The Osborne Effect
The Osborne Effect
THE OSBORNE EFFECT Turning Society’s Blind Eye Inside Out Iona Miller with Leutrell Osborne, Sr., April 2008 The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. 
“And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies.” (King Lear, Act V, Scene 1)
Think you are tired of still being lied to? Imagine the cognitive dissonance of intelligence insiders following some of the biggest government crime mysteries in US history. Some became “enlightened” sooner than others but all agree we need to stop turning a blind eye to cover ups.
Truth lies somewhere between real liberty and a false sense of security manipulated with deception. Most people don’t want to know the truth because it is too tough to take. But “enlightened self-interest” demands we care deeply even though too much truth is hard to stomach.
Accurate Reflections of History
Both lies of commission and omission block transparency. Those in a highly compartmentalized CIA during its most infamous era were kept as ignorant as the public. In June 2007, CIA released a declassified report on notorious CIA dirty tricks, including Mafia ties, attempted assassinations, mind control, drugs and domestic spying. [1]
As 700 pages of “CIA Family Jewels” came to light, many veteran intelligence officers experienced epiphanies over manipulations of their vows to uphold the Constitution. It is disheartening to see the very same kind of unconstitutional acts virtually institutionalized. Freedom is being sold out, replaced by fearful conformity. The war on our hearts and minds is truly the coldest war of all.
Our civil liberties are further threatened by pending legislation, including the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act,” (SB 1959). [2] The obvious goal is to silence public rhetoric by impeding First Amendment rights. Constitutional rights are voided for accused “homegrown terrorists.” Any deliberately vague dissent in thought or speech is being criminalized, while oversight has eroded.
Espionage Oversight Weakened
In 2004, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created to coordinate all intelligence activities. In a Feb. 29, 2008 executive order, President Bush stripped the independent Intelligence Oversight Board of most of its authority and systematically scaled back Watergate-era intelligence reforms. [3] Mass media remained curiously silent on the matter, while internal oversight and effective external oversight by Congress was neutralized.
The watchdog board, formed in March 1976, probed domestic spying, assassinations and intelligence abuses but can no longer mandate criminal investigations. Oversight now resides solely with the directors of each intelligence agency. Independent inquiries are virtually eliminated while other restrictions on intelligence powers have been removed making illegal intelligence acts more likely. The oversight board is now subordinate to the DNI. [4]
Congressional oversight of intelligence is also hamstrung. The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Virginia), whose family name is synonymous with political manipulation. In 2004, the Committee accepted a demand stripping its oversight of the DNI, despite the fact that the most important recommendation of the 9/11 Commission was to strengthen congressional oversight. [5, 6]
Compromises threaten the independence of the Congress as a coequal branch of government. Rockefeller initially pushed for more oversight but backed down after intensive lobbying and perhaps fear for his own life. [7, 8] In 2007, describing the historical struggle between Congress and the White House, he said,
“Don't you understand the way Intelligence works? Do you think that because I'm Chairman of the Intelligence Committee that I just say I want it, and they give it to me? They control it. All of it. All the time. I only get, and my committee only gets, what they want to give me.” [9]
Patriotic Dissent
Many intelligence veterans now engage in patriotic dissent and public advocacy. On Sept. 23, 2007, seven CIA veterans announced their criticisms of 9/11 accounts, calling for further investigations of cover-ups. [10]
Leutrell Osborne, Sr., one of the first black CIA Case Officers (1957-1984), is a counter intelligence expert with strong objections to Agency Covert Action. His eyes opened studying injustices such as COINTEL PRO surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jr. as recently depicted in the CNN documentary, “Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination.” [11] He has personally seen accurate intelligence distorted or ignored for purely political reasons.
Reckless actions came to light publically in the Bush administration decision to go to war in Iraq, as depicted in the PBS Frontline account, “Bush’s War.” [12] A reluctant former DCI George Tenet was grossly manipulated to serve the neo-con PNAC agenda [13] against Iraq, written before 9/11, before the first term of George W. Bush. That “preemptive war” agenda is still in play in a mad scramble for global military domination.
The emphasis is no longer solely on waging major theater wars as outlined in the PNAC's “Rebuilding America's Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century", the March 2005 military blueprint points to shifts in weapons systems as well as the need for a global deployment of US forces in acts of Worldwide military policing and intervention." [14]
Sworn to protect Constitutional law, Osborne has issues surrounding clandestine history. His interests include more intelligent intelligence (HUMINT), the KKK Assassinations (JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr.), 9/11, COINTELPRO, Covert Action (CA) oversight, and transnational crime including global drug trade.
