Carter destroys WH Communication Security

             

Mr Jimmy's Cabal

             This post is an excerpt from the chapter "Presidents Whom I've Known" of my forthcoming book.

Perhaps the most secure communications system in the US was the White House Communications, designed by the best scientists available in the Army Signal Corps in WW2, and enhanced repeatedly by our top corporate and Military engineers since then, to prevent hostile foreign Intelligence agencies   [e.g., Soviet KGB] from intercepting our most sensitive communications, particularly those from and to the White House.  

Such was the highest priority of our Adversaries who had been unsuccessful for decades of anything more fruitful than recruiting spies [e.g., Jonathon Pollard (dual spy for both KGB and Israel), Alger Hiss, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Aldrich Ames, etc.]; 

The Soviets were quite successful, along with our most trusted Allies [the British and Israelis], of successfully penetrating all levels of our government to access our most Secret information, but they had never been successful at capturing the Crown Jewels - the encryption system for the White House communications system.

Well, that was true until Jimmy Carter came into office.

Hamilton Jordan

Mr Jimmy struggled with the myriad challenges he found in the Oval Office, and, of course, his greatest challenge was in making a decision.  It seemed the fates were against him, perhaps because he surrounded himself with idiots, like Hamilton Jordan, who mocked the established, professional bureaucracy of that era in the Pentagon and at the State Department.  

[Interestingly, that federal bureaucracy back then was less than 10% the size of today's bureaucracy - currently titled the DEEP STATE!]

Back then [1950 - 1970] government leadership positions had been filled with educated and experienced professionals whose personal goals were to improve the country, and then return to senior positions in Corporate America or in Academia.  But, that process began to erode under Lyndon Johnson [referred to by JFK's staff as Colonel Cornpone due to his crude lack of finesse]; however, LBJ was a highly skilled and totally corrupt democrat politician and thus eagerly participated in the assassination of JFK to achieve his ultimate goal of the Presidency.

[But, that's a tale to be told in another chapter].

In this episode, we'll discuss the stupidity and incompetence of the Carter Cabal, which almost succeeded in destroying America [emulated by successive occupants [Bush/Clinton/W/0bama] of the White House, but was eventually countered by Donald Trump.  Carter's regime coincided with two of my Military assignments; one while I was commanding a mobile training unit at Fort Bragg, NC, in which I had around 100 Intelligence specialists and officers skilled in Counter-Intelligence (Special Agents), Interrogators, Analysts, Imagery Interpreters, and "All-Source" managers (I had worked in each one of these specialties in previous assignments).  Our mission was to train the National Guard and Reserve units around the country - focusing on the USSR Military and Espionage threat, but also on insurgencies and "Potential Adversaries" (e.g, Iraq), so we spent a good deal of time traveling.  

[On one occasion, I was seated next to Carter's mother on a plane headed for Atlanta - she was far more entertaining than was Jimmy.  [But, that event is part of another Carter episode in my book.]  

Later, following my own training program at the JFK Special Warfare Center, I was assigned as an Analyst at the Pentagon Current Intelligence office; each day we reviewed reports from around the world, from every Intelligence production source [e.g., NSA, NRO, FBI, CIA, MI units, US embassies, and other sources]; we created the [All-Source] Black Book [TS/C content] and conducted desk-side briefs for a select few senior staff officers and the Pentagon Secretariat each morning.  

I began as a Soviet analyst reviewing issues and events in the USSR; I excelled at analyzing potential and actual coups and political upheavals (e.g., the (Lech Walesa's Polish Solidarity revolution and the Indicators of the disintegration of the USSR). I then covered the MENA desk [Middle East and North Africa], and finally ended up on the Latin America desk [eventually serving as the Editor of the Black Book].  All in all, I became quite well versed and conversant on world events.

It was during this period that trouble was brewing in Iran.  However, our reporting from there was not substantive since the CIA and NSA had been gutted following the Church Commission's discovery that the CIA [and MI] had been not only spying on US citizens, but worse, they spied on Congress - which then ordered the Clandestine/Covert Action force reductions by about 90%.  [That decision also derived from assessments that the CIA had been responsible for the assassination of JFK].  Thus, the Intelligence product reaching the Pentagon was not robust.

