Operation CHAOS, CACTUS channel
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 4:19 pm
When I first heard of the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO program, after I had already heard of MKULTRA, I expected that they must be connected.
Operation CHAOS (or MHCHAOS) of the CIA and the CACTUS communication channel shows that the FBI and CIA were indeed working together against “targeted groups” not only abroad but especially in the US.
Under its 1947 National Security Act charter, the CIA is forbidden to have “police, subpoena, law enforcement powers or internal security functions” inside the United States. This makes spying on Americans by the CIA completely illegal.
CIA Director Richard Helms later testified to the Rockefeller Commission in 1975 that the CIA General Counsel was never consulted whether CHAOS was legally within the CIA’s charter:
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson pressured CIA Director Richard Helms to do something against those anti-Vietnam war protest, and more or less ordered him to find evidence that these were controlled from outside the US.
This led to the creation of the super-secret Operation CHAOS, which embarked on an initiative of spying, provocation, crossing and double-crossing and illegally gathered data on hundreds of thousands of innocent American citizens for what they might do.
Director Helms and Deputy Director of Plans, Thomas Karamessines tasked Counterintelligence Staff Chief James J. Angleton with setting up this Special Operations Group within the Counterintelligence Staff, and appointed Richard Ober to head it. Ober was probably chosen as he had already started illegally collecting files on the HYDRA system on persons associated with Ramparts magazine after it reported in March 1967 on clandestine CIA activities in private American institutions.
In the summer of 1968, also 2 other shady CIA projects were started:
Project RESISTANCE used information from police departments and college campus officials to predict threats to the CIA.
Project MERRIMAC involved the infiltration by CIA agents of peace groups, collectives and black activist groups in Washington DC.
President Johnson had the scope of CHAOS expanded to a total of 80 full-time agents that were infiltrating “radical activities” in the US.
In June, 1968 CHAOS compiled a staggering 1,000 reports per month. All of the information was indexed, analysed and filed in HYDRA. By checking a name in HYDRA, an agent could find everything in the system that referred to the individual.
While eventually only 7,200 Americans and 1,000 groups had actual files, over 300,000 Americans were indexed in HYDRA.
CHAOS’s top-secret report to Johnson, Restless Youth, September 1968, concluded that in each nation, including the US, student dissent was the result of home-grown social and political alienation, instead of an international conspiracy. I couldn´t find this “Restless Youth” report on the internet...
In his cover letter, to then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Helms emphasised that spying on US students was illegal:
An updated version to Nixon via Kissinger was issued in June 1970, which left out the domestic dissidence.
After Richard Nixon became president in 1969, CHAOS was expanded even more.
At the end of 1972, CHAOS was reviewed by Assistant Deputy Director of Plans Cord Meyer and Inspector General William Broe, who raised questions about its legality. Helms’ solution to concerns over CHAOS’s legality, was to suddenly call it an operation against “international terrorism” and transferred it from the Counterintelligence Staff to the newly formed Operations Staff within the Plans Directorate. Richard Ober, however, remained in charge.
Angleton even charged Richard Ober to spy on the White House as he worked closely on CHAOS with the President and his aides Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, whose “Plumbers” unit was also receiving CHAOS’ anti-war intelligence.
Later, under intense pressure, Helms and Karamessines had to resign, and Nixon appointed James Schlesinger as CIA Director. CHAOS was finally terminated on 5 March 1974, by order of President Gerald Ford and CIA Director William Colby (Schlesinger´s successor).
Richard Ober was abruptly transferred from the CIA to a staff position at the National Security Council.
On 4 January 1975, President Gerald Ford issued executive order 11828, to start a commission on CIA activities within the US, chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (who was very close to Henry Kissinger, Richard Ober and Director Colby). The Rockefeller Commission is widely considered a whitewash.
On 16 September 1975, Congress convened the Church Committee to investigate intelligence offenses. The six volume report found numerous civil liberty violations and criminal acts committed by both the FBI and the CIA during the 1960s: https://medium.com/lessons-from-history ... 88ae97385e
(http://archive.li/tRt9Y)
While the CIA is prohibited to spy in the US on American citizens, the FBI is entitled to, whose COINTELPRO (“COunterINTELligence PROgram) since the late 1950s included to monitor, harass and disrupt “extremist” groups like the Communists, KKK, Black Panthers and “New Left” movement.
The highly classified CACTUS channel was never even disclosed in the Church Committee reports.
CACTUS was used by the CIA and FBI to transmit information on “the New Left, Black Militants and related matters”.
A formerly SECRET memo, shows that nearly a year after COINTELPRO was officially disbanded, the CIA still used CACTUS to transmit and request information on figures in the “New Left” like (former) Beatle John Lennon.
The following shows that around the same time the CIA was providing information to the FBI on US citizens travelling to North Vietnam, North Korea and China.
Another formerly secret CACTUS memo, shows that nearly 2 years after COINTELPRO was officially disbanded, 6 March 1973, the CIA was still providing information on the Eldridge Cleaver faction of the BPP.
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... 11/CACTUS/
(http://web.archive.org/web/201712141859 ... 11/CACTUS/)
Operation CHAOS (or MHCHAOS) of the CIA and the CACTUS communication channel shows that the FBI and CIA were indeed working together against “targeted groups” not only abroad but especially in the US.
