Editing Adnan Khashoggi

Adnan Khashoggi (July 25, 1935 – June 6, 2017) was a Saudi Arabian businessman and arms dealer, renowned for his extravagant lifestyle and extensive geopolitical influence, earning him the nickname “The Great Gatsby of the Middle East.” Born in Mecca to Muhammad Khashoggi, the personal physician to King Abdul Aziz Al Saud, Adnan was of Turkish descent. His siblings included author Samira Khashoggi and his nephew was Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist assassinated in 2018. Educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, and briefly at American universities like California State University, Chico, Ohio State, and Stanford, Khashoggi left academia to pursue business, leveraging his family’s connections to the Saudi elite.
==Early Career and Business Empire==
Khashoggi rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s as a key intermediary between Western defense companies and the Saudi government, brokering billions in arms deals, particularly with Lockheed, which paid him $106 million in commissions from 1970 to 1975. His commissions, initially 2.5%, escalated to 15%, making him a de facto marketing arm for Lockheed, providing strategic advice and access to Saudi contracts. He founded Triad International Holding Company, named after himself and his brothers Essam and Adil, which spanned investments in luxury hotels, oil refineries, real estate, and even the Utah Jazz basketball team. At his peak in the early 1980s, his net worth was estimated at $4 billion. His opulent lifestyle—featuring a $70 million yacht, the Nabila, used in a James Bond film, a $40 million customized DC-8 jet, and lavish parties attended by global elites—made him a media fixture.
==Connections to the CIA==
Khashoggi’s business dealings brought him into contact with high-profile figures, including CIA officers James H. Critchfield and Kim Roosevelt, as well as Bebe Rebozo, a close associate of President Richard Nixon. These relationships, established through his role as a commercial pioneer with companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, suggest a nexus of influence between Khashoggi, Western intelligence, and political power. His involvement in the Iran-Contra affair further solidified his CIA connections. In 1986, Khashoggi acted as a middleman, alongside Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, in the arms-for-hostages scheme, facilitating the sale of 1,500 U.S. missiles to Iran via Israel to secure the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon. He provided $25 million in bridging finance for the deal, which also involved illegally diverting funds to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. His financial troubles from this deal, including unpaid debts, led him to expose aspects of the covert operation, contributing to its public unraveling. Khashoggi’s ties to the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI), implicated in money laundering and intelligence operations, further linked him to the CIA, as BCCI was used to funnel funds for Iran-Contra with Saudi and U.S. backing.
==BCCI==
Adnan Khashoggi’s connections to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) were significant, tied to his role as an international arms dealer and his involvement in covert financial operations. BCCI, founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, was a Pakistan-based bank notorious for money laundering, fraud, and facilitating intelligence operations. Khashoggi’s links to BCCI emerged through his financial dealings and his role in the Iran-Contra affair. He maintained accounts with BCCI, using them to manage the vast sums earned from arms deals, particularly with Saudi Arabia and Western defense firms like Lockheed. BCCI’s secrecy and global reach made it an ideal vehicle for handling his complex financial operations, including commissions and investments through his Triad International Holding Company. In the mid-1980s, Khashoggi leveraged BCCI accounts to facilitate the Iran-Contra scheme, providing $25 million in bridging finance for arms sales to Iran, with funds channeled through BCCI’s network. The bank’s role in laundering money and moving funds for the Contras, with Saudi backing, aligned with Khashoggi’s intermediary role between U.S., Israeli, and Iranian parties. BCCI was known to have ties to the CIA, Saudi intelligence, and prominent figures in global politics. Khashoggi’s relationships with CIA officers like James Critchfield and his Saudi royal connections positioned him within BCCI’s orbit, as the bank was used to fund covert operations, including those supported by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. When BCCI collapsed in 1991 amid revelations of fraud and illegal activities, investigations revealed its use by arms dealers, drug traffickers, and intelligence agencies. Khashoggi’s name surfaced in connection to these probes, though he was not directly charged in BCCI’s downfall. His association underscored his role in the shadowy financial networks that BCCI enabled. In summary, Khashoggi’s connections to BCCI were rooted in his need for a discreet banking system to manage arms deal profits and support covert operations like Iran-Contra. While not a central figure in BCCI’s operations, his use of the bank and its ties to intelligence agencies highlight his deep involvement in the global nexus of finance, arms, and geopolitics.
==Iran-Contra==

