The Velvet Rocket

Godfrey Osei and the Ghana Coup: Chapter 3

July 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Ghana emergency food relief

U.S MERCENARIES ESCAPE BRAZIL TO TELL OF PLAN TO OVERTHROW AFRICAN LEADER

By KATHERINE BISHOP, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: December 27, 1986

Two American mercenaries have escaped from a Brazilian prison and returned to the United States to tell a tangled tale of a foiled effort to overthrow the Government of Ghana.

The two men, Timothy M. Carmody of San Francisco and Steven W. Hedrick of Ocala, Fla., were among eight Americans arrested 10 months ago off Brazil, with a ship bearing six tons of weapons. They say they were headed for the West African country to join in a coup attempt aimed at the military Government of Lieut. Jerry Rawlings. Mr. Carmody and Mr. Hedrick said in interviews today that they believed they were participating in a plan sanctioned by the United States Government and led by Godfrey Osei, a Ghanaian dissident and expatriate living in the New York City borough of Queens. Mr. Osei led a failed coup attempt in 1983.

Mr. Carmody, a Vietnam veteran and a co-founder of the Rhodesia Veterans Association, a group of Americans who worked as private soldiers in Rhodesia in the late 1970’s, said that once in Ghana, they were to meet with supporters of Mr. Osei who would attack the capital city of Accra while the Americans attempted to free Ghanaian nationals jailed on charges that they were working covertly for the Central Intelligence Agency.

C.I.A. Says It’s ‘Ridiculous’

The same story is told by Mr. Hedrick, who said that ‘’sources” he would not name had sent him coded messages in jail that reasssured him that the job had the sanction of the American Government. ”I thought I had the blessing of my country,” Mr. Hedrick said of the work he signed on to do in Ghana. He said he felt ”abandoned” by the Government in his 10 months in various jails in Brazil.

But George Lauder, a C.I.A. spokesman, today denied that the agency had anything to do with an effort to overthrow the Government of Ghana, with which Washington has had strained relations. ”Their charges are ridiculous,” he said of the men’s comments today.

Pete Martinez, a State Department spokesman, said today that he had ”no information at all” on the men and was not aware of their whereabouts.

Mr. Hedrick and Mr. Carmody said they were determined to locate Mr. Osei and to speak to a Texas commodities broker who arranged for the sale of arms to the group, in an effort to sort out the information they were given. Effort to Avoid Extradition

Though their conviction on arms-smuggling charges was overturned by a Brazilian appeals court, four of the eight Americans escaped from a prison in Brasilia Dec. 15, before they could be extradited to Argentina, where the arms had been purchased and where they faced charges of illegally exporting military material. Mr. Carmody and Mr. Hedrick, along with Sheldon W. Ainsworth of Omaha, arrived in the United States Thursday. Frederick T. Verduin of Santa Rosa, Calif., separated from the others shortly after the escape and did not accompany them home.

Those who remain imprisoned in Brasilia are John Early of Albuquerque, Robert E. Foti of New York City, and Julio Rodriguez Larrazabal and Steven Villa Sosa, both of Fayetteville, N.C.

According to Mr. Carmody, who was a graduate student in international relations at San Francisco State University, he was recruited for the mission by Mr. Early and Mr. Foti, fellow Vietnam veterans who also worked as private soldiers in Rhodesia.

Mr. Early is particularly well known in the shadowy fraternity of adventurers, mercenaries and arms dealers operating out of this country. Several people who know him say he has been involved in clandestine activities in Laos in the 1960’s and more recently in El Salvador. Lawyer Claimed C.I.A. Tie

Mr. Early was also convicted in Federal District Court in San Diego in 1981 of conspiracy to smuggle marijuana for his role in a large drug-smuggling operation. According to Mr. Early’s defense attorney, quoted in an article in The San Diego Union at the time, the Central Intelligence Agency intervened in the case to insure that Mr. Early’s connections to the C.I.A. were not mentioned during his trial.

It was Mr. Early who was to lead the group of eight in the mission to overthrow the military Government of Ghana and install Mr. Osei as President.

According to Mr. Hedrick, the eight recruits assembled in the Miami airport on Feb. 13 and flew to Buenos Aires where they were met by Ted Bishop, a commodities broker from Texas. He said Mr. Bishop, who arranged for the purchase of weapons from Argentine Government factories, introduced the men to Mr. Osei.

Reached at his office in Farmersville, Tex., Mr. Bishop acknowledged arranging the purchase of arms on behalf of Mr. Osei, whom he said he had known for about two years. He said he believed that Mr. Osei had proper documentation for the legal purchase of the weapons. Coffee Deal in Exchange

Mr. Bishop said his fee for the deal was an agreement that he would be the exclusive broker for coffee and other products from Ghana should Mr. Osei successfully take over the Government.

Members of Mr. Osei’s family answering the phone at his apartment in Queens have, over the past several weeks, said he was not there and it was not known when he might return. When the same telephone number was called today, an unidentified voice said ”wrong number” and hung up.

Daniel C.K. Gyabaah, counselor at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington, said today that his Government was aware that the three mercenaries had returned to the United States. But he said he knew of no plans by his Government in response to the escape.

Mr. Hedrick says that Mr. Osei told them that a New York City businessman named ”Solomon” had helped Mr. Bishop raise $500,000 to finance the weapons purchase, and that Mr. Bishop and Mr. Osei, when in Argentina to buy the weapons, had called ”Solomon” in New York.

A New York City commodities broker who has had business dealings with Mr. Bishop, Solomon Schwartz, is currently charged in an unrelated 14-count Federal racketeering indictment involving the illegal export of weapons. Says He Didn’t Know Them

But Mr. Schwartz, in a recent interview, said he had no involvement with the Ghana plot and did not know the men arrested in Brazil.

He acknowledged that he had a business relationship with Ted Bishop, whom he said had asked him about two years ago to try to work out some commodities trading deals on produce from Mexico. He said that he met Mr. Bishop in New York City on one occasion and that Mr. Bishop called him from Argentina attempting to organize the sale of coffee, a deal that was never finalized.

”This fellow, Ted Bishop, as I understand it, knew those people,” Mr. Schwartz said of the mercenaries convicted in Brazil. ”But I had no connection with any of those people.”

Mr. Schwartz and the three other defendants in the racketeering case have pleaded not guilty in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. They also filed a motion asking that they be permitted to argue at their trial that their actions were authorized by the Government.

In a ruling in September, Judge Thomas C. Platt Jr. wrote that Mr. Schwartz ”had a relationship with certain agencies of the United States Government.” but he denied the defense request, based on Government offcials’ testimony in a closed hearing. Sale of Night-Vision Equipment

Among the charges against the defendants are that they agreed to illegally ship sophisticated night-vision equipment to the Soviet Union and that Mr. Schwartz illegally exported night-vision equipment made by Litton Industries to the Government of Argentina during the 1982 Falkland Islands war with Britain.

A businessman who distributes Litton night-vision equipment on the East Coast, Wally Grasheim, once employed two of the mercenaries arrested in Brazil, Steven Villa Sosa and Julio Rodriguez Larrazabal, to demonstrate such equipment in El Salvador, according to Betty Sosa, Mr. Sosa’s wife.

Mr. Carmody, Mr. Hedrick and Mrs. Sosa all say that while the men were jailed in Brazil, Mr. Grasheim traveled there to attempt to intercede in their behalf.

At Mr. Grasheim’s office in Manhattan, an associate, Carmine Pelosi, said Mr. Grasheim was out of town and could not be reached. But he said he knew all of Mr. Grasheim’s associates and that he had never heard of Mr. Sosa or Mr. Rodriguez.

Two American mercenaries have escaped from a Brazilian prison and returned to the United States to tell a tangled tale of a foiled effort to overthrow the Government of Ghana.

The two men, Timothy M. Carmody of San Francisco and Steven W. Hedrick of Ocala, Fla., were among eight Americans arrested 10 months ago off Brazil, with a ship bearing six tons of weapons. They say they were headed for the West African country to join in a coup attempt aimed at the military Government of Lieut. Jerry Rawlings. Mr. Carmody and Mr. Hedrick said in interviews today that they believed they were participating in a plan sanctioned by the United States Government and led by Godfrey Osei, a Ghanaian dissident and expatriate living in the New York City borough of Queens. Mr. Osei led a failed coup attempt in 1983.

