The death of Intelligence Official John Kokal

Mystery surrounds death of State Dept. Official

Kokal's INR bureau was at the forefront of confronting claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction

FTW Saturday November 15, 2003, Updated November 20

By Wayne Madsen

In a case eerily reminiscent of the death of British Ministry of Defense bio-weapons expert, Dr. David Kelly, an official of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research Near East and South Asian division (INR/NESA), John J. Kokal, 58, was found dead in the late afternoon of November 7.

Interestingly, the FOX report states that State Department officials confirmed Kokal's death to The Washington Post yet the Post - according to an archive search - has published nothing at all about Kokal's death.

Kokal's INR bureau was at the forefront of confronting claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Washington police have not ruled out homicide as the cause of his death. Kokal was not wearing either a jacket or shoes when his body was found. He lived in Arlington, Virginia.

However, a colleague of Kokal's told this writer that the Iraq analyst was despondent over "problems" with his security clearance. Kokal reportedly climbed out of a window and threw himself out in such a manner so that he would "land on his head." At the time Kokal fell from either the roof or a window, his wife Pamela, a public affairs specialist in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, was waiting for him in the parking garage. Mrs. Kokal had previously worked in Consular Affairs where she was involved in the stricter vetting of visa applicants from mainly Muslim countries after the Sept. 11 attacks.

State Department officials dispute official State Department communiques that said Kokal was not an analyst at INR. People who know Kokal told the French publication Geopolitique that Kokal was involved in the analysis of intelligence about Iraq prior to and during the war against Saddam Hussein.

Another INR official, weapons expert Greg Thielmann, said he and INR were largely ignored by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton and his deputy, David Wurmser, a pro-Likud neo-conservative who recently became Vice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser. Kokal's former boss, the recently retired chief of INR, Carl W. Ford, recently said that Bolton often exaggerated information to steer people in the wrong directions.

A former INR employee revealed that some one-third to one-half of INR officials are either former intelligence agents with the CIA or are detailed from the agency. He also revealed it would have been impossible for Kokal to have gained entry to the roof on his own. INR occupies both a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on the sixth floor that has no windows and a windowless structure on the roof that has neither windows nor access to the roof, according to the former official. The other windows at the State Department have been engineered to be shatter proof from terrorist bomb attacks and cannot be opened.

INR and other State Department officials report that a "chill" has set in at the State Department following Kokal's defenestration. A number of employees are afraid to talk about the suspicious death. It also unusual that The Northern Virginia Journal, a local Arlington newspaper, has not published an obituary notice on Kokal.

Mysterious death at the State Department

Submitted by Quigs Fight, Saturday, November 22

"...John J Kokal was a civil servant in charge of the information, within the American ministry of the Foreign Affairs. He was found died Friday evening, without shoes nor jacket, with the foot of the building without windows of his office, in Washington cd..

The body was at the bottom of a well of light out of concrete, with the foot of the building of eight floors of the State Department. At first sight, one could have believed that the man had thrown roof to commit suicide. But if the corpse wore a shirt, a tie and trousers, it had neither shoes nor jacket, whereas the temperature in the federal capital these days is hardly higher than ten degrees.

Moreover, the building not having windows, the man should have gone up on the roof of this ultra-protected building to jump into space. In the doubt, the firemen, called to intervene in the five hour old neighbourhoods of the afternoon Friday November 7, preferred not to touch with the body.

Very quickly, one learned the identity from this mysterious death of the district of Foggy Bottom. It was about John J Kokal, 58 years, civil servant at the Office of Intelligence and Research (INR) of the State Department. Without wanting to show haste, the investigators of the police force made it clear at Fox News which it was "possible" that they deal with homicide.

To document the diplomats

The INR is a body of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs American, charged to be to some extent "its eyes and its ears", according to terms' of its institutional communication. "the INR, can one thus read on the site of the Intelligence community, provides information uninterrupted and in real time at the same time to the political decision makers and to the executives of the ministry." Placed directly, in the tentacular flow chart of the aforesaid ministry, under the responsibility of the its assistant and Secretary of State, it is used to document the diplomats on the conflicts, the stakes, the actors and the secrecies of the large international files.

Within this very significant organization, sheltered in the administrative building of the 23rd street, John Kokal was, according to the telephone directory, employed in the unit "Near East Southeast Asia", covering the Central Asia and the Middle East. In fact, its department returned account to the assistant Secretary of State in charge of the area, which is not other than Christina Rocca, a former officer of the clandestine activities of the CIA named by president Bush at Colin Powell. In August 2001, it is it which tried in vain to make accept with the talibans the delivery of Oussama Ben Laden, while being entremettant directly with their ambassador in Pakistan.

Not implied in the analysis

Immediately questioned by Washington Post, State Department has made to know that, if John Kokal worked well within a unit which dealt with the information, it "handled" documents classified without "being implied in the analysis". Some, like the site geopolitique.com, affirm that John Kokal was despite everything "one of the most active civils servant in the denunciation of the false evidence on the presence of weapons of massive destruction in Iraq".

Perhaps was this within this congregation of former officers of information, which, supported by the intellectual left, gathered this year under the name of VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) and which regularly addresses the long ones and sour letters open to the White House and the ministries, at the same time as to the press.

