.id AA26227; Thu, 15 Dec 94 06:14:01 CST
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 06:14:00 -0600 (CST)
Subject: AIDS: Epidemic or Weapon of War? (2/3)


                                Part II
 
        One of the things that I indicated at the beginning is that I'm 
not going to concentrate past a point on medical and scientific 
evidence.  I have had people whose opinions I trust advise me in some of 
these matters.  But as I indicated before, it would be pretentious and 
intellectually dishonest for me to hold forth on medical and scientific 
evidence past a certain point.  
        By the way, for those of you taking notes, Radio Free America #16 
has most, not all, of the information.  There are some things I have not 
had a chance to put in there, but most of it is.  But this lecture is 
being taped.  Paul will have tapes of this lecture at Archives on Audio.  
So you can always get a hold of the tapes and peruse them at your will.  
[Archives on Audio, Post Office Box 170023, San Francisco, California  
94117-0023; telephone (415) 346-1840; e-mail <archives@igc.apc.org>.]
        One of the major factors that I think may, and other scientific 
people think may loom in the consideration of AIDS is what is known as 
cross-vectoring.  A lot of people have asked why is it that people can 
become HIV infected and some people will get sick and some people don't.  
AIDS related complex, Kaposi's Sarcoma , AIDS related pneumonia, it 
appears to be really a series of different diseases.  The only common 
denominator is the HIV.  
        One of the things that's been suggested is that AIDS really 
results from cross-vectoring.  In other words you don't get AIDS or some 
of the AIDS related diseases unless you are infected with several 
different organisms, including HIV.  That obviously would be quite 
utilitarian from the standpoint of biological warfare.  Just say 
arbitrarily, if you need five organisms to get a particular disease or 
the interaction of three, you could infect the population with one or two 
of these and then when you want to get rid of someone or a group of 
people, then you give them the magic bullet or the magic virus, no pun 
intended here.  You give them HIV and out they go.  That is one of the 
things that has been suggested in connection with AIDS.
        Another major factor, one of the scientific aspects that I think 
is most compelling, and it's the one I'm going to discuss at greatest 
length this evening, is the epidemiology of AIDS.  That is to say, the 
study of how the disease is spread.  The single most compelling piece of 
information from a medical and scientific standpoint, and again the 
relationship between SIV and HIV2 is something that I believe is very 
significant.  But not being qualified in genetics or biotechnology, I 
cannot critically evaluate that past a point.  But the epidemiology of 
AIDS makes no sense.  We have been told that the disease has existed as 
far back as 1959 and that it wasn't discovered until 1981.  That is 
absolutely incredible.  We are told that the disease appeared in Great 
Britain in 1959 and in the United States in 1969.
        The study of diseases, epidemiology, is such that if it appeared 
in the third world, anywhere in the third world, even areas where public 
health care is not good, it would have been detected.  You are going to 
hear a talk in just a second by a fellow named Dr. Wilbert Jordan of 
Martin Luther King Hospital in Los Angeles.  Dr. Jordan is an 
epidemiologist.  He is going to talk about some of the profound anomalies 
and some of the contradictions in the official version of the 
epidemiology of AIDS.  
        As he pointed out, loss of fever, which occurred in Nigeria, I 
believe it was in 1969, at the time there were something like a half 
dozen cases of it.  Every airport in the United States was on alert, was 
on quarantine for this disease.  Other diseases have appeared in the 
third world and after only a few cases, the diseases were identified and 
people were on alert for them.
        He points out that in most places in the third world, due to poor 
nutrition and also due to the fact that there are other infectious 
organisms which have compromised the immune systems of those people, a 
disease like AIDS which is incredibly deadly would have spread very, very 
quickly and very noticeably.  
        Again, we have also been told that AIDS came from the Green 
Monkey, that supposedly a monkey bit someone and this is how the disease 
got started.  Well, the Green Monkey has been eaten as a staple of the 
natives where it lives.  The notion that a monkey could have bitten 
somebody and given it to them that way when the people have been eating 
the monkey all this time, it's actually sort of a man bites dog 
situation.  It is a little bit too much to believe.  It should also be 
noted that AIDS when it first got going, and this information is somewhat 
dated now, was heterosexual in Africa, heterosexual in Haiti, and yet it 
effected primarily gays in the United States.  Another thing which is not 
covered by Dr. Jordan in the discussion that you are going to hear, is 
that another group which has suffered very, very heavily from AIDS are 
Native Americans, American Indians on reservations.  Now that just 
doesn't compute.  If you know anything about Native Americans on the 
reservation, it's not considered all that cool for a white person to be 
caught on a reservation after dark.  This is in no way to cast aspersions 
on Indians or Native Americans.  But the fact of the matter is because of 
the legacy of oppression that the Native Americans have experienced at 
the hands of the white race, they are not really crazy about it.  It's 
not advisable for the average white person to get caught on a reservation 
after dark. 
        The epidemiology of this country just doesn't compute.  How do we 
have heterosexuals in Africa, heterosexuals in Haiti, and homosexuals and 
Native Americans in the United States?  This is basically, or so we've 
been told, a venereal disease, basically.  I just don't see a whole lot 
of American gays flocking to Native American reservations in order to 
have sex with Indians.  It just doesn't compute.  And how come it's 
heterosexual in Africa?
        One of the things I've learned as a political researcher over the 
years is that basically the story of the Emperor's New Clothes is a very 
important consideration.  You all know the story of the Emperor's New 
Clothes.  The Emperor wanted an outfit of magnificent clothes and 
basically was fooled by the local tailor.  He was told that he had a 
marvelous suit.  But in fact he was wearing nothing.  He was walking 
around buck naked.  The fact of the matter is nobody would say that the 
guy was naked, because it was just too embarrassing.  
        The same basic thing holds true with political research.  People 
are afraid to use common sense.  But the fact of the matter is that the 
principle of the Emperor's New Clothes applies.  People are told that the 
Emperor has this marvelous new ermine cape, then they're not going to ask 
about that thing hanging down there.  They're going to be told that's an 
ermine tail and they'll believe it, too.  
        It's basically worth noting the principle from the Wizard of Oz:  
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.  You want to pay 
attention to the man behind the curtain.
        The epidemiology of AIDS as we have been told it exists just 
doesn't compute.  I would note that the three countries in the third 
world that first became seriously infected with AIDS were Zaire in 
Africa, Haiti, and Granada in the Caribbean, all of which are U.S. 
sponsored dictatorships.  Now it has since spread much farther in the 
third world, as it has in the United States.  But that is worth noting.
        I would also underscore a point that Dr. Jordan makes which is 
that Haiti is on the same island as the Dominican Republic, which did not 
at least at first experience a major AIDS outbreak.  Both countries are 
on the island of Hispanola, separated by a mountain chain.  But how can 
you have AIDS ravaging Haiti, but you don't have AIDS ravaging the 
Dominican Republic?
        The third section of the lecture this evening, I am going to talk 
about some of the motivational factors that I believe propelled this 
disease and propelled the people who developed it to develop it.  Racism 
and extermination have a great deal to do with it.  It's worth noting 
that the epidemiology just doesn't compute with AIDS.  
        Having said that, I'm going to play a tape now.  By the way, this 
information is also in Radio Free America #16.  This is a discussion that 
was originally conducted on KPFA radio station by Rayna Cowan.  She 
interviewed Dr. Wilbur Jordan, again an epidemiologist with Martin Luther 
King Hospital in Los Angeles about AIDS.
        The following was taped off of KPFA's Traffic Jam program on 
Monday, December 16, 1984 between the hours of 4:30 PM and 5:15 PM, 
Pacific Standard Time:
 
