Guillaume Vogeleer (Jimmy le Belge)

http://vimeo.com/28630738

Tony Poe X-Tra, template for Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now !

These are outtakes of my feature doco about the so-called secret war in Laos, The Most Secret Place on Earth–The CIA's covert war in Laos. Anthony Poshepny was just one of five renegades that Coppolla referred to within the procedure of writing and discussing the screenplay of Apocalypse Now! with Marlon Brando.

There has been evidence and witness accounts of many of Poe's compatriots that confirm him cutting of enemy ears as well as heads, which he preserved in jars in his hut, as well as intimidating POWs by throwing their compatriots out of flying helicopters, Tony Poe has been referred to as one of the most striking templates of Brando's Kurtz in Apocalypse Now!

Talking about him here are some of his fellow fighters and adversaries. Vint Lawrence, CIA case officer who was stationed in Long Cheng with Poe from 62-66, James Lilley deputy CIA station chief Laos, Charlie Weitz, Air America pilot and finally Fred Brafnman, journalist and aid worker, who blew Poe's cover.

Correction à un message précédent : il ne s'agissait pas de Robert Brown mais de Alfred McCoy, professeur d'histoire ...

comme on peut le voir sur :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfACUNMsvCg

Un documentaire assez complet et intéressant pour comprendre le contexte:


CIA covert opersation in LAOS 2 4
CIA covert opersation in LAOS 3 4
CIA covert opersation in LAOS 4 4

---

Sur Tony POE :

The Search for Kurtz

http://vimeo.com/9207247

Marlon Brando's character, Colonel Kurtz was based on the exploits of a real Special Forces agent during the Vietnam war. His name was Tony Poe. Two UK journalists went to find him. Their search took them half way around the world.

https://www.4shared.com/office/nC3JQwLJ/Anthony_Poshepny_aka_Tony_Poe.html



Anthony Poshepny aka Tony Poe


Agent Provocative - In the 1960s Anthony Poshepny was a CIA operative whose macabre
Southeast Asian exploits drew comparisons with Col. Kurtz, the megalomaniacal anti-hero of Apocalypse Now


By Matt Isaacs


November 17, 1999


Though it is only 1 in the afternoon, the sky is already darkening under an approaching storm when the old man arrives at the hall. Wearing a baseball cap, tinted glasses, and a navy blue suit that stretches too tightly across his big shoulders, he walks slowly from the car, flanked by two beautiful women -- one his wife, the other his daughter -- gently guiding him down the sidewalk.

He is in no hurry. Ever since his heart surgery, the man, once a star linebacker for St. Mary's College, has had trouble walking even a city block. But he wanted to make the journey from his home in the Sunset across the bridge to the Sportsmen Club in Richmond for this special occasion. He has come for a Lao wedding, but more important in his mind, he has come to see his people.

He is recognized immediately upon entering the dimly lit hall. Men and women rush forward to greet him, some hugging him, others bowing respectfully, palms pressed together. A murmur travels through the crowd. A drum roll comes from the stage as a woman begins to sing a lilting Lao wedding song.

The old man waves to the friends he recognizes. The middle two fingers of his left hand are
missing, blown away in an accident long ago. He raises his arms triumphantly as he moves
through the crowd, a hero coming home. At 5 feet, 10 inches, and 200 pounds, he dwarfs most of the Lao people coming to greet him. His is one of the only white faces in the room.

He and his family take their seats at the end of a table laden with bowls upon bowls of food:
noodles, ground pork, vegetable rolls, chicken feet, fermented hard-boiled eggs. As he eats, picking at the food with his fingers, a steady procession of people approaches him to pay respects. The bride, not yet 18 years of age, offers him a tiny glass of tea; the groom gives him two Newport cigarettes.

Few of the young people recognize the old white man, but their parents know him well. Thirty years ago, he taught many of them how to aim a recoilless rifle, how to set a booby trap with a hand grenade, how to fire a 4.2-inch mortar. He taught a lucky few how to fly; as if by magic, he literally summoned shipments of rice and American dollars from the heavens.

"He was our leader," says Yaochiam Chaophauh, who at 16 years of age fought in the old man's army against the North Vietnamese. "He paid our salaries. He paid for our clothes and for our guns. And when one of our people passed from life, he paid [the surviving family] for that life."

Anthony Poshepny, or Tony Poe as he is called by his friends, doesn't attract much attention in his neighborhood, just north of Stern Grove, probably because he doesn't get out much anymore, and when he does, he doesn't do anything that would be considered out of the ordinary for an ailing septuagenarian. The 75-year-old with the round, bald head can sometimes be seen shuffling out in his slippers and a Planet Hollywood sweat shirt to get the mail. On the day after Halloween, he was still giving away candy to the neighbor's kids.

Within certain circles, though, Poshepny has become an underground legend. War buffs know him as the Central Intelligence Agency's super-fighting machine, the man who, along with a few other spooks, played a key role in the United States' secret war in Laos throughout the 1960s. Others, mostly writers for the British tabloids, believe Poshepny was the actual model for Col. Kurtz, the megalomaniac Green Beret played by Marlon Brando in Francis Ford Coppola's film classic Apocalypse Now.

The film, released 20 years ago, tells the story of a mercenary's journey to assassinate a colonel who has gone mad. Based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Coppola's version shifts the setting from equatorial Africa to Vietnam, and focuses its attention on the skewed morals of war.

Capt. Willard, played by Martin Sheen, travels up the Nung River, to "terminate the command" of Col. Kurtz, an officer who has surrendered to the wild instincts of the jungle and begun "operating without any human restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct."

Like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, Poshepny, who spent more than a decade in the jungle, adopted the ways of the native people. Like Kurtz, he gathered a loyal following in a remote outpost in Southeast Asia, where, according to Poshepny, he was revered like a god. Like Kurtz, he had a taste for the macabre; he was famous for keeping the heads of his enemies in formaldehyde and sending the ears to his superiors with his embassy reports. And like Kurtz, Poshepny ultimately became a liability for the United States government.

