John Rees (journalist)

Last updated

John Herbert Rees
Bornc. 1926
United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Other namesJohn Seeley, John O’Connor
Occupation(s) Journalist, publisher, private intelligence operative
SpouseSheila Louise O'Connor/Rees [1]

John Herbert Rees is a British right-wing journalist and government informant resident in the United States. [2] He was active in the Western Goals Foundation and the John Birch Society. [3] [4]

Contents

Biography

Rees was born in Britain. [4] [5] In the early 1960s, Rees worked in a business position for the London Daily Mirror, but was fired for misusing personal accounts, according to an FBI memo. Agents in the FBI office at the London U.S. Embassy also found that during 1962 Rees, who was married and had five children, was dating an FBI stenographer, who resigned. [4] [6] Rees moved to the United States in 1963 for a reporting job that fell through. [4] [5]

Rees became the lover of Peyton Place author Grace Metalious. Metalious, who had cirrhosis from heavy drinking, changed her will hours before her death at age 39 in 1964, and left her whole estate to Rees. There was a public furor, and Rees dropped claims to the estate, which was insolvent. [6] [4]

Rees remarried. He launched at a job training program in Newark, New Jersey, in 1967; it was partly funded by the United States Labor Department, which cut off funding when it determined Rees had overcharged the city. [4] Rees became a police informant in Newark. He began his newsletter Information Digest in 1967. [4] He also marketed his new organization called National Goals, "specializing in areas of education, training and law enforcement". He sought work with the FBI, which rebuffed him, determining in a 1968 internal memo that he was unethical. [4] [5] Rees went undercover in Chicago, covertly taping political meetings for testimony he gave to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). [4] He married his third wife, Sheila Louise O'Connor, and they moved to Washington in 1971. [4] He was a police informant in Washington. [4] She became an office manager at the National Lawyers Guild, which was representing activists and antiwar groups; he gave internal Guild documents to the FBI. [4] In 1975, Congressman Larry McDonald hired Rees to his office staff. [4]

Rees traded information with police and informants, publishing some of it in Information Digest. [5] Political Research Associates said Rees's network had better placed infiltrators among college activist campus groups than the FBI's agents. [7] Ross Gelbspan wrote that the FBI began to work with Rees around 1980. [5] Rees forwarded information to the Director of Intelligence at FBI headquarters, especially when there was a credible risk to students. From there it would be forwarded to field offices. These activities were part of a network of private right-wing groups that the FBI used to gather intelligence on cults active on campus, government critics and activists opposed to the Reagan Administration's foreign policy in Central America. [8]

In 1976, an investigation by the New York State Assembly concluded that police had used reports published by Rees in Information Digest to assemble dossiers on many activists who had committed no crimes. [5]

In 1979, Rees worked with McDonald and John K. Singlaub to create the Western Goals Foundation, where Rees's title was editor. [7] Rees set up the foundation's computer database to track suspected radicals, and wrote many of the foundation's published reports about domestic subversives, terrorism and communist threats. People in law enforcement sometimes leaked derogatory intelligence to Western Goals, which Rees then published in newsletters. These in turn were entered into the Congressional Record by McDonald, which shielded him from libel. Western Goals would then cite McDonald's statements in its own public reports. [3] Rees left Western Goals in 1983 after McDonald's death. [3] [5]

Rees founded the Maldon Institute, a nonprofit funded by the Scaife family. [3]

Nancy Reagan greets Rees and Linda Guell of Western Goals Nancy Reagan greets John H. Rees and Grace Metalious.jpeg
Nancy Reagan greets Rees and Linda Guell of Western Goals

Publishing

Rees was associated with Review of the News and American Opinion, published by the John Birch Society, with which Rees was an active collaborator. [9]

Rees published Information Digest, a newsletter that touted reporting on "the operations and real capabilities of social movements and political groups". Annual subscriptions were $500. According to The Village Voice, copies circulated among intelligence officials and conservative politicians including Ronald Reagan. [4] Rees was noted for criticizing Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement, which he wrote had "taken on the characteristics more of a political cult than a political party" and a cult-like "blind obedience." [10]

Rees launched and managed another newsletter, International Reports: Early Warning. [11] Rees was also an editor for Conservative Digest magazine. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COINTELPRO</span> Series of covert and illegal projects by the FBI

COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive, including feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights and Black power movements, environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements, a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the far-right group National States' Rights Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cold War espionage</span> Aspect of the Cold War

Cold War espionage describes the intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War between the Western allies and the Eastern Bloc. Both relied on a wide variety of military and civilian agencies in this pursuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyndon LaRouche</span> American political activist (1922–2019)

Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. was an American political activist who founded the LaRouche movement and its main organization, the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He was a prominent conspiracy theorist and perennial presidential candidate. He began in far-left politics but in the 1970s moved to the far-right. His movement is sometimes described as, or likened to, a cult. Convicted of fraud, he served five years in prison from 1989 to 1994.

