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235 Voter Referendums Test Mood Of America (The Chicago Tribune
surveys the myriad voter initiatives on state ballots around the country,
mentioning only one state's medical marijuana initiative.)
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 20:05:55 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: 235 Voter Referendums Test Mood Of America
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Steve Young
Pubdate: Mon, 2 Nov 1998
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Section: Sec. 1
Copyright: 1998 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: tribletter@aol.com
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Author: Vincent J. Schodolski
235 VOTER REFERENDUMS TEST MOOD OF AMERICA
PORTLAND, Ore. -- In Oregon, the issue is the privacy rights of
adoptees. In Washington it is affirmative action. In Alaska and Hawaii
it is same sex-marriage. In South Carolina it is a question of finally
saying that marriage between a black person and a white person is
legal. And in Ohio it is the fate of a bird with a mournful song.
On Tuesday, voters in 44 states will decide 61 initiatives that could
become laws or in some cases amend state constitutions. In addition,
174 referendums have been placed on ballots by state legislatures.
The initiative process itself is being considered in six states,
primarily as a result of questions placed before voters by state
legislators who see the use of ballot measures to make laws as a
threat to their domain.
Oregon and Arizona have the greatest number of initiatives this year,
each state presenting voters with 14.
In Oregon, in addition to a medical marijuana measure and a separate
issue on campaign finance reform, three other initiatives have drawn
wide attention.
One would guarantee the right of an adopted person to have access to
an original birth certificate once he or she reaches the age of 21.
Current law dictates that a new birth certificate be issued upon
adoption; the original certificate is sealed and can be obtained only
through court order.
In a state where measures to protect the environment usually are
wildly popular, a proposal that would further limit the number of
trees per acre that can be harvested appears headed for defeat,
primarily because it could lead to the loss of nearly half the jobs in
Oregon's timber industry. Mainstream environmentalists failed to
support the proposition because they see it as too radical.
Further, should they approve Measure 60 Tuesday, Oregonians would
never go to the polls again for biennial primary and general
elections. The measure would require voting to be done by mail.
In neighboring Washington, voters will decide whether to eliminate the
use of racial and gender preferences for state jobs, contracts and
admission to state universities and colleges.
As California did two years ago, Washington appears poised to abolish
affirmative action programs. Opinion polls indicate that the measure,
supported by money from Ward Connerly, the Sacramento businessman who
spearheaded the campaign in California, is ahead by about 12
percentage points. Experts say it could give a major boost to national
efforts to end affirmative action.
"People are watching this one very closely," said Dane Waters,
president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute, a non-profit
Washington group that monitors trends in the ballot measure process.
"They think that if this works in a state like Washington then it
could be an indication of a national mood."
Term-limit measures, the darlings of the initiative process for many
conservatives throughout the 1990s, are on ballots in four states.
This year, however, proponents are taking a slightly different approach.
In three of the four states--Arizona, Colorado and Idaho--the
proposals call for voters to demand that candidates be asked to sign a
voluntary pledge to limit themselves to three terms in the U.S. House
and two terms in the Senate. The measures also would require that a
notation about whether the candidate signed the pledge be made next to
the candidate's name on the ballot.
Paul Jacobs, executive director of U.S. Term Limits, a
Washington-based organization that champions the issue, said this
trend is designed to hold individual candidates responsible for their
views on term limits by taking the pledge before they run.
Jacobs and others noted that term-limit initiatives have become a
lightning rod for many elected officials who see voters making laws as
a threat to their power.
In Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota and Montana, there are measures
designed to make it more difficult to legislate via initiative by
limiting corporate contributions to such campaigns, requiring
two-thirds majorities for passage and barring non-residents from
introducing initiative proposals.
There are two measures in Arizona that would make it harder for the
governor and the state legislature to reverse voters' decisions at the
ballot box.
"Who is really in charge?" asked initiative supporter Jacobs. "Is this
a nation where people rule or is this a nation where people are ruled?"
