(CNN) — James Brown did a batch of surviving successful his 73 years. He threw knuckleballs from the pitcher’s mound and hard near jabs successful the boxing ring. He survived beatings from an uncle and a near-electrocution by sadistic White men successful the Jim Crow South. He was the Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man successful Show Business, a cause idiosyncratic and a home abuser whose death successful 2006 remains mysterious today. And, according to Brown himself, helium was spied connected by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Brown made this bonzer assertion astir 2 years earlier his death. It hardly registered successful the nationalist consciousness. But it mattered past and it matters now, if so it’s true, due to the fact that the CIA is forbidden by its charter from home spying connected Americans. And if the CIA spied connected Brown successful different countries, it would surely suffice arsenic newsworthy.
In March 2021, CNN sued the CIA nether the Freedom of Information Act to get immoderate files it has connected Brown. The lawsuit is pending, with a judge’s ruling anticipated successful 2022. In keeping with its longstanding practice, the CIA said successful July it could neither corroborate nor contradict having records connected Brown. In October, the bureau said successful a tribunal filing that disclosing whether it has records connected Brown could “cause superior harm to U.S. nationalist security.”
My hunt for Brown’s secrets began successful 2017, erstwhile a pistillate named Jacque Hollander called maine and said Brown and his 3rd wife, Adrienne, had been murdered. As unusual arsenic her claims were, I recovered grounds that raised disturbing questions astir the 2 deaths. CNN published my investigative series in 2019.
One twelvemonth later, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office successful Atlanta began looking into James Brown’s death. On November 8, successful effect to my petition nether the Georgia Open Records Act, the DA’s bureau sent maine an interior memo that signaled prosecutors whitethorn extremity the enquiry with nary further action. In the memo dated October 28, Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love wrote to District Attorney Fani Willis that “there is an insufficient ground for the initiation of a Grand Jury probe into the decease of Mr. Brown.” I don’t cognize what investigators did for the past 22 months, oregon whether Willis accepted Love’s proposal to adjacent the case. Her spokesperson has not returned telephone calls oregon emails.
Shortly aft the CNN bid was published, I recovered a astonishing transition successful Brown’s 2005 publication “I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul.” It’s well-known that successful 1968, aft Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Brown helped forestall rioting in Boston and Washington. But aft that, Brown said successful the book, his vocation took an unusual turn.
“There was a batch of suspicion, particularly among the nationalist police, the FBI, and the CIA astir this alleged show of ‘Black Power’ connected my part,” Brown wrote, with co-author Marc Eliot. “Their reasoning went thing on the lines of, if helium could halt a riot…he could conscionable arsenic easy commencement one. From that infinitesimal I knew I was enactment nether nationalist information surveillance…I could consciousness them watching me, spying connected me, staking retired my home.”
I can’t find a azygous quality communicative astir this allegation, possibly due to the fact that Brown’s assertion successful the aforesaid paragraph that “they were capable to spot maine done TV” with “some benignant of peculiar reverse X-rays oregon something” made him dependable arsenic if helium were imagining things. Eliot, Brown’s co-author, told maine helium enactment Brown’s assertion successful the publication adjacent though helium doubted it was true. He declined to stock his interrogation tapes with CNN.
But the much I analyse Brown’s assertion astir surveillance, the much plausible it becomes. In interviews, State Department cables, Congressional testimony, and an introspection of his interactions with the White House done 8 presidencies, what emerges is simply a little-known representation of James Brown’s American experience. He was a Black antheral who loved his state and sometimes had crushed to wonderment whether it loved him back. After years of exploring his beingness and death, I find it imaginable to judge 2 things astatine once:
1. James Brown was paranoid.
2. That does not mean each his suspicions were wrong.
‘The astir important Black antheral successful America?’
Around the clip helium fell nether “national information surveillance,” arsenic his publication would allege, Brown caught the oculus of a sitting president. Documents from the Lyndon Johnson statesmanlike room amusement that connected April 24, 1968, a suggested impermanent database for an upcoming authorities meal included Brown, who was described arsenic a “Negro psyche singer” who “went connected TV successful Washington to effort and halt the looting.”
