Thus Spake The Raven . . .
By
Gunther Karl Russbacher
(a.k.a. The Raven)

My mother's hand shook me awake. I opened my eyes. "Is it time?" I asked. My mother nodded. Behind her I could see my grandfather wiping tears from his eyes. We had know for weeks that the call would come. I didn't fully understand why I had to leave my home. I knew it had something to do with losing the war, but I was only twelve years old, and the war had been over for ten years. I didn't understand why I had to leave Austria.

Grandfather drove us to the airport and walked with us across the tarmac to the waiting plane. There were others gathered there that night. Eighteen of us altogether. We were all being sent into exile. It wasn't until years later that I understood that the Allies had ordered the highest ranking members of the Austrian royal family to be sent out of the country. In exchange for our exile, Austria would be allowed to become a sovereign country once again.

My Grandfather on my father's side joined us at the airport. He took from his coat a small gold lion that was the symbol of our family. My grandfather was the Lion os Salzburg, and I knew that someday I would become the Lion. As he pinned the small gold lion to my coat he said, "You come from an old and noble family. Don't ever forget who you are. You are the Baron von Russbach. Wear your name proudly."

My grandfather held me for a long time, and then my other grandfather hugged me. Finally my mother pulled me away and we boarded the plane. There were others on the plane that I had met at family gatherings. Young men and women who I recognized, but didn't know very well.

"Where are we going?" I asked my mother.

"We are going to a place called Oklahoma. There is a man there that I will marry. He is a good man."

"But what about my father?" I asked. "You are still married to my father."

"Your father is officially dead." Mother told me.

"No he isn't. You know he isn't dead." I was ready to fight.

"I know he isn't dead, and you know he isn't dead. But if we want him to stay alive, we have tp pretend he is dead. How many times do you have to be told these things." I could tell that mother was upset. At the time I didn't realize how much she loved my father. I knew their marriage had been arranged by their father's. I knew that the house of Russbach and the house of Esterhaszy needed to join and produce an heir. I was that heir. For the longest time I thought that my mother was indifferent to my father. Then I realized that she only acted that way because the pain of losing him while he was still alive was too much for her to handle.

First she lost her husband, then she lost her country, her property, her money, her title, her position, and finally the victors who had won the war and taken everything she had, would take the last thing she loved....her son...me.

I was born the first of July, 1942 in Salzburg, Austria. On my birth certificate, I am, Gunther Karl, Baron von Russbach, Count von Esterhazy. On my father's side I am descended from the Baron who captured Richard the Lionhearted and held him for ransom. On my mother's side I am descended from Hungarian royalty. The Esterhaszy's had been advisors to the Emperors of Austria for generations. The marriage between my mother and father had been arranged to cement family interests.

My Godfather was Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of Austrian Intelligence during WWII. Records of this are kept in the family church in Salzburg. My family was part of the Gehlen group which was also called the Canaris group.

I began learning the simple aspect of the craft when I was old enough to follow orders. After the war, several Austrian families had to leave Austria in order to avoid prosecution. Most of these families had belonged to the Gehlen/Canaris group.

Eighteen members of my family were forced into exile. Moving to the United States, not speaking any English, I had to learn to be one hundred per cent American within two years. A man I had known as a child in Austria appeared and took me under his wing. At that time I had a heavy German accent and the children in Oklahoma were very cruel. This man taught me how to lose the accent and speak just like an American. He had also lost his accent. This man became my new Godfather. He became responsible for my training.

I took great interest in math, science, government and survival training, both in Oklahoma and in Nevada. Instruction in school, at home, in the mountains, and in desert areas were a must. I learned to fly at an early age, as a matter of fact, at an age before I had a driver's license. Records of this endeavor can be found at Catlin Aviation, Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City, as well as the downtown air park in Oklahoma City.

I managed to put a business together at the age of fifteen. It was called the Triple A employment agency; the All American Agency.

