Informed Sources Rockefeller Commission Reports On Assassinations And Mind Control A Day's Work At The "company"

INFORMED SOURCES

Rockefeller Commission Report on Assassinations and Mind Control

A Day's Work at the "Company"

It's fashionable these days in Washington to place the blame for excesses in intelligence programs on people who are dead or no longer in power. The most blatant example is the denouncing of counter-intelligence programs and the overall administration of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. The implication always is that under new administrations, such blatant misuses of power no longer occur.

The latest example of such thinking is, of course, the Rockefeller commission report on the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. According to the report, all problem areas had been cleared up by l973 when the gradual revelations surrounding Watergate brought on a massive housecleaning throughout the federal bureaucracies.

In the case of the CIA, housecleaning often meant destroying files which might be incriminating. Former CIA director Richard Helms admitted certain files relating directly to Watergate had been shredded. In another section of the report, the drug experiment program which included testing LSD on unsuspecting subjects could not be detailed because of destruction of documents. Whether other cases of agency misdeeds were successfully removed from the records, and therefore remain undisclosed may never be known.

What the report did document basically confirmed earlier stories by Seymour Hersch of the New York Times, and in fact, few new startling facts emerged. The commission was careful to stick to its charge of examining domestic activities of the CIA. In fact, the only report going beyond that narrow definition - that on assassination attempts made on foreign leaders - remains undisclosed by decision of President Ford. The commission firmly avoided the area of the CIA's role in "destabilizing" foreign governments.

While attempting to reassure the public that the CIA has ended most of the illegal and unethical domestic surveillance activities, the report recommends a series of administrative and legislative reforms to prevent their recurrence. Most of these suggestions simply strengthen the already existing congressional oversight committees and White House powers. Congress is already suggesting stronger laws governing the Agency, but is holding off final proposals until completion of their own investigations of the CIA.

Vice president Nelson Rockefeller has claimed the blue ribbon panel left "no major stones unturned". However, careful examination of the report is not so reassuring.

THE CIA AND THE WHITE HOUSE

The Nixon administration was one of the major targets of blame-placing. Among noted misuses were:

* the pressures placed by Nixon on the CIA to illegally obtain information on dissident groups;

* a request for $33,655.58 for stationary to answer Nixon's mail on the Cambodian invasion (critics of the report claim this money was used to send phony letters and telegrams to the White House lauding Nixon's action);

* a request for assistance to E. Howard Hunt for phony identity used in the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, and a psychiatric profile of Ellsberg drawn up by the CIA;

* a request for files relating to the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam War (which the Nixon administration allegedly used to discredit former administrations).

"The Commission concludes," reads the report, "that the requests for assistance by the White House reflect a pattern for actual and attempted misuse of the CIA by the Nixon administration."

In one area, the report absolves the Agency of any knowing wrongdoing. "The Commission . . . has found no evidence that the CIA participated in the Watergate break-in or in the post-Watergate coverup by the White House."

But the Long Island newspaper Newsday has questioned that statement. The paper reported that former President Nixon refused to grant the Commission access to the White House tapes and other documents relating to possible CIA involvement in Watergate, and President Ford's lawyers failed to support the claim that the Commission had a right to examine Nixon-era documents in the government's possession. Former CIA director Helms' destruction of CIA documents on the subject further undermines the mission's conclusion.

THE MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS

One of the few new areas explored by the Rockefeller Commission involved various drug and mind control experiments. In 1953, one unsuspecting victim was administered a dose of LSD in his coffee during a meeting. Although informed of the fact 20 minutes later, the man had a "bad trip" and several days later committed suicide due to aftereffects. Ten years later, the CIA's inspector general finally heard of the program and ended the practice of administering drugs on unknowing persons. Drug testing continued through 1967, supposedly because of continuous reports starting in the late 40s that the Soviet Union was experimenting with behavior-influencing drugs which could be used to obtain confessions from agents.

"Other studies," reports the Commission, "explored the effects of electric-shock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and harassment substances." However, none of these 1984 techniques are detailed. Interestingly, files on the drug program were destroyed in the late 60s.

But what the missing files may have contained comes out in recent reports from several former CIA employees. Zodiac News Service reports the agents are charging the CIA employs bizarre chemicals and drugs to mentally incapacitate or discredit potential enemies.