Brown did so be meal astatine the White House successful May 1968, sitting astatine President Johnson’s array on with Senator Alan Bible and the entertainer Bob Hope. It was a fraught infinitesimal successful American history, conscionable aft King’s assassination and conscionable earlier that of Senator Robert Kennedy, with the authorities warring the Viet Cong overseas and an service of dissidents astatine home. Prominent Americans could beryllium assets to the government—as Brown was erstwhile helium played for American troops successful Vietnam that year—or perceived liabilities, if they raised their voices successful protest.
At the time, arsenic Congressional investigations would aboriginal find, the CIA was moving hand-in-hand with the FBI to sabotage 2 groups that were considered threats to nationalist security: leftist antiwar protesters and Black militant factions. (The CIA declined to remark for this communicative and did not reply immoderate questions connected a elaborate database I sent.) One stated extremity of these operations, according to a 1968 FBI papers aboriginal uncovered by the Church Committee, was to “prevent the emergence of a ‘messiah’ who could ‘unify and electrify’ the movement” of Black nationalism.
After the execution of King successful 1968, James Brown was 1 specified candidate. That August helium released the azygous “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud.” In aboriginal 1969, Brown appeared connected the screen of LOOK magazine, alongside this question: “Is helium the astir important achromatic antheral successful America?”
Brown understood however powerfulness worked. Bad things could hap to salient Black men successful the ’60s and ’70s who displeased the government. King endured a vicious run of FBI harassment. So did the civil-rights person Stokely Carmichael, who near for Africa successful 1968 aft his parent received a threatening telephone telephone from idiosyncratic associated with the FBI. (I sent a database of questions to the FBI’s nationalist property bureau for this story, but I received nary answers. A spokesperson told maine to “check the existing FOIA vault and nonstop immoderate further requests to FOIA.”) In 1969, the young Black Panther Fred Hampton was changeable to decease successful his furniture by Chicago police. The constabulary said they were serving a warrant for amerciable weapons, but Hampton’s decease has been called a “cold-blooded assassination.”
Brown was a pragmatist, not a partisan. And so, contempt a anterior endorsement of the wide Hubert Humphrey’s bid for the presidency successful 1968, Brown kept up a relationship with President Richard Nixon, a blimpish Republican. But this seemingly didn’t support the authorities retired of his affairs.
“It has been brought to my attraction that investigators, from which section they person yet to state, person been searching and checking my instrumentality looking for drugs (supposedly) utilized oregon associated with immoderate of my erstwhile employees,” Brown wrote successful a missive received by the Nixon White House successful 1972. “I see this disrespect not lone to my attorneys but myself arsenic well.” Brown’s missive was forwarded to the Justice Department. It’s not wide what happened aft that.
During this time, according to RJ Smith’s publication “The One: The Life and Music of James Brown,” US Marshal James F. Palmer often accompanied Brown connected his travels. Palmer visited the White House with Brown. No 1 from Brown’s entourage seemed to cognize wherefore Palmer traveled with Brown, oregon who was paying him. Palmer died successful 2019. But his girl Crystal Palmer told maine successful an interrogation that Palmer and Brown were friends. She said that erstwhile Brown was successful the infirmary successful 2006 earlier helium died, Brown’s manager, Charles Bobbit, called the erstwhile national cause to fto him know.
In 1975, Senator Frank Church convened the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Examining astir 800 witnesses and much than 100,000 pages of documents, the Church Committee uncovered “substantial wrongdoing” by the US quality community, including the CIA.
The Church Committee besides scrutinized an limb of the IRS called the Special Service Staff, which, according to Senator Church, “had the task of investigating governmental activists” who would beryllium “punished by the IRS for their governmental views.” Before the SSS was abolished successful 1973, its thousands of targets included the ACLU, the National Urban League, the NAACP, and James Brown, Godfather of Soul.
Calling IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander to attest successful a nationalist hearing, Senator Church went down a database of names and asked Alexander to explicate wherefore these people—Nobel Prize victor Linus Pauling, Senators Charles Goodell and Ernest Gruening, Congressman Charles Diggs, et cetera—had been singled retired by the IRS for investigation. From the transcript:
Senator Church: Well, determination are different names present that are arsenic puzzling—writer Jimmy Breslin, stone vocalist James Brown—
Alexander: That would travel nether the stone vocalist category.
(General laughter.)
Alexander: There was seemingly rather a interest astir that. I accidental immoderate of our radical did not similar stone music. Now, I stock that view. I don’t similar stone music. But I don’t deliberation it has thing to bash with taxation enforcement oregon taxation administration.
