SUMMARIES

"GRAVE CONSEQUENCES"

Operation Cyanide

How Operation Cyanide Nearly Started WWIII

© Iona Miller & Charles W. Stone, Cryptoporticus Productions

ON JUNE 8, 1967, while patrolling in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked without warning or justification by air and naval forces of the state of Israel. Of a crew of 294 officers and men (including three civilians), the ship suffered thirty four (34) killed in action and one hundred seventy three (173) wounded in action. The ship itself, a Forty Million ($40,000,000) Dollar state of the art signals intelligence (SIGINT) platform, was so badly damaged that it never sailed on an operational mission again and was sold in 1970 for $101,666.66 as scrap.

The attack included:

The jamming of our radios on both US Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies;

The use of unmarked aircraft by the forces attacking the USS Liberty;

The deliberate machine gunning of life rafts we had dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship; and

The recall of two flights of rescue aircraft that had been launched from Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers. After those flights were recalled, Sixth Fleet personnel listened to our calls for help as the attack continued knowing they were forbidden to come to our assistance.

Opening scene: The spymaster liked his mistresses as “modern” as he wanted to make his country. In the “swingin’  60s” apartment of his favorite lover, a very tense Salah Nasr is half dressed, heatedly talking on the phone with his Soviet counterparts. Hurling his shoe through a closed window, he vehemently punctuates Egypt’s urgent desire to push not only “the envelope,” but their target – what his psyops calls “the Zionist entity” -- into the sea, once and for all. The underwater cable crackles with static that is not so unusual for the times. But alert to all espionage potentials, Soviet intelligence on the far end naturally wonders if their seemingly secure phone line has been compromised.

Cut to a “Guppy” submarine in international waters off the Northern Sinai Coast. Frogmen just bugged the undersea cable. NSA cryptographer Lt.-Commander Schleicher rapidly decodes the crucial conversation in case the US needs to take immediate retaliatory measures on Cairo, conventional or perhaps, unthinkably, nuclear… Little do they realize that they and the topside USS Liberty are sitting ducks slated for human sacrifice in a draconian plan to blow the Soviets all the way back to Moscow leaving a clear path to Middle East oil for the West – an ill-fated Operation Cyanide.

Cut to a clandestine meeting in the dark labyrinths of Washington DC. An insider military/intelligence faction argues among themselves with a Mossad agent over what to do next and what they CAN tell the President and maintain deniability… Meanwhile, the USS Liberty is locked in the gun sights of a power trap of competing agendas, target of a Goliath international power struggle. The result is more than a very embarrassing truth. A murderous air and sea attack ensues that leaves the sitting duck Liberty a floating bloodbath, dead in the water.

It actually happened, at least something like that. Salah Nasr headed Egypt's General Intelligence Directorate from the late 1950s until 1967, when he was arrested and tried after the Six-Day War. Shortly after the womanizer’s death, his mistress published her memoirs revealing intimate details of how he exerted significant control on Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser by throwing in his path real and imagined coups, assassination and terrorist plots all of which he was responsible for foiling. According to Arab rhetoric, Israel had no right to exist. Utterly destroying Israel and "reversing the results of 1948" was the central goal. Prestige and leadership of the Arab world were based on aggressive confrontation of Israel. In the Six-Day War, Israel responded decisively to the imminent threat in a war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

In 1967 it sure wasn’t the Summer of Love in the Middle East. That June the USS Liberty, the world’s most advanced NSA spy ship, was viciously attacked and nearly sunk by Israeli firepower during the Six Day War. Was it Israel’s “fault” or was there some collusion with US intelligence denied for political purposes?  The Cold War was at its height and the US wanted the Soviets out of the Middle East in the absolute worst way – perhaps even enough to risk WWIII. This little known event is in the same class of Covert Actions as the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and Gulf of Tonkin Incident which also took place in the 1960s decade.

Had it been revealed, OPERATION CYANIDE meant certain political suicide for the Johnson Administration. The veil of absolute secrecy still conceals the betrayal of USS Liberty’s military and intelligence personnel, who were silenced for decades in the name of national security. Only the most valorous acts of courage saved the remaining crew and the ship from disappearing into the Deep with all her secrets including the newly deployed Moon Bounce Antenna.

