James Norman, a senior editor at Forbes magazine for five years, was suddenly fired two weeks ago in connection with his investigation of allegations made by intelligence and other sources that Vince Foster, the deputy White House counsel who allegedly killed himself in 1993, was involved in a top secret spying operation and was selling secrets about it to Israel.
According to Norman's sources, the CIA's counter-intelligence service had learned about Foster's spying and had him under full-time surveillance the day he is said to have shot himself. Intelligence Newsletter has independently confirmed Foster was the object of a counter-intelligence operation but has been unable to verify whether it was tied to accusations he was selling secrets to Israel.
Norman's sources say Foster was linked to the National Security Agency (NSA) for decades via Systematics (now Alltel Information Services), a Little Rock, Arkansas-based company once wholly owned by Clinton campaign financier Jackson Stephens. It sells processing software for the international banking community and has customers in.... countries outside the U.S.
According to Norman's sources, Systematics helped the NSA in distributing sofware that enables NSA to tap into the computers of banks running it. Some believe the software may have involved the PROMIS program developed by Inslaw which the U.S. Justice Department "expropriated" in 1983 for use in a computer-tapping operation hatched by the National Security Council.
Norman wrote a long piece for the magazine with the approval of its top editors. When it was finished the article was cleared by the magazine's fact checkers and legal department. But the story was spiked by Forbes' management in a decision that has since come under question because Ronald Reagan's defence secretary, Caspar Weinberger, happens to be a top executive at Forbes. Some believe he may have been involved in the spying operation that Norman exposed, and about which Foster is thought to have passed information to Israel.
The problem with Forbes arose when Norman continued to pursue the story after a high-level editor authorized him to do so and said he was free to publish it elsewhere. Subsequently he published the story in Media Byass, an Indiana-based magazine that specializes in stories that the mainstream U.S. press won't handle.
The story has attracted the attention of the House Banking Committee and top Republican leaders who have privately voiced alarm over the revelations. The legislators appear to accept that Foster was the subject of a counter-intelligence probe and that there was indeed a spying operation which began in the early 1980's - much like Norman has described - and was designed to penetrate the computers of foreign intelligence services, banks and the computer and communications systems of terrorist groups like Abu Nidal.
High-level sources, for their part, say Foster was privy to top secrets and was dealing with matters relating to the NSA, including something to do with Systematics, at the time of his death.
"Fostergate," as it's being called, seems hardly likely to go away. With other mainstream news organizations and Congress now believing allegations that Foster had long-standing ties to the intelligence community.... the scandal is likely only to get bigger. As investigation heats up in the coming weeks more revelations are likely just as the CIA and perhaps the NSA could scramble to provide a full accounting of not only what they know about Foster but of the computer espionage programs they allegedly control. If it is ascertained they have been involved in illegal eavesdropping with computer gear they could be in for a major roasting.