Posada's CIA ties uncovered in papers

[seafan]

Posada's CIA ties uncovered in papers

BY ALFONSO CHARDY AND OSCAR CORRAL
June 26, 2006





Details have emerged about Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles' CIA links 40 years ago in South Florida. One revelation: his tie to the agency's Miami bureau.

Nearly four years after the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles continued to work for the spy agency, according to CIA files released to The Miami Herald.
His job: ''Training Branch Instructor'' for its Miami station, which then was responsible for intelligence-gathering missions into Cuba. He was part of the covert JMWAVE -- the code name for the CIA Miami bureau, which at the time operated within the University of Miami.

His tenure: March 26, 1965, to July 11, 1967.

The revelation of Posada's ties to the CIA's operations in Miami was contained in documents requested by The Miami Herald as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.
Although some of Posada's CIA links were known previously, the CIA files released to the newspaper this month add detail about the Cuban militant's connections to America's storied and controversial spy agency.

The information comes at a time that Posada, currently detained in El Paso, Texas, is seeking approval of his U.S. citizenship application on the ground that he served the CIA and the U.S. military.
Posada, 78, has been held since immigration agents took him into custody in Miami last year after his surreptitious entry into the United States from Mexico. Posada was detained just hours after holding an ''invitation-only'' press conference at a West Miami-Dade County warehouse.

Posada has been denied asylum, although an immigration judge in El Paso prohibited the government from deporting him to Cuba or Venezuela.
Posada has been accused of blowing up a Cuban airliner in the Caribbean in 1976, bombing hotels in Cuba in 1997 and 1998, and conspiring to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000. He has denied all of the allegations.

snip

[annabanana]

1. well, well, well

You just can't keep a good truth down!

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[mod mom]

10. Their bandwidth. It is DEMOCRATIC underground. We come here to seek

truth and avoid the faux rightwing talking points. If you miss that point of view perhaps another forum would suit you better. There are certainly differing Democratic points of view here.

[peacetalksforall]

4. Is this the same Luis Posada? second name.

"Cuban figures used by Operation 40 included Antonio Veciana, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Rafael Quintero, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Carlos Bringuier, Eugenio Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Barry Seal, Felix Rodriguez, Juan Manuel Salvat, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Isidro Borjas, Virgilio Paz, Jose Dionisio Suarez, Felipe Rivero, Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Nazario Sargent, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Jose Basulto, and Paulino Sierra."

The two paragraphs above it:

"Operation 40 was not only involved in sabotage operations. In fact, it evolved into a team of assassins. One member, Frank Sturgis, claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents... We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time."

Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66. CIA officials and freelance agents such as William Harvey, Thomas Clines, Porter Goss, Gerry Hemming, E. Howard Hunt, David Morales, Carl E. Jenkins, Bernard L. Barker, Barry Seal, Frank Sturgis, Tosh Plumlee, and William C. Bishop also joined the project."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKoperation40.htm

Goss and Posada. Posada and Goss.

Earlier photos of Posada - (Google images)

http://images.google.com/images?&num=50&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&lr=&as_ft=i&as_qdr=all&as_dt=i&as_rights=&safe=images&sa=N&tab=wi&q=%20%22luis%20posada%22

[seafan]

5. Looks like it. Luis Posada Carriles was also involved in Iran Contra.

José Pertierra: The story that cries out to be told to the American people


Another interesting point in the Miami Herald article:

Posada, 78, has been held since immigration agents took him into custody in Miami last year after his surreptitious entry into the United States from Mexico. Posada was detained just hours after holding an ''invitation-only'' press conference at a West Miami-Dade County warehouse.

(Emphasis added)

So, BushCo arrests *The Miami Seven* living in a warehouse (because they are homeless), and charges them with multiple *terrorism* plots on tall buildings..... and Mr. Luis Posada Carriles, a known terrorist, is a man BushCo tries very hard to ignore.


Maybe this sheds a bit of light:


More from the Herald piece:

Posada's lawyer, Eduardo Soto, told The Miami Herald on Friday that the CIA documents could help his client gain freedom because they confirm that he was a soldier and employee of the U.S. government for years.

''I believe it fortifies in some way his claim that he was not only a soldier of this country on the armed services, but served as an employee for the CIA,'' Soto said. ``That bodes well with respect to our request that he be placed at liberty.''

Posada could be freed after a hearing July 6 in El Paso, although it's unlikely, since immigration officials are adamant about keeping him locked up.

Soto said skills Posada developed while working for JMWAVE (the code name for the CIA Miami bureau, which at the time operated within the University of Miami) were later put to use to advance U.S. interests in Central America in the 1980s.

