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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 8 Num. 63
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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GENE "CHIP" TATUM -- CA. JULY 1996
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Abbreviated transcript of Gene Tatum's appearance on the Rob Lori
radio show out of Tampa, Florida.
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[...continued...]
ROBERT LORI:
Gene Tatum is back with us, live. You're listening to "Radio
Activity," WMNF, in Tampa.
So tell us more about these Oliver North "camps." It seems
pretty hard to imagine that Oliver North, who was a White House
aide, had the time to go down and do all this: to set up these
camps and to be so involved in what you say is cocaine smuggling
when, I think it was the Kerry Commission looked into this, and
others, and nobody's found the hard proof. There's been some
witnesses who have come forward to make these allegations in the
past. But nobody has come up with a video tape or anything like
that.
GENE TATUM:
That's interesting. And let me qualify that Commission's task:
those commissions were tasked with looking at the arms sale and
the illegal cover up of information on that. They were not
tasked to look into drug activity.
ROBERT LORI:
So if these video tapes exist and if the flight records exist,
why not just release them and make them public?
GENE TATUM:
Because the video tapes exist showing other people, along with
Mr. North. If I were to release those tapes -- the 1994 call to
me threatened my children. (I have four children, who live with
their mom.) I will not allow that to happen. I don't mind
exposing Mr. North, Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Nir can no longer be
exposed because I was tasked with eliminating him in 1988.
ROBERT LORI:
Okay, let's talk about that. Amiram Nir is an Israeli
intelligence person. And I'm not sure whether he worked for the
government or not. Tell me more about Amiram Nir.
GENE TATUM:
He was the Prime Minister of Israel's primary consultant on
terrorism. He was associated with Israeli intelligence. I'm not
going to say it was Mossad. It was Israeli intelligence of some
sort -- because of his knowledge.
And when you say "Mr. North's time to build these camps:" He
designated that to General Alvarez of Honduras -- he was the army
Chief of Staff -- and to Enrique Bermudez(sp?), the commander of
those North camps. *They* actually built those camps.
I think I saw Mr. North one time in Honduras -- no, twice. I'm
sorry.
ROBERT LORI:
So in terms of "taking out" Amiram Nir, what was your role in
that?
GENE TATUM:
I was to fly a 4-man team to a southern Mexico town, outside of
Morelia. Mr. Nir was involved in an avocado packaging plant
which, I don't know if it did or didn't package avocados, or
packaged something else. I was not involved in that. I *was*
involved in eliminating him before he could appear before the
commissions to testify in 1989.
I flew a 4-man team in. There was a radio beacon put in, with
the frequency given to us, put on Mr. Nir. We triangulated the
position. The 4-man team went to that position to eliminate Mr.
Nir. However apparently there were two signals, and one was in an
aircraft, a small aircraft. I think it was a Cessna T-210, a
small, charter aircraft.
When I fly a mission as a combat helicopter pilot, into a foreign
country, we normally fly in what's called "the Archer Mode,"
which is an armed mode. We would fly an aircraft with full
Stingers on one side of the pod, and we would fly a, about a
one-quarter to one-third charged missiles on the right side of
the aircraft, so that we could scare away base aircraft based in
the country that we were in, rather than shoot them down. We
would rather scare them away than shoot them down.
Unfortunately, this missile, the proximity missile that I fired,
took down the aircraft and killed two people on board.
ROBERT LORI:
And one of them was Amiram Nir?
GENE TATUM:
That's correct.
ROBERT LORI:
The shoot-down took place at a time when the Iran-Contra scandal
was on the front pages of American newspapers, right?
GENE TATUM:
That's right.
ROBERT LORI:
So what's your theory about why your superiors wanted him "taken
out?"
GENE TATUM:
I believe that he could have provided embarrassing information
about the involvement of Mr. Harari, directly linking, probably,
Israel, to the manufacturing and trafficking of cocaine. I
believe that he could implicate the Vice-President of the United
States, George Bush, in the trafficking of cocaine. And I
believe he could implicate several others, including Mr. North.