Osborne appeared on BET the day after 9/11 with Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Anderson Cooper interviewed him on CNN when he assisted lawyer Mark Zaid in the defense of CIA Case Officer, Jeffrey Sterling. Mike Ruppert interviewed Osborne in Crossing the Rubicon. Osbborne’s personal story was featured on CNN in February 2007. [15] Attending the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize for Martin Luther King, Jr. and a long conversation with him at the following reception was a peak experience.
Osborne independently questions 9/11 foreknowledge events with activist Mike Ruppert, pursues the truth about MLK’s death with official investigator Gary Revel, and counters apparent continuance of COINTEL PRO type activities. Understanding many of the propaganda and mind control issues involved, he characterizes the whole mess as a “cultural illusion,” or collective delusion.
Intelligence insiders draw conclusions from their experience of the “enterprise.” Osborne sees his disclosure mission as a spiritual one, dedicated to justice, freedom and peace. Unfortunately, the public often apathetically “turns a blind eye” to cover-ups and disinformation. “Conspiracy theory” is now blasé common knowledge but solutions remain elusive. Osborne’s “ultimatum” insists that when it comes to national and transnational crimes, “the U.S. government has to change, period.”
THE OSBORNE ULTIMATUM [16]
1. US intelligence needs to be reinvented and transformed with oversight and accountability, especially for Covert Action intelligence operations. Failed Covert Action intelligence has “blowback” consequences.
2. No nation-state currently polices the growing threat of transnational crime. Failure to provide adequate Human Intelligence (HUMINT) is a true weakness in the USA system. Since 2000, no spies have been paid for espionage.
3. The shadow of the Shadow Government, including domestic spying and assassinations, needs to be truthfully revealed so we can finally heal. We must take responsibility for that shadow, nationally and globally.
4. Our Constitution is under attack. Bills like SB 1959 (HB 1950) threaten to annihilate First Amendment. Free speech, the right to assembly, freedom of the press, and even patriotic dissent would become illegal.
5. There is serious breakdown in credibility between the U.S. government and its citizenry, as well as increasing militarization of police and unwarranted surveillance of US citizens. The breakdown of domestic relations conceals current manipulations and Constitutional irregularities.
Have we found the enemy, ourselves in our complacency? Have we inadvertently relinquished our passion for freedom and justice, much less peace? We must reject manipulation by fear and greed, trading rights for so-called safety. Fear is being used against us to promote otherwise unacceptable domestic and global policies.
Operation “Kill Bill”
Osborne reviewed the Homegrown Terrorist bills and has “serious concerns about the core competencies of the persons who constructed the document. They don't know counter intelligence and more importantly, they don't understand covert action intelligence operations, especially secret para-military operations.
Anyone can call someone a "terrorist" but the term has specific meaning in intelligence/espionage. Adversarial labeling is one of the "dirty tricks,” like labeling people "communists" and "racists."
In the world of espionage, the word 'terrorists' has evolved into an emotional buzzword. The real issue is domestic covert action intelligence, which includes assassinations, and secret non-military operations that are truly terrorism. Got it?”
9/11 Foreknowledge
Osborne reported his findings on 9/11 coverage to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mike Ruppert’s From the Wilderness (FTW) website confirms that the complete version of Izvestia coverage came into its possession "thanks to former CIA counter-terror case officer, Leutrell Osborne. . . .The story had been brought to his attention by his son and had fortunately been saved in its original form before it was sanitized of several key sentences."
"Yesterday at the headquarters of Central Intelligence Service in Langley a confidential meeting between one of the Deputy Directors of CIA and a special messenger of Russian Intelligence Service took place. According to NewsRu sources he delivered to his American colleagues some documents including audio tapes with telephone conversations directly relating to terrorist attacks on Washington and New York last Tuesday. According to these sources, Russian Intelligence agents know the organizers and executors of these terrorist attacks. More than that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation to these actions a couple of weeks before they happened."
Osborne adds, “When I left the CIA in 1984, I thought the Afghan War was one of the few successful CIA Covert Action intelligence operations. I thought the US had given the Soviet Union its Vietnam. When I began my research after 9/11, I realized the blowback began in 1993 with characters such as Ramzi Yousef, Amil Kanzi and the 19 Arabs in 9/11. They fit the mold of characters getting back at the hands that feed them, meaning acts against the USA. Russian foreknowledge demonstrated Russian intelligence operations were still collecting and reporting on Arabs from the Afghan War.”