Coppola denies that he and screenwriter John Milius had Poshepny in mind when they wrote the script. In a recent interview, Coppola said Brando's character was based loosely on Col. Robert Rheault, the commanding officer of all Green Berets in Vietnam, who in 1969 was court-martialed by the U.S. Army after some of his men were accused of killing a Vietnamese guide whom they believed was a double agent. The charges were later dropped, but only after Rheault's military career was ruined.

The case was widely publicized in The New York Times, and Coppola makes a few obvious
references to it in the movie. Capt. Willard, played by Martin Sheen, receives confidential orders to take out the colonel after the Pentagon has gotten word that Kurtz has executed four Vietnamese double agents.

But the parallels between Col. Rheault and Kurtz stop there. Unlike Kurtz, Rheault had a
reputation as a straight arrow; he never went "bamboo," or rebelled against the U.S. government.

Poshepny, on the other hand, achieved an almost mythic, Kurtz-like reputation during the
Vietnam War, often being viewed by superiors as a renegade warrior whose primordial instincts conflicted with modern morality. Some of those who knew Poshepny during the war and have since seen Apocalypse Now say Tony Poe was the real Col. Kurtz. And if he wasn't, they say, he should have been. Because Poshepny's story is far stranger than anything Coppola could have made up.

Poshepny likes to say he was too fast, too tough, too wild for death to ever bring him down.
"Every time I was injured, I'd look up at the sky and say, 'Hey, Jesus, you want me now?' And Jesus would say, 'No, Tony. We've got a lot of girls up here, and you've got a bad reputation.'"

Poshepny's earliest brush with death came when he was 8 years old and living on a farm in Santa Rosa; his brother accidentally shot him in the stomach with a .22 rifle. The boy would have died if it were not for a blood transfusion from his father who, luckily, had the same blood type.

Tony's father, John Charles Poshepny, was a Navy commander and one of Tony's biggest heroes.

"He was the toughest son of a bitch around. To me he was the highest symbol of excellence," Poshepny says.

During World War II, John Poshepny was stationed on the battleship USS Utah and narrowly
avoided death himself when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The Utah was one of the ships that was sunk in the bombing, but at the time the senior Poshepny happened to be on the island on his way back to the ship.

Though he was only 15, the young Poshepny immediately tried to join the armed forces but
wasn't allowed to enlist until his mother gave her official consent a year later. "I couldn't wait to start shooting those Japs," he says. Poshepny says he was sent to Iwo Jima with an elite parachute battalion. He was hit twice during his tour, once by machine gun fire and another by shrapnel. When the war ended, he was given two Purple Hearts for his service; he now displays them with dozens of other medals in his living room.

After the war, Poshepny went to college on the GI Bill, first at St. Mary's in Moraga, then
graduated from San Jose State with degrees in English and history. Following college, he was one of the first recruits of the fledgling CIA in 1952.

On a recent stopover on his way home to Bangkok, Jack Shirley, one of Poshepny's classmates in CIA training, sat down to talk about their early years on "The Farm," the agency's fabled training center at Camp Peary, Va. Shirley and Poshepny were in the class of '52 and went on to work together off and on in Asia for much of the rest of their lives. Back then, Shirley says, the agency was filled with aging World War II veterans and was looking for young men who had a few years of military experience, a college education, and an athletic background. Both Shirley and Poshepny fit the mold, and were among approximately 30 men chosen from hundreds of applicants.

Tony Poe stories are legion, predating his wartime activities by years, and Shirley loves to tell them. For example, he says, before graduation from the Farm, Poe was called in for a
psychological evaluation. As part of the examination, the story goes, the doctor asked Poe to compose a one-act play, and then perform it. The doctor left for 20 minutes, and when he returned, Poe was sitting behind the doctor's desk, and from this vantage point began screaming at him, calling him a "Communist penetration" and a "parlor pink." Poe then opened the desk drawer and pulled out a pair of pink panties, which he threw in the doctor's face, threatening to have the doctor fired from the agency.

"Tony had talked the secretary into giving him her underpants," Shirley says. "How is the outfit going to turn away a guy who can come up with something like that?"

Poshepny's old friends never tire of unearthing Tony Poe chestnuts, like the time he carried on a conversation at a Bangkok bar in a level voice, while underneath the table he was strangling a cat. (The reason he had his hands around the kitty's neck was not made clear.) Or the time in Thailand when he was recuperating at a Mormon hospital, after his back had been lacerated by the explosion of a Bouncing Betty, a type of land mine that, when stepped on, "bounces" to chest level before exploding. Even though his back was covered with stitches, his friends sent him a prostitute who carried a sack of oranges that held a bottle of vodka at the bottom. They say administrators kicked Poshepny out of the hospital, even though his exertions with the prostitute had ripped open all the stitching on his back.

Tony Poe stories have, no doubt, been embellished over the years. Perhaps greatly. The man was an epic drinker, and he acknowledges that the only thing he liked better than telling stories was killing Commies. But the story of the CIA's role in Laos, including Poshepny's dealings there, has been soberly detailed in a book by Roger Warner called Back Fire, winner of the 1995 Book of the Year Award from the Overseas Press Club, a New York-based group of foreign correspondents. According to Warner's account, after Poshepny joined the CIA, he became involved in a number of operations throughout Asia, mostly encouraging rebellions against China's Communist regime. In his first years he worked with the Khamba tribesmen of Tibet in their resistance against the Chinese invasion of their country. He was later involved in a failed attempt to cause an uprising on the island of Sumatra in 1958. On these missions, Poshepny's role was to provide a rebellious spark; the native people did the rest.

"Most people don't realize, the CIA was created to do the things the country couldn't do out in the open," says Shirley. "Nothing we did was legal. Everything we did was illegal. 'Plausible deniability' was the name of the game."

