Down The Rabbit-Hole
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
Down the Rabbit-Hole
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again....
– Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland
From Watcher:
Underground Bases and the
New World Order
A Lecture By Phil Schneider: May 1995
=====
Phil Schneider, a very brave man, recently lost his life due to what appeared to be a military-style execution in January 1996. He was found dead in his apartment with piano wire still wrapped around his neck. According to some sources, he had been brutally tortured repeatedly before being killed.
Phil Schneider was an ex-government engineer who was involved in building underground bases. He was one of three people to survive the 1979 fire fight between the large Greys and U.S. intelligence and military forces at Dulce underground base.
In May 1995, Phil Schneider did a lecture on what he had discovered. Seven months later he was tortured and killed by those for whom he had previously worked. This man's final acts should not go unnoticed.
~ ~ ~
"It is because of the horrendous structure of the federal government that I feel directly imperiled not to tell anybody about this material. How long I will be able to do this is anybody's guess. However, I would like to mention that this talk is going to be broken up into four main topics. Each of these topics will have some bearing on what you people are involved in, whether you are patriots or not.
"I want you to know that these United States are a beautiful place. I have gone to more than 70 countries, and I cannot remember any country that has the beauty, as well as the magnificence of its people, like these United States.
"To give you an overview of basically what I am, I started off and went through engineering school. Half of my school was in that field, and I built up a reputation for being a geological engineer, as well as a structural engineer with both military and aerospace applications. I have helped build two main bases in the United States that have some significance as far as what is called the New World Order.
“The first base is the one at Dulce, New Mexico. I was involved in 1979 in a firefight with alien humanoids, and I was one of the survivors. I'm probably the only talking survivor you will ever hear. Two other survivors are under close guard. I am the only one left that knows the detailed files of the entire operation. Sixty-six secret service agents, FBI, Black Berets and the like, died in that firefight. I was there.
"Number one, part of what I am going to tell you is going to be very shocking. Part of what I am going to tell you is probably going to be very unbelievable, though, instead of putting your glasses on, I'm going to ask you to put your "scepticals" on. But please, feel free to do your own homework. I know the Freedom of Information Act isn't much to go on, but it's the best we've got. The local law library is a good place to look for Congressional Records. So, if one continues to do their homework, then one can be standing vigilant in regard to their country.
Deep Underground Military Bases
and the Black Budget
"I love the country I am living in more than I love my life, but I would not be standing before you now, risking my life, if I did not believe it was so. The first part of this talk is going to concern deep underground military bases and the black budget.
“The Black Budget is a secretive budget that garners 25% of the gross national product of the United States. The Black Budget currently consumes $1.25 trillion per year. At least this amount is used in black programs, like those concerned with deep underground military bases. Presently, there are 129 deep underground military bases in the United States.
"They have been building these 129 bases day and night, unceasingly, since the early 1940's. Some of them were built even earlier than that. These bases are basically large cities underground connected by high-speed magneto-leviton trains that have speeds up to Mach 2. Several books have been written about this activity. Al Bielek has my only copy of one of them. Richard Souder, a Ph.D architect, has risked his life by talking about this. He worked with a number of government agencies on deep underground military bases. In around where you live, in Idaho, there are 11 of them.
"The average depth of these bases is over a mile, and they again are basically whole cities underground. They all are between 2.66 and 4.25 cubic miles in size. They have laser drilling machines that can drill a tunnel seven miles long in one day. The Black Projects sidestep the authority of Congress, which as we know is illegal. Right now, the New World Order is depending on these bases.
“If I had known at the time I was working on them that the NWO was involved, I would not have done it. I was lied to rather extensively.
Development of Military Technology, Implied German
Interest in Hyperspacial Technology, and More
"Basically, as far as technology is concerned, for every calendar year that transpires, military technology increases about 44.5 years. This is why it is easy to understand that back in 1943 they were able to create, through the use of vaccum tube technology, a ship that could literally disappear from one place and appear in another place. My father, Otto Oscar Schneider, fought on both sides of the war. He was originally a U-boat captain, and was captured and repatriated in the United States. He was involved with different kinds of concerns, such as the A-bomb, the H-bomb and the Philadelphia Experiment. He invented a high-speed camera that took pictures of the first atomic tests at Bikini Island on July 12, 1946. I have original photographs of that test, and the photos also show UFO's fleeing the bomb site at a high rate of speed. Bikini Island at the time was infested with them, especially under the water, and the natives had problems with their animals being mutilated. At that time, General MacArthur felt that the next war would be with aliens from other worlds.
