by Terry Allen

OH COME ON For almost 30 years, noted the New York Times, French mercenary Bob Denard has done jobs for anti-Communist and African leaders or rebels who enjoyed French sympathy. Asked if France had anything to do with the coup in the Comoros led by Denard, a senior French official got all huffy. The government is not in the business of using soldiers of fortune. We act openly. ** From a New York Times report on the Mexico City police force, which is so thoroughly corrupt that bribes are more common than traffic tickets and police-run ambulances often rob the injured: Mexico City's current police chief, David Garay, hardly fits the image of a corrupt lout: he is a Harvard-educated lawyer. ** [T]he record is clear that each of us has worked diligently as [directors of the CIA] to make clear our commitment to the highest standards of integrity and to strict adherence to the law and regulations... Letter from former DCIs William Webster, Robert Gates and James Woolsey to John Deutch wiggling out from responsibility for the passing on of almost 100 tainted reports from KGB-controlled agents to three presidents.

CIA INFILTRATED BY FLAMING LEFTISTS The CIA is getting increasingly creative in finding justifications for its bloated budget. After turning a fumbly hand to economic spying on allies, especially Japan and France, it now appears to be hiring on a band of dewy-eyed liberals and dedicated Marxists. In a newly launched annual report, Global Humanitarian Emergencies, CIA analysts discovered that war, famine and social discontent have complex socioeconomic roots. Through this optic, writes the New York Times, Somalia and Rwanda can be interpreted not as spontaneous outbreaks of clan warfare or ethnic violence, but as conflicts nourished by the underlying strains of hunger, drought and a lack of arable land in Somalia and huge population growth and population density in Rwanda. Given the CIA's propensity to visit disaster and destabilization on its enemies, and to justify any level of repression to impose stability for its friends, this newfound approach is not likely to be used for the good of humanity.

EMBARGOING (MOST) EMBARGOES Guess who said Free trade is not a reward to governments but rather a goal we pursue for our own interests, which include promoting the kind of development that fosterseconomic and political change. Responding to human rights problems with trade sanctions is thus actually self-defeating. Was it: a) the People's Committee to End the Cuban Embargo, b) the Association of American Businessmen in China, or c) Jesse Helms speaking on apartheid South Africa? Nope, none of the above. The statement was in a classified State Department briefing prepared for Clinton's National Security Adviser Anthony Lake. The Background Paper on Meeting with Jennifer Harbury gave talking points and suggested strategies for a Nov. 21 meeting in which Lake was supposed to cool out Harbury, the wife of guerrilla leader Efra!n Bamaca who was tortured and murdered while in custody of the US-backed Guatemalan army. The case had turned into a major pain in the butt for Clinton and the CIA after it was revealed that that crime and others had been directed by a Guatemalan on the agency payroll.

In the State Department briefing, under the heading Responding to Harbury's Concerns, Lake was advised that While expressing sympathy with Harbury's desire to seek a full accounting of her husband's fate and voicing concern about ongoing human rights violations in Guatemala, it is important to underline the value of our participation as Friend of the Guatemalan peace process. ... [The meeting] providesa useful opportunity to ... articulate our view that cutting off trade and aid will have more negative than positive consequences. Lake was also advised to deflect any questions Harbury might put seeking a US commitment to `negotiate' with Guatemalan officials. The memo then went on to script the official line on sympathy. Lake was advised to say: I was glad to hear that your health was not seriously affected by your recent hunger strike....We recognize your frustrations will be great ...[but] we urge you not to seek to encourage economic sanctions as a means to move it forward ...Trade sanctions which would hurt the poorest Guatemalans should also be avoided. Only a burgeoning economy will produce those pressures over the long term for real change and provide the necessary resources for the social and economic reforms that are so desperately needed. Did anyone forward a copy to Fidel?

CIA UP TO OLD TRICKS Yet another CIA scandal is festering. Leaks coming out of the South African Truth Commission's inquiry are hinting at revelations as embarrassing to the agency as its activities in Haiti and Guatemala where it got caughthiring local torturers and thugs. In 1985, Millard Shirley, a US intelligence consultant with an extensive history of CIA employment went to Johannesburg as a consultant to Telcom, the government postal and communications agency. He brought along what the Baltimore Sun described as highly classified Pentagon manuals on `psychological warfare.' Former Telcom manager Mike Leach said that One of the items he gave us was a recipe for prussic acid, a clear compound, which if inhaled, would give a massive coronary and leave few traces. Other tricks included spiking water given to participants in labor nego- tiations with chemicals to induce stomach cramps, and passing out fiberglass- treated T-shirts to demonstrators that would incapacitate them with itchiness. The Telcom unit, wrote Jeff Stein, also intercepted foreign donations to anti-apartheid groups, then sent back thank-you notes on phony letterheads and put the money into more `psychological warfare operations.' It also appears that further evidence of the CIA's covert links with the anti-ANC Inkatha may be forthcoming.

LES MISERABLES, 1995 Kevin Weber broke into a California restaurant, tripped the burglar alarm, and escaped with the loot, three cookies. Under California's three-strikes law, he was convicted for this third felony and sent to prison for at least 26 years. That's six and a half years per cookie, said his public defender. Weber, 35, said he was drunk at the time and doesn't remember the robbery.

GAG THEM WITH A PRINTING PRESS With all the furor over smut in the media, one obscene act went largely unnoticed. Time editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstein engaged in a nine-day orgy of sucking up to corporate executives. After private briefings by top US officials including CIA Director John Deutch, Time flew 45 CEOs around the world to schmooze with world leaders and the magazine's foreign correspondents. Executives from Lockheed Martin, Rockwell, Polaroid, Philip Morris, Sears Roebuck, J.C. Penney, Spirit, The Gap, Warner-Lambert, Ford, Hyatt Hotels, Equitable Life, Borden, Transamerica, Mitsubishi Electric America, and Generals Mills and Motors were among the guests on Time's jet, refitted with all first-class seats. Pearlstein acted as tour guide, dubbed the CEOs honorary journalists, and picked up the $3 million tab.

