FTR#324—Biological Warfare, AIDS, Ebola and Apartheid—(Two 30-minute segments) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 9/9/2001.)

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Recorded less than 48 hours before the 9/11 attacks, this program eerily foreshadows the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11—to date those attacks are unsolved. This broadcast offers some possible clues as to why. Examining more of the political and historical context surrounding the late Dr. Larry Ford, this program provides a vista onto the overlapping worlds of clandestine fascist politics, the intelligence community and biological warfare research. (For more about Dr. Ford, see FTR#’s 225, 228, 317, 386.)

1. The program begins with review (from FTR#317) of Dr. Ford’s work for Project Coast—an apartheid-era South African assassination program using chemical and biological weapons. (It is important to remember that Ford had worked with, among other elements, the CIA. This makes his association with ultra-right antigovernment and terrorist groups all the more ominous. The possibility of a “national security coverup” is not one to be too readily discarded. His links to elements of the US intelligence community may be used to obscure some of his other activities from public view. It is also worth noting that other countries appeared to have utilized assets involved in Project Coast in a fashion not unlike the American incorporation of Third Reich scientists and research under Project Paperclip.) “He [Irvine California police detective Victor Ray] steered the investigation to Ford’s backyard, where men in Andromeda Strain suits would evacuate a neighborhood and haul away an arsenal of toxins, germs, plastic explosives, and guns. In the process they unearthed a trail that stretched all the way from the CIA to apartheid-era South Africa and Dr. Wouter Basson, the man who ran the country’s clandestine bioweapons program.” (“The Medicine Man” by Edward Humes; Los Angeles Magazine; 7/2001; p. 3; accessed at http://www.edwardhumes.com/articles/medicine.shtml .)

2. As discussed in FTR#’s 317, 386, Ford had links to racist organizations and militia-movement elements, and may have offered them chemical and/or biological weapons. His “microencapsulation” system for a prophylactic vaginal suppository he was developing might have “dual-use” in a biological warfare application. “The question still plaguing federal, state, and local investigators is a simple but urgent one: what was Ford planning to do with his germs and bioweapons expertise? The discovery of militia-movement and racist literature among Ford’s papers has raised the possibility that he offered biological or chemical weapons to terrorist groups. Concerns have also mounted over a patented feature of his Inner Confidence suppository: the microencapsulation of beneficial bacteria. It turns out this architecture could double as an ideal delivery system for bioweapons, allowing otherwise fragile disease organisms to be seeded virtually anywhere. Ford, in essence, had patented the prescription for a perfect microscopic time bomb.” (Idem.)

3. Ford had told the family of a business partner that his work on behalf of the US national security establishment had included work on the Ebola and Marburg viruses. As will be seen later in the program, there is some suggestion that Ebola may have been utilized by the apartheid-era regime as part of Project Coast. “Ford told the Rileys and others his subsequent work for the military and the CIA included research on biological and chemical weapons, consulting on Iraqi capabilities during the Gulf War, and sneaking into epidemic hot zones in Africa to gather samples of such killer organisms as the Ebola and Marburg viruses.” (Idem.)

4. Reviewing more information from FTR#317, the discussion highlights Ford’s work on AIDS prevention for the apartheid-era government. (South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world and many observers feel that AIDS threatens the very future of the country.) Significantly, research on AIDS by the Broederbond underscored the possibility that the disease could become a vehicle for the restoration of white supremacy in South Africa. (For more about the Broederbond, its central role in the apartheid-era government and its historical development in conjunction with the German Nazi party under Hitler, see Miscellaneous Archive Show M8, available from Spitfire, as well as FTR#225.) “But the AIDS prevention program was for whites in the military, not blacks. A secret rightwing South African organization, the Broeder-bond, [sic] conducted studies around this same time that suggested the AIDS epidemic could make whites the majority in the future.” (Ibid.; p. 8.)

