In article <br34ga$7rd$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>, Rich Winkel says...

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/my_case_is.html

Advice and Experience for Whistleblowers Looking for Help

[Appeared as the Lead Essay in the March 31, 2000 issue of From The
Wilderness]

by Michael C. Ruppert

Richard Taus earned three Bronze Stars and seven Air Medals flying
helicopters in Vietnam. Taus later became a highly decorated FBI
Agent in New York while also serving as a Reserve Army Instructor
for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Colleges. In the 1980s,
before the Iran-Contra scandals, Taus uncovered massive illegal
covert operations that led directly to Bill Casey, Oliver North and
Vice President George Bush through a contract spook outfit called
"The K Team." Undaunted by pressure from higher-ups - including one
of my favorite bad guys, FBI Assistant Director, Oliver "Buck"
Revell - to cease and desist his investigations, Taus refused to
yield. His investigations led to drugs, money laundering, weapons
smuggling, political corruption and into the heart of the CIA.

Taus was so persistent that, when his cover as a soccer coach got
him too close to powerful political circles, he was railroaded into
32 to 90 years in the infamous Dannemora prison for child molestation.
This, notwithstanding the fact that the trial Judge disallowed
evidence that the families of the boys who made the charges initially,
had their own criminal investigations disappear after Taus was
convicted.

I believe Rich Taus. He has provided me with very helpful information
and much of what he has told me has been solidly corroborated through
other sources. I want to share with you a letter Rich wrote to me
recently.

   Dear Mike,

   Received your FTW issue of Jan. 28 s [actually Feb 25] yesterday.
   Nary a mention of my plight since we first corresponded. I noted
   extensive coverage of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson's case and
   even a full-page for DEA Agent Cele Castillo. At least they
   have someone crying in the wilderness for them.

   Last year you mentioned holding off on my story, using it as a
   "knock-out" blow. If my appeal succeeds, every news organization
   in the country will be after my story. If it does not succeed,
   you and people who opposed government corruption will have lost
   an ally who could have helped you by telling his story.

   Sincerely yours,

   Richard Taus

Brad Ayers is both a former CIA and DEA Agent. In the 1980s, while
working for the DEA in South Florida he entered aircraft being
operated by CIA proprietary Southern Air Transport and actually
removed, and booked into evidence, samples of cocaine residue.
Despite enormous pressure that eventually led to wanted posters
being circulated on him, implying that he was a cop killer, Brad
Ayers survived relentless persecution and attempts to silence him.
Brad now lives in semi-seclusion in the Midwest. After reading my
story on Ed Wilson Brad wrote:

   Dear Mike,

   I have just received the January 28th issue of your newsletter...

   You know a good bit of my history, all well documented and
   substantiated by bon fides, military, CIA and DEA records as
   well as personal FOIA request-responses.

   In all of your extended discourse on the CIA-Reagan/Bush war
   on drugs revelations, you've never mentioned my 85-6 entry of
   aircraft at Southern Air Transport (SAT) and Pan Aviation or
   the Joe Price affair. I'm not looking for attention, but is
   this not testimony worthy of inclusion in the sordid history
   you seem intent on publishing?

   What moves me to write at this time, most specifically, is your
   reference to two individuals with whom I've had some extended
   personal experience. The first is Ted Shackley who was my boss
   at JM WAVE and the second is Dan Sheehan of the Christic Institute
   who I had direct contact with during my DEA/war-on-drugs/Iran-Contra
   testimony in Washington in 1986 and 1987 (suggested inquiry,
   common connection to Jack Blum).

   You apparently have pretty good book on Shackley, but you should
   know that Sheehan is as phony as a three dollar bill with a
   Janus agenda. I could go into detail but what the hell! Others
   to watch for - Gene Wheaton and Bo Gritz - both have been
   operating with two-faced agendas...

   Good luck, Brad Ayers

I also have complete faith in and concur with the conclusions of
Brad Ayers.

