Earl Brian
Encyclopedia
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Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
with an aerial support unit for the United States Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
's Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
-era Phoenix Program
Phoenix Program
The Phoenix Program |phoenix]]) was a controversial counterinsurgency program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus during the Vietnam War that operated...
. Upon completion of his tour of duty, he departed military service "as a major in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division with a chest full of honors, including the Silver Star
Silver Star
The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....
, Bronze Star, Air Medal
Air Medal
The Air Medal is a military decoration of the United States. The award was created in 1942, and is awarded for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight.-Criteria:...
for Valor
Valor device
The Valor device is an award of the United States military which is a bronze attachment to certain medals to indicate that it was received for valor...
and Air Medal
Air Medal
The Air Medal is a military decoration of the United States. The award was created in 1942, and is awarded for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight.-Criteria:...
for Aerial Combat Duty." He then returned to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in 1970, where he became a member of then-Governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Ronald Reagan's
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
"Kitchen Cabinet
Kitchen Cabinet
The Kitchen Cabinet was a term used by political opponents of President of the United States Andrew Jackson to describe the collection of unofficial advisers he consulted in parallel to the United States Cabinet following his purge of the cabinet at the end of the Eaton affair and his break with...
."
Questionable business practices and backroom politics soon consumed much of Brian's adult career, involving him during President Ronald Reagan's Administration in several major political scandals, most notably the so-called October Surprise Conspiracy
October surprise conspiracy
The October Surprise conspiracy theory refers to an alleged plot to influence the outcome of the 1980 United States presidential election between incumbent Jimmy Carter and opponent Ronald Reagan ....
; the bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
(and software piracy) case of Inslaw Inc. v. United States Government; and the confirmation hearings of Edwin Meese
Edwin Meese
Edwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of...
. In 1996, he was convicted on ten counts of fraud and sentenced to four years in prison.
Biography
Earl Winfrey Brian, Jr. was born in Raleigh, North CarolinaRaleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
. Currently, little is known about his youth other than that he achieved wide recognition as a highly-respectable amateur tennis player. In 1964, he married Jane Lang; and two years later, earned a medical degree
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
from Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
. He then entered military service.
After his tour of duty in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, he returned to California to do postgraduate work at Stanford Medical School
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford University School of Medicine is a leading medical school located at Stanford University Medical Center in Stanford, California. Originally based in San Francisco, California as Cooper Medical College, it is the oldest continuously running medical school in the western United States...
. One night, while performing duties as a resident intern, Brian checked upon patient, Ned Hutchinson, Ronald Reagan's campaign manager for San Mateo County, California
San Mateo County, California
San Mateo County is a county located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It covers most of the San Francisco Peninsula just south of San Francisco, and north of Santa Clara County. San Francisco International Airport is located at the northern end of the county, and...
. Brian so impressed Hutchinson so well that he recommended Brian to California health officials. Shortly thereafter, by late 1970, Brian found himself occupying the executive secretary's office of the
California State Social Welfare Board. "I found out they were going to pay me $1,200 a month, not just $120 a month, like at Stanford," Brian is quoted as saying, "It was an easy decision."
Early political life
As Reagan's secretary of health and welfare services, Earl Brian's name appeared in the "nation's behavior modificationBehavior modification
Behavior modification is the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of...
and mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
experiments"
— as an advocate of state subsidies for the Center for the Prevention of Violence (which was Governor Reagan's proposed but aborted site for the study of behavioral abnormalities). Perhaps though Brian is best remembered in California-politics for his participation in a 1971 Medi-Cal
Medi-Cal
The California Medical Assistance Program is the name of the California Medicaid program serving low-income families, seniors, persons with disabilities, children in foster care, pregnant women, and certain low-income adults...
debate to win support for the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
's insistence that Medi-Cal recipients be required to put up a $2 co-payment for each doctor’s visit:
Brian was sued by the California Medical Association for his handling of Medi-Cal and lost; the final decision was affirmed by the California supreme court. Sometime prior to 1974, Brian authored a book on "investing in securities" though this claim has yet to be verified. He then resigned his cabinet post, ran for the U.S. Senate seat of Senator Alan Cranston
Alan Cranston
Alan MacGregor Cranston was an American journalist and Democratic Senator from California.-Education:Cranston earned his high school diploma from the old Mountain View High School, where among other things, he was a track star...
