FTR#419—Looking Back on the Anthrax Attacks—(Two 30-minute segments)
(Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 8/4/2003.)
Note: FTR#’s 260-316, 317, 324,
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Summary of FTR#419—(Note: The massive
volume of “For The Record” programs about 9/11 and related topics is summarized
and analyzed in the periodically-updated description for FTR#391. It is recommended that listeners use this
description and e-mail it to others. Also: The “meat” of the book “Martin
Bormann: Nazi in Exile” has been digested into an extended description for FTR#305. Listeners can now e-mail this
quintessentially important book to people around the world. In addition, the
professional history of the late Paul Manning, the book’s author, is presented
in the description “About Paul Manning.” This
enables listeners to acquaint others with Mr. Manning’s journalistic
credentials. Understanding the Bormann organization is essential to
comprehending the concept of “the Underground Reich.”) This program documents key areas of overlap between the activities of
Aryan Nations activist Larry Harris and Dr. Larry Ford, who had worked on
deadly biological warfare agents with, and fo,r the CIA and the now infamous
Project Coast in South Africa. Harris was arrested by the FBI for possessing
weapons grade anthrax; Both Harris and
Ford were active in the Henderson, Nevada; area; Both were strongly
influenced by the “Turner Diaries” and white supremacist views. Harris and his
partner Leavitt were in control of a biological lab in Germany, yet the German
authorities couldn’t seem to locate it. That is very strange in light of the
fact that the Germans register every citizen and business in Germany. That they
were allegedly unable to find the Harris/Leavitt laboratory is simply not
credible. Rather, this suggests that the German authorities were (to a certain
extent) complicit with the activities of Leavitt/Harris. Most of the second
half of the broadcast is a reprise of the second half of FTR#324, broadcast on 9/9/2001. This part of the broadcast reviews
the links of Ford to elements of the CIA, the South African apartheid
government, and an underground Broederbond (the fascist core group of the
apartheid regime.)
Program Highlights Include: Larry Ford’s
high regard for “The Turner Diaries”—the apparent inspiration for Timothy
McVeigh & Co; Larry Ford’s contacts with American white supremacist
elements; contingency plans on the part of Die Organisasie for a massive
bio-terror attack on the United States; the fear of many Project Coast veterans
of retribution by their former comrades if they betray the underground
organization; Larry Harris’ sinister warnings of retribution if the Federal
Government retaliated for an attempt at secession by a white supremacist clique
in the Pacific Northwest. (For more about Dr. Larry Ford, see FTR#’s 225,
317, 324, 386.)
1.
The first half of the broadcast consists of a replay of most of FTR#89, recorded in March of 1998.
Discussing the possession of weapons-grade anthrax by Aryan Nations associate
Larry Harris, the first element of analysis notes that Harris had discussed the
possibility that Iraqi agents or, perhaps, the U.S. government might spread
deadly biological weapons in a mass terror attack. Harris himself discussed
methods of effecting such an attck using automobile and aircraft exhaust
systems, while appearing on a Michigan militia-linked radio program. Although
Harris claimed to have worked for the CIA (a possibility that cannot be
dismissed in light of the fact that white supremacists and neo-Nazis have been
employed as mercenaries in covert operations), he may have been operating on
behalf of the white supremacist community and attempting to deflect
responsibility for any attacks on “the government.” It is important to note that Larry Harris and his associate William Job
Leavitt were caught in Henderson, Nevada, outside of Las Vegas. Larry Ford, who
will be discussed below was also active in the Henderson, Nevada, area.
(“Anthrax Suspect Wrote of Germ Warfare” by Michael Sangiacomo [Cleveland Plain Dealer]; San Francisco Examiner; 2/20/1998.)
2.
Harris and Leavitt were seeking a glass globe (possibly for
distributing plague in the New York City subway systems.) The contingency plans
they were working on were intended to fundamentally disrupt American society,
and to deflect responsibility on elements of the federal government. Both men
were discussing bio-terror attacks on New York City, intended (in part) to
bankrupt the United States. (For more about the economic component of terror
against the U.S., see—among other programs—FTR#’s 407, 412.) For
supposedly peaceful individuals who claimed to be working with vaccine grade
anthrax, their interest in police radar scanners and glass globes appears
unusual. (“Anthrax Suspects Appear in Court” by Robert Macy [AP]; Las Vegas Sun; 2/19/1998; accessed at
the paper’s web site .)
3.
More sinister, still, is the threat issued by Harris in which he
threatened the destruction of U.S. cities by biological warfare. This threat
was made in the event of an attempt by the Federal Government to prevent Aryan
Nations and white supremacist activists from establishing a breakaway Aryan
nation in the Pacific Northwest. (“Anthrax Scare: 2 Held” by Kevin Fagan, Bill
Wallace and Susan Sward; San Francisco
Chronicle; 2/20/1998.)
4.