Under its 1947 National Security Act charter, the CIA is forbidden to have “police, subpoena, law enforcement powers or internal security functions” inside the United States. This makes spying on Americans by the CIA completely illegal.
CIA Director Richard Helms later testified to the Rockefeller Commission in 1975 that the CIA General Counsel was never consulted whether CHAOS was legally within the CIA’s charter:
Sometimes we did [consult the General Counsel]; sometimes we did not.
I think the record on that is rather spotty, quite frankly.
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson pressured CIA Director Richard Helms to do something against those anti-Vietnam war protest, and more or less ordered him to find evidence that these were controlled from outside the US.
This led to the creation of the super-secret Operation CHAOS, which embarked on an initiative of spying, provocation, crossing and double-crossing and illegally gathered data on hundreds of thousands of innocent American citizens for what they might do.
Director Helms and Deputy Director of Plans, Thomas Karamessines tasked Counterintelligence Staff Chief James J. Angleton with setting up this Special Operations Group within the Counterintelligence Staff, and appointed Richard Ober to head it. Ober was probably chosen as he had already started illegally collecting files on the HYDRA system on persons associated with Ramparts magazine after it reported in March 1967 on clandestine CIA activities in private American institutions.
In the summer of 1968, also 2 other shady CIA projects were started:
Project RESISTANCE used information from police departments and college campus officials to predict threats to the CIA.
Project MERRIMAC involved the infiltration by CIA agents of peace groups, collectives and black activist groups in Washington DC.
President Johnson had the scope of CHAOS expanded to a total of 80 full-time agents that were infiltrating “radical activities” in the US.
In June, 1968 CHAOS compiled a staggering 1,000 reports per month. All of the information was indexed, analysed and filed in HYDRA. By checking a name in HYDRA, an agent could find everything in the system that referred to the individual.
While eventually only 7,200 Americans and 1,000 groups had actual files, over 300,000 Americans were indexed in HYDRA.
CHAOS’s top-secret report to Johnson, Restless Youth, September 1968, concluded that in each nation, including the US, student dissent was the result of home-grown social and political alienation, instead of an international conspiracy. I couldn´t find this “Restless Youth” report on the internet...
In his cover letter, to then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Helms emphasised that spying on US students was illegal:
In summarising the letter, Kissinger more or less indicated that the report shouldn´t be taken seriously, because it “tends to dismiss the communist and other outside influence as a factor”.In an effort to round out our discussion of this subject, we have included a section on American students. This is an area not within the charter of this Agency, so I need not emphasize how extremely sensitive this makes the paper. Should anyone learn of its existence, it would prove most embarrassing for all concerned.
An updated version to Nixon via Kissinger was issued in June 1970, which left out the domestic dissidence.
After Richard Nixon became president in 1969, CHAOS was expanded even more.
At the end of 1972, CHAOS was reviewed by Assistant Deputy Director of Plans Cord Meyer and Inspector General William Broe, who raised questions about its legality. Helms’ solution to concerns over CHAOS’s legality, was to suddenly call it an operation against “international terrorism” and transferred it from the Counterintelligence Staff to the newly formed Operations Staff within the Plans Directorate. Richard Ober, however, remained in charge.
Angleton even charged Richard Ober to spy on the White House as he worked closely on CHAOS with the President and his aides Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, whose “Plumbers” unit was also receiving CHAOS’ anti-war intelligence.
Later, under intense pressure, Helms and Karamessines had to resign, and Nixon appointed James Schlesinger as CIA Director. CHAOS was finally terminated on 5 March 1974, by order of President Gerald Ford and CIA Director William Colby (Schlesinger´s successor).
Richard Ober was abruptly transferred from the CIA to a staff position at the National Security Council.
On 4 January 1975, President Gerald Ford issued executive order 11828, to start a commission on CIA activities within the US, chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (who was very close to Henry Kissinger, Richard Ober and Director Colby). The Rockefeller Commission is widely considered a whitewash.
On 16 September 1975, Congress convened the Church Committee to investigate intelligence offenses. The six volume report found numerous civil liberty violations and criminal acts committed by both the FBI and the CIA during the 1960s: https://medium.com/lessons-from-history ... 88ae97385e
(http://archive.li/tRt9Y)
While the CIA is prohibited to spy in the US on American citizens, the FBI is entitled to, whose COINTELPRO (“COunterINTELligence PROgram) since the late 1950s included to monitor, harass and disrupt “extremist” groups like the Communists, KKK, Black Panthers and “New Left” movement.
The highly classified CACTUS channel was never even disclosed in the Church Committee reports.
CACTUS was used by the CIA and FBI to transmit information on “the New Left, Black Militants and related matters”.
A formerly SECRET memo, shows that nearly a year after COINTELPRO was officially disbanded, the CIA still used CACTUS to transmit and request information on figures in the “New Left” like (former) Beatle John Lennon.
The following shows that around the same time the CIA was providing information to the FBI on US citizens travelling to North Vietnam, North Korea and China.
Another formerly secret CACTUS memo, shows that nearly 2 years after COINTELPRO was officially disbanded, 6 March 1973, the CIA was still providing information on the Eldridge Cleaver faction of the BPP.
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/ ... 11/CACTUS/
(http://web.archive.org/web/201712141859 ... 11/CACTUS/)