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"NUCLEAR SPYING / COX REPORT SAYS; China Used U.S. Companies for Spying Up to 3000 "Front Companies"

A controversial congressional report on Chinese efforts to get access to sensitive US technology is to be released to the public today, having already unleashed a political fire-storm in Washington. The report claims there may be more than 3,000 "front companies" in the US seeking to obtain American technology for military purposes, according to congressional officials. The report, from a House of Representatives select committee, details alleged thefts of nuclear weapons technology from US national laboratories and an inadequate response from the responsible government agencies. It also covers the sale to China of high-tech goods and information with important military applications. Publication of the bipartisan report from the House committee, chaired by Christopher Cox, a Republican from California, has been delayed since early January as the committee and the Clinton administration argued over what should be made public. Mr. Cox said at the weekend some 70 per cent of the original report would be declassified. Congressional officials familiar with the report told Associated Press that the report saw the espionage threat from China as much broader than infiltration of weapons labs. There was evidence, the report was said to conclude, that China had been using - and continued to use an extensive network of small and large businesses operated by Chinese nationals in the US to penetrate civilian technology centres. There might be more than 3,000 such US "front companies" - many concentrated in high-tech centres in California and New England - with connections to the Chinese intelligence apparatus, In addition, the congressional panel reportedly concluded, China required thousands of students, tourists and other Chinese visitors to the US to seek out bits of information that might be used for military purposes. Senior lawmakers have already begun to round on top figures in the Clinton administration for supposedly failing to carry out their responsibilities with respect to the Chinese nuclear theft allegations. Janet Reno, attorney general, and Sandy Berger, national security adviser, have been criticised and some lawmakers have called for their resignation. Mr Berger has previously said he was briefed by intelligence officials on the allegations in April 1996 and July 1997. But it took until 1998 before new securities procedures were introduced into the nuclear laboratories. Mr Berger told Mr Cox's committee that he recalled briefing the president in 1997 about the theft. Mr Cox said there was a long delay in briefing other senior administration officials. Madeleine Albright, secretary of state, said at the weekend she was not briefed until this year. (The Financial Times, May 25, 1999

Pressure Mounts for a Designated "Fall Guy" over Nuclear Spying Clinton will get off the hook by choosing a scapegoat. Pressure is mounting in Washington for resignations in the Clinton administration over allegations that China gained access to American nuclear secrets. A congressional report into the allegations is due to be published on Tuesday and there is a mounting body of cross-party opinion that examples must be made if it is found that there was prior knowledge of a breach of security. First in the firing line is Attorney General Janet Reno, who came under pressure from senior Republicans on Sunday to resign over her department's "indefensible" handling of the espionage allegations. "I believe the attorney general ought to resign, and she ought to take her top lieutenants with her," Sen Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CBS' Face the Nation. "She ought to do it now for the sake of the country," he added. Phone tap Ms Reno and the Justice Department as a whole have been criticised for repeatedly refusing FBI requests to tap communications made by Wen Ho Lee, a scientist employed at the Los Alamos weapons laboratory. Mr Lee is suspected of passing high-level nuclear secrets to China, although he has not been charged with any crime. Justice Department officials say the evidence against Mr Lee, an American citizen of Taiwanese descent, was not firm enough at the time to justify approving the tap. Politicians remain convinced China has acquired American nuclear secrets and used them to build a new generation of strategic weapons. The congressional report is said to conclude that details of at least seven US weapons systems were handed to Beijing, including technology related to the development of neutron bombs.

China has repeatedly denied obtaining US secrets. It says the charges are the latest example of rising anti-China propaganda amongst American politicians. Rep Christopher Cox, who chaired the committee that produced the report, says the evidence showed spying is still going on. Speaking on NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday, Mr Cox said both Democrats and Republicans on the committee were anxious that the Clinton administration "address the problems head on ... [to] lock up the damage".

The potential scandal deepened on Sunday when a senior government official, Notra Trulock, said he had informed the White House three years ago that he was convinced China had spied on American nuclear facilities. Mr. Trulock, who was intelligence director at the Department of Energy, said he was told not to give the information to Congress because it could be used to attack President Clinton's policy towards China. When he did testify, he was demoted. His remarks and the imminent publication of the report have put the Clinton administration on the defensive, facing allegations of severe complacency. Earlier this year Mr. Clinton said during his time in office no one had told him of suspected espionage at American weapons laboratories. Presidential allies, however, have been saying the problem stretches back over 20 years through Republican administrations as well. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, whose department manages the Los Alamos laboratories, has also appealed for critics not to politicise the case, saying the extent of Chinese spying was still not clear. "We cannot overdramatise conclusions that are not conclusive yet," he told ABC's This Week. Nonetheless, observers say this latest scandal is a ticking time bomb that could cause lasting damage not just to the Clinton administration but to the aspirations of Vice-President Al Gore in elections next year. (BBC News, May 24, 1999 )

We all friends now. What's mine is yours. After President Clinton took office, the Energy Department stopped background checks on Chinese and Russian scientists visiting sensitive nuclear labs, a move that intelligence professionals call "incredible." The background checks were suspended because the Clinton administration ordered the Energy Department to "facilitate" cooperative programs with scientists from the two countries. As a result, at least 13 scientists with suspected foreign intelligence ties were allowed into the labs without proper CIA or FBI scrutiny. "This is, to say the least, incredible," says intelligence analyst Sander Owen. Five of those scientists were allowed into the Sandia lab at Albuquerque, N.M., while eight visited the Los Alamos lab, also in New Mexico, that U.S. officials believe has been a target of Chinese espionage for more than 20 years, congressional investigators said. Security checks, mandatory before 1994, were reinstated last November amid growing worries about Chinese espionage at the government's premier weapons labs. While U.S. officials claim they have no evidence that nuclear secrets were lost to any of the 4,409 Russian and Chinese visitors between 1994 and late 1998, when background checks were reinstated, they have no guarantee information did not escape. "As far as I am concerned, the exemptions (for background checks) should never have been given," said Ed Curran, a veteran FBI official who last year took over counterintelligence at the Energy Department. "You have to have the information to make a decision (on access). The lab director has to know who is on his site," Curran said in an interview with The Associated Press. The administration made it a priority after the Cold War to open up the once highly secretive weapons labs and expand their nondefense research programs. The surge in Russian visitors stemmed from what the administration claimed was "an urgent need to help improve Russia's safeguards on nuclear material to keep it from terrorists or antagonistic states." The increase in Chinese visitors was attributed largely to the labs pushing to expand nonweapons research and broaden links to scientists not only in the United States but abroad. But at the same time the security checks were stopped, the Clinton administration was also approving transfer of sensitive technologies to the Chinese by Loral, a company headed by Democratic campaign contributor Bernard Schwartz. According to government officials and documents, the request to end security checks originated in the fall of 1993. In 1994, the number of Chinese visitors to the Los Alamos and Sandia labs more than doubled, from 146 to 329, according to Energy Department figures. The number of Russian visitors rose from 201 to 364. "The number of foreign visitors was increasing, and in some cases it was taking months for the checks to get done," Energy official Joan Rohlfing said. "It was such an inefficient system that it simply was not enabling any of the programs to move forward." Energy officials agreed to end the background checks. Rohlfing said the exemption was supposed to be "only for visitors who were going to unclassified areas of the laboratory." The General Accounting Office, the investigatory arm of Congress, first found problems with the termination of background checks in a 1997 report. The GAO documented "13 instances where persons with suspected foreign intelligence connections were allowed access without background checks - eight visitors went to Los Alamos and five went to Sandia. "Available records also indicated that eight other persons with suspected connections to foreign intelligence services were approved for access to Sandia during the period; however, DOE and Sandia lacked adequate records to confirm whether the persons actually accessed the facility," the GAO added. GAO auditor Victor Rezendes said suspending background checks only invited trouble. "The safeguards you put on windows and doors may not stop a burglar, but you don't want to sleep with your door open," he said. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson reinstated the background checks in November as a congressional committee was finishing an investigation into reports of Chinese theft of U.S. technology, including alleged espionage at the weapons labs. In March, a longtime Los Alamos scientist, Wen Ho Lee, was fired and remains under suspicion of providing secrets to China. The FBI is investigating, but Lee denies any wrongdoing and has not been charged. The GAO repeatedly decried potential losses, even though visitors, with rare exception, are not allowed into the most secure sections of the research labs and are supposed to be monitored closely. GAO investigators in 1997 found classified or sensitive material in areas frequented by visitors. In one example, six boxes, marked "sensitive material" in red letters, were found in the hallway of a lab where foreign visitors walked. Classified information also was found in a newsletter available to visitors. Adding to the problem was little spending for counterintelligence. In 1996, according to GAO, Los Alamos spent $100,000, or $111 per Russian or Chinese visitor, to monitor possible espionage. That was less than one-fifth the amount spent by another lab, Lawrence Livermore, which had about half as many visitors. Asked recently whether foreign visitors posed a threat, John Browne, director of the Los Alamos lab, replied, "Yes, a potential threat. The potential is there." Still, he defended the visitor program, saying it is important to interact with international scientists. While reversing the decision on background checks, Richardson also has been an advocate of the program. "We've got to be careful that we don't penalize the foreign visitors program that so far has not been the source of the problem," Richardson said. "If we cut our foreign visitor program, it will hurt our national security." Capitol Hill Blue, May 23, 1999

Intimidation Campaign Suspected as Arkansas Clinic Razed Montreal Office Ransacked on Same Night

The controversial story involving tainted plasma from Arkansas prisoners that was shipped to Canada in the 1980s while Bill Clinton was state governor has taken a mysterious and chilling new turn. Two crimes that occurred within hours of each other Tuesday night, hundreds of kilometers apart, have raised questions about whether someone is trying to intimidate or silence those who are asking questions about the prison-blood fiasco. In Pine Bluff, Arkansas, someone firebombed a prosthetics clinic owned by Michael Galster, who has been pushing hard for a U.S. government investigation. The clinic was burned to its shell and fire officials, who found a gas container in Mr. Galster's attic-where he kept his documents-say they're "90-per-cent sure" the fire was arson. In Montreal, someone broke into the offices of the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Hemophilia Society, which recently unearthed documents that showed Finance Minister Paul Martin was a board member of the corporation that owned Connaught Laboratories, the company that fractionated and distributed the Arkansas prison plasma in Canada. Hemophilia Society officials say thieves stole a computer and three telephones. They also stole documents from a box labeled "Hepatitis C, Krever Commission, Reform of the blood system, HIV-AIDS." Police are investigating both incidents. Mike McCarthy, a Canadian hemophiliac at the forefront of pushing for answers into the prison plasma scandal, says he's convinced the two crimes are connected. "It's too much of a coincidence," he said, adding that someone is worried Mr. Galster and the victims are probing too close to the truth. "They're trying to find out what we know and erase the trail if they can." "I think they're also sending a message. They're trying to scare us into backing off. They're trying to put the fear of God into us, that if we pursue the truth it can get worse. That the next action might not just be buildings and records." The RCMP are examining the prison-blood scheme as part of their criminal investigation into the tainted-blood scandal. RCMP Cpl. Gilles Moreau said yesterday that the Mounties are willing to review any evidence local police in Montreal and Arkansas uncover. "We do not work in a vacuum," said Cpl. Moreau. "If there's information that is linked to the blood distribution system for the period that we're investigating, we're certainly not going to close our eyes to that information. We welcome any information that comes our way." The story of how prison plasma was collected and found its way into the bloodstreams of unsuspecting Canadians stands as one of the most shocking aspects of the tainted-blood tragedy. It's not known how many Canadians contracted HIV and hepatitis C from the plasma of Arkansas prisoners, who were paid $7 a unit, although it's likely that several hundred people were infected by the tainted products. At the time, U.S. companies that fractionate blood products had stopped buying prison blood because it was widely understood that, since many inmates practised unsafe sex or were intravenous drug addicts, their blood posed a high risk of carrying the AIDS virus. In Arkansas, a private firm, Health Management Associates, was given a contract by the state government to collect the prisoners' plasma. The firm had difficulty locating a U.S. customer but found a willing buyer in a Montreal blood broker, Continental Pharma Cryosan, which then sold the plasma to Toronto-based Connaught Laboratories. Connaught apparently didn't realize the plasma had come from prisoners. Canadians learned of the prison plasma scheme in 1995, when Justice Horace Krever's inquiry unearthed some aspects of the story. Last September, the Citizen revealed further details. Also last fall, Mr. Galster went public with his accusations about the Arkansas prison system, where he conducted orthopedic clinics during the 1980s. Mr. Galster published a book, BLOOD TRAIL, which is a fictionalized account of how the prison-plasma program worked. He wrote under a pseudonym because he feared reprisals. Soon after media stories began appearing, he revealed his true identity. In February, he organized and participated in a news conference in Washington where Canadian victims called for a probe by the U.S. Justice Department and announced plans to depose Mr. Clinton. Mr. Galster said yesterday he is reeling with shock from the firebombing of his clinic, which he has owned for 21 years. He said he worked until about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and was later called at home about the fire. "I'm trying not to get too paranoid about it. I pray to God that it was just a coincidence." Mr. Galster said that if someone is trying to silence him, it won't work. "They're barking up the wrong tree. They can't erase the victims who are seeking the truth." Pine Bluff's fire marshal, Capt. Randy Rushing, said the state crime lab has been called in to help with the arson investigation. Capt. Rushing said fire officials have a "couple of leads," but have no evidence on a motive. In Montreal, hemophilia society officials are puzzled. In recent days, the group learned that Mr. Martin was a director of the Canada Development Corporation (CDC) from 1981 to 1986 -- the key years of the tainted blood scandal. The CDC was created with federal seed money to promote the country's leading industries and owned a variety of firms, including Connaught. The Citizen published details of the story on Saturday, and indicated that Mr. Martin has no recollection of any discussions about tainted blood while a CDC board member. The article stated that Mr. Martin's connection to the CDC had been "unearthed" by the hemophilia society. Just three days later, the break-in occurred. Thieves entered the office of executive director Pierre Desmarais and were selective in what they took. Mr. Desmarais said that because the thieves stole documents-not just computer equipment-it appears they were looking for information, not goods. "It's really frightening. This is the kind of thing you see in movies. The Ottowa Citizen, May 20, 1999 Information Warfare

U.S. Uses "Key Escrow" to Steal Secrets;--- "We don't care if they spy on citizens. But dammit, they're stealing from our companies." European plans for controlling encryption software are nothing to do with law enforcement and everything to do with U.S. industrial espionage, according to a report released by the European Parliament on Friday. The working document for the Scientific and Technological Options Assessment panel said the United States has tried to persuade European Union countries to adopt its key escrow or key recovery policies allowing backdoor access to encryption programs-saying this was necessary to read messages exchanged by criminals. But the report details how the UKUSA alliance-made up of the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand-has used its secret Echelon global spying network to intercept confidential company communications and give them to favored competitors. Thomson S.A., located in Paris, and Airbus Industrie, based in Blagnac Cedex, France, are said to have lost contracts as a result of information passed to rivals. "The U.S. government misled states in the EU and [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] about the true intention of its policy," the report adds. "Between 1993 and 1997 police representatives were not involved in the NSA [National Security Agency]-led policy-making process for key recovery. Despite this, during the same period the U.S. government repeatedly presented its policy as being motivated by the stated needs of law-enforcement agencies." The document went on to detail how the agencies specifically studied Internet data. Apart from scanning all international communications lines-using 120 satellites, microwave listening stations, and an adapted submarine-it said they stored and analyzed Usenet discussions. "In the U.K., the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency maintains a 1-terabyte database containing the previous 90 days of Usenet messages." The "NSA employs computer 'bots' (robots) to collect data of interest," the report adds. "For example, a New York website known as JYA.COM offers extensive information on cryptography and government communications interception activities. Records of access to the site show that every morning it is visited by a bot from NSA's National Computer Security Center, which looks for new files and makes copies of any that it finds." According to a former employee, NSA had by 1995 installed "sniffer" software to collect traffic at nine major Internet exchange points. The report offered evidence that a leading U.S. Internet and telecommunications company had contracted with the NSA to develop software to capture Internet data of interest, and that deals had been struck with Microsoft, Lotus, and Netscape to alter their products for foreign use. "There can't be any doubt any longer that there's an economic imperative to these policies," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "We have been lied to for years. But it will be up to companies like Airbus to take legal action to force a definition of national security in the context of the European Union. Then we can establish a legal framework and appeals process." Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported on Monday that the U.K. government had agreed to take key escrow "off the agenda" and had accepted industry proposals for a "largely voluntary program of co-operation with the security services". Government officials could not confirm the report. But Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, questioned how far any compromise would go. "Will they persist with statutory licensing [of trusted third parties]and criminal legislation on decryption warrants?" he asked. The New York Times, May 18, 1999

Moore's Law Lives -- An Anglo-Japanese team of scientists funded by Hitachi, the electronics group, has made a breakthrough in semiconductor memory technology paving the way for lightweight computers, mobile phones and entertainment systems. The advance is the first commercially exploitable development from 10 years of investment in Cambridge by the Japanese company. If the new memories prove successful, Hitachi would lead the way in semiconductor manufacturing. Hitachi established a laboratory in the city in 1989 and forged a partnership with Cambridge University's Cavendish laboratory. The university stands to gain from royalties on commercial products developed by the partnership. The innovation makes possible the fabrication of a memory chip the size of a thumbnail capable of storing all the sounds and images of a full length feature film. The new chips are so powerful that it is thought they will replace present day storage devices such as computer hard disc drives. The Cambridge development also promises to overcome problems of physics which are beginning to slow the development of more powerful conventional memory chips. The partnership has resulted in a number of discoveries in pursuit of the "single electron" memory chip capable of storing 1,000bn bits of information. Haroon Ahmed, professor of microelectronics at the university, said yesterday's announcement was a significant step on the road to high-speed single electron devices. The fastest and most quickly accessed memory chips currently store about 256m bits of information but they "forget" this information if the power is switched off. Physical laws make it hard to design more powerful versions. In particular, faster, smaller chips need power levels which can be difficult to control. The Cambridge chips consume very little power, making them suitable for use in palmtop computers, mobile phones and other portable electronics devices. Furthermore, they retain their memory for up to 10 years when the power is switched off. The new chips are set to be commercially available in 2005. Hitachi technologists in Japan are converting the technology into a form suitable for mass production. The Financial Times, May 18, 1999

RECENT STUFF: Where is Kosovo? Kosovo is a southern province of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which is composed of Serbia and Montenegro. 1The country is about the size of Kentucky. It is bordered by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania. The Factions At odds are the Serbs, under the leadership of archnationalist Slobodan Milosevic, and the ethnic Albanians, who make up 90% of Kosovo's population. While Serbia is internationally recognized as having control over Kosovo, the militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a militant ethnic Albanian group, is calling for full independence for the province. The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo share the ethnic background of the people of neighboring Albania and speak the Albanian language. They are largely Muslim, while the Serbians are generally Eastern Orthodox Christians. At Issue Kosovo was autonomous within the former Yugoslavia from 1974 until 1989, when Milosevic, a Serbian nationalist, took control of the province. During Kosovo's period of autonomy, the ethnic Albanians enjoyed many cultural freedoms that have since been taken away. The Serbs are fighting to maintain control over Kosovo for cultural reasons, as well. The territory has a significant role in Serbian history, as the site of the Serbs' defeat by the Ottoman Turks in 1389. The battle at Kosovo Field figures prominently in Serbian poetry and has great national significance. Recent Developments While the issues at the center of the fighting in Kosovo date back nearly two decades, the recent tension began to heat up after the emergence of the KLA in 1996. In 1997 the KLA took a more active role against continued oppression by the Serbs. They began killing Serbs in Kosovo, their main target being policemen. Eventually the KLA was able to establish control over certain areas within the province. In February 1998, President Milosevic sent Serbian troops to take back KLA-controlled areas. Eighty people were killed in the ensuing battle, including many women and children. The government-sponsored violence against Albanian civilians sparked rioting by outraged Kosovars and marked an escalation of the conflict. It also gave cause for intervention by NATO, which, until that point, had never stepped into the middle of a conflict between a sovereign nation and its own citizens. On October 12, 1998, after repeated threats of NATO air strikes, Milosevic agreed at the last minute to a truce calling for the removal of Serbian troops from Kosovo. Despite the agreement, which was brokered by American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, fighting continued in the region. It reached another peak on January 15, 1999, when the killing of 45 ethnic Albanians led to international pleas for peace once again.

