CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE DEATH OF COLONEL JIMMY SABO

Tom Valentine's guest on Radio Free America (Shortwave, 5.065 MHz, mon-fri, 9 pm cst) on November 14, 1994 was private investigator Gene Wheaton. Mr. Wheaton has been looking into the suspicious death of the late Colonel Jimmy Sabo. Following is my transcription of that interview.

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[Awesome sounds of John Phillip Souza's "Stars and Stripes Forever"]

ANNOUNCER
It's Radio Free America, the talk show for intelligent Americans, with your host, Tom Valentine.

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And now, the newspaper that "tells it like it is" presents Tom Valentine.

TOM VALENTINE:
Hello, everybody! Welcome back to Radio Free America.

We're beginning the week with a bang, right now, by recalling a guest, a man who's been a guest on this show a couple of times. He is, he's an extraordinary guy, he's an investigator. He came here before to talk about the crash of the aircraft at Gander, that killed so many young Americans in the military. And he put it together... That was one of the few air crashes in which the evidence, instead of being combed through, was buried as fast as they could possibly bury it.

Well, we have another mystery. And my guest is investigating that mystery. I want to welcome back to Radio Free America Mr. Gene Wheaton. Hi, Gene.

GENE WHEATON:
Hi, Tom. How ya doin'?

VALENTINE
I understand that you've got another story that you're lookin' into now.
WHEATON
That's correct. I'm looking into the murder of a Marine Corps colonel, Jimmy Sabo(sp?), out here in the Marine Corps air station at El Toro, in 1991.
VALENTINE
I had read that that was a suicide!
WHEATON
That's what they wrote it off as. However, we have conclusive medical, scientific evidence that the man was murdered.
VALENTINE
All right.

A lot of people have no idea, even though I understand this was on ABC's "Dateline", or somethin' like that, television...

WHEATON
...Connie Chung's show.
VALENTINE
Connie Chung did it [the TV show, not the murder -- CN]. A lot of people don't know a thing about it, including me.
WHEATON
O.K. On the 22nd of January, 1991, between 8:30 and 9:00 o'clock in the morning, Colonel Sabo was found shot to death in his back yard, in the housing area of the Marine Corps air station at El Toro, California.
VALENTINE
So this is quite awhile ago. It wasn't just something that happened recently.
WHEATON
No. It's... The investigation initially was closed down real quickly, calling it a suicide. A year later, while I was investigating the Gander crash, the family contacted me and asked me to assist them. And I've been working on this since the spring of 1992.
VALENTINE
So when you were on this show before, you were already in the midst of this one.
WHEATON
That's right. And it's an ongoing investigation. I've been called back to Washington by the commandant of the Marine Corps to brief his staff. I've been called back to the Department of Defense and the Pentagon to brief them on it. And it's a heavy case, involving covert operations that are sort of renegade that some Marine Corps units got involved in, that would cause a scandal if they became public.
VALENTINE
I see.

Gene, before we go any further into this thing, how about your background, your military background and so forth.

WHEATON
I've served in the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Army. And I was a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'm a retired special agent with the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, retired as a chief warrant officer, from the Army. [I] served in Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Italy. I have a degree in police science, and a masters in public administration. I teach some criminal justice courses to police officers out here in California.
VALENTINE
All right. You've "been around"; it's pretty obvious, then.

Let's go into this. This then is not necessarily a CIA or a Mena, Arkansas-type thing.

WHEATON
No, not necessarily. There are some inter-relations to the operations going on in Mena, Arkansas. As we got into this case, we found that civilian contractors were flying in and out of U.S. military bases and using the protection of legitimate flights to conduct some illegal operations. And the Marine Corps air station in El Toro happened to be one of those bases.
VALENTINE
Now how'd you determine that?
WHEATON
Well, it was a long, tenacious investigation, as I said, that's still going on. A surprising thing that came out last year was that 32 C-130 Hercules aircraft have been pilfered out of U.S. military channels, and funneled through the Department of Agriculture to civilian, covert operators who used to be part of the old southeast Asia, "Air America" [CN -- notorious as a front for CIA drug smuggling] crowd. And they get sweetheart contracts to haul weaponry around the world, and then their tail numbers are cleared so that they can come back into the United States without clearing through customs, landing at military bases and civilian airports. And they're allowed to run their own, privatized, smuggling operations to help support their little airlines, between government flights.
VALENTINE
Amazing stuff! And somebody fairly high-up has to approve this. Of course, the fourth-floor bureaucrats could do this without anybody knowin' it, couldn't they?
WHEATON
Yes. It's a networking of a covert operation sub-culture of a very small group of people that are implanted in the CIA, the State Department, and the National Security Council, and the Pentagon.
VALENTINE
And you've run into these people before. We haven't got any time for you to comment on it, but we'll bring you back to that point.