In 1961 I entered the United States Army at Ft. Carson, Colorado. After successfully completing basic training, I was transferred to North American air defense command where I continued my schooling and was granted all types of security clearances. I earned cryptographic credentials. I was advised to go through an immediate OCS program. I met with intelligence officers frequently at Ft. Carson, at Norad and at Ent Air Force Base as well as in Denver, Colorado at their station headquarters.

In 1963 I took a discharge from the military and was buried as far as government records were concerned. In 1963 I began to work with people from the federal building in Oklahoma City, and was quickly granted the right to go to the NASA school in Pasadena, Texas. From there I was diverted, moved around, taught languages at the military language schools, taught photo intelligence evaluation, and aircraft thrust evaluation. I was also taught thrust dissipation and thrust design.

In 1965 I was transferred to a facility at Langley Center, and initially assigned an ensign rating with a provision that at a later date the commission would become a permanent position. Most of the training at that time occurred at Air Force bases throughout the United States, at the Center and in the Vienna area, that's Vienna, VA. I was transferred to advanced flight schools at Air Force locations at Shepard Air Force Base, Texas where I learned to aviate with jet aircraft. From there to Carswell Air Force Base, Ft. Worth, Texas. And then to Nellis Air Force Base, in Las Vegas, Nevada, from there to Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico and numerous Naval installations and flight schools.

I arrived in Nam and had one hell of a lot of trouble. I came back through Techakawa, Japan, on medevac services and was transferred to Fitzsimmons in Denver, Colorado.

In 1968 I was assigned to ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) with a permanent commission and began flying again. I was sent to Nellis Air Force Base for updates and from there to Beale for the SR program. I spent almost seven months in simulator training before having the first loner run. I received the habu patch. I logged a total time of about 750 hours, front and stick time, and 150 hours RSO time, (radar service officer). I was at Beale, Cadena, Mildenhall, Akrotiri, as well as in Turkey. The last runs were out of Ramstein Air Force Base, Kaiserslautern, Germany. All of the last runs were deep black.

For a resume on the unknowns of the SR, I will now tell you about them. This information has not been published. Originally the aircraft was to be called the RS 71 for Reconnaissance Strike aircraft. However through a fluke in the Johnson administration at the time it was unveiled, the person who introduced it to the public reversed the letters and that's how it became the SR program. The series was titled after the B 70 Valkyrye bomber.

The aircraft is equipped with twin J-58 turbo-ram jet engines which equal 32,500 pounds of thrust per unit. The speed is regulated by the nacelle spike which are inlets which read 26.125 inches in length and can be changed from a fore to an aft position, to change the positions of the spikes which will change the power pack to turbo fans to ram jets. What I am saying in essence, is that the faster the airplane flies, the faster it wants to go. Caution must be utilized, because if it's not held in check it will go so fast that the J58 engines would disintegrate through overheating and devour themselves in the process.

The aircraft is a flying timebomb. 93% to 95% of the frame of the aircraft is made out of titanium. At operational speeds, I'm not talking about top speed, the center of the craft's skin gets anywhere from 510 to 515 degrees Fahrenheit while the temperatures along the engines run anywhere from 1050 to 1100 degrees Fahrenheit. The exhaust areas around the engines are a minimum of 1200 Fahrenheit.

The cockpit glass gets so hot that we can't touch it even with the flame retardant gloves we wear. Tires are 22 ply and contain aluminum pieces and parts in order to Fahrenheit the heat. The air in the tires is not air, it is nitrogen. The tires retract back into explosion proof shields in the event that there's a blowout at takeoff or landing to avoid having the aircraft blown out from underneath you. The aircraft weighs approximately a hundred and forty thousand pounds, carries anywhere from 60 to 80 thousand pounds of fuel.

J-7 is the jet propellant that we use. Because it has a higher flash point than the J-4 which is commonly used in military aircraft. While you are operating the airplane you have to think of a minimum of four hundred miles ahead at all times because you're traveling at the speeds of thirty two miles per minute. The aircraft involves continual work, however it is not hand flown. In the transition to monitoring all systems engines, inlet spikes, and stability augmentation, careful watch has to be taken to manage and to watch your mock numbers and your altitude as well as the dynamic pressure keys.

