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A little more,
When Osama Bin Laden Was Tim Osman
The two men headed to the Hilton Hotel in Sherman Oaks, California in the late Spring of 1986
were on their way to meet representatives of the mujahadeen, the Afghan fighters resisting the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
One of the two, Ted Gunderson, had had a distinguished career in the FBI, serving as some sort
of supervisor over Special Agents in the early 60s, as head of the Dallas field office from 1973-75,
and as head of the Los Angeles field office from 1977-1979. He retired to become an investigator
for, among others, well-known attorney F. Lee Bailey. And all along the way, Gunderson, whether
or not actually a CIA contract agent, had been around to provide services to various CIA and
National Security Council operations, as he was doing now.
In more recent years Gunderson was to become controversial for his investigations into child
prostitution rings, after he became convinced of the innocence of an Army medical doctor named
Jeffrey McDonald, who had been convicted of the murder of his wife and three young children in
the 1970s. This has led to various attempts by the patrons and operators of the child prostitution
industry to smear Gunderson's reputation.
Michael Riconosciuto was there to discuss assisting the mujahadeen with MANPADs—Man
Portable Air Defense Systems. Stinger missiles were one possibility. If the U.S. would permit their
export, Riconosciuto could modify the Stinger's electronics, so the guided missile would still be
effective against Soviet aircraft, but would not be a threat to U.S. or NATO forces.
But Riconosciuto had another idea. Through his connections with the Chinese industrial and
military group Norinco, he could obtain the basic components for the unassembled Chinese 107 MM rocket system. These could be
reconfigured into a man-portable, shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft guided missile sytem, and
produced in Pakistan at a facility called the Pakistan Ordinance Works. The mujahadeen would
then have a lethal weapon against Soviet helicopter, observation, and transport aircraft.
Riconosciuto was more than just an expert on missile electronics; he was also an expert on
electronic computers and associated subjects such as cryptology (see my
"Michael Riconosciuto on Encryption").
Riconosciuto was a prodigy who had grown up in the spook community. The Riconosciuto family
had once run Hercules, California, as a company town. In the early days (1861) a company called
California Powder Works had been established in Santa Cruz, CA. It later purchased land on
San Pablo Bay, and in 1881 started producing dynamite, locating buildings in gullies and ravines for
safety purposes. A particularly potent type of black powder was named "Hercules Powder", which
gave the name to the town of Hercules, formally incorporated in 1900. In World War I, Hercules
became the largest producer of TNT in the U.S. Hercules, however, had gotten out of the explosives
business by 1940 when an anhydrous ammonia plant was constructed. In 1959 Hercules began
a new manufacturing facility to produce methanol, formaldehyde, and urea formaldehyde. In 1966
the plant was sold to Valley Nitrogen Producers. Labor problems led to a plant closure in 1977.
In 1979 the plant and site was purchased by a group of investors calling themselves Hercules
Properties, Ltd.
However, Michael and his father Marshall Riconosciuto, a friend of Richard Nixon, continued to
run the Hercules Research Corporation. In the early 1980s Michael also served as the Director of
Research for a joint venture between the Wackenhut Corporation of Coral Gables, Florida, and the
Cabazon Band of Indians in Indio, California.
Riconosciuto's talents were much in demand. He had created the a-neutronic bomb (or
"Electro-Hydrodynamic Gaseous Fuel Device"), which sank the ground level of the Nevada test
site by 30 feet when a prototype was tested. Samuel Cohen, the inventor of the neutron bomb,
said of Riconosciuto: "I've spoken to Michael Riconosciuto (the inventor of the a-neutronic bomb)
and he's an extraordinarily bright guy. I also have a hunch, which I can't prove, that they both
(Riconosciuto and Lavos, his partner) indirectly work for the CIA."
http://www.orlingrabbe.com/binladin_timosman.htm
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