New documents and data on Inslaw, Promis, Wackenhut and Danny Casolaro

[Anthony Thorne]

Michael Best at Glomar Disclosure has begun uploading new documents that he has received pertaining to the Inslaw case and murdered researcher Danny Casolaro. This is reportedly just the first batch, and more are forthcoming.

The Alyeska Pipeline upload contains the draft of a very interesting 1992 congressional report into criminal activities carried out by Wackenhut (this reads like a small book on the subject and is worth the trouble of downloading), and features more than 2000 pages of supporting testimony and documents. The link at the very bottom of this post a 66-page transcript of a meeting between Alan Boyack, Ted Gunderson and Michael Riconsciuto, conducted a few months before Casolaro's death is new to me.

Memo Reveals CIA Was Offered Promis Software in 1981
https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/11/17/...ware-1981/

One of the problems with the investigations into the Inslaw affair, and many other government scandals, is that the agencies involved have too much control over the records that are searched and the questions that are asked and answered. In some cases, like the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, those investigating are denied the proper context that they need to know what's relevant and what questions to ask. In other cases, like Debategate, the Congressional investigators are denied the ability to search the records at all; instead they are only given what the people being investigated decide to turn over. In cases like Inslaw, the agencies' responses are full of non-denial denials and the searches performed are woefully, and often deliberately inadequate.

One CIA memo in particular highlights some of the problems with the investigations into the Inslaw affair and the stolen PROMIS software. The memo shows that the Agency was offered a government copy of PROMIS as early as 1981. Details from the memo also confirm that this PROMIS software is the "wholly unrelated" Project Management Integrated System distributed by Strategic Software Planning Corporation and Digital Planning, Inc. that CIA claims is the only PROMIS software they have used. Unlike the Project Management Integrated System software and the PROMIS software used by NSA (which the NSA claims is also unrelated to Inslaw's software), this software is listed as being used for criminal justice, general tracking and information processing.

This is significant for several reasons:

1. None of these records were searched by the Agency during any of the investigations.

2. The Agency claims not to have bought the stolen software, a defense which is undermined both by the allegations that it was stolen and the government's claim to own the software while offering it to CIA.

3. It undermines the search and statements made by the Department of Justice regarding distribution of the software.

In its repeated statements to Congress, CIA claimed not to have bought the software. This memo, however, shows that the Agency was offered the PROMIS software along with a list of other pieces of government owned software and the hardware necessary to run them. Since CIA didn't disclose this or search those records, it's unknown if they acquired an initial copy of the software this way. Even if it did not, it undermines their claims to have fully cooperated and searched every reasonable record and Agency component as they didn't search their software requisition records.

The Department of Justice also repeatedly stated that, aside from a notable exception, they didn't provide copies of PROMIS to anyone else or distribute it throughout the government. These memos, however, show that the software was being offered throughout the federal government from the beginning, making versions of the software readily acquirable for anyone in the government to review or toy around with prior to Earl Brian and Edwin Meese's scheme to defraud Inslaw while modifying (i.e. inserting backdoors) and distributing the software through the U.S. and overseas.

Albeit small, this is yet one more piece of evidence demonstrating the problems with the integrity of original inquiries and investigations. How many more need to be found before an honest and thorough investigation can conducted?

You can read the memo and attached documents below:

CIA PROMIS 1981 memo

A declassified memo showing CIA was offered copies of the PROMIS software as early as 1981, contrary to public claims by the Agency and government officials.
https://archive.org/details/CIAPROMIS1981


Listserv postings re: Inslaw

(The visibility errors were present in the printed copy provided.)
https://archive.org/details/ListservPostingsReInslaw


Inslaw Affair Investigative Report
https://archive.org/details/InslawAffair...tiveReport


Addendum to Inslaw's Analysis and Rebuttal of the Bua Report
https://archive.org/details/AddendumToIn...eBuaReport


Alyeska Pipeline Service Company Covert Operations Report
4 Volumes, includes report into Wackenhut activities, and three volumes of supporting material. Download as PDF (link on right side of page)
https://archive.org/details/AlyeskaPipel...tionReport


Casolaro Transcript of meeting Boyack, Gunderson, Riconsosciuto
https://archive.org/details/CasolaroTran...onsosciuto

[David Guyatt]

Thanks for this Anthony. I spent many moons, with the help and input of Inslaw's Bill Hamilton, checking (and then writing about) the Promis story circa 20 years ago. Casting an eye over the documentation you've linked to, I feel sure Bill is still active on the story and I have to really admire his tenacity in not letting the rip-off by Reagan's crooked cronies go unanswered. All power to his elbow --- even though we have come a vast distance in software enhancement and development for tracking social networks etc., over that time. I personally have little doubt that it was Promis that was the catalyst for all this.