“The false flag Mossad led operation and US supported 9/11 model has greater probability than some Arab grown non nation state theme that the public has been spoon fed by the Overt Action operating elements of the US government. Before blindly accepting the alleged smoking gun let's monitor events closely to follow the trends. We should continue to press sources for truth, motive and due diligence.” The least that can be said is they let it happen.
COINTEL PRO: Big Brother Spy Program
It is important to understand some concepts about past Government led dirty tricks and illegal activities.
1. From 1956 to the early 1970s, secret domestic intelligence operations of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) were mostly performed without political leaders of the US Government knowing details. Most of the campaign was unknown to upper echelons like the Presidents and Attorney Generals. Key elements of the IC deployed dirty trick specialists from the FBI, CIA, and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) against so-called enemies of the state such as dissidents. They made secret war on “agitators,” select individuals and groups.
2. The FBI collaborated with members of the Intelligence Community (IC) conducting dirty tricks along side the FBI’s COINTEL PRO, which was actually a Covert Action Intelligence operation equal to if not better than what CIA could perform.
3. The nature of dirty trick operations by the US Government on labeled “adversaries” made these persons appear “dirtier” than they were with propaganda, and smear tactics.
4. Several CIA components performed illegal domestic intelligence activities in concert with the FBI. As an IC activity, COINTEL PRO “neutralized” and fabricated threats against individuals and organizations. IC activities sowed distrust and disinformation with a controlled system of informants and provocateurs.
COINTEL PRO was unconstitutional clandestine activity, manipulating the sociopolitical landscape by disrupting the exercise of First Amendment rights. They suppressed speaking, teaching, meeting, advocacy, writing and publishing with vigilante-style domestic covert action and propaganda used against American citizens.
Agents infiltrated organizations, conducted “dirty tricks” psychological warfare, and used the legal system, break-ins, stalking, assaults and beatings for harassment. They inflicted physical, emotional and economic damage, and did not stop short of using assassinations to “neutralize” their adversaries. [17]
Murdering a King Among Men
One COINTEL PRO objective was to prevent the rise of a “Black messiah.” The Black Panthers, NAACP, Malcolm X, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other Black nationalists were heavily surveilled. Andrew Young says he and Dr. King, Jr. knew that the government surveilled them, because they even discovered microphones.
In Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King, Jr. personally told Leutrell Osborne, Sr. at the U.S. Ambassador’s reception that he knew the Government was watching him and his people. The legacy of this domestic spying continues today in persecution of political targets.
Osborne wonders why forty years after the fact, CNN (April, 2008), validates disinformation by pointing the finger at James Earl Ray and restating the lies about the MLK assassination. Neither Ray nor Lloyd Jowers did the killing but both “have dirty hands.” Osborne works directly with some of the principle investigators of the King murder. He knows how clandestine operations are executed with “plausible deniability.”
Osborne wants to know “Why doesn’t media get the truth and point the fingers in the correct directions at COINTEL PRO and organized crime?” The latest CNN documentary continues pointing at Ray and Jowers. But the bullet has never been linked to Ray’s rifle. [18]. Let's focus on telling the truth at the 40th anniversary of King’s untimely death. The full story still hasn’t been told.
William Pepper, Attorney
The King family brought a civil suit against Jowers because they refused to believe Ray was the killer. The jury blamed Jowers for 30% of the liability and 70% on others, including “governmental agencies.” Pepper argued in Orders to Kill (1995) that King was the victim of an elaborate plot involving the Mafia, the FBI, the CIA, military intelligence - and the highest levels of U.S. government. [19]
“In an unlikely alliance, the King family was represented in the [Memphis wrongful death] case by William Pepper, who had been Mr. Ray's lawyer. The King family maintains that Mr. Pepper's version of the assassination is the one that gets at the real truth behind Dr. King's death, not the official version with Mr. Ray as the gunman. Mr. Pepper said federal, state and Memphis governmental agencies, as well as the news media conspired in the assassination.” [20]
John Larry Ray
Truth At Last (2008) is a new book by James Earl Ray’s older brother John Larry Ray [21] claiming there is forensic evidence that exonerates his brother. He says Ray was inducted into the CIA, then used as a patsy. He blames “white America,” but the government is not the whole country.
"Martin Luther King Jr. was a man admired by millions, but my brother didn't kill him," John told the New York Daily News. "I believe my brother was not only misused by conspirators within our government but also greatly misconstrued as a 'racist' and a 'murderer' by the media." [22]
Attorney Ray Kohlman
Ray Kohlman conducted investigations for the King family and James Ray. He still believes a massive government conspiracy conceals the identity of King’s true assassins. Many believe the mystery man in James Earl Ray’s narrative, Raoul or Raul, was his intelligence handler and a weapons smuggler.
