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Those who have been listening to us for any length of time have heard our broadcasts on Fast and Furious and the House of Death. What we increasingly run into is the fact that, no matter who’s in office, the same kind of boneheaded policies stay in place – that result in death and mayhem. Why?
Iran/Contra-Era Whistleblower Cele Castillo Alleged in 2008 That Federal Agents Were Helping to Smuggle Guns into Mexico
Cele Castillo, a former DEA agent who blew the whistle on the CIA-backed arms-for-drugs trade used to prop up the 1980s Contra counter-insurgency in Nicaragua, is now sitting in a federal prison for what may well be another act of whistleblowing in this century.
Plus: The criminal case of accused Sinaloa drug organization leader Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla is straying even further into the path of a cover-up under the guise of national security, if pleadings filed by his attorneys are to be believed.
Tonight, we delve into these subjects and more with Bill Conroy.
About the Guests:
 Bill Conroy has worked as a reporter or editor for the past eighteen years at newspapers in Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota and Texas.
His investigative reporting over the past five years has focused on corruption and discrimination within federal law enforcement agencies.
He is also a journalist for Narco News. His investigative pieces, particularly those on the House of Death, have made him our most-favored guest.
Show links:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2011/11/was-former-dea-agent-jailed-exposing-atf-arms-trafficking
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2011/11/us-prosecutors-seeking-prevent-dirty-secrets-drug-war-surfacing-cartel-
Since 1996, we’ve been doing this for nothing. We couldn’t have done it without WBAI.
Tonight, we feature some of our favorite guests and topics from over the past year. While you may only listen to our show via the web – the show itself would not be possible were it not for WBAI-FM – Part of the Pacifica Radio network.
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Info on the guests can be found below.
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Tonight’s guests:
 Bill Conroy has worked as a reporter or editor for the past eighteen years at newspapers in Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota and Texas.
His investigative reporting over the past five years has focused on corruption and discrimination within federal law enforcement agencies.
He is also a journalist for Narco News. His investigative pieces, particularly those on the House of Death, have made him our most-favored guest.
 Stephan Salisbury is the senior cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has been a reporter for three decades.
He has won numerous awards for his work and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize as part of an Inquirer investigative team looking into local election fraud.
He is author of the recently published Mohamed’s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland published by Nation Books.
 Howard Bloom, a Visiting Scholar at New York University, is founder of the International Paleopsychology Project, executive editor of the New Paradigm book series, a founding board member of the Epic of Evolution Society, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Society, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, The International Society of Human Ethology, and the Academy of Political Science. He has been featured in every edition of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering since the publication’s inception.
 Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, an internationally recognized expert on intelligence, is the President and CEO of the Intelligence & Security Academy, LLC, a national security education, training and consulting company.
From 2002-2005, Dr. Lowenthal served as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production and also as the Vice Chairman for Evaluation on the National Intelligence Council. Prior to these duties, he served as Counselor to the Director of Central Intelligence. Dr. Lowenthal was the staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 104th Congress (1995-97), where he directed the committee’s study on the future of the Intelligence Community, IC21: The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century. He also served in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), as both an office director and a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and has been the Senior Specialist in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
Dr. Lowenthal has written extensively on intelligence and national security issues, including five books and over 90 articles or studies. His most recent book, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Congressional Quarterly Press, 4th ed., 2009), has become the standard college and graduate school textbook on the subject. He has also written a fantasy novel, Crispan Magicker, published in 1978. Dr. Lowenthal is a frequent public commentator on intelligence issues. He has appeared on each of the major networks, the Lehrer Newshour and Charlie Rose; his op-eds have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Dr. Lowenthal received his B.A. from Brooklyn College and his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He joined the adjunct faculty of the Johns Hopkins University in 2008, after 14 years as an adjunct at Columbia University. He is the Executive Director of the International Association for Intelligence Education and a Chairman Emeritus of the Intelligence Committee for AFCEA.
In 2005, Dr. Lowenthal was awarded the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Intelligence Community’s highest award. In 2006, he received AFCEA’s Distinguished Service Award for service to the Intelligence Community. In 1988, Dr. Lowenthal was the Grand Champion on Jeopardy!, the television quiz show.
