In his article “The Medicine Man,” journalist Edward Humes described Larry Ford as “a noted Los Angeles gynecologist and infectious disease specialist with an unofficial subspecialty: biological and chemical warfare.” According to Humes, during the apartheid regime Ford worked closely with South African deputy surgeon general Dr. Niel Knobel:
Ford began advising him on protecting troops from biological attack, as well as suggesting AIDS prevention programs in a country that today has the worst AIDS infection rate on earth — benign and praiseworthy endeavors that Knobel maintains had “no political agenda.” But the AIDS prevention program was for whites in the military, not blacks. A secret right-wing South African organization, the Broeder-bond, conducted studies around this same time that suggested the AIDS epidemic could make whites the majority in the future.
Could Ford have been working with members of the Broederbond to help bring about their desired demographic shift? The existence of a covert white South African bioweapons programme was revealed by the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
Code-named Project Coast, it was run by another Ford friend and financial benefactor, Dr. Wouter Basson; Knobel had administrative oversight. Basson’s alleged ties to hundreds of poisonings and assassinations in South Africa and in the neighboring countries of Angola and Zimbabwe earned him the nickname Dr. Death in the South African press. Documents indicating he had arranged an offshore bank account for Ford were found in Ford’s papers after his death.
The commission uncovered evidence that whole villages, including an Angolan settlement of several hundred people suspected of harboring rebels, may have been decimated by Project Coast weapons. This finding parallels information Nilsson’s ex-girlfriend provided: She said Ford more than once boasted of wiping out an entire Angolan village during a civil war.
Project Coast scientists called to testify against Basson have said Ford was brought in to brief them on the use of biological weapons in mass attacks and discrete assassination, the latter through the contamination of ordinary items such as Playboy magazines and tea bags. One scientist involved with South African bioweapons development noted that Ford’s ideas — and arrogance — were not well received, and that his work was given little credence in the Project Coast lab. However, Ford continued to work with Basson and Knobel, who had a picture of him hanging in his den at the time of the suicide.
According to a recent U.S. Air Force Academy report on South Africa’s biological warfare program, Ford was part of a global network of scientists that Basson assembled to assist Project Coast. Whether that meant creating — or receiving and storing — toxins produced by the program is a matter of conjecture, the report suggests, as South African officials have been unable to account for all of the dangerous material produced over the years. The air force report quotes testimony from a Swiss intelligence agent who laundered money for Basson and who describes a worldwide conspiracy involving unnamed Americans.
“The death of Dr. Ford and revelations of his South African involvement,” the report states, “[raises] the possibility of a right-wing international network, [still] united by a vision of South Africa once again ruled by whites.”
In the wake of Ford’s suicide Fitzpatrick and Byron reminded a new set of FBI agents about the meeting between Ford and Deputy Surgeon General Knobel, in which the satchel of deadly germs was allegedly passed over to the South African — and about the fact that nothing was done to intercept Knobel as he returned to South Africa. Once again no explanation was offered. Byron suggested reviewing the surveillance recordings from the bugs he and Fitzpatrick helped plant so long ago. “You can get a blockbuster out of those, I’m sure.”
“Not even we can get those tapes,” he remembers the agent responding. “They’re sealed. National security.”
Matthew McLaughlin, spokesman for the FBI in Los Angeles, says the bureau’s policies bar him from confirming or denying Byron’s and Fitzpatrick’s accounts. Nor will he comment on their allegation that the government permitted Ford to illegally develop and traffic in bioweapons. McLaughlin does caution, however, that there are often reasons criminal activity is allowed to go on in order to preserve an investigation, and that no informant in any case has the whole picture. “We compartmentalize people we work with, and they are not privy to the breadth and width of a case,” he says. “They see the elephant’s toenail.”
Of course, Byron and Fitzpatrick say trade attache Gideon Bouwer was clear in their conversations 16 years ago about what had happened in the meeting with Ford. They say he raved about the ability to keep whites in power through biological warfare, and he hinted at being part of a separate agenda — some sort of extragovernmental conspiracy, like the one described in the air force report, that had plans to unleash biological agents worldwide on South Africa’s enemies if the need should ever arise.
“Just be ready,” Fitzpatrick remembers Bouwer warning him cryptically, then asking, “How fast could you get your daughter out of the country if you had to?”
Notes
Edward Humes, “The Medicine Man,” Los Angeles Magazine, July, 2001
http://www.edwardhumes.com/articles/medicine.shtml