Echoing a societal and moral question that voters addressed in Oregon
two years ago, Michigan residents will consider a ballot measure that
would permit doctor-assisted suicide. A complicated, 12-page
proposition, the Michigan measure would place far more controls on the
process by which terminally ill people could obtain the drugs
necessary to end their lives than the Oregon law does.
According to Robert Moreillon, campaign manager for Merian's Friends
Inc., the group sponsoring the initiative, the measure had been
favored by about 60 percent of Michigan voters until a coalition lead
by the Roman Catholic Church launched a media blitz aimed at defeating
the proposal.
"It has flip-flopped," said Moreillion, who heads the group named
after Merian Frederick, a woman from Ann Arbor who took her own life
with the help of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Moreillon said that 60 percent of
those polled now said they would vote against the measure.
In the year since the Oregon law finally cleared its last court
challenge, eight people have taken their lives using the new system.
The average age of those ending their lives with the help of a
physician was 71.
The issue of late-term abortion goes before the voters in Colorado and
Washington. The measures are worded differently.
Amendment 11 in Colorado defines the procedure as: ". . . an abortion
during which the person performing the abortion deliberately and
intentionally causes to be delivered into the vagina a living human
fetus for the purpose of performing any procedure the person knows
will kill the fetus."
Washington's Initiative 694 talks about killing a fetus in the
"process of birth" and goes on to define that term as: ". . . the
point in time when the mother's cervix has become dilated, the
membrane of the amniotic sac has ruptured, and any part of the fetus
has passed from the uterus, or womb into the birth canal."
Some experts suggested that the wording of both measures could be
interpreted to prohibit other forms of late-term abortion besides that
procedure referred to as partial birth abortion.
In California, usually the nation's bellwether in the initiative
process, 1998 has turned out to be a tame year. There is an initiative
to increase taxes on cigarettes to pay for early child-development and
smoking-prevention programs, a class-size reduction proposition and
proposal that would expand Indian gaming.
There also is a measure that would do away with the open-primary
election process that voters approved by initiative last year. Under
that system voters can vote for a candidate no matter what the voter's
party affiliation. The measure was placed on the ballot by the
legislature with the support of Gov. Pete Wilson to clear the way for
an increased role for California in the presidential primary elections
starting in 2000.
Wilson recently signed a bill into law that moves the California
primary up to the beginning of March to give the country's most
populous state an early, powerful voice in deciding who the
presidential nominees would be. Because the rules of both the
Republican and Democratic parties require those voting in presidential
primaries to be only party members, the new California law must be
changed.
Thirty-one years after the Supreme Court declared miscegenation laws
unconstitutional, voters in South Carolina will be asked to formally
amend the state constitution by deleting the provision that prohibits
marriage between blacks and whites.
"It is a bit of housekeeping," said Jennie Drage, a research analyst
at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "They have not
enforced the law in 30 years."
And in Ohio, voters hold the fate of the mourning dove in their
hands.
In an effort to save the pigeon-size bird, animal rights groups have
placed the measure on the state ballot, called Issue 1. If approved it
would prohibit the popular sport of hunting the dove.
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Killing Narcotics With Fungus (KTVU-TV Channel 2, Oakland/San Francisco,
recounts the US government's new $23 million biological warfare campaign
against cannabis, coca, and poppies, noting the target plants are likely will
evolve even stronger chemicals to fight to the fungus. Mutated plants could
also pass their genes on to other plants or weeds. The so-called "transgene
escape" has been shown to create herbicide-resistant super-weeds.)
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 19:54:58 -0500
To: "DRCTalk Reformers' Forum" (drctalk@drcnet.org)
From: ltneidow@voyager.net (Lee T. Neidow)
Subject: Killing Narcotics With Fungus
Reply-To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: owner-drctalk@drcnet.org
The only bias I have is that 98% of the world's intelligence, wisdom,
awareness and initiative is compressed in to the Bay Area. Following is
an illustration.
