Brett McCabe: Our next speaker, Barbara Honegger, will speak on Irangate as Aryangate. Aryangate as in the Aryan Nations. Barbara Honegger, an ex-staff member and policy analyst for the Reagan administration, has researched and written about new evidence concerning the early involvement of George Bush and others, in secret arms negotiations with Iran, to ensure a delay in the release of American hostages until the Reagan inauguration in l980. Her work has appeared in In These Times and she has spoken on numerous radio and television talk shows. Can we have a round of applause for Barbara Honegger. [loud applause]

Barbara Honegger: Exercising my first amendment rights of freedom of speech here, simply because who knows, fifty years from now, I wouldn’t want to have my head above a sign that said Barbara Honegger/The Fourth Reich in America . . . "Against the Fourth Reich," yes.

[As she spoke, Ms. Honegger added the word "Against" to the top of the sign in front of the podium announcing the name of this conference, "The Fourth Reich in America"]

Alright. It’s always interesting to see how you begin, to share with a new audience each time, crucial new information that has actually taken you about 2 years to come to understand yourself. What I thought I would do is begin by relating an experience that I had in the White House in l981, in early ’81.

I was in a meeting with the President and the Vice President and William Casey and the top directors of the nations banks. This was a meeting of the Economic Policy Advisory Board. And at the end of that meeting, um, there was an informal discussion, in which, Mr. Casey, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was asked by someone, I believe it was the Secretary of State, what was going on at the Agency. And he said, "Well, it’s interesting you should ask. We’re looking into our disinformation policy." And, of course, disinformation is the government’s fancy word for lies. And, of course, the government has euphemisms for everything.

Audience Member: Who said that?

Barbara Honegger: William Casey.

Now, I must tell you, as a slight preface to my talk, because some of you may not know, I have been on the speaking circuit, and on radio, and as television will have me, we’re still trying to break this story into mainstream television, and we’re very close to doing that, by the way, just in the last few days. I am trying to atone for my sin of having been inside the Reagan-Bush administration in the first place. [laughter and applause] And doing a pretty good job of it.

Audience Member: You wouldn’t have a story to tell if you weren’t there.

Barbara Honegger: That’s correct. There wouldn’t be. The gentleman down here said there wouldn’t be a story to tell if I hadn’t been there, and that’s probably true. Certainly not in the depth that we now know it.

So, what I’m now going to do, is to relate to you, for about a half an hour, and then we’ll have maybe 15-20 minutes of questions and answers, formally here, at the end of the half an hour, and then, I’ll be available after this panel that comes after my address, and the questions and answers after my address, to answer any questions that any of you have. And I will have on sale a package of documentation, for any of you who doubt anything that I say, or think that it isn’t well documented. It’s all very well documented.

So, now I’m going to just hit the highlights, if I may, of the Iran side of the Iran-Contra story, and how the administration, has, from it’s own point of view, gloriously succeeded in causing the American public to believe everything that is wrong.

You probably think, as you have been led to believe, that the Iran side of the Iran-Contra affair, which has now been going on for what, two years at least, involves really the rather trivial question, and the details surrounding it, of whether or not, in fact, about between 17 and 18.2 million dollars out of a total sale of between, perhaps, 30 and 32 million dollars, did or did not go into an Israeli account, or perhaps it was Mr. Secord’s account, or maybe it was Mr. Hakim’s account, and whose it was and who controlled the money and how much of it, was it $3.5 million that went to the Contras or not?

This is a total cover story, people. Complete and total cover story. Now of course we all know that. We know that in our bones, and we can read through the lines in the nation’s newspapers, much of which is printing, probably unwittingly, this disinformation.

But what’s truly amazing is the story, the true story, behind that Contradiction-gate, is what I call it. [laughter] Please use that word, feel free. OK.

The first fact that people need to understand, and I’ll go into some of the details of how we know it, is that the Iran-Contra affair, of an arms for hostages swap, did not begin in l985. It began before the l980 election, in secret negotiations between the Reagan-Bush campaign and the number two man to the Ayatollah Khomeini, a man named Mr. Ayatollah Mohammed Baheshti and an aide to Rafsanjani, who is now the powerful speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and expected to take over control, the real power in Iran, once Khomeini dies. If he hasn’t already, and I think he may have already died.

The other important fact for you to realize, is that the Iran side of the Iran-Contra affair, entails the shipment of not 18.2, or maybe was it 17 or maybe was it 30 or 32 million, maybe, and whose account did it go into, but billions and billions of dollars of United States arms, to Iran, beginning in early 1981. Almost immediately after Ronald Reagan and George Bush entered the White House of the United States.

We’re going to go back now, to October 1980. Do you recall? We had, depending upon different counts, between 52, 53, or 56 American hostages held in the US embassy in Iran and a few other locations. That was the focus of the 1980 election. President Carter’s polling people knew that he would lose the election if he did not bring the hostages home before the election. And we now know, and this is in my document, documentary material that you can, uh, purchase after the talk.

We also now know, that as early as March, 1980, before Jimmy Carter’s so-called "failed rescue attempt" in the desert, we know that the Central Intelligence Agency paid for Ronald Reagan’s and George Bush’s (at the time it was just Ronald Reagan’s) super duper computer pollsters, Richard Beale and Richard Wirthlin to perform what they called the October Surprise computer survey, to determine, precisely what would be the effect on Ronald Reagan’s predicted polling margin over Jimmy Carter, whether or not Carter brought the hostages home before the election, and if so, at what point before the election. This was according to a very close source to Richard Beale.

Someone who was his graduate student at the time at Brigham Young University has told me that this study, called the October Surprise study, was paid for by the Central Intelligence Agency, and the results went directly into the Reagan campaign. This is illegal. But it happened.

