INVESTIGATION/CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201370016-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2008
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: September 20, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/08/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000201370016-0
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
20 September 1934
INVESTIGATION/ JENNINGS: Last night we began to tell you the fascinating
CIA story of a man named Ronald Rewald. He was an investment
banker in Hawaii who now faces charges of swindling his
investors out of $22 million. Well, Rewald says the money
isn't missing and that he was working for the CIA. Last
night we reported on established links between the CIA and
Rewald's firm. Tonight Gary Shepard continues our
investigation of the CIA connection.
SHEPARD: Did the Central Intelligence Agency try to have
Ronald Rewald killed to keep him from talking?
RONALD'NREWALD: At first I didn't believe it. I thought
it was total nonsense, and it took a lot of convincing and
a lot of evidence and a lot of the facts to be checked out
before I recognized that it was, in fact, what was going
on.
SHEPARD: Rewald has been indicted by a federal grand jury
on 100 counts of fraud, perjury and tax evasion in
connection with the bankruptcy of his Honolulu investment
company. He claims, and ABC News has evidence, he was a
covert agent for the CIA and his firm, Bishop, Baldwin,
Rewald, Dillingham and Wong, was a front for a major CIA
intelligence. operation. It was last November, while
Rewald was in jail in Honolulu, that this man, Scott
Barnes, who sources say has extensive intelligence
background, got a job at this same prison as aguard for
one month. Barnes says he was sent in by the CIA.
SCOTT\BARNES To do a profile on Ron, find out who he's
talking to, what he is saving and do a psychological
makeup on him and see what his mental, emotional status
was.
SHEPARD: Then one day Barnes says he was called to a
meeting at this hotel with this CIA contact. BARNES:
Then all of a sudden we're sitting down at the Royal
Hawaii and he says 'We've got to take him out.' You know,
kill him.
SHEPARD: Did they tell you why they wanted you to get rid
of him? BARNES: That he was a company problem and he
obviously knew some things in regards to national security
and, you know, he was no longer an asset, he's now a
liability.
SHEPARD: Barnes says he quit the assignment and left
Hawaii. Brent Carruth, a defense attorney in another CIA
case, says that story doesn't surprise him at all. He
recalls a threatening conversation he had with one of the
government lawyers who are prosecuting Rewald.
BRENT`\CARRUTH (attorney): I was told that., in no
Continued
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 Approved For Release 2008/08/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000201370016-0
a,
uncertain terms, that they would take, they would take any
steps that were necessary to protect a particular agent
and that they were going to cover people. And once that
was done, then they were going to go after Ron Rewald, not
before.
SHEPARD: And the 'they' you're speaking of is whom?
CARRUTH: Central Intelligence Agency.
SHEPARD: The CIA denies it ever tried to kill Rewald and
refuses to say whether it tried to buy off any of the 400
investors in Rewald's company, investors who lost $22
million. A number of them have filed lawsuits against the
CIA to recover their missing money. Ted Frigard, who lost
$287,000'is one of them. He says the government offered
him a payoff if he'd drop his lawsuit against the agency.
TED\FRIGARD (investor): Their offer was that they would
pay me $350,000 in triple A, unregistered, municipal
bonds. And then as we got up to leave, the man said, 'You
know, if you become too big of a pain in the arse,' he
said, 'they will shoot you through the heart. They will
report it as a heart attack. Your body will be cremated
by mistake and all that will be left will be the coroner's
report that you had a heart attack.'
SHEPARD: Frigard says the.CtA never came through with the
money and he's still suing. Why so much agency concern
with the Bishop, Baldwin story getting out? ABC News has
learned that Rewald's company provided the cover for some
of the CIA's most sensitive and potentially embarrassing
operations. Not only was Bishop, Baldwin involved in
selling arms to Taiwan, India and Syria and promoting
financial panic in Hong Kong, it was also fueling capital
flight from two allies, Greece and the Philippines,
countries with destabilized economies, in exchange for
intelligence information. And, according to Ron Rewald,
the agency was conducting illegal domestic operations,
spying on foreign students on college campuses and
planting domestic propaganda. But despite his CIA
connection, Rewald still faces 100 federal criminal
charges. His trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 7. Gary
Shepard, ABC News,.New York.
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