From: jad@ckuxb.att.com (John A Dinardo)
Subject: Part XII, The Casolaro Murder --> The Feds' Theft of Inslaw Software
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Keywords: CIA = Murder Inc.,  CIA desecrates the Peoples's Constitution
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 19:55:31 GMT

         The following excerpts are from THE VILLAGE VOICE
         (a New York weekly newspaper), October 15, 1991.
         Subscriptions can be ordered and enquiries about back
         issues can be made by calling 1(800) 347-6969.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
.....
Almost at once, Hamilton says, he told Casolaro about Riconosciuto.
Casolaro's phone records indicate that he spent many hours in
conversation with Riconosciuto, and Casolaro's friends say that
for several months in late 1990, Casolaro talked about little else.

The 44-year-old Riconosciuto is -- to put it mildly -- a colorful
character, wilder than anything in The Falcon and the Snowman. 
He was a gifted child: when he was just 10 years old, Michael wired
his parents' neighborhood with a working, private telephone system
that undercut Ma Bell; in the eighth grade, he won a science fair
with a model for a three-dimensional sonar system. By the time he
was a teenager, he had won so many science fairs with exhibits of
laser technology that he was invited to be a summer research
assistant at Stanford's prestigious Cooper Vapor Laser Laboratory.
Dr. Arthur Schalow, a Nobel laureate, remembers him even now.
   "You don't forget a sixteen-year-old youngster who shows up
    with his own argon laser,"
he told Casolaro. 

In 1973, Riconosciuto had been sentenced by a federal judge in
Seattle to two years in prison for the manufacture of psychedelic
drugs and jumping bail. At the time, his father testified that Michael
was engaged in "underwater research" and had discussed "using
electronic means to clean up pollutants in water." The narcotics
agents who arrested the young Riconosciuto said they'd had him
under surveillance off and on since 1968.

Riconosciuto told Casolaro, as he had told numerous other reporters
before him, that after his release he had become research director
for a joint venture between Wackenhut, the Coral Gables private
security outfit, and the Cabazon Indian band of Indio, that was
developing and manufacturing arms and other military materiel --
including night-vision goggles, machine guns, and biological and
chemical weapons -- for export. Riconosciuto claimed that he had
invented the fuel-air explosive; he also said he had encountered a
variety of famous people who dropped by the Cabazon Reservation
from time to time. For example, he claimed that he'd met the Jackal,
the famous assassin; talked on the phone with [Assistant Director]
Admiral Bobby Inman of the CIA; and even tape-recorded a secret
meeting with [Reagan's CIA Director] William Casey at a Washington,
D.C. country club (According to Riconosciuto, that tape was his
insurance policy against getting bumped off by the big boys in the
spook world). Riconosciuto went on to "reveal" that he was the man
who had "pulled the plug" on the Nugan Hand Bank, with CIA ties, that
collapsed in 1980; he also claimed to be an effective lobbyist on
Capitol Hill, responsible for swinging five key votes to free up 
$100 million for the secret Contra war against the Sandanistas.
Once, after lunch with then-FBI Director William Webster, he had
laid plans to launder spook money through NASA.

This was all a bit much for the Hamiltons to take in, but the
computer company owners listened with fascination and deep
suspicion to his tales involving PROMIS. In an affidavit presented
in federal court, Riconosciuto told them that Casey -- who had
been outside counsel to Wackenhut before joining the Reagan White
House -- had hired him and Earl Brian, as employees of Wackenhut
to carry out the October Surprise deal. Riconosciuto described how
a Justice Department official had allegedly ordered him to modify
PROMIS for use by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He claimed
that [Reagan's attorney-general] Meese had rewarded Brian for his
assistance during the October Surprise by giving him the software
outright, which he could then sell at considerable profit around
the world. (Brian has denied any connection to the Inslaw case.)

Casolaro and the Hamiltons thought Riconosciuto's tale was largely
wacko, but they found certain things he told them to be true -- 
particularly that the Wackenhut joint venture existed, and that
the Mounties had apparently misappropriated PROMIS (the Canadian
police have denied using PROMIS). They theorized that maybe
Riconosciuto was using his contacts with the Hamiltons as leverage
with other people who were threatening him: If his enemies didn't
cooperate with Riconosciuto, then he would spill more and more
secrets to Casolaro and the Hamiltons. 

.....

LaROUCHIES TO THE RESCUE
Despite his misgivings, Casolaro continued to pursue Riconosciuto's
theories. In mid-June 1991, Casolaro met with a member of the
LaRouche organization in Washington [D.C.]. And all of a sudden
the Octopus seemed to be very much alive.

   "I met Casolaro at the House Judiciary Committee meetings on 
    Inslaw last December,"

wrote LaRouche sidekick Jeff Steinberg, in a memo to the LaRouche
network dated August 14, 1991 (two days after Danny's death became
public, and the same day that the West Virginia coroner pronounced
Casolaro's death to be a likely suicide). On June 24th, Steinberg
wrote that he 

   "spent about four hours with Casolaro at his home ... reviewing
    various leads on the Inslaw and related matters. We met later
    that same night for several more hours to exchange some 
    specific documentation."

Casolaro's June phone records indicate several calls to LaRouche
headquarters in Leesburg, Virginia, and his papers include a
LaRouche "Memorandum for the Files" -- documents that suggest that
Casolaro may have begun to see things much as they did. For one
thing, Steinberg wrote that he arranged for a LaRouche source,
known as CHIPS, to talk to Casolaro. Casolaro's notes identify
this person as a former Customs agent now involved with the
Treasury Department's enforcement work, and Steinberg speculates
that CHIPS may have pointed Casolaro toward big-time drug rackets
tied to the Gambino family. Steinberg's memo says that Casolaro
had traced 
   "the Inslaw and related stories back to a dirty CIA `Old Boys'
    network"
that had begun working together in the 1950s around the Albania
covert operations. These men had gotten into the illegal gun and
drug trade back then and had continued in that business ever since.

In short, Casolaro had stumbled into the vibrant mainstream of
LaRouche thought. Most of this material has long been batted around
on the conspiracy circuit. Casolaro's telephone records show him
making repeated calls to old LaRouche favorites, including supposed
drug dealers with ties to Gambino. Casolaro told friends, for
example, that he had called E. Howard Hunt [infamous CIA officer
involved in the Watergate burglary, and accused under oath by CIA
operative Marita Lorenz of being the paymaster to the assassins of
President Kennedy], who after first evidencing displeasure at
getting a call on an unlisted number, became cordial, even
effusive. Casolaro liked him.
                       (to be continued)
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

     This is one of countless stories unveiling the deeply corrupted     
     and subverted state of our theoretically democratic Government.  
     This story makes disgustingly obvious the fact that patriotism
     is not the waving of flags, the tying of yellow ribbons and the 
     mindless support of the Government, just because it happens to be ours.
     You don't support cancer just because you happen to have it.
     Patriotism is telling the truth to the people of our country
     in order that they may unite to conquer the anti-democratic
     cancer that is gradually destroying ours and our children's
     freedom. So please post the installments of this ongoing series
     to other bulletin boards, and post hardcopies in public places,
     both on and off campus.  That would be a truly patriotic deed.

       John DiNardo


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