"Anyway, my father laid the groundwork with theoreticians about the Philadelphia experiment, as well as other experiments. What does that have to do with me? Nothing, other than the fact that he was my father. I don't agree with what he did on the other side, but I think he had a lot of guts in coming here. He was hated in Germany. There was a $1 million reward, payable in gold, to anyone who killed him. Obviously, they didn't succeed. Anyway, back to our topic - deep underground bases.
The Fire Fight At Dulce Base
"Back in 1954, under the Eisenhower administration, the federal government decided to circumvent the Constitution of the United States and form a treaty with alien entities. It was called the 1954 Greada Treaty, which basically made the agreement that the aliens involved could take a few cows and test their implanting techniques on a few human beings, but that they had to give details about the people involved. Slowly, the aliens altered the bargain until they decided they wouldn't abide by it at all. Back in 1979, this was the reality, and the fire-fight at Dulce occurred quite by accident. I was involved in building an addition to the deep underground military base at Dulce, which is probably the deepest base. It goes down seven levels and over 2.5 miles deep. At that particular time, we had drilled four distinct holes in the desert, and we were going to link them together and blow out large sections at a time.
“My job was to go down the holes and check the rock samples, and recommend the explosive to deal with the particular rock. As I was headed down there, we found ourselves amidst a large cavern that was full of outer-space aliens, otherwise known as large Greys. I shot two of them. At that time, there were 30 people down there. About 40 more came down after this started, and all of them got killed. We had surpised a whole underground base of existing aliens. Later, we found out that they had been living on our planet for a long time, perhaps a million years. This could explain a lot of what is behind the theory of ancient astronauts.
"Anyway, I got shot in the chest with one of their weapons, which was a box on their body, that blew a hole in me and gave me a nasty dose of cobalt radiation. I have had cancer because of that.
"I didn't get really interested in UFO technology until I started work at Area 51, north of Las Vegas. After about two years recuperating after the 1979 incident, I went back to work for Morrison and Knudson, EG&G and other companies. At Area 51, they were testing all kinds of peculiar spacecraft. How many people here are familiar with Bob Lazar's story? He was a physicist working at Area 51 trying to decipher the propulsion factor in some of these craft.
Schneider's Worries About Government Factions,
Railroad Cars and Shackle Contracts
"Now, I am very worried about the activity of the federal government. They have lied to the public, stonewalled senators, and have refused to tell the truth in regard to alien matters. I can go on and on. I can tell you that I am rather disgruntled. Recently, I knew someone who lived near where I live in Portland, Oregon. He worked at Gunderson Steel Fabrication, where they make railroad cars. Now, I knew this fellow for the better part of 30 years, and he was kind of a quiet type. He came in to see me one day, excited, and he told me "they're building prisoner cars." He was nervous. Gunderson, he said, had a contract with the federal government to build 107,200 full length railroad cars, each with 143 pairs of shackles. There are 11 sub-contractors in this giant project. Supposedly, Gunderson got over 2 billion dollars for the contract. Bethlehem Steel and other steel outfits are involved. He showed me one of the cars in the rail yards in North Portland. He was right. If you multiply 107,200 times 143 times 11, you come up with about 15,000,000. This is probably the number of people who disagree with the federal government. No more can you vote any of these people out of office. Our present structure of government is "technocracy", not democracy, and it is a form of feudalism. It has nothing to do with the republic of the United States. These people are god-less, and have legislated out prayer in public schools. You can get fined up to $100,000 and two years in prison for praying in school. I believe we can do better. I also believe that the federal government is running the gambit of enslaving the people of the United States. I am not a very good speaker, but I'll keep shooting my mouth off until somebody puts a bullet in me, because it's worth it to talk to a group like this about these atrocities.
America's Black Program Contractors
"There are other problems. I have some interesting 1993 figures. There are 29 prototype stealth aircraft presently. The budget from the U.S. Congress five-year plan for these is $245.6 million. You couldn't buy the spare parts for these black programs for that amount. So, we've been lied to. The black budget is roughly $1.3 trillion every two years. A trillion is a thousand billion. A trillion dollars weighs 11 tons. The U.S. Congress never sees the books involved with this clandestine pot of gold.
“Contractors of sleuth programs: EG&G, Westinghouse, McDonnell Douglas, Morrison- Knudson, Wackenhut Security Systems, Boeing Aerospace, Lorimar Aerospace, Aerospacial in France, Mitsibishi Industries, Rider Trucks, Bechtel, *I.G. Farben*, plus a host of hundreds more.
