October 29, 2006 at 08:57:08

View Ratings | Rate It

Original October Surprise (Part 3)

By Robert Parry (about the author)     Page 4 of 13 page(s)

opednews.com     Permalink

At the time, the radical Islamic government in Teheran was claiming the property as its own and the Shah's family was desperate for the cash.

Shaheen also appears to have been the first person to put Cyrus Hashemi in touch with the CIA. A Shaheen friend whom I interviewed told me that Shaheen was the person who introduced Hashemi to the spy agency, helping to make him and his bank a conduit for funneling CIA funds to a variety of covert operations.

In Iran, the Hashemi brothers already were known as politically dexterous businessmen. They managed to end up on the right side of the Iranian revolution by smartly throwing their support to the anti-Shah forces and exploiting family and personal connections.

After the revolution, as Cyrus Hashemi pursued his banking business outside Iran, older brother Jamshid Hashemi received an appointment from the new government to oversee the national radio network. That job, in turn, put him in touch with other influential Iranians, he said. One was a radical Islamic cleric, named Mehdi Karrubi.

Meanwhile, Cyrus Hashemi's First Gulf Bank & Trust Co. was emerging as a bank which handled clandestine money transfers for the new Iranian government.

"It was ordered that all these monies be transferred to an account of my brother, into his bank, which was done," Jamshid Hashemi said. "The order of the transfer was from Admiral [Ahmad] Madani [who served as Iran's defense minister]. We went to the admiral with the telex and then we went to the war room of the navy in Teheran and we faxed it ... so he [Cyrus] could take over all the money, in late 1979, $30 to $35 million, to the account of the First Gulf."

According to Jamshid Hashemi, the attorney advising Cyrus Hashemi and John Shaheen about these transactions was William Casey.

Casey "was the man who was actually putting all these things together for both of them," Jamshid Hashemi said. "Casey was the adviser."

Exploiting his American contacts with the CIA, Cyrus Hashemi also arranged covert U.S. funding for Madani's presidential campaign.

In late 1979, Jamshid Hashemi said he received a call from his brother, summoning him from Iran to London and then to the United States. It was during the London stopover that Jamshid Hashemi said he met John Shaheen.

Shaheen "came and took my passport," Jamshid Hashemi said. "The next day I have my passport [back] with a piece of paper with a signature giving me a multiple entry visa into the United States. ... In those days for an Iranian to get a visa within a few hours, it would have been a miracle."

But after arriving in the United States on Jan. 1, 1980, Jamshid soon figured out that Shaheen's links to the CIA explained the miracle.

The CIA gave the Hashemi brothers $500,000 to deliver to the struggling Madani campaign. But only a small amount reached Iran – about $100,000 – and Madani lost badly to Abolhassan Bani-Sadr in the election.

After the CIA demanded an accounting of the money, the Hashemis returned $290,000 to the agency. Though the Madani campaign strategy had failed, it had opened – or at least widened – channels for the Hashemi brothers to the U.S. government and the CIA.

Soon, Cyrus Hashemi had entrenched himself as a middleman for contacts between the Carter administration and the Iranian government.

GOP Race

 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |  11  |  12  |  13

 

http://www.consortiumnews.com

 

View All Book Recommendations

Share this page: (what's this?)                   Tell a Friend:

                                                      (More...)

 

Most Popular Articles in the Last 2 Days (by Recommend Emails) Teflon Dick: How Cheney Uses Media For Protection by Linda Milazzo Australian camel killing plan angers animal welfare groups; 6000 to be shot! Posted by Stephen Fox The Obama Puppet -- The world's least powerful man by Paul Craig Roberts Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade by Glen Ford An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore by Michael Moore The End of the Obama Administration by Stephen Soldz Barack Obama: Manchurian Candidate Version 2.0 by Dave Lindorff Divided We Fall by Joe Parko Failure to Embrace Power; Obama's, Democrats' Betrayal by Rob Kall Tonight Obama's escalation will be IMMEDIATELY opposed by Harvey Wasserman Go To Top 50 Most Popular