        Rayna Cowan (RC):        "The reason why I played that song is 
because 'Some Day My Prince Will Come' is not actually something you can 
look forward to.  One of the growing diseases in the United States today 
is AIDS.  With me on the phone right now I have a person who is an expert 
in many different aspects of AIDS.  He is the director of graduate 
medical education at Martin Luther King Hospital in Los Angeles.  He is 
the former Public Health Chief for the Southern Area of Los Angeles 
County.  He has had training in infectious diseases.  I want to welcome 
Dr. Wilbur Jordan to the airwaves.  Good afternoon, Doctor.
        Dr. Wilbur Jordan (WJ):  Thank you.  Good afternoon.        
        RC:  I had heard about you originally from a friend of mine who 
was in UCLA Medical School who studied with you.  You had done a lot of 
research on infectious diseases.  Right now we have more and more 
information coming out about infectious diseases, where they come from 
and how they start.  I am especially interested in AIDS.  I wanted to get 
the information of somebody who is an expert in epidemiology.  Why don't 
you begin telling me exactly what epidemiologists study and how this 
relates to learning about AIDS.
        WJ:  Epidemiology is the study of diseases and disease trends, 
and trying to determine where the disease comes from, how long it takes 
it to go through a complete cycle, its virulence, how potent it can be, 
etc.  So an epidemiologist really studies the causes and effects of the 
disease.  He or she doesn't necessarily treat the disease.  Some are also 
medically trained, as I am.  Many have a Master's in Public Health or a 
Doctorate in Public Health and may not necessarily be physicians.  But 
they study disease trends, disease outbreaks and not treat the 
individual.  They look at the overall disease in a cluster, rather than 
individual cases.
        RC:  Well, I can't really say what kind of diseases you have 
studied.  But your expertise, what has it proved about certain diseases, 
especially in the past few years?  Diseases like AIDS or the 
Legionnaire's Disease are considered new diseases and we've never 
experienced them before.
        WJ:  Right.
        RC:  What does that actually mean?  How can a disease really come 
out of nowhere.
        WJ:  Well, it isn't that it comes out of nowhere.  We have to 
explain where it comes from.  We see Swine Flu develop.  We have the flu 
vaccine every year.  And it changes all the time.  Influenza is a 
changing virus, which is why we give it names like Hong Kong, Brazil, 
Tokyo, Influenza A Tokyo, because a new strain is found in that area and 
we always name it for that.  So that is nothing new.  We have diseases 
that are developing all the time.  
        Some of the things that are interesting about AIDS, though, to me 
is the lack of attention as to where it has come from.  We tend to keep 
looking outside of the United States shores.  I personally, as your 
friend may have told you, question some of the present theories as to 
where AIDS comes from just using common sense.  One doesn't have to be an 
epidemiologist.  Just look at what we see and ask some questions.  
        This is a disease.  It has a high morbidity.  It is deadly.  It 
is the most impressive and critical crisis we have had in public health 
in any of our generations, whether you are seventy or whether you are 
seven.  This is worse than polio.  Even Small Pox, I would dare say, was 
not as critical as this is right now.  
        But I don't think we are really looking at some of the very 
simple questions in terms of where did this come from.  And that is where 
I disagree with some other people.
        RC:  When you mention where it comes from, I have heard stories 
that it comes from rabbits from Southern Japan.  I've heard it comes from 
monkeys from Haiti.  I've heard that it started in Haiti or Zaire.  There 
are many theories about where it started.
        WJ:  That's one thing about the American personality.  We think 
of ourselves as being better than everybody else.  So whenever something 
bad happens, we say, 'Where did it come from?' assuming it couldn't have 
come from here.  I think the Haitian theory was really ridiculous.  It's 
a disease that is basically effecting Americans.  Over eighty-five 
percent of all cases in the world still, and we are now in the sixth year 
of this disease, is American.  It is an American disease.  Most of the 
cases in Europe or outside of this country, you can trace back to having 
had contact with someone in this country.  The only atypical ones are the 
ones in France that can be traced back to Zaire, which has been 
different.  But for the most part, the European cases were traced back to 
the United States.
        So you have a disease that is effecting a reasonably large number 
of people with a very high mortality rate.  At this point those who even 
live to get out of the hospital the first time have a life expectancy of 
about two years.  The overwhelming majority in the United States, three 
main areas particularly, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.  
That's unusual.  Viruses, bacteria don't do that.  
        Diseases don't create themselves, don't become born in one 
country, get on a plane or a boat, go to a second country, become 
epidemic for two or three years, and then be found retrospectively in the 
first country.  And I say this because of what was said about Haiti.  The 
first five hundred cases we knew about in this country, there were no 
cases in Haiti.  And those persons who had it hadn't been to Haiti, 
hadn't been around any Haitians.  San Francisco is epidemic right now.  
You don't have many Haitians there.  In fact, if you have any cases, I 
think it's been one or two who are Haitians.  In American cities that 
have large numbers of Haitians, i.e., Washington, D. C., Boston, 
Philadelphia, you don't have many cases of AIDS.  Miami is a port that 
has them and so does New York, but your other major cities that have 
large Haitian populations, don't have large cases of AIDS.
        RC:  So where do you think AIDS does come from?
        WJ:  I think we have to look at our own forty-eight states to ask 
where did it come from.  I say that because if you look at Haiti again.  
Let's look at Haiti.  If we accept that theory, that means either someone 
from here went there and got it and brought it back, or someone from 
there brought it to this country.  Right?
        RC:  Yes.
        WJ:  Well, if you accept someone from here went there, the first 
cases were in white homosexual males, the majority.  Then, I would have 
to ask, one, why only white homosexual males from New York, San 
Francisco, and Los Angeles.  Frankly, those white homosexual males who 
travel to Haiti for an adventurous trip don't tend to get involved with a 
dirty looking native boy, to sound very whatever.  Certainly a large 
number of white homo- and heterosexual from Europe also go to Haiti.  If 
it was from someone going to Haiti from this country, then, one, why the 
predominance in those three cities; and two, why didn't we see it also in 
Europe since you have whites from Europe also going to Haiti and no one 
there took it back.  I have to postulate that the virus only liked white 
homosexual males from New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.  That's a 
very, very particular virus.  I don't buy that.
        If you tell me that someone from Haiti brought it over here, I 
say one, it's interesting.  We never heard of it being in Haiti until we 
had the Haitians put in concentration camps in Florida.  Then suddenly it 
was backtracking and cited in Haiti.  Two, the average Haitian and the 
above- and below-average Haitian who come to the United States move into 
a black Haitian community, which intermingles more with the routine black 
community, which has some association with the white community, and will 
finally find its way to the white gay community.  Haitians do not have a 
strong association with white male homosexuals.  So again, how does it 
get from the boat to the white gay male community in Los Angeles, San 
Francisco, and New York and bypassing the Haitian community and the black 
community, particularly in Los Angeles, where we've had no cases of it.  
That just makes no sense.
        You have a disease that is predominantly in Americans.  There are 
other cities, Chicago, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New 
Orleans, with very large gay populations, larger in number than San 
Francisco, but are not at all effected with this number of cases.  So it 
is not just numbers of homosexuals.  It is not just promiscuity.
        What is unique about those three cities is the fact that they 
have a very structured gay community, more than any other city.  I think 
that's interesting.  I think we need to be asking 'Is there an 
association with that fact?'  The three cities that we have rampant 
cases, a really high number of cases, and if you can rate it, these three 
cities have a more structured gay community.  Washington, D. C. has a 
very, very large gay community, but it's a very integrated gay 
community.  So does Chicago.  So does New Orleans.  But those three 
cities have a very identifiable gay communities.  Is that by accident or 
is that also coincidental?  
        I mean there are too many coincidences here for me to accept.  To 
me it points to this being a disease that is an American disease.  Now 
where it came from, one can speculate and go from one extreme to the 
other.  But I personally think it was something that we created in some 
kind of laboratory here.
        RC:  I think it's interesting that researchers are spending a lot 
of time trying to figure out where it came from.  And not that much money 
is being spent on research.  Some people are speculating on the idea that 
