Ä Area: Odyssey Fringe Science Research Network ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
  Msg#: 163                                          Date: 09-30-96  07:28
  From: John Powell                                  Read: Yes    Replied: No 
    To: All                                          Mark:                     
  Subj: More on Victorian
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Subscription information is available on the
Web at:

http://www.forteantimes.com

or

http://alpha.mic.dundee.ac.uk/ft/ft.cgi?-1,ft

_______________________________________________

Fortean Times - FT90 October, 1996

Page 5 - Editorial
'A Legend In His Own Time'

In this issue, we present Robert Irving's profile of the complex world
of Henry Azadehdel, better known to researchers in the fields of
ufology, mind control and crop circle research as 'Dr. Armen
Victorian'. This is not an attempt to villify or 'expose' him, for
most of the facts are in the public domain and, as Irving himself
declares, the man is both likable and deserving of respect for teasing
out volumes of ex-secrets via the US's Freedom of Information Act.

Our interest in 'Henry X' goes far deeper, as his story takes on the
dimensions of a heroic stereotype: the dedicated but solitary
investigator who believes he is persecuted by government agents. It is
a story that cuts across many areas of current interest and embroils
some of their leading specialists. In the end, it is impossible to
determine who is manipulating whom.  It is a story that anyone
interested in the shadowy world of conspiracy, real or imagined will
want to read.

Bob Rickard & Paul Sieveking

----------------------------

Pages 34-39

The Henry X File

Emitter, diplomat, adventurer, orchid-smuggler, crop circle researcher,
UFO investigator, man-in-black....

Was this the secret life of a Nottingham shop assistant?  Robert
Irving presents a study in persecution and panache.

Feeling monopolised by the telephone company?  Spare a thought for one
Nottingham resident.  For five years he suffered the clicks and beeps
of uninvited listeners.  His bills -- averaging 3,000-4,000 pounds
annually -- seemed high for a residential line.  Outside his house he
caught unqualified engineers red-handedly tinkering with his junction
box.  They drove grey, unmarked vans.

Sometimes these men paid visits to his home, attempting entry with a
quick flash of bogus ID, or waiting until the house was empty.  Eight
break-ins were reported in as many months.  They stole documents,
frightened his kids, inserted tiny listening devices into wall
sockets, and repeatedly tampered with the break-line on the family
car.  Throughout all this, his relationship with British Telecom,
America's National Security Agency, CIA, MI5, and the British police,
progressively worsened.

Matters came to a head in early 1995 at Nottingham's magistrate's
court.  Across the street, smartly-dressed reporters from the local
Evening Post set out to cover their beat, oblivious to the story
unfolding before them.  A stream of other dark dressers --
magistrates, lawyers, articled clerks -- enter the building.  In
contrast, Habib Azadehdel arrives wearing a pale reflective raincoat
which lights up like a strobe as he makes his dash for the door.

At first glance, Azadehdel's file bridges the void between persecution
and opportunity: his boyhood flight from then-Soviet Armenian to the
apparent sanctuary of Iran; his early twenties, when the Iranian
government capitalised on their multilingual asset, recruiting him as a
diplomatic 'fixer' to the South Korean embassy in Teheran.  In 1979,
as the Shah slipped into exile, Habib and his brother Bazil joined an
exodus of middle-class non-Shiites to Britain.  They became citizens,
and while Bazil opened his first grocer's shop in Nottingham, Habib
bought a house there, changed his name to Henry, and tried to settle
down to the comparative serenity of east-Midlands life, ostensibly
selling life insurance.

As careers go, the route from international diplomat to insurance
salesman to notorious smuggler to renowned UFO investigator seems as
implausible as it was precarious.  'Henry' was just the first of
several noms de guerre.  'Julian Philips', for instance -- doubtless
inspired by the arrival of his first son, Julleane Philippe -- or 'Mr.
Scanlon', 'Dr. Alan Jones', and 'Cassava N'Tumba'.  When Henry finally
settled for the playful 'Dr. Armen Victorian', few of his compatriots
seemed to notice.

We first catch sight of Henry Azadehdel at the Old Bailey in 1989,
where his conviction for orchid-smuggling exposes skills eminently
suited to the intrigue of the UFO business.  Who can really say at
what point a smuggler who does a little abductee research on the side
becomes an abductee researcher who does a little smuggling on the
side?