Western Goals Foundation was a private domestic intelligence agency active in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by Major General John K. Singlaub, the publisher and spy John H. Rees, and Congressman Larry McDonald. It went defunct in 1986 when the Tower Commission revealed it had been part of Oliver North's Iran–Contra funding network.

The National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) is a political organization in the United States founded and controlled by political activist Lyndon LaRouche until his 2019 death. LaRouche sometimes described the NCLC as a "philosophical association". It is the main organization within the LaRouche movement. LaRouche was the association's leader, and the political views of the NCLC are virtually indistinguishable from those of LaRouche.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">U.S. Labor Party</span> Political party in United States

The U.S. Labor Party (USLP) was an American political party formed in 1973 by the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). It served as a vehicle for Lyndon LaRouche to run for President of the United States in 1976, but it also sponsored many candidates for local offices as well as congressional and Senate seats between 1972 and 1979. After that the political arm of the NCLC was the National Democratic Policy Committee. The party was the subject of a number of controversies and lawsuits during its short existence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LaRouche criminal trials</span> 1980s United States state and federal fraud trials

The LaRouche criminal trials in the mid-1980s stemmed from federal and state investigations into the activities of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche and members of his movement. They were charged with conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting loans they had no intention of repaying. LaRouche and his supporters disputed the charges, claiming the trials were politically motivated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Informant</span> Person who provides information

An informant is a person who provides privileged information, or information intended to be intimate, concealed, or secret, about a person or organization to an agency, often a government or law enforcement agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informants are officially known as confidential human sources (CHS), or criminal informants (CI). It can also refer pejoratively to someone who supplies information without the consent of the involved parties. The term is commonly used in politics, industry, entertainment, and academia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterintelligence Corps</span> Former intelligence agency within the United States Army

The Counter Intelligence Corps was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army consisting of highly trained special agents. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and, in 1967, by the United States Army Intelligence Agency. Its functions are now performed by its modern-day descendant organization, United States Army Counterintelligence. The National Counter Intelligence Corps Association (NCICA), a veterans' association, was established in the years immediately following World War II by former military intelligence agents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris Childs</span> Ukrainian-American activist

Morris H. Childs was a Ukrainian-American political activist and American Communist Party functionary who became a Soviet espionage agent (1929) and then a double agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1952) until leaving both services by 1982. Beginning in 1958, Childs acted as a secret courier on behalf of the American party, briefing Soviet officials on political affairs in the American party and carrying funds to support the American Communist movement from Moscow to New York City, reporting details all the while to his FBI handlers. Over the course of two decades of activity in this role, Childs played a major part in the transfer of more than $28 million in Soviet subsidies to the American movement. For his activity as a courier on behalf of the Soviet government, Childs was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1975. His work as a spy for the American intelligence community was recognized in 1987 when Childs was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chip Berlet</span> American political analyst (born 1949)

John Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, research analyst, photojournalist, scholar, and activist specializing in the study of extreme right-wing movements in the United States. He also studies the spread of conspiracy theories. Since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Berlet has regularly appeared in the media to discuss extremist news stories. He was a senior analyst at Political Research Associates (PRA), a non-profit group that tracks right-wing networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stefan Halper</span> American foreign policy scholar

Stefan A. Halper is an American foreign policy scholar and retired senior fellow at the University of Cambridge where he is a life fellow at Magdalene College. He served as a White House official in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations, and was reportedly in charge of the spying operation by the 1980 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign that became known as "Debategate". Through his decades of work for the CIA, Halper has had extensive ties to the Bush family. Through his work with Sir Richard Billing Dearlove, he had ties to the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LaRouche movement</span> Political movement promoting Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas

The LaRouche movement is a political and cultural network promoting the late Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas. It has included many organizations and companies around the world, which campaign, gather information and publish books and periodicals. LaRouche-aligned organizations include the National Caucus of Labor Committees, the Schiller Institute, the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement and, formerly, the U.S. Labor Party. The LaRouche movement has been called "cult-like" by The New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fusion Energy Foundation</span> American think tank co-founded by Lyndon LaRouche

Fusion Energy Foundation (FEF) was an American non-profit think tank co-founded by Lyndon LaRouche in 1974 in New York. It promoted the construction of nuclear power plants, research into fusion power and beam weapons and other causes. The FEF was called fusion's greatest private supporter. It was praised by scientists like John Clarke, who said that the fusion community owed it a "debt of gratitude". By 1980, its main publication, Fusion, claimed 80,000 subscribers.