5. In light of the activities conducted by Ford and his compatriots from Project Coast, the utilization of AIDS as a weapon of extermination is not a possibility to be too readily cast aside. “Since then, through the new government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was formed to probe the abuses of apartheid, information has surfaced about a secret South African bioweapons program. Code-named Project Coast, it was run by another Ford friend and financial benefactor, Dr. Wouter Basson; [South African deputy surgeon general Dr. Niel] Knobel had administrative oversight. Basson’s alleged ties to hundreds of poisonings and assassinations in South Africa and in the neighboring countries of Angola and Zimbabwe earned him the nickname ‘Dr. Death’ in the South African press. Documents indicating he had arranged an offshore bank account for Ford were found in Ford’s papers after his death.” (Idem.)

6. Ford’s involvement with Project Coast may have bordered on the genocidal. “The commission uncovered evidence that whole villages, including an Angolan settlement of several hundred people suspected of harboring rebels, may have been decimated by Project Coast weapons. This finding parallels information Nilsson’s ex-girlfriend provided: She said Ford more than once boasted of wiping out an entire Angolan village during a civil war.” (Idem.)

7. Next, the program sets forth more information about the history of Project Coast. Zimbabwe’s Health Minister had some pointed observations about outbreaks of Ebola during that nation’s war of independence and his belief that they resulted from Project Coast. “ ‘I have my suspicions about Ebola too. It developed along the line of the Zambezi River, and I suspect that this may have been an experiment to see if a new virus could be established to infect people. We looked on the serological evidence on strange cases, including a fifteen-year-old child which occurred in 1980. Nothing really made epidemiological sense. Do I have evidence? Only circumstantial. In fact, the Rhodesian security forces were more expert than the Nazis at covering up evidence.’” (Plague Wars: The Terrifying Reality of Biological Warfare by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg; Copyright 1999 [HC] by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0-312-20353-5; p. 220.) (For more information about Ebola as a possible biological warfare weapon, see FTR#’s 16, 17, 76.)

8. Dr. Stamps’ observations were significant and prescient, because the subsequent inquiry into Project Coast revealed that the project had been active in neighboring countries that had fought against black majority rule at the same time as the apartheid regime. “Stamps is speaking weeks before the remarkable evidence was presented by South African soldiers and scientists at the 1998 Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings on South Africa’s covert biological warfare program. The Health Minister doesn’t know just how close to the truth he is.” (Idem.)
“Stamps begins to talk gloomily about the revived epidemic of anthrax which now stalks his land. ‘Even the wild animals have been infected—antelopes, elephants . . .’ The voice trails off, then picks up again. ‘We’ve asked the American Centers for Disease Control to come and help us, but they work only on a cost plus basis and my budget is small.’” (Idem.)
“We talk about the anthrax. ‘If you can destroy a person’s cattle, you can destroy his livelihood,’ he says. ‘If you can kill a few people in the process, then you can subjugate a large number of people. And the stuff lasts forever. That is the evil of biological warfare.’ Who brought it in? Stamps picks up a cake knife and points to the south. ‘Where do you think? South Africa, of course.’” (Idem.)

9. Nico Palm—a former engineer in the South African Defense Force—provided the authors of Plague Wars with a primary source. “Gert,” as he chose to be called, discussed his use of biological weapons during the border wars of the 1980’s. “Palm says he has a primary source who used biological warfare against the enemies of South Africa during the covert border struggles of the 1980’s . . . Gert teases with some hints about his personal background, but not enough to make an identification. ‘I was recruited by [Wouter] Basson,’ he says casually. ‘I had the same rank and status, I was a colonel.’” (Ibid.; pp. 250-251.)

10. “Gert” discussed the methodology of covert infection utilized by Project Coast and some of the infectious agents used. “The bacteria and viruses, he says, were delivered in containers and used in northern Namibia. Bacteria were placed into a water source ‘wherever you identify one, or wherever you identify one destined for human consumption’.” (Ibid.; p. 251.)
“ ‘When Hep. [Hepatitis] A was used, we had to make sure that the operators had a gamma globulin injection first. Cholera was pretty widely used also. I used it. I personally was involved in the Eastern Transvaal against FRELIMO in Mozambique. We placed the cholera upstream . . . we looked for areas, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work this out, where they didn’t filter the water or don’t clean it—places where there was no chlorination, so you drop it in and prod it.’” (Ibid.; pp. 251-252.)

