Leo J. Ryan vs. Frank Carlucci
The showdown between Congressman Leo J. Ryan and D/Director of Central Intelligence Frank Carlucci (see conclusion of CIA and CIA and SLA Cult, Part II) represented something much bigger than just the forceful personalities involved. It represented the better angels and worse demons of the American psyche battling for the future. It was the personified microcosm of a larger conflict that was coming to a head at the end of the nineteen seventies. The confrontation would resolve the burning question pending at the end of two decades of chaos and turmoil in America: would we be an open, transparent democratic republic or a dark, opaque, autocratic empire?
With highly publicized Congressional Committees throughout the seventies confirming the disclosures of investigative journalists, by late in the decade the CIA and the secretive, militarist deep state it served was reeling. Committees chaired by Senator Frank Church and Representative Otis Pike, along with the presidential Rockefeller Commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, created plenty of embarrassing headlines about a security-intelligence state gone wild. The CIA’s reputation and influence were in the gutter. As a mid-seventies hit song by the band War put it, “I know you’re working for the C-I-A — they wouldn’t have you in the Maf-i-a.”
In 1976 Jimmy Carter was elected as a result of congressional and public uproars about government corruption in the wake of Watergate and the FBI and CIA abuses that had been exposed. Determined to restore trust, he appointed an old Naval Academy classmate of his, the reputed straight-shooter Admiral Stansfield Turner to head the CIA and intelligence community as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). As Turner wrote in his autobiographical Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence, “President Carter had a mandate not only to clean house and raise public trust in national leadership but also to get the country’s intelligence apparatus under control.” The appointment of Turner signaled that Carter would attempt the reform that Congress had promised yet failed to deliver on. Turner noted that while the Congressional disclosures had highlighted the need for change, “In the end, the Rockefeller Commission’s report was too watered down to amount to much. The Church [committee] report recommended new charters for the Defense Department’s agency for coordinating intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); the CIA; and the NSA; but these were not written. The Pike report wanted the DIA abolished, criticized the NSC (National Security Council) oversight mechanism, and called for increased congressional oversight, but had a rather small impact.”
Turner Targeted
While Stansfield Turner’s appointment satisfied the demands of the Democratic Party base, he was soon the target of a coordinated campaign to paint him as too weak and dovish to turn the battered agency around. The trigger for the backlash occurred when Turner fired 820 clandestine CIA agents, the heart of the old school CIA gangster clan. The backlash was no reflection of public sentiment. It was literally created by the CIA itself. Turner wrote in Burn: “The DO [Directorate of Operations CIA] people seized on the reduction of 820 positions as an opportunity to attempt to get me fired. They launched a disinformation campaign (one of their basic skills).” The CIA-infiltrated corporate media took its cue and attacked Turner for executing the very reforms he was appointed to institute. For example, the November 28, 1977 edition of Time magazine reported: “The agency is in turmoil because at least 800 of its employees are to be ‘terminated.’ All are members of the CIA’s 4,500-man Directorate of Operations, the clandestine branch, whose activities… have damaged the reputation of the CIA.” Time went on to quote the ghoulish former head of CIA clandestine operations James Angleton — the single agent most implicated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — to pile on Stansfield with criticism for allegedly weakening America’s defenses. (see, Spooked Spooks at the CIA). Newsweek joined the effort to shackle Turner’s reforms, “Carter’s man at the CIA is under fire for purging the ‘dirty tricks department’ and reforming the whole spy system.” Ditto the Washington Star, “Turner tackles the CIA with vigorous inhumanity.”
