Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 8 Num. 63 ====================================== ("Quid coniuratio est?") ----------------------------------------------------------------- GENE "CHIP" TATUM -- CA. JULY 1996 ================================== Abbreviated transcript of Gene Tatum's appearance on the Rob Lori radio show out of Tampa, Florida. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + [...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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Conspiracy Nation, nor of its Editor in Chief. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation." ----------------------------------------------------------------- If you would like "Conspiracy Nation" sent to your e-mail address, send a message in the form "subscribe cn-l My Name" to listproc@cornell.edu (Note: that is "CN-L" *not* "CN-1") ----------------------------------------------------------------- For information on how to receive the improved Conspiracy Nation Newsletter, send an e-mail message to bigred@shout.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc? 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