Talk:Oswald LeWinter

conman
LeWinter has confided under oath that he is a conman. There is absolutely no evidence that LeWinter was in the US Army or intelligence service. And please use only reliable sources, such as newspaper or magazine articles. The material added is not properly sourced, and POV. Intangible2.0 18:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The article clearly says he was jailed for conning Mohammed al-Fayed. What other point are trying to make?Phase4 21:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * He confided that in the early 1990s! I cannot see how your changes are in accordance with WP policy, you even deleted info that LeWinter was used as source in various works dealing with the October surprise conspiracy. Intangible2.0 17:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * If there is evidence for your assertions, please let us have it: chapter and verse!Phase4 19:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The references are already there. The problem here is with your additions that are referenced to sources in violation of WP:RS. Intangible2.0 17:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've revised the article and added further references including one from CNN which I trust you will agree is a reliable source.Phase4 15:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Are you familiar with WP:NPOV? You cannot just rewrite this article into a conspiracist slant when reputable sources (those that were already present in the article) all assert that LeWinter is a hoaxer. LeWinter himself has also, under oath(!), confided that is a hoaxer. We can mention that LeWinter himself claims he is a CIA agent, but we cannot base an article upon this claim. That is what you are doing, and it is wrong. Intangible2.0 15:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You will be blocked if you continue to remove reliably sourced edits (such as that from CNN). WP:NPOV is not relevant to CNN-sourced edits.Phase4 21:45, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I've reverted back to a sane version. If you want to add something, first discuss this here. Intangible2.0 22:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, this is the CNN source discussed above: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0008/30/se.02.html Location (talk) 10:09, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Quite something
With the exception of the information which comes from the Washington Post article cited in the article, almost everything else here must be treated with extreme caution, and much of it should probably be deleted. Some of it simply lacks importance: the civil career section lists his help in a labor day book fair in Redding Connecticut, how trivial can trivia get?

The rest of it lacks veracity. Who says there is a Khalil Gibran International Poetry Prize, an International Rilke Prize in Poetry? I can't find a single trace of either of these, except in websites reproducing this article, oh and the issue of "Yggdrasil" cited in the article, with its "Excerpt from the judge's statement on awarding the Rilke Prize" to Le Winter, "written by" Karl Krolow. Krolow is a real and famous poet of course, but strangely enough he is also amazingly aware of all the trivia of Le Winter's obscure endeavors from the 1950s. A classic case of non RS.

It is with some justification that the German Wikipedia article on Le Winter bluntly calls his awards "selbsterfundene Preise" (self-invented prizes). On the other hand, there really is a letter to Le Winter in William Carlos Williams's Selected Letters, just as "Karl Krolow" claims, so there is sometimes some basis to some of this. I'll see what I can dig up. Rgr09 (talk) 16:48, 4 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree, Rgr09. I was tempted to redirect to House October Surprise Task Force or October Surprise conspiracy theory, but he received news coverage regarding his attempt to swindle Mohamed Fayed. A good place to start building an article with reliable information Joint report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980 ("October Surprise Task Force"). You can search for his name, or go to the meat of it on pages 154-156. A transcript from the Frontline investigation is included as an appendix that provides additional details of LeWinter around page 715. - Location (talk) 23:45, 4 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the references! Frank Snepp's article "October Surmise" has information on him as well, it turns out LeWinter is none other than the mysterious Razine. I have looked at the Task Force report and it confirms much of what Snepp said about LeWinter/Razine's role in elaborating the October Surprise story, then adds LeWinter's admission, under oath, that everything he said was a lie. Mind-boggling. It would require serious original research to really put a biography of this guy together, another Baron Corvo it seems.  Maybe I can start by stripping out the stuff that it is indubitably fantasy.  Rgr09 (talk) 05:14, 5 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how best to approach this. Chronologically, it appears Snepp's article came out the month after the Task Force report, but it appears to have details that the Task Force report does not have. - Location (talk) 21:03, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Removed awards section
The article originally claimed that Le Winter had received two prizes for his poetry: the Khalil Gibran International Poetry Prize, and the International Rilke Prize in Poetry. Regarding the Khalil Gibran International Poetry Prize, there is a German-language webpage mentioning this, which apparently dates from April 2007. This item, whose provenance is unclear, claims that the prize was established in 2007 by the Rafic Hariri Foundation. The Hariri Foundation website, however, does not mention such a prize. Without further verification, I have removed this claim. The same story also mentions the International Rilke Prize in Poetry and says that Le Winter received the prize in 1997 for a work called "Qualverwandtschaften" (Painful relationships?). There is no bibliographical entry for such a work by Le Winter in WorldCat. The other source for this claim is the 2003 issue of the online journal Yggdrasil cited in the article. This article, and its introduction to Le Winter's poetry, supposedly written by the German poet Karl Krolow, has problems in terms of reliability, as noted above. Outside of these two sources, there is no trace of a Rilke Poetry Award. Without independent evidence that such a prize ever existed, I have deleted this claim as well. Rgr09 (talk) 05:57, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Career in CIA
I have revised the section "Career in CIA." LeWinter's claims have been rebutted many times. This should be reflected in the section title, which I have changed to "Claims of career in CIA."

The section originally cited an article by Peter Koenig which claimed that Rodney Stich, a prolific writer of conspiracy oriented books, claimed that LeWinter had worked in the CIA for thirty years. This sort of indirect claim is poor sourcing practice, and Stich is a VERY poor source for verifying LeWinter's claims. Changed the references to Washington Post article, in which the writer actually spoke to LeWinter and LeWinter said he was STILL a CIA agent, even after getting out of jail for the Fayed scam. I also added the ARRB report, which says there's no basis for LeWinter's claims. There remain other rebuttals available, which I will add in the next day or two.

