FTR #510 Deadly Echoes—I Told You So, Part II

Recorded May 8, 2005
REALAUDIO

Connecting the past to the present, this program compares Mr. Emory’s 2000 ruminations on the probable results of a George W. Bush presidency with the outcome of his first four-plus years in office. Recorded on Labor Day weekend of 2000 (the official kickoff of the presidential campaign), FTR#248 drew on other broadcasts for information about the Bush family’s political heritage, noting that George W. Bush’s running mate and advisers were drawn from the entourage that surrounded his father and Ronald Reagan. In this program, we examine excerpts from FTR#248, comparing them with major developments from the George W. Bush years. As we will see, the events of those years are deadly echoes of the warnings provided by Mr. Emory in early September of 2000. Warning of the Bush business connections to the bin Laden family, Mr. Emory said, in effect, that if you take George Bush, you’ll get Osama bin Laden. In addition, FTR#248 warned that the elder Bush set up the networks used for the Iran-Contra affair. The drug-smuggling operations stemming from those networks were used by Mohammed Atta and company to infiltrate the US in preparation for the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, the Middle East during the Reagan/Bush years became a veritable “covertistan,” with our “enemies” in Iraq and Iran benefiting from the elder Bush’s Iran-Contra and Iraqgate machinations. Under the reign of George W.Bush, those locales are being revisited with what might be accurately called “a vengeance.”

Program Highlights Include: Discussion of the deliberately manufactured “oil shortage” of the late 1970’s and the role of the elder Bush and the Saudis in creating it; the enormous run-up in oil prices under the reign of the younger Bush; the role of Thyssen-Bornemisza Industries subsidiary HIS in generating the “Peak Oil” rationale for the oil price increase; the historical relationship between the Bush family and the Thyssen interests (prominent backers of Hitler and pivotal element of the Bormann organization); discussion of the bombing of Pan Am 103; analysis of Pan Am 103 as a possible paradigm for the 9/11 attacks; review of the elder George Bush’s role in cementing the Nazi émigré elements in the GOP as a permanent fixture; comparison between the central and eastern European fascist elements shepherded by the elder Bush and the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood presence in the GOP’s ethnic outreach branch.

1. In FTR#248, Mr. Emory noted that if you take George Bush, you’ll get Osama bin Laden. Foreshadowing the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Emory noted in that program that the Bin Laden family appear to have helped finance George W. Bush’s first petroleum venture—Arbusto Energy. The Bush family has a long history of investing with America’s enemies, as will be seen below with discussion of the Bush family’s involvement with the Thyssen industrial interests and the Hamburg-Amerika Line. From the description for FTR#248: “In an excerpt of FTR#182, the broadcast reviews business connections between Bin Laden's family and George W. Bush. (Fortunate Son; J. H. Hatfield; St. Martin's Press; copyright 1999.) Bush's Arbusto Energy company was begun, in part, with money from one James R. Bath. Bath's reputed associations run from the Central Intelligence Agency to the failed BCCI. The later was a financial institution involved in drug dealing, terrorism and arms trafficking. (It was used by Oliver North for some of his Iran-Contra machinations.) (For more on BCCI, see also Miscellaneous Archive Show M-51, as well as FTR-29.) Bath was the Texas business representative for Bin Laden's family and the money he used to help start Arbusto may very well have come, in part, from Bin Laden's family.”

2. In that same program from Labor Day weekend of 2000, Mr. Emory noted that the advisory personnel and running mate of George W. Bush were taken from the administration of his father. Predicting that a George W. Bush administration would manifest the same devastating phenomena that characterized the operations of his father, Mr. Emory revisited Bush I’s crafting of the structures that were used for the Iran-Contra and Iraqgate scandals. As noted in FTR#’s 482, 483, 484, 498, 499 Mohamed Atta and many of the key 9/11 hijackers infiltrated through protected drug networks that were linked to the Iran-Contra drug smuggling operations! From the description for FTR#248; “Excerpting FTR-174, the broadcast focuses on Bush and the world of “international terrorism.” (The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People, by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin's Press; copyright 1994; ISBN 0-312-11057X; pp. 407-409; p. 429.) Having chaired the Vice-President's Task Force on Counter-Terrorism, George H.W. Bush oversaw and implemented recommendations issuing from that Task Force. In a series of National Security Decision Directives, Bush was given command of what authors John Loftus and Mark Aarons describe as ‘his (Bush's) own private spy agency,’ and ‘a White House within the White House.’ (See FTR-29.) Ostensibly created to provide a rapid, prophylactic response to ‘international terrorism,’ these networks became the primary vehicles for the realization of the ill-fated, illegal and treasonous Iran-Contra and Iraqgate schemes. Far from being ‘out of the loop,’ as he claimed, George Bush was the primary player in both affairs. (Idem.) His ‘private spy agency’ was the most significant element in the both the administration and implementation of the operations. (Idem.)”

3. Next, the program recapitulates material from FTR#248 that highlights the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103. “ . . . [The program] reviews George Bush Sr.'s presence at a meeting with (among others) Army intelligence agents McKee and Gannon. (The excerpt is taken from FTR-228.) This meeting had been a major point of interest for Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. (Iran-Contra: The Final Report; published by Times Books.) Both McKee and Gannon were killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. (Gideon's Spies; Gordon Thomas; Thomas Dunne; copyright 1999.) (The name of arms and drug dealer Monzer Al-Kassar has come up in connection with the bombing of Pan Am 103. The Pan Am insurance investigator's report claimed that Al-Kassar was the author of the bombing and that the attack was allowed to go forward in order to silence McKee and Gannon. Al-Kassar was pivotally involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. (For more on Pan Am 103, Monzer Al-Kassar, George Bush and the Iran-Contra scandal, see RFA #'s 32, 35, 38 and FTR #'s 5, 29, 51, 61, 103, 109.)” Mr. Emory notes that the (badly attenuated) investigation of Pan Am 103 was conducted by Robert Mueller, who—as head of the FBI—has proved less than vigorous in pursuing the financial evidence in the 9/11 case. As discussed in RFA#’s 35, 38—available from Spitfire—it appears that the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 was secreted aboard the plane under the guise of a “controlled drug delivery” that was part of an intelligence-connected drug operation. With several of the key 9/11 hijackers having infiltrated the US through similarly protected drug-delivery networks, the possibility that the bombing of Pan Am 103 may have served as something of a paradigm for 9/11 is one to be seriously considered.

4. Side two of the program begins with review of collaboration between the Saudis, the major oil companies and the CIA under the elder George Bush. This collaboration created a phony oil shortage that served to justify massive price increases at the pump, the destabilization of the Carter administration and the massive military buildup that took place under the Reagan administration. Mr. Emory points out that this massive increase in the price of oil has been recapitulated under the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney—both former petroleum industry CEO’s from the state of Texas. (Former more about this oil shortage, see—among other programs— FTR#506.) From the description for FTR#248: “Recapitulating a section of FTR-214, the discussion highlights the phony ‘oil shortage’ of the late 1970's against the background of the allegedly real ‘oil shortage’ of the year 2000. (The Secret War Against the Jews; pp. 333-335.) (For an in-depth interview with John Loftus about this book, see FTR-29.) In this important and extensively footnoted volume, the authors draw on veteran American and British intelligence officers in order to document collusion among elements of George Bush's CIA, the petroleum industry and the government of Saudi Arabia. Together, these elements fabricated an alleged Soviet petroleum shortfall, as well as a phony ‘decline’ in Saudi oil production. Career oil industry professional George Bush gave Jimmy Carter a CIA report that falsely forecast a world-wide oil shortage. (Idem.) The report also ruminated about the possibility that the Soviets might invade the Middle East in order to augment allegedly failing domestic production. The goal of the report was to influence Jimmy Carter to increase oil production and to mandate weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in order to ‘defend against the Soviet menace.’ (Idem.) Carter Energy Secretary James Schlesinger instead responded with a program of conservation. This enraged the petroleum interests, which then responded with the phony ‘gas shortage’ of 1979. This gas shortage helped to propel Jimmy Carter from office. (Schlesinger had resigned his post earlier in Carter's administration.) Former CIA director Bush became Vice-President under Reagan and (according to some sources) became ‘power behind the throne.’ Eventually, it became evident that the CIA report was false, and that the Middle East was swimming in oil. Nonetheless, the CIA/Saudi/petroleum industry fraud was successful in conning consumers into accepting dramatically higher gasoline prices, destabilizing the Carter administration, and persuading Congress and the President to authorize a Saudi military buildup. That Saudi build-up tipped the military balance of power in favor of the Arabs. Most importantly, the phony oil shortage set the stage for an unprecedented military build-up during the Reagan administrations. That military build-up tripled the U.S. national debt in eight years.”

5. The astounding increase in oil prices is being ascribed, in part, to the notion of “Peak Oil”—the contention that a combination of limited supply and increasing demand has brought us to an impasse at which massive price increases for petroleum are necessary and permanent. As discussed in FTR#506, the epicenter of Peak Oil advocacy is HIS—an energy-consulting subsidiary of Thyssen-Bornemisza industries. In FTR#248, Mr. Emory noted the history of the Bush family’s involvement with the Thyssen interests, and the Thyssens central role in the Bormann group. From the description for FTR#248: “The program begins with an excerpt of FTR-186. (The text is excerpted from The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People, by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin's Press; copyright 1994; ISBN 0-312-11057X.) The discussion focuses on the profound involvement of George Herbert Walker (W's great grandfather) and his son-in-law Prescott Bush Sr. in the financing of the German industrial concerns that backed Hitler. (The Secret War Against the Jews; pp. 358-9; 36061.) Prescott Bush, Sr., is the father of the former President and CIA Director and the grandfather of ‘W.’) The Walker-Bush involvement with the investment firm Brown Brothers, Harriman & Company is a major focal point of the broadcast. (Idem.) . . . The discussion underscores the strong connections between Walker, Prescott Bush Sr. and Fritz Thyssen. (Thyssen was a German steel maker and one of Hitler's earliest and most prominent financial backers. The Walker-Thyssen relationship began in 1924. (Idem.)” For more about the Bush/Thyssen relationship, see FTR#370. More information about this connection is to be found in the book Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile, available on this website (see above). The information in the Manning text is supplemented by the documents included in the Bush Family Fortune website.

6. The program concludes with recapitulation of information about the Nazi genesis of the Republican Party’s ethnic heritage branch. The elder George Bush played a key role in making this Nazi branch of the GOP a permanent institution. Mr. Emory notes that this, too, was prescient. In FTR#’s 356, 357, 415, 435, 454, 514, 515, we examined the incorporation of the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood into the GOP’s ethnic outreach structure under the supervision of Grover Norquist, Karl Rove and Bush crony Talat Othman. Like the other central and eastern European fascist elements incorporated into the GOP’s ethnic outreach branch, the Muslim Brotherhood collaborated with the Third Reich and then jumped to the CIA after the war. From the description for FTR#248: “The program also excerpts FTR-186 (and the Loftus/Aarons text) with a look at George Sr.'s involvement with the Nazi émigré milieu that spawned the Republican Ethnic Heritage Organization, literally a Nazi wing of the Republican party. (The Secret War Against the Jews; pp. 369-71.) A close political ally of Richard Nixon's, George Bush midwived the formal inclusion of the Nazi ‘ethnics’ in the GOP, utilizing his position as chairman of the Republican National Committee. (For more on this subject see also: RFA #'s 36, 37, Miscellaneous Archive Shows M-24 and M-29, as well as FTR #'s 29, 48, 113.) Bush later used this same Nazi émigré network in his 1988 presidential campaign. (Idem.)”

FTR #509 The Death of Iris Chang

Recorded May 1, 2005
REALAUDIO

In November of 2004, author and investigator Iris Chang was found dead of an allegedly self-inflicted gunshot wound. This program examines the circumstances surrounding her death. Ms. Chang was researching a book chronicling the experiences of survivors of the Bataan Death March—the brutal persecution of American POW’s captured in the siege of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. Many of the survivors were shipped to Japan to work as slave laborers for major Japanese corporations. Many of these corporations have had profound connections with their American transnational counterparts, and were the beneficiaries of American investment capital in the run-up to World War II. More importantly, many of these corporations are a principal element of the US/Japanese commercial relationship today. There is evidence to suggest that Ms. Chang’s death may have resulted from mind control, administered to neutralize her as a threat to the clandestine economic and national security relationships that have governed US/Japanese affairs in the postwar period. Ms. Chang had received threats ever since the publication of her landmark text The Rape of Nanking. She appears to have been under surveillance, and her suicide note alleged that a suspicious internment in a psychiatric hospital may have been initiated at the instigation of the elements opposed to a ruffling of the Japanese/US feathers. In addition to threatening US/Japanese cooperation on Iraq, Ms. Chang’s investigation of Japanese war crimes was an irritant to the Japanese establishment that had thrived on the gold and other wealth looted from occupied countries since World War II. (For background on the discussion presented in this program, see—among other programs: FTR#290; FTR#291; FTR#296; FTR#426; FTR#427; FTR#446; FTR#451; FTR#501.) It is worth noting in this context that, should the major Japanese financial institutions collapse as a result of their epic malfeasance during the postwar period, they would be forced to sell the large number of US Treasury Bills that they hold, thereby collapsing this country’s economy!

Program Highlights Include: The friction between Japan and China over resurgent Japanese ultranationalism and Japan’s historical revisionism of its role in World War II; the US State Department’s role in blunting suits by US POW’s against Japanese corporations; the role of US courts in blunting suits by US POW’s against Japanese corporations; the close marital relationships between American diplomats and their families and the Japanese corporations targeted by the lawsuits; the State Department’s efforts at blunting bills introduced on behalf of these POW’s; review of the persecution of the late Norbert Schlei for crossing some of the same interests that Ms. Chang had crossed; a conversation between Ms. Chang and a friend in which Iris indicated that her fears were rooted in reality, and not “in her head;” Ms. Chang’s endorsement of the landmark text Gold Warriors by the Seagraves; the close timing between Ms. Chang’s alleged suicide and a trip by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to Japan in order to promote US/Japanese trade.

1. The program begins by chronicling the accelerating re-emergence of revisionist Japanese history. Ultranationalists in that country have been working to cover-up Japan’s criminal record in World War II for some time. Those efforts are gaining momentum. In particular, the Japanese refusal to acknowledge the horrible crimes they committed against the Chinese is becoming more entrenched, leading to heightened tensions between the two countries’ governments. It is against the background of these growing tensions that Iris Chang’s death occurred. “The United States, ever quick to criticize China for human rights abuses, has of late been remarkably silent about Japan’s ethical lapses, current and historical. Japanese politicians and publishers have made a cottage industry of denying the 1937 Nanking Massacre in which the Japanese killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the old Chinese capital. This is an offense to Chinese sensibilities comparable with Holocaust denial in Europe. In recent months, major publishers and broadcasters have been bullied to conform and self-censor in accord with the rising tide of resurgent militarism. That tacit government approval is given to such xenophobic, right-wing thinking can be seen in the latest Ministry of Education-approved school texts that erase or evade critical lessons drawn from Japan’s bad behavior in its war of aggression.”
(“Japan’s Revisionist History’) by Philip J. Cunningham; The Los Angeles Times; 4/11/2005; p. 1.)

2. “In the ‘New History Textbook,’ the Nanking Massacre is dismissed as a controversial ‘incident.’ And the war of invasion is no longer termed an invasion. New textbooks drop references to ‘comfort women,’ sex slaves of mostly Chinese and Korean origin who were forced to service Japanese fighting men in the field. To borrow a phrase from the late writer Iris Chang, the abused women are being raped a second time, this time by defenders of the Japanese army who attempt to erase them from memory.” (Idem.)

3. Note that the advent of the Cold War and America’s embrace of Japan as an ally in that struggle facilitated the cover-up of Japanese war crimes. “China and the U.S. were allies in World War II, each contributing in its own way to the defeat of Japanese militarism. But the Cold War saw the U.S. turn away from China and embrace Japan, with the result that China's vast suffering, estimated at 20 million dead, was never properly memorialized or recognized by its erstwhile ally. To add insult to injury, the U.S. found it expedient to work with Emperor Hirohito and other war criminals of that era in order to facilitate occupation and bolster its anti-communism crusade. Now that the Cold war is over, it is high time the U.S. lent support to China’s valid historical complaints.” (Ibid.; pp. 1-2.)

4. Perpetuating the obfuscation of Japan’s wartime atrocities is Japan’s alliance with the US vis a vis Iraq. Japan is one of the few countries that continues to support Bush’s war. Iris Chang’s continuing investigations into Japanese war crimes was a potential irritant to this alliance. It may have been the cause of her death. “But Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has linked his political fate with the unrepentant rightists at home and President Bush’s policy abroad, keeps the unholy alliance functioning, offering vocal support for U.S. aggression in Iraq while hailing Japan’s fallen military heroes of a bygone era. As if to secure U.S. complacency on controversial textbook changes, U.S. actions in Iraq have been sanitized by Japanese textbook committees that, for instance, whited out ‘unilateral’ from a recent text.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

5. More on the Washington/Tokyo axis, across which Ms. Chang’s research cut “The cozy Tokyo-Washington relationship makes it difficult for the U.S. to take a judicious stand on anti-China antics such as history textbook revision. Last October, while Koizumi was lending vocal support to Bush in the presidential race and the war in Iraq, Shueisha, one of Japan’s leading publishers, suspended publication of an acclaimed historical manga (comic book), ‘My Country is Burning,’ for its unflinching portrayal of the Nanking Massacre.” (Idem.)

6. Inside Japan, journalistic voices publicizing Japanese war crimes have been silenced. “In Beijing last week, Japanese Ambassador Koreshige Anami defended the publishing of right-wing textbooks as a testament to Japan’s ‘freedom of speech and publication.’ Why then was veteran manga artist Motomiya Hiroshi forced to retract and apologize for ‘My Country is Burning,’? Why then did the NHK TV network, after getting a high-level warning, preemptively cut short a program on comfort women that laid blame on the emperor? If a Chinese Internet café gets closed down, it’s front-page news. Why isn’t the U.S. equally concerned about setbacks to free speech in Japan?” (Ibid.; pp. 2-3.)

7. “The U.S. should not look the other way in the face of resurgent Japanese militarism, even though a Japan freed of the constraints of its own reprehensible past behavior might serve to keep China on edge or might add muscle to the U.S. policing of the world. The ultimate consequence of whitewashing the past could be the demise of Japan’s admirable Peace Constitution, allowing Japan to retool its formidable industrial base into a weapons industry threatening its neighbors and possibly triggering an unprecedented arms race and another world war.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

8. Next, the program examines the vicious reaction of Japanese ultranationalists and others to Iris Chang’s book—The Rape of Nanking. Note the hostility with which her work was met. Was this hostility carried to another level? “ . . . At the same time, torrents of hate mail came in, Brett [her husband] said. ‘Iris is sensitive, but she got charged up,’ he recalled. ‘When anybody questioned the validity of what she wrote, she would respond with overwhelming evidence to back it up. She’s very much a perfectionist. It was hard for her not to react every single time.’ Most of the attacks came from Japanese ultranationalists. ‘We saw cartoons where she was portrayed as this woman with a great big mouth,’ Brett said. ‘She got used to the fact that there is a Web site called ‘Iris Chang and Her Lies.’ She would just laugh.’”
(“Historian Iris Chang Won Many Battles: The War She Lost Raged Within” by Heidi Benson; San Francisco Chronicle; 4/17/2005; p. 9 [of 22].)

9. “But friends say Iris began to voice concerns for her safety. She believed her phone was tapped. She described finding threatening notes on her car. She said she was confronted by a man who said, ‘You will NOT continue writing this.’ She used a post office box, never her home address, for mail. ‘There are a fair number of people who don’t take kindly to what she wrote in The Rape of Nanking.’’ Brett said, ‘so she’s always been very, very private about our family life.’” (Idem.)