Western allies arranged for Serb and ethnic Albanian representatives to meet in France for a February 1999 peace conference. Both sides were reluctant to compromise, and the talks broke up without a plan in place. The ethnic Albanians were not ready to give up their goal of full independence, and Serbia did not like the idea of international armed forces on their land. Fighting in Kosovo continued into March, even as the second round of talks got underway in Paris on the 15th. On March 18, the ethnic Albanians finally took a step toward peace, signing a deal that called for interim autonomy and a NATO force of 28,000 to monitor the region. Though mediators hoped the Albanians' acceptance of the plan would put pressure on the Serbs to follow suit, Milosevic reiterated Serbian disapproval and the talks were again suspended without an agreement. The Serbs returned home under the threat of NATO airstrikes.On March 22, Holbrooke visited Belgrade in a last, unsuccessful attempt to convince Serbia to sign the accord. Two days later, NATO began launching airstrikes in an attempt to force Serbia to cease hostilities and allow ethnic Albanian refugees to return to their homes in Kosovo. The United States does not recognize the new government as the successor state of the former Yugoslavia, and refers to it as "Serbia and Montenegro"

convenes tomorrow for a summit conference that had originally been intended to celebrate fifty years of unity and will instead be a war council on strategy in the Serb war. In our view, the Serb's are not viewing this meeting with dread. Quite the contrary, the meeting will give every opportunity for underlying disagreements to be expressed openly in a setting where the possibility for friction is high. Tony Blair, for example, has become increasingly bellicose and his rhetoric has become intense, to put it mildly. The United States has begun to talk of the ground war as if it were inevitable Germany and Italy, on the other hand, have been much more cautious and subdued. For them, a ground war is not only not inevitable, it is in many ways unthinkable. The opportunity for serious friction among the leaders is very real. Even on the question of the air war, there is division. Apart from concern over the effectiveness of the air war, it will be noted that the United States itself has not yet responded to NATO's request for an additional 300 warplanes. Milosevic obviously wants to see the outcome of the meeting. His intelligence people will not be interested in the public statements and communiqués, but in whether any sort of consensus is developing inside of NATO on ground war or a serious air campaign. A meeting of this magnitude will leak quickly and he will rapidly know whether Germany, Italy or Greece have changed their positions. Milosevic is betting heavily that they won't. He has made a proposal in anticipation of the meeting, proposing that an unarmed, non-NATO peacekeeping force supervise a Kosovo agreement. There is enough room for maneuver there (armed Russians and Greeks, for example) to permit negotiations. This sets the stage for a confrontation between the Italo-German group and the Anglo-American group. The Germans will want to know why the Americans can't use this as a basis for discussions and the American answer, which is that they don't trust Milosevic, will send the Germans ballistic, since it will mean that no peace is possible without the overthrow of Milosevic. In short, Milosevic has done everything he can militarily and politically to turn the NATO summit into a disaster. It will be up to the NATO leadership to forge a common ground. Right now, the NATO position is frantic paralysis. It is the only common ground available. The United States and Britain will try to drag the rest of NATO toward ground combat, not because the U.S. wants it (an indicator is that no major army reserve components have yet been mobilized) but because they believe that this will convince Milosevic to fold his cards. The Germans and Italians will want to use Milosevic's "compromise" to negotiate a diplomatic solution. When the smoke clears, the likely winner will be Serbia, since most of the outcomes favor them. If the current policy is continued, Serbia wins. If the Italo-German position carries, the Serbs win. If the U.S. policy of bluffing a ground invasion carries, Serbia wins. The only way that Serbia loses is if a fourth outcome, a genuine military strategy emerges. However, the likelihood of that happening is so small that Milosevic is prepared to risk it. Moreover, if it emerges, it will take months to implement, leaving plenty of time to allow for a graceful capitulation. So, all eyes move to Washington. The rhetoric will be firm, the press releases swift and deadly. However, having proven that Kosovo is worth all the bridges over the Danube, NATO will have trouble finding a strategy that fits their requirements. It should frighten Milosevic into capitulating without requiring NATO to make a major commitment or take a major risk. Milosevic is betting that the summit will be a sobering experience to NATO's members, who will then realize that without a ground attack option agreed to, the only option left is a diplomatic resolution and a fairly bad peace from NATO's side. We think that Milosevic is looking forward to the Washington summit a lot more than NATO. Stratfor Special Report, April 23, 1999

Will NATO inspire copycat bomb-makers, a la Littleton? PARIS - Using a new U.S. weapon for the first time in combat, NATO knocked out electricity in Belgrade and most of Serbia on Monday by causing short circuits that took Yugoslav technicians hours to repair. The warhead is so new that its name and specifications have not been publicly released, including whether it is delivered as a bomb or by missile. Experts said that it dusted power cables with graphite filaments that triggered massive short circuits at switching stations and caused power grids to shut down. The attack, which Belgrade residents said deprived the city of power for most of the night and again Monday afternoon, was described by a NATO spokesman as a fresh blow to the Serbian military's operations in Kosovo. The technological escalation was mainly a signal intended to discourage the Serbian leadership from continuing a war that NATO leaders insist will turn increasingly against Belgrade. "We wanted a compelling demonstration of power and restraint," an alliance official said. By unsheathing a new weapon, NATO appeared to be signaling that its determination had not been altered by current diplomatic overtures from Belgrade. President Bill Clinton was considering messages about the conflict Monday from Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader. One was carried by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the American civil rights activist who arranged the release of three U.S. servicemen captured by Serbia. The second letter was brought by Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian special envoy for the Balkans crisis, who was consulting with Mr. Clinton at the White House on Monday. Mr. Clinton has pledged to stand with other NATO leaders in demanding that the alliance's conditions be met before any consideration can be given to a halt in the bombing. "Our conditions for ending the bombing are not complicated," Mr. Clinton told reporters at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi of Japan. Those conditions, he recalled, included the return of all Kosovar refugees to their homes in Kosovo, a withdrawal of Serbian security forces from the province and the deployment of an international security force there. "Our air campaign cannot stop until Mr. Milosevic shows he is ready to end the nightmare for the people of Kosovo," Mr. Clinton said. Warning that Mr. Milosevic was trying to dupe the allies while pursuing his offensive in Kosovo, President Jacques Chirac of France said in a television appearance Monday that "NATO has to pursue its campaign until it obtains decisive results" against Belgrade. Mr. Chirac, who shares the Clinton administration's desire to see Russia engage its political weight behind the allied demands on Kosovo, said that he would travel to Moscow in two weeks to meet with President Boris Yeltsin on the crisis. At their Washington summit meeting a week ago, NATO leaders authorized a stepped-up air campaign against Serbia - and promised aid to the neighboring nations taking in ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo. As more refugees reached Kosovo's borders, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain visited Macedonia and Albania - the two countries with the biggest influx - to offer assurances of Western support. Aid workers were raising new questions about the condition of several hundred thousand displaced Kosovars reportedly hiding in the hills in Kosovo after fleeing from their villages, often at gunpoint - and apparently unable to reach the frontiers. In stepping up the air strikes, NATO seemed to be hoping to show Belgrade that the allied offensive would exact a steadily increasing toll on Serbia's military and economy, with an inevitable trend toward increasing civilian hardship. "There is a growing readiness in the alliance to bring the war home to the Serbs," a NATO official said in private, saying that the alliance wanted to demonstrate to Serbian civilians that the allied restraint in targeting its air strikes was a policy decision, to minimize economic and human hardship - and not a result of weakness. The risk of a mounting civilian toll in an expanding air war seemed to be confirmed Monday when a bus carrying cvilian passengers was reported to have been hit by a NATO air strike in northwestern Kosovo. Serbian officials were quoted as saying that at least 17 people were killed in the incident. Alliance sources said that the death toll was exaggerated but did not deny the incident. It would be the sixth "accident of war" since NATO started its assault six weeks ago. So far, the air strikes against Serbian targets seem to have bolstered internal support for the Belgrade government. But NATO's tone seemed to be hardening. A British military commander said at a news conference in London that "as more assets become available, the air war is going to continue intensifying, with increasingly apparent results for the leadership in Serbia." Alliance officials, who recently cited signs of strain within the Belgrade regime, said that doubts about Mr. Milosevic's policy might spread as its costs emerged more clearly and NATO demonstrated its power more dramatically. In the blackout Monday, television went off the air, hospitals had to resort to emergency generators, elevators halted in place and refrigerators stopped working long enough to jeopardize perishables, officials said. The bombing Monday night, which went farther than any previous air strikes in deliberately targeting the infrastructure of daily civilian life in Belgrade, was described by NATO as showing that the alliance could now turn Serbia's power supply on and off at will. "The fact that the lights went out across 70 percent of the country shows that NATO has its finger on the light switch in Yugoslavia now and we can turn the power off whenever we need to and whenever we want to," a NATO spokesman, Jamie Shea, said at a news conference in Brussels. The graphite weapon used by NATO resembled a device used by the United States against Iraq during Desert Storm: it destroyed power generators with a flurry of copper shards. Graphite filaments, used in the new weapon, do not cause permanent damage. Instead, they incapacitate a power grid temporarily, leaving the generators and the rest of the infrastructure intact. They could be used over and over to systematically deprive a target zone of electricity, including an area as large as Serbia. That would hamper Serbian military command and control systems, but only temporarily until they could turn to gasoline-fueled emergency generators. A campaign using this technology could backfire by causing civilian hardship outweighing any crippling effect on the Serbian military. Belgrade's armed forces are likely better equipped to cope with power shortages than civilian facilities. International Herald Tribune, May 4, 1999

US Treasury Pizza Boy Takes Over from Rubin Why not? Goldman Sachs has already gone public.

Robert Rubin, one of the two pillars of U.S. economic policy in the 1990s, will resign as Treasury secretary and be succeeded by his deputy, Lawrence Summers, President Bill Clinton said Wednesday. Along with Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Rubin has been credited with providing a basis for the U.S. economic expansion that is likely to complete its eighth calendar year in 1999. The two, along with Mr. Summers, also have been praised - as well as criticized - for the handling of the global economic crisis that began in Asia in 1997. Mr. Rubin was widely known to be weary of Washington, and rumors of his resignation have circulated over the past year. Mr. Rubin, formerly co-chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co., is a multimillionaire whose wife has never moved from New York. Mr. Greenspan released a statement saying that he was "saddened by the resignation of my friend Bob Rubin," whom the Fed chairman described as "one of the most effective secretaries of the Treasury in this nation's history." Giving a nod of approval to his designated successor, Mr. Greenspan continued: "Fortunately, the president has chosen Larry Summers to succeed him. He is a person of extraordinary talent and judgment who will continue the important work Bob Rubin initiated." Financial markets fell when reports of Mr. Rubin's departure, scheduled for July 4, began to circulate Wednesday, but the deep declines were brief. The Dow Jones industrial average, down more than 200 points at one time, recovered to close 25.78 points lower at 11,000.37. The Nasdaq composite index finished nearly 40 points higher. The dollar also had a brief setback before recovering to trade mixed. Even the bond market, which has been weak in recent sessions, was higher after an initial decline. "Only the specific timing of Mr. Rubin's departure is a surprise," said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York. "It has been clear from the rumor mill for some time that he would not stay the course to the end of the Clinton administration." Mr. Clinton, in formally announcing the resignation, praised Mr. Rubin for having helped build "the strongest economy in a generation, perhaps ever." He also had warm words for Mr. Summers, whom he described as "brilliant, able" and "deeply" knowledgeable. "Rarely has any individual been so well-prepared" to take over the reins at the Treasury Department, he said. The resignation of Mr. Rubin may actually be a good sign for investors. He may have felt unable to depart while the threat of the global financial crisis lingered, but with recent forecasts that the world would return to economic growth, albeit at modest rates, his departure could be read as an indication that he feels the problems have abated. Mr. Shepherdson said there would probably be little change in the Treasury's approach under Mr. Summers. "As a key architect of the strong dollar policy and the Asian crisis-management process, Mr. Summers will take the same line that Mr. Rubin did on all key issues," Mr. Shepherdson said, although Mr. Summers is "more pugnacious" than Mr. Rubin. Jim O'Neill, a currency analyst at Goldman Sachs in London, said the dollar had recovered because of the widely held presumption that "Larry Summers is there because Rubin supported his nomination, and he'll carry on in the same manner." But in the longer term, the change at the Treasury could lead to a subtle shift in the U.S. dollar strategy, Mr. O'Neill contended. While Mr. Rubin was a businessman first and foremost who made his reputation on Wall Street, Mr. Summers is an economist by training. It is one of the most widely held beliefs among economists that a strong currency exacerbates a country's current-account deficit. With the U.S. deficit heading toward a record of more than $250 billion a year, "I would guess that Summers will have some of that thinking in his head," Mr. O'Neill said. In a similar vein, Senator Charles Grassley said on television that Mr. Summers was likely to be confirmed by the Senate for the Treasury job, but the Iowa Republican indicated some discomfort with his views. Mr. Summers, he said, "has problems in the area of international financial crises." He said Mr. Summers had backed International Monetary Fund programs that encouraged devaluations of Southeast Asian currencies, as a result of which middle classes in affected countries "were wiped out," leading to social instability. Mr. Summers "believes the function of the federal government is to redistribute wealth," Mr. Grassley said. "But we will accept that." He noted that Mr. Summers had previously gained Senate confirmation for his position as Mr. Rubin's deputy. Stuart Eizenstat, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs, is also expected to be confirmed by the Senate as deputy to Mr. Summers. Despite his desire to leave Washington, Mr. Rubin has been widely rumored as a possible successor to Mr. Greenspan at the Fed. Mr. Greenspan was named Fed chairman by President Ronald Reagan, and it is thought that if Vice President Al Gore succeeds Mr. Clinton, he may not want to reappoint a Republican nominee to head the country's central bank. International Herald Tribune, May 13, 1999

Yeltsin Sacks Primakov Sergei Stepashin is 4th prime minister in 14 months, President Boris Yeltsin yesterday plunged Russia into renewed political turmoil by sacking Yevgeny Primakov, the popular prime minister, and his entire government. Mr Yeltsin said Mr Primakov had failed to tackle Russia's mounting economic problems with sufficient dynamism. He replaced him with Sergei Stepashin, the first deputy prime minister. Mr Stepashin, 47, a hawkish interior minister, becomes the fourth Russian prime minister to be appointed in the past 14 months. The Communist-dominated Duma, the lower house of parliament, which had strongly supported Mr. Primakov, expressed outrage at the government's dismissal and threatened to block Mr Stepashin's appointment. It passed a non-binding resolution calling on Mr Yeltsin to step down and said it would press ahead today with a debate on impeaching the president. The prices of Russian shares and bonds tumbled amid the uncertainty. The rouble, which has been held within a stable trading band since February, came under renewed selling pressure. Doubt was also cast over Russia's tentative agreement with the International Monetary Fund on the provision of $4.5bn of fresh credits. The fund reiterated yesterday that several tax-raising laws must be enacted by parliament before new funds could be disbursed. The domestic chaos appeared to upstage talks yesterday between Igor Ivanov, Russia's foreign minister, Victor Chernomyrdin, the country's Balkans envoy, and Strobe Talbott, US deputy secretary of state, on the Kosovo crisis. But Nato said the departure of Mr Primakov should not derail diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. In a television address Mr Yeltsin praised Mr Primakov for helping stabilise the political situation following the financial crash in August but chided him for a lack of economic reforms. "The premier's caution, his readiness to take only those measures that get maximum approval are beginning to cause damage," Mr Yeltsin said. "I am confident that he [Stepashin] can give fresh impetus to the work of the government and make it more dynamic." Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party, said Mr Primakov had performed a useful function but had relied too heavily on the Communists and had exhausted his political potential. "Not one decision has been made on a single economic problem or concept," he said. There was a mixed response to Mr Primakov's departure from Russia's powerful regional leaders. Some said Mr Yeltsin's drastic action had been prompted by a desire to pre-empt impeachment proceedings against him. Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow's influential mayor who is seen as a strong candidate to succeed Mr Yeltsin, said he regretted the government's dismissal but added that the decision was constitutional. Mr Yeltsin named as first deputy prime minister Nikolai Aksyenenko, the railways minister. The Financial Times, May 13, 1999