(D–CA), but lost in the primaries. Before he left California-politics completely however, Brian found himself in the midst of a minor scandal: he had removed over 1000 computer tapes from the California State welfare records; he claimed their importance was "incidental", and that his critics were frenzied by a "ploy intended to obfuscate the abortive Gestapo raid ordered by the [present] secretary of health." He then "retreated to the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
as a professor of medicine", inherited $50,000 from his father and entered the world of business as a venture-capitalist.
In 1975, he became president of Los Angeles-based Xonics Inc., a high-tech company with "several contracts with the Department of Defense and the CIA." Xonics "specialized in telecommunications, radar techniques and X-ray imaging." On April 7, 1977, the SEC permanently enjoined Xonics for violations of the antifraud provisions of the securities laws. According to Wired (magazine)
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
, "Xonics, was cited by the Security and Exchange Commission for issuing press releases designed to boost stock prices with exaggerated or bloated information. The SEC also accused Xonics of illegally paying "commissions" to brokers...." Then, in October, "Brian slipped away from the company discreetly, just six months after Xonics rolled over and agreed to the SEC injunction. Brian was never charged with any wrongdoing; four Xonics officers were required to sign the consent decree, and he was not one of them."
However, according to a 1991 Financial Post
Financial Post
The Financial Post was an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the publication was folded into the new National Post, although the name Financial Post has been retained as the banner for that paper's business section and also lives on in the Post’s...
article, "...it was Biotech Capital Corp., the predecessor to Infotech, that would become Brian's main business vehicle—and, ultimately, the source of most of his problems." Biotech Capital was a venture capital firm that invested in medical companies. Brian launched it shortly after his divorce in 1977 and subsequent remarriage in 1978 to Diana Vivian, a New England debutante. "Vivian's father, who put money in the company, was installed as vice president, treasurer, and secretary."
Business and scandals
It is key to note that all the following information related to "Inslaw" is conjecture and allegation, according to the New York Court of Appeals,which stated that claims related to Inslaw "represented...opinion(s)...and that...specific charges about [Dr. Brian] were allegations and not demonstrable fact."
As a principal shareholder and board member of Hadron Inc., a government consulting firm, Earl Brian allegedly met with Islamic radicals
Extremism
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on the weekend of October 17–20, 1980, to deliver 40 millions-$U.S. to the Islamic Republic of Iran in exchange for the release of 52 Americans held hostage in Tehran. For his help in this so-called October Surprise conspiracy
October surprise conspiracy
The October Surprise conspiracy theory refers to an alleged plot to influence the outcome of the 1980 United States presidential election between incumbent Jimmy Carter and opponent Ronald Reagan ....
, Earl Brian allegedly was allowed to profit from the illegal pirating of the Promis
Prosecutor's Management Information System
The Prosecutor's Management Information System is a database system developed by Inslaw Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based, information technology company....
system.
According to Michael Riconosciuto
Michael Riconosciuto
Michael Riconosciuto is an electronics and computer expert who was convicted on seven drug-related charges in early 1992. Riconosciuto professed a defense centered on the Inslaw Affair...