And that, the Reagan campaign learned, as early as March of 1980, that they had to, they had no choice but to, prevent a successful hostage rescue, either militarily or diplomatically, by President Carter, before the 1980 election, in order to win. It wasn’t an if, or a maybe, it was an absolute.

In October 1980, and this was well published in the mainstream media at the time, the Reagan-Bush campaign leadership, which was stationed in Arlington, Virginia, where I was also located, appointed two October Surprise committees, or groups. One of them headed by Richard Allen, who was to become Reagan’s first National Security Advisor, and the other by a man named Admiral Robert Garrick, who was the acting head, effectively, of another one of the committees. And whose operation was very close to what was called the Operations Center, inside the campaign, which was the nerve center of the campaign, the communications center, where all of the secure communications went back and forth to the candidate’s planes as they flew around the country on the campaign trail.

Well, what we now know, is that Mr. Robert McFarland . . . and my sources, by the way, are in my documentation. You can ask me my sources in questions if you like. To keep the story simple I’m just going to give you the story. We now know that Mr. Robert McFarland sat in on, at least some of, if not all of, the crucial anti-October Surprise group committee meetings. And that in one of these meetings, I have a source who was personally present, who informed me that Mr. McFarland proposed, that President Carter could be defeated if the Reagan-Bush campaign just somehow managed to ship United States arms to Iran, interfering with President Carter’s attempts to do the same thing before the election, as leverage to get the hostages back.

And, of course, the Iran-Iraq war had begun in late September, September 22, 1980, putting pressure on Iran, so Iran desperately needed it’s military weapons and spare parts, and that was quite calculated. And, in fact, President Carter was hoping that the combination of the war, and his having embargoed Iran’s arms and spare parts would cause Iran to release the hostages before the election, in exchange for those arms.

Well, that would all have worked fine and dandy, if the Reagan-Bush campaign hadn’t followed Mr. McFarland’s timely suggestion to interfere with that process by secretly meeting with Mr. Begin and Mr. Ariel Sharon of Israel, who, in fact, started shipping, the crucial numbers of those very arms that Carter was trying to use to leverage out the hostages before the election. They effectively, one-upped him, and sent them first.

Well, interestingly, according to my source, Mr. McFarland, when he first raised that suggestion at one of the October Surprise campaign meetings in October 1980, he was told by the leader of the group at the time to shut up, and not to raise that here. So obviously, there was a smaller group of people, even an inner circle of the Reagan-Bush campaign intelligence sabotage operation which was working on a secret deal, to ship United States arms to Iran, not only immediately after inauguration, but about 12 million of them, in fact, before the election, to interfere with Carter’s attempts to do the same thing. This is documented and acknowledged by the Israelis in the press.

Now we’re going to jump to early October, approximately October 8, according to the former President of Iran, who has been a wonderful source. He writes back to me within a week and half of every letter I write him, and is filled with all kinds of wonderful details, including bank account numbers and everything else. He desperately wants the truth told. His name is Bani-Sadr; and Mr. Bani-Sadr would like the truth told, because he is now one of the number one anti-Khomeini organizers outside of Iran. He, in fact, was betrayed at the same time that President Carter was betrayed, by the Reagan-Bush-Khomeini deal.

Well, Mr. Bani-Sadr has given me lots of information. And amongst what he has given me, the crucial information is that on October 8, approximately, of 1980, about a little less than a month before the 1980 election, an Iranian emissary, from Khomeini’s regime, approached Robert McFarland. Well, what we now know is that Robert McFarland approached him. But, the line in the press has been that the Iranian emissary approached Robert McFarland, who at the time, not coincidentally, was working with Senator Robert Tower, who coincidence of coincidences, later becomes head of the Tower Commission to whitewash the investigation involving his old buddy Mr. McFarland.

Well, Mr. McFarland either approaches or is approached by this Iranian emissary, who offers to delay the release of the hostages. Actually, to be absolutely frank, he offered to release the hostages. Didn’t use the language "delay" at that point. To the Reagan-Bush campaign, in order to embarrass and defeat Carter. In exchange for a promise of United States arms, which he brought an itemized list that he had received from the Khomeini regime. It was a computer list, which I have now a copy of. It came from Bani-Sadr. And on this list were F14 spare parts and equipment.

Now, it’s interesting that that F14 is the very jet that recently was the excuse for shooting down the Airbus, if you recall. So the F14’s become very important in this story.

What we also now know, from a number of different sources, is that even though the people from the Reagan-Bush campaign who have acknowledged meeting with this Iranian emissary, yet unnamed in the open press, Robert McFarland, Richard Allen and a man named Lawrence Silverman, who, coincidence of coincidences, later became a judge for Ronald Reagan, and happens to be the judge who recently ruled that Lawrence Walsh’s investigation of Oliver North and his friends was unconstitutional. [laughter] This is a tight-knit little group.

At any rate, back to this meeting with the Iranian representative before the 1980 election, it turns out, that it’s now been acknowledged by all parties, that Robert McFarland, Richard Allen, to become Reagan’s first National Security Advisor, and this future Reagan judge, who is an old CIA man, his name is Lawrence Silverman, who had, by the way worked with the Central Intelligence Agency to remove F14 equipment and Phoenix missiles from Iran shortly after the revolution in Iran, so he’d been intimately involved with Iran and F14 parts all along. These three men met with this, in the press, so far, mysterious, unnamed Iranian emissary of Khomeini, who offered to, effectively, delay the release of the hostages in exchange for the F14 parts. So all of these fine gentlemen have acknowledged that this meeting took place. But, of course, the Reagan-Bush people have said that nothing became of it.

Well, according to Mr. Bani-Sadr, that’s not true. And I’ve got a number of sources that back him up. Including now, President Jimmy Carter.