Raoul/Raul is a fictious name used by the person who was controlling Ray's activities. By eyewitness accounts, the shot came from across the street above the retaining wall, not the bathroom. The participants knew this as they ordered the COMPLETE CLEANING of the bushes. An eyewitness also saw a puff of smoke (probably. . . muzzle blast) from the bushes. (Kohlman, 2008; correspondence).
According to Kohlman, a Memphis police officer named Earl Clark actually committed the crime and Ray was framed by the federal government. Kohlman said he has evidence that Clark was hired by a friend named Loyd Jowers to kill King. Jowers, in turn, Kohlman said, was paid $100,000 by "Fat Frank" Liberto, a Mafia boss who may have been in league with the FBI and U.S. army.
Kohlman said King's April 1967 anti war speech led the government to worry that his words would lead to an uprising in the already volatile South. "The FBI did not pull the trigger," Kohlman said. "But they were definitely implicated in his death." Kohlman [believes] that the military or the CIA probably hired a Portuguese immigrant named Raul to provide them with a perpetrator - Ray - whom they could blame for King's murder. Raul was never questioned by the government and recently retired from his work in the import-export business.” [23]
Investigator Gary Revel
Gary Revel [24] was officially commissioned by the US government in 1977 to find the King killers. Since then, he has not been fired, decommissioned, told the job was done, nor been paid. The stark reality remains King’s killers have not yet been identified.
This only officially appointed investigator of the MLK assassination doesn’t mince words – he names names: Lyndon Baines Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Vito Genovese, Santo Trafficante Jr., Sam Giancana, Meyer Lansky, Joseph Colombo, Frank Costello, Don Carlo Gambino, Joseph Bonnano, Paul Castellano, Carlos Marcello, and the CIA's E. Howard Hunt. [25]
Revel speaks of Raoul, described by witness Grace Walden as the man who left the bathroom where the kill shot allegedly originated. A sketch artist produced a face Revel is convinced implicates E. Howard Hunt.
There was more than one 'Raoul'. In conversations I have had with JR, some of which are recorded and held by the US Government, JR states that there were several 'Raouls' that he met with on different occasions. He identified one of them in 1977 for the HSCA's attorneys in Brushy Mountain Prison as one of the 3 tramps in the November 22nd, 1963 Dealy Plaza photograph. (Revel, 2008, correspondence).
Revel previously advised Osborne about information that might lead to solving related deaths. Osborne learned about the deaths of people associated with the investigation of King such as the two judges and six FBI Special Agents (SAs).
Osborne now knows of eight people who died or were killed within a six-month period, directly related to Revel’s investigation of the King assassination. Some were official suicides, accidents or deaths under unusual circumstances related to the work of the HSCA. Unknowns were directly involved in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X.
[26]
Osborne’s Take
Let me frame the most important insights into the events surrounding the assassination of Dr. King, Jr. that I, Leutrell "Mike" Osborne, Sr., currently hold. First ignore every mention of COINTELPRO as a counter intelligence operation.
"The FBI dirty tricks intelligence operation COINTEL PRO was a Covert Action intelligence operation equal to if not better than one led and directed by the CIA Clandestine Service Spy Masters." CA includes both assassinations and collaboration with intelligence operation resources such as organized crime and international hit persons. That is the way CA used to be though rules of the game now state that the US Government doesn't participate in such activities today.
Based on my reading of “official documents,” much of the COINTELPRO was performed to shield the White House. Further many of the DOJ and FBI post investigations confused matters further. My paradigm is that of a CIA Spy Master who understands CA intelligence operations. Many departments and agencies in the Intelligence Community collaborated both wittingly and unwittingly during COINTEL PRO.
You can discount misinformation about Ray and the true COINTEL FACTOR professionals mostly out of the FBI and US Army intelligence. Perhaps the only true link is the coordinator and agent handler known as Raul.
In my opinion Raul had the attributes of a person trained by Spy Masters but was not a Case Officer. His attributes resemble a "trained agent or asset who knows how to handle agents" or people like Ray and Jowers in this case. I know many people who have first hand knowledge of COINTEL PRO and the related events concerning the assassination of Dr. King, Jr. (Osborne, 2008)
Gary Revel suggests Ray implied there were several “Raouls” and all were covers for handlers. Revel’s investigation supports Pepper’s general theory but implicates former CIA officer and Watergate secret agent E. Howard Hunt. Revel summarized his findings in correspondence, April 4, 2008. It connects the players and their respective motives.