Spy Publishes MI6 Names on the Internet Ex-spies are not supposed to fight back. Jeez. A RENEGADE MI6 agent was believed last night to have posted the identities of a large number of serving British intelligence officers on the Internet in one of the worst security breaches for years. Richard Tomlinson, a former officer with the Secret Intelligence Service who was jailed on secrecy charges two years ago, is thought to have used an American web site to gain his revenge on his former bosses. As the Government strove to have the web site closed down, appeals were issued to British newspaper and media outlets not to divulge its address or contents. Publishing such details "could put lives at risk", said Rear Adml David Pulvertaft, the secretary of the defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee that advises the media on national security. The affair has shown the difficulties that governments face in preventing publication of highly sensitive material in the Internet age. Web sites can be set up in a matter of minutes and can then be read anywhere in the world. The Government has managed to close two other sites operated by Tomlinson - in Switzerland and California - on which he threatened to publish information he had gathered while at MI6. Last month the Treasury solicitor obtained an injunction against him and he closed down his site in Lausanne rather than risk a violation. A week later he launched a California-based site, on GeoCities, on which he promised to post a map of all the MI6 offices worldwide. Again, it was closed after an appeal from the Government. At the time of his trial, part of which was held in camera, newspapers were asked not to use photographs of Tomlinson for fear of jeopardising undercover intelligence operations. Intelligence sources said that the new site contained information that could prove "very damaging". One insider said that it was not all accurate or up to date and nor was it explicitly the work of Tomlinson. "But the suspicions are very strong," he said. David Shayler, the former MI5 officer whom Britain tried in vain to extradite from France last year, told Channel 4 News: "I know from seeing the site myself that he has been threatening to do this. I think the Government is running a great deal of risk because it has in some ways persecuted Richard Tomlinson." The investigative journalist Duncan Campbell said that he had been in e-mail contact with Tomlinson, a 37-year-old New Zealander, for three months. A fortnight ago "he said he was going to do this - he wouldn't say where". Mr Campbell said: "He was getting very angry and he also believed that MI6 had somehow or other planted viruses in his computer to try to destroy it first. I think he is out to do damage because of the way he feels." Mr Campbell said Tomlinson believed that MI6 was acting to ensure he was thrown out of every country he tried to settle in. He said: "By making an international pariah of him they perhaps have driven him to the wall." Mr Campbell said that other Internet users in the United States were already offering to display Mr Tomlinson's information on their web sites in an attempt to beat what they saw as censorship. Tomlinson's solicitor, John Wadham, said that he had no direct knowledge about whether his client was involved. But he said that last weekend Tomlinson had claimed: "I will eventually find a web site that will accept me, even if it has to be China." Some time ago Tomlinson began setting up web pages in which he threatened to publish the synopsis of a book on his MI6 career. It was that synopsis, which he sent to an Australian publisher, that led to his being jailed for a year in 1997, two years after he was sacked by the Secret Service. He was charged under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act, which forbids any unauthorised disclosure by a serving or former officer of the security and intelligence services. Tomlinson was freed on probation after six months and has been pursued around the world since by a series of Government injunctions. He joined MI6 in 1991 and served in Bosnia, Russia and the Middle East. He has nursed a grievance since being sacked. He tried to take his case to an industrial tribunal, but was prevented from doing so. Tomlinson has made a number of unsubstantiated claims, including allegations that MI6 tried to assassinate the Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic, seven years ago. He has also used the Internet to taunt his former employers. One web page carried a picture of a man - presumably himself - wearing a Viking-style hat, with the top of his face blotted out. The photograph was superimposed on a picture of the Secret Intelligence Service's headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, London. As the site switched on, the theme to Monty Python's Flying Circus was played, an allusion to the fact that the spectacular Thames-side building is known as "The Circus". Issuing his warning that he intended to disclose the location of MI6 offices around the world, Tomlinson wrote on the site that MI6's objective was "to steal the secrets of other countries". He said that MI6 officers working abroad often used the "cover" of British diplomats. He said: "If you want to find out who is breaking the laws of your own country, just click on the map below to find your nearest M16 office!" The London Telegraph, May 13, 1999

"My government trained me good." RICHARD TOMLINSON, the renegade MI6 officer suspected of placing a list of the names of Secret Intelligence Service officers on the Internet, appears to have chosen the "nuclear option" to exact revenge on his ex-employers. The intelligence community was last night aghast at such a potentially damaging security breach. Although not all the information is accurate or up to date, it is sufficiently comprehensive to cause serious difficulties for MI6, according to insiders. Tomlinson, now believed to be living in Switzerland, was jailed in 1997 for offences under the Official Secrets Act. He pleaded guilty to unlawfully disclosing information gained during his four years as an intelligence officer. He provided publishers in Australia with a synopsis for a book on his time with the Secret Intelligence Service and threatened to place it on the Internet. Tomlinson, a Cambridge graduate with a first-class degree in aeronautical engineering, joined MI6 in 1991 and worked under cover in Bosnia. He was also posted to Moscow and the Middle East. But he was sacked four years later as "unsuitable". He tried to take MI6 to an industrial tribunal but was refused permission to do so. He went to live in Spain and contacted British newspapers, writing articles under the cryptonym "Agent T" but MI6 obtained an injunction preventing further disclosures. When Tomlinson returned to Britain he was arrested amid fears that he was about to travel to Australia to pursue his book venture. He was jailed at the Old Bailey for six months and has since lived in Europe, pursuing his antipathy towards MI6 with a series of disclosures. At one stage, he teamed up in Paris with David Shayler, the former MI5 agent who escaped extradition when a French court rejected the request. Tomlinson was behind the bizarre and unfounded allegation that Dominic Lawson, the editor of The Sunday Telegraph, was "a paid asset" of MI6. The claim was vehemently denied by Mr Lawson and the Foreign Office. If Tomlinson is responsible for the Internet list, it is likely to strain the loyalty of even his closest supporters. While he has argued that some secrets should be out in the open, revealing the identities of serving officers is beyond the pale. The last MI6 agent to be tried on official secrets charges before Tomlinson was George Blake 37 years ago. His crime was to disclose the names and whereabouts of agents to the Russians. It was said he placed as many as 40 lives at risk. Although the Internet site was not explicitly the work of Tomlinson, one source last night said the suspicions were "very strong" that he was behind the latest disclosures. The source added: "This sort of information is not picked up by accident. Normally only people who have worked for the organisation would have access to details like this. There are no central membership lists that can just be hacked into. If the list is accurate then a very serious criminal offence has been committed." But with Tomlinson in Europe and the information posted on an American website, the intelligence services are left shutting one door only to find there is another opening. At the end of his trial, questions were still unanswered about the whereabouts of computers on which he stored sensitive and encrypted information. Tomlinson had maintained a web site hosted by IP WorldCom in Lausanne, Switzerland. Last month, the Treasury Solicitor's office obtained an order against Tomlinson, who removed the site. But he then launched another site, this time at California-based GeoCities, where he promised to post a map of all the MI6 offices worldwide. Last week, however, GeoCities' legal department closed that site as well after an approach from Britain. The use of the Internet to post the information confronts MI5 and MI6 with a new security headache. A website in America or Europe may breach British laws and be available in this country but it is difficult, if not impossible, to seek redress. Foreign courts, as was seen in the Shayler case, are reluctant to uphold security - or defamation - laws elsewhere. Even if "whistleblowers" use British websites they are difficult to bring to book. A website can be set up through an Internet service provider using cash and a false name, so even if a site is shut down the source of the information might never be found. Efforts were being made last night, more in hope than expectation, to see what could be done. "Officers are examining how the damage of this disclosure can be minimized," said one insider. The Internet is increasingly seen as the gravest risk to national security since it is virtually beyond the control of domestic authorities and laws. Even before the Internet, however, preventing the publication of potentially damaging secrets abroad proved impossible. Internet providers are increasingly aware that they might also find themselves liable for action in British courts if they have a UK-based operation. Recent legal cases have established that providers are responsible for defamatory material posted on a newsgroup that they host and, in theory, could also face secrecy charges if they knowingly published material that was damaging to national security. The London Telegraph, May 13, 1999

The MI6 Headquarters Building at Vauxhall Cross, viewed from across the Thames.

Today's Lesson From Richard Tomlinson's Banned GeoCities Website by Richard Tomlinson;
I am a 36 year old British and New Zealand Citizen. I was educated at Cambridge University, England where I was awarded a first class honors degree in Engineering, and then did a Masters degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I was a Kennedy Memorial Scholar. In 1991, I was recruited as a fast-stream intelligence officer into the British Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6. After completing the six month initial training course with the highest marks ever achieved, I was posted to the Eastern European department of MI6 to operate undercover against Russia and Serbia. In 1993 I was posted for six months to Bosnia as the sole MI6 officer on the ground during the Bosnian civil war. On my return to the UK I worked undercover against the Iranian intelligence service. In 1995, I was dismissed from MI6 without warning, and without reason. When I tried to take MI6 to an employment tribunal, my application was blocked by MI6 who claimed that a tribunal hearing would "damage national security" and "endanger the lives of agents". This was utter fantasy. There was nothing any more secret in my personnel records than in Donald Duck's. The real reason was because MI6 knew that they had no legal grounds for the dismissal, and so chose to cower behind the protection of the British Official Secrets Act rather than face an embarrassing court defeat. I have been campaigning ever since against this - and other - abuses of power by MI6. In 1996 I wrote (but did not publish) a book about MI6. I showed a five page synopsis of this book to the commissioning editor of an Australian publisher (Shona Martyn of Transworld Publishers, 40 Yeo Street, Sydney). For this, in 1997, I was arrested and convicted of breaking the British Official Secrets Act. By taking me to court, MI6 brazenly exposed the dishonesty and hypocrisy of their earlier refusal to allow me to take them to court for unfair dismissal. If the High Court was good enough for them to take me to court, then why wasn't it good enough for me to take them to court? At my hearing, I was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment in a maximum security jail. After my release from jail in 1998, I fled Britain as soon as I could, because I realized that MI6 were determined to re-arrest me for any reason they could find. When MI6 realized that I had escaped from their clutches, they embarked on a vindictive campaign of harassment against me using their influence with the intelligence services of other countries. They used false pretences to persuade the French intelligence service (the DST) to arrest and beat me in Paris in August 1998. I was detained for 38 hours, and my computer equipment was illegally taken from me. This equipment was not returned until six months later. After release, I decided to leave France and return to my native New Zealand, where I hoped that I would be left in peace. But a few days after my arrival, MI6 persuaded the New Zealand Intelligence Service to again detain and search me in Auckland. More computer equipment was confiscated from me, and again was not returned until six months later. I decided to leave New Zealand and go to Australia, where I have friends and family. But MI6 prevented this by persuading the Australian authorities to refuse me a visa, even though as a New Zealand citizen I would normally not require a visa for Australia. I therefore decided to move to Switzerland, knowing that the Swiss authorities, unlike the NZ, Australian, and French authorities, would not not harass me at the behest of MI6. But MI6 have continued to attempt to harass me at every opportunity they can. Indeed, after I gave evidence implicating MI6 to Judge Herve Stephan's inquest into the death of the Princess of Wales, Dodi Al Fayed, and Henri Paul, they have pursued me with seemingly increased vigour. In August 1998, I flew from Geneva to New York to give an interview to the NBC television chain. At JFK airport, I was detained by the US Immigration authority, fingerprinted, interviewed, chained to a chair for seven hours, then deported back to Switzerland. The US immigration authority openly admitted that they were deporting me on the orders of the CIA, MI6's greatest ally. In January 1999, MI6 again persuaded French Intelligence to arrest me and deport me from France when I tried to cross the Swiss-French border. MI6 continue to carry out these actions despite the fact that the British Government have admitted that there is no arrest warrant out against me. Because MI6 are not legally accountable, I cannot take MI6 to court in the UK to test the legality of this harassment. MI6 claim that they cannot be accountable to the courts because this would not be secure and "would endanger agents lives". I have also tried, through my NZ lawyer, to approach MI6 discretely to find a sensible solution. But MI6 have ignored this approach and continued to harass me with increased vengeance. I therefore have no means to respond to MI6's harassment of me other than through fighting back via this internet site. I am now living in Switzerland, a country which respects human rights to freedom of speech and travel. The Swiss authorities have ignored all requests by MI6 to harass me, for which I am very grateful.

I saw a piece the other day on CNN up here in Cleveland on the recent "Presidential Summit" that was held in Akron, Ohio on race relations, and saw Clinton's "scripted" (Q & As) with a "hand-picked" audience. I just wanted you to see my take on race relations from my web site - I have a snip of it attached with this cover page. I also wanted to say that of all the ethnic groups this Country has, why is it that the media only focuses on the "white vs. black" issue. - and talk to people about the issue that are lame, stupid, or give "politically correct" answers. I would wish that for once, some journalist would ask a person with an "actual opposing view", like Ward Connerly, or Ken Hamblin, or Law School Professor Lino Graglia of "UT" Law School. I for one say; If you do not like someone, that is your right in the USA. The fact that you do not like someone is not racist at all - if that were true, the statement would have to be a "Universal Statement". I know blacks in other countries that are fed up with liberal blacks in the USA that complain and call themselves "African American Blacks" and call America, "White America". I challenge you to talk to some educated blacks in London, or any non-USA educated blacks in the world, and ask them if they feel the blacks in the USA are being treated badly.- Or ask me. (Example); If I do not like an kid of Italian descent, to marry my sister because we are of Hungarian descent in the USA - I say so what, and that is not racist. Ask any Professor of Sociology (excluding junior colleges) who teaches at a Private College, (non state funded) or at the Graduate level, in the United States the question; Is there, or has there ever been, a "MELTING POT" in the United States ? - They would tell you; "We, in the U.S. have not "melted", are not "melting." - The term "melting pot" as used, has been misused as a "Political Sound Byte", and not based on any "Empirical and or Scientific Data." (Example); An American girl of Chinese descent, will by 99.9%, of the time most probably marry another American of Chinese descent. If you can show me a $2 million dollar Thoroughbred horse in Kentucky, that won the Kentucky Derby just once, and that same horse would be mated with a $700.00 Appaloosa (would never happen) - let me know, and I will give you $1,000.- But then we have to talk "Genetics", and that is a forbidden topic in the U.S., with respect to Intelligence i.e. "Jensen Theory". You must understand that Governments can "NOT" legislate people's behavior, likes, and dislikes - You can't force someone to like "Broccoli." - If that were true, the world would only have one big country. There have been countries that have fought each other since the dawn of time, and still - So when you put a compilation of all these people from all these different countries, which in essence is "Social Engineering" - If you want to call it Democracy, or America, or the United States of America, so be it. - But it is still "Social Engineering" - No matter how you look at it. Therefore, you can not expect human behavior from all assimilated cultures to "act" the same, or "like" everyone by edict or legislation, no more than you can force Zebras to run with Lions and Tigers or Bears Oh My. My Point is; Man is an animal and a mammal, the fact that he can use tools or build a house is not relevant to the issue of his behavior, or how he relates to other men that are, or are not the same as him. (looks, language, culture, diet, religion, etc.)

"In the hallway by the study, the President and Ms. Lewinsky kissed. On this occasion, according to Ms. Lewinsky," he focused on me pretty exclusively," kissing her bare breasts, and fondling her genitals. [273] At one point, the President inserted a cigar into Ms. Lewinsky's vagina, then put the cigar in his mouth and said: "It tastes good." [274] After they were finished, Ms. Lewinsky left the Oval Office and walked through the Rose Garden. [275]" Ms. Lewinsky arrived at the White House at approximately 10:00 a.m. She told the Secret Service uniformed officers at the Northwest Gate that she had gifts to drop off for the President, but that Ms. Currie did not know she was coming.(733) Ms. Lewinsky and the officers made several calls in an attempt to locate Ms. Currie.(734) The officers eventually invited Ms. Lewinsky inside the guard booth.(735) When Ms. Currie learned that Ms. Lewinsky was at the Northwest Gate, she sent word that the President "already had a guest in the [O]val," so the officers should have Ms. Lewinsky wait there for about 40 minutes.(736)While Ms. Lewinsky was waiting, one officer mentioned that Eleanor Mondale was in the White House.(737) Ms. Lewinsky correctly surmised that the President was meeting with Ms. Mondale, rather than his lawyers, and she was "livid."(738) She stormed away, called and berated Ms. Currie from a pay phone, and then returned to her Watergate apartment.(740)Hands shaking and almost crying, Ms. Currie informed several Secret Service officers that the President was "irate" that someone had disclosed to Ms. Lewinsky whom he was meeting with.(741) Ms. Currie told Sergeant Keith Williams, a supervisory uniformed Secret Service Officer, that if he "didn't find out what was going on, someone could be fired."(742) She also told Captain Jeffrey Purdie, the Secret Service watch commander for the uniformed division at the time, that the President was "so upset he wants somebody fired over this."(743) Eleanor Mondale

ON RELIGION: As for religion, which I lost after I came back from Vietnam. I began to research religion, and I found more people have died in the name of religion than by all the wars combined that have gone on since civilization began. In the old days, many innocent people were even murdered in the name of religion, and when science existed only in hiding - Religious zealots would put "scientific thinkers" to death for simply speaking of logic over religion. (Remember the Salem Witch Burnings ?) My theory on religion; Is that, religion was a "Social Invention" to form a civilized society from Barbarism. Eons ago, man battled other men for sport and differences. These barbarians feared nothing, hence killing went on and on due to having no fear of death, since it was merely an end to one's existence. Then I believe, some men got together and realized that if man was to become less savage, he must fear something worse than physical death - An "after death", which was more painful than death, and was eternal. When these wise men (wrote the Bible) and started spreading the word of an "afterlife" that will judge men and punish them for their savagery after their "physical death" - many men were instilled with the thought of "wrath" and "fear" from an unknown power that existed, which was "all knowing" and "all powerful", yet intangible. Hence; religion was born and man became civilized. I am not knocking religion, if it works for some, that is fine with me, and that is their business. I think Religion is a sort of "bio-feedback" meditating relief system ( a sort of mental "Valium") that the masses rely on when hit by grief, absolute desolation, and disaster in their lifetime. I think, that is why some Governments want to discredit "UFOs" - Because if people started questioning the afterlife, and saw a live alien and spacecraft - it would be to overwhelming for them - and all the passive people, (many religions are passive, especially Catholics) just might become active, aggressive, and revert to their savagery past. I think that regular man on this planet is so primitive on the evolutionary scale, that alien life form consider us way too dangerous to contact. I am afraid that, alien life-form view us on the same scale that we view the common ant. I thought religion was a way to expedite our evolution, but it was not. Still, for many folks, religion does work as a tranquilizer, and introduces compassion, a very important virtue. Yet, religion could just very well become someone's crutch, false hope, and disappointment. One thing to consider; As to Christians and Jews. If the Jews do not believe in Jesus Christ, and the Christians say; those that do not believe in Jesus Christ shall not go to Heaven; I ask the question: Who is right, and who is wrong ? Plus, there are thousands of different religions practiced on Earth - which one is right and which ones are wrong ? You see what I mean. So, E-mail me if you want a straight answer to race relations, and please read my web narrative and tell me what you think of it .. If you think I do not speak the truth , or come from the planet "Mars", then say so - I can take it - but if you do, please let me know why you think I am wrong - and tell me what is right or "normal" today. - Does it not depend on what country you are in at the time ? Normalcy can never be defined !! If you can define it, I will give you another $1,000 dollars too add to your horse mating findings..

