FTR #533 The Florida-Argentine Connection: Another Helluva Conspiracy Theory

Recorded November 13, 2005
REALAUDIO

In this broadcast, we examine some important and revealing connections of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris to figures associated with an episode in Argentina’s “dirty war” of the 1970’s and the cover-up of the AMIA bombing of 1994. In addition, the program delineates the relationship of some of these Bush associates to the business and media empire of Gustavo Cisneros—implicated in the 2003 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the principal shareholder in Univision, the largest Spanish-language TV network in the United States. Harris and Jeb Bush appointed Argentine citizen Patricio Lombardi to be Florida’s Deputy Secretary of State for Latin American affairs, the first state in the country to have such a position. Lombardi is a former aide to Carlos Ruckauf, a one-time Argentine labor minister linked to the disappearance of dissident Mercedes-Benz workers during that country’s dirty war, as well as the cover-up of the AMIA bombing, a crime that has evidentiary tributaries running in the direction of the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as 9/11. Lombardi has also been associated with the Cisneros media empire and the Greenberg Traurig firm, Jack Abramoff’s former lobbying outfit. The program also sets forth information about Jerry Perenchio, the head of Univision (controlled by Cisneros) and one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s primary financial backers. Mr. Emory suspects that we are looking at an Underground Reich/Bormann capital network set-up here. In this context, do not lose sight of the government of Carlos Menem and the lengths to which it went to cover-up the Argentine role in the Nazi diaspora and flight capital program in the wake of World War II. For more about this, see FTR#532.

Program Highlights Include: Gustavo Cisneros’s alleged links to money laundering; Cisneros’s relationships with David Rockefeller and participants in the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende in Chile; Gustavo Cisneros’s Cuban origins; the strange death of Cisneros’s nephew; the relationship of Buenos Aires province of Argentina to Florida (established by Lombardi with his former boss Carlos Ruckauf, who is now the governor of Buenos Aires province); a look at some of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s interesting financial backers.

1. Beginning discussion of the Florida-Argentine connection, the program highlights the signing of an agreement between the controversial Argentine politician Carlos Ruckauf and governor Jeb Bush of Florida. The agreement will develop economic and cultural ties between Buenos Aires province and Florida. The agreement was hammered out by Patricio Lombardi, an Argentine citizen and a former aide to Ruckauf. Lombardi is now the Deputy Secretary of State for Latin American affairs for the state of Florida, functioning in that capacity as an aide to Katherine Harris, who was instrumental in the stealing of the Florida election on behalf of George W. Bush in 2000! “With the objective of solidifying the relationship of the province of Buenos Aires with the outside world, [provincial] governor Carlos Ruckauf will travel Monday to Florida where he will be meeting with his colleague Jeb Bush. The meeting will take place in Tampa, where both will sign an agreement on harbor facilities, Argentine Patricio Lombardi said to “Bugler.” Lombardi now handles all relationships between the state of Florida and Latin America for Jeb Bush.”
(“He Signed Agreements with Governor Jeb Bush: Ruckauf Visits Florida” by Ann Baron [Washington Correspondent]; Clarin; 7/22/2000.)

2. The article mentions that Jeb married a Mexican woman. Columba Bush’s sister is married to John P. Schmitz, a beneficiary of the fellowship programs subsumed under the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft and the brother of Joseph Schmitz, currently the head of the Blackwater security outfit. John P. Schmitz has close links to the elder George Bush the 9/11 milieu. (For more about the Schmitz family, the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft and other points of information in this relationship, see FTR#’s 469, 476, 529, 530.) “Brother of the Presidential candidate and son of the ex-President with the same name, Jeb not only married a Mexican but has always been closely bound to Latin America by business. At the White House, ex-Argentine ambassador [to the US] Diego Guelar (who handles foreign relations for the Buenos Aires government) said: ‘For us, Florida is like a business partner of ours.’ ‘We have the same type of relationship with Sao Paulo in Brazil and Westphalia in Germany,’ he explained.” (Idem.)

3. Note that Buenos Aires province has the same type of relationship with Sao Paulo in Brazil and Westphalia in Germany [as noted in the paragraph above]. Note also that a series of student exchanges and scholarships are being set up between Argentina and Florida. These sound curiously like the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft and its subsidiary fellowships—used to sponsor the professional careers of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and John P. Schmitz, among others. Is the Florida-Argentine connection—like the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft and its subsidiary programs—an apparent Underground Reich networking program? In that context, one should not lose sight of the primary economic position of the Bormann capital operation in Latin America. For more about this, see FTR#305.. “It is anticipated that Bush and Ruckauf will sign an agreement of cultural exchange and scholarships. ‘One of my tasks in the Bush administration is to work with the State Department to bring Latin American students to colleges in Florida’ said Lombardi. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] Soon Ruckauf will go to Miami, where he will meet with industrialists and will attend a reception organized by the public relations firm Greenberg Traurig.” (Idem.)

4. Developing background information about this cast of characters, the program sets forth some of the skeletons in Ruckauf’s closet, including the fact that—as labor minister under Isabel Peron and then the military junta in Argentina—he drew up an accord that led to the “disappearance” of dissident workers at the Mercedes Benz plant in Buenos Aires. “The ex-Argentine minister Carlos Ruckauf will have to testify before a judge investigating the disappearance of 14 people during the military dictatorship (1976-1983), it was announced today. The subpoena was issued by the Federal Court of the City of Plata, capital of Buenos Aires Province, which convenes next Wednesday for the testimony of the ex-minister and present national deputy-elect (Carlos Ruckauf). The case concerns the fate of 14 workers who worked in a Mercedes Benz Plant in Canuelas and from which they disappeared in 1976 after the coup d’etat that restored the military regime.” (“In the Case of the Disappeared of Mercedes, the Ex-Chancellor Carlos Ruckauf’s Appointment with a Federal Judge” by: PL; 10/29/03.)

5. “The interrogation was asked for last August through the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights of Plata to consider if Ruckauf may have responsibility in the case, after the dissemination of some declarations that Ruckauf signed in 1975 when he was Secretary of Labor of the national government. The connection of the ex-minister to the case is sourced from documents given to the Argentine judiciary by German journalist Gabriela Weber, in which the automotive company recognized ‘the efforts of the Secretary of Labor to eliminate subversive elements in the factories.’” (Idem.)

6. Note that Ruckauf was vice-president of Argentina under Carlos Menem. For more about Menem’s suspicious connections, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 109, 328, 340, 457, 532. “One of those texts indicates that Ruckauf pleaded for the suppression of those people in 1975, when he held the labor ministry in the cabinet that was soon overthrown by the military coup, and at the time when the Mercedes Benz plant was the center of a conflict that stemmed from the dismissal of 115 striking workers. During the last decade, Ruckauf has been vice-president of the country—in the government of former chief executive Carlos Menem—governor of the province of Buenos Aires (the most important in Argentina) and minister until last May in the administration of ex-president Eduardo Cuhalde.” (Idem.)