The Kokal Mystery

Fando Blogs -November 21, 2003

On Nov. 9, I featured a Big Blue Marble entry on the mysterious death of John Kokal, a 58-yearold US State Department official whose body was found outside the department's building. At the time, authorities did not know whether Kokal fell or was pushed to his death. It occured to me then that this might be a case similar to either Britain's Dr. David Kelly or the Clinton Administration's Vince Foster.

Since then, I have been hellaciously busy and did not go searching for information. Then again, I didn't see anything else on the subject in the news. And then today, while visiting Pen-Elayne on the Web, I saw a pointer to MouseMusings, which takes on the Kokal Incident. Blogger Cindy Roy's entry title asks the obvious: "How Did a Senior Analyst at State Department's Intelligence Unit Fall from the Roof of State Department Headquarters and Why is No One Talking About It?"

Why, indeed.

Cindy's post points to a Wayne Madsen piece on From the Wilderness. In it, Madsen notes that while Fox News mentioned the story after Kokal's Nov. 7 death, and while the State Department confirmed the news for the Washington Post, WaPo has not published said confirmation. I checked that out and could find nothing more than a brief Nov. 8 WaPo report (scroll down the page to find it) on Kokal's death and a mention that State officials confirmed that the man worked in intelligence and research, but not in analysis.

Manis2Society of Cosmic Iguana notes, as pointed out in the Fox piece, that when Kokal's body was discovered, he was wearing neither a coat nor shoes. Manis, in admirable super-sleuth mode, speculates at League of Liberals that "his body was probably moved and those items removed to eliminate clues."

Madsen has more:

Kokal's INR bureau was at the forefront of confronting claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Washington police have not ruled out homicide as the cause of his death. Kokal was not wearing either a jacket or shoes when his body was found. He lived in Arlington, Virginia.

However, a colleague of Kokal's told this writer that the Iraq analyst was despondent over "problems" with his security clearance. Kokal reportedly climbed out of a window and threw himself out in such a manner so that he would "land on his head." At the time Kokal fell from either the roof or a window, his wife Pamela, a public affairs specialist in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, was waiting for him in the parking garage. Mrs. Kokal had previously worked in Consular Affairs where she was involved in the stricter vetting of visa applicants from mainly Muslim countries after the Sept. 11 attacks.

State Department officials dispute official State Department communiqués that said Kokal was not an analyst at INR. People who know Kokal told the French publication Geopolitique that Kokal was involved in the analysis of intelligence about Iraq prior to and during the war against Saddam Hussein.

Another INR official, weapons expert Greg Thielmann, said he and INR were largely ignored by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton and his deputy, David Wurmser, a pro-Likud neo-conservative who recently became Vice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser. Kokal's former boss, the recently retired chief of INR, Carl W. Ford, recently said that Bolton often exaggerated information to steer people in the wrong directions.

A former INR employee revealed that some one-third to one-half of INR officials are either former intelligence agents with the CIA or are detailed from the agency. He also revealed it would have been impossible for Kokal to have gained entry to the roof on his own.

The article goes on to say that folks at State are frightened to discuss Kokal's death.

Why? What is being hidden? Are folks afraid they will end up like their unfortunate colleague? Is this America?

The Shrubites have done their best to cool the flames surrounding the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Can they really shut down discussion on and an investigation of a possible murder?

This is too scary for words.

Dig this, from cryptogon.com

Dear U.S. State Department Readers

I have noticed that several of you are looking for information related to the death of John Kokal. I don't have anything more to offer besides what you have read in the mainstream news outlets. If you happen to be in a position to reveal any information related to this incident, Cryptogon is read widely and information presented here will spread rapidly. If you choose to contact me, do not use your computer system at the State Department. If you have real information, and would like to share it with the world, here are a couple of tips that could save your life:

1) Obtain a "clean" laptop computer. This is a computer that is not associated with you in any way. Example: You paid cash for it at Goodwill, or some other place that sells used computer equipment.

2) Obtain a "clean" 802.11 (wi-fi) wireless network adapter for the laptop. This is a wireless network adapter that is not associated with you in any way. Example: You paid cash for it at Goodwill, or some other place that sells used computer equipment.

3) Find an open access point using netstumbler or some other sniffer tool. WARNING: THE T-MOBILE NETWORK IN STARBUCKS AND BORDER'S STORES DOES NOT COUNT. NOTE: The Them, if they choose, will knock on the door of the person/company who is running the open network you use to connect to the Internet. Often times, people/companies don't know they are running open wireless networks.

3) Obtain a throw-away email address (hotmail, yahoo, etc.).

4) Encrypt your message to me using PGP. Here is my public key.

5) Never use this laptop and wi-fi card on any network that is associated with you in any way. Never use this laptop and wi-fi card on the same access point twice. The Them might think you will return to that location and They will put it under physical surveillance. Because They will have the MAC address of your wireless card (every network device has a unique number), they will actually be able to pinpoint your physical location to within a few feet. My guess is that a white van would pull up and you would be gone. End of story.

If all of this is too much trouble, type your message and send it to me in plain text. I obviously don't care what They do to me. It's you I'm worried about.

Keep your eyes and ears open, friends. Something is rotten in Bushland.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies.

printed from The death of Intelligence Official John Kokal on 2004-06-03 12:51:23