KWANZAA SCAM: By convicted FELON, Ron Karenga (a.k.a. Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga)

DEAR JOURNALISTS & Fellow Citizens; This attached letter is for the news media outlets, it was taken off an actual Kwanzaa Web Site - It was also confirmed by National broadcast .. If you care to refute this statement, please contact the RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW and/or the LA County Sheriff's Dept. In short; The Kwanzaa scam is one invented by a convicted felon and totally erroneous; It also is highly radical and segregationist, with Communist ideologies-yet these TV stations in the Cleveland area pump this stuff out to cause further separation of the races - how sad./// Below is a letter showing Kwanzaa a scam and racist in intent to produce hate, further segregation, and larceny by trick (selling bogus material); and motives in overthrowing the US Government by it's "sister" organization known as "US" a.k.a. "us slaves". /// The KWANZAA Information Center.//.

An Opinion by Tony Snow for The Great Debate WASHINGTON-Blacks in America have suffered an endless series of insults and degradations, the latest of which goes by the name of Kwanzaa. Ron Karenga (a/k/a Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga) invented the seven-day feast (Dec. 26-Jan. 1) in 1966, branding it a black alternative to Christmas. The idea was to celebrate the end of what he considered the Christmas-season exploitation of African Americans. According to the official Kwanzaa Web site-as opposed, say, to the Hallmark Cards Kwanzaa site-the celebration was designed to foster "conditions that would enhance the revolutionary social change for the masses of Black Americans" and provide a "reassessment, reclaiming, recommitment, remembrance, retrieval, resumption, resurrection and rejuvenation of those principles (Way of Life) utilized by Black Americans ancestors." Karenga postulated seven principles: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith, each of which gets its day during Kwanzaa week. He and his votaries also crafted a flag of black nationalism and a pledge: "We pledge allegiance to the red, black, and green, our flag, the symbol of our eternal struggle, and to the land we must obtain; one nation of black people, with one God of us all, totally united in the struggle, for black love, black freedom, and black self-determination." Now, the point: There is no part of Kwanzaa that is not fraudulent. Begin with the name. The celebration comes from the Swahili term "matunda yakwanza," or "first fruit," and the festival's trappings have Swahili names-such as "ujima" for "collective work and responsibility" or "muhindi," which are ears of corn celebrants set aside for each child in a family. Unfortunately, Swahili has little relevance for American blacks. Most slaves were ripped from the shores of West Africa. Swahili is an East African tongue. To put that in perspective, the cultural gap between Senegal and Kenya is as dramatic as the chasm that separates, say, London and Tehran. Imagine singing "God Save the Queen" in Farsi, and you grasp the enormity of the gaffe. Worse, Kwanzaa ceremonies have no discernible African roots. No culture on earth celebrates a harvesting ritual in December, for instance, and the implicit pledges about human dignity don't necessarily jibe with such still-common practices as female circumcision and polygamy. The inventors of Kwanzaa weren't promoting a return to roots; they were shilling for Marxism. They even appropriated the term "ujima," which Julius Nyrere cited when he uprooted tens of thousands of Tanzanians and shipped them forcibly to collective farms, where they proved more adept at cultivating misery than banishing hunger. Even the rituals using corn don't fit. Corn isn't indigenous to Africa. Mexican Indians developed it, and the crop was carried worldwide by white colonialists. The fact is, there is no Ur-African culture. The continent remains stubbornly tribal. Hutus and Tutsis still slaughter one another for sport. Go to Kenya, where I taught briefly as a young man, and you'll see endless hostility between Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya and Masai. Even South African politics these days have more to do with tribal animosities than ideological differences. Moreover, chaos too often prevails over order. Warlords hold sway in Somalia, Eritrea, Liberia and Zaire. Genocidal maniacs have wiped out millions in Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia. The once-shining hopes for Kenya have vanished. Detroit native Keith Richburg writes in his extraordinary book, "Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa," that "this strange place defies even the staunchest of optimists; it drains you of hope ..." Richburg, who served for three years as the African bureau chief for The Washington Post, offers a challenge for the likes of Karenga: "Talk to me about Africa and my black roots and my kinship with my African brothers and I'll throw it back in your face, and then I'll rub your nose in the images of rotting flesh." His book concludes: "I have been here, and I have seen-and frankly, I want no part of it. .... By an accident of birth, I am a black man born in America, and everything I am today-my culture and my attitudes, my sensibilities, loves and desires-derives from that one simple and irrefutable fact." Nobody ever ennobled a people with a lie or restored stolen dignity through fraud. Kwanzaa is the ultimate chump holiday-Jim Crow with a false and festive wardrobe. It praises practices-"cooperative economics, and collective work and responsibility"-that have succeeded nowhere on earth and would mire American blacks in endless backwardness. Our treatment of Kwanzaa provides a revealing sign of how far we have yet to travel on the road to reconciliation. The white establishment has thrown in with it, not just to cash in on the business, but to patronize black activists and shut them up. This year, President Clinton signed his fourth Kwanzaa proclamation. He crooned: "The symbols and ceremony of Kwanzaa, evoking the rich history and heritage of African Americans, remind us that our nation draws much of its strength from our diversity." But our strength, as Richburg points out, comes from real principles: tolerance, brotherhood, hard work, personal responsibility, equality before the law. If Americans really cared about racial healing, they would focus on those ideas-and not on a made-up rite that mistakes segregation ism for spirituality and fiction for history. COPYRIGHT 1998 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. REVEAL THE FRAUD Chicago, IL USA - Friday, January 02, 1998 at 02:46:51 (EST).

KWANZAA was an Invention from a convicted Felon named Ron Karenga (a/k/a Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga) // charge was kidnapping (holding a woman against her will) spent time in Federal prison - after release Ron was arrested several times by LAPD Sheriff's Dept. for various drug offenses. Ron also runs a radical group called "US" a.k.a. "Us Slaves"..

I have wrote this 10 page Web Site Narrative that precedes my pictures and animations on my Worldwide Web Site. I realize that the narrative is long and direct, but I feel that this "is" the "Reality", and the "State of the Nation and World" as I see it. I use empirical data and speak from experience, so I speak not from anger, but from the "Heart". I apologize to you, if you are offended by some statements within my web narrative - However, I speak the truth, when most people are afraid to. I get involved and help folks in need, when many people just don't want to get involved and protect the rights of all their fellow Americans in this Democracy. It is analogous to an Innocent woman being raped at night in her own neighborhood, and screaming for help-while people hear the screams of her terror and do nothing but pull their shades down and ignore her cries for help. Without people willing to come forward and testify in court, call 911, come out and subdue the attacker, more and more woman will meet the same fate. So when people become oblivious to their environment, accept pollution, accept "abuse excuse" in court, vote for judges only because of their name or "looks" (like Corrigan - "that's a good Irish name, lets vote for him") or "party affiliation", and not on merit, or demand real access to their State Legislators locally, and not only at the State Capital 100 miles away, or complain about the fraud waste and abuse in government and demand criminal "Felony" sentences for these rotten politicians when indicted and charged, instead of giving them a deal and drop all the felony charges with misdemeanors and probation, as is usually the case with examples of Former Ohio Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar or (Paul Mifsud - who was former Chief of staff for Ohio Gov. Voinovich).- Hello, Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery-Where are you? And what of these local news organizations covering the news to inform the public like; this house burned down, or this person got killed in a car crash, or this team won tonight Etc. So why not do a real story on these local politicians and judges a week prior to the election and report their good work or their incompetence ?. Yes, do a real story on who the judges are that deserve to be re-elected as to their dispensing justice as in truth in sentencing, and not just because they were endorsed by some organization that really means nothing - The public should see "stats" on their caseload and outcome. But these local TV and radio stations refuse to do this, and just take the money from inept politicians to do bull shit adds that mean nothing - It is like seeing commercials on so many different cars and that you should buy based on some stupid humorous commercials without any facts or stats - instead of broadcasting independent consumer reports .. So, TV stations have a duty to report the truth, not skew it,- (So give us a break you so-called News folks that say; "We care about Cleveland" - in reality they care about their look and ratings over reporting truth) - I would ask them about other Newsworthy stories, and they say; Oh, the Network covers stories like that. Or when you see local TV affiliates promo a new anchor by saying; Wow, Ramona cares about Cleveland - "what a crock".- Plus, there are more diverse people in our area besides blacks and whites. TV programming should also discourage Lottery Commercials-since it is just as bad as the old cigarette commercials, by encouraging poor inner-city people to buy Lotto tickets over Bread & Milk for their children. Plus; as to the "sit- coms" with characters using "Ebonics" is just as stupid, since; TRW would never hire a person that can't communicate on a global level. Well, if things go the way they are going, this country will turn into Rio Dejanero (rich & poor and no middle class) then Fascism, then Socialism, then Communism. Ask any Poli Sci professor. You can make a difference and effect change to protect freedom and Liberty by scrutinizing politicians and throwing the corrupt ones out. Vote issues, not party line. Vote for people that are decent and truthful and above reproach - and, that are loyal to the American People and not to their CPA. Thank You; John T. Kamalic //Cleveland, Ohio//Cc: 60 MINUTES:.

How I view the world, goes like this; After the military, I had traveled the world for years and enjoyed seeing all the different Countries, with it's peoples, and their many intriguing cultures, mores and values. Being in the military made me grow up real fast .. I had been in Combat with an "MOS" of 0331 (M-60 Gunner) as a U.S. Marine with the 1st Marine Division Echo 2/5 from 68-69 in the jungles of Vietnam; And had seen much death and destruction there, as well as getting 27 confirmed kills, which I must live with, and Malaria for life. I witnessed "friendly fire", a gook getting burned alive with Napalm 1/2 a click from me. We even had a "kill quota" ( meaning; for every 5 gooks (VC) you kill in the bush, you get to go on an extra in-country R&R - Unfortunately, a few men were killing any gook (Vietnamese national) just to get the 5 count. I wanted no part of it. But command always found a way to suppress these mistakes because of US war protest back in the world. I mean, just because you see a farmer with a world war II rifle, does not mean he is the enemy-plus, many GI's were burning villages on order for no apparent reason. It was like, if someone on your street back home was charged with arson, everyone else would be convicted as well. What justice. I witnessed assassinations from "Rock Marines" South Korean Intelligence Officers, and came back to the world the same year of the My Lai Massacre. After Nam, I went to college and had attended Case-Western Reserve University, and American University in Washington D.C., where I became politically active both at the under grad and grad levels, and had graduated from "BW". I had been photographed with 3 U.S. Presidents (Ford, Reagan, Bush) working on the campaigns, as well as being a motorcade driver and political staffer. I also personally met and handed my business card to President Bill Clinton, who put it in his pocket and sent me a signed "thank you letter" a month later . - I had graduated from Baldwin Wallace College with a B.A. in Political Science 1977 and had Bob Hope give the commencement speech and hand me my College Diploma. How ironic, that I had previously met Bob Hope back in "68", at his USO Christmas Show in Danang, South Vietnam Dec/68 with Ann Margaret and Rosie Greer while in hospital for shrapnel wounds and Malaria, and Tropical Sprue - Since Vietnam, I have become a much more compassionate person towards my fellow man, and have truly enjoyed visiting tropical Rain forests through out the world. I love to photograph nature, and especially the trees and flowers in the tropics and sub-tropics, so more people can enjoy and appreciate them through the pictures I sell-While I send 20% of my profits to Organizations that try to save the world's Rain forests. I truly appreciate life and nature, because of my life experiences and having almost lost my life in Vietnam. I would only hope that more people out there would be cognizant of the environment, and that through mutual respect and interdependence, man and nature can maintain a healthy coexistence on Earth. People should realize that the world's ecosystems are far more important than the "market economy", or selling more cars, or making more money on "Wall Street". Pollution can destroy all the world market economies via Land, Sea, and Air - And give rise to more Leukemia and Cancer deaths worldwide, that would eventually kill all human life on Earth.

GREED WILL DESTROY THE EARTH: WITHOUT RESPECT FOR NATURE, (WORLD ECOSYSTEMS); & WITHOUT COMPASSION FOR MANKIND, THE GREEDY WILL DESTROY THE EARTH - CANCER AND LEUKEMIA ETC. WILL RISE AND KILL THE INNOCENT - PRODUCED FROM MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS & MAFIA SCUMBAGS, AND GOVERNMENT; VIA POLLUTION OF THE OCEANS, GROUND WATER, RIVERS, ETC. COMPANIES ROUTINELY BRIBE PUBLIC OFFICIALS (ORGANIZED CRIME, ROUTINELY DUMPING TOXINS IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN - WHILE D.O.J DOES NOTHING TO THE "POLITICALLY CONNECTED" POLLUTERS". MEANING; THE JUSTICE DEPT. IS WORSE THAN THE GANGSTERS OF THE 1920's - GANGSTERS LIKE AL CAPONE. EVEN THOUGH CAPONE WAS A BRUTAL PERSON, AND ORDERED OVER 400 DEATHS - THE JUSTICE DEPT. HAS DONE FAR MORE DAMAGE, BY BEING NOTHING LESS THAN A "SELECTIVE PROTECTION RACKET" FOR CORRUPT PUBLIC OFFICIALS & CONNECTED CORPORATIONS, AT THE EXPENSE OF ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS. THIS IS TREASON OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, AND SOME HONEST CONGRESSMAN, OR SOME U.S. SENATORS, SHOULD COME FORTH AND TAKE THE LEAD TO PUT SOME PEOPLE IN "REAL PRISON", AND NOT A "CLUB FED". IF CORRUPTION IS ALLOWED TO CONTINUE, THIS COUNTRY WILL ACTUALLY EMULATE THE MOVIE "BRAZIL" SOON ENOUGH." POLICE STATE" THUS, DEMOCRACY WILL FADE AWAY FROM THE U.S.A.. THIS COUNTRY WILL BE RUN BY CEO'S BY 100% .. IT IS NOW BY 50% AND COUNTING.

SO! Pursuing the most expensive toys like fancy cars for status is pretty shallow, or being obsessed with millionaire sports figures playing Football, Basketball, Baseball, Etc.- Instead, most Americans see multi-million dollar sports figures and multi-million dollar Hollywood Movie Stars (praying that their child grows up looking good and not just fair looking, since our society rewards "beautiful people" & stigmatizes and shuns people that are not perfect) as Royalty or "role models", for their children to aspire to, just because of the money and fame it brings. - Instead of doing something to help others, or having some purpose in life and contribute to mankind - This selfish "mind set" is truly a pathetic anomaly in this country. You wonder why Asians score higher in college SATs & LSATs Etc. and value education and thirst for knowledge over money ? It's because they are not "poisoned" by "The American Sports Syndrome" and the stupid Media folks who "Supersaturate" and "Brainwash" you to want more and more sports. I am truly amazed to see all the networks and affiliates spending so much time on sports. I mean, they go on TV and say; Cleveland beat Pittsburgh today, or We are better than Pittsburgh, or This team creamed that team, or "X" High school beat "Y" High school, ( TV Sportscasters become the peer pressure initiators that pressure children to judge other schools and create conflict by having children from one High School to verbally attack children from the other High Schools-In saying "we are better than you"), or "we killed that team", or "this team bombed by that team", and so on and so on and so on. Think About it; I remember when I was a kid and the neighbor kid would say to me; "My father is bigger than your father", or "My father can kick your father's ass", or "we have a nicer car than you have", or "Our house is better than your house" (Keeping up with the Jones Complex) Etc. It appears that many American "jocks and jock wannabes" are still in there "High School Stage", and are oblivious to the real world. These sports fans don't realize that these millionaire owners and millionaire players laugh all the way to the bank and think the fans are really stupid, but essential to maintain their high salaries (one recent basketball contract to one player netted $120 million dollars) via the tax subsidized money piling up for them every day. (research proves that tax abatement and tax subsidy given to build sports arenas in cities for millionaire team owners do not improve that city's economy-it actually destroys all the small businesses adjacent to that stadium-by the stadium monopolizing on food services and products within the stadium structure while only paying minimum wage jobs that have no advancement .. This also forces surrounding businesses to loose profits since the area is a "ghost-town" when no games are played). As to charities and sports figures, both players and sports owners fare no better. So why don't these sports players give some money to "Africare" or other charities ? - Because they are phony.

While 80% of all politicians continue to talk about decoy issues like The so-called "American Drug Problem", when there is no such thing as a Drug Problem in this country, it's a TAX FREE Enterprise. Unfortunately, voters are gullible and tend to believe it and allow Washington to raise more taxes every year to fight this imaginary war, while giving up more freedom as a by-product in return. I challenge any American to ask any politician for Independent Scientific source data proving things like Marijuana is harmful-If you get an empirical response, please E-Mail me with it and I will send you $100.00.- The point is, there is NO Scientific data proving Marijuana harmful. I think all drugs should be legalized. Remember the Prohibition days in the 1920's ? There was massive violence in the streets daily, when machine - gun gangs ruled the streets and owned the Cops - Prohibition will always breed corruption. Why you ask ? It was all about many gangs wanting to covertly sell liquor to the same restaurants (turf war) for tax free profits. So when liquor became legal, all the gangs disappeared because there was no longer an incentive to get "tax free market share". So I submit, If you legalized all drugs in America, all the Gang bangers of today would have no "tax free incentive" to sell drugs, and would then get jobs at "Mr. Hero's", or go back to school and finish their education to get real jobs. I have actually had juveniles come up to me while I was on patrol as a Police Officer and had many of them say; "Hey man, why should I work at Mr. Hero's for $60. bucks a week, when I can "makes" a $1,000 dollars a week "sellin" drugs and get myself a Beamer (BMW)".