Lee
***
From KTVU-TV Channel 2, Oakland/San Francisco:
FOWLER'S FOCUS 11/2/98
By John Fowler, KTVU Health and Science Editor
Killer Fungus Targets Narcotics Plants-But At What Cost?
U.S. government researchers announced they are developing a
fungus, or "mycoherbicide," which they have bio-engineered
to kill narcotics plants. Congress has approved $23 million
for research into this biological weapon in the war on drugs.
U.S. officials hope various nations will allow the fungus to
be introduced into their soils. Targets are plants that
provide the sources of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin.
Some researchers, however, are worried that mycoherbicides
could create a disastrous natural backlash. Paul Arriola, an
expert in plant genetics at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst,
Illinois, says interactions between fungi in the soil and
the roots of plants they infect are not completely
understood. It is possible, he says, that we will lose
control of the fungus, which then might adversely affect
other plants.
For example, cocaine is of a class of chemicals called
alkaloids. Other common alkaloids that have value to us
include nicotine, caffeine, quinine, morphine, and
ephedrine.
What happens if the fungus affects these crops as well?
Also, the target plants, the coca plant, the hemp plant and
the poppy, likely will evolve even stronger chemicals to
fight to the fungus. Mutated plants could possibly pass
those genes on to other plants or weeds. This so-called
"transgene escape" has been shown to create herbicide-
resistant super-weeds.
Arriola says, "It's frightening to think that in the search
for a quick fix, we might cause ourselves more long-term
ecological and social problems."
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Kids Who Watch TV More Likely To Start Drinking (The Associated Press
says a Stanford University study of 1,533 ninth-graders shows that students
who watched lots of television and music videos were more likely to start
drinking than other youngsters. Published in the November issue of the
journal Pediatrics, the study also showed that teens who rented movies were
less likely to start drinking, while playing video and computer games had no
effect. The researchers blamed television content rather than, for example,
behavioral or genetic variables.)
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 20:09:55 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Kids Who Watch Tv More Likely To Start Drinking
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Patrick Henry (resist_tyranny@mapinc.org)
Pubdate: Mon, 2 Nov 1998
Source: Associated Press
Copyright: 1998 Associated Press.
Author: Eric Fidler, Associated Press
KIDS WHO WATCH TV MORE LIKELY TO START DRINKING
CHICAGO (AP) - High school students who watch lots of television and
music videos are more likely to start drinking than other youngsters,
researchers say.
The Stanford University study of 1,533 ninth-graders also showed that
youngsters who rented movies were less likely to start drinking, while
playing video and computer games had no effect.
Watching TV and videos made no difference in the drinking habits of
those who already drank.
The findings are not surprising given research that shows alcohol is
the most common beverage shown on television, the study's lead author,
Dr. Thomas Robinson, said Monday.
"The great majority of drinking on television is by the most
attractive and most influential people, and it is often associated
with sexually suggestive content,'' said Robinson, who works at the
school's Center for Research and Disease Prevention.
The study found that each increase of one hour per day of watching
music videos brought a 31 percent greater risk of starting to drink
over the next 18 months. Each hour increase of watching other kinds of
television corresponded to a 9 percent greater risk.
Each hour spent watching movies in a VCR corresponded to an 11 percent
decreased risk of starting to drink alcohol. Computer and video games
had no effect either way.
The study, reported in this month's edition of the journal Pediatrics,
looked at 2,609 ninth-graders in San Jose, Calif., and followed 1,533
of them throughout the 18 months.
They reported their activities - how many hours playing video games,
for example - and were asked how many drinks of alcohol they had ever
had, and how many they had in the previous month. Over the next 18
months, 36.2 percent of 898 nondrinkers began to drink.
Television habits had no effect on the 635 students who already drank,
the authors said.
But of the students who did not drink at the start of the study, what
they watched on television played a major role in what they did over
the next 18 months, the study found.
Robinson said there needs to be "balance in the way alcohol is
portrayed so that people who did drink did suffer some consequences
from it.''