Control problems are encountered in upstarts, that's when one inlet causes the aircraft to move faster on one side than on the other and causes an upstart which brings a lot of yaw. (Turning horizontally on its axis). At high speeds of any kind, side slips are deadly.

The following information about the airplane is not known. The nose of the airplane is interchangeable to affix different kinds of sensors. The main sensors that we can run are a pair of 48 inch focal length technical objective cameras which have a fifteen hundred foot strip of black and white or color film -- it's a narrow field camera. The second part of the sensor would be a nose mounted optical bar camera which is also known as OBC. This is for long panoramic oblique shots, and can do a ten thousand five hundred foot film strip which is about sixteen to seventeen hundred frames, in color or in infrared, in mono or in stereo photography. Thirdly, we have a high resolution side looking airborne radar (SLAR).

The resolution is ten feet over four thousand miles in length. Lastly, the prior versions of the aircraft could carry a D-21 drone for a heightened effect. The drone is forty-three feet long and was attached piggybacked to the SR 71. But it was strictly used for "senior partner". This particular aspect of the aircraft was only used in Viet Nam. And it was a deadly game of chance because sometimes when you tried to fire off the drone the engines of the drone would misfire causing the aircraft to crash or disintegrate in the air.

The aircraft is fueled by a standard KC 135 Q. It takes anywhere from one to three KC 135's which are military equivalencies of 707's, to refuel the Blackbird. The main stations of the Blackbird are Beale AFB, near Marysville. That's where the ninth SAC strat recon wing is located. The second is Cadena AFB which is Air Force Navy, that's where the Habu comes from, the black snake with the side visual view, that's Okinawa. The third one is Mildenhall which is a Royal Air Force Base in England. The fourth one is Akrotiri which is in Cyprus. Your average run on the Blackbird was in stints of six weeks of duty and we rotated three to four times a year.

In 1972 I remained active Navy making the grade, but most of my 201 file was closed due to frequent TDY to the Company. The objective of a 201 file is that you build a nice good clean record that you can transfer from military to civilian life and have something to show for it, or within the military itself. But because of all my black cover operations, I ended up with a lot of gaps in my 201 file.

In 1972 I was loaned directly to the Department of State for Central and Eastern Europe, attached to black consular operations, a special operations group. Stationed while TDY at Badgodesberg which was the United States embassy in Bonn.

I was also in Belgrade, Vienna, Rome, Paris, and that was also when I did my first short term at the Moscow embassy. In Italy I worked with counter revolutionaries and counter terrorists groups in liaison with Italian intelligence staff and carbinieres. Our objective was lotocontinua. The Brigade Roso, I infiltrated the groups to review and construct funding for our own purposes so we could use them for our purposes. However, all that went sour. I was in Milan during the catastrophe, when they blew up the train station and all those people died. Also I was on the train going north to Trieste as they bombed the train out from underneath us.

I worked out of the consular general's office in Genoa, held Swiss and German passports under Gerhard Miller and Wagner. In BadGodesberg, I stayed at the Embassy guesthouse for three months while getting assigned to the consular general's office in Frankfurt, and from there to the United States information service in Frankfurt. I worked with and against the Badermeinhoff and the Red Army faction. I sanitized areas in Germany, Austria and East Berlin, during the pedophile crisis. There were no arrests.

I worked stations in Belgrade, setting up courier routes to Vienna. I utilized an American medical team, a husband and wife from our government to arrange extractions from Czechoslovakia.

In 1978 I took numerous trips to Budapest. This is where my ex- wife Peggy and my son Butch were along. Also to Bratislava and Pressburg, Czechoslovakia.

I was recalled to the United States on October 24, 1979. I went back to Beale for updates. Flew three tours on newer SRs, was command pilot or SRO. I updated the global positioning system and firefly platforms (This is important), at low darkness and red levels.

February 1980 I returned to SRs Center for instruction and school. I helped translate the first manual into Spanish. I was then SRs to St. Louis. I became and investment broker and financial SRs over a three year period. An insurance consultant for Prudential and Connecticut Mutual. As soon as I had enough experience I opened up a proprietary which was National Brokerage Companies, National SRs Services, Crystal Shores Development Corporation and so forth.