My guest is Gene Wheaton, as you heard, [an] investigator with excellent credentials. I'm Tom Valentine, this is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

All right, we are back, live. This is Tom Valentine coming at ya from stormy southwest Florida.

Out in California I have Gene Wheaton as my guest. Gene is investigating the... Well I guess it's not necessarily a case, or something that has got a name, does it, Gene?

WHEATON
Well, it does have a name. It is the... We have briefed the Department of Defense and they have re-opened an investigation into the thing. And it is into the circumstances surrounding the death of Colonel Jimmy Sabo, the number 3 man at the Marine Corps air station at El Toro. He was a Marine fighter pilot in Vietnam, 28 years in the Marine Corps. [He] had a distinguished record there.

And when I got into this, I stumbled across the covert operators to the extent that it rattled headquarters in Marine Corps up so badly, that the commandant invited me back to Washington to brief his staff on it.

After I finished briefing the staff at the commandant of the Marine Corps, I went to the National Institute of Health and various government medical agencies in Washington to get some expertise on the circumstances around a shotgun blast to the head of a man. And I needed the world's top forensic pathologists and the top respiratory pathologists, to study the autopsies and the death photos, to determine whether this man could've actually killed himself or not.

VALENTINE
And those experts agreed that he could not have.
WHEATON
That's correct. The shotgun blast blew out the pons medulla and pulpified the cortex of the brain and severed the spinal cord. And yet we have a major bruise, like a goose-egg bump, on the back of his head where he had been struck. And the shotgun blast destroyed all of the capability to breathe, and yet we can prove, through the aspirated blood in his lungs, that he breathed blood for several minutes after a major injury to his head. But before the shotgun blast went off.
VALENTINE
Mm-hmm [understands]. So he got clubbed and then shot.

There was a CIA fella who was found with a gun, and it was almost impossible for him to reach the trigger... I believe over in Australia, the famous Nugan-Hand. I think it was, was it Nugan? Not Michael Hand. Michael Hand is still alive. But Nugan was found dead. And the investigators there say, well they don't know how he could've killed himself with that rifle.

WHEATON
That's Frank Nugan, of the Nugan-Hand Bank, which was a laundering bank for narcotics money comin' out of southeast Asia, out of Laos and Cambodia during the covert war there. He was found shot to death in his automobile with a high-powered rifle, and he had former CIA director Bill Colby's business card in his pocket. And a huge amount of that money, $150 million or so out of that bank, disappeared and has never been accounted for.
VALENTINE
Yes, and Michael Hand has never shown back up.
WHEATON
That's right.
VALENTINE
But he's still alive!
WHEATON
Yes, I'm sure he is.
VALENTINE
And he's probably got an alias and he might be listening right now [laughs].
WHEATON
[unclear]
VALENTINE
Yeah, well it's a bad world out there. There's an awful lot of things going on.

So this fellow, Colonel Jimmy Sabo, evidently, he got wind of something going on.

WHEATON
Yes. The week before he died, the inspector-general himself, of the Marine Corps, General Hollis Davison(sp?) and his staff, came out to El Toro to investigate the activities of Jimmy Sabo's superiors. However, this was the result of a whistleblower operation where someone was "blowing the whistle" on contractor aircraft getting sweetheart deals for hauling weaponry to the Persian Gulf War. And the people above Jimmy Sabo deflected the inspector-general away from themselves and tried to get Jimmy Sabo to take an administrative reprimand and retire, to "take the rap" for his superiors.

He refused to do it. And the night before he died, he had a major clash with his superiors, and stated that he was going to, the next day, "blow the whistle" on the illegal, covert operations. And the next morning, he was found dead.