why is it certain gay populations.  You just mentioned that it's three 
urban centers that seem to be the ones that are getting it.  And the news 
media is playing up the fact of lifestyle.  There are other reasons.  
Well, you mentioned earlier the unification of these particular gay 
communities.  How do you think that could be used in some way, both to 
fight the disease and for somehow the disease to be brought in?
        WJ:  Well, I hope I can speak freely without offending someone.  
What is unique about white homosexual males, and I would separate them 
from black homosexual males, particularly is that they have tried to 
portray themselves as an ethnic group.  You have now a new ethnic group 
with no international ties.  It is an American ethnic group.  
        You really can't say that about black homosexuals because black 
homosexuals haven't been in the closet to come out of.  They've been out 
of the closet.  You can go to any black church in any major city and you 
will find people who everyone knows is gay, who is functioning, who has a 
very established role in churches and other organizations, too.  This 
again, to me, is a white male homosexual phenomena.
        The best way I can explain it is to give an example.  If I were 
to have or you were to give me a virus that had an effect on skin color 
and we said that this virus would make black people sterile, but it may 
turn white people green.  But, we need to test this.  We've seen it in 
rats.  We've seen it in monkeys.  Let's see if it will do what we think 
it will do in black people.  Well, I know there are certain places I can 
go in the black community where the people are basically total 
association, total lifestyle of black people.  I wouldn't go to Second 
Baptist Church in Los Angeles.  I wouldn't go to [unclear] Baptist Church 
in New York.  I don't know any names of the major churches in San 
Francisco, but my point, I wouldn't go to a place that had a very middle 
class type of black audience because those people would have contact the 
next day with whites.  So you would have an overflow into the white 
community right away.
        I do know where there are clubs.  I do know where there are 
[unclear] churches.  I do know where there are places I can go to in the 
black community where the people go first, second, third, and go probably 
four generations, their contacts are all black.  I don't know that about 
the gay community.  I think you have that same counterpart in New York, 
San Francisco, and Los Angeles.  You don't have it as much in Washington, 
Chicago, and other cities, but you have the numbers.  So somebody else 
may know what places they can go that you could do the same thing.  
        In some of the early cases of the disease you have a lot of 
interesting shows, particularly in San Francisco where there were nine 
people, all had been at one bar at a table.  One physician in San Franciso 
knew twenty of the first forty-five cases.  That's atypical.  There's no 
one physician in any city, even if he was himself a gay doctor or just 
served in the gay community, would know that just by accident.  That's 
strange.  
        There have been too many sort of strange things happen with this 
disease.  And one still can't account for the fact that now in 1984, 
we're going into 85, this disease started in 79, you still are seeing the 
same percentages stay in the same three cities.  No other disease does 
that.  Hepatitis didn't do that.  [unclear] didn't do that.  
        San Francisco is probably the gay capital of the U.S. in terms of 
somebody in Des Moines, Iowa or Little Rock deciding where to go.  They 
go to San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles.  Still in a lot of those 
cases that you've had in those cities have been people who have come to 
San Francisco, or went to Los Angeles or New York and got infected and 
came back.  But you haven't had it set up that much there and started 
spreading.  That's interesting.  You don't have in many cities with 
reasonable and sizeable gay communities an ongoing epidemic, like you 
have in San Francisco, which is now really out of hand.
        RC:  That's interesting, because I think the doctors around here 
are talking about AIDS as being a social phenomena versus a disease 
phenomena.
        WJ:  Well, you know when you say social, homosexuals today are 
not doing anything they weren't doing in the times of Rome.  Their bodies 
haven't changed.  There is still the same anatomy.  Nothing is new.  The 
most new things are basically the cosmetics one uses.  That has not been 
before.  But certainly the sex acts aren't new.  Men do one particular 
sex act that is strictly a male act that you don't find women and women 
doing or men and women doing.  From my reading, I haven't heard of it 
being that long.  I would say that's the only new sex act that involves 
using the fist.  But other than that, sex acts per se is nothing new.  
        So it can't just be the sex act.  It can't be promiscuity.  We've 
had promiscuous heterosexuals, homosexuals for years.  That's nothing 
new.  In San Francisco, and in Little Rock, and in Oklahoma City, you've 
had promiscuity for years in terms of one individual being promiscuous, 
in terms of a lot of individuals being promiscuous.  Gay bath houses, 
you've had them for years.  At least twenty years you've had bath 
houses.  So that's nothing new.
        I've had fifty-six cases, most of whom, in terms of their sexual 
contact, you really can find it being two to six months.  With some 
saying four years, I don't believe that.  Most of the patients I've had, 
their contact trail was relatively two to four month incubation period.  
If that is the case, this is something new.  
        Now when Lot's Fever, if you remember in 72, 73, became known in 
Africa before the first case got out, we knew about it.  Quarantine 
stations at all of our major ports were on alert.  We kept everyone.  
Small Pox, if someone got a fever on the plane from any country that had 
Small Pox, you knew about it.  We knew how many cases of Small Pox were 
in the deepest part of Ethiopia, Somalia, and India.  [another disease, 
unclear], we knew, we caught it.  Now I'm expected to believe that this 
virus, which is so much deadlier, which wipes you out in America, which 
is among the healthiest persons in the world, I'm now expected to believe 
it existed in Haiti, which is the poorest country in this hemisphere so 
the average person's system is already compromised.  If AIDS began in 
Haiti, Haiti wouldn't have any people.  And if AIDS began in Haiti, why 
don't we see it in the Dominican Republic, which is the same island with 
a mountain that separates the two countries.  It makes no sense.
        RC:  We're speaking with Dr. Wilbur Jordan.  He is the Director 
of Graduate Medical Education at Martin Luther King Hospital in Los 
Angeles.  He is the former Public Health Chief for the Southern Area of 
Los Angeles County.  He has had training in infectious diseases.  We're 
almost running out of time, Dr. Jordan.  It seems to me that you're 
building up to say something.  From what you're saying, it seems to me 
that there's some type of testing going on.  Maybe I'm at liberty to say 
that.  But, what do you think?  Why are these certain populations getting 
it?  I wish we had more time to talk.  In the future we can do a longer 
interview.
        WJ:  I don't think I want to say why.  I think we need to ask 
ourselves why.  Pick up any book and look at any other disease.  You 
would see it is extremely difficult for any other disease, Hepatitis B, 
which we feel is being transmitted the same way.  It has not stayed 
strictly within the gay male community in the three cities.  All I'm 
really suggesting is that we start asking ourselves, one, why do we 
continue to look outside of these shores for the cause of it or the 
origin of this disease.  And why does it tend to stay in three 
metropolitan areas when there are many other cities in this country that 
have very large gay populations?  
        This is not the first time we've had some kind of "germ 
warfare."  I mean San Francisco was sprayed with seratia bacteria, as you 
know.  We did see black soldiers with syphilis and didn't treat them.  
They are having other kinds of experiments.  Whether this is one of them, 
I don't know.  But I think one has to look at something from these 
shores, or at least entertain that idea to see, if in fact, it is not 
there, rather than trying to assume it comes from an underdeveloped 
country.  
        If you've seen patients with the disease, you see it's 
devastating.  If this disease began in any underdeveloped country, there 
is no way in this world it could have began there and us not know about 
it before it got here.  Of all diseases, this, I mean we even knew about 
Cooper Gonorrhea in the Philippines.  And it did not kill anyone.  How in 
the world could you have a disease like this that has at this point a 
fifty percent mortality in two years.  And hope we can find some 
treatment.  Those people who have the disease have a two-year life 
expectancy.  This is the most deadly disease we have created that we've 
known about in our lifetime.  How could we have possibly have had it in a 
underdeveloped country where the average person is malnourished, already 
susceptible, and not see any cases until you've had over five hundred in 
the United States, and then you go back retroactively and find it in 
Zaire?  That makes no sense.
        RC:  Well, I want to thank you very much for your time and all 
the information you gave to the KPFA listening audience.  I would like to 
do a longer interview with you at some time.  Thank you very, very much.
        WJ:  Thank you.
        RC:  Coming up next on Traffic Jam, we are going to be speaking 
with...."
 