POLICE OFFICER QUALIFICATIONS; I feel 50% of all cops in America our "Power Freaks", "Mel Gibson wannabe's" with that "RAMBO" mentality that suffer from "MAD COP DISEASE". I thought LAPD in 1982 had the perfect recruitment policy; which was a percentage of applicants get in from the "bull shit" civil service test, while another percentage with a 4 year college degree get a civil service waiver, and do not take the test but just go on to the next steps; background, drug test, medical, oral interview, and agility. The college educated rookies were found to be void of the "power freak" mentality. If you do a comparative analysis on Cops vs. FBI agents going bad, (Indicted, corrupt, brutality, convicted) you will find that the stats shows cops have higher corruption numbers than FBI agents - One reason is attributable to having a 4 year degree. Of course, the college waiver at LAPD was stopped when Willie Williams came in and screwed it all up, I am glad the city finally fired his fat ass. I mean, I had fellow cops come up to me at the firing range and say; "Hey man, I heard you popped 27 dudes in Nam". I responded; "Yeah so what" The Swat cop says while cleaning his new "9" (9mm) as he puts it- "Man I can waits to pop my fist cat with my new 9s". And I have to work with ass holes like that - What a country. I feel that the "perfect cop" is a person with 2 years military, and a 4 year Liberal Arts Degree, preferably in History (because gathering information on crimes is all about things that happened in the past) and a Criminal Justice Degree is Total Bull shit. .

If you really want to know who the "Real Drug Dealers" are, they are 80% of all the politicians in the United States. Fact is, The Cigarette lobby, the Liquor lobby, the Pharmaceutical lobby etc. all give the RNC & DNC $3 - $7 Million Dollars a year to keep things the same. While Cigarettes kill over 450,000 Americans a year; Liquor kills over 90,000 Americans a year-not to mention all the lives it ruins, including child abuse and domestic violence; The Pharmaceuticals (prescription drugs) and "over-the-counter" drugs kill some 100,000 Americans every year, (1997 Statistics; source NIH). While at the same time, "NO ONE" in the world has ever died from Marijuana since it's first known use in the year 2700 BC.

This chronology is a co-production between CHIC and UKCIA. Most of the timeline was compiled by Rob Christopher of CHIC, and UKCIA added more using Neil Montgomery's timeline for Pot Night and other sources.

References Cannabis sativa appears to have originated in Central Asia and was probably first cultivated for its fibre. It has been grown in China for at least 4500 years. It is thought to have reached Europe by 1500 BC.

2700 BC First written record of cannabis use, in the pharmacopoeia of Shen Nung, one of the fathers of Chinese medicine.

550 BC The Persian prophet Zoroaster gives hemp first place in the sacred text, the Zend-Avesta, which lists over 10,000 medicinal plants.

450 BC The Greek historian Herodotus describes the Scythians of central Asia throwing hemp onto heated stones under canvas: 'as it burns, it smokes like incense and the smell of it makes them drunk'.

AD 45 St Mark establishes the Ethiopian Coptic Church. The Copts claim that marijuana as a sacrament has a lineage descending from the Jewish sect, the Essenes, who are considered to be responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

70 Roman Emperor Nero's surgeon, Dioscorides praises Cannabis for making "the stoutest cords" and for it's medical properties.

1000 The English word 'Hempe' first listed in a dictionary. Moslems produce hashish for medical and social use.

1150 Moslems use Cannabis to start Europe's first paper mill. Most paper is made from Cannabis for next 850 years.

1484 Pope Innocent VIII singles out cannabis as an unholy sacrament of the Satanic mass.

1563 Queen Elizabeth I decrees that land owners with 60 acres or more must grow Cannabis else face a £5 fine.

1564 King Philip of Spain follows lead of Queen Elizabeth and orders Cannabis to be grown throughout his Empire from modern-day Argentina to Oregon.

1606 British take Cannabis to Canada to be cultivated mainly for maritime uses.

1619 Virginia colony makes Cannabis Cultivation Mandatory, followed by most other colonies. Europe pays Hemp bounties.

1791 President Washington sets duties on Cannabis to encourage domestic industry. Jefferson calls Cannabis "a necessity" and urges farmers to grow Cannabis instead of tobacco.

1807 Napoleon signs the Treaty of Tilset with Czar Alexander of Russia which cuts off all legal Russian trade with Britain. Britain blackmails and press gangs American sailors into illegally trading in Russian Hemp.

1808 Napoleon wants to place French Troops at Russian ports to ensure the Treaty of Tilset is complied with. The Czar refuses and turns a blind eye to Britain's illegal trade in Cannabis.

1812 19th June America declares war on Britain. 24th June Napoleon invades Russia aiming to put an end to Britain's main supply of Cannabis. By the end of the year the Russian winter and army had destroyed most of Napolean's invading force.

1835 The Club de Hashichines, whose bohemian membership included the poet Baudelaire, is founded.

1839 Homeopathy journal American Provers' Union publishes first of many reports on the effects of Cannabis.

1841 Dr. W.B. O'Shaunghnessy of Scotland works in India then introduces Cannabis to Western medicine. In the following 50 years hundreds of medical papers are written on the medical benefits of Cannabis.

1845 Psychologist and 'inventor' of modern psychopharmacology and psychotimimetic drug treatment, Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours documents physical and mental benefits of Cannabis.

1857 'The Hasheesh Eater' by Fitz Hugh Ludlow is published. Smith Brothers of Edinburgh start to market a highly active extract of Cannabis Indica used as a basis for innumerable tinctures.

1860 First Governmental commission study of Cannabis and health conducted by Ohio State Medical society.

1870 Cannabis is listed in the US Pharmacopoeia as a medicine for various ailments.

1890 Queen Victoria's personal physician, Sir Russell Reynolds, prescribes Cannabis for menstrual cramps. He claims in the first issue of The Lancet, that Cannabis "When pure and administered carefully, is one of the of the most valuable medicines we possess"

1895 The Indian Hemp Drug Commission concludes that cannabis has some medical uses, no addictive properties and a number of positive emotional and social benefits. First known use of the word 'marijuana' for smoking, by Pancho Villa's supporters in Sonora Mexico. The song "La Curaracha" tells the story of one of Villa's men looking for his stash of "marijuana por fumar"

1910 African-American 'reefer' use reported in jazz clubs of New Orleans, said to be influencing white people. Mexican's reported to be smoking Cannabis in Texas. Newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst has 800,000 acres of prime Mexican Timberland seized from him by Villa and his men. Could this be the reason why his newspapers subsequently ran many stories portraying Negroes and Mexicans as frenzied beasts under the influence of 'Marijuana'.

1911 Hindus reported to be using 'Gunjah' in San Francisco. South Africa starts to outlaw Cannabis.

1912 The possibility of putting controls on the use of Cannabis is raised at the first International Opium Conference.

1916 Recognising that timber supplies are finite, USDA Bulletin 404 calls for new program of expansion of Cannabis to replace uses of timber by industry.

1923 The South African delegate to the League of Nations claims mine workers are not as productive after using 'dagga' (Cannabis) and calls for international controls. Britain insists on further research before any controls are imposed.

1924 At the second International Opiates Conference the Egyptian delegate claims that serious problems are associated with Hashish use and calls for immediate international controls. A Sub-Committee is formed and listens to the Egyptian and Turkish delegations while Britain abstains. The conference declares Cannabis a Narcotic and recommends strict international control.

1925 The 'Panama Canal Zone Report' conducted due to the level of Cannabis use by soldiers in the area concludes that there is no evidence that Cannabis use is habit-forming or deleterious. The report recommends that no action be taken to prevent the use or sale of Cannabis.

1928 September 28th. The Dangerous Drugs Act 1925 becomes law and Cannabis is made illegal in Britain.

1931 The Federal Bureau of Narcotics is formed with Anslinger appointed as its head.

1937 Following action by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and a campaign by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, a prohibitive tax is put on hemp in the USA, effectively destroying the industry. Anslinger testifies to congress that 'Marijuana' is the most violence causing drug known to Man. The objections by the American Medical Association (The AMA only realised that 'Marijuana' was in fact Cannabis 2 days before the start of hearing) and the National Oil Seed Institute are rejected.

1938 The February edition of US magazine Popular Mechanics (written before the Marijuana Transfer Tax was passed) declares 'Hemp - the New Billion Dollar Crop.'

1941 Cannabis dropped from the American Pharmacopoeia. Popular Mechanics Magazine reveal details of Henry Ford's plastic car made using Cannabis and fuelled from Cannabis. Henry Ford continued to illegally grow Cannabis for some years after the Federal ban, hoping to become independent of the petroleum industry.

1943 Both the US and German governments urge their patriotic farmers to grow hemp for the war effort. The US shows farmers a short film - 'Hemp for Victory' which the government later pretends never existed. The editor of 'Military Journal' states that although some military personnel smoke Cannabis he does not view this as a problem.

1944 New York Mayor LaGuardia's Marijuana commission reports that Cannabis causes no violence at all and cites other positive results. Anslinger responds by denouncing LaGuardia and threatens doctors with prison sentences if they dare carry out independent research on Cannabis.

1948 Anslinger now declares that using Cannabis causes the user to become peaceful and pacifistic. He also claims that the Communists would use Cannabis to weaken the American's will to fight.

1951 UN bulletin of Narcotic Drugs estimates 200 million Cannabis users worldwide.

1961 Anslinger heads US delegation at UN Drugs Convention. New international restrictions are placed on Cannabis aiming to eliminate its use within 25 years.

1962 Anslinger is sacked by President Kennedy. Kennedy may well have smoked cannabis in the White House.

1964 The first head shop is opened by the Thelin brothers in the United States.

1966 The folk singer Donovan becomes the first celebrity hippy to fall foul of the law.

1967 In July over 3,000 people hold a mass 'smoke-in' in Hyde Park in London. The same month, The Times carries a pro-legalisation advertisement which declares that "the laws against Marijuana are immoral in principle and unworkable in Practice. The signatories include David Dimbleby, Bernard Levin, and the Beatles.

1967 The most famous bust of all, on the home of Rolling Stone, Keith Richards, uncovered marijuana. Richards and Mick Jagger were sentenced to prison for respectively three months and one year. The sentences prompted an outcry that culminated in Lord Rees Mogg's famous Times editorial 'Who brakes a butterfly on a wheel?' The convictions were quashed on appeal.

1967 In New York, on Valentines Day, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies mail out 3000 joints to addresses chosen at random from the phonebook. They offer these people the chance to discover what all the fuss is about, but remind them that they are now criminals for possessing cannabis. The mail out was secretly funded by Jimi Hendrix, and attracts huge publicity.

1968 A Home Office select committee, chaired by Baroness Wootton, looks at the 'cannabis question'. Its report concluded that cannabis was no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and recommended that the penalties for all marijuana offences be reduced. Campaign against Cannabis use by US Troops in Vietnam - Soldiers switch to heroin.

1969 Incoming Labour minister Jim Callaghan rejects the Wootton recommendations and introduces a new Misuse of Drugs Act, which prescribes a maximum five years' imprisonment for possession. The Act remains in force to this day.

1970 Canadian Le Dain report claims that the debate on the non-medical use of Cannabis "has all too often been based on hearsay, myth and ill-informed opinion about the effects of the drug." Marijuana Transfer Tax' declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

1971 Misuse of Drugs Act lists Cannabis as a Class B drug and bans its medical use despite the recommendation of the Wootton Report that "Preparations of Cannabis and it's derivatives should continue to be available on prescription for purposes of medical treatment and research". President Nixon declares drugs "America's public enemy No. 1".

1972 The White House passes a $1 billion anti-drug bill and Nixon again declares drugs America's public enemy No. 1". The US Government Shafer report voices concern at the level of spending used to stop illicit drug use. From 1969-73 the level of spending rose over 1000 percent.

1973 President Nixon declares "We have turned the comer on drug addiction in America'. Oregon becomes the first state to take steps towards legalisation.

1975 Hundreds of Doctors call on US Government to instigate further research on Cannabis. Supreme Court of Alaska declares that 'right of privacy' protects Cannabis possession in the home. Limit for public possession is set at one ounce.

1976 Ford Administration bans government funding of medical research on Cannabis. Pharmaceutical companies allowed to carry out research on synthetic, manmade Cannabis analogues. Holland adopts policy of tolerance to Cannabis users. Robert Randal becomes first American to receive Cannabis from Federal supplies under a Investigational New Drug (IND) program. Ford's chief advisor on drugs, Robert Dupont declares that Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and urges for it's decriminalisation. Disturbances erupt at the end of the Notting Hill carnival. BBC News reports: 'Scores of young black men roamed the streets late into the night, openly smoking marijuana joints and listening to the non-stop pounding of reggae music'.

1978 New Mexico becomes first US state to make Cannabis available for medical use.

1980 Paul McCartney spends ten days in prison in Japan for possession of cannabis.

1983 UK convictions for cannabis possession exceed 20,000, having risen from just under 15,000 in 1980. US government instructs American Universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 Cannabis research work.

1988 In Washington, DEA Judge Francis Young concludes at the end of a lengthy legal process that "Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man". He recommends that medical use of marijuana should be allowed, for certain life- or sense-threatening illnesses. The DEA administrator rejects the ruling. US Senate adds $2.6 Billion to federal anti-drug efforts.

1989 Outgoing president Reagan declares victory in War on Drugs as being a major achievement of his administration. Secretary of State James Baker reports that the global war on narcotics production "is clearly not being won."

1990 The discovery of THC receptors in the human brain is reported in Nature.

1991 42,209 people are convicted of cannabis offences in the UK. 19,583 escape with cautions.

1993 Hempcore become the first British company to obtain a license to grow Cannabis as the Home Office lift restrictions on industrial hemp cultivation.

1994 Home Secretary Michael Howard increases maximum fines for possession from £500 to £2,500. Germany becomes the first European country apart from Holland to decriminalise possession of 'small quantities of cannabis for occasional use'. The Liberal-Democrat conference votes for a Royal Commission, yet the tabloid press report that they support legalisation! Key rings with leaves taken from Hempcore's first Harvest are illegally sold in such publications as 'Viz'. The Home Office are aware of the situation but do not prosecute Hempcore who could have been facing 15 years and an unlimited fine. Association of Cannabis Therapeutics talks to Department Of Health about possibility of Legalising Cannabis for Medical use.

1995 Channel 4 dedicate 8 hours of programming to Cannabis on Pot Night. The BBC respond with blatant anti-cannabis propaganda on Panorama. 10 millionth cannabis arrest in the US in July. Labour shadow minister Clare Short says the subject of decriminalisation should be discussed. She is immediately denounced by other leading Labour Politicians.

1995 UK Cannabis Internet Activists are formed to take the campaign to reform the UK cannabis laws to the global community. Their www site is presently visited by over 2000 people from around the world each week, has been featured in the national newspaper the Mail on Sunday, listed in .Net magazine, and continues to help people take the anti-prohibition message to the press and Members of Parliament. We would like to thank everyone who's got involved in the UK campaign through this project for their efforts and everyone who has taken the time to send messages of support. If you want help why not find out how you can bring a better cannabis policy to the UK.

Most of the timeline was compiled by Rob Christopher of CHIC using the following sources: Chris Conrad, HEMP, Lifeline to the Future (ISBN 0-963975-1-2) Ernest Abel, Marijuana, The First 12,000 years (Plenum Press, New York 1980) Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes (ISBN # 1-878125-00-1) Peter Stratford, Psychedelics Encyclopaedia (ISBN 0-9114171-51-8) Some more came from the web site that accompanied Channel 4's Pot Night. UKCIA checked and corrected the above and added more using: Terrence McKenna, Food Of The Gods Abbie Hoffman, Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Compliments of John Kamalic / JT PHOTO surfing the Net

The following information was written by Paul Hager, Chair of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union Drug Task Force and we would like to thank him for doing so and for letting us reproduce it here.

The most celebrated study that claims to show brain damage is the rhesus monkey study of Dr. Robert Heath, done in the late 1970s. This study was reviewed by a distinguished panel of scientists sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. Their results were published under the title, Cannabis and Health in 1982. Heath's work was sharply criticized for its insufficient sample size (only four monkeys), its failure to control experimental bias, and the misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as "damaged". Actual studies of human populations of cannabis users have shown no evidence of brain damage. For example, two studies from 1977, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed no evidence of brain damage in heavy users of cannabis. That same year, the American Medical Association (AMA) officially came out in favor of decriminalizing cannabis. That's not the sort of thing you'd expect if the AMA thought cannabis damaged the brain.

This claim is based chiefly on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who experimented with tissue (cells) isolated in petri dishes, and the work of researchers who dosed animals with near-lethal amounts of cannabinoids (i.e., the intoxicating part of cannabis). Nahas' generalizations from his petri dishes to human beings have been rejected by the scientific community as being invalid. In the case of the animal experiments, the animals that survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30 days of the end of the experiment. Studies of actual human populations have failed to demonstrate that cannabis adversely affects the reproductive system.

This is one of the more persistent myths. A real world example of what happens when cannabis is readily available can be found in Holland. The Dutch partially legalized cannabis in the 1970s. Since then, hard drug use -- heroin and cocaine -- have DECLINED substantially. If cannabis really were a gateway drug, one would have expected use of hard drugs to have gone up, not down. This apparent "negative gateway" effect has also been observed in the United States. Studies done in the early 1970s showed a negative correlation between use of cannabis and use of alcohol. A 1993 Rand Corporation study that compared drug use in states that had decriminalized cannabis versus those that had not, found that where cannabis was more available -- the states that had decriminalized -- hard drug abuse as measured by emergency room episodes decreased. In short, what science and actual experience tell us is that cannabis tends to substitute for the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and heroin.

Like the studies claiming to show damage to the reproductive system, this myth is based on studies where animals were given extremely high -- in many cases, near-lethal -- doses of cannabinoids. These results have never been duplicated in human beings. Interestingly, two studies done in 1978 and one done in 1988 showed that hashish and cannabis may have actually stimulated the immune system in the people studied.

Smoked cannabis contains about the same amount of carcinogens as does an equivalent amount of tobacco. It should be remembered, however, that a heavy tobacco smoker consumes much more tobacco than a heavy cannabis smoker consumes cannabis. This is because smoked tobacco, with a 90% addiction rate, is the most addictive of all drugs while cannabis is less addictive than caffeine. Two other factors are important. The first is that paraphernalia laws directed against cannabis users make it difficult to smoke safely. These laws make water pipes and bongs, which filter some of the carcinogens out of the smoke, illegal and, hence, unavailable. The second is that, if cannabis were legal, it would be more economical to have cannabis drinks like bhang (a traditional drink in the Middle East) or tea which are totally non-carcinogenic. This is in stark contrast with "smokeless" tobacco products like snuff which can cause cancer of the mouth and throat. When all of these facts are taken together, it can be clearly seen that the reverse is true: cannabis is much SAFER than tobacco.