Roy Everett Frankhouser, Jr. was a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, a member of the American Nazi Party, a government informant, and a security consultant to Lyndon LaRouche. Frankhouser was reported by federal officials to have been arrested at least 142 times. In 2003 he told a reporter, "I'm accused of everything from the sinking of the Titanic to landing on the moon." He was convicted of federal crimes in at least three cases, including dealing in stolen explosives and obstruction of justice. Irwin Suall, of the Anti-Defamation League, called Frankhouser "a thread that runs through the history of American hate groups".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spygate (conspiracy theory)</span> Conspiracy theory by Donald Trump that the FBI improperly spied on him

Spygate was a disproven conspiracy theory peddled by 45th U.S. president Donald Trump and his political base on many occasions throughout his presidential term. It primarily centered around the idea that a spy was planted by the Obama administration to conduct espionage on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign for political purposes. On May 17, 2018, Trump tweeted: "Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI "SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT." In that tweet, he quoted Andrew C. McCarthy, who had just appeared on Fox & Friends repeating assertions from his own May 12 article for National Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance in the United States</span>

The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists, then deemed subversive, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.

Seth Rosenfeld is an American journalist. He is the author of Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power, published in hardback in 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in paperback in 2013 by Picador. Subversives was a New York Times best-seller and won the 2013 Ridenhour Prize for books; PEN Center USA's Literary Award for Research Nonfiction; the National Society of Professional Journalists' Sunshine Award; and the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

Christopher David Steele is a British former intelligence officer with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1987 until his retirement in 2009. He ran the Russia desk at MI6 headquarters in London between 2006 and 2009. In 2009, he co-founded Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based private intelligence firm.

Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD) is a national not-for-profit advocacy organization in the United States, dedicated to defending civil liberties, exposing government repression, and protecting the right of political dissent. DRAD was formed as the merger of the Defending Dissent Foundation (DDF) and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC). DRAD is currently active in defending the right to protest, opposing political surveillance, and campaigning against the prosecution of national security whistleblowers.

References

  1. ↑ Staff writer (Spring 1976). "Congressional Aide Spies on Left." CounterSpy , vol. 3, no. 1. p. 18. Full issue.
  2. ↑ Levin, Hillel (Oct. 7, 1978). "Spies as Newsmen: The Information Digest Ploy." The Nation , vol. 227, no. 11. pp. 342-348.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Dorfman, Zach (2 December 2018). "The Congressman Who Created His Own Deep State. Really". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Rosenfeld, Seth (16 August 1983). "Rees, Reagan, and the Digest Smear: The Spy Who Came Down on the Freeze". The Village Voice. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gelbspan, Ross (1991). Break-ins, death threats, and the FBI: The covert war against the Central America movement (1st ed.). Boston: South End Press. ISBN   0-89608-413-2. OCLC   23079735.
  6. 1 2 Callahan, Michael (Jan. 22, 2007). "Peyton Place's Real Victim." Vanity Fair . Archived from the original.
  7. 1 2 Berlet, Chip (Feb. 2, 1993). "The Hunt for Red Menace." Political Research Associates . Archived from the original.
  8. ↑ Gelbspan, Ross (Mar. 15, 1988). "Groups Give FBI Data on Foes of U.S. Latin Policies." Boston Globe .
  9. ↑ Staff writer (Mar. 1989). "Western Goals Foundation." Interhemispheric Resource Center/International Relations Center. Archived from the original.
  10. ↑ Mints, John (Jan. 14, 1985). "Ideological Odyssey: From Old Left to Far Right." Washington Post . Archived from the original.
  11. ↑ Lamb, Brian (Jun. 29, 1984). "International Affairs." Interview with John Rees. C-SPAN .
  12. ↑ Diamond, Sara (1995). Roads to dominion : right-wing movements and political power in the United States. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN   0-89862-862-8. OCLC   32199293.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.