7. More about Ruckauf and the elimination of the Mercedes workers: “ . . . In 1975, the company [Mercedes Benz] signed an agreement with Ruckauf, then Isabel Peron’s Secretary of Labor, which created an extraordinary basis of social action ‘to contribute to the well-being of the workers, to improve the production [of the plant] and to eradicate the negative factors that disturb labor activity.’ In the judicial process it is understood that this agreement [concluded by labor minister Carlos Ruckauf] served as the antecedent for the persecution and later disappearance of Mercedes Benz employees. ‘Mercedes Benz wanted to support the effort of the ministry and of SMATA to eliminate subversive elements of the factories,’ concludes the document. The following Tuesday, the Oviedo La Riojan will have to determine if there are facts preventing Ruckauf from being sworn in as a national deputy.”
(“From Mercedes Benz to the AMIA” by Felipe Yapur; Pagina 12 Website; 12/29/03.)

8. Ruckauf helped cover up the AMIA bombing of 1994. (The AMIA bombing has evidentiary tributaries leading in the direction of the bombing of Pan Am 103, Oklahoma City bombing, as well as 9/11. Fore more about these links, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 109, 328, 330, 457.) “Jewish leaders plan to file a legal complaint against former foreign minister Carlos Ruckauf who last year apologized to the Iranian government for an Argentinean judge’s decision to issue international warrants against four Iranian ministers and diplomats accused of masterminding the July 18, 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, in which 85 people died. . . .”
(Article by Alana Rosenbaum, Diego Melamed, Frank Brown, Clare Chapman; The Jerusalem Report; 8/11/2003.)

9. Next, the program highlights some aspects of Patricio Lombardi’s professional career. A former aide to Ruckauf in Argentina, Lombardi is Florida’s Deputy Secretary of State for Latin American affairs. He has been involved with the business empire of Gustavo Cisneros in Latin America. Cisneros has a number of television networks that dominate Latin American TV, as well as being the principal shareholder in Univision, the largest Spanish-language TV network in the­ United States. (Cisneros’ operations are subsumed under the CGC—the Cisneros Group of Companies.) “ . . . The government employee has in her staff an Argentinean who worked for Carlos Ruckauf and lobbied for the Menem government: Patricio Lombardi . . . One thinks that those trips [by Harris] are related to Bush’s behind the scenes businesses, as well as her own—she declared a personal fortune of 6.5 million, without counting the tens of millions that her Swedish husband (Anders Ebbeson) has amassed. Harris traveled to Argentina several times during the presidency of Menem, even saying that she and her husband are both enamored of Buenos Aires, where they spent some Christmases. . . . Harris has employed Lombardi for two years. The young entrepreneur, born in Lanus, worked as adviser ad honorem for Ruckauf . . . Now Lombardi is situated as lobbyist in the epicenter of power and already has a business relationship with the powerful Columbian group Cisneros.”
(“A Friend of Menem Could Be a Representative of Bush’s in Latim America” by Fernando Almiron; Pagina 12 Website [Todos Los Generos]; 01/01/2001.)

10. More about Katherine Harris and Patricio Lombardi. Note that Lombardi (again, an Argentine citizen and deputy to Ruckauf) is the first such “secretary of state” for any state in the union. “Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris will make a special appearance at @d:tech.Latin America in Miami Beach on Tuesday, and plans to make a major announcement regarding the state’s Latin American trade initiatives. . . . The appearance by Harris follows her recent formation of the Internet Task Force for Florida and Latin America, and the appointment of Patricio Lombardi as the state’s first Deputy Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs.”
(“Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to Make Major Announcement at @d:tech.Latin America; Statement Will Address State’s Latin American Trade Initiatives”; Business Wire; 3/13/2000.)

11. More about Lombardi: note that, in addition to his links to the Cisneros empire, he worked for Greenberg Traurig, the outfit for which Jack Abramoff worked! (For more about Abramoff, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 516, 528.) “ . . . Mr. Lombardi was the first state level Deputy Secretary of State for Latin America in the history of the United States. . . . He was Director for Corporate Strategy and Institutional Affairs for Cisneros Group of Companies, a major pan-regional multi-media and entertainment with operations throughout The Americas. He also held an important position with the Inter-American Development Bank . . . He was a Senior Consultant for Greenberg & Traurig, a leading law firm in the United States. . . .”
(“Patricio Lombardi”; Arias Kent Website; 2004.)

12. The broadcast documents the relationship between Greenberg Traurig and Abramoff. “ . . . The revelations led to Abramoff’s ouster in March from Greenberg Traurig, the law firm where he led one of Washington’s most successful lobbying groups. Greenberg Traurig said it acted after Abramoff ‘disclosed to the firm for the first time personal transactions and related conduct which are unacceptable to the firm.’ Lawyers for Abramoff and [Michael] Scanlon declined to comment this week on the investigations. . . .”
(“Ex –Lobbyist is Focus of Widening Investigations” by Susan Schmidt; Washington Post, 7/16/2004; p. A19.)

13. Next, the program sets forth some of the noteworthy characteristics of the corporate and media empire of Gustavo Cisneros, a close associate of the Bushes and one of many men and women of Cuban extraction in the Bush circle of friends. Note the Bush family’s Venezuelan connections. As will be seen below, Cisneros appears to have been deeply involved with the attempt to oust Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Don’t lose sight of the fact that Lombardi—Deputy Secretary of State for Latin American affairs for Florida, former aide to Carlos Ruckauf and associate of Greenberg Traurig—was deeply involved with the Cisneros group. “ . . . A report by journalist Gerardo Reyes filed November 19,2000 from Miami, mentions that in 1977, when his father was named CIA Director, Jeb established himself in Venezuela as a representative of Commerce Bank of Texas, owned by James Baker, who was a friend of Bush Sr. and later Secretary of State. Jeb speaks Spanish fluently, thanks to his marriage to the Mexican Columba Garcia [whose sister is married to John P. Schmitz—D.E.], which is why ‘the family was rapidly accepted by the rich Venezuelan petroleum society.’ . . .”
(“The Bush Family’s Murky Dealings in Venezuela” by Edgar Gonzalez Ruiz.)