TOM VALENTINE:
Now who are his superiors, then? These guys have to be under suspicion.

GENE WHEATON:
Well they were. The commanding general and the chief of staff were both forced into retirement over this thing. And...

VALENTINE
That's a pretty easy way out!
WHEATON
Oh yeah. Well it had to go quietly because there was such a scandal involved in this whole operation.
VALENTINE
Yeah, but you see what a strange country we have? We get a huge media coverage over some females complaining about being manhandled in a hotel with a bunch of Navy fliers, and it covers the media for months and years; we get some men who are killers and murderers and dope peddlers and everything else, with a Marine Corps uniform, and we don't get any coverage.
WHEATON
Well that's the, the turning the American public's brain to cottage cheese so they don't look at the big issues. One of the major covert operations these guys in Washington had going (and again, this is sort of the "lunatic fringe"; it's not the mainstream people. Because the mainstream CIA and Pentagon people do not agree with what's going on.) They set up an operation called "Operation Screw Worm", built this secret airbase down on the Mexican-Guatemalan border and were moving weaponry down to Peru, and being... ostensibly to furnish to the Peruvian government to fight "Shining Path" revolutionaries and the drug smugglers. But in fact, when the consignments would get down there, the covert operators would break 'em up, sell to both sides to keep agitation going and to keep the business of covert operations and weapons movements viable. It's the entire covert operations sub-culture, and the movement of weapons around the world. And these paramilitary, low-intensity conflict operations are strictly business with these men. It's...
VALENTINE
...I...
WHEATON
They don't want to go back home and run a 7-11 store.
VALENTINE
I've heard that story so many times. And it's so true, I believe.

My guest is Gene Wheaton. The subject: the death of Colonel Jimmy Sabo, and the Marine Corps base at El Toro being involved, and this kind of drug smuggling operation. I'm Tom Valentine, this is Radio Free America.

[...break...]

We are back, live. We're talking with Gene Wheaton, [an] investigator that's been a guest on this show before and probably the most credible of among all the investigators into the corruption that we've found in this country. Gene, I have to say that, personally, I find you one of the most credible in the country. And I certainly respect what you are doing.

WHEATON
...I appreciate that.
VALENTINE
Now. If anybody wants to join us out there, you can call in -- questions, comments -- 1-800-878-8255. You don't have to, but if you'd like to, you may. 1-800-878-8255.

Before I go any further: 32 C-130 planes. That's a lot of big planes. And how big is a C-130?

WHEATON
Well it's the huge, 4-engine, turbo-prop that you see, painted olive-green, that goes into war zones all over the world. It's the work horse of the U.S. military.
VALENTINE
Yes, and it carries an awful lot of cargo.
WHEATON
It can haul tanks. It can haul, I don't know, 50, 60, 80 thousand pounds of cargo. It's the real work horse, going clear back to the Vietnam War.
VALENTINE
And they cost a lot of money to build.
WHEATON
They cost over $10 million to build. And even these used ones were worth well over 5, 6, 7 million dollars apiece. And they, they... The covert operators laundered these through the Department of Agriculture with phony papers showing that they were gonna be water droppers for the forestry service. And then they wrote them off as scrap metal at $15,000 apiece and gave 'em to the covert operators.
VALENTINE
Was that ever investigated in Congress? The fact that somebody laundered this much hardware through the Agriculture Department?
WHEATON
Yes. Congress... While I was in the middle of the Sabo investigation, congressman Charlie Rose of North Carolina contacted me, and asked me to assist his office in looking into these claims, and sent me the files on them -- which I researched. And that's how we tracked some of these airplanes back to the Marine Corps air station at El Toro, and down to the Gulf War. I've photographed half a dozen of 'em out here on the west coast for the congressman.
VALENTINE
Was Mr. Hasenfus in one of them?
WHEATON
No, Hasenfus was in a C-123 that...
VALENTINE
...Oh.
WHEATON
...came out of the same group. But that was years before. These all were stolen between 1988 and 1991.
VALENTINE
Oh, these came in the Bush watch.
WHEATON
Yeah. And there's a whistle blower pilot up in Oregon, who has filed a whistle blower lawsuit, who can, you know, recover a certain amount if he discloses corruption and loss of funds for the government. That case has been in federal court under seal, and it was just unsealed in the federal court in Portland, Oregon, Friday, November the 4th. And he and I have been sharing information on this case. And he's testified before the congressional committees on them.
VALENTINE
I'd love very much to have him come aboard as a guest, because this show is heard in Portland, Oregon.
WHEATON
I think that he would be willing to do it. And his name is Gary Eitel -- E-i-t-e-l.
VALENTINE
Well I will get that contact from you, off the air. I appreciate it very much.