Mr. Carmody, a Vietnam veteran and a co-founder of the Rhodesia Veterans Association, a group of Americans who worked as private soldiers in Rhodesia in the late 1970’s, said that once in Ghana, they were to meet with supporters of Mr. Osei who would attack the capital city of Accra while the Americans attempted to free Ghanaian nationals jailed on charges that they were working covertly for the Central Intelligence Agency.

C.I.A. Says It’s ‘Ridiculous’

The same story is told by Mr. Hedrick, who said that ‘’sources” he would not name had sent him coded messages in jail that reasssured him that the job had the sanction of the American Government. ”I thought I had the blessing of my country,” Mr. Hedrick said of the work he signed on to do in Ghana. He said he felt ”abandoned” by the Government in his 10 months in various jails in Brazil.

But George Lauder, a C.I.A. spokesman, today denied that the agency had anything to do with an effort to overthrow the Government of Ghana, with which Washington has had strained relations. ”Their charges are ridiculous,” he said of the men’s comments today.

Pete Martinez, a State Department spokesman, said today that he had ”no information at all” on the men and was not aware of their whereabouts.

Mr. Hedrick and Mr. Carmody said they were determined to locate Mr. Osei and to speak to a Texas commodities broker who arranged for the sale of arms to the group, in an effort to sort out the information they were given. Effort to Avoid Extradition

Though their conviction on arms-smuggling charges was overturned by a Brazilian appeals court, four of the eight Americans escaped from a prison in Brasilia Dec. 15, before they could be extradited to Argentina, where the arms had been purchased and where they faced charges of illegally exporting military material. Mr. Carmody and Mr. Hedrick, along with Sheldon W. Ainsworth of Omaha, arrived in the United States Thursday. Frederick T. Verduin of Santa Rosa, Calif., separated from the others shortly after the escape and did not accompany them home.

Those who remain imprisoned in Brasilia are John Early of Albuquerque, Robert E. Foti of New York City, and Julio Rodriguez Larrazabal and Steven Villa Sosa, both of Fayetteville, N.C.

According to Mr. Carmody, who was a graduate student in international relations at San Francisco State University, he was recruited for the mission by Mr. Early and Mr. Foti, fellow Vietnam veterans who also worked as private soldiers in Rhodesia.

Mr. Early is particularly well known in the shadowy fraternity of adventurers, mercenaries and arms dealers operating out of this country. Several people who know him say he has been involved in clandestine activities in Laos in the 1960’s and more recently in El Salvador. Lawyer Claimed C.I.A. Tie

Mr. Early was also convicted in Federal District Court in San Diego in 1981 of conspiracy to smuggle marijuana for his role in a large drug-smuggling operation. According to Mr. Early’s defense attorney, quoted in an article in The San Diego Union at the time, the Central Intelligence Agency intervened in the case to insure that Mr. Early’s connections to the C.I.A. were not mentioned during his trial.

It was Mr. Early who was to lead the group of eight in the mission to overthrow the military Government of Ghana and install Mr. Osei as President.

According to Mr. Hedrick, the eight recruits assembled in the Miami airport on Feb. 13 and flew to Buenos Aires where they were met by Ted Bishop, a commodities broker from Texas. He said Mr. Bishop, who arranged for the purchase of weapons from Argentine Government factories, introduced the men to Mr. Osei.

Reached at his office in Farmersville, Tex., Mr. Bishop acknowledged arranging the purchase of arms on behalf of Mr. Osei, whom he said he had known for about two years. He said he believed that Mr. Osei had proper documentation for the legal purchase of the weapons. Coffee Deal in Exchange

Mr. Bishop said his fee for the deal was an agreement that he would be the exclusive broker for coffee and other products from Ghana should Mr. Osei successfully take over the Government.

Members of Mr. Osei’s family answering the phone at his apartment in Queens have, over the past several weeks, said he was not there and it was not known when he might return. When the same telephone number was called today, an unidentified voice said ”wrong number” and hung up.

Daniel C.K. Gyabaah, counselor at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington, said today that his Government was aware that the three mercenaries had returned to the United States. But he said he knew of no plans by his Government in response to the escape.

Mr. Hedrick says that Mr. Osei told them that a New York City businessman named ”Solomon” had helped Mr. Bishop raise $500,000 to finance the weapons purchase, and that Mr. Bishop and Mr. Osei, when in Argentina to buy the weapons, had called ”Solomon” in New York.

A New York City commodities broker who has had business dealings with Mr. Bishop, Solomon Schwartz, is currently charged in an unrelated 14-count Federal racketeering indictment involving the illegal export of weapons. Says He Didn’t Know Them

But Mr. Schwartz, in a recent interview, said he had no involvement with the Ghana plot and did not know the men arrested in Brazil.

He acknowledged that he had a business relationship with Ted Bishop, whom he said had asked him about two years ago to try to work out some commodities trading deals on produce from Mexico. He said that he met Mr. Bishop in New York City on one occasion and that Mr. Bishop called him from Argentina attempting to organize the sale of coffee, a deal that was never finalized.

”This fellow, Ted Bishop, as I understand it, knew those people,” Mr. Schwartz said of the mercenaries convicted in Brazil. ”But I had no connection with any of those people.”

Mr. Schwartz and the three other defendants in the racketeering case have pleaded not guilty in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. They also filed a motion asking that they be permitted to argue at their trial that their actions were authorized by the Government.

In a ruling in September, Judge Thomas C. Platt Jr. wrote that Mr. Schwartz ”had a relationship with certain agencies of the United States Government.” but he denied the defense request, based on Government offcials’ testimony in a closed hearing. Sale of Night-Vision Equipment

Among the charges against the defendants are that they agreed to illegally ship sophisticated night-vision equipment to the Soviet Union and that Mr. Schwartz illegally exported night-vision equipment made by Litton Industries to the Government of Argentina during the 1982 Falkland Islands war with Britain.

A businessman who distributes Litton night-vision equipment on the East Coast, Wally Grasheim, once employed two of the mercenaries arrested in Brazil, Steven Villa Sosa and Julio Rodriguez Larrazabal, to demonstrate such equipment in El Salvador, according to Betty Sosa, Mr. Sosa’s wife.

Mr. Carmody, Mr. Hedrick and Mrs. Sosa all say that while the men were jailed in Brazil, Mr. Grasheim traveled there to attempt to intercede in their behalf.

At Mr. Grasheim’s office in Manhattan, an associate, Carmine Pelosi, said Mr. Grasheim was out of town and could not be reached. But he said he knew all of Mr. Grasheim’s associates and that he had never heard of Mr. Sosa or Mr. Rodriguez.

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Godfrey Osei and the Ghana Coup: Chapter 2

July 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

12627_maxmilligan_ghana04

San Jose Mercury News (CA)
October 29, 1986
Author: PETE CAREY, Mercury News Staff Writer

MERCENARY HELD IN BRAZIL DISCOVERS ‘HELL’

Article Text:

In a series of letters filled with black humor, whimsy and despair, a former San Francisco State University graduate student hired to help overthrow the West African nation of Ghana tells of his life as an accused mercenary in a Brazilian prison.

The letters to relatives in the Bay Area describe an abortive coup attempt and furnish a glimpse of a hidden world behind the bars of a South American prison, where thieves, murderers and deranged criminals are cellmates to eight Americans, many of them mercenaries who fought for Rhodesia in the mid-1970s.

”I have finally discovered hell in a small area — Agua Santa Prison — there could be no worse place on Earth,” wrote Timothy M. Carmody, 37, a former San Francisco State international relations graduate student who signed on last year with seven other Americans for an international “security” job that ended in March with his arrest in Rio de Janiero.

“Without a few bucks to buy food here, you would simply die,” Carmody wrote in July. “Because of our status as ‘international mercenaries’ we achieve status amongst the murderers on the one hand and nervous extra security from the cretin military guards. . . . The guards don’t even come amongst A through C levels. A life goes for $40. A Level are dungeons below ground — the rats are enormous.” Carmody and the seven other Americans have been held by Brazilian authorities since March in two federal prisons — Agua Santa and Helio Gomez — and now in Rio city jail, where they await the outcome of a request for their extradition to Argentina on charges of failing to pay duty on some motors for rubber boats. It could take eight months to a year for Brazilian courts to make a decision on that request, the U.S. State Department says.

