Poppy Bush set the table in 1981 for what was to come -- via 'National Security'

[Octafish]

A reminder of who got America into this mess* and how he managed to do an end-around Pruneface and the Constitution:



[font size="2"]At a kon-tiki themed dinner in their Honor, Detroit, Republican National Convention 1980.[/font size]

Reagan was shot in March 1981 and for all intents and purposes was a walking vegetable afterward.

Through a Glass Darkly

Alexander Cockburn
Lies Of Our Times (p. 12-13)
November 1991

What was surprising to me was Reagan’s condition. He was exhausted to the point of incoherence throughout much ofthe interview and could not remember the substance of any subject that had been discussed apart from Mitterrand’s expression of anticommunism. I had not seen Reagan at such close rangesince the assassination attempt nearly four months earlier, and was shocked at his condition.... Reagan simply was unable to recall the contents of the talks in which he had just participated.... The interview concluded at a signal from Deaver,who did not seem to find the president’s condition unusual.”

Thus ran Lou Cannon’s recollections of an interview with the Commander-in-Chief in 1981, as set forth in his book President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Simon & Schuster,1991), published earlier this year. But how did Cannon describe Reagan’s condition to the readers of the Washington Post when he wrote up his interview? In the July 23, 1981, Washington Post,Cannon’s story appeared under the headline “Reagan Describes Summit Meeting as ‘Worth Its Weight in Gold.’ ” Cannon’s report gives the impression of a lucid chief executive returning home after a fruitful colloquy with other western leaders at the economic summit held in Ottawa in mid-July. Cannon did mention in the tenth paragraph that “Reagan appeared tired to the point of near-exhaustion,” but this observation was quickly qualified by the opinion of “aides” that the president had been doing a lot of prep for the conference and was also worried about the Middle East.

Cannon shared his brief session with Reagan aboard Air Force One with Hedrick Smith of the New York Times, who similarly gave his readers the impression of a president in touch with things rather than the incoherent old man they had actually encountered. As did Cannon, Smith wove the few quotable remarks from Reagan into a tapestry of attributed presidential dicta passed on — and no doubt confected— by Meese, Deaver,and Speakes. It is clear from Cannon’s account of the conference itself that Reagan was fogged up throughout the actual conference, occasionally interjecting trivial observations or homely jokes into the proceedings and then relapsing into bemused silence. Cannon’s memoir is one more indication of the cover-up that took place in the wake of Hinckley’s assassination bid on March 30, 1981. At the time of the shooting, the press was full of phrases like “bouncing back,” “iron constitution,” and other terms indicating that Reagan had emerged from the ordeal in good shape. In fact Reagan very nearly died on the operating table and was a dotard afterwards. He never fully recovered.

Conclusion: Unless a president is actually dead, the WhiteHouse press corps can be relied upon to present him as both sentient and sapient, no matter how decrepit his physical and mental condition.

SOURCE in PDF form:

http://liesofourtimes.org/public_html/1991/Nov1991%20V2%20N10/Nov1991%20V2%20N10.pdf

Mentally isn't physically. So, while Pruneface made head snaps on tee vee and saluted getting out of the chopper, Poppy Bush remained VP. He saw it as an opportunity to get appointed a Super Duper Presidential Helper in all things National Security, from dealing with the Iranians to making war in Central America and everywhere else around the planet where a communist might be dreaming of something more to life than nothing.

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of ‘Counter-Terrorism’

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

SNIP...

NSDD 159. MANAGEMENT OF U.S. COVERT OPERATIONS, (TOP SECRET/VEIL‑SENSITIVE), JAN. 18,1985

The Reagan administration's commitment to significantly expand covert operations had been clear since before the 1980 election. How such operations were actually to be managed from day to day, however, was considerably less certain. The management problem became particularly knotty owing to legal requirements to notify congressional intelligence oversight committees of covert operations, on the one hand, and the tacitly accepted presidential mandate to deceive those same committees concerning sensitive operations such as the Contra war in Nicaragua, on the other.

[font color="green"]The solution attempted in NSDD 159 was to establish a small coordinating committee headed by Vice President George Bush through which all information concerning US covert operations was to be funneled. The order also established a category of top secret information known as Veil, to be used exclusively for managing records pertaining to covert operations.

The system was designed to keep circulation of written records to an absolute minimum while at the same time ensuring that the vice president retained the ability to coordinate US covert operations with the administration's overt diplomacy and propaganda.

Only eight copies of NSDD 159 were created. The existence of the vice president's committee was itself highly classified.[/font color] The directive became public as a result of the criminal prosecutions of Oliver North, John Poindexter, and others involved in the Iran‑Contra affair, hence the designation "Exhibit A" running up the left side of the document.

