True Men, Liars, and the Failures That Worked – Part 2

A Tale of Two Assassination Plots

Sidney Gottlieb had already explained to his lawyer Terry Lenzner how his work with the CIA as Chief of the Technical Services Division had involved developing poisonous methods to kill Fidel Castro, including “a monogrammed handkerchief dipped in poison, exploding cigars, poisoned wet suits.” He also learned about President Eisenhower approving a plot to insert deadly toxin developed by Gottlieb for insertion into Patrice Lumumba’s food or toothpaste. What bothered the pair about the U.S. Senate committee was that in documents released to the public before the 1975 hearing, Gottlieb’s name remained unexpunged for all to read, whereas other CIA personnel had a shield of secrecy with their names redacted. Fearing his client would be made a scapegoat, his lawyer sought and received immunity for Gottlieb in exchange for testifying before the U.S. Senate.

Gottlieb preferred to explain his case to the public, thinking they would understand his aims and service to the country. Lenzner believed that revealing his participation in assassination plots in the name of national security would not serve to win Gottlieb public sympathy. “Look, Sid, the goal here is to keep you out of the newspapers and, at a minimum, out of jail,” Lenzner explained to him. “You don’t understand how this works. You could very well become the fall guy in this whole investigation.” The Manhattan District Attorney was also pursuing an investigation into Frank Olson’s death. “They could try to pin Olson’s death on you.” The immunity request with the Church Committee delayed Gottlieb’s participation until such time that interest in the committee was waning, playing into their “slowdown strategy.”

The hearing had been going well in Lenzner’s eyes, until Senator Robert Schweiker handed them a document. “Dr. Gottlieb,” he said. “Can you tell me what this memo is about?” It bore the ominous title of “Health Alteration Committee.” Despite an agreement with the Committee to share materials in advance, this memo caught them by surprise. Having been in charge of the Committee, Gottlieb knew the answer to Schweiker’s question but he remained quiet. Gottlieb then whispered to Lenzner, “I need to talk to you about this.” Lenzner pretended Gottlieb’s heart condition was acting up to buy them time to discuss the matter in private.

A Contemptible Face

Gottlieb revealed to his lawyer that the Health Alteration Committee memorandum contained a plot regarding a Communist official in Iraq that the CIA had “wanted to get rid of.” The State Department had described the official as “extremely aggressive…anti-Western to the point of hatred…and has given important support for the success of Communism and Soviet policy in Iraq.” The target was Colonel Fadhil ’Abbas al-Mahdawi, who had “assumed a role of one of the most powerful of the military leaders” in Iraq as President of the Higher Military Court, also known as the “People’s Court.” Whereas Lumumba had sealed his fate through lacking in eye contact when speaking with U.S. representatives, Mahdawi did himself no favors by being an avowed Communist with an unfortunate physical appearance, according to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Jernegan. While expressing his displeasure to Iraqi leader Abd al-Karim Qasim with regard to the People’s Court, Jernegan felt that “one difficulty was that the head of the court was his cousin, Mahdawi, who was really the most detestable man I think I’ve ever seen. He looked detestable; he had a nasty face. And his actions as president of the court sometimes were almost incredible.” Qasim would reply, “Oh well, you know really he’s not so bad. Mahdawi’s not so bad as you think. The people demand that we have trials of people who have betrayed their trust.” Jernegan was frustrated with this obstinance: “I never got anywhere.” The U.S. took special note of Mahdawi’s provocative statements during a January 12, 1959 trial:

“My late father was a butcher. I pride myself on the fact that I am a self-made man from a poor family. I am proud that the people have made me the President of the Court to defend the rights of the poor and oppressed. My father was a butcher who slaughtered sheep. I am a butcher of traitors.”

By February 1960, the CIA’s Near East Division was ready to take action against Mahdawi, seeking approval from the Health Alteration Committee, an apt term which CIA Director Allen Dulles found to be a humorous euphemism for assassination. The written proposal to remove Mahdawi, approved in April, took a middle ground between incapacitation and murder, in keeping with the committee name: “We do not consciously seek subject’s permanent removal from the scene; we also do not object should this complication develop.” As to their rationale, there were the surface-level explanations: Mahdawi’s kangaroo court, his relationship with the Soviets, and then there was oil, as Anne E. Tazewell explained in A Good Spy Leaves No Trace: “My father [James M. Eichelberger] was part of a euphemistically named ‘Iraqi Health Alteration Committee’… [Iraq] demanded that the Anglo-American-owned Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) share 20 percent of the ownership and 55 percent of the profits with the Iraqi government. When the IPC rejected this proposal, Qasim issued a law to take away 99.5 percent of the IPC’s ownership and establish an Iraqi national oil company to oversee the export of its oil…protecting Western oil interests was the real driver.”

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Read more at: https://thememoryhole.substack.com/p/true-men-liars-and-the-failures-that-07a.