After their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French cleared out of all of Indochina, including Laos; the U.S. was eager to fill the resulting political vacuum, to keep Communists from stepping in. In 1961, Poshepny was dropped into Laos near the border to Thailand, along with a couple of other CIA operatives, including Shirley. Their mission, called Operation Momentum, involved the quiet training of a tribe of hill people called the Meo -- later called the Hmong -- to use modern-day weaponry against the Communist front in North Vietnam.

Operation Momentum expanded quickly until nearly 10,000 tribesmen were armed and ready.

The tribesmen would make quick, guerrilla strikes on the North Vietnamese, blowing up a bridge here, booby-trapping a trail there, while the U.S. involvement was kept virtually invisible.

The Geneva Accords of 1962 only increased the CIA's clandestine activities, according to
Warner's account. Under the accords, Laos was declared a neutral country, forcing North
Vietnamese, Soviet, and American armed forces to officially leave the country. From then on, Laos was no man's land, while behind the scenes, the major military powers continued to play chess with each other, using the Lao people as pawns. In 1964, the CIA received its first confirmation that the Communists were using the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos to provide troops and supplies to South Vietnam. In March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines landed in South Vietnam ; that number would grow to 184,000 soldiers by year's end.

Poshepny says he was living in North Laos in January of 1965 when he saw North Vietnamese soldiers advancing upon his training site and his home, a thatched hut that leaked during the monsoon season, when sheets of rain would turn the dirt floor into mud. The rainy season had ended, giving way to drier, foggy days, but there was still no running water, no electricity. He was subsisting on Spam, beans, and White Horse scotch. It was the day Lyndon Johnson was being sworn in as president, Poshepny recalls.

Poshepny says he was eating lunch when he saw the troops, "leapfrogging" in groups of twos and threes along the base's airplane landing strip. One group of North Vietnamese would get up and run, while the others would fire their guns to protect the advancing group.

Poshepny began firing at the soldiers with an M-1 carbine. He waited until he saw a soldier get up and then aimed for the head. "I kept hitting them as they got up, popping them in the head, until they stopped coming. Somebody looked through some binoculars and saw 17 bodies along the edge of the strip," he says.

Poshepny and a few of his troops went out to check the bodies for paperwork, when three
soldiers hidden in the brush started firing at them. A bullet went into Poshepny's stomach and out his hip, knocking him to the ground. The three soldiers came out of the brush, firing at the rest of Poshepny's troops. As quickly as he could, Poshepny says, he lined up his grenades next to him on the ground, pulled the spoons, then began lobbing them in the direction of the North Vietnamese soldiers until all signs of human life were obliterated from the runway.

When Poshepny got up, he saw that the tribesmen who had followed him to the strip had been killed. He says he then walked back to the camp with half his hip gone, using his rifle as a cane.

"When my people saw me coming out of the mist alive ... they were simply amazed," he says.

"They thought I must have had some magic protecting me, so they all came up wanting to touch me. 'Stay close to Tony, he protect you,' they said."

As the war in Vietnam escalated, so did Poshepny's drinking, until, he says, he was downing a quart of lao-lao, the native whiskey, before breakfast. "I drank before I went out to kill," he says.

"There's nothing wrong with that."

But the more Poshepny drank, the more of a nuisance he became to his superiors. And the more of a nuisance he became, the farther away his bosses told him to go, hoping to keep him out of trouble; eventually, the commando was pushed all the way to the China border. Poshepny was under strict orders not to engage in combat, but the farther away he went, the more belligerent he became.

After sacking one village, he says, he married the chieftain's daughter, giving the father a dowry of 100 water buffalo and 75 goats. "She had a terrific wiggle," he says with a grin. "Better still, she was Catholic." Poshepny may have been pleased, but his marriage was yet another violation of CIA rules, which forbid agents from becoming romantically involved with their "clients" for security reasons.

On the China border, Poshepny began training a new tribe, 10,000 people who then were called the Yao, and now are called the Mein. As the years passed, Poshepny's reputation as a maniacal, coldblooded killer grew among Americans familiar with his work, while among the tribes, he became respected as a leader who cared about his people. He says he took members of the Yao on airborne reconnaissance missions across the China border. When he ran low on ammunition, he put grenades in glass jars, pulled the spoons, and dropped them from the helicopter. When he ran out of grenades, he says, he dropped smooth, round river stones, which could smash straight through the roof of a jeep.

Poshepny stories are changeable, and he has changed them from time to time in regard to the collection and dissemination of human body parts. He admits that he collected ears, a practice he kept from his days on Iwo Jima. Heads are a different matter. Sometimes he says he kept the heads of his enemies in formaldehyde; other times he says he put them on stakes, according to local customs, and let the tribespeople throw pebbles at them. Yet other times, he says he dropped them from his helicopter like the round river stones.

"Keep in mind that Tony has a grisly sense of humor," Shirley says. "He once said he was
collecting heads for humanitarian reasons. He had been paying a bounty for ears, until he ran into a little boy with his ears missing. The boy said his father had cut them off and sold them. Tony was so shocked, he gave the boy a few hundred kip, and immediately decided he would accept only heads from then on."

It is at this point in the story when the legend of Poshepny and the legend of Kurtz begin to
diverge. In Apocalypse Now, Kurtz became estranged from the U.S. government, turning inward as he succumbed to the animal instincts of the jungle. Poshepny surrendered to his wild instincts as well, particularly to his thirst for lao-lao. But unlike Kurtz, Poshepny did not turn inward. In fact, he did not change much from his brutish youth; rather, the mind-set of his country changed.

As the Vietnam War dragged on, the Tony Poes, once revered as American heroes, were reduced to bloodthirsty barbarians in their home country's eyes.

In 1975, Poshepny and 800 other CIA operatives in Asia were released from duty. "They kicked us out because they said we were an embarrassment," Poshepny says, still baffled by the turn of events. "We were the ones who won the goddamn war against communism."

Poshepny is still shocked by how he heard America received its veterans, how Gen. William
Westmoreland, the overall U.S. commander in South Vietnam, called the war a mistake. "And 200,000 young men burning their draft cards?" he asks with scorn. "Jane Fonda, that bitch, daring to question John McCain? I wish I had been in the country when those college kids were protesting at Sather Gate. I woulda gone down there and beat the shit out of them."