Author Andrew St. George, a veteran of U.S. Army Intelligence, writes in the current edition of Esquire that CIA is expert at administering "chemical lobotomies." Agents have successfully forced "security risks" to ingest a chemical called Reserpine commonly disguised as vitamin capsules. The drug causes a rapid rise in blood pressure causing a person's brain to implode, turning the victim into a vegetable.

Former CIA agent Philip Agee, in his book Inside the Company mentions similar chemicals and other poisons reportedly used by the CIA.

Miles Copeland, a former Agency specialist on the Arab world, claims the Agency uses "really effective truth drugs which automatically lower a person's 'discretion' threshold without his being aware of it." He claims the CIA can administer such drugs through undetectable chemicals and bacteria sprinkled on an ordinary postage letter. He adds the CIA has also developed variations of LSD which can be slipped to public figures to cause them to act irrational or overly emotional (a technique reportedly used on presidential candidate Edmund Muskie in Maine), thereby destroying their public credibility.

The Commission avoided the implications of any such programs and simply concluded the Agency should "not again engage in the testing of drugs on unsuspecting persons." It says nothing about continued experiments in behavior modification.

THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

Because of widespread allegations of CIA involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Commission looked briefly into the Warren Report. The report concluded "there is no credible evidence the CIA had any connection with Oswald or Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who shot and killed Oswald." Both Oswald and Ruby are dead, and thus cannot deny or confirm the allegations.

They also rejected claims that photos of two "tramps" picked up by the Dallas police shortly after the slaying were E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. The Commission indicated after a panel of doctors examined the autopsy evidence, that only one gunman had been involved.

But one doctor who testified before the Commission has already cast doubt on this section. Cyril Wecht, who examined the autopsy evidence several years ago told the Commission that at least two gunmen had to have fired at Kennedy, probably from the rear. However, the report quoted Wecht as saying "the available evidence all points to the President being struck from the rear, and that no support can be found for theories which postulate gunmen to the front or right front of the presidential car."

Wecht is calling for a release of his five hours of testimony to prove his statements have been distorted.

"If that transcript shows in any way I

continued on page 12

CIA

continued from page 8

have withdrawn or revised my thoughts on the Warren Report, I'll eat the transcript on the steps of the White House," he stated. "It is utterly reprehensible and despicable but also a great compliment that they would consider my testimony that much of a threat."

THE FOREIGN ASSASSINATIONS

While the Commission began to investigate various CIA plots to assassinate foreign leaders, particularly Cuba's Fidel Castro, the report did not contain this 85 page section because it was incomplete. In fact, the Mafia figure John Roselli, who has claimed to have worked for the CIA in plots against Castro, was never even called before the Commission.

Sources within the Commission claimed allegations were pouring in so rapidly, not only on the already suspected cases but on many which may prove even more damaging, that it would have taken years to investigate. The information has been handed over to the Senate committee investigating the Agency, which has claimed it will do a thorough job in the area.

Speculation on this section's non-release indicates that both Ford and Rockefeller believe it would severely damage the CIA's credibility, and increase pressure to disband the Agency. With the basic assumption of the Commission being that intelligence and counter-intelligence are vital to the country, they were unlikely to propose release of information so potentially damaging.

"I believe the credibility of the CIA can be and will be restored by the report of the Rockefeller Commission and the recommendations of the several Congressional committees," said President Ford at his news conference preceding release of the report. "I believe there can be internal improvement in the CIA. I think there can be legislative recommendations that l hope Congress will enact. And the net result will be that we'll have a strong, effective and proper Central Intelligence Agency."

But the real question is never really raised. Can there be a strong CIA operating within a society which is supposed to be open and democratic? And even further, is the freedom and democracy Americans speak of only for Americans? The role of the CIA across the world and its covert operations aimed at subverting those governments it believes "unfriendly" to U.S. economic interests is not supportive of promoting even the supposedly legitimate aims of gathering intelligence ceded to it by the Rockefeller Commission. The report carefully avoided any recommendations dealing with Americans. Each suggestion simply says to stop doing things to American citizens because such actions are illegal under the act which created the Central Intelligence Agency. What the CIA does elsewhere was just not their concern.

by Ellen Hoffman