10. “The book’s popularity meant a lengthy book tour. ‘Over a year and a half, she visited 65 cities,’ Brett said. ‘Most authors are worn out after five or six cities.’ He could see the travel was taking a toll on her. In 1998, Brett recalled, ‘for her 30th birthday, we went out to a little resort near Santa Cruz and she literally didn’t want to leave the room.’” (Idem.)

11. “Somehow, she always bounced back, energized by her role as spokesperson for a movement. Among her many television appearances was a memorable evening on ‘Nightline,’ where she was the only Asian and the only woman among a panel of China experts. ‘To see her on TV, defending Rape of Nanking so fiercely and so fearlessly—I just sat down, stopped, in awe,’ said Helen Zia, author of Asian-American Dreams: Emergence of an American People and co-author Wen-Ho Lee, of My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist Who Was Falsely Accused.” (Ibid.; p. 10.)

12. “ ‘Iris truly had no fear. You could see it in the steadiness of her voice and in her persistence,’ Zia recalled. ‘She would just say, matter-of-factly, ‘Japan is lying and here’s why.’’ Later Iris challenged the Japanese ambassador to a debate on the ‘MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour’ on PBS. After the ambassador spoke of events in Nanking, Iris turned to the moderator and said: ‘I didn’t hear an apology.’” (Idem.)

13. Iris turned her attention to another subject connected to Japanese atrocities from World War II—the Bataan Death March. Some of the American soldiers captured after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines were forced to work as slave laborers for some of the major Japanese corporations. As will be seen below, class action lawsuits and other attempts at gaining belated compensation for these unfortunate POWs was met with fierce opposition from the US State Department!! Remember that Iris Chang was cutting across these same lines of political power. “ . . . But soon she found herself drawn to a subject just as dark. Iris Chang rang the doorbell on Ed Martel’s front porch in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on December 4, 2003. It’s a date he won’t forget. ‘She sat down and cross-examined me like a district attorney for five solid hours,’ said Martel, 86, one of the last remaining survivors of the Bataan Death March of World War II. His daughter, Maddy, remembered the day well, too. ‘We set out a very big lunch—meat trays and sandwiches and desserts,’ she said. ‘My dad was so excited that she was doing this, and so honored.’” (Ibid.; pp. 11-12.)

14. “Months earlier, Iris had seized on a letter in her ‘book ideas’ file about a Midwestern pocket of Bataan survivors, all members of two tank battalions. ‘They drop so fast,’ the letter had read. The correspondent was Sgt. Anthony Meldahl, a supply sergeant with the Ohio National Guard who had admired Iris’ work. Meldahl was now urging Iris to join his oral-history project. She did, and, starting in November 2003, would make four trips to meet with Bataan vets—in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky. Each time, Iris swept into town and conducted four or five intensive interviews in as many days. ‘She was like a battalion commander,’ Meldahl said.” (Ibid.; p. `12.)

15. “ ‘It’s amazing when you watch Iris do research,’ Brett said. ‘She would go into a town—and with Tony Meldahl’s help, it was even better. She would have a team of three vets and their children and their wives. Iris would be interviewing them, somebody else would be filming them, somebody else would be photocopying records, and somebody would be sending documents down to UPS. And Iris would buy lunch and dinner for everybody, and they all thought it was great.” (Idem.)

16. Again, note that some of the Bataan Death Marchers were shipped to Japan to work as slave laborers. This subject will be taken up at greater length below. “ ‘These people wanted their story told for a long, long time, and they knew that because Iris had success as an author, she’d be able to do a very good job,’ Brett said. Ed Martel’s story began on Dec. 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor was still smoldering when Japanese planes bombed the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula, where Martel was stationed with a National Guard tank battalion. With few rations, little ammunition and no reinforcements, 70,000 American and Filipino troops held off the Japanese for months. When the American general surrendered on April 9, the Japanese forced the troops to walk 65 miles through sweltering jungle. Some 8,000 died on the notorious ‘death march.’ Those who survived spent the rest of the war in a bleak prison camp; some were shipped to Japan as slave laborers. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] Once the Allies won the war, the story was forgotten. It had been the largest U.S. Army surrender in history.” (Idem.)

17. “ ‘It’s baffling to me that the U.S. today has so little knowledge of the four months we held out,’ Martel told The Chronicle by telephone from his home in Wisconsin. ‘We marvel at how America turned their backs on us.’ Martel was slightly hard of hearing, but his memory was crisp. He recalled telling Iris about the worst of his Bataan experiences. ‘Iris asked me to tell about atrocities,’ he said. ‘Twice I broke down and had to leave the room.’” (Idem.)

18. As Ms. Chang was investigating the story of the Death Marchers, she made the acquaintance of a colonel, who elicited fear in this otherwise dauntless individual. The colonel checked her into a psychiatric hospital, where she was put on a cycle of psychiatric drugs. Was she subjected to some sort of mind control? Did that have something to do with her death? Was she programmed to commit suicide? “ . . . ‘I knew Iris was not right,’ her mother said. ‘She couldn’t eat or drink. She was very depressed.’ She asked if Iris had any friends there she could call for help. One of the veterans—a colonel she had planned to meet in Louisville—came to the hotel. Smith said the colonel spent only a short time with her. ‘She was afraid of him when he showed up,’ Smith said. ‘But he spoke to her mother on the phone and told Iris, ‘Your mom is on the phone, so it’s OK.’’ That afternoon, she checked herself in to Norton Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, with help from the colonel. Through a third party, the colonel declined to be interviewed. ‘First they gave her an antipsychotic, to stabilize her,’ her mother said. ‘For three days they gave her medication, the first time in her life.’ (The family would not name specific drugs.) . . . ” (Ibid.; p. 14.)

19. Iris’s suicide note betrayed fear of retribution for her research. She felt that her internment in the psychiatric hospital may have somehow been part of that retribution. As noted below, she felt the CIA or some similar type of institution may have been involved in the activities conducted against her. “ . . . Then she wrote a suicide note—addressed to her parents, Brett and her brother—followed by a lengthy revision. The first draft said: ‘When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day—but by the minute. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] It is far better that you remember me as I was—in my heyday as a best-selling author—than the wild-eyed wreck who returned from Louisville . . . Each breath is becoming difficult for me to take—the anxiety can be compared to drowning in an open sea. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. Please forgive me. Forgive me because I cannot forgive myself.’” (Ibid.; p. 18.)

20. “In the final version, she added: ‘There are aspects of my experience in Louisville that I will never understand. Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me. . . .” (Idem.)

21. Although those around Iris (and the author of the article excerpted here) felt that she was “imagining” things, there was very real danger for people involved in researching the deep politics and clandestine goings on surrounding the machinations of the Japanese corporations and national security establishment, before, during and after World War II. As will be seen below, the US government has actively participated in the cover-up of these machinations. “‘Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government’s attempt to discredit me. ‘I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years of pain and agony ahead.’” (Idem.)

22. “After Iris Chang’s Oldsmobile was found off Highway 17 on Tuesday morning, Nov. 9, the California Highway Patrol was called to the scene. The Highway Patrol then called the Santa Clara Sheriff’s homicide unit and detective Sgt. Dean Baker, a 33-year veteran, took over the investigation. ‘There is an aspect of paranoia in the majority of suicides,’ Baker said. ‘ A lot of people—depending on how disturbed they are—feel that people are plotting against them.’” (Idem.)

23. Despite the dismissal of Iris’s fears as “paranoia,” there is reason to believe her fears were justified. In a phone call to an old friend from college, Iris noted that her family and friends thought her problems were “in her head”—“internal”—but that they were real, i.e. “external.” “ . . . The months passed, and I got involved in my own projects. A few weeks ago, a mutual friend e-mailed me that Iris was trying to reach me, and that she had been sick for the past few months. Then, on Saturday, Nov. 6, my cellphone rang. When I heard the tone of Iris’ voice, I excused myself from the friends I was visiting and stood outside in their yard for privacy. The bounce in her voice was totally gone. Instead, it was sad and totally drained, as if she were making a huge effort just to talk to me. I remembered that she recently had been sick.”
(“How ‘Iris Chang’ Became a Verb” by Paula Kamen; Salon.com.)

24. “She said, ‘I just wanted to let you know that in case something should happen to me, you should always know that you’ve been a good friend.’ Over the next hour, I stumbled to ask her about what had happened. She talked about her overwhelming fears and anxieties, including being unable to face the magnitude—and the controversial nature—of the stories that she had uncovered. Her current vaguely described problems were ‘external,’ she kept repeating, a result of her controversial research. They weren’t a result of the ‘internal,’ that is, they weren’t all in her head. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] I asked her about what others in her life thought about the cause of this apparent depression. She paused and said, ‘They think it’s internal.’” (Idem.)

25. Next, the program reprises material from FTR#446, concerning the death threats received by the Seagraves, who had been researching many of the same type of things as Iris Chang. The Seagraves’ problems were “external,” not “internal.” “Many people told us this book was historically important and must be published—then warned us that if it were published, we would be murdered. An Australian economist who read it said, ‘ I hope they let you live.’ He did not have to explain who ‘they’ were.”
(Gold Warriors—America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [HC]; Copyright 2003 by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1-85984-542-8; p. X.)

26. The program relates the retribution visited on whistle-blowers who disclosed the gold belonging to Holocaust victims that was left in Swiss banks. Note that Carla del Ponte, who charged Jean Ziegler with treason, is the lawyer for Bank Al Taqwa’s Youssef Nada. Note also that these whistleblowers were in conflict with the same type of things that the Seagraves and Iris Chang were investigating. (For more about Nada, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 356, 357, 359, 377, 378, 382, 413, 415, 417, 423, 425, 432, 433, 435. FTR#359 highlights Carla del Ponte at some length.) “Japan’s looting of Asia, and the hiding of this war-gold in American banks, is closely linked to the issue of Holocaust gold hidden in Swiss banks. Revealing the secrets of either is a dangerous business. Jean Ziegler, a Swiss professor and parliamentarian, did much to expose five decades of official amnesia in his book The Swiss, the Gold and the Dead. After publishing it and testifying in 1998 before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee about Jewish assets in Swiss banks, he was charged with ‘treason’ by Swiss Federal Prosecutor Carla del Ponte. The charge was brought by twenty-one financiers, commercial lawyers, and politicians of the far right, many of them major stockholders in large Swiss banks. They accused Ziegler of being an accomplice of Jewish organizations who ‘extorted’ vast sums of money from Switzerland.” (Idem.)

27. “Ziegler is only one of many who have been persecuted for putting ethics before greed. Christophe Meili, a Union Banque Suisse (UBS) security guard, was threatened with murder and the kidnapping of his wife and children after he testified before a U.S. Senate committee about documents he rescued from UBS shredders. He and his family were given asylum in America.” (Idem.)

28. The Seagraves relate the threats and harassment they received over the authorship of some of their previous books. “We have been threatened with murder before. When we published The Soong Dynasty we were warned by a senior CIA official that a hit team was being assembled in Taiwan to come murder us. He said, ‘I would take this very seriously, if I were you.’ We vanished for a year to an island off the coast of British Columbia. While we were gone, a Taiwan hit team arrived in San Francisco and shot dead the Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu.” (Idem.)

29. “When we published The Marcos Dynasty we expected trouble from the Marcos family and its cronies, but instead we were harassed by Washington. Others had investigated Marcos, but we were the first to show how the U.S. Government was secretly involved with Marcos gold deals. We came under attack from the U.S. Treasury Department and its Internal Revenue Service, whose agents made threatening midnight phone calls to our elderly parents. Arriving in New York for an author tour, one of us was intercepted at JFK airport, passport seized, and held incommunicado for three hours. Eventually the passport was returned, without a word of explanation. When we ran Freedom of Information queries to see what was behind it, we were grudgingly sent a copy of a telex message, on which every word was blacked out, including the date. The justification given for this censorship was the need to protect government sources, which are above the law.” (Ibid.; pp. X-XI.)

30. “During one harassing phone call from a U.S. Treasury agent, he said he was sitting in his office watching an interview we had done for a Japanese TV network—an interview broadcast only in Japanese, which we had never seen. After publishing The Yamato Dynasty, which briefly mentioned the discovery that is the basis for Gold Warriors, our phones and email were tapped. We know this because when one of us was in a European clinic briefly for a medical procedure, the head nurse reported that ‘someone posing as your American doctor’ had been on the phone asking questions.” (Ibid.; p. XI.)

31. “When a brief extract of this book was published in the South China Morning Post in August 2001, several phone calls from the editors were cut off suddenly. Emails from the newspaper took 72 hours to reach us, while copies sent to an associate nearby arrived instantly. In recent months, we began to receive veiled death threats.” (Idem.)

32. “What have we done to provoke murder? To borrow a phrase from Jean Ziegler, we are ‘combating official amnesia.’ We live in dangerous times, like Germany in the 1930’s when anyone who makes inconvenient disclosures about hidden assets can be branded a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘traitor. . . .’” (Idem.)

33. “Despite the best efforts of the American and Japanese governments to destroy, withhold, or lose documentation related to Golden Lily, we have accumulated thousands of documents, conducted thousands of hours of interviews, and we make all of these available to readers of this book on two compact discs, available from our website www.bowstring.net so they can make up their own minds. We encourage others with knowledge of these events to come forward. When the top is corrupt, the truth will not come from the top. It will emerge in bits and pieces from people like Jean Ziegler and Christophe Meili, who decided they had to ‘do something.’ As a precaution, should anything odd happen, we have arranged for this book and all its documentation to be put up on the Internet at a number of sites. If we are murdered, readers will have no difficulty figuring out who ‘they’ are.” (Idem.)

34. In order to demonstrate the pressure that can be brought to bear on someone who threatens to lay bare the secrets arising from the Japanese war gold, the program reviews information from FTR#501 about the persecution (and prosecution) of Norbert Schlei. Schlei was attempting to redeem some special Japanese bonds called “57s.” Only insiders sanctioned by those controlling the M-Fund could redeem these special bonds, backed by some of the Japanese war gold. (For more about the M-Fund, see FTR#446.) “ . . . By January 1992, sixteen offices of the Secret Service were said to be involved in the Ah Loo sting. Mrs. Ah Loo was too insignificant to justify such an expenditure of taxpayers’ money, so the vigilantes looked for someone else to lynch. One possibility was Takahashi, to whom the ‘57’s’ belonged, but when they broke into his Los Angeles apartment, it was empty and he was out of the country in hiding. Trophy hunting has become a feature of the American criminal justice system. Takahashi was not famous, so he was not a proper trophy for an ambitious U.S. attorney.” (Idem.)

35. Because Schlei was investigating some of the secrets of World War II Japanese loot, he was targeted for the sting. “Norbert Schlei, on the other hand, was sticking his nose into Deep Black secrets, and alarming Tokyo. His high profile made him a perfect target. One year earlier, Schlei had written a memo about the M-Fund. It was not meant for general circulation but a copy was passed to U.S. Government officials, who became alarmed and angry. If they could snare Schlei, all branches of the U.S. Government would cooperate to stop his digging into the M-Fund, and the LDP leadership in Tokyo would be indebted.” (Ibid.; pp. 133-134.)

36. “How to snare him was the problem. Schlei had never tried to negotiate a ‘57’ in America, only in Japan, on behalf of clients legally entitled to have an attorney make inquiries. Furthermore, Schlei had never accepted a penny from these clients. But Takahashi was so impatient to sell one of his ‘57’s’ that he had taken several of them back from Schlei and, without telling him, turned them over to Roger Hill to market. It was quite a stretch to argue that Schlei had anything to do with the independent marketing of the ‘57’s’ by Roger Hill. The government could try to get Schlei indicted as a party to the conspiracy of Ah Loo, Hansberry, and Hill, because he happened to be Takahashi’s attorney and was admittedly trying to negotiate other ‘57’s’ in Japan. It would be absurd to assert that Schlei was involved in the Tampa transaction, but that could be covered by a little sleight of hand, misdirecting the jury so it did not notice. Finally, since Schlei freely acknowledged that the Japanese government regarded the ‘57’s’ as counterfeit, it could be argued that he was admittedly marketing certificates he knew to be false. This dodged the crucial point, which Schlei stated again and again, that he was convinced the Japanese government was lying to avoid payment.” (Ibid.; p. 134.)

37. “In sum, the case against Schlei would depend on a trophy-hunting prosecutor, a compliant judge, a misdirected jury, a coordinated effort by Washington to block all Schlei’s efforts at discovery, denial by the court of leave for Schlei to take depositions in Japan, intimidation of defense witnesses, and ‘expert’ prosecution witnesses brought in from Japan’s Ministry of Finance and Dai-Ichi Bank, who seemed to have been coached to be evasive and to give false testimony.” (Idem.)

38. A measure of the extreme nature of the case against Schlei is the fact that he wasn’t even aware of the case in connection with which he was to be indicted! “Astonished to be named a party to the Ah Loo deal, of which he was not even aware, Schlei found himself the subject of Grand Jury proceedings in Tampa and was indicted. Immediately, clients holding ‘57’s’ scattered to avoid being drawn in, or—if cornered—became so frightened that they offered to testify against Schlei in return for immunity from prosecution.” (Idem.)

39. “In court, the prosecution ‘proved’ the certificates were fakes by bringing in two minor officials of Japan’s Ministry of Finance and Dai-Ichi Bank, who had a vested interest in sticking to this story. Schlei’s defense countered, ‘Corrupt Japanese officials were now falsely claiming that these financial instruments were not genuine.’ However, Professor Lausier insisted they were genuine (as quoted earlier): ‘The documents . . . are so precisely in agreement in innumerable respects with the official published records of the government of Japan . . . that, in my opinion, it is quite impossible for them, or the Certificates that resulted from them, to have been the work of any counterfeiter.’” (Idem.)

40. Various agencies of the United States government, including the CIA, collaborated to block Schlei’s defense from being able to prove the truth. “To demonstrate collusion between Tokyo and Washington, the defense attempted to locate any reports or documents showing covert payments by the U.S. Government to the government of Japan or any political party in Japan, from 1945 to the present. As we have seen, this has been confirmed by a number of sources including former CIA officials and U.S. diplomats. But, fighting for his life, Schlei needed all the documentary evidence available. As a former assistant attorney general of the United States, he was certain he would find these documents.” (Ibid.; pp. 134-135.)

41. “It was Schlei’s legal right to make such discoveries, but federal agencies flatly refused to comply. News stories about the M-Fund and ‘57’s’ obliged the court to order the CIA, the Secret Service, National Archives, and State Department to conduct a search of their databases. Given the intense secrecy surrounding the Black Eagle Trust, the 1951 Peace Treaty, the M-Fund, and the disappearance of millions of documents concerning Japan, it would have been a great surprise if anything turned up. The jury was told that ‘search of the records of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the National Archives did not disclose any relevant or material documents or information that substantiated . . . that the CIA gave money to employees or officials of the Japanese government, or any political party in Japan’. The court record says, ‘The government searched hundreds of files of CIA paper records dating back to 1948 for any documents that might indicate that payments were made by the CIA to either the Japanese government, the Liberal Democratic Party, or individual party members. They also conducted computer searches for Marquat Fund. . .[and] the search . . . did not discover any relevant or material documents or information.’” (Ibid.; p. 135.)

42. “The jury was not told that Acting CIA Director Admiral William O. Studeman had informed The New York Times in March 1995, that CIA was not about to divulge information on the subject of payola to foreign governments and politicos. Studeman said the Agency had an obligation to ‘keep faith’ with politicians who ‘received legally authorized covert support from the United States.’ This statement actually confirms that such payments were made, and merely refuses to give details. Japanese politicians bribed with huge sums of money had to be protected, which was more important than justice in American courts. Schlei told the court, ‘I figured that if the Iran Contra case people like Ollie North and Admiral Poindexter and Mr. MacFarlane could be doing things and lying about, then maybe people in the Japanese Government could be lying about some things, too.’” (Idem.)

