Friday, October 29, 2004

A PLOT TO FRAME KERRY?

I have no idea if this is true, but if so, holy crap. From Publishers Lunch (emphasis mine):

Penguin's Riverhead imprint has acquired a book that tantalizingly hints at what it calls a thwarted "plot to disrupt the presidential election." But like the missing explosives in Iraq, the full details of this story may well not emerge until long after the election is history, with publication not scheduled until fall of next year.

Author Larry J. Kolb promises to reveal the full details of a sensational case in which he says one American citizen has already been arrested, with the other still being sought by law enforcement authorities. The men, both described as "rogue former CIA agents with long ties to the Republican National Committee," concocted a scheme to create the appearance of "a trail of money -- contributions -- from Al Qaeda" directly to a high-ranking Kerry campaign official.

Kolb is still in the early stages of preparing a detailed account of the case in his manuscript. He is not prepared to release additional details yet, and underscores that he does not want to hinder the ongoing efforts to capture the suspect still at large.

Kolb discovered the plot while performing some related consulting work for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. He also plans to describe a Byzantine set of barriers and narrow perspective still very much in place within the many separate components of U.S. security agencies and intelligence bureaus that echo some of the fateful pre-9/ll flaws recently identified by the 9/11 Commission. Thus his book is titled "Mending Wall," as he points to ways of mending the wall of security that is supposed to keep us safe from future attacks.

Kolb suggests his new book is directly related to threads in his first book, "Overworld: The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy," acquired for a significant six figures and just released by Riverhead earlier this month. That book describes a wide-ranging set of covert adventures, including "secret negotiations with the Ayatollah Khomeini and a covert mission to Beirut to negotiate the release of an American hostage," personally initiated by then-Vice President George Bush. That scheme is also described as involving a CIA agent connected to Mr. Bush, who reportedly worked directly with CIA director Bill Casey, but also identified himself as working for the Republican National Committee.


Here's the Amazon page for Kolb's Overworld. I get the impression from this that Kolb is a tale-teller, but even his wilder his tales may very well be true.

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