14. The broadcast highlights the apparent Cisneros involvement in the coup d’etat against Hugo Chavez. “ . . . But, other members of the Bush family also have important ties to Venezuela. After the failed coup d’etat against Chavez, television magnate and Bush Sr. friend Gustavo Cisneros was implicated as one of the principal proponents of the coup. Cisneros publicly denied his role in the coup, but the magazine Newsweek noted that Pedro Carmona ‘was seen leaving Cisneros’ office’ before going to the Government Palace to swear in as provisional president. According to Newsweek, Venezuelan legislator Pedro Pablo Alcantara said that the brief Carmona dictatorship was organized in Cisneros’ offices, and that Cisneros was the ‘supreme commander’ of the operation. Newsweek also said that Otto Reich had spoken with Cisneros ‘two or three times’ during the events of the coup.” (Idem.)

15. More about Gustavo Cisneros’s vast business and media empire. Again, do not fail to note that he is of Cuban extraction. All of the Bushes, including Jeb Bush, have very close connections to the anti-Castro Cuban community. Do note that he is the largest stockholder in Univision, the largest Spanish language TV chain in the United States. Jerry Perenchio, the head of Univision, is one of the largest financial backers of Arnold Schwarzenegger. “ . . . 57-year-old Gustavo Cisneros Rendiles has a fortune of around $5 billion, one of the largest in Latin America, after Mexican Carlos Slim. Cisneros occupies the 94th position on the list of the 500 richest men in the world, according to Forbes magazine. Of Cuban origin, Cisneros is the majority shareholder in Univision, the largest Spanish language TV chain in the United States, and he possesses channels with vast audiences in other countries, such as Venevision in Venezuela, ChileVision, Caracol Television of Columbia, and Caribbean Communications Network. He also owns the bottler Panamco and is a major shareholder in Coca Cola. Cisneros, together with his wife Patricia Phelps, were often on the White House guest list of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The friendly relationship between Cisneros and Bush Sr. also seems to encompass privatizing the state-owned PDVSA, putting it on Bush Sr.’s list of Texas businesses. . . .” (Idem.)

16. “ . . . Cisneros belongs to the Americas Society, a non-profit organization chaired by David Rockefeller, whose mission is to ‘provide members strategic advantages for doing business in a region that offers enormous opportunities, but also considerable risks.’ Another member of this society is Chilean media magnate Agustin Edwards, who was a key figure in the CIA-backed conspiracy against the constitutional government of Salvador Allende. . . .” (Idem.)

17. After discussing allegations of drug-money laundering by Cisneros, the article featured here discusses the family’s involvement with financial fraud. “ . . . Ricardo Cisneros, Gustavo’s brother and second in command of the family business, was involved in the most notorious financial scandal in Venezuela’s history: the 1994 failure of Banco Latino, the result of which a Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant against Ricardo, accusing him of fraud as a member of the bank’s Board of Directors. According to the charges, the Board of Directors approved credit to businesses, some of them owned by individual board members, exceeding established legal limits, and diverted bank funds. Ricardo, who was out of the country when the warrant was issued, fled. . . .” (Idem.)

18. Cisneros’s nephew (a director of Univision) died of an apparent drug overdose. “Carlos Enrique Cisneros, the former president of the Cisneros Television Group, died on April 10 [2004] from a drug overdose. His death is being investigated as a possible suicide by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. He was 38. The nephew of media mogul Gustavo Cisneros . . . . he developed foreign markets for the family bisness, the Cisneros Group of Companies (CGC). . . . Cisneros, who served on the board of directors of Univision Communications Inc. . . .dedicated his free time to philanthropic ventures. . . . [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]”
(“Carlos E. Cisneros”; 4/14/2004.)

19. Note that the Cisneros TV empire is based in South Beach (Florida). “ . . . Cisneros had built a portfolio of a dozen Latin American pay-TV channels as president of South Beach-based Cisneros Television Group in the late 1990’s . . . in 2000, the Cisneros Group of Companies merged CTG with another of the parent company’s holdings, El Sitio, whose chairman, Roberto Vivo-Chaneton, took over as head of the new company, Claxson Interactive Group. . . .”
(“Cisneros Nephew [38] Found Dead in Los Angeles from Drug Overdose” by David Coleman; 4/13/2004.)

20. The head of Univision (controlled by Gustavo Cisneros) is Jerry Perenchio. Note how secretive he is. Note also that this Italian American got his start—in part—with MCA. Author Dan Moldea has written a superb book about MCA, Ronald Reagan and the mob titled Dark Victory. “If Jerry Perenchio is a misunderstood man, he deserves to be. For years, the CEO of Univision Communications has not granted media interviews. Security guards wave off photographers who try to snap his picture. In 1996, Univision provided Hispanic Business with an official photograph, but the network quickly requested its return, and that was the last known image of the CEO. For that reason, this issue’s cover features an illustration based on that photograph. . . . Mr. Perenchio came to Hollywood from Fresno, the son of an Italian-American vintner. . . . After a stint in the Air Force, he took a job in 1957 at the talent agency MCA. Under the legendary agent Lew Wasserman. . . . Again, his secretive nature tends to create an impression of shadiness. . . The latest Forbes 400 ranks him as the 76th-richest person in the United States, with a net worth of $2.3 billion. . . .”
(“The Invisible Media Mogul”; Hispanic Business; 12/2003.)

21. Note that Perenchio is one of the largest financial backers of Arnold Schwarzenegger. His largest individual backer is William Armstead Robinson, who also gives evidence of being involved with the Bormann capital network and the Underground Reich. (For more about Robinson and Schwarzenegger, see FTR#492.) Note that another of Schwarzenegger’s financial backers is Tim Draper, descendant of the Draper family that played a prominent role in the development of fascism and is very close to the Bushes. (For more about Draper, see FTR#264.) Yet another of Schwarzenegger’s main backers is William Lyon, who helped develop some of the bogus colleges that appear to have served as intelligence fronts for—among other things—the trafficking around of West Coast associates of the 9/11 hijackers! (For more about William Lyon and the diploma mill connection, see FTR#507. For more about Arnold Schwarzenegger, see: FTR#’s 421, 422, 429, 434, 436, 492, 496, 529.) “ . . . The list also includes Jerry Perenchio, head of Univision, the nation’s largest Spanish language television network; financiers Robert Day, Timothy Draper and Lawrence Dodge; developers Alex Spanos and William Lyon . . . .”
(“Schwarzenegger Patrons Provide Money, Support” by Tom Chorneau [AP]; 2/14/2004.)