The IRS pursued James Brown for decades implicit unpaid taxes. To my knowledge, details of the SSS probe of Brown person ne'er been made public. The IRS denied my FOIA petition connected the matter, citing privateness exemptions, truthful it’s not wide who initiated the SSS probe of Brown.
In the Church Committee hearing, Senator Walter Mondale complained that the misuse of the IRS “was conscionable portion of a broader, much basal task by which assorted agencies—the FBI, the CIA, and adjacent the White House—decided that the transgression laws weren’t capable to woody with the menace to this federation and that truthful they needed a caller tactic.”
When I filed a FOIA petition with the FBI for its records connected Brown, each I received was a case record from 1989 that was opened aft Brown’s woman Adrienne complained that Brown was the unfortunate of constabulary harassment. But James Sullivan, writer of the 2008 publication “The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America,” wrote that Brown had seemingly been taxable to “extensive FBI surveillance.”
According to Sullivan, a bid of FOIA appeals for the publication “ultimately yielded a confirmation by the FBI that the bureau’s Atlanta, Birmingham, and Baltimore tract offices whitethorn person conducted overmuch earlier surveillance connected the singer, and that record records connected Brown were destroyed according to attraction schedules successful June 1989, and July 2001.”
Investigators seemingly searching for drugs. A US Marshal successful his entourage. Unwanted attraction from the governmental limb of the IRS. And FBI records that were allegedly destroyed. James Brown had tangible reasons to judge helium was surrounded by the United States government.
‘Ready to service my country’
Whether from patriotism oregon fear, oregon perchance both, James Brown played the relation of arrogant American. His longtime adjunct Roosevelt Johnson told maine that Brown often spoke of his privation to beryllium buried successful a flag-draped casket. In letters to presidents, helium called himself a statesman and a countryman. Even arsenic helium complained successful his 1972 missive to the White House astir investigators looking for drugs, helium utilized the connection of a worker reporting for duty.
“Ready to service my state astatine anytime,” helium wrote, “whether it is location oregon abroad.”
On August 12, 1970, Brown was invited, on with members of the quality media, to “a peculiar inheritance briefing connected Foreign Policy” astatine a edifice successful New Orleans. According to the invitation, the briefing would beryllium conducted by President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The documents don’t accidental whether Brown accepted the invitation.
In 1972, Brown met with Nixon successful the Oval Office and endorsed him for re-election, infuriating immoderate of his fans. In an interrogation explaining wherefore helium endorsed Nixon, Brown said, “This is 1 of my archetypal approaches to trying to bash thing abroad, different than sing and creation connected a stage.” The interviewer did not inquire what helium meant by that—at slightest not successful the clip disposable connected YouTube—and Brown did not explain. Was Brown sent overseas connected authoritative business? If so, helium would not person been the archetypal instrumentalist utilized by the US government.
In 1960, for example, the State Department and the US Information Agency sponsored the large jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong connected a circuit of Africa. Armstrong and his wife, Lucille, arrived successful Congo amid a governmental crisis.
As described successful the 2021 publication “White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa,” by Susan Williams, “The Armstrongs spent their past evening successful the Congo with the CIA presumption chief, who hosted them nether his screen astatine the embassy arsenic governmental officer. They did not conscionable the morganatic premier curate of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, who was being kept captive successful his authoritative residence connected Avenue Tilkens, not acold away. Louis Armstrong … would person been appalled to cognize that the antheral from the embassy with whom helium dined was really a CIA authoritative who was cold-bloodedly plotting the decease of the democratically elected premier curate of the country.”
That’s right: The US authorities utilized an unwitting Black American entertainer to advertise its ain civilization successful an African federation adjacent arsenic the CIA was plotting to poison that nation’s premier minister. Americans feared that the mineral-rich Congo would autumn nether Soviet power if Lumumba remained successful power. Despite objections from respective members of the Eisenhower administration, who said the president did not authorize the assassination, the Church Committee aboriginal stood by its decision that “the concatenation of events revealed by the documents and grounds is beardown capable to licence a tenable inference that the crippled to assassinate Lumumba was authorized by President Eisenhower.”
