Michael Riconosciuto: The Math/Science Wizard who Said too Much; Part 3

One Indian leader, Fred Alvarez, who raised questions about tribal profits going into foreign banks was executed along with two companions in 1981. Alvarez had been involved in the various black operations that centered there, including some involvement in the October Surprise of 1980. They also objected to use of the reservation to manufacture biological weapons. Michael also claimed that in conjunction with Park-O-Meter Corp., he developed biological and chemical weapons.

A security guard admitted to being the bagman who paid three former Green Berets who came in from Chicago for the hit. After making a taped interview, he disappeared. Barbara Walters reported the incident on 20/20 and raised the possibility that this was a CIA action These joint projects were also tied to the government=s efforts to assist the Contras in Nicaragua, and it has been suggested that some of the profits from the sale of PROMIS software were used to finance the Contras. . The Alvarez murder remained unsolved for 31 years before Dr. Nichols was convicted of engineering the three murders.


Riconcuito claimed that Alvarez was concerned with some aspect of the October Surprise operation and wrote directly to Ronald Reagan to express his concerns. Eventually, Jimmy Hughes, the bagman who paid for the murders was caught and testified in a Riverside Court. He subsequently relocated in Guatemala, and Anson Ng, a stringer for the Financial Times,.was murdered in Guatemala City on his way to interview Hughes. Ng was also looking into the corrupt bank BCCI as well as corruption in Guatemala. He was killed with one bullet to the head and his head was propped up with two pillows to reduce external bleeding and delay the discover of the crime. Officials said he was a victim or ordinary crime, but Senator Alan Cranston told the Senate it looked like a professional hit. Paul Morasca, who shared a San Francisco Condo with Michael, also worked on the reservation and began to oppose some activities there that he thought were illegal. He was murdered in 1982. In 1992, Larry Guerrin was killed in the State of Washington while gathering information on PROMIS for Riconosciuto. Alan Michael May, a onetime Nixon campaign financial aid, was killed in his San Francisco home in May 1991. According to Riconosciuto, he was also involved in moving $40,000,000 to the Iranians in 1991 but was not connected to PROMIS.

As director of research, Michael became involved in modifying a very valuable program named PROMIS, which the Department of Justice had stolen from a private firm, Inslaw, owned by William Hamilton and his wife. Hamilton was a former NSA employee. . It was his knowledge of this matter that was to ruin his life and cause many to attack his credibility. PROMIS is a database that includes a sort-of Rosetta stone of computer languages. It could pull and integrate data from any number of languages. Its only limitation is that it is a software package that must exist at the facilities of the target. At first it was to be used by prosecutors to manage their caseloads. But it soon was used to monitor and manage banking transactions. It can tract electronic information of any kind, including troop movements.

In 1982, Dr. Earl Brian, a close friend of Ed Meese and Ronald Reagan, acted on behalf of the Justice Department and agreed to lease William Hamiltons PROMIS software for $10 million over three years. It was initially a very sophisticated database that prosecutors could use to keep track of cases. Reagan=s Attorney Generals ,William French Smith and Ed Meese, wanted it to fight domestic crime, but it was soon put to other uses. Using information provided by a high government official, the Hamiltons eventually concluded that the Justice Department stole the software initially at the behest of the Army and Navy Hamilton’s basic mistake was probably not selling the firm to a friend of Meese. But he refused and was told " We have ways of making you sell." Soon Justice Department and Hamilton later disagreed over what services were to be provided. Justice stopped payments and seized the program, forcing Hamilton's Inslaw Corporation into bankruptcy. Meese became attorney General in 1985 after much of the damage was done. PROMIS was soon made available to the Israelis and Wackenhut Corporation, which sent PROMIS to its computer laboratories on the Cabazon Indian Nation=s Reservation in Indio, California, where weapons and ammunition was also being manufactured for the Contras. Using some information provided by the Israelis, CIA computer wizard Michael Riconciuto improved the program at Ido, Silver Springs, Maryland, and Miami, Florida. .