On November 26, 2013, Mr. Robert Levinson officially made history. He became the longest-held hostage in American history. This isn’t something to celebrate. In fact, once you dig further into the details of the case, it’s something that should create great concern among the American public. The fault of Robert’s disappearance lies squarely on the shoulders of the CIA. Levinson’s case is evidence that the CIA has been mismanaging its resources in recent years. Levinson’s story proves what I blogged about in 2010 when I described how the CIA had started trying to privatize intelligence work, outsourcing the work to private companies like In-Q-Tel and others. I personally witnessed CIA attempts to gather intelligence via private sources back in 2006 and 2007, around the same time that CIA analyst Anne Jablonski had been communicating with Levinson, and going so far as to “hire” him to perform private investigations for the Agency under CIA contract. The catch is that despite the fact that the mainstream media today is referring to Levinson as a “CIA spy” – he is nothing of the sort. Levinson was a retired FBI analyst who – like many obsessed with the CIA – was intrigued by the world of covert spying and espionage. At least since 2006, the CIA has been taking advantage of such individuals and apparently in cases like Levinson, going so far as to provide funds to private sources to “unofficially” perform work for the agency. Unfortunately, in Levinson’s case he got carried away, put himself in harm’s way, and learned the hard way that he was not exactly the CIA spy that he thought he was. The Agency promptly disowned him, the press mislabeled him, and the U.S. government doesn’t know what to do about him, because they’re not exactly sure how he’s classified. Is he a private citizen, or is he a spy like the media says?





My Experience Being “Outsourced” by the CIA Early in 2010, I blogged about some of my own communications with a CIA analyst named Ron Pandolfi, who works in the Science & Technology division of the CIA. For many years, Pandolfi had been actively seeking out individuals throughout the Ufology community and engaging specific individuals to perform some research for him. In 2007, I was personally asked to investigate the scientific claims of one Robert Baker and his claims as part of his “gravity wave” research. Fascinated by a potential new fraud to expose, I worked with fellow investigator Stephen Broadbent to dig further into Robert Baker and his research.

We discovered that Robert Baker had presented on the topic to foreign scientists from China, Russia and elsewhere, hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Austin, Texas. Not to be confused with IAS at Princeton, Puthoff’s IAS often hosts pseudo-scientists and scientific frauds. We obtained photographs and Powerpoints of the presentation, and were able to obtain many pages of writings by Robert Baker about the alleged science behind gravity wave research. I used the information to write up a full report of the story. However, prior to publishing, we shared what we had learned with Ron Pandolfi as a courtesy, since he had provided the initial lead. Oddly, he asked us to hold off on publishing if we could, because “a report” would be coming out and he didn’t want to scare off the scientists being briefed by the JASON group. Only a few months later, in October of 2008, the report “High Frequency Gravitational Waves” was published by JASON, discrediting the science of High Frequency Gravity Waves. Then it struck me, my services as an investigator had been utilized “unofficially” by the CIA. Even worse – I never received any payment for my efforts! Alas, I had a great story line for an article. I felt that I was maintaining journalistic integrity, because aside from not getting paid, I eventually began digging up information about Pandolfi himself and his decades-long efforts in manipulating the UFO community – a potentially embarrassing situation for the Agency. But, that is a story for another day.

Robert Levinson’s Story What does this have to do with Robert Levinson? A lot. It serves as further evidence that in 2006, the CIA – or at least certain groups within the Agency – was actively exploring using private citizens or organizations to outsource the analysis of intelligence. Robert Levinson played right into those cards. He had worked at the FBI for nearly his entire career as a Russian organized crime expert, but in 1998, the NY Times reports, he decided to quit “because he needed money”. He proceeded to get into private investigation work, but the allure of working for the government never left him, and when his colleague from the CIA – analyst Anne Jablonski – told him that the Agency might have an opportunity for him in the form of a consulting contract, he jumped. Levinson had never worked as a covert agent – his career at the FBI was as an Agent in Russian organized crime – studying intel, developing informants and tracking down criminals. The so-called “contract” that Jablonski offered Levinson involved similar work – obtaining and studying intelligence and developing “reports” for the group. His experience with the FBI served him well – his reports were in fact more informative than many of the covert reports coming from the clandestine branch of the Agency. In 2006, Jablonski wrote to Levinson and told him: “You’d have SO enjoyed being a fly on the wall today in our meeting about you. Everyone was so happy about the info but just freaking out about how to NOT piss off our ops colleagues for doing a better job than they do.”

