>From: Martin McPhillips <abigreen@inx.net>
>>   lar+jen@interaccess.com (Larry + Jennie) writes:> > 
>>  >In article <4c45ea$an9@inx.inx.net> Martin McPhillips writes:
> > >>  As soon as I saw Kenneth Starr's resume', I knew the fix was in.  He 
> > >>  worked for both William Barr and George Bush, two CIA spooks involved 
> > 
> > >First of all, George Bush was not a "spook"--he was a one-year CIA 
> > >Director from outside the agency. He was not in the job all that long. 
> > 
> > "The Man Who Wasn't There, 'George Bush,' C.I.A. Operative"
> > By Joseph McBride
> > 
> > THE NATION, July 16/23, 1988
> > 
> > Vice President George Bush's resume is his most highly touted asset as 
> > a candidate.   But a recently discovered F.B.I. memorandum raises the 
> > possibility that, like many resumes, it omits some facts the applicant
> > would rather not talk about: specifically, that he worked for the Central 
> > Intelligence Agency in 1963, more than a decade before he became its 
> > director.
> > 
> > The F.B.I. memorandum, dated November 29, 1963, is from Director J. 
> > Edgar Hoover to the State Department and is subject-headed "Assassination 
> > of President John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963."  In it, Hoover reports 
> > that the Bureau had briefed "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence 
> > Agency" shortly after the assassination on the reaction of Cuban exiles 
> > in Miami.  A source with close connections to the intelligence community 
> > confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, 
>>  using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities.
>>  
> > ____________________________
> > 
>>  That memo also provides insight as to the qualifications for why George 
>>  Bush was selected Director for Central Intelligence in 1976, during a 
> > period when the CIA was washing its dirty linen and allegedly reforming 
> > itself.
> > 
> > Larry

>Well, this is interesting, but it is not even enough proof to make a 
definitive
>statement about who the "George Bush" in the memorandum was. 

Martin,

The NATION articles of July 16/23, 1988 and August 13/20, 1988 answered 
your questions.  And never forget that George Bush always falsely claimed 
that he was "out of the loop" on Iran-contra.

Here are some excerpts from the NATION:

Informed of this memorandum, the Vice President's spokesman, Stephen Hart, 
asked, "Are you sure it's the same George Bush?"  After talking to the 
Vice President, Hart quoted him as follows: "I was in Houston, Texas, at 
the time and involved in the independent oil drilling business.  And I 
was running for the Senate in late '63."  "Must be another George Bush," 
added Hart.

Because the Vice President's response seemed something of a non-denial 
denial (he described what else he was doing rather than specifically 
denying C.I.A. involvement), I put the following queries to him via Hart:

Did you do any work with or for the CIA prior to the time you became 
its director?

If so, what was the nature of your relationship with the agency, and 
how long did it last?

Did you receive a briefing by a member of the F.B.I. on anti-Castro 
Cuban activities in the aftermath o the assassination of President Kennedy?

Half an hour later, Hart called me back to say that he had *not* spoken 
again to the Vice President about the matter, but would answer the 
questions himself.  The answer to the first question was no, he said, 
and so he could skip number two.  

<snip>

"This is the first time I've ever heard this," C.I.A. spokesman Bill 
Devine said when confronted with the allegations of the Vice President's 
involvement with the agency in the early 1960s.  "I'll see what I can 
find out and call you back."  The next day Devine called back with the 
terse official response, "I can neither confirm nor deny."  Told what 
the Vice President's office had said, and asked if he could check 
whether there had been another George Bush in the C.I.A., Devine 
seemed to become a bit nonplused: "twenty-seven years ago?  I doubt 
that very much.  In any event, we have a standard policy of not 
confirming that anyone is involved in the C.I.A."

<snip>

Hoover's memo, which was written to the director of the State 
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, was buried among 
the 98,755 pages of F.B.I. documents released to the public in 1977 
and 1978 as a result of the Freedom of Information Act suits. It was 
written to summarize the briefings given to Bush and Capt. William 
Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency by the F.B.I.'s W.T. 
Forsyth on November 23, the day after the assassination, when Lee Harvey 
Oswald was still alive to be interrogated about his connections to 
Cuban exiles and the C.I.A.  The briefing was held, according to the 
F.B.I. director, because the States Department feared that "some 
misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation 
and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the 
assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in 
U.S. policy, which is not true."  Hoover continues:

        "Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matter in the 
        Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro 
        Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among 
        those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy 
        concerning Cuba, the feeling that the President's death 
        represents a great loss not only to the U.S. but to all of
        Latin America.  These sources know of no plans for unauthorized 
        action against Cuba.