"Henry had an amazing alacrity in tight situations," an
intelligence-gatherer for the Customs and Excise told me as he pulled
out a copy of Henry's little black book, with its names and addresses
of known orchid dealers.  Underneath each name was a date and a list
of exotic plant names.  Beside each entry, a figure -- say, 3,000 --
with a dollar sign preceding it, followed by the letters 'DLVD'.

To his investigators, this was clearly short for 'DELIVERED'.  To
Henry, it was an acronym for the instruction 'Diluted Lime Various
Doses'; the dollar sign merely a coded reminder to apply it.  Most of
the people listed in the book, mainly buyers from the US, were
interviewed by Customs officials in a year-long investigation;
nevertheless, no one, not even the experts consulted, was ever able to
throw any light upon Azadehdel's lime remedy.

In what must be the boldest plea of mitigation by extenuating
circumstances ever uttered at the Old Bailey, Azadehdel told the
court: "I have been ship-wrecked, subjected to disease, chased by drug
traffickers, and fed by the chief of a clan of head-hunters.  I've
been to places where no white man had ever been.  I'm proud to have
extended the boundaries of science."

While Henry portrayed himself as an audacious adventurer; to others he
was the ubiquitous Man-In-Black.  Stories circulated of his
appearances; strolling through a Tokyo hotel lobby, for instance, just
as he was spotted -- like Oswald -- leaving an embassy in Mexico.
Rumours associated Henry with the deadly trade in Red Mercury, or the
'missing' Alternative 3 tapes, or parrots.  He was twice reported seen
in the back of a Soviet embassy limousine in Ottawa.  As far as the
three appeal court judges were concerned, however, Azadehdel all the
while sold cans of pop behind the counter of his brother's suburban
mini-mart.  If they considered any of these stories a shade bogus, it
was bogusity shaded with bold panache.


While most of the media attention around Azadehdel's trial in 1989
centred on his activities with rare orchids, it was naturally left to
The Sun to uncover the unique angle to the story: the secret behind
Henry's secret life.  Tipped off by rival researchers, who generously
donated their pieces of silver to a well-known environmental group,
the newspaper revealed how Azadehdel had negotiated the sale of stolen
classified documents with a young South African Air Force Intelligence
officer.  Signs of anxiety among the journalists were understandable
as Henry announced that the documents were said to include details of
the shoot-down and retrieval of an extraterrestrial flying disc in the
Kalahari desert:  "This is the most important revelation in Britain
for the last 40 years," he told them.

Others were less convinced.  Among the least likely of Henry's
enemies' were Timothy Good, author of Beyond Top Secret, and Graham
Birdsall, editor of UFO magazine.  While both may have been inclined
to accept the saucer story, they were rightly sceptical of the
intelligence officer's credentials, particularly after discovering he
was barely out of his teens and had recently left a trail of debts
while foraging through American UFO bookshops.

Henry's influence regarding the so-called 'Kalahari incident' remains
embedded in UFO folklore.  With the circulation of bogus alien
photographs, a lively trade in anonymous letters, spurious allegations
and threat-laden telephone messages, the chapter serves as a warning
to those looking for answer in the latest Roswell debacle.

Around that time, Tony Dodd -- a former police sergeant, now Director
of Investigations with Quest, a Leeds-based UFO group -- reported
being tailed around his home town of Grassington and across Europe as
he travelled the lecture circuit.  At one of his conferences, Dodd met
an "intelligence source -- American ufologist Wendelle Stevens -- and
became convinced that the Paris branch of the South African Security
Service had been contracted to liquidate the former policeman and his
Armenian co-investigator.  Generally speaking, rule one for some
ufologists is 'a little persecution lends much cachet to one's work'.

As they voiced the concerns of an increasingly sceptical UFO
community, Good and Birdsall began to receive a stream of angry
correspondence, not all anonymous but mostly litigious in tone.  One,
signed simply 'J. Brown', warned Good of his imminent exposure as a
CIA informant with alleged connection to a shadowy group known as the
Aviary.  Others were more explicit, offering to curb legal action in
return for Good's public apology: "I have seeked the protection of the
law where these type of faul language and insults are involved," wrote
Azadehdel greyly.  "I have employed both firms (of solicitors) to do
their best," concluded the letter.  "Since finance is absolutely no
objection on my part, to see this case through as professionally as
possible."

Tim Good had reasons to be concerned.  For one, most newspapers had
reported money from his smuggling activities, a fraction of which he
was fined -- so he could well have had cash to burn in the
all-consuming fire of legal action.  These were particularly litigious
times for ufologists -- Jenny Randles having just paid out her
life-savings in a similarly promiscuous action.

