The modern "Protocols of Zion"

How the mass media now promotes the same lies that caused the death of more than 5 million Jews in WWII

Historical and Investigative Research

25 Aug 2005, by Francisco Gil-White

http://www.hirhome.com/israel/mprot3.htm 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 ________________________________________________________

. . .continued from part 2 3. Should you believe ‘former CIA officials’ such as Raymond McGovern and Vincent Cannistraro?

________________________________________________________ Many people publicly criticize the CIA and the US government. This is not surprising. But these days, quite a few of these critics are people who, we are told, used to work for the CIA. This is remarkable. McGovern and Cannistraro -- media darlings -- are both examples of this phenomenon. Now, consider the following two mutually exclusive hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: ‘Former CIA’ people are telling the truth. Hypothesis 2: ‘Former CIA’ people are telling lies. I find the second hypothesis more immediately plausible, but a scientific preference for this hypothesis will nevertheless require a demonstration, or a series of them. I will offer one.

Who is Raymond McGovern?

____________________________ Raymond McGovern is described by the press as “a retired CIA agent”[4] who “for 27 years [was] serving seven U.S. presidents and routinely presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House.”[5] More specifically, “Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990 [and] during the ’60s his responsibilities included analysis of Soviet policy toward Vietnam.”[6] At this time, “Mr McGovern worked near the very top of his profession, giving direct advice to Henry Kissinger during the Nixon era.”[7] Later “Ray McGovern [became] one of President Ronald Reagan’s intelligence briefers from 1981-85”[8] when he was in charge of “preparing the President’s daily security brief.”[9] He also “briefed President Bush’s father [i.e. Bush Sr.] in the White House in the 1980’s.”[10] Close contact with Bush Sr. during those years probably explains why “Ray McGovern counts himself a personal friend of George [H.W.] Bush, the president’s father,”[11] but remarkably this does not inconvenience his new identity as “outspoken Bush [Jr.] critic Ray McGovern.”[12] Finally, although Raymond McGovern is supposedly “distinguished as a Soviet specialist and cold warrior,”[13] this is not his only specialty, for he is also called “Ray McGovern, former CIA chief for the Middle East.”[14] As mentioned earlier, Raymond (Ray) McGovern “is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,” or VIPS.[1] This is a group of supposedly disaffected ‘former CIA officials,’ now supposedly concerned citizens, who say they want to save US Intelligence. Raymond McGovern publishes prolifically, attacking the US government left and right, and VIPS produces a constant stream of ‘memoranda,’ published in various places, addressed to the president of the United States and other officials, telling them what they ought to be doing. According to a New York Times piece dated 30 May 2003 and entitled “Save our Spooks,” members of VIPS are very upset that the Bush administration allegedly used phony intelligence to justify the war on Iraq. “The outrage among the intelligence professionals is so widespread that they have formed a group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, that wrote to President Bush this month to protest what it called ‘a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions.’”[2] McGovern and VIPS have also repeatedly accused the US government of lying, and they strike a rather sanctimonious pose. Here’s McGovern: “. . .no other President of the United States has ever lied so baldly and so often and so demonstrably [as George Bush Jr.]. . .The presumption now has to be that he’s lying any time that he’s saying anything.”[3] The impression one gets is not only that Raymond McGovern hates Bush Jr., but that he is really very offended by lying. I am naturally not suggesting that the US government is honest, but the question for us is this: When ‘former CIA officials’ such as McGovern and other members of VIPS make various sorts of claims on their authority as ‘former CIA officials,’ should we believe them? To get a sense for that, let us get a better sense for Raymond McGovern. “Ray McGovern [is] a former CIA operations officer,”[15] which is to say that “Ray McGovern [is] a 27-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service.”[16] What is the CIA’s clandestine service? As the Washington Post explains, “[The Central Intelligence Agency’s] Directorate of Operations, the agency’s clandestine service. . ., manages the agency’s counterterrorism center, espionage and paramilitary operations.”[17] The New York Times explains why the US ruling elite likes the CIA’s clandestine service so much: “The appeal of covert operations is that they are relatively cheap [and] do not require American troops.”[18] In theory, American troops cannot be launched against another country without congressional authorization and, moreover, American troops tend to be relatively visible. So “the appeal of covert operations” run out of the CIA is that they allow the US ruling elite to subvert democratic politics and do all sorts of things in secret that the United States citizenry may not agree with in the least. For example, it allows the CIA to engage in “paramilitary operations” that will employ terrorists in order to destroy foreign countries. Here follow three examples from a long list: 1) the CIA’s 1953 right-wing coup against the democratic government of Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran, which was followed by the US-sponsored and repressive right-wing dictatorship of the Shah; 2) the CIA’s 1954 right-wing coup against the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, which was followed by a US-sponsored and repressive right-wing dictatorship; and 3) the CIA training and financing of the Nicaraguan Contras, a terrorist force composed of Anastasio Somoza’s right wing thugs. Somoza was a US-sponsored repressive right-wing dictator who had been ousted by the Sandinista movement. The US-trained Contras slaughtered innocent Nicaraguan peasants wholesale for no greater crime than opposing the repressive Somoza regime under which they had suffered for many years. Those who work for the CIA clandestine service are professional liars. This means that, rather than rush to accept the argument put forward by “Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service,” we should examine it carefully. I do this next.