E. Howard Hunt was the Team Leader of a group of assassins that included former CIA operatives (Employed or Contracted) and Mafia Assets. James Earl Ray was a patsy (i.e., Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan) in that he was set up to take the fall for the killing. Oversight of the crime scene and homicide investigation was supervised and directed by Frank Holloman - the appointed Director of the Memphis Police and Fire Department.
The orders to terminate MLK were made by President Lyndon B. Johnson in association with J. Edgar Hoover and the Italian Organized Crime group, aka Mafia. The motive for the killing was MLK's public stand against the Vietnam Wa, considered by US National Security Officials as a threat to them and their policies.
[It also threatened] the economic fortunes of the Mafia (billions of dollars made by the Mafia via the Heroin Pipeline.) The presence of US Military in Southeast Asia served to protect that pipeline for the Mafia. If the Vietnam War had ended earlier the Mafia would have lost billions of dollars in illegal drug and black market weapons sales. When the Vietnam War finally ended in 1975 the Mafia's cash cow from illegal drug sales changed to the Cocaine trade from Colombia. (Revel, 2008)
Osborne disagrees about Hunt but believes an intelligence handler was involved. All agree there was a dark marriage of organized crime with clandestine government and military behind the trigger with media manipulation after the fact, including current depictions. Osborne even wonders if CNN isn’t under “adversary control.” But then what 3-lettered acronym organizations aren’t? Perpetual suspicion goes with the territory.
As with many obfuscated mysteries of history, the “truth” is a relative value, which lies in the “Eye of the Beholder.” But for those who at least bother to dig, to inform themselves, it is no longer a “blind eye.”
REFERENCES
[1] Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fami...ce_Agency)
[2] “Where are clinton and obama on the homegrown terrorism act?” www.huffingtonpost.com/jeanin...65.html
[3] “President weakens espionage oversight: Board created by Ford loses most of its power” Charlie Savage Globe Staff / March 14, 2008
www.boston.com/news/natio..._oversight/
[4] New White House Order Bolsters Intelligence Chief’s Power, March 1, 2008 www.iht.com/articles/ap/...nce-Board.php
[5] www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2...igence_ove.html
[6] www.e-thepeople.org/article/36885/view
[7] The New Media Journal | Sen. Rockefeller’s Senate Intelligence www.therant.us/staff/malensek/04182007.htm
[8] DownWithTyranny!: HOW DID THEY GET TO JAY ROCKEFELLER?, March 22, 2008. downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/200...html
[9] April 24, 2007, Charles Davis, Amazing Statement Of Congressional Impotence By Senate Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller, www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/arc...36.html
[10] www.opednews.com and leutrellosborne.50megs.com/what....html
[11] CNN, “Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination.”
[12]Bush’s War, Frontline, On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, this definitive two-part series draws on FRONTLINE's more than 40 reports on Iraq and the war on terror, ...www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/
[13] Project for the New American Century, www.newamericancentury.org/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proj...an_Century
[14] www.informationclearinghouse.info/a...tm
[15] www.youtube.com/watch
[16] “The Osborne Ultimatum,” Iona Miller, leutrellosborne.50megs.com/what....html
[17] www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/c...portIIIa.htm
[18] www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/200...k.in.america/
[19] Pepper, William (1995) Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King.
[20] query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html
[21] John Larry Ray and Lyndon Barsten (2008) “TRUTH AT LAST: The Untold Story Behind James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.” www.globepequot.com/special/...illedmlk/
[22] www.globepequot.com/special/...illedmlk/
[23] www.stanforddaily.com/article...nspiracy “Attorney Claims MLK Murder Conspiracy,” Melissa Lambert, Feb. 7, 2000.
[24] www.garyrevel.com/
[25] leutrellosborne.50megs.com/what....html
[26] leutrellosborne.50megs.com/what....html
Iona Miller, consultant, has written for Nexus Magazine and Paranoia. She is interested in the effects of cultural doctrines from global politics, religion, science, psychology, and the arts. Our beliefs determine our future, manipulated by governments and media. ionatopia.50megs.com ionamiller.org, ionamillermenu.iwarp.com
iona_m@yahoo.com
Leutrell Osborn, Sr. is a former CIA Case Officer (1957-1984). He supervised CIA agents, spies and assets on 3 continents in the Cold War era. He has appeared on CNN, BET, numerous radio programs and worked with many influential people. Today, he is President of Leutrell Osborne & Associates (LOA), an author, commentator and public advocate. leutrellosborne.50megs.com/
iiculture@mac.com
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