rigorousintuition.ca

August 12, 2009

Photo of Tom Wilshire Found

http://hcgroups.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/photo-of-tom-wilshire-found/

I have found a photograph of Tom Wilshire, the CIA officer involved in pretty much all the pre-9/11 intelligence failings. It is here. I don’t reproduce it here for reasons of copyright, although I guess I could claim fair use. The photo was taken when he testified to Congress about the al-Qaeda threat in late 2001.



I have to say he looks a lot older than I thought he was, but I guess people never seem the way you imagine them.

I also read a lot of articles about the testimony and found the transcript. They all refer to him as Tom Wilshere (with two “e”s), so perhaps this is the correct spelling of his name and the one we use is wrong. We got the spelling from Lawrence Wright, who mentioned Wilshire in his 2006 Pullitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower and a New Yorker article that accompanied the book, but was focused on FBI agent Ali Soufan.

Finally, all the articles about the testimony refer to him as the “deputy chief of the FBI’s international terrorism section” or some variant of this like the International Terrorism Operations Section (ITOS). This is substantially different to what my understanding of his position was at this time. For example, the DoJ IG report (pp. 282) says that Wilshire “told the OIG that in this detail to the FBI he acted as the CIA’s chief intelligence representative to ITOS Section Chief Michael Rolince,” and that “he did not have line authority over anyone at the FBI and that his primary role was to assist the FBI in exploiting information for intelligence purposes.”

The 9/11 Commission report (pp. 267) simply says that Wilshire was “a CIA official detailed to the International Terrorism Operations Section at the FBI.”

It would certainly make sense for Wilshire to be the deputy chief, as his counterpart Charles Frahm (the FBI official detailed in return to the CIA) was deputy chief of the CIA section that incorporated its bin Laden unit, Alec Station.

Wikipedia wrote:Robert Aime Maheu (1917 – 2008) was an American businessman and lawyer, who worked for the FBI, CIA and as the chief executive of Nevada operations for the industrialist Howard Hughes.

In 1941, during his law studies at Georgetown, he was hired by the FBI and worked as a counter-intelligence officer in Europe during World War II. He left the FBI in 1947, becoming a self-employed business owner, consultant and investigator.

Maheu also worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. He would later recall: "The CIA was my first steady client, giving me 'cut-out' assignments [those jobs in which the Agency could not officially be involved]." Maheu's escapades were said to have inspired the television series, Mission Impossible.

Maheu was implicated in a CIA plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Wikipedia wrote:Nada Nadim Prouty, née Al-Aouar (born c. 1970) is a former American intelligence professional of Lebanese descent who worked in counter-terrorism with the FBI and CIA.

The Diane Rehm Show wrote:REHM Talk about how you first became a CIA agent.

PROUTY Well, in the year 2003, I was working with the FBI, but given my skills, my cultural skills and my language skills, I decided that I would serve my country better on what I describe in the book as the prevention team. The type of cases that I was working with the FBI were investigating crimes after they had occurred and you'd show up to a crime scene and investigate crimes, interview witnesses, interview victims. And I saw a pattern of just showing up after the fact and I thought with my skills and background, I could probably join the CIA and prevent such attacks from happening rather than showing up after the fact.

REHM Were you actually recruited by the CIA or did you offer your services?

PROUTY Well, the -- I worked on a terrorism squad with the bureau and it was an international terrorism squad that led me to work with a number of CIA offices overseas so I had been exposed to the CIA almost all my career with the bureau. And with the suggestions of some friends and with my interest to serve in a different way, I applied and was accepted with the CIA.

Wikipedia wrote:James Walter McCord, Jr. (born 1924) is a former CIA agent, later involved, as an electronics expert, in the Watergate burglaries.

During his career McCord was a security coordinator for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, and worked for the FBI and CIA, where he was in charge of physical security at Langley headquarters. He also held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

The Washington Post wrote:Two former officials of President Nixon's re-election committee, G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord, Jr. were convicted yesterday of conspiracy, burglary and bugging the Democratic Party's Watergate headquarters.

Chief U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica ordered Liddy ... and McCord, a veteran of the CIA and FBI, jailed without bond.

Scott joined the FBI on 17th Match, 1941. He was assigned to the Cryptography Section. However, he told J. Edgar Hoover that he wanted to be a Special Agent. Hoover agreed to his request and he was sent to Pittsburgh where he was given instructions to spy on the local German population in order to spy on possible Nazi sympathizers. In February 1943 he was loaned out to the U.S. embassy in Cuba where he served as assistant to a FBI man named Raymond Leddy.

When he returned to Washington he was recruited to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He was sent to London and on 5th September, 1944, he was appointed chief of the Germany section of X-2. Chief of the Italy section was James Angleton. The two men both became very friendly with Kim Philby and William K. Harvey.

Via: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKscottW.htm

Between 2000 and 2006 Darren served as a police officer, a U.S. Marshal, and an F.B.I. Special Agent out of the New York field office, until he was recruited by the CIA in 2006 to serve initially as a Paramilitary Officer and then later as an Operations Officer/Case officer in Jordan. It was during this period of time that Darren graduated from Columbia College of Missouri, and subsequently received his Master’s degree in 2006 from Boston University, where he studied criminal justice.

Via: http://sofrep.com/15626/darren-labonte/

KeenInsight » Sat Jun 29, 2013 10:39 pm wrote:Do you mean the cliques and potentially criminals ordering crimes in these organizations or do you mean whistleblowers?