According to Stephen Kinzer’s 2019 publication “Poisoner successful Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control,” the CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb prepared an assassination kit to beryllium utilized connected Lumumba. (Gottlieb died successful 1999; his 1975 grounds to a closed league of the Church Committee nether the alias “Joseph Scheider” was sealed for 50 years.)
The assassination kit featured the botulinum toxin, a hypodermic needle and a “pre-poisoned conduit of toothpaste.” This crippled failed, but different succeeded. The US has ne'er admitted engagement successful an cognition during which Lumumba was changeable and killed and his remains were either burned oregon dissolved successful acid.
About 13 years later, James Brown visited the aforesaid country. Now the president was Joseph-Desire Mobutu, amended known arsenic Mobutu Sese Seko, who had a past of collaboration with the CIA. It was 1974. Henry Kissinger had go US caput of state. And arsenic Brown traveled successful Africa, the State Department showed interest.
Kissinger turned 98 this twelvemonth and co-authored a publication that was released successful November; helium has not responded to my interrogation requests. According to CNN expert Aaron David Miller, who served 25 years successful the State Department, the caput of state’s sanction could look connected cables that the caput had not drafted oregon adjacent read. Kissinger’s past sanction is connected astatine slightest 3 State Department cables that notation Brown, including 1 regarding Brown’s upcoming performances successful Gabon and Zaire, present known erstwhile again arsenic the Democratic Republic of the Congo:
PRESIDENT BONGO HAS WANTED THE BROWN REVUE (OF 34 PEOPLE) TO PERFORM IN LIBREVILLE FOR SOME TIME. BROWN MET WITH AMBASSADOR MAVOUNGOU YESTERDAY AT WHICH TIME VISAS AND OTHER MATTERS WERE ARRANGED…DATE OF PERFORMANCE VERY NICELY PRECEDES SEPTEMBER 24 CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHT IN KINSHASA WHERE BROWN IS SCHEDULED TO PERFORM WITH OTHER CELEBRITIES.
Back astatine home, Brown’s taxation problems worsened. In 1976, helium wrote to President Gerald Ford to inquire for help:
“If the United States says I beryllium them taxation wealth erstwhile I indispensable person saved my state billions stopping the riots, past I’m guilty. But I’m blameworthy of not knowing. Remember, fraud starts with intent. Intent starts with knowledge. For God’s sake, since I person neither, I americium innocent. Mr. President, don’t fto maine person to get wealth from different state to escaped maine successful my own.”
There is nary denotation that Ford responded to the letter. Instead Brown heard backmost from an IRS official, who did not connection him immoderate taxation relief.
Brown did, successful fact, question assistance successful different countries. And US officials knew it was happening. State Department cables picture a travel to Gabon successful 1977 that progressive Brown and his manager, Charles Bobbit. In a 2007 interview, Bobbit said helium and Brown went to Gabon to inquire President Omar Bongo for money. Bobbit, who died successful 2017, was vague successful the interrogation astir what, if anything, Brown received from Bongo. But helium mislaid his right-hand man: Bobbit near Brown and went to enactment for Gabon’s president.
Still hopeless to resoluteness his taxation problems, Brown appealed to President Jimmy Carter. That didn’t work. On August 21, 1978, according to a State Department cable, Brown met with Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and asked Kaunda to intervene connected his behalf with President Carter. A State Department authoritative wrote to the US Embassy successful Zambia, “WE ARE AWARE THAT BROWN WAS ON TOUR IN GABON SOMETIME DURING PERIOD 1974-1977 AND MAY HAVE BEEN SPONSORED BY PRESIDENT OF THAT COUNTRY. EMBASSY SHOULD SUGGEST TO MULAISHO (Dominic Mulaisho, Kaunda’s advisor connected economical affairs) THAT HE CHECK WITH THE GABONESE ON BROWN’S ACTIVITIES.”
In 1985, adjacent the extremity of the Cold War, Brown released the patriotic anthem “Living In America.” “You whitethorn not beryllium lookin’ for the promised land,” helium sang, “But you mightiness find it anyway.” This opus was featured successful the nationalistic film “Rocky IV,” the communicative of an irrepressible American boxer who travels to the Soviet Union and fights truthful bravely against his hulking Russian hostile that helium wins the hearts and minds of a antecedently hostile crowd. Drenched successful sweat and draped successful the American flag, Rocky gives a rousing code astir the quality spirit.