43. In order to bolster its case, the government sanctioned witness tampering by the prosecution: “Judge Kovachevich refused Schlei the right to take depositions in Japan, and brushed aside Schlei’s protests that a key defense witness had been intimidated by the U.S. attorney. His attorneys alleged that the prosecution tampered with the witness, S.M. Han who had an immunity agreement with U.S. attorney Mark Krum. Han swore that Krum told him if he testified for the defense, his immunity agreement would be nullified. Han also said Krum told him he had ‘better not give him any basis to withdraw the immunity because he would not hesitate to do so’. Witness tampering is one of the most serious crimes in the U.S. judicial system and is grounds for disbarment. Judge Kovachevich denied a motion for a new trial based on the charge of witness tampering, and even refused to hold an evidentiary haring to determine whether Han’s allegations were true.” (Idem.)

44. “After six years of persecution, Schlei was convicted on one felony count of securities fraud, and one misdemeanor. Before the trial began, he had assets in the neighborhood of $10-million. During his trial, he was unable to practice law, and had enormous legal costs. He was professionally and financially ruined, left virtually bankrupt. He estimated that the U.S. Government spent over $45-million of taxpayers’ money on the sting and the lawsuit. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 135-136.)

45. “Other events unfolding in January 1992 may have led directly to Schlei’s persecution. He was not the only target of M-Fund stings. Also arrested was James P. Sena, a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Secret Service, the agency that also investigates counterfeiting for the Treasury Department. Sena had examined M-Fund financial instruments in America and Japan, where he became convinced of the legitimacy of the ‘57’s’. He decided to sell some himself. He and Ian Yorkshire of Great Britain and Francis Cheung of Hong Kong were all arrested for attempting to market ‘57’s’ with a total face value of $50-billion. Abruptly, and for no apparent reason, in November 1995, the case against them was suddenly dismissed ‘with prejudice’, meaning the charges cannot be re-filed. Nevertheless, prosecutors refused to return the ‘57’s’ they had confiscated as evidence, calling them ‘contraband’. If counterfeit, why were they contraband? We were told by a Wall Street source that Treasury is eager to get its hands on ‘57’s’ and other supposedly counterfeit derivatives, to negotiate them secretly.” (Idem.)
CORRECTION: JAMES P. SENA HAS NEVER BEEN ARRESTED.

46. Contrasting sharply with the treatment accorded Norbert Schlei was the successful negotiation of a “57” by Alexander Haig. Haig (an intimate of the MacArthur group in the military) negotiated the “57” on behalf of the Paraguayan government. Pivotal to the success of this operation is the fact that Haig had a letter of recommendation written by then President George H.W. Bush “Another prominent American who reportedly became involved in negotiating ‘57’s’ during the same period was the former Secretary of State, General Alexander Haig. Unlike Schlei, Haig was not arrested or persecuted, demonstrating how selective Washington has been in choosing its sting targets. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 137.)

47. “ . . . In short, Haig had succeeded, and the deal went down. But how could Haig negotiate a ‘57’ in Miami, Washington, and Tokyo, with discussions at the FBI, CIA and with President Bush in the White House, without being arrested and prosecuted like Norbert Schlei? Federal agents always insisted it was illegal to negotiate one inside America, or even to contemplate it.” (Idem.)

48. Haig’s successful negotiation of the Paraguayan “57” may have been part of a quid pro quo involving the persecution of Norbert Schlei. Schlei may have been neutralized as part of a deal by the Japanese in order to abate “Japan-Bashing.” “If all ‘57’s’ are counterfeit, why did Haig succeed? If Haig’s ‘57’ was genuine, did he still do something illegal? Does the legitimacy of a Japanese debt instrument depend on your connections to the current occupant of the White House? Norbert Schlei was drawn into the sting soon after Haig’s Tokyo negotiation concluded. One of Takeshita’s conditions about ending Japan-Bashing may have been that Schlei, who was asking so many embarrassing questions, must be silenced and removed from the field of play. If so, Haig certainly would have reported this to President Bush, which could explain why Schlei was then dragged into the Ah Loo case.” (Idem.)

49. “There is a lesson here for investors. Financial instruments growing out of the Black Eagle Trust continue to float around the global market, like magnetic mines left over from World War II that can blow up and sink any institution or individual that comes in contact with them. If some certificates are counterfeit while others are legitimate, investors and their attorneys have a right to inquire, without fear of arrest or intimidation, whether the documents they hold are real or fake, and not to be brushed off with falsehoods. Especially when the issuing government has a history of evasiveness, and is strongly suspected of lying. When Washington demonstrates that it has a greater sense of responsibility to corrupt foreign politicians than it does to its own citizens, we may rightly ask whom it really is protecting. Washington’s main concern has been to protect and preserve a system of secret financial collusion with Japan, which has worked to its satisfaction for over half a century. And to protect the careers and reputations of U.S. Government officials involved in that collusion. In the end, how many billions went to Japanese politicians is less important than how much went into to pockets of American officials. As power corrupts, secret power corrupts secretly.” (Idem.)

50. Next, the program sets forth the details of some class action lawsuits against major Japanese corporations. These lawsuits aimed at securing financial compensation for POW’s used as slave laborers by the major Japanese entities. Note that some of these POW’s were survivors of the Bataan Death March—the men whose plight was being investigated and publicized by Iris Chang!! “Since 1999, more than thirty lawsuits have been filed in California courts by survivors of the Bataan Death March and other POW’s who were forced to provide slave labor for Japanese companies. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] They were focused in California because the state legislature had extended the period when such claims could be filed. The U.S. government then had the cases transferred to a federal court in San Francisco, where most of these suits then were rejected in September 2000 by Federal Judge Vaughn Walker. Judge Walker said they were ‘barred’ by the terms of the 1951 Peace Treaty, the same stonewalling used by Tokyo and Washington.” (Ibid.; p. 239.)

51. Because of the deep political links between the Japanese zaibatsus, the Japanese national security establishment and the US corporate, political and national security establishments, the State Department sided with the Japanese! “Hard as it may be to believe, the State Department argued on the side of Japanese corporations in these cases. Walker summed up his decision by stating that the San Francisco Peace Treaty had ‘exchanged full compensation of plaintiffs for a future peace. History has vindicated the wisdom of that bargain.’” (Ibid.; pp. 239-240.)

52. Reacting to the stance of the courts and the State Department, California congressmen introduced federal legislation that would compensate these POW’s. “ . . . Some fought back. In March 2001, U.S. Congressmen Mike Honda (D-San Jose) and Dana Rohrabacher (R.-Huntington Beach) introduced a bill, ‘Justice for Prisoners of War Act’ before the U.S. Congress. The bill had strong bipartisan support and by August 2002 had 228 co-signers including House whips for both parties. Honda’s bill called for ‘clarification of the wording of the 1951 Peace Treaty between Japan and the United States’ to keep the State Department from deviously interfering in victims’ lawsuits.” (Ibid.; p. 240.)

53. “If this bill became law, it could open a window for compensation to POWs who were forced to perform slave labor for Japanese companies like Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, which are among the richest on earth. The bill would remove a key legal barrier [Article 26—D.E.] used in Judge Walker’s rejection of the slave-labor lawsuits. . . .” (Idem.)

54. “Judge Walker, possibly under considerable pressure, sided with the State Department and ruled that Article 26 cannot be invoked by private citizens, but only by their government. The Honda-Rohrabacher bill would get around that bizarre ruling by having Congress act for the victims. The State Department’s unelected bureaucrats, aghast at the temerity of America’s elected lawmakers, realized that Honda’s bill cannot be thrown out by the exercise of political pressure over federal judges. Instead, State took the high moral ground by claiming that passage of Honda’s bill ‘would be an act of extreme bad faith.’ Bad faith toward Japan’s biggest corporations and its extraordinarily corrupt and incompetent LDP bosses. . . .” (Idem.)

55. One of the goals of the US government’s reaction to the bills was to prevent the collapse of the Japanese economy because of bad debt. Note that, in addition to potentially undermining Japanese national security cooperation with the US, the success of the lawsuits and bills aiming at redress for the American POW’s threatened the American economy. Japan holds many of America’s Treasury Bills. Were they to sell them to pay off the collapse of their financial system, it would collapse the US economy! “ . . .However, it may be too late for Washington to save Japan’s LDP from its own ineptitude and venality. Japan’s financial collapse has been predicted by scholars at Massachussetts Institute of Technology, on the premise that the LDP would refuse to undertake the serious reforms needed. In fact, all Japan’s top banks failed long ago, but—as in a silent movie—the edifice collapsed without the audience hearing any sound.” (Ibid.; p. 241.)

56. “Japan’s banks had $1-trillion in bad loans on their books, in sweetheart deals for men like Prime Minister Tanaka, or zero-interest loans to the yakuza. Among the banks hit hardest were Sanwa Bank and Tokai Bank. Together with Dai Ichi Kangyo Bank they are the three that were exempted by General MacArthur and General Marquat from reorganization in 1945. Former prime minister and finance minister Miyazawa proposed a painless bailout—painless, that is, for the banks. They would be billed out by Japanese taxpayers. After which the banks could resume their bad habits. Whether taxpayers would stand for it is questionable.” (Idem.)

57. One of the prime movers in the perpetuation of the US/Japanese collusion was former finance minister Miyazawa, who was at the epicenter of the history of that collusion from World War II to the present. “If anyone knew how to arrange such a magic trick, it was Miyazawa. Few other men have been so intimately and continually involved in the inner workings of the Ministry of Finance since the early 1940’s. He began his career in the Finance Ministry in 1942 and was one of the three Japanese who negotiated the secret terms of the 1951 Peace Treaty with John Foster Dulles. Thanks to cachet he gained in those warped negotiations, Miyazawa entered politics where he remains to this day as a man of phenomenal leverage. He served as minister of finance in the Nakasone, Takeshita, Obuchi and Mori cabinets. Over all those decades, Miyazawa was chief of accounting for the LDP, so he had intimate knowledge of all the slush funds. He held many other ministerial posts, such as chief cabinet secretary to Prime Minister Suzuki when the M-Fund ‘57’s’ first were issued. When minister of finance for Takeshita, Miyazawa had to resign along with Takeshita in the Recruit insider-trading scandal tied to the M-Fund. In 11991, thanks to his rescue by M-Fund controllers Kanemaru and Gotoda, Miyazawa became prime minister. He then named Gotoda as his deputy prime minister and made Kanemaru the LDP vice president, giving Kanemaru the informal role of ‘co-prime minister.’” (Ibid.; pp. 241-242.)

58. “At a drunken celebration of this collaboration in a posh Tokyo restaurant, Miyazawa pledged to Kanemaru that, ‘I will not do anything that differs from [your] intentions. I will consult you on everything.’ The honeymoon was brief, as in 1992, Kanemaru became involved in the great scandal of the Sagawa Parcel Company, which was delivering war-gold bribes to politically influential people. Before his trial was concluded, Kanemaru conveniently died.” (Ibid.; p. 242.)

59. Of particular significance in the subversion of the lawsuits and bills on behalf of the US POW’s is the fact that key State Department personnel had married into the Japanese establishment, thereby creating profound conflicts of interest!! “If anyone knows the truth, Mitazawa does. But he is not talking, nor is his son-in-law, Christopher J. Lafleur, a career U.S. Foreign Service officer who for years has been the most powerful diplomat at the American Embassy in Tokyo, as deputy chief of mission, or DCM. In 1986, the 38-year-old Lafleur was dispatched to Tokyo, ostensibly to negotiate sales of the FS-X fighter plane (the same year Schlei came to Tokyo to negotiate his client’s ‘57’s’). Mitazawa, the minister of finance, was Japan’s FS-X negotiator, under a cloud in the Recruit scandal, linked to the ‘57s’ and M-Fund moneys. One unexpected outcome of the friendship that bloomed between Lafleur and Miyazawa was that Lafleur married Miyazawa’s daughter.” (Idem.)

60. “In September 1997, Lafleur was made Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo—called the ‘defacto boss of the embassy.’ A few months later, in 1998, Miyazawa was back in the drivers seat as finance minister in the Obuchi cabinet. Like his earlier appointments to this job, Miyazawa was returned to office to practice damage control. According to Professor Lausier, this time Miyazawa was put back in as minister of finance because a large number of ‘57s’ were coming due—documents that the LDP and the government of Japan could ill afford to redeem, and therefore denounced as counterfeit.” (Idem.)

61. “Lausier believes that Miyazawa was there to decide which of these IOUs would be honored and which would not. During the same period, the U.S. Embassy’s Lafleur was vocal in claiming that the ‘57s’ were fraudulent, and arguing against victims’ rights to sue Japanese corporations, on the basis of the 1951 treaty negotiated by Lafleur’s father-in-law. Not only Lafleur but a string of ambassadors he served also showed a conspicuous conflict of interest.” (Idem.)

62. More about the marital relationships between key US diplomats’ families and the Japanese corporations targeted by the bills and lawsuits on behalf of the American POW’s: “Many people were troubled to learn that Ambassador Tom Foley’s wife ws a paid consultant to Sumitomo Heavy Industries, one of the primary targets of the POW lawsuits for slave labor. The State Department declared that it saw no conflict of interest in Mrs. Foley’s job and the simultaneous appointment of her husband as ambassador to Japan. However. In that post Foley vigorously denied the right of American POWs to sue Japanese corporations including the one his wife worked for.” (Idem.)

63. “After retiring as ambassador and returning to Washington, Foley openly became a paid lobbyist for Mitsubishi Corporation as a member of its advisory panel on strategy. Mitsubishi was among the biggest employers of American slave labor during the war. When he was appointed DCM under Foley, foreign correspondents in Tokyo joked that Lafleur was a member of Japan’s ‘dream-team.’” (Ibid.; pp. 242-243.)

64. “In 2001, when news of Lafleur’s special status as Miyazawa’s son-in-law became more widely known, making the issues of conflict of interest and double standard more widely known, making the issues of conflict of interest and double standards too obvious to ignore further, Lafleur was recalled to Washington and made Deputy Assistant Director to the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the State Department. This removed him from potential embarrassment in Tokyo, but put him in a prime position to monitor and guide Congress, as well as to oversee any legal actions in U.S. courts.” (Ibid.; p. 243.)

65. In the wake of 9/11, three former US ambassadors to Tokyo wrote a letter to The Washington Post comparing the POW’s and their supporters to terrorists! “The low point of this farce came in late September 2001, when a letter appeared in The Washington Post written by three former ambassadors to Tokyo—Thomas Foley, Michael Armacost and Fritz Mondale. The letter linked the claims of American POWs against Japan to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. ‘Why would Congress consider passing [the Rohrabacher Bill], which could abrogate a treaty so fundamental to our security at a time the president and his administration are trying so hard . . . to combat terrorism?’ In other words, Honda and Rohrabacher, and America’s POWs, were no better than terrorists!” (Idem.)

66. “ . . . As a dissident State Department official quipped, ‘Sometimes it [seems] that Japan [has] two embassies working for them—ours and theirs.’” (Idem.)

67. The Seagraves’ landmark volume had an endorsement by Iris Chang, who was crossing the same powers whose insidious machinations were chronicled in Gold Warriors. Was Iris Chang another casualty of the World War II in the Pacific?! “The Seagraves have uncovered one of the biggest secrets of the twentieth century.’”
(The late Iris Chang, quoted on the back cover jacket of Gold Warriors.)

68. Interestingly (and perhaps significantly), at almost the same time as Iris Chang’s death, Arnold Schwarzenegger was on a trade mission to Japan, promoting Japanese trade with California. Was Chang an obstacle to the Japanese/Schwarzenegger axis? “Keeping his promise to sell California all over the world, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived in Japan on Wednesday on a trade mission to promote California business, agriculture and tourism. . . . Japan, one of California’s top investors and trading partners, is recovering from a long recession. As their economy begins to improve, Governor Schwarzenegger is actively encouraging more investment and job-growth in California. The Governor plans to meet with business and government leaders to talk about the progress made in the last year on restoring California’s business climate and economy. He will also promote California tourism and agricultural products in events throughout his mission. . . .”
(“Governor Promotes California in Japan” [Update from the Governor’s Office, posted on Schwarzenegger’s website.]; 11/10/2004.)

69. Again, note the time of Ms. Chang’s death—one day before Schwarzenegger’s junket to Japan. Might her potential interference with the Schwarzenegger/Japanese trade relationship have been another irritant to the powers that be? “Iris Chang, a journalist whose best-selling book, The Rape of Nanking, a chronicle of the atrocities committed in that city by occupying Japanese forces, helped break a six-decade-long international silence on the subject, committed suicide on Tuesday near Los Gatos, California. She was 36 and lived in San Jose. . . .”
(“Iris Chang, Who Chronicled Rape of Nanking, Dies at 36” by Margalit Fox; The New York Times; 11/13/2004; p. 1 [of 2].)

FTR #508 The Vatican Rag, Part II: Der Panzerkardinal

Recorded April 24, 2005
REALAUDIO

This program analyzes the circumstances surrounding the elevation to the papacy of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—dubbed “Panzerkardinal” by wags because of his reactionary views. A former member of the Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht, Ratzinger is an arch-reactionary and was very close to the late John Paul II. The program advances the hypothesis that Ratzinger’s elevation may well have been conducted in order to institute damage control because of the emergence of two Vatican scandals at the same time as the new pope was being chosen. As the cardinals were convening to choose a new pope, four people were indicted for the murder of Roberto Calvi, a former Vatican financial adviser and member of the infamous P-2 lodge. This placed the Vatican banking scandals of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s onto the investigative front burner. In addition, a U.S. court re-instated a lawsuit against the Vatican Bank for harboring Nazi loot from World War II and using it to aid the flight of Nazi fugitives. This suit also placed the longtime Vatican collaboration with the Third Reich into the foreground. It is Mr. Emory’s opinion that Ratzinger had to be elevated to Pope for damage control purposes. Ratzinger’s background suggests the possibility that he may have been complicit in the Vatican Nazi assistance networks. Two of the church figures involved in Ratzinger’s rise through the Vatican ranks were Cardinal Joseph Frings and Pope Paul VI. Pope Paul VI elevated Ratzinger to Cardinal and bishop of Munich as he approached death. Frings fronted for an organization that assisted Nazi war criminals. Ratzinger assisted Frings at the Second Vatican Council.

Program Highlights Include: Discussion of the Nazis’ plans to give anti-Nazi credentials for operatives chosen for postwar underground work; review of the Vatican’s longstanding connections to fascism—the Third Reich in particular; review of Cardinal Montini’s role in developing the Vatican’s Nazi escape networks; review of the relationship between the Vatican’s collaboration with fascism and the genesis of the Vatican banking scandals; discussion of father Draganovic—architect of the Vatican “Ratlines”; the role of Archbishop Stepinac in elevating Draganovic to a position to assist Nazi fugitives; the use of Croatian fascist war loot to finance postwar anti-communist activities; documentation of the Vatican Bank’s role in harboring the Nazi war loot; John Paul II’s beatification of fascist collaborators; the ultra-reactionary Opus Dei’s role in electing Ratzinger; Ratzinger’s relationship with Neil Bush—the President’s brother; Ratzinger’s interference in the 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign.

