Western Goals Foundation

Western Goals Foundation was a private domestic intelligence agency active in the United States.[1] It was founded in 1979 by John K. Singlaub, John Rees, and Congressman Larry McDonald. It went defunct in 1986 when the Tower Commission revealed it had been part of Oliver North's Iran–Contra funding network. Western Goals Foundation published several pamphlets, books, and documentaries.[1]

After the Watergate and COINTELPRO scandals of the early 1970s, several laws were passed to restrict police intelligence gathering within political organizations and tried to make it necessary to demonstrate that a criminal act was likely to be uncovered by any intelligence gathering proposed. Many files on radicals, collected for decades, were ordered destroyed. The unintended effect of the laws was to privatize the files in the hands of 'retired' intelligence officers and their most trusted, dedicated operatives.[1]

Each founder of Western Goals was also a member of the World Anti-Communist League, the John Birch Society, and similar organizations. John Rees and Larry McDonald joined forces with Major General John K. Singlaub to form the Western Goals Foundation in 1979. One of its principal sponsors was the Texan billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt.

Western Goals was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after a police officer was caught adding information from the disbanded Los Angeles Police Department "Red Squad" to a related computer bulletin board system.[2][3]

The organization also founded an offshoot, Western Goals (UK), later the Western Goals Institute, which was briefly influential in British Conservative politics.[1]