So. We know that Jimmy Sabo was murdered. Are we going to be able to level any murder charges?

WHEATON
Well, the... After I went back to Washington the second or third time and briefed the Department of Defense, Criminal Investigation Service, and the inspector-general's office, they re-opened the case. But it appears, on the surface, that they're more interested in, I guess you might call it "damage control" or limiting the embarrassment to the government. Because the last time they were out here, two or three weeks ago, they sent a team out to interview me, they interviewed people here in southern California. They went up to South Dakota and interviewed Colonel Sabo's brother, Dr. David Sabo, who is a world famous neurologist (and he's my client). And they refused to discuss the circumstances of the murder, for 2 days interviewing him, and a day interviewing me, stating that all they were interested in was what we knew about covert operations and who our sources were.
VALENTINE
Well that, that is a real tip-off! Isn't it?
WHEATON
Yes, it is. The sad thing is, the head of that team is a 30-year friend of mine who served with me in C.I.D. [Army, Criminal Investigations Division], and now he's a civilian in D.O.D. [Department of Defense] that has to serve his civilian masters. So he's...
VALENTINE
He's not very happy with what's going on, is he?
WHEATON
No, he's not. But he's limited in what he can do.
VALENTINE
Gene, I understand (and you're a fellow that's close to this), I understand that there is a great deal of "resentment" (for want of a better word) among truly patriotic, hard-working Americans, who have been watching this kind of thing for years and years in the government.
WHEATON
That's absolutely true. In fact, when I first got involved in the investigation of the Iran-Contra affair, it was because a group of very dissatisfied Pentagon officials and CIA officers came to me (as I was already retired from military), and they were in the service of the government and they said, "We can't do anything or we will destroy our careers and hurt our families. But will you do it for us?" And that's where I networked in and started my investigations of all this stuff.
VALENTINE
Yes, you have been in it a long time.

All right! My guest is Gene Wheaton, an investigator extraordinaire, if the truth be known. Probably knows much more than he can tell. 1-800-878-8255, if you'd like to join us. I'm Tom Valentine, this is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

O.K. We are back, live. My guest is Gene Wheaton. He is an investigator. He has had many, many years of experience, and plenty of credentials to do what he does.

And you actually got recruited by military buddies of yours when you were out of the military. And [you] started lookin', back in the days of Iran-Contra.

WHEATON
That's correct.
VALENTINE
I remember the last time you were on. You said something about helping "The Opponents for Ollie North". Well Ollie North got beat. Can you take any credit?
WHEATON
I certainly sit back here very pleased that he got beat. I... The man is part of that "lunatic fringe". I equate him to corporal Adolph Hitler, before the German government was taken over. They really want a secret police state! He and his little fringe group that he runs with. And I, I did what I could. They started a disinformation program about 30 days before the election, to try to get the national media to stop talking to me. But I was in there working, to the last day.

TOM VALENTINE:
Well I understand that.

Now, when you began investigating the Iran-Contra affair, then you ran into Ollie North right off the bat.

GENE WHEATON:
That's right. In the actual beginning, '85, you know I didn't have any objection to covert operations, as long as they were in the interest of national security and were legal and congressionally approved and conformed to the Constitution. But within several months, the folks I mentioned who asked me to help 'em started feeding me information about renegade operations, about the theft of billions of dollars worth of taxpayer paid-for weapons out of U.S. military stockpiles and NATO stockpiles being sold, and the money being stashed in off-shore bank accounts: the weapons going to both our friends and our enemies, just to keep turmoil going in the world; and laundered drug money being used for covert operations.

In the beginning, I thought the contractor pilots were cheating on the National Security Council and Ollie North's people, and I briefed CIA director Bill Casey and Ollie North's staff and the Pentagon people, in early '86.