And I believe that he was prepared to implicate them.
ROBERT LORI:
Who ordered you to "take out" Amiram Nir?
GENE TATUM:
It came through Major Rodriguez, who actually ended up being
Felix Rodriguez. Most of the orders that we would receive would
come through that particular mode. Now this, you have to
understand, was after Iran-Contra. So the order came from
Rodriguez, but it was actually from George Bush.
ROBERT LORI:
Now how do you know it was from George Bush?
GENE TATUM:
Because I spoke to Mr. Bush concerning it.
ROBERT LORI:
And how did you speak to him? Did you speak to him face-to-face?
GENE TATUM:
Via land line.
ROBERT LORI:
And what did he tell you?
GENE TATUM:
He explained to me that Mr. Nir was a threat, that he was trying
to expose the movement and the trafficking, and that he needed to
be "taken out." And he told me to pick up my Archer Team,
relocate to El Salvador, that tactical fuel [unclear] and
tactical beacons would be set up. I was to move my aircraft to
those beacons for re-fueling, and eliminate Mr. Nir.
ROBERT LORI:
Now what was your frame of mind, as...
GENE TATUM:
Let me qualify that: I was also told that this was an approved
mission by the Mossad and that it was primarily for the Mossad
that we were doing this.
ROBERT LORI:
So the Mossad viewed Amiram Nir as a renegade agent, and they
wanted him "taken out" as well.
GENE TATUM:
That's the understanding that was given to me, yes.
ROBERT LORI:
What was your frame of mind? Did you have any compunction about
carrying out the killing of people?
GENE TATUM:
No.
Let me qualify how many people I've had to kill in my life:
within 5 feet of me, probably about 30; within 200 feet, about
80; and beyond that, I don't know, because -- probably thousands,
with missiles and so forth.
ROBERT LORI:
So you were pretty gung-ho, U.S. Military.
GENE TATUM:
Absolutely.
ROBERT LORI:
I mean, you followed orders. And when somebody said, "Do this,"
you did it. Because you believe in your country and you believed
in what your leaders were telling you.
GENE TATUM:
That's correct.
ROBERT LORI:
Let's back up for just a moment, and talk about the very first
covert operation that you say you were involved in. You were
involved in Southeast Asia, in a covert operation, during the
Viet Nam War. Tell us about that covert operation.
GENE TATUM:
[CN: Tatum told how he joined the Air Force in the late
'60s/early 70's, was trained as an air traffic controller, and
went on to advanced schooling: Army jump school; escape and
evasion school, with jungle training; sea survival school; diving
school. He said he was then sent on temporary duty into Thailand
to help set up a communications center. Task Force Alpha, a
large intelligence force, was also there. Tatum said he was then
"volunteered" into an assignment which apparently is how he got
involved with covert operations. From there, according to Tatum,
he worked with successive White House administrations.]
Our mission in "Pegasus" was to align foreign leaders, foreign
financiers, and foreign countries with the policies of the United
States, using first of all diplomacy. If diplomacy did not work,
then it was turned over to the Pegasus unit to work in one of the
three arenas that we were professionals at working at. [CN:
i.e., blackmail, intimidation, and murder.]
ROBERT LORI:
Let's talk about this "Operation Pegasus." How old is Pegasus?
GENE TATUM:
I'm told, by various intelligence sources around the world, that
Pegasus is an operation that's been in place since probably the
'50s. It was originally designed to spy on spies. In other
words, to look at the CIA and the National Security Agency to see
who is loyal, who is doing what. {1}. And that *was* a portion
of Pegasus's duties; there was a section... *My* duties included
simply flying -- "fancy taxi driver," I should put it, sometimes
armed.
---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
{1} Tatum's info on Pegasus is corroborated by Trenton Parker.
See CN 6.54 and CN 6.89 for more on Parker, who appeared on Tom
Valentine's *Radio Free America* show in 1993. Parker has talked
about this "Pegasus" unit, saying that it was secretly set up by
Harry Truman to keep an eye on the CIA.
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