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CIA-Air America-Iran Contra-GlobalOptions Spook Neil Livingstone Running in Montana Gubernatorial Race (Mother Jones)

Alex Constantine - April 10, 2012

The Most Interesting Gubernatorial Candidate in the World

 

Neil Livingstone has partied with pirates, been stalked by Nazis, and tried (unsuccessfully) to spring Moammar Qaddafi from Libya. His latest adventure? Running for governor of Montana.

By Tim Murphy

Mother Jones, Mar. 27, 2012

Neil Livingstone AP cropped proto custom 28 - CIA-Air America-Iran Contra-GlobalOptions Spook Neil Livingstone Running in Montana Gubernatorial Race (Mother Jones)"Taking Aim At Regulation," reads the official campaign website.

According to his official campaign bio, Montana Republican gubernatorial candidate Neil Livingstone has, at various points during his illustrious career as a Washington-based security consultant, "dined at gangster clubs in Moscow and in the back rooms of Georgian and Uzbek restaurants with members of the Russian Mafia"; "been stalked by terrorists and Nazis in Argentina"; "been paid in stacks of $100 bills by clients"; and held "a business meeting with a six-and-half foot tall pink-eyed albino dressed in white from head-to-foot in a Miami-area motel with the peculiar distinction of having more 'floaters' in its pool than any other hospitality establishment in the U.S."

But it was the line about spending time aboard a pirate ship filled with hookers during the Monte Carlo Grand Prix that landed him in a spot of political trouble. In March, local blogger Montana Cowgirl got wind of the flooze cruise, and it quickly went national. Livingstone purged the item from his bio and attempted damage control, explaining to an Associated Press reporter that his wife had accompanied him and, anyway, he was on official business. When in Monte Carlo, right?

Livingstone, 65, probably won't be Montana's next governor. In head-to-head match ups, he trails GOP front-runner Rick Hill, a former congressman, and likely Democratic nominee Steve Bullock. And he has struggled to raise money. But his long-shot candidacy to replace term-limited Democrat Brian Schweitzer has drawn attention because of his less-than-orthodox past.

A ubiquitous presence on the DC scene, Livingstone has made his share of cameos in newspaper stories about spook-filled rooms. The Washington Post once described his style—crisply tailored suit, Turkish worry beads, three gold rings—as "more invented than real, like a character in an Arnaud de Borchgrave novel." In 2005, Roll Call dubbed Livingstone "Deep Mouth," after it was alleged that he had dined at Dupont Circle's Palm steakhouse 88 times in a 57-day period. (Livingstone denied the charge, telling the paper that he eats there only about 15 times a month.)

Although he's spent much of his life with an inside-the-Beltway mailing address, Livingstone boasts deep Montana roots. He grew up in Helena, where as a high school student he once made $200,000 selling a coin collection he'd picked up for a bargain at an estate sale. With the proceeds, he bought a Ferrari. Livingstone moved east for college at William & Mary, worked as a mostly anonymous Capitol Hill staffer for a few years under Sen. Stuart Symington (D-Mo.) and moved back to Missoula with his wife to get his master's degree in political science. Then he returned to Washington, where, after a second stint on the Hill, he got a job in the mid-1970s as the vice president of Air America, the CIA-owned airline that played a critical role in the agency's covert anti-communist operations in Laos and elsewhere. He later purchased, with four partners, Air Panama, and from there he moved to stints at various security companies.

During the Iran-Contra affair in the Reagan years, Livingstone was subpoenaed by Senate  investigators after the business card of one of his employees, Robert  Owen, was found in a Nicaraguan cargo plane that had been shot down.  Owen, who worked under Livingstone first at the PR firm Gray and  Company and then at the Institute on Terrorism and Subnational Conflict,  was North's "courier" to the Reagan-backed contras, who were trying to topple the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Owen was ferrying cash to the rebels from  a White House safe and facilitating arguably illegal arms purchases. (Livingstone, who  was a consultant to the National Security Council at the time, was  absolved of wrongdoing and has said that Iran-Contra mastermind Oliver North, who was convicted  of using proceeds from Iranian weapons sales to support the contras, misled him.)

globaloptions 600x300 - CIA-Air America-Iran Contra-GlobalOptions Spook Neil Livingstone Running in Montana Gubernatorial Race (Mother Jones)If he didn't run weapons to the contras, Livingstone rarely missed a chance  to make a buck off global instability. As Harper's Ken Silverstein reported, Livingstone  was a vocal advocate for regime change in Iraq as early as 1993, when  he called for covert action to take out Saddam Hussein. The eventual US  invasion 10 years later, championed by Livingstone, yielded substantial  financial rewards for his firm, GlobalOptions, which consulted on  private security for businesses looking to invest in Iraq.

In  2006, Livingstone left GlobalOptions, where he had served as chief  executive, to start a new security company called Executive Action,  which takes its name from the CIA's euphemism for assassination. "Think  of us as a McKinsey & Company with muscle, a private CIA and Defense  Department available to address your most intractable problems and  difficult challenges," Livingstone said in a statement introducing the  new company.