“Is this what we are supposed to be living up to as freedom- loving people? I don't believe so.”
Star Wars and Apparent Alien Threat
"Still, 68% of the military budget is directly or indirectly affected by the black budget. Star Wars relies heavily upon stealth weaponry. By the way, none of the stealth program would have been available if we had not taken apart crashed alien disks. None of it. Some of you might ask what the "space shuttle" is "shuttling". Large ingots of special metals that are milled in space and cannot be produced on the surface of the earth. They need the near vaccum of outer space to produce them. We are not even being told anything close to the truth. I believe our government officials have sold us down the drain - lock, stock and barrel. Up until several weeks ago, I was employed by the U.S. government with a Ryolite-38 clearance factor - one of the highest in the world. I believe the Star Wars program is there solely to act as a buffer to prevent alien attack - it has nothing to do with the "cold war", which was only a toy to garner money from all the people - for what? The whole lie was planned and executed for the last 75 years.
Stealth Aircraft Technology Use by
U.S. Agencies and the United Nations
"Here's another piece of information for you folks. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the ATF rely on stealth tactical weaponry for as much as 40% of their operations budget. This in 1993, and the figures have gone up considerably since. The United Nations used American stealth aircraft for over 28% of its collective worldwide operations from 1990 to 1992, according to the Center for Strategic Studies and UN Report 3092.
The Guardians of Stealth and Delta Force
Origins of the Bosnia Conflict
"The Guardians of Stealth: There are at least three distinct classifications of police that guard our most well-kept secrets.
“Number one, the Military Joint Tactical Force (MJTF), sometimes called the Delta Force or Black Berets, is a multi-national tactical force primarily used to guard the various stealth aircraft worldwide. By the way, there were 172 stealth aircraft built. Ten crashed, so there were at last count about 162. Bill Clinton signed them away about six weeks ago to the United Nations. There have been indications that the Delta Force was sent over to Bosnia during the last days of the Bush administration as a covert sniper force, and that they started taking pot shots at each side of the controversy, in order to actually start the Bosnia conflict that would be used by succeeding administrations for political purposes.
Thoughts on the Bombings in the United States
"I was hired not too long ago to do a report on the World Trade Center bombing. I was hired because I know about the 90 some- odd varieties of chemical explosives. I looked at the pictures taken right after the blast. The concrete was puddled and melted. The steel and the rebar was literally extruded up to six feet longer than its original length. There is only one weapon that can do that - a small nuclear weapon. That's a construction-type nuclear device. Obviously, when they say that it was a nitrate explosive that did the damage, they're lying 100%, folks. The people they have in custody probably didn't do the crime. As a matter of fact, I have reason to believe that the same group held in custody did do other crimes, such as killing a Jewish rabbi in New York.
“However, I want to further mention that with the last explosion in Oklahoma City, they are saying that it was a nitrate or fertilizer bomb that did it.
"First, they came out and said it was a 1,000 pound fertilizer bomb. Then, it was 1,500. Then 2,000 pounds. Now its 20,000. You can't put 20,000 pounds of fertilizer in a Rider Truck. Now, I've never mixed explosives, per se. I know the chemical structure and the application of construction explosives. My reputation was based on it. I helped hollow out more than 13 deep underground military bases in the United States. I worked on the Malta project, in West Germany, in Spain and in Italy. I can tell you from experience that a nitrate explosion would not have hardly shattered the windows of the federal building in Oklahoma City. It would have killed a few people and knocked part of the facing off the building, but it would have never have done that kind of damage. I believe I have been lied to, and I am not taking it any longer, so I'm telling you that you've been lied to.
The Truth Behind the Republican Contract With America
"I don't perceive at this time that we have too much more than six months of life left in this country, at the present rate. We are the laughing stock of the world, because we are being hoodwinked by so many evil people that are running this country. I think we can do better. I think the people over 45 are seriously worried about their future. I'm going to run some scary scenarios by you. The Contract With America. It contains the same terminology that Adolph Hitler used to subvert Germany in 1931. I believe we can do better. The Contract With America is a last ditch effort by our federal government to tear away the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Some Statistics on the Black Helicopter Presence
"The black helicopters. There are over 64,000 black helicopters in the United States. For every hour that goes by, there is one being built. Is this the proper use of our money? What does the federal government need 64,000 tactical helicopters for, if they are not trying to enslave us. I doubt if the entire military needs 64,000 worldwide. I doubt if all the world needs that many. There are 157 F-117A stealth aircraft loaded with LIDAR and computer-enhanced imaging radar. They can see you walking from room to room when they fly over your house. They see objects in the house from the air with a variation limit of 1 inch to 30,000 miles. That's how accurate that is. Now, I worked in the federal government for a long time, and I know exactly how they handle their business.