VALENTINE
I'll bet they were really surprised that somebody was tellin' 'em what they were doin'!
WHEATON
Yeah! [laughs] I was a little naive. They said, "Oh, really?" And then they all denied being involved. And thinking that I was only one guy out there, they told me if I thought I could expose it, to go ahead. So [they] sorta "threw down the gauntlet". But it wasn't just me. It was a large group of patriotic people that were helping me, and we...
VALENTINE
A lot of those folks ended up in jail, did they not?
WHEATON
Well... The wrong, not many of the right people ended up in jail! There was...
VALENTINE
Well I thought some of these guys who blew the whistle and ended up in jail were pretty much on the right side.
WHEATON
There were some people who ended up dead; some ended up in jail. But the ones who should have been in jail are the ones walkin' free today. [CN -- i.e., many of Wheaton's informants, the "whistleblowers", were either murdered or imprisoned. But the actual guilty parties avoided justice.]
VALENTINE
Isn't that how it works.

No, I was thinking of... There was a fellow, named Martin, who called me from jail in the south side. There's a Customs agent named "Ayers(sp?)" who went to jail trying to put the figure of the drug operations and the drugs and guns operations of the Iran-Contra...

WHEATON
He was a former special forces officer who was working under the south Florida "task force" of narcotics. That's Brad Ayers.
VALENTINE
Yes! Brad Ayers, yeah!
WHEATON
His credibility was destroyed by disinformation, much like they tried to do mine. The only thing [that] saved me is my strong family background, my friends, and my military and police reputation. But Brad really had a rough time, and is still having a rough time.
VALENTINE
Yes. In fact, I've known about Brad for many years, and we were neighbors up in St. Paul, Minnesota. And I will be... I've never brought him on as a guest! One of these days I may let him tell his whole story. It's a hair-raiser.
WHEATON
It certainly is. He's got a major, major... He had to fight through the legal system in a lawsuit to try to obtain records out of the CIA and Customs and U.S. Marshalls Office about bad stories that were spread about him. He's got the documentation now. I think he's taking some legal action.
VALENTINE
Yes, he's tryin'. That's why I'm sayin' I'd like to get him back on the show.

Now we had a character that came on this show; his wife came on this show many times. He is said to be still in prison, over in Austria, but I believe he's sittin' there, countin' his money -- and that is Gunther Russbacher(sp?).

WHEATON
Yes... I've avoided getting involved in that thing because I know very little about him. Plus, I don't... The problem with Gunther Russbacher that I see -- he's called me 2 or 3 times, while he was in jail, but I've never met him...
VALENTINE
Uh-huh [understands].
WHEATON
...and I would try to pin him down on things. But like a lot of guys involved in the covert operations community, these guys, as part of their trade, are pathological liars, and they will intermix the truth with fiction. When the truth would help 'em, they will still tell you a lie. And he had so many conflicting stories that he was saying to me that I couldn't determine whether he was real or a phony. So I...
VALENTINE
It drove ya nuts, didn't it!?

Yeah, he even... Uh, Ross Perot tried to get some facts out of him and couldn't do it.

WHEATON
I understand that. Yes.
VALENTINE
Yeah. O.K. Now. I'm gonna ask your opinion on one of 'em. I believe that Inslaw, [the] theft of that software, is one of the biggest crimes in the history of American government. Right up there... Iran-Contra are all part of it. And I'm just wondering if you've had any, run across anything of that Inslaw case.
WHEATON
Well, I have. Early on, Bill Hamilton contacted me. And I've had several meetings with him, back in Washington, and gave him a little advice. It's a very convoluted thing, but it was one of the biggest rip-offs by the U.S. Justice Department and the intelligence community [that] I have ever seen in my life. Every time a judge ruled in his favor, that judge lost his job.

I know the people who actually sold his software overseas. And I've given that information to him (I don't want to discuss it over the air). But...

VALENTINE
Yes. I understand.

I'm still following the Inslaw case. And of course, I've had another one, just like Gunther Russbacher, in Michael Riconosciuto!

WHEATON
Some of them, I think, may be covert operators that just can't distinguish the truth from fiction. And some of 'em are "ringers" that they send in on you just as confusion people, so that you don't know which way to go.
VALENTINE
Aren't they good at that.

