The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies
Page 42
Without corroborating evidence, Black Dog looks like a Black Lie.
Further Reading
www.deepblacklies.co.uk/operation_black_dog.htm
OPERATION NORTHWOODS
After the failure of the CIA to get Fidel Castro, the US military decided it was their turn to remove the bearded being from the face of the earth. Not for Army officer Lyman Lemnitzer such penny ante stuff as exploding cigars and “invasions” by half-trained exiles. No. Lemnitzer thought big. His idea was to manipulate public opinion into supporting a full-scale war against Cuba by organizing a fake Cuban attack on American people or territory. Among the “false-flag” scenarios Lemnitzer conjured were blowing up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay, attacks on the Cuban exile community in Florida, the shooting down of passenger planes by “Cuban” fighters, the planting of bombs in Miami and Washington and, if anything should go accidentally wrong with John Glenn’s Apollo space mission, fabricating electronic interference from Cuba to prove Castro guilty. As a further refinement, Lyman Lemnitzer suggested committing an outrage against one of the Commonwealth states in the Caribbean, such as Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, so Great Britain could be persuaded to join in.
Lemnitzer was no maverick soldier. He was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. All the above proposals were official plots outlined in the Operation Northwoods memo sent by General Lemnitzer and his fellow top brass to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President Kennedy in March 1962. McNamara and Kennedy vetoed the idea.
The existence of Operation Northwoods was confirmed after author James Bamford sued the National Security Agency for documents on the Cuban missile crisis.
Only two words are necessary to say to those who do not believe in government conspiracies: Operation Northwoods.
Further Reading
James Bamford, Body of Secrets, 2001
DOCUMENT: “JUSTIFICATION FOR U.S. MILITARY INVOLVEMENT IN CUBA” FROM THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF TO SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MCNAMARA, 13 JUNE 1962
The document was declassified in 2000. The original is stored at US National Security Archives, George Washington University, Washington DC,
TOP SECRET SPECIAL HANDLING NOFORN
The Joint Chiefs of Staff
Washington 23, DC
13 March 1962
Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense
Subject: Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)
1.The Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered the attached memorandum for the chief of Operations, Cuba Project, which responds to a request by that office for brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.
2. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend that the proposed memorandum be forwarded as a preliminary submission suitable for planning purposes. It is assumed that there will be similar submissions from other agencies and that these inputs will be used as a basis for developing a time-phased plan. Individual projects can then be considered on a case-by-case basis.
3. Further, it is assumed that a single agency will be given the primary responsibility for developing military and para-military [terrorist] aspects of the basic plan. It is recommended that this responsibility for both overt and covert military operations be assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
For the Joint Chiefs of Staff
signed: General L.L. Limnitzer
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
NOTE BY THE SECRETARIES TO THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF ON NORTHWOODS
[...]
RECOMMENDATIONS:
This paper NOT be forwarded to commanders of specified or unified commands.
This paper NOT be forwarded to US officers assigned to NATO activities.
This paper NOT be forwarded to the Chairman, US Delegation, United Nations Military Staff Committee.
ANNEX TO APPENDIX TO ENCLOSURE A: PRETEXTS TO JUSTIFY US MILITARY INTER VENTION IN CUBA
1) Since it would seem desirable to use legitimate provocation as the basis for US military intervention in Cuba a cover and deception plan, to include requisite preliminary actions such as has been developed in response to Task 33c, could be executed as an initial effort to provoke Cuban reactions. Harrassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized. Our military posture throughout execution of the plan will allow a rapid change from exercise to invention if Cuban response justifies.
2) A series of well-coordinated incidents will be planned to take place to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.
Incidents to establish a credible attack:
1) Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform “over-the-fence” to stage attack on the base.
3) Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.
4) Start riots near the entrance to the base (friendly Cubans).
5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.
6) Burn aircraft on airbase (sabotage).
7) Lob mortar shells from outside the base to inside the base. Some damage to installation.
8) Capture assault teams.
9) Capture militia group which storms the base.
10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires – napthalene [napalm].
11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims.
(b) United States would respond by executing offensive operations.
3) A “Remember the Maine” incident could be arranged in several forms:
a. We could blow up a US ship and blame Cuba.
b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The US could follow with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to “evacuate” remaining members of the nonexistent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
4) We could develop a Communist Cuba terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Flordia cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cubans in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few bombs in carefully chosen spots. The arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.