1. Beginning with discussion of Ratzinger’s close relationship with his papal predecessor, the broadcast notes their strong affinity through reactionary theological principles. Note the nickname “Panzerkardinal’ bestowed on Ratzinger by fellow priests. “ . . . The Pole and the German have been called intellectual bedfellows. For almost 20 years, the two met at least once a week, usually Fridays, for a 90-minute discussion of doctrine and discipline. A working lunch followed, lasting often until late in the afternoon. A theological liberal of sorts in his youth, Ratzinger was later nicknamed the ‘Panzerkardinal’ for his iron hand in bringing Marxist priests in Latin America and clerics with mushy views on sexual ethics to heel. . .”
(“Analysis: Ratzinger in the Ascendance” by Uwe Siemon-Netto; [United Press International]; The Washington Times; p. 2.)

2. In the numerous hagiographies of Cardinal Ratzinger, it has been noted that he was in the Hitler Youth and served in a Wehrmacht unit late in the war. (See “Papal Hopeful Is a Former Hitler Youth” from the Sunday Times [London].) The journalistic spin on these events has cast them as things thrust upon an unwilling Ratzinger, who (along with his family) has been portrayed as anti-Nazi. As will be seen later in the program, Ratzinger’s history in the Vatican suggests the distinct possibility that he is complicit in the Vatican’s long history of aiding Nazi war criminals. The program notes that, as the Third Reich was preparing its underground structure for the postwar years, great care was given to give “anti-Nazi” credentials to those who were tabbed for key, postwar underground positions. Was that the case with the young Ratzinger? “Bormann and Himmler have stated their hope of getting 200,000 to 300,000 men underground. Compared to the large size of the party this is a small number indeed. But an underground movement of 200,000 to 300,000 trained men, who know exactly what they have to do, who will make few mistakes and can profit by all the mistakes the other side makes, can achieve a great deal.”
(The Nazis Go Underground; by Curt Riess; Doubleday, Doran and Co. [HC]; Copyright 1944 by Curt Riess; p. 96.)

3. “While everything has been done and is being done to denounce the Nazis whom the underground wants to throw overboard, no effort is being spared to make the lives of the prospective underground Nazis as secure as possible.” (Idem.)

4. “A great deal has been written lately about certain Nazis who have fallen out with Hitler. Rumors have suggested that there have been at least a hundred of them. We have heard that Baldur von Schirach, for instance, former Youth Führer and later chief Nazi of Vienna, has escaped abroad. Similar rumors have been spread about a number of officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, of course, many ambassadors and ministers. In some cases these men may really have decided to leave the sinking ship. But in many cases all they wanted was to create such an impression. . . .” (Idem.)

5. “ . . . This sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Several intelligence services have commented on the sudden disappearance of important personalities from political and party life. And it has become quite the accepted thing to everybody in Germany.” (Ibid.; p. 97.)

6. “But what has not yet become known is that all this also applies to a much greater number of anonymous persons all over Germany, those on the second and third levels of the Nazi strata. These unknown personalities may be used later by the underground. Party functionaries who may be known locally, but certainly not nationally, can easily be transferred to another city or town, where they will suddenly appear as anti-Nazis.” (Idem.)

7. “The party helps in their masquerades. These men get new documents which ‘prove’ that they have always been anti-Nazi. Notes are inserted in their personal files saying they must be watched on account of their anti-Hitler attitudes and ‘unworthy’ behavior. Some of them will undoubtedly be sent to concentration camps for crimes which they have never committed, but which will make them look dependable in the eyes of the Allies; some have perhaps already succeeded in joining anti-Nazi circles and are pretending to conspire against Hitler. Later on they will be able to use such activities as alibis.” (Idem.)

8. Does this apply to Ratzinger?--“ . . . Among the ‘peaceful collaborators,’ the most prominent group numerically will be formed by those who, to all outward appearances, were never Nazis at heart, but who had to go along with the party for reasons of bread and butter or because otherwise they might have been thrown into a concentration camp. . .” (Ibid.; pp. 176-177.)

9. Next, the program reprises a section of FTR#504. The broadcast recounts the history of the Vatican Nazi escape networks begins by chronicling the deep political history of the relationships that spawned the Vatican banking scandals that emerged into public view in the early 1980’s. (For more about these scandals and the P-2 Lodge that was at the center of the banking scandals and many other imbroglios, see RFA#’s 17-21—available from Spitfire, as well as FTR#’s 3, 42, 43, 49, 58, 59, 98, 103, 183, 235, 265, 289, 307, 313, 360, 387, 458.) “Hugh Angleton’s rise to power was, in part, an accident of geography. He lived in Milan for many years and made more than a few friends there before the war. It was Hugh Angleton who allegedly introduced Giovanni Battista Montini to Michele Sindona, a prewar banker in Milan. Sindona was the corrupt financier who later became the adviser to the Vatican Bank. Montini, who was Vatican Undersecretary of State during the war, later became Pope Paul VI.”
(The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994 [HC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0-312-11057-X; pp. 83-84.)

10. At the core of the genesis of the Vatican banking scandals is a fascist nexus that saw Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI) develop a relationship with Mafioso Michele Sindona who, along with fellow P-2 member Roberto Calvi, became a financial adviser to the Vatican. The relationship between Montini and Sindona came after an introduction by Hugh Angleton—an American fascist and father of CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. Both Montini and Sindona were introduced to OSS and CIA chief Allen Dulles by Angleton. (Dulles was the attorney who masked the Bush family’s investments in Nazi Germany.) As will be seen, Montini (later Pope Paul VI) played a key role in the rise of Ratzinger. Ratzinger’s elevation to Cardinal took place as Paul VI’s health was failing. More about this later in the description. “There is some circumstantial evidence that Hugh Angleton also introduced both of these friends to Dulles. Both Sindona and Montini allegedly became sources for the CIA after the war, with Hugh’s son, James Jesus Angleton, as their case handler. Several historians agree with our sources on this point, although, as we shall see, the Vatican has gone to considerable lengths to deny the allegations.” (Ibid.; p. 84.)

11. Reviewing some of the history of the Vatican’s association with fascism, the show notes the Vatican’s financial investments in Nazi Germany and highlights the financial support that the Church gave to Hitler in the immediate aftermath of World War II. “One of James Angleton’s enemies, of whom he had many, insists that his father served as a minor point of contact and occasional courier for secret financial transactions between the Vatican and Nazi Germany. That the Vatican encouraged such investments and even donated money to Hitler himself cannot be denied. A German nun, Sister Pascalina, was present at the creation. In the early 1920’s, she was the housekeeper for the Archbishop of the Vatican-Nazi connection, Eugenio Pacelli, then the papal nuncio in Munich. Sister Pascalina vividly recalls receiving Adolf Hitler late one night and watching the archbishop give Hitler a large amount of Church money.” (Idem.)

12. Having received Church money after the First World War, Pacelli convinced the Vatican to invest large sums of money in Nazi Germany. (For more about Pacelli and the Vatican/fascist political and economic connections, see RFA#17, available from Spitfire.) “Sister Pascalina had absolutely no motive to discredit Archbishop Pacelli. She was his greatest admirer and remained his faithful servant all her life, even after he became Pope Pius XII. Her story has the ring of truth, all the more powerful because it admits the worst blunder of Pacelli’s career. It was Pacelli who later convinced the Vatican to invest millions of dollars in the rising German economy, money from the Vatican’s land settlement with Mussolini that ended the Pope’s claim of sovereignty over territory outside the walls of Vatican City. It was Pacelli who negotiated the Concordat with Hitler’s Germany and then had to deal with the consequences of his own mistakes when he became Pope on the eve of World War II. . . .” (Idem.)

13. Next, the broadcast reviews the combined efforts of Allen Dulles and the Vatican to move Nazi money (and Nazi war criminals) to Argentina after the war. (Operation Safehaven is the code-name of the Treasury Department operation to interdict the Nazi flight capital program. That program, of course, was the Bormann flight capital program. For more about the neutralization of Safehaven, see—among other programs—FTR#353.) “ . . . Soon after the Safehaven inquiry into his own Nazi money smuggling was buried, Allen Dulles resigned from the OSS and returned to New York to do what he did best: move money illegally for his clients. One of the first names on his client list was a ‘personal matter’ for Thomas McKittrick, the head of the previously Nazi-dominated Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland. The BIS had overseen the transfer of Nazi assets to Switzerland. After the war, the Nazis moved the money via the Vatican to Argentina.” (Ibid.; pp. 109-110.)

14. “Dulles represented a staggering array of Argentine corporate and political entities before and after the war. President Juan Peron and his family were ardent Catholics and violently anti-Communist, as were many Argentines. In fact, Peron was decidedly pro-Fascist and Argentina was the only South American country that continued relations with the Third Reich well into the war. The Argentine economy boomed with the massive postwar transfer of Nazi flight capital. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 110.)

15. William Donovan, who collaborated with British intelligence ace William Stephenson in a Nazi front group called the World Commerce Corporation, assisted Dulles in his money-laundering efforts. This organization helped to cycle Nazi money back into Germany in order to pump up the postwar German economy. “ . . . The ‘old spies’ say that Dulles did not have to try very hard to convince Donovan that Truman was an idiot and that the only hope for the revival of an American intelligence service was to end the Democratic party’s stranglehold on the White House in the 1948 election.” (Idem.)

16. “In the meantime, Dulles and Donovan agreed that every effort must be made to sabotage the Truman liberals and quietly prepare for the Cold War. To this end, Dulles convinced Donovan to serve on the board of a company that would help rebuild the German economy as a bulwark against communism. Dulles assured his old boss that there were a large number of wealthy South American investors, especially in Argentina, who were willing to help rebuild Germany.” (Idem.)

17. It was the recycled Nazi war plunder that fueled the economic “miracle” of postwar Germany. “Although Donovan did not know it, Dulles had conned him into serving as the front man for the Nazi money launderers. He and Sir William Stephenson from British intelligence joined the board of directors of the World Commerce Corporation, with Allen Dulles, naturally, as their lawyer. The Nazi money flowed in a great circle—out of the Third Reich, through the Vatican, to Argentina, and back to ‘democratic’ West Germany. The source of the miraculous West German economic revival in the 1950’s was the same money that had been stolen in the 1940’s.” (Idem.)

18. More about the Nazi money laundering: “One of our sources, Daniel Harkins, stumbled across part of the money laundering in 1945. Harkins had volunteered to work as a double agent for Naval Intelligence before World War II. He posed as a Nazi ringleader in Detroit and even had his picture published in a newspaper giving the Nazi salute. He was promptly invited to Berlin to meet the leading members of Hitler’s cabinet. Hitler did not know it, but Harkins’s work helped close down the Nazi Bund operation in the United States.” (Ibid.; pp. 110-111.)

19. “After wartime service as a naval officer, Harkins was posted to the Allied occupation government in Germany. Although he was genuinely anti-Nazi, Harkins loved and the respected the German people who had to survive in the ashes of the bombed-out Third Reich. To Harkins’s horror, his German sources revealed that the big Nazis had gotten their money out before the war was over.” (Ibid.; p. 111.)

20. “Through Switzerland, the SS had purchased stock in American corporations and laundered their money through the unknowing Chase and Corn Exchange Bank. Even worse, the W.R. Grace Corporation was using its Pan Am clippers to fly Nazi gems, currency, and bonds to South America. Harkins had discovered a small part of the Dulles money-laundering machine. Before he could find out any more, however, he was suddenly transferred to the State Department, where the Dulles clique could keep an eye on him. To his surprise, he was then reassigned to the outposts of Southeast Asia.” (Idem.)

21. Next, the program highlights the Vatican role in the Bormann money-go-round. “State Department records for South America confirm that the Ustashi Minister for Finance and the French Under Secretary of State of the Vichy Government, went to Argentina via the Vatican Ratline. According to Paul Manning, there were rumors of others. He cites the FBI’s copy of a surveillance file forwarded by the Central de Intelligencia of Argentina’s Ministry of the Interior: ‘In 1948, Martin Bormann received the bulk of the treasure that had made up the financial reserve of the Deutsche Bank. . . Like other fugitives, he entered Argentina in 1948, coming from Genoa on a second-class ticket, with forged Vatican documentation.’”
(Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks; by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin’s Press [SC]; Copyright 1991, 1998 by Mark Aarons and John Loftus; ISBN 0-312-18199; p. 277.)

22. One of Dulles’s collaborators in his Nazi money-laundering efforts was Hans Bernd Gisevius, a former Gestapo agent and an early Dulles intelligence contact. In FTR#445, we looked at Gisevius’ close association with Prescott Bush, Jr. (the current President’s grandfather.) “ . . . In 1945, the US Treasury Department accused Allen Dulles of laundering funds from the Nazi Bank of Hungary into Switzerland. Similar charges were made against Dulles’s agent, Hans Bernd Gisevius, who had worked for Dulles as an OSS agent while serving at the Reichsbank. The State Department quickly took over the Treasury Department’s money laundering allegations, and the Dulles-Gisevius investigation was quietly dropped.” (Idem.)

23. Gisevius worked for the front group for the American portal of the Vatican escape networks that operated on behalf of Nazi war criminals. Many of those war criminals wound up working for U.S. intelligence. (For more about this, see—among other programs—RFA#17, available from Spitfire.) “Gisevius may have had some involvement with the Ratlines. He was a senior member of the Black Orchestra during World War II and was considered to be ‘Allen Dulles’s pipeline to Admiral Canaris.’ After the war, Gisevius personally briefed the Australian government on American efforts to resettle the surplus population of Europe in other countries, citing the support of the ‘Committee for a Free Europe’, later acknowledged as a clandestine front for Dulles’s Cold War programs. This was also the organization which served as the American end of the Vatican Ratlines.” (Ibid.; pp. 277-278.)

24. More about the World Commerce Corporation: “The most important front group was an entity called the World Commerce Corporation established after World War II to rebuild German—South American trade networks. The directors of this corporation were Sir William Stephenson, formerly of British intelligence and General William Donovan, formerly of the OSS. One of the attorneys for World Commerce was Allen Dulles, whose assistant, Frank Wisner, was the State Department’s deputy for currency and economic reform in the American zone of West Germany. Many of the staff members for the economic reconstruction of occupied Germany came from the same international financial firms which had invested heavily in the pre-war German economy.” (Ibid.; p. 278.)

25. One of the major players in the Dulles/Bormann money-go-round was Hermann Abs of the Deutschebank—one of the most important Nazi bankers before, during and after World War II. “According to sworn testimony before the US Senate by a representative of the German banking industry, an organization did exist in 1950 which was ‘formed by Lord Shawcross of England and Mr. Hermann Abs of Germany to bring about a Magna Carta for the protection of foreign investments of World War II.’ This is the same Lord Shawcross who led the recent campaign in the British House of Lords to prevent the re-opening of war crimes investigations in Britain. Despite allegations by Manning, it is difficult to believe that Shawcross would have lent his good name to Abs’s organization if he had known its real purpose. In a 1966 hearing before the Select Committee on Standards and Conduct of the US Senate, Abs was identified as the common denominator of a group seeking return of vested enemy properties of World War II.” (Idem.)

26. “When the United States entered the war in 1941, all of the branches of American banks in France under German control were closed, except two which had ties to Abs: Morgan et Cie and Chase of New York: ‘both received this special treatment through the intercession of Dr. Hermann Josef Abs of Deutsche Bank, financial adviser to the German government. According to US Treasury agent reports, the favorable treatment was due to . . . an ‘old school tie,’ an unspoken understanding among international bankers that wars may come and may go but the flux of wealth goes on forever.’” (Ibid.; pp. 278-279.)

27. Abs was very close to Martin Bormann, with whom he worked. Abs became a financial adviser to the Vatican. In RFA#’s 17, 21, we examined Abs’ close collaboration with the late John Paul II after the breaking of the Vatican banking scandals. Whereas John Paul I was moving to clean out the P-2 crowd around the late Paul VI, John Paul II (who succeeded JP I after he precipitously—and conveniently—died after 28 days in office) brought Abs in to straighten out the Vatican banking mess after the collapse of Roberto Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano. “According to Nuremberg records, Abs’s Deutsche Bank was the principal conduit for laundering Nazi money into Argentina during the war under the supervision of Martin Bormann. The American war crimes investigation of Abs, former head of the Deutsche Bank, was quietly dropped and Abs was appointed economic adviser for the British zone of Germany. It should also be noted that Abs became a financial adviser to the Vatican.” (Ibid.; p. 279.)

28. The passages that follow set forth the Dulles/Abs/Bormann financial network’s connections to the principals in the Vatican banking scandals. Again, these scandals broke in the early 1980’s, and the Pope (John Paul II) brought in Herman Abs to straighten things out. In RFA#18, we examined the untimely death of Pope John Paul I, who appears to have been murdered for moving to neutralize the Montini/Sindona/Calvi networks inside of the Vatican. That show is available from Spitfire. “According to Penny Lernoux, the financial collapse of Vatican-supported banks during the 1970’s involved the same group of people connected to Dulles’s and Angleton’s network of money launderers. Prior to World War II, Angleton’s father had financial interests in Milan, and may have met both Montini and a Sicilian banker named Michele Sindona at this earlier time.” (Idem.)

29. “According to Lernoux, Sindona ‘wangled an introduction to the powerful Giovanni Montini in Milan, who would later become Pope Paul VI.’ Montini introduced Sindona to the leader of the Christian Democrats. Sindona served the younger Angleton for many years as a CIA ‘funnel for supporting funds’ to friendly Italian politicians. In 1969, Sindona became the financial adviser to the Vatican while Montini was the Pope. Sindona and his cohort, Roberto Calvi, created a financial scandal that cost the Vatican Bank hundreds of millions of dollars.” (Idem.)

30. Note the role of the aforementioned Montini (Pope Paul VI) in the rise of Joseph Ratzinger in the Vatican. In 1977, Paul VI was in failing health and a year from the grave. It was at this point that Ratzinger was promoted to Cardinal and (three months later) to bishop of Munich. It was also at this point that Ratzinger met his eventual close collaborator Karol Wojtyla. Note again, that the succession to the papacy hung in the balance at this period. As discussed in RFA#18, John Paul I was moving to eliminate the P-2 milieu, which had wrapped itself around the Vatican. It is Mr. Emory’s considered opinion that John Paul I was murdered so that a suitable successor—Karol Wojtyla—could preserve the status quo in the Vatican. As will be seen below, this series of events was projected onto the “front burner” precisely as John Paul II’s successor was being chosen. “ . . . He was ordained in 1951, at age 24. Pope Paul VI appointed him bishop of Munich in 1977, and elevated him to cardinal in just three months. He met Karol Wojtyla at a bishops’ synod that year. . . .”
(“German Cardinal Has a Major Voice at the Funeral” by Daniel J. Wakin and Mark Landler; The New York Times; 4/8/2005; p. 2.)

31. At the same time that Ratzinger was being elected Pope, the tangle of Vatican banking scandals was once again in the news, with the indictment of four men for the murder of Roberto Calvi, former P-2 member and Vatican financial adviser. Was Ratzinger elected (at least in part) as part of a damage control effort? “Four people were ordered to stand trial in the death of an Italian financier with close ties to the Vatican who was found 23 years ago hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. Roberto Calvi had been president of Banco Ambrosiano. He was found with a falsified passport and thousands of dollars in various currencies. Indicted were businessman Flavio Carboni; his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig; a man with alleged ties to the Mafia, Giuseppe ‘Pippo’ Calo; and businessman Ernesto Diotallevi.”
(“4 Charged in 1982 Death of Banker” [Times Wire Service Reports]; Los Angeles Times; 4/19/2005; p. 1.)

32. Another key Church figure in Ratzinger’s rise to power was Cardinal Joseph Frings. “ . . . Already in 1962, at 35, he achieved prominence at the highest levels of the church. A mutual acquaintance introduced him to Cardinal Joseph Frings, archbishop of Cologne. Cardinal Frings asked him to serve as his expert assistant at the Second Vatican Council. . .”
(“A Theological Visionary with Roots in Wartime Germany” by Daniel J. Wakin; The New York Times; 4/20/2005; p. 3 {of 4}.)