CONTINUED...

CovertAction Quarterly no 58 Fall 1996 pp31-40.

S&L scams and bailout in 1992 was found to benefit Ds, Rs, and those connected to the CIA and Mafia. Just like the Bankster Bailout in 2008. And how many wars of choice from Vietnam to the present day? How many still rage? For what? And for whose benefit?

* A heartfelt Thank You to ALL who give a damn about it -- and to Those who gave me Valentine's Hearts on DU. Thank you, infinitely!

[cantbeserious]

1. The Festering Corruption In US Government Is Legion - Thank You For Sharing These Insights

eom

[Octafish]

12. DU helps preserve the record...

Unlike Corporate McPravda, which still sings the praises of the Gippet, the late Alexander Cockburn and Lou Cannon went on the record to show the Ronald Reagan was not in possession of his critical faculties when "acting" as president. The news made barely a ripple in the corporate owned press, like the 500,000 dead Iraqi kids from US sanctions, showing the truth is secondary to sticking to the "right" story line.

Recognized for his work unmasking "The Splendid Blond Beast" -- the NAZI influence on US intelligence and politics -- Christopher Simpson's important work ran in Covert Action Information Bulletin, a magazine started by turned-CIA man Philip Agee and a few intellectuals who weren't buying the company line. CAIB turned into Covert Action Quarterly and from there descended into chaos, caused by overwork, internal strife and the hypocrisies made plain by a shortage of cash flow.

Seeing how so much of our nation's history has been relegated top secret, goes a long way of explaining how the crooks and traitors have managed to get off the hook time and again.

PS: You are most welcome, cantbeserious! Thank you for grokking why knowing the truth matters.

[Hydra]

2. I've come to believe that Poppy Bush was one of the major architects of the continuing disaster

We still live in.

I know there are others- Dulles comes to mind. So does Rockefeller.

As I watch the time wind down for these terrible old dinosaurs, I can't help but wonder who in the next generations will carry the standard for their twisted policies. Most of their children can't handle it...but there will always be people with a certain level of savvy and a certain level of soulessness to do it.

[Octafish]

13. Exactly. Poppy, Dulles and that Big Oil line believe Power is not the People's business.

Old news to you, Hydra, a shocker to Mr. and Mrs. America:

A NEW BIOGRAPHY TRACES THE PATHOLOGY OF ALLEN DULLES AND HIS APPALLING CABAL

Jon Schwarz
The Intercept, Nov. 2 2015, 1:24 p.m.

EXCERPT...

In February 2002, Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence from 1977 until September 1, 2001, traveled to Washington, D.C.

While there, Turki, who’d graduated from Georgetown University in the same class as Bill Clinton, delivered a speech at his alma mater that included an unexpected history lesson:

In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran … so, the Kingdom, with these countries, helped in some way, I believe, to keep the world safe when the United States was not able to do that. That, I think, is a secret that many of you don’t know.

Turki was not telling the whole truth. He was right that his Georgetown audience likely had never heard any of this before, but the Safari Club had been known across the Middle East for decades. After the Iranian revolution the new government gave Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, one of the most prominent journalists in the Arab world, permission to examine the Shah’s archives. There Heikal discovered the actual formal, written agreement between the members of the Safari Club, and wrote about it in a 1982 book called Iran: The Untold Story.

And the Safari Club was not simply the creation of the countries Turki mentioned — Americans were involved as well. It’s true the U.S. executive branch was somewhat hamstrung during the period between the post-Watergate investigations of the intelligence world and the end of the Carter administration. But the powerful individual Americans who felt themselves “literally tied up” by Congress — that is, unfairly restrained by the most democratic branch of the U.S. government — certainly did not consider the decisions of Congress to be the final word.

Whatever its funding sources, the evidence suggests the Safari Club was largely the initiative of these powerful Americans. According to Heikal, its real origin was when Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, “talked a number of rich Arab oil countries into bankrolling operations against growing communist influence on their doorstep” in Africa. Alexandre de Marenches, a right-wing aristocrat who headed France’s version of the CIA, eagerly formalized the project and assumed operational leadership. But, Heikal writes, “The United States directed the whole operation,” and “giant U.S. and European corporations with vital interests in Africa” leant a hand. As John K. Cooley, the Christian Science Monitor’s longtime Mideast correspondent, put it, the setup strongly appealed to the U.S. executive branch: “Get others to do what you want done, while avoiding the onus or blame if the operation fails.”