Bani-Sadr has informed me in letters, and also in in-person interviews that I have the tapes of, that there was a follow-up meeting. A follow-up meeting to the first Washington DC meeting that occurred in Paris, France. And that was later on, in October, before the 1980 election. At which, according to different sources, a whole bevy of people were present. Now, this may mean that there was more than one meeting, or that there was one large meeting. As of yet, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know. But, putting all of my sources together, the following persons were either at one or more meetings in Europe after the Washington DC meeting, and before the 1980 election, at which a deal was cut, specifically to delay the release of the hostages, until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, in exchange for, not just a few million dollars of arms, but in fact, 5 billion dollars of arms.

And according to the various sources, the following persons were present at that meeting: George Bush himself; Richard V. Allen, who became Bush’s National, excuse me, who became Reagan’s first National Security Advisor; Donald Gregg, who became Bush’s National Security Advisor and still is; George Cave; Mr. Cave, of course, was the Central Intelligence Agency expert on Iran who accompanied Mr. McFarland on the trip, the alleged trip at any rate, to Iran, in that bizarre cake and bible trip in May of 1986, that you may recall. And also, some very interesting and famous names in the Iran arms dealer arena: Mr. Manichur Gorbanifar, Mr. Albert Hakim, and a man named Mr. Cyrus Hashemi, who alleged to be the cousin of Mr. Rafsanjani, who was one of the two people that we know, with Mr. Beheshti, cut the secret deal with the Reagan-Bush campaign before the election. And, in fact, timed the release of the hostages almost exactly with the end of Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address.

So, Mr. Bani-Sadr had provided me with this information. It’s been backed up by a number of sources. Most interestingly, a caller to KGO radio, to the Ray Tagliofaro program, who told Ray one night that his conscience was killing him. That he absolutely had to tell somebody the truth. He had to go on record. He couldn’t identify himself for fear of his life. But that he claimed to have been in Europe in the late fall of 1980, where George Bush and Richard Allen paid money to the Iranians to delay the release of the hostages until Carter was out of office. An eyewitness. I believe I know who that eyewitness is, and I’m following up that interview.

On June 15, 1980, there was a breakthrough. This is . . . what is today? Today is the . . . the 16th, just a month ago . . . One month ago, on Larry King live radio, which goes to 49 States of the Union, millions of listeners, President Carter was the guest. And President Carter was asked, "What do you think about the research of Ms. Barbara Honegger?" And of course, he’d been kept very well-informed by me, and, happily, when pressed by Larry King, very gently, he acknowledged, and I have the transcript of the Carter interview with me, for those of you who’d like a copy, and also I have the tape, the audio tape of Carter saying it, for those of you who don’t believe it and would like to hear it, I have it with me. President Carter acknowledged that, yes, he knew about that, that Bani-Sadr had mentioned that to a number of reporters, including myself, and that he, President Carter, while he was still President, had received intelligence that, in fact, the Reagan-Bush campaign was working with the Iranians to try to delay the release of the hostages. In exchange, he was this detailed, in exchange for a promise of US arms that would either be shipped direct or through Israel. That’s President Jimmy Carter.

And he has since been following it up with interviews on various and sundry radio stations, because on June 9, a wonderful outfit, called the Other Americas Radio, with whom I’ve been working now for almost a year and a half on a product that was just released, I have copies of that with me also. It’s a 29 minute tape to be played on radio stations around the country. It went up to the NPR satellite on June 9, it went up again on July 13, and will go up again and again. It’s a fantastic program of interviews with the principals on the delay of the hostages issue. And it turns out that that tape has now been played on at least a dozen radio stations around the country, and some people like, the producers at 20/20 heard it, and have given me a call. So, things are . . . things happen in stages, and I think that we’re positioned to break this story into the mainstream television media in the not too distant future. And any help that you can give, and you can talk to me afterwards about what that might be, I would be very grateful.

So, the basic outline of that story, then, is that a secret deal was cut, before the 1980 election, at the suggestion of none other than Robert McFarland, who was later at the center of Iran arms sales in 1985-86, to ship US arms to Iran: a small amount before the election, to interfere with Carter’s attempts to use arms to leverage out the hostages before the election, then an additional agreement to delay the release until inauguration moment, almost, in exchange for a huge amount of arms.

And in my documentation, I give you the details of where different reports that these arms amount to billions of dollars. By no means a few millions of dollars. Beginning in early 1981.

In fact, there is a very important tape that has been reported by a Greek newspaper called Dimikratikos Logos, if I’ve pronounced that correctly. The story was picked up by Associated Press and appeared in a number of newspapers across the United States. The copy I have happens to be from the Huntsville Times in Huntsville, Alabama, in late November of 1980 [sic]. That there was a tape, an audiotape, that was secretly made of Mr. McFarland’s visit to Iran, in that late May l986. The bizarre trip with the cake. And that in this audiotape, which the Iranians have possession of, Mr. McFarland is taped reminding the Iranian officials that, as of that time, or, we shall say as of whatever time the tape was actually made, and I will speak to that in a moment, that as of the time that the tape was made, the United States had by then already sent Iran 1.3 billion dollars in US arms, and that the total promise was, he reminded them, for 5 billion, which would be fulfilled.

Now, it is my pet theory at the moment, and when I finally thought of it, after 2 years of a combination of detailed research and quite frankly, meditation, on the question, suddenly there was a moment of enlightenment. And I realized that the one scenario that makes sense of this whole sordid deal, is that, in fact, these 1.3 billion, and probably all 5 billion, worth of shipments of US arms, in fact were sent to Iran in, if not late 1980 and early 1981, for certain 1981 and 1982. And that, the tape, we know that the Iranians have told the Greek newspaper that they have this tape and that they are, in fact, blackmailing the Reagan administration, and have been from the beginning, that they cannot cease sending US arms, or they will release the tape. And the only way that the United States could stop sending arms to Iran was to effectively set up a scenario to trick the world into believing,that the tape was made, should the Iranians ever release it, in 1986, instead of 1980 or 1981.