Despite Poshepny's bitterness toward his country's withdrawal of support, even he says he
needed the rest. When the CIA cut its agents loose, Poshepny had already served 30 years, the magic number for a fat military pension. He retired to a tapioca farm in Thailand. For the first time in his life he spent time with his wife, his son, and his two daughters. He was still beloved by the Yao people, who lived not far away in Laos. Over time he mellowed, only occasionally finishing off a quart of scotch and swaggering down the streets of Udorn with a loaded .45 Magnum in his belt. In 1980 he was diagnosed with diabetes and drastically cut back his drinking. He returned to San Francisco in 1992 on a temporary visit; the visit became permanent.

Tony Poe had lived to see another day.

"When reporters talk to my father, they write down the silly things he says," Maria Poshepny, Tony Poe's eldest daughter, says at the wedding. "They don't appreciate the fact that he stayed with his people. He took care of them. He didn't just rape the land and leave, like so many others.

He didn't just impregnate my mother and fly home. He took her with him."

As she says this, Maria eyes her father suspiciously. Although he had triple bypass heart surgery just last year, throughout the day, his friends have been covertly pouring cognac into his Diet Pepsi. He has grown warm and bolder, beckoning those around him for more. Next to Poshepny sits Wern Chen, his No. 1 lieutenant in the Yao tribe. I ask the solemn man to describe Poshepny's connection with the Yao people, but before Chen can answer, Poshepny silences him.

"Farang," Poshepny says, using a derogatory word for foreigner and pointing to me. All the men laugh. I don't get an answer, and soon Poshepny unceremoniously leaves the celebration, steps into the rain now coming down in sheets, and heads home to the Sunset.

_______________


www.bearcave.com/bookrev/backfire.htm

Une photo de Tony Poe ...

Cela correspond-il à un portrait-robot ?

Une autre :

Une autre

Une autre :





http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?193863-America-s-secret-war-in-Laos-CIA-agent-Anthony-Poshepny-aka-Tony-Poe



Tony Poe (Anthony Alexander Poshepny) was born on Thursday, September 18, 1924 in Long Beach and he was a famous military from United States of Roman Catholic religion.

Life in Brief:

- Being born on Sep 18, Tony was a Virgo.
- his ethnicity: White.
- his mother's name: Isabella Maria Venziano.
- his father's name: John Charles Poshepny.

Tony Poe had studied at Santa Rosa High School, Santa Rosa, CA (but he dropped out) and then he attended the St. Mary's College, San Francisco, CA (transferred).

Tony dated Sheng Ly (wife).

He died on Sunday, July 27, 2003, in Sonoma; cause of death: liver failure.

Famous Why : CIA ear collection operative in Southeast Asia.

Read more: http://people.famouswhy.com/tony_poe/#ixzz1yDLky3IV

Au sujet de Guy MOREAU, grand ami de Guillaume VOGELEER :

http://kisimba.skynetblogs.be/archive/2010/08/20/codoki-commandos-du-kivu-64-65-commentaires-et-photos-d-un-a.html

et

http://www.seniorennet.be/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1638638

Dans le documentaire relatif à Guillaume Vogeleer, on peut remarquer qu'il y a plusieurs exemplaires de " Soldier of Fortune " sur son bureau, ainsi qu'un écusson.

http://www.sofmag.com/sof-saves-afghan-commander

Intéressant de voir le lien entre Robert Brown ( RKB ) et Jim Coyne au début des années 1980...

A noter : SOF (Soldier of Fortune ) fait plus que du journalisme et livre même du matériel ...

Robert K. Brown est aussi le co-auteur d'un livre sorti en 1979 :

http://www.amazon.com/Merc-American-Soldiers-Jay-Mallin/dp/0025793306





Macmillan, 1-dec.-1979 - 216 pagina's

Profiles the character and motivation of the American mercenary soldiers-adventurers, former Green Berets and other Vietnam-era soldiers, and ex-CIA agents--who sell their military experience and expertise

Une photo de Robert K. Brown :



Plus récemment :

Un article intéressant :

http://www.mercenary-wars.net/biography/w-churchill-article.html

Soldier of Fortune’s Robert K. Brown

By Ward Churchill

The following article was published in CovertAction in 1984, and is Ward Churchill's "exposé" of Soldier of Fortune magazine and its publisher.

(...)

“The mercenary activities revolving around Solider of Fortune and the Omega Group are being handled both ways, packaged and hidden. It’s a very sophisticated operation in its way, and you just don’t get this sort of finesse from a bunch of apparent rum-dums in the private sector. The whole thing smacks of a CIA operation, although admittedly a very weird one.”

To be sure, both the intelligence community and Brown vehemently deny that any linkage between them exists, or has existed in the past. The record, however, shows something rather different. For example, a 1962 letter written by Brown and recently obtained from the archives of an archconservative California-based institution reveals that he spent the period from 1954 to 1957 as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s highly selective and very secretive Counterintelligence Corps. Not to be confused with the larger and more diversified Military Intelligence units, Counterintelligence has always had extremely close linkages (indeed, major overlaps) with the CIA.

Much of Brown’s life was spent drifting from job to job – Brink’s truck guard, timber cutter, and ranch hand – mostly in and around Boulder. He has boasted of setting up connections in the international arms traffic, and occasionally he dabbles in South African diamonds and precious metals.

(...)

Sur Tony POE, voir aussi :

http://www.burma-richard.org/2011/01/phantom-of-apocalypse.html

Voici ce que Boemerang a rassemblé en partant du portrait-robot n° 23 ( voir fil de discussion à ce sujet ) :

(où l'on retrouve Frank Wisner !!!)


http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2000/10/05/la-guerre-de-l-ombre-de-la-cia-en-asie

La guerre de l'ombre de la CIA en Asie

Dans un nouveau livre, deux anciens agents secrets américains témoignent du rôle majeur joué par Washington contre le communisme dans les années 50, en particulier en Indonésie.

