The CIA, Narcotraffickers, GLADIO, and CONDOR Pt. 3

The CIA's Key Operators & Fronts

Michael Petrucelli

Nov 03, 2022

THE CIA, WACL, and Fronts

Part 1 of The CIA, Narcotraffickers, GLADIO, and Contra

Part 3 Contents

Direct Ties
reprinted from The Albuquerque Journal

The WACL and It’s CIA Fronts

The term "unconventional warfare" includes, in addition to terrorism, subversion and guerrilla warfare, such covert and non-military activities as sabotage, economic warfare, support to resistance groups, black and gray psychological operations, disinformation activities, and political warfare.

Direct Ties

To list all those involved here would simply be overwhelming to everyone, in the interest of both brevity and narrowing the field of interest I will include at the bottom a more complete list of names. This is provided for your ability to research further those involved in this portion, the provided link will be to a google drive containing several documents here. It may be expanded or added to over time.

E. Howard Hunt

During his time as station chief in Mexico City, Howard was a very busy man, he had to develop some connections that would come to serve him well for a very long time. On the one hand he set up the Latin American section of the Anti-Communist League, a wide reaching terrorist program through which he assisted the overthrow of Guatemala, backed Somoza, and helped Meyer Lansky develop the connections to import heroin.

The now notorious E. Howard Hunt, watergate burglar, Kennedy assassination suspect, OSS from Kunming, certainly needs no introduction in most cases. But, we shall certainly try to provide him one. Beginning his career in intelligence with the OSS station in Kunming, responsible for handling and managing KMT assets, E. Howard Hunt worked with an ignominious group, Lucein Conein and Paul Helliwell, who we’ll discuss later, Singlaub and Cline who feature prominently on this list, Wild Bill Donovan, founder of the CIA, and Richard Helms. Let us not forget the all important coup artist, career criminal and terrorist, and permanent right wing operative Mitchell Werbell III.1

Hunt and Buckley having a good time before Hunt’s interview.

He became a CIA employee working in Korea at some point during this, which gave him ample ties to the Unification Church who we’ll be covering in our next section, but to discuss both topics would be near impossible. But for the sake of maintaining some sort of understanding of the depths of his international ties we must mention his connection to Tongsun Park. Now well known for his role in Koreagate, Park ran an organization called the International Youth Federation for Freedom. This was co-run with a man named M. Douglas Caddy, formerly students together at Georgetown, they decided to go into business together. Caddy would protect Hunt to the point of incarceration during Watergate, and the two had worked for the CIA together in the middle east.4

While in Mexico Hunt oversaw the station in the 60s for a second time, this time his presence was a harbinger of something stranger still than narcotrafficking. Under his purview Lee Harvey Oswald, or the duplicate thereof made an appearance in Mexico City in a way that assured he was noticed. He would also be responsible as station chief for Panama, where Bill Donovan’s CIC was based out of, his imports and exports business. During these years he would oversee bay of pigs, ties with D’Aubuisson, Sandoval, Somoza, the cocaine coup leadership, Barbie, and many others.5

John K. Singlaub

Another, “old China Hand,” as Bill Donovan would refer to them, Singlaub was there concurrently with some other figures that will become major players in this story. In addition to those above was Jack Anderson, long time journalist and friend/betrayer of McCarthy, Jake Esterline, future guerilla war expert at The Farm, Richard Helms, future DCI, and in 1951 he would meat the infamous Ted “The White Ghost” Shackley.

His 1964 appointment as head of Military Assistance Command Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG) would further intertwine him with Shackley. Shackley at this point was already funneling drugs routinely, spending his time with CIA operative under his direct supervision, and future bank executive, Michael Hand of Nugan-Hand fame.6 Singlaub during Vietnam would be responsible for overseeing the Phoenix program. During this he would spend his time training anti-communist guerillas with French Foreign Legionairres, little oversight, and only the joint chiefs to answer to.7

Singlaub (in the middle) with the Contras

He and Aderholt would go from leading right wing terror networks abroad to bringing them home,8 and in 1980 somehow he secured a loan for $20,000 from the Taiwanese government. This would be used to found the replacement for noted eugenicist Roger Pearson, head of Mankind Quarterly a peer reviewed race science journal. Upon the exposure of his eugenicist views in the US his organization saw its collapse. The most likely source of this funding was Ray Cline who had been Taiwan station chief in the 60s.9

He would during this time found the Western Goals Foundation with the ill-fated Lawrence McDonald of John Birch fame, Aubek, and Roy Cohn. Patton and Daniel O. Graham were advisors, both of whom the recently fired Singlaub put himself in the tradition of, generals who stood up to presidents against détente. During his leadership he would claim that he had purged the worst elements of WACL even as he had four of Pearson’s advisors on his board (Possony, Schlafly, Dobriansky, Jay Parker). In reality he removed the Tecos, then asked Reed Irvine to ask Jack Anderson to retract his criticisms. He did not, because very little had changed.10 He would during this time publish a piece in their journal called, "D'Aubuisson on Democracy," a laughable name in all its forms.

