Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6 Num. 10

("Quid coniuratio est?")


JIMMY ROTHSTEIN -- 09/13/95

I spoke by phone with Jimmy Rothstein, long-time detective (now retired) with the NYPD Vice Squad.

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[...continued...]

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. By the way, that's somethin' that I kind of go by, too: if the media does not cover what seems to be a fairly significant story, I take that as an indicator that there's probably something there -- just by the fact that they're not coverin' it. But that's not to say that all stories that aren't covered are important. It's just that it's an indicator.

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
You know, this Brian thing [i.e., the indictment of Dr. Earl Brian] and Inslaw, why it's so important, because it reaches to Robert Booth Nichols. And then it gets, from there you get to Ed Meese, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and George Pender. You see, Brian was tied to Pender and that whole crowd.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, he was one of Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet".

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Right. And how he got there was because of Pender. Because Pender made Reagan and Bush. In fact, Pender had a room in the White House the whole time Reagan was there.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
I'm a little bit hazy on Pender, exactly.

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
He was part of First International Development Corp -- FIDCO. And that was a Howard Hughes outfit. See, Howard Hughes... he was the CIA. Any clandestine sh** they did, they did through Howard Hughes. And so Howard Hughes was entitled to some kind of recognition for this, and when he got sick, Pender took that over. It comes off of the Howard Hughes operation; that's where you're gonna have to start. And this is where you're gonna find out how George Bush and that sh** got in there.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
And with Howard Hughes: this may seem like kind of a far-out theory to you, but have you ever heard of something called "The Gemstone Thesis"?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Um-hmm [affirmative].

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Any opinion on that?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Well I don't remember just... I've heard of it. I don't remember.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Well it has a lot to do with Howard Hughes. That Howard Hughes was -- I don't know if he was actually killed in 1957, or if he was just basically kidnapped and was taken over, essentially, by some people.

But I just mention that in passing, because you mentioned Howard Hughes. [CN -- For more on this area, see Project Seek by Gerald A. Carroll. Carson City: Bridger House Publishers, 1994. ISBN: 0-9640104-0-2]

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
But what I'm saying, why this whole thing, Inslaw stuff and how... It just goes on and on, all the different angles that come into this thing.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Sara McClendon says that this whole thing with Foster, it goes back to Bush and Weinberger.

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Yeah.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
And it goes back to that, they wanted to get arms, they wanted to hold off on the release of the hostages [in Iran, 1980].

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Well I can fill you in on that hostage business. There's somethin' else behind that. And I got this, firsthand knowledge.

I interviewed Frank Reed. Remember him?

CONSPIRACY NATION:
No, I don't.

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
He was one of the hostages. And when Frank Reed was released, I met with him and I interviewed him. And he's tellin' me this whole story about what happened. And the important thing was, that when he was de-briefed by an FBI agent and a CIA agent, he told them that the chains around his hands, after they got to know the guards, they were loosened, you know? And he could actually slide out of them and do what they wanted to do. And that's the only two people he told it to.

So when the Irishman Kerrigan, or Keegan, got out, he met with [Reed] in Ireland. And he said to him, "You son of a bitch. Why did you tell about the chains?" And he said there was only two people he told that to, the FBI and the CIA. After that, they tightened their chains up. So that means that either the FBI or the CIA was dealing directly with the hostage holders.

So I had heard that those hostages were held not for idealistic reasons, but because of the heroin trade. So I asked Frank Reed. I said, "Frank. Did you ever hear them talking about drugs?" (Because I know another guy, Donahue, who had been held as a hostage strictly for drugs.) And he said, "Yeah!" (You know, because he was there to teach English to these people.) He said, "Yeah, I understand the dialect. And they always talked about it. But it never dawned on me that that's what was goin' on!"

To me, that's very important.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
So you're sayin' that there was some kind of a drug connection?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Oh sure. There is. With the hostages, yep.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
How was there a drug connection?

TR
Well because, like I said, when I asked Reed if he ever heard these guys talkin' about the drug dealin' and heroin, he said, "Yeah!"

