www.customscorruption.com was framed in Mexico and imprisoned by U.S. Feds in 2007. http://www.defraudingamerica.com/carman_price_oct_09_2007.pdf

Colby got up from dinner to answer the door, only to be abducted, injected, interrogated, and placed in the river.

That he left his clams and wine, left his lights and computer on, left his house and went canoeing at night in unpleasant weather without his life jacket--easier to believe Lee Oswald bested Gunny Hathcock and Annie Oakley.

Speculation as to the unsub and his/their motive--would fill volumes.