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.In fact, the members of Team B were bound by their determination tomake every aspect of U.S.foreign policy geared toward policies thatwould prove beneficial to Israel.To understand what is happening in our world today as a consequenceof the rule of the neo-conservatives in official Washington, it is critical tounderstand the geopolitical events surrounding the history of the groupknown as Team B.Although Team B was debated and discussed at the highest levels, itwas not until the late Andrew St.George, an eminent international corre-spondent, formerly associated with Life magazine, began writing about itshistory in the pages of a maverick national weekly newspaper TheSpotlight, that the story of Team B reached a widespread audience.Team B emerged in the mid-1970s at which time hawkish factions inthe Israeli government were lobbying hard in Washington for more armsaid and cash infusions through the U.S.foreign aid program.Loyal sup-porters of Israel such as Sen.Jackson argued that Israel needed more mil-itary might to protect the Middle East against  Soviet aggression  anargument that delighted hard-line anti-communists in both political par-ties.Israel was playing the  Soviet card to the utmost.The Israelis were arguing vehemently against détente for they fearedthat cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union couldresult in joint actions by the two super-powers that could prove inimicalto Israeli interests.As such, it was in 1974 that University of Chicago Professor AlbertWohlstetter accused the CIA of systematically underestimating Sovietmissile deployment.Wohlstetter a widely known architect of U.S.nuclear strategy also happened to be Richard Perle s longtime intellec-tual mentor.45 In fact, the relationship was even closer: growing up in LosAngeles, Perle was a high school friend of Wohlstetter s daughter.Based largely on Wohlstetter s opening gun, Perle and other pro-Israel activists on Capitol Hill and in official Washington began attackingthe CIA and demanding additional inquiry into the CIA s analysis ofSoviet strength.Perle used the offices of Sen.Jackson who was anglingfor the Democratic Party s presidential nomination in 1976, primarilyfinanced by American Jewish backers as the  headquarters for theattack on the CIA.However, U.S.intelligence analysts were scoffing at Israel s alarmistcries.Led by senior analysts in the Office of National Estimates, theyreassured the White House that, at least for the moment, the Soviets hadneither the intent nor the capability to attack a major target of vital U.S.interest, such as the oil-rich Gulf states.Nonetheless, Israel s Washington allies maneuvered in an effort tocounter-balance the findings of the Office of National Estimates.Underpolitical pressure from Senator Jackson and other supporters of Israel,President Gerald Ford agreed in mid-1976 (while George Bush was serv-ing as CIA director) to institute a so-called  audit of intelligence dataprovided by the CIA s own National Intelligence Officers (soon to becalled the  A-Team ] by a committee of  independent experts knownas the  B-Team.However, the newly-established and ostensibly  independentgroup B-Team headed by Harvard professor Richard Pipes, aRussian-born devotee of the Zionist cause, became an outpost of Israeliinfluence.(Years later Pipes son, Daniel Pipes, would emerge as one of the neo-conservative network s leading anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propagandists,operating a well-funded think tank, the Middle East Institute operatingclosely with Perle.In the summer of 2003, President George W.Bushnamed the younger Pipes to the federally-sponsored U.S.Peace Institute,despite the widespread objections of many persons who viewed Pipes tobe a bigoted hate-monger with a single-minded political agenda.)In any case, Richard Perle was largely responsible for the selection ofthe Team B membership.Paul Wolfowitz was among those selected forTeam B because of Perle s recommendation.Likewise with veteran diplo-mat Paul Nitze, among other prominent members of the team selected.26 MICHAEL COLLINS PIPERAnne Hessing Cahn, a later student of the Team B affair, has writtenthat  There was an almost incestuous closeness among most of the BTeam members, 46 quoting Perle as saying, that  The Jewish neo-conser-vative connection sprang from that period of worries about detente andIsrael. 47 Robert Bowie, former CIA deputy director for national intelli-gence, described the efforts of Team B as  a fight for the soul of theRepublican party, for getting control of foreign policy within one branchof the party. 48In the meantime, John Paisley, recently retired from the CIA, wasappointed by CIA Director Bush to act as the CIA s liaison between theCIA s own in-house  Team A and the Israeli-influenced  Team B.Meade Rowington, a former U.S.counterintelligence analyst quoted byAndrew St.George in The Spotlight on Feb.5, 1996 noted:  It soonbecame clear to Paisley that these cosmopolitan intellectuals were simplytrying to discredit the CIA s recommendations and replace them with thealarmist view of Soviet intentions favored by Israeli estimators. 49By early 1978 the B-Team had finished its review of the CIA s pro-cedures and programs and issued a lengthy report that was harshly criti-cal of almost every finding U.S.intelligence had made in previous yearsabout Soviet military power and its intended uses.The Israeli-influenced B-Team report said that the Soviets weresecretly developing a so-called  first-strike capability, because Sovietstrategic doctrine assumed that such a sneak attack would make them thewinners of a nuclear exchange with the United States.The B-Team dis-missed the estimates of analysts who held that Moscow was unlikely tostart a nuclear conflict unless attacked.In the end, of course, the B-Teamfindings prevailed and the direct consequence was that there was a virtu-al revival of the arms race and a massive new infusion of U.S.military andother aid to Israel during the 1980s.Drawing on what critics charged (and which proved to be) fraudulentestimates provided by Israeli intelligence the foundation of the B-Team s report was the warning that the Soviet Union was fast running outof its petroleum supplies.As a consequence, the B-Team forecast that beginning in 1980 Sovietoil production would suffer critical shortfalls, forcing Moscow to importas much as 4.5 million barrels a day for its essential needs.Starved foroil the Israeli disinformation claimed the Soviets would invade Iran oranother oil-rich Gulf state even if it meant a nuclear confrontation withthe United States.Although the team s final report was secret, with access reserved fora handful of government leaders, John Paisley reportedly got his hands ona copy of the report in the summer of 1978 and set to work writing adetailed critique that would destroy this Israeli disinformation.ButPaisley was murdered before he could ever complete his task.According to Richard Clement, who headed the InteragencyCommittee on Counter-Terrorism during the Reagan administration:  TheIsraelis had no compunction about  terminating key American intelligenceofficials who threatened to blow the whistle on them.Those of us familiarwith the case of Paisley know that he was killed by the Mossad.But no one,not even in Congress, wants to stand up and say so publicly [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]