-Caveat Lector-
From "Nexus" Magazine, Vol. 4, Nos. 3 and 4
http://cis-6.altnews.com.au/nexus/pegfile1.html
THE PEGASUS FILE
(Brief biography of Chip Tatum appended following)
=================EXCERPT========================
In short order [Chip Tatum] was recruited (as an involuntary
"volunteer") to "Team Red Rock". The team was composed of eight
US Army Green Berets, three US Navy SEALs and two "cowboys" - a
euphemism for CIA paramilitary specialists. With Tatum attached,
Team Red Rock totalled 14 in all, and was about to be tasked with
an operation that came directly from the White House.
In January 1971 the team received a final briefing from
General Alexander Haig, who had flown in specially, along with
CIA Saigon Chief William Colby ... Haig and Colby outlined the
plan, stressing its importance and extreme classification.
President Nixon, desperate to quell domestic riots over an
increasingly unpopular war, sought to withdraw all US personnel
from South-East Asia ...
During those years, Nixon was also running a "secret war" in
Cambodia and Laos ... Nixon hoped that the vacuum caused by the
withdrawal of US covert forces could be filled by native
Cambodian forces. Lon Nol, the Cambodian leader, stubbornly
continued to resist Nixon's diplomatic overtures to take up the
slack, being anxious to hedge his bets and realistic about his
chances of survival as Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces prepared
to swarm in, unhindered by US air power.
A plan had been drawn up at the highest levels of Nixon's
administration. Team Red Rock were to enter Cambodia's capital,
Phnom Penh, in secret and attack the airport and military and
civil installations, wreaking as much havoc as possible ...
[A few North Vietnamese corpses in uniform were to be
"planted."] A furious Lon Nol would assume North Vietnam was to
blame. It was hoped that such an act would stiffen Lon Nol's
backbone. With nowhere else to turn, the US puppet would
urgently seek [defense contracts for the purchase of more] US
hardware to strengthen his forces and continue the battle.
The team members were not told that they, too, were to be
sacrificed by their President to ensure that word of the
operation never reached the light of day.
A detachment of Montagnard tribesmen ("the Yards"), in the
pay of the CIA, was assigned to liquidate each member of the team
and dispose of the bodies. The attack went successfully, but the
team's suspicion of "the Yards" foiled the betrayal. Using their
knowledge of "escape and evasion" tactics, the team decided to
trek to the Vietnamese border and back to safety with US forces.
Casualties thinned out their numbers until only eight of
them remained. Soon these, too, were captured by NVA regulars and
underwent hideous torture at the hands of Chinese and Russian
interrogators. Ultimately, only Tatum and one other team member
survived the ordeal.
Convalescing, Tatum was debriefed by CIA station chief,
William Colby, and told he would, in future, be kept close to
"the Agency".
Recruited into the CIA, the yawning door of future "black"
operations creaked open. Life would never be the same again for
Chip Tatum.
CIA DEEP-COVER AGENT
For the next 10 years or so, Tatum's covert activities were
varied. For a while, he worked out of Homestead Air Force Base
where he was NCIOC of the tower receiver sight and MARS station.
This was the base which then-President Nixon used for his
frequent visits to the Key Biscayne, Florida, "White House".
Much of [the Nixon-related] period remains obscured behind a
thick blanket of classification ...
By 1976, Tatum was operating out of Lamar, Colorado, in a
communications facility called OLAB. His contact there was Don
Holmes, president of Valley Savings & Loan ... [He] received a
call from Colby telling him he was resigning his position as
Director, Central Intelligence ... [Colby told him that, no
longer being there to protect him, Tatum's life might be in
jeopardy], as he had powerful enemies in Washington -- referring
to Nixon, Kissinger and Haig ...
During 1983, Colby established contact again, advising Tatum
he would shortly be contacted by "a man called North". This, as
Tatum was to discover later, was none other than Lt Col. Oliver
North - the central architect of America's Nicaraguan Contra
campaign. Besides fighting a covert war, North was also the
link-man in much, much dirtier work ...
Today, the official argument remains that the Contras were
"freelancing" without the knowledge or consent of their CIA
"handlers" or North's so-called "Enterprise" ... Despite these
assertions, mountains of hard evidence point in a different
direction. Included in this evidence is an entry from North's
own diary which shows his knowledge of cocaine shipments.
In stark contrast to these denials, Tatum says that North's
"Enterprise" not only set up the cocaine factories and "ran" the
Colombian cartels, but was also responsible for masterminding the
massive shipments of narcotics into the US.
Significantly, he is not alone in making these accusations.
A number of those involved in Col. North's operations have
subsequently come forward and spilled the beans. Almost all of
these "whistleblowers" have been hounded and imprisoned. Some
have died, whilst others have fled.
The whole Contra thing, Tatum states, was also being used by
an extremely covert group called Pegasus.
During February 1985, Tatum was piloting "Dustoff" (Medevac)
flights for the US Army's 3/498th Medical Company, stationed at
Fort Stewart, Georgia. [Tatum's flight crew was] transferred to
Palmerola Air Base, Honduras... (Previously, in 1984, Tatum had
infiltrated the 3/498th on the instructions of Lt Col. Oliver
North who had established contact under the code-name "Jake.")
On 15 February 1985, during a flight to La Ceiba, Honduras,
he was instructed to contact his local "handler", Major Felix
Rodriguez - later to prove a major figure in the Iran-Contra
investigation.