11. According to “Gert,” the actual “homme-de-main” who was selected to do the dirty work, was usually a civilian who was viewed as “dispensable.” “Who did this? Soldiers? ‘No, no, no, no. Never, never did it happen by ordinary soldiers. You can’t blame any of the normal forces for that. Although sometimes some of our own soldiers did get infected by the cholera that we put in the water.’” (Ibid.; p. 252.)
“ ‘This is what I’m saying, usually the guy who did it, who placed it, was dispensable—he would have been very well selected, he’s someone you can compromise, he’s either on drugs, or he drinks too much, or he’s got his hand in the cookie jar. That was all done here in Pretoria.’ Who did the selection? Basson himself? ‘He selected the guy with the criminal background . . . It was a criminal operation. The guy would wear civilian clothes.’” (Idem.)

12. Corroborating some of Dr. Stamps’ suspicions concerning Ebola, “Gert” discussed the use of that virus and the related Marburg virus in Project Coast. “Gert” also implies that US scientists from Ft. Detrick (Dr. Ford?) were involved with a Zairian outbreak. “ ‘Look, I know what one of the very, very, very secret specialized units had. We had to test it. And that was viral capsules that were specifically related to Congo fever and the hemorrhagic fevers.’ Ebola? ‘Yes.’ So Gert is beginning to corroborate Dr. Stamp’s suspicions in Harare that Ebola and Marburg, although indigenous, were also artificially seeded into Southern Africa. Basson, says Gert, was involved in all this. (when the last terrible Ebola outbreak occurred in Kikwit, Zaire, as late as 1995, Gert claims that Basson was there, unofficially. Twenty years earlier, when the village of Yambuku in northern Zaire witnessed one of the first major Ebola outbreaks, two South African scientists were there, allegedly working hand in glove with US military personnel from Fort Detrick.)” (Ibid.; p. 253.)

13. As “Gert” made clear, these viruses were for offensive use by South Africa. “Slowly, patiently, Gert confesses that these terrible viruses were ‘researched’ for offensive use by South Africa. Next, he talks elliptically about ‘taking out’ certain enemy units, even though these actions had no military value. It was done in order to find the one soldier who, according to military intelligence, had contracted an hemorrhagic fever. These sick people would then be evacuated from the border areas to South Africa, ‘to see what the effect was, obviously.’. You wanted to see what the effect because you had sown the disease? ‘For sure . . . I can tell you that I know of this thing because I did it myself. I did the evacuations. It was up in Eastern Angola, we’re talking mid-eighties.’” (Idem.)

14. Adding sinister depth to the background of the AIDS research that Larry Ford engaged in, “Gert” discusses the deliberate infection of human targets with HIV. (For more about the development and use of AIDS as a biological warfare weapon, see--among other programs—FTR#16, available from Spitfire, as well as FTR#’s 4, 16, 19, 55, 56, 62, 63, 73, 76, 225, 269, 282.) “Gert lifts another veil. ‘There was some HIV tampering,’ he says. Meaning? ‘I mean all you have to do is get one covert guy, he’s HIV positive, he’s of the area. You get him to infiltrate the whole town and screw the whole lot . . . get him out and shoot him.’ Was that really done? ‘If I tell you, it was obviously done. Look, I was a wild guy. At one stage, I worked with the police, I worked with national intelligence, I worked with military intelligence, I worked with Seventh Med, I worked with everybody. I was never identified, because only a very few people knew where I was positioned.’ Was Basson your boss? ‘No, it was higher up, both military and political. [sic]’” (Idem.)

15. As set forth in FTR#317, Dr. Ford was (according to an Air Force Academy report) part of an underground, extragovernmental network that aimed at continuing the work of Project Coast and the goals of the apartheid regime. “The Air Force report quotes testimony from a Swiss intelligence agent who laundered money for Basson and who describes a worldwide conspiracy involving unnamed Americans. ‘The death of Dr. Ford and revelations of his South African involvement,’ the report states, ‘[raises] the possibility of a right-wing international network, [still] united by a vision of South Africa once again ruled by whites.’” (“The Medicine Man;” Los Angeles Magazine; 7/2001; pp. 8-9.)