In reality, the CIA ran a clandestine operation on its own director in violation of its own charter, in the wake of four years of brutal exposure of just such abuses, apparently demonstrating to President Carter who really drove the affairs of American government, the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex (MIIC). Carter, as was his want, quickly caved in. His “solution” was to bring in the prototypical Mr. Fixit of espionage. He appointed CIA black ops veteran Frank Carlucci as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) – the CIA’s second in command. A popular D.C. beltway radio station summed up the matter in a Feb 10 1978 report: “[K]ey members of the Carter Administration were trying to oust CIA Director Stansfield Turner…[whose] controversial management decisions drove morale at the CIA to a new low…Then word came from the White House that Frank Carlucci was to be named Deputy Director of the CIA…[whose] nomination marked a change of direction for the Agency.” Clearly indicating a major regime change and return to the old CIA business as usual, the report continued, “Turner would surrender control of the day-to-day management of the Agency to Carlucci…”
That “surrender” by Turner was no exaggeration. Carlucci had negotiated control of the agency before accepting the appointment. Stansfield had protested and was overruled by Carter. This was evident in CIA’s FOIA reading room data base. I discovered an entire file in there that closely monitored this transition, consisting of dozens of articles and documents from 1978 covering nothing but a) the CIA’s reputational and operational crisis, b) the alleged new lease on life afforded it by the arrival of Carlucci, and c) Carlucci’s intensive public relations campaign which pressed to scale back reforms, most particularly the Freedom of Information Act and Congressional oversight as it applied to the CIA and intelligence community. The content of that file corroborates this entire article (see, Carlucci and Confidence Crisis)
Carlucci: master of dark CIA ops
Why Carlucci? For starters he was old school CIA, the one that used the State Department as its cover to run black ops across the world (just as the brother tandem Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles had established in the 1950s – see, The Devil’s Chessboard). Carlucci was fresh off a scandal of his own that proved the point. The most popular political party in Portugal was screaming “foul” for Carlucci’s alleged CIA black ops meddling in a Portuguese national election under cover as the U.S. Ambassador to the country. Carlucci survived the controversy by shameless, blanket denial. (see The Stranger Career of Frank Carlucci, Counterpunch)
Carlucci was well-schooled in that art. 18 years earlier as a “State Department official” in the Congo, Carlucci was involved in perhaps the CIA’s most damning and embarrassing chapter. That was the assassination of the country’s duly elected President Patrice Lumumba. It did more to discredit the CIA and America with the rest of the world than any other single dark operation. That is because Lumumba was also the moral leader of the entire continent of Africa at a most critical time: the abolition of European colonization and institution of self-Democratic rule. Although it later surfaced that President Eisenhower green-lit the assassination and Carlucci was intimately involved with Lumumba in his final days, he survived the fall out by bald faced denials. (Counterpunch)
While Carlucci was – being charitable – at minimum aiding and abetting the killers of Africa’s first (and perhaps last) great hope for institution of true democratic republics, Leo J. Ryan was beginning a 180-degree divergent career path.
Mr. Ryan goes to Washington
In the thick of Carlucci’s State/CIA Congo work WWII naval veteran Ryan was a High School English and Math teacher in South San Fransico, also serving as a city council member. In 1961 he chaperoned his school’s marching band to Washington D.C. for John F. Kennedy’s inaugural parade. He said that the experience inspired him to run for higher office. In the sixties he served as a California state assemblyman and in the seventies as U.S. Representative for the 11th US Congressional district covering the San Francisco Peninsula. Ryan became a sort of ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ figure. A regular Joe with little tolerance for corruption. He was a hands-on investigator. He once posed as a prisoner and lived for weeks under cover in general population in the California prison system in order to see the conditions for himself. He also doggedly pursued investigations and reforms of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, which by the time he arrived in Congress was giving the United States a huge international black eye.
Ultimately, Ryan became the greatest threat to the unlawful and immoral, yet routine, CIA clandestine operations. From his position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (and its CIA subcommittee) he co-authored a bill amendment with Senator Harold Hughes that did more to reign in the rogue CIA than any other act of Congress. The purpose was to a) prevent the CIA from continuing unlawful domestic operations in violation of its charter and b) prevent the CIA from running its own rogue foreign policy hit squad as it had done for forty years, seriously damaging the United States’ image and global moral authority. The Hughes-Ryan Amendment was passed in 1974. It required the CIA to clear covert operations with the President of the United States beforehand and inform Congress of the fact of such approvals in a timely manner. Thereafter, Ryan continued to police the enforcement of the Act through close scrutiny of the CIA.
