Ray’s comments:
Aaaargh! I know a lot of these guys. Bobby Gates worked for me in the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch at CIA in the early Seventies. He was second to none in blind ambition and dishonesty, and I wrote it all down in his annual Fitness Report. That he reached new heights of corrupt behavior comes as no surprise.
As for then-Vice President George H. W. Bush and his National Security aide Don Gregg, that is harder for me — still. Same goes for an old friend, Tom Smeeton, smitten, as were so many other former CIA colleagues — by closeness to power.
Gregg, a senior officer of CIA’s operations directorate, was widely seen as one of the most enlightened of CIA operations officers. In the early Eighties, he helped run an off-site multi-day seminar on “Ethics in Intelligence,” which was actually quite helpful. Clearly, though, it can be a long distance between high-minded principle and actual practice.
From Bob Parry’s earlier writings, I had come to terms — sort of — with my reluctance to believe the worst of these former associates — yes, former associates. When you spend a half-hour or so with Bush Sr. and Gregg every other morning for a couple of years, well, you become associates.
George H. W. Bush and I kept up a correspondence until a couple of years ago, when I invited him to a Dallas Peace Council event, to which I had also invited his prodigal son. I was going to talk about torture and other high crimes and misdemeanors, and I invited either or both to come and rebut, the extent they could, my critique of these and other crimes of Bush the son. It was shortly after Junior had left Washington to settle in Dallas.
Suffice it to say that Bob Parry, who was “controversialized” for doggedly pursuing the truth about the “October Surprise” and other crimes, is — thankfully — not the kind to give up…. not the kind to leave history to those who would cover up major crimes. We are, I would suggest, all in his debt.
I am reluctantly grateful to him for destroying any lingering illusions regarding what kind of folks I was dealing with in the early Eighties — however congenial, and even respectful of me that they actually were. They seemed to welcome the independence with which I addressed issues like the Contra War….as a sort of oddity — it now appears in retrosopect.
With Bobby Gates, there was never a comfort level after I called a spade a spade in the early 70s. Bush senior and Gregg, though, enjoyed a bizarre sort of comfort level with me. Bizarre? Yes. They had every reason to believe I was blissfully unaware of their treasonous behavior. And I was blissfully and naively unaware.
And so, again, Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhh.
I actually feel dirty; need to take a long shower. You may too, if you read what Bob Parry has uncovered at the library of Bush senior.