McGovern's argument

______________________ Bush Jr.’s administration used the following argument to justify the attack on Iraq: that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger for use in nuclear weapons. The intelligence on that, we've been told, was based on a forgery. Raymond McGovern and VIPS have told everybody that they are very upset about this forgery, and McGovern recently wrote the following: “Who authored the forgery remains a mystery -- but one that our Republican-controlled Congress has avoided trying to solve. . . So those searching for answers are reduced to asking the obvious: Cui bono? Who stood to benefit from such a forgery? A no-brainer -- those lusting for war on Iraq. And who might they be? Look up the ‘neo-conservative’ writings on the website of the Project for the New American Century. There you will find information on people like Michael Ledeen, ‘Freedom Analyst’ at the American Enterprise Institute and a key strategist among ‘neoconservative’ hawks in and out of the Bush administration. Applauding the invasion of Iraq, Ledeen asserted -- with equal enthusiasm -- that the war could not be contained, and that ‘it may turn out to be a war to remake the world.’”[19] McGovern is very clear. Those with a motive to produce the Iraq-Niger deception, he says, are the so-called ‘neoconservatives’ (‘neo-cons’ for short). The author of this deception, he accuses, was none other than neo-con Michael Ledeen: “Beyond his geopolitical punditry, Ledeen’s curriculum vitae shows he is no stranger to rogue operations. A longtime Washington operative, he was fired as a ‘consultant’ for the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan for running fool’s errands for Oliver North during the Iran-Contra subterfuge. One of Ledeen’s Iran-Contra partners in crime, so to speak, was Elliot Abrams, who was convicted of lying to Congress about Iran-Contra. Abrams was pardoned before jail time, however, by George H. W. Bush, and he is now George W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser. Ledeen is said to enjoy easy entrée to the office of the vice president as well as to his friend Abrams.” What is McGovern's message here? That Ledeen was involved with the Iran-Contra scandal, and is still friends with the leaders of that conspiracy, who are known to be enormous liars. McGovern continues: “During a radio interview with Ian Masters on April 3, 2005, former CIA operative Vincent Cannistraro charged that the Iraq-Niger documents were forged in the United States. Drawing on earlier speculation regarding who forged the documents, Masters asked, ‘If I were to say the name Michael Ledeen to you, what would you say?’ Cannistraro replied, ‘You’re very close.’ Ledeen has denied having anything to do with the forgery. Yet the company he keeps with other prominent Iran-Contra convictees/pardonees/intelligence contractors suggests otherwise.” Ledeen wanted the war against Iraq, says Raymond McGovern, so he had a motive, hence he must be the forger. Anybody familiar with criminal law understands that showing motive does not convict a person of a crime, for there is usually more than one person with a plausible motive (McGovern himself says we have a whole multitude of them here: the ‘neoconservatives’). So the job for an investigator is to find, among those who had a motive, the person or persons to whom the evidence actually points. In lieu of referring us to any evidence that Michael Ledeen forged anything, however, McGovern merely repeats a third-party accusation against Ledeen, which is supposedly authoritative because made by “former CIA operative Vincent Cannistraro.” Now this is a bit awkward, because Vincent Cannistraro, like McGovern, was “a member of the CIA’s clandestine service.”[20] So a professional liar from the CIA clandestine service is asking you to believe an accusation against Michael Ledeen because it comes from another professional liar from the CIA clandestine service, Vincent Cannistraro. This does not build a strong case against Ledeen... It gets worse. As pointed out above, McGovern tells us that Michael Ledeen’s friend “Elliot Abrams… was convicted of lying to Congress about Iran-Contra,” by way of laying down the principle that people associated with the Contra program are liars. With this principle in hand, McGovern argues that, given “the company [Ledeen] keeps with other prominent Iran-Contra convictees/pardonees/intelligence contractors” his denials about being the Iraq-Niger forger may be dismissed. But if Iran-Contra people are liars, what falls apart is Vincent Cannistraro's accusation against Ledeen, because Cannistraro in fact ran the Contra program! You read correctly. I shall review the relevant facts.