“So what I’m trying to accidental is, that if I tin change, past you tin change,” helium says. “EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE!”
The existent Soviet Union was not truthful impressed. At a quality league successful Moscow successful January 1986, according to The New York Times, a Russian authorities curate said “Rocky IV” and different Sylvester Stallone film, “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” were anti-Soviet propaganda. Deputy Minister of Culture Georgi Ivanov complained that American movies were “pushing onto the screens a caller benignant of hero, a slayer with ideological convictions.”
Stallone was not conscionable the prima of “Rocky IV”; helium was its screenwriter and director. I wanted to cognize however helium got the thought for the story, however James Brown came to beryllium involved, and what helium thought of the allegation that his movie was anti-Soviet propaganda. When I emailed his publicist, Michelle Bega, to inquire for an interview, Bega said Stallone was unavailable.
About 2 years aft “Rocky IV” and Brown’s opus “Living In America” were released, Brown wrote to President Ronald Reagan to inquire for assistance with immoderate of his ineligible troubles. He wrote, “I person served you diligently arsenic my President and idiosyncratic I judge and love. I went down communist Countries and sung ‘Living In America’ proudly.”
Could the CIA person worked with idiosyncratic arsenic volatile arsenic Brown? Former CIA serviceman Valerie Plame told maine she recovered it “highly unlikely” the CIA would person paid Brown immoderate attention. Former CIA serviceman Jim Marcinkowski besides said helium had his doubts.
In September, I called the retired Navy Admiral Bobby R. Inman, erstwhile manager of the National Security Agency and lawman manager of cardinal intelligence. He said helium was not alert of a transportation betwixt James Brown and the CIA. But helium did not regularisation retired the possibility.
“Well, you look astatine an enactment that has existed since the ’40s,” helium said. “With a ngo to effort to way what’s going connected each implicit the world. In each variety. And their relation successful doing it is not electronically—their relation is to bash it by humans. And truthful they’re perpetually going to beryllium connected the outlook for anyone who mightiness beryllium capable to supply utile information. Whether it’s conscionable an unfastened exchange, whether it’s a targeted—where you really task them to bash something, wherever they go an asset.”
“And what astir a guy,” I said,” who has entree to overseas leaders each astir the world, tin question to Europe, Africa, wherever else, down the Iron Curtain—does this look similar idiosyncratic who mightiness be—”
The admiral chopped in.
“By the statement alone,” helium said, “it’s idiosyncratic of interest.”
‘Serious harm to US nationalist security’
In October, the CIA filed a question for summary judgement successful CNN’s suit against the bureau for immoderate records it had connected James Brown. The question included a declaration from accusation reappraisal serviceman Vanna Blaine, who said the CIA searched for unclassified records connected Brown and recovered none. But for records “that would uncover a classified oregon unacknowledged transportation to the CIA,” the CIA would neither merchandise them nor archer america whether they existed.
“In the lawsuit of a idiosyncratic who has been cooperating with the CIA, authoritative confirmation of that practice could origin the targets to instrumentality retaliatory enactment against that idiosyncratic oregon against their household oregon friends,” Blaine wrote. “It besides places successful jeopardy each idiosyncratic with whom the idiosyncratic has had contact. Thus, the indiscretion of 1 root successful a concatenation of quality sources tin harm an full spectrum of sources. As such, confirming oregon denying the beingness of records connected a peculiar individual, similar James Joseph Brown, reasonably could beryllium expected to origin superior harm to U.S. nationalist security…”
This past condemnation sounds remarkably akin to what Jacque Hollander says a erstwhile Army quality expert told her erstwhile she accused James Brown of a transgression successful the mid-90s. It’s a analyzable story, truthful carnivore with maine arsenic I effort to explain.
Hollander was the songwriter who called maine successful 2017 to accidental that Brown had been murdered. I person spoken with her countless times successful the past 4 years and person recovered her to beryllium a reliable source. She worked with Brown successful the 1980s and befriended his wife, Adrienne. In 1988, she says, James Brown drove her into the woods of South Carolina and raped her astatine gunpoint. (Brown was ne'er charged; his lawyer aboriginal called the allegation a “shakedown successful its astir anserine form.”) At first, Hollander was excessively acrophobic to archer the authorities. But successful 1994, arsenic she began readying to instrumentality a polygraph trial and archer her communicative to a prosecutor, an unusual series of events ensued. These events convinced her that Brown had extortion from the US government.
