[Firestarter]

October surprise and PROMIS

The following is a collection of articles from 1991 of which the most interesting information is on the 1980 meetings between the Reagan-Bush team with representatives of Ayatollah Khomeini to NOT release the American hostages.
According to Israeli testimony, the Iranians were willing to release the hostages in September 1980, but the Republican bribed them to NOT release them until after the November 1980 elections.

Officials in the Reagan-Bush campaign, including John McFarland and William Casey, held meetings with representatives of the Iranian government in Washington DC and in Madrid, Spain.
In March 1980, a first meeting took place at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, attended by William Casey and the brothers Cyrus and Jamshid Hashemi. The Hashemis were willing to cooperate with the Carter administration, but Casey told them he didn’t want the release of 52 American hostages before the November 1980 elections.
In July 1980, the second meeting in Madrid took place, between Casey and Mehdi Karrubi (later speaker of the Iranian parliament).
On 2 October 1980, the third meeting took place at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington. This meeting involved Richard Allen (later President Reagan's National Security Advisor), Marine Lt. Col. Robert McFarlane (then aide to Texas Senator John Tower and later a national security advisor to Reagan), Lawrence Silberman (an aide to Allen and later a Federal Court of Appeals judge), and Iranian Jewish arms dealer Hushang Lavie.

Former Reagan White House aide, Barbara Honegger, published the book "October Surprise" in which she details the 3 meetings in Washington and Madrid.
Aboihassan Bani-Sadr (1980 president of Iran) published his own book "My Turn to Speak" in which he also accuses the Reagan-Bush team to pay to block the release of the 52 American hostages.

Intelligence reports indicate that the rescue mission, in which 8 US servicemen died, was sabotaged.
The Iranians were informed of the rescue attempt through moles in the White House. Richard Allen was circulating the memos of President Carter. The CIA had successfully pushed Carter to appoint Stansfield Turner as CIA chief, who played a key role in the October Surprise.
The Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Stephen Halper, also had "far reaching access to the most sensitive materials".

At the fourth meeting (or meetings) in Paris France on 19 and 20 October 18, the Iranian government was paid $40 million through a Luxembourg bank and arms were promised. Two pilots have testified on the flights to and from Paris, Navy Captain Gunther Russbacher and international arms dealer and former CIA operative Richard Brenneke.

In the late afternoon of 19 October 1980, a BAC 111 plane left Andrews Air Force Base for Paris, France.
Its passengers included: command pilot Gunther Russbacher and Richard Brenneke; and in the cabin William Casey (later CIA Director); Donald Greggs (soon the US ambassador to South Korea); and George H.W. Bush. Also in the cabin were 2 security people, and a woman, who Russbacher believes to be Jennifer Fitzgerald (Bush's Chief of Protocol for the White House).

Bush reportedly met Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (second in command to the Ayatollah and later president of Iran), representatives of Ayatollah Behisti, Javad Bahonar and Saudi arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi in Paris.
The Bush-Reagan team also met Manucher Ghorbanifar (an Iranian born Mossad agent and arms dealer) and Mohammad Ali Rajai (future president of Iran).

Heinrich Rupp was not on the BAC-111, but did fly a Gulfstream to Paris where he met Brenneke and Russbacher.
Russbacher has stated that Bush stayed at the Hotel Crillion in Paris. Bush didn’t return on the same BAC 111 but instead Russbacher flew him back in the SR71.

Richard Brenneke, who testified before a Federal Court that he flew to Paris in October 1980, has been tried for perjury. A jury acquitted Brenneke of the charges.
US Senator John Tower, who was deeply involved through his aide Robert McFarlane, was chosen as chief investigator in the Iran-Contra scandal. He won’t tell what happened as he died in a plane crash.

French intelligence service (SDECE) was asked to ensure that Bush’s visit was kept secret. SDECE did make a routine memo on the incident, dated 18 November 1980. An anonymous agent has testified that in December 1980 he saw the French memo in the CIA archives.
This agent testifies that Bush met with 3 different factions of the Iranian revolution at the Rafael Hotel. Bush didn’t attend the first meeting but only the second. After 20 November 1980, Col. Alexandre de Marenches (head of the SDECE) met President-elect Ronald Reagan in California and presented the report to him.
Robert Benes (son of Czech President Edward Benes who died in 1948) was also at the meetings for the French SDECE.

CIA operatives who have exposed the October 1980 Paris meetings have been silenced through our wonderful legal system.
Richard Brenneke was tried on 5 counts of false statements to a federal judge.
Heinrick Rupp was tried on fraud counts involving the Savings and Loan scandal.
Gunther Russbacher was arrested for kidnapping, investment fraud, desertion, impersonating a US Attorney and US Marshal (he was locked up at Terminal Island with the court records sealed).
Michael Riconosciuto was tried for manufacturing methamphetamines and held without bail.

