Portrait of an ONI Spy: Part 1

An August 22, 1985 memo from Admiral John Poindexter to National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane states that Captain Gunther Karl Russbacher ( 1942-2005) and piloted a DC 6 taking Tow missiles[ part of eventual 408] to Iran as part of what was known as the Iran-Contra deal. Oliver North was aboard, and the missiles wre mistakenly taken to the wrong Iranian unit. Robert Hunt(ONI and NSC) was also aboard. [ Hunt is now in prison.] Another of the admiral’s memos describes large deposits made in the accounts of those involved. A May 30 Oliver North memo to the admiral describes a snag in further negotiations with the Iranians, which Russbacher attended. A June 16 memo from Vice President Bush to the admiral asks him to thank Hunt and Russbacher for their efforts. A November 11, 1993 letter from Mossad agent Moshe Ben-Manash confirmed the facts of the Iran/Conra exchange of missiles and Russbacher’s role.

Captain Russbacher claims that he was the command pilot on the plane that
brought George H. W. Bush to Paris on October 19, 1980 to negotiate the October Surprise at the Hotel Crillion in Paris, an arrangement whereby the Iranians agreed to hold 52 American hostages until after the presidential election. Richard Brenneke, Russbacher’s cousin and also an arms dealer, was another pilot , and the third was Heinrich Rupp. Bush was there only a few hours—long enough to see the deal cemented, and Russbacher shuttled Bush back to the US aboard an SR –71, the Blackbird needle nosed spy plane. Adnam Khashoggi, the arms dealer, paid for the return flight’s fuel with his credit card. George H.W. Bush rambled on about Russbacher’s claim at a 1992 news conference. Brenneke was later jailed when he discussed the flight but a jury believed his story and released him.

“I wonder whether they're going to use the same prosecutors that are trying out there to see whether I was in Paris in 1980 and flew home in an SR-71 Blackbird. I mean, where are we going with the taxpayers' money in this political year? So, let them look at it. It's no problem to me. But I think at some point somebody ought to say where is all this money going that goes to pay for these special prosecutors, rummaging through files and proving nothing. I was not in Paris, and we did nothing illegal or wrong here. We tried, and it didn't work, and we moved. And that's the answer to it..." (Times June 5, 1992)



Unfortunately, there is not a solid evidentiary trail for his involvement. The evidence is amply clear that the October Surprise was negotiated. It is doubtful if Russbacher would have had so many problems in his later life had he not been involved. He has produced flight logs to prove many claims, but there are no logs for the October Surprise.

Russbacher, the scion of an Austria noble family, was born July 1, 1942 amid a strange Teutonic Knights ceremony. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, his grandfather, was head of Austrian intelligence in World War II. .Baron Karl Russbacher was allegedly part of the plot to kill Hitler and had to fake his own death. After the war, he worked for the US government under a different name.