INTELLIGENCE No. 271, 11 Sept 1995 Publishing since 1980 Copyright ADI 1995. Reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. A one-year subscription (23 issues) is US $280. USA: FOSTER CASE RUNS INTO PROMIS, BCCI & COVERT OPS Conspiracy theorists were already having a heyday with mysteries surrounding the 20 July 1993 death of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster. Now, recent Washington press reports are slowly forcing the issue on the mainstream media and calling for a serious investigation of the ties Foster may have had with major, even strategic, U.S. secret operations. The day before his death, Foster and his wife met with Webb Hubbell and his wife. At the time, Hubbell was number three man at the Justice Department. Foster was dead the next day, but had a personal meeting scheduled the following day with his long time close friend, President Bill Clinton. Immediately after Foster's death, his associates began talking about suicide before they had even checked out his office or done routine examinations for evidence. The sensitivity of the subject can be measured by the fact that four established Washington reporters "have been fired or threatened with firing, or worse, in the last few days for writing about Foster", according to Sarah McClendon in her 31 July 1995 "Washington Report". Those reporters are McClendon herself who had her newsletter dropped from a lucrative AT&T- controlled electronic news service, Paul Rodriguez of "Insight" who was told by a Pentagon official to "lay off this story", Anthony Kimery who was summarily fired as editor of a Thomson company financial publication, and, above all, Jim Norman, a senior editor of "Forbes" who was sacked after the Foster article he prepared for "Forbes", which was spiked, finally appeared in "Media Bypass". Norman attributes the spiking of his Forbes article to Reagan administration defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, who is Forbes' publisher emeritus and possibly privy to several intelligence operations that the Foster case threatens to unveil. It was Norman who first discovered that Foster was under investigation for spying for Israel and had one or more Swiss bank accounts involved with financing American covert operations. According to Norman, Foster worked as a legal adviser and go-between for the Arkansas computer company Systematics (now Alltel Information Services) and the American intelligence community. In that capacity, Foster developed ties with the NSA and the CIA. Systematics, founded by Jackson Stephens, had become involved in selling, installing and supporting customized banking and management software, and, according to Norman, bugged copies of PROMIS programs, reportedly stolen by the Reagan administration Justice Department from the Inslaw company, were among its products. If this is true, it would mean Systematics, and therefore Foster, was involved in a major strategic NSA-CIA operation to penetrate major banks and foreign intelligence services by having bugged versions of PROMIS installed by credible computer experts. Indeed, in an interview, Norman called Foster "an interface person between the NSA and Systematics (...) He was one of Jackson Stephens' trusted 'deal guys'" at the Rose Law Firm for which Foster officially worked. His name never appeared as an employee of Systematics, according to Norman. In 1979, Stephens, originally an investment banker, served as the front man for a group of Arab backers of the BCCI when it wanted to buy ownership of a major Washington-based bank, Financial General Bankshares. The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) carried out an investigation and blocked the takeover. This attempt confirmed, for Norman, intelligence community rumors that Systematics was "shuffling covert money" among the many small American banks from which it had obtained computer service contracts. Such a network was used to finance the Reagan administration's Irangate-Contragate operations and may well be tied to the sudden and strange failure a few years ago of many small Savings & Loan banks in the United States. COMMENT - Foster was known to have made one-day trips to Switzerland, likely to service secret bank accounts associated with his intelligence community-Systematics activities. According to Norman, these accounts were "raided and deleted" by a secret CIA team of computer specialists called the "Fifth Column" not long after this team had managed to supposedly penetrate the data bases of Israeli Mossad foreign intelligence and found the name of Foster among those of Israeli agents. This part of Norman's story is not only farfetched, but impossible: no modern intelligence service has the names of its agents on a computer physically connected to an outside network. It also seems extremely unlikely that Swiss banks would permit a "sensitive" account to be deleted electronically without direct confirmation by the account owner. However, these weaknesses in Norman's story should not discredit the story or to justify a refusal to investigate Norman's other allegations concerning Foster's activities. * U.S.A. - Waco, U.S. Army & British SAS. When Congressional hearings into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BTF) and FBI's 1993 siege and assault of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, began in July, there was immediate confrontation regarding possible violation of the Posse Comitatus Act which forbids the military from pursuing civilians. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Low-Intensity Conflict, H. Allen Holmes, made an explosive statement by saying two members of the British SAS were present at Waco. The Pentagon has officially replied that SAS members were not at Waco "as a result of any association with the Department of Defense", a statement which tends to confirm that SAS members were at Waco on the behalf of Justice. The Department of Justice has not responded to these accusations. * USA: - So FAST You Haven't Heard About Them. Everyone has heard about the U.S. Navy SEALs and their exploits. But there is one company working with the Navy that's so quick and efficient that they don't make the news: the 330-man Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST). Officially based at Norfolk, Virginia, it is part of the 3,600-man Marine Security Forces commanded by Colonel William Parrish. Captain Frank Donovan commands this company of "most deadly multiweapon small-arms marksmen in the Marine Corps" who are on 48-hour deployment notice. The Forces were ambushed five times in Somalia but there were no wounded and no killed. Earlier this year, Cuban refugees rioted in Panama. The Forces, with FAST members, arrived and moved the Cubans back to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without much notice or disturbance. The Forces have five known bases abroad: Keflavik, Iceland; London, England; Naples, Italy; Rota, Spain; and Souda Bay, Greece. The FAST company can be flown rapidly into any of these bases or on to any aircraft carrier which usually has its own Forces groups. * For more info on Intelligence, or to subscribe, write: Olivier Schmidt intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr tel/fax 33 1 40.51.85.19 ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France