In the end, however, Tim Good rightly ignored the letters, and no writ
was forthcoming.  Perhaps reluctant to reject a flavoursome spy theme,
Graham Birdsall wondered whether Henry's approach was actually subtler
than was immediately apparent from his letters.  He wrote to Good in
1991 that he believed Henry was capable of behaviour that FT's lawyers
have advised me not to repeat in public.  Birdsall also wrote that
Henry "appears a master at 'turning' others.  The art of the
intelligence officer...retired or still serving?"

A year later -- at the 1992 UFO Conference in Leeds -- Birdsall had,
curiously, changed his tune.  "In my 25 years of investigation," began
his lengthy introduction, "I have never known so much good information
come from one individual."  Had he himself been 'turned'?

Introduced as Armen Victorian, Azadehdel stepped up to the lectern,
providing those present with their first glimpse of this most
untypical of ufologists.  Not for him the rites of chilly hilltop
sky-watches -- no significant epiphany, or gleaming descriptions of
personal sightings -- for, while those visionaries look for answers in
the heavens, Henry was glancing suspiciously sideways.  The message
was dark and delivered with the cool, didactic authority of an
ex-diplomat.  That very morning, The Guardian had described the day's
agenda.

"Calling Penguin, Falcon and the Owl; stand by to be reassigned to other
duties...You are about to be unmasked in front of 400 ufologists...The
audience will hear taped conversations of the gang of international
debunkers, a group code-named 'The Aviary' -- revealing the role they
have played in giving ufology, etc., a bad name..."They have helped
brand us a load of idiots," complained Tony Dodd, the conference
organiser.  The tapes were gathered by Armen Victorian, a
Nottingham-based former diplomat, whom the Aviary allegedly tried in
vain to recruit."

As Armen Victorian -- Henry -- alleged it, the Aviary comprised
select, eschatologically-minded Intelligence officers, retired US Army
colonels, wealthy philanthropists, government scientists, writers like
Tim Good, and others 'in the audience' (including a priest) -- all
united by a belief that the world had become terminally burdened by an
over-dependence upon technology.  Space aliens, amassed somewhere deep
in the New Mexico desert, were unhappy; their 40-year-old
'earthling-tissue for technology' pact was under threat; its secret
about to be uncovered by rogue investigators like Dodd, Birdsall,
and...

The Aviary's plan was twofold: by amplifying the public's
misconception of the paranormal, attention could be diverted from
ultra-secret weapons testing and other sensitive projects, like the
CIA's increasing proficiency in remote-viewing, the Space Defence
Initiative and its annual manifestations in the wheatfields of southern
England.  This would dis-credit the New Age movement by promoting
stories certain to attract public ridicule.

The most effective method, of course, was in manipulating the media.
During periods with a high incidence of UFOs, for example, they would
subdue potential panic with headlines like 'I WAS RAPED BY ALIENS' --
stories no one in their right mind would believe.  More astute
researchers risked corruption by equally insidious tactics; crop
circle and UFO hoaxing, spurious films and photos.  There was only one
way to defeat this, implied Henry...and only one man.

Azadehdel's approach, like the Aviary's, was multifaceted. He
explained to those listening that the techniques he used were those
'usually deployed' by the intelligence services.  Using a host of
assumed identities.  Henry plagued the Armed and Intelligence
Services, and assorted scientists with telephone calls, his tape
recorder running and well stocked, and flooded the US government with
requests for sensitive records under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA).

Sometimes professional information gathers were approached to make
requests on his behalf.  Henry showed one BBC producer a selection of
passports to impress his role as researcher, consultant, or 'eminent'
physicist, or as an agent of our own Secret Services.  This was social
engineering at its finest.

"Henry definitely had an Intelligence background," remembers Birdsall,
"because there were certain numbers and certain places and certain
people that he could get in touch with that...ordinary folks just
couldn't.  It was unbelievable."

Henry and Birdsall had arranged to meet one afternoon at a motorway
service cafe near Nottingham.  As Birdsall tells it, when Azadehdel
opened his briefcase, beneath the passports -- "Well, one was British,
and one looked like it might be Iranian...I didn't look too closely,
and I didn't ask, but he made sure I saw them" -- were "several
hundreds of documents, not just those released under the FOIA,"
Birdsall told me later.  "Not copies, but originals...from the USA and
all over the place.  It was just incredible."