I have reasons to doubt the reliability of (former) Mossad agent Ari Ben Menashe…
Ben Menashe claims that Earl Brian, a close friend of Ronald Reagan and Edward Meese, illegally sold Inslaw’s PROMIS software to Iraq.
Ben Menashe states that Earl Brian and Robert McFarlane went to Iran to set up meetings with the Iranians on the hostage issue. Ben Menashe has also claimed that George Bush went to Paris in October 1980 to make a deal to not release the American hostages until after the election.
According to Ben Menashe, 3 meetings were held in Madrid and a fourth in Barcelona, Spain between the Reagan-Bush campaign and Iranian officials.

Former CIA operative Michael Riconoscuito, told Congressional investigators that he transferred the $40 million to a Luxembourg Bank: http://dmc.members.sonic.net/sentinel/usa3.html
(http://archive.is/9A9sC)


I’ve regularly seen “conspiracy stories” on PROMIS that has reportedly been used by the CIA (and Mossad) to gain backdoor access to computer systems all over the world. PROMIS regularly pops up in stories on 9/11 and Robert Maxwell.
The best information I found on PROMIS comes from Rodney Stich and while maybe it isn’t very relevant in this context, it DOES involve the same group of criminals.

Michael Riconosciuto has testified that the US Justice Department reconfigured Inslaw’s PROMIS software with a trap door to be used by the CIA and Dr. Earl Brian (a close associate of former Attorney General Edwin Meese and also a former member of Ronald Reagan's California cabinet).
Within a week of his affidavit, which was published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch and The Napa Sentinel, Riconosciuto was arrested by the DEA in the state of Washington and held without bail. According to Riconoscuito, the PROMIS software was stolen to obtain funds to reward Dr. Brian for his work in arranging the hostage agreement, including paying the $40 million to Khomeini. Brian made millions of dollars from the scheme.

Ben Menashe said that Brian told him he was trying to sell PROMIS to Israel and that Robert McFarlane was also involved. Ben Menashe also stated that Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen told him that PROMIS was sold for use by Iraqi military intelligence. Iranian arms dealer Richard Babayan stated that a member of Iraqi intelligence told him Iraq had acquired PROMIS.
Senator John Tower in 1984, for the CIA and Mossad, approached Robert Maxwell to sell PROMIS software to East Bloc countries, including Russia.
PROMIS was also sold to Canada, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil.

Inslaw was a small computer programming company owned by William and Nancy Hamilton that was forced into bankruptcy by high Justice Department officials, so that PROMIS could be “bought” pennies for dollars.
Earlier, Dominic Laiti (chairman of Hadron) tried to purchase the PROMIS software from Inslaw, but Inslaw refused. Laiti warned William Hamilton that Hadron was connected to Attorney General Meese, and "We have ways of making you sell”.

While in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Inslaw filed a civil suit against the US Department of Justice for stealing the PROMIS software.
Judge George Bason awarded Inslaw $6.8 million. On 7 February 1985, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC reversed the decision, because the lower court judges had no “jurisdiction”.

Ari Ben Menashe claims to have seen a cable from Israel's Joint Committee requesting to transfer $600,000 from the CIA-Israeli slush fund to Hadron to pay off the law firm of Dickstein and Shapiro, as compensation for removing Inslaw's attorney, Leigh Ratiner, from the case.

In 1994, President Clinton's Justice Department conducted an "investigation" into the Inslaw affair that was led by Webster Hubbell, who cleared the Justice Department of any wrongdoing.

Lester Coleman posed a danger of exposing CIA and DEA drug trafficking connected to Pan Am Flight 103 and the stolen PROMIS software. Coleman fled the United States after the FBI arrested him on trumped up charges of passport irregularities.
Coleman’s statements show that Libya was not responsible for the bomb on Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
Coleman discovered that the PROMIS software was sold by the DEA's Nicosia office, which involved the Eurame company, which also dealt in the sale of drugs and arms. The software was installed by the CIA front-company Link Systems, Ltd.
Michael Hurley, who was also drug trafficking, also sold the PROMIS stolen software.

Many witnesses were silenced through suspicious deaths (including suicides).
Free-lance reporter Danny Casolaro was writing a book on the stealing of PROMIS by the DoJ. Casolaro spoke almost daily with CIA contract agent Michael Riconosciuto.
On 10 August 1991, Casolaro was killed at the Sheraton Inn in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Rodney Stich – Defrauding America; Encyclopedia of secret operations by the CIA, DEA, and other covert agencies (1993) – 98.5 MB!!!: https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/Rod...20-%20.pdf