The possibility that this underground organization might unleash its biological terror on the United States was foreshadowed by some of the statements made by Ford and his associates. “They say he [South African trade attaché Gideon Bouwer] raved about the ability to keep whites in power through biological warfare, and he hinted at being part of a separate agenda—some sort of extragovernmental conspiracy, like the one described in the Air Force report, that had plans to unleash biological agents worldwide on South Africa’s enemies if the need should ever arise. ‘Just be ready,’ Fitzpatrick remembers Bouwer warning him cryptically, then asking, ‘How fast could get your daughter out of the country if you had to?’ ‘I have to be honest,’ Fitzpatrick says. ‘Gideon could be a great guy. But there was something dangerous about him. And when he started talking about that master plan, about what a great service Ford had done for his country, and about getting out of the country, it gave me chills.” (Ibid.; p .9.)

16. Ford’s alleged participation in the extragovernmental and apparently fascist underground milieu assumes added significance when evaluated against the post-apartheid “Third Force.” The “Third Force” was a powerful, deadly and (by those familiar with it) respectfully feared underground extension of the apartheid/Broederbond power axis. (As will be seen later on in this program description, Mandela’s fear that Project Coast and the “Third Force” might be connected was not without foundation.) “In the end it was British representatives who decided to approach President Mandela, with a minimum of fanfare, to advise him that he was inheriting an ugly biological assassination program from the previous administrations. Mandela’s first reaction was: ‘Oh my God!’ He was initially terrified that the South African ‘Third Force’ elements, including such organizations as Eugene Terre’ Blanche’s ultra right-wing and fanatical AWB, might lay their hands on it.” (Plague Wars; pp. 272-273.)

17. The “Third Force” was not a peripheral organization. “The most determined of these whites came to be known as ‘The Third Force’. They comprised not the mad neo-Nazi right, but revanchist politicians and hard men in the military, and the military intelligence and civilian intelligence agencies, and the myriad covert action groups involved in fighting clean or dirty, internally or externally, to maintain white supremacy.” (Ibid.; p. 266.)

18. The aforementioned Nico Palm described this post-apartheid underground organization in more detail, referring to it as “Die Organisasie” and “the Spider Network.” With the links between the Third Reich and the Broederbond and with the vigorous postwar presence of Third Reich émigré elements in the Third Reich, it seems probable that “Die Organisasie” retains connections to the Underground Reich. (For more about the postwar apartheid/Underground Reich connection, see Miscellaneous Archive Show M8 andThe Guns of November, Part IV, available from Spitfire, as well as FTR#’s 300, 303.) “Palm spoke enigmatically of ‘Die Organisasie,’ a pulp fiction nom de guerre (which he calls, even more melodramatically, the ‘Spider Network’). It is a group of white South Africans who wait patiently for he demise of the ANC government and a return to the old days. They are not the mad pseudo-Nazis of the far right, but something far more organized, well financed, and patient. Other people know them as ‘The Third Force.’ We are to hear of them time and again from ex-soldiers like Nico Palm all the way up to South Africa’s deputy defense minister, Ronnie Kasrils. Significantly, files have also been opened by MI5 in potentially significant union of like-minded South African right-wingers. All of them are ex-pats now living in the United Kingdom, who may support the destabilization of any black South African government.” (Ibid.; p. 250.)

19. Those familiar with “Die Organisasie” regard it with a mixture of fear and respect. “It is with in this context that Gert now raises the question of Die Organisasie. He is clearly apprehensive of its power, and it is the only moment he appears truly concerned. ‘These are people who take no prisoners,’ mutters Nico [Palm]. Gert grimly nods his head.” (Ibid.; p. 254.)