Information from Henry's documents would eventually turn up in the
undertow of paranoia-based subcultural magazines -- such as Lobster,
Third Eyes Only, Nexus, and Conspiracy.  His taped telephone
conversations were compiled for sale through a mail order directory
run by Birdsall's Quest International.  If the contents were
particularly controversial -- and they usually were -- a 'special
edition' would be advertised: for example 'MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION,
The Tape Which Proves That an Intelligence Organisation Exists to
Provide Disinformation About Crop Circles...Armen Victorian Interviews
a Member of That Security Service (UFO Audio Tape #15).'

The first tape played at the 1992 Leeds conference featured the voice
of a young American sociology student, based at Lincoln College,
Oxford -- that traditional aegis of spies -- whom Azadehdel believed
to be operating undercover for the CIA.  As The Guardian rightly
predicted, it featured the getting-to-know-you banter of recruitment.

Student:  "NATO?  Well, Germany is involved, and this country, and the
          US...also the Vatican."

Henry:    "I see, I see...are we talking about..."

Student:  "We're talking about a supra-national organisation with ties
          to these countries."

Henry:    "Oh, good God!  Are we talking Trilateral Commission, that
          sort of thing?"

Student:  "It's just very dangerous to talk about, and I hope you
          will...you know."

Student:  "Are you a Christian?"

Henry:    "I am a Catholic."

Student:  "Yes, good...so am I."

Gasps were heard from the audience as Azadehdel revealed that the
student/agent lived within a short distance of the Oxford headquarters
of the right-wing Jesuit order Opus Dei.

The next tape was of a bewildered but service-polite officer at the US
Space Command's Space Surveillance Centre, buried deep inside
Colorado's Cheyenne mountain.  A craft of some kind had crashed into
the Rockies and the surrounding area sealed off and Henry was
ferreting details about an alleged film of the wreckage.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, sir," replies the officer.

"Ah, I see, I see...," hisses Henry -- an ingratiating Mr. Moto --
"yes, I understand," he says, "not on the telephone."

And what about the colour?  "Sorry?"  The colour of the craft?  "Er,
it was grey, sir."  And the occupants?  "Pardon me, sir?"  Like the
officer, 400 people in the hall strain to hear the words -- but
there's too much background noise -- screaming and squawking like
children playing nearby, or a cage full of endangered birds.

"The occupants?," repeats Azadehdel, competing with the din.  "They
were grey, sir," reports the officer.

"Aliens?" shouts the caller, barely able to contain himself.

"Yes sir... it was alien."

Henry sits amid stunned bedlam.  Tension builds with the noise.  The
audience leans further forward, straining to hear what comes next.
Then the officer's voice rises above it all.  'Er...you have me on a
speaker phone don't you, sir?"  It's just that I'm getting so much
feedback."  Silence for a moment, then: "No, no," answers Henry, "you
see...it's because my phone is connected to my fax...If I tape
something, I always ask permission beforehand."

-----

Closer to home, Henry applied pressure on Lloyd Turner, then-deputy
editor of 'Today' newspaper.  Alternatively posing as 'Dr. Alan Jones
(media consultant)', and 'Dr. Armen Victorian (eminent physicist)', he
bombarded Turner and his staff with questions concerning the
'Copyright MBF Services' notice appended to the paper's exposure of
Doug and Dave, the sexagenarian crop circle makers.  While Turner
maintained the squib was devised to discourage other papers from
picking up the story prematurely, to Henry and the remains of a
dwindling fraternity of cerealogists, it was further evidence of a
concerted disinformation campaign to discredit the circles -- the
unsuspecting slip they'd been hoping for.

Eventually the dispute reached the Press Complaints Commission.
Azadehdel, now describing himself as a 'prominent researcher into corn
circles', accused the newspaper -- specifically Turner, editor Martin
Dunn, and Graham Brough, who had written the story -- of 'tricking
people and seriously undermining research into the phenomenon'.

Henry remained confident that judgment would be favourable.  "I am 80
per cent sure we will win," he told Dr. Terence Meaden, a former
physics professor and editor of the Journal of Meteorology.  With
Meaden also recording the call, Azadehdel clarified his true intention
in bringing the action.  "An when we do win," he said, "I will sue
Today for damages."