05.10.2000 | John McBeth | Far Eastern Economic Review

Dans l'hebdo N° 518
Fiches pays

Etats-Unis
Indonésie
Laos
Thaïlande

Villes

Houston
Washington
Padang
Jakarta
San Francisco

Personnes

James Morrison
Pat Landry
Tony Poe
Allen Dulles
Maludin Simbolon
Naval Institute Press
Kenneth Conboy
Kenneth Conby
Frank Wisner
John McBeth

Pat Landry et Anthony "Tony Poe" Poshepny sont les derniers représentants d'une race en voie de disparition : celle des légendaires agents opérationnels de la CIA, qui fomentèrent des rébellions et dirigèrent des guérillas pour le compte d'un pays souvent ingrat. Landry, aujourd'hui âgé de 75 ans, vit tranquillement à Houston, au Texas, et vient de surmonter un cancer. A 78 ans, Poshepny, lui, s'est installé à San Francisco et maintient des contacts étroits avec les montagnards hmongs [une minorité ethnique] en exil, qui se sont battus à ses côtés dans les montagnes du Laos. Rechignant à quitter l'Asie, comme nombre de leurs collègues des années 60, tous deux ont entamé leur retraite anticipée en Thaïlande. Landry a vaguement tenté de faire des affaires. Avec son épouse hmong, le grand buveur qu'est Poshepny s'est essayé à la culture du tapioca et de la canne à sucre non loin de la vieille base aérienne d'Udon Thani, ancien centre nerveux des opérations paramilitaires de la CIA au-delà du Mékong.

Ancien officier des Marines, Poshepny a commencé à travailler pour la CIA au cours d'opérations navales clandestines pendant la guerre de Corée [1950-1953], avant de devenir conseiller auprès de l'armée thaïlandaise. Landry, officier de carrière dans le renseignement, a fait passer des agents de l'autre côté du rideau de fer, puis a organisé des infiltrations en Corée du Nord à l'aide de chalutiers appartenant à l'Agence. Lui aussi a servi un temps comme conseiller militaire en Thaïlande, vers le milieu des années 50.

Mais c'est en Indonésie que Kenneth Conboy et James Morrison [auteurs du livre Feet to the Fire*] retrouvent le fil des carrières clandestines de ces deux hommes. S'appuyant sur des documents déclassifiés et des interviews exceptionnelles de Poshepny, de Landry et de personnalités indonésiennes et de la CIA, Conboy et Morrison proposent un récit aussi détaillé que neutre des tentatives de la CIA pour déclencher des révoltes dans les îles de Sumatra et de Célèbes en 1957-1958.

L'architecte de ces interventions s'appelait Frank Wisner, responsable des opérations clandestines de la CIA. Elles avaient pour but de mettre la pression sur le président Sukarno pour éviter que l'Indonésie ne passe dans le camp communiste. Mais, avec une troupe hétéroclite composée de colonels indonésiens dissidents, de pompiers volants du Montana, de pilotes mercenaires polonais et philippins et de sous-mariniers américains, le projet était voué à l'échec. Ouvrage complet présentant huit pages de photographies jamais vues, Feet to the Fire raconte comment la CIA a aidé le chef des rebelles de Sumatra, le colonel Maludin Simbolon, à se ravitailler en armes. Quand il s'avéra que les forces de Simbolon seraient incapables de résister à l'offensive terrestre et aérienne de Jakarta, l'opération avorta rapidement. Coincés derrière les lignes indonésiennes, Landry et Poshepny s'enfuirent vers le sud à partir de Padang, sur la côte ouest de Sumatra. Ils finirent par regagner un sous-marin américain à bord d'un bateau de pêche.

La résistance s'écroulant à Sumatra, le gouvernement indonésien s'attaqua ensuite au nord de Célèbes. Là, les pilotes appuyés par la CIA avaient réussi à contrôler efficacement l'espace aérien au-dessus d'une grande partie de l'est de l'Indonésie. Décollant de Manado, tenue par les rebelles, des bombardiers B-26 et des chasseurs P-51 Mustang frappaient les bases aériennes, les casernes, les installations pétrolières et maritimes à Halmahera, Ternate et Amboine, dans les Moluques, Kendari et Palu, dans le sud-est et le centre de Célèbes, et même Balikpapan, sur la côte Est de Kalimantan.

Alors que les troupes indonésiennes progressaient sur Manado, le pilote américain Allan Pope fut abattu aux commandes d'un B-26. C'est à ce moment qu'Allen Dulles, directeur de la CIA, décida de mettre un terme à l'opération. Pope, lui, opta pour la provocation idéologique - "Ça fait vingt-deux ans que je me bats contre les communistes" -, tout en prétendant avoir perdu la mémoire quant aux détails de l'opération. Il fut condamné à mort en janvier 1960 [par les autorités indonésiennes].

Conboy et Morrison décrivent le plan, finalement abandonné, monté par la CIA pour récupérer le pilote dans la cour de sa prison, à Jakarta, à l'aide du système Skyhook, un nouveau dispositif de récupération aérienne. Mais cette mission à risque fut finalement annulée. Après deux ans passés dans le couloir de la mort, Pope, source d'embarras pour les deux camps, fut gracié. Avant qu'il ne soit renvoyé aux Etats-Unis, le président Sukarno admonesta l'aventurier en des termes qui auraient aussi bien pu s'adresser à l'ensemble des opérations menées par la CIA : "Rentrez chez vous, cachez-vous, allez vous faire pendre ailleurs, et nous oublierons tout ça."

