Last week the Washington Post newspaper published a major series of articles and Powerpoint presentations on “the Angler,” which is the secret service code name for Vice President Dick Cheney.
It make me think back on my 15 seconds of fame when I got to question Cheney about a subject near and dear to my heart – UFOs. The event occurred on April 11, 2001 on the Washington D.C. Diane Rehm talk show, just after Bush and Cheney had won the White House.
Questioning a guy like Cheney is no small feat. He has always come across like the Godfather of Secrets and back room dealings. As the Washington Post stated of him, “Cheney, has in effect, declared himself to be neither fish nor fowl but an exotic, extraconstitutional beast who answers to no one.”
The question I asked had to do with being briefing on UFOs rather than UFOs as a subject. In the past people had questioned the President on a sighting they had experienced or what they thought about UFOs. Because you usually only get one question with someone like the President, the President has usually been able to sidestep the question with hypotheticals. No one makes it to the White House without learning how to sidestep tough questions.
As the President is the head of the “government” and the Commander- in - Chief of the military it only made sense to me that at some point someone “in the know” would sit down and tell him what was actually going on. This moment is called a official classified briefing where some briefing officer meets with the President to give him the best available intelligence about UFOs.
Over the years many names have been floated around as to who the people are who have been briefed on the subject of UFOs. One of those names commonly mentioned by many is Dick Cheney. He had after all held many top government jobs such as Chief of Staff in the Ford White House, and Secretary of Defense under George Bush senior. Although not the President in the Bush administration many have viewed Cheney as running the show. On an April 11, 2001 interview where I asked him about UFOs, the host Diane Rehm came straight out and asked him if he was the “Prime Minister.”
Therefore, when I heard Cheney was going to be on the Rehm show I carefully drafted what I called the briefing question. I didn’t care what Cheney thought about UFOs, or if he had seen a UFO. I only wished to know if someone had sat him down in one of his government jobs and given him a briefing on the subject of UFOs. If he was briefed when was it, and what was he told. If he confirmed a briefing it would confirm the important reality of UFOs, as they don’t usually brief important officials on things that don’t exist.
So with my stomach in my throat I asked him the big briefing question that I knew he wouldn’t like. Good thing I didn’t know what would happen later to people who said things Cheney might not like, like Steve Howards, who in 2006 was arrested for questioning Cheney’s Iraq policies as he walked by him in a Denver mall. Had I heard about Howards I might have had second thoughts.
My brief on line exchange with Cheney went as follows,
Grant Cameron: Since the statement made by George Bush last July, there is a vicious rumor circulating in the UFO community that you've been read into the UFO program. So my question to you is, in any of your government jobs, have you ever been briefed on the subject of UFOs, and if you have, when was it and what were you told?
Cheney: Well, if I had been briefed on it, I'm sure it was probably classified and I couldn't talk about it.
Radio Show Host Diane Rehm: Is there investigation going on within this administration, Mr. Vice President, as to UFOs?
Cheney: I have not come across the subject since I've been back in government, oh like since January 20th.
Rehm: All right. Usually when asked the question Presidents have avoided the question by saying as Dwight Eisenhower did that a friend told them there was no such thing, or Bill Clinton who said that he was very interested but didn’t believe such things as aliens crashed at Roswell.
The reply by Cheney did not deny the subject. It indicated strongly that he did know, and would continue to keep it secret. The rumor that Cheney was a powerful UFO insider who could keep the secret seemed to be confirmed.
The Cheney reply to my question further seemed to confirm what George Bush had said about Dick Cheney when asked about UFOs on the campaign trail in 2000 – “This man (Cheney) knows. He was Secretary of Defense and was a great one.”
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, only the main stream media to pick up on the Cheney UFO comment was the Washington Times. Despite that, the Q & A had been a success. It showed the rumors about Cheney might be true, and that we weren’t totally crazy in our pursuit of the truth, or our pursuit of Cheney as one of the people who knew the truth.
The June 2007 Washington Post "Angler" series also painted a similar picture of Dick Cheney as the UFO community was describing in 2000 - a super secretive, powerful insider, who was keenly interested in winning. It was as if the Washington Post investigative reporters had suddenly discovered something the UFO community already knew eight years ago. Some interesting lines from the articles
• “Stealth is among Cheney’s most effective tools.”
• “Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped “Treated As: Top Secret/SCI.” Experts in and out of government said Cheney's office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to "sensitive compartmented information," the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words "treated as," they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security."
• “Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs.”
• His general counsel has asserted that "the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch," and is therefore exempt from rules governing either.
• “Cheney is refusing to observe an executive order on the handling of national security secrets, and he proposed to abolish a federal office that insisted on auditing his compliance.”
• Lastly the Washington Post described a weekly meeting between Cheney and the President – “Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.”
It has often been claimed it would be impossible to keep the UFO secret in Washington D.C. My question to Cheney and the recent Washington Post articles show that there are still people around like Cheney who could give that theory a good run for the money. MJ-12, if it exists, would be very proud of Dick Cheney.
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