News Release

* Cheney * The Bush Dynasty

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JOHN NICHOLS
Currently in New York City, Nichols is author of the new book Dick: The Man Who Is President. Nichols also wrote the recent article “10 Questions for Dick Cheney,” available at the web page below.
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ROBERT PARRY
Author of the just-released book Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories while working as a reporter for the Associated Press and Newsweek. He now edits the online magazine Consortium News. Parry today spoke about some of the findings in Secrecy & Privilege:

* “During the Nixon-Ford administrations, the elder George Bush was viewed as a Mr. Fix-It with gold-plated connections. Richard Nixon turned to Bush during Watergate to lead the Republican National Committee and to throw investigators off the Watergate trail. President Gerald Ford later put Bush in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency to stop the flood of damaging stories about CIA abuses.”

* “In fall 1976, CIA Director Bush deflected a scandal about a terrorist bombing in Washington that killed Chilean dissident Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker. Though in possession of incriminating evidence pointing to the U.S.-backed Chilean government, Bush’s CIA steered investigators away from the real killers while Ford surged from behind and only narrowly lost to Democrat challenger Jimmy Carter.”

* “Former clandestine services chief Ted Shackley and other disgruntled CIA veterans coordinated with Bush in monitoring President Carter’s Iran hostage negotiations in 1980. New evidence also supports allegations that senior Republicans went beyond keeping track of Carter’s progress in gaining a last-minute ‘October Surprise’ release of 52 American hostages. Senior Republicans, including CIA personnel, appear to have met directly with Iranian representatives and disrupted Carter’s negotiations. The hostages were finally released after Reagan was sworn in as President. In 1992, while seeking reelection, President George H. W. Bush succeeded in containing a congressional probe into the 1980 Iran hostage controversy by hiding behind shaky or false alibis.”

* “In Campaign 2000, the younger George Bush was aided by a powerful conservative news media that had been constructed in the quarter century since Watergate. A pillar of that right-wing machine has been the Washington Times, a publication financed by Sun Myung Moon. Secrecy & Privilege unearths evidence that Moon’s fortune has relied on illegal money laundering and that investigations of this criminal conspiracy have been short-circuited by Republican administrations.”

* “During the Florida recount in 2000, George W. Bush’s campaign paid the expenses of Republican operatives who were flown to Florida and staged a riot that stopped the counting of votes in Miami. Campaign documents also show that Bush picked up the tab for a post-riot celebration.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167