Government Earthquake Device, AIDS as
a Bioweapon Based on Alien Excretions
"The federal government has now invented an earthquake device. I am a geologist, and I know what I am talking about. With the Kobe earthquake in Japan, there was no pulsewave as in a normal earthquake. None. In 1989, there was an earthquake in San Francisco. There was no pulse wave with that one either. It is a Tesla device that is being used for evil purposes. The black budget programs have subverted science as we know it.
Look at AIDs, invented by the National Ordinance Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois in 1972. It was a biological weapon to be used against the people of the United States. The reason I know this is that I have seen the documentation by the Office of Strategic Services, which by the way is still in operation to this day, through the CDC in Atlanta. They used the glandular excretions of animals, humans and alien humanoids to create the virus. These alien humanoids the government is hobnobbing with are the worst news. There is absolutely no defense against their germs - none. They are a biological weapon of terrible consequence. Every alien on the planet needs to be isolated.
"Saddam Hussein killed 3.5 million Kurdish people with a similar biological weapon. Do we, the people of this planet, deserve this? No, we don't, but we are not doing anything about it. Every moment we waste, we are doing other people on the planet a disservice. Right now, I am dying of cancer that I contracted because of my work for the federal government. I might live six months. I might not. I will tell you one thing. If I keep speaking out like I am, maybe God will give me the life to talk my head off. I will break every law that it takes to talk my head off. Eleven of my best friends in the last 22 years have been murdered. Eight of the murders were called "suicides."
“Before I went to talk in Las Vegas, I drove a friend down to Joshua Tree, near 29 Palms. I drove into the mountains in order to get to Needles, California, and I was followed by two government E-350 vans with G-14 plates, each with a couple of occupants, one of which had an Uzi. I knew exactly who they were. I have spoken 19 times and have probably reached 45,000 people. Well, I got ahead of them and came to a stop in the middle of the road. They both went on either side of me and down a ravine. Is this what its going to take? I cut up my security card and sent it back to the government, and told them if I was threatened, and I have been, that I was going to upload 140,000 pages of documentation to the internet about government structure and the whole plan. I have already begun that task.
"Thank you very much."
End of May 1995 Lecture
December 11, 2001
Security guards for 'nowhere' strike
for contract, higher pay
By KEITH ROGERS, Las Vegas Review-Journal
A group of 70 security guards known as the "camo dudes" walked off their jobs Monday in Las Vegas and at the covert military installation known as Area 51, a place they said they can't talk about.
"Use your imagination," union President Vernell Hall said when asked where he worked as he and more than a dozen other striking security officers displayed "On Strike" signs on Haven Street near McCarran International Airport.
That is where nondescript passenger jets, known as Janet planes, routinely take the guards and other workers to the installation on the dry bed of Groom Lake, 90 miles north of Las Vegas, a place they referred to only as "nowhere" and "out of town."
Hall, leader of the Security Police Association of Nevada, an in-house collective bargaining unit, said the association's members decided to go on strike after three months of negotiations for a new contract with their employer, EG&G Technical Services Inc., ended in a stalemate.
Hall said the issues include lack of adequate wages and benefits.
"There's been too much overtime since Sept. 11. Overtime on top of overtime," Hall said.
Greg Rentchler, security manager for EG&G, confirmed that about 70 guards went on strike early Monday at the company's Grier Drive offices and at "remote locations."
"They work at remote test locations. They support the Nellis (Air Force) ranges," Rentchler said.
"We have a close relationship with these guys, and they are in negotiations as we speak," he said.
Rentchler said supervisors are manning the posts vacated by the striking guards.
He said the guards previously held a contract with another company, EG&G Special Projects, until a new one was signed in 1996 with EG&G Technical Services Inc. He said EG&G Technical Services Inc. holds a contract with the federal government to provide services for the Department of Defense, including a security guard force.
Although Rentchler would not give details about his reference to "remote locations," a source familiar with the guard force said last week that the guards would strike at 3 a.m. Monday. The source said many of the guards had been assigned to Area 51, the much-publicized, 38,400-acre Groom Lake installation where high-tech U.S. aircraft are tested.