They were arrested March 14 when their seagoing tug, the Nobistor, docked near Rio. Federal police found 6 tons of weapons aboard, purchased from Argentina’s government munitions factory. The men claimed they docked in Rio only because of engine trouble on the Nobistor, but they were convicted in June of attempting to smuggle weapons into Brazil, arms allegedly bound for warring factions in the Brazilian interior. On Oct. 7, a Brazilian appellate court unanimously overturned their conviction.

According to Carmody and to others familiar with the plot — the true purpose was to overthrow Ghana’s Marxist president, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings, and replace him with his longtime adversary, Godfrey Osei. They claim the plot had the unofficial blessings of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, but the CIA has declined to confirm or deny the allegation and, according to a source, privately has told one U.S. senator that the CIA had nothing to do with it.

Year of the cockroach

”Did you ever have one of those years when everything goes wrong?” Carmody wrote to a family member Sept. 27. “1986 is definitely the year of the Brazilian cockroach.”

Carmody complained in another letter of bugs “with Bulgarian table manners” in his fruit drink and of a group of disturbed prisoners in the next cell.

”The loonies in E-9 (I am in E-8) are usually left to run wild in the corridor at night, because if they close their cell door they scream all night. The new guard closed their door, so the screaming started. It was straightened out, but when the guard left the door open the next night, the loons attacked it, broke it off its hinges and hid it in the back. They screamed with delight when the guard had to play ‘Hunt the Door.’ “

In a June 23 letter, Carmody wrote that the men learned they had been convicted by the Brazilian court from an article that was published June 22 in the San Jose Mercury News. His account of the mercenaries’ mission describes a well-financed coup effort planned in New York by Osei.

‘Dangerous’ knowledge

”Well, you wanted to know what this op entailed, and I guess you have the clearances,” Carmody wrote to his family. “The knowledge may be dangerous for you to talk about. But you are welcome to the wilderness of mirrors.”

The “operation” was organized and given a code name by the dissident leader, Osei, Carmody wrote. Osei is a “big enemy of our boy Jerry Rawlings. Follow this closely — notes permitted, questions later, you fall asleep, you will be shot. ”Enter stage right — Godfrey — failed coup leader 1983 escapes from Ghanaian jail, the dreaded ‘Castle,’ flees to Ivory Coast . . . then England, where he manages to lay his hand on some official funds — wasted on (reconnaissance) by Brit Vets who fleece him. Godfrey goes to U.S. and the Company (a term for the CIA) front door. They put him on hold — he lives and works in New York.

‘Agency net’

”Rawlings, meanwhile, rolls up a goodly portion of agency net in Ghana because of traitorous CIA employee Sharon Marie Scranage (U.S. citizen) who was lover of Rawlings’ cousin Michael S. . . . All agents are imprisoned, tortured, etc. in the ‘Castle.’ Both were convicted last year in U.S. Now, Jerry Rawlings has pissed off not only the ‘Company’ but its cousins — Middle East.”

In June 1985, Rawlings’ cousin, Michael Soussoudis, 39, was arrested on espionage charges during a visit to the United States and sentenced in Alexandria, Va., to 20 years in jail. He was granted a suspension of the sentence and sent home to Ghana in exchange for the release from Ghanaian jails of eight men described by Justice Department officials in Washington as “friendly to the interests of the United States.”

Two of those men had been convicted as spies in Ghana. The eight were named as U.S. spies by Soussoudis, who learned their names from his girlfriend, Scranage, a 30-year-old CIA employee who worked in the U.S. Embassy in Acra from May 1983 to May 1984. Scranage was sentenced to a five-year jail term.

‘More attention’

”Now, Godfrey is getting more attention,” Carmody’s letter continued. “He is directed to the mysterious Bophuthatswana Trading Co., Madison Ave., New York City.”

There, Carmody writes, Godfrey is introduced to a man named Ted Bishop. Bishop is a Texas commodities trader who has acknowledged arranging for Osei to purchase the weapons in Argentina.

Bishop said Friday he has never heard of the Bophuthatswana company. And in an interview Thursday, New York commodities trader Ronald Greenwald, president of Bophuthatswana International, said suggestions that his company was connected to the affair were “outrageous.” Greenwald said he had never heard of Bishop or Osei.

”People used to (ask) me, ‘Are you working for the CIA?’ But because I used to swap prisoners,” he said. Greenwald said that he has been involved in several U.S.-Soviet East bloc prisoner exchanges, including negotiations that eventually led to the release of Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky as part of an East-West prisoner exchange, a claim confirmed by published accounts of Shcharansky’s release.

‘Public relations’

Bophuthatswana was organized in 1980 and registered as a foreign agent to represent the South African tribal homeland of the same name, but was closed in 1982, said Greenwald. The company was “like a public relations firm,” he said. “That was the whole purpose of it.”

”I’m trying to figure out who walked in this place,” said Greenwald. “The CIA never walked in this place. . . . I don’t know. It sounds like somebody’s using our name. We’ll knock hell out of them wherever they are. . . . It must be somebody who walked in and took a card.”

In his Sept. 27 letter, Carmody continues:

”Now we are getting to our part. Godfrey needs . . . trained leadership . . . for his trained minions on the Ivory Coast.

”I won’t go into details of selection, let’s just say my name was still in the hopper from past jobs (not bartending). Money is laundered and released in New York hotel room. . . . Bishop, Godfrey fly to Buenos Aires to select weapons, boat, equipment for 100 men.

‘U.S. sanctioned’

”We are alerted for security on shipment to Africa — U.S. sanctioned. That was all we knew until we arrived in Buenos Aires.

”In Miami, we surrendered our passports at hotel, . . . and within one half-hour they are back with official four-year visas for Argentina. In Argentina, the customs . . . whisk us through after flashing badges. We are loaded into ‘bread trucks’ (the same type that picked up people during the ‘Dirty War.’) and taken to our hotel in center of town.

”Now that I whetted your curiosity, I will leave it for now as I don’t want everything in one letter.”

Carmody’s Bay Area relative said he hasn’t received a promised subsequent letter, which presumably would describe the ill-fated voyage.

Since their Brazilian convictions were overturned, the men have been moved from Helio Gomez Prison back to the Rio city jail, according to Jim Ritchie, a State Department Citizens’ Emergency Center spokesman.

”It looks like we might be able to get them transferred back to . . . Gomez,” said Ritchie. “It’s like the better of two evils, so to speak. There is some indication some of the men want to go, and some don’t.”

Memo:
United Press International contributed to this report.

Copyright (c) 1986 San Jose Mercury News
Record Number: 8603260771

e-waste kids

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English Names Are Funny

July 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Eleonora and I passed a pub today named The Famous Cock.

England is full of funny names like that. A quick review of a map revealed the following gems:

Crotch Crescent, Oxford
Titty Ho, Northamptonshire
Wetwang, East Yorkshire
Slutshole Lane, Norfolk
Thong, Kent
Pratts Bottom

Some delightful street names can also be discovered such as Hoare Road, Typple Avenue, Quare Street and Corfe Close. My favorite though is Tumbledown Dick Road in Oxfordshire.

Below are a couple I’ve had the pleasure of seeing:

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Godfrey Osei and the Ghana Coup: Chapter 1

July 3, 2009 · 1 Comment

This is one of those stories we should know about, but don’t. And I only came across it because I was doing research for my dissertation in this subject area. Try finding any information about it without intensive research of newspaper archives, academic publications or JSTOR!

accra-ghana

San Jose Mercury News (CA)
June 22, 1986
Author: PETE CAREY, Mercury News Staff Writer

MYSTERIOUS SCHEME LANDS 8 AMERICANS IN BRAZILIAN PRISON
Article Text:

In a bizarre tale of international intrigue that reads like a lost chapter from ‘The Dogs of War,’ the plight of eight Americans sentenced last week to at least four years in a Brazilian prison has been explained variously as a CIA operation, an attempted coup, a plan to arm Brazilian insurgents and an effort to establish Mafia-run gambling resorts on the coast of Africa.

It may be some of those things; it may be none. Amid a storm of rumors, suspicions, accusations, charges and counter- charges, one of the few certainties about the “Nobistor affair” is that many of those involved say the others are liars.