[Ralf Anders]

This is very interesting.

Having read the transcript of the interview with Riconosciuto, my mind boggles. Either Oswald LeWinter was the epitome of trustworthiness next to this guy, or Riconosciuto has up to his imprisonment led one of the strangest lives I have ever heard of. And he does not even mention his close relationship with Fred Crisman...

As far as I know, most if not all of what he said on other occasions checks out.

Any thoughts?

[Anthony Thorne]

I haven't dug into the case properly since the 90's, so I'm not up to speed to comment too much. My interest has been piqued to revisit the saga though. Here's two more documents.


The Attorney General's refusal to provide congressional access to "privileged" INSLAW documents
(long readable document, I'm having trouble grabbing the PDF though)

https://archive.org/details/TheAttorneyG...WDocuments


Alternate Copy of Danny Casolaro's notes
It's likely that these are entirely duplicates, but they are provided here as they came from a different source and may have some missing pages or copies that are more legible.

https://archive.org/details/CasolaroNotes

[David Guyatt]

Riconosciuto was undoubtedly a very strange, but brilliant guy. LeWinter almost certainly was some sort of CIA type. The whole thing has a smoke and mirrors element to it. There is somewhere on this forum a free download of Cheri Seymour's book The Last Circle (try HERE) that focuses on the Inslaw Octopus affair. Cheri used to be a member here.

[Peter Lemkin]

[URL="https://covertactionmagazine.com/index.php/2018/06/17/declassified-documents-call-into-question-official-washington-narrative-of-danny-casolaros-death/"]Declassified Documents Call Into Question Official Washington Narrative of Danny Casolaro's Death
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by Jack Colhoun June 17, 2018 2 Comments

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Jack Colhoun

[Danny Casolaro supposedly committed suicide in 1991 while investigating intelligence activities involving the Inslaw/PROMIS affair he code-named "The Octopus." Just before his death, Casolaro had a briefcase full of documents and notes. When his body was found, the briefcase was gone. The official version of events surrounding Casolaro's death has been questioned since the beginning, but several recent revelations resulting from the release of government documents have undermined it. Jack Colhoun explores the new evidence in this piece. As an investigative reporter and historian, Jack authored numerous CovertAction Information Bulletin / CovertAction Quarterly pieces in the past including: "Israeli Arms to the Contras" and "U.S. Supports Khmer Rouge." He is also the author of Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba, and the Mafia, 1933-1966.]

