Some critical information came out on 60 Minutes in their interview with Bush on the anniversary of 9/11. This captures some of it but it would probably be useful to get a transcript. Bush was clearly out of the loop.

On 22 November 1963 Collins Radio was in charge of radio relay for all secure communications from and to Air Force One (AF-1). Collins was later absorbed into Rockwell International. Bill Kelly has done extensive work on the Collins Radio personnel and connections to the events of 11/22/63. I found Collins later in the emerging scandal about the National Reconnaissance Organization financing a new headquarters building covertly without notifying Congress. The hidden money pass-through was Collins/Rockwell, and the NRO initials used to be secret.

The National Reconnaissance Office collects and analyzes all satellite photos. It will be instructive to see if they were still the subcontractors for the radio communications on 9/11 for AF-1. It is very significant that the system failed that day, since one would assume there are redundancies. It reminds me of the failure of the secure Federal exchange lines between the Pentagon and the various cabinet-level agencies on 11/22/63 between 1:30 and 3:30 EST (i.e. 12:30 Dallas time, the moment of the assassination).

In the JFK and Reagan shootings there was a procedural breakdown concerning the "Black Box" or "nuclear football" communication device that is supposed to be with the president at all times. LBJ left Dallas without it and did not secure control until much later that evening. In the Reagan footage you can actually see Lt. Gonzales hit the deck during the shooting and then rise and run away from the limousine with the box. Hours later, a Secret Service agent and Gonzales return to the hospital with the box and attempt to secure the activation card, which was in Regan's wallet and by then in the custody of the FBI agents on the scene.

The FBI agent balks at turning over the card until he can check with then-director William Sessions, who is down in the situation room at the White House, where an argument was in progress concerning succession of power, and Al Haig was trying to secure a similar working communications device. Sessions ordered the FBI agent to hold onto the card. Haig emerged saying "Gentlemen, I am in charge here until the Vice President returns".

Haig was not in any public line of succession, but there are "continuity of government" and "emergency management" lines of succession that come into play as well during "national emergencies". These are not generally known to the public. It would be essential to any coup or shift of power to both isolate/disable the elected official and to control all communications.

Remember that on 11/22/63 the Strategic Air Command pilots and the pilot aboard the plane carrying key Cabinet officials home from Vietnam planning meetings in Honolulu, found they had no decrypting books aboard when the emergency arose. These books relate directly to the Black Box communications as well as any and all Command and Control communications from other secure locations. Bush was forced to use an unsecure phone line, and the Secret Service forced him to sign a waiver relieving them of responsibility for protecting his life when he insisted on returning to Washington.

Note also, the decision about Bush returning to D.C. was being made by Cheney, not Bush. At a speech in San Francisco at the Commerce Club recently, Cheney mentioned that he now has the Black Box, not Bush. Cheney is the one being flown to the secured underground command and control center in Bluemont, Virginia when increased terrorist alerts start happening. And top-level management from various cabinet agencies are being rotated 24/7 at that location, with Cheney in charge of the "shadow government".

I contend that since 9/11/01 we have been in "continuity of government" mode, meaning decisions are made by a very limited number of officials, with FEMA, DOD and NSA calling the shots. The military stand down in relation to the Pentagon attack also had to be coordinated at a very high level. Both the events of 9/11, as they emerge, and the response to that event speak to me of a coup or shift of power. The glove is off the fist, as I had predicted.

Worse yet, the rationale for continuation and expansion of the military-industrial-intelligence complex is buttressed at a time when it is even more critical that it be challenged. If not for some disagreements in the ruling class, we would already be openly at war with Iraq. The bombings there and troop movements are already escalated.

Whenever factions fight like this, we get a peek behind the curtain. To have Madeline Albright today speaking about an "irrational exuberance for war" on the part of "some members of the Administration" is almost surreal, but it tells us something. Some want an openly aggressive empire, full of the arrogance of its power, and immune to any international or domestic limitations on its excesses. Others still want to retain a semblance of international cooperation (even if silently coerced), and an illusion of democracy in the decisions made, while still getting the same results.

If the world is our oyster, some want to put on a bib and say "Let's eat" and others would rather not mention the fact at the dinner table while they sup. Kissinger and others in his circle prefer quiet "diplomacy" and behind the scenes manipulation. He writes that "History to be successful must be negotiated in absolute secrecy." The neo-cons want to declare Pax Americana instead. Bush, now clearly little more than a figurehead and PR front man, is out of the loop and expendable it seems. They let him know that clearly on 9/11.