Exactly what would have constituted damages in a case such as this was
never established; in any case, the judgement went in favour of the
paper.  Meanwhile, Cerealogist editor George Wingfield -- whose
codename for Henry was 'Snowdrop' -- and other crop-commandos
continued to investigate the mysterious 'MBF Services', dividing their
attention between a tiny defence industry contractor in a sleepy
Somerset village where windowless stables looked a lot like
laboratories, someone noted, and a Scottish rubber stamp manufacturer
of the same name.

Henry's come-uppence began when he obtained and widely published the
classified personnel records of Dr. John B. Alexander, a former US
Army colonel and Director of the Non-lethal Weapons Division of Los
Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico.  Azadehdel's FOIA request
for Alexander's military records was initially turned down by the Los
Alamos Public Office but his follow-up for more details hit paydirt;
the office mistakenly returned the unadulterated file.

Azadehdel's subsequent article -- 'Non-Lethality:  John B. Alexander,
The Pentagon's Penguin', published in Lobster (June, 1993) and
republished in Nexus (October/November, 1993) as 'Psychic Warfare and
Non-Lethal Weapons' under Henry's 'hobby' name of Armen Victorian --
focused upon Alexander's supposed leadership of a top secret
DIA-sponsored 'UFO Working Group', said to have held monthly meetings
deep in the lead-lined bowels of Defence Department headquarters.

How much, asked Henry, of Alexander's input as head of the Army's
Advanced Concept Division -- his PhD in Thanatology (the study of
near-death experience); his involvement in the military's ESP
experiments with dolphins; his interest in pre-cataclysmic
civilisations (once diving in the waters off the Bimini Islands in
search of the lost city of Atlantis); and his active interest in UFOs
-- was actually integrated into official defence policy?

Alexander's attempts to thwart Henry's probing brought only defiance.
Henry circulated a letter on the internet, stressing:  "My true
identity is and has always been A. Victorian," and hinting at his
preparations for more legal shenanigans.  "I await with great
anticipation Mr. Alexander's legal ac ion in this regard."  But it
never came.  Nevertheless, Alexander had done his homework, posting a
selection of the juicier details from Henry's past.  These included
The Sun's lurid 'Sex Secret of Orchid Smuggler' which reads in part:
"We had some particularly nice epithytics hanging from our bedroom
ceiling," blushed [Mrs. Alexander].

Even more mind-boggling were the news reports of Henry's 4 million
pound appeal for 'aid' to Kurdish refugees, organised in 1991 with the
assistance of the British and Iranian governments.  Later, in an
impatient moment, Henry suggested to me that its real purpose was
reparation for Iran's costly war effort against Iraq.

More darkly still, Alexander hinted at changes to Azadehdel's
immediate future:  "Previously, I have discussed these matters with
members of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security
Agency.  I considered going to the State Department and having them
ask the British Government to intervene.  While [Azadehdel's] requests
may be within legal bounds, he has asserted he wants access to
information he believes to be classified.  I have learned that the CIA
has asked both British Intelligence and the police to assist in
resolving problems with Azadehdel."

Soon afterwards, the burglaries began and British Telecom, along with
the mysterious engineers with their ominous grey vans and bogus ID
cards, moved in.  A few months later, on 14 July, 1994, Henry and his
wife were arrested and charged by Nottingham's finest.

The scene in the courtroom is a study in body language.  Sandwiched
between an incident of head-butting, the alleged theft of six pairs of
underpants and a further count of Actual Bodily Harm -- the flotsam of
a Nottingham weekend -- stands Henry proudly with his wife and
co-defendant...the magistrate raising her eyebrows as she reviews the
charges.

Henry, shifting his weight from foot to foot, resolutely shakes his
head as each is read out:  "That on the 14th of July, 1994 you
obtained the provision of a telephone line by deception", an unpaid
bill of 3,762 pounds, "...and 18p," adds the clerk.

As we watch, three similar charges are put to the pair regarding
unpaid phone accounts over four years, each obtained under a different
name -- 'Senkowski', 'Zakar', 'Smith' -- and at two separate
addresses, totaling almost 10,000 pounds.  The prosecution alleging
that collection notices were returned marked 'Not at This Address' or
'Gone Away'.  Henry shakes his head once more:  "Not guilty."

Later, outside, Azadehdel pulls a notebook and a pen from his raincoat
pocket -- it's a British Telecom pen and he clicks it at us.  "I'm a
journalist too" he winks.  It's good to talk.  "You don't believe all
that do you?" he asks, to an uncomfortable silence as we walk towards
the exit.