Poshepny, Landry et quatre autres agents de la CIA impliqués dans la rébellion indonésienne jouèrent ensuite des rôles importants dans l'opération paramilitaire au Laos, la plus grande jamais entreprise par l'agence. Pendant des années, la guérilla hmong entretenue par la CIA immobilisa les forces vietnamiennes dans un affrontement pour s'emparer de la zone stratégique de la plaine des Jarres, la parcelle de territoire la plus bombardée de l'histoire de la guerre. Les secrets concernant cette période n'ont commencé à filtrer que depuis peu.
Conboy, qui vit en Indonésie, a collaboré avec Morrison pour son ouvrage de référence intitulé Shadow War : The CIA's Secret War in Laos [La guerre de l'ombre : la guerre secrète de la CIA au Laos]. Il est aujourd'hui considéré comme l'un des meilleurs spécialistes de l'histoire militaire et des opérations clandestines en Asie. A 35 ans, avec déjà dix livres à son actif et un autre en préparation, cet ancien directeur adjoint du Centre des études asiatiques de Washington a dû se tourner vers des éditeurs marginaux pour pouvoir publier des récits qui auraient pourtant leur place dans les rangs des best-sellers.


* Feet to the Fire : Covert Operations in Indonesia, par Kenneth Conby et James Morrison, Naval Institute Press, 1957-1958, 28,95 dollars.

HERVE a écrit:

Au sujet de Guy MOREAU, grand ami de Guillaume VOGELEER :

http://kisimba.skynetblogs.be/archive/2010/08/20/codoki-commandos-du-kivu-64-65-commentaires-et-photos-d-un-a.html

et

http://www.seniorennet.be/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1638638

La page du premier lien est peu lisible mais voici le paragraphe concernant Moreau:

"Le matin du 20 mars la jeep recce tombe en panne et nous occasionne du retard; Dédé Dejardin, Jean Dessy, Franz Coupez, Guy Moreau et Eugène Cornet décident de s' installer sur la ferret et la colonne renforcée du capitaine Ernest et d' une partie de ses hommes et de Donatien démarre vers 8 heures."

C'est peu mais cela confirme en tous cas que ce Guy Moreau faisait partie entre 1964 et 1967 d'un commando de volontaires
(ensuite mercenaires), les CODOKI, qui affrontèrent les rebelles mulélistes dans l'Est du Congo. Vogeleer dit aussi avoir combattu ces même rebelles.

En suivant le second lien on peut lire que les CODOKI rejoignent à un moment le 10e codo de Jean Schramme (le fameux bataillon Léopard ou "Kansimba") dans le Nord-Katanga et Sud-Kivu. Vogeleer porte encore 10 ans plus tard en Asie l'écusson des "Kansimba" sur sa salopette, tout comme son ami Patrick le Corse (également lecteur de Sodiers Of Fortune) à Bruxelles en 79/80, signalé ensuite à Pattaya en compagnie de Jimmy.

Les trois hommes faisaient très vraisemblablement partie de la centaine de survivants passés avec Schramme au Rwanda par le pont sur la Ruzizi en novembre '67.

On voit également dans un article de SOF signé Jim Shortt, le sigle du bataillon Kansimba dans le café de Masy, "La Renaissance" (aussi connu par les soldats de fortune sous le nom de "Simba Bar", rue Marché au Charbon à Bruxelles).

Pour Jim/James Shortt, voir les infos de Swansongunsung https://tueriesdubrabant.1fr1.net/t1797-james-shortt

Et voir aussi :

https://tueriesdubrabant.1fr1.net/t2291-ott-lucien-victor

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?134608-Interesting-SOF-articles-on-Angola-SADF-etc/page4

Sur Jim Shortt, l'auteur de l'article ci-dessus :

http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/James_Shortt


Voir aussi :

http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/The_Security_Industry_extract_from_The_%22Terrorism%22_Industry

Chapter 6 'The Security Industry' from Ed Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism" Industry, 1989, Praeger, pages 117-147

(...)

Counterterrorism Training Camps A number of counterterrorism training schools have also sprung up over the last decade offering I hands-on seminars on detection, weaponry, and assassination. These schools operate as part of a network built largely around the activities of Soldier of Fortune magazine and the private contra aid enterprise established by both Oliver North and John Singlaub. Such schools serve a dual function. While ostensibly training individuals in counterterrorism techniques for self-defense, the camps also offer classes in counterinsurgency and assassination. These academies have attracted members of right-wing, racist, paramilitary organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and Posse Comitatus, as well as executives interested in fending off terrorists.

Many of the civilian mercenaries and trainers connected with these camps received counterterrorism and Ranger instruction at U.S. Army Special Forces bases at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Fort Benning, Georgia, and Fort Lewis, Washington.68 According to Jeff Gerth, "Some of the units were created to fight terrorism but have acquired broadened mandates and training for missions against insurgencies in developing countries in Central America, Africa, and Asia. "69

In July 1983, Tom Posey, a former marine corporal, Birchite, and member of the Alabama National Guard, along with four other National Guardsmen, organized Civilian-Military Assistance (CMA),70 as an instrument for sending mercenaries and military supplies to El Salvador. With extensive official support (both military and diplomatic), CMA sent numerous shipments of weapons to El Salvador.71 According to Posey, General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez of Honduras approached his group in 1983 with a request for training and advice.72 The V.S. embassy arranged the initial meetings between CMA and the Honduran.73 CMA soon turned to helping the contras, and not only provided material aid but also sent mercenaries to Honduras and Nicaragua to fight. Posey bragged to the Huntsville Times that he had fired three hundred rounds at the Nicaraguans and hinted at engagement in hand-to-hand combat. On September 1, 1984, two of Posey's men were killed when a helicopter they were flying over Nicaragua was shot down. There followed denials of the mercenaries' involvement, "claims of mercy missions," and so on. This entire operation was done with extensive official connivance,74 in violation of the Neutrality Act as well as the Boland amendment.

One of the largest and oldest of the training centers is SIONICS, Inc. (Studies in Operational Negations of Insurgency and Counter-Subversion), formerly Cobray International Training Center, with headquarters in Powder Springs, Georgia. Founded in 1979 by the late Lieutenant General Mitchell Livingston WerBell Ill, SIONICS is a frequent advertiser in such mercenary magazines as Soldier of Fortune, Eagle, and Gung-Ho. WerBell was an OSS officer in China during World War II and worked closely with both Ray Cline and John Singlaub (Singlaub was a frequent visitor and occasional instructor at the SIONICS camp).