This all seems like something Americans would like to know, especially since de Marenches may have extended his covert operations to the 1980 U.S. presidential election. In 1992, de Marenches’ biographer testified in a congressional investigation that the French spy told him that he had helped arrange an October 1980 meeting in Paris between William Casey, Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign manager, and the new Islamic Republic of Iran. The goal of such a meeting, of course, would have been to persuade Iran to keep its American hostages until after the next month’s election, thus denying Carter any last-minute, politically potent triumph.

De Marenches and the Safari Club certainly had a clear motive to oust Carter: They blamed him for allowing one of their charter members, the Shah, to fall from power. But whether de Marenches’ claims were true or not, we do know that history unfolded exactly as he and the Safari Club would have wished. The hostages weren’t released until Reagan was inaugurated, Reagan appointed Casey director of the CIA, and from that point forward America’s intelligence “community” was back in business.

CONTINUED...

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/02/the-deepest-state-the-safari-club-allen-dulles-and-the-devils-chessboard/

IMO, every library in the USA should have several copies of Talbot's books on the shelves. The truth they contain would fill a lot of heads with Democracy.

Thank you for grokking, Hydra.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. But what about meetings with Gorbachev?

Surely the leader of the Soviet Union would have made it public to make us look bad.

[jwirr]

6. I wonder if Gorbachev was in much better shape. He was

rumored to be quite a drinker.

[Octafish]

14. Gorby wanted to get rid of Star Wars and avoid Nuclear War.

So did Pruneface Reagan. The guy who had expressed nuclear war was winnable is Poppy Bush.

Gorbachev explains his top priorities and specific proposals to the group charged with preparing for Reykjavik. He calls for preparing a position with a "breakthrough potential," which would take into account U.S. interests and put strategic weapons, not issues of nuclear testing, at the forefront. Gorbachev's ultimate goal for Reykjavik-he reiterates it several times during the meeting-is total liquidation of nuclear weapons based on the Soviet 15 January 1986 Program of Liquidation of Nuclear Weapons by the Year 2000. Whereas Gorbachev sees the value in making concessions in hopes of achieving a breakthrough, his Politburo colleagues (including Chebrikov) warn him against using this word in the negotiations. In the evening Gorbachev gives additional instructions to Chernyaev on human rights and on the matter of Gorbachev's wife, Raisa Maksimovna, accompanying him to Iceland.

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB203/

Strange how fast between the time Hasenfus' plane got shot down (unlike Ike's U-2 in 1960--BEFORE the summit) after all this peace stuff started to get derailed. And who knew it was an impeachable offense to trade arms for hostages and use the profits to fund an illegal war in Central America? Not Poppy -- he said he was out of the loop long enough to pardon a bad chunk of the treasonous crowd.

And nuclear disarmament? While we're getting ready for the latest round of trillion-dollar updating, few ask: "How's Flint doin'?"

[gilpo]

4. I always appreciate your posts, Octafish

Do you fear for Sanders? As he becomes more popular and powerful, I fear the response will be like it was to the last person who defied them in '63 and then later in '68.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

7. The Secrete Service did not do their job yesterday protecting Sanders in Denver.

There was a 30 foot wide opening to where Sanders was speaking and hundreds of unscreened people had easy access. I watched Sanders from that location and one local cop was continually pushing people back.

[Octafish]

15. The Aspens

Like Scooter Libby reminded Judy Miller, then an imprisoned NYT reporter, they're all connected underground.

"Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning," Mr. Libby wrote. "They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."

Scooter got a pardon. Judy got a new job. How's Gov. Siegelman doing these days?

Those with real power -- cash on hand and politicians in pocket -- won't give up power or let Bernie anywhere near the levers of power unless forced by law and light of day.

If Bernie wins election to the presidency, the only way he will succeed if We the People are behind him. That means We ALL stand up with him for democracy. Otherwise, he won't have a chance of getting anything done.

[gilpo]

18. Exactly correct, Octa

They will not give up power unless forced to by the citizenry. When I was in my 20's, i would have relished the fight. Now that I am in my (late) 40's, it scares me. I don't think it is possible to be too cynical of the PTB's intentions these days.

[jwirr]

5. This goes a long way in explaining the reason we have such

a divide in wealth inequality. And why these men still have so much power in the structure.

[Octafish]

16. The Origins of the Overclass

Members of the Secret Government have taken advantage of that happenstance from Day One:

Origins of the Overclass

EXCERPT...

The political machine they built is broad and comprehensive, covering every aspect of the political fight. It includes right-wing departments and chairs in the nation’s top universities, think tanks, public relations firms, media companies, fake grassroots organizations that pressure Congress (irreverently known as "Astroturf" movements), "Roll-out-the-vote" machines, pollsters, fax networks, lobbyist organizations, economic seminars for the nation’s judges, and more. And because corporations are the richest sector of society, their greater financing overwhelms similar efforts by Democrats.