Through my assistants I funded numerous large projects for the Center. I met with the chief of station and developed liaison on a large scale to infiltrate labor unions, The Pipefitters, I got in as a broker and financial planner and continued my flight time logging hours in a diversity of military aircraft. I attended a convention of the company forces in Centerpoint, Phoenix, and attended Desert sabotage school in Gila Bend.

May, 1980 I went to DC to meet on flight scheduling for July and August. and Did numerous US and Foreign links for the Agency. I returned to Beale for five days of simulator on an improved SR and then flew back to St. Louis.

In October of 1980 I was command pilot for the flight in which George Bush went to Paris to finalize the deal to delay the release of the 52 Embassy hostages. The three code names for the operation were Magdalen, Magellen and Michelangelo.

During the time in October when I was in Paris, I was allegedly attending the Connecticut Mutual School for advanced financial planning in Hartford, Connecticut. I spent Halloween with the family and drove them to Honor, Michigan where I began phase two of NBC growth. I talked to Denver groups, Red Hill Pennsylvania, and Michigan National Bank. We formed Crystal Shores secondary group to build on some fine lands. We had large credits at our disposal. We bought Crystal Shores resort and rebuilt it, there was no profit for me.

MDC Denver began looking for financial planner advise for future airport expansion, and we talked to investors in Miami.

In November of 1980 I buried my mother. In December of 1980 our house was flooded, we moved out and bought a new home. My wife, Peggy never asked where the money came from. She had never asked where any of the money came from.

January 1981 I went to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to meet with the resistance and continued the talks in Costa Rica and Cancun. I funded them with low level black funds channeled from European banks. At about this same time I attended a number of parties at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. At several of these parties I met and talked with Rayelan Allan Dyer, the wife of John Dyer, Dean of Science and Engineering. In 1989 she became my wife.

In February of 1982 I returned to Frankfurt to discuss shipments to Israel after the boats of arms were priorily refused egress from Marseille harbor to Arab contacts. These were boats that we had already provided arms for. I provided logistical assets to C4 acquisitions for the Libyan crisis. You can check records for that with the East block aide.

From March to July 1982 I was on Navy duty, in and out of Monterey, TDY to Looking Glass and operation Michelangelo. I completed the details of operation reforger in July, 1982; wherein we implemented depletion in the status of reforger arms agreement. I filed an assessment report to the Company on this. BND, which is the same as the west German intelligence service, the SDCE, which is the French security service, and the Benelux security services, also filed assessment reports. Transfers of such funds were transacted from Luxembourg City to Geneva and Zurich.

We met Mossad's people in Alicante for the final pass through deliveries of phase three of the Michelangelo plan to Iran. We utilized Saudi, French, German, Austrian and Dutch aircraft for further transport. Other transport was done by rail and truck through central and Eastern Europe, crossing by boat from Greece to the receiver nations.

In September of 1982 I returned to St. Louis where I stayed on and off, through Labor Day. On Labor Day, I spent time with the family, vacationed with the kids, and then took them back to school.

October 1982 I was called back to Langley for briefing on the Afghani arms supply.

Met a special operations group at Islamabad and Ralapindi, Pakistan. Agreements were reached with the resistance people at Seven Rivers Junction in the People's Republic of Afghanistan. We appropriated the funds through proprietaries and set up the so-called "frequent flyer" programs. The money came out of proprietary operations located in Washington state, Oregon, Indiana, Florida, and Georgia. Much of the heavy equipment was moved Frankfurt to receiver nations per reforger depletion agreements.

Intermediate offensive weapons were railed via containers to Cyprus for shipping to Afghani groups. We had a great deal of trouble in currency receipts. Other commodities were offered. This operative and case officer declined any such involvement.