Early this month a man named Roy G. contacted me via e-mail and
virtually demanded that I immediately begin an investigation into
rampant CIA connected drug corruption in Belize. Roy, who had lived
and worked in the area, claimed to have detailed knowledge of
corruption and complicity on the part of U.S. Government and Belizean
officials. After several exchanges with Roy I concluded that his
experience was probably entirely valid and that his life might be
in some jeopardy as a result of having come forward but that - since
he had no hard documentation or government records to substantiate
his claims - I did not have the resources to investigate his story.
After advising him of this, Roy wrote me back saying, "You're just
like all of the major media!" He then accused me of being cavalier,
lazy and not caring about whistleblowers' welfare.

Just a week earlier an MD from Texas named Steve e-mailed me about
CIA involvement in drugs in Panama. He started to solicit my help
then began telling me what to do and to read so that I could prove
CIA complicity in drugs moving through Panama and Texas. He wanted
to lecture me on how to play one political party against the other.
After I had told Dr. Steve that I was not in a position to help,
he e-mailed me fourteen different messages with more than one hundred
pages of material and - probably because he had watched too many
spy movies - started giving me suggestions on how to proceed with
my investigation. I had to e-mail him back and politely threaten
to have him blocked at my server.

There is John Carman, a former Customs Agent, and a really nice
guy, who for more than two years has wanted me to write about his
horrific saga of CIA connected corruption at the Mexican border.
John, a licensed PI with a concealed weapons permit, was recently
set up to be arrested on phony weapons charges in front of his own
child.

There is a former CIA case officer, whose name I dare not mention,
who has been reaching out to me for almost a year. This case officer,
having resigned from the Agency's Directorate of Operations, is
living in a horrible limbo, unable to work and now meeting with
lawyers to find out what he/she can and cannot disclose to me without
being instantly jailed.

There is my good friend and trusted source, Gary Eitel, a decorated
helicopter pilot from Vietnam, attorney and former CIA pilot who
blew the whistle on CIA's movement of C-130s through the Forest
Service and into the drug trade. He writhes in agony under civil
and criminal charges as a former Oakland PD narc, with connections
to CIA and DoJ torments his family in a small Washington State
township.

There are the bothers Lamb, Walter and David, who struggle while
one is imprisoned and the other free but living in fear because of
revelations they made leading directly to drugs, the CIA and George
Bush.

There was the "sexy blonde" named Brenda who e-mailed me and insisted
that I meet her and her blue jeans outside an Orange County Court
immediately because she had hard evidence of CIA and drugs and the
way business names link to specific operations.

I could go on and on and on.

Since FTW has been in print I have received pleas for assistance

>from no less than 75 people with tragic and heartbreaking stories

of corruption, whistle blowing, harassment, retaliation and sacrifice.
I have been contacted by maybe 25 more who were, in my opinion,
certifiable nut cases. And I have been contacted by maybe 15 who
were, in my opinion, disinformation agents, seeking to lead me down
a garden path and into ambushes of one kind or another. That makes
115 contacts in two years or roughly five per month. Each of those
five has provided me with from between 10 and 2000 pages of documents
to read. And these do not take into account my ongoing commitments
to Bill Tyree, from whom I have more than 1,200 pages, Dee Carone
Ferdinand and my dear friend, former DEA Agent Celerino Castillo.

A human heart can contain only so much suffering.

To all of the wonderful, courageous victims who have reached out
to me I must tell you honestly that if I were to tell anyone's story
about years of sacrifice and torment - of pain, disillusionment,
humiliation and betrayal - it would be my own. I would do that for
no other reason than that I have been at it far longer than any of
you have (24 years since 1976) and I have suffered as much as any
of you - except the ones who have been murdered like Col. Jim Sabow,
or those who have been imprisoned like Bill Tyree and Richard Taus.
I am selfish and I want sympathy and consolation for my sacrifice.
I want someone to make it better for me too. What I have discovered
is that we have to do this ourselves.