 Photo by Charles Miller LESLIE KEAN is an independent investigative journalist with a background in freelance writing and radio broadcasting. She has contributed articles to dozens of publications here and abroad including the Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Providence Journal, International Herald Tribune, Globe and Mail, Sydney Morning Herald, Bangkok Post, The Nation, and The Journal for Scientific Exploration. Her stories have been syndicated through Knight Ridder/Tribune, Scripps-Howard, New York Times wire service, Pacific News Service, and the National Publishers Association. While spending many years reporting on Burma, she co-authored Burma’s Revolution of the Spirit: The Struggle for Democratic Freedom and Dignity (Aperture, 1994) and she has contributed essays for a number of anthologies published between 1998 and 2009. Her freelance journalism has been supported by grants from numerous foundations including the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation, The Fund for Investigative Journalism, and the Nation Institute.
Kean was also a producer and on-air host for a daily investigative news program on KPFA radio, a Pacifica station in California. She began covering the UFO subject in 2000 with a feature story in the Boston Globe, and followed with additional mainstream stories. In 2002, she co-founded the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFi), an independent alliance advocating for greater government openness on information about UFOs, and for responsible coverage by the media based on a rational and credible approach. As director of the CFi, she was the plaintiff in a successful, five-year Freedom of Information Act federal lawsuit against NASA. In 2007, she co-organized a landmark Washington DC international press conference on official UFO investigations, which received media coverage around the world.
Delayed Justice – Inside Stories from America’s Best Cold Case Investigators.
“Delayed Justice belongs on the bookshelf of every criminal investigator and all those who enjoy reading the true crime genre. The authors have managed to present a fascinating array of ‘cold cases’ while at the same time providing the reader with a step-by-step methodology on how to solve them. It is indeed rare for one book to entertain and educate. Delayed Justice succeeds at both.”
—ROY HAZELWOOD
FBI (Ret.), Academy Group, Inc.
Tonight, Mike and Mark are joined by authors Jack and Mary Branson, who have put together this brilliant book on Cold Cases. Forget what you see on TV – this here is the real deal. PLUS: Mike Levine’s official theory on why ex-wives are more effective than profilers.
About the guests:
Jack Branson, a retired special agent with the US Department of the Treasury, is now the head of Branson & Associates, a private investigation firm. He has also written a novel, Terminal Justice.
Mary Branson is a freelance writer and the president of AptWord, Inc., a literary agency. She is the author of many books, including (with Jack Branson) Murder in Mayberry and Cutting Myself in Half.
After 16 years on the lam, James “Whitey” Bulger – a notorious Irish mobster from Boston, who was number 2 on the FBI’s most-wanted list for over 14 years – has finally been captured by the FBI.
Tonight, Mike and Mark speak with noted author Richard Stratton, who has not only researched and written about Bulger, but actually met the man face-to-face when Bulger acted to save Richard from a Mafia hit contract. We’ll talk about Bulger’s history, his turning of FBI agents, the methods used to bring him in, whether or not he’s responsible for a whole string of armed robberies as the infamous “geezer bandit” in Orange County, California…and what secrets he still may have to tell about a thoroughly corrupt FBI that aided him in murdering his rivals.
About the guest:
Richard Stratton is the author of the underground cult classic novel, Smack Goddess. He was a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1970.
In 1982 he was convicted of conspiracy to import marijuana and hashish and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He wrote Smack Goddess while incarcerated. He also became a jailhouse lawyer, had his sentence vacated and was released after serving eight years.
In 1989 he was awarded first prize for short fiction in the PEN American Prison Writing contest.
His work has been published in Story Magazine, Rolling Stone, High Times, Spin, Newsweek, Penthouse, Esquire and a number of literary quarterlies. He formerly edited Fortune News, the newspaper of the Fortune Society, a non-profit organization which aids prisoners and ex-offenders and advocates for criminal justice reform.
He worked as a producer and creative consultant on a number of HBO productions including Prisoners of the War on Drugs, The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row, Thug Life in D.C. and the dramatic prison series, Oz. He is qualified as an expert witness in state and federal courts in the areas of prison violence and prison culture, and has testified in capital prison murder cases in Texas, Oklahoma, Utah and California. He co-wrote and produced Slam, the movie, and co-edited Slam, the book. He is co-producer and co-writer of the feature film Whiteboys, and Executive Producer and show runner for Street Time, a dramatic television series.
Richard’s most recent novel is “Altered States of America.”, and his Piece “Super Rat” – about Whitey Bulger, was featured in the February 2009 issue of Playboy magazine. He has many works on his slate at the present time. One of which is the film Dog Eat Dog based on the novel by Eddie Bunker. Richard is the director and the screenplay writer. He resides in New York with his wife Antoinette and their son Ivan and his stepdaughter, Bianca. He has three children from a former marriage, Maxx, Dash and Sasha.
