Mission Viejo, the CIA, wacky Republicans, and spooks for tots

At the last meeting of the board of trustees of the SOCCCD, board members referred chirpily to Mission Viejo’s new status as the third safest city in the country. That, at any rate, was the honor conferred on MV by the research firm Morgan Quinto, which relied on FBI statistics. A less chirpy reference to MV’s No. 3 spot occurred later in the evening, when trustee John “Junket Boy” Williams promoted the idea of purchasing a fancy new surveillance system for the district. That prompted Trustee Nancy Padberg to ask why a college in the third safest city in the country needs to spend big dough on surveillance and Trustee Bill Jay to squeal that it sure does get scary at night.

Williams blathered about how a kid was once murdered in the Saddleback parking lot.

WELL, I’VE BEEN CATCHING UP ON MY READING, and I came across Nick Schou’s perverse response to this “3rd safest city” blarney. (OC Weekly—Not so boring: a brief history of crime in OC’s “safest” city.)

According to Schou, “For a town with such a short history, [Mission Viejo has] been home to a healthy number of victims, perpetrators and events pertaining to some truly sensational crimes.”

I won’t review Schou’s historical survey, which stretches from 1966 (crime 1: it’s Mission Vieja, not Mission Viejo!) to 2005 (a Homeland Security officer shoots a kid in the head for making too much noise).

But, for 1986, we do hear about the tragic parking lot murder to which Williams referred:

1986: On Jan. 18, Andrew Urdiales, a Camp Pendleton Marine, stabs Robbin Brandley, a 23-year-old Saddleback Community College student, in the school parking lot. Urdiales goes on to commit several more murders in the next 10 years before being arrested after trying to kidnap a Chicago-area prostitute. During his trial, Urdiales argues that the CIA was giving him orders through a transmitter in his head.

Oh, I get it now. If we woulda had that fancy surveillance equipment, we coulda transmitted “just say no” into Urdiales’ head.

Also in 1986, according to Schou, drug cops raided the home of Republican fundraiser (and, incidentally, seller of fancy security systems) Ronald Lister, where they found “boxes of ammunition, police scanners, documents pertaining to Lister’s international security work for right-wing regimes in Latin America—but no drugs.” Lister, who claimed (to local cops) that he worked for the CIA, later served prison time for cocaine trafficking.

These local Republicans are really something, aren’t they?

Schou next brings us to 1997:

1997: Steven J. Frogue, a high school history teacher and member of the local school district board of trustees, tries to get his colleagues to sign off on his proposed Saddleback Community College course on the greatest “unsolved” crime in U.S. history—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Frogue’s hypothesis: Jews killed Kennedy. Frogue draws additional controversy by speaking favorably of the Orange County-based Institute for Historical Review, which denies that the greatest crime in history—the Nazi Holocaust—ever took place. Amid cries of anti-Semitism, Frogue never gets to teach his class.

Wait a minute! Schou forgets to mention that, according to trustee Frogue, or at least according to Frogue's pal Michael Collins Piper, those zany Jews were in collusion with—yes, you guessed it!—the CIA! And didn't Frogue sometimes yammer about a link between the CIA and the burning of the IHR's headquarters? Yup. (See Frogue & Holocaust denial.)

The CIA again? Plus, aren't the "Cia" people the ones who sell those goofy clay figures that you spread sprout seeds on so you can watch "hair" grow? You see those things all over the district!

OK, I can take a hint. Just for laughs, I Googled “CIA” and “Mission Viejo.” This quickly brought me to the Saddleback College website, and, more specifically, to the “career service center’s webpage links.” There, one (namely, one who is a student looking for a career) is told to click among seventeen categories, one of which is:

International Employment, CIA and IRS Information.

I clicked on that, and it led me to this link: About the Central Intelligence Agency.

I clicked again, and, naturally, I arrived at the CIA’s surprisingly gemütlich website. In pleasantly purple highlight, one finds these sections:

About the CIA (subheading: “CIA Today”!)

Iraqi Rewards Program (No, I'm not making this up. Is that funny, or what? Plus the entire site appears to be written in Arabic!)

What’s New at CIA

And my personal favorite:

CIA’s Homepage for Kids (Coloring books, spy rings, I think.)

Under “What’s New,” one finds a highly chirpy announcement of President Bush’s October signing of the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006.

You know the one. It’s more commonly known as the “Death of Habeas Corpus.”

According to Yale’s Professor Bruce Ackerman, the MCA

"authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.” (Military Commissions Act)

Ain’t it great that Saddleback College directs students to this nifty website? Pretty tantalizing! And educational!

Naturally, I used the CIA’s handy “quick search” to look up Mission Viejo. It coughed up two hairballs:

1: CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy
page 2
2: CIA-Contra-Crack Cocaine Controversy
page 1

These appear to be reports based on internal investigations re the Mission Viejo/Ronald Lister case, which is part of the larger case/story re the alleged link between the CIA and drug traffickers. (Part of Iran/Contra.)

You remember:

In August of 1996 the San Jose Mercury News published [reporter Gary] Webb's "Dark Alliance", a 20,000 word, three-part investigative series which alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold and distributed crack cocaine in Los Angeles during the 1980s, and that drug profits were used to fund the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras. Webb never asserted that the CIA directly aided drug dealers to raise money for the Contras, but he did document that the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of cocaine into the U.S. by the Contra personnel (Webb's 1999 book, Dark Alliance, substantiated these allegations with copious references). (Wiki on Gary Webb)

Webb’s assertions and reporting were highly controversial. When his paper (the SJMN) backed away from Webb’s big story, it essentially destroyed his career.

Webb was not yet 50 years old when, in 2004, he died of two gunshots to the face. This was judged to be a “suicide.”

[UPDATE 11/12/06: As it turns out, Nick Schou has written a book about Webb, his career, and his sad end. See the most recent OC Weekly.]

OK, so what does all of this add up to?

Hell if I know. Have a nice weekend.