But telling you about my suffering will not change a damn thing.
That is why I have never become so self-indulgent in these pages
as to describe, in detail, my own life experience. And telling
others about your sufferings will not change anything either.
Iran-Contra is old news. Only those stories that impact present-day
affairs have the potential to change the course of history, to drive
a wedge - to make the Midianites fight each other. For those like
Rich Taus and Brad Ayers I was only too happy, last October, to
copy my records and correspondence, my files and data on them for
two investigators from the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. I was honored to be able to tell the Committee staffers
that open hearings on Volume II of the CIA Inspector General's
report should include their testimony as well as mine and that of
Cele Castillo.

But when it comes to the pages of this newsletter - where I had to
just cut back in length to save on postage to pay an employee - I
will publish only those stories that help to crack the edifice of
silence and the illusion of legality that imprisons all whistleblowers
. If there's one thing that drives me mad it is a newcomer demanding
that I go back and repeat the mistakes I made fifteen and twenty
years ago for their benefit - and at my expense. For the scores of
people who insist that if they can just get to 60 Minutes everything
will be OK - because their case is different - I ask you to look
someplace else for help.

60 Minutes visited me in 1986. The producer admitted that my story
was true. She later admitted that it would never get aired. I later
consulted for two segments of 60 Minutes for Producers Marly Klaus
and Jan Legnitto. One of my subscribers is an Emmy Award winning
former CBS News producer who nearly was tarred, feathered and scalped
for trying to tell the truth about TWA 800. Where does she go for
help? Another one of my subscribers is a former Chief of Staff to
a Congressman who suffered the same fate. Where does she go for
help? To Congress?!

I have never seen a war won by fighting to rescue one victim at a
time. Wars, whether for good or evil, have been won only when the
generals exploited weaknesses in systems, armies, strategies and
philosophies - not in individual warriors.

As "The General" at From The Wilderness I have to husband my limited
financial and emotional resources and use them to achieve the best
ends that I can- for everyone. Not one of the whistleblowers who
has contacted me, especially those in prison, is ever far from my
consciousness - especially when I try to go to sleep at night. I
have been able to help a few whistleblowers tangibly. But, as with
the CIA, my successes are better left unheralded and unbroadcast.
I am truly doing the best that I can.I have not taken a full day
off in two months. I have no medical insurance, no savings, no
pension.The rent is a question mark every month. And I am having
the time of my life.

In the meantime Ed Wilson has just asked for contempt charges against
14 of the biggest legal names in and out of government. And his
attorney is moving for summary judgement because Judge Lynn Hughes,
in Houston, is sitting on Wilson's explosive motion to dismiss the
conviction and not rendering a decision. One Federal Judge, Stanley
Sporkin, has already retired and two more, one on the U.S. Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals, are on the verge of having their rights
read to them and of being accused of perjury and of withholding
exculpatory evidence. The CIA risks being exposed as having
deliberately armed Moammar Qadaffy at the instigation of George
Bush. Retired CIA Associate Deputy Director of Operations (ADDO)
Ted Shackley stands on the verge of being exposed for perjury and
worse. And the Department of Justice is close to being exposed, in
open court, of having hidden crimes by high-ranking members for
more than 17 years. Now that's the kind of edifice crumbling upheaval
that may eventually lead to letting a lot of innocent people out
of prison - not just one. But only If it is pursued and capitalized
upon.

Edwin Wilson writes to me:

   Dear Sir:

   I have received your January 28 issue and thank you for a
   favorable article.

   My problem is this place [Federal Penitentiary, Allenwood, Pa.]
   makes it almost impossible to communicate. So I ask you to stay
   in touch with [Attorney David] Adler who has better, up to date,
   information than I. Also, I want to cooperate with you.

   By the way, the article you sent me is missing pages 6&7. Some
   machine also hates me!

	Many thanks, Ed Wilson

	08237-054

Michael C. Ruppert Publisher/Editor