As it happened, at that time, my Latin America desk was adjacent to the analyst covering the MENA desk, who was intently focused on the Iranian Revolution which ousted the Shah.  

[Further, Kissinger had managed President Nixon's foreign policy, and after the Vietnam War (in concert with the Church Commission) had canceled all Intelligence operations, world-wide, leaving the US ignorant of world intrigues; thus the US was the only country unaware of the threat the Ayatollah Khomeini posed to Iranian stability.  President Ford did not reinstate the Intelligence agencies, and President Carter decided he had no need for Intelligence operations, and that he could rely solely on the analyst community.] 

The Shah

Once the Khomeini revolution began, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi abdicated since it was clear President Carter would not support his continued reign.  In the meantime, student protesters besieged the US Embassy in Tehran, gaining control of it, taking as hostages the 62 US Diplomats and Military personnel stationed there.  Once out of Iran, the Shah searched for a place of exile in which to live out his remaining days as a cancer victim in need of medical treatment.  One of those options was a publicized proposal by Manuel Antonio Noriega in Panama, who offered the Shah safe-haven at his luxury facilities on Contadora Island; but, Carter had already offered the Shah refuge in Philadelphia - which included treatment for the Shah's cancer.  

Noriega

[I took particular interest since had followed Noriega's rise to power since my college days where I had majored in Latin American Studies.]

US Hostages in Tehran

The Iranian radicals were on the hunt to drag the Shah back to Tehran for trial and execution, a future he was not anxious to experience.  Distrusting Carter, who had initially shown little interest in protecting him, the Shah sought refuge elsewhere.  It was during this period [which extended for 444 days - reported nightly by Walter Cronkite], Carter became aware that he was unable to negotiate with the Ayatolla's new regime, or particularly with the students holding the US citizens hostage. 

But, undaunted by this challenge, President Carter began to form a plan to negotiate the salvation of the Embassy hostages.  This would entail the skills of Carter's acting Chief of Staff, Hamilton Jordan, a scam artist from Georgia who was certain he could negotiate a deal with the Iranians.  

White House Situation Room

It was during this phase of the crisis that Carter decided that all message traffic from, to, or about Iran would be routed solely to the White House Situation Room to ensure there would be no leaks to the Press about the President's dilemma, negotiations, or incompetence.  Jordan created a plan for a covert operation to ensure no White House or NSC staffers were aware of Carter's communications with the Iranians, so he proposed an alternate communications operational site.  

And, what better place for Jordan than an entire floor of a Las Vegas hotel, insulated with an empty, guarded floor below.  Absolutely secure, and remote enough, and expensive enough to operate without nosy reporters. And, of course, the casinos and hookers were only a guarded private elevator ride away.

Thus, a team of NSA and Pentagon communications experts were dispatched to Las Vegas to set up a duplicate of the White House encrypted communications system linked to the White House.  It most assuredly was a safe and secure system, and it had never been penetrated by hostile Intelligence forces.

Thus, Jordan's plan was set in motion, and the communications between the Las Vegas link and Tehran began, with Jordan as Carter's intermediary.  The extra guarantee was that no US Intelligence analysts were involved - or privy to these negotiations.

As luck would have it, I was on the Latin American desk at that time, sitting next to the MENA analyst, reviewing my NSA message traffic one morning.  Several intercepts of Manuel Antonio Noriega's communications with an unknown party looked interesting as they appeared related to the Shah.  On closer examination, it became clear that these were retransmissions from the Las Vegas Mob to Noriega.

[There was close linkage between the Mob and Noriega since they shared in Noriega's global narcotics and human trafficking, as well as managing Noriega's casinos in Panama.  The KGB also paid Noriega handsomely as they targeted Latin Military officers attending the US School of America's in Panama.] 

[Interestingly, Noriega had recruited two ASA [subset of NSA] officers in the 470th MI Group based in Panama.]  

The Mob: Sponsors of Harry Reid

It seems that the Las Vegas Mob had surmised that something was up when a team of officious Secret Service thugs showed up to rent two floors in their best hotel, establishing highly visible security with armed thugs in the lobby and floors below.  Given these clues, the Mob ensured their hidden and embedded wire-taps and video cameras were fully functional in all the rooms on those two floors so they could monitor all the going-on.  That said, the mob could definitely exact a high price for copies of the videos and audio tapes to the highest bidder, as well as monitoring all the movements of Jordan and his crew with readily available hookers.