And it had to be somebody in the CIA or the FBI that was talkin' to 'em.

And I know, in the case of Donahue who was also a hostage, where he in fact admits that he was held because he was one of the guys for the Agency [CIA], that was running the heroin.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay, I see. Because a lot of these hostages were connected with the embassy. And so there's a tie-in with the drug-running.

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Yeah...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
And so, let me see if I can recap this: they wanted to keep the hostages, not released, because it would help Jimmy Carter if they were released; there was an upcoming election and releasing the hostages might have helped Jimmy Carter in the election. So a deal was worked out that the Iranians would hold the hostages, and in return they got weapons smuggled to them.

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Yeah. That's where this Arif-Darani(?)... Uh, you know there was $40 million also paid? That $40 million came out of Arif-Darani's mother's account.

I mean, it's not that complicated. But when you look at who's involved there... You know, this comes time for the pay-off, in Paris, of what they call "October Surprise". Well in "October Surprise" there was a $40 million pay-off. That came from Arif- Darani's mother's account. Arif-Darani is the only guy that went to jail when they sent the missiles over to Iran...

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Who exactly is Arif-Darani?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Arif-Darani was a major gun-runner. And he was the only guy that went to jail. Because he went to Connecticut to check out the detonating devices. There was a particular device, and he found out they were selling 'em duds! And he went to jail. And I spoke to Arif-Darani for hours. And he was set up!

Another guy that shows up, that's gonna figure in all this, is a guy by the name of Barbudi(sp?). These are all people that were involved with that money that went down in "October Surprise" and the guns for hostages and sh**.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay. And was Foster peripherally involved, even back then?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Yes. He was involved goin' way back. From the information that's comin' out, he was either CIA, NSA, or "all of the above".

CONSPIRACY NATION:
And his function was as kind of a "bag man"?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
That part I don't know. 'Cuz I'm getting information... We also know, there's a thing that just appeared in the National Enquirer wherein they're knocking a guy by the name of Russell Herman(sp?) [pronounced herMAN, with accent on 2nd syllable]. And we know that Russell Herman met with Foster at a truck stop outside of Marion, Illinois. And the widow of this Herman has given us that information. And they also, at times, met with others. See, we know that Russell Herman and a guy by the name of Al Carone were money-men -- carriers, movers. See, this is somethin' that nobody else knows about: but one of the people they met with was Foster!

CONSPIRACY NATION:
When would that have been? When Russell Herman met with Foster?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Oh it was just before he died.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay. A lot of questions come to mind at once. I suppose... What was Foster doing in Illinois? Marion, Illinois?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
Well you see, this guy Russell Herman was a major... See, there's only a couple of guys that know about these accounts and stuff. And they have a lot of money stashed. See, this is why I give some credibility about some of the stuff that's coming out on Foster, about his involvement with this money.

CONSPIRACY NATION:
But how was Foster involved, way back around 1980? What kind of work was he doing?

JIMMY ROTHSTEIN:
That part I don't know. I just can go by this information that's comin' in: that he was tied in with this Russell Herman and this Al Carone.

See, Al Carone was a New York cop who was a "bag man" in New York and then went to work for different federal agencies. He was also a colonel in the military. And he got "the CIA flu" and died all of a sudden, like a lot of these other guys. (They call that "the CIA flu".)

Anyhow. Al Carone, I have him independently identified as meeting Spiro Agnew in a hotel down in Washington. And we also know that Bill Casey met with -- in fact, at this Al Carone's oldest grandson's christening.

See, Bill Casey figures in the middle of this. And I'm sure somewhere you're gonna find Foster was tied in with Casey. Because, just by the meeting that took place in Marion, outside of Marion, Illinois, at a truck stop, it ties this thing together.

And it gets deeper yet. Because I used to watch this group of guys that, we know they were moving stocks, bonds, and money. And we could never get the whole story. Now that this Carone thing came up, we've been able to do it because we've tied it right back to Shackley and company.

[...to be continued...]

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I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or parts of the preceding. Persons mentioned are invited to send their rebuttals, of reasonable length, to bigred@shout.net for probable distribution.

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