Although he refrains from speaking publicly  about his clients, a 2007 lawsuit initiated by GlobalOptions revealed  that his new firm represented the daughter of Uzbekistan dictator Islam  Karimov, as well as the family of Viacom mogul Sumner Redstone. Through Executive Action, Livingstone sponsored a panel to boost the MEK, an  Iranian dissident group—and alleged cult—that the US considers a  terrorist organization. "There are a few cultlike aspects to them," he  told The New Yorker's Connie Bruck, "but I like them because they bug Iran."

In  March 2011, while both the American-led attacks against Moammar Qaddafi in Libya and  Livingstone's gubernatorial campaign were underway, Livingstone and a  handful of partners hatched a scheme to help Qaddafi flee the  country in the hopes of bringing a more peaceful resolution to the country's civil war. Unsurprisingly, the plan, contingent on a $10 million retainer from Livingstone and his partners,  and approval of the Treasury Department, was scrapped.

In  addition to consulting and executing top-secret missions for the  government, Livingstone became a prolific writer. He contributed  frequently to the mercenary rag, Soldier of Fortune and authored nine  books, including 1997's Protect Yourself in an Uncertain World, which  offered security advice on a range of scenarios, including the  propositioning of prostitutes. (Avoid threesomes, he advised, because  "double pleasure can be double trouble.")

"I'm beginning to wonder if the Neil  Livingstone campaign for governor  isn't actually some bizarre form of  performance art or, more likely, a  top-secret move to decapitate Al  Qaeda's leadership," mused one Montana blogger.

Livingstone's most  infamous contribution to the American national security debate may have  been one line in a 1986 article for World Affairs on the  efficacy of death squads. He stressed that he was morally  opposed to mass murder, but Livingstone  acknowledged that there was a time and a place for such excessive measures. "In reality, death  squads are an extremely effective tool, however odious, in combating  terrorism and revolutionary challenges," he wrote. The larger problem,  Livingstone argued, was one of optics—he quoted a former US intelligence officer who suggested the El Salvadorans should stop leaving bodies on  the side of the road because "they have an ocean and they ought to use  it."

Montana has what's been called  a "colorful history" of  conservative candidates. In 2006, Democrat Jon Tester knocked off  incumbent GOP Sen. Conrad Burns with help from third-party challenger Stan Jones, whose skin turned blue-gray after he drank a concoction of  ionic silver as a preventative measure against post-Y2K tap water. The  GOP's 2002 senate nominee, lapsed hair stylist Mike Taylor, grew a  mustache and began wearing round, wire-rimmed glasses in an effort to play  up his resemblance to Teddy Roosevelt. But Livingstone's cloak-and-dagger background puts him in a new league.

Livingstone's  only previous experience in representative governance came as the head  of the Watergate South co-op board, where, the Washington Post reported  in 2003, he oversaw an ambitious but controversial renovation effort  requiring the installation of "$180,000 worth of $50-a-yard English  Axminster wool carpet accented by $100,000 worth of Taiwanese marble."  He lived in a condominium there with his now-separated wife, Susan, an  undersecretary of the Navy; a poodle named Bomber; and an extensive  collection of vintage weaponry.

Montana voters, if the polls  are any indication, haven't yet been won by Livingstone's Bond-like pitch. And there have  been some unforced errors, as well. At the unveiling of their new  campaign bus, Livingstone's running mate, state Sen. Ryan Zinke, a  onetime member of the Navy's elite Seal Team Six, who was at the wheel, "slowly ran into a  Helena supporter's 1964 sky blue Chevrolet Camaro convertible,"  according to the Missoulian. Livingstone's first campaign finance filing  revealed just one donor from the state of Montana (a small arms  developer from Fort Harrison) and noted that he had spent most of  his money out of state—including four itemized disbursements in Lima,  Peru (for design work).

"I'm beginning to wonder if the Neil  Livingstone campaign for governor isn't actually some bizarre form of  performance art or, more likely, a top-secret move to decapitate Al  Qaeda's leadership," mused progressive Montana blogger Don Pogreba last  spring.

Craig Wilson, a political science professor at Montana  State University-Billings, is equally confused. "I can't think of  another [candidate], at least in terms of recent history, who lives out  of state and basically just parachutes into the state and says, 'I'm back  and I'm running for a major office,'" says Wilson, who remembers  Livingstone from his days in Missoula. "It's very unusual. He's a bright  guy, and the only thing that comes to my mind is that he's sort of  tilling the soil in terms of name recognition and maybe he's got some  idea of running for office in the future."

Yet Livingstone is  doing his best to thrive in a place where the biological threat du jour  is diseased livestock, not ricin. "This is a Brucellosis-free state," he  told Republicans at a debate in Great Falls in February. "And I pledge  to you that we're gonna keep it that way if I have to stand on the  border of Yellowstone Park and shoot the first bison that comes  wandering."

Given his record, could you really doubt him?

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/neil-livingstone-montana-governor

TIME MACHINE:

"The Wild West: Livingstone for Governor [?]" - 30th October 2009

http://www.constantinereport.com/?p=11344