And what they did, was they had to somehow get the same folks together. They had to somehow secretly send the same people who had accompanied the arms, early in 1981. They had to somehow get them back into Iran, and then blow the story in the open press. Which will explain why that little tiny rag in Lebanon started an international media sensation. They had to literally set up the story, and then intentionally release it, to mislead the world to believe that, should the Iranians release that tape that they were using to blackmail arms out of the United States for all that time, that in fact, that, if it was released, people would think, "Oh well, it all just started in 1986." And they wouldn’t think to ask that it,in fact, was the deliveries that fulfilled the pre-1980 election agreement between Khomeini and the Reagan-Bush campaign. That is my working theory at the time, and I’m following it up very rigorously.

Now, a last series of comments. I know that my address is titled Irangate as Aryangate. And what I’m going to share with you now is really just the tip of an iceberg. Which having focused on the details, of the pre-1980 election deal between the Reagan-Bush campaign and Iran, I have not gone into the detailed study of the history of what I’m about to give to you in surface detail. In surface. But, it’s an important element to.answering the question, why the obsession with Iran in the first place.

And that is, that there are obvious links between Iran and Adolph Hitler, and the Nazis. The most obvious is the name. It was the Shah of Iran’s father, the Shah before him, who renamed Persia, Iran. And Iran is literally the word, Aryan. And Hitler’s fanaticism, and obsession, was to purify the Aryan blood.

Khomeini’s bodyguard is a man named Ahmed Gabril, who is a direct heir of Hitler’s closest Middle East friend, besides the Shah’s father, a man named the Grand Mufti. His personal bodyguard. So there are a number of connections between the Aryan obsession that was at the philosophical core of the horror that happened that caused WWII, and the horror that, if we’re not very careful, could recur, in the form of a WWIII in the Middle East.

And I’d like to close by sharing with you another broad brush stroke, because I know we’re close to our time here, and you want to, probably, ask questions. But that is . . . 

You can’t really understand the question, why the obsession with Iran, by Hitler, by the United States Of course John Judge, and Mae Brussell have spent years, and other very fine researchers, going into the, not just links, but almost parallel, between the Gehlen Nazi Intelligence Organization and the founding of our Central Intelligence Agency, and their activities in the Cold War since.

We know that the Nazi Intelligence Organization effectively became the BND in West Germany and the CIA, in the United States. And all of their sordid activities since. But it’s not possible to understand the why until you understand that these people are operating out of a Fundamentalist Biblical mentality. And I mean that quite literally. I don’t have time here, in this address, to go into the details, but I’m going to cover some of the key points.

First of all, I learned, when I was in the White House, (and it was made an issue, thanks to myself, and Daniel Ellsberg, and some others in the Christic Institute during the 1984 election campaign) that was my last research effort, was Reagan’s, and Bush’s, but Reagan’s in more, in a more forceful way, his belief in the literal . . . in the literalness of a particular interpretation of the Book of Revelations, of Ezekiel, of the Book of Daniel in the Bible.

These people who are running our country literally believe that a Third World War, the War to End All Wars, literally, which is an extension of the Second World War that never really ended. That’s what the Cold War was about. That there will be another conflagration in the Middle East. That it is inevitable, and that it will be the war called Armegeddon. And that nuclear weapons, or at least a lot of very deadly missiles will be used.

According to their interpretation, Iran and that’s important to remember the link here, we’re talking about Irangate, it is none other that Iran, Libya, who was sent weapons by Wilson, who was in cahoots with Secord, who sent the weapons to Iran so Iran, Libya, and Syria, (Syria being the only Arab ally of Iran) these three nations, according to their interpretation of Revelations, will, inevitably, with no possibility of human control, which is the insanity of it, according to me, that they will inevitably strike Israel, and try to destroy the Israeli state, and that, which they believe was divinely ordained, and inevitably ordained, also, when it was, in fact, created by quite human means. And in fact, the scenario for the final Armegeddon War is being prepared by these people, if I’m not incorrect. I’m going to give you a couple of reasons for thinking so. But I did a whole two year study on it, and have literature that you can order from me on more of the details.

For instance, did you know, besides the fact that Iran, Libya and Syria, who are involved intimately in the Iran-Iraq War. By the way, Libya is an ally of not only Iran, but in particular, Khadafy advises Rafsanjani in the war. Not only are Iran, Libya and Syria teaming up, against Israel, they’re gaining a lot more long-range weapons that can reach Israel, including Silkworm weapons. Did you know that the Israeli missiles that would be used to attack back are called Jerichos? And did you know that through the Iran-Contra hearings, some of the first testimony of Oliver North, we now know, that Ronald Reagan’s code name, at least one of them, for the Iran-Contra side of the story, he has other code names, for instance, Rawhide, is his common, Secret Service code name. But Ronald Reagan has another code name, and that code name is Joshua. And it’s Joshua who fought the battle of the Jerichos.

And did you know, that there is a group called the Jerusalem Temple Foundation, that is run by a man named Mr. Terry Risenhoover. This has been in a whole page article in Time magazine, you just have to put the pieces together. And Mr. Risenhoover’s plan, along with a number of Mr. Reagan’s kitchen cabinet people, who have been pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into it, is to blow up the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount where the, the Dome of the Rock, is located. And that the Dome of the Rock is the second most holy shrine in Islam. And that, at a recent Arab summit, the one thing that everyone agreed to, not only Iran, but also also all of the Arab nations, is that the one event that would cause all the Arab world, including Iran, to unite, and invade Israel, which would trigger the use of the Jerichos, and Joshua/Ronald Reagan fighting the battle of the Jerichos, and the walls would come tumbling down, in a biblical scenario literally according to Revelations, which they are creating, quite consciously, would be, if, in fact, the Temple Mount was destroyed.

