Posted on 07/09/2003 4:04:00 PM PDT by Doug Thompson
Damn, I hate it when I've been had and I've been had big time.
In 1982, while I was working for Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico, a man came up to a me during a gathering in Albuquerque and introduced himself as Terrance J. Wilkinson. He said he was a security consultant and gave me a business card with his name and just a Los Angeles phone number.
A few weeks later, he called my Washington office and asked to meet for lunch. He seemed to know a lot about the nuclear labs in New Mexico and said he had conducted "security profiles" for both Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs. Lujan served on the committee with oversight on both labs and he offered his services if we ever needed briefings.
We already had nuclear experts on the committee, on loan from the Department of Energy, and we never used Wilkinson for briefings but we kept in touch over the years. He said he had served in Vietnam with Army Special Force, worked for Air America, later for the FBI and as a consultant for the CIA. He said he had helped other Republican members of Congress I called some friends in other GOP offices and they said yes, they knew Terry Wilkinson.
"You can trust him, he's one of the good guys," one chief of staff told me. When I left politics and returned to journalism, Wilkinson became a willing, but always unnamed, source.
Over the last couple of years, Wilkinson served as either a primary or secondary source on a number of stories that have appeared in Capitol Hill Blue regarding intelligence activities. In early stories, I collaborated his information with at least one more source. His information usually proved accurate and, over time, I came to depend on him as a source without additional backup.
On Tuesday, we ran a story headlined "White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes." For the first time, Wilkinsson said he was willing to go on the record and told a story about being present, as a CIA contract consultant, at two briefings with Bush. He said he was retired now and was fed up and wanted to go public.
"He (Bush) said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said in our story. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."
After the story ran, we received a number of emails or phone calls that (1) either claimed Wilkinson was lying or (2) doubted his existence. I quickly dismissed the claims. After all, I had known this guy for 20+ years and had no doubt about his credibility. Some people wanted to talk to him, so I forwarded those requests on to him via email. He didn't answer my emails, which I found odd. I should have listened to a bell that should have been going off in my ear.
Today, a White House source I know and trust said visitor logs don't have any record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever being present at a meeting with the President. Then a CIA source I trust said the agency had no record of a contract consultant with that name. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever heard of this guy," my source said.
I tried calling Terry's phone number. I got a recorded message from a wireless phone provider saying the number was no longer in service. I tried a second phone number I had for him. Same result.
Then a friend from the Hill called.
"You've been had," she said. "I know about this guy. He's been around for years, claiming to have been in Special Forces, with the CIA, with NSA. He hasn't worked for any of them and his name is not Terrance Wilkinson."
Both of his phone numbers have Los Angeles area codes but an identity check through Know-X today revealed no record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever having lived in LA or surrounding communities.
His email address turns out to be a blind forward to a free email service where anyone can sign up and get an email account. Because it was not one of the usual "free" services like Hotmail, Yahoo or such, I did not recognize it as one (although you'd think that someone like me would have known better).
The bottom line is that someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme. I've spent the last two hours going through the database of Capitol Hill Blue stories and removing any that were based on information from Wilkinson (or whoever he is). I've also removed his name, quotes and claims from Tuesday's story about the White House and the uranium claims.
Erasing the stories doesn't erase the fact that we ran articles containing informattion that, given the source, were most likely inaccurate. And it doesn't erase the sad fact that my own arrogance allowed me to be conned.
It will be a long time (and perhaps never) before I trust someone else who comes forward and offers inside information. The next one who does had better be prepared to produce a birth certificate, a driver's license and his grandmother's maiden name.
Any news publication exists on the trust of its readers. Because I depended on a source that was not credible, I violated the trust that the readers of Capitol Hill Blue placed in me.
I was wrong. I am sorry.
© Copyright 2003 by Capitol Hill Blue
Somebody set me up the post! *grin*
October -- Congress gives the President authority to wage war in Iraq.
January -- In the SOTU, the President utters those sixteen words. Nothing happens.