5) A “Cuban-based, Castro-supported” filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation. These efforts can be magnified with additional ones contrived for exposure. “Cuban” B-26 or C-46 type aircraft could make cane-burning raids at night. Soviet Bloc incidiaries could be found. This could be coupled with “Cuban” messages to the Communist underground and “Cuban” shipments of arms which would be found, or intercepted, on the beach.
6) Use of MIG-type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping, and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful. An F-86 properly painted would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport were to announce that fact.
7) Hijacking attampts against US civil air and surface craft should be encouraged.
8) It is possible to create an incident which would demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civilian airliner from the United States.
a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB [10 separate landing strips on one giant base in the jungle] would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and the passengers, all boarded under carefull
y prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.
b. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly to an auxiliary airfield at Eglin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. Meanwhile the drone aircraft will continue to fly the filed flight plan. The drone will be transmitting on the international distress frequency “MAY DAY” message stating it is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by the destruction of aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow IACO radio stations to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to “sell” the incident.
9) a. It is possible to create an incident that will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack. [...]
b. On one such flight, a pre-briefed pilot would fly Tail-end Charlie. While near the Cuban island this pilot would broadcast that he had been jumped by MIGs and was going down. This pilot would then fly at extremely low altitude and land at a secure base, an Eglin auxiliary. The aircraft would be met by the proper people, quickly stored and given a new tail number. The pilot who performed the mission under an alias would resume his proper identity. The pilot and aircraft would then have disappeared.
c. A submarine or small craft would distribute F-101 parts, parachute, etc. The pilots retuning to Homestead would have a true story as far as they knew. Search ships and aircraft could be dispatched and parts of aircraft found.
3. It is understood that the Department of State is also preparing suggested courses of action to develop justification for US military intervention in Cuba.
THE PALADIN GROUP
In more ways than one, Otto Skorzeny was a big figure in the post-War conspiracy world. The scar-faced former SS commando was a hulking six feet seven inches tall; he was also a main player in, inter alia, the Werwolf stay-behind Nazi guerrilla movement, the ODESSA network, the Spider ratline, Reinhard Gehlen’s the Org, and the International Fascista terrorist-organization , a sub-contractor for both CIA and the Org in the war against Communism.
Skorzeny was also the founder in 1970 of the Paladin Group, “an international directorship of strategic assault personnel [that would] straddle the watershed between paramilitary operations carried out by troops in uniform and the political warfare which is conducted by civilian agents”. Put more plainly, Paladin claimed to train guerrillas for anybody who would pay, from the South African Bureau of State Security to Gaddafi’s Libya. What Paladin advertised less widely, was that it operated a contract-killing facility on behalf of the Spanish intelligence agency SCOE. During the Franco-era, Paladin operated out of the offices of Skorzeny’s Madrid-based import-export firm MC Inc., which just happened to share an address with a front for SCOE, plus a local branch of the CIA. Paladin’s mercenary killers were former members of the French OAS, Portugal’s PIDE as well as the SS, and carried out abductions and executions of Basque ETA members in the mid seventies. Paladin was also rumoured to be the organization that carried out the “false-flag” bombing of Rome’s Fiumicino airport (thirty-two people died) for which Italian Communists were blamed. After Skorzeny’s death in 1975, Dr Gerhard von Schubert took over the reins of Paladin. Von Schubert’s CV included a stint in Goebbels’ propaganda ministry.
PEAK OIL
It’s the oil, stupid.
While black gold may not have been the only reason for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it would be a fool who maintained that securing the oil locked in the ground there was not at least a fleeting thought in the mind of President Bush – who was, after all, a former oil man himself, the director of Harken Energy Corporation. (And let’s not forget that Vice-President Dick Cheney was ex-chief executive of Halliburton Energy, and Condolezza Rice sat on the board of Chevron.) There was an awful lot of oil in Iraq; it had proven reserves of 112 billion barrels. Before the Iraq War, most Iraqi oil contracts were done with the French and Russians … after the war, Uncle Sam was the partner of choice.
“Peak oil” refers to the time when worldwide oil production reaches its maximum level, after which the supply of oil – a finite natural resource made a million years ago – enters a downward curve until the global tank is empty. The peak oil theory is based on the findings of geoscientist M. King Hubbert who in 1956 suggested that America’s oil would begin to run out in the 1970s. US society is particularly exposed to oil consumption; with about 6 per cent of the world’s population, it guzzles 25 per cent of the world’s oil supply, 19.4 million barrels of oil a day.