Alyse Booth, spokeswoman for the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York, said the results
of the study did not surprise her.
"There is a tremendous glamorization of the use of alcohol,'' she
said. "Alcohol use is portrayed as normal and glamorous, never with
the consequences.''
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$63 Million Federal Lawsuit Filed Against George Bush And Others
(From The Wilderness, published by Michael C. Ruppert, says Bill Tyree,
a former US Army Green Beret who participated in CIA-directed missions
to smuggle cocaine into Panama in 1975 and 1976, and who has been serving
a life sentence in Massachusetts for the 1979 murder of his wife, Elaine,
has filed a lawsuit in US District Court alleging that the CIA, George Bush,
the Massachusetts governor and attorney general, and a long-time CIA
operative have been part of a decades-long conspiracy to smuggle illegal
drugs into the United States. The suit also alleges that the defendants,
including George Bush, participated in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.)
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 13:45:59 -0800
From: Paul Freedom (nepal@teleport.com)
Organization: Oregon Libertarian Patriots
To: Cannabis Patriots (Cannabis-Patriots-L@teleport.com)
Subject: CanPat - Fwd: $63 Million Federal Lawsuit Filed
Against George Bush, and others....
Sender: owner-cannabis-patriots-l@smtp.teleport.com
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fwd: $63 Million Federal Lawsuit Filed
Against George Bush, and others....]
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 10:48:51 -0800
From: wolfeyes (wolfeyes@cdsnet.net)
Organization: CWA
To: Al Olson (alolson@reborn.com)
Return-Path: (DotHB@aol.com)
Delivered-To: Wolfeyes@cdsnet.net
From: DotHB@aol.com
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 11:59:51 EST
To: DotHB@aol.com
Subject: $63 Million Federal Lawsuit Filed
Against George Bush, and others....
$63 MILLION FEDERAL LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST GEORGE BUSH,
AND OTHERS
[COMMENT: Speaking of head shots...$63 Million federal lawsuit filed
against George Bush, CIA, Chip Tatum and Mass. officials by former
Green Beret Bill Tyree - suit links Albert Carone to missing diaries and
cover-up by State officials, U.S. government. ....Andy Colesanti
(acolesanti@flinet.com) ----who forwarded this message....]
***
United States District Court
District of Massachusetts
98-C.V.-11829-JLT
William M. Tyree, Plaintiff
v.
Central Intelligence Agency
L. Scott Harshbarger
A. Paul Celluci
George Bush
Dois Gene Tatum
Defendants
***
Bill Tyree, the former U.S. Army Green Beret, who participated in CIA
directed missions to smuggle cocaine into Panama in 1975 and 76, and
who has been serving a life sentence in Massachusetts for the 1979
murder of his wife Elaine, has filed a $63 million lawsuit in U.S. District
Court charging that the CIA, George Bush, the Massachusetts Governor
and Attorney General, and long time CIA operative Dois G "Chip"
Tatum have been part of a decades long conspiracy to smuggle
drugs into the United States. The suit also alleges that the defendants,
including George Bush, have directly participated in a conspiracy to
obstruct justice, conceal evidence and engaged in theft to keep a set of
diaries maintained by Elaine Tyree, which would prove both Tyree's
innocence and the CIA conspiracy, from falling into Tyree's possession.
This is in spite of previous court findings that initial searches of Tyree's
residence by Massachusetts authorities, after the murder, were illegal
and that removal of the diaries constituted theft of personal property. The
suit further alleges that the defendants have used the monies generated
from those activities to fund a host of illegal operations which have violated
the Constitution.
The initial filing in the case, more than one hundred pages long and
supported by "five inches" of supporting documents, touches issues ranging
from Iran Contra drug trafficking, to Mena, Arkansas, to political
fundraising, to FEMA, to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Tyree, who
served first with the 7th and later the 10th Special Forces at Fort Devens,
MA, participated in CIA missions using Special Forces troops to infiltrate
Colombia to plant navigational aids for cocaine flights into Panama in 1975
and 1976. Tyree, and others who have submitted affidavits, watched the
planes being unloaded by the likes of Manuel Noriega, CIA officer Ed
Wilson and Israeli Mossad Agent Mike Harrari.
