|
|
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.
The Scarpa Mob Family, The FBI, And A Story of Betrayal
 A sensational, epic true story of a modern Mafia dynasty, by an author with incredible inside access to both the Mob and the FBI.
The Scarpas were a Mafia dynasty led by Greg Scarpa Sr., a man addicted to murder. His son, Gregory Jr., a promising athlete, worshipped his ruthless father, and was slowly drawn into his dark world. What only father and son knew was that for thirty years Scarpa Sr. was an FBI informant. For decades, his connection to the FBI granted him a virtual license to kill. But when facing arrest in the late 1980′s, Scarpa asked his son to leave his wife and children, and take the rap for his father.
After years in prison, in 1995, Gregory Jr, imprisoned alongside Ramzi Yousef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, agreed to extract information from Yousef in exchange for leniency, furnishing the FBI with detailed intelligence on what would result in 9/11. Incredibly, Greg’s desperate warnings were unheeded, and he was sentenced to forty-years-to-life at the notorious ADMAX. There he would supply the FBI with intelligence on Oklahoma City bomber and fellow prisoner, Terry Nichols. Again his contribution was ignored, and Gregory Jr. remains at ADMAX, where he believes he will one day be murdered.
Tonight, Mike and Mark speak with author Sandra Harmon about this amazing story.
About the guest:
 Sandra Harmon, author of “MAFIA SON, the Scarpa Mob Family, The FBI, And A Story of Betrayal”, has had an extraordinary career as a best-selling author, journalist, television writer, producer and film maker. .
She wrote and produced the television movie, “Fast Friends” for NBC, which was based on her own experiences as a writer on “The Dick Cavett Show”. The film starred Dick Shawn as a popular talk show host who goes berserk on stage and is replaced by a young, unknown comedian, played by David Letterman. At the time, Letterman was himself an unknown comedian until Sandra discovered him and cast him in her film.
Sandra also produced the highly acclaimed “Promises to Keep” a CBS television movie starring Claire Bloom and Robert Mitchum, Mitchum’s real son, Chris Mitchum and his grandson, Bentley Mitchum. “Promises To Keep” tells the story of a family in crisis who finally come together when the grandfather makes amends, and in a case of reality imitating art, the shooting of the movie brought together the Mitchum family, who had been estranged for many years.
Sandra’s popular first novel, the critically acclaimed, “A Girl Like Me”, was published by Dutton Books in hardcover and Bantam Books in paperback. Norman Mailer wrote, “So let us welcome Sandra Harmon to the novelists. She begins with two splendid qualities. She is beautiful, and so we may depend on her to have much original material, and she is honest – the eye from which she writes is the eye to which it happened.”
Sandra is also the co-author of the internationally known, runaway best-seller, “Elvis and Me” – (the story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley – written with Priscilla Presley ) – which sold nearly one million copies in hard cover and three million in paperback and was, according to The Wall Street Journal, the tenth largest seller of the l980′s, occupying the #l spot on the New York Times Best seller listfor more than fifty weeks in both hard and soft cover.
Adapted for television by ABC,TV, “Elvis and Me” was then turned into one of the network’s highest-rated four hour miniseries of all times, putting the paperback of “Elvis and Me” back on the best-seller list.
Sandra next wrote the best-seller, “Getting To I Do”, in which she taught women everywhere, how to find the “right man”, begin a healthy sexual relationship, and get engaged, by the end of the first year.
This was followed by the sequel; “Staying Married and Loving It!” which teaches couples how to maintain a loving, erotic, successful long term relationship.
Links:
Mafia Son Website
Sandra Harmon’s Website
Was Col. Ted Westhusing’s death in Iraq something more sinister than suicide?
“Since last March, when I wrote a story about the apparent suicide of Col. Ted Westhusing in Iraq, I had believed there was nothing else to write about his tragic death.
But in December, I talked to a source in the Department of Defense who met Westhusing in Iraq about three months before his death. The source, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, was investigating claims of wrongdoing against military contractors working in Iraq. After a short introduction, I asked him what he thought had happened to Westhusing. ‘I think he was killed. I honestly do. I think he was murdered,’ the source told me. ‘Maybe DOD didn’t have enough evidence to call it murder, so they called it suicide.’ ”
Tonight, we interview author Robert Bryce about this sad tale.
About the guest:
 Robert Bryce’s articles have appeared in dozens of publications including the Atlantic Monthly, Slate, New York Times, Washington Post, American Conservative, The Nation, Washington Spectator and The Guardian. His first book, Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron, received rave reviews and was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2002 by Publishers Weekly. His second book, Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate, was published 2004.
Bryce spent 12 years writing for the Austin Chronicle. His third book, Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence,” will be published in March by PublicAffairs. He lives in Austin.
Links:
I am Sullied-No More – Robert Bryce’s first article about Col. Westhusing
A Death Reconsidered – Bryce’s most recent Westhusing article
Robert Bryce’s Website
The FOIA Documents Robert Bryce refers to in the episode
A further update on the continuing saga…
Can you believe that mainstream media is not interested in a story in which:
–an informant for Homeland Security, working “undercover” under the direct control of a Bush appointed United States Attorney, operates a macabre house of horrors in which more than a dozen people are tortured to death with the informant taking part?
–the reign of terror only ends when the murder of a DEA agent and his family is narrowly averted?
–a top DEA official starts an investigation that quickly determines that the the house of death is being operated and funded by officials of the US government?
–the DEA official is forced off the job for trying to push the investigation into the roll the Bush appointed prosecutor played in all this?
–the suspect prosecutor is PROMOTED to a high level Department of Justice position?
–the files are “vanishing?”
–memories of suspects are clouding over?
Well, whether or not mainstream media pays any attention, your EXPERT WITNESS is not letting the story disappear from New York Airwaves…
Our guests are Bill Conroy, a courageous investigative journalist who has stuck with this story from the beginning, and Sandalio Gonzalez, an equally courageous DEA agent who broke the story.
Previous shows on related topics:
Read Bill Conroy’s Investigative pieces on the House of Death
|
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
|
|