During the past two weeks, several sources familiar with the case have described a plot strikingly similar to Frederick Forsyth’s novel, in which a group of European mercenaries buy a ship, load it with weapons and steam for Africa, where they overthrow a government. The sources’ account, which cannot be verified conclusively, contrasts sharply with accounts provided by the imprisoned men, their lawyer and even the Brazilian prosecutors.

Whether the plot is fact or fiction, the target the sources described is real: Ghana’s Marxist ruler, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings.

The results of the plot are equally real: The eight Americans were convicted Thursday of violating Brazilian contraband laws; U.S. federal agents have opened an investigation; the governments of Ghana, Brazil, Argentina and the United States want answers; and six tons of military supplies and weapons are lying unexplained in the hold of an oceangoing tugboat, the Nobistor, in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay.

Through their lawyer and family members in this country, the imprisoned Americans have maintained that they were acting merely as security guards, hired to safeguard a $200,000 shipment of weapons bound by sea from Argentina to Africa. But the sources say the men were hired to overthrow Rawlings and install in his place Godfrey Osei, a Ghanian dissident who escaped from prison in 1983 and who has lived in the United States since then.

Two California participants

Among the eight are a 38-year-old San Francisco State University graduate student named Timothy M. Carmody and a 30- year-old Santa Rosa man named Frederick T. Verduin.

The others are self-described “soldier of fortune” John Dee Early; Robert E. Foti of New York City; Sheldon W. Ainsworth of Omaha, Neb.; Julio Rodriguez-Larrazabal and Steven Villa Sosa, both of Fayetteville, N.C.; and Steven W. Hedrick. Early, who described himself as the leader, was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison, the other men to four years.

The arms deal first came to light in March when a seagoing tugboat, the Nobistor, dropped anchor at a small port 20 miles east of Rio de Janeiro. Federal police searched the boat and found six tons of 70 FAL rifles, submachine guns, hand grenades, revolvers and ammunition.

After their arrest, the men said they had been hired by Osei and a shadowy Texas commodities broker named Ted Bishop to ferry the shipload of weapons from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Ghana, ostensibly for the Ghanaian defense ministry.

Bishop, the men said, could confirm the whole story, but they were unable to find him.

However, Bishop — interviewed last week by telephone from his home in Texas — told a very different tale. He said that the Americans had been hired to assist Osei in overthrowing Rawlings’ government and that he had warned them against participating as soon as he had found out. After the coup, Bishop said, the eight Americans were to be paid bonuses from Ghana’s national treasury and from its diamond and gold mines.

Bishop’s story couldn’t be verified conclusively, and an associate of Osei’s denied that bonuses were to be paid as Bishop described. But other parts of the tale have been confirmed by other sources.

From the moment of their arrest in Rio de Janeiro last March on charges of weapons smuggling, the jailed Americans themselves, while bitterly blaming Bishop for their plight, have insisted that only he could provide the true story behind their abortive operation.

Osei as new ruler

Bishop and others interviewed during the past two weeks said the plotters were to have installed Osei as the new ruler of Ghana. Osei escaped from a Ghanaian prison after being convicted of participating in a 1983 attempt to topple the Rawlings government.

Bishop, 46, and other sources quoted Osei as saying the weapons were purchased with $500,000 to $750,000 borrowed from New York City organized crime figures. Osei said the gambling figures had been promised permission to build a gaming resort on Ghana’s coast. Bishop and another source, who asked not to be identified, said Osei had three suitcases filled with cash to finance the deal. ”Godfrey told me he got it from the Mafia, and he was having to pay it back at 300 percent rates,” Bishop said.

Osei, interviewed briefly by telephone, denied Bishop’s allegation that gambling interests had financed the purchase of the weapons. “This is ridiculous,” Osei said. “Ask him how did he get to know me.”

Bishop had said earlier that he met Osei while working on a commodities deal with Osei’s Hudson, N.Y., roommate. Osei denied that: “That is a big lie. He, Ted, calls himself a CIA agent. Right? (Ask him) how he got to know me. He knows. He knows.”

Osei declined to comment further, offering neither any explanation for his involvement in the case nor any denial that he had been plotting the overthrow of the Ghanaian government.

”The situation is a little dicey, you know,” Osei said. “Maybe anything that I say would jeopardize my plans. So, in the future maybe I can give you my story.”

Bishop denied ever having worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA has declined to confirm or deny any involvement in the affair.

Bishop said he arranged through a Buenos Aires broker for Osei to buy the weapons from Argentina’s Fabricaciones Militares, the government arms factory, after Osei asked him for help. Osei, he said, promised to pay him for his help by granting him the marketing rights to part of Ghana’s coffee and cocoa crops. Direct buy from producers

”We was going to pay fair market price for it but buy it directly from producers up in the hills and market it on the world market,” Bishop said.

When they were hired by Osei in February, the Americans all believed they were to provide security for a legitimate arms deal, according to various sources. The men — there were nine at that point — assembled in Miami, were flown to Panama and then on to Buenos Aires, where they met Bishop and Osei.

”It was all first class,” said one man who later backed out of the deal. “We stayed in nice hotels, the food was good.”

Once in Buenos Aires, Bishop said, they waited for Osei to buy the weapons and lease a ship.

”Godfrey was taking them out to dinner, paying their booze bills,” Bishop said. “Godfrey’s head swelled up three sizes when he got his private army. They used to go out to dinner two by two, all strung out down the main street of Buenos Aires, with Godfrey at the head wearing his khakis with shoulder straps. In his own mind, he had already become a dictator general.”

‘OK with your government’

At that point, the sources said, all of the men had been led by Osei to believe that the operation was sanctioned in some way by the U.S. government. ”He was saying, ‘It’s OK with your government, there’s not going to be any jeopardy,’ ” said one source, who claims to have helped devise Osei’s plans for assaulting Rawlings’ stronghold.

In Buenos Aires — or aboard the Nobistor, depending on who tells the story — Osei revealed the full scope of his plan to the Americans. It called for attacking the government compound in Accra, freeing and arming prisoners in a nearby jail, overthrowing Rawlings and attacking a Libyan base 40 miles from Accra.

Then, according to Bishop, who said he learned of Osei’s plans in Buenos Aires, they were to eliminate several of Osei’s enemies. If they went through with the coup, in addition to $4,000 to $10,000 each for ferrying the weapons to Ghana, Bishop said, they were to be paid in cash from Ghana’s national treasury and diamonds and gold from its mines.

‘This is the first I heard’

”When they got down there, Godfrey told them about it,” said Bishop. “I heard it from John Early. He asked me about it, and I said, ‘This is the first I heard about it, John. I don’t even know what you guys are doing down here.’ “

Bishop said another of the Americans asked him whether he worked for the CIA and whether the agency had given its tacit “sanction” to the operation. “He said, ‘I thought you were the one recruiting, and you are CIA.’ I said, ‘You better get out of this deal. This is a bad deal.’

”I told all of them right there in the lobby of the Republica Hotel in Buenos Aires. I said, ‘You better get out. I’m going home.’ “

Eight of the Americans ignored Bishop’s advice, he said. Leaving behind a Tampa, Fla., private investigator named Scott Caldwell, they set forth on the Nobistor. At sea, they received an urgent ship-to-shore message from Caldwell in Tampa. He warned the Americans that he had learned the arms deal wasn’t sanctioned by the U.S. government.

Says Bishop hadn’t told them

”Bishop did not tell those men it was illegal, absolutely not,” Caldwell said in a recent interview. “I still to this day have not figured out why anybody would hire that guy to do anything.”

The Americans contend that they then forced the crew of the weapons-laden Nobistor to change its destination — from Ghana to South America. They were arrested March 14 in Itaipu, a small port 20 miles east of Rio. Federal police impounded the ship and confiscated the weapons. The trial began several weeks ago and ended with the guilty verdict Thursday.

The case came at a sensitive time in Brazil. An agrarian reform movement has provoked armed resistance by wealthy landowners opposed to distributing land to millions of poor peasants. Last week, Brazilian federal police seized hundreds of illegal weapons in a sweep of a northern region where the land disputes have been most violent.