(...)

69. Jeff Gerth, "U.S. Military Creates Secret Units for Use in Sensitive Tasks Abroad," New York Times, June 8, 1984.
70. Subsequently, the name of the organization was changed to Civilian Material Assistance. 71. Ken Lawrence, "From Phoenix Associates to Civilian-Military Assistance," CovertAction Information Bulletin, no. 22 (Fall 1984), pp. 18-19.
72. See chapter 5, p. 85 and note 42.
73. Barry et al., New Right Humanitarians, p. 50.
74. Philip Taubman, "U.S. Army Officers Helped Private Group in Salvador," New York Times, Sept. 7, 1984. In the Iran-Contra Affair documents there is an explicit reference by Reagan administration officials to "periodic assistance" to the contras "from the Civilian Military Assistance Group [CMA] in Alabama" as part of a semi¬official apparatus. Appendix, vol. I, p. 324.
75. Marshall, Scott, and Hunter, The Iran-Contra Connection, pp. 67-68. 76. Anderson and Anderson, Inside the League, p. 182.

(...)

_ _ _


http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/08/us/us-military-creates-secret-units-for-use-in-sensitive-tasks-abroad.html

U.S. MILITARY CREATES SECRET UNITS FOR USE IN SENSITIVE TASKS ABROAD

[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]

The following article is based on reporting by Jeff Gerth and Philip Taubman and was written by Mr. Gerth.

WASHINGTON, June 7 - The Defense Department has created several secret commando units in recent years, and they have tried to rescue missing Americans in danger spots abroad, participated in the invasion of Grenada and supported Central Intelligence Agency covert operations in Central America, according to Administration officials and members of Congress. The development of the elite units, which has extended the military's traditional concept of special forces, has raised concern in Congress, some lawmakers say. They say the worry is that the units might become a uniformed version of the Central Intelligence Agency and be used to circumvent Congressional restrictions and reporting requirements on intelligence activities and the use of American forces in combat operations. Official Says There Is No Risk But a senior intelligence official denied that such a risk existed. He said that although the new special operations forces constituted a resource for intelligence operations, any such use of them would be directed by the C.I.A. and properly reported to Congress.

Pour information ...

... en cherchant les personnes en lien avec Jim Coyne et Robert K Brown (qui sont eux-mêmes très proches, au moins depuis 1980 et encore actuellement), on trouve notamment :

La société L-3 Stratis

http://www.l-3stratis.com/


Peter Slade

http://www.razorsedgebypeterslade.net/

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/investigation/292050/a-mercenary-tale


Bob Seigle

http://www.orsg.us/home/leadership/robert-seigle-bio


Plus étonnant:

Albert Santoli
http://www.asiaamerica.org/

http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2005hearings/written_testimonies/05_07_21_22wrts/santoli_albert_wrts.pdf

A noter aussi :

Thadtheb Boonnaum

Instructor at Royal Thai Army

http://th.linkedin.com/pub/thadtheb-boonnaum/34/477/120

Note : avec Bob Seigle (voir ci-dessus), on est dans le complexe militaro-industriel des USA...

Par ailleurs, sur Robert K. Brown, voir :

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.br.htm#rbrown

(...)

Robert K. Brown - CNP 1988; also according to attendance to CNP Board of Governors meeting, List of Member Participants Dallas, Texas, August 17-18, 1984, and financial contributions to CNP for at least four years. 19.; he is founder/editor/publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine (SOF) 20 , a mercenary magazine; president, Omega Group Ltd, parent group of SOF; former special agent, Counter Intelligence Corps; Special Forces "A" Team leader;

Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Reserve, (Ret.); Special Forces Team Leader (Viet Nam); OIC Advanced Marksmanship Unit XVIII Corps; Graduate Command and General Staff College; Military Parachutist (wings from U.S., El Salvador, Guatemala, Israel, Peru, Taiwan, Thailand; smuggled from Afghanistan 5,000 rounds 5.45mm Com Bloc ammo to U.S. Government (first test sample in U.S.). Director/member of Executive Committee for two years, past member of Public Affairs and Finance Committees. Currently member of Legislative Policy, Grassroots Development, Publications Policies, Action Shooting and Range Development Committees. Has supported and funded pro-gun candidates for state legislatures, House of Representatives and U.S. Senate; combat correspondent and investigative journalist. 21

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Sept. 22, 1999 issued a proclamation declaring that day to be "Soldier of Fortune Day" and "Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown Day" in honor of Soldier of Fortune magazine, its 20th annual convention in Las Vegas, and its founder and publisher."

Brown was Vice Chair on the Nominating Committee of the National Rifle Association (NRA)22.

In addition to publishing Soldier of Fortune, the Omega Group publishes two other gun magazines: Guns & Action and Combat Weapons.(1)...Calling themselves "action journalists," many of SOF's reporters have come under fire for participating in the training of counterrevolutionary groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua. SOF claims to have sent over a dozen training teams to El Salvador in the early 1980's to train government troops in sniping, anti-guerrilla urban warfare, explosives and weapons maintenance.(10,11) The magazine's "Expanded Central America Edition" (Sept. 1983), which coincided with the group's training trip to El Salvador, showed a picture of a Salvadoran soldier and two members of the magazine's group crouching around the bodies of two dead guerrillas. Robert J. McCartney, author of an article about SOF, claims that "The picture clearly resembled photographs that hunters take after they have bagged a deer."(11)" 23

According to Bellant's article in Covert Action, Soldier of Fortune has regularly praised pro-Nazi individuals and groups, and promotes the sale of Nazi regalia. SOF started in 1975 in sympathy with the racist regime of Rhodesia. In recent years, SOF staff have trained Salvadoran military units in urban warfare. 24.