        I'm going to give Doc a chance to change the tapes here.  Okay.   
The sound quality was a little fuzzy.  It's actually a little better on 
Radio Free America #16.  Once again, if you want to go over this 
material, you can obtain Radio Free America #16 from Archives on Audio.  
Also, again, this lecture will be on file with Archives on Audio, so you 
can obtain a tape of that.
        Now I thought Dr. Jordan, perhaps the sound quality, again, was 
not that clear, I thought Dr. Jordan made some very excellent and telling 
points.  And frankly, there were some of the same things that had led me 
to sniff the air when AIDS first came about or when it was first 
announced.  
        Again, there have been homosexuals since Biblical times.  
Nothing's changed in this regard.  The sex act has not changed.  Why is 
this disease appearing in this way at this time.  Again, although AIDS in 
the interim has spread since this tape was made, since AIDS has now 
spread considerably in the third world, we should note that the first 
three third world countries to have serious AIDS infection were Zaire, 
Haiti, and Granada, all U.S. sponsored dictatorships.  Also Uganda had 
very high incidents of AIDS and we actively supported Idi Amin.  In 
fact, Idi Amin was very close to Frank Terpel of the Terpel-Wilson 
operation.  Terpel had had a lot to do with training Idi Amin's security 
forces.  So there is a very strong American connection there as well.  
        Now there are a number of physicians who have come forward and 
discussed AIDS as a biological warfare weapon, suggesting that AIDS was 
deliberately created by the United States.  The aforementioned Dr. Yakov 
Siegel, an East German physician, which now, I guess, a German physician, 
which casts a certain amount of aspersions on what he has to say, but his 
paper was drawn almost exclusively from Western medical sources.  There 
is something like seventy-seven footnotes, and only two of them come from 
non-Western sources.  
        There is a Dr. Seale from Great Britain.  Dr. John Seale, he is 
almost at the opposite end of the political spectrum from Dr. Yakov 
Siegel.  He is a far right winger and has close association with the La 
Rouche organization, not close association, but has hob-nobbed with 
them.  There is also a Dr. Robert Strecker in Southern California.  
        Also Dr. Alan Cantwell, which to me sounds like a very bad name 
for a doctor, you know, can't well.  But he has written a book called 
AIDS and the Doctors of Death, which was published by the Aries Press in 
1989.  So if you would like to pursue Dr. Cantwell's information, it is 
in book form.  
        Also, as I mentioned, Dr. Ann Bailey, a Ugandan Carposi's Sarcoma 
expert, had theorized in an article in the New York Times in 1985 that in 
fact AIDS, she speculated that it was a genetic engineering accident.  I 
don't think it was an accident.  You can pursue the scientific 
information from that particular standpoint.
        There is also another interesting theory which has arisen, which 
has it that AIDS may very well be somehow connected with Swine Fever.  
Now, Cuba was deliberately infected with Swine Fever in order to wipe out 
its porcine population and put the island in economic distress.  That was 
done by the CIA.  Some physicians from Boston who had been doing research 
on the incidents of Swine Fever in American pigs and also pigs which had 
found their way, had been slaughtered, butchered, and found their way to 
the dinner table.  
        It's also been found that Swine Fever Virus often lives on even 
after the pork has been cooked.  But it was his theory that somehow Swine 
Fever might be connected with AIDS.  I'm not in a position to comment on 
that directly.  But it's worth noting, and this is covered also in Radio 
Free America #16, that when this doctor began publicizing his findings, 
he not only couldn't get a research grant, but he also was discouraged by 
the Department of Agriculture from spreading this particular piece of 
information.
        Now this was carried in a Jack Anderson column in the San 
Francisco Chronicle.  That is in Radio Free America #16.  However, the 
same version, the same Jack Anderson column in the Monterey Herald had a 
very interesting piece of information which the Chronicle left out.  That 
is that the Department of Agriculture were urging these researchers not 
to publicize their findings "for national security reasons."  That was 
left out of the Anderson column in the San Francisco Chronicle.
        National security generally means defense or defense-related 
matters.  So make of that what you will.  
        The thought obviously occurs why.  If, in fact, AIDS was 
developed as a biological warfare weapon, why?  I think again we go back 
to the period immediately following the second World War when we not only 
incorporated Unit 731, the Japanese biological warfare research unit, the 
most advanced of its kind, basically we took in the war criminals.  We 
took in their files.  We did this same thing with the Project Paper Clip 
scientists.  We did the same thing with the Gehlen people and the 
thousands of SS and Gestapo officers that served under Gehlen.  And they 
jumped to CIA.
        It should also be noted that American industrialists and 
financiers, many of them, many of the top industrialists and financiers 
in this country were openly pro-fascist prior to and during World War 
II.  And they didn't change their stripes.  They simply got a little more 
PR conscious.  
        In fact, in Radio Free America #10 there is a discussion of an 
attempted fascist coup in the United States in 1934.  A group of American 
industrialists and financiers grouped around the House of Morgan, 
primarily the DuPonts, attempted to overthrow President Roosevelt, 
because they did not like his New Deal policies, and set up a corporate 
state along the lines of Mussolini's fascist state in Italy.
        It is worth noting again that there are very powerful interests 
in our country, not only within the national security establishment 
proper, but within our American financial and industrial structure who 
openly favor fascism.  They liked Hitler.  They like Mussolini.  And they 
damn bloody well vowed to do the same thing here at some point.  
        And I think to understand why AIDS may have been created, and I 
am convinced that it was, I think we need to take a look at some of the 
features of fascism in Germany to understand that those features may very 
well be being applied in the United States today.  
        It should be noted that, and this is covered in a book called The 
Pink Triangle by Richard Plant, much of that book, the most important 
parts of that book are also accessed in a miscellaneous Archive show, 
available from Archives on Audio, called The Pink Triangle.  There was, 
as I touched on earlier in the lecture, a very strong gay rights movement 
in Weimar Germany.  The chief figure in that gay rights movement was a 
fellow named Magnus Herschfeld.  The issue of homosexuality, the issue of 
gay rights was used very effectively and very vitriolically by the Nazis 
to tar progressive politics, to stigmatize progressive politics in Weimar 
Germany.  Their political opponents were seen as being "homo lovers" and 
that this was basically a way of tarring the opposition.
        We're seeing much the same kind of tactic being used by the 
American far right today.  The Democratic Party, if it favors gay rights, 
is termed immoral or licentious.  It's also worth noting that the 
religious right is making tremendous propaganda gains by portraying AIDS 
as God's visitation upon the immoral.  You know, if you're a drug user or 
a homosexual or if you're promiscuous, God has stricken you with this 
plague.  It melds very effectively with Christian right wing propaganda.
        It should be noted, too, that AIDS is obviously wiping people out. 
It began with black heterosexuals in Zaire and Haiti, homosexuals in the
United States.  It has spread to intravenous drug users who are
out-groups.  All of these groups are out-groups with the U.S. national
security establishment and the far right.  It has spread to American
Indians, Native Indians, Native Americans.  It has spread, of course,
through blood transfusions to hemophiliacs.  Well, hemophiliacs, because
of their disorder, make poor laborers and they cannot go into the
military.  Ultimately the goal of the Third Reich was to eliminate what
they saw as "useless bread gobblers," people who couldn't work or serve in
the military, particularly industrial laborers.  Hemophiliacs cannot do
hard labor because of their situation and obviously cannot go into the
military. 
        One of the things that I think we need to look at in connection 
with AIDS is basically AIDS as a manifestation of extermination.  A lot 
of people have become alarmed about the possibility of over-population in 
the world.  It is my belief that AIDS may very well be being deliberately 
disseminated in the third world in order to control the population, to 
hold down the population, in particular, in Africa.  I don't think one 
need be a conspiracy theorist to understand the deep racism which effects 
and has always effected the United States.  Mercifully David Duke has 
been defeated in Louisiana, according to my understanding.  However, I do 
not think we should overlook David Duke or others like him.  
        One of the things I am going to be talking about on the radio 
program tomorrow is David Duke's probable background with the 
intelligence community.  He worked for the State Department, or by his 
own account, the Agency for International Development in Laos in the 
early 1970s.  That was a front for intelligence activity to a large 
extent.  Duke in his campaign is claiming to have flown for Air America 
in Laos.  Well, Air America is a CIA airline.  
        In the late 1970s as I am going to cover tomorrow, the British 
Scotland Yard, the federal police of Great Britain, tried to bar David 
Duke from entering Britain in order to promote his Ku Klux Klan 
activities.  They had people at airports to see to it that he didn't 
land.  Somehow, David Duke was able to get into Great Britain despite the 
fact that he was barred by Scotland Yard.  Scotland Yard are pretty good 
at what they do.  If Dave Emory or if one of you had wanted to get into 
Great Britain and Scotland Yard didn't want you going, then you damn 
bloody well would not have gotten in.  David Duke somehow did.  
        It's also worth noting that in the early 1980s there was an 
abortive Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party coup on the Caribbean Island of 
Dominica.  A group of American and Canadian Klansmen and Neo-Nazis were 
arrested, I believe it was just outside of New Orleans, as they were 
going to invade the island of Dominica, a very small island, and take it 
over.  It's worth noting that these people were trained on a mercenary 
training camp run by Frank Camper, a fellow who was an FBI informant the 
whole time.  The Grand Jury investigation into this event found that 
David Duke was one of the conspirators who arranged this particular 