‘Too much of a coincidence’

Nobistor Prosecutor Juarez Tavares said Judge Julieta Lunz ruled that “it was too much of a coincidence that heavy- caliber weapons would appear in Brazil exactly at the time we are having such heated conflicts over land.”

In addition, Brazil is on good terms with Ghana, which was equally certain the weapons were intended to arm Ghanaian dissidents.

In the U.S., federal agents were drawn into the case last month when Caldwell and three other men confronted Bishop at the apartment complex he owns and manages in Farmersville, Texas, a town of 2,700 near Dallas.

In an angry exchange, the men argued about Bishop’s role in the weapons shipment, believing that he knew more about the deal than he was telling. Some of the men say Bishop has worked for the CIA in the past, an allegation Bishop denies.

Pulled gun, police say

Bishop eventually pulled a gun on Caldwell and ordered the men out of his apartment, according to Farmersville police. No charges were filed, but Farmersville Police Chief John Davidson said he turned the matter over to the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Although it is not clear whether the ATF has jurisdiction over the legal issues in the case, a spokesman for the agency’s Dallas bureau said it has opened an investigation. Ordinarily, said a Dallas ATF agent who asked not to be identified, the ATF wouldn’t look into a brawl in a small farming town.

”When we got involved, we found international gun runners,” the agent said. “That’s how we got involved.” He said the agency’s inquiry has only “scraped the surface” of the complicated deal.

Assault plan

Another source, who asked not to be identified, said he and two other men whom he wouldn’t identify developed Osei’s assault plan for the palace in Accra last October but then backed out of the operation, sensing that Osei didn’t have enough money to make it work. Family members of one of the eight Americans said the man is knowledgeable about the operation.

The source said he was in Osei’s apartment in the sprawling Le Frak complex in Queens, New York, when several Asian men arrived with three suitcases containing a large amount of cash. He said Osei later told him that the “Chinese Mafia” was financing the coup.

”What Osei wanted to do was overthrow Jerry Rawlings and put himself in power,” the source said. “I started on this in October of 1985.”

Battle plan drawings

Osei, he said, provided “blurred” aerial photographs of the government compound, from which drawings were made for the battle plan. The original plan called for a force of about 300 to 400 men and an expenditure of $3.5 million, the source said.

The combatants were to include 100 Europeans. Two commando assault groups were to hit the palace and government buildings while a headquarters group handled logistics.

The boat would meet with another ship off the Ivory Coast and then proceed to Ghana, where the men would go ashore and attack the capital. The source said he became suspicious when it was clear there would be no advance payment.

No money up front

”Godfrey didn’t want to pay anybody up front,” the source said. “His thing was, when you hit the beach and assault the palace, you’ll be free to go to the national treasury, the gold mines. (He said,) ‘I will provide you with transportation.’ I said, ‘The hell with that.’ No professional would get onto that. There’s no guarantee he wouldn’t put us up against a wall. Everybody else was saying, you got to take a chance. . . . This is when I backed out.”

A few weeks later, the source said, he learned that eight Americans were in jail in Rio. “It confirmed my worst fears,” he said.

Both Caldwell and Steven Elswick, a 33-year-old ex-Marine who lives in Lexington, Ky., and who recruited Carmody, the San Franciscan, say they are convinced that the men thought they had been recruited for a routine security job.

”I’m convinced they were pigeons,” said Elswick. “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Memo:
Mimi Whitefield of the Knight-Ridder News Service contributed to this article.

Copyright (c) 1986 San Jose Mercury News
Record Number: 8602170756

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Gary Gabelich

June 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

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One of my childhood heroes was Gary Gabelich and I always wanted to know more about him.  So, I decided to finally get around to this project and to post the results of my research.

Gary Gabelich was born on August 29, 1940 in San Pedro, California although he was of Croatian descent.  He began drag racing in his father’s Pontiac in 1957 while still in high school, winning the stock eliminator drag racing class at Santa Ana, California in his first competition.  This was shortly followed by winning  the world’s first side-by-side jet dragster race, at over 250 mph.  Allegedly, at just nineteen he reached a speed of 356 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah while operating a jet car, probably a record for a teenager.

During this period of his life, Gary was a delivery driver for Vermillion’s Drug Store, driving a split window 1960s-era VW Kombi delivery van.  He lived at that time in the Bixby Knolls area of Long Beach, California with his parents.  Following the job as a delivery driver, he went to work for North American Aviation in Downey, California (later to merge with Rockwell-Standard in 1967 and become North American Rockwell), starting out in the mail room.  Gary ended up staying with North American Rockwell for 9 years in various positions from staff assistant to part-time test subject for the Apollo program—not flying the capsules, but testing their long-term liveability in a weightless condition, their tolerance to and performance under conditions of extreme yaw and, though they seldom spoke of it on televised moon shots, the toilet facilities.  Although I have been unable to verify this information, I have seen several sources mention that Gary started working his way up the ladder at North American Rockwell when he volunteered to perform the free falls from 30,000 feet needed to film some of the early Apollo space capsule landing trials – makes sense if you consider his personality as a lover of high speeds and dangerous challenges. 

During his tenure at North American Rockwell, Gary Gabelich established a name for himself at drag strips across Southern California (Winning the first United Drag Racing Association in 1963 and being the first man to break into drag racing’s seven second bracket, driving a Double A Fuel dragster at 7.05 seconds, in 1967.  In 1969, he drove the Beach City Chevrolet Corvette funny car to speeds over 200 mph, a first for a Chevrolet funny car).  Many racers and race fans, in fact, worked day jobs at aerospace companies across Southern California.  However, Gary’s employers at North American Rockwell, fearing the investment of too much time and unique training in a research subject who, it seemed to them, was laying his life and the continuity of their research on the starting line every weekend, gave him the ultimatum: “Cease this foolhardy diversion or forfeit your job.” There was never really any question about the response. The choice was made for him by his dedication to the world he loved and his desire to prevail in it.

It was a crucial moment in the life of Gary Gabelich as he would move on to greater glory for which he became a household name – fastest man in the world.  A claim he was able to make by setting the land speed record with his rocket-powered vehicle “Blue Flame” on October 23, 1970 , achieving an average speed of 622.287 mph (1,001.474 km/h). And a peak speed of 650 mph (1,050 km/h) was momentarily attained (record speed was 622.407 mph (1,001.667 km/h) on a dry lake bed at Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah. This record was the first over 1,000 km/h (621 mph) and remained unbeaten until 1983, when Richard Noble broke it driving Thrust 2.

It was a rather lucky turn of events that handed this opportunity to Gary…

Reaction Dynamics, Inc., a company formed by Pete Farnsworth, Ray Dausman and Dick Keller who had developed hydrogen peroxide rocket dragsters, was looking for a driver about that time for the Blue Flame, a 37-foot-long, 4,950-pound vehicle powered by a liquid natural gas-hydrogen peroxide rocket engine.  Constructed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the Blue Flame was sponsored by the American Gas Association, with technical assistance from the Institute of Gas Technology of Des Plaines, Illinois.  Craig Breedlove, holder of the land speed record at the time, wanted too much money. And a drag racer, named Chuck Suba, came to terms with Reaction Dynamics but was killed in a racing accident shortly thereafter. Gabelich was the third choice, and he jumped at the chance.

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The Blue Flame’s run for the land speed record at Bonneville was originally scheduled for September of 1969, but it was then postponed indefinitely. The first attempt finally took place a year later, on September 22, 1970. It was a dismal failure, reaching a speed of only 426 mph compared to Craig Breedlove’s five-year-old record of 600.601 mph. A lot of tinkering and testing was to follow.

Gabelich hit 609 mph on the first of two mandatory runs on October 15, but a mechanical problem prevented the required return run. The same thing happened on October 23, when the first run reached 621 mph. Finally, on October 28, Gabelich and the Blue Flame averaged 617.602 mph on the first run and 627.207 on the second for a new land speed record of 622.407.

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He said afterward that he thought the Blue Flame might be able to reach 750 mph, beyond the sound barrier. But Reaction Dynamics had no more plans for the Blue Flame and Gabelich went back to drag racing.