33. Interestingly, and perhaps significantly, Frings reportedly served as a front man for a network that actively aided Nazi war criminals. “ . . . But what exactly was the larger organization mentioned by Kluf that both Princess Isenburg and Countess Faber-Castell were said to be involved with? In June1958, three years after Germany had regained its full sovereignty, some answers were provided by the rightist journal Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung. It was here that Major General Hans Korte published a lengthy article describing an underground ‘resistance’ network that had the active support of both women.”
(Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International; by Kevin Coogan; Autonomedia [HC]; Copyright 1999 by Kevin Coogan; ISBN 1-57027-39-2; p. 403.)

34. “Korte reported that in 1948, a group of jurists who had served in Nuremberg as defense counsels for major war criminals created a steering committee in Munich to attack the legality of the war crimes process. Two of the lawyers were Rudolf Aschenauer and Ernst Achenbach. A number of fronts or subagencies were then created, including Die Andere Seite and the Committee for Christian Aid to War Prisoners, whose sponsors included Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne and Bishop Johann Neuhaeusler of Munich. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] The Roman Catholic Caritas organization and the Protestant Evangelisches Hilfswerk became involved as well.” (Idem.)

35. Note that key German industrialists financed the organization with which Frings was closely associated. As discussed in FTR#305, one of the provisions made in August of 1944 was for the German industrialists to provide aid to Nazi war criminals. Was Ratzinger complicit in Frings’ efforts on behalf of Nazi war criminals? “Cardinal Frings and a Stuttgart Protestant cleric named Theophil Wurm ran an organization called the Committee for Justice and Trade that had a mysterious bank account (‘Konto Gustav’) into which over 60 unidentified leaders of German big business had deposited large sums. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] According to the Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung, the Committee for Justice and Trade was closely affiliated with a propaganda center in Switzerland called Centro Europa that carried out a worldwide campaign for the early release of jailed German war criminals. Another branch of the operation, Princess Isenburg’s Stille Hilfe, directed its propaganda and fundraising to members of high society and the old aristocracy, as did Helfende Haende (Helping Hands), a similar charity directed by Princess Stephany zu Schaumberg-Lippe. More support came from Otto Skorzeny’s Kameraden Hilfe, the Rudel Club, and various German ‘relief,’ propaganda, and fundraising circles inside the United States.” (Idem.)

36. In addition to the murder trial for the alleged slayers of Roberto Calvi, another legal case projected the Nazi/Vatican historical axis onto the political and journalistic “front burner.” A U.S. court reinstated a lawsuit against the Vatican Bank for secreting Nazi loot taken from the victims of the Ustachi, the brutal Croatian allies of the Third Reich. The lawsuit also contended—accurately—that the loot was used to aid Nazi fugitives using the Vatican escape networks. Was this emerging scandal another reason for Ratzinger’s elevation to the papacy? Was this another reason for “damage control”? (For more about the Ustachi, see—among other programs—RFA#17 [available from Spitfire] and FTR#48. A link to the audio file for FTR#48 is at the top of this description.) “A federal appeals court stepped into the controversy over the Catholic Church’s relations with Nazi regimes during World War II on Monday, reinstating a lawsuit by Holocaust survivors against the Vatican Bank for allegedly profiting from property looted by the Ustasha puppet government in Croatia. . . .” (“Court Revives Suit Against Vatican Bank” by Bob Egelko; San Francisco Chronicle; 4/19/2005; p. A6.)

37. “ . . . The Ustasha took power in Croatia after the German invasion in 1941 and established death camps in which as many as 700,000 people, mostly Serbs, were killed, according to a U.S. government report cited by the court. A separate State Department report said Ustasha leaders found sanctuary in a papal institution in Rome after the war, with a treasury of over $80 million. The suit claims much of the money had been stolen from Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Ukrainians and others under Ustasha domination and was kept in the Vatican Bank, where it was used in part to finance the relocation of Nazi fugitives. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] The plaintiffs—who seek class-action status on behalf of all those affected—want restitution of their losses and any profits gained by the bank. . . .” (Idem.)

38. Next, the program sets forth documentation of the veracity of the plaintiffs’ charges in the aforementioned lawsuit against the Vatican Bank. The Vatican “ratlines”—the Church’s Nazi escape networks—were presided over by Bishop Alois Hudal and Father Draganovic (the “Golden Priest”). Draganovic helped to spirit the Ustachi plunder out of Yugoslavia as well. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Ustachi loot was used, in part, to finance a guerilla war against the Yugoslavian regime. These reconstructed Ustachis were termed “Krizari”—Crusaders. The Krizari campaign was administered by British intelligence, which assisted the Vatican with the exodus of the Ustachi plunder. The “Pavelic” referred to in the following passage was Ante Pavelic, the Fuhrer of the Ustacha regime, who became a trusted adviser to Argentine dictator Juan Peron after the war. “ . . . With the help of Catholic priests, Pavelic had begun to transfer large quantities of gold and currency to Switzerland in early 1944. Some of the treasure had been taken to Italy by British Lieutenant Colonel Jonson to finance the Krizari forces. Another portion went to Rome with Draganovic and also ended up financing the terrorist network.”
(Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks; by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin’s Press [SC]; Copyright 1991, 1998 by Mark Aarons and John Loftus; ISBN 0-312-18199; p. 132.)

39. “But over 2,400 kilos of gold and other valuables still remained secreted in Berne. It was supposed to be used to ‘aid refugees of the Catholic religion’, but was really earmarked for the Ustashi’s clandestine operations. Although the Allies had temporarily prevented them from gaining access to these funds, by early 1948 the time had come to use the Church to retrieve the loot.” (Idem.)

40. “In Berne, Rozman’s Ustashi friends were engaged in wholesale fraud, using the black market to convert the gold into dollars, and later, into Austrian schillings. ‘Aid to the refugees is accounted for at the official rate of exchange for dollars,’ the American officers noted, adding that ‘malpractices have been carried on (officially, the dollar is worth 10 schillings; on the black market, 100 to 150). According to reliable information: ‘Rozman is going to Berne to take care of these finances. The money is in a Swiss bank, and he plans to have most of it sent through to Italy and from there to the Ustashis in [the] Argentine.’” (Ibid.; pp. 132-133.)

41. “ A short time later Rozman duly arrived in Berne, accompanied by Bishop Ivan Saric, the ‘hangman’ of Sarajevo. By the end of May 1948, Rozman had apparently carried out this money laundering operation for the Ustashi, for the visited the U.S. Consulate in Zurich and was given a ‘non-quota immigration visa as a minister of religion.’ He then traveled to the United States and settled in Cleveland, Ohio. The circle was now almost complete. Pavelic’s stolen ‘treasure’ had been tracked down through close monitoring of the movements and activities of the quisling Bishop of Ljubljana. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 133.)

42. “William Gowen and his CIC colleagues had started to unravel Britain’s role in the Krizari’s operations during their hunt for Ante Pavelic in 1947. As already discussed, they soon discovered that the Vatican was sheltering Pavelic, with the connivance of the British Secret Intelligence Service. In the course of establishing this, Gowen also confirmed sensational claims made by Ferenc Vajta. It will be recalled that the American’s Hungarian Nazi contact had told him that SIS was behind the military and political revival of the Ustashi.” (Ibid.; p. 122.)

43. “Gowen investigated the Krizari’s finances and soon uncovered the unsavory truth: their money came partly from the ‘treasure’ which ‘Pavelic’s henchmen’ had carried out of Croatia. According to Gowen, the Ustashi had fled with a large number of truckloads of this stolen booty. When the British SIS apprehended Pavelic in Austria in may 1945, they also picked up some of his loot. Gowen believed that the following story of what really happened was ‘closest to the truth’: ‘British Lt. Colonel Jonson was placed in charge of two (2) trucks laden with the supposed property of the Catholic Church in the British Zone of Austria. These two (2) trucks, accompanied by a number of priests and the British officer, then entered Italy and went to an unknown destination.’” (Ibid.; p. 123.)

44. “Major Stephen Clissold confirmed that two such Ustashi ‘treasure trucks’ had indeed reached Austria. Not surprisingly, Clissold did not mention the British role in removing them to Italy, claiming instead that they ‘were deposited in the safe-keeping of a monastery,’ but Gowen was certain that the British were now using it to finance ‘the Croat resistance movement in Yugoslavia. The resistance forces . . . go by the name of Krizari (Crusaders) . . . Radio contact is maintained by means of a field radio operated by Vrancic, a former Pavelic minister located in the British Zone of Austria. The Ustachia courier service within the Austrian Zones is believed aided by the Roman Catholic Church in Austria. The Cardinal of Graz is known to be on close terms with . . . Professor Draganovic, Krunoslav, known Pavelic contact in Rome.’” (Idem.)

45. “Yet again, Western intelligence found that Father Draganovic was at the center of the Ustashi’s clandestine activities. Indeed, he was widely known in Western intelligence and émigré circles as ‘the golden priest’ because he controlled a large part of the stolen treasure. Although Colonel Jonson had taken away two truckloads in 1945, this was only a fraction of Pavelic’s loot.” (Idem.)

46. “Four hundred kilos of gold, worth millions of dollars, and a considerable amount of foreign currency had been secreted at Wolfsberg, where it was under the control of former Ustashi Minister, Lovro Susic. Draganovic discovered this from senior Ustashi officials during his visit to Austria in mid-1945. They were apparently determined to maintain some independence from the British, who they feared would seize the gold, so they asked Draganovic to save it. The priest was only too willing to oblige, for he contacted Susic and with his agreement took forty kilos of gold bars to Rome, concealed in two packing cases. There is no doubt about Draganovic’s close connections with the Ustashi hierarchy in this money laundering scheme. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 123-124.)

47. One of the key Church officials involved with promoting Draganovic to the position from which he could operate the ratlines was Archbishop Aloyius Stepinac, a member of the Ustachi parliament. “ . . . Dragonovic had returned to Rome in August 1943, representing the Ustashi and the Croatian Red Cross. This allowed him to build his escape routes for Nazi war criminals. He was supported by Croatia’s Archbishop, Aloyius Stepinac, who had provided Draganovic with introductions to influential Vatican contacts. As a result, he could move in the highest circles, meeting regularly with Secretary of State Maglione, and even with Pope Pius XII. He also had close contacts with Axis diplomats at the Vatican which would later prove invaluable.” (Ibid.; p. 57.)

48. More about Stepinac’s role in promoting Draganovic into position to form and administer the Ratlines: “In another striking parallel with Cecelja’s career, Draganovic also worked on Croatian Red Cross matters. In August 1943 Pavelic and Archbishop Stepinac dispatched him to Rome. American intelligence observed that it was ‘a classic example of kicking a man upstairs’ inasmuch as it is fairly well established that the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia expected the prelate, through his good connections in the Vatican, to be instrumental in working out the orientation of Croatia towards the West rather then the East.’” (Ibid.; p. 97.)

49. One of the indications that the late Pope John Paul II’s alleged anti-Nazi sentiments are mythological is the fact that he beatified Stepinac, as well as Father Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of the Opus Dei sect. (For more about the fascist connections of Opus Dei, see—among other programs—FTR#422.) As discussed in FTR#422, Opus Dei was involved with the aforementioned Banco Ambrosiano scandal as well. “Pope John Paul II has created a record number of saints during the 22 years he has reigned as head of the Catholic Church. He has bestowed sainthood on almost 300 respected figures from the Church’s long history who displayed ‘heroic virtue’ during their lives. He has beatified about 800 more, putting them on the road to becoming saints.”
(“Removing the Politics from Sainthood” by David Lloyd; Vision: Foundation for a New World; 3/9/2000; p. 1.)

50. “Often his choices have been controversial and viewed as political statements. In 1998, his decision to beatify the Croatian Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac received much criticism from Orthodox Serbs and Jews. Stepinac was archbishop for Zagreb during World War II and afterwards was accused of collaborating with the Nazis in their massacre of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies in Croatia. In 1992, he beatified Josemaria Escriva, the Spanish founder of the ultra-conservative Opus Dei—a movement widely viewed with suspicion as a secret society. . . .” (Idem.)

51. Opus Dei, whose founder, Father Escriva de Balaguer, praised Hitler and was an ardent admirer of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, appears to have been a major player in the election of Ratzinger. “ . . . Several European cardinals are sympathetic to Opus Dei, among the Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Italian prelate who runs the Diocese of Rome on behalf of the pope, and a contender to succeed John Paul. Ruini last year opened proceedings to declare Opus Dei’s Del Portillo a saint. But recently, several Italian newspapers breathlessly reported that the two Opus Dei cardinals were throwing their support behind the candidacy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a German-born traditionalist who has served as chief enforcer of church doctrine for two decades.”
(“Controversial Opus Dei Has Stake in Papal Vote” by Larry B. Stammer and Tracy Wilkinson; The Los Angeles Times; 4/19/2005; p. 2.)

52. Ratzinger/Benedict’s friend and predecessor John Paul II elevated opus Dei. “Opus Dei flourished during John Paul’s pontificate. In 1982, he took the unprecedented step of making Opus Dei a personal prelature of the church, answerable not to local bishops in the dioceses where it operated, but to the pope alone. In another sign of the group’s influence, the pope placed Opus Dei’s founder, the Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, on the fast track to sainthood in 1992, leapfrogging over Pope John XXIII. In 2002, Escriva was canonized before a crowd of 300,000 in St. Peter’s Square, becoming St. Josemaria a mere 27 years after he died. . . .” (Idem.)

53. Ratzinger was also involved in an “ecumenical” organization with that great exponent of ecumenism—Neil Bush, brother of the seated President. Another of these great ecumenical figures was Jamal Daniel, a close friend and business partner of Neil Bush. As discussed in FTR#438, Daniel’s family was among the founders of the Baath Party in both Syria and Iraq! “Neil Bush, the president’s controversial younger brother, six years ago joined the cardinal who this week became Pope Benedict XVI as a founding board member of a little known Swiss ecumenical foundation. The charter members of the board were all well-known international religious figures, except for Bush and his close friend and business partner, Jamal Daniel, whose family has extensive holdings in the United States and Switzerland, public records show. The Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue was founded in Geneva Switzerland, in 1999 to promote ecumenical understanding and publish original religious texts, said a foundation official. . . .”
(“Neil Bush, Ratzinger Co-Founders” by Knut Royce and Tom Brune; New York Newsday; 4/21/2005; p. 1.)

54. It was Ratzinger who issued the order to deny communion to John Kerry, because of his stance on abortion. “German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican theologian who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry. In a June 2004 letter to US bishops enunciating principles of worthiness for communion recipients, Ratzinger specified that strong and open supporters of abortion should be denied the Catholic sacrament, for being guilty of a ‘grave sin.’”
(“New Pope Intervened against Kerry in US 2004 Election Campaign” [Agence France Presse]; 4/19/2005; p. 1.)

FTR #507 Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Gate

Recorded April 17, 2005
REALAUDIO

Highlighting more investigative reporting from the remarkable Daniel Hopsicker, this broadcast presents information about a network of bogus universities run by military and intelligence-connected elements. These universities served as vehicles for the illegal importation of Middle Eastern aliens under fraudulent academic credentials, and apparently served as vehicles for the 9/11 hijackers to infiltrate into the United States. Particular emphasis is on Abdusattar Shaikh and Sam Koutchesfahani, both FBI informants and both involved with shady dealings in the San Diego area. Shaikh housed several of the 9/11 hijackers and Koutchesfahani was importing Middle Eastern immigrants illegally, while boasting academic credentials from a university that didn’t exist. The one subpoena issued by the Congressional Committee investigating 9/11 was for Mr. Shaikh. The White House quashed it. A major point of discussion concerns overlapping relationships between elements of the military and intelligence community and the New Age, the events of 9/11, and the so-called “9/11 Truth Movement.”

Program Highlights Include: The background of Brigadier General William Lyon (a patriarch of the phony academic institutions discussed here); the background of Dr. Richard Crews (also a major player in the nexus of phony universities); Crews’ possible connection to mind-control related activities; Kouthchesfahani’s connections to the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult; the links between New Age guru John Gray and Adnan Khashoggi (Iran-Contra weapons dealer and alleged Al Qaeda financier); Gray’s role in financing the 9/11 “Truth” movement; Gray’s links to the Heaven’s Gate milieu; Gray’s links to the phony universities; Shaikh’s phony academic credentials and his links to many of the elements cited above; Koutchesfahani’s role as a weapons dealer for the Shah; a comparison of the network of phony universities to the network of bogus airlines discussed in FTR#’s 482, 483, 484; the links between former California Pete Wilson’s administration and the bogus universities/intelligence fronts; Abdusattar Shaikh’s real identity—he was Indian, not Middle Eastern. Be sure to visit Daniel Hopsicker’s website.

1. Beginning with the first of the two FBI informants linked to 9/11 hijackers in the San Diego area, the program begins with discussion of Abdusattar Shaikh. Operating under a false name and using phony academic credentials from bogus institutions of higher learning, Shaikh was frequently seen in the company of Mohamed Atta. He also housed other 9/11 hijackers. The one subpoena issued by the Congressional 9/11 Committee was for Mr. Shaikh. The White House quashed the subpoena. “Crucial details in the biography of ‘Professor’ Abdussattar Shaikh, the San Diego man called the ‘best chance to uncover the Sept. 11 plot before it happened’ by the Joint Congressional 9/11 Intelligence Committee, are untrue, misleading, or false, a MadcowMorningNews investigation has discovered. . . .”
(“The Secret World of 9/11: Terrorists, Arms Dealers & Ghosts in Malawi” by Daniel Hopsicker; MadCowMorningNews; 4/11/2005; p. 1.)

2. The show begins analysis of the bogus universities that appear to have been used as a cover for intelligence-related activities. “ . . . The practice of using Universities to provide cover for foreign nationals in the U.S.—either as terrorists or as U.S. intel assets, or both—appears to have been widespread; so widespread in San Diego, at least, that the San Diego FBI’s own confidential informants were engaged in it.” (Idem.)

3. “The man who had two hijackers living in his house in San Diego while operating at the same time as a confidential informant for the FBI was identified in wire reports as ‘a retired professor of English at San Diego State,’ and ‘Vice President for International Projects at American Commonwealth University.’ Yet a visit to the various locations around San Diego where he was said to have worked reveals that Abdussattar Shaikh never taught at San Diego State, has never been a Professor of English, and possesses a phony PhD from a bogus diploma mill run by people with U.S. military and intelligence connections. The ‘University’ for which he was said to be Vice President for International Projects does not, in fact, exist. Also: ‘Abdusattar Shaikh’ is not his real name.” (Ibid.; pp. 1-2.)

4. “In the gap between what happens and what gets reported lies the secret history. In sunny San Diego, we discovered it was visible almost everywhere you looked. Just as a handful of highly-suspect flight schools in Florida provided ‘cover’ for Mohamed Atta and his terrorist cadre, a handful of bogus ‘Universities’ in San Diego provided a cloak of legitimacy to a number of suspected terrorists.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

5. American Commonwealth University—Shaikh’s academic cover—was part of a nexus of phony academic institutions. “The ‘University’ for which Shaikh was supposed to have handled ‘international projects,’ American Commonwealth University, no longer existed at the time in question. It had been forced out of business by state regulators. But even during its brief life it existed only as a mail drop, one of a number of interlocking diploma mills. Its old address in a non-descript office building alongside the 805 freeway in San Diego also ‘housed’ a clutch of other faux citadels of learning: Golden Gate University, Huron International University, and the American Institute of Hypnotherapy, all presumably carrying on the murky legacy of Amer-Comm U.” (Idem.)

