Casey Connally | Formation of the PRCIA | Building the PRCIA | CIA Corporate Connection | CIA SnL Connection | PRCIA-CIA Logic
There has been a strong relationship between the intelligence community and the business community. William Casey and John B Connally had been part of the Presidents Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) under Nixon with Casey as the director of the Securities Exchange Commission and Connally as Treasury Secretary and then the director of the Import-Export Bank. Connally had organized the Business Roundtable, a non-party affiliated association of CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, and Casey the Center for Strategic Information Studies (CSIS) composed of ex-intelligence community officers. These groups had worked together to supply the intelligence and the money to overthrow the elected government of Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973.
Following the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, George Bush, then Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was replaced at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by Stansfield Turner. Bush, who had been the post-Watergate DCI, wanted to stay on after Carter was sworn in as President but was fired by Carter. Turner then fired hundreds of covert agents and many more analysts in reaction to events related to Watergate.
In the 60’s and 70’s many intelligence officers, both current and former, were organized by Casey and Bush into private groups such as the National Strategic Information Center (NSIC) formed by Casey in the 60’s and recruited as consultants and staff by public relations (PR) and security firms. The intelligence officers were composed of several groups one of which were those fired by Stansfield Turner. Casey and Bush also organized the ex-agents into the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). Many of these ex-agents joined the NSIC, CSIS and the Heritage Foundation.
NSIC-, AFIO-, CSIS-, and Heritage Foundation-related former intelligence officers were engaged by the Ronald Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980. Casey and Robert Gray of Gray and Co (now a subsidiary of Hill and Knowlton) lead Reagan’s campaign. The former officers were credited with engaging in a campaign that involved, among other things, the production and distribution of forged letters and phony photos. NSIC members served on Reagan’s transition team following the defeat of Carter. A Reagan Transition Team document suggested using private groups to avoid regulatory constraints against domestic intelligence gathering.
During the 80’s, CIA and military intelligence techniques came to be used as a matter of domestic “political necessity”. These techniques were increasingly used by a group of Public Relations and security firms. These firms, which had hired ex-agents to perform these techniques on behalf of their corporate clients together with the clients and the various groups formed from them are referred to here as the PRCIA. This group was tied closely to CIA operations in foreign countries. This group was composed of important Casey or Connally allies and organized ex-agents.
In the next stage the private groups and the PR firms, the PRCIA, were used to influence domestic politics in favor of the Reagan Administrations covert foreign policy initiatives. These groups devised the foreign and domestic anti-terrorism campaigns which became the major weapons used by the Reagan administration to battle its policy opponents including the Committee in Support of the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and the Sanctuary Movement.
It is our theory that once the techniques developed by the intelligence community were transferred into PR firms by ex-agents these techniques were then imported into local and State electorial and other political activities, especially those requiring domestic, consensus building.
It is our theory that the relationship between the business community and the intelligence community was used to develop sources of funding for covert operations through the selective rewarding of government contracts and the use of illegal securities transactions and mob-style techniques to bust out S&L’s. Individuals were assisted in gaining control of S&L’s and banks for the purposes of laundering drug money and securing loans from which a portion was diverted to covert operations. Much of this activity occurred in California, Texas and Florida.
It is out theory that the CIA and its associates, under Casey and with the help of Casey’s business associates including Connally, funneled money defrauded from the S&L’s through Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) to the Saudis who passed the funds onto the Casey-lead covert operations.
Once the covert wars were completed or the means used for funding them were exposed, as in the Iran-Contra scandal, the PRCIA in circa 1987 turned to influencing domestic policies regarding resource exploitation using techniques similar to those used by the CIA in the Central American conflicts including the Contra War.
The PRCIA on the Northcoast
Environmental campaigns 1986-1990
The environmental campaigns on the north coast were waged in the courts in an effort to cause the enforcement of existing laws, in demonstrations organized by Earth First! (EF!) to draw public attention to the threat of continued natural resource exploitation, and through the ballot measures in county and State elections in efforts to reform existing laws. The nature of the conflict of non-violent tactics v ecotage within the larger environmental community created a debate with local news letters such as the Mendocino County Environmentalist and the Country Activist serving as the forums and teachers. These campaigns were reactive to Corporate Industry/government attempts under Reagan/Bush to complete liquidation of natural resources and focused especially upon the forests and the corporate timber industry which exploited them.