In 1977 and 1978 Tyree engaged in illegal domestic surveillance and
blackmail operations from Fort Devens, which were designed to conceal
the earlier missions. He became disenchanted with the work and asked
for a transfer. At the same time, his wife Elaine, also in the Army, became
an informant for the Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and began
recording details of illegal operations in a set of diaries. She was
murdered with a hunting knife in their apartment a short time later and
her diaries disappeared.
Tyree has steadfastly maintained his innocence and, over the years,
an increasing body of evidence has surfaced to support his claims. At
first blush such a broad sweep for a civil action seems unjustified and
even ill conceived. However a close reading of the complaint reveals a
distinct connection between the disparate elements in the form of Albert
Vincent Carone and documents and witness statements, which have
recently surfaced, showing that Carone, a CIA operative for more than
thirty years prior to his 1990 death, has participated in all of the above
events. The complaint also specifically states that Carone was the man
who illegally took possession of Elaine Tyree's diaries shortly after her
murder. The suit further alleges that Carone retrieved the diaries at the
"express direction" of George Bush who served as CIA Director in 1976
when the CIA drug flights, known as the "Watchtower" missions took
place. The initial filing for the suit indicates a direct evidentiary
connection leading to Bush as part of the conspiracy.
Far from being general in nature, the suit includes copious supporting
material, names more than twenty-five banks and lists more than ten bank
account numbers connected to the CIA's movement of monies generated
from drug trafficking. The suit also indicates that, via witness testimony,
some already included in the form of affidavits, there are witnesses
capable of tying Bush to Carone and Carone to the diaries.
In addition, the suit seeks 722 specific sets of records. According to
Tyree's attorney, Ray Kohlman of Attleboro, Massachusetts, "The first
round of subpoenas for records have already landed in Washington and
elsewhere with a resounding thud."
Subpoenas for records and statements already made by defendant
Tatum have been sent through the U.S. Marshall's service to Tatum, who
is considered a "friendly defendant" in the case. Tatum's whereabouts
are currently unknown but he has, for several years, published materials
and documents denouncing the CIA and George Bush for their direct roles
in smuggling drugs into the country and for engaging in other illegal
activities. According to Kohlman, Tatum's inclusion as a defendant is
intended to, "compel testimony which we believe Tatum wants to give but
which requires that Tatum have the protection afforded by a civil subpoena
to do so."
The Massachusetts Connections: In civil and criminal trails in 1985
and 1987 against a former Ayer police officer and a Massachusetts State
Trooper, the courts found that warrantless searches of the Tyree residence,
conducted immediately after the murder, were illegal and that property
taken in those searches, including the diaries and photographs showing
Tyree in uniform, was illegally seized. The photographs showed Tyree
with decorations and ratings the Army subsequently denied he had ever
been awarded. The courts issued orders to police officials in the town of
Ayer and Middlesex County to return the property and one of the officers
involved admitted liability and paid a judgement.
The second officer paid a judgement on appeal. Continuing attempts
were made by Tyree to recover the property, which the District Attorney's
office admitted had been removed, without success. (See story in the
May issue) Inclusion of the Massachusetts Governor, Paul Celluci and the
Attorney General, Scott Harshbarger as defendants in the suit is based
upon more than a pro forma issue of their roles as law enforcement officers
in the state. Celluci, the Republican appointed to serve out the balance
of former Governor William Weld's term, has specifically ignored written
appeals from Tyree for commutation of sentence and enforcement of his
civil rights. His law partner in 1980, William Kittridge, defended Special
Forces trooper Erik Aarhus, who was also convicted in the murder, and
allegedly wielded the knife, in a conspiracy with Tyree to collect insurance
money. A sizeable body of material, including affidavits, forensic evidence,
and witness testimony exists to show that neither Tyree nor Aarhus were
present when the murder was committed and that another former Green
Beret, William Peters, was the actual killer (See story in the May issue).