"In February 1985, former Justice Department attorney John Loftus sent Congress a report detailing his suspicions that [William] Casey and [John K.] Singlaub [CNP], using the World Anti-Communist League, had resurrected an old private conduit system for laundering money to "freedom fighters." The old conduit was Crusade for Freedom, a public charity established by retired General Lucius Clay that provided "private" support for the National Committee for a Free Europe (now Radio Free Europe) and the American Committee for Liberation (now Radio Liberty). The Two committees-home to Nazis and Nazi collaborators who, as Loftus noted, migrated to WACL--were secretly laundering government money to Eastern Europe insurgents at the direction of the NSC and the State Department's clandestine Office of Policy Coordination..."close to 20 privately incorporated U.S. groups have reportedly sent...aid...to Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras and to the contras themselves...[The] driving forces behind the major groups are a small group of about a half a dozen men, most of whom have military or paramilitary experience...The contra auxiliary includes the World Anti-Communist League and it's U.S. Council for World Freedom, the American Security Council, Council for Inter-American Security and Western Goals [defunct spy group of John Birch Society] ..."

For Radio Free Europe and or Radio Liberty > [was American Committee for Liberation]~ J. Peter Grace, Dr. Stanley Monteith, Frank Shakespeare

Among the other key groups in the auxiliary are the following:

The Florida-based Air Commandos Association, led by retired Brigadier General Harry "Heinie" Aderholt, is a group of approximately 1,600 past and present members of the U.S. Special Forces. Aderholt, Soldier of Fortune's unconventional warfare editor, coordinated the joint CIA-Pentagon-AID program to provide "humanitarian" relief to the Hmong secret army in Laos and served as chief of covert air operations in Singlaub's Special Operations Group...

Soldier of Fortune...was founded in 1975 by the Colorado-based Omega Group headed by retired Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, a veteran of the Phoenix program and special operations in Laos and ex-mercenary in white-ruled Rhodesia. Brown sports a T-shirt boasting, "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool." Soldier of Fortune (SOF) runs articles on counterinsurgency warfare, glamorizes training and combat missions by SOF personnel, advertises weapons and mercenary services and encourages donations to its affiliated El Salvador/Nicaragua Defense Fund, which printed and distributed some 500 copies of the CIA contra manual, and Refugee Relief International, which provides medical training and supplies to El Salvador and the contras. Refugee Relief is led by Thomas Reisinger, the assistant director of SOF for special projects; board members include Singlaub, Aderholt and SOF Military Affairs Editor Alexander McColl. (In March 1988, a Texas jury ordered Soldier of Fortune to pay $9.4 million in damages to the family of a woman killed by a hit man her husband had hired through a classified ad in the magazine...)

The CIA contra manual is mild compared to some of the murder and sabotage manuals SOF promotes, with such titles as How to Kill Vols. I-V, Hit Man ("Learn how a pro makes a living at this craft without landing behind bars"), Techniques of Harassment and Elementary Field Interrogation. The last manual includes explicit instructions for psychological and physical torture..."

(...)

_______


Il y a plusieurs vidéos avec Robert Brown sur You Tube.

En particulier :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n6yNzfIb_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5n1zAUDUSY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ue1XXiufN0&feature=related

La première citée date de 1982 :

Soldier of Fortune Magazine Convention 1982








A cette convention, William Westmoreland ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Westmoreland ) a pris la parole !

Tony Poe vivait en Thaïlande où il était ami avec Guillaume Vogeleer (Jimmy le Belge), ancien mercenaire mais aussi associé
bruxellois (bar "le Panpan") de Havelange, lequel connaissait aussi Florizoone.

Michel a posté un extrait du livre de Bouten sur le fil au sujet de Florizoone:

Guy Bouten rencontre Maurice Florizoone. Celui-ci a séjourné en prison pendant une vingtaine d'années, notamment à Nivelles. Jean Gol se rendait régulièrement chez lui avec sa maîtresse pour des rendez-vous intimes. Gol parlait parfois d'opérations de blanchiment et de financement de partis. Florizonne était coursier chez Kirschen à Anvers. Son neveu connaissait très bien Hilaire Beelen. Il possédait un château à Herbeumont où on a un jour saisi des plans qui auraient permis de fomenter un coup d'état. Le domaine de Beelen servait aussi à des entraînements paramilitaires. Il fréquentait Paul Cams, qui fut assassiné dans sa maison à Ganshoren. Des photos montrent Beelen en présence de Verhofstad et De Croo. Gol était mêlé à un trafic de devises à grande échelle avec l'Angola. Kirschen était aussi très proche de Gol. Florizoone fréquentait Havelange, Léon de Staercke, Michel Dewit et Habran. Il avait pris en location la villa que Marc Vanden Eynde (fils du concierge assassiné de l'auberge de Beersel) occupait avant lui. L'enquête sur ce meurtre a été suspendue pendant trois ans, probablement à la demande de Deprêtre. Il voulait sans doute protéger certaines personnes. A peine Florizoone avait-il emménagé que des faux policiers se sont présentés à son domicile. Parmi eux, Christian Smets. Plusieurs hypothèses sont évoquées au sujet de la présence de Smets. Vanden Eynde était un ami proche de Degrelle. Pendant des années il a travaillé comme chauffeur de taxi et connaissait bien Angelou. Florizoone fréquentait la villa de Kirschen, où il rencontrait Mendez et Gol.

Connecting the dots...?

Intéressant aussi de relire la page sur Oppuurs, où il est question de patois bruxellois, et d'un grand barbu...
Si je ne me trompe, il y a sur ce fil une photo de Vogeleer avec Poe et un grand barbu (ressemblance avec l'image du barbu
provenant d'une émission de la RTB?). Vogeleer parlait le patois bruxellois.

La question de la ressemblance de Poe avec le PR 23 reste toujours posée.

Enfin, si l'on veut bien ne pas fondre les trois PR en un seul, je me demande à quoi ressemblerait Vogeleer avec un chapeau de pêcheur et des lunettes...?

Les messages de SII restent aussi très intéressants :

https://tueriesdubrabant.1fr1.net/t373-les-faits-rien-queles-faits?highlight=rien+que+des+faits