Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1992 21:29:00 LCL
From:
[email protected]
Subject: File 3--The Casolaro Murder--The Feds' Theft of Inslaw Software
((Moderators' note: The following excerpts from a WBAI-FM interview
were sent to us by a reader whose header was maliciously garbled by an
experimental editing program. Our new associate moderator, Etiam
Shrdlu, assumes full responsibility and apologizes. The poster
indicated that the interview originally appeared on Activist-L bitnet
hotline. Background information on the Inslaw case, in which the U.S.
government is suspected by some of conspiring to steal software and
cover up its theft, see CuDs 3.30, 3.31, and 3.33)).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=
The following interview was broadcast over Pacifica Radio Network station
WBAI-FM
505 Eighth Ave., 19th Fl.
New York, NY 10018 (212) 279-0707
on September 29, 1991.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SAMORI MARKSMAN:
We go to our next guest, Harry Martin, who is the publisher of
the Napa Sentinel [Napa, California] and who has been doing an
extraordinary amount of investigatory work around the Inslaw affair.
We will begin by welcoming Harry Martin back to WBAI. Good morning.
Just to let you know that I'm in the studio with Paul DeRienzo.
....
[deleted some previously discussed information]
HARRY MARTIN:
The person who is awaiting criminal prosecution is Michael
Riconosciuto, of course. But mind you, he was not arrested at the time
he made the deposition. He gave a deposition to Congress, and he
indicated to the committee that if he went ahead and testified --as he
did -- therefore, he would be subject to arrest within a short period
of time. Within seven days he was arrested! But Ari Ben-Menashe is
certainly not under any criminal arrest. He is a member of the Israeli
Mossad [intelligence agency]. And the other people who have come
forward and testified to these various things are not in jail. Michael
Riconosciuto is a man who has signed an affidavit, and yes, he is in
jail awaiting criminal charges of supposedly owning a methamphetamine
lab in Pearce Conty, Washington. However, after he was arrested --
while I was on a Seattle radio show, I was on hold and the news came
on -- there were three methamphetamine labs broken up in Pearce
County, Washington, not associated with him whatsoever. And it would
lead to the suspicion that perhaps they were all connected to one
thing and had nothing to do with Michael, but they decided to hang one
on him right after his testimony.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
Why don't you give us some background on who Ari Ben-Menashe is,
because his name has come up on a number of different issues.
HARRY MARTIN:
His name has turned up on the October Surprise and everything else.
He is a member of the Mossad and he apparently indicates that he is a
witness to the exchange of the PROMIS software to the Iraqis in
Santiago, Chile. Now there was also a British Air Force officer who
was a witness to that thing, supposedly, and he was hung. And they
declared that to be suicide. That was in Chile. Ben-Menashe has come
forward on a lot of things, but you have to understand that the
Israelis, at the present time, are also very irritated with the Bush
Administration. And you cannot be sure how much information and
disinformation is being passed around.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
How about Mr. Riconosciuto? We discussed the legal problems he got
himself in after he spoke out. But what is his history?
HARRY MARTIN:
He's a very brilliant computer scientist. He has worked inside the CIA
for a long time. And nobody can deny this fact. Nobody is challenging
that particular role. He was the man who had the access keys to almost
any computer situation: monies, who's who and everything else. He's
very dangerous in the aspect that he has all that knowledge of the key
players in many, many things. And, of course, his affidavit stated
that he converted the PROMIS software using the Cabazon Indian
reservation, in Indio, California to do this. And Dr. Earl Brian was
very much involved there. That place was also used for the manufacture
of biological warfare and chemical warfare to be used by the Contras
in Nicaragua. Testimony has come forward from many people that that
whole Indian tribe and those people running it are shown by the
California Department of Justice to have Mafia and CIA ties. This is
a documented situation. But jurisdiction becomes a problem because it
is an independent Indian nation.
....
PAUL DeRIENZO:
We have reports that have come out in COMPUTERWORLD and other sources
based on these statements made by Mr. Ben-Menashe and Mr. Riconosciuto
that Robert McFarlane, who was the former National Security Advisor,
was involved in giving the Israeli Government copies of this software.
Bill Hamilton says that he found out, quite by accident, that Canada
was using it widely; that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were using
it in their intelligence facilities.
....
Now, what was the role of the Indian reservation?