Or is peak oil a myth, a scare story fabricated by an elite group of politicians and oilmen to create a state of artificial scarcity? And thus keep the price of a barrel of crude nice and high. Those who allege the falsity of peak oil invariably agree with Russian geologist Nikolai Kudryavtsev that petroleum does not come from dead dinosaurs and Pleistoscene plants but has abiotic origins and is in constant production in the bowels of the planet. Since how else can the curious history of production at Eugene Island 330 oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico be explained?
In 1973, the Eugene Island rigs yielded 15,000 barrels a day, before slowing to 4,000 barrels a day in 1989. A few years later, oil gushed at 13,000 barrels a day. An analysis of the oil field with seismic imaging seemed to show the pool being replenished by a migration of upwards oil of a different geological age. Mobil, Chevron, Texaco and others are all accused of controlling the supply of oil to inflate prices. A Chevron memo purportedly warned of the effect on profits of high levels of extraction. Oil-friendly governments are also implicated in the suppression of alternative technologies.
The verdict: it would be amazing if oil producers did not collaborate to push up the price of crude. In fact, that collaboration is a cartel called OPEC. As British entrepreneur Richard Branson once remarked, “OPEC is effectively an illegal cartel that can meet happily, nobody takes them to court. They collude to keep prices high.”
While hard scientific evidence for abiotic production of oil is scarce, the steady discovery of major oil fields around the globe, from the Gulf of Mexico to Uganda to Iran, suggests that peak oil is not the truth, the whole truth, so help us petrolheads dear God. At the very least, according to the International Energy Agency, the world has until 2030 before demand overwhelms supply.
Further Reading
Colin J. Campbell, The Coming Oil Crisis, 1997
David Goodstein, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, 2005
Kenneth D. Worth, Peak Oil and the Second Great Depression, 2010
PLUM ISLAND
In 1896, H. G. Wells penned a nightmare sci-fi novel in which mad-but-brilliant scientist Doctor Moreau conducted hideous experiments on animals.
Plum Island is The Island of Doctor Moreau come to real life.
An elongated blob of land in the dark waters of Long Island Sound off the coast of Connecticut, Plum Island hosts a US Government scientific facility studying animal-borne diseases. For decades after the facility’s foundation at the end of WWII, the White House blithely informed all that asked that everything at Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) was above board and in no way connected with biowarfare.
So why was an early director at Plum Island Erich Traub? Traub was a Third Reich researcher on cancer – in the Hitler era a code for biowarfare – who was spirited out of the defeated Deutschland to the US under Project Paperclip. As files held in the National Archives reveal, Traub’s research on Plum Island in the 1950s concerned the use of ticks as “vectors” to carry pathogens which could destroy Russia’s livestock/grain harvest.
In 1971, a mysterious disease, marked by lassitude, psychosis and organ degeneration, broke out in the town of Old Lyme, Connecticut. The syndrome was given the name Lyme disease. Medical researchers determined that Lyme
disease had one carrier: deer ticks. A decade later, an Austrian scientist isolated and identified the responsible bacteria carried by the deer ticks, which was named Borellia burgdorferi after him. When gene researchers later cracked the code of Borellia burgdorferi they received a mighty surprise: it was the most complex bacterium ever put under a microscope.
What has all this to do with Herr Traub? It seemed unlikely that Lyme disease would arise spontaneously in the sticks of Connecticut. Looking slightly further afield, some researchers believe they found antique traces of Borellia in preserved fauna samples taken from Shelter Island and Long Island. The samples were from the 1940s, when Herr Traub was busy at nearby Plum Island. The latter has numerous birds that frequent it, so the disease may have been borne away from there. Michael Carroll, an attorney and no wild-eyed conspirator, also posits in Lab 257 that mainland US outbreaks of West Nile disease and Dutch duck plague can be trailed back to Plum Island. The Cuban Government directly accused the PIADC of being the manufacturer of bioweapons which destroyed Cuban pigs and sugar cane in the 1970s. Under the weight of evidence, the White House admitted in 1992 that, surprise surprise, biowarfare research had been, and was being, conducted at Plum Island.