It is the same place where former workers at the installation have charged that coatings for radar-evading stealth fighter jets were burned in open trenches, sending toxic clouds into the air that made them ill.
Glenn Campbell, who operates the Internet bookstore Aliens on Earth and formerly directed an Area 51 watchdog group, said he received an anonymous call Monday from a man who said "the camo dudes are on strike."
Campbell often has referred to the guards as "camo dudes" because of the camouflaged uniforms they wear while patrolling places where public lands border restricted areas around the Groom Lake installation.
While pickets paraded outside the ramp for Janet planes at McCarran, another group sat in lawn chairs outside EG&G Technical Services offices a few miles away on Grier Drive. One striking security officer at that location, Bill Hull, said he wants "fair and equitable treatment from our company."
A 17-year employee, Hull said he hasn't received a pay raise in "14 or 15 years" and said he lost at least 25 percent of his pay when the contract was switched to EG&G Technical Services in 1996.
Hull, wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with a U.S. flag flanked by two alien-face pins, said he is paid $15.05 per hour but should be making at least $16.03 per hour.
He said the guards work 12-hour shifts, staying four days "out of town," before flying back to Las Vegas and getting three days off.
"We don't get break periods," he said.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
From Canaries on the Rim: Living downwind in the west, by Chip Ward:
KISSING THE ARMY’S ASS ON THE
COURTHOUSE STEPS AT HIGH NOON
“Are you the guy I see on TV talking against the incinerator?”
It was a phone call out of the blue on a Saturday night in August 1994. I had hoped I could relax.
“Yeah,” I said warily, “who are you?” I expected an argument. I wanted a beer.
“Steve Jones,” the voice said. “ I am the chief safety officer at Tooele Incinerator, or at least I was until EG&G fired me on Wednesday.” Suddenly, I was all ears. The man seemed alarmed. Months later he told me he had received his first death threat by the time he called me. He needed to get his story out fast for insurance. It was quite a story.
Jones had been a top safety inspector for the navy and won their most prestigious award for safety inspection two years in a row. He’d been tapped by the holy of holies in the inspection world, the inspector general’s office. Clearly a star in the military realm he moved in, Jones decided to make the classic move people in such careers make. He accepted a job with a defense contractor, EG&G.
EG&G had built a billion-dollar fortune and reputation by running the underground nuclear weapons testing site in Nevada. They also tackled such diverse military tasks as salvaging a broken nuclear sub from the sea floor and operating the chemical weapons incinerator in Utah. Jones knew all about the chemical weapons demilitarization program and the plans to build eight massive incinerators across the nation to get rid of chemical weapons that are now banned by an international treaty. He had inspected all the major chemical weapons stockpiles and had access to all the documentation and communication the program generated. Or, at least he thought he knew the program.
He described his first weeks at the Toole Chemical Disposal Facility, or TOCDF, incinerator as a series of shocks. TOCDF on paper and TOCDF under his nose couldn’t have been more at odds. On paper, the plant was safe, clean, and efficient. Up close, he told me, it was “a bomb ready to go off.”
At the core of the incinerator’s problems was a history of design failure. The military’s original scheme for getting rid of chemical armaments was the CHASE – “cut holes and sink ‘em” – scheme, where old ships were loaded with the evil stuff, towed out to sea, and then sunk. When this method was perceived as an obvious bad idea, Congress described and funded a process that was logically designed....
First, they said, build a prototype facility, the smallest burner called CAMDS for Chemical Agent Munitions Disposal System, that is located right next door to TOCDF. Learn from the prototype and then redesign. Next, built a larger pilot plant, the one in the South Pacific known as JACADS, or Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System. Learn again and redesign. Finally, build a full-scale bomb burner in Utah where the lion’s share of chemical weaponry in stored. That scenario for design and implementation could characterized as “start – better – best.” It makes sense.
That’s not how it happened. The PMCD gang, or Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization as it was officially called, unfortunately demonstrated the organizational wherewithal of the Keystone Cops. The Cold War against the Evil Empire was in full swing. No one was watching. They built their prototype based on what was known about combustion technology in the late seventies – early eighties. Then, incineration was on the cutting edge, at least compared with dumping garbage off a barge. Since then, more than 240 proposed incinerators have been defeated by nearby communities as incineration has accumulated a reputation for poisonous emissions.
So the Pentagon may have climbed on the wrong train to begin with. But even had they picked a different technology to do the job, they guaranteed a troubled design. Before the CAMDS prototype was tested out, they designed and then built JACADS. Before JACADS was tested out, they designed and built TOCDF. Instead of “start – better – best,” they had “small – medium – large” of the same basic plant design, with all the problems and flaws passed along from one plant to the next.
