("Quid coniuratio est?")
PROVOCATEURS AND THE OKLAHOMA BOMBINGS
It is a fact of history. All the years the ultra rich and what some call their puppet government were determined to wreck grassroots movements that counter their policies. In the 1960s and 70s, for example, put in by the American CIA: pretended leaders of the Peace Movement, heavily-funded fakers. In those years I taught a seminar for university students: how to finger agent provocateurs, a French term meaning those who infiltrate a dissident group to destroy them, such as steering them into the hands of the local police, or, the Secret Police such as the ATF, the FBI, and others.
I used to tell my students: Buy some cotton, plug up your ears when you are in the presence of someone you suspect of being a provocateur. That is, do not study his rhetoric; rather, check out where they popped up from and where their money comes from. I and my associates became experts on CIA-linked foundations whose tax returns are a public record. Some people forget that in the Spring of 1967 there were devastating disclosures that the CIA had a string of foundations they funded and controlled through a three-step procedure of deception called (1) conduits and (2) pass-throughs (sort of a cut-out between the CIA and the ultimate foundation recipients) and (3) fronts, a technical term rather than just slang. Studying what went on before that date was a starting point for scrutinizing CIA foundations, then and now. (Reference: New York Times Index, 1967 volume.)
We began an intensive probe of the "Chicago Seven," those charged with helping instigate the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago: Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, etc. Their rhetoric was planned and polished; virtually impossible to penetrate their words. Some 250 thousand dollars and more funded their operation, coming from the Roger Baldwin Foundation which, in turn, got its funding from the Aaron Norman Fund, the J.M. Kaplan Foundation of New York, and the New World Foundation.
Careful scrutiny showed the Baldwin Foundation took over, in 1967, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). So, thereafter they used a series of names, such as the Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union does not exist as a separate entity, like prior to 1967. Yet press-fakers continue to refer to the ACLU as if there is a separate such thing. The whole operation is part of a CIA apparatus which finances and controls a substantial portion of so-called "liberal" movements and magazines. For example, The Nation magazine gets part of their funding through that group. That magazine does criticize foreign operations of CIA but not domestic ones.
In 1972, I got arrested inside a Chicago television station confronting on these matters Rennie Davis doing a live show. I beat the rap in court by subpoenaing the Chicago Station Chief of CIA. The spy agency, by the way, is not supposed to have domestic operations but they do. The Chicago riots caused a backlash installing Nixon, president.
Another major turning point was in April, 1995: the multiple bombings at a federal building in Oklahoma City. We became suspicious of the numerous publications and talk shows that sprang up from nowhere, just before or just after the tragedy. One such was Media Bypass magazine, headquartered in Evansville, Indiana. They started with a very small circulation. The publisher was Jim Thomas. Earlier in his career he was a military electronics expert; he says he had top security clearance and once worked on the atomic bomb.
On the day of the Oklahoma bombings, Jim Thomas hired, to write about the event, Lawrence W. Myers, a talented writer of several books on bomb making and remote bomb triggers. Myers' books were published by Palladin Press which, like Soldier of Fortune magazine, is reportedly a CIA proprietary.
The circulation of Media Bypass magazine shot way up. It was supposedly the voice of the militias, the tax protester movement, and the state sovereignty movement. President Clinton electrified the nation by suddenly appearing on CBS's "60 Minutes" program, after the Oklahoma bombings. He accused the militias of being somehow involved and dedicated to overthrowing the central government; all of that denied by those claiming to be militia leaders.
Soon, Lawrence W. Myers became the chief investigative reporter for Media Bypass. He wrote stories about the Oklahoma event which some savvy folks suspected were slanted to favor a government cover-up, blaming the whole thing on a sort of Lee Harvey McVeigh, the lone bomber/assassin. But who paid attention that Myers had been a counter-terrorism expert with Wackenhut, the privatized adjunct to the American CIA. The spy agency used Wackenhut, a private firm, to defeat Freedom of Information requests. After all, the federal law forcing, supposedly, some disgorging of documents, applied only to federal agencies, not private firms.
Myers wielding so much power at Media Bypass, some claimed he was sort of the gate-keeper, deciding what stories, if any, were to be published. The magazine ran provocative advertisements proclaiming you did not have to pay federal income tax unless you lived in a federal territory or enclave like the District of Columbia. Readers were urged to contact the advertisers for more data. Was this a way of compiling a list of "victims" for the IRS firing squad?
Some right-wing activists began complaining that Myers liked to pick their brains on the telephone. He had an arrogant way of somehow extracting information. When I wrote about this in March, 1996, in commentaries on Internet, publisher Jim Thomas denied there was espionage involving Myers. But in November, 1996, Thomas called me stating that readers were cancelling subscriptions because of their views on Myers; so Thomas fired Myers but said he could find no proof Myers was with CIA.
To try to divert my attention, Thomas pointed an accusing finger at Jeremiah Films, a California firm that produces video catering to the Christian Patriot movement. Thomas said he also fired Troy Underhill, once a staff member at Media Bypass. According to Thomas, Underhill was some kind of felon who was an operative or fink for IRS and FBI and now has a key position with Jeremiah Films. Another FBI informant or operative acting as a consultant to Jeremiah Films is a person using the fake name of "John Bennett," Thomas says.
Thomas could not explain, however, how it was that some of these same spies were at one time running his magazine or, like Jeremiah Films, taking expensive, full back-cover ads in Media Bypass.
As always, the makers & shakers are trying to control what we think and say.
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Mr. Skolnick, since 1963, has been founder/chairman of a public-interest group, CITIZENS' COMMITTEE TO CLEAN UP THE COURTS, researching and disclosing certain instances of judicial corruption and political murders. Since 1971, as editor of updates of the group's work, called HOTLINE NEWS, a 5-minute recorded phone message, changed several times per week -- a regular phone call -- (312) 731-1100. (Area code may soon change to 773.) Since 1991, a regular participant, now moderator, of a popular, public access cable TV program, called "Broadsides", in Chicago and suburbs -- on most every Monday evening in Chicago, on Channel 21 cable, 9 p.m., available to some 400,000 households. His comments appear on Internet on several websites; archives of his stories can be pulled up and printed out. Also, on Internet, his stories appear on some five categories of news groups, such as alt.conspiracy and alt.activism. (See also http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html and see also ftp ftp.shout.net pub/users/bigred) Office (8 a.m. to midnight, 7 days): (312) 375-5741. 9800 So. Oglesby Avenue, Chicago, IL 60617-4870. Call before sending FAX. NOTE THAT THE NEW AREA CODE, 773, WAS TO HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED BY NOW. IF 312 AREA CODE FAILS, TRY AREA CODE 773. (After October 12, 1996, AREA CODE changes to 773.)
A few highlights of the group's work: Caused the biggest bribery scandal in U.S. history, the collapse of the Illinois Supreme Court, 1969. Investigation of the sabotaged Watergate plane crash, 1972-73. 12 Watergate figures perished including Mrs. E. Howard Hunt, wife of the Watergate burglar. One of the first to comment on the Vice President Spiro Agnew bribery mess, resulting in his downfall, 1973. Investigation and disclosure causing the jailing for bribery of the highest level sitting federal judge in American history, Chicago Federal Appeals Judge Otto Kerner, Jr., 1973. Touching off "Operation Greylord," in which 20 local judges and 40 lawyers jailed for bribery, 1983-1993.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those
of Conspiracy Nation, nor of its Editor in Chief.
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