And just the other day in the paper, we read that there is a tunnel, an ancient tunnel that is being excavated, under the Temple Mount. And according to the Jerusalem Temple Foundation people, the purpose of that, of course, is to set the bombs underneath the temple, to create the Armegeddon scenario.

And finally (it’s a lot to swallow at once, but I want you to realize the seriousness of what it is we’re facing), finally, in October of 1987, it was either Playboy or Penthouse. it was the interview, the long interview, with Richard Secord. Playboy, thank you. You will notice on, I believe it’s the first page, at any rate it’s down in the right hand corner, under the photograph of, I recall, it was Richard Secord, there’s a small caption that’s most revealing in this regard, in the Armegeddon literalism buildup scenario. Which entails the reason for the weapons to Iran and to Libya, under the last two administrations.

And that is, North’s comment that Secord’s comment, that Oliver North had told him, that he believed, and he wouldn’t say it unless Reagan believed it, that Ronald Reagan was in the line of the heirs to Israel. That was in the line of Abraham. And that, believe it or not, this whole scenario, is for the Greater Israel, the Zionists, the far-right wing, the Kahane sect, their plan. They want the Temple Mount to be blown up. They want the human waves to attack Israel, so that they can then use their neutron bombs. Which, in turn, will leave the sacred buildings intact. They will be able then, to use their armies, to expand out into what they call Greater Israel, which they believe that God promised Abraham, of which Oliver North believes Ronald Reagan is the true heir, of the Greater Israel promised. That will be returned to Israel by the Book of Revelations.

Thank you very much. [loud applause]

Brett McCabe: Well now field some questions to Barbara Honegger.

Audience Member: [unintelligible]

Barbara Honegger: I’ll repeat the question. I was asked the address where I can be contacted. You can write to me, you can either get it tonight, or write to me, for the documentation. And I have an order form that lists everything that’s available to you: the audiotape, the videotape, the different lengths of documentation by different prices and that kind of thing. And the address is: PO Box 51332, Pacific Grove, (like in grove of trees) California 93950. And, again, I have the order forms with me, and I have a lot of the documentation with me, for any of you who’d like to pick it up tonight. I may not have enough for all of you, but . . .

Audience Member: Ms. Honegger, do you feel that the drop in literacy rate in the United States is somehow a part and parcel of feeding into this general, uh, into the lack of intellectually dealing with the problems that we have to within this administration? In other words, as you’ve noticed, the public schools have totally disintegrated. Naturally, without an intelligence to understand these problems, one then becomes part and parcel of the system.

Barbara Honegger: The question was, do I feel that there’s a link between, as I would say it, to paraphrase it, the problem with understanding what’s going on in situations like this, and the illiteracy problem in the schools?

I’m not an expert on the illiteracy problem. I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any conscious link, except I would like to say that, except for one on one interviews, most of the information that people like Mae Brussell and myself pull together is available to all of us. It just takes the time and attention, and the vigilance to read many different papers, from many different perspectives. And it’s something that’s very important for us all to do. And for that very reason, we need to know how to read.

Audience Member: Because the "Communist Threat" paranoia is still totally functional in this country, and does not allow this country to in any way deal with the real problems that we are up against, because that is still the most functional aspect of . . .

Barbara Honegger: Her comment was, and then maybe we could move on to a different question that’s more directly related to the talk, And that is that, um, the so-called, um, you know, Communist paranoia has been deflecting attention and political will from the real problems.

That’s definitely true. However, ironically, with what’s been happening between Reagan and Gorbachev, there appears to be a shift away from that, a kind of ordainment from the top, that it’s OK now to maybe be friends with the Soviet Union. But, of course, we need to replace, according to our, government administrative structure, they think we need a new enemy to put in their place, and Iran has turned into that new enemy so far . . .

Audience Member: I was wondering just why it is that they waited till January 1st to release the hostages? Why not November the 7th or the 5th or something like that?

Barbara Honegger: OK, the question is . . . by they, you mean the Khomeini regime?

Audience Member: Yeah.

Barbara Honegger: OK. Good question. I’m glad you asked it, because it reminds me of something I should had mentioned. It’s a key point. The question was, why did the Khomeini regime not release the hostages, because Carter had obviously already lost, immediately after the election, to the Carter administration, at least while they were still in office during the transition team, and not wait, as they did, until Ronald Reagan’s moment of inauguration?

The answer to that, according to Monsur Rafizadeh who was the former US Chief of Savak, and a self-declared double agent for the CIA for up to 18-19 years. He’s written a wonderful book called Witness that I recommend you all race out and read. It’s published by William Morrow, 1987, called Witness, by Monsur Rafizadeh. Mr. Rafizadeh who has graciously been a source of mine for months and months on end, whenever I needed information, he would answer. Mr. Rafizadeh, in his book, and also in personal interviews, informs us that Mr. Sadak Gotzbideh, who was the Foreign Minister of Iran at the time, was persuaded, if you will, was asked by the Reagan-Bush administration, to ask Khomeini specifically not to do so. But to withhold the release of the hostages until Reagan’s inauguration, so that Carter could not get any credit whatsoever.

Audience Member: Has any more evidence surfaced regarding the mysterious disappearance of the Carter debate prep notes in 1980?

Barbara Honegger: OK. The question is, for those who couldn’t hear it, are there any new developments on the Carter briefing book scandal?

Yes, I’m so glad you asked the question. And the answers are in my documents. By the way, it’s called. The Time Line of Events: Negotiation Between the 1980 Reagan-Bush Campaign and Iran for US Arms in Return for a Delay in Release of the Hostages. And this document’s 75 pages, and it includes the answer to that question. But I will give you a brief overview, a very brief overview.

