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Spying on Cuba and Venezuela: a relic from the
Reagan era
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD —Special for
Granma International—
HE
infiltrated the Noriega government in Panama whilst
the U.S. invasion was being prepared; he advised
Duhalde in Argentina when the country was heading
towards economic disaster; he confesses to being a
buddy of Lyndon LaRouche, the controversial ultra
right-wing U.S. politician: the new “chief spy” whom
Bush has appointed against Cuba and Venezuela is a
genuine relic from the Reagan regime, in which he
was a privileged advisor.
Everything
would indicate there was no other recourse left
available to Bush than rummaging round in his
father’s closet when the time came to recruit
high-ranking officials for his declining government.
Norman Bailey, whom John Negroponte – another
leftover from the Reagan connection and currently
national director of U.S. intelligence – has
recently named as head of the U.S. intelligence
mission for the two sister nations, has a
longstanding curriculum with the CIA, that is
certainly not lacking in inconsistencies and foolish
mistakes.
His official
biography indicates that Bailey is a “economic
consultant” and “professor” of Washington’s Potomac
Foundation, a conservative think-tank embedded
within the network of low-ranking Republican
officials. Former special assistant to President
Ronald Reagan for international economic affairs and
a member of the National Security Council (NSC), he
urged the NSA – the electronic espionage agency that
monitors the post – to spy on the movement of money
on a worldwide scale. He has his own lobbying office
- Norman A. Bailey Incorporated - that has even
advised the Mobil Oil firm.
But aside
from all his titles and covers, this rotund
sexagenarian, who was trained in military
intelligence and graduated from Colombia University,
has acted for many decades as a beachhead for the
CIA, most notably with respect to Latin American
governments which, after having placed their trust
in him, have seen their own downfall.
In 1989,
when the US. invasion of Panama was being prepared,
it was he who handled the plans of George Bush Sr.
in the State Department and the CIA.
It is said
that it was thanks to his indiscretions, perhaps
inspired by Otto Reich, that journalist Seymour
Hersch published a veritable flurry of alleged
crimes committed by Manuel Noriega in The New
York Times, which gave rise to a widespread
international campaign of discredit and a series of
undercover operations.
He then
advised Noriega and “accompanied” him to the
disastrous denouement of the crisis that took the
Panamanian president straight to a U.S. jail cell,
in the midst of a veritable massacre of poor
Panamanians from the most marginal neighborhoods in
the capital.
With the
same shamelessness, he developed a close
relationship with Argentine president Eduardo
Duhalde, in the guise of a great U.S. financial
expert – his favorite role – following the abrupt
end of the De la Rúa government in December 2001,
when the Argentine economy was in tatters.
On March 8,
2002, the Clarín daily, with admirable
innocence, announced that “the president is now
receiving advice from his American consultants” and
that the previous day at the presidential palace he
had met with Norman Bailey, “a specialist who
advised (George W. Bush) in his campaign” with the
aim of “improving his contacts in the USA.”
He
recommended that the vulnerable president fiercely
repress social unrest or, if a strong hand did not
work in the short term, to call elections as a means
of diversion. He also recommended that Duhalde issue
trusteeship bonds for state land. Shortly after
receiving such great advice from an “independent”
advisor who belonged to both the CIA and the most
intimate circles of the current occupant of the
White House, Duhalde ended up in the inexorable
archives of history.
A BUDDY
OF LYNDON L. LAROUCHE
Throughout
those decades, during which Reaganism prevailed, in
one way or another in Washington, Bailey continued
to show his links with Latin America. It is said
that he made an appearance during the dollarization
process in Ecuador and also participated in the
conception of Plan Colombia.
But the
thing that stands out most on his résumé is his
confessed friendship with Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.,
former presidential candidate and prominent member
of the far right in the U.S., who runs an
intelligence network, the breadth and efficiency of
which he has publicly praised.
Further
still, Bailey is the man LaRouche used to get inside
the White House, shortly after which the
spy-official was appointed to the National Security
Council (NSC).
Bailey
himself has said that at some point he was then
directed by NSC officials to talk to a group of
LaRouche’s supporters, who offered to provide
intelligence information.
Since then,
he has maintained wide-ranging and regular relations
with the group and its boss who even visited his
exclusive ranch in Loudoun County.
LaRouche’s
enemies describe him as “anti-Semitic” with
Hitler-like tendencies, at the head of an occult
sect.
In his
apology for that controversial organization, Bailey
stated that it was one of the best intelligence
services in the world which operates more freely and
openly than the official agencies, which allows them
to communicate with “prime ministers and
presidents.”
In December
1999, in a cable from Washington which condemned the
appearance of “new threats to the security of the
United States in Latin America”, the U.S. AP agency
quoted Bailey rudely attacking Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez, who had been democratically elected the
previous year.
In his
lecture, Bailey declared that the government of
Ecuador was “totally bankrupt”, suggesting that
“military intervention” should not be ruled out.
Speaking of Panama, he said then that it was a
country that was vulnerable to guerilla incursions
and that possibilities for sabotaging the Canal are
“enormous” allowing him, of course, to dream of
another adventure in that nation.
In March
2001, in The Washington Times, the current
Chief Spy against Cuba and Venezuela openly
expressed his desire for a drop in oil prices which,
he commented, would have “disastrous consequences”
for Venezuela.
Later, he
rudely mocked Chavez’ transcontinental gas pipeline
project. “If they want to build the gas pipeline,
let them do it but it makes no economic sense. It is
totally stupid.”
Bailey then blurted out an example of his unsubtle
vision of Latin America: “Thinking that Bush needs
Kirchner to contain Chávez is idiotic.” |