Danny Casolaro

Did investigative reporter Danny Casolaro commit suicide as Special Counsel Nicholas Bua concluded in his 1993 report on the Inslaw Affair?[1] Or was Casolaro killed because he was digging too deeply into the U.S. intelligence community's illegal use of Inslaw's PROMIS software?[2] Records related to Casolaro and PROMIS released recently in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests call into question the official Washington narrative.
Casolaro was found dead, both wrists slashed multiple times, in the bathtub of his room at the Sheraton Inn in Martinsburg, West Virginia on August 10, 1991. Casolaro's family, friends, and associates immediately raised the possibility of foul play, noting Casolaro had gone to Martinsburg to meet a "source." On August 17, the New York Timesreported Dr. Anthony Casolaro was "very skeptical" that his brother had killed himself. Anthony Casolaro said "his brother had recently received numerous death threats and that none of his notes on the case were found with his body."[3]
Special Counsel Bua acknowledged that Olga Moskos, an Arlington, Virginia neighbor, reported hearing a threat intended for Casolaro when she answered his ringing telephone. But Bua downplayed the significance of the threat Moskos described and, instead, concluded that Casolaro had killed himself. Bua explained, "There was ample reason to believe Casolaro had a motive to commit suicide." Casolaro had been "unemployed for months," "the balloon mortgage on his house" would be due soon, and his publisher would not give him an advance for the book he was writing on the PROMIS affair. Bua added, "several" of Casolaro's friends questioned whether he had "invented" the death threats.
However, MuckRock writer Emma Best faults the Bua report for its marginalization of evidence of death threats that Casolaro received. Best points out Martinsburg Police notes of an interview with Moskos, which had been sealed by the Department of Justice, offer detailed evidence of death threats Casolaro received. "[Casolaro] received threatening calls. Olga took some. Guy was nasty. Kill him cut into pieces," the police notes stated. "She advised that there were times when Danny would check his car before getting into it. That scared her." The Martinsburg Police notes were released in response to a FOIA request Best filed.
Best is even more critical of Bua for dancing around the subject of Casolaro's missing briefcase. Martinsburg Police did not find a briefcase in Casolaro's room. Best writes, "According to the Bua Report, only one witness a front desk employee at the hotel thought they might have seen the briefcase." Bua reasoned because "no other hotel employee recalled seeing Mr. Casolaro with a briefcase," the desk clerk "was probably mistaken."
According to Martinsburg Police Detective John McMillen's hand-written notes, however, another witness, Barbara Bettinger, a Sheraton Inn maid, also reported seeing a briefcase. When Bettinger cleaned Casolaro's room the day before his death, she saw a "briefcase on [the] dresser, open with papers sticking out of it." Bettinger added, "[H]e acted real nervous and kept looking behind him when he was going down the hall toward the elevators."[4]
The day Bettinger saw a briefcase in Casolaro's room, August 9, was the same day William Turner, a former Hughes Aircraft employee, said he delivered "two packets of documents" to Casolaro in Martinsburg. Turner had been holding the documents in safe keeping for Casolaro. In a sworn statement, Turner explained Casolaro planned "to swap some info to his source for more information on Inslaw." Turner stated the documents included "computer printouts and other documents [Casolaro had] received from un-named sources and from Alan Standorf and documents relating to the sale of modified PROMIS software . . . to Canada, Australia and Israel." Casolaro told Turner that the meeting with a source in Martinsburg "had been arranged by Joseph Cuellar."[5]