All right. My guest is Gene Wheaton. Subject: investigating the kind of corruption that goes on in our government. If you'd like to join us, 1-800-878-8255. I'm Tom Valentine. This is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

All right, we are back, live. My guest is Gene Wheaton.

You know, Gene, I'm sitting here as a journalist and a co-author for many, many people; I'm saying, "Have you arranged for your book yet?"

WHEATON
[laughs] No. I'd have to write it as fiction. Nobody'd believe it as the truth!
VALENTINE
I think maybe you and I'd better talk. Because I have worked with people before on this kind of book, and yes, we should talk. You're not fiction. And I think people who listen can tell there's credibility here.

Fred. Picayune, Mississippi. You're on with Gene Wheaton.

FRED
Hello, Tom! Nice to talk with ya. And good afternoon... Colonel, Colonel Wheaton, is it?
WHEATON
Chief warrant officer.
VALENTINE
Chief warrant officer.
FRED
O.K. I helped pull a whole bunch of marines [unclear] the 10th Corps on the beach at [unclear] back in December of 1950, and so consider myself a friend of the armed forces, since I was a member of the United States Navy.

But a question I have for you is, I happened to read a piece in the Louisville Courier-Journal, on the front page, about -- I guess it was the third week of January, 1987 -- in which a pilot who had been caught hauling weapons down to, I think it was... uh, Honduras -- I think it was Honduras -- and was bringing back loads of drugs!! He said it happened every trip! And he said that he would normally land on some deserted strip in Florida, in the middle of the night -- which he was on his way to doing, and he got word to go to Opalanca(?) [CN -- apparently a military airbase of some sort]. And he said, "Opalanca! You know what I'm carrying?!" And they said, "Don't worry. It's all taken care of."

And this was brought up during Oliver North's appearance, shortly after in, I forget... February, when he first appeared. There were a group who came into the hearing room with a huge banner. They unrolled this thing mentioning the drugs, so that the congressmen could see it. And they were dragged out of the building right away!

Do you know anything... I was wonderin', could you tell us anything about that or...

WHEATON
I was in Washington, D.C. when that banner was disclosed. It was flown, in the room there.
VALENTINE
Yeah. Unfurled it, huh? [chuckles]
FRED
...I saw it [unclear]. I was watching the hearings. It was the House hearings and they, these people walked in. And all of a sudden you've got this banner stretched out across the room...
VALENTINE
Well Gene saw it! Go ahead, Gene. Tell us what happened.
FRED
...and I will hang up and listen.
WHEATON
Well, there was a... This is just one of several. We have several pilots, who are former covert operations pilots, that are coming forward now because of the Sabo case and because of the 32 C- 130s. Some of them flew those C-130s. They're just now hearing about our investigation and it's starting to come out of the closet.

These guys were patriots, former military and Air America, CIA pilots, who were told that flying weapons down was covert operations, and flying drugs back would be "DEA stings". But they flew many, many missions and no sting operations ever happened. And then many of them became whistle blowers. Some of them were put in prison... uh, falsely, with evidence withheld at their trial, to shut them up.

But we do have, we do have a few of 'em that have come out of the woodwork.

That particular incident that your caller was talking about was a DC-6 load of 27,000 pounds of marijuana that was vectored in with the, by the covert operators, getting the, getting the squawk signals on the radio to land at Homestead Air Force Base, in Florida. The pilot of that plane was a guy by the name of Michael Tolliver(sp?). Mike Tolliver later flew a twin-engine plane up with a load of narcotics and wrecked the plane when he ran out of fuel just off of one of the islands in the Caribbean. He was put in prison, but later was called into federal court in Wichita, Kansas, under Judge Kelley's court, because of the lawsuit between the owners of the plane and the insurance company's claiming it was being used for criminal activities. Tolliver claimed that the plane he wrecked -- not the one at Homestead, but the one he wrecked in the Caribbean -- was furnished to him by the U.S. government and he was hauling narcotics into the United States for them. Now Judge Kelley(sp?) called him up from prison and put him in front of his court in Kansas, with the opposition of the U.S. Attorney's office and the Marshalls. And Tolliver made a sworn statement to the judge, to that effect. The U.S. government continued to deny any involvement, but a year or two later, the U.S. government quietly paid for that airplane.