The initial case against Tyree was initially dismissed by Judge James
Killiam and subsequently re-filed, as a result of government pressure, with
the Massachusetts State Judicial Supreme Court. In a June, 1998
documentary on A&E entitled, Murder at Fort Devens, Judge Killiam
again repeated his beliefs, both that Tyree was innocent and that Peters
was the real killer.
Harshbarger, the current Attorney General served as Middlesex County
DA, in which jurisdiction Tyree was originally prosecuted, from 1984 to 1990.
In addition, while District Attorney in 1987 he defended Peters, in a clear
conflict of interest, when Tyree's mother placed charges against him. As
the District Attorney and later as Attorney General, Harshbarger had
direct responsibility to comply with the court orders directing the return of
the diaries and other personal property in the 1985 and 1987 civil cases.
As far back as 1980, while the Tyree case was being prosecuted by then
Middlesex DA John Droney, Harshbarger had been hired as a special
counsel by the Selectmen of Ayer, to investigate widespread corruption
in the Ayer Police Department on charges which included theft. As a
result of Harshbarger's investigations, several Ayer police were fired and
faced criminal proceedings. It was these same Ayer police who searched
Tyree's residence with the assistance of State Troopers.
Carone - Putting The Pieces Together: It was not until late 1996, in a
series of events which involved this writer, that Bill Tyree learned that it
had been Albert Carone who had received the diaries from Massachusetts
and who had held them in his personal possession until November, 1989,
shortly before his own death. Albert Vincent Carone, a retired NYPD
Detective First Grade, had served his entire life also as an officer in the
U.S. Army Reserves assigned to Military Intelligence and the Counter
Intelligence Corps. He retired from NYPD in 1980 and moved to New Mexico
where he began work on Contra support operations. The Army served as
the cover for his work directed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Carone's connections both to organized crime and the CIA are extremely
well documented and are a significant part of a large affidavit submitted by
this writer in the suit. Among the records available are a personal phone
book in which are listed the home addresses and phone numbers of both
William Casey and Gambino family crime boss Pauly Castellano. There
are also a host of other records tying Carone to a multitude of CIA
operations including laundering of Contra-era cocaine profits and such
entities as the Nugan Hand Bank.
Carone family members have produced a series of affidavits and records
specifically referencing George Bush, Oliver North, Richard Secord, Elliot
Abrams, Bill Casey and many other CIA figures. Bill Casey attended the
christening of Carone's grandson in the 1970s and Santos Trafficante and
other Mafia figures have been known to the family for decades as "uncle".
(A complete report of my investigation of Albert Carone is available through
From The Wilderness )
In 1990, after he had expressed reservations at having participated in
CIA operations resulting in the 1985 death of DEA agent "Kiki" Camarena,
Carone died as a result of "chemical toxicity of unknown etiology." Every
conceivable record concerning Carone, including active bank accounts,
life insurance policies, military records, NYPD files and even his driver's
license disappeared. His daughter, Dee Carone Ferdinand, and her family
were left destitute.
Although she did not know it, Dee had known of Bill Tyree for a long
time, only by a different name - Sandy. For many years Al Carone had
repeatedly referred to a great wrong done to Sandy in conversations with
both Dee and her husband, Tommy. "Sandy was, " said Dee, "almost an
obsession with Dad."
Carone had participated not only in the Watchtower missions but also
in several other covert operations in which Tyree had also served under
CIA direction. They knew each other well. Carone's role was that of
"paymaster" and bagman".
The connections came slowly. In 1991, Tyree made contact with
retired Army CID investigator William McCoy, who began investigating
events connected with Tyree's case. McCoy was a well-respected
Washington area private investigator who had assisted in investigations with
the Cristic Institute in the 1980s. Though Tyree knew Carone from the
Watchtower missions and other operations, his name was not initially
given to McCoy.