In 1985, after Posada fled a Venezuelan jail where he was held in connection with the 1976 airliner attack, he turned up in El Salvador, working for a covert arms-resupply network for the Nicaraguan contras overseen by then National Security Council staff member Oliver North.

snip

(Emphasis added)


Lots of history involving Luis Posada Carriles and the BFEE.

Looks like Poppy was in the loop all along.

[peacetalksforall]

11. Posada with Goss. And then in one little swoop, a person can find

The Yale class photo of Goss next to William Bush and a few rows behind is John Negraponte? (sp?) And Negraponte also ends up in Latin America - and appears to have been OK with massacres of some of the people of some of the Central American countries.

Weave Wove Woven

Decades of weaving in and out that go back to my personal turning point - the first K assassination.

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. Yep, the one and only

The timing of this article couldn't be any better, what with Bush and Gonzalez jumping the shark over the Liberty Seven.

Nice to see the Miami Herald doing some real reporting. I hope they publish a lot more about what they know about the Miami Cubans and Bushco.

[Scurrilous]

16. The Miami Herald has new owners:

McClatchy era begins at The Miami Herald

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14889488.htm


I might just start reading the Herald again. :thumbsup:

[peacetalksforall]

33. There was a fellow on Democracy Now (Mon) who really told it like it is.

He explained they are going after these guys who have nothing and who appear to have been (my words - bribed,coerced, or whatever they are going to call it for legal purposes). And there are citizens free in Miami living in nice homes who have proven records of terrorism and no one goes after them. They way he told it was excellent.

My additional opinions are -

They wouldn't go after Posada for the aircraft bombing if it had been an entirely domestic act, because these criminals have been getting away with crime with the approval of our government.

That's four decades worth of terrorism.

That's four decades worth of terrorists that were sponsored in part by the CIA and funded in part by the taxpayers of the U.S. to the detriment of the homeless, the uninsured, the $5.15 an hour workers, etc.

Never in our history has any immigrant group been so favored and received to many special laws and hand-outs, including a possible line to the assassinations of some of our favorite citizens in this country.

P.S. I honor and love the Cubans, but I hold the politics of some of them in contempt, expecially the ones who have our Congresspeople in a bag and who have always cheered the terrorist acts.

[WhiteTara]

7. now let's see how the worm turns

slimy shits :grr:

[meganmonkey]

8. Great article regarding Posada, Bosch

Their relationships to & hisotry with the Bush family, etc

Posada became a figure in the Iran-Contra scandal because of his work on a clandestine program to aid Nicaraguan contra rebels fighting Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. The operation was run secretly out of the White House by North with the help of the office of then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Posada reached Central America in 1985 after escaping from a Venezuelan prison where he had been facing charges from the 1976 Cubana Airlines bombing. Posada, using the name Ramon Medina, teamed up with another Cuban exile, former CIA officer Felix Rodriguez, who reported regularly to Bush’s office.

Posada oversaw logistics and served as paymaster for pilots in the contra-supply operation. When one of the contra-supply planes was shot down inside Nicaragua in October 1986, Posada was responsible for alerting U.S. officials to the crisis and then shutting down the operation’s safe houses in El Salvador.

Even after the exposure of Posada’s role in the contra-supply operation, the U.S. government made no effort to bring the accused terrorist to justice.

much, much more at link...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/062406.html

[seafan]

22. Great article, thanks. Dare we hope this thing is finally unraveling?

Time is getting short for *Co's decades-old secrets.

[Gabi Hayes]

34. wrong spot

oops

[Judi Lynn]

9. Interesting food for thought: Posada Crony Runs Iraq Death Squads

Posada Crony Runs Iraq Death Squads

Havana, Jun 6 (Prensa Latina) US Colonel James Steele, accomplice of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, is advising death squad operations in Iraq, Granma newspaper reported Tuesday.

Steele was the one to whom Posada Carriles reported the shooting down of a DC-3 airplane in Nicaragua and Eugene Hassenfus´ apprehension, an incident that provoked the Iran-Contras scandal, the daily stated.

Steele´s presence was denounced in a letter by US congressman Dennis J. Kucinich addressed to the State Department.

Kucinich said he has a copy of all Pentagon documents on the use of US Special Forces members to constitute murder and kidnapping equipment in Iraq.

