George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

In 1962, the National Strategy Information Center was founded by Prescott Bush and his
son Prescott, Jr., William Casey (the future CIA chief) and Leo Cherne. The center came
to be directed by Frank Barnett, former program officer of the Bush family's H. Smith
Richardson Foundation. The center conduited funds to the London-Based Forum World
Features, for the circulation of CIA-authored `` news stories '' to some 300 newspapers
internationally.@s1@s8
`` Democrat '' Averell Harriman rotated back into official government in the Kennedy
administration. As Assistant Secretary and Undersecretary of State, Harriman helped
push the United States into the Vietnam War. Harriman had no post in the Eisenhower
administration. Yet he was perhaps more than anyone the leader and the glue for the
incredible evil that was hatched by the CIA in the final Eisenhower years: a half-public,
half-private Harrimanite army, never since demobilized, and increasingly associated with
the name of Bush.
Following the rise of Castro, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency contracted with the
organization of Mafia boss Meyer Lansky to organize and train assassination squads for
use against the Cuban government. Among those employed were John Rosselli, Santos
Trafficante and Sam Giancana. Uncontested public documentation of these facts has been
published by congressional bodies and by leading Establishment academics.@s1@s9
But the disturbing implications and later consequences of this engagement are a crucial
matter for further study by the citizens of every nation. This much is established:
On Aug. 18, 1960, President Eisenhower approved a $13 million official budget for a
secret CIA-run guerrilla war against Castro. It is known that Vice President Richard M.
Nixon took a hand in the promotion of this initiative. The U.S. military was kept out of
the covert action plans until very late in the game.
The first of eight admitted assassination attempts against Castro took place in 1960.
The program was, of course, a failure, if not a circus. The invasion of Cuba by the CIA's
anti-Castro exiles was put off until after John Kennedy took over the presidency. The
invasion at the Bay of Pigs was a fiasco, and Castro's forces easily prevailed. But the
program continued.
In 1960, Felix Rodriguez, Luis Posada Carriles, Rafael `` Chi Chi '' Quintero, Frank
Sturgis (or `` Frank Fiorini '') and other Florida-based Cuban exiles were trained as killers
and drug-traffickers in the Cuban initiative; their supervisor was E. Howard Hunt. Their
overall CIA boss was Miami station chief Theodore G. Shackley, seconded by Thomas
Clines. In later chapters we will follow the subsequent careers of these characters-increasingly
identified with George Bush--through the Watergate coup, and the Iran-
Contra scandal.