FTR #532 Interview with John Loftus

about Unholy Trinity and Intelligence Summit

Recorded November 6, 2005
REALAUDIO

In this interview with the heroic John Loftus, we revisit the subjects of the Vatican Bank and the Vatican’s long involvement with fascism. After discussing a summit that John is helping to arrange between members of the intelligence community and members of the general public to discuss the war on terror, the program focuses on John’s landmark book Unholy Trinity and a lawsuit he helped to file against the Vatican Bank for looting the wealth of Holocaust victims, aiding the escape of Nazi war criminals, and using the stolen money and the fugitives to wage covert operations during the Cold War. In Unholy Trinity, John (and his co-author Mark Aarons) document a long history of collusion between the Vatican and Nazi Germany, going back to the immediate aftermath of World War I. After investing millions of dollars in German (later Nazi) industry, the Vatican collaborated with U.S. corporate interests to safeguard the Nazi treasury, spiriting the wealth out of Europe after the War. This capital was recycled back to Germany in the 1950’s and was used to fund the so-called “German economic miracle”—that country’s economic revival. (Veteran listeners will recognize this concatenation’s position within the constellation of the Bormann flight-capital program.) Much of the program focuses on the Vatican’s “Ratlines”—the escape networks that were set up to help fugitive Nazis escape justice. Many of the most notorious Nazi war criminals escaped with the help of this network, which was operated with the knowledge and blessings of the highest officials of the Church.

Program Highlights Include: The decades-long collaboration between the Vatican and the powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell in protecting their mutual investment in Nazi industry; the history of US corporate investments in Nazi Germany; the involvement of Western (including American) intelligence agencies in the operation of the Ratlines; the role of Argentine dictator Juan Peron in the exodus of Nazi capital and fugitive war criminals from Europe; the role of the World Commerce Corporation in the flight of Nazi wealth from Europe after the war; the sheltering of some of the worst Nazi criminals in the Pope’s summer residence at Castelgandolfo; the continuing cover-up by the government of Argentina in that country’s conspiracy to aid fugitive Nazis; the continuing cover-up by Vatican related elements in Italy of the true extent of Church complicity in the escape of fugitive Nazis; the channeling of Vatican money to Hitler in 1919; the role of Popes Pius XII and Paul VI in the Vatican/Nazi conspiracy.

1. The broadcast begins with John’s discussion of a project with which he’s involved called “Intelligence Summit.” This is a meeting scheduled for Presidents’ Day Weekend in 2006 in Washington D.C. Bringing together elements of the intelligence communities of numerous countries, the gathering offers the opportunity for members of the working press and the general public to share information with these intelligence professionals, and vice versa. The only stipulation is that non-intelligence attendees cannot divulge the information that they learn there anywhere else. For more information, see: http://www.intelligencesummit.org.

2. The balance of the program consists of discussion and analysis of John’s book Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis and the Swiss Banks (co-authored with Mark Aarons.) Before discussing the book, we noted the reinstatement of a lawsuit for which John was the intelligence adviser. Note that the lawsuit was reinstated by an American appellate court at the same time as Cardinal Ratzinger was appointed Pope. (For more about the Pope’s interesting background, see FTR#508.) “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.)

3. “ . . . 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.)

4. After discussing John’s lawsuit, the program highlights Unholy Trinity. Barred from writing about the Vatican/Nazi/intelligence connections because of his high security clearances, John and associates recruited a young man of Croatian heritage, who spoke fluent Serbo-Croatian. Posing as a young Ustashi enthusiast, he was able to interview some of the surviving villains of the Vatican/Croatian/Nazi collaboration. Thinking him to be a kindred soul, they “spilled the beans” into a tape-recorded microphone. With the veil of secrecy having been thus breached, John received clearance to go ahead with the publication of his book.

5. Next, the program turns to discussion of the genesis of the Nazi/Vatican Bank connection, which is at the foundation of Loftus’ lawsuit. The story begins with the Webb/Pomerene act—a loophole in the American anti-trust legislation that legalizes the formation of cartels (international monopolies.) In possession of the tremendous wealth of the U.S. boom that began with World War I and continued through the 1920’s, the “Robber Barons” of the American power elite were free to network with their counterparts abroad (chiefly in Germany and Japan) in order to monopolize international world trade. “ . . . The 1920’s and early 1930’s were a profitable time for American investors in Germany. The break-up of the American cartels at the end of the nineteenth century, followed by Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘trust-busting’ legislation in the 1910’s, induced the early multinational corporations to seek a more friendly clime offshore. Germany not only permitted cartels and vertical monopolies, it encouraged them as a means to rebuild its industrial might after the devastation of World War I and the Versailles reparations.” (Unholy Trinity; p. 291.)

6. “Moreover, from the late 1920’s the German economy, although cash poor, was scientifically advanced. As the Weimar Republic began to disintegrate under the weight of internal chaos and external greed, German scientists, sponsored by German corporations, led the world in research in physics, chemistry, and biology. So esteemed was the German intellectual edge at the end of the 1920’s that American scientists who wished to make their mark would take their advanced degree at a German university.” (Idem.)

7. “Effectively, Germany had a virtual high-tech monopoly on advanced production techniques, rigidly reinforced through a system of worldwide patents that gave it a decided advantage. If the Du Pont Corporation, for example, wanted a license for chemical processes, it had to deal with Berlin.” (Idem.)

8. At the epicenter of the Nazi money/Vatican/Robber Baron connection is Sullivan & Cromwell, the powerful white-shoe law firm, whose best known partners were Allen and John Foster Dulles. (Under President Eisenhower, Allen Dulles became CIA director, while John Foster became Secretary of State.) As discussed in (among other programs) FTR#361, Allen Dulles handled the Bush family’s investments in Nazi Germany. “Sullivan & Cromwell’s American clients, in turn, had something that the Germans wanted badly: gold. Under the Versailles Treaty, Germany had to pay its reparations to the Allies in gold bullion. In 1924, Sullivan & Cromwell stepped into the breach with the ingenious Dawes Plan. In its simplest form, the Dulles brothers’ clients would loan gold to Germany, so that it could repay its reparations to France and Britain, which would then recycle the American gold to repay their war loans to America. It was a crazy merry-go-round, but it worked.” (Ibid.; pp. 291-292.)

9. “The attraction for Sullivan & Cromwell’s clients was that the Germans paid off the original American gold loans with stock in German corporations. Unlike the hyperinflated Deutsch mark, German stocks and bonds were far from worthless, as they were backed by the very patents and trade secrets that American industry so desperately sought. With the crash of 1929, the American economy went into the Great Depression, but simultaneously Sullivan & Cromwell’s clients poured billions into the German economy. For example, John Foster Dulles’s legal records show that he handled the transfer of $10 billion worth of gold in return for German bonds and investments. By some estimates, 70 percent of the money that went to rebuild the German economy after World War I came from Wall Street investors, most of whom sought the legal counsel of Sullivan & Cromwell. . . .” (Idem.)