20. Dr. Larry Ford’s associate and supervisor in Project Coast—Wouter Basson—was no stranger to “Die Organisasie.” “We recall there was, in the documents found at his [Basson’s] home, a fax from Britain. It stated that should Basson ever find himself in trouble—real trouble—there was a safe house ready for him not half-an-hour from London. All he had to do was to make his own way to Heathrow. The signature on the fax had been whited out. In fact, the message had been sent by a former Rhodesian/South African citizen who now lives and works in West London, who was once very close to Basson, and worked with him on the biological warfare program. He is ex-Special Forces, and linked to Die Organisasie. Now he is a businessman, married with family, whose permanent residence is in London.” (Ibid.; p. 281.)

21. The final element of discussion concerns Basson’s apparent connections to “Die Organisasie.” Juergen Jacomet—a former Swiss intelligence operative who had worked with Basson—reflected on the motives for Basson’s involvement in an “Ecstasy” deal. “So what was Basson up to that night? He says simply that he was framed. Another version has that he did it purely for personal gain; there is a third explanation, that it was a mixture of personal gain and helping to raise funds for the Third Force, of which Basson is considered to be a member.” (Ibid.; p. 277.)
“Basson’s possible connections with the Third Force were elliptically referred to by Juergen Jacomet, the former Swiss military intelligence agent who worked with Basson on money-laundering aspects of Project Coast in Europe . . .” (Idem.)

22. The program details Jacomet’s relationship with Basson and the apartheid regime. “In fact, back in the mid-1980’s, the Swiss agent had first worked with General Lothar Neethling, South Africa’s Police Forensic chief, delivering arms to South Africa, in an extensive sanctions-busting arrangement. Neethling introduced Jacomet to Basson, and the two men became friends. Basson often visited Jacomet at his Berne home. Eventually, Jacomet traveled to South Africa on several occasions to help Basson and Neethling in the dirty wars of the 1980’s.” (Idem.)

23. Jacomet hypothesizes that Basson would not have engaged in the Ecstasy deal for profit. “Now, sitting in a quiet West London garden on an early spring day in 1998, Jacomet relaxes with coffee and cigarettes and discusses the arrest of Basson and the Ecstasy allegations. He scoffs at the prospect of his friend being a profiteering drug dealer. ‘It makes absolutely no sense if you know him. It makes no sense tat he would mix with street dealers. If it happened at all, there must be a higher interest.’ Such as? ‘It might be to procure money to support a certain group which represents the interests of South Africa and wants the return of a white-dominated government.’” (Ibid.; pp. 277-278.)

24. In discussing the Third Force, Jacomet expresses the same fear of the organization that we have already witnessed. “Jacomet, now nervous, is pressed to expand a little. ‘There is a group of people here in London, he says. ‘One could call them the friends of South Africa. They have it in mind to see a strong white South Africa again. There are American connections too. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] They need funds, and it is possible that the drug business has helped them. You know, it would really be very foolish of me to talk more about this. They are serious people.’ Jacomet searches for the popular expression, and, remarkably, finds the same aphorism used by Gert about the same people. ‘They don’t take prisoners,’ he says finally.” (Ibid.; p. 278.)

25. In discussing the Third Force, Jacomet makes a reference to “an American” who worked with Basson. This may very well be a reference to Ford. “And who are ‘they’? Jacomet mentions some well-known South African names—men previously associated with Third Force activities. He also refers to an American name known to Britain’s MI5 for his alleged involvement with Basson in money laundering, sanctions busting, and biological agents procurement. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] Once again, Die Organisasie is mentioned in respectful tones, and, once again, the details remain scant and elusive. Jacomet remains silent.” (Idem.)

26. Mr. Emory concludes the discussion with rumination about the possibility that the Underground Reich, utilizing some of the apparent connections evident in the relationships of Dr. Larry Ford, might very well launch a bio-terror strike against the United States. Once again, one should note in that context that this broadcast was recorded on 9/11/2001. (For more about the concept of “the Underground Reich,” see—among other programs—RFA#37, available from Spitfire, as well as FTR#’s 180, 248, 273, 283, 305, 343, 370.)