Vincent Cannistraro created and ran the Contras from start to finish

_____________ Before 1984,Vincent Cannistraro was a “CIA agent in Central America”[21] and “a member of the CIA’s clandestine service”[22] -- right when the CIA’s clandestine service was training the Contra terrorists in Central America. This suggests that Vincent Cannistraro had something to do with training the Contras. He did. The man at the very top of the Contra structure was Lt. Col. Oliver North, and “Following the 1984 flap over a CIA-sponsored manual for the contras that advocated assassination, North helped arrange a job on the NSC staff for Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA officer who had run the agency’s task force on the contras.”[26] So we see above that, indeed, Cannistraro was the guy responsible for creating the Contra force on the ground. What sort of a job did Cannistraro get with Oliver North at the NSC in 1984? Vincent Cannistraro became “Director of NSC [National Security Council] Intelligence from 1984 to 1987.”[23] In other words, in the year 1984, Oliver North brought Vincent Cannistraro from the CIA’s clandestine service and made him the highest intelligence official in Ronald Reagan’s NSC. Did this have anything to do with North's Contras, whom Cannistraro had just been creating and training in the field? You would think so, because Ronald Reagan “transferred the Contra program from the CIA to the NSC after congressional authorization for the CIA’s Contra program expired in mid 1984,”[24] And indeed: “Cannistraro... was assigned... to work with North on Contra affairs, and in his role of coordinating intelligence programs throughout the administration, he headed several inter-agency meetings on aid for the rebels.”[25] Please take note of the word ‘headed’ -- as in ‘directed,’ ‘led,’ ‘presided over,’ ‘managed,’ and ‘ran.’ Cannistraro was running the Contras from start to finish. McGovern tells us that Michael Ledeen is a “longtime Washington operative [who] was fired as a ‘consultant’ for the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan for running fool’s errands for Oliver North during the Iran-Contra subterfuge.” So Ledeen was running errands for Vincent Cannistraro, for it was Cannistraro who was running the Contra program from the National Security Council. But Cannistraro is the one accusing Ledeen? What a piece of theater! McGovern tells you that people associated with the Contra program are liars so that you will dismiss Ledeen's denials and accept Cannistraro's accusation. But Ledeen is a relatively minor figure in the Iran-Contra conspiracy, whereas Cannistraro happens to be Mr. Contra.

So, what is the matter with Raymond McGovern?