10. “ . . . The secret strings of German investment were held by American lawyers sitting on the boards of German banks and corporations. Allen Dulles, for example, sat on the board of the Schroder Bank, with offices in London, New York, and Berlin. Ostensibly owned by a prominent German banking family, the real controllers were Sullivan & Cromwell’s clients. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 293.)

11. Next, the program highlights the genesis of the Vatican/Nazi money connection, which was central to the realization of the American/Nazi money-go-round. Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) was the Papal Nuncio to Munich Germany. He gave Vatican money to Hitler in 1919 to fight communism in Germany. Following the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between the Vatican and Mussolini’s fascist government in Italy, the large financial windfall the Vatican obtained from Mussolini was invested in German heavy industry. (For more on the Vatican/Nazi money link, see RFA#’s 17-21, available from Spitfire.) “ . . . Sullivan & Cromwell’s clients were not the only foreign investors in Germany, nor were they the only ones to hedge their bets by making small donations to the infant Nazi party. Following the $26 million cash settlement with Mussolini over disputed lands in 1929, the Vatican invested nearly all the proceeds in German industry, but at least one small investment was made in the Nazis as well. The following incident was reported by an eyewitness, Sister Pascalina, a nun who was the personal aide (and devoted admirer) of the Papal Nuncio in Munich and the man who would become Pope Pius XII on the eve of World War II: ‘Hitler came one night to the holy residence of Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (later Pius XII). All others in the household were asleep by then, except [Sister] Pascalina . . . . Hitler told Pacelli that he was out to check the spread of atheistic communism. . . . It did not come as a surprise to her, therefore, in light of Pacelli’s hatred of the Reds, to see the prelate present Hitler with a large cache of Church money to aid the rising revolutionary and his small struggling band of anti-communists.’ . . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 294-295.)

12. After taking power, Hitler passed laws rendering the Western industrialist/Nazi money links more opaque. This eventuality cemented the partnership between the Nazis, the Vatican and the U.S. money men—a connection that was to prove central to the postwar laundering of Nazi wealth, as well as its recycling back to drive the German “economic miracle” of the 1950’s. “ . . . It is no coincidence that the Swiss passed a law in 1934 making disclosure of Swiss bank accounts a crime. In the same year, Sullivan & Cromwell officially closed its Berlin office. From 1934, Switzerland was the center of the Dulles brothers’ operations. With so much of its own holdings tied up in Nazi Germany, the Vatican had little option but to adopt the same course.” (Ibid.; p. 295.)

13. The realization of the Vatican/Nazi/U.S. financial axis was completed with the implementation of the IOR—the Vatican Bank. “The Holy See devised a special shield to help protect it from the looming international conflict—its own financial institution, the Vatican Bank. This was the one monetary entity in the world that was completely immune from outside audits, protected by Vatican sovereignty, and with the added convenience of diplomatic immunity. During the War, the Dulles brothers and the Vatican were drawn into a symbiotic relationship: Sullivan & Cromwell’s investors needed the Vatican Bank to launder their profits under the watchful eyes of both the Nazis and their own governments, while the Vatican needed the Dulles brothers to protect its own investments in Hitler’s Germany. . . .” (Idem.)

14. The program sets forth the manner in which Allen Dulles, the Vatican and the Third Reich helped recycle the Nazi wealth from Europe to Argentina, and then back to Germany. (For more on how this relationship worked, as well as how this concatenation fits into the context of the Bormann flight capital program and Underground Reich, see FTR#’s 504, 508. Some of the actual documents proving the Dulles and Bush family collaboration with the postwar Nazi/Argentine money axis are available at: www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/. For more about the Bormann flight capital program see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f305.html.) “ . . . Few who watch the film Evita would recognize that the Peron family of Argentina worked directly with the Croatian Ustashi to establish a pipeline from the Vatican Bank. As recounted earlier in this book, Ante Pavelic himself, the Croatian Nazi leader, moved to Buenos Aires and became a ‘security adviser’ to the Perons. Laundered through the ‘untraceable’ Vatican Bank, the Nazi treasure moved from Switzerland to South America. There the stolen funds were invested in a number of Argentine businesses whose lawyer was, of course, Allen Dulles.” (Ibid.; p. 300.)

15. Among the vehicles used in the Vatican-assisted Nazi flight capital was the World Commerce Corporation. Featuring former OSS chief William Donovan and former British head of intelligence for North American William Stephenson, this organization epitomized the synthesis of business and espionage. For more about the WCC, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 504, 508. “As the final act of the money laundering, Dulles created the World Commerce Corporation to revive trade between Argentina and West Germany. On its board were such notables as William Donovan of US intelligence, and William Stephenson of British intelligence. During the 1950’s, much of the stolen proceeds were laundered back to Germany for the great economic revival of West Germany.” (Idem.)

16. “In the end, the money went back to the original German companies and their Western investors. It is not Swiss bank accounts that we should be tracing; it is the stock ownership of the Swiss banks. There lies the last and perhaps the ugliest secret of World War II. And therein lies the major culpability of the Vatican in the relations with Hitler’s Germany: without the Vatican’s investments in the Third Reich there could not have been the motive to provide the means to smuggle the Nazis’ plundered loot from Switzerland through the Vatican Bank. . . .” (Idem.)

17. Next, the program turns to the subject of the “Ratlines”—the Vatican Nazi-smuggling effort conducted in conjunction with elements of Western (and U.S.) intelligence. Some of the most important Nazis escaped via the Vatican network, including Adolph Eichmann, the supervisor of the extermination of the Jews. In addition to Pius XII himself, Cardinal Montini (later Pope Paul VI), Bishop Alois Hudal and Father Kunoslav Draganovic oversaw the networks. One of the principal Nazi figures in setting up the Ratlines was Walter Rauff, who devised the mobile gas chambers during the war. Rauff, in turn, worked with SS officer Friedrich Schwendt, who oversaw Operation Bernhard and Operation Wendig (“Window”), the forging of British pound notes in order to destroy the British war economy and finance the Ratlines. (For more about the Ratlines, see RFA#17, available from Spitfire. The Ratlines are also discussed in FTR#’s 504, 508, 529. The roles of Pius XII [Eugenio Pacelli] and Montini [later and better known as Pope Paul VI] are discussed in these For The Record shows as well.) “ . . . Following the collapse of Mussolini’s regime in September 1943, Rauff was dispatched to northern Italy where he served with the SS in the region around Genoa, Turin and Milan. Once again, his assignment was the extermination of the Jewish population. It was during this period that Hudal made contact with this notorious mass murderer. The genesis of Hudal’s and Rauff’s friendship is something of a mystery. Alfred Jarschel, a former Nazi Youth leader, claims that Rauff first met Hudal in the spring of 1943, when Deputy Fuhrer Martin Bormann sent him to Rome for six months without any apparent mission. This was at a time when the Reich desperately needed senior officers of Rauff’s experience and caliber as the war’s outcome still hung in the balance. Jarschel believes ‘that the first contacts with the Vatican were established during those months, which were to lead eventually to the setting up of Hudal’s escape network.’” (Ibid.; pp. 33-34.)