CIA hunts the Policeman
Throughout the seventies the CIA was closely monitoring Ryan’s efforts to increase control over the unruly agency. For example, its 27 June 1975 briefing to the DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) notes the tracking of “H.R. 8203 (Edgar and about 10 others, including Leo Ryan) Designates Majority and Minority Leaders of each house of Congress as members of the National Security Council.” Another measure to tighten oversight of the CIA by ten members of Congress, and the CIA only saw fit to mention one name, that of Ryan. (see, CIA Monitors Ryan)
While President Carter was quickly brought to bay by the CIA, Ryan was not so easily contained. By January 1976 his watchdogging had incurred the wrath of both the Director of the CIA William Colby and the President of the United States (and Warren Commission member) Gerald Ford. According to New York Times investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Ford was upset that reports of the CIA’s meddling in Italian elections were published. Apparently, he was all for election interference in democratic western nations, it was the disclosure of the skullduggery that had him alarmed. Ryan was quoted “The passage of my amendment (Hughes-Ryan) was supposed to open things up. Somehow the assumption was that if the CIA has to tell more people, things will change. Well, they didn’t. What we don’t have is some form of approval and disapproval”, said Ryan. Hersch wrote, “[Ryan] said that he was disturbed by the fact that he and his colleagues learned of the CIA programs only after they had been formally approved by the President and put into effect.” (New York Times, CIA AID REPORTS EVOKE FORD ANGER, January 7, 1976).
The Washington Star reported, “Complaining bitterly about secrets that were exposed as a result of congressional briefings, CIA Director William E. Colby today urged Congress to sharply reduce the number of lawmakers entitled to know what intelligence agencies are doing…BUT COLBY reserved most of his criticism for the House Intelligence Committee and for Rep. Leo Ryan, D-Calif., a member of the CIA subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee.” Of interest to our CIA MK Ultra series, the Star also noted “Colby also…criticize[d] the Senate Intelligence committee for failing to cover up the identity of Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (founder and director of MK Ultra) in its report on assassination plots.” (see, Washington Star, January 23, 1976) In the same breath as fingering Leo Ryan for shining light on the CIA, the Director was most alarmed by Congress shining that light on the author and director of the CIA’s most notorious decades-long crime against America, the MK Ultra Mind Control program. (Note, Gottlieb was implicated in the Lumumba assassination along with Carlucci).
Ryan’s concerns were further articulated and reported that same month. “‘I know there are three other CIA operations going on,’ Rep. Leo J. Ryan, D-Calif., told a news conference. ‘I am aware of CIA activities around the world to which I have strong objection,’ said Ryan, a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. ‘I know about them, but you do not, I will not mention them because they are secret.’ But Ryan attacked Ford’s ‘national security’ reasons for keeping the two reports secret. ‘I think they endanger our national reputation rather than security,’ he said.” We all know how that ‘national security justifies government secrecy’ debate went. Sadly, Leo J. Ryan was the last elected official in America who literally risked his life in favor of maintaining an open, democratic society – which is why we have the opposite today instead. (See, Ryan – United Press International).
By early 1977, the CIA was actively working to combat reforms authored and policed by Ryan. In its April 27, 1977 “Action Plan on congressional oversight”, the CIA legislative affairs office notes, “the Hughes-Ryan Amendment would have to be repealed or amended.” (see, CIA Action Plan)
The Clash of the Titans
By late 1978 when Carlucci was handed the keys to reinstate the military-industrial-intelligence complex (MIIC) total autocratic control, only one person stood in his way. At that moment, Leo J. Ryan (House Rep, CA-11, San Francisco) was the greatest threat to unlawful and immoral, yet routine, CIA clandestine operating basis. He would represent the last hope for significant and lasting reforms to the rogue agency.
In late August 1978 Ryan visited Patricia Hearst at the Pleasanton, California Federal prison. He reported to the press that he believed the prison population was growing hostile toward Hearst. (see, SF Gate Ryan visits Hearst) It might have been there that Ryan learned first-hand about the strange origins of Donald “Cinque” DeFreeze, the apparent MK Ultra Manchurian candidate (see CIA and SLA Cult Part II). So moved was Ryan by whatever he learned from and about Ms. Hearst and her erstwhile SLA cult leader, that he – along with California Senator S.I. Hayakawa – personally delivered a petition to the White House to have Hearst’s sentence commuted.
Exactly two days later brings us back to Ryan’s September 27, 1978 letter to the CIA Director demanding answers as to the CIA’s possible creation of an MK Ultra Manchurian candidate in Donald Defreeze. Note that Ryan is so confident there is fire behind the smoke he gives the Director an out from the specter of more embarrassing CIA scandal headlines: “In the event your investigation produces an affirmative response, I would appreciate a personal conversation with you about the matter before anything is done with the information.” This has led to speculation that Ryan intended to allow the explosive facts concerning CIA MK Ultra training and experimenting at Vacaville to remain a secret, provided DCI Turner could arrange for its ultimate victim – Patty Hearst – to be freed. The tone of the letter makes it sound as if the former naval officer Ryan had a friendly relationship with Admiral Turner.