And that is, for those of you who don’t remember, in late 1983, moving through April of 1984, there was an official investigation of charges that President Carter’s campaign briefing books, which were question and answers, verbatim. The questions that the Carter debate briefing team thought might be asked Jimmy Carter in the Reagan/Carter debate of October 28, 1980 and, under the answers, the answers that Carter practiced giving. So they were actual Carter answers. Those debate briefing books, there were reports that they had been, in fact, somehow stolen or absconded with or illegally transferred, (all kind of euphemisms were used) to the Reagan-Bush campaign.

The answer is yes. And in fact, I now have almost proof. It’s certainly enough to bring a Grand Jury to call for a court case. That the debate briefing books, themselves, were in fact used inside of what was called the Wexford garage. Wexford was the place where the Reagans were staying. It was an old estate, as I understand it, of John F. Kennedy. Now owned by Governor Clement of Texas, and the Reagans were staying there during the last stages of the 1980 campaign. It was in that garage that Reagan practiced debating Carter, and that David Stockman pretended to be Carter. Those are what are called the Wexford garage debate rehearsals.

I now have rather astonishing evidence that, in fact, the Carter debate book was being used by Mr. Stockman in the garage.

Audience Member: How do you feel this team will try to stay in power this November? How do you think they’ll do it?

Barbara Honegger: I don’t think they’ll do it.

Audience Member: Election manipulation maybe?

Audience Member: Why don’t you think they’ll do it?

Barbara Honegger: I don’t think they’ll win. [applause]

Audience Member: One thing that occurred to me as you were talking, I thought you might want to look into, is: the Iraqi-Iran war broke out just prior to the October Surprise. Is it possible that there would be various forces, notably our CIA and the Israeli Mossad, that would be working to start a war, and therefore you could possibly question the Iranian Intelligence, because they certainly would know, precisely what the Iraqi . . . 

Barbara Honegger: Well, the answer to that, OK, first of all, the question was, is it possible, because the Iran-Iraq war allegedly broke out on September 22, 1980, which was just before this Iranian emissary approached the Reagan-Bush campaign, and the John Anderson campaign by the way, and also the Carter White House. Khomeini’s people were not missing any chances. They approached all three. It happened that it was the Reagan-Bush people who followed it up to the bitter end. And said yes. But . . . The question was, because the Iran-Iraq war allegedly started in late September, which was shortly before the October Surprise, business, monkey business, dirty tricks, is it possible that, in fact, the beginning of the war was manipulated by the Israeli and/or American and/or Iraqi Intelligence service?

The answer is probably no. And the reason for that is that Iran, in fact, started the war on September 4, of 1980. If you read the history carefully, Iran began the attacks over the border, by weapons over the border, into Iraq. And it got so bad, that Iraq had great restraint, and Iraq then went to the United Nations and complained, and still the Iranians bombed. And finally when, as anyone would, Iraq finally decided to take a defensive maneuver and strike back . . . of course, it’s typical Iranian character, they went . . . Oh God, they started the war.

Audience Member: I like your theory, except there’s two points of logic I . . .

Barbara Honegger: Which theory?

Audience Member: Your version of what’s happening in Iran. And what will happen. I just have two points I’d like to clarify, cause logically they don’t quite make it. One is, to destroy the Dome of the Rock, which is part of Revelations, it would seem to me, by using explosives, they would destroy the Wailing Wall. Which is not part of Revelations.

Barbara Honegger: "And the wall comes tumbling down . . . "

Audience Member: Yeah, but that’s not part of Revelations.

Barbara Honegger: It may not be. The question is, I didn’t know exactly what part of my address you were referring to. The questioner is referring to the Biblical scenario as a context to understand much of what is going on with the sales of weapons to Iran and, the Israeli buildup, the buildup of all the weapons in the Middle East, the Jerusalem Temple Committee, Oliver North believing Reagan is in the line of Abraham, etc., and the question is, well, if explosives were actually placed under the Dome of the Rock, and the Temple, the Mosque there, which is one of the Islamic holy sites, was blown up, wouldn’t it also blow up the Wailing Wall, which, according to Revelations will not fall?

Well, we shall see. That’s an empirical question, I think.

Audience Member: OK. And the second point is . . . this doesn’t make sense to me, from Israel’s point of view . . . why is Israel supporting Iran? I understand why they support Iran against Iraq, seeing as Iraq was their most bitter enemy . . .

Barbara Honegger: At one point they strongly and secretly supported Iran. That’s correct.

Audience Member: Iran is their main source of oil to Israel. It’s the only country in the Middle East that’s regularly made oil available.

Barbara Honegger: Israel has to have oil, and they’ve historically received up to 80% of their oil, if not more, from Iran.

Audience Member: If you’re correct, and I think you might be, why would Israel be still supplying Iran with weapons when Iran’s going to turn around and start a war with them?

Barbara Honegger: The answer to that, up to a point, was (and it’s in my documentation, seeing as how you asked), is that, the original shipments of US-, Israeli-made, and a combination of arms through Israel to Iran, in fact, began back in late 1979, early 1980, when after Khomeini came into power, he swore to, uh, protect, uh, Jews, all except for, uh, Zionist Jews. All except for the Jews that believed in the geopolitical expansion of the current state of Israel, into it’s so-called Biblically, uh, ordained Greater Israel boundaries. And, you know, I don’t blame him for being concerned about that. It will certainly trigger WWIII if it happens.