What Jones found on the rim of the Great Basin in Utah was an enormous Rube Goldberg contraption with hundreds of add-ons and complicated modifications. In his first couple of months on the job, he found thousands of safety violations, including 150 that were in a safety category for those that could portend “imminent catastrophic” consequences.
The MITRE Corporation had been hired to do an independent audit of safety just before Jones arrived. The MITRE report described 3,016 design deficiencies and pointed out that federally mandated hazard analyses of design flaws had not been done. Jones’ own analysis agreed. ... He was particularly upset by conditions he saw in the “unpack area” where munitions are stripped of packing and prepared for processing. It was “worse than the Three Stooges,” he said, with worker wrestling rockets with crowbars. “The worst man-machine interface I have ever seen.”
There were few standard operating procedures for complicated high-risk tasks. There was minimal safety training and next to no compliance with safety regulations. The plant was already falling apart. Workers walked through this safety minefield in shifts, so that for one week a guy was on days, then swing, then graveyard. Shift rotation was more cost effective for EG&G. Productivity demands pushed safety aside at every turn. Jones called it “death by design.”...
As for the state of Utah’s role in monitoring and regulating the incinerator, Jones thought state agencies had simply “rolled over” to the army and it was too late to expect more from them because mistakes would have to be admitted, misjudgments conceded. If the state admitted it had been hasty or easy, reputations would be tarnished and careers ruined. In the final analysis, Jones argued, independent oversight by people who understand safety, engineering, and chemical weapons is called for. He was going to sound the alarm....
When Jones tried to document his scary discoveries, TOCDF’s general manager, Henry Silvestri, went ballistic and told him never to put bad news in writing. Bad news delivered verbally was always met with the same excuse, “we’re not hot yet.” “Okay,” Jones replied, “you’re not hot, but you’re stupid.”
When Jones was told to sign off on a document proclaiming that the 3,016 design deficiencies identified in the MITRE report posed an “acceptable risk” and that no corrective action was required, he balked. He knew that by law he was personally and financially liable if anyone died or was hurt from one of those flaws. Silvestri was adamant and admonished him to learn to “please the customer,” in this case the PMCD army.
Silvestri said, according to Jones, “If you have to kiss the army’s ass at high noon on the courthouse steps, let me know and I’ll come hold your hat.”
Jones stood his ground until they pulled the rug out from under him. His private sector career had lasted less than three months.
He was shocked and offended. “As soon as my friends in the Pentagon find out what is really going on out here,” he told me over the phone, “they’ll be on a plane for Utah the next day and shut that plant down.”
“You must know a different army than the one I know,” I replied, “because the army I know is going to smear your good name from one end of the nation to the other and you’ll never work in the defense industry again.”
My efforts to persuade him to get a lawyer were confidently rebuffed. He didn’t need one. He was right. EG&G was wrong. He had credibility in high places and that was all that would be needed, as if billions of dollars in contracts, careers, and reputations were not at stake. He wanted to tell his story and he wanted to talk to the Citizen’s Advisory Committee that was charged with watching over the incinerator. Could I make it happen?
I hung up the phone and called a local television reporter at home in Park City.... Within days it had attracted national interest. Throughout the media circus, Jones continued to display an innocence that astonished me. At one point I called to tell him I had a phone message from CNN. “Who are they?” he asked. I explained. “Oh, I don’t have cable,” he said....
The Citizen’s Advisory Committee, or CAC, had been appointed by Utah governor Michael Leavitt to monitor the incinerator program in Utah. Although 45 percent of the munitions, or about 10,000 tons, were in our state and we had both the prototype incinerator and the first full-scale burner, Utah was the next to last state to appoint a CAC. I had campaigned for one and often explained to the public officials I managed to corner that it would be a place for whistleblowers to come to.
The Toole County commissioners couldn’t be persuaded. They didn’t want any pesky bunch of pointy-headed people looking over their shoulders while they negotiated with the army over impact fees for the county treasury. They were in the guv’s political party and he respected their wishes, until Commissioner Gary Griffith began acting like the head pimp in an environmental red light district.
The county’s aging hospital was experiencing rough times. Its performance and reputation were anemic and it needed a transfusion of funding the county couldn’t afford. Griffith offered to take all the chemical munitions from all the other stockpile communities across the nation to burn in Tooele County if he could have several million dollars for a new hospital....