The phony press credentials allowed the luminaries of capitalism to evade the embargo on Cuba and snack on oysters and martinis with Fidel Castro. Other stops included Russia (where they chatted up Viktor Chernomyrdin), Vietnam, India, and Hong Kong. A brief story on the tour in the Washington Post Style section by Howard Kurtz cited several outraged journalists and former journalists, none of whom dared to go on record. One Time staffer called it a mortal sin, another said, with perhaps a tinge of admiration that this mother of all boondoggles [would yield] some good advertising juice to impress Fortune 500 types with our access to world leaders. Even a former reporter remained unnamed. It's a massive conflict of interests, he said. They have used their access to lubricate their advertising relationships. Pearlstein admitted that the junket doesn't hurt Time's ad revenues but demurred, That's certainly not the purpose of the trip. Responding to the charge of unseemly coziness, Pearlstein evinced dismay: If it's a problem, I confess I haven't focused on it. It just seems so self-evident that if Time needs to cover these companies, it will. I didn't see that as an issue. Maybe that's a blindness on my part.

FLACKS MEET HACKS ABC's Cokie Roberts pulled out of a speech before the Public Relations Society of America national conference after she was told that her fee, $30,000, would probably become public information. NBC's Andrea Mitchell filled in and told the flacks what they wanted to hear: The news industry is looking to PR people to help media turn out the shorter and punchier stories that the public, with its very limited attention span, wants. Her model for good PR and keeping it simple ? The Reagan White House. It was due to the genius of that White House that none of us really knew what was going on. Way to go!

HEAD OF THE WHAT? It was a hot day in Philadelphia when a white off-duty cop approached a black cop videotaping a demonstration and noted, You're sweating like a nigger. The white cop, Captain Thomas Thompson, was head of the department's racial sensitivity unit. Thompson, who claimed it was all in good fun, later added: I should take you home to my wife and tell her you're my daughter's boyfriend.

RADIOACTIVE HYPOCRISY Yet another outrage by Iraq. According to Reuters, the country worked on radiological weapons which scatter deadly radioactive material without causing an explosion. The US, on the other hand, not only manufactures nuclear bombs and proliferates technology, but actually scatters radioactive material. Extensive use of uranium depleted armor-piercing bullets has been linked to Gulf War Syndrome and to a variety of illnesses in post-Desert Storm Iraq. Nor are US civilians immune. Despite assertions that depleted uranium is safe, the US has been forced to clean up contaminated areas. One case, more than a decade ago, rendered absurd government claims that it was unaware of health risks. After protests over the Ethan Allen Firing Range in Vermont, where Gatling guns were being tested, authorities were forced to cart away four inches of contaminated topsoil for disposal in a South Carolina radioactive dump.

NOBODY LOVES US Nor is the US particularly pleased with Iran. But apparently, one of the biggest impediments it would face if it tried to overthrow the current Iranian regime is that no one can figure out an alternative political force that hates the US less. In a speech to the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed a strategy designed to force the replacement of the current regime in Iran, which is the only long-range solution which makes sense. Although budget slasher Gingrich advocated twice as much for a controversial special fund to finance covert ops in Iran, a compromise $18 million account was proposed as part of the 1996 intelligence bill. The money would be available only when the president determined it was time to act and supposedly, only on finding a more servile successor regime.

FLUSH WITH DEATH Soon after it was rumored that Disney might buy out ABC's Capital Cities, Day One caved in to the threat of lawsuits by the tobacco industry and apologized for its expos on tobacco spiking. The capi tulation came over protests by reporters who refused to sign the apology. In fact, the FDA, has documents that make the ABC report look tame. Currently, cigarettes are not classified as a drug and do not fall under FDA jurisdiction. If, however, the FDA can document that nicotine levels are manipulated, it will support the contention that cigarettes are a nicotine delivery system, a drug, and should be regulated as such. Practices used by some segments of the industry strengthen the FDA's case, according to an excellent article by Benjamin Wittes in Legal Times. Tobacco giant Brown and Williamson, for example, genetically engineered [in Brazil] an ultra-high nicotine tobacco called `Y-1,' which it used in its domestic products. Some companies also treated their cigarettes with chemicals including ammonia compounds to enhance nicotine absorption. An internal B&W handbook labels ammonia an impact booster. After FDA head David Kessler quoted from the handbook, B&W and Philip Morris insisted that ammonia was used to enhance flavor not potency like the carbonation of a soft drink, the `hot' in chili peppers ... So ammonia's the sort of thing you might put in Chinese food, scoffed anti-tobacco consultant Clifford Douglas. It's a toilet bowl cleaner.

PUTTING A POSITIVE SPIN ON MURDER In other PR news, Nigeria paid Washington & Christian $1.5 million for the six months ending July 31. Although the contract had expired in February, said Kevin McCauley of O'Dwyer's Washington Report, W&C's Justice Dept. filing explained that unexpected events require continued representation of the client for an indefinite period of time. Those events no doubt include the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others by the military government. The environmental and human rights activists charged that the $30 billion in oil which Shell Oil pumped out of the ground since 1958 helped finance the military regime but left the Ogoni people with a legacy of poisoned waters and soil; at one point, there were six oil spills a week. Also representing Nigeria is Idaho ex- Sen. Steven Symms. His firm, Symms, Lehn and Associates got a $50,000 signing bonus beyond its $25,000 a month retainer.

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