Kucinich recalled how Steele, who is also advising the US ambassador in Iraq for the Iraqi Security Forces, developed plans in El Salvador to attack revolutionary leaders and their followers.
(snip/...)

http://www.plenglish.com/Article.asp?ID=%7BAD87BCBE-C72C-4C85-9AB8-FDDE894DDA6B%7D&language=EN

[redqueen]

27. Thanks, Judi Lynn!

I love that Dennis!

[Supersedeas]

28. the Bush world is a small world, isn't it?

[robertpaulsen]

12. Gee, what a surprise! Started with School of Americas, ends up with CIA!

This article gives more background on Posada. Is there anything criminal he hasn't been involved in?

Luis Posada Carriles: And what about Miami?

snip

Posada’s true story is very different. He is nicknamed “The Hunter” ( due to his fame as an expert shooter) and he has traditionally gone through the Western hemisphere with false identifications with names such as Ramón Medina, Ignacio Medina, Juan Ramón Medina, Ramón Medina Rodríguez, José Ramón Medina, Rivas López, Juan José Rivas, Juan José Rivas López, Julio César Dumas, Franco Rodríguez Mena.

Since 1957, he got in touch with the FBI, formed part of the U.S. army and received military courses in the famous “School of the Americas” at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1963, he was trained as a CIA agent.

According to the book “The Plot” by General Fabián Escalante, a former chief of the General Division of the Cuban Counter Intelligence, Posada is seriously involved in Dallas’ assassination in Texas and the Watergate scandal.

In the 60 decade, he was linked with terrorist bands such as Alpha 66, Comandos L. Movimiento 30 de Noviembre. In 1967, obeying CIA’s instructions, he founded the Department of Intelligence and Prevention Service in Venezuela and simultaneously worked for the secret services of Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and Argentina.

more...

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/2669/1/148/

[Judi Lynn]

14. Unbelievable seeing all those aliases! Good grief.

His use of the "Mena" name is interesting, considering its connection to reputed drug dealing from Iran Contra times, a time when he was very active.

As for his reputation as a marksman, it'd be good to know just who the heck shot back at him when he was shot in the jaw. He claims it was a Cuban operative in Guatemala, where he was a security "consultant," who shot him in 1990, leaving him with a permanent "slurping sound" when he speaks.

It would be decent of _Bush to allow this man to be extradited to Venezuela so they can finish his trial, rather than sheltering him here.

He claims he would be tortured there. He should know, considering the fact there are living witnesses he tortured himself during his time as a high ranking official in the Venezuelan intelligence service, "DISIP." (Venezuela, by the way, indicates it's not in the torturing business now.)

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Have we met the darkside that Cheney was talking about?

[Judi Lynn]

17. According to this article, the big date is July 7th, when the judge

decides whether or not to grant this creep citizenship:

While thousands died in Vietnam, Posada was torturing in Venezuela

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International—

WHILE thousands of U.S. youth —many against their will— were sent to die in Vietnam, Luis Posada Carriles was being trained in counterinsurgency techniques at Fort Benning and later assassinated and tortured individuals in Venezuela where he was employed as a henchman in 1975 when the Vietnam War ended.

Today, the terrorist of Cuban origin is trying to falsely claim the title of Vietnam vet in order to give himself respectability in the eyes of the U.S. public and receive privileges granted by U.S. immigration laws by deceptive means.

Eager to assure his escape from justice by using anything to turn him into an "honorable" U.S. citizen, his lawyer Eduardo Soto keeps reiterating that his client was a soldier during the war on Vietnam, mentioning the years 1963 and 1965.

Posada in Vietnam? Where? When? How? "He does not appear in my research into Cubans in Vietnam," commented Cuban investigator José Luis Méndez Méndez, author of several books on terrorism against Cuba. "If Posada was in Vietnam and is a veteran of that war, let the CIA and the army prove it…"
(snip/...)

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/junio/vier16/26posada.html

[Judi Lynn]

18. Cuban militant was trainer in CIA Miami bureau

Posted on Mon, Jun. 26, 2006
Report: Cuban militant was trainer in CIA Miami bureau
Associated Press

~snip~
The documents show Posada was "terminated" from his work with the Miami office in July 1967. Reasons for the termination were not provided to the Herald, but some of the documents refer to Posada's brothers in Cuba, as well as Posada's alleged contacts with reputed gangster Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. Posada has denied any relation to Rosenthal.

Posada's attorney, Eduardo Soto, said the documents only confirm what he has argued - that Posada was a "soldier" in the U.S. government's covert war against communism.

"Apparently he was not only trained but was trained to train," Soto said Monday.

"The things my client was accused of in the past have involved working with individuals and having trained individuals to conduct matters in other countries," Soto said. "You can't accuse your soldiers of things you trained them to do."
(snip/...)