Eventually, county commissioners would get $114 million in property and about $13 million in cash for just letting the Utah part of the program go forward. They would use the money to build a county recreation complex that would include a rodeo stadium, a demolition derby stadium, a mining museum, and howitzer rides.
After Griffith threw his “what-am-I-bid” bomb, Leavitt had seen enough and appointed a CAC to provide one more means of monitoring the incinerator. Jones’ appearance before the committee was its first test.
It failed with flying colors. To placate the offended Tooele County commissioners, who rightly perceived the appointment of the CAC as an implied judgement about their inability to monitor the incinerator program on their own, the CAC was packed with those friendly to the program and in bed with commissioners. They received Jones coldly, grilled him, and then attacked him.
CAC member Sid Hullinger said he’ be more inclined to listen to Jones if he had not created so much publicity around himself, as if whistleblower protection should only go to those whistleblowers who have surrendered or suppressed their First Amendment rights.
Jones, he said, was just “disgruntled.” Nobody on the CAC thought to point out that Hullinger’s trucking firm was well positioned to do business with the incinerator and he might be agitated and disgruntled by those who could throw cold water on a lucrative prospect. No one pointed out that Gary Griffith’s construction firm made piles of money building incinerators. Self-interest, apparently, was subject to a double standard and only applied to the fired safety manager.
Steve Jones was shocked again. The CAC’s hostile reception was unexpected. A week later, a team of investigators from the Pentagon who flew out to check on the Jones charges issued a report saying the safety problems at TOCDF were what you’d expect to see in an industrial operation going through a shakedown before firing up. The community Jones was trying to protect more than shunned him. He had to change his phone number and ask the police to patrol his house. He got a lawyer.
It was a shame the CAC found whistleblowers embarrassing and upsetting. Over the next few years a whistleblowers’ parade would march out the incinerator’s back door. In 1996, the plant’s manager, a long time EG&G loyalist who was called in to run the place after the Jones story broke and Henry “kiss their ass” Silvestri took a hasty retirement, also went public with complaints about a lax safety culture at TOCDF.
Gary Millar compared the situation at the bomb burner with those that preceded the Challenger disaster, Bhopal, and Three Mile Island. That same year, John Hall, a conscientious employee, claimed he was harassed out of his job when he complained about lax safety.
In 1997, it was Trina Allen’s turn. She was the chief of hazardous waste operations, no small responsibility in a process that produces fifteen pounds of hazardous waste for every pound of agent burned. According to Allen, she had witnessed numerous unsafe and noncompliant activities, like the time a toxic spill in a storage yard was snowplowed against a boundary fence and left.
More seriously, she had documentation showing arsenic in the burner’s waste stream. Arsenic could only show up if the chemical agent Lewisite was being burned, and TOCDF was not set up to burn Lewisite and specifically prohibited from doing so....
The army and EG&G vehemently denied her claims when she made them and then, months later after the controversy disappeared from the news, they quietly admitted they had indeed burned Lewisite....
Jones eventually went to court. EG&G’s team of high-priced lawyers orchestrated a festival of Jones bashers, company men desperate to show their loyalty, who charged Jones kept a stuffed monkey in his office and made fun of bald guys. No wonder he was fired. Besides, they argued, the Pentagon checked out the charges and found no problems....
One EG&G officer who thought Jones was too strict explained that the company’s career men were used to running the nuclear war test facility in Nevada. Burning nerve gas was no big deal compared with blowing up megaton nuclear devices underground.
Steve’s Greenlaw and Government Accountability Project lawyers, whose automobiles cost less that the three-piece suits worn by the opposition’s attorneys, put up a valiant fight. The EG&G and army documents that were brought to light during the discovery process of the Jones trial and later, during subsequent legal battles, were revealing. For example, the work diary of Don Smith, a quality assurance specialist at the incinerator, painted a portrait of safety officers struggling to be heard and taken seriously by superiors who constantly ignored them in favor of faster production and lower costs.
“What is happening at TOCDF,” he wrote in 1997, “is not risk management, it is gambling. Risk management is the informed assumption of risk. Gambling is taking uninformed risk and hoping everything will be OK without the slightest understanding of what the real issues aare. TOCDF has been in this gambling mode since the project began.”
To be most effective, the written record had to be backed by witnesses and it was not easy generating witnesses among his former coworkers who had to walk the EG&G plank to get to the courthouse. Towards the end of the trial, a friendly witness was visited by army personnel who intimidated him into silence. Outraged lawyers asked for an FBI investigation and went home angry. The everybody waited, and waited, and waited.