So, the intercepts which Noriega was receiving regarding the Shah emanated from Jordan's Las Vegas Alternate White House Communications Center as Jordan broadcast, in the clear before encryption, to the Iranians, receiving the encrypted communications at the US Embassy in Tehran.  The mob furnished those recordings of both the communication in the clear prior to encryption, and the encrypted communications dispatched to Tehran.  

Thus, the encryption could be [and was] deciphered by the KGB!

So, at this point, Noriega had both the original pre-encrypted communications as well as the post-encryption versions of Jordan's dispatches with Tehran.  The Mob was also very generous with providing Noriega copies of the incoming encrypted and decrypted communications, thus disclosing both encryption and decryption methodology.  Noriega was quite generous with his disbursements to the Las Vegas Mob for this material since Noriega was on the Soviet's KGB payroll, and he was selling this material to the KGB for a huge sum; after all, this was a superb win for the KGB since they could now read all the White House encrypted communications, world-wide. From that point on, the KGB was able to read all [ALL] the White House correspondence to all US embassies, CIA operatives, and Military commanders throughout the world.

Contadora: Noriega's Private Island -

Being the generous host that Noriega was, he dispatched a courier to Philadelphia to meet with the Shah and provide him with the actual communications from Jordan and Carter in which Carter was negotiating the sale of the Shah to the Iranians in exchange for the release of the hostages in the US Embassy.  The Shah accepted Noriega's largesse, and transferred a handsome sum of wealth to Noriega for his efforts.  Noriega then arranged for a private jet to retrieve the Shah from Philadelphia and fly him to Contadora.

Upon the Shah's departure, and another indication of Carter's duplicity, Jordan met personally with Sadegh Ghotbzadeh [a confidante of Khomeini] and agreed to have CIA operatives murder the Shah [at the order of CIA Director Stansfield Turner].  The Shah then flew to Morocco where he later succumbed following cancer surgery.  

[Later, when CIA convinced Ghotbzadeh to assassinate Khomeini, the secret plot was exposed and he was executed by Khomeini.]

Since I was also an accredited Counter-Intelligence Special Agent, I felt obligated to report this extraordinary breach of national security to the highest level - but that would be to the White House.  

Instead, since I briefed senior officials in the Pentagon, I confided my discovery to Bill Clark [son of WW2 luminary General Mark Clark] in his capacity as Assistant Secretary of the Army, who then coordinated directly with LTG Tighe [then Dir Director of DIA] and with the Director of the Defense Communications Agency who coordinated national security damage control and the re-working of the entire White House Communications System.

[A full assessment of the damage to White House communications during that period has yet to be determined.]

Footnotes:  

1) Jimmy Carter was heralded in the Media as a devout, Born-Again Christian, dedicated to the peaceful resolution of international conflict and sponsorship of the federal direction of Socialist education, as well as the eradication of the US Military and Intelligence programs - except when he needed them to resolve his incompetent bumbling of international affairs.  In my book [which I will eventually publish], I will recount a number of tales which demonstrate his corruption, vicious nature, and incompetence.  He laid the groundwork for the 0bama years of communist chaos.

2) In the later creation of the Defense Clandestine Service, we designed a triple encryption communication system to link with our field operations; the system was so secure that CIA requested permission to use a subset of it, which we allowed - with the caveat that if there was any indication they were abusing that privilege, we would suspend that privilege and and they would be left on their own and we would cease all future operational cooperation with them.

3) The Iranian hostage crisis was a horrendous situation, to which Carter responded with horrendous decisions, including an invasion which failed miserably and humiliated the US.  It carried over to the Reagan administration with the Iran/Contra episode, which was stunningly amateurish and also failed miserably, costing lives and careers.

4) I will write full descriptions in my book on all these issues to demonstrate the Carter was not simply a bumbling idiot, but rather was a scheming, hate-filled Bible-Thumping hypocrite whose stupidity cost the lives and careers of countless professional soldiers and diplomats.