attempted coup.  Yet he was never indicted, suggesting that he had 
friends in high places.  
        Finally, in the mid 1980s David Duke was working to raise money 
for the Contras with a fellow named Dr. Arnold Ochsner.  Dr. Arnold 
Ochsner is the son of Dr. Alton Ochsner, an American far right wing 
activist with very strong connections to the U.S. intelligence 
community.  It was Dr. Alton Ochsner who made a recording of Lee Harvey 
Oswald, talking about what a great communist he was, how he was a Castro 
sympathizer, and how he had been to the Soviet Union.  This was played 
all over the United States the evening of President Kennedy's 
assassination to show that the person who had killed Kennedy was a 
communist.  
        It is my belief that many of the liberals who might have spoken 
up about President Kennedy's assassination declined to do so primarily 
for one reason.  Basically the liberals, I suspect, thought that if the 
American people believed that a popular American president had been 
killed by a communist, it could have led to a Third World War.  Kennedy 
was very popular with everybody but the military and industrialists.  He 
was not popular in the South to a large extent because of his support for 
civil rights, but he was a very popular president.
        Dr. Alton Ochsner's son, Arnold Ochsner, raising money for the 
Contras with David Duke, obviously that also smacks of intelligence.  Now 
I go into David Duke, and I'm going to be covering this at greater length 
on the program tomorrow evening, I believe.  I might bump it in favor of 
Zodiac material, but we will see.  The thing that's worth noting is that 
there is an ominous parallel between David Duke's probable status, either 
as an agent or as an agency asset, a U.S. intelligence agency asset of 
some kind, and the career of Adolph Hitler.
        Adolph Hitler got his start in government life as an undercover 
agent for the political department of the Reichsfare, the German Army 
under General Von Lossow.  Hitler was used to infiltrate an abortive 
socialist revolution in Bavaria, specifically in Munich.  He pretended to 
be one of the Marxists who had staged this abortive revolution.  Then 
after the German Army put down the rebellion, he fingered all of the top 
conspirators, the leaders of the rebellion, who were then promptly taken 
out and shot.
        Hitler's next assignment as an undercover agent for the German 
Army was to infiltrate a moribund political party, the German Socialist 
Workers Party, which was then renamed the German National Socialist 
Workers Party.  Hitler and a number of other undercover agents for the 
German Army were infiltrated into it.  The German Nazi Party in its 
inception was a front for Reichsfare intelligence, literally a vehicle 
for fomenting political reaction in Germany.  
        I see an ominous parallel between David Duke and Hitler, not that 
Duke himself will ever become President, but I wouldn't absolutely rule 
that out in the event of an economic collapse.  But the point is that 
David Duke is essentially espousing theories which are very similar to 
those and views very similar to those of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, 
Gerald Ford, and George Bush.  
        When Ronald Reagan would make the statement that we've got to 
hold down government spending, the fact is that people think that Ronald 
Reagan was the greatest government spender of all time.  He spent two and 
a half times as much as all of the previous presidents in American 
history put together from George Washington through Jimmie Carter.  He 
turned the United States from being the world's biggest creditor nation, 
which we had been since the end of World War I right up to 1980.  
        We were owed more money by other nations than any nation on 
earth.  We are now the world's biggest debtor nation.  We owe more money 
than all of the third world countries combined.  The savings and loan 
industry is gone with the bail out figures to cost roughly a trillion 
dollars or maybe even more.  The commercial banks are in very bad shape.  
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is bankrupt, nine billion 
dollars in debt and the bail out bill has just been turned down.  It 
should also be noted that the insurance companies are in very bad shape.  
Most money market funds are privately insured.  So if the insurance 
companies are in bad shape, that means your money isn't safe in a money 
market fund either.
        Now it's also worth noting that there is enormous corporate 
debt.  The leveraged buy-outs of the 1980s, the go-go financing of the 
1980s, has left us with a legacy of enormous corporate debt.  There also 
is enormous consumer debt as well.  We should also note that America's 
industrial base is being badly eroded.  U.S. corporations are moving 
manufacturing facilities abroad to take advantage of cheap labor, 
primarily the third world.  And, of course, the Japanese and Europeans 
led by Germany are making strong inroads not only into American markets 
abroad that had been our particular province, but also, obviously, 
domestic markets as well.  Sooner or later the economic chickens are 
going to come home to roost.  I expect it is rather sooner than later.
        When Ronald Reagan says we've got to hold down government 
spending, people should have rushed the stage and hang the old fart in 
his garters, but the fact of the matter is they didn't for the simple 
reason that his words were very well understood.  When he talks about 
holding down government spending, he is not talking about spending 
billions and billions of dollars on trident submarines or nuclear bombers 
or missiles.  He's talking about, and if you'll pardon my use of strong 
language, "Let's get those s----- and n------ off of welfare so they 
don't spend our hard-earned tax dollars."  That was well understood by 
Joe and Jane Sixpack.  That's well understood by Reagan's constituency 
out in cracker America.  And that's why he's still been able to get away 
with that.  That's why George Bush can sound the same theme.
        It's worth noting that poor people, people of color in 
particular, are already being scape-goated for America's economic 
problems.  If those economic problems get more severe, and I would be 
willing to be they get much more severe, then it figures that the degree 
of scape-goating also is going to get more severe.  I think we must take 
very seriously the possibility of a "final solution to the Negro problem" 
in this country in the event of an economic collapse.  
        One of the things that made the German people much more willing 
to accept the holocaust, the liquidation of the Jews, than they might 
have been was the fact that as the war developed and the economic 
pressure on the German population developed, the liquidation of the 
Jewish population and the Aryanization of their property basically went 
to economically benefit the non-Jewish population.  One of the darker 
aspects of the holocaust that has not received the publicity it deserves 
is that many non-Jewish professionals, non-Jewish doctors, non-Jewish 
lawyers, would turn in their Jewish compatriots and then take over their 
clientele.  This was very, very common.  
        I think as the economic crunch worsens in this country, excess 
population groups are going to be gotten rid of.  I think the groups 
currently most affected with AIDS are those groups that are going to be 
gotten rid of, people of color, Black people in particular, homosexuals, 
intravenous drug users, Native Americans, and poor people in general.  I 
think in the third world, the Black population faces a very, very serious 
threat from the United States and from the national security 
establishment.  
        It should also be noted that in addition to being a vehicle of 
liquidation, and it is my belief that it is being deliberately promoted 
in that regard and used in that way, AIDS itself has a very, very 
powerful psychological component.  Wilhelm Reich, a very skilled though 
very controversial psychologist, published a book called The Mass 
Psychology of Fascism in which he theorized, he stated that there was a 
very strong connection between the degree of sexual repression in a 
society and that society's inclination to fascism.  Certainly AIDS with 
its deadliness makes sex a threat.  It is an intimidating factor vis a vis 
sex and in that regard, I think, it is going to lead to more sexual 
repression.  If Reich's theories are correct, that is going to propel 
people in the direction of fascism.  
        I would also note, too, that there is a very strong connection 
between male aggressive behavior and sexual deprivation.  The males of 
all species become more aggressive during mating season.  The male of the 
human species does not have a mating season, but when, and this is an 
established fact, when there are higher levels of testosterone in males, 
they become as a rule more aggressive.  It's common knowledge in the 
military, basically, that when soldiers go on leave, either they get laid 
or they get into a fight.  This is very well established.  
        But if you can set up a society of economically deprived, horny 
males running around, you are going to have a war.  I think ultimately 
this benefits the military establishment in this country.  I'm afraid 
that if things continue as they are with the spread of AIDS, the threat 
it presents to having sex, and with the growth of the right wing, with 
all of its strictures against having sexual relations, that we are going 
to have a society full of damn celibates from hell straining at the leash 
in anticipation of a blood meal.  That's basically what we face.  That is 
in my opinion one of the things they are working toward.  
        I also think, and this is a matter of established record, that 
AIDS is being used to justify the restriction of civil liberties, 
basically your right to privacy.  When people can go into your veins and 
your blood stream, you have no privacy whatsoever.  It should also be 
noted at least for the time being that AIDS is being dealt with in a 
relatively intelligent fashion.  People are not being locked up because 
of AIDS.  In the 1980s, however, there was a lot of propaganda being 
generated by the far right and elements associated with the military that 
AIDS could be casually transmitted and this meant that people who had 
AIDS or who were at high risk for AIDS should be put into concentration 
camps, basically, or otherwise incarcerated.
        I'm going to play for you a section of a tape from Radio Free 
America #16.  You are going to hear an article from February 9, 1986 in 
which people from the American far right with strong connections not only 
to the military, but to the biological warfare research are proposing 
basically a "Star of David" concept, in other words, the yellow star that 
Jews had to wear.  But basically people at high risk for AIDS or people 
who were HIV positive had to be incarcerated.  This represented a 
significant strategic engine, at least at the time, for justifying the 
restriction of civil liberties and the implementation of fascism:
 