HARRY MARTIN:
Well, there are several Indian reservations that are being used by the
Wackenhut Corporation and intelligence agencies to do things like
manufacture equipment or ..... They can skip a lot of corners because
these nations are technically independent. For instance, one
reservation is in New Mexico, but it also goes across the Mexican
border. Therefore, it becomes an open corridor where you don't use
customs or anything because part of your properties are in one country
and part is in another. And they have used these Indian tribes for
everything from the manufacture of weapons to the software situation,
opening up gambling casinos. And understand, a lot of the money
involved in the savings and loan scandal came from the Bureau of
Indian Affairs. The Bureau of Indian Affairs puts out money to be
invested on short-term notices, and this is how a lot of the savings
and loans that went down started up. And that's where a lot of their
money came from.
There could be a lot of inter-ties in there. It is so complex, and of
course, Danny Casolaro referred to it as "the Octopus". You can
understand why now, because it gets into .... You see, the trouble is,
you can't isolate Inslaw by itself. Inslaw by itself is just a minor
thing compared with the overall package. The total corruption that
seems to have played around --Iran/Contra gets involved, and the
October Surprise gets involved. There are just so many players that
keep coming across each other, and it's a really massive story. I
don't know anybody who is going to get the whole picture.
.......
PAUL DeRIENZO:
What I'm trying to get at are the connections that might lead to
an investigation, or try to force an investigation into these
things because it seems that when you have a reporter who is
found dead under mysterious circumstances, by anybody's definition,
it deserves being looked into further rather than a simple ruling
that this was a suicide because .....
HARRY MARTIN:
You have to understand now, Inslaw was sort of on the back burner of
the public limelight. In other words, I'm getting letters now from
your program last week in which people say they haven't heard too
much about this thing on the East Coast. Originally, Inslaw was
carried by the Washington Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and
ourselves. And we're the only three newspapers in the whole nation
giving any credence or concentration to it.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
Actually, Barron's also.
HARRY MARTIN:
The Sam Nunn Committee got nowhere because the Justice Department
refused to turn over any records whatsoever. And Jack Brooks's
Committee, which is in our Congress, has already had some hearings
and some of the testimony is from Judge Bason and so forth. But
again, the Justice Department is stonewalling it in refusing to
give documentation up. And, of course, my question is: Who's in
control, the Congress or the Justice Department? The thing is
that the death of Danny Casolaro has opened this to the fact that
you're seeing more and more questions asking: What is this Inslaw
case? And that in itself is going to open up more questions into
other things. See, if they open up the Inslaw case, it's just
going to be the tip of the iceberg, and they may find a lot of
other things involved and interconnected. Perhaps Danny's death
is going to give more impetus to the Brooks Committee. It's
certainly beginning to wake up the national media which really
slept on this thing. These things take time. Look how long it took
Watergate. And Iran/Contra really never got anywhere.
SAMORI MARKSMAN:
We want to let our listeners know that we are speaking with
Harry Martin who is the publisher of the Napa Sentinel, and as
you've been hearing, we're focusing on a rather intriguing story --
which involves some major players in the political affairs of
this society -- but which isn't receiving the kind of attention
that the issue deserves. We here at WBAI are attempting to do so
today and we will continue to do so.
....
Paul, I want to ask Harry to go back to a point which he alluded
to earlier. We had been talking about the breadth of this issue,
that it's not simply the disappearance of Danny, that there are
many others who have been killed in similarly mysterious
circumstances, although some perhaps less mysteriously than others.
Could you discuss that again for us, Harry Martin, and show what
was a common thread linking these various deaths?
HARRY MARTIN:
Well, much of the common thread is Danny Casolaro himself. We have
Standorf, who worked for a secret [government] communications
division outside of Washington [D.C.]. He was funneling documents
to Danny at all times, and he was found beaten to death in his car
at National Airport in Washington. And of course, Danny indicated
that his sources had [since] dried up. Apparently, they had set up
a thing in the Hilton Hotel, in room 900, in which they had
high-speed equipment, and they were duplicating everything as
quickly as possible to get them back in [returned to] the files.
Then of course, we have Mr. Ng who was in Guatemala. He worked
for the Financial Times of London. He was working on this case,
but he was also working on the Wackenhut Corporation and following
a key witness to the murders of some Cabazon Indians. And he was
found shot to death in Guatemala.
And then, of course, Michael Riconosciuto's attorney -- Eiselman,
I think it is. I don't have my notes in front of me -- from
Philadelphia, was en route to pick up material proving that
Riconosciuto was, in fact, telling the truth. And he was found
shot to death.
All these things, with the exception of Standorf, were written off
as suicides. And Michael May, who we wrote of as being tied into
that, and who had had communications with Casolaro .... and also,
he was the man who supposedly filtered the forty million dollars
to the Iranians as the down payment on the "October Surprise" --
we wrote about him on a Friday in June, and on a Wednesday in
San Francisco he was found dead. They said it was a heart attack.