First, she says, a antheral named Lloyd Burchette called her retired of the bluish and gradually won her trust. Burchette died successful 2016. In assorted quality stories from the 1980s and ’90s, helium called himself a erstwhile Army quality analyst. Burchette seemed to beryllium gathering quality from Hollander, she said, and helium told her, regarding her allegation against Brown, “You’re ne'er going to get this out…The authorities is going to halt this.” According to Hollander, Burchette told her he’d worked arsenic a authorities assassin and said her lawsuit was a “matter of nationalist security.”
In a telephone interrogation successful November, Burchette’s widow, Connie, told maine that thing would astonishment her astir her hubby of 50 years. “He had a batch of mysteries astir him,” she said, but she’d ne'er heard thing astir her hubby being a authorities assassin. Burchette was stationed successful Japan with the Army Security Agency, she said, and aboriginal sold unafraid telephone systems successful Mexico and worked arsenic a backstage investigator. Before helium died of congestive bosom failure, she said, helium threw distant immoderate of his diaries.
“There were astir apt things helium didn’t privation maine to cognize helium was doing,” she said.
Hollander has shown maine her handwritten notes describing her experiences from 1994 to 1996. They accidental that successful December 1994, astir the clip Burchette stopped calling her, she met a Secret Service agent. She kept his Secret Service concern paper and showed it to maine decades later. His sanction is Robert A. Fisak, and a 1997 introduction connected the website for his planetary information firm says that during “20 years successful the Secret Service, Robert Fisak got utilized to having U.S. presidents cognize him by name.”
Hollander says that Fisak, similar Burchette, gathered a batch of accusation from her. (I person tried to scope Fisak by phone, email, substance message, and successful idiosyncratic respective times since 2018. I sent a database of questions to his station bureau container successful November 2021. He has not responded.) Hollander says Fisak was a kindly antheral who seemed genuinely acrophobic astir her information and told her she should discard her grounds against Brown oregon idiosyncratic adjacent to Brown mightiness person her killed.
In 1995, conscionable aft she passed the polygraph trial and made an assignment to sojourn a authoritative successful South Carolina, Hollander says she was approached astatine her workplace by yet different mysterious man. He called himself Steve and claimed to beryllium a erstwhile Navy SEAL. (Later she gave maine a signaling of his dependable from her aged answering machine, but I person not been capable to find him oregon corroborate his past name.) They began dating. He wanted to cognize everything astir her polygraph trial and her impending sojourn to South Carolina.
One day, she says, she visited his flat successful Atlanta unannounced and recovered the parking batch afloat of cars with authorities licence plates. Knocking astatine the door, she heard a large commotion inside, arsenic if the flat were afloat of people. He told her to spell distant and travel backmost later. When she did, each the authorities cars were gone and Steve was unsocial successful his apartment.
Early successful 1996, Hollander says, Steve persuaded her to conscionable him successful Dallas and bring the videotape of her polygraph test. She says helium was joined by a antheral named Brian Donahue. She says Donahue slammed her against a wall, stole the portion from her suitcase and taunted her astir Adrienne Brown, who had conscionable died successful California astatine property 45 portion recovering from integrative surgery. Later, a constabulary informant alleged that a aesculapian doc had confessed to her that he’d murdered Adrienne Brown.
Hollander believes Adrienne Brown was killed due to the fact that she knew excessively overmuch astir the concealed activities surrounding her husband. Hollander says she thinks the men lured her to Dallas to support her sequestered portion the cognition to termination Adrienne Brown was carried retired successful California. Just earlier she near Dallas, Hollander says, Steve told her helium worked for the CIA.
“I fto you live,” she says helium told her.
The 2nd antheral successful Dallas, Brian Donahue, died successful 2012 astatine property 60. His code past matches the code of the flat that Hollander visited successful Dallas successful 1996, and his woman confirmed to maine that Donahue was successful Dallas astatine that time. In 2019 I filed a Freedom of Information Act petition with the CIA for immoderate documents it had connected Donahue. The CIA responded with a missive that said, successful part, “we did not find immoderate responsive records that would uncover a publically acknowledged CIA affiliation with the subject. To the grade that your petition besides seeks records, if immoderate exist, that would uncover an unacknowledged oregon classified affiliation with the taxable of your request, we tin neither corroborate nor contradict the beingness oregon nonexistence of specified records.” CNN appealed that determination to the CIA’s Agency Release Panel, which denied the entreaty successful 2020.