Although cannabis, when used to intoxication, does impair performance in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of the effect of cannabis on the automobile accident rate suggest that it poses LESS of a hazard than alcohol. When a random sample of fatal accident victims was studied, it was initially found that cannabis was associated with RELATIVELY as many accidents as alcohol. In other words, the number of accident victims intoxicated on cannabis relative to the number of cannabis users in society gave a ratio similar to that for accident victims intoxicated on alcohol relative to the total number of alcohol users. However, a closer examination of the victims revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on cannabis WERE ALSO INTOXICATED ON ALCOHOL. For people only intoxicated on cannabis, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This finding has been supported by other research using completely different methods. For example, an economic analysis of the effects of decriminalization on cannabis usage found that states that had reduced penalties for cannabis possession experienced a rise in cannabis use and a decline in alcohol use with the result that fatal highway accidents decreased. This would suggest that, far from causing "carnage", legal cannabis might actually save lives.

This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that purported to show, first, a normal human brainwave, and second, a flat brainwave from a 14-year-old "on cannabis". When researchers called up the TV networks to complain about this commercial, the Partnership had to pull it from the air. It seems that the Partnership faked the flat "cannabis brainwave". In reality, cannabis has the effect of slightly INCREASING alpha wave activity. Alpha waves are associated with meditative and relaxed states which are, in turn, often associated with human creativity.

This myth is the result of bad data. The researchers who made the claim of increased potency used as their baseline the THC content of cannabis seized by police in the early 1970s. Poor storage of this cannabis in un-air conditioned evidence rooms caused it to deteriorate and decline in potency before any chemical assay was performed. Contemporaneous, independent assays of unseized "street" cannabis from the early 1970s showed a potency equivalent to that of modern "street" cannabis.

his is true but misleading. Any impairment of short-term memory disappears when one is no longer under the influence of cannabis. Often, the short-term memory effect is paired with a reference to Dr. Heath's poor rhesus monkeys to imply that the condition is permanent.

This is also true but misleading. Cannabinoids are fat soluble as are innumerable nutrients and, yes, some poisons like DDT. For example, the essential nutrient, Vitamin A, is fat soluble but one never hears people who favor cannabis prohibition making this comparison.

Again, true but misleading. The 31 August 1990 issue of the magazine Science notes that of the over 800 volatile chemicals present in roasted COFFEE, only 21 have actually been tested on animals and 16 of these cause cancer in rodents. Yet, coffee remains legal and is generally considered fairly safe.

This is true. It was put in to see if you are paying attention. Animal tests have revealed that extremely high doses of cannabinoids are needed to have lethal effect. This has led scientists to conclude that the ratio of the amount of cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (i.e., stoned) relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to 40,000. In other words, to overdose, you would have to consume 40,000 times as much cannabis as you needed to get stoned. In contrast, the ratio for alcohol varies between 1 to 4 and 1 to 10. It is easy to see how upwards of 5000 people die from alcohol overdoses every year and no one EVER dies of cannabis overdoses.

1) Cannabis and Health, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, 1982. Note: the Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior of the "Cannabis and Health" study had its part of the final report suppressed when it reviewed the evidence and recommended that possession of small amounts of cannabis should no longer be a crime (TIME magazine, July 19, 1982). The two JAMA studies are: Co, B.T., Goodwin, D.W., Gado, M., Mikhael, M., and Hill, S.Y.: "Absence of cerebral atrophy in chronic cannabis users", JAMA, 237:1229-1230, 1977; and, Kuehnle, J., Mendelson, J.H., Davis, K.R., and New, P.F.J.: "Computed tomographic examination of heavy cannabis smokers", JAMA, 237:1231-1232, 1977.

2) See Cannabis and Health, ibid., for information on this research. See also, Cannabis Reconsidered (1978) by Dr. Lester Grinspoon.

3) The Dutch experience is written up in "The Economics of Legalizing Drugs", by Richard J. Dennis, The Atlantic Monthly, Vol 266, No. 5, Nov 1990, p. 130. See "A Comparison of Cannabis Users and Non-users" by Norman Zinberg and Andrew Weil (1971) for the negative correlation between use of cannabis and use of alcohol. The 1993 Rand Corporation study is "The Effect of Cannabis Decriminalization on Hospital Emergency Room Episodes: 1975 - 1978" by Karyn E. Model.

4) See a review of studies and their methodology in "Cannabis and Immunity", Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Vol 20(1), Jan-Mar 1988. Studies showing stimulation of the immune system: Kaklamani, et al., "Hashish smoking and T- lymphocytes", 1978; Kalofoutis et al., "The significance of lymphocyte lipid changes after smoking hashish", 1978. The 1988 study: Wallace, J.M., Tashkin, D.P., Oishi, J.S., Barbers, R.G., "Peripheral Blood Lymphocyte Subpopulations and Mitogen Responsiveness in Tobacco and Cannabis Smokers", 1988, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid.

5) The 90% figure comes from Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, Surgeon General's Report, 1988. In Health magazine in an article entitled, "Hooked, Not Hooked" by Deborah Franklin (pp. 39-52), compares the addictives of various drugs and ranks cannabis below caffeine. For current information on cannabis drinks see Working Men and Ganja: Cannabis Use in Rural Jamaica by M. C. Dreher, Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1982, ISBN 0-89727-025-8. For information on cannabis and actual cancer risk, see Cannabis and Health, ibid.

6) For a survey of studies relating to cannabis and highway accidents see "Cannabis, Driving and Accident Safety", by Dale Gieringer, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid. The effect of decriminalization on highway accidents is analyzed in "Do Youths Substitute Alcohol and Cannabis? Some Econometric Evidence" by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit Laixuthai, Nov. 1992, University of Illinois at Chicago.

7) For information about the Partnership ad, see Jack Herer's book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 1990, p. 74. See also "Hard Sell in the Drug War", The Nation, March 9, 1992, by Cynthia Cotts, which reveals that the Partnership receives a large percentage of its advertizing budget from alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies and is thus disposed toward exaggerating the risks of cannabis while downplaying the risks of legal drugs. For information on memory and the alpha brainwave enhancement effect, see "Cannabis, Memory, and Perception", by R. L. Dornbush, M.D., M. Fink, M.D., and A. M. Freedman, M.D., presented at the 124th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 3-7, 1971.

8) See "Cannabis 1988, Old Drug New Dangers, The Potency Question" by Tod H Mikuriya, M.D. and Michael Aldrich, Ph.D., Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid.

9) See Cannabis and Health, ibid. Also see "Cannabis, Memory, and Perception", ibid.

10) The fat solubility of cannabinoids and certain vitamins is well known. See Cannabis and Health, ibid. For some information on vitamin A, see "The A Team" in Scientific American, Vol 264, No. 2, February 1991, p. 16.

11) See "Too Many Rodent Carcinogens: Mitogenesis Increases Mutagenesis", Bruce N. Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold, Science, Vol 249, 31 August 1990, p. 971.

12) Cannabis and alcohol toxicity is compared in Cannabis Reconsidered, ibid., p. 227. Yearly alcohol overdoses was taken from "Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives" by Ethan A. Nadelmann, Science, Vol 245, 1 September 1989, p. 943.

As just stated, The United States Department of Agriculture first proposed making paper from hemp pulp in the early 1930's. Production had to wait, though, until somebody made a machine to separate the hemp pulp (hurd) from the fiber (bast) cheaply. In the meantime, a group of companies-Dupont chemicals, Hearst paper and timber, and several others, developed a new way to make whiter paper out of trees. Just when they got all their patents and business dealings worked out in 1936, someone invented the hemp 'decorticating' machine. Since hemp paper is cheaper to make, this threatened to put all of the tree-paper companies out of business. A huge sum of capital was tied up in making tree pulp paper and shipping it for sale. Most of the tree-paper people were very powerful and had a lot of government connections. One of them, William Randolph Hearst, even owned an entire newspaper chain. In 1937, they launched a country-wide campaign to put a prohibitive tax on hemp. This was the first 'Reefer Madness Movement' (The second came in the 70's under Nixon.) This is when we began to call cannabis 'marijuana.' 'Marijuana' is a Mexican slang term which was relatively obscure until the newspapers made it a household word-synonymous with evil. The Hearst newspapers played all the angles. Articles were written specifically to horrify the public about the dangers of marijuana. Stories were concocted about 'axe-murderers' and sensationalistic tactics were used to blame heinous crimes on marijuana. The articles often took racist overtones, in order to capitalize on the then prevalent feelings of the average American towards Blacks, and Mexicans. In fact, it was this racism which was responsible for most of the anti-*marijuana* legislation previously passed in state legislatures - Hearst and Company just used this momentum to include hemp, in a way it is ironic that the racism of the American people would end up hurting them this way. Wait-why didn't we pass a better law? Why didn't somebody say something about hemp and stop them? How do you expect me to believe that no one knew marijuana was really cannabis hemp? Well, did you know all the stuff about cannabis that was in the first section? If so, you are a rare bird, my friend. (During Reefer Madness II, all mention of the word 'hemp' was pretty much removed from our high-school curriculums, museums, history books, etc. A Smithsonian curator was quoted as saying "Children don't need to know about hemp, it confuses them.") By the time the 1937 Tax Act (which proposed to levy a prohibitive tax on the sale of small quantities of marijuana) reached Congress, the country was in an uproar over 'that killer weed with roots in hell, marijuana.' The average American citizen was totally unaware that marijuana and cannabis hemp were the same plant (most of them didn't know where their clothes used to come from, anyway, because synthetic fabrics had just become popular.) To make matters worse, the word 'hemp' was often wrongly used to refer to other natural fabrics, specifically jute. Those that did know decided to put their faith in other, newer crops and technology. This was before anyone could see how ecologically devastating these crops and technologies would become. Senators were inundated with mail from parents groups and organized grass roots lobbying. To them it was a simple issue of obeying the will of the people-or not getting re-elected! This is not to say that no one protested, just that they were a small voice in the din of Reefer Madness. Numerous industries sent representatives to protest the usefulness of hemp. One of the loudest protesters, though, was the American Medical Association, which could not believe that the Congress would try to ban a useful medicine like cannabis, and was angered that they had not been told that the 'two' plants, marijuana and cannabis, were one in the same when they were asked for endorsement. [You can read all of this in the Congressional records.].

WANT CORRECT INFORMATION ON DRUGS ? .. ASK A SCIENTIST, BUT NEVER, ASK A POLITICIAN !
If you want an unbiased answer as to the dangers, or the fallacy of dangers to drugs, why not ask an Independent Scientist that does NOT get a pay check from the government. Scientists that have published in "Nature", "JAMA", or the "Lancet" (British Medical Journal), including Nobel Prize winners don't skew data to benefit from "tax money" collected -They speak the truth and use empirical data and state all drugs considered bad by governments are usually labeled bad by design. Thus, Scientists believe that drugs which governments classify as bad, is actually a scam by the government to promote existing legal drugs that are far more deadly and addictive, but are condoned because they generate millions of tax dollars every year, as well as killing off excess Americans to maintain a status quo with the help of a corrupt and shoddy health care system. So, a double standard exists and no one questions this tragedy. Marijuana is illegal, because the Pharmaceuticals can not "Patent a Plant", and try to push Marinol "chemically patented Marijuana" which does not work with Cancer and Aids patients, so "there's the rub.".

Americans should simply throw the "Bum" out when they fail to represent the American people. Other problems are; Revamping the IRS, Political Campaign Reform, Stopping "Corporate Welfare" like "sugar price supports" that are given to political contributors in exchange for "slush funds" - While causing every food product in the USA containing sugar to go up in price (hidden tax). What's really outrageous is that this sugar scam is actually funded inadvertently every year by the American taxpayer in higher taxes, while the DOJ does nothing. I should know about the "DOJ", I had worked for the DOJ (Dept. of Justice) for years as an armed Federal Agent - Inspector., and had found much in-house corruption due to politics. - I can remember the 4 most prevalent and important unwritten policies; (1) Protect your "DD" (District Director) at all costs - Lie, Cheat, Steal, Etc.; (2) Do anything to get a promotion (back-stabbing required) and get the annual monetary Christmas Bonus.; (3) Oh yes, Whistle blowers beware !! - You may be discredited or killed - I kid you not. (4) Ignore or give shoddy service to all "non-politically connected", or non-affluent Americans, that require government service. So much for Justice. (city hall is hard to fight) And what of Medicare and HMOs benefiting from corporate welfare ? Congress refuses to fix price gouging within Medicare-Example; One Band-Aid on Medicare could be billed to Medicare by a Doctor for $1.69 (becomes hidden tax per unit per Band-Aid, as opposed to 2 cents hidden tax per Band-Aid unit), while the Veterans Hospitals buy Band-Aids on the open market only pay 2 cents a Band-Aid for them, (one good reason-AMA has lobbyists who protect the scam). Congress gets lobby money from HMOs and in return allow HMOs to write their own laws to maintain loopholes that insure the company services free from patient accountability, responsibility, and liability, while Congress would never think of having an HMO for their own medical coverage -Talk about being in an "Ivory Tower". Lastly, If the U.S. Government "Recouped" the money from the S&L Bailouts of the 1980s, we could solve our budget problem - To date, the "Debt Service" on that bail-out is close to $1 Trillion Dollars - Yet Congress refuses to recoup, since many were involved and still reap the capital gains in property, bonds, and slush funds, and continue to protect their future contributors. Think about it ! - If you bought a $250,100.00. home and knew you could default on it without fear of Foreclosure by simply kicking back $25,000.00 to a certain politician for his/her campaign, what would you do ? That's what the S&L crisis was all about-It was "Whitewater" X 10,000.

A perfect example on how stupid the American voter is can be shown by the "Colin Powell Phenomenon." Colin Powell had "baited" (scammed) all those Americans in the possibility that he was running for President. This Colin Powell rage swept the country, and whenever you actually asked anyone why they thought Powell would make a good President, no one came up with a good response if any at all .. The media never even scrutinized Powell-all the while Powell was just scamming Americans to buy and boost his book sales. If fact, Colin Powell was involved in a cover-up of the My Lai Massacre. More bureaucrat than soldier. Let Saddam survive at end of Desert Storm. Rejected ordering more helicopters in Somalia, with disastrous results - The media knew all this but never brought it up. I mean, if you want expert opinions on Powell, then ask someone who is "former military" (not on government payroll) like Col. David Hackworth (most decorated military man alive & while on "Late Nite with Tom Snyder", he said the stealth fighters and B1 and B2 bombers were a scam - They can not carry "iron bombs" and broke down all the time; he also said the 45 year old B-52s were, and still is the best bomber in the world-yet the military continues to order 2 billion dollar each B2s because of the corrupt relationship that exists with government contractors) and not some idiot on the street that sells shoes at K-Mart. As for Bob Dole, I have met him and found that he is a bona-fide phony that has never ever done anything for Vietnam Veterans, even though he was in a powerful position to do so when in the Congress. During his presidential bid, he used 30 minute infomercials to bring his message across to the American voters-80% of the message was how he overcame his World War II war wounds-how touching-it was all about him-But what of all the other veterans of the next generation that suffered in the Vietnam War, and could have used a powerful voice in Congress from a fellow warrior to speak for them and address their war wounds like; Death, Shrapnel, Fighting the VA maze for disability that should be awarded, Agent Orange Contamination, (U.S. Govt. made it possible that soldiers could not sue Dupont Chemical who invented Agent Orange and ruined many lives because of it, when it was used in Vietnam as a defoliant), PTSD claims, "Private Sector" & "Public Sector" jobs for Disabled Veterans i.e. (protected class) that should of had set-asides like women & minorities have enjoyed for years-Things that Dole did not fight for, when his fellow veterans truly deserved it-and not political cronies that engaged in Money Laundering with him-what a sellout. The VRA ACT (vet preference in jobs) is a joke and is never utilized. And what of Bob Dole's clown and "power freak" wife, who refuses to hire qualified Vietnam Veterans at the Red Cross, but does manage to take big money from her hubby who manipulated campaign contributions and had them directed and converted into payments to his wife by lobbyists to the tune on $850,000.00 for speeches. (with half the money probably going to buy more "Aqua Net" hair spray for her 1960's hairdo). Even Ralph Nader is a phony, that treats his employees like shit and prevents them to unionize. About the only politician out there that is virtually "skeleton-free" and not a draft dodger like most that ran for president recently is Richard Lugar: Actually, he seems to be a pretty nice upstanding guy: more conservative than he lets on, but open minded and not dogmatic. He actually served in the military (Navy) AND is happily married to his first wife. Some question his involvement in the consolidation of Indianapolis with surrounding county, but it is really not worth mentioning. If you care to know more about "political skeletons" in the closet-go to the web site - CAMPAIGN 20004; To visit REALCHANGE.ORG site. click on statue of Liberty picture below now;

CORRUPT SHERIFF'S DEPT. RUN BY THE INFAMOUS Gerald T. McFaul SEX OFFENDER SHOULD BE ON HIS OWN SEXUAL PREDATORS WEB SITE

I was a Federal Agent and Armed Immigration Inspector and well as Immigration Examiner and Interviewed all foreign nationals incoming into to the US to visit on tourist visa; Interviewed and Issued Student visa status student for part-time work 20 hours a week; arrested foreign nationals out of status and prepared them for deportation; boarded all flights coming in at Hopkins International Airport to Interview people coming in to USA; Boarded all ships (tankers etc.) "lakers" (ship that traveled the Great Lakes only) and "Saltys" ships coming into harbor via St. Lawrence Seaway from the Oceans and foreign countries, sometimes communist flagged vessels. As my first wife was Jewish, I met some of her friends while in college at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland 9 (A very expensive college that is noted for scientific research ranging on medical) I met many students that were Israeli (students from Israel.) this was back in 1972-75. So we hanged out at the Hillel house on campus ( a student center of Jewish students and eatery that kept strict adherence to the "Kosher Laws" .) Her parents were so Incensed that she married a Catholic, they took her to Israel and had her live on a Kibbutz to brainwash her, bought her a sable coat, a Mercedes ( they were millionaires) from Ashtabula, Ohio in the scrap metal business.) So later in the late 80's when I worked for INS in Cleveland, I Interviewed foreign students on a daily basis and was given the job to Interview all foreign nations for undergraduate work, graduate work, and practical training for doctors (Example; a doctor from a foreign country comes into Cleveland to say work at the renowned "Cleveland Clinic" for specialist work to be a heart surgeon, or many other specialties in the medical profession - to learn techniques that can be used when retuning to country of origin. The point I am making is that with my training, I had noticed that many of these students that claim they were Palestinian were not, I deduced that they were indeed Israelis and very good in in deception. I even saw a few of them wearing the Star of David metal under their shirt when they bent down to sign a document after I photographed them to issue them the work ID card stating they can work and can not exceed 20 hours per week. A few weeks later I find out on my own that they never even registered at the college - which is a red flag, but not back in the early 1990's. When I told my superiors of the deceptions, they said that they were brought in through "Margaret Wong's people" - who ran an Immigration business and owned a very fancy Chinese restaurant on the east and west sides of Cleveland - and that many of the INS Inspectors frequently went there for dinner with their wives and girlfriends for free meals all the time. Margaret Wong is a millionaire, and wields much political power in the community ( there was a joke going around saying there are 2 doors at INS Cleveland 19th floor, 1 door for people with no connections ( Including US serviceman that came back from foreign duty married with a foreign national) and a door for Margaret Wong's foreign nationals - so I suspect I was seeing sleeper cells from the Israeli Mossad, which is USA CIA Counterpart and the real culprits of 9/11. You might think this is bullshit - but I was ask the 9/11 commission to have scientists under oath and ask about the Pentagon being hit by a 757 or missile, as well as asking then if a skyscraper could ever fall down from a 757 hit and JF4 fuel ( Kerosene) - Then you will see the truth and the American people will see that the government is lying. I am a Vietnam veteran and have seen the photos of the pentagon damage / I also have seen missiles hit building and planes shot down, plus I am an explosives expert, so what I know and any physics professor would agree with me - but to ask an active government employee or active military - they will lie. Plus, they are not scientist that are not working for the government. Below is a black and white photograph of my boss at INS Robert Brown when I worked there, he now works at a law firm in Cleveland. I sent a e-mail to Ashcroft and FBI about my suspicions, but they do not want the truth to come out since The US wants the OIL in the CASPIAN SEA ( over 6 TRILLION Dollars in oil and to discredit the Arabs because Israel wants it that way. I am afraid that The Israelis were so mentally damaged by the Nazis, they became them. But no one will admit to it. NSA has been Infiltrated by Israeli spies since WWII. And now, a superpower is a puppet of Israel and the media knows it - since they both want Fascism.