Even his solicitor looks slightly squeamish.  It is none of our
business that Henry had written 'cleaner' as an occupation on his
-!-
-!- FMail/386 1.02
 ! Origin: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence BBS (1:261/1201))

Ä Area: Odyssey Fringe Science Research Network ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
  Msg#: 164                                          Date: 09-30-96  07:28
  From: John Powell                                  Read: Yes    Replied: No 
    To: All                                          Mark:                     
  Subj: 2 More on Victorian
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
arrest report.  We huddle in the foyer, as Henry's wife leaves for
work.  "It's a set up," whispers the accused, his solicitor nodding.

So who's setting you up?  "You tell me?"  M15?  I guess, wildly.  "Of
course," replies Henry, "...and Six!"  And the CIA?  I ask, having
just received the response to my own FOIA request for the Agency's
information on 'Armen Victorian', 'Alan Jones', Cassava N'Tumba' and
others.  The CIA reply simply referred me to one man "a person
identified as Henry Azadehdel".

And the Aviary?  The brief looked bemused.  "Hah!  The Aviary,"
sneered his client -- a reaction I took as confirmation that this most
intriguing of UFO conspiracy stories was, yes, strictly for the birds.
When I raised the curious matter of N'Tumba and the London MP [see
'panel' - below], Henry shrugged hi shoulders in denial, but sprang to life
at the theme:  "I am being persecuted...persecuted," he said, sounding
much like N'Tumba himself.

He went on to describe an intricate relationship between the Security
Services -- who, he was convinced, had engineered his troubles -- and
British Telecom.  Surely BT can't be involved, I asked, perhaps
naively.  "They are being manipulated," answered Henry, "either
wittingly or unwittingly, who knows?"

Slowly I realised that the sheer un-liklihood of Azadehdel's story
formed the essence of its brilliance as a defence.  I tried to imagine
what a jury might make of it.  I remembered the letter seized as
evidence at the time of Henry's arrest, which advised him to 'leave a
false paper trail' - thereby confusing the police -- and to join the
Labour Party.  Lobster editor Robin Ramsey, who wrote the letter, told
journalists that Azadehdel had been "set up and harassed in a very
obvious and crude way.  He's done remarkable things using the FOIA,
and it's not surprising that they want to shut him down."

-----

In January, 1995, Henry's plight was taken up by his local MP.
Labour's media aficionado Graham Allen, and Maurice Frankel, Director
of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, who both carried it as far
as the Security Services Tribunal.  Allen wrote to the Tribunal
Secretary complaining of 'mail tampering and phone tapping', while
Frankel told the Observer he was worried about the implications of
British Intelligence and police involvement.

Having convinced so many people, Henry was now on a roll.  "Think
about it," he pleaded, referring to the break-ins:  "Why didn't they
touch my TV and video, or my Hi-Fi, and why was there no sign of
entry?"  I thought about it but had to ask, if only for the record:
What sort of documents were they?  "My computer files," he answered,
"and all my research and financial records."

I found myself liking him, like so many others touched by his
persuasiveness, and enjoying the test of my credulity.  I felt no
malice.  Even his widely-circulated story of my allegiance to the
imaginary 'Second Church of Satan' and his warning to all that I
'carry on a long knife with me at all times', just seems amusing now,
no matter how many times it's repeated on the internet.

Henry's further claim that my friend Jim Schnabel -- the American
student at Lincoln College, Oxford -- is a fanatical Jesuit, shackled
by spiked leg-irons to the CIA, was even more hilarious.  Surely this
unlikely portrait of a duo of supranational G-men was meant to be
taken that way?  Now I understood the full meaning of 'alacrity', for
I could hear the not-too-distant sound of Customs men laughing.  I
began not to mind that this anarchic, green-fingered, devilishly
photogenic ex-diplomat -- a true Rennaisance man -- might simply be
having a joke on us all.

To my final question -- whether he'd like to join us for a cup of tea
at a nearby cafe -- Henry disappointedly offered no wild stories of
excuse.  He simply smiled and waved goodbye, vanishing into the
Nottingham trade.  It was one of those Condor moments.  I decided not
to bug him anymore.

Postscript

*  Orchid smuggling:  Charged under the name Azadehdel, Henry pleaded
   guilty and received a one year sentence and a hefty fine.  After
   six weeks in Pentonville, Henry successfully appealed at the Old
   Bailey; his fine was reduced and his sentence reduced to time
   served.