Danny Casolaro

In the summer of 1991, Cuellar arranged a "chance encounter" with Casolaro at the Sign of the Whale Bar in Arlington, where Casolaro was known to hang out. Cuellar introduced himself to Casolaro as a major in the Army Special Forces who had just returned from the Desert Storm intervention in Iraq. Casolaro told Inslaw founder Bill Hamilton that Cuellar asked him what he did for a living. "Danny answered that he was researching a book on the Inslaw affair," Hamilton recalled in an interview. "Cuellar responded that he knew all about the Inslaw affair because Peter Videnieks was one of his closest friends." Casolaro told Hamilton that he had several other meetings with Cuellar. Videnieks was the Department of Justice contracting officer for PROMIS in the early 1980s.
In 1992, Hamilton began receiving information from a never-identified U.S. intelligence source through a third party, a retired Army Criminal Investigation Division officer. "My intelligence source claimed that Danny was murdered by U.S. Army Special Forces Intelligence Major Joseph Cuellar in the course of a covert intelligence operation," Hamilton stated. "The objective of the operation was to recover every copy of computer printouts from a Defense Intelligence Agency PROMIS-based domestic surveillance database system called Main Core, acquired through the assistance of National Security Agency employee Alan Standorf." Standorf was found beaten to death in the back seat of his car in a parking lot at Washington National Airport in January 1991.
Hamilton wonders whether Cuellar was the man an unnamed Sheraton Inn maid told the Martinsburg Police she saw leaving Casolaro's room the morning of his death on August 10. The mystery man was mentioned in a meeting between Bill and Nancy Hamilton and Inslaw's attorneys with Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Zipperstein and FBI Special Agent Scott Erskine in March 1994. Charles Work, an attorney for Inslaw, followed up on the subject in a March 14, 1994 letter to Assistant Associate Attorney General John C. Dwyer.
"We regard as significant the confirmation from Special Agent Erskine during the meeting that a maid at the Sheraton Inn in Martinsburg, West Virginia, had seen a man leave Mr. Casolaro's hotel room the . . . morning of the death," Work wrote. "According to Special Agent Erskine, the local police took a statement from the hotel maid in which she gave an eyewitness description of the man she saw leaving the room . . . A male in his 30's, with an excellent sun tan, wearing a fashionable tee-shirt, dark slacks, and deck shoes." Work referred to news reports that Casolaro had been waiting in the hotel bar for "a dark-skinned man." Work asked, "Could that have been the same man whom the maid saw leaving Mr. Casolaro's room . . . and whom she describes as having `an excellent sun tan'"?
Hamilton was taken aback by Assistant Associate Attorney General John Dwyer's response. "I am troubled by the statement . . . regarding the `confirmation' by Supervisory Special Agent Erskine of certain facts. In fact, neither Supervisory Special Agent Erskine nor Steve Zipperstein confirmed any such details," Dwyer replied to Work on March 17, 1994. "To the extent you understood any part of our meeting as a confirmation of any facts . . . you are mistaken." Hamilton shot back in an interview, "John Dwyer simply denied in writing what FBI Agent Scott Erskine admitted in front of Nancy and me and three Inslaw trial lawyers, two of whom were former assistant U.S. attorneys . . ."[6]
Meanwhile, other recently released records reveal there was skepticism elsewhere in the FBI about Bua's conclusion that Casolaro had killed himself. An undated FBI report on the Inslaw Affair noted that Bureau's Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) Task Force questioned whether Casolaro had committed suicide. The task force looked into Casolaro's death because he had pursued leads that tied PROMIS to the BCCI banking scandal.
"[S]ome questions remain in my mind about the Casolaro death and his allegations," the undated report stated. The unnamed writer said he asked fellow task force members off-the-record what they thought about Casolaro's death. "At least half of them thought the matter should be further pursued and questioned the conclusion of a suicide." The writer added, "[T]he level of doubt was especially significant, because it was clear to express those views risked one's own judgment being called into question."[7]
In the last few months of Danny Casolaro's life, FBI Special Agent Thomas Gates took the unusual step of reaching out to Casolaro. Gates cautioned Casolaro to be careful about Robert Booth Nichols, whom the reporter had contacted because of his alleged links to PROMIS. Gates had interviewed Nichols as part of a separate FBI investigation of organized crime figures. Gates learned that Nichols, who had threatened to kill him, had also threatened Casolaro. "Gates warned Casolaro to be careful in his dealings with Nichols," an FBI report on BNL and Inslaw stated. "Gates had two or three telephonic contacts with Casolaro, the last of which occurred shortly before the writer's death."[8]

---

[1]Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc., March 1993.
[2]In 1988, a federal bankruptcy court ruled that the Department of Justice "took, converted, stole" a version of Inslaw's case management PROMIS database through "trickery, fraud, and deceit" in a contrived contract modification dispute. Inslaw contends the Reagan Administration stole "PROMIS for [use in] covert intelligence projects." Inslaw Memorandum, "The Inslaw Affair," July 2011.
[3]Reporter Is Buried Amid Questions Over His Pursuit of Conspiracy Idea," New York Times, August 17, 1991.
[4]Emma Best, "DOJ Ordered Police Notes Contradicting the Suicide Narrative for Danny Casolaro Be Sealed," February 7, 2018 at MuckRock.com. See also Emma Best, "The Danny Casolaro Primer: 13 Reasons to Doubt the Official Narrative Surrounding his Death," March 15, 2018, and Emma Best, "FBI File Casts Doubt on Bureau's Investigation into the Suspicious Death of Journalist Danny Casolaro," May 8, 2017 are at MuckRock.com.
[5]"To Whom It May Concern: Matters Concerning Inslaw and Danny Casolaro" by William R. Turner, March 15, 1994.
[6]Letter from Charles Work to Assistant Associate Attorney General John Dwyer, March 14, 1994; Letter from John Dwyer to Charles Work, March 17, 1994; Letter from Charles Work to John Dwyer, March 24, 1994.
[7]FBI Report, "Justice Department Special Prosecutor Contacts (BNL and Inslaw)"
[8]Ibid.; FBI Special Agent Thomas Gates' sworn statement is included in House Judiciary Committee, The Inslaw Affair(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1992).

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