Remember, I use to work for INS as an Immigration Inspector Law Enforcement armed Federal Agent; I inspected Airline passengers coming into USA, I also Interviewed Foreign Nationals coming in for College Visa, Practical Training ( a doctor from India comes in to work at say The "Cleveland Clinic" to be a specialist M.D.) and saw a lot of illegal shit from the top D.D. (District Director) (my boss) Robert Brown - Brown was a real asshole and recently got reinstated from the Washington D.C. Office for bribery ( accepting Cleveland Browns Season Tickets - the only reason Brown got out of being prosecuted, was that the outgoing Cleveland U.S. Attorney named McLaughlin represented him - and pulled some strings and got him reinstated without any sanctions or convictions. Robert Brown was a real womanizer who was married with children and was going to Law School at night "Cleveland Marshall Law School" and met another student; a young extremely attractive blonde and provocative scam artist named Sue Riddle - Brown, the D.D. hired her as an INS Examiner in exchange for sex and her to do his Law school homework at the Federal building on Saturdays and Sundays and being paid time-1/2 and double-time (of course our "OT" was not like regular overtime; example; a ship comes in Cleveland on a Sunday - and you get called in to Inspect that Jet plane's "pax" (passengers) - If you work over 2 hours it is then called Title "34" Act passed by Congress in 1934, meaning, you get a whole days pay for only working 2 hours.) Plus "The "45 ACT". So Robert Brown paid Taxpayer big money overtime to the cocaine whore Sue - his woman, how pathetic. I did some whistle-blowing and they laid me off - how nice. That is the main problem working with Federal Agencies; 1. You MUST Protect the D.D. District Director, at all costs; lie, cheat. etc. If a D.D. sees an employee as being that loyal, your career will advance // 2. Most employees at Federal agencies only care about promotion, and they will do anything to get them and XMASS bonuses of real money - checks given to certain employees for the fine ? work they did that year.- even at the expense of an honest federal worker, or a American citizen that is in need of help from that agency. The Down side is; if you tell the truth like the FBI Dr. and Scientist blew the whistle and said the FBI lab is a joke, and agents are fabricating evidence, for a conviction. He then was demoted and lost his security clearance and given a desk in a hallway and treated like a felon. and did some work with the FBI for many years on political, judicial police, white collar crime corruption with FBI Agent Wayne Shields & Agent Lance Sakura ( a Japanese American from San Francisco) . who compromised me and almost got me killed from some dirty Cleveland cops. They contacted me when I worked for County Judge James McGettrick back in 1977-1980 on judicial case fixing by my judge. Well, Judge McGettrick was Indicted for fixing a Hell's Angel's Hit on someone (Murder) McGettrick was convicted and died in Jail. The then and still now in office Sheriff McFaul was told I was working with them which got me a death threat if I testified in federal court against someone the FBI was after as well (McFaul's buddy and McFaul's own son Kevin McFaul an attorney that sold cocaine all though law school and was recently arrested in 2004 for cocaine, which his case was conveniently lost. So McFaul's gang buddy calls me and threatens my stating they would shoot my wife in the head if I testified. I told Wayne and he said he could put me in the witness protection program in California, but I said to FBI Man Asshole Wayne that Kevin McFaul told me you told Sheriff McFaul was my source on his son Kevin and the other guy atty. Tim Marshall and Pat Deangelo - who by the way still represents CPD ( Cleveland Police Dept.) Cops that are accused of criminal activity. How ironic is this; since Wayne knew I took pictures of many judges on the side for re-election photos He told me that he married a woman that had 2 children from her recent divorced husband and wanted to adopt them - he also knew if I knew the Domestic Relations judges and I replied yes I knew a lot of them. Wayne wanted me to put in a word for him and have her biological husband denied visitation rights. OPR ( Office of Professional Responsibility) Until the perpetrators go to real jail the federal agencies will get as corrupt as the local police depts. is a joke to - it is supposedly the remedy of getting a federal worker (bad FBI agent, ATF, INS, US Customs Service Etc. // What a country. I said No way.

Johnny Kamalic ( Heavy-duty) 0331 U.S. Marine 1st Mar. Div. Echo 2/5 RVN ( Vietnam 68-69 ) Grunt M-60 Gunner Fire Base An Hoa / Medivacced on C-141 just short of Tour of Duty 12 months 20 days / To; U. S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka, on Fleet Activities Yokosuka Naval Base, 37 miles south of Tokyo, in Yokosuka City, Japan. Japan Naval Hospital /then; Guam U.S. Naval Hospital in Agana, Guam / Hospital /then; Philadelphia Naval Hospital 1969; For Shrapnel wounds, from an RPG rocket, and mortar landing near my foxhole during a firefight ; Tropical Sprue, Vivax Malaria; Cerebral,( With the Malaria, I was in a coma for 4-5days and came out of it to the doctor's amazement / I even remember on one "OP", I stepped on a land mine when on a search and destroy mission ( one of many-meaning killing VC - Gooks) that should of killed 4 of us, but it did not go off. I was hit by an AK47 round, I got contaminated by Agent Orange by drink bomb crater water ( when in the bush, many times we did not get re-supplied with ammo, water, and C-Rats, ( like "MRE's - but this stuff was actually partly from WWII) and had to use existing water from a rice farmers well, if not contaminated by a dead VC body, which the enemy usually did to prevent Marines & Army troops to get fresh water in the Bush from the many wells. Also, for years after B52 carpet bombing, the 500lb bombs left huge craters, like on the moon - and after the monsoons, these craters would fill up with water and even fish would appear after a season, and we were told (ordered) to use the water along with a pill and fill our canteens to mix with and drink the unknowing toxic water (AO contaminated) that the "magic" purification pill CP (Battalion/Command Post) gave us - I suspect this is how we got contaminated by the dioxins from Dupont ( a defense contractor) who made a lot of money on the defoliation dioxin Agent Orange and a promise from the Federal Government that made it impossible to sue them ever in the future for what the Agent Orange- (AO) did to us with cancers etc. Not to mention that the VARO makes it difficult to pay compensation for knowingly poisoning Marines retroactively - The VA battles the veteran until the veteran dies than the justice is denied to a man that died for his country twice. Once; being a grunt in Vietnam and subjected to death and killing without prejudice - to turn a Marine into a Sociopath, get him wounded, catch Malaria, ( many strains of malaria exists in the tropics that the Anti-malaria pill they gave you in-country does "NOT" protect you from) give him Cancer, and gives the veteran the runaround, even though a federal mandate exists to help the veteran get the benefits they deserve. The other thing that really pisses me off is that the VA and Cleveland, Ohio being the worst in the country, have a predisposition, that All Vietnam veterans are drug crazed baby killers. The VA & D0D, & the CIA, lied for years about the Gulf War Syndrome and said it was psychosomatic. What a joke, many Gulf vets were sick 1/2 million troops we are talking about - and the Czech Troops ( a biological warfare team-meaning experts) who were allies in the gulf, detected Saran Gas on the battlefield and were ignored by that asshole Gen. Shwartzkoff. Shwartzkoff knew from the CIA, that bunkers had Lethal gas munitions when they blew the bunkers in question that contained them. Yet; asshole fatass Shwartzkoff ignored the CIA warning. Shwartzkoff was then treated as a war hero when in fact he was an is a war criminal that should be tried in the Hague. So all the gulf vet wives were having countless miscarriages, and deforms child birth like a child with 3 legs etc. - yet the DoD still said it was psychosomatic for years until the evidence was so overwhelming, that the CIA admitted the connection to the Gulf war syndrome and many gulf vets are now getting medical care and compensation - but all the thousands of babies that died with miscarriages, dead births, and from deformations - what about them - Casualties of war ?

Face it, The veterans service organizations are good, but they are deliberately understaffed and funded by the U.S. Government. Remember, the same Gov't. that lied about "Germ Warfare" by Iraqis in the Gulf War. The CIA lied, The Pentagon lied, Etc. .. and even General Shwartzkoff lied and pulled specific documents from classified military files that stated the bunkers had biologicals in the warheads - To date, the General has still refused to give up the pages - which is a Felony, but the DOJ is not pursuing - Why? Because of Money a.k.a compensation claims to vets with real diseases contracted in the gulf when the bunkers were ordered blown up (Flashback Vietnam - Agent Orange in Vietnam and PTSD claims were, and still are difficult to get for the same reason - prioritized money for those bull shit $2 Billion dollar airplanes) and had their children born deformed - While the Government was saying they all the troops had psychosomatic problems - until 5 -7 years later when a private journalist found out the truth and the government had to do a 180 and admitted that Gulf troops were exposed to biologicals in the Gulf War-then the VA said they would treat them and let them apply for compensation. It was all about the 2 BILLION Dollar airplanes that the military wanted, and do the "kickback" shuffle, to congress so they can turn around and give congressman some money from the military contract on and on and on etc. and could not afford to do both; pay claims to vets when exposed by blunder (BIGGEST FRIENDLY FIRE IN U.S. HISTORY) that was covered up for years. I think the only way veterans can ever get justice is to play the game that corporations have played for years-have their own lobbyist and get political like AARP. The service organizations are prevented in doing it by law. So, if us vets get organized and form an organization like AARP, or NRA, and get a lobbyist, and a voting membership to scare the congressman into submission, as do all the big corporations have done for years - then vets will just continue to get shafted as they have been, starting back from the Korean War, to the Vietnam War & Desert Storm. You must also remember, less state legislators are vets too - therefore, an organization will search for people that have vets as a priority and not politicians that say they are and stab them in the back like what's his face did recently in the south on tobacco over vets. I would say that the perfect candidate for President in 2000 is Fred Thompson from Tenn. yes the former actor, and Steve Forbes for VP. Because, unfortunately some Republicans and Democrats are more loyal to Corporations than people. Money is the key, and so is having organized voters like NRA and NAACP can muster.

Columnist and former soldier David H. Hackworth is the author of The Price of Honor, and contributes weekly commentary to Defense Watch. For more information, visit Colonel Hackworth's homepage or the DefenseWatch Website. Sign up for the free weekly Defending America column at his Website, or send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831.

David Hackworth:
Flunking the Combat Task
"With good-to-go freshly stamped on the soldiers' foreheads ... the recently rebuilt Iraqi army ... flunked its baptismal test of fire."

Former NAGE Director to Request Senate Hearings on Healthcare Quality at VA Hospitals

QUINCY, Mass., May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The former director of the Veterans Administration has requested Senate hearings to examine the overall lack of quality health care in the nation's VA Centers described in a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Government Employees. U.S. Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost both legs and an arm when he was hit with shrapnel from a grenade explosion in Vietnam, requested Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate's Veterans Affairs Committee to conduct hearings to examine the findings of a survey by NAGE. In his letter requesting the hearings, Sen. Cleland said, "the NAGE survey suggests that within the last five years, reductions in personnel at VA facilities have diminished the quality of care that our Nation's veterans have earned. The reported incidents include patients wandering off the grounds of a facility and problems in patients receiving timely and accurate medications. "One disturbing case" said Sen. Cleland, "involved a patient within a VA facility contacting 911 to receive medical attention. As former head of the Veterans Administration, I am deeply concerned about these reports." Sen. Cleland joins Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry in calling for the Senate hearings to examine the findings of NAGE's survey of 13 VA hospitals throughout the country. The entire Massachusetts Congressional delegation has requested similar hearings by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. NAGE's National President Kenneth T. Lyons described conditions and the quality of health care at the VA centers deplorable after reviewing the results of the survey. Lyons called it "a national disgrace that our veterans are being treated like second class citizens." National Veterans Organization Mailing List" Home Page http://www.nvoa.org Questions about this mailing list should be directed to postmaster@nvoa.org Articles posted on the mailing list do not reflect the opinions of NVO, are for informational purposes only and are reprinted under the Fair Use Clause for Copyright. The NVO link is at the bottom of this web site under; "COOL LINKS." I would use NVOA as an information tool only, since I checked these guy out years ago, they gather good information, but I would not give them any money, since I caught them in some 12 lies on audio tape - Remember, I use to work for INS and did some work with the FBI for many years on political, judicial police, white collar crime corruption. White Collar crime A.K.A. Squad "6" - FBI Cleveland, Ohio what a joke

When a veteran applies for compensation and is turned down by his VA Regional Office, the next logical step in his claims process is to appeal the VARO's decision to the Board of Veterans Appeals. The very name "Board of Veterans Appeals" conjures up a picture of dedicated people reviewing local VA decisions to make sure that the veteran was given every possible benefit of the doubt, and that fairness was used in deciding his claim. One would think that this office would be concerned with making sure that if a veteran is entitled to a benefit, he gets it. It would seem that this office should be staffed by the most qualified and dedicated personnel that the VA could find. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Board of Veterans Appeals is so inept at its job that it hasn't even accepted a file folder from a regional office since March of 1994. It has not conducted a hearing since April of 1994 and while a caller to the BVA's office is told not expect to hearings until late in 1995, the BVA is telling the public through press releases that it has already started to schedule hearings. The BVA, like the rest of the Department of Veterans Affairs, is so swamped under because of it's own ineptitude that it has no idea how to extricate itself from the mess it has made of handling veterans claims. The BVA Press Release states that "a limited number of hearings will be conducted as BVA reduces its back-log and becomes more current." How is it going to reduce the back-log if it only holds a "limited number of hearings?" Last year, one of the BVA's lawyers, Lawrence Gottfried, was caught shredding evidence in veterans claims folders so he could send the claims file back to a local VARO for lack of evidence. Rather that do his job, Mr. Gottfried tried to lighten his case load by getting rid of claims any way he could, with no regard to the problems he was causing the veterans involved. According to the 1995 VA budget, there are 449 full time employees at the Board of Veterans Appeals. In the Office of the Chairman, which includes four board members, there are 27 employees, four of which are members of the board. There are 63 total board members, 175 attorney advisors, 6 medical advisors and 178 administrative support personnel. At the same time, there are 649 attorneys working for the Office of the General Counsel. If the VA was serious about reducing the claims backlog, especially the two or three year wait at the Board of Veterans Appeals, why doesn't it transfer some of these OGC lawyers to the BVA to help eliminate the backlog? Why not move some of the personnel from the Office of Veterans Statistics, which is a do-nothing office anyway, to the BVA? How about some of the bureaucrats from the Public Relations Division? Why can't Jesse Brown give up a couple of assistants to the BVA until the backlog is reduced? Why? There is a very simple answer to this question. If the BVA and the other claims processors at the regional offices start to make a serious dent in the claims backlog, they won't be able to justify not giving up some employees that congress is trying to eliminate from the federal workforce. Each and every employee at the VA is involved in perpetuating this problem because it's a matter of job security. The attitude is "let's protect all the jobs because it may be my job that gets cut." By making every job at the VA indispensable, they protect every job. We, the veterans, are paying the price for this political game. If our congress truly cared about it's military veterans, it would move to cut the fat out of the VA budget and directly oversee the operation of this department. If our president had one iota of interest in what becomes of a veteran, that he so energetically avoided becoming, he would order VA Secretary Jesse Brown to clean up this mess. The point is, no one is doing anything to eliminate this claims backlog. Brown makes promises that he knows he can't or won't keep, congress keeps eyeing the VA $37 million budget but makes no effort to eliminate the waste and downright fraud going on in it and we, the veterans, are doing nothing ourselves to bring pressure on our government to fix the mess. In the 103rd congress, only thirty-four percent of the members had ever served in the Armed Forces. This is clearly reflected in the way that veterans issues were handled by this body. Because of the drawdown of the military, even less of our representatives will probably be veterans in the future. Current military personnel now have to contribute to their families' medical care costs, their retirement benefits are being reduced and having fewer military personnel means that each soldier or sailor will have to work more and be deployed longer than ever before. Many veterans are now telling their sons and daughters not to join the military as the benefits are simply not worth wasting all those years for. Today's military is much more aware of the problems than previous generations were when they served. America cannot afford to continue turning it's back on it's veterans. To do so will wreck the future defense of the country and continue to alienate a large portion of it's veteran population.
WWW.NVO.ORG (Doug McCarther) NVOIS Library | Information Service | Tips for VA Claims | NVO Newsletters | Attorneys for Claims |

Are just as phony as the sports guys. Celebrities simply don't care about anyone but themselves-except for one actor. Paul Newman is the ONLY actor that I have respect for .. Paul Newman is a true humanitarian that has given so much to the unfortunate, not only in this country but in Europe as well. Paul Newman's Food Products Division (like salad dressing, popcorn Etc.) that is sold in Supermarkets across the country only exists to send all profits to charities for the poor and needy. Paul refuses the limelight of his humanitarian endeavors too. Paul Newman had even purchased an actual Castle in Europe and converted it into a Hospice that caters to helping the needy and sick from all over Europe.- This is unprecedented, because before Paul Newman did this, no other country in Europe has ever had such a concept and or operation turned into reality like he has. It is a shame that folks like Robin Williams (worth 1 billion), Oprah Winfrey (worth over 1 billion), Bill Cosby (worth over 1 billion) etc. can not emulate Paul Newman. And what of "pedophile Michael Jackson, who is not prosecuted because he has a lot of money-It sends a clear message to all pedophiles that says; "If you got money, go ahead and have all the kids you want-you will not be charged, you are good for the economy"- How sad, that money supersedes Justice.