This paragraph also identified LeWinter as the Ibrahim Razine who was interviewed on Italian television about Operation Gladio; this is very interesting of course, but neither of the two sources given mention the interview. I have therefore deleted the sentence. I will fish around for other sources, but that will take longer. Rgr09 (talk) 07:55, 5 April 2015 (UTC)


 * It appears that LeWinter started making the CIA claim in the mid to late 1980s as part of the October Surprise fabrication. By the early 1990s, this was known to be a lie by the US House. If Fayed's claims are true, Fayed bought into it and LeWinter was still trying to pass himself off as a CIA official around 1997. The AARB noted that he was a fabricator in 1998. Fayed was still on it around 2000 but I'm not sure how the case was resolved. I think we should change the section titled "October Surprise" to "October Surprise conspiracy", and simple remove the "Claims of Career in the CIA" section header as his initial claims should be part of the section pertaining to the conspiracy allegations. Then, I think we should change the section titled "Hoaxer" to something more descriptive about the swindle involving the Fayed family. - Location (talk) 15:06, 5 April 2015 (UTC)


 * According to the Washington Post article, LeWinter was claiming to be a CIA agent in the early 1980s in Germany, where he was teaching at the time. This was long before October Surprise, so this was not a special purpose lie. Note how the article also describes how LeWinter was arrested in London in 1971, carrying "a New York City police detective's badge and papers suggesting he was a diplomat. One certificate proclaimed he was the Honorable Dr. Oswald LeWinter, ambassador extraordinary, who should be afforded diplomatic privileges because he was with the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta."  No, this is something more along the lines of Edmund Backhouse, whom it would be hard to beat for Munchausean exploits.  Almost every account of LeWinter that incorporates anything he said is going to have lies in it, leavened with his real history when you least expect it. Even his story to the October Surprise Joint Task Force Committee, told under oath, probably has lies in it.  He just can't help it.


 * Still, I agree that October Surprise is a good place to start, keeping all possibly fictitious details out. Not a simple story, though.  The Frontline transcript (pages 721-22) illustrates this in a truly dramatic way, suggesting that LeWinter deliberately screwed up his account of the meetings in order to discredit the investigation. Note that this suggestion seems to originate with LeWinter himself. Rgr09 (talk) 10:00, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Removed sections on early activism and "civil career"
Both of these sections consisted of only one or two sentences recording very low relevance matters, such as LeWinter writing letters to the school newspaper or conducting book fairs(!) There's simply no need to put such insignificant matters into a Wikipedia biography. Rgr09 (talk) 16:23, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Attempt to defraud Mohamed Al-Fayed
Terry Lenzner's book appears to be a reliable source of information (e.g., , ) of LeWinter's role in the attempt to defraud of Mohamed Al-Fayed. Here is the full citation (without page numbers) if copy-and-paste is desired:

I am going to change the name of the section to better reflect what the incident was about. - Location (talk) 05:44, 8 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Very interesting book. Unfortunately, for LeWinter it doesn't give the sort of simple who what when where details that are easiest to work with in articles. Looks like the WaPo article is still the best account for that.  A remarkable piece of investigative work. I'll try and get a paragraph from that. Rgr09 (talk) 08:49, 8 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I added one. There are some minor details there that are not in the Post, but it should be sufficient for now. - Location (talk) 21:27, 8 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks good. As Lenzner says, despite everything, Al-Fayed seems to have bought some of the details of LeWinter's story. Al-Fayed's ambivalent attitude shows up in various tabloid articles over the two decades since the scam which hint that there was more to the story than met the eye, and Lenzner's book is a good response to this. Rgr09 (talk) 03:03, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Gladio interviews
Oswald LeWinter is the main interviewee in Allan Francovich's [] 3 part BBC series Gladio. This is not an unreliable source. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXavNe81XdQ if you watch all 3 hours of this you can see LeWinter filmed in silhouette but repeatedly captioned as Colonel Oswald LeWinter CIA-ITAC Liaison Officer Europe, as the main witness. In other words the BBC captioned him as a CIA officer.

Someone wrote this on a website called Conspiracy Planet: "My name is Alexei Galkin. I am a retired Lieutenant General, formerly head of a directorate of the KGB. General LeWinter was a man both much feared and admired by knowledgeable intelligence officers throughout the Soviet bloc for his skills in disinformation and media manipulation. His work in Chile in the early 1970s, where he totally neutralized the El Mercurio newspaper, is considered a classic and was taught in numerous services in the bloc. His work on the 'October Surprise' case was so well conceived that even today the truth remains discredited. Many of us consider LeWinter the most brilliant CIA officer of his era. Since his forced retirement, his life appears to have been chaotic and he is living in what is reported to be a state of poverty and serious illness in Portugal. He has published two excellent books in the language of his adopted country. It is deeply saddening that a man of such qualities, after long years of loyal service to his country, should be reduced to living like this."

It is not inconceivable that he was planted in that documentary series to mislead Francovich who went on to make a report for Newsnight discrediting the October Surprise Theory.Wool Bridge (talk) 16:47, 13 June 2016 (UTC)Wool Bridge (talk) 16:51, 13 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I am not familiar with Timewatch, however, I assume that the series, like Frontline, has had producers and writers of varying quality and credibility since its inception in 1982. Allan Francovich raises many WP:REDFLAGS, and any program that cites LeWinter as a CIA official is definitely not reliable. -Location (talk) 02:45, 21 September 2017 (UTC)