Mike has been talking about the failed War on Drugs forEVER. It has wrought havoc not just in the states, but around the world. The ATF “Fast and Furious” program and the House of Death are just the latest in a long string.
Tonight, we’re joined by Terry Nelson – Executive Director of LEAP – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition – for a freewheeling conversation about the war on drugs, legalization, decriminalization – and the current administration’s reaction to subpoenas issued to the ATF in the Fast and Furious case.
About the guest:
 Terry Nelson‘s law-enforcement career spanned three decades. It included service in the US Border Patrol, the US Customs Service, and the Department of Homeland Security, taking him beyond the US borders into Mexico, Central America, and South America. In various capacities, he acquired first-hand knowledge of the war on drugs through his direct involvement with counter-narcotics missions. He labored with distinction, even receiving special Congressional recognition for his work.
“But,” he says, “as the ‘War on Drugs’ went on and on, I never saw any visible progress – and only limited discussion about the lack of progress. Something was wrong with this picture.” Terry came to understand drug prohibition was doing more harm than good, and that the United States needed a major policy change. He had thought a lot about decriminalization and legalization for years. But the obvious lack of progress toward winning the war and the continued congratulatory backslapping unrelated to even incremental successes made him conclude that enough was enough. He was ready to speak out. Terry has decided the only solution is a policy of legalized regulation of all drugs. That decision led to his joining LEAP – the first group he has ever joined. “We must remove the criminal element from the drug trade, because it is destroying our society and crippling governments to the south of us. We must change the rules to win the real war.”
Terry retired in 2005 as a GS-14 air/marine group supervisor. He is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, having served as a communications specialist in Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. He served nine years in the U.S. Border Patrol including a stint as instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, three years in marine operations in the Florida Keys, one year as a customs inspector at DFW Airport, seven years as an air interdiction officer/criminal investigator, two years as staff officer to the director of foreign operations, and five years on the staff for the Field Director, Surveillance Support Branch East. During this period the SSBE team participated in the seizure of over 230,000 pounds of cocaine and received the United States Interdiction Committee award for interdictions.
“But to what avail?” Terry asks. “Today drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier for our children to get than at the beginning of the war. We need a policy of legalized regulation.”
Links:
LEAP
Tonight, we interview Author T.J. English about his devastating article that details the horrendous drug-related violence that plagues the U.S. / Mexican border. The article is in the February 2011 issue of Playboy magazine.
“If there was doubt before, there is no longer: The killings represent a tipping point. What was viewed by some U.S. citizens and public officials as mostly a Mexican problem is now an American problem, with American victims. No one is immune. And no one is safe.”
About the guest:
Thomas Joseph “T.J.” English comes from a large Irish Catholic family of ten brothers and sisters. Early in his writing career, English worked as a freelance journalist in New York City during the day and drove a taxi at night. He often refers to cab driving as a metaphor for what he does as a writer – cruising the streets, interviewing strangers, exploring the unknown, reporting on what he sees and hears from his sojourns in and around the underworld.
 In 1990, English published his first book, The Westies, an account of the last of the Irish Mob in the infamous Manhattan neighborhood known as “Hell’s Kitchen.” The book was the result of a series of reports English wrote for a weekly Irish American newspaper based in New York…
His second book, Born to Kill (1995), was an unprecedented inside account of a violent Vietnamese gang based in New York’s Chinatown, that operated up and down the East Coast. In 2005, English published Paddy Whacked, a sweeping history of the Irish American gangster in New York, Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, and other U.S. cities. Most recently, English published Havana Nocturne (2008), an investigative account of U.S. mobster infiltration of Havana, Cuba, in the years before the Revolution swept Fidel Castro into power.
As a journalist, English has written for many magazines and newspapers including: Esquire, Playboy, Irish America, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times…
In the mid-1990s, he wrote a three-part series for Playboy entitled “The New Mob” that explored the changing face of organized crime in America. His work as a writer has taken him to Cuba, Jamaica, Hong Kong, Mexico, Ireland, and all around the U.S… Most of his articles are on the subject of crime and criminal justice, though English writes on a wide variety of subjects including music, politics, and movies. He has published full-length interviews with Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, actor Bill Murray, director Martin Scorsese, and comedy legend George Carlin, to name a few.