Later on, the autopsy revealed that it was polypharmaceuticals
that were in his system, and it was not a heart attack.
Michael Riconosciuto's arrest, of course .... It would take me
forever to explain them all, but that gives you a synopsis of
some of the things that have happened to people associated with
that particular case.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
Let's concentrate on one of the more outrageous of these murders.
And that, besides Casolaro's death (many people, including
Bill Hamilton call that a murder) ....
HARRY MARTIN:
We refer to them as deaths. We're not taking the total line yet
that they were murders.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PAUL DeRIENZO:
There is conflict on these [deaths], but they are very suspicious.
One actual murder that nobody will deny was that of Mr. Alvarez,
the crusading member of the Cabazon Indians who opposed the ....
HARRY MARTIN:
Absolutely! And he was shot with two other people, execution style.
Jimmy Hughes was a man who worked for Wackenhut and who was the
bag-man to bring the money over [to pay for the contract murders
of Fred Alvarez and company]. And he has testified to the
Riverside County [California] District Attorney's office. He is
now in hiding in Guatemala, of course. That's where Mr. Ng
was down to see him. He also carried a lot of other information
which was extremely damaging. We were able to talk to people who
helped him escape, because he came up this way at first, and now
he's down in Guatemala. The Indian situation itself is its own
scandal. Then there's the Wackenhut Corporation, and you get
into Inslaw .... Like I say, its just so wide you would need a
massive computer just to do a chart.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
Can we focus now on Alvarez? Can you tell us that story?
HARRY MARTIN:
Alvarez was basically the head of the Cabazon Indians, and when
Wackenhut and Dr. Brian and people came in to take over and create
the gambling parlors and to convert the Inslaw software and to
manufacture chemical warfare weapons and so forth, he protested.
He wanted control of the Indian tribe back. And he was summarily
executed. The money came from the people who were running that,
according to the testimony of Jimmy Hughes, which is on file with
the State of California in the Riverside County D.A.'s office.
Incidentally now, after all these years they have finally reopened
that case in Riverside because of the publicity associated with
the Inslaw case.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
At first, there was a grand jury investigation and there were no
indictments or suspects mentioned in that first investigation.
HARRY MARTIN:
And yet, Hughes testified to names, places, events, everything.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
Mr. John P. Nichols, who was at that time the head of the tribe
and who now is an advisor to the Cabazon Indians, said that the
death of Mr. Alvarez and two non-Indian companions, who were found
shot to death with him, had nothing to do with what's going on in
the Cabazon reservation.
HARRY MARTIN:
Yet, Jimmy Hughes has testified to the Riverside people that
John Nichols is the one who gave him the money to deliver to the
hit-man in Palm Springs. Also, Mr. John Nichols was later on
convicted for murder-for-hire and his sons are now technically
running the tribe.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
He was actually convicted rather than charged? I heard he was
brought up on charges. But he was actually convicted of that?
HARRY MARTIN:
Absolutely.
PAUL DeRIENZO:
But Mr. Nichols seems to have a tremendous amount of support.
From what I understand, he's getting a lot of support from
liberal figures such as James Aboureszk, the former senator from
South Dakota.
HARRY MARTIN:
You have to understand, Mr. Nichols, by his own boasting and
through other publications, indicates that he was involved in
the assassination of [democratically elected President of Chile,
Salvador] Allende, and he was involved in the attempted
assassination of [Cuban Premier Fidel] Castro. His links as a
C.I.A. contractor -- his links with the Mafia are well documented
with the State of California. Therefore, obviously he's going to
get some support from groups that are probably within that channel.
....
SAMORI MARKSMAN:
Harry Martin, we'd like to thank you very much for joining us
again here on WBAI. Any closing points that you would like to make?
HARRY MARTIN:
Well, just that Danny's concept of an "Octopus" .... you can see
exactly what he was talking about. The tentacles went everywhere,
and he seemed to be on the verge of breaking a lot of that
information. And then all of his records, everything disappeared.
And he died. To say that a journalist would commit suicide when
he's on the verge of breaking a big story is ludicrous because
anybody knowing a journalist knows that once they are on a drive,
neither food nor anything else matters but to get that story
across. He was very close to it, and you don't cash in the chips
on the verge of winning the jackpot.
SAMORI MARKSMAN:
So true. Harry Martin, publisher of the Napa [California] Sentinel,
thank you very much for joining us here on WBAI, non-commercial,
listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio at 99.5 FM in New York.
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