Corporate Industry’s united campaign against environmentalists
Industry’s campaign relied upon name-calling, surfacing into the public view through letters to the editor from individuals organized and trained by the combination of industry groups, public relations firms and private organizations staffed by ex-CIA agents, referred to here as the PRCIA. The local campaign against proponents of the expansion of Redwood National Park in the late 70’s and early 80’s was revived as to objectives, qualities, and players. The roots of the slander campaigns conducted by industry on the north coast are found in the campaigns against the Wobblies and other labor organizers as exemplified in the strike of ’35 with the battle at Hammond Lumber’s gates. It relied upon using propaganda undiscerning of the means in use by environmentalists. eg, radical environmentalists file frivolous lawsuits, terrorists publish, ie, all opponents are evil. Industry’s campaign was reactive to its environmental opponents’ campaigns to halt industrial liquidation plans.
FBI campaign against environmentalists
The FBI campaigns have their roots in the history of the 60’s and 70’s cointelpro campaigns against civil rights groups. There were many indicators of this type of FBI campaign on the north coast including the use of private firms to store information for corporations, coordinated with industry by public relations firms and private organizations staffed by ex-intelligence agents. The FBI campaign was reactive to the ecotage propaganda attributed to EF! which itself may have been a PRCIA or cointelpro product.
Pattern of PRCIA programs against environmentalists
Its program consisted of a pattern of dirty tricks, threats, violence and other acts associated with the CIA in other countries. Its history includes the special relationships amongst Casey, Connally and Bush. It was reactive to environmental campaigns and used in support of industry’s exploitation plans.
Corporate Industry’s concern with 1990 elections
The Corporate Industry naturally opposed all legislation and regulation as well as the lawsuits. Forests Forever’s Prop 130 and Big Green galvanized the wise-use movement and provided a California focus for the wise-use groups’ efforts. Moreover since the center of environmentalist activity was the Northcoast the focus of the wise-use movement’s reaction was the Northcoast.
Boycott campaigns and death threats against environmentalists
As the wise-use movement raised the ire of its members with propaganda against the environmentalists, new threats to environmentalists and their groups took the new forms of mimicry of real or imagined EF! tactics, cointelpro tactics and the old form of death threats with roots in historical groupings such as the Stompers. The history of the Stompers from the past had implications in the modern case. The boycotts and death threats were reactive to Redwood Summer and to the elections.
Cloverdale bomb
On the third anniversary of the mill accident that injured a worker in LP’s Cloverdale mill an unsuccessful bombing occurred at the same mill. The media treatment of the accident was to blame Earth First! referring to them as terrorists. The media treatment of the bomb indicated no cause consistent with the sign left on the scene. This treatment compared to the accident three years earlier indicates a similarity to incidents in which LP or others managed the news for its own ends. Only later under the influence of the LA letter did speculation attribute the Cloverdale bomb to EF!
Bombing of Judi Bari
Other investigations conclude the following points:
An intercorporate timber group formed in 1986-87 and decided to use Ron Arnold’s model for organizing timber communities. The motivation for dirty tricks in 1987 by LP may have been an attempt to force the largest cut possible on the National forest lands during the ten-year planning process ongoing in 1987.
The wise use movement formed during August 1988 with timber linked with bikers, ranchers, farmers, oil and mining. In 1989, the Timber Industry expanded its political base prior to the first wise-use conference held in Reno that year.
The dirty tricks plan came from Hill and Knowlton working with executives and PRCIA personnel. They didn’t necessarily deliver the dirty tricks.
Charles Cushman and Candy Boak targeted EF! for the 1989 dirty tricks campaign, while environmental radicals are named by FBI as the most dangerous “domestic Terrorists” while the CIA called them a danger to all humanity.
The motivations for dirty tricks during early 1990 include the announcement of Redwood Summer, role of Bari and the IWW within the loggers, and its call for eminent domain over Mendocino Timber lands.
The bombing was seen as a conspiracy with three objectives eliminate, disrupt and portray. The conspiracy originated in industry circles carried out with federal and local law enforcement collusion. Local persons may have played operational roles. Bari was the immediate and sole target of the bombing. She was to be killed and Cherney blamed for the death. The bombing was planned for Oakland. The LA letter is misdirecting: The bomb was not placed in Mendocino Co. Several conspiracies are based on this logic.