I also think that "Affirmative Action" is a joke; Because, if a kid from Vietnam can come over here, not speak a word of English, and having had no formal education back in Vietnam, as well as his father, and his father before him all being simple rice farmers - can come here as a stigmatized Vietnamese refugee and take the worst jobs here, accepting no welfare, getting no support, and in 12 years become an English speaking college educated, medical school educated, medical doctor.-Than anyone can do it if self-motivated. Yet, in the USA, many uneducated whites (white trash) & uneducated by choice inner-city blacks with all the free education, ADC, Welfare, Workfare, Free medical care, Food stamps, and they won't even finish grade school, high school, or speak the "King's English", and would rather speak that bullshit "EBONICS" or "hillbilly trash" and play basketball all day - and expect TRW to hire them - What a crock of shit-heads. And Asshole Farrakhan Wannabes a.k.a. "Calypso Louie" and real racists like Fat man Rev. AL Sharpton & Jesse (asshole) Jackson, and the Black Congressional Leadership who continue to live in the past and refuse to even recognize a Great Black American named Clarence Thomas, who became a Great United States Supreme Court Justice without using any "affirmative action", is an insult to every Black American who excelled simply by "merit" & "motivation" as the Honorable Clarence Thomas did. As for the local newspaper in Cleveland Ohio called "The Plain Dealer" shows disrespect to blacks every February, which is "Black History Month" - One piece of evidence to this is that every February, The Cleveland Plain Dealer shows a full page add of prominent Black Americans, and their contribution to humanity - Yet, the "PD" refuses to put the picture of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the full page add-and when I called and complained and asked why they left him out, the editor hung up on me .. So, unfortunately, the "Print Media" permeates racial conflict by promoting affirmative action, and refusing to print the truth, or carry a column by the conservative black journalist like Black American Ken Hamblin, or articles by Ward Connerly - Ward Connerly: One man's passion for fairness // Leon Worden · January 31, 1996 on Ward Connerly article; FRESNO-A weekend meeting in the San Joaquin Valley put me in touch with Ward Connerly, the University of California Regent who led the successful fight to eliminate racial preferences in public university admissions last year. To say that these past six months have been difficult for Connerly would be the understatement of the decade. Bullets have riddled the windows of his office. Students have marched in protest against him. He has been called everything from an "Uncle Tom" to a "sellout of his people." Connerly posits: "Is there any difference between the white racists who called a young white boy a 'nigger lover' because he had befriended Ward Connerly in the '50s, and the black racists who call Ward Connerly an 'Oreo' because he holds firm in his belief that all people should be treated equally? By any other name, a racist is a racist is a racist. "Racists, heed this counsel: All the hate, all the cowardly terrorist acts in the world, whatever their source or cause, will not deter Ward Connerly from acting on his convictions. His very being exudes a resolve that you can practically reach out and touch. "When we become citizens of this nation, at birth or otherwise, we get a warranty with our citizenship. We are guaranteed the right to vote, the right to due process, the right to be a free people and not to be held as slaves, and the right to equal treatment under the law, regardless of our race, color, national origin, sex or ethnic background. "This warranty has not always been honored for some of us. Because of the color of our skin or the place from whence we came, some of us were denied the right to vote, we were enslaved, we were denied due process, and the equal treatment afforded to others was not ours to enjoy. "But at the core of the American spirit is a sense of fair play. About 30 years ago, we embraced the concept of affirmative action to remedy the harm that had been done to black people. "What was intended to be a temporary solution to give blacks equal opportunity, Connerly says, has transformed into a system which applies different standards to different individuals in order to create parity between racial groups. "At the University, and at other governmental institutions, what most Americans call discrimination, we call diversity. We think nothing of turning away thousands of white and Asian students every year from Berkeley and UCLA with 4.0 grade point averages, simply because they are Asian or white, in favor of under-represented races with 2.9 and 3.0 grade point averages. "What we found morally wrong and defined as discrimination 30 years ago, we now simply ignore when it (impacts) white males or Asians or someone else whose group has more than its statistical share of the public pie." "Yes, this issue is divisive. But the seeds of division are planted not by those of us who seek to eliminate racial and ethnic preferences, they are planted by those who believe that our skin color and gender and how we spell our last name should entitle us to the harvest of diversity- college admission, government employment and contracts." We are at a crossroads in our evolution as a nation, Connerly says. "We can continue perpetuating the outdated premise on which preferences are based: that blacks, women and other minorities are incapable of competing without a handicap. Or we can resume the journey to a fair and inclusive society in which all of us are free from the foul taste of race and its lingering effects. "America's passion for fairness is not new-found. It is our passion for fairness that makes me a free man. It is our passion for fairness that said segregation based on racial or ethnic characteristics had to be ended. It is our passion for fairness that has contributed to America's tolerance of a system of racial preferences for decades as a means of compensating for past acts of unfairness. "Let us not mourn the death of affirmative action. Instead, let us proclaim our belief that the spirit of equal opportunity, which affirmative action engendered, has become a permanent feature of America's social, economic and political landscape." Would he lead this battle again, knowing of all the slings and arrows he has had to suffer? "In a heartbeat." Ward Connerly, chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative, needs your help. More signatures are needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot, and very little time is left. If you haven't yet signed, call Hunt Braly at (805) 287-3610. Leon Worden is a Santa Clarita resident. His commentary appears on Wednesdays. © 1996, THE SIGNAL-ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Why Don't Opponents Try to Refute Professor? Dallas Morning News // September 16, 1997 William Murchison Academics and Race Why don't opponents try to refute professor? 09/16/97 By William Murchison

The Dallas Morning News; Why, the University of Texas just thinks its greatest recent humiliation is that 66-3 pasting the football team took Saturday, courtesy of UCLA. There's infinitely worse. When last week a UT law professor ventured an Officially Unapproved opinion concerning affirmative action, the school's power structure reacted as though A. Hitler had applied for a rally permit at Royal-Memorial Stadium. Professor Lino Graglia, a seasoned foe of racial favoritism - white or black - answered thus a reporter's question about the reasons blacks and Hispanics win fewer places "in selective institutions" than do whites: "They have a culture that seems not to encourage achievement. Failure is not looked upon in disgrace." Shut up, shut up!, cried UT's apostles of truth, depressed already by a court-ordered cutoff of affirmative action at UT's law school and the consequent drop in minority enrollment. Fifty UT law professors backhanded their colleague in a signed statement. Descending from the ivory tower to back-alley level, UT Chancellor William Cunningham indignantly called Mr. Graglia's remarks "an insult to thousands of minority students and alumni." The university's interim president moaned that the turbulent Prof. had "hurt this institution." The academic thought-control experts having covered themselves with dishonor, black and Hispanic politicians chimed in. It would seem that Mr. Graglia, an obvious racist, should (1) resign, (2) flagellate himself on the Main Mall, (3) go thrice around the campus in sackcloth, (4) commit hara-kiri or (5) all of the above. Where to begin in response? With a simple observation, perhaps - that not one member of the Austin necktie party sought analytically, so far as I know, to refute what Mr. Graglia had said. It was enough that he had said it, the wretch! "It seems," lamented state Sen. Gregory Luna, "that we're in an era when the Ku Klux Klan does not come in white robes but in the robes of academe." Oh, my ! That settles everything, doesn't it? Except the question that Mr. Graglia raised: Does present minority culture affect achievement? I don't know. Does it? Could we maybe talk, discuss, sift evidence? The Austin lynch mob would rather finger nooses than notebooks. Which leaves the rest of us hanging, as it were, in mid-air. If Americans no longer can talk seriously about serious questions raised by serious thinkers, how do we expect ever to resolve such questions? Race is the foremost of these forbidden topics. A wall of orthodox opinion surrounds it. A law school Prof. (who "doesn't have a racist bone in his body," a black law student writes in the UT newspaper) mounts a one-man assault on the wall. The defenders greet him with boiling oil. The wall stands - and no one outside is any better informed than before. Yet the country, if polls are right, rejects affirmative action while continuing to hope for other ways of elevating the meritorious, irrespective of race. The question isn't, do we help? The question is, how do we help - through racially divisive and constitutionally doubtful grants of privilege to blacks and Hispanics, or through more fundamental measures, like upgrading elementary and secondary education for all races in all places? The Austin lynch mob is whistling in the wind if it thinks priggish attempts to muzzle free thought will make the public embrace unashamed racial preferences. My learned brothers, it ain't agonna happen. The sooner we acknowledge that fact, the sooner we can move ahead with real solutions, as opposed to the fake ones favored by academics and politicos. When I attended UT, in the civil rights era, black and white students seeking racial justice often congregated in front of the Main Library, intoning aloud, over and over, the familiar words inscribed above the entrance: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." An alienated alum commends this fruitful exercise to the morally challenged specimens who, it seems, have taken over his once proud school. William Murchison is a columnist for Viewpoints.

Apparently we are all so terrified of being labeled racist that rational discussion of these problems is no longer possible. Too bad. !

Professor Graglia said this: Blacks and Mexican-Americans are not academically competitive with whites in selective institutions...It is the result primarily of cultural effects. They have a culture that seems not to encourage achievement. Failure is not looked upon with disgrace. The first part is self-evident. Members of certain ethnic groups tend not, on average, to perform as well as certain other ethnic groups in scholastic environments. This is documented in standardized test results, admissions results, etc. I had not known it was heresy to say as much. The second part would seem to be the enlightened viewpoint. Since culture can be murkily summed up as the net of a group's folkways, beliefs, mores, habits, and so on, it would represent nurture in the old argument. The other side of the argument, the traditional racist position, would be to blame nature, i.e. blacks and Hispanic's are not as smart as Whites, Asians, and Jews. I find the nurture argument vastly preferable, and I find it odd that the Rev. Jackson does not. Maybe not so odd. He skirts the choice between nature and nurture by identifying a third choice-one that virtually no one will argue with: white people. It's white people's fault that blacks and Hispanics don't do as well on standardized tests, I guess, since no other analysis is allowed. Is it also white people's fault that Asians do so well?

Thank Goodness for Thinkers. Its a shame that some of his peers represent views which indicate that their classrooms of "education" and their methods of seeking the truths and the verification/scientific investigation of postulates is only discussed, but not practiced in all possible venues. A sad remark about what UT students are getting from the "Profs". They should at least investigate and question what facts or evidence he used to support his theory/observation. I would love to have that info as a follow up; then we all could either argue those axioms and come to a conclusion if the culture does view failure in that light, as well as if the culture is a mitigating factor to advancement. And if found to be a truth then we have a direction. The lights have gone out in Texas.

In the first week of December 1997 on the NBC "TODAY SHOW", Matt Laur had a guest on that considered himself to be a "Black Intellectual" named James Meredith from Jackson Mississippi. Matt showed a short tape of his story in the 1960's - in that, it showed James Meredith as a young black college student that was denied entrance based on race - and that U.S. Government troops escorted him into the college to register and attend. As the conversation continued between Matt and Meredith - Meredith said he had 84 acres in a Mississippi "trust" and got sick last year, so he wanted to form a "trust" before he died. Meredith called it; "The James Meredith Institute" and said it is formed for the sole purpose of teaching Black men & boys basic English skills. Meredith also said he had written 3 books, but never gave the titles, subjects, or even had the books with him on the show. In the Interview, It was never known what degree Meredith attained, if in fact he did attain one. During the Interview, Meredith came across somewhat bizarre and incoherent. Meredith said that; "Black English" is a "foreign language", and it is more foreign than any "language" in Europe, including Russia." Matt gave no response. Meredith went on and said that; "Black English is a beautiful language and a strong language." James Meredith than said something similar to what Law School Professor of "UT" (University of Texas) Lino Graglia said recently, that caused an uproar by minority students who protested the University and demanded Professor Graglia's resignation. (while in NYC) James Meredith said; "The Black Race (notice he said "black race" and not just American blacks, which by the way, is a racist statement, because it was a "universal statement") is opposed to Intellectual development." Meredith went on and said that "The Italians, and the Germans that came to this country knew they had to speak correct English and educate themselves to be Intellectual giants if they were going to succeed in America." Meredith said that; "Blacks saw education as "giving in" , so that is why blacks have not done well - but I hope to change that with black men and boys at my Institute." NBC then showed 2 phone numbers on the screen (601)-362-0499 and Fax 601-713-1633. (what no web site!) All I can say is, where are those "UT" students when Meredith, a black man says the same thing as Professor Lino Graglia, a white guy that teaches Law in Texas. DOUBLE STANDARD ??? I THINK SO !

LIBERAL BLACKS & LIBERAL WHITES ARE DESTROYING AMERICA; LIBERAL BLACKS & LIBERAL WHITES DEFINED IS BEST DEFINED AS SIMPLY AS; ASPIRING COMMUNISTS !!

Which by the way, is just another name for an "Aspiring Communists", who are continuing to stagnate progress and perpetuate racial conflict for political position & power. As to this "African-American" crap, which is really stupid and just divides the country is just as full of shit too - I mean, how many American Blacks can actually speak the African dialects, or even want to go to Africa and help the starving blacks there - when 98% of all people who actually go there to help are not even black- Go Figure. As a matter of fact, most African countries still have slavery, No real management skills, Dictators and tyrants who rule by intimidation and brute force .. they take American money grants annually to build infrastructures for their people, but in reality, they take the money and build lavish housing for the Black Elite, sell the U.S. medicine on the open market, instead of giving the antibiotics and penicillin out to the thousands of people and children that desperately need the medicine to fight off lethal diseases like tetanus, yellow fever, typhoid, cholera, malaria, Tropical Sprue, Etc. - But unfortunately, these medicines are denied for profit in selling them to other countries and also help reduce the population through "Institutionalized Genocide" - Not to mention African death squads that massacre entire villages to make way for building more lavish housing for loyal upper level bureaucrats connected to the "Black Elite". The same holds for educational material that is never distributed to the masses and is just kept for a select group of the "connected" nationals. - YET; Jesse Jackson, American African American Blacks, and the Black Congressional Leadership, and the U.S. National Media all say nothing of these atrocities committed by Blacks in Africa every year. These same Liberal American Blacks that boast and brag of their so-called African heritage turn their backs on their "brothers" and "sisters" back in Africa, and just bitch and scam about bullshit agenda in the USA - and say nothing of the African tragedy, or even set an agenda in cutting off these U.S. monies to the "Black Elite" in Africa - HOW 2 FACED can one be ? I mean, look at the Jews in America that send money to Israel, and lobby Congress to help and protect Israel - Plus, American Jews even go to Israel and live on Kibbutz's and help the poor Jews (that's right, poor Jews do exist) there. Labeling people is silly to; One reason; You can NOT have an ethnic descent background from a "Continent", only a "Country". We are all Americans not hyphenated Americans. If you want it that way and want to show origin- you should say "Adam & Eve-Americans" - which sounds really stupid. Or what about a black man born in England - You think he calls himself an "African-Englishman" or an "African-Britain" ; The answer is no ! I know a guy from England who lives in London, and owns a cool restaurant there, his name is Roger, and I stop in his place when ever I am in London (every 5 years, and stay in contact by E-mail monthly). Roger thinks that the Liberal blacks in the USA like Jesse Jackson, give all blacks in the world a bad name. Roger said that non- motivated blacks in the USA who drop out of school and become losers, and blame historical slavery, for their failures are also obsessed with calling America, "White America" is a disgrace to humanity, and actually show that "they" are the real racists in the States.
We are all Americans, period. However, the real tragedy is that the average American is oblivious to all this scamming, and is only interested as to who will be playing in the next "Superbowl" ;

HOW SAD AND PATHETIC-AND LIFE GOES ON-GO FIGURE. Thank You; John T. Kamalic.

Below are various pictures of me and my travels with a small sample of my photography; I enjoy doing High fashion, Political, i.e. judges re-election campaign photos ( kind of boring, but interesting meeting these judges and talking politics with them). I have a lot of pictures of my wife Donna ( brunette with hazel eyes - married since 1981 and traveled the world with her) I did photography for the "GOP" Cuyahoga Republican Party for Chairman Bob Hughes deceased now - but in so doing I got to be a motorcade driver when a republican U.S. President came into town; Hence President Ford; President Ronald Reagan; President George Bush "41"; In a presidential motorcade there usually would be 20-30 vehicles, and I would be one of the drivers, then when the visiting president leaves, he thanks each driver personally which was fun and exciting. I now concentrate on nature photography now and especially enjoy trees and flowers and travel to tropical rainforests throughout the world with my wife Donna. My B.A. in College was Political Science from Baldwin Wallace college in 1977 with Bob Hope handing me my diploma; who I ironically met when I was in Danang Vietnam Station Hospital from injuries sustained in the bush as a grunt gunner with the US Marines 1st MAR. DIV. Echo 2/5 1968-69 / Military patient's in Danang hospital got to sit up front at the Bob Hope USO 1968 Christmas show and I got on stage and got to even hug Anne Margaret. Plus, when in hospital in Vietnam 1968 Dec- JAN - 69 we were visited by actor Jimmy Stewart, and I was kissed by The Gypsy Rose Lee. As far as politics goes now, I vote for the man/Issues vs. the party line. Unfortunately, many Americans vote party line only - and that is the problem with the "American Voter". I also use photography as a drug to fight my demons from all the death and killing I did as a combat Marine in Vietnam - and believe me, photography and comedy is much better than suicide. So, enjoy the photos and feel free to download them. The last photo in the group is kind of funny, it shows one of my models with the President of the United States George Bush "41" intoxicated, after 3 Scotch and waters ( his eyes were glazed) at a fundraiser and he is grabbing my date's but while I am looking on at the upper left of the picture. The picture right below is of me in front of AIR FORCE ONE when President Ford visited Cleveland and stayed at the Marriott at West 150th, I did not like that motorcade since I was in charge on the truck that carried the Whitehouse luggage - I got kind of scarred when the Secret Service Agent had me back up the truck to Air Force One so the luggage can be transferred to the truck. I did not like it because the truck was a stick shift and the secret service guy kept telling me to back it up and back it up and I told him I did not know how to drive a stick shift that well, well anyways I came an inch close to the wink and almost damaged the plane - I could could of pictured it in the paper; Baldwin Wallace Political Science in 1976 student damages wing of Air Force One causing the President to wait the next day for another plane. Boy was that a close one.

Enjoy a cool audio file from that great Bogart Movie "Treasure of Sierra Madre" below the 2 pictures