Next, the broadcast focuses on the support of neo-Nazi elements
(particularly in Germany) for Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. This is of
particular significance since Larry Harris had been claiming that Iraqi agents
would be attacking the country with various BW agents. In that context, one
should consider the possibilities that Harris may have been seeking to
deflect blame for the attacks on Iraqis and/or that he may have been working
with the Iraqis or Islamist or Islamofascist activists. Of particular note is
Michael Kuhnen, one of the more prominent German neo-Nazis of the 1980’s and
1990’s. Note, in this context, the anti-American and anti-Semitic motivation
for the stance taken by Kuhnen and company. (For more about the Iraqi/Nazi
connection, see—among other programs—FTR#’s
295, 380.) “As
the United States rattled its saber and threatened Baghdad, Michael Kuhnen
contacted the Iraqi embassy in Bonn. His overtures culminated in a memorandum
of agreement with Iraqi officials, which stipulated that Baghdad would finance
and equip an anti-Zionist legion composed of neo-Nazi mercenaries from Germany
and other countries. This so-called International Freedom Corps was supposed to
assist Iraq if it came under attack by the United States. Kuhnen, the designated
commander of the volunteer brigade, praised Saddam Hussein as a freedom
fighter: ‘We have common ideals—the creation of living spaces for different
people and races in accordance with their own culture and tradition.’ Referring
to Kuwait as ‘the Silesia of Iraq,’ Kuhnen claimed that Arabs were not Marxists
but nationalists ‘just like we are.’ Moreover, they had the same enemy—‘the
United States and its backers, the Zionist forces.’ But the martial prowess of
the neo-Nazis, who pretentiously strutted around Baghdad in SS uniforms, left
much to be desired. As soon as the bombs started to fall on the Iraqi capital,
Kuhnen’s motley delegation scurried back to Europe.” (The Beast Reawakens; by Martin A. Lee;
Copyright 1997 [HC]; Little, Brown & Co.; ISBN 0-316-51959-6; p. 249.)
5.
Returning to the Nevada Anthrax case, the defendants (Larry Harris and
William Leavitt) claim they were making harmless medical anthrax vaccines. (The
FBI continues to maintain that they were in possession of weapons-grade anthrax.)
Why then did Harris and Leavitt need the police scanners and other
sophisticated materials of that type? That equipment is the type that would be
sought by someone involved in counterintelligence and/or terrorism. (“False
Alarm in Anthrax Arrests” by Tom Gorman [Los
Angeles Times]; San Francisco
Examiner; 2/22/1998.)
6.
As noted in an article used in FTR#87,
a laboratory that can be used for making vaccines can also be used to make
biological terror agents. (Harris and Leavitt claimed that they were making vaccines.)
(“The Terrors of Toxins” by Jeffrey Cowley and Adam Rogers; Newsweek; 11/24/1997.)
7.
One of the most suspicious aspects of the Harris/Leavitt anthrax
conspiracy concerns the fact that Leavitt had a biological laboratory in
Frankfurt, Germany. That they may have been working with German neo-Nazis or
white supremacists is not a possibility to be too readily dismissed. Curiously,
the German authorities claimed to be unable to locate the laboratory—a strange
assertion since all people in Germany must register their residences and
businesses with the local police. Was there some conspiratorial sympathy on the
part of the German authorities for Harris and Leavitt’s endeavors? (“German
Police Working with FBI in Anthrax Case” [Reuters]; Reuters Web Site; 2/21/1998.)
8.
It
appears the Dr. Larry Ford (discussed in FTR#324) had been in touch with right-wing
extremists in Henderson (Nevada) where Larry Harris and Leavitt had been
apprehended with their anthrax stash. The thought of an active meeting between
Harris and Ford is troubling to contemplate. The broadcast recapitulates
material from FTR#386. “Perhaps the deepest fear in the entire affair was that Dr.
Ford had been working with anthrax. That trail, too, has run cold.” (“California Doctor’s Suicide Leaves Many
Troubling Mysteries Unsolved” by Jo Thomas; New
York Times; 11/3/2002.)
9.
“After Dr. Ford's suicide,
the police got tips that he had buried anthrax in a gold mine. They searched
fruitlessly in California. Four months later, documents in a Nevada trash dump
showed that Dr. Ford had been in touch with people involved in anti-tax and
antigovernment groups. Some of them had tried to use bacteria to extract gold
from dirt.” (Idem.)
10. “In December 2000, investigators searched a derelict gold milling
site outside Henderson, Nev. [Italics
are Mr. Emory’s] They found a separator funnel, a white liquid and Dr. Ford's
business card. A federal agent said they also found directions for making
chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax. But that was all. The site's
proprietor had recently died of unrelated causes.” (Idem.)
11.
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.)
12.
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.)
13.
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: 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; pp. 272-273.)
14.
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.)
15.
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
apartheid government, 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 and The 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 the
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 on the 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.)
16.
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.)
17.
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.)
18.
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.)
19.
“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.)
20.
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.)
21.
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
that 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.)
22.
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.)
23.
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.)
24.
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 9/09/2001. (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.)