        Dave Emory (DE):  "Okay, now one of the reasons that AIDS is such
a very, very important subject to study, in particular, the possibility
that it may have been manufactured by our own government and is being
deliberately used for whatever reason, is that in order to combat, aside
from the basic issue of the fact that many, many people are being killed
and sickened by this disease, in order to prevent the spread of AIDS a
number of far right wing sources, various reactionary elements, have
proposed a number of very draconian measures in the recently much
publicized primary elections at the La Rouche organization.  The La
Rouchies centered their campaign in considerable measure on confining
people who were potentially at risk for AIDS.  I guess they are proposing
quarantining AIDS patients. 
        The religious right, the Jerry Falwells, the Moral Majority, and 
so forth, have been very, very active in proposing anti-gay legislation 
and suggesting that basically AIDS is the visitation of the Lord on 
sinners and sodomizers and fornicators and so forth.  The point is that 
AIDS is being used as a major political tool by the far right in this 
country.  Perhaps the most dramatic and potentially alarming use of AIDS 
by the far right or potential use of AIDS by the far right was covered in 
the San Francisco Sunday Examiner on February 9, 1986.  This is an 
article headlined, 'Extreme Proposal by AIDS Researcher.'  It's by David 
L. Kirp.  It is a special to the Examiner.  It reads as follows:"
 