And, it was Khomeini who was very anti-Zionist Jews, and, in fact, ordered the assassination, in May of 1979, of the leader of the Jewish community in Iran, [unintelligible] And it was after that (and I go into the details in the documentation), it was after that, that Mr. Ariel Sharon, who was then Defense Minister in Israel at the time, met with some key leaders from Iran and Israel, and a deal was made, in which arms would secretly . . . effectively an arms for Jewish hostages swap, started in 1979 and was formalized in 1980, in another meeting in Paris, France. That there would effectively be a secret agreement whereby a combination of US and Israeli arms, although small amounts at that time, would regularly flow, cyclically flow into Iran, and when they were received then the visas for certain Jews . . . Zionist Jews, most of them, and wealthy Jews, would allow them to escape.

And, because I believe there was quite a large Jewish community in Iran, the Jews were trying to get them out. And as long as there were any left there, they were going to go along with Iran until they were gone. Till they were out. It was an exodus operation.

Audience Member: I have a couple of questions. Forgive me for being dense, but I don’t quite see what the connection is, of on the one hand selling this 5 billion dollars worth of arms to Iran, and then also backing Israel and hoping to expand Israel and inherit this, uh, this Biblically-ordained state? And also, I’ll ask another question . . .

Barbara Honegger: There may not be a link.

Audience Member: What does Reagan visualize as his role after this planned Armegeddon happens?

Barbara Honegger: I don’t know.

The first question, as I could paraphrase it best, would be something to the effect of, he doesn’t see the link, and I may not either, yet . . . I haven’t worked out all the links . . . between reports that, the United States, in fact, the Reagan-Bush camp, in fact, agreed to ship first 1.2 billion, and then up to 5 billion dollars in US arms to Iran. Is there any link between that and the Biblical scenario?

I don’t know. There isn’t any obvious link to me yet at this time, except for the fact, that it is clear, that the same group of people. we’re talking about Wilson, Secord, Clines, Shackley, this team, the Secret Team that Danny Sheehan of the Christic Institute talks about, what these people, the Oliver Norths of the world, believe they have a higher purpose that’s above US law. I’m claiming here that that’s probably Biblically motivated. That, regardless of what we think about it, and it seems counter-intuitive and insane, nevertheless, we know that the same team has been supplying weapons to the very countries that they expect to use those weapons in the attack on Israel.

And I will tell you that what I believe is the answer to your question, but it’s an educated guess. Is that precisely the weapons that are being given to these three Biblically-predicted great enemies, who will descend with their weapons on Israel, that in fact, these weapons are US made weapons. And that the United States secretly has a way of preventing them from being effective when the attack happens.

For instance, we now know that Israel itself is helping the Chinese to build Silkworm missiles. Super new Silkworms that they’re going to then ship to Iran. To be used, if I’m not incorrect, in this kind of grand Hollywood finale of the Reagan administration.

Audience Member: I’d just like to make a comment, that I think it must really be kept in mind that the people who are controlling all these scenarios are the bankers and the money consortiums. [applause] And they don’t, in their private meetings, name nations and draw borders. The borders are obliterated, and the races are obliterated, and the bottom line is money. And they don’t care whose war they finance, and where they really go. I’ve been to the Middle East a lot of times, and done some research in this. And I’ve heard these people talk, Barbara, in the Israeli Cabinet. I did get in, once, and sit in on a meeting, and it just blew my mind, the way that they, in full meetings, think that they’re above it.

Barbara Honegger: Think that they’re above what?

Audience Member: Being judged.

Barbara Honegger: Yes, they do. So does the Reagan-Bush administration, for the same reason. Because they believe that they’re involved in a higher scenario.

Audience Member: But the people controlling Reagan, and Nancy, and the whole group, they have their head off in a Biblical cloud?

Barbara Honegger: Or may have. Let me repeat the question and I do have a response to it. And that is, the basic paraphrase of the question is, well, well, it’s not really clear how the Biblical scenario could possibly be perhaps carried out, because isn’t the bottom line money and the international bankers?

The answer to that may be yes. But I refer you to a very important videotape that I have, if you can’t put your hands on it. It’s by a man named Jonathan May. Has anyone heard of the Jonathan May video? Any hands? Couple of people. Does anyone have that video? No, it’s not Coverup. OK.

I was recently sent, um, a video by a . . . a Nazi scholar. [sic] Someone who studied the Nazis and how they survived WWII, to go on and do their dastardly deeds. A colleague of Mae Brussell sent me a copy of what was called the Jonathan May interview. And I have now transcribed that, and you can write me for the transcription of it, if you’d like. I saw the video, and sent it back to the person who gave it to me, but they’re making a copy for me and within a month I’ll probably have it again.

But the bottom line of it is, that there are thirteen families that control the big banks of the world, and, in fact, you will find, when you look at that list, that they are, if not completely Jewish, and Zionist Jewish, that they probably are almost so.

Richard Gallyôt: Bullshit!

Audience [Various members]: Bullshit!

" " " Anglo-Saxon Protestant!

" " " Capitalists!

" " " [etc.]

Barbara Honegger: Not according to this list. I’m not saying it’s true. That’s what’s in the Jonathan May video.

Audience: [continued multiple, loud, very negative responses.]

Barbara Honegger: That may be. We have a difference of opinion in the room. But it’s worth . . . my point is . . . my point is, I’m not an expert on that question. But I have recently viewed the Jonathan May video, and before you make up your mind, I recommend that you see it.

Audience Member: I would like to know, if there have been any investigations that seem to tie in with the Federal Reserve System. Because it is the body that makes the monetizing process function, nationally and internationally. The most powerful group in the world, and no one ever talks about the Federal Reserve System. They’re private entrepreneurs. It’s not a government agency.

Barbara Honegger: Good question, and it feeds into my response to the last question. As much as the, uh, partial negative reaction was, I still request that you see the Jonathan May tape. And that is, that it addresses this very question of the role of the Federal Reserve System and goes into detail as how these specific thirteen families control the Federal Reserve System, which, in turn, controls the international banking system.