Finally, in August of 1997, almost three years to the day from the date he was fired, a federal judge ruled that EG&G should reinstate Jones in his job and pay him back pay plus a half-million dollars compensation. Or, they could refuse to reinstate him and cough up back pay plus a million dollars.
In describing EG&G’s testimony and reasoning before her court, Judge Ellen Shea used words like “mendacity,” “charade,” “pretext,” “lie,” “incredible,” and “unbelievable.” Impressed by the judge’s tone, the Salt Lake Tribune issued an editorial that questioned the credibility and integrity of those trusted to burn nerve agent upwind from us. Jones had kicked the army’s ass at high noon on the courthouse steps. I was proud to hold his hat.
Nevertheless, EG&G stubbornly appealed. Two appeals boards agreed with the original decision, though the last one told the giant defense contractor just to reinstate Jones with back pay, period. If they wanted Jones out, they could figure out what it was worth to them and deal with him directly....
Steve Jones and his wife paid heavily for his uncompromising principles and his desire to protect public health. He spent four years that could have been his prime career earning years huddled with attorneys, talking on the phone, and trying to hustle a living selling used appliances and real estate. The stress of the suit and the financial turmoil they were thrown into eventually tore them apart and they divorced. He sacrificed his career, his wealth, and his marriage....
Trina Allen also went to court and won. EG&G appealed and lost again. Millar didn’t have to go to court. EG&G gave him a bankroll and let him keep his company truck....
John Hall is still fighting his case.
The CWWG set up a 1-800 hotline number for whistle blowers. They hear regularly from anonymous employees who tell tales of incompetence and cover-up....
For more on EG&G, GO TO > > > The Carlyle Group: Birds that Drink from Cesspools
EG&G Press Release
IRS-CI AUCTIONS 1995 COMMANDER 114TC AIRPLANE
This plane is being auctioned off by the IRS-Criminal Investigation. The seizure of this airplane is associated with the proceeds of alleged money laundering and fraud related to the Martin Frankel case out of Connecticut.
In December of 1999, David Rosse, pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges. He was Martin Frankel's employee, responsible for security. As part of his plea agreement, he was obligated to identify assets related to the case, which would be subject to forfeiture. This 1995 Aero Commander 114TC Airplane, which had been purchased in Rosse's name, was one of the assets identified.
Martin Frankel allegedly conspired with others in a $200 million fraud against several insurance companies. In May of 1999, he fled to Europe and spent three months as a fugitive until he was arrested in Hamburg, Germany, in September 1999. German authorities extradited him to the United States to face a multi-count indictment including RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), RICO conspiracy, wire fraud, and securities fraud. Frankel is being held without bond, pending his trial.
To date, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut, has seized approximately $30 million in cash, gold, diamonds, cars, real property, and other personal property. An additional $30 million has been seized and frozen in overseas accounts at the request of the U.S. Attorney's Office. These funds will likely be subject of civil proceedings in the respective foreign jurisdictions.
In Edison last month, 21 of Martin Frankel's luxury cars were sold for $757,000 at auction.
Airplane Preview: May 15, 2001, from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. at Miami Aviation Corp., 14980 NW 44 Court, Opa-Locka, FL 33054.
Auction: May 16, 2001, at the Broward County Convention Center: 1950 Eisenhower Blvd., Port Everglades, FL 33316.
Bidding on this plane requires a $25,000 cashiers check deposit made out to U.S. Customs Service/EG&G Technical Services....
For more information on this and other Department of the Treasury Auctions, please call 703.273.7373 or go online at www.treas.gov/auctions/customs.
In 1990, the Department of the Treasury contracted with EG&G Technical Services to manage custody, transportation, storage, and disposal of the Treasury’s seized property.
Department of the Treasury auctions are conducted by EG&G.
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For more on Martin Frankel, GO TO > > > The Frankel-stein Monster!
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MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CATBIRD SEAT...
YOU CAN VISIT THE FOLLOWING NESTS TO SEE WHAT’S GOING ON ABOVE GROUND WITH
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APCOA: VULTURES IN THE PARKING LOT
CONFESSIONS OF A WHISTLEBLOWER
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING KAMEHAMEHA’S COURT
CARLYLE GROUP: BIRDS THAT DRINK FROM CESSPOOLS
CITIGROUP: VAMPIRES IN THE CITY
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Last Update August 23, 2007 by The Catbird