Early March -- The "Niger documents" are revealed to be forgeries. Nothing happens.
Late June -- Joseph Wilson op-ed is published in the New York Times. He claims he had been sent to Niger in February, interviewed the proper officials and sundry baggage agents, all of whom protested their innocence, and he had reported accordingly to the CIA. Nothing happened then. It turns out, in fact, that his report never got beyond his superior's desk. And nothing happened after his Times expose' either.
July 8 -- Based on the statements of one Terrence J. Wilkinson, who purported to "be there" when Wilson's memo was presented in the Oval Office, Doug Thompson publishes his J'Accuse in CHB. Quickly, Wilkinson's story (as well as Wilkinson himself) is proven a complete lie. But, now and only now, all hell breaks loose!
With the impetus that the President had forcibly dismissed a CIA-commissioned report, the story races around the world. Every major network, newspaper and news magazine hops on the story -- there is virtually no attribution to CHB and NO mention of Terrence J. Wilkinson. When CHB backtracks and retracts, the story shifts and the original inflammatory accusations are edited out. Instead, they begin to report response to the original report...and momentum gathers behind "Bush lied".
In other words, in my opinion, the whole escapade was a carefully planned agitprop operation in which Doug Thompson and CHB were unwitting tools. After over three months of lying fallow, somebody (employed by someone) found a way for the Niger operation to gain traction. Without Terrence J. Wilkinson, none of this would've happened!
It was a major operation bent on one purpose -- breathing life into what was a dead story.
Doug, any idea on who he was? Or, more importantly, who he was working for? The DNC? The Clintons? Russia? France? China...???
William, have you turned up anything yet?
Wilson, imo, is the part of this same effort.
Wilson, imo, is the part of this same effort.
Both of his [Terrence J Wilkinson] phone numbers have Los Angeles area codes but an identity check through Know-X today revealed no record of anyone named Terrance J. Wilkinson ever having lived in LA or surrounding communities.
His email address turns out to be a blind forward to a free email service where anyone can sign up and get an email account. Because it was not one of the usual "free" services like Hotmail, Yahoo or such, I did not recognize it as one (although you'd think that someone like me would have known better).
When I looked up truthout.org (the website who sent your work to JapanToday) on a whois type search engine, I was given this:
Organization:
Marc Ash
Marc Ash
767 S San Pedro St
Los Angelos, CA 90014
US
Phone: 213-489-1971
Email: admin@artfix.com
Registrar Name....: Register.com
Domain Name: TRUTHOUT.ORG
Created on..............: Mon, Sep 10, 2001
Expires on..............: Wed, Sep 10, 2003
Record last updated on..: Mon, Nov 25, 2002
A.NS.INTERLAND.NET 64.226.28.33
B.NS.INTERLAND.NET 66.111.73.173
C.NS.INTERLAND.NET 64.77.127.42
*****************
Notice that Marc Ash of TRUTHOUT.ORG lists their organization as having a Los Angeles addy. Look it up on your own and see if you recognize any of those phone numbers.
As I already pointed out, look at the registration date which is a day prior to the attacks on the US.
Note also that "Marc Ash" has a nontypical way of spelling "Los Angeles." He, she or it spelled it Los Angelos. The same spelling quirk occurs onhis older ArtFix.com web site whois registration info.
The odd spelling isn't all that unusual, but it is not the way we spelled it in school. Is this odd spelling indicitave of "Marc Ash" being Latin/Hispanic?
Just curious.
Novak published the information, but, as far as I know, it was Corn who first pointed out that Plame's cover had been revealed, that a crime may have been committed, and that something strange might have been going on. I think Corn's article is what triggered the media extravaganza we're currently seeing.
Wolfstar analyzes Corn's article on a thread entitled :
Set up? Anatomy of the contrived Wilson "scandal"
...and raises some good questions about where Corn got his info.
I'm just curious if Doug's mysterious source has the same phone number as Marc Ash.
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