ustxtxb_obs_1991_09_20_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

1988 SALIM YAQUIB. FROM THE IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL TRADING CARDS. USED BY PERMISSION Theodore Shackley is now known, moreover, that Kerr had close ties to the CIA. “The CIA paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige, and even published his writings through a subsidized magazine,” according to The Crimes of Patriots, a book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny. Whatever Tange and his colleagues said to Kerr over that weekend in Melbourne, it worked. On Tuesday, Nov. 11, 1975, the day Gough Whitlam was to expose Richard Stallings in Parliament, Governor General Kerr revoked the prime minister’s commission. The CIA’s secrets were protected, and the Pine Gap treaty went through. Whitlam was not the only casualty of this period, however. On the very day Whitlam first revealed Richard Stallings’ CIA ties, President Gerald Ford fired CIA Director Colby. Kissinger had decided Colby was a little too forthcoming with Congressional investigators. Ford replaced Colby with Republican Party stalwart George Herbert Walker Bush, who, he knew, would stall Congress for as long as Kissinger wanted. It is deeply ironic that George Bush should have risen to the head of the intelligence community in this manner, given his own oil company’s activities in Australia during the 1960s and his son’s later involvement with Harken, a company that directly benefited from the Constitutional Coup. Changing of the Guard When Harry Mulligan and Phil Kendrick sold their stake in Harken in 1983, they were bought out by a group of investors headed by New York attorney Alan G. Quasha. Quasha, a partner in the firm of Quasha Wessely & Schneider, shelled out $250,000 for 100,000 shares of the company. The remaining 10 investors, including Quasha’s brother, Wayne, a member of their father’s Philippines law firm, paid $775,000 for 310,000 shares. Kendrick, however, recalls being perplexed by the deal. “I never could understand why Alan Quasha wanted to buy an oil and gas company at a time when he knew nothing about oil and gas and especially at a time when everything was beginning to go downhill and fall apart,” Kendrick said. It was not the last time Kendrick would be surprised. One of the group that bought into Harken with Quasha was Herbert Theodore Brunn, a retired vice president of international operations for RCA. Brunn says he was drawn to the company by its Australian assets. “I thought that was the most attractive thing about it,” Brunn said, “[but] they sold those out to somebody to raise money. That was the first deal, I think, that Quasha made, was to sell those holdings off. There really wasn’t much to the company except for those holdings at the time. … When they sold those out, I more or less got out of the thing.” Curious as Quasha’s activities may have been, others who he brought to Harken have also raised eyebrows. Quasha, who now sits on Harken’s board, is also a director of North American Resources, Ltd. stockholder. According to Harken’s proxy statement, NAR is a partnership between the Quasha family and the Richemont Group Limited, a publicly traded Swiss company controlled by South African billionaire Anthony E. “Anton” Rupert. Rupert, through his companies, Richemont and the South African-based Rembrandt Group, controls such well-known enterprises as Rothmans International, manufacturers of Dunhill cigarettes, luxury jewelry retailer Cartier International and MontBlanc pens. NAR is also the parent company of Intercontinental Mining and , Harken stockholder. IMR “and its affiliates” also own large stakes in two Harken subsidiaries, according to Harken’s proxy. Lawyers, Guns and Money Quasha’s most interesting affiliation, however, is not financial but familial. Quasha’s father, William Howard Quasha, is a powerful Philippines attorney with some interesting associations of his own. The senior Quasha, the only American attorney licensed to practice in the Philippines, has numerous ties to individuals involved in Australia’s infamous Nugan Hand Bank, an institution utilized by CIA officers Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines of Iran-contra fame, along with their subordinate Edwin Wilson \(who is currently imprisoned operations, including the destabilization of Gough Whitlam’s Labour government in 1975. Australian government investigations during the late 1970s and early 1980s also revealed Nugan Hand’s involvement in gun running, drug-money laundering and close ties to the U.S. military and intelligence communities. The scandal-ridden bank collapsed in June 1980, six months after its co-founder, Frank Nugan, was found shot to death in his Mercedes Benz on a quiet road 90 miles outside of Sydney. Found on Nugan’s body was the calling card of his attorney former CIA director William Colby. In April 1980, as Australian government investigators closed in on Nugan Hand, the co-administrators of the bank’s Manila offices, U.S. Gen. LeRoy J. Manor and British subject Wilfred Gregory, turned to their lawyer, William Quasha, for advice. In addition to his duties with Nugan Hand, Manor was chief of staff for the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. government liaison with Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Gregory was Nugan Hand’s original representative in the Philippines and a personal friend of Marcos’ brother-in 14 SEPTEMBER 20, 1991