18. “The time was fast approaching when it would be needed. By early 1944 when the Allies landed in Sicily, even Hudal could see that Hitler’s ‘Thousand Year Reich’ was doomed. As long as the Nazi Armies were winning, he had proudly driven around Rome with a ‘Greater Germany’ flag on his car; but when the Allies arrived in the Italian capital in June of 1944, Hudal ‘was the first to change it—suddenly his flag was Austrian.’” (Ibid.; p. 34.)

19. “ . . . There were many dramatic changes in the Vatican as well, one of which may have played a crucial role in the development of Hudal’s escape network. In August 1944, Cardinal Maglione died. Pius XII decided not to appoint a new Secretary of State, reassuming personal responsibility for foreign policy. From that time, Monsignors Tardini and Montini worked directly for the Pope. Ladislas Farago claimed in his controversial book, Aftermath, that this decision ‘was Hudal’s entrée to the highest echelon of the Holy See.’ Farago argues that Hudal had been on the outs with Maglione, relying on infrequent contact with the Pope himself to influence Vatican policy. But now he ‘acquired a friend in the Secretariat of State.’” (Idem.)

20. “Maglione’s death suddenly left Giovanni Montini in charge of Pontifical Assistance to refugees, opening the door for Hudal’s plans. Farago claims that it was Montini who allowed Hudal access to Vatican passports and other identity and travel documents, which he then used to aid his Nazi friends. At the same time Hudal allegedly developed good contacts with another important Vatican bureau under Montini’s control. This was the Pontifical Commission for Assistance, which was concerned with work among refugees. One of its major roles was issuing travel documents to legitimate refugees. Finally, Farago alleged that Montini gave Hudal access to Caritas International, a Catholic charity which paid living and traveling expenses to help genuine refugees. . . .There is some circumstantial evidence in the American diplomatic records to support the claim that Montini was deliberately aiding Hudal’s Nazi-smuggling. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 34-35.)

21. “ . . . In fact, Dragonovic was widely known among Western intelligence operatives as the ‘Balkan grey eminence.’ This was a standing joke among both American and British officers, in whose circles Draganovic moved freely. This was also confirmed by Simcic, who was certain that Draganovic had direct contact with British, American and Italian intelligence. The former British officer was also emphatic that ‘you can almost talk about interlocking directorships between Western intelligence and the Vatican at this period.’” (Ibid.; p. 114.)

22. “It is no coincidence that Rauff’s ‘Mr. Dulles’ later became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, or that James Jesus Angleton became head of CIA Counter Intelligence. Throughout Angleton’s career he retained exclusive control over American intelligence liaison with the Vatican. Whatever the American motive, it is incontestable that Rauff was released from custody and returned to his flat in Milan.” (Ibid.; p. 39.)

23. “According to the French publication Cercle Noir, Rauff made contact with Archbishop Siri of Genoa, and immediately went to work for the Vatican in establishing a Nazi-smuggling system. Apart from his high level American and Vatican contacts, Rauff’s main contribution to Hudal’s smuggling system may have been financial. The man who once can the mobile gas truck program now became a money launderer, with the help of Frederico Schwendt, Rauff’s former SS colleague. Schwendt is considered among the greatest counterfeiters in history, having forged millions of banknotes during the war as part of an SS operation codenamed Wendig.” (Idem.)

24. “The original intention was to undermine and possibly destroy the Allied economies, but as the war was drawing to a close, Schwendt laundered the counterfeit money through various banks for the first Nazi escape network. Wiesenthal claims that Schwendt turned the proceeds over to his old comrade, Walter Rauff.” (Idem.)

25. “However Jarschel has a slightly different version. He claims that Hudal contacted Rauff in July 1945, asking him to come to Rome for a secret meeting. This proved impossible, so Hudal suggested that Rauff travel instead to Genoa and contact the newly appointed and strongly anti-Communist Archbishop Siri, another key player in the Nazi-smuggling operation. Rauff went to Genoa and was received by one of Siri’s private secretaries. Jarschel alleges that he was given a sizeable sum of money and a Red Cross passport with a valid visa for Syria. He then returned to Milan and established the escape network.” (Idem.)

26. “Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between: Rauff probably used Siri’s money to augment the proceeds from the counterfeit laundering operation. Jarschel and Cercle Noir both agree that over the next four years some of the most wanted Nazi war criminals passed from Rauff in Milan, to Bishop Hudal at the Anima in Rome and then on to Archbishop Siri in Genoa. Here they boarded ships and left for new lives in South America. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 39-40.)

27. One of the most heinous Nazis who escaped with the help of the Vatican was Ante Pavelic, head of the brutal Croatian Ustashi government in World War II. Before fleeing to Argentina (where he became an aide to Juan Peron), Pavelic was actually physically sheltered in Castelgandolfo, the Pope’s summer residence. “. . . From a very confidential source, American intelligence had discovered in May 1946 that the Poglavnik was living ‘close to Rome in a building which is under the jurisdiction of the Vatican.’ This was soon after Pavelic had first arrived in Rome from Austria, and it is now known that the Poglavnik, like Ferenc Vajta, actually took refuge at Castelgandolfo, where the Pope’s summer residence is located. It seems that many Nazis gravitated to Castelgandolfo, for Pavelic was housed with a former Minister in the Nazi Romanian government. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (Ibid.; p. 78.)

28. 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 Ustashi plunder out of Yugoslavia as well. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Ustashi loot was used, in part, to finance a guerilla war against the Yugoslavian regime. These reconstructed Ustashis were termed “Krizari”—Crusaders. The Krizari campaign was administered by British intelligence, which assisted the Vatican with the exodus of the Ustashi plunder. Again, 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.” (Ibid.; p. 132.)

29. “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.)

30. “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.)

31. “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.)

32. “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.)

33. “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.)

34. “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 Ustashia 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.)

35. “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.)

36. “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.)

