Safari Club
 Safari Club    | |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1976 |
| Parent organization | Deep state/Supranational nature |
| Type | international |
| A 'supranational deep state' - an informal international intelligence agency formed as a result of increasing pressure to expose wrongdoing by the US intelligence agencies and a consequent decision to seek alternative, more private organisations from which to operate. | |
Contents
Background
The Safari Club was formed at a time when pressure for reform was building in the USA, and it seemed like the CIA was no longer a secure base from which to operate with impunity. The motives for the group's formation are well summarised in an unguarded remark by former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal:
In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran.[1]
Origins
Alexandre de Marenches initiated the pact with messages to the four other countries — and to newly independent Algeria, which declined to participate.[2]
The original charter was signed in 1976 by leaders and intelligence directors from the five countries:[3][4][5]
- Alexandre de Marenches, of le Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage, France's external intelligence agency
- Kamal Adham of Saudi Arabia's Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah
- The Egyptian Director of Intelligence
- Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Director of Intelligence and commander of the Moroccan Army.
- General Nematollah Nassiri of Iran's SAVAK
As the Safari Club was beginning operations, former CIA Director Richard Helms and agent Theodore "Ted" Shackley were under scrutiny from Congress and feared that new covert operations could be quickly exposed.[6] Peter Dale Scott has classified the Safari Club as part of the "second CIA"—an extension of the organization's reach maintained by an autonomous group of key agents. Thus even as Carter's new CIA director Stansfield Turner attempted to limit the scope of the agency's operations, Shackley, his deputy Thomas Clines, and agent Edwin P. Wilson secretly maintained their connections with the Safari Club and the BCCI.[7][8]
Related Quotations
| Page | Quote | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Document:The State, the Deep State, and the Wall Street Overworld | “the brainchild of Count Alexandre de Marenches, the debonair and mustachioed chief of France’s CIA. The SDECE (Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage)... Worried by Soviet and Cuban advances in postcolonial Africa, and by America’s post-Watergate paralysis in the field of undercover activity, the swashbuckling Marenches had come to Turki’s father, King Faisal, with a proposition... [By 1979] Somali president Siad Barre had been bribed out of Soviet embrace by $75 million worth of Egyptian arms (paid for... by Saudi Arabia)” | ||
| Supranational deep state/History | “The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed.. the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a worldwide money laundering machine.” | Joseph Trento | 2005 |
Known members
All 5 of the members already have pages here:
| Member | Description |
|---|---|
| Egypt | Strategically important due particularly to the Suez canal. |
| France | A European nation, former colonial power, permanent seat on the UNSC |
| Iran | Iran possesses the 4th largest oil reserves of any nation state. |
| Morocco | |
| Saudi Arabia | Longtime political ally of the USA, Saudi Arabia possesses larger easily accessible oil reserves than any other nation state. |
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:The State, the Deep State, and the Wall Street Overworld | paper | 10 March 2014 | Peter Dale Scott | An recommended and highly referenced overview of the deep state in action centering on the complex milieu of Khashoggi, the BCCI, and the Safari Club. |
References
- ↑ Ibrahim Warde, The price of fear: the truth behind the financial war on terror (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 133. cf. Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 66, 72, 76.
- ↑ Cooley, Unholy Wars, p. 17.
- ↑ Heikal, Iran: The Untold Story (1982), p. 113.
- ↑ Cooley, Unholy Wars, p. 15.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedMamdaniHeikal - ↑ Trento, Prelude to Terror (2005), p. 113–114. "Shackley, who still had ambitions to become DCI, believed that without his many sources and operatives like Wilson, the Safari Club — operating with Helms in charge in Tehran—would be ineffective. Shackley was well aware that Helms was under criminal investigation for lying to Congress about the CIA in Chile. Shackley had testified before the same grand jury. Unless Shackley took direct action to complete the privatization of intelligence operations soon, the Safari Club would not have a conduit to DO resources. The solution: create a totally private intelligence network using CIA assets until President Carter could be replaced."
- ↑ Peter Dale Scott, "Launching the U.S.Terror War: the CIA, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Central Asia", Asia–Pacific Journal 10(12), 16 March 2012.
- ↑ Trento, Prelude to Terror (2005), p. 314. "The Safari Club was run by the Saudis. It was a club to serve their purposes through the CIA. Shackley and Wilson were not members; only nations could belong. Shackley and Wilson were men who served the club in exchange for power, influence, and money."