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/14906042.htm

[gratuitous]

19. Oh dear

What a piss poor time for a loathesome little maggot like Posada to come wiggling out from whatever rock he's been under. I'm more than a bit surprised he's still alive, but if this story gets picked up nationally (now, how might that happen) his anticipated life span might shorten considerably. Death by lead poisoning?

[Minstrel Boy]

20. George Bush, Sept 11, 2001:

"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html

On the west coast of Barbados, in the Paynes Bay area, you will find this monument, dedicated to the victims of a 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner as it took off from Barbados, killing all 73 people aboard.




http://aviation-safety.net/photos/displayphoto.php?id=19761006-0&vnr=1&kind=PC

[lala_rawraw]

21. Operation 40 - I have always said

[seafan]

23. Treasure trove of info here on Posada from National Security Archives

May 10, 2005

LUIS POSADA CARRILES
THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD
CIA and FBI Documents Detail Career in International Terrorism; Connection to U.S.

We saw the future the terrorists intend for our nation on that fateful morning of September the 11th, 2001. That day we learned that vast oceans and friendly neighbors are no longer enough to protect us. September the 11th changed our country; it changed the policy of our government. We adopted a new strategy to protect the American people: We would hunt down the terrorists wherever they hide; we would make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them; and we would advance our security at home by advancing freedom in the Middle East.

---George W. Bush, December 14, 2005

[Judi Lynn]

24. Posada cartoon!

http://www.walterlippmann.com/posada.html

[seafan]

25. That is out 'n out perfect! Thanks for posting that, Judi Lynn.

Posada is quite a window into the workings of the BFEE, and over many years, too.

[Just Me]

26. How does our "government" define "terrorism"? Who backed these,...

,...ordered these acts? Was the CIC informed?

So much corruption by insane people,..all for love of money.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power,...

When the people stop being complacent and TAKE A STAND for justice, the direction of humanity will change. It takes will. I still don't see enough of that from enough people. But, it's still possible, always possible, those with integrity will exercise courage and BE just.

[leveymg]

29. This on Posada and Op 40 - A Who's Who of the BFEE Wet Ops Dept.

No coincidence, this group of terrorists and assassins was headed by Dulles and Nixon, including most of the named cast members of the Kennedy Assassination and Iran-Contra, and even included Porter Goss in a supporting role.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKoperation40.htm

On 11th December, 1959, Colonel J. C. King, chief of CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, sent a confidential memorandum to Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. King argued that in Cuba there existed a "far-left dictatorship, which if allowed to remain will encourage similar actions against U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries."

As a result of this memorandum Dulles established Operation 40. It obtained this name because originally there were 40 agents involved in the operation. Later this was expanded to 70 agents. The group was presided over by Richard Nixon. Tracy Barnes became operating officer of what was also called the Cuban Task Force. The first meeting chaired by Barnes took place in his office on 18th January, 1960, and was attended by David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Jack Esterline, and Frank Bender.

On 4th March, 1960, La Coubre, a ship flying a Belgian flag, exploded in Havana Bay. It was loaded with arms and ammunition that had been sent to help defend Cuba's revolution from its enemies. The explosion killed 75 people and over 200 were injured. Fabian Escalante, an officer of the Department of State Security (G-2), later claimed that this was the first successful act carried out by Operation 40.

Operation 40 was not only involved in sabotage operations. In fact, it evolved into a team of assassins. One member, Frank Sturgis, claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents... We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time."

Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations including Alpha 66. CIA officials and freelance agents such as William Harvey, Thomas Clines, Porter Goss, Gerry Hemming, E. Howard Hunt, David Morales, Carl E. Jenkins, Bernard L. Barker, Barry Seal, Frank Sturgis, Tosh Plumlee, and William C. Bishop also joined the project.

Cuban figures used by Operation 40 included Antonio Veciana, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Rafael Quintero, Roland Masferrer, Eladio del Valle, Guillermo Novo, Carlos Bringuier, Eugenio Martinez, Antonio Cuesta, Hermino Diaz Garcia, Barry Seal, Felix Rodriguez, Juan Manuel Salvat, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Isidro Borjas, Virgilio Paz, Jose Dionisio Suarez, Felipe Rivero, Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Nazario Sargent, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Jose Basulto, and Paulino Sierra.