37. Another of the Croatian war criminals who benefited from the Ratline was Srecko Rover. In the 1990’s, Rover returned to Croatia to become an adviser to the “new” Croatian government in its atrocities committed against Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. (For more about the Croatian Ustashis and their influence on the “new” Croatian government, see—among other programs, FTR#48.) “It is no coincidence that Pavelic’s lieutenant Srecko Rover—whose roles in the brutal atrocities in and around Sarajevo during World War II and in the British intelligence terrorist networks of the late 1940’s are documented in Chapter Six of this book—has given Tudjman’s government specialist advice on how to conduct a good massacre. Nor is it a coincidence that Rover, and his Ustashi comrades who were smuggled down the Vatican Ratlines to Argentina, America, Canada, Australia, and Britain, trained a new generation of Western-educated Croatian war criminals who left their adopted countries to slaughter Serbs and Muslims in the 1990’s Balkans wars.” (Ibid.; p. xvi.)

38. Next, the program turned to an invitation that John Loftus received to attend an event in Argentina, supposedly to help shed light on Nazi war criminals and their exodus to Argentina. This occurred in the immediate aftermath of Loftus’s role in aiding the discovery and extradition of Nazi war criminal Eric Priebke, the perpetrator of the Adreatine Caves massacre in Rome during World War II. Priebke was among the Nazis who benefitted from the Ratline. (For more about Priebke, see FTR#6.)“ . . . Suddenly, John Loftus, one of the authors of this book, received an invitation from the Menem government to come to Buenos Aires to address an International Seminar on anti-Semitism. It did not take long to discover why: the Argentine government wanted him to talk about Nazis in America., to take the sting away from the Nazis in Argentina. The conference turned out to be a public relations effort to gloss over the dark side of Juan and Evita Peron’s role in providing Argentine visas to the Vatican to smuggle Nazis out of Europe, which we document later in this book. Several speakers minimized the presence of Nazis in Argentina, defended the Perons, and praised President Menem for his courageous decision to open Argentina’s immigration files for inspection.” (Ibid.; p. xiii.)

39. Note that the Menem government continued to mask the truth about the extent of Nazi involvement with Argentina. Note, also, that Priebke continued to be sheltered by powerful elements, who did not want the truth about the Ratlines and the complicity of those who participated to emerge. “ . . . As this book shows, Juan and Evita Peron had welcomed some of the worst Nazi mass murderers of World War II, including Ante Pavelic, the leader of the ‘independent’ state of Croatia. Pavelic and nearly the entire cabinet of his bloody Ustashi government had emigrated via the Vatican to Buenos Aires, where Peron promptly made Pavelic one of his senior ‘security advisers.’ Even the carefully presented facts did move the Menem government. Months passed, and it seemed that Priebke would suffer little more than ‘protective’ custody under the benevolent eye of the Argentinians. Eventually, however, they had to hand Priebke over in the wake of an almost unprecedented international campaign.” (Ibid.; pp. xiii-xiv.)

40. “Several of our intelligence sources warned us that Priebke was still being protected. He knew too much about the Vatican’s Ratlines to Argentina to ever be permitted to stand trial. Amazingly, the Italian military tribunal acquitted Priebke on a technicality. The people of Rome dimmed the lights of the city in protest. The next morning, Priebke was rearrested. The Supreme Court of Italy ruled that he must stand trial in a civil court. But to our dismay, Priebke received only a five-year sentence, roughly equivalent to a week in jail for every person he had murdered in the Adreatine caves.” (Ibid.; p. xiv.)

41. “As we were to discover, Priebke was indeed protected by charitable forces. Priebke knew too much about the Vatican’s Ratlines, and did not even serve his time in a prison, but lived comfortably for many months under ‘house arrest’ in a Catholic monastery. In March 1998, the Italian military tribunal again considered his case, and this time decided to jail him for life. By this time Priebke had been moved to a hospital located, ironically enough, in the Jewish quarter of Rome. As we write in April 1998 it seems unlikely that Priebke will serve more than a few symbolic days of his ‘life sentence’ in a prison.” (Idem.)

42. Next the program reviewed some of the information about the Crusade For Freedom and the complicity of high ranking GOP officials in aiding the relocation of Nazis to the United States. For more about this, see—among other programs—FTR#465.

43. The program also reviewed the CIA’s sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab Nazi collaborators. The show also reviewed the GOP/Muslim Brotherhood/Bank Al Taqwa connection. For more about this, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 454, 473, 514, 515.

FTR #531 Interview with Lucy Komisar about Offshore

Recorded October 30, 2005
REALAUDIO

Featuring the brilliant investigative journalist Lucy Komisar, this program highlights the use of “Offshore” entities to evade taxes, maximize corporate profits and finance a variety of criminal enterprises. Much of the first side of the program consists of analysis and discussion of insurance giant AIG and its prolific use of “offshore” scams. In addition to presenting AIG’s pioneering devlopment of “captive” reinsurance companies to launder profits and evade taxes, the program highlights AIG’s use of Coral Reinsurance for a variety of illegal gambits. It should be noted that AIG’s illegal operations have been aided by a number of powerful and influential people. Much of the second side of the program consists of review of the pivotally important Clearstream network, and its use by intelligence agencies, corporations, criminal syndicates and terrorist organizations.

Program Highlights Include: A working definition of “Offshore;” the links of AIG to the intelligence community; assistance given to AIG’s scams by luminaries such as Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rubin; Clearstream’s use of unregistered accounts; the role of the Clearstream network in the Banco Ambrosiano, October Surprise and BCCI scandals; the role of the Clearstream network in the financing of Al Qaeda and 9/11; the role of the Clearstream network in the machinations of the Russian criminal networks of Mikhail Khordokovsky; discussion of the “Bermuda Inversion” gambit; discussion of “Transfer Pricing;” discussion of an organization formed by Lucy Komisar that is working to eliminate corporate tax evasion through the use of “offshore.”

1. In this return appearance by the formidable Lucy Komisar, we begin the discussion of “Offshore” with a functional definition: “DAVE: ‘Define ‘Offshore’ for us, Lucy.’ LUCY: ‘Offshore financial centers are, mostly, confidential and parallel financial systems segregated from the traditional banking structure of the jurisdiction and restricted to non-residents. There are more than 4000 offshore banks thought to exist in about 70 offshore jurisdictions. They lack the regulation and supervision of banks found in developed onshore jurisdictions. In many OFCs, a bank can be formed, registered and its ownership placed in the hands of nominee directors via the Internet. There are few, if any, disclosure requirements, bank transactions are free of exchange and interest rate restrictions, there are minimal or no capital reserve requirements, and transactions are mostly tax-free. Some OFCs permit the licensing and registration of ‘shell banks’ that exist only on paper and do not have a physical presence. They generally have legal frameworks designed to obscure the identity of the beneficial owner. Some OFCs offer the ability to form and manage secretly a variety of international business companies (IBCs), trusts, investment funds and insurance companies, many with nominee - that is front -directors, nominee officeholders and nominee shareholders.’

