Alexandre de Marenches initiated the pact with messages to the four other countries—and to newly independent
Algeria, which declined to participate.
Infrastructure The Safari Club takes its name (reportedly de Marenches' idea) after the exclusive resort in
Kenya where the group first met in 1976. The club was operated by Saudi arms dealer
Adnan Khashoggi—also a friend of Adham's. The original charter establishes that an operations center would be built by 1 September 1976 in
Cairo. The group made its headquarters there, and its organization included a secretariat, a planning wing, and an operations wing. Meetings were also held in Saudi Arabia and in Egypt. The group made large purchases of real estate and secure communications equipment. The creation of the Safari Club coincided with the consolidation of the
Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). The BCCI served to
launder money, particularly for Saudi Arabia and the United States—whose
CIA director in 1976,
George H. W. Bush, had a personal account. "The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a worldwide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world in order to create the biggest clandestine money network in history." BCCI also served as an intelligence gathering mechanism by virtue of its extensive contacts with underground organizations worldwide. "They contrived, with Bush and other intelligence-service heads, a plan that seemed too good to be true. The bank would solicit the business of every major terrorist, rebel, and underground organization in the world. The invaluable intelligence thus gained would be discreetly distributed to 'friends' of the BCCI."
United States involvement (left) was a key CIA contact for the Safari Club The United States was not a formal member of the group, but was involved to some degree, particularly through the CIA.
Henry Kissinger is credited with the American strategy of supporting the Safari Club implicitly—allowing it to fulfill American objectives by
proxy without risking direct responsibility ("
plausible deniability"). This function became particularly important after the US Congress passed the
War Powers Resolution in 1973 and the
Clark Amendment in 1976, reacting against covert military actions orchestrated within the government's executive branch. An important factor in the nature of US involvement concerned changing domestic perceptions of the CIA and government secrecy. The
Rockefeller Commission and the
Church Committee had recently launched investigations that revealed decades of illegal operations by the CIA and the
FBI. The
Watergate scandal directed media attention at these secret operations, and served as a proximate cause for these ongoing investigations. President
Jimmy Carter discussed public concerns over secrecy in his campaign, and when he took office in January 1977 he attempted to reduce the scope of covert CIA operations. As the Safari Club was beginning operations, former CIA Director
Richard Helms and agent
Theodore Shackley were under scrutiny from Congress and feared that new covert operations could be quickly exposed.
Peter Dale Scott has classified the Safari Club as part of the "second CIA"—an extension of the organization's reach maintained by an autonomous group of key agents. Thus even as Carter's new CIA director
Stansfield Turner attempted to limit the scope of the agency's operations, Shackley, his deputy
Thomas Clines, and agent
Edwin P. Wilson secretly maintained their connections with the Safari Club and the BCCI. ==Undercover operations without congressional oversight==