Adnan Khashoggi played a significant role in the Iran-Contra affair, a covert U.S. operation in the mid-1980s that involved selling arms to Iran to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon and using the profits to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, bypassing Congressional restrictions. As a Saudi arms dealer with extensive connections to U.S., Israeli, and Iranian elites, Khashoggi acted as a key intermediary. Alongside Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, he facilitated the sale of 1,500 U.S. missiles to Iran via Israel, providing $25 million in bridging finance to enable the transactions. These funds were channeled through secretive financial networks, including the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which Khashoggi used to manage his arms deal profits. His involvement helped structure the complex deal, leveraging his relationships with figures like CIA officers and Saudi officials. However, when Khashoggi faced financial difficulties and could not recover his loaned funds, he revealed details of the operation, contributing to its exposure in 1986. His role underscores his position as a pivotal figure in the shadowy nexus of arms trading, intelligence operations, and geopolitics during the affair.
==Links to Operation Gladio==
[[Operation Gladio]] was a clandestine NATO “stay-behind” operation during the Cold War, designed to counter a potential Soviet invasion through secret anti-communist networks across Western Europe. These networks, coordinated by the [[CIA]] and [[NATO]], were implicated in a “strategy of tension,” involving false-flag attacks to discredit leftist movements and maintain political control. While no definitive evidence directly ties Khashoggi to Operation Gladio, his profile as an international arms dealer with CIA connections and operations in Europe raises speculation about his involvement.

Khashoggi’s activities align with the murky world of Gladio’s operations. A 1991 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report controversially listed him among “Colombian narco-terrorists,” alleging he sold arms to the Medellín cartel, though this claim lacks corroboration and may reflect geopolitical smear campaigns. His connections to figures like Monzer Al-Kassar, a Syrian arms dealer linked to organized crime and implicated in Gladio-related investigations, further fuel speculation. Al-Kassar, like Khashoggi, operated out of Marbella, Spain, where both owned lavish residences, and was investigated for ties to terrorist acts, including the Lockerbie bombing and the Achille Lauro hijacking. Swiss prosecutor Laurent Kasper Ansermet’s investigation into Al-Kassar uncovered a network involving Khashoggi, suggesting possible overlap with Gladio’s clandestine financial webs. Additionally, Khashoggi’s role in funding Operation Moses in 1984, airlifting 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel, demonstrates his capacity to support covert operations, potentially aligning with CIA and NATO interests in the region.

However, concrete evidence of Khashoggi’s direct participation in Gladio remains elusive. The operation’s secrecy, coupled with the CIA’s denial of involvement and the questionable authenticity of documents like U.S. Army Field Manual 30-31B, complicates attribution. Italian investigations into Gladio, particularly by magistrate Felice Casson, exposed links to right-wing terrorism, but Khashoggi’s name does not appear in primary sources like Italian parliamentary reports. His association with Gladio may be inferred from his broader CIA ties and arms dealing in Europe during the Cold War, but it remains speculative.
==Later Life and Legacy==
By the mid-1980s, Khashoggi’s influence waned as his Triad empire faced financial collapse, exacerbated by his $250,000 daily spending. In 1989, he was extradited from Switzerland to New York for allegedly helping Ferdinand Marcos hide $300 million in assets, though he was acquitted. Creditors pursued him, and his assets, including the Nabila (later sold to Donald Trump), were liquidated. Khashoggi died in London in 2017, leaving a complex legacy as a flamboyant dealmaker whose connections to global power structures, including the CIA, shaped U.S.-Saudi relations. His personal life, marked by marriages to Lamia Biancolini and Shahpari Azam Zanganeh, and relationships with “pleasure wives” like Jill Dodd, added to his notoriety.
==Critical Perspective==
Khashoggi’s CIA connections are well-documented through Iran-Contra and his relationships with agency figures, but his link to Operation Gladio is less certain, relying on circumstantial ties to arms networks and figures like Al-Kassar. The lack of primary evidence reflects Gladio’s clandestine nature and the difficulty of verifying claims in a web of covert operations. His role as an arms dealer and financier positioned him at the intersection of intelligence, geopolitics, and organized crime, making him a plausible but unconfirmed player in Gladio’s broader network.