6. American Commonwealth University began as a school named after a prominent Orange County Republican and former Air Force Brigadier General. “The scam schools are run by a cast of characters, many of who play reoccurring roles as what might be called ‘serial scammers.’ Yet they can’t be totally dismissed as scam artists: some of them have U.S. military and intelligence connections. Shaikh’s supposed ‘employer,’ American Commonwealth University, for example, began life as William Lyon University, named for and founded by retired Air Force General William Lyon, a big wheel in California Republican circles as Chairman of the GOP’s ‘Team California Victory 2004’ and a member of a group of wealthy, high-powered Orange County’s Republicans called ‘The New Majority.’” (Idem.)

7. “So Shaikh, was an FBI informant, housing at least three suspected terrorists. When the post-9/11 media spotlight swung his way he was said to work for a non-existent University with Republican and mil-intel connections. Until now, this sham cover story has gone unquestioned in America’s no-longer-very-damn free press. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 2-3.)

8. “ . . . Consider how Shaikh was presented to the American people in the media: The Associated Press labeled Shaikh ‘a retired San Diego State University English teacher.’ The Los Angeles Times said he was ‘a retired professor in suburban San Diego.’” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

9. Shaikh wasn’t even his real name and he wasn’t Middle-Eastern, he was Indian. “ . . . What no U.S. media outlet has reported (until now) is that Abdusattar Shaikh is nothing of the kind. The American people weren’t even told his real name, we discovered. A profile on Indian-born Shaikh in his hometown Indian newspaper India-West reported Shaikh’s real name is ‘Abdusattar Chhipa.’ When people change their names, its nearly always for a reason.” (Idem.)

10. Both of the phony universities on Shaikh’s resume were run (at one time) by Dr. Richard Crews, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist with a national security-connected resume. A careful study of Crews’ resume suggests the possibility that he may have been involved in mind control activities. “We contacted the California Bureau of Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education inquiring about Abdusattar Shaikh’s PhD. Deborah Godfrey asked us to hold while she checked, then came back and said there was nobody by that name in her records. ‘There is no definitive source for records from that ‘school,’ she stated. ‘The transcripts I have came from someone’s garage.’ At one time, both ‘schools’ cited in Shaikh’s resume—American Commonwealth and United States International University—had been run by Dr. Richard Crews, an M.D. from Harvard, whose pedigree includes stints as Chief of Psychiatry at Womack military hospital and ‘Chief of Mental Hygiene Consulatation Services’ at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home of America’s Special Forces.” (Idem.)

11. Crews also helmed Columbia Pacific University, the alma mater of another shady character—John Gray. Gray is one of the financial gurus of the so-called 9/11 “Truth” movement. This is the disinformation effort that alleges that the WTC was destroyed by a controlled demolition and the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile. Gray is a business partner of Iran-Contra weapons dealer and alleged Al Qaeda financier Adnan Khashoggi. Gray is also a “New Age” guru, author and former personal secretary to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (The latter is the kingpin of the Transcendental Meditation movement.) “Being ‘President’ of bogus Universities must have suited him: in addition to the two already mentioned, he helmed Columbia Pacific University, which awarded Mars & Venus’s John Gray his doctorate in snake-oil, which the California Attorney General denounced as a fraudulent ‘diploma mill’ when he shut it down in the late ‘90’s.” (Idem.)

12. Oddly enough, these interlocking, intelligence-connected diploma mills were closely linked to former Governor Pete Wilson of California, whose administration fought bitterly against the closing of these fraudulent institutions. The committee formed to investigate these academic Potemkin villages was chaired by—Dr. Richard Crews!! “But not without a fight. ‘At one time there was no law in this field at all,’ he explained California’s Deborah Godfrey. ‘When we first tried to take action against Columbia Pacific, all the way back in 1989, we immediately encountered the wrath of then-Governor Pete Wilson. There was an atmosphere full of reprisals. We were attacked just for doing our jobs, accused of being vindictive.’ When Governor Wilson appointed a task force to investigate the industry, we learned, it was packed with owners of the bogus schools. Dr. Richard Crews was the chairman of the committee.” (Ibid.; pp. 3-4.)

13. Former Governor Wilson flew around on private jets provided by American Commonwealth University—nee William Lyon University. “Helping to explain this laissez-faire Republican attitude toward crime might have been a story we found detailing Gov. Wilson’s flying around on private jet which had been paid for by special interest groups. All but one of the biggest contributors seemed predictable: the California Winegrape Growers, the California Independent Oil Producers, Merchants and Manufacturers Assn. Of California. Named right along with these traditionally big-spending lobbyists, however, was tiny (read: non-existent) William Lyon University, which soon thereafter changed its name to American Commonwealth University, the moniker trotted out by Shaikh’s FBI handlers to provide their boy Abdu with a plausible legend, or ‘cover.’” (Ibid.; p. 4.)

14. Daniel Hopsicker compared this bogus network of phony colleges with the maze of bogus airlines through which the 9/11 hijackers infiltrated. “Why did clean-cut Pete Wilson go to bat for a bunch of scam schools ten years ago? Was it just for the cash? A free ride on one of General Lyon’s jets? (Lyon owns Martin Aviation, the FBO and biggest charter operator at John Wayne Airport.) Might Wilson and Orange County GOP big-wig Gen. William Lyon be playing parts in some larger operation, one which necessitated having a few ‘diploma mills’ on hand? Despite bad publicity, the cluster of phony universities in San Diego soldiered on, staying one step ahead of flat-footed state bureaucrats by scattering to places like Montana and Wyoming, and changing their names faster than you can say ‘CIA front.’ They seem rather like the hundreds of tiny ‘airlines’ through which the CIA once concealed the biggest airline in the world. For example, Columbia Pacific, John Gray’s alma mater, has also been ‘Columbia Commonwealth University,’ and ‘Commonwealth Pacific University,’ and is still in operation, as best we can tell, under a charter from Malawi, a country in Africa tucked in between Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania. . . .” (Idem.)

15. Another interesting figure in the San Diego area is Sam Koutchesfahani, an Iranian exile involved in an operation that Middle Eastern “students” into the United States under phony academic credentials. “ . . . If Abdusattar Shaikh isn’t who authorities claimed he is . . . who is he? The answer to that question remains unknown., And we’re only just learning of Shaikh’s curious association with another shadowy Middle-eastern man living in San Diego . . . Sam Koutchesfahani, an Iranian exile and arms dealer for the Shah. When the Peacock Throne went pfft Koutchesfahani moved to San Diego, where as one of a large number of Iranians-in-exile, many with former CIA ties, he turned his attentions to a variety of enterprises. Sam’s included infiltrating Middle Eastern men into the U.S. illegally . . . for the better part of a decade.” (Idem.)

16. Koutchesfahani’s network may have been used to smuggle terrorists into the United States. Koutchesfahani rented a house to the Heaven’s Gate Cult, whose members engaged in a mass suicide. The Heaven’s Gate cult’s guru, Marshall Applewhite, taught at the same Texas college at which the aforementioned John Gray was enrolled. Gray’s mother also knew Applewhite.
(For more about this, see: “Cointelpro 9.11: John Gray and Saudi Genesis” by Daniel Hopsicker; 10/6/2004. See also: “Cointelpro 9.11 pt. III: Khashoggi, Cults, Cover-ups & Mars & Venus Doing Lunch” by Daniel Hopsicker; 10/13/2004.
Additional background information about this in: “Cointelpro 9.11: Peak Oil & The Level Above Saudi” by Daniel Hopsicker; 10/28/2004.)
“ ‘For more than six years in the 1990’s, people from the Middle East came to San Diego County on bogus student visas,’ reported a September 21, 2001 San Diego Union-Tribune story headlined ‘Terrorists May Have Exploited Student Visas.’ ‘Through an underground network led by a Rancho Santa Fe man, nearly 100 Middle Easterners paid local community college teachers and administrators for counterfeit admission papers and grades, which allowed them to get student visas.’ (The final figure was ‘more than 200,’ according to Sam’s plea bargain.) ‘At the center of the scam was a Rancho Santa Fe man, Sam Koutchesfahani, whose family roots and wealth were deep in Iran. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion and fraud and was sentenced to a year in prison. Koutchesfahani was the owner of a rented house in Rancho Santa Fe where 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult took their lives in 1997.’” (Ibid.; p. 5.)

17. “Koutchesfahani, according to court documents, bribed college and university instructors in the San Diego area to procure phony student visas for Middle Eastern men he was helping insert into the U.S. Could that have been part of Abdusattar Shaikh’s job description too? If not, we are forced to believe the government’s story, which portrays him as just the unluckiest sumbitch in recent American history. ‘Unwittingly’ housing two of the 19 terrorist hijackers . . . how unlucky is that?” (Idem.)

18. There may be a link between Shaikh and Koutchesfahani: “We learned of a link between Shaikh and Koutchesfahani from a man who worked at a motel in Encinitas during the mid-90’s. While he worked there it had been sold to a group which included Koutchesfahani, led by a Lebanese man who apparently has so far completely escaped scrutiny, Tamer Tamer Salomah.” (Idem.)

19. “Here we recalled the convenience store in Venice where Mohamed Atta and Marwan hung out, abandoned the day after the 9/11 attack by its owner, who was also Lebanese. . . .” (Idem.)

20. “ . . . If neither Tamer nor Sam knew anything about motels, why did they buy it? ‘I heard them talking about using it to house some students,’ [Joe] Cicchese explained. ‘Tamer taught at some international University in San Diego with a lot of foreign students, and they were going to use the motel to house them.’ We asked, ‘United States International University?’ Cicchese said, ‘Yeah. That’s the one.’ So one link between Sam Koutchesfahani and Abdussattar Shaikh is participation in some kind of covert operation involving bogus universities in San Diego.” (Ibid.; p. 6.)

21. Both Shaikh and Kouthcesfahani were confidential informants for the FBI. “ . . . But there is yet another, even more incredible link between the two men: Both worked for the San Diego FBI as confidential informants. In court documents in his bribery case we learned to our astonishment that at exactly the same time he was renting a mansion in rancho Santa Fe to the Heaven’s Gate cultists. Sam Koutchesfahani worked as a confidential informant for the San Diego FBI.” (Idem.)

22. Shaikh’s status as an FBI informant is particularly embarrassing in light of Shaikh’s proximity to the 9/11 hijackers. “ . . . The San Diego FBI office has endured much embarrassment since the 9/11 attack. They admitted they had been searching for Al-Midhar and Alhazmi since August because of suspected connections to Osama bin Laden. Three other suspected terrorists who rented rooms in his home—Omar Bakarbashat, Ramez T. Noaman and Yazed Al-Salmi—were arrested as material witnesses in the ongoing terror investigation. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 7.)

23. “ ‘Little is known about the 65-year-old, Indian-born Shaikh, who has declined several interview requests by The Associated Press, other than to deny his neighbors’ reports that suspected hijacker Mohamed Atta visited his home.’ But at least three of his neighbors stepped forward to say they’d seen Mohamed Atta at his home on several occasions. So it was soon clear that the Indian-born Shaikh was lying about his meetings with Atta, just as he’d lied (and vociferously) about working for the FBI as a confidential informant.” (Idem.)

24. “Neighbor Marna Adair told the FBI that the polite, clean-shaven Atta was frequently at the home of Abdusattar Shaikh between August and early December of 2000. Adair said she identified a photograph of Atta on Sept. 17 to FBI agents who visited her home and showed her three pages of photos. Adair, a homemaker whose door is about 50 feet from Shaikh’s house and gives a clear view of the driveway, said she is ‘positive’ she saw Atta. Another neighbor, Deborah Fortner, remembered seeing Atta as well. ‘He was the one that was scary. He’s got these piercing eyes. That’s something you never forget about him.’” (Idem.)

25. NOTE: The relationship between Gray, Adnan Khahsoggi, elements of the intelligence community, elements of the New Age movement, the so-called “9/11 Truth Movement,” and elements of the 9/11 conspiracy will be explored in future broadcasts. Be sure to visit Daniel Hopsicker’s website.

FTR #506 The Road to Lugano, Part II

Recorded April 10, 2005
REAL AUDIO

This program examines the “Peak Oil” controversy in terms of the cartel agreements surrounding the genesis of synthetic fuel. “Peak Oil” is the term applied to the concept that the world is on the edge of a disaster, because of the diminution of petroleum reserves. There is reason to believe that cynical elements associated with the petroleum industry are deliberately generating this line of thinking, in order to maximize their profit position. In fact, alarms about the world running out of oil have been sounded for many years. In the 1920’s, alarms about the imminent “Peak Oil” crisis spurred the development of a process to synthesize oil from coal. Jointly developed by Standard Oil of New Jersey and the I.G. Farben firm, this process provided Nazi Germany with most of the fuel to run its huge war machine. This program examines evidence that the cartel agreements surrounding synthetic oil may be in a position to be revived in the face of the “Peak Oil Crisis.” The Underground Reich appears to be at the epicenter of the effort to revive synthetic oil, as well as generating the notion of an imminent oil crisis. The elements that stand to benefit from the drastic increase in the price of oil, as well as the possible use of synthetic oil are corporations and political elements associated with the Underground Reich.

Program Highlights Include: The role of the elder George Bush, the major oil companies and Saudi Arabia in creating the phony oil shortage of the late 1970’s; the role of that oil shortage in destabilizing the Carter administration; the role of that oil shortage in justifying the Reagan administration’s enormous military build-up; the Thyssen firm’s role in the purchase of the Leuna synthetic oil facility in the former East Germany; the Thyssen firm’s pivotal role in the propagation of the Peak Oil controversy; an account of the development of the Bergius/hydrogenation process to synthesize oil from coal; examination of the possibility that the Bergius process may have been greatly improved since World War II; the capital participation of both the Rockefeller interests and the Iranian government in the Thyssen firm; the Thyssen firm’s historical links to Martin Bormann, his family and the Underground Reich; the Thyssen firm’s pivotal links to the Bush family.

1. Excerpting FTR#’s 214, 248, the broadcast begins by reviewing information about an arrangement among George H.W. Bush’s CIA, the Saudis, and the petroleum industry to create a deliberate, phony oil shortage. This oil shortage created dissatisfaction with the Carter administration (and inflation), thereby helping to defeat him in 1980. In addition, this phony oil shortage served as a pretext for drastically increasing defense spending and arming the Saudis with the latest American weaponry. The Saudi/Bush/petroleum industry axis manipulated oil prices to defeat Carter in 1980. In 2000, Mr. Emory discussed this conspiracy and forecast that, based on past evidence, we might see something similar if Bush was elected. Now, we are being told that the age of “Peak Oil” is upon us and that we must get used to high oil prices. On the basis of past information, it is reasonable to ask if this “oil shortage” is real or is being manufactured. Beyond that, it is important to ask what the results of this “shortage” might be? Who would benefit? These questions will be dealt with near the end of this description. “It is hard to recall why he [Carter] was so despised when he was in office. Much of it has to do with the secret history of oil politics. Even during the 1976 election campaign, the oil companies viewed the Democratic candidate as Public Enemy Number One. Carter certainly had some radical ideas about energy policy, which made the oil companies fearful for the future and their profit levels. Carter’s first move after the election didn’t please them. He nominated former CIA head and defense secretary James Schlesinger as his secretary of energy. . . . Worse still, Schlesinger was now a convert to ‘environmentalism.’ Conversation and efficiency were the new buzz words. In their first few months in office in 1977, Schlesinger and Carter made energy their number-one policy issue. . . .”
(The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994 [HC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0-312-11057-X; p. 333.)

2. “Even before Americans voted for Carter, the oil industry had launched a quiet crusade of its own, in anticipation of a Democratic victory. In the last months of the Ford administration, the CIA had developed a series of papers on energy and oil issues. Just after his victory in November 1976, Carter was shown a classified CIA analysis of global oil supplies. The ‘old spies’ we asked about this point insist that the report had a powerful impact on Carter and helped to define his policies on the ‘energy crisis.’” (Idem.)

3. “When Carter launched his national energy plan in April 1977, he confirmed that the CIA had provided him with intelligence assessments which made dire predictions about future energy supplies in the Soviet Union. The CIA warning made front-page news: ‘Russia would be importing oil from the Middle East by 1985.’ The Soviets would need to buy three and a half million barrels per day, to be precise, whereas in 1977 they actually exported one and a half million barrels daily. ‘Previously, the assumption had been that the Soviets would continue to be self-sufficient in meeting their oil and gas needs.’” (Idem.)

4. “ . . . In effect, the CIA was telling President Carter that the Soviet Union would face a domestic oil shortage in 1985, causing the worst energy crisis in American history. When the Soviets ran out of domestic oil supplies, they probably would look to the traditional oil suppliers of the United States, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Our sources in the intelligence community say that the CIA’s ‘oil shortfall’ probably was the greatest intelligence fraud in American history. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 334.)

5. Bush’s father appears to have been a principal player in the creation of the phony oil shortage! “ . . . According to several of our sources, the scheme to manufacture phony CIA estimates and push them on Carter began in the last days of Gerald Ford’s term. They claim that a cabal within the CIA realized that Carter would be the new president, produced the first phony report, and then promptly gave it to Carter as soon as he won, knowing how it would affect his view of the energy crisis. It should be recalled that George Bush was the director of the CIA at the time the oil scam was put in place in 1976. There is some evidence to suggest that it was Bush himself who passed the fake oil estimates to Carter.” (Ibid.; pp. 334-335.)

6. “ ‘You have to understand who was screwing the Jews,’ one ‘old spy’ told us. ‘The whole phony scheme—the oil shortages, the predictions about Soviet troops in the Middle East, the Saudi arms buildup—all of that crap started coming out of the agency back in ’76. The CIA told their boss what he wanted to hear, and in those days, the head of the CIA was an oil man.’” (Ibid.; p. 334.)

7. “ . . . The oil companies and the Saudi government both had access to similar advice from old CIA hands. It almost seemed that Aramco had more of its ex-employees inside the CIA than the CIA had agents in the Middle East. In public, the Saudis dismissed the report as ‘ridiculous and obviously untrue.’ In private, they went along with the CIA’s ‘declining production’ fraud. After some reflection, the House of Saud realized that here was an opportunity to sell less oil but make more money.” (Ibid.; p. 338.)

8. “In public, the Saudis continued to insist that they had plenty of oil. In practice, they helped create an oil shortage. The CIA had created a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Saudis’ reserves mysteriously fell by millions of barrels a day, and their pumping efficiency was said to be atrocious and sure to get worse. In a very short time, American consumers would find themselves running out of gas.” (Idem.)

9. “ . . . In the short run, of course, the motive was more money for American oil companies. Our sources in the intelligence community say that the oil industry used its CIA contacts to fabricate both the Soviets-will-steal-our oil hysteria as well as the dry-wells-in-Saudi Arabia predictions. The immediate goal of the phony predictions was to scare the White House into doing what the oil companies wanted: (1) lift the laws holding the price on domestic American oil; (2) provide a panic to excuse raising world oil prices; and (3) appease the Arabs, by arming the Saudis instead of the Israelis.” (Ibid.; p. 339.)

10. “The oil men in the intelligence services promoted the fear that the Soviets would have no other option than to move down into the Middle East, invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran, and seize U.S. oil for themselves. If Carter didn’t move soon, there would be no hope of withstanding a Soviet invasion of the Middle East. The most powerful army in the area was Israel’s. But the Jews could hardly be expected to go to war to save the Arabs’ oil for the West’s often anti-Semitic oil companies. The time had come for the president to make a clear-cut decision: either bow to the Jews’ resolute opposition to U.S. arms sales to the Arabs and risk losing Middle Eastern oil to the Soviets, or arm the Arabs, thereby ending Israel’s military supremacy—a sacrifice that would have to be made in the American national interest.” (Idem.)