(who was described by a House Investigating Committee as "a shady character allegedly tied to U.S. intelligence
Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
agencies and recently convicted on drug
charges"), he and Earl Brian "traveled to Iran [in 1980]... to persuade [Iranian officials] not to let the hostages go before the presidential election." Additionally, in a 1991 affidavit filed in the Inslaw Inc. v. United States Government case, Riconosciuto claimed to have reprogrammed Inslaw's software under Earl Brian's direction sometime between 1983–84 at the behest of top-level officials within the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
so that it could be sold to dozens of foreign governments with a secret "back door" which allowed outsiders to track individuals using the Prosecutor's Management Information System
Prosecutor's Management Information System
The Prosecutor's Management Information System is a database system developed by Inslaw Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based, information technology company....
(Promis) software. Riconosciuto further alleged that Brian used the proceeds from the illegal sale of Promis
Prosecutor's Management Information System
The Prosecutor's Management Information System is a database system developed by Inslaw Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based, information technology company....
to fund weapons manufacturing at a remote and sovereign Cabazon Indian Reservation
Cabazon Band of Mission Indians
The Cabazon Band of Mission Indians is a federally recognized tribe of Cahuilla Indians, located in Riverside County, California.-Reservation:The Cabazon Indian Reservation was founded in 1876. It occupies located seven miles from Indio, California and from Palm Springs...
in Indio, California
Indio, California
Indio is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, located in the Coachella Valley of Southern California's Colorado Desert region. It lies east of Palm Springs, east of Riverside, and east of Los Angeles. It is about north of Mexicali, Baja California on the U.S.-Mexican border...
, in conjunction with the Florida-based Wackenhut
Wackenhut
G4S Secure Solutions is a private security company. It was founded as The Wackenhut Corporation in 1954, in Coral Gables, Florida, by George Wackenhut and three partners ....
Corporation as a scam to supply munitions and biological warfare
Biological warfare
Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...
weapons to the Nicaraguan contras.
Shortly after publication of these allegations in a New York Times op-ed article ("A High-Tech Watergate") Earl Brian responded with a libel suit against the author, Elliot Richardson, the former Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
under the Nixon Administration, and principal counsel for Inslaw, Inc. However, on February 26, 1993, a New York trial court dismissed Brian's complaint; and then, twenty-one months later, The New York Court of Appeals
New York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the U.S. state of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six associate judges who are appointed by the Governor to 14-year terms...
unanimously affirmed the lower court's ruling. To this day, Earl Brian has denied these allegations always—though when confronted directly on specific details, Brian has refused to be interviewed.
Arrest and conviction
In 1996, Brian was indicted, arrested, and convicted on ten of thirteen counts of falsifying company finances during 1989 to obtain $56 million in bank loans. At the time of the alleged fraud, Brian was the chairman of two companies specific to the charges: United Press InternationalUnited Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
and Financial News Network
Financial News Network
The Financial News Network was a television network that operated throughout the United States during the 1980s.-Founding:Financial News Network was founded in 1981 by two men: Rodney Buchser, who had been general manager of KWHY, Channel 22 in Los Angeles and Glenn Taylor. The concept originated...
. He was then sentenced to four years and nine months in federal prison, but was free on bail during his appeal. On October 14, 1998, a federal appeals court upheld his fraud convictions. Brian soon entered prison. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case. He was released on November 1, 2002, (see) after having served his complete sentence.
See also
- Ken AlibekKen AlibekColonel Kanatzhan Alibekov — known as Dr. Kenneth Alibek since 1992 — is a former Soviet physician, scientist and biological warfare expert of Kazakh descent. He is a military physician, has PhD in microbiology and ScD in biotechnology...
-- biological warfareBiological warfareBiological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...
, Analex Corporation (aka Hadron, Inc.) (see 1991 "Biographical chronology") - Victor MarchettiVictor MarchettiVictor Marchetti is a former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a prominent paleoconservative critic of the United States Intelligence Community and the Israel lobby in the United States....
and The CIA and the Cult of IntelligenceThe CIA and the Cult of IntelligenceThe CIA and the Cult of Intelligence is a 1974 controversial non-fiction political book written by Victor Marchetti, a former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and John D. Marks, a former officer of the United States Department of State.The authors claim...