It was not until approximately 1994 that the Ferdinands and Tyree
learned of each other's existence and it was not until September of 1996
that Tyree and Dee Ferdinand first made personal contact. It was a short
time after that that Dee Ferdinand realized that Tyree was the "Sandy"
referred to by her father and it was not until 1997 that it became clear
that Albert Carone had held Elaine Tyree's diaries in his possession for
many years.
In affidavits filed in the lawsuit, the Ferdinands reveal that not only
had they seen the diaries but that both had actually held them and could
describe contents thereof which had never been published or otherwise
described. Sometime in late 1989, knowing he was dying, Carone
delivered the diaries to unnamed CIA officials. [NOTE: The practice of
law enforcement and military investigators knowingly holding key items
of evidence in their personal possession is well known to this writer as
a means of "personal insurance" Such practice was well documented in
a police spy scandal in Los Angeles in the 1980s.] Carone's relations
with George Bush are well documented in various investigations, including
my own, and, as well, through statements made by Carone to both Tyree
and his own family. It is those statements, and other records which will
be produced at trial, which provide the foundation showing that George
Bush, as Director of CIA during the Watchtower missions, and as an
active CIA executive in the years after, directly ordered Carone to
Massachusetts in the wake of Elaine Tyree's murder, to retrieve the
diaries.
This writer was first put in touch with Dee Ferdinand in late 1993 by
former CIA case officer David MacMichael. After initial phone conversations
I traveled to New Mexico and produced an extensive report on Albert
Carone, which I published and copyrighted in March. I sent a copy to
retired CID investigator McCoy, who had spoken briefly to Dee previously,
as well as to several other former Army and CIA employees. McCoy had
been working with Tyree at that time for several years but had not delved
deeply into Carone's case. It was not until late 1994 that McCoy, after
reading my investigation, began talking regularly to Ferdinand and it was
not until late 1996 that McCoy mentioned Ferdinand's maiden name,
Carone, to Tyree. Tyree went through the roof. Bill McCoy passed away
suddenly in 1997 and Tyree and Ferdinand began communicating directly.
It was through those communications that Dee Ferdinand realized that
Bill Tyree was the "Sandy" so often referred to her by her father and that
her father had actually held the diaries instead of destroying them.
Preliminary work on the suit was commenced shortly thereafter. Dee
Ferdinand had previously heard of Tyree through both Bill McCoy and me.
None of us voiced any connection between the two cases although it is
possible that McCoy suspected one. I had received a document describing
Tyree's case, known as the Cutolo affidavit, in 1992 and this remained the
sole piece of material I had on Tyree until I began receiving additional
materials from McCoy in 1994. In none of those documents was the
name "Sandy" ever mentioned.
My first direct contact with Tyree came in 1996. Additional revelations,
in affidavits filed by Dee Ferdinand and her husband, as well as by other
Carone family members, indicate that Albert Carone had also told his
family that he had delivered cash payoffs to Jack Ruby in Dallas on
Nov. 21, 1963 and that he had been on a rooftop at Dallas' Love Field
with a rifle as part of a CIA attempt to kill John Kennedy before the fateful
motorcade got underway. A source close to the case has indicated that
additional corroborative evidence as to the relationship between Carone
and Ruby may be forthcoming.
The suit is seeking $21 million in extrinsic damages - $1 million for each
year of incarceration, $42 million in exemplary damages, $21 for the value
of the diaries and the photographs, an injunction against the CIA from
engaging in further illegal. activities and such legal remedies as are
appropriate under the Constitution. That last part would, of course, include
a new trial and thus, Tyree's freedom.
Initial hearings in the case are scheduled to begin on October 30.
***
CORRECTIONS: In the May issue, From The Wilderness reported that
Paul Celluci, Governor of Massachusetts was a Democrat. Celluci is, in
fact, a lifelong Republican. In that issue I also gave a spelling of Bill
Tyree's attorney Ray Kohlman as Coleman. I had spoken with Ray
several times and even mailed him letters after being given an incorrect
spelling and he never corrected me. It was not until I received corres-
pondence on his letterhead that I realized the mistake. There's only one
thing I can say - Oops. Sorry.
