- Western Goals Foundation
The Western Goals Foundation was a private intelligence dissemination network active on the
right-wing in theUnited States . It was wound up in 1986 when theTower Commission revealed it had been part ofOliver North 'sIran-Contra funding network.After the
Watergate andCOINTELPRO scandals of the early 1970s, several laws were passed to restrict police intelligence gathering within political organizations. The laws tried to make it necessary to demonstrate that a criminal act was likely to be uncovered by any intelligence gathering proposed. Many files on radicals, collected for decades, were ordered destroyed. The unintended effect of the laws was to privatize the files in the hands of 'retired' intelligence officers and their most trusted, dedicated operatives.Many of these people, like John Rees and Congressman
Larry McDonald , were members of theWorld Anti-Communist League , theJohn Birch Society , and similar organizations. These two men joined forces with Major GeneralJohn K. Singlaub to form the Western Goals Foundation in 1979. One of its principal sponsors was the Texan billionaireNelson Bunker Hunt .Western Goals was sued by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after a police officer was caught adding information from the disbandedLos Angeles Police Department "Red Squad" to a related computerBulletin board system . [ [http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/Rees/Rees.html PublicEye.org - The Maldon Institute ] ] [https://www.cpsr.org/prevsite/conferences/cfp91/bayse.html/view]It also founded an offshoot,
Western Goals (UK) , (later theWestern Goals Institute ), which was briefly influential in British Conservative politics.References
External links
* International Relations Center, March 1989, [http://rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch/wg.php Profile: Western Goals Foundation]
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