Don’t Overlook the Helpers of Yesteryear: Stich, Taus, Rothstein

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

On April 2, 2018 Gumshoe published an article about Richard Taus who is in prison on false charges. The imprisonment is outrageous, a clear effort  to keep Taus out of circulation as a whistle blower. Or maybe it is retaliation — Taus is one of the most important reporters of the Iran/Contra affair – more on that below.

Rodney Stich  

Rodney Stich is a WWII pilot who is still going at it.  I mean going at whistle blowing.  The library shelves groan with his books, but only a few libraries of course. Rodney has been prolific both as a writer and as a guest on radio talk shows. If you have not heard of him it is because it is hard for such a person to get any national coverage, the MSM having blocked him for decades. 

Rodney Stich’s books are so packed with information that it would be silly for anyone to try to duplicate the research on those same subjects.  Just buy his books!

On August 2, 2018 Gumshoe used Stich’s good offices to bring to you the testimony of Dee Ferdinand whose late Dad, Albert Carone, was a well-rounded criminal with ties to the OSS, the CIA, the Mafia, the US Military, and let’s see, did I forget some other important player?  Oh yes, the NYPD.

James Rothstein

Which brings us to Jim Rothstein, a detective with the New York Police Department.   Rothstein has been helping Australia’s pre-eminent whistle blower, Fiona Barnett. In fact he told her that the purpose of the Watergate break-in in 1968 was to rescue a notebook that listed pedophile behaviour and other sex offenses of Congressmen.

People may doubt the credentials of any official who would speak up for Ms Barnett. (Although I never miss a chance to credit Senator Bill Heffernan for lending credence to her complaints one day on the floor of Parliament.)

In this article I endeavor to dig up a bit of history explicitly for the purpose of showing that Detective Rothstein has a good track record of helping us.

I shall now quote from Rodney Stich’s 2005 book Drugging America: A Trojan Horse, page 221:

“Two of my sources had sensitive information on matters relating to Taus’ activities. My friend of many years, Jim Rothstein, described what he discovered and reported while a vice squad detective on the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in the 1960s and 1970s. During his many years as a vice squad detective he frequently reported CIA involvement with organized crime and drug trafficking.

“He described the reports that he had filed of CIA drug sales to the blacks in New York City, naming some of those who were involved. His reports described how CIA operatives sold drugs directly to black distributors from about 1967 to 1972, after which time organized crime groups took over the distribution. The CIA then concentrated on supplying drugs to the crime groups. Rothstein described his contacts with a key black that acted as an intermediary between the CIA and minor drug dealers.

“Take a disability retirement or suffer the consequences”!

“Rothstein‘ s supervisors didn’t want Rothstein’s reports of CIA activities that threatened to expose high-level people in the New York Police Department (NYPD) and local politicians. His NYPD supervisors gave him a choice: take a disability retirement or suffer the consequences. He took the disability retirement in 1981.

“Rothstein described how a package of evidence exposing the CIA drug and Mafia links was put into the safe of New York district attorney Robert Morgen­thau, and how the evidence disappeared by the following morning. He described how New York City and county authorities refused to prosecute high-level drug bosses while concentrating on low-level street vendors.

“Referring to Army Colonel Edward Cutolo, Rothstein said that he had seen Cutolo’s involvement with the Mafia in drug trafficking. He explained that Cutolo, like other military people involved in the drug trafficking, would often have second thoughts and seek to extricate themselves from the operation. That desire may have ended deadly for Cutolo.” [Emphasis added]

Richard Taus

And now back to Taus. For now, let’s only look at his affidavit dates 19 years ago, August of 1997:

AFFIDAVIT OF RICHARD M. TAUS

I, Richard M. Taus, declare and state:

I am a former Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation assigned to the New York Field Office and the Brooklyn-Queens Metropolitan Resident Agency from July 1978 to November 1988. 1 was assigned to both the Foreign Counter-intelligence Division and the Criminal Division.

During this period, my investigations into these matters revealed criminal activities and operations which I reported and documented to my superiors in the FBI, as follows:

– The involvement of officials, agents and operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with organized crime members and drug-trafficking activities. And the participation of members of the CIA who engaged in the looting of the Savings and Loan (Thrift) Industries, financial scams and fraudulent securities transactions.

– The involvement of people from the National Security Agency Staff and Council and the White House in criminal activities associated with funding the acquisition of military supplies and equipment, arms and ammunition, which were referred to as the Iran-Contra Arms Initiative, known as Irangate, and the Iraqi scandal (Iraqgate).

– Associations between known and suspected members of the Mafia, and CIA agents in conducting drug-trafficking activities and financial frauds.

I was ordered by my supervisors in the FBI to halt these investigations, destroy my written reports, terminate my informants and make no reference to these criminal and subversive activities implicating high-ranking Government officials, politicians, Mafia and  business leaders who controlled and manipulated Government agencies and  operations.

Without any support from my superiors at the FBI New York Field Office, I then sent a letter describing what I had discovered in my official status as an FBI Special Agent, to the FBI Director, William Sessions, and this was ignored.

I proceeded to write [to] Congressional officials, among them Senators Arlan Spector, Alfonse DAmato, John Kerry [what a bunch!] and  Congressman Norman Lent, Charles Schumer, and many others who were on both the Senate and House Intelligence Oversight Committees.

None of the above officials or representatives provided any support or assistance in exposing the CIA-White House corruption and the obstruction of justice tactics by my FBI superiors.

My sole purpose in preparing this Affidavit, to be used by the former FBI Special Agent-ln-Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office, SAC Ted Gunderson, is to bring to justice the criminal and subversive activities that I and other Government agents and operatives have discovered during our official and Government-related duties.

I declare and affirm under penalty of perjury that these statements are true to the best of my knowledge and belief. Executed this 13th day of August 1997, in the County of Clinton, State of New York.

Richard M. Taus  [Emphasis added]

As suggested in the title of this article, we should not overlook the helpers of yesteryear: Taus, Stich, and Rothstein.  There has been no resolution, and probably no cessation — especially in regard to the CIA’s control of the drug industry — of the matters they raised.

We thank them.

— Mary W Maxwell, LLB, is the author of Prosecution for Treason (2011)