        Examiner Article (EA):  "The military is seriously considering 
spending $12.5 million to fund a study aimed at proving AIDS is casually 
transmitted and at devising methods to control the disease that appear to 
be Constitutionally questionable.  The proposal which contradicts 
established scientific data on AIDS contemplates forbidding association 
between service men and members of high risk groups and quarantining 
those who have been exposed to AIDS."
 
        DE:  "Now it doesn't say what 'exposed to AIDS,' whether that 
means basically someone who tests positive for antibodies to the HTLV3 or 
whether someone has actually contracted the disease.  Because a lot of 
people, as pointed out, have antibodies to the HTLV3 virus and do not 
have AIDS.  Continuing with the article:"
 
        EA:  "'Extreme public health measures' may be necessary says the 
proposal by San Francisco based scientists seeking funding for the 
study.  'Some of these measures would be in direct conflict with the 
Constitution,' the researchers concede.  The drastic measures are not 
only spelled out in the proposal sent to the military, but a memo 
circulated among those working on the project mentions, 'mandatory and 
overt identification of AIDS victims,' however loathsome a Star of David 
concept.  The reference is to the symbol Nazis used to publicly identify 
Jews.  
        Initiators of the proposal are two scientific research 
organizations with a long history of work for the military.  One has 
conducted biological and chemical warfare research.  They are backed by a 
stellar list of collaborators, including scholars of the Hoover 
Institution of Stanford University, a conservative think-tank that lists 
President Reagan as an Honorary Fellow, and SRI [Stanford Research 
Institute] International of Menlo Park.  
        The proposal's premise runs counter to overwhelming scientific 
opinion on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome by asserting that the 
fatal disease will be proven communicable by touch or even by close 
proximity to people with AIDS.  It suggests the disease will be proven 
transmissible through tears, saliva, feces, urine, or sweat, and that 
infection can follow a sneeze or cough, a mosquito bite or something as 
simple as touching a doorknob or toilet handle used by someone with the 
disease."
 