Wombaticus Rex wrote:McCord was the character who started my interest, having recently finished Laton McCartney's "Friends in High Places."

Elvis » Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:28 pm wrote:
Does anyone have suggested reading that sheds light on McChord's motives and actions in the "Watergate" milieu?

Wombaticus Rex » Sun Jun 30, 2013 2:31 pm wrote:

Elvis » Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:28 pm wrote:
Does anyone have suggested reading that sheds light on McChord's motives and actions in the "Watergate" milieu?

YES: Jim Hougan's "Secret Agenda" ... it will probably only leave you with more questions, but at least they'll be better informed.

When decrypted, the passage hinted at something buried:

It was totally invisible. How’s that possible? They used the Earth’s magnetic field. x The information was gathered and transmitted underground to an unknown location. x Does Langley know about this? They should: It’s buried out there somewhere. x Who knows the exact location? Only WW. This was his last message. x Thirty-eight degrees fifty-seven minutes six point five seconds north, seventy-seven degrees eight minutes forty-four seconds west. ID by rows.

The cryptanalysts correctly guessed that WW referred to William Webster, which Wired confirmed in 2005 during an interview with artist Sanborn. “The coordinates,” the memo noted, “refer to the location of or a location within the Central Intelligence Agency.” But the significance of the I.D. by Rows? That remained “undetermined,” the NSA’s puzzle crackers wrote.

...

“In part of the code that’s been deciphered, I refer to an act that took place when I was at the agency and a location that’s on the ground of the agency,” Sanborn told Wired in 2005. He may be referring to something he buried on the CIA grounds, though he won’t say for sure. The decrypted text gives latitude and longitude coordinates (38 57 6.5 N, 77 8 44 W), which Sanborn has said refer to “locations of the agency.” So sleuths will have to first decipher the code then find their way onto the CIA grounds and locate that place in order to finally discover what it all means.

Mitrione joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1959. The following year he was assigned to the State Department's International Cooperation Administration. He was then sent to South America to teach "advanced counterinsurgency techniques." His speciality was in teaching the police how to torture political prisoners without killing them.

According to A.J. Langguth of the New York Times, Mitrione was working for the CIA via the International Development's Office of Public Safety (OPS). We know he was in several foreign countries but between 1960 and 1967 he spent a lot of time in Brazil and was involved in trying to undermine the left-wing president João Goulart, who had taken power after President Juscelino Kubitschek resigned from office in 1961.

...

In 1967 Mitrione returned to the United States to share his experiences and expertise on "counterguerilla warfare" at the Agency for International Development (AID), in Washington. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay, again under the AID, to oversee the Office of Public Safety. At this time the Uruguayan government was led by the very unpopular Colorado Party. Richard Nixon and the CIA feared a possible victory during the elections of the Frente Amplio, a left-wing coalition, on the model of the victory of the Unidad Popular government in Chile, led by Salvador Allende.

The OPS had been helping the local police since 1965, providing them with weapons and training. It is claimed that torture had already been practiced since the 1960s, but Dan Mitrione was reportedly the man who made it routine. He is quoted as having said: "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect." It has been alleged that he used homeless people for training purposes, who were allegedly executed once they had served their purpose.

Mr. Hevia had served the C.I.A. in Uruguay’s police program. In 1970, his duties brought him in contact with Dan Mitrione, the United States policy adviser who was kidnapped by the Tupamaro revolutionaries later that year and shot to death when the Uruguayan Government refused to save him by yielding up politician prisoners.

Mr. Mitrione has become notorious throughout Latin America. But few men ever had the chance to sit with him and discuss his rationale for torture. Mr. Hevia had once.

Now, reading Mr. Hevia’s version, which I believe to be accurate, I see that I too had resisted acknowledging how drastically a man’s career can deform him. I was aware that Mr. Mitrione knew of the tortures and condoned them. That was bad enough. I could not believe even worse of a family man. A Midwesterner. An American.

Thanks to Mr. Hevia, I was finally hearing Mr. Mitrione’s true voice:

"When you receive a subject, the first thing to do is to determine his physical state, his degree of resistance, through a medical examination. A premature death means a failure by the technician.

"Another important thing to know is exactly how far you can go given the political situation and the personality of the prisoner. It is very important to know beforehand whether we have the luxury of letting the subject die…

"Before all else, you must be efficient. You must cause only the damage that is strictly necessary, not a bit more. We must control our tempers in any case. You have to act with the efficiency and cleanliness of a surgeon and with the perfection of an artist…

A few months later, Mr. Mitrione paid with his life for those excesses. Five years late, thanks to the effort of such men as former Senator James Abourezk, the police advisory program was finally abolished.

Consider Kenneth Senser, ex-CIA, ex-FBI, and currently running the counterintelligence division of Walmart Global Security, a group called the Analytical Research Center. As a matter of corporate routine, he maintains a network of informants, disinformation agents and agent provocateurs within the ranks of the "Anti walmart Movement." All network and company computer activity is monitored via CoreView, some shit-simple automated surveillance software from Raytheon's Oakley Networks lab. He manages a staff of nearly 400.

Elvis » Sun Jun 30, 2013 6:38 pm wrote:

Wombaticus Rex » Sun Jun 30, 2013 2:31 pm wrote:

Elvis » Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:28 pm wrote:
Does anyone have suggested reading that sheds light on McChord's motives and actions in the "Watergate" milieu?

YES: Jim Hougan's "Secret Agenda" ... it will probably only leave you with more questions, but at least they'll be better informed.

Thanks - great reason to finally read that book.