Disposable patriot
Subtitle: revelations of a soldier in America's secret wars
By: by Jack Terrell with Ron Martz
Contributors: Martz, Ron, 1947-
Publisher: National Press Books
Published: 1992
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 480
Subjects: Intelligence service; United States. Central Intelligence Agency; United States
Description: "Surviving two assassination attempts, Jack Terrell lived to reveal the inside story of how the CIA and other intelligence agencies are literally running out-of-control, plotting against the president, defying federal court orders and doggedly pursuing their own reprehensible military agenda. Terrell's story reads like a novel, with a fascinating mix of oddball characters and complicated subplots involving assassination plans, gunrunning and drug dealing. Disposable Patriot is written from ground zero, not by a journalist who merely reviewed public documents, but by a combatant in a zone reeking with the smell of death and corruption." "Disposable Patriot is as much a personal tragedy, a story of lost innocence, as it is an adventure story. Jack Terrell went to Central America to fight communists, and came back to wage war against Oliver North. A rugged veteran of America's dirty little wars, Terrell provides a thrilling account of how the intelligence community recruits, programs, trains, uses and disposes of "civilians" in backchannel dirty-work which is considered too politically sensitive for ordinary government operatives to handle." "In the mid-1980's Terrell hooked up with an Alabama-based paramilitary group called Civilian Military Assistance, which was formed with the encouragement of the Reagan Administration, to provide illegal assistance to the Contras. CMA attracted a motley crew of misfits, loners and good old boys, either in search of adventure or determined to combat a middle-age crisis. Terrell was tapped by Donald Fortier, the number three man at the National Security Council (NSC), who needed a "plant" within the CMA to act as its eyes and ears in Central America. Terrell was an essential part of Oliver North's campaign in Honduras and Nicaragua, who with Fortier's assistance, acted as a conduit for cash and weapons to the Contras."

"Terrell later became disenchanted with the U.S. government and the Contras because of widespread corruption, drug dealing and the skimming of contributions. Sickened by the slaughter of innocent Miskito Indians, he joined their ranks and helped them defend their native lands and families from the crossfire stoked by the U.S. government." "Furious with Terrell's activities, the Honduran government expelled him at gunpoint. As he re-emerged in the United States, a clandestine group of intelligence officials in Washington, known as Internal Command and Control (InComCon), used him to tunnel secret information to the national media. From 1986 to 1988 Terrell released to the press information designed by InComCon to embarrass and expose the Reagan-Bush Administration. This information was so accurate and damaging, that five days before Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed the first details of the Iran-Contra scandal, Terrell provided the New York Times and other news media the exact same information." "On national television Terrell exposed Oliver North's illegal support of the Contras, opening up the investigation of North's secret and illegal private war in Latin America. North returned the fire, and initiated a private vendetta to discredit Terrell, putting him at the top of the first White House enemies list since the Nixon Administration."--Jacket.