According to Hollander, an FBI cause named Jerry Barnett was looking into the James Brown enactment astir the clip she went to Dallas. Then Barnett told her helium had to spell to Virginia, due to the fact that “the CIA stepped into 1 of my cases.” Barnett died successful 2011; my FOIA petition for his FBI documents is pending.
I explained this script to R. James Woolsey successful a telephone interrogation successful October. He was manager of cardinal quality from 1993 to 1995. Woolsey said helium knew of nary transportation betwixt Brown and the CIA and said helium ne'er authorized immoderate covert home operations. I asked if it was imaginable a home cognition could person occurred without his knowledge. “No,” helium said. I besides emailed John Deutch, who was manager of cardinal quality from 1995 to 1996, to inquire for an interview. He replied, “I bash not talk to reporters astir my clip arsenic DCI which ended implicit 20 years ago.”
But a erstwhile lawman manager of cardinal quality was consenting to connection immoderate informed conjecture.
“Well, let’s tally done the possibilities,” Admiral Inman said. “First, if it is conscionable Brown arsenic an individual, he’s off-limits, arsenic an American citizen. If it is Brown who is interacting with foreign—in overseas countries, traveling, has been briefed, is consenting to beryllium cooperative, reporting what he’s seen oregon heard, past determination could beryllium an involvement successful trying to suppress thing that was going to discredit him.”
The unanswered questions
Jacque Hollander is convinced that she stumbled into the clandestine satellite of the CIA erstwhile she entered James Brown’s life. In 2019, hoping to beforehand my reporting connected Brown and the CIA, I helped her record a petition for immoderate documents the CIA kept connected her. That summertime and fall, she regularly called the agency’s FOIA hotline to cheque connected her lawsuit and past called maine afterward to accidental what she’d learned. At assorted times, she said she was told, “We’ve got our agents moving connected it close now,” and “We are going to springiness you everything successful your file,” and “Our officers are successful meetings implicit this,” and “Some of it tin beryllium cleared and immoderate of it can’t.”
That December, the CIA sent a missive saying she would person nary documents.
“If a classified relation betwixt you and the CIA were to exist,” the missive said, “records revealing specified a narration would beryllium decently classified and necessitate continued safeguards against unauthorized disclosure.” She appealed that decision, without success.
Many of Brown’s high-level authorities connections person died, including Nixon successful 1994, Reagan successful 2004, and George H.W. Bush successful 2018. Others look reluctant to speech astir him. Brown and President Bill Clinton kept up a correspondence during Clinton’s presidency, with Brown calling Clinton “night train” and telling him to “play your horn for me,” but Clinton’s property squad has not responded to my interrogation requests.
Neither person representatives for President George W. Bush, who honored Brown astatine the White House successful 2001. In 2019, I submitted a FOIA petition to Bush’s statesmanlike room for documents connected Brown. My petition is pending. The supervisory archivist told maine they had “identified astir 8515 pages, 3033 physics files, and 980 images of perchance responsive records that indispensable beryllium processed successful bid to respond to your request.”
Jacque Hollander is not the lone 1 who has spoken with maine astir Brown and the CIA. In a 2019 telephone interview, Brown’s disputed fourth wife, Tomirae Brown, said determination were concealed cameras successful their location and indications that their phones were tapped. She said 2 of Brown’s advisers told him that helium was a “government man,” and that the CIA would support him.
Shana Quinones, who worked for Brown successful the ’90s, told me, “James utilized to ever speech astir the CIA.” Once, erstwhile helium saw a helicopter, helium told her, “There they are. They’re watching implicit me.”
Brown intelligibly believed that helium and the US authorities had a peculiar relationship.
“I’m the lone creator successful the satellite that ever had 7 jets,” helium said successful an interrogation for the documentary film “A Tale of James Brown” astir 2005, the twelvemonth earlier helium died. “I had 7 airplanes. And the 1 I got present is retired of L.A. due to the fact that the authorities don’t privation maine to usage my ain level nary more.”
“They privation to cognize wherever I’m at,” helium said. “They privation to marque definite that I’m well-protected.”
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