SNIP

[leveymg]

30. Granma: G.H.W. recruited Rodriguez, Sturgis, Hunt into BoP operation

The Bush family, the Cuban mafia and the Kennedy assassination

BY REINALDO TALADRID and LAZARO BAREDO
http://hannah.smith-family.com/archive/001021.html

IN 1959, a young officer and businessman from Texas received directions to cooperate in funding the nascent anti-Castro groups that the CIA decided to create, but it wasn?t until 1960 that he was assigned a more specific and overt mission: to guarantee the security of the process of recruiting Cubans to form an invasion brigade, a key aspect within the grand CIA operation to destroy the Cuban Revolution.

The CIA Texan quickly took a liking to the Cuban assigned to him for his new mission. The system of work, although intense, was simple. Féliz Rodríguez Mendigutía, "El Gato," would propose a candidate to him, who would then be checked out, both in the Agency and among the Miami groups, and finally, the Texan would give the go-ahead.

In that period, Félix Rodríguez already knew quite a few Cubans, like Jorge Mas Canosa (subsequently the leader of various counterrevolutionary organizations and then president of the Cuban-American National Foundation) and had confirmed his loyalty to "the cause" and to the Americans. For that reason he was among the first to be proposed. He passed through the process satisfactorily, and in a meeting in the city of Miami, which the Texan liked to make as formal as possible, Jorge Mas Canosa officially became an agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Jorge Mas didn?t know how to thank Félix for what he had done for him. From that moment he was constantly grateful to him and, at the same time, obedient to his every petition.

But Jorge Mas was far from imagining the significance of this recruitment on the rest of his life. The significance rested on the fact that that Texan officer who undertook his recruitment process, approved it and then notified him at that meeting, was none other than George Herbert Walker Bush, the same man who, later, between 1989 and 1992, was the 41st president of the United States.

SNIP

In an article published in The Realist magazine, the investigator Paul Kangas affirms:

"Among other members of the CIA recruited by George Bush for the (Bay of Pigs) invasion) were Frank Sturgis, Howard Hunt, Bernard Baker and Rafael Quintero? On the day that JFK was assassinated, Hunt and some of the subsequent Watergate team were photographed in Dallas, as well as a group of Cubans, one of them with an opened umbrella as a signal, alongside the president?s limousine, right where Kennedy was shot? Hunt and Sturgis fired on JFK from a grassy knoll. They were photographed and seen by 15 witnesses."



_________________________________
NOTE: Who are Snrs. Taladrin and Baredo?: granma.cu -CUBA. Granma Internacional Digital. ... BY REINALDO TALADRID and LAZARO BAREDO ... Editor-in-chief: Lázaro Barredo Medina / Editor: Gabriel Molina ...
www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/enero/vier13/4familia-i.html - 55k - Cached - Similar pages

Who would know better than the Cubans, at least among those who are still alive and willing to talk about it? Judge their credibility for yourself. Sempre Caveat Emptor

[ngant17]

31. no secret that Posada was CIA, but...

anytime there is additional confirmation of that fact, it tends make all the other accusations (against him) seem much more credible. As if there was ever any reason to doubt them.

The fact of the matter is that he is fugitive terrorist, a mass-murderer, with an outstanding warrant against him, an extradition treaty exists between USA and Venezuela, and B%$# is violating international law by continuing to harbor this dispicable piece of garbage.

The evidence against him from the original trial in Venezuela which put him in prison, it is extremely detailed and for the most part uncontestable. He organized the crime, he was in direct contact with the agents who planted the bomb on the plane, the military explosive C-4 was supplied to him by US or CIA personell. People have been found guily with far less evidence to convict them.

There's no way he would be tortured in a Venezuelan prison. That would be playing into the hands of Washington in the first place. Once returned to the jail where he belongs, it's reasonable that he'll get 23 hours of solitary confinement per day, maybe less as I don't know much about the Venezuela laws on convicted terrorists who escaped from prison. Unlikely he will get the death penalty unless he was put on trial in Havana, which is where he should face justice in the first place.

[Mika]

32. Nice. The U of Miami directly in the mix also.

Always was. Still is.

Now the cover name is Casa Bacardi.


--


click the pic to find out why

[Gabi Hayes]

35. great stuff, but this is such an old story. see below for more

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:WMU6vJ07BA8J:www.onlinejournal.com/archive/03-01-01_Smith.pdf+online+journal+bosch&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

http://www.onlinejournal.org/Commentary/070205Crumpacker/070205crumpacker.html

http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/091005Crumpacker/091005crumpacker.html

http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/051905Castillo/051905castillo.html

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1457

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/09/148243

[seafan]

36. Great additional links, thanks! This sordid story will be new to many.

*Co cannot hide much longer.