Craig J. Spence: The Epstein of the 80’s

I recently rewatched the documentary that was never aired called “Conspiracy of Silence” about a 1980s U.S. child sex abuse and pedophilia ring that leads to the highest levels of government. Starting at 50 minutes and 50 seconds into the video (here), one of the victims of the ring, Paul Bonacci, states he was brought to Washington D.C. as a 14 year old minor by American former banker and former GOP politician from Omaha, Nebraska Lawrence King, Jr starting in 1981 to King’s house on Embassy Row. There, Bonacci witnessed the rape of children who were put on drugs and held captive in the lower-level rooms of the home. A powerful Washington lobbyist named Craig Spence was considered King’s partner in sex crime. Bonacci took two midnight tours of the White House organized by Spence. Who was Craig Spence, and how does his story connect high-ranking federal officials to a gay escort service and underage boys?

Craig Spence was considered a powerful Washington lobbyist. Similar to Jeffrey Epstein, he was considered a “mystery man” before the truth started coming out. The New York Times claimed his”personal phone book and party guest lists constitute a ‘Who’s Who’ in Congress, Government and journalism” (source). He lived in the upscale Kalorma neighborhood of D.C. on Wyoming Avenue, only a 5 minute drive from Embassy Row, where King had a home. According to the NYTimes “his parties do glitter with notables, from ambassadors to television stars, from Senators to senior State Department officials. According to Mr. Spence, Richard Nixon is a friend. So is John Mitchell. Eric Sevareid is termed ‘an old, dear friend.’ Senator John Glenn is ‘a good friend’ and [British actor and global government advocate] Peter Ustinov is ‘an old, old friend.'” (source). Per the Washington Times:

Among those who frequented his parties were journalists Eric Sevareid, Ted Koppel and William Safire; former CIA Director William Casey [an attendee of the secretive Le Cercle meetings]; the late John Mitchell, attorney general in the Nixon administration; conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly; then-Ambassador to Korea (now to China) James Lilley; and Gen. Alfred M. Gray, commandant of the Marine Corps. Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of The [Washington] Times, said he went to dinner once at Mr. Spence’s home, to honor Mr. Lilley. (Source)

A June 29, 1989 Washington Times investigation found Spence to have been involved in a male prostitution service. His signed receipts showed he spent upwards of $20,000 per month on the service. According to a July 24, 1989 article in Time Magazine, “those who once dined at his table are wondering out loud about the curious 8-ft.-long two-way mirror in his house, and the young men, and what exactly Craig Spence did to earn all the money he was throwing around.” Clients of the service “included key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations” (source).

A followup Washington Times article dated June 30, 1989 claimed Spence’s home was used for blackmail purposes. “According to many current and former friends, Mr. Spence was a dangerous friend to cultivate. Several former associates said his house on Wyoming Avenue was bugged and had a secret two-way mirror, and that he attempted to ensnare visitors into compromising sexual encounters that he could then use as leverage” (Source).

One former Reagan administration official who worked at the U.S. Information Agency and is an open
homosexual said he went to private parties at Mr. Spence’s home and saw a great deal of recording and taping equipment.

‘It was my clear impression that the house was bugged,’ he said. Another man, an Air Force sergeant who worked for Mr. Spence as a bodyguard, said: ‘The house was definitely bugged. I can’t say what he was doing with the information. I don’t know that. But he was recording what occurred there.’ (Source)

According to a Chinese businessman associated with Spence, “He described Mr. Spence as ‘strange,’ saying that he often boasted that he was working for the CIA and on one occasion said he was going to disappear for awhile ‘because he had an important CIA assignment.” According to the businessman, Mr. Spence told him that the CIA might ‘doublecross him,’ however, and kill him instead ‘and then to make it look like a suicide.'” (Source). Says Spence: “all of the parties he held at his Kalorama home were bugged by ‘friendly’ intelligence agents” (source):

He described in detail how he rigged his apartment with listening devices in electrical outlets in the walls after he was approached by an intelligence agency that he refused to identify.

‘They basically just wanted to be sure that nothing was being said that shouldn’t be said,’ he said.

He boasted that he had ‘created’ important Japanese politicians, conducted covert operations for Central American governments and traveled in a circle of high-ranking closet homosexuals in Washington. He said he would not identify homosexuals in the Bush administration.

‘I’m not going to smear the Republican Party,’ he said.

Another followup article by the Washington Times quoted Spence as saying the late-night White House tours “were arranged by ‘top-level’ officials, including Donald Gregg.” Gregg worked for the CIA for 31 years, from 1951 to 1982. He was also a National Security Council advisor (1979–1982) and a National Security Advisor to U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush (1982–1989) (source). Gregg denied the allegations, however Henry Vinson, the convicted operator of the DC-area gay escort service, confirmed that Gregg solicited male escorts with his government-issued MasterCard during his time as NSC advisor.

Spence ominously referred to much worse behavior. Per the Washington Times: “He alluded frequently to even deeper mysteries. ‘All this stuff you’ve uncovered, to be honest with you, is insignificant compared to other things I’ve done. But I am not going to tell you those things, and somehow the world will carry on without knowing.'” According to a book coauthored by Vinson titled Confessions of a D.C. Madam: The Politics of Sex, Lies, and Blackmail: “on one of the occasions in which Vinson had been invited to Spence’s home, where Lawrence King was also present, King spoke of his and Spence’s endeavors in operating a pedophile network that flew children from coast to coast as well as murdering children. During this visit, Spence had also shown Vinson a two-way mirror that had a video camera on a tripod pointed towards the living room. Spence proceeded to tell Vinson that his home was ‘bugged for clandestine surveillance’ and that ‘CIA operatives’ had installed the video cameras throughout his house. Following this experience, Spence threatened Vinson about the ‘consequences’ if he was to speak about the equipment” (source). Per the same book:

Spence also mentioned sending escorts working for Ebony and Ivory [an escort business operating out of Washington, D.C.] to the White House for late night tours. Vinson asked the escort in question who was sent regarding this visit, and he confirmed he had visited the White House under Spence’s command in the late night hours and that Secret Service personnel had waved him through the gate. In follow-up visits with escorts who had serviced Spence, they mentioned that minors were also present at Spence’s parties. (Source)

According to journalist Liz Trotta (who knew Spence well), in a book titled Fighting for Air: In the Trenches with Television News, she had a phone call with Spence before his death in which she urged him to turn himself in to the authorities, but he retorted that they wouldn’t be able to “solve the big thing” (source).

His death was as odd and mysterious as his life:

On November 10, 1989, Spence was found dead and barricaded in Room 429 of the Boston Ritz Carlton, the city’s most expensive hotel. He was dressed in a tuxedo and had three dollars in his pocket. According to the police report, when found by hotel employees he was attired in the style he affected at his lavish dinner parties: ‘black Tux with white shirt, bow tie, white suspenders, black socks and shoes’, with a telephone cradled in his ear and a Walkman headset containing a cassette tape of Mozart’s A Little Night Music. Next to his body was a newspaper clipping about efforts to protect CIA agents from testifying before government agencies. His death would later be ruled a suicide from ingesting alcohol and anti-depressants. (Source)

So in similar fashion to Jeffrey Epstein, he “killed himself.” As with Epstein, he seemed to have been involved in a CIA-backed blackmail operation involving sex with minors and high-ranking federal officials. His story has been almost entirely buried, similar to what the government and media are trying to do with the Epstein story. There are many questions that remain, such as how did Spence and Epstein actually die? Are they even dead? What was “the big thing” Spence claimed would not be solved? Who is currently running the blackmail operation for the CIA?