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George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

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the Special Situation Group (SSG), chaired by the Vice President. <strong>The</strong> SSG is charged ...<br />

with formulating plans in anticipation of crises. '' It is most astonishing that, in all of the<br />

reports, articles and books about the Iran-Contra covert actions, the existence of <strong>Bush</strong>'s<br />

SSG has received no significant attention. Yet its importance in the management of those<br />

covert actions is obvious and unmistakable, as soon as an investigative light is thrown<br />

upon it. <strong>The</strong> memo in question also announced the birth of another organization, the<br />

Standing Crisis Pre-Planning Group (CPPG), which was to work as an intelligencegathering<br />

agency for <strong>Bush</strong> and his SSG. This new subordinate group, consisting of<br />

representatives of Vice President <strong>Bush</strong>, National Security Council (NSC) staff members,<br />

the CIA, the military and the State Department, was to `` meet periodically in the White<br />

House Situation Room.... '' <strong>The</strong>y were to identify areas of potential crisis and `` [p]resent<br />

... plans and policy options to the SSG '' under Chairman <strong>Bush</strong>. And they were to provide<br />

to <strong>Bush</strong> and his assistants, `` as crises develop, alternative plans, '' `` action/options '' and<br />

`` coordinated implementation plans '' to resolve the `` crises. '' Finally, the subordinate<br />

group was to give to Chairman <strong>Bush</strong> and his assistants `` recommended security, cover,<br />

and media plans that will enhance the likelihood of successful execution. '' It was<br />

announced that the CPPG would meet for the first time on May 20, 1982, and that<br />

agencies were to `` provide the name of their CPPG representative to Oliver North, NSC<br />

staff.... '' <strong>The</strong> memo was signed `` for the President '' by Reagan's national security<br />

adviser, William P. Clark. It was declassified during the congressional Iran-Contra<br />

hearings.@s2<br />

Gregg, Rodriguez and North Join the <strong>Bush</strong> Team<br />

August 1982:<br />

Vice President <strong>Bush</strong> hired Donald P. Gregg as his principal adviser on national security<br />

affairs. Gregg now officially retired from the Central Intelligence Agency.<br />

Donald Gregg brought along into the Vice President's office his old relationship with<br />

mid-level CIA assassinations manager Felix I. Rodriguez. Gregg had been Rodriguez's<br />

boss in Vietnam. Donald Gregg worked under <strong>Bush</strong> in Washington from 1976--when<br />

<strong>Bush</strong> was CIA Director--through the later 1970s, when the <strong>Bush</strong> clique was at war with<br />

President Carter and his CIA Director, Stansfield Turner. Gregg was detailed to work at<br />

the National Security Council between 1979 and 1982. From 1976 right up through that<br />

NSC assignment, CIA officer Gregg saw CIA agent Rodriguez regularly. Both men were<br />

intensely loyal to <strong>Bush</strong>.@s3 <strong>The</strong>ir continuing collaboration was crucial to Vice President<br />

<strong>Bush</strong>'s organization of covert action. Rodriguez was now to operate out of the Vice<br />

President's office.<br />

December 21, 1982:<br />

<strong>The</strong> first `` Boland Amendment '' became law: `` None of the funds provided in this Act<br />

[the Defense Appropriations Bill] may be used by the Central Intelligence Agency or the<br />

Department of Defense to furnish military equipment, military training or advice, or other<br />

support for military activities, to any group or individual ... for the purpose of

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