Now that's the typical type of thing that... Laundered drug money is being used for covert operations all over the world, and it is not, I repeat, for national security reasons. It's to keep the covert operators in business and to keep the international weapons business viable. And that's the kind of guys that you're running into.

TOM VALENTINE:
All right. We have another caller, "J.R.", Johnson City, Illinois. You're on with Gene Wheaton.

J.R.:
O.K. Thanks a lot, Tom. What I wanted to ask Mr. Wheaton was, is, you know everybody knows what Clinton's up to and his "leftist" views and everything. And what I'd really like to know is, in the top echelon of the military, if they try this "national emergency" or try to bring FEMA in to take over everything (as a lot of the word is now on talk radio), do you think that there's enough of the top brass in the military that'll put a squash to this? I'll hang up and listen for the answer.

VALENTINE
All right. Gene, I don't know if you would understand the question. I don't know if it's in your area. But it may be, 'cause you do get around with our military. But there's a lot of Americans who are concerned that our government has a, in place, "Emergency Manipulation Agency", that could take over in a crisis and conduct martial law. And we're wondering if there are people in the military who simply wouldn't stand for it.
WHEATON
Well I would certainly hope so.
VALENTINE
Yeah, me too!
WHEATON
The... 90, 95 percent of the military are extremely patriotic, loyal American people. The problem is that, in the old days, when you and I knew what our real military was, the line officers, the combat arms officers -- infantry generals, tank generals, artillery generals -- were the key men in the Pentagon. They now, through this infiltration, have moved civilians into the Department of Defense who are former covert operators in CIA. And have moved their proteges, who are military men but have actually worked on CIA covert operations most of their careers, into many of the very senior, key positions in the Pentagon. And these guys answer to their mentors, outside of the chain of command, rather than up through the chain of command to the commanding general. And they send orders out to the field, and people have to obey those orders or be court-martialed for disobeying them.

Now there's gonna be a... There is a plan, that came out during the Iran-Contra hearings, by Jack Brooks of Texas, that...

VALENTINE
Yeah, but Jack is now out!
WHEATON
Yes. But he brought it up, but he was shut down when he tried to elaborate on it during the Iran-Contra. A plan, that Ollie North drafted, for FEMA to be standing by, and martial law -- when it was implemented, they would go out and scarf up maybe 300,000 of the more, more vocal opponents of their plans, and put 'em in twelve detention camps [a.k.a. concentration camps] around the United States.
VALENTINE
All right. We'll come back to that, if you don't mind, Gene. My last break of the day. My guest is Gene Wheaton. I'm Tom Valentine, this is Radio Free America.

[...commercial break...]

All right, we are back, live. My guest is Gene Wheaton, a veteran police investigator whose credibility is unchallenged, or unchallengeable. And he's one of the real Americans. I love to have him come on this show.

Gene, you were talkin' about Ollie North and FEMA when we had to take that break.

WHEATON
That's right. And they set up this program to, they were planning on some Central American invasions. And if too many American people opposed it they were going to declare martial law and take these old military bases that they had designated, around the United States, as detention camps -- much like they did the Nissei(sp?) Japanese-Americans during World War II -- and scarf 'em up and put 'em...
VALENTINE
Well they have not abandoned that plan! They may have abandoned Ollie, but they haven't abandoned that plan!
WHEATON
Well the plan is still there, on the books.
VALENTINE
Yep.
WHEATON
Jack Brooks was talked down and told he had to go into "executive session" [i.e. away from public scrutiny] when he brought it up during the Iran-Contra hearings. But it was still there.

And there is a new Army field manual on civilian affairs/civilian operations that's "floating around" right now calling, outlining this very same program.

VALENTINE
All right. Now we've had a major political change in this country. And I've tried to point out [that] we're not saved by it at all. But it's a step in the right direction.

Jack Brooks is typical of the Democrats that were defeated, and he himself was defeated in this election. But do you think that there's enough stuff in Jack Brook's head, if he were ever to tell everything he's learned, it would be pretty heavy?