***
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MICHAEL C. RUPPERT
FROM THE WILDERNESS -
WWW.COPVCIA.COM
(Permission to reprint only if the above appears)
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On the border, journalists put lives on the line (An Associated Press article
in The Seattle Times about Jesus Blancornelas, the Tijuana, Mexico, publisher
of the newspaper, Zeta, says the survivor of a bloody assassination attempt
continues to expose alleged traffickers in illegal drugs.)
From: "Bob Owen@W.H.E.N." (when@olywa.net)
To: "_Drug Policy --" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: On the border, journalists put lives on the line
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:44:47 -0800
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net
Copyright (c) 1998 The Seattle Times Company
Posted at 06:51 a.m. PST; Monday, November 2, 1998
On the border, journalists put lives on the line
by Anita Snow
The Associated Press
TIJUANA, Mexico - The second life of newspaper publisher Jesus Blancornelas
began after he glanced out the window of his red Ford Explorer to see a man
in a passing vehicle aiming a gun at him.
Dozens of bullets tore into the Explorer. Blancornelas nearly bled to death
from four wounds. His bodyguard-driver, Luis Lauro Valero, died.
"I am now living extra hours that were given to me," said Blancornelas, an
intense 62-year-old with closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair and beard. "I
arrived at the hospital almost dead. If I had arrived five minutes later, I
would not be here."
But Blancornelas' second life is similar to the first. Every week he writes
the same type of hard-hitting column for the investigative weekly Zeta that
nearly got him killed.
Border journalists like Blancornelas run real risks exposing gangs that move
tons of cocaine and other drugs into the United States. Last year, another
newspaper publisher in the neighboring border state of Sonora was shot to
death outside his office.
The attack on Blancornelas last Nov. 27 has not made him any less public.
When gunmen massacred eight children and 10 adults in nearby Ensenada in a
drug-related shooting in September, Blancornelas was interviewed extensively
by Mexican news media. Several weeks in a row, he made the massacre the lead
story in Zeta, which he helped found 18 years ago.
"We are working as we always did, and we are moving ahead," he said. "If I
sat at home all day and did nothing, I would die."
Even before he was shot, Blancornelas was widely recognized for
investigative reporting that targeted the violent Arellano Felix brothers,
who run Mexico's most powerful drug gang out of Tijuana.
A year before the attack, the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists gave him its International Press Freedom Award, and he was named
World Press Review's editor of the year early this year.
Blancornelas was honored Oct. 22 with a Maria Moors Cabot Prize, an award
from Columbia University recognizing reporting that contributes to
inter-American understanding and press freedom.
Although praised by international journalists, Blancornelas has plenty of
enemies in Tijuana.
"When I first started in journalism, we said that it was much more dangerous
to work in Mexico City," he said. "That changed."
Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists agreed. "The border now
is a much riskier place for journalists. It's a place where scores are
settled and the journalism is bare-knuckles."
In the Zeta issue just before Blancornelas was shot, he had blamed David
Barron Corona, a reputed lieutenant in the Arellano Felix gang, for a
machine-gun slaying of two federal agents outside a Tijuana courthouse.
Barron was among the men who attacked Blancornelas, dying in the crossfire.
It's just as dangerous farther east.
Publisher Benjamin Flores Gonzalez was murdered in July 1997 outside the
daily newspaper La Prensa in the border city of San Luis Colorado, south of
Yuma, Ariz.
A person firing an assault rifle from a car shot Flores at least 17 times in
the back, then got out and shot him three times in the head with a pistol.
Flores, a member of the opposition National Action Party, had used his
column, "Not Confirmed," to expose alleged drug traffickers and to criticize
the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party.
to the 1998 Daily News index for October 29-November 4