Audience Member: I would just like to say one thing. I am only slightly familiar with the Jonathan May stuff from audiotape, and I thought Jonathan May’s rap was interesting in terms of the banking connection and the SDI and the elimination of cash and the credit card system. What I thought was peculiar was that this particular tape came from an organization called United Church something-or-other of Christ, and sounded very . . . I mean the presenter was peculiar . . . The information was interesting but the person who presented it was peculiar.

Barbara Honegger: This is an important comment, because, when you do see the Jonathan May tape, and I’d forgotten that aspect of it . . . he also goes into the fact that he has sources that 60% of the Star Wars money hasn’t been going to Star Wars at all. It’s been going to this international banking satellite computer system which will . . . which, the plan is, for these thirteen families who control the Federal Reserve system, to eliminate all paper money, so that all of us will have nothing but the cards. And this is the . . . this is . . . according to the reason it’s put out by a group that has these, uh, Fundamentalist connections, is because they see this as the Mark of the Beast, which is part of the Book of Revelations. It’s the same scenario.

Audience Member: I’d like to remind you that you’re in the house of Labor. One of the most important Union office buildings in the city. And the converse of labor is capital. Capital is international. The primary way . . .

Barbara Honegger: Madam, are you asking a question?

Audience Member: I’m formulating my question, just a minute.

Barbara Honegger: I actually appreciate the background a little bit, so I can . . .

Audience Member: Backtrack where I was. The bottom line in this society is maximization of profit, and where we are in this world, in order to do that, produce as many munitions as possible. It has nothing to do with nationality, it has nothing to do with the banking system. [unintelligible] and it is the working class that suffers the most.

And I’d like to know, what all this business about Revelations, churches and all the rest of it, has to do with cold-blooded money, and that’s reality?

Audience: [calls of "Right on" and loud applause]

Barbara Honegger: I think . . . I think the link . . . in . . . in . . . look, let’s state it this way. I think everybody could hear that. Um, in my mind, and this is an educated opinion, I’m not saying it’s . . . a fact, I’m saying it’s an educated opinion, I acknowledge that. We all have our opinions. And that is, that, the people who happen to be in power now believe these things I’m telling you. Whether they’re true or not is beside the point. They believe them and they act on those beliefs.

Audience Member: With all due respect, Barbara, I think you’re striving at the wind for your Armegeddon scenario, because the Bible simply states that to begin with, Armegeddon is an old Jewish word meaning "where the war will be fought." OK? And it will be fought between Germany and Russia and China.

Audience: [multiple voices, unintelligible]

Barbara Honegger: I just have a comment for anyone who heard him, and I appreciate your comment. The point here is that there are different interpretations. We are approaching the millennium. It is instructive to go back and read the frenzy that happened on this planet by Christian believers and other groups who read the Bible, around the first millennium. We are approaching the second millennium and there are people who have positioned themselves into positions of control and authority over some very dangerous weapons, who happen to buy into a slightly different interpretation of Revelations, Ezekiel and Daniel than the one you’re giving. And they’re the ones in power.

Audience Member: My name is Michael. I find your discourse here very interesting. And I’d like to backtrack for a minute here, and go back to a point that someone else tried to make. The question was asked, "How do you think that it would be possible for the current team in power ie. Reagan-Bush, to continue in power. Your answer was, was it wasn’t possible. My question to you, as a representative of the media, is why don’t you think that it is possible for them to retain power? You yourself are admitting, in your discourse, that we face a very powerful and very sophisticated enemy. Have we forgotten about Bush’s history, as head of the CIA?

Barbara Honegger: OK, good. I didn’t mean to imply, even if I stated it that way, that I . . . don’t think they can win. I don’t . . . I meant to say I don’t want them to win and I don’t believe they will win. I think I said I don’t believe they’ll win. And I mean that. I don’t . . . even if I had a scenario for how they could win, I wouldn’t say it here, because they might then go and do it.

Barbara Honegger: I was asked the question, do I have any light to shed on the Iranian Airbus situation?

Well, obviously we’re not being told the truth. And I haven’t . . . I haven’t studied it in anywhere the detail that I’ve studied what I’ve shared with you tonight. Do you want me to give you an educated guess?

[affirmative response from the audience]

Barbara Honegger: OK. I believe that there was an F14, and that the F14 left Bandar ’Abbas, that the Airbus headed towards the Vincennes shortly after it took off an actual F14, that was putting out the F14 signal, headed after the Airbus, directly behind it, so it couldn’t be distinguished on the radar screens. That it was, in fact, the F14 that put out the signal. When both of them got within the 20 mile range, our Intelligence had set up the Navy Captains, including the Captain of the Vincennes, to be primed to expect a kamikaze type of attack during that time period of the Fourth of July weekend, from the Iranians. Which would probably be from something like an F14. So he was primed to shoot. So as both planes, with the F14 immediately behind the Airbus, went inside the 20 mile limit, which triggered their High Readiness Code, he. as soon as the F14, which was physically there, right behind, picked up the signals that the Vincennes was releasing two missiles towards the Airbus, they, in fact, the F14, shot it down themselves. That is my hypothesis. And then, of course, the F14 turned off it’s military mode transponder, so it couldn’t be picked up, and flew away.

Obviously it was not a kamikaze attack, or the F14 would have headed toward the Vincennes, but it didn’t.

Brett McCabe: Barbara, I’m very sorry to cut this short, but we still have another panel discussion to go and it’s getting very late.

Thank you Barbara Honegger.

Anyone that’s interested in buying a copy of what’s been happening here, can get copies and other information at Bound Together Books, which has a table set up in the back, and is also a bookstore at 1369 Haight Street.