Ray Cline

Amongst the more unique sons of the CIA leadership Ray Cline stands apart because he is first and foremost a scholar. Invited to be a Harvard Fellow, he moved to become a cryptanalyst. At some point during this he joins the future narco-ring that came out of Kunming, establishing his presence and making it felt almost immediately with his skill in research. His specialty would eventually turn him to a leadership role within the CIA where he would be eventually Deputy Director of the CIA.

Prior to this he was the deputy station chief in Korea with his long time ally John Singlaub as his deputy. During this time the establishment of the KCIA would be undertaken, and as a result the connections with the unification church. During his time as head of Taiwan he would build the ties that would provide the basis for Singlaub’s 20,000 dollar loan in the 80s. His reach during the 80s would overlap with the World Anti-Communist League and CIA coverups well, he would speak at the WACL conference 4 times by 1984.11

His book Secrets, Spies, and Scholars would provide a detailed, if extremely propaganda ridden account of his own performance during his time in the CIA, as well as mention how the flow of information worked. His role, interestingly left him in a position to be uniquely aware of how the changes at the top level of the intelligence agency effected the changes within the agency, and his skill as a researcher left him seemingly uniquely above the interpersonal hostilities that ran through much of the early post-OSS crowd.

Beetle Smith would find two men within his ranks that he returned from the OSS days capable of ending the hostilities between his conflicting OSO (Special Operations) and OPC (Policy Coordination), Allen Dulles. The unified CIA would find Cline’s skill set increasingly valuable, he would serve in most combat zones, in most essential locations. His role in the development of the post war right wing terror organizations would extend from Cuba to England, from England to Taiwan, and at home would find him involved with the academics in the Congress for Cultural Freedom.12

Taking a hard view Schleissinger and Kissinger in an ironic turn was not because he disagreed with either their aims writ large or their methods. Rather it was because he saw his dear CIA turned into what the external perception always was, national estimates were eliminated, his very own pet project for much of his career, and the covert action wings strengthened. Ray Cline had no issue with Kissinger’s war making and terror methods, he was after all friends with John K. Singlaub, Richard Helms, and Allen Dulles. His issue rather was personal. He would eventually say, “To maintain access to resources and friends, Americans must have bases abroad, air power, and, above all, the mobility and power of a superior three-ocean navy."13

Oliver North

When the history of the Iran-Contra scandal was written, for all of its revelations, one man stands head and shoulders above the rest for eating the majority of the responsibility for the operation. That man is Oli North, career military, long time intel, friend of H.W. Bush, and three time felon. His felonies in 1991 would be vacated, in light of the fact that some of the witnesses testimonies may have been influenced by his own congressional testimony.14 If North goes down in history as anything it should be the world’s greatest fall guy because he’s simultaneously too dumb to have done it himself, and too committed to role on anyone.

He would testify at the Son Thang trials that Herrod had saved his life, a character witness which when taken retroactively should have been meaningless. Herrod was charged with executing 16 civilians and would ultimately be acquitted for his crimes, surely in part to the efforts of plattoon commander North. The results of the war are by this time well known, and the accounts of North in Vietnam too numerous to be needed to recount here, instead we’ll focus on his ties to some key figures in our story.

North and Shackley were known to each other, both were active around the intelligence scene in Vietnam, during this time Shackley was running drugs for the KMT, and North running operations there. In reality the efforts by Shackley and North would not end with the KMT instead they largely continued through the 60s and 70s, in reality expanding. Addressing North in his letters Robert Owen would list him as “BG” short for Blood and Guts, a moniker he had apparently picked up at some point in his decades of terrorism.

So, now old Blood and Guts and The White Ghost had to get operatives to carry out their terror regime for them, and the obvious choice was the group they’d been working with for a long time. Operation 40. Robert Owen was an aide to Quayle, employee of HW, and worked for the UN in Nicaragua, all the while funneling drugs for the contras. When Felix Rodriguez who he an Singlaub recruited would ultimately go down it was not North or Singlaub that he called, instead, it was George GW Bush. Perhaps this case of divided loyalties will tell us more, we’ll see how the advancement took place in our next section on the Moonies.

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