Gary Gabelich’s right hand was severed in a racing accident ( in an experimental 4WD Funny Car) early in 1972, but it was able to be reattached.  I have seen it reported that this accident ruined his professional racing prospects, but he still was able to take second place in Mickey Thompson’s off-road race at Riverside, California in 1975; first place in the Toyota Charity Slalom at the Rose Bowl in 1979 and second place in the Toyota Pro Challenge Race at the Michigan International Speedway in July, 1980.

And, although he was best known for his land speed exploits, Gary was also into going fast on water.  Gabelich won both the American Power Boat Association Blown Fuel and Gas National Drag Boat Championship (1968) and was the first person to win them both in the same year.  He was also the first person to surpass 200 mph in a drag boat – a feat accomplished in 1969.  In 1975 at Turlock Lake in California, a drag boat piloted by Gary Gabelich disintegrated at 180 mph.

After twice narrowly escaping death in dragster and boat accidents, Gary Gabelich tragically died in a motorcycle accident in Long Beach, California on January 26th, 1984.  According to the police, Gabelich was riding his motorcycle “at a high rate of speed” when he ran into the right side of a truck. Gabelich died nearly three hours later at San Pedro Hospital of injuries suffered in the accident, the police said.

Gabelich, who was 43-years-old at the time of his death, had his land speed record mark stand for 13 years before Richard Noble hurtled his Thrust 2 up to 633.407 mph on the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada on October 4, 1983. Just two months later Gary Gabelich was fatally injured in his motorcycle accident and never had the chance to reply to Noble’s heroics.

In 1985 the Long Beach City Council named a park in his memory, Gabelich Park.

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Below is a collection of some of the memories of Gary from Blue Flame crew member, Paul Stringer, as well as a profile published in Sports Illustrated.  I think they provide a great insight into the spirit and character of Gary Gabelich:

Blue Flame crew member, Paul Stringer:

“Gary was very upset when the car [Blue Flame] was sold because he wanted to attempt a sound barrier run with the car. In 1970 when they raced it, they had many mishaps. The most damning was they burned out the retro in the rocket and had to get a loaner or a gift motor to finish. As I remember the original rocket had about 40,000 pounds of thrust and the actual motor they used to set the record had about 14,000. That would lead you to believe that the car could go much faster given the space limitations of the Salt Flats, and the ground effects of going supersonic.

I can’t even describe how many hours we spent talking about where the air goes (under the car). Would the air flip the car when supersonic “splits the air?” They talked at great length about lengthening the rod on the front tip of the car to split the air farther out in front to prevent any negative effects. Craig Breedlove was a very close friend of Gary’s and he as well was always helpful in helping Gary advance his efforts. Craig and Gary where from the same town in California and I met Craig in 1966 on a water skiing trip. Most would think that they would be strange bedfellows when Gary got picked to drive the car, but Craig was one of his biggest supporters and fans.

Gary was trying to figure out how to stop the new car going supersonic also.

The problems are: no air for chutes and brakes won’t work over 400MPH. He was working on a splitting tail like the Space Shuttle and body panels that popped out. Of course, he never considered running anywhere but the flats.

Gary’s feelings about the car being sold was this: the car was owned by the Natural Gas Association as a publicity stunt. When the car got the record, they received millions of dollars in promotion which they never could have bought. They never saw it as a race car and felt that a return to the flats and the risk of an accident would become negative publicity. Hence, the car was sold.

Gary even pursued contacting the new car owner about another run. Apparently, the car had been dropped while being off loaded from a ship when it left the country and there was some tweaking of the frame and that ended his interest.

Gary then began trying to raise sponsors for a new car he’d named The American Way. While he raised some eyebrows at the time, he raised no money for the project as interest in the LSR had waned by then. This was in 1979 nine years after the last true attempt and he wasn’t breaking another guy‘s record; he would only be raising his mark and sponsors wondered how much interest this would raise. To raise the interest, he and Craig Breedlove stated they’d create some new interest by building two cars and they’d “drag race” for the record on the flats. Wow, a 700MPH drag race! Of course, Craig would have to change his thinking to a rocket as a Jet vs. Rocket race would be no race in a drag event the best I can remember is something like 0 to 500 in 10 seconds (more than a few G forces).

One of the reasons Gary was chosen to drive the car (Blue Flame) was because his full time job was he worked for Rockwell International in Downey, California as a “Test Astronaut.” He tested all the space suits for the Apollo space missions. This is a glorious title to say he was the guy going around in the centrifuge. He was used to a lot of G forces, they were always concerned that the driver would blackout during acceleration.

As far as Gary’s life being cut short, while we all miss him lots, few of us could picture him dying an old man. Gary’s life was lived on the edge from the time he was 15 years old. Gary started racing by cleaning up the grease/oil mess for some kids in his neighborhood who had a drag car. He did this for a few years on the promise that someday they‘d let him drive it at the drag strip. That day came when he was 15, on the first pass he went faster than any run ever in the car. One year later, he had his own car and became a legend in California drag racing. He was the ultimate crowd-pleaser being a lot “nuts & wild” and being easy to spot as he always wore an ostrich plume on the top of his helmet. He’d love to taunt his competitors on the starting line by shaking his fist and sometimes getting out of his car to yell something. Of course, it was all in good fun and I never met another racer who didn’t love his magnetic personality.

While setting the LSR made Gary infamous, many of his friends consider it a high point in his life that made the rest of his life chasing a dream. After the record, he didn’t know if he was a career LSR car driver or needed to return to his career in Drag Racing. Before his death, he nearly lost his life four times to my count. He flipped a drag boat @ 200MPH and as he went in the water the motor hit him in the back, nearly killing him. His kidneys were badly damaged and he was on dialysis for two years. He had two accidents in the same Funny Car (Beach City Corvette). Once, he lost the chutes and ended up on fire on a freeway and the second accident, the car caught on fire during a run and burned to the ground (he jumped out at over 100MPH). That accident burned holes clear through his goggles and helmet but he had only minor burns to his face and head. The fourth accident was a crash in his own Funny Car. It had 4 wheel drive which made it very fast off the line. On a photo shoot for a magazine, the throttle locked down during a “burn out” and he lost control. At about 160MPH it went through a guard rail twice and flipped end over end.

Gary had one of his hands cut off to the outside skin, one leg was behind his head and one was wrapped around the steering wheel. That leg became the problem. While his hand was re-attached and the leg behind him was dislocated, the surgeons wanted to remove the other leg as it was nothing but shattered bone from the ankle. Gary would not let them remove the leg, so they inserted a long rod to replace the bone. He adapted to the handicap, but spent about a year trying to get rid of gangrene.”

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Sports Illustrated Profile:

The last time anyone paid any special note to the world of absolute speed it was 1970 and Gary Gabelich was going 622.407 miles an hour across Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in a rocket car called The Blue Flame

Gary (Rocket Man) Gabelich. You know, the world’s fastest man.

Listening to Gary Gabelich one gets the impression that asking why is what’s really absurd. “Racing is really boss, man. If you like to go fast, that’s all there is.” The idea of the danger involved in traveling 750 miles an hour bubbles up and rolls away from his mind like droplets of water off a fresh coat of Simoniz. “Driving the car is a piece of cake,” he says. “You could do it; almost anyone could. It’s putting the whole project together that’s tough, raising the $1 million we figure it will cost, and then converting it into a car and a team that we know can break the barrier.” He speaks of his team so frequently that he begins to sound like the self-effacing player of the week in a postgame interview or the blushing astronauts giving all the credit for their being on the moon to the technicians of Houston. It is as if strapping his body in a supersonic rocket were no more a commitment and courageous act than trying out the air-conditioned fossil burners in Detroit’s new fall line.

Gabelich is totally into whatever he is doing.

Gabelich’s new sound-barrier car, which is being built in Long Beach, will be 44 feet long, eight feet longer than the current Blue Flame record car, which was sponsored by The Natural Gas Industry. The tail fin will be cut down, the rear wheels set farther back and wider apart, and the underside of the body will be V-shaped. This latter touch is an engineer’s dream: when supercar breaks the sound barrier on land, the shock waves will go off the car at a 45-degree angle downward, hit the ground and bounce away from the car instead of bouncing back up to blow the thing off the ground.