Unfortunately, by then Turner had been stripped of control over “day to day operations” of the CIA. We can now divine the significance of the reform-minded DCI Turner being elbowed out of the picture by dark ops master D/DCI Frank Carlucci. On October 18, 1978 Carlucci issued a lawyerly non-denial denial to Ryan: “Thank you for your letter of 27 September to Admiral Turner requesting confirmation or denial of the fact of CIA experiments using prisoners at the California medical facility at Vacaville. It is true that CIA-sponsored testing, using volunteer inmates, was conducted at that facility. The project was completed in 1968. Your letter referred to Donald DeFreese, known as CINQUE, and Clifford Jefferson, both of whom were inmates at Vacaville. In so far as our records reflect the names of the participants, there is nothing to indicate that either was in any way involved in the project.” (San Diego State University Jonestown Archives, emphasis supplied) As noted in CIA and SLA Cult Part II, “as far as our records reflect” was meaningless in the light of the CIA’s proven record of mass destruction of incriminating records. The last thing Ryan could be expected to do in light of Carlucci’s slippery response, would be to put the matter to rest. Unfortunately, there is no record of how Ryan responded to Carlucci’s obstruction. The entire matter was about to be forgotten because of the scandal that would eclipse both the Manson and Hearst affairs and every other media shock of the seventies.
Jim Jones and the People’s Temple
Ryan’s district also happened to contain the largest number of loud defectors from the infamous Bay Area People’s Temple (PT) cult of Jim Jones. Years earlier the controversy surrounding the PT had become so deafening that Jones and his several hundred followers had set up a compound called Jonestown in the remote jungle of Northwest Guyana.
Throughout 1978 Ryan’s constituents had been demanding that the U.S. government do something about reports that Jones was running strange mind control operations against his several hundred, mainly African-American, followers. Detailed sworn accounts told of large caches of weapons maintained to keep members imprisoned, dispensation of large amounts of psychiatric drugs, and regular instructions from Jones that he and his followers needed to prepare to commit suicide when the government ultimate swept down upon them.
The State Department and its embassy were unnaturally nonchalant about the matter. Two screaming oddities about the embassy were thoroughly overlooked by the federal government, congress, and the media when Jonestown ultimately imploded and became the biggest cult scare in world history. First, the US Embassy in Guyana was primarily a CIA controlled operation. That is because in the sixties when Guyana was swinging to the left politically, the CIA swooped in with its patented regime change ops and helped install a tin pot dictator, Forbes Burham. The CIA’s continuing presence throughout the seventies was required as Burnham’s popularity was so dismal it took election meddling and propaganda operations to keep him in power. Why Guyana was so important was made crystal clear earlier this year when a US ‘special military operation’ kidnapped the elected President of its neighbor Venezuela. Why? Venezuela is the most mineral rich country in the world. Guyana was also the world’s greatest exporter of aluminum bauxite – the raw ore used to produce aluminum.
The second strange fact about the CIA-controlled US Embassy in Guyana was that it was suspiciously friendly with Jim Jones. Reports of Jones’ abuses were becoming more alarming and frequent throughout 1978 by first-hand witnesses who had managed to escape Jonestown. Yet, every ‘inspection’ of Jonestown by embassy personnel to verify the claims were always preceded by ample warning to Jones directly from the embassy. Predictably, the embassy never found anything to act upon. The U.S. government reports were effectively gaslighting Jonestown victims.
Leo J. Ryan decided that for whatever reasons the State Department and CIA were going to protect Jim Jones and Jonestown over the rights and concerns of his constituents. On November 14,1978 while Ryan was contemplating his next step to get around the obstruction of D/DCI Frank Carlucci concerning Patty Hearst and Donald DeFreeze, he boarded a flight out of Washington D.C. to Guyana. It was an attempt to do what the CIA and State Department refused to do, to save underprivileged, minority People’s Temple members from the clutches of a suicide-bound mind control experiment.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 