11. “Our sources say that the oil companies, and their friends in the CIA, had a very willing ally in the Saudis, who secretly cooperated with the CIA’s fraud by artificially decreasing production and simultaneously increasing the price per barrel of oil. It was all meant to be a very profitable game, in which both the Saudis and the companies would get huge windfalls, while their Jewish enemies were finally put in their place. The Arabs soon would have the weapons they needed to see to that.” (Idem.)

12. “ . . . The fact is that the CIA reports on the Soviet threat were as false as they were frightening. As one of our sources put it: ‘Look, the Soviets couldn’t even hang on to their puppet colony in Afghanistan. They were bleeding themselves white. At one point during the Afghan war, the military was consuming nearly 28 percent of the gross productivity of the Soviet Union. The last thing the Kremlin wanted was all out war with the Moslem world. They couldn’t finance their own PLO hit squads, let alone start a second front in the Middle East. The whole idea of the Russian army marching into the Saudi oil fields was a fraud.’ But the fraud worked. According to the Red scare scheme, there was only one thing to do: arm the Arabs so they could defend the oil fields themselves.” (Ibid.; pp. 350-351.)

13. “The cardinal sin of statesmanship is naivete. Carter and Turner never suspected that their own people would lie to them. The phony CIA oil reports completely fooled them. ‘Don’t you get it?’ asked one of our sources. ‘The gas shortage during the Carter administration was as phony as the CIA’s prediction about the Soviet oil shortage. The goddamn Middle East was swimming in oil during the Carter administration, but less and less of it was shipped to America. For chrissakes, there was so much oil in South America that they had to shut down refineries in the Caribbean to keep it away from the U.S.’” (Ibid.; p. 353.)

14. “This source has a point. One of the largest refineries in the Western Hemisphere is located on St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Most of its capacity went unused during the Carter administration’s ‘oil shortage,’ yet it was greatly expanded during Reagan’s term, despite the world glut of oil and falling prices. Most of the ‘old spies’ are adamant that the oil companies cut refinery production to cause as much damage to the Carter administration as possible.” (Ibid.; pp. 353-354.)

15. “By mid-1981, it was embarrassingly clear that all of the CIA’s predictions, upon which Carter had relied, were completely false. Not only was there not an oil crisis, the whole industry had suddenly gone the other way. There was a worldwide surplus of oil, not a shortfall. The CIA figures on Saudi oil were just as false as their Soviet production estimates. By June that year, the Saudi Arabian government had created an oil glut and was under intense pressure in the Arab world to cut its production. The Middle East was drowning in oil. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 354.)

16. Like his father and Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush’s combination of tax cuts and massive defense spending are destroying the American fiscal landscape. “ . . . Under the Republicans, lucrative arms factories sprouted in what had previously been rural Democratic states. The votes went where the jobs were. In the course of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the defense budget was increased to a point where more money was spent on arms than in all the wars in U.S. history combined. To accomplish this massive defense buildup, the Reagan-Bush administrations borrowed three times more money than all U.S. presidents combined. The largest debt in America history was based on the faulty premise that the Soviet Union was going to attack the Middle East.” (Ibid.; p. 355.)

17. Next, the program takes up the issue of the development of the hydrogenation process (the “Bergius process”) that was developed to make oil out of coal. This process, developed and patented by the German I.G. Farben company and used to produce much of Germany’s oil during World War II, was developed during the 1920’s, when it was forecast that the world was about to run out of oil!! This process was brought to fruition as a result of the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929—one of the most important cartel arrangements ever made. (The Standard/I.G. Agreement is discussed in Miscellaneous Archive Show M11—available from Spitfire.) “ . . .Although [Robert] Bosch’s plan was to rely on the financial resources of I.G. to develop domestic production, he planned to bring in an American company like Standard Oil (New Jersey) as a partner in the worldwide exploitation of the process. Moreover, Standard had more than enormous financial resources: it had a huge and well-staffed research and development organization that had achieved important breakthroughs in petroleum technology.”
(The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben; Joseph Borkin; Copyright 1978 [HC] by The Free Press [a division of MacMillan]; ISBN 0-02-904630-0; p. 46.)

18. “Standard, the dominant force in the American oil industry, was also one of its more imaginative members. Since the early 1920’s, when depletion of the world’s natural oil reserves first became a matter of concern, Standard had searched for alternatives to crude oil. It pioneered in testing shale as a commercial source, and in 1921 it even purchased 22,000 acres in Colorado in the hope that commercially adaptable method of extracting oil from shale could be found. Standard was also exploring the feasibility of the Bergius process since the United States, like Germany, had tremendous coal deposits. In 1922, Frank A. Howard, head of the Standard Oil Development Company, had sent a young assistant to Germany to study the Bergius process but had been advised that it was still far from ready for commercial exploration.” (Ibid.; pp. 46-47.)

19. “In the spring of 1925, Bosch dispatched several senior BASF executives to the United States to explore the interest of the Standard Oil Company. When they arrived in the United States, the BASF representatives were given a tour of the refineries in the New York area and then invited to lunch with the Standard directors. Wilhelm Gaus, spokesman for the BASF group, made a speech of thanks in halting English. He said that he had been very impressed by the size and efficiency of the refineries and by Standard’s new research and development of the Bergius process—information that Bosch had specifically instructed Gaus to mention. Gaus suggested that Howard visit Ludwigshafen when he was in Europe the next spring to see for himself, and Howard accepted the invitation.” (Ibid.; p. 47.)

20. “In March 1926, Howard arrived at Ludwigshafen, as he had promised, and was given a tour of the BASF laboratories, by now officially a part of I.G. Farbenindustrie. He was stunned. Although Howard was the head of research and development of one of the world’s largest and most scientifically advanced corporations, he reported that he was ‘plunged into a world of research and development on a gigantic scale such as I had never seen.’ He was especially overwhelmed by BASF’s experiments in synthetic oil. Howard fired off a message immediately to Walter C. Teagle, president of Standard Oil, then on a visit to Paris, to come to Ludwigshafen without delay: . . .” (Idem.)

21. “ ‘Based upon my observations and discussions today, I think that this matter is the most important which has ever faced the company since the dissolution [the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust by a Supreme Court decision in 1911]. The Badische [BASF] can make high-grade motor fuel from lignite and other low quality coals in amounts up to half the weight of the coal. This means absolutely the independence of Europe in the matter of gasoline supply. Straight price competition is all that is left.’” (Idem.)

22. Standard Oil of New Jersey was afraid of the competition for its naturally produced oil that the I.G. Farben synthetic oil potentially represented. “ . . . The urgency of Howard’s message brought Teagle to Ludwigshafen within a few days. An examination of BASF’s high-pressure installation left him just as impressed as Howard: ‘I had not known what research meant until I saw it. We were babies compared to what they were doing.’ When Teagle and Howard retired to their quarters, they talked over ‘the effect the startling scientific developments . . . would have on the world’s oil industry.’ For Standard’s own protection, it was obviously imperative to find a way for closer cooperation with I.G. The vision of thousands of obsolete oil wells was enough of a spur.” (Ibid.; pp. 47-48.)

23. “At first Howard and Teagle considered the possibility of purchasing the world rights to the Bergius synthetic oil patents from I.G. However, millions had already been spent on the process, and it was obvious that only a tremendous price would be acceptable to I.G. At the moment, Standard was not prepared to make a large expenditure on a process that was still in the early stages of development and not yet ready for commercial exploitation. Teagle and Howard decided to proceed cautiously. They concluded that at least for the present the most sensible arrangement was a simple partnership to develop and perfect the process without any large financial commitment. Bosch agreed in principle to the proposal. Although he would have preferred a broader agreement, it nevertheless was a concrete demonstration of Standard’s interest.” (Ibid.; p. 48.)

24. “Until this meeting Bosch had limited the hydrogenation project to a few experimental high pressure furnaces. After the reaction of the Standard executives, he threw caution to the winds. On June 18, he ordered a huge Bergius plant to be built next to the Haber-Bosch plant at Leuna. He had decided that the process was sufficiently advanced for I.G. to start mass-producing synthetic oil—100,000 tons a year. It was a step that many I.G. officials considered financially imprudent in view of the fact that the process still had some way to go before it was perfected. But Bosch was too powerful to be thwarted.” (Idem.)

25. Note that impetus for the I.G. synthetic fuel project was given by a report that the United States would run out of oil in six years. That was in 1926! “On September 1, 1926, at the first stockholders meeting of the incorporated I.G., plans were announced for construction of the big new synthetic oil plant at Leuna. The wisdom of pushing the project seemed to be corroborated a few days later when President Coolidge’s Federal Oil Conservation Board submitted its preliminary report on the question of ‘national petroleum conditions’ in the United States. The board found that ‘the total present reserves in pumping and flowing wells... has been estimated at about 4 ½ billion barrels, which is theoretically but six years’ supply... future maintenance of even current supplies implies the constant discovery of new fields and the drilling of new wells.’ Even the worst pessimists were taken by surprise by the six-year estimate. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (Idem.)

26. “Shortly after the announcement of I.G.’s new synthetic oil plant, Bosch himself arrived in the United States to begin negotiations with Standard. He was interested mainly in financial support. By now Teagle and Howard realized that their enthusiasm and stunned appreciation of the hydrogenation process had reduced their bargaining power with Bosch. They decided to put on a counterdemonstration. Teagle invited Bosch to accompany him on his annual tour of Standard’s vast properties. For three weeks they drove across the United States inspecting Standard facilities. On the trip it became clear to Bosch that the Standard Oil officials were not ready to make the large payment to I.G. he had expected. In mid December he returned to Germany without a definite agreement or financial commitment. Again he slipped in to the depression that periodically afflicted him.” (Ibid.; pp. 48-49.)

27. “It took until August of the next year for Teagle and Bosch to reach a relatively limited understanding. Standard agreed to embark on a cooperative program of research and development of the hydrogenation process to refine crude oil. It also agreed to build a new plant for this purpose as soon as possible in Louisiana. In return Standard was given the right to exploit the process in the United States and to share half of the royalties with I.G. on licenses to other parties. However, Standard was not entitled to exploit the process in any of its far-flung plants outside the United States.” (Ibid.; p. 49.)

28. “Modest as the arrangement was, the New York Times, in its news story of the agreement dispatched by its German correspondent, was almost euphoric about the possibilities of I.G.’s synthetic oil process. ‘What experts in chemical fields admit is that the world is on the threshold of a new fuel era, and that the often predicted failure of the gasoline supply is now shoved centuries in the future . . . .The discoveries in these fields are more marvelous than inventions which enable rapid strides in the development of radio, other uses of electricity and in airplanes, a prominent industrialist told the correspondent of the New York Times.” (Idem.)

29. “It was estimated by ‘conservative authorities’ that twenty percent of the gasoline used in 1928 would be synthetic and that within a very few years, Germany would be completely self-sufficient. So great was the confidence in making synthetic oil, concluded the New York Times article, that the price for the synthetic fuel was expected to be less that that of natural oil imported from the United States and the Soviet Union. . . .” (Idem.)

30. Eventually, Standard and I.G. were able to conclude their agreement. “What Bosch really wanted was a large lump payment from Standard to extricate I.G. from its present financial difficulties and still enable him to continue the hydrogenation project in Germany. With the help of Hermann Schmitz, Bosch devised a counterproposal that he did not believe Standard could afford to refuse. He offered to sell the world rights to the Bergius-Bosch hydrogenation process for the production of gasoline. The only territorial exception was that the rights in Germany were reserved to I.G. Obviously, the German authorities would never permit I.G. to surrender to a foreign company the German rights to a process so crucial to military and economic self-sufficiency. Even so, I.G. did not reveal to its government that it was selling the hydrogenation rights to Standard. As Bosch anticipated, Standard jumped at the offer.” (Ibid.; pp. 50-51.)

31. “The parties negotiated their agreement in the manner of two great powers forging a treaty to divide the world into separate spheres of influence. They agreed to observe the sovereignty of each in their respective fields. In the words of a Standard official, ‘The I.G. are going to stay out of the oil business—and we are going to stay out of the chemical business.’ To set up a mechanism to carry out the terms of the agreement the parties agreed to create the Standard-I.G. Company, incorporated in the United States, owned eighty percent by Standard Oil and twenty percent by I.G. This retained for I.G. a minority interest in any future success. I.G. then transferred the world patent rights (except for Germany) on the hydrogenation process to the new enterprise. In return, Bosch finally secured what he so desperately wanted. Standard turned over to I.G. two percent of its entire common stock: 546,000 shares valued on Standard’s books at $35 million! As a slight bonus for I.G., Teagle agreed to serve on the board of I.G.’s newly formed holding company in the United States, the American I.G. Chemical Company. . .” (Ibid.; p. 51.)

32. A precipitous drop in the price of oil made synthetic oil too expensive to compete in the marketplace with naturally produced petroleum. It remains to be seen if the rise if oil prices once again makes synthetic oil viable in the marketplace. Note that in FTR#385, Mr. Emory expressed his opinion that the theme of the novel The Formula was probably based in reality. That novel featured high-level intrigue around a formula for a catalyst that rendered synthetic oil competitive with natural petroleum by making the hydrogenation process dramatically more efficient. The possible implications of this will be discussed later on in this description. “ . . .Hardly had the I.G.-Standard marriage been completed that it received a series of staggering blows. The Great Depression, combined with the discovery of enormous oil reserves in Texas, dropped the price of oil so drastically that Standard abandoned any immediate hope for world-wide development of the conversion of coal into oil. . . .and it took the Arab oil boycott in 1974 to rekindle Standard’s interest in making gasoline from coal.” (Ibid.; p. 52.)

33. The broadcast then reviews “the Battle of Leuna”, one of the key aerial engagements of World War II. In this battle, the U.S. Eighth Air Force bombed the German synthetic fuel production out of effective operation, thus starving the German war machine of petroleum. (As discussed in Miscellaneous Archive Show M11, as well as FTR#’s 194, 276, 278, 341, 385, 411, I.G.’s synthetic fuel operation was inextricably linked with the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929—one of the most important cartel agreements of the 20th century.) During World War II, I.G. Farben’s hydrogenation plants provided Germany with the bulk of its fuel, thus realizing the potential of the Standard-I.G. Agreement. The 1944 aerial campaign against the largest of those plants, the giant I.G. facility at Leuna, was one of the pivotal engagements of the air war in Western Europe. “The Battle of Leuna” was instrumental in crippling Germany’s war machine. Although Germany managed to keep the plant operating by cannibalizing equipment from other hydrogenation facilities, the resulting damage to the overall synthetic oil program was a decisive element in the destruction of the fuel for Germany’s war machine. “May 12, 1944, was a fateful day for Germany and for I.G. On that day, the United States Eighth Air Force sent 935 bombers over Germany to attack its synthetic oil industry: 200 bombers concentrated on I.G.’s plant alone. This attack marked the beginning of what the U.S. strategic bombing survey called ‘the Battle of Leuna,’ classifying it as ‘one of the major battles of the war.’” (Ibid.; p. 128.)

34. “The next day, Albert Speer, Reich minister for armaments and war production, toured the wreckage of Leuna with Buetefisch. What he saw convinced him that ‘the technological war was decided. . . . It meant the end of German armament production.’ For Speer it was the turning point in the war. He immediately flew to Hitler’s headquarters at Obersalzburg to report on the extent and meaning of the disaster: ‘The enemy has struck us at one of our weakest points,’ he told the Fuehrer. ‘If they persist at this time, we will soon have no fuel production worth mentioning. Our one hope is that the other side has an air force general staff as scatterbrained as ours!’” (Idem.)

35. “Hitler then summoned four of the top fuel experts from I.G., including Krauch and Buetefisch, for a discussion about the consequences of the May 12 air raid. Goering and Speer accompanied them to the meeting. Before the group went in to see Hitler, Speer advised the four fuel experts to tell ‘the unvarnished truth.’ However, Goering insisted that they not be too pessimistic. ‘He was probably afraid that Hitler would place the blame for the debacle chiefly on him,’ Speer wrote later. Krauch was determined to follow Speer’s advice. He told Hitler that Germany’s position was hopeless if the enemy air raids on the synthetic oil plants continued. To support his grim forecast, he presented Hitler with an impressive array of facts and figures. . .” (Ibid.; pp. 128-129.)

36. “The course of the Battle of Leuna became the gauge for the state of German oil production. By early July the resourceful I.G. technicians were able to restore Leuna to seventy-five percent operating capacity. However, the Eighth Air Force returned on July7, again bombing the plant to a halt. Two days later the plant started operating again and by July 19 had reached fifty-three percent of capacity. And so the cycle of bombings and reconstruction continued. But the total effect on German fuel production was nothing less than catastrophic. Krauch concluded that the only way fuel installations could be rebuilt after each raid was to cannibalize other installations. Under this plan to prevent the total cessation of oil production, Germany’s productive capacity diminished with each recuperation. By September, oil production had dropped to fifteen percent, a condition from which Germany was never to recover.” (Ibid.; p. 130.)

37. In the context of both the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929 and the other business arrangements that I.G. had with major western corporations, a discussion of a “gentleman’s agreement” with key businessmen on the “other side” not to bomb I.G’s synthetic fuel plants is more than a little interesting. It is also significant to note that it is the old I.G. firm Degussa that was at the core of Hitler’s program to develop an atomic bomb. Degussa was instrumental in equipping Saddam Hussein with his nuclear capability in the 1980’s and 1990’s. “The intensive bombing of Leuna led to a curious confrontation between Buetefisch, who was in charge of Leuna, and Paul Harteck, leading nuclear scientist working on Germany’s atomic bomb project. Part of Leuna was devoted to the manufacture of heavy water, a necessary component of atomic energy. After the first bombs fell on Leuna, Buetefisch informed Harteck that the heavy water installation must be abandoned. He claimed that the massive bombing could not have been aimed at fuel production since there was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ between heavy industry in Germany and abroad that I.G.’s synthetic gasoline plants would not be bombed. The only explanation for the raids against Leuna, therefore, was the heavy water facility.” (Idem.)

38. Next, the broadcast excerpts FTR#278, with discussion of the complex CDU funding scandal. Speaking of the CDU funding scandal, The Financial Times wrote: “This could yet throw light on kickbacks paid by ELF over a deal between Mr. Mitterand and German ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl to invest in the Leuna refinery in East Germany—an affair which helped bring Mr. Kohl down.”
(“French Trial Paints a Picture of Graft on a Grandiose Scale” by Robert Graham; Financial Times; 4/22/2003; p. 14.)

39. In the early 1990’s, the Leuna refinery (which had been rebuilt by the Soviets after the war) became the focal point of a complex deal involving the French oil firm ELF-Aquitaine, the Thyssen heavy industrial firm and the Saudi Arabian armaments industry. This deal, in turn, is at the center of an ongoing scandal in Germany involving political payouts to the CDU party of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, bribes allegedly made by French politicians, kickbacks involving powerful Canadian political and economic interests, and the intelligence services of numerous countries. In turn, the CDU funding scandal is inextricably linked with the Underground Reich. (For more about the CDU funding scandal, see FTR#’s 193, 276, 278.) The intense interest on the part of major political and industrial interests in this renovated Second World War facility is of particular significance in this context. Most of the industrial infrastructure of the former East Germany was bought out and liquidated shortly after reunification (with enormous resultant hardship for the citizens of that part of Germany). In contrast, the former I.G. facility at Leuna was considered a valuable prize. The maneuvering around the Leuna facility and the CDU funding scandal was instrumental in convincing Mr. Emory that The Formula was of more than mere literary significance. It convinced him that that fact-based novel would have to be discussed at some future point.