On the wall of Gary’s office there is a cartoon clipped from a newspaper and presented by his girl friend Linda. It shows Hazel, the maid, casing the family’s preadolescent heir standing on a pair of water skis in the backyard plastic wading pool, holding onto a rope attached to the rear bumper of a car. “Have you thought this thing through?” Hazel asks. Gabelich has thought his project through, and his proposed new attempt at the sound barrier, like his previous record runs, is no mere display of mindless fortitude.

A year ago last spring at Orange County International Raceway, Gabelich did get into a car that had not been thoroughly thought through—and the result was a crash that almost ripped off his left forearm and broke his left leg so severely that more than a year later he still wore a cast. “We had rushed the project, and I had bad vibes about it,” he says now. The car was a four-wheel-drive experimental “funny car” (a dragster with the facsimile body of a regular Detroit car), and it careened out of control at 180 miles an hour during a quarter-mile run. “Being in the hospital gave me time to think,” Gabelich says, “and what I thought about mostly was getting back in shape to work on the sound-barrier project.”

Gabelich wants to win at whatever he does. Thus, when he began racing motorcycles he raced under the improbable pseudonym of Orval Volotch. “As holder of the land speed record I’d be expected to win, but I really didn’t know much about that kind of racing. So when I used another name it took all that pressure off and I could have fun.” Still, he finished first among the “pie plates,” the unrated amateurs, in his first desert run.

For Gary Gabelich everything is right now. He is almost totally without introspection and obsessed with doing well, whether water skiing, driving The Blue Flame at more than 600 miles an hour, talking to promoters and potential sponsors or making one of the endless public relations tours for the American Gas Association. “Sometimes I think I’d rather be somewhere else,” he says, “but since I’ve got to be wherever I am, I figure I might as well make a good job of it. I want to be a winner.”

A large part of the pleasure Gabelich takes in his work is directed at firing the enthusiasm of those around him. He frequently begins the day, particularly before a speed-record attempt, by playing Isaac Hayes music to his crew. “It gets everybody in a really good mood and sets up good vibes for what we’ve got to do,” he says.

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Facial Hair Champions

June 26, 2009 · 1 Comment

With this post I seek to celebrate all that is grand and glorious in the world of facial hair. The worse the beard or mustache, the better. The more over the top, the more I love it. Too extreme is not extreme enough. Let’s see what’s out there…

This guy definitely scores points for the weave action in his beard.  It looks sort of like a woven basket, huh?

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I’ll bet the girls love this one.

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This is a hairy guy:

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But, not as hairy as this guy below.  And by the way, yes, this is real.  It is the result of a genetic defect (Or gift depending on your perspective).

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OK, so these guys were part of a beard and mustache contest and so they worked to be over the top, but their facial hair is still noteworthy.

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I honestly don’t know what to say about this one. But, it needs to be included (obviously).

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How awesome would it be to have this guy as your grandfather?

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This guy gets points for overall hairiness. Does he have lips or a mouth?

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And this guy gets points for, uhhhhh, something…

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Man, these old school guys knew how to rock the facial hair:

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Stellar work, sir.

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This guy scores massive points for utilizing the headband along with the sweet mustache.

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This is just weird looking.  Does anyone else think he looks like an extra from Planet of the Apes?

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I’ll award some points for creativity here.

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Just in case you were worried that celebrities never slip up in their appearance:

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Jesse, seriously, what were you thinking, man?  Oh, right, probably to demonstrate that anyone with the confidence to appear on national television as you look below possesses inherent awesomeness.

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But, Mel, come on, dude…  What look were you going for here? Peter Pan pedophile?

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But, I guess that not all of us can look like Geraldo with his killer mustache.

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What chick would take a guy that looked like this seriously?  And how much work would that be to maintain?

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I’d love to have a beer with this guy.  You can just tell he’s got some great stories.

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I’m impressed.  Seriously impressed.

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I came across this pic because this guy goes around in public like this.  Some kids made fun of him and he beat the shit out of them.  Way to stand up for facial hair awesomeness, sir.

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This guy scores points for his douchey appearance alone – but also for his lame facial hair.

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This guy picks up some points for overall hair thickness.  That is one thick mustache.

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Excellent work.  A real artist at work here.

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Somehow the hat makes it all come together.

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One of the best mustaches yet.

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Very, uhhhh, organic.

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I think this guy looks like a blowfish.

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And speaking of disgusting, for some reason I find this absolutely repulsive.

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But not this… This guy is awesome.  Truly awesome. I salute you, sir.

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For some reason the receding hairline amplifies the awesomeness of this guy’s mustache by like a factor of ten.

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This guy has got to be the facial hair champ though – the incorporation of the chest hair and neck hair is absolutely brilliant. I love it.

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There is still a final frontier in facial hair awesomeness though. I have yet to see either of the following two and I cannot say that the human race has reached its full potential until I see the fuzzy lips or full neck beard.

A: Fuzzy lips – this would be someone that was clean-shaven, but left a perfect ring of hair right around their lips. Admittedly bad, but I think the next one would be even worse…

B: Full neck beard and nothing else. This would involve someone with a completely clean-shaven face, but a thick, bushy beard on their neck only. How punk rock would that be?

Does anyone else have any ideas?

These gems remain untested and unproven. Does anyone have the courage to grab the torch of greatness and take things beyond over the top? I certainly hope so.

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Stalin Line Military Complex, Belarus

June 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment

The original Stalin Line was a line of fortifications along the western border of the Soviet Union. Work began on the system in the 1920s to protect the USSR against “western aggression.” The line was made up of fortified bunkers and gun emplacements, similar but less elaborate than the Maginot Line (and equally ineffective).

Following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which expanded the borders of the USSR westward in 1939 and 1940, into Poland, the Baltic, and Bessarabia the decision was made to abandon the line in favor of constructing the so-called Molotov Line further west, along the new border of the USSR. A number of Russian generals felt that it would be better to keep both lines and have defense in depth, but this conflicted with the pre-World War II Soviet military doctrine. And given the pace of Stalin’s purges, no one was particularly enthusiastic about coming out forcefully against orders from above.

Thus the guns were moved, but were mostly in storage as the new line began construction. The 1941 German invasion caught the Soviets with their pants down as the new line was unfinished and the Stalin Line largely abandoned and in disrepair. Thus, neither was of much use in stopping the onslaught of Operation Barbarossa.

Following World War II, the Stalin Line was not maintained, in part due to its wide dispersal across the USSR. Unlike in Western Europe, where similar fortifications were demolished for development and safety reasons, much of the line survived beyond the breakup of the USSR in 1991 due to simply being ignored. Today, the remains are located in Belarus, Finland, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.

Although the Stalin Line itself in no longer operational, there is still a significant military complex located along a piece of the Line in Belarus. Given the history of the Stalin Line, Nigel and Andy and I headed out to take a look and to see if we might have any luck getting to interview soldiers in the area and to get some good video footage for the Discovery Channel (for whom we were filming after they lent us one of their cameras).

This was our first look at the military base – which led us to consider sneaking on…

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…But then after getting a closer look at the security in place…

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…And being confronted by this guard, we decided it would be far more prudent not to attempt such a move.  So, instead, we decided to try to bribe our way onto the base.

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We ambled over to the main entrance and following a fairly brief, but awkward, conversation with these guards (below) and after handing over a thick stack of Belorussian rubles (not worth that much), we were in.

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We headed over to the remnants of the Stalin Line first. It is still maintained here and provides security to this side of the base.

Down in one of the trenches.

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A gun emplacement protected by barbed wire, armor and reinforced concrete.

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Tank traps.

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I think some of the guards were rather surprised to see us just wandering around, but I can’t really blame them.

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It also didn’t stop us from heading down into the bunker complex though.

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A space can be opened here, allowing the defenders of the Stalin Line (now the base) to pour destruction and death into the valley below.

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And there is plenty of lighter firepower available inside as well.

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I have no idea what this guy was saying to us, but he didn’t seem happy we were down there. So, I took his picture.

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One of the guards at the main gate (whom we bribed to get in) spoke enough English to convey to us (aside from his being able to negotiate our entrance “fee”) that there was a site in the valley below the military complex where a battle had taken place between German and Soviet forces during World War II that was worth seeing. Apparently, the Germans were overconfident about the safety of the area and had a convoy attacked.  It was amazing to see so much of this stuff just laying around as it was left so many decades ago.  Thank God for Communist neglect.  In a Western country, this would have been tidied up and cleared away.