Rodriguez informed Tatum that in addition to his Army
"Medevac" duties he was to support covert "Pegasus" missions.
These, he was told, would take priority over his other duties.
He was also given his "chain of command": three individuals,
any of whom could authorise Pegasus missions.
In addition to Oliver North and Felix Rodriguez, Tatum
would henceforward take orders from Amiram Nir, a former Mossad
agent and advisor to Vice President Bush.
Aviation support for Pegasus missions operated out of
Ilopango Air Base, Honduras (home of the CIA proprietary airline
Corporate Air Services) plus numerous Contra camps located in the
jungles and mountains along the Honduras-Nicaragua border.
A common feature of all Pegasus missions was the transport
"of large white coolers in and out of the Contra camps".
On 26 February 1985, Tatum and his crew were instructed to
fly two individuals to one of the larger Contra camps on the
Honduran border ... Tatum was given a sealed cooler, marked
"Vaccine", weighing approximately 200 pounds, and instructed to
deliver it to a USAF C-130 transport plane at La Mesa Airport,
Honduras. Two crew members offloading the cooler accidentally
dropped it, breaking the seal.
Inside were over 100 bags of cocaine. Tatum resealed the
cooler and later watched as it was transferred aboard the C-130,
outward bound for Panama.
On his return, Tatum phoned Col. North to advise him of his
discovery.
North replied that it was "a trophy of war" and that the
"Sandinistas are manufacturing cocaine and selling it to fund the
military." North closed the conversation by saying that "the
cocaine was bound for the world courts as evidence" against the
Sandinistas.
The whole incident struck Tatum as odd and reminded him
strongly of earlier missions dating back to 1983-84 when he was
stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as a Special Operations
pilot. Regularly he would trans-ship white coolers, marked as
"Medical Supplies", to Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. On
two occasions he carried similar coolers to Mena Airport,
Arkansas. Deliveries of medical coolers to Little Rock AFB were
picked up by Dr Dan Lasater - a close confidant of the then
Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.
By now, almost two years later, Tatum had decided to
document his discovery to safeguard his "retirement".
Thereafter he documented all Pegasus flights ...
Tatum completed numerous missions during his rotation out
of Honduras. Picking up and trans-shipping coolers containing
cocaine was a regular event ... This was followed by a brief
stint in Colombia, where he was assigned to assist the Drug
Enforcement Administration's "War on Drugs" -- only to discover
the DEA itself was heavily engaged in narcotics trafficking.
_________________________________________________________________
Vietnam Special Forces Air Combat Controller; 25-year CIA
deep-cover agent; US Army pilot flying classified missions during
the US invasion of Grenada; Iran-Contra pilot flying cocaine
shipments labelled as medical supplies; and member of the
ultra-secret, international G7-run Pegasus "hit team" ... this is
the extraordinary story of Gene "Chip" Tatum.
From sensitive, highly secretive (and hitherto largely
unknown) Special Forces covert operations in Cambodia, to
wandering CIA asset; through to "black ops" activities in Grenada
and Oliver North's Iran-Contra "Enterprise", as well as
membership in an international "hit team", Gene "Chip" Tatum has
seen it all, done it all and is now telling it all.
Tatum claims to know where the skeletons are buried. Above
all, he is aware that his testimony implicates serving and former
US Presidents plus a whole list of high-level government
officials and others in a welter of nefarious activities -
including assassination, blackmail, coercion, gun-running,
money-laundering and cocaine-trafficking.
Tatum, a lanky Floridian, turned whistleblower following his
arrest on a treason charge in early 1995. The charge was both
astonishing and patently ludicrous, and was later dropped and
replaced by a fraud charge - a drastic step-down. Found guilty,
he was sentenced to serve a 15-month sentence. In March 1996, an
additional charge - conspiring to embezzle - was brought against
him. Found guilty, he was incarcerated in Jesup Federal
Correctional Facility, Georgia, where he is serving a 27-month
concurrent sentence. Ensuing press interest resulted in one
article appearing in the Tampa Tribune on 4 May 1996.
Many questions continue to hang over the conduct of the
trial. His defence lawyer refused to call any of the 80 witnesses
whom Tatum nominated for the defence. Later, his lawyer freely
confessed to having come under pressure from the US Department of
Defense. Tatum says the first charge was a set-up to discredit
him following his "resignation" from "Operation Pegasus". The
second charge he views with greater scepticism and concern.
Tatum's resignation from Pegasus followed his refusal to
"neutralise" a leading US political figure in the 1992 US
presidential elections. Tatum declares he will not "participate
in assassinations of any sort --not even character
assassinations-- of American citizens".
He goes on to explain that back in 1994, in a telephone
conference call involving Oliver North, Felix Rodriguez and the
late William Colby of the CIA, he was warned to turn over
incriminating documents and tapes he had accumulated for
his "retirement". He wryly observes that had he done so, he would
probably have been quickly "terminated" in an "extreme" way - a
speciality of the Pegasus team of which he was once a member.
Countering this demand, Tatum volunteered to plead guilty on
a fabricated felony count and serve a 12-month sentence - so that
his credibility would be damaged in the event he ever decided to
speak out. His incarceration for the second charge - and
especially the six- month sentence of his wife, Nancy - led him
to speak out about his life, almost 30 years of which he served
as a "black" operative, and to reveal and destroy the command
structure of Pegasus. It is an extraordinary story.
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