But they did not die, despite the fact that air support was withdrawn. Furthermore, a US submarine also conducting espionage surveillance in the same area, briefly surfaced to periscope depth to catch photos of torpedo damage. The battle sounds were so loud that the submariners thought depth charges were being deployed against them. Questions that last a lifetime remained for the surviving crew of Liberty after the needless deaths of 34 of the crew and over 170 seriously wounded. The courageous Captain had to tuck his own guts back in after the bridge of the ship was blown up, while he continued to man the Conn for a stunning 17 hours that the Liberty was literally “dead in the water.”

The BBC and other media have occasionally covered the story, but recently new disclosures and revelations have expanded the story. No dramatization has ever been done, because both US and Israeli governments have covered up the truth with the “plausible deniability” that the attack was a case of “mistaken identity”. Now, many influential government and military personnel say it absolutely isn’t so. We have the facts and the story wants to be told so the world knows what happened and what horrible actions nearly ensued.

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Opening Scene: With his transplant failing after a desperate trip to Brazil for unconventional treatment, Dr. Carl Schleicher ponders his fate with flashbacks from his days as a cryptologist in the Six-Day War to his Spook Central research facility, MRU. Shrouded in mystery to the very end, Schleicher’s death was “untimely and highly suspicious.” Carl believed for years that certain domestic agents had targeted him for unknown personal reasons dating back to the mid-60s and his NSA days. No cause of death was forthcoming, so the truth may never be known.

Mankind Research Unlimited had a burning “Need to Know” about the strangest phenomena that can teach us the most. Various intelligence resources supported these spy-entists in their quest to unleash human potential. MRU was a front for the most advanced mind control technology at that time, including what is now called “Voice to Skull” or V2K microwave transmissions. Director, Dr. Carl Schleicher has been called “a real Dr. Strangelove.” Charles Stone became Schleicher’s Deputy Director seven years after MRU was publically exposed in 1980 by Covert Action Bulletin. It revealed occultism in high places, but under the scientific codenames coined by MRU’s mindbenders.

MRU bootstrapped off Soviet studies in energy medicine, hypnotherapy, magnetic healing, acupuncture, radionics or radiesthesia, remote healing and viewing, EVP, and psychophysical control of internal states. Research pathfinders carved broad highways through the mindscape. The cross-disciplinary synergy between physics, biology, psychiatry and religion, was explored and exploited with intent and belief.  MRU collapsed the spectrum of approaches from philosophy of mind and dream research, to neuropsychology, pharmacology, and molecular dynamics, to neural networks, phenomenological accounts, and even the quantum physics of reality. They canvassed the whole paranormal field aiming at a sound scientific foundation for future research and killer apps with lucrative business potential. Much of it has become what is known as “suppressed science.” But when research disappears from public view, it usually means it has gone ‘dark,’ into the clandestine world.

He dreamed of being a Spy Manager from the time he was twelve years old and his mother worked at CIA. Set against the backdrop of real events, the inspirational story of this CIA Cold Warrior breaks the mold and explodes public notions about CIA Case Officers, Covert Action and The Company. Characters include those who mentored Osborne at CIA, his rivals and opponents, his recruits, his family, and a host of friends each with their own roots in American history.

A dreamer, a family man, and “a spirit in human form on planet Earth,” Leutrell Osborne, Sr. was involved in some of the most exciting chapters of the Espionage Enterprise and global history. He lived to tell the adventurous tale. His 26 years of bold service at CIA spanned several Directors and Presidents, as well as pioneering contributions in a variety of field and administration assignments on several continents. His adventures included service in a Far Northern Country, paramilitary exploits, bugging an Embassy in a Latin American Country, taking the lead on the “Libyan Show,” running SIGINT signal intelligence in the Far East and being a Transformation Agent.

Osborne had the opportunity to meet politicians, notables, and spiritual leaders, such as Dr. Martin Luther King when he accepted his Nobel Peace Prize. He continues to work with Civil Rights leaders and insider watchdog investigators. His “grinds” include what he calls the “Triple K Assassinations,” domestic covert action of the COINTEL Factor, 9/11 pre-knowledge, blowback, foreign Covert Action policy, transnational drugs and money laundering, and more. He’s still on a mission, but from God. Spirit is his main motivator.

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Working Title: TWISTED DESCENT: Spy 1099 -  "Lions for Lambs" (2007) meets "The Recruit" (2003) A stand-alone film that can be franchised into a SPY 1099 trilogy.