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You can still clearly see the German Iron Cross on the side of this tank.

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Symbolic American domination of both World War II and the Cold War?

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An old boy who had seen us bribe our way onto the base (and emphatically did not want his picture taken) approached us as we were returning from the battle site pictured above. Seeing that we were interested in the military equipment, and since we had already proved ourselves to be shady characters by paying our way into the military complex, he apparently felt comfortable with us. The man communicated that everything we could see around us was for sale at the right price and started selling us on the various equipment and weapons systems.

The sales lot:

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And the sales office:

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Leading us inside to talk business and show us more products:

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And it was a nice, cozy place to do business indeed – even equipped with a woodstove.

All manner of ammunition, explosives and light weapons systems were stored in here.  And all of it was for sale.  Bunkers like this are ground zero for the proliferation of former Eastern bloc weapons into the conflicts of the developing world.

It takes a lot to shock me these days, but even I was shocked at how easy it would have been to leave with a crate of hand grenades or AK-47s.  Or a MiG fighter jet if we’d had enough money…

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Here is a sampling of some of the heavier equipment we were offered such as missile systems, fighter jets and helicopter gunships:

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Imagine how much possession of a Hind helicopter gunship would enhance my latent plans to seize control, via a coup d’ etat, of a basket case African country!

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Visiting Bratislava

June 15, 2009 · 1 Comment

Bratislava, Slovakia Report # 1

I have found that countries for which I have low expectations before visiting have always wildly exceeded my expectations and have proved remarkably enjoyable, while countries that are supposed to be enjoyed and that I am supposed to like, invariably disappoint me. Slovakia, and Bratislava in particular, fall into the first category. Bratislava was almost an afterthought for me before we arrived, given that my Italian interpreter and I had a break of only 18 hours between returning from a significant trip to the United States and leaving for Slovakia. But now, I must rank Bratislava as one of my favorite European cities.

The transportation network in Slovakia is first-rate and so one can get around easily. And given Bratislava’s proximity to Vienna, one can be in downtown Vienna in less than an hour from departing Bratislava via train. The cost of a round-trip journey is 9 euros and the ride is comfortable and the views good. If I were able to secure gainful employment in Vienna, I would work there and live in Bratislava as one could earn Western wages in Vienna and then live like a Saudi prince in Bratislava. A quality flat can be found in Bratislava for 30,000 euros and dinner for two at a nice restaurant will only set you back 15 euros. A ride on the public transit system in the city is 70 cents.

The city is not completely free of tourists, but it is about as good as you will find in any European capital in the travel season. The majority of the people you encounter will be locals rather than tourists and the tourists are easy to avoid as for a smaller city, there is a lot to do. For example: If you go to any of the numerous museums, you are unlikely to run into tourists despite the fact that the exhibits are top notch. Tour groups are led passively around and do not do activities that require much effort or initiative. Do something that requires some work or initiative (such as hiking up to Kamzik TV and radio tower or visiting a museum such as Palffy Palace) and you’ll find yourself in a tourist-free zone.

As with all Eastern European capitals, the number of attractive women around is significantly higher than in the West and the men, as always, look unhealthy and poorly dressed. Any Westerner with decent looks and game would do quite well as passable English is widely spoken and language is, therefore, not an issue as one will find in a place like Brazil or Belarus.

A view toward old town Bratislava across the Danube River with Bratislava Castle in the background:

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One cool area along the Danube (and a nice place to unwind after the hassles of traveling) features a spot with truckloads of sand brought in to create an artificial beach. You can lounge in chairs next to the river and enjoy the wares offered by the nearby bar or get in on a game of sandy soccer or volleyball.

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Continue past the artificial beach and you’ll get to the UFO Bridge with its distinctive UFO top – a top that (get ready for it) houses the UFO Bar which supposedly offers solid views, but has gotten bad reviews.

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…And politically charged art.

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Here are some scenes from downtown Bratislava:

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Random (and usually humorous) bronze statues dot the Bratislava city landscape. Here are just two – “Rubberneck” and “Paparazzi” respectively.

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This is St. Martin’s Cathedral – site of the coronations of ten Hungarian kings, one queen and eight royal consorts over the period from 1563 to 1830 (if you’re into that sort of thing). Bratislava took on the position of the political and cultural center of that part of the Hungarian kingdom which was not occupied by the Turks.

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Grassalkovich Palace – built in 1760 as a summer palace for Count Anton Grassalkovich it is now the residence of the president of the Slovak Republic.

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Slovakia is a curious mix of German/Austrian culture and Italian culture. Here is an element of the German/Austrian culture at work. These cars were illegally parked on a sidewalk next to a university. No questions were asked. No citations were issued. Instead a team of tow trucks pulled up with the police accompanying them and simply picked the vehicles up with these cranes and drove them to impound yards.

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The Fountain of Friendship on Namestie Slobody Square – allegedly the site of the first flight by helicopter in 1897 by Jan Bahyl

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For a small country and a small capital, there is a great selection of quality museums to choose from – museums that all feature signs in English. Some I would recommend are the Museum of Clocks located in the House At the Good Shepherd, the Museum of Arms in St. Michael’s Tower which also features great views from the top if you go outside on the balcony (although the woman from whom we purchased our tickets here was a real poisonous old bitch to the degree that I had to tell her to go and fuck herself – and I am normally very polite and respectful when I travel). With a ticket to the Museum of Arms, you can also visit the Museum of Pharmacy located inside the Red Crayfish Pharmacy free of charge. There are many other museums as well including the Slovak Police Museum which looked interesting, but we did not have time to visit.

Two museums I would very strongly recommend in Bratislava are the Natural History Museum located along the river on Vajanskeho Nabrezie 2 and Palffy Palace located along Panska 19. Despite its name, Palffy Palace features mostly modern art. Count Janos Ferenc Palffy (d. 2 June 1908) was a significant art collector and concentrated the most precious works in the family palace. However, against the background of historical events – WW I and the break-up of the monarchy – the fate of perhaps the greatest collection of art in Central Europe was decided at the auction house as the Count’s descendants cashed in his collection (against the wishes outlined in his will). Below is some of the art in Palffy Palace today:

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The picture below does not do this display justice at all. You walk along a platform in the middle of the piece and are surrounded by a sense of infinity created by the clever use of mirrors. It truly is remarkable and a camera operating in two dimensions cannot possibly capture the three dimensional experience of having infinity spreading away from you in all directions. Don’t miss this one.

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There are several areas from which to get good views of the city, such as the Slavin military cemetery dominated by the Statue of Victory by Alexander Trizuljak. This site is the burial place of 6,845 soldiers of the Soviet Red Army who died “liberating” Bratislava in World War II.

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The view of Bratislava from up there…

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It’s also an area of consulates and nice homes, such as this trendy, modern one that I liked:

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For the best views though, hike up the mountain (Koliba) to Kamzik TV and radio tower.

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And look cool up on top of the tower…

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…While enjoying the great views…

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…And appreciating how forested Slovakia really is.

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And like I said, Austria is only a short train ride away…

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With decent scenery along the way:

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Vienna, aside from offering a vibrant employment market, also has attractions such as Schönbrunn Palace (used as the summer residence of the Hapsburgs from the 18th century onwards), Prater (a permanent carnival), Belvedere Palace, the Spanish Riding School, the Museum Quarter, the Albertina Art Gallery, the Hofburg Palace, or Imperial Palace (home of the Austrian Hapsburgs for 600 years) and much more.

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Tamil Tigers + Protests

May 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

With the Tamil Tigers having been wiped out as a conventional military force in Sri Lanka and the top leadership killed, I thought it an appropriate time to post some of the pictures from the daily protests in London against the Sri Lankan government’s offensive against the Tigers.

Although, the Tigers appear beaten as a regular military force, I’m afraid the Sri Lankan government may find their victory more ephemeral than they would have hoped for. Already, the Tigers have promised to continue their fight as a guerrilla force.

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Is This Really Necessary?

May 17, 2009 · Leave a Comment

One can see some interesting things on the Tube. For example, I found this guy to be photo-worthy due to his unusually wide stance. Really, one could speculate for a while about the need for such a posture…

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Of course, he was also rather inconsiderate as the train was quite crowded and as you can see from the picture below, he was taking up 1.5 seats with his stance.

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