Nexus - 0403 - New Times Magazine-pages

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The PEGASUS File File PEGASUS This former CIA deep-cover agent has turned whistleblower at great risk. His shocking allegations expose powerful names controlling the international drug trade in very high places. Part 1 Army pilot flying classified missions during the US invasion of Grenada; Iran- Contra pilot flying cocaine shipments labelled as medical supplies; and member of the ultra-secret, international G7-run Pegasus "hit team"...this is the extraordinary story of Gene "Chip" Tatum. From sensitive, highly secretive (and hitherto largely unknown) Special Forces covert operations in Cambodia, to wandering CIA asset; through to "black ops" activities in Grenada and Oliver North's Iran-Contra "Enterprise", as well as membership in an inter- national "hit team", Gene "Chip" Tatum has seen it all, done it all and is now felling it all. Tatum claims to know where the skeletons are buried. Above all, he is aware that his testimony implicates serving and former US Presidents plus a whole list of high-level government officials and others in a welter of nefarious activities—including assassina- tion, blackmail, coercion, gun-running, money-laundering and cocaine-trafficking. Tatum, a lanky Floridian, turned whistleblower following his arrest on a treason charge in early 1995. The charge was both astonishing and patently ludicrous, and was later dropped and replaced by a fraud charge—a drastic step-down. Found guilty, he was sen- tenced to serve a 15-month sentence. In March 1996, an additional charge—conspiring to embezzle—was brought against him. Found guilty, he was incarcerated in Jesup Federal Correctional Facility, Georgia, where he is serving a 27-month concurrent sentence. Ensuing press interest resulted in one article appearing in the Tampa Tribune on 4 May 1996. Many questions continue to hang over the conduct of the trial. His defence lawyer refused to call any of the 80 witnesses whom Tatum nominated for the defence. Later, his lawyer freely confessed to having come under pressure from the US Department of Defense. Tatum says the first charge was a set-up to discredit him following his "resigna- tion" from "Operation Pegasus". The second charge he views with greater scepticism and Vins Special Forces Air Combat Controller; 25-year CIA deep-cover agent; US This former CIA deep-cover agent has turned whistleblower at great risk. concern. Tatum's resignation from Pegasus followed his refusal to "neutralise" a leading US political figure in the 1992 US presidential elections. Tatum declares he will not "partici- pate in assassinations of any sort, character assassinations or anything, of American citi- zens". He goes on to explain that back in 1994, in a telephone conference call involving Oliver North, Felix Rodriguez and the late William Colby of the CIA, he was warned to turn over incriminating documents and tapes he had accumulated for his "retirement". He wryly observes that had he done so, he would probably have been quickly "terminated" in an "extreme" way —a speciality of the Pegasus team of which he was once a member. Countering this demand, Tatum volunteered to plead guilty on a fabricated felony count and serve a 12-month sentence—so that his credibility would be damaged in the event he ever decided to speak out. His incarceration for the second charge—and especially the six- month sentence of his wife, Nancy—led him to speak out about his life, almost 30 years of which he served as a "black" operative, and to reveal and destroy the command structure of Pegasus. It is an extraordinary story. by David G. Guyatt ©1997 c/- NEXUS Office 55 Queens Road East Grinstead, W. Sussex RH19 1BG United Kingdom Telephone/Fax: +44 (0)1702 217523 E-mail: david.g7@ukonline.co.uk "OPERATION RED ROCK" Tatum has written of his early career in the military, and his involvement in a highly sensitive and classified operation, in an unpublished manuscript entitled "Operation Red Rock". Joining the Air Force in February 1970, he went through Army jump school, escape and evasion training, jungle training, sea survival school and diving school and APRIL - MAY 1997 NEXUS 25