The Times (UK)
May 14, 2003

Firm Was 'Cover for CIA'

by Ian Cobain

AS BEFITS a company that has been accused of being a CIA front, of recruiting "executive mercenaries" and attempting to overthrow the Prime Minister of a Commonwealth state, the Vinnell Corporation kept a low profile in Riyadh. . . .

In the early Eighties Time magazine reported that two employees were embroiled in a failed attempt to overthrow Maurice Bishop, the left-wing Prime Minister of Grenada, and soon after that a former employee was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal.

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["Former Central Intelligence Agency operative Wilbur Crane Eveland, author of the autobiographical Ropes of Sand, America's Failure in the Middle East, died Jan. 2 at the age of 71 in Boston's Dana Farber Cancer Institute. A major player in CIA covert activities in the Middle East after 1953, Eveland paid a severe personal price for publicly expressing over the past 14 years his "respectful dissent" from the conduct of US foreign policy in the Middle East. . . .

He was in Rome through most of the 1960s where, under cover as vice president of Vinnell Corporation, he carried Vinnell/Defense Department ID with GS-18 status, making him the equivalent of a lieutenant general."--Mary Barrett, "A Respectful Dissenter: CIA's Wilbur Crane Eveland," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1990, Page 28]

["The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the attacks this week in Saudi Arabia were meant to hit one US company in particular - the Vinnell Corporation, . . . company has a controversial history with the Saudis - Vinnell has been the subject of a Congressional inquiry and there have been questions about a possible tie to the CIA. . . . For years it was owned by the Carlyle group, a defense and investment house close to the Bush family. Several former Republican cabinet ministers sat on Carlyle's board."--Matthew Clark and Tom Regan, "Saudi strike directed at US company," Christian Science Monitor, May 15, 2003]

"CIA may be behind Saudi bombing: Ka Roger," Sun Star (Philippines), May 16, 2003

"Dogs Of War Inc. - A $300 Billion Dollar Business," Information Clearing House, May 18, 2003

[The source described Vinnell as "our own little mercenary army in Vietnam."--William D. Hartung, "Bombings Put 'Executive Mercenaries' In Spotlight," Independent Media Institute, May 19, 2003]

Gordon Thomas, "CIA Accused Of Bank Heist," American Free Press

Craig Unger, "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties," Scribner, March 16, 2004