January 1983 I was returned to consular operations for East European affairs. We liaison with the FBI in New York and the US Attorney's office to extract defectors from the Stasi __________(?) in East Berlin. The operation went sour, the target was terminated by East German border guards. One United States army Major from Heidleberg was left behind. I managed to cross the sector and make for a safe house in Spandau. A very close associate, a man who I called my friend, gave up his own life to save mine. I returned to Langley for debriefing and chastisement, after which I went home to St. Louis deeply troubled by the failure of the mission and the death of my friend. My wife interpreted my mood as trying to distance myself from her. She thought I was having an affair. I could not tell her the truth. Our marriage, which was based on a foundation of lies, was rapidly falling apart.

February of 1983 I returned to Eastern Europe, to Czechoslovakia to debrief a potential asset. It was determined that the asset was a liability and I beat a hasty retreat toward the Austrian frontier in lower Austria, in Nieder Oesterreich. The jaunt was for acquisition of Czech plastique explosive and small arms. The actual deal was later consummated by the West German security service and our Company people at the station's operations headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Many of the shipments passed directly through Austria. I organized shipments via rail to the receiver nations.

March to August 1983 I worked with the Pipefitters Union in St. Louis. That was infiltrational work. October 83 to 12-83 I financed packages and financial planning to corporations for major Internal Revenue Service deductions in the St. Louis area with all companies associated with us.

In March 84 I went back to Afghanistan to finish the last of the initial transactions and to collect cumulative data from the onset of the operation. From 4-84 to 7-84 I brought Barbara, my stepdaughter, to St. Louis and I also continued updating my flight training.

7-84 to 11-84 I worked in St. Louis as well as in Paris, back and forth on hostage taking and counter terrorism resolution. 12-84 I spent with the kids and family, brought Sandra, my other step- daughter, to St. Louis to be with Peggy. I was trying anything that I could think of to hold the family together. The situation was now deteriorating more rapidly than I was able to accept. I could not explain any of my absences and my wife Peggy used her own imagination to explain them.

1-3-85 I proselyted (bought) a DOJ official to open and run the National Business Corporation Dallas office in Mesquite, Texas. The individual was under high level DOJ attack for money laundering, which was part of the Nicaraguan business.

3-10-85 I was incarcerated at Segoville, Texas for an escape from federal conviction resulting from 1973 where I was caught with numerous bags of bearer bonds while dressed as a United States Air Force Major. We were unloading the dufflebags from a military aircraft.

11-85 to 7-86 I was attached to DOS consular operations service with an average assignment ratio biweekly. I did the Operation Clydesdale in conjunction with St. Louis staff officers. The operation was deemed a success after having sanitized the Phoenix, Los Angeles and Miami areas. Also early in that year the divorce was filed.

7-86 to 9-86 I was in New York City with the family. Once again, frequent absences did not make things very easy. The United States Attorney in New York counts his great successes in RICO prosecutions at the cost of several operatives' lives.

From 11-86 to 8-90 I was on numerous internal U.S. operations in Deep Black cover.

In June of 1989 I signed an agreement not to marry for two years. Such statements are common after divorces as many times men get sloppy and talk out of school. In August of 1989 I ran into Rayelan Allan Dyer. Her husband John had died in 1988. I fell in love with her. It was the first time I had ever been in love. I think I had loved her from the moment we had met back in 82. She told me about her involvement in politics and her association with the group of reporters who were trying to expose the October Surprise deal. I knew I would never be granted permission to marry her. In July of 1989, just weeks prior to our meeting, she had flown to Washington, D.C. to meet with the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to lobbying him against Donald Gregg's appointment as Ambassador to South Korea. She had no idea that Donald Gregg was at that time the head of the CIA discipline committee.

I don't really understand how I talked her into marrying me the day after we met, but I did. We took a modified Lear jet to Reno and were married. I had been told not to fly commercial jets because my car had been firebombed by drug lords. Two days after we were married, I was arrested. I was held for three months on kidnap charges. I was charged with kidnaping my wife's niece. Those were dropped and then I was charged with check forgery. The FBI told my wife I was on a crime spree from Missouri to California marrying and defrauding widows. They tried to convince her to annul the marriage.

The station chief from San Francisco told me that my wife was a KGB agent. Then I was told that she was a State Department mole and possibly FBI too.