        DE:  "I would interrupt here that in much of the other literature 
it is pointed out that although mosquitoes communicate malaria in places 
like Africa, there is no indication that insects can communicate this 
disease.  Continuing with the article:"
 
        EA:  "It projects a catastrophic epidemic within a decade.  
Infection of 10% of the population of the United States and 68.2% of the 
military.  A copy of the proposal marked confidential by its authors was 
obtained by the Examiner.  It says, 'Consistent with the need to be 
conservative in avoiding undue alarm until all the facts are in, the 
prevalence of published and express medical opinion is that AIDS 
infection cannot occur through casual transmission of the virus.  
However, the non-medical public and an increasing number of medical 
scientists are fearful that AIDS may be spread through various forms of 
casual contact.  Because it is a slow virus and the evidence is that the 
incubation period is dosage related, illness may not become manifest 
until many years after casual infection occurs.  It can therefore be 
argued that AIDS cases resulting from low dosage casual contact infection 
are not yet appearing on a widespread basis, but that many cases could 
surface in the years ahead.'  
        Both the premise and research agenda of the proposal, which has 
passed an initial screening by the U.S. Army's Medical Research and 
Development Command at Fort Detrick, Maryland, drew strong criticism from 
public health officials, leading medical researchers, and politicians 
with expertise on AIDS."
 
        DE:  "Of course we know that that is now the National Cancer 
Institute, which discovered the AIDS virus.  Skipping down in the article:"
 
        EA:  "The initiators of the proposal are AIMS, Advanced 
Investigation of Medical Science Group, and the Institute for Cancer 
Research, both housed at the Pacific Prebyterian Medical Center.  Both 
have done research for the military previously.  Since 1962, the AIMS 
Group has done classified work on biological and chemical warfare.  
        Two of the senior Hoover Institution scholars who will do 
economic and political analyses for the study are Rita Ricardo-Campbell, 
who was a leading contender to succeed Margaret Heckler as Secretary of 
Health and Human Services last year, and Richard Star, a specialist on 
the Soviet Union who headed America's delegation to the mutual and 
balanced force reduction talks between 1981 and 1983.  Glen Campbell, 
Director of the Hoover Institution and Ricardo-Campbell's husband, denies 
that the Institution is formally involved with the project."
 
        DE:  "So there are a couple of things to contemplate here.  Well, 
there are a lot of things to contemplate here in connection with this 
article.  Obviously, the fact that the military, and this is primarily a 
military-associated group of people here, and also, incidentally, people 
very close to the Reagan administration, the links between the Hoover 
Institute and the Reagan administration are very close and of long 
standing, but basically this group is saying, and whether they know 
something we don't or whether it is being done for psychological reasons, 
that AIDS may very well be casually transmitted.  They are proposing 
essentially tossing the Constitution down the drain in order to deal with 
this.  Now, Nip is going to embellish on this in just a second.  But one 
of the things to take note of here, of course, aside from the Fort 
Detrick connection, which is front and center with regard to AIDS, it's 
worth noting that the Reagan administration has been very, very quick to 
propose restrictions on our civil liberties, and obviously many of them 
unconstitutional.  
        It's worth thinking about the possibility that if AIDS has been 
deliberately spread by our government, whether perhaps a restriction of 
the Constitution was one of the things they had in mind as part of this 
program.  Again, the Hoover Institute, Army's Medical Research and 
Development Command at Fort Detrick, these two groups, the Pacific 
Presbyterian Medical Center and AIMS, both involved with chemical and 
biological warfare research for the Army, that and the Hoover Institute 
very close to Ronald Reagan, proposing, basically, chucking the 
Constitution in order to deal with AIDS."
 
        Nip Tuck (NT):  "Yeah, exactly.  The point that I wanted to make, 
Dave, is basically made.  But let me embellish it a little bit.  What we 
have here is a direct circuit of cause and effect or apparently a direct 
circuit of cause and effect, directly through the military from one end 
to the other.  
        We talked earlier, of course, about all the biological warfare 
being under the military.  What we have in this case is a plan that has 
been essentially put forward by military bacteriological contractors, has 
been preliminarily approved by the military's bacteriological and 
chemical research center, which is housed in the same building with the 
National Cancer Institute, which presumably has the cutting edge of 
medical information on hand, which at this point suggests that everything 
that these people are saying is incorrect.  So not only do we have these 
military people, but then we have the plan proposed by a couple of Hoover 
Fellows, one of whom is an expert in Soviet affairs, which one has to 
wonder what this man is doing."
 
        DE:  "And also who is involved in arms talks.  I mean he was one 
of our delegates to Strategic Arms Limitations Talks."
 
 
        NT:  "Indeed.  So, what we have here is a very strange cycle 
coming, emanating from and returning directly to the military.  One has 
to ask, in this case, if we have supposedly, as we are constantly being 
told, the best scientists in the country working on this, and things of 
this nature.  But, basically, from the most absolute fundamental point of 
view, what is the military doing involved with AIDS and the prevention of 
the spread of AIDS and the quarantining of AIDS victims without any kind 
of Congressional or even Executive initiative, at least overt Executive 
initiative whatsoever.