_______________________________________________ There are two possibilities, here: Hypothesis 1: Raymond McGovern never knew and still doesn’t know that Cannistraro was running the Contras, in which case Raymond McGovern is not very smart. Hypothesis 2: Raymond McGovern knows that Cannistraro was running the Contras but he doesn’t tell us because he wants Cannistraro’s accusation to appear credible against Ledeen’s denials. In this case, Raymond McGovern is dishonest. Whichever hypothesis we choose, it has already been established that adopting the outspoken Raymond McGovern’s opinions about anything will be risky, to say the least. But which hypothesis is more plausible? That can be decided. “Ray McGovern was a member of the CIA for 27 years and he served as the ‘All Intelligence Agent’ during the Reagan administration. He was responsible for briefing the President, the Vice President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Cabinet and National Security Advisor.”[27] So let’s see. We have to ask ourselves the following: Is it really possible that Raymond McGovern, a man who “worked near the very top of his profession,”[7] this being the intelligence gathering profession, and who “served as the ‘All Intelligence Agent’ during the Reagan administration,” never knew and still doesn’t know that Vincent Cannistraro, in the same Reagan administration, was running the Contra program? Hold that thought. We also learn above, since the secretaries of Treasury and Defense are included in “the Cabinet,” that McGovern was briefing every senior member of Reagan’s National Security Council (NSC) on intelligence matters.[28] So is it possible that Raymond McGovern never knew and still doesn’t know that Reagan (or North) brought Cannistraro to the NSC to continue running the Contra program in the year 1984, even though in the same year of 1984 McGovern, the ‘All Intelligence Agent’ during the Reagan administration,” was doing intelligence briefings for everybody at the NSC? . . .even though Cannistraro first ran the Contra program as a CIA clandestine service operation and Raymond McGovern is a “27-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service”?[16] . . . . . .even though the Contra program was a cold war effort and Raymond McGovern is a “distinguished... cold warrior”?[13] . . . . . . . .even though Cannistraro’s Contra role was scandalously reported in the papers while Raymond McGovern was still a Reagan administration official? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .even though Raymond McGovern (and any 10-year-old), using the publicly available online media search-engine Lexis-Nexis, can find out in five minutes (as I did) that the mainstream press reported in the 80s that Cannistraro had been running the Contra program? I think that Raymond McGovern knows perfectly well that Vincent Cannistraro was running the Contra program. People should now definitely ask themselves what the point of Raymond McGovern’s dishonest public activities might be. But from here onwards what people should certainly not do is automatically believe anything that Raymond McGovern says. Neither should people soften their skepticism for the Western mass media, which, as we have seen, incessantly pushes Raymond McGovern as a trusty ‘expert.’ Why does the media do this? Is it because the mainstream Western media cannot do the analysis I have just presented, where I demonstrate that McGovern is dishonest? But that was trivial to do, and the mainstream media has resources that easily eclipse my own. The most innocent hypothesis here would be that the media is spectacularly lazy and/or incompetent. And yet we must reject that hypothesis, because the mainstream media is also quite fond of Vincent Cannistraro, and it is impossible that the media does not know that Vincent Cannistraro created and ran the Contra terrorists because. . .they -- the media -- reported on this. Next I examine the astonishing manner in which the media covers up Cannistraro's Contra history. After that we shall take a look at what both McGovern and Cannistraro say about the Arab-Israeli conflict all over the same media. Continue to part 4:

http://www.hirhome.com/israel/mprot4.htm

________________________________________________________ Footnotes and Further Reading

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Notify me of new HIR pieces! █ Part 1 - Introduction: The "Protocols of Zion" in the broadest historical perspective. █ Part 2 - The mainstream Western media loves Raymond McGovern and Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA agents and anti-Israeli propagandists. █ Part 3 - Should you believe ‘former CIA officials’ such as Raymond McGovern and Vincent Cannistraro? █ Part 4 - How the mass media covers for Vincent Cannistraro, terrorist, and creator of the Nicaraguan Contras. █ Part 5 - McGovern and Cannistraro both attack Israel - with lies. █ Part 6 - Why doesn’t the US government expose McGovern and Cannistraro? █ Part 7 - Why do people say that ‘the Jews’ control the media? They don’t. Notify me of new HIR pieces!