I was moved from California to Missouri where I was held on numerous charges until July of 1990. My wife and the ACLU put so much pressure on the prosecutor that he made a deal to let me go.

I had not seen my wife of two days in eleven months. When I was released I was ordered by my boss to report to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. This is the Lookinglass Command. My wife objected, but finally agreed to go. We checked in at the gate where I was told that I was expected at temporary base housing. I was given the key to our suite and told where it was located. My wife and I were met by two of my men who took our bags and carried them up to our room.

During that time we met with my boss in ONI as well as with numerous of my people. We were invited to have lunch with William Webster. I was told that I would be asked to fly a mission to Moscow in an SR 71. My wife and I left Offutt and drove to Winnemucca. We stayed at a Company hotel in a room that I have used frequently.

When we walked in the television was on. A CIA training film was showing.

The next morning we left for Reno. I had to get a flight suit to make the trip. There was only one such suit in the area. It belonged to a Navy Lt. Commander.

My wife took me to the Reno airport. The modified Lear jet that I had used since Casey died came in and picked me up. Four Srs also landed and the five of us took off. We stopped at Crow's Landing Naval Air Station in California to refuel and for me to give my Mother-in-law some things I had bought for her.

I returned to Reno at two in the morning in great pain. The next day I was ordered to go to Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada to pick up a set of whites. I was ordered to attend a meeting at Castle Air Force Base in California. I was being promoted to Admiral. At Castle I was arrested by the FBI for trespassing and impersonating a Naval officer. These charges were dropped almost immediately.

I was then charged with impersonating a US Attorney and misuse of government purchase orders, jet and fuel. All these charges stemmed from the flight in which I had used my personal jet to fly Rayelan Allan to Reno to marry her. At the trial, which took place in November of 1990, the FBI liaisoned with the other agencies involved in the deep black operations, testified that I was working as an infiltrator in drug money laundering operations. This is the same man who advised me not to fly commercial airlines after my car had been firebombed in August of 1989.

After this agent's testimony the judge decided that the trial had been held in the wrong jurisdiction and he told the defense and the prosecution to meet him in his office the next morning. He was going to dismiss the case. The next morning the proceedings were declared a mistrial because my son had talked to the jurors. The prosecutor told me that if I pled guilty he would have me out of jail in March of 1991. If I decided to go ahead with another trial I wouldn't go to trial until June of 1991 and my wife would be charged with trespassing on military bases and go to jail for six months.

I pled guilty. The judge gave me 21 months in prison. I am scheduled for release in December of 1991.

In early May, my boss in ONI was trying to have me transferred to Naval custody. He told me that he needed my signature and my wife's signature on papers to this effect. I was told that he would be signing me out of Terminal Island so that he could meet with me and my wife at the same time. My wife had met him earlier at Offutt AFB.

The next thing I knew, a guard was shaking me awake. I was told there was an emergency with my family. I called my wife. I felt like I had been drugged. She was hysterical. A helicopter had crashed. She had called the CIA station chief in St. Louis. He had told her three navy men were killed. She thought it was the Admiral, myself and another ONI man that she knew. She told me quickly what had transpired. The last thing I remember was the Admiral handing me a glass of orange juice. I called around to find out what had happened.

My boss and the other man, who had just survived a plane crash where another one of our people had been killed, were in hiding. To protect myself I dictated information to a friend over the phone. This friend, Rodney Stich, decided on his own that the best way to protect me was to send this information to every member of Congress and every newspaper and radio station he knew personally. As a result, my involvement as the pilot in the October Surprise story came out. I am still incarcerated at Terminal Island.

I have met with a Senator from the Senate Judicial Committee. He has personally assured my safety if I cooperate with their investigation.

I have dictated this information to my wife who has transcribed it. Understand that I could not proof this copy for mistakes that resulted from her transcription.

...NEVERMORE

(This was dictated over the telephone. It was recorded. Some of the words were hard to understand, so if there is a mistake in spelling or in the actual word, it comes from not being able to understand the recording.)