In addition, English is a screenwriter and has penned episodes for the television crime dramas “NYPD Blue” and “Homicide,” for which he was awarded the prestigious Humanitas Prize.
His next book, THE SAVAGE CITY – Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge, is coming out this March.
He lives in New York City.
You can find out more about him at his website.
The House of Death 12, Plagiarism, and the Rick Horn Case.
The House of Death is the story of how an informant for Homeland Security, working “undercover” under the direct control of a Bush appointed United States Attorney, participated in a macabre house of horrors in which more than a dozen people were tortured to death. There have been a continuing series of articles at Narco News on the subject, reported by Bill Conroy, who has been a frequent guest.
In previous broadcasts, for the first time anywhere, Bill Conroy brought us the voice of the informant himself. Now, after an extended court battle, that informant has won the right to stay in the U.S. – as extradition to Mexico would certainly result in his death.
Tonight, Mike and Mark speak with Bill Conroy about the House of Death and this informant – and also about how another online organization has taken to plagiarizing Bill’s work on the subject. See below for details.
Lastly – we discuss the latest in the Richard Horn case.
About the Guest:
Bill Conroy has worked as a reporter or editor for the past eighteen years at newspapers in Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota and Texas. His investigative reporting over the past five years has focused on corruption and discrimination within federal law enforcement agencies. He is also a journalist for Narco News. His investigative pieces, particularly those on the House of Death, have made him our most-favored guest.
More info on related topics:
Read Bill Conroy’s Investigative pieces on the House of Death
Bill Conroy’s article on the court decision for the HOD informant
Bill Conroy’s article about the HOD and plagiarism.
read the Examiner article for yourself – and feel free to leave a comment.
Bill’s article about the Richard Horn case.
 On November 28, 1953, U.S. Army biochemist Dr. Frank Olson crashed through a hotel window in New York City and fell over 150 feet to the sidewalk below where he died.
The New York City Police Department, U.S. Army, and CIA, for whom he also secretly worked, reported Olson’s death as a suicide. In 1975, a Presidential-appointed commission inadvertently released information publicly that revealed that, days before his death, the CIA had surreptitiously dosed Olson with LSD. The CIA admitted that it had given the drug to Olson, but refused to reveal any details of the so-called “experiment”, or about what Olson’s work for the CIA involved. The American media briefly examined the perplexing mysteries surrounding Olson’s “suicide”, but soon lost interest. Twenty-years later, further investigation into Olson’s death revealed that there was ample reason to believe that he had been murdered. The Olson case grew even more mysterious and strange after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office convened a grand jury inquiry into the odd death. Critical witnesses died strangely only days and weeks before they were to be questioned by prosecutors; government officials refused to speak and those that did suddenly developed severe memory problems; crucial documents were destroyed and lost; and investigators were intimidated and threatened.
Who killed Frank Olson and why? Why did the U.S. government actively work for over 50 years to conceal and cover up the facts surrounding Olson’s death? What were the bizarre connections between Olson’s death and Lee Harvey Oswald, foreign drug traffickers, and deadly government-sponsored assassins and undercover agents? What was the horrible experiment conducted by the U.S. government that cost Olson his life? What was Frank Olson’s self-admitted “terrible mistake”?
Continue reading A Terrible Mistake
“Despite the new controversy over whether a global CIA “hit team” ever went operational, there has been public evidence for years that the Bush administration approved “rules of engagement” that permitted executions and targeted killings of suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The above from Robert Parry’s piece Bush’s Hit Teams at consortiumnews.com.
Tonight, Mike and Mark speak with Bob about this great investigative piece.
About the guest:
 Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com.
His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.
His investigative journalism website, consortiumnews.com, is an incredibly important resource. Please visit the site, and support them any way you can.
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Some Prior Guests David Moorhouse
Ray McGovern
Dr. Rick Nuccio
Renee Boje
Daniel Ellsberg
Richard Stratton
Gerard Colby
Greg Palast
Dennis Dayle
Ralph McGeehee
Stan Goff
Mark Levine
Vincent Bugliosi
J.H. Hatfield
Siobhan Reynolds
Charles Bowden
Katherine Gun
Bob Parry
Sandy Gonzalez
Sibel Edmonds
Ellen Mariani
Peter Lance
Senator Bob Graham
Cele Castillo
Tosh Plumlee
Donald Bains
Will Northrop
Aukai Collin
John Loftus
Joyce Reilly Von Kliest
Kelly O' Meara
John P. Flannery
Bill Conroy
Sander Hicks
Paul Williams
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