*  Telephone account deception:  Henry was charged under the name
   Armen Victorian.  After a series of commital hearings, the Crown
   Prosecution Service discontinued their action against him.  His
   wife, who admitted the charges at the time of her arrest, was
   committed to Nottingham Crown Court where she pleaded guilty to
   three counts of deception.  She received two concurrent conditional
   discharges of 12 months.

*  Complaint to the Security Services Tribunal:  It was recently
   reported that, since its inception, all complaints put before the
   Tribunal have been overruled.


[Centre Box - page 39]

A Bug In Your Brain

The subject of mind-control also held a special interest for Henry
Azadehdel.  Writing as Armen Victorian in the now-defunct Undercover
magazine, he detailed MKULTRA-MKDELTA:  a mind-control project by
security services which included brain-implanted, micro-miniaturised,
radio-controlled, electronic devices (or 'stimoceivers', invented by
Dr. Jose M. Delgado) -- inside the brains of unsuspecting recipients.
"In the course of my research," wrote Dr. Victorian.  "I have met
people with similar electronic implants in their heads."

It is likely he was referring to Cassava N'Tumba, a Kenyan journalist
and sometime Plumstead resident who, one day in 1992, walked into the
Woolwich surgery of Labour MP John Austin-Walker complaining of severe
headaches, aggravated by harassment, abduction, and cruel medical
experimentation by Britain's Security Services.

Austin-Walker's secretary, Angie Hill, remembers him well.  "His file
is very thick," she told me.  N'Tumba -- or someone posing as N'Tumba,
perhaps -- told Austin-Walker that during one visit to hospital he'd
been unwittingly anaesthetised and fitted with two electronic devices
-- one up his left nostril, and an 'electrode of radio-transmitting
crystal' at the base of his skull.  And what's more, N'Tumba claimed
he could supply the X-rays to prove it.

The X-rays convinced Lennart Lindquist, at least, whose International
Network Against Mind Control operated from a postbox in Stockholm.  In
his accompanying letter to Lindquist, N'Tumba said that since the
operation, everyone around him, especially M15, had been able to share
all his "visions, thoughts, images, hearing, and memory".  It was, he
said, "a large scale propaganda drive to smear my character,
background, behaviour, emotions and motives."  He added indignantly:
"I am not a spy.  I am not a criminal.  I am not a terrorist.  [I'm]
an innocent victim of M15."

Austin-Walker dutifully forwarded his constituent's complaint of
harassment to Prime Minister John Major.  According to a Downing
Street spokesman, the letter was passed to the Home Office.  The reply,
when it eventually came, was characteristically ambiguous:  "The British
Intelligence Services can neither confirm nor deny any allegations
made against the British Intelligence Services."

A second letter to the Prime Minister representing N'Tumba's case soon
followed, this time from Lennart Lindquist.  Simultaneously faxed to
news agencies world-wide, it went into great detail about the
apparently growing problem of mass cranial implantation.  After
declaring that such activities contravened Article 5 of the United
Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Lindquist moved swiftly on to the
sensitive issue of remuneration.  "We urgently press you for all
possible assistance which you can give to Mr. N'Tumba," he told the
Prime Minister.

This all happened soon after payments of over a million dollars were
made to the CIA and the Canadian government to victims of the MKULTRA
program after a long and acrimonious dispute.

I believe that at some point Henry added 'Cassava N'Tumba' to his list
of pseudonyms.  However, despite a host of circumstantial evidence --
for example.  Henry played tapes of 'N'Tumba's' phone conversations at
the UFO Leeds Conference;  and both Henry and 'N'Tumba' shared a
claustrophobic circle of overlapping colleagues and interests -- he
resisted my suspicions.  Once 'N'Tumba' rang me about an article on
crop circles I co-wrote for the Independent magazine.  In Henry's
familiar voice he announced himself as "Er... N'Tumba, Cassava
N'Tumba.  I am from Kenya.  I'm a journalist."  Ah!  You're Henry
Azadehdel, I said.  'No, I'm not!"  Dr. Victorian?  "No, I'm not." You
sound incredibly like him...is N'Tumba your real name?  "Yes it
is...and I have records to that effect."  I wouldn't expect any less,
Henry.

-----
EOF

______________________________________________

Errol Bruce-Knapp  (ebk@yesic.com)
UFO UpDates - Toronto - 416-932-0031



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