WHEATON
Yes. He was the head of the House Judiciary Committee. And the sub-committee on crime of the House Judiciary Committee was the committee that held our hearings on the Gandor crash. And he is... And I also briefed him, his staff, on the covert operations at Mena, Arkansas.

And incidentally, I know it's not the time to go into it, but we've tracked the operations of the 32 missing C-130s through Mena, Arkansas. And the same people are running those that were running these things now. And it's a continuation of Iran-Contra! Everybody thinks Iran-Contra quit with Ollie North and Secord being exposed. But it actually got bigger because the media stopped looking at it at that time.

VALENTINE
All right. Now. We are getting out of time. But you will be back, I am sure. The, the last thing I want to ask you is... [sighs] I was listening to you and I've lost my train of thought, but I will get it back.

Essentially, you read the book by Terry Reed, I presume?

WHEATON
Yes. I know Terry Reed.
VALENTINE
Compromised. And Terry Reed is pretty valid, is he not?
WHEATON
His book is, concerning events at Mena, Arkansas, is extremely accurate. I can't vouch for the other things about his stolen airplane and the covert operations in Mexico that he talks about.

[CN -- Regarding the credibility of Reed's book, I have recently heard its credibility questioned as follows: (1) I called a radio program which featured a reporter from the Arkansas-Gazette. In the process of challenging him (he was defending Clinton), I mentioned Reed's book. His retort was along the lines of "I can't really see Reed smoking a joint with Bill Casey." (2) A similar disparagement was heard by me shortly thereafter on a different radio show, where the disparagement went along the lines of "I can't really see Reed smoking a joint with Ollie North."

From the book, Compromised, by Terry Reed & John Cummings [excerpts only]:

The governor's invitation had come as a surprise to Terry. He would be even more surprised by what he was about to see and hear.

"Bobby says you've got a problem about going to Mexico because of the deal with Barry Seal," the glassy-eyed governor began. By this time, the smell of marijuana was unmistakable.

Clinton paused for a moment as if trying to sort out his thoughts. "I can see your concern. I understand Seal was a friend of yours. His death does appear suspicious... Seal got just too damn big for his britches and that scum basically deserved to die, in my opinion..." {CN -- Further note that LaRouche et al. have heaped great praise on Reed and his book. This makes me wonder, how does LaRouche's newspaper New Federalist reconcile this paragraph with their unbridled praise for Reed's book? After all, LaRouche and friends keep defending Clinton -- isn't there a contradiction here in that they both defend Clinton and endorse Reed's book? What does LaRouche say about "...that scum basically deserved to die", a statement attributed to Clinton in a book which has received strong endorsement from the LaRouche organization?}

With that, Clinton got up from his chair and went to the back of the van, returning with a half-smoked joint. He reseated himself. He took a long, deep drag. After holding it in until his cheeks bulged, he then exhaled slowly and deliberately.

He extended his arm and offered the joint to Reed. Terry shook his head and gestured, no thanks.

I have been unable to locate any section in which Reed is smoking marijuana with either Bill Casey or Oliver North. If anyone knows of such a section, please send the relevant page number and/or chapter. In the meantime I will keep searching through Reed's book for the alleged section.]


VALENTINE
All right, the very last thing: is anything ever gonna come of the Gandor investigation?
WHEATON
Well the Gandor investigation is the biggest scandal that is being concealed in the entire 20th century, as far as I'm concerned. We got 248 soldiers from the 101st Airborne murdered, and 8 crew members. And Ollie North and Dick Secord and "Buck" Ravell(sp?) of the FBI, and the administration, covered that up. We have just come across new information, that we may have to talk about later, that shows that there was some back- pack nuclear devices on that airplane and there was a nuclear accident at Gandor that they didn't want the world to know about because they were illegally moving nuclear devices through countries that weren't authorizing this to take place.
VALENTINE
You will be back, on Radio Free America, Gene Wheaton. I sure thank you for your time today.
WHEATON
O.K., Tom.
VALENTINE
And we will be talking. All right. Thank you very much.

Gene Wheaton is the guest and, as you heard, there's a lot goin' on out there, and it's not... It's skullduggery. More skullduggery than we care to even contemplate. It's time it gets cleaned up, folks. And Americans like Gene Wheaton are gonna help us.

All right! We'll be back! In the next hour. See you right after the alleged "news".


Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"