Robert Booth Nichols was an American businessman, part-time actor, and alleged intelligence operative. Throughout his life, Nichols was associated with various clandestine activities and maintained connections with high-level government officials, leading to speculations about his involvement in covert operations and alleged conspiracies such as Iran–Contra, the Inslaw affair, CIA drug trafficking, the 1980 October Surprise and the death of Danny Casolaro.

Early life

Born in Los Angeles, California, Nichols graduated from

Hollywood Professional School Hollywood Professional School was a private school in Hollywood, California. Initially established as a music conservatory by pianist Gladys T. Littell in 1921 under the name Hollywood Conservatory of Music and Arts, the school quickly expanded it ...

and furthered his education at Glendale Junior College, before leaving college and working for a security alarm company in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

and later in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles. As of 2024, Glendale ha ...

for a construction company.

Business activities

Robert Booth Nichols was the founder of Meridian International Logistics, a weapons dealer and logistics company. The company allegedly served as a front for clandestine activities, including intelligence operations, weapons smuggling and financial dealings connected to organized crime and the drug trade. Nichols worked with

Wackenhut G4S Secure Solutions (USA) is an American/British-based security services company, and a subsidiary of G4S plc. It was founded as The Wackenhut Corporation in 1954, in Coral Gables, Florida, by George Wackenhut and three partners (all former ...

to arm the

Contras In the history of Nicaragua, the Contras (Spanish: ''La contrarrevolución'', the counter-revolution) were the right-wing militias who waged anti-communist guerilla warfare (1979–1990) against the Marxist governments of the Sandinista Na ...

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

on the Cabarzon Reservation.Dr. John
/ref> In 1981, a man named Fred Alvarez and two others died on the reservation in an unsolved murder case. Michael Riconosciuto, who was the vice president of Meridian Arms, confessed to have transformed the PROMIS software stolen by Inslaw into

spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is any malware that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's securit ...

. Robert Booth Nichols was a member of the board of directors of the company FIDCO from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. In 1992 he founded the company Pacific Rim Services.

Alleged connections to intelligence

Nichols stated that he had been recruited by the CIA in the 1960s while living in

. He purportedly gathered intelligence until 1986 in nations including Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, India, Japan, Mexico, Costa Rica, Haiti, Norway and France. He stated that he had been stabbed in Australia in 1972 and shot in Cameroon. After supposedly leaving the CIA in the 1980s, he is said to have entered the business of money laundering and arms dealing. His extensive network reportedly included contacts within the highest echelons of power and claimed he was personally managed by US Secretary of Defense

Frank Carlucci Frank Charles Carlucci III ( ; October 18, 1930 – June 3, 2018) was an American politician who served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. He was the first Italian A ...

. Nichols also claimed to have been protected from prosecution and that he never had to pay taxes. Nichols is said to have been involved in the 1980 October Surprise and other covert operations. In a 2008 deposition, Nichols admitted uncertainty about his employment with the CIA, stating that while his employers informed him of such affiliations, he could not confirm their veracity. Inslaw founder William A. Hamilton described Nichols as credible, while attorney and former CIA employee

Robert Maheu Robert Aime Maheu (October 30, 1917 – August 4, 2008) was an American businessman and lawyer, who worked for the FBI and CIA, and as the chief executive of Nevada operations for the industrialist Howard Hughes. Early life Maheu was born in W ...

described Nichols as “

phony In law, fraud is intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover mone ...

”.

Involvement in the film industry

He served as a technical advisor on the 1992 film ''

Under Siege ''Under Siege'' is a 1992 action thriller film directed by Andrew Davis and written by J. F. Lawton. It stars Steven Seagal (who also produced the film), Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, and Erika Eleniak. Seagal plays Casey Ryback, a former ...

'' and appeared in the film in a small speaking role. He also appeared in the movies ''

Full Metal Jacket ''Full Metal Jacket'' is a 1987 war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick from a screenplay he co-wrote with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. The film is based on Hasford's 1979 autobiographical novel '' The Short-Timers''. It stars ...

'' and ''Ups and Downs''. Nichols was an advisor for MCA in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1987, he was suspected by the FBI of being involved with MCA in a $500 million stock fraud and for his alleged ties to the

Gambino crime family The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. ...

Connections to Sam Israel

Nichols was involved in the Ponzi scheme of

Samuel Israel III Samuel Israel III (born July 20, 1959) is an American fraudster and former hedge fund manager for the Bayou Hedge Fund Group, which he founded in 1996. In 2008, Israel was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $300 million for ...

, whom he met in 2004. He is said to have introduced Israel to a secret shadow market of the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...

that supposedly exists and in which intelligence services, organized crime and high finance enrich themselves illegally, by selling treasury notes at a discount to select insiders and laundering the profits over charities. Israel allegedly paid Nichols $10 million to locate a secret

treasury note United States Treasury securities, also called Treasuries or Treasurys, are government bond, government debt instruments issued by the United States Department of the Treasury to finance government spending as a supplement to taxation. Sinc ...

that was an

IOU An IOU (Abbreviation, abbreviated from the phrase "I owe you") is usually an informal document acknowledging debt. An IOU differs from a promissory note in that an IOU is not a negotiable instrument and does not specify repayment terms such as th ...

for

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

worth $250 billion. Nichols allegedly tried to steal the note. This is said to have destabilized

money market The money market is a component of the economy that provides short-term funds. The money market deals in short-term loans, generally for a period of a year or less. As short-term securities became a commodity, the money market became a compo ...

s and contributed to the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. Nichols testified as a witness at the trial after the collapse of Israel's hedge fund

Bayou In usage in the Southern United States, a bayou () is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), marshy lake, wetland, or creek. They ...

. Nichols named

John Prescott Ellis John Prescott Ellis (born February 3, 1953) is an American former journalist and media consultant, and is now a partner in the venture-capital firm Sand Hills Partners. He is a nephew of former President of the United States George H. W. Bush and ...

as involved in the scheme and claimed that

George Soros George Soros (born György Schwartz; August 12, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist. , he has a net worth of US$7.2 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundat ...

got his money on this black market.

Death

He died "mysteriously" in Geneva in 2009 according to reports.

Portrayal in media

Nichols's life and alleged activities have been the subject of the

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

show '' American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders''. He was in contact with the journalist Danny Casolaro before the latter's death. At the time of his death, Casolaro was attempting to link the Inslaw affair with the October Surprise allegations, the

Iran–Contra affair The Iran–Contra affair (; ), also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitat ...

, and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal into a "grand unified conspiracy" that he called "the Octopus". He also appeared in the book '' Octopus: Sam Israel, the Secret Market, and Wall Street's Wildest Con'' by Guy Lawson.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nichols, Robert Booth 1943 births 2009 deaths Male actors from Los Angeles Businesspeople from Los Angeles