Besides creating foundations, the CIA helped organize the business community. There have always been special interest groups representing business, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, and the CIA has long been involved with them. However, after 1973, a spate of powerful new groups would come into existence, like the Business Roundtable and the Trilateral Commission. These organizations quickly became powerhouses in promoting the business agenda.

Their efforts clearly succeeded. With the 1975 SUN-PAC decision, corporations persuaded government to legalize corporate Political Action Committees (the lobbyist organizations that bribe our government). By 1992, corporations formed 67 percent of all PACs, and they donated 79 percent of all campaign contributions to political parties. (20) In two landmark elections — 1980 and 1994 — corporations gave heavily and one-sidedly to Republicans, turning one or both houses of Congress over to the GOP. Democratic incumbents were shocked by the threat of being rolled completely out of power, so they quietly shifted to the right on economic issues, even though they continued a public façade of liberalism. Corporations went ahead and donated to Democratic incumbents in all other elections, but only as long as they abandoned the interests of workers, consumers, minorities and the poor. As expected, the new pro-corporate Congress passed laws favoring the rich: between 1975 and 1992, the amount of national household wealth owned by the richest 1 percent soared from 22 to 42 percent. (21)

The CIA also helped create the conservative think tank movement. Prior to the 70s, think tanks spanned the political spectrum, with moderate think tanks receiving three times as much funding as conservative ones. At these early think tanks, scholars typically brainstormed for creative solutions to policy problems. This would all change after the rise of conservative foundations in the early 70s. The Heritage Foundation opened its doors in 1973, the recipient of $250,000 in seed money from the Coors Foundation. A flood of conservative think tanks followed shortly thereafter, and by 1980 they overwhelmed the scene. The new think tanks turned out to be little more than propaganda mills, rigging studies to "prove" that their corporate sponsors needed tax breaks, deregulation and other favors from government.

Of course, think-tank studies are useless without publicity, and here the CIA proved especially valuable. Using propaganda techniques it had perfected at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, the CIA and its allies turned American AM radio into a haven for conservative talk show hosts. Yes — Rush Limbaugh uses the same propaganda techniques that Muscovites once heard from Voice of America. The CIA has also developed countless other media outlets, like Capital Cities (which eventually bought ABC), major PR firms like Hill & Knowlton, and of course, all the Agency’s connections in the national news media. (22)

CONTINUED...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

The Founders wanted a government where the People knew what their representatives were doing with the money and in their name. They thought transparency and a free press would do the trick. They didn't know there'd be a National Security Act of 1947 that gave secret agents secret powers.

(5) to perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the
national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.

PDF: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2695389/1947-National-Security-Act.pdf

One. Sentence.

[jwirr]

17. Many of us are old enough to have lived through that and

are able to recognize some of the moves. The article is also a terrible indictment of the Clintons and unfortunately Harry Truman. I do think he later came to realize that creating the CIA was a grave mistake. But too late.

[Dragonfli]

8. An excellent and extremely informative post as aways, I have often thought you should write

An alternative, less whitewashed history book on the topic of the last 50 years or so as it relates to politics and both foreign and domestic policy. Your breadth of obscured (meaning hidden intentionally from most people's knowledge including my own) is awe inspiring. Your knowledge is vast and valuable and should be shared, self publishing is cheaper and easier these days and you could sell them easily enough via a link in your sig line, not so much for profit but such would be earned if not extensive, but rather to share your deep and fresh well of the waters of truth..

[Duppers]

10. That's a great idea. Nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. Reagan was in no condition to run Iran/Contra/

Nor running the CIA Cocaine import connection. Nor did Reagan have the inside connections within the government that Bush had to achieve these nefarious actions.

BTW. Tom Cruise will star in a new movie about
the story of the 1986 Murder of CIA Drug Smuggler Barry Seal and Mena airport

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3096210/True-story-Tom-Cruise-s-new-role-280lb-drug-smuggler-plays-cocaine-gun-runner-turned-federal-informer-died-murky-hit-telling-wife-lived-fear-CIA.html

See CIA/DIA deep-cover agent "Chip" Tatum
a 25 year employee of the agency for another eye opener

The Deep State is alive and well and not a conspiracy but real.


Thanks for the post my friend

[malaise]

11. Which is why we don't need any more fugging

Bushes.

[Reter]

19. There is no doubt in my mind that Poppy had Reagan shot

Oh yeah, the shooter's father just happened to be a rich Bush donor, while his brother was very close with Neil Bush. Move along here, nothing to hide...