        "An informant who has furnished reliable information in 
        the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in 
        Miami has advised that these individuals are afraid that 
        the assassination of the President may result in strong 
        repressive measures being taken against them, and although 
        pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination. 

        "The substance of the foregoing information was orally 
        furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence 
        Agency..."

(We attempted to locate William T. Forsyth, but learned that he is 
dead.  Forsyth worked out of the Washington F.B.I. headquarters and 
was best known for running the investigation of the Rev. Martin Luther 
King Jr. in the Bureau's subversive control section.  Efforts to
locate Captain Edwards by press time were unsuccessful.)

Vice President Bush's autobiography, "Looking Forward," written 
with Victor Gold (Doubleday, 1987), is vague to the point of being 
cryptic about his activities in the early 1960s, when he was running 
the Houston-based Zapata Off-Shore Company.  ("Running an offshore 
oil company," he writes, "would mean days spent on or over water; 
not only the Gulf of Mexico but oceans and seas the world over.")  
But the 1972 profile of Bush in "Current Biography" provides more 
details of his itinerary in those years:  "Bush traveled throughout 
the world to sell Zapata's oil-drilling services.  Under his 
direction it grew to be a multimillion-dollar concern, with operations 
in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Japan, Australia, 
and Western Europe."  And according to Nicolas King's "George Bush: 
A Biography," Zapata was concentrating its business in the Caribbean 
and off South America in the early 1960s, a piece of information that 
meshes neatly with the available data on Bush's early C.I.A. 
responsibilities.

Bush's duties with the C.I.A. in 1963 -- whether he was an agent, 
for example, or merely an "asset" -- cannot be determined from 
Hoover's memo.  However, the intelligence source (who worked with 
the agency in the late 1950s and through the 1960s) said of the 
Vice President: "I know he was involved in the Caribbean.  I know 
he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy 
assassination:  There was a very definite worry that some Cuban 
groups were going to move against Castro and attempt to blame it 
on the C.I.A."

The initial reaction of Senator Frank Church, chair of the Senate 
Select Committee on Intelligence, to the firing of William Colby 
and the naming of Bush as Director of Central Intelligence in 1975 
was to complain that it was part of a pattern of attempts by President
Gerald Ford (a former member of the Warren Commission) to impede the 
Church committee's nearly concluded investigation into C.I.A. 
assassination plots, with which Colby was cooperating but which Ford 
was trying vainly to keep secret.

<snip>

Asked recently about Bush's early C.I.A. connections, (former Texas 
Democratic Senator Ralph) Yarborough said, "I never heard anything 
about it.  It doesn't surprise me.  What surprised me was that they 
picked him for Director of Central Intelligence -- how in hell he
was appointed head of the C.I.A. without any experience of knowledge."  
Hoover's memo "explains something to me that I've wondered about.  
It does make sense to have a trained C.I.A. man, with experience, 
appointed to the job."

<snip>

Bush's C.I.A. connections might throw new light on his knowledge 
of the *contra* funding and supply operation, and his alleged 
knowledge of *contra* drug smuggling and the activities of General 
Noriega.  It is worth noting in this context that, as Leslie Cockburn
writes in "Out of Control,"  "The anti-Castro C.I.A. team in Florida 
were already drawing attention to their drug-smuggling activities 
by 1963," and that it was Felix Rodriguez, the C.I.A., "alumnus who 
wore Che Guevara's watch and counted George Bush among his friends," 
who allegedly coordinated a $10 million payment to the *contras* by 
the Colombian cocaine cartel.

___________

There is also a report, that I cannot find the source, claiming George 
Bush was responsible for two ships, the "Houston" and the "Barbara" (?),
charged with resupplying the CIA-trained Bay of Pigs invaders.  
Does anyone have information on that ?

And again, George Bush lied through his teeth about being "out of the 
loop" on Iran/contra.

Larry