The situation reveals a lot about the Agency’s tactics starting in 2006. Apparently, there were funds set aside for groups within the CIA to hire outside contractors for various jobs. It seems as though those funds were not carefully monitored. Once Levinson turned up missing and an internal investigation took place, it was revealed (by CIA officials to Ms. Levinson and her lawyer) that CIA officials were clueless about what kind of activities that Robert Levinson was up to in the CIA’s name. “According to Mr. McGee, the C.I.A. officials said that while an inquiry had not found a ‘smoking gun’ proving that the agency knew in advance about Mr. Levinson’s trip, it did conclude that Ms. Jablonski and her boss, Mr. Sampson, had misled officials about his work.” What this reveals is that there were likely a number of analyst groups (not part of the clandestine branch) who took it upon themselves to start conducting operations to obtain information about foreign groups and individuals utilizing private contractors. Levinson’s downfall was believing that his activities were fully known and approved by CIA leadership, and trusting Jablonski to act in his best interests.

Robert Levinson’s Disappearance So what led to Levinson’s disappearance? Even after Jablonski’s funding had run out and she advised Levinson that he no longer had to send additional reports, Levinson continued his research and sending reports to the CIA. It was clear that much more drove him to work for the CIA than just money. His first mistake was trying to go after a big fish for the agency – attempting to obtain an informant inside of Iran. The last place any American with even a remote connection to the CIA should go is Iran. Yet, there he went in hopes of hooking up with a man named Dawud Salahuddin at the Maryam Hotel on the island of Kish, near Dubai. Salahuddin is also the last man that an American would want to meet while making the mistake of visiting Iran. Salahuddin had actually lived in the United States before dressing up as a mailman and murdering the former press attache for the Iranian Embassy, in the man’s Bethseda, MD home. He then escaped the U.S. and hid in exile in Iran ever since. This murderer was the man who Levinson was naively meeting – hoping to gain a “big fish” for the CIA. What happened instead is that Levinson disappeared. Salahuddin’s story was that Iran officials had taken him into custody. Unfortunately, Salahuddin is not at all credible, and the Iran government denies it had anything to do with the disappearance. Whoever has been holding the man hostage since March 8, 2007, finally sent a “proof of life” video of Mr. Levinson to his family in 2010. A few months later in 2011, they sent the family a picture of Levinson dressed in an orange jumpsuit, reminiscent of a Guantanamo Bay inmate. The images showed him sporting a very long, white beard, and holding a variety of signs, such as “This is the result of 30 years serving for USA” and “Why you can not help me”. There are no reports of any demand from the group, but the FBI is at least now offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of Mr. Levinson. Unfortunately, the FBI doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to honoring those rewards. Nevertheless, maybe the media campaign improperly labeling Levinson as a CIA “spy” will at least create a political environment ripe for his negotiated release by U.S. Officials. Or, maybe the captors will get tired of using Levinson as an example to the world to try to shame America, and simply let him go free? Regardless, the story should serve as a wake-up call to all of you investigators and other private contractors who believe that you are “officially” working for the CIA on a sanctioned project. Before you accept any kind of dangerous “mission” and head out into some part of the world where no sane American has any business going – you may just want to get some confirmation from a higher level in the Agency that your so-called “mission” is actually legit. Otherwise – you could end up in the same no-man’s land that Levinson ended up. Not quite a private citizen, and not quite a spy either – just a naive FBI retiree who let his dreams of espionage and spying take over his better judgement.

Image Credits:

(1) Daily Mail



Originally published on TopSecretWriters.com