40. The novel The Formula revolves around the formula for a catalyst (“the Mangan Catalyst”) developed by I.G. Farben as part of its “Genesis Project.” The significance of the project lies in the fact that it greatly improved the efficiency of the hydrogenation process, streamlining Germany’s synthetic fuel production capacity and (potentially) making the hydrogenation process economically competitive with naturally-produced petroleum. In the novel, the post-1973 increase in the price of oil makes the “Formula” a pivot-point of clandestine intrigue. Consider the significance of the hypothetical existence of such a formula. It would: potentially control petroleum-producing countries (including the former USSR and the Middle-East oil kingdoms) by threatening their economic foundation; offer the key to manipulating the economies of non-oil producing industrial economies by potentially freeing them from the need to import oil; control the “profit position” of the major oil companies; and legally freeing Germany from the need to import oil—I.G.’s successor companies would have retained the right to produce hydrogenation-derived oil. Given the improvements in organic chemistry and other technologies in years since World War II, it seems unlikely that something like the “Mangan Catalyst” (or an analogous technological development) would not have been developed.

41. The motivation for the petroleum companies to withhold a technical improvement in the Bergius hydrogenation process that would make synthetic fuel economically competitive with natural petroleum was expressed by the character Adam Steiffel in The Formula: “ ‘Why?’ Barney asked. ‘What’s wrong with making America self-sufficient in synthetic fuel?’ The old man stared at Barney with a look of total wonder. ‘Do you honestly expect a three-hundred-billion-dollar industry to undermine its own stake in the lucrative scarcity of oil by mass-producing synthetic fuel?’”
(The Formula; by Steve Shagan; Copyright 1979 Cirandinha Productions, Inc.; Soft Cover edition published in 1980 by Bantam Books; 0-553-13801-4; pp. 326-327.)

42. The program excerpts FTR-193, detailing an important aspect of the CDU funding scandal. This excerpt, in turn, comes from a major article about the CDU funding scandal from the New York Times. The broadcast underscores the fact that the Leuna facility was being utilized jointly by TotalFina and the Thyssen heavy industrial firm. The Thyssen firm, in turn, was involved with a complex sale of tanks to Saudi Arabia as part of the complex maneuvering at the heart of the CDU funding scandal. (For more about the CDU funding scandal, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 276, 278. (“Big Kickbacks Under Kohl Reported” by Roger Cohen and John Tagliabue; New York Times; 2/7/2000.)

43. Next, the program reviews information from FTR#478. “Psst! Hey there. You believe that we are facing a crisis, an Imminent Peak of World Oil Production, right? Well, the insiders in the President’s Energy Strategy Team would like you to join with them in solving this new sudden crisis. In fact, you may already have been inducted. You panic at the idea of Western civilization collapsing as the engines and machines grind to a halt, uh-huh? You agree with Ron Swenson of Ecosystems that ‘The world is about to experience a real energy crisis, likely to be a calamity unparalleled in human history’ (Swenson, 1996).”
(“The Coming Panic over the End of Oil—Coming to a Ballot Box Near You” by “Scoop”, Section News; Posted on 12/24/2003 by Walt Contreras Sheasby; p. 1 .)

44. In light of the Thyssen-Krupp firm’s acquisition of the Leuna plant, it is more than a little interesting to contemplate the fact that the professional epicenter of “Peak Oil” theorists is a firm that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thyssen-Bornemisza Industries!! Are the acquisition of the Leuna facility and the acquisition of HIS connected? Is the Thyssen nexus generating the foundation for producing and marketing synthetic fuel by exaggerating the scarcity of the world’s petroleum resources? Is the petroleum cartel and its associated interests going along with the Peak Oil theorists in order to maximize their profit position (as the Adam Steiffel character stated)? “You think, as oil geologist Colin J. Campbell says, that ‘the very future of our subspecies ‘Hydrocarbon Man’ is at stake,’ right? You agree with Virginia Abernathy that there are too many immigrants using up our resources, I’m sure. You probably realize, as many do not, that the Era of Cheap Oil and Gas is over. As Matthew E. Simmons, the CEO of the energy investment bankers of Simmons and Co. International, recently said: ‘I think basically that now, that peaking of oil will never be accurately predicted until after the fact. But the event will occur, and my analysis is leaning me more by the month, [toward] the worry that peaking is at hand; not years away. If it turns out I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. But if I’m right, the unforeseen consequences are devastating.’” (Idem.)

45. Among the most visible and prominent of the Peak Oil advocates is Matthew E. Simmons. He is also one of the Bush administration’s most important energy advisors. Simmons participated in Cheney’s energy task force in 2001. Note that both Bush and Cheney are former p-petroleum company CEO’s from the state of Texas. In light of the elder Bush’s collaboration in the phony oil shortage of the late 1970’s, it is not unreasonable to ask if the Bush administration, the Saudis, OPEC and the Underground Reich are collaborating to create the “Peak Oil” scare and then realize the potential of the Standard/I.G. Agreement of 1929. “Well, guess what? Simmons is not only an oilionaire himself, but he has been a key advisor to the Bush Administration and to Vice President Cheney’s 2001 Energy Task Force, as well as sitting on the Council of Foreign Relations. Simmons is a board member of Kerr-McGee Corp., a major oil and gas producer. He insists that the US government is very worried about oil depletion. However, Cheney’s secretive National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) refused to make its records of closed-door meetings with industry executives public. The Industry has taken a beating in public opinion since the Kyoto summit put the spotlight on global warming. And now Simmons apparently wants to make the public’s fear of The End of Cheap Oil the drum beat of the 2004 Re-elect Bush and Cheney Campaign, although a more enlightened energy policy, he worries, ‘is going to take a while.’” (Idem.)

46. Among the earliest forecasters of Peak Oil was Marion King Hubbert. “In fact, the coalition that is pushing for a radical new energy policy is largely composed of those who stand to benefit from a revival, not a phase out, of oil and gas development. The intellectual and activist core of the coalition is made up of those veteran oil geologists and engineers who use the method of modeling the ratio of reserves to production developed by the maverick research geophysicist Marion King Hubbert, who died in 1989. He believed that the peak of production is reached when half of the estimated ultimately recoverable resource, determined by what has been discovered and logged cumulatively as actual reserves, has been pumped. In1956 at the Shell Oil Lab in Houston, Hubbert startled his colleagues by predicting that the fossil fuel era would be over very quickly. He correctly predicted that US oil production would peak in the early 1970’s.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

47. Unlike Hubbert and Deffeyes, Monsieurs Laharrere, Campbell and Ivanhoe advocate more oil exploration, as opposed to alternative fuel development. As we shall see Petroconsultants—the firm that employed all three—is closely connected to the Thyssen business empire. “Support for a remedial program of oil exploration and development versus switching to research and development of alternative energy sources tends to be found among oil experts who are consultants to the industry. While accepting some of the values of the New Age, they largely remain loyal tot heir calling as oil geologists and wildcatters. The leading trio of Jean H. Laherrere, Colin J. Campbell, and L.F. (Buz) Ivanhoe have worked for, or with, the leading firm modeling oil fields, Petroconsultants of Geneva. Since the 1950’s they have been fed data on oil exploration and production by just about all the major oil companies, as well as by a network of about 2000 oil industry consultants around the world. They use this data to produce reports on various matters pertinent to the oil industry, which they sell back to the industry. ‘This much is known,’ Kenneth Deffeyes writes, ‘the loudest warnings about the predicted peak of world oil production came from Petroconsultants’ (Deffeyes, 2001: p. 7).” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

48. The epicenter of the Peak Oil hypothesis is HIS Energy Group—which evolved out of Petroconsultants—a Thyssen-Bornemisza subsidiary. (For more about the Thyssen-Bornemisza enterprises and their historical link to the Bush family, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 273, 346, 370 and 435. Discussion of the relationship between the Thyssen firm and maneuvering around the Leuna synthetic fuel facility is contained in FTR#’s 193, 276, 278, 385, 407.) The program sets forth the Petroconsultants/Thyssen link at length: “In a late 1998 merger, Petroconsultants became HIS Energy Group, a subsidiary of Information Handling Services Group (HIS Group), a diversified conglomerate owned by Holland America Investment Corp., HIS Group’s immediate parent company, for the Thyssen-Bornemisza Group (TBG, Inc.)." [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] In the 1920’s, George Herbert Walker and his son-in-law, Prescott Bush, had helped the Thyssen dynasty finance its acquisitions through Union Banking Corp. and Holland-American trading Corp. (Wikipedia, 2003). Until his death last year, Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the nephew of the Nazi steel and coal magnate, was one of the world’s richest men. Some of the old Hubbertians would probably flinch at such an association.” (Idem.)

49. It is essential to note that the raw data upon which HIS (formerly Petroconsultants) has drawn its Peak Oil conclusions is provided by the very oil industry interests that stand to profit from enormous price increases!! This is tantamount to assigning the foxes to guard the hen house and then giving credence to their claim that the world is facing a “Peak Poultry” crisis and resulting shortage of chickens!! “In 1995, a report by Campbell and Laherre on world oil resources, World Oil Supply 1930-2050 (Petroconsultants Pty. Ltd., 1995), written for oil industry insiders and priced at $32, 000 per copy, concluded that world oil production and supply probably would peak as soon as the year 2000 and decline to half the peak level by 2025. Large and permanent increases in oil prices were predicted after the year 2000. . . .” (Idem.)

50. “ . . . Colin J. Campbell, the leader of the Neo-Hubbertians, is a petroleum geologist from Ballydehob, Ireland, and author of The Coming Oil Crisis (1997). He worked for Texaco as an exploration geologist and then at Amoco as chief geologist for Ecuador. He is a Trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Center (ODAC) and the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), originally a network of 24 oil scientists. ASPO has Associate members like Halliburton and financial sponsors like Schlumberger, but Campbell is critical of the Bush-Cheney Administration for ‘collectively having personal investments of as much as $150 million in oil companies’ (ASPO, 2002).” (Idem.)

51. Taken in the context of Peak Oil, the Thyssen firm’s interest in the Leuna facility in the former East Germany takes on added significance. Colin Campbell notes the possible use by Germany of its coal resources to supplement its energy diet. It was German coal—utilized in the hydrogenation process—that provided the Third Reich with the foundation for its synthetic fuel project in World War II. The Leuna facility was the largest of those installations. Is Thyssen (and Totalfina Elf) gearing up for possible use of the Leuna facility to manufacture synthetic oil? Again, for more about the complex maneuvering around Leuna in the CDU funding scandal, see FTR#’s 193, 276, 278, 385, 407, 478. “Campbell has laid out his prescription for various consumer governments, for example: ‘Germany should resist Green pressure to give up nuclear power at precisely the moment it needs more energy, as oil peaks and declines. Germany has coal and possibilities for coalbed methane. This industry needs to be rediscovered. It may become economic again. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] Germany should encourage its motor manufacturers to move to more efficient engines and hydrogen fuels, especially those made by solar means. It should provide whatever fiscal incentives are needed.’ (Campbell, 2000).” (Ibid.; pp. 3-4.)

52. Note that the genesis of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil was in Germany on December 7, 2000. This was at the same time as the Supreme Court was appointing George W. Bush President of the United States! “It was here in Germany that ASPO had its origin. On December 7th in the year 2000, I was privileged to give a talk on oil depletion at the ancient university of Clausthal in the Harz Mountains. The idea of forming an institution, or network of scientists concerned about the subject, developed. Next day, I took the idea to Professor Wellmer, the head of the BGR in Hannover, who gave it his support. The Norwegians were the next to join, followed by the Swedes. Today, ASPO is represented in almost all European countries—at least before its recent enlargement.” (“ASPO Third International Workshop on Oil and Gas Depletion” by C.J. Campbell; 5/25-26/2004; p. 1; accessed at: http://www.peakoil.net/iwood2004/ProgramBerlin.doc.)

53. The program reviews the profound relationship between the branches of the Thyssen industrial empire and the Bormann organization: “Thyssen-Bornemisza runs his private Dutch-based investment group from Lugano, Switzerland, and his cousin, Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen, grandson of old Fritz Thyssen, exercises control over Thyssen A.G. from his base in Buenos Aires.” (Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; by Paul Manning; copyright 1981; Lyle Stuart [hardcover]; ISBN 0-8184-0309-8; p. 237.)

54. “During the final year of his life, in Argentina, dividing his time between the villa in Buenos Aires and the ranches, one in Argentina, the other in Paraguay, Fritz Thyssen completed establishing the control that would assure everlasting family prosperity through Thyssen A.G. Elder grandson Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen of Buenos Aires was placed on the board of this German steel trust. When the count votes at board meetings in Dusseldorf three or four times a year, he votes for the entire Thyssen family of South America and Europe.” (Ibid.; p. 257.)

55. “Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen, who has a younger brother Count Claudio Zichy-Thyssen, represents the largest single shareholding group, with 25 percent of the stock of Thyssen A.G. The remainder of the stock is diffused into Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and Buenos Aires, which holds shares for many individuals on both continents, including those representing the Bormann group. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (Idem.)

56. Martin Bormann himself was very close to the Argentine branch of the Thyssen family. “Count Zichy-Thyssen, grandson of old Fritz Thyssen, is looked upon with affection by Martin Bormann, who visits the Zichy-Thyssens upon occasion. Bormann’s eldest daughter is said to be almost a permanent guest at the Thyssen ranches. As with the eldest brother, Adolf Martin, the former Jesuit priest, Martin Bormann strongly wanted at least these first of his children with him in South America. Adolf, accompanied by his wife, visits his father from time to time. Daughter ‘Neumi’ never married and devotes herself to her father in his declining years.” (Ibid.; p. 290.)

57. “Along with the good life, there is no lessening of safeguards. They have been on the run for so many years that it is part of their intrinsic survival pattern to question all strangers and any overtures. Even the Zichy-Thyssens, who in no way participated in the rise and fall of the Third Reich as did grandfather Fritz, evidence anxiety when approached by me with courteous questions regarding the history of their family and further details about the life and career of Fritz Thyssen.” (Idem.)

58. “Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen, grandson of old Fritz Thyssen, Claudio Zichy-Thyssen, and their families are intimate friends of Bormann. Because of this friendship, Martin Bormann has three sanctuaries: his own pampas spread in Argentina and the Thyssen ranches in Argentina and Paraguay.” (Ibid.; p. 292.)

59. It is worth noting that the Bormann group is heavily involved with the interests growing out of I.G. Farben. (For more about this, see FTR#411.) “The Bormann organization continues to wield enormous economic influence. Wealth continues to flow into the treasuries of its corporate entities in South America, the United States and Europe. Vastly diversified, it is said to be the largest land-owner in South America, and through stockholdings, controls German heavy industry and the trust established by the late Hermann Schmitz, former president of I.G. Farben, who held as much stock in Standard Oil of New Jersey as did the Rockefellers.” (Idem.)

60. Next, the program excerpts FTR-273. Former Justice Department official John Loftus disclosed that the Bush family fortune came from the 1951 liquidation of the Union Banking Corporation—a joint Thyssen/Bush/Harriman business venture. For more about the Bush family’s involvement with the Thyssen milieu and other elements of Nazi industry, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 361, 370, 435, 475, 481.) (“Author Links Bush Family to Nazis;” Sarasota Herald-Tribune; 11/11/2000; accessed at www.newscoast.com.)

61. It is worth noting that the Rockefeller family was (as of 1972) a major stockholder in the Thyssen firm, giving that family a stake in Thyssen control of the Leuna facility and any products coming from it. “A few decades later things had quieted down and all the Nazi money finally came home to Wall Street. By 1972, one of Rockefeller’s assets, the Chase Manhattan bank in New York, secretly owned 38% of the Thyssen company, according to internal Thyssen records in my custody. Not a bad payoff for the Robber Barons. The Auschwitz investment paid off handsomely. The Thyssen-Krupp corporation is now the wealthiest conglomerate in Europe. WWII is over. The Germans won.” (“Former Federal Prosecutor John Loftus Confirms the Bush-Nazi Scandal” by John Loftus; 10/31/2003; p. 2; accessed at: http://www.john-loftus.com/bush_nazi_scandal.asp.)

62. Another major capital participant in the Thyssen-Krupp firm was the Iranian government. Iran—like Saudi Arabia—would be among the beneficiaries of the Peak Oil gambit. Note that the Iranian government has had a traditionally close relationship with the Al Taqwa milieu. (For more about this, see—among other programs, FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 381.) “…Friday, Thyssen-Krupp, a steel making conglomerate, said a representative of Iran-Thyssen’s No. 3 shareholder—no longer would hold a seat on its supervisory board, which is similar to a U.S. board of directors. Iran has held a major stake in the company since before the nation’s 1979 Islamic revolution, and helped rescue it from near-bankruptcy with a capital injection 30 years ago. . . .” (“European Firms React to U.S. Hard Line on Iran” by Matthew Karnitschnig; The Wall Street Journal; 1/28/2005; p. A7.)

63. “ . . .Under U.S. law, the government isn’t allowed to grant contracts to companies in which Iran holds a stake of more than 5%. To avoid sanction, Thyssen-Krupp spent 406 million Euros ($531 million) to repurchase more than 3% of its stock from Iran in 2003. While that reduced the country’s share to 4.8%, the U.S. also leaned on Thyssen-Krupp to remove the Iranian representative from its board, people familiar with the matter say. The representative, Mohamad-Mehdi Navab-Motlagh, a deputy minister in Iran’s Ministry of Industry and Mining, had served on the board for more than 20 years.” (Idem.)

64. Author Kevin Coogan ruminates on the significance of the Genoud milieu’s presence in the events of 9/11: “My own belief is that it is less the apparently fantastic and ‘James Bond’-like quality of this analysis that is most difficult to understand. The real difficulty is the utter ignorance of most Westerners (Americans in particular) about the very existence of such people as Francois Genoud. Thus when Ernst Backes, one of Europe’s leading experts in money laundering, told the Luxemourg-based economic journal Plus Minus last year that he believed the financial source of funds for the 9/11 terrorists would ultimately be traced back to Swiss bank accounts established by Genoud, few Americans had any idea what Backes could possibly be talking about. For this same reason there has been virtually no independent investigation into SICO’s Baudoin Dunand’s relationship to Genoud or (for that matter) the role Syrian-born Muhammad Mardam Bay (believed to be related to a former Syrian foreign minister) has played both as a member of Magnin, Dunand & Associates as well as Bay’s possible links with Genoud. And what does it mean when we are told that [Al Taqwa founder] Youssef Nada, for example, is believed by Egyptian authorities to have worked for German intelligence in World War II?” (Ibid.; p. 15)

65. It should be noted that the marketing of the Peak Oil concept would greatly enrich some of the most fascistic elements on earth, from the major oil companies to the vultures of OPEC, to the Muslim Brotherhood—a traditional beneficiary of Arab wealth. The increase in the price of oil will greatly enhance the power of the fascistic networks examined in this broadcast. Whether they will, in time, shift their wealth away from the dollar to the euro remains to be seen. Kevin Coogan’s rumination is presented here for examination by the reader. “It is not at all impossible that networks first developed in the 1930’s and who saw their economic power fantastically multiplied in the wake of the enormous hike in oil prices in 1973 are now engaged in trying to enact a major financial shift away from the dollar and Anglo-American financial networks and to shift the vast wealth of the Muslim oil states into a new Euro-based financial network that would vastly increase the power of those banks and financial interests in Europe associated with elements of far right elites that survived World War II relatively intact.” (Idem.)

66. “If this were at all the case, it would not be a new development. The very same attempt to develop an independent Saudi-German hookup to subvert the U.S. and British domination of the Saudi oil markets was actually attempted in the mid-1950’s. At that time, the Saudi royal family—using the advise of the famous German banker Hjalmar Schacht—attempted to employ Aristotle Onassis to transport Saudi oil on new oil tankers that would be constructed in the shipyards of Germany. This attempt to break the Western oil control over Saudi Arabia was finally blocked by the United States, a story well documented in Jim Hougan’s book Spooks (New York: William Morrow, 1978.)” (Ibid.; pp. 15-16.)