2. Much of the program focuses on the scandals surrounding the insurance giant AIG. We begin with an introductory discussion of this enormous corporation and its position in the corporate landscape. “DAVE: ‘Now, let’s turn to the subject of insurance giant AIG, the focal point of two of your Alternet articles. Tell us about the company’s size and importance in the industry and the corporate landscape in general.’ ‘LUCY: ‘AIG is the world's second largest financial conglomerate and the largest underwriter of commercial and industrial insurance. In 2003, AIG reported net income of $10 billion. It has $648 billion in assets, a market value of $195 billion, $77 billion in sales and $6.5 billion in annual profits. It has operations in 130 countries and nearly 77,000 employees. It ranks third on Forbes' list of the world's biggest companies, after Citigroup, and General Electric.”
(Note that the material on AIG was drawn from Lucy Komsar’s two articles written for AlterNet: “The Fall of a Titan” by Lucy Komisar; AlterNet; 3/17/2005; “Take the Money and Run Offshore” by Lucy Komisar; AlterNet.)

3. AIG and its CEO Maurice [“Hank”] Greenberg are very closely related with the intelligence community. “DAVE’ ‘Tell us about AIG chief Maurice [Hank] Greenberg, and his relationship to the intelligence community.’ ‘LUCY: ‘The American International Group at its origins was linked to the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) the forerunner of the CIA. It grew from the Asia Life/C. V. Starr companies founded by Cornelius Starr who started his insurance empire in Shanghai in 1919, the first westerner to market insurance in China. Starr served with the OSS during World War II, and the Starr Corporation, located in the same building as the OSS in New York, provided intelligence on shipping, manufacturing and industrial bombing targets in Asia and Germany. When Casey became CIA director in the Reagan Administration, he wanted Greenberg to be his deputy, but Greenberg decided to stay with AIG. After the Ames scandal, Sen. Spector floated his name as a replacement of Woolsey, but the job went to Tenet.’” (Idem.)

4. AIG features a number of luminaries on its board of directors and international advisory boards: “DAVE: ‘Tell us about some of the prominent people on the board of directors and international advisory boards of AIG.’ LUCY: ‘Henry Kissinger chairs AIG's International Advisory Board. Its board of directors includes William S. Cohen, Former United States Secretary of Defense and Senator, Caria A. Hills, Former United States Trade Representative, Richard C. Holbrooke, Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations.’’ (Idem.)

5. AIG’s illegal and/or unethical stratagems feature a pioneering use of “captives.” “DAVE: ‘Let’s turn to the subject of what AIG does. What are ‘captives’ and how does AIG use them?’ LUCY: ‘A captive is an insurance company that is owned by the company it insures - and has that company as its only client. Reinsurance is insurance that an insurance company buys so that if it has to pay out a claim, it doesn't take all the risk. I discovered and reported on a case where AIG used a reinsurance company secretly owned by its client's CEO to help him evade taxes, and by the way, to increase AIG profits in a way that cheated the client's stockholders. I wrote about the case on Alternet, but it has not been reported in the corporate press. Victor Posner, who died in 2002, was a crook known as the original ‘corporate raider,’ famed for engineering hostile takeovers of companies and looting them. He had a history of corrupt dealings. He owned a Delaware factory called NVF that made Vulcan rubber. NVF had a workers compensation policy with an AIG company, which reinsured it with Chesapeake, a reinsurance company based in Bermuda, an offshore center. It turned out that Chesapeake was owned by Posner. In the early 90s, a Delaware insurance investigator discovered that NVF was paying twice the market rate to AIG for the insurance. The transaction meant all the parties came out ahead: AIG would keep a portion of the inflated NVF premium before sending the rest to Chesapeake, which meant AIG would have a higher commission. Posner would write off the entire amount as a business expense and enjoy the extra cash in Bermuda, tax free. A former Delaware insurance regulator told me, ‘This was not an isolated case with Vulcan. AIG did that a lot.’ He said, ‘AIG helped companies set up offshore captive reinsurance companies. AIG would then overcharge on insurance and pay reinsurance premiums to the captives, giving the captive owners tax-free offshore income.’ However, the Delaware Insurance Department took no action against the insurer. When I gave AIG the details of this scam, company spokesman Andrew Silver told me, ‘We don't have any comment on that.’ AIG declares on its website that it ‘pioneered the formation of captives almost 60 years ago,’ and it offers management facilities to run the captives in offshore Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, and Luxembourg - all places where corporate and accounting records are secret and taxes minimal or nonexistent.’’ (Idem.)

6. AIG also used offshore insurance interests to move debt off its books, thereby making the company appear to be more profitable than it actually was. Of course, this did nothing to damage the price of its stock. “DAVE: ‘What else did [does] AIG engage in that was illegal?’ LUCY: ‘In the late 90s, four state insurance departments New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania and California were aware that AIG was moving debt off its books via the use of an offshore insurance company it secretly set up and controlled. But despite clear evidence of wrongdoing, no sanctions were ordered. State laws require insurance companies to keep a certain amount of capital available to pay out claims. If they have reinsurance, that amount can drop. The reinsurer, of course, has to be an independent company; the risk isn't reduced if it's just moved to another division of the same company.’” (Idem.)

7. The program turns to the subject of AIG’s Coral Re gambit, and the considerable assistance provided by investment firm Goldman Sachs to the furtherance of this scam: “‘In the mid-80s, two of AIG's reinsurers failed. AIG now was going to show unacceptably high levels of debt on its books from claims it would now have to pay out itself. So Hank Greenberg decided to set up Coral Re, a reinsurance company, to move his bad debts off AIG books. It set up a shell company in Barbados, where capital requirements and regulation was minimal compared to the U.S., where American regulators couldn't readily discover AIG's involvement and where, as an added incentive, it could move money out of reach of U.S. taxes. The scam company was arranged with the help of Goldman Sachs then headed by Robert Rubin, who would become President Clinton's Treasury Secretary and is now chairman of the executive committee of Citigroup. It got some high-level corporate executives to front for this supposedly independent company. But I have a confidential memorandum by Goldman Sachs which told why the company was formed. ‘AIG's interest in creating the company is to create a reinsurance facility which will permit its U.S. companies to write more U.S. premiums. For a U.S.-domiciled company, a high level of surplus is required to support insurance premiums in accordance with U.S. statutory requirements. The statutory requirements in Barbados are less restrictive.’ The people who got this memo were corporate executives who, in exchange for their names, were offered a guaranteed return of $25,125 in the first year and $45,225 each subsequent year. They didn't have to put up any money: they got financing from Sanwa Bank of Chicago secured by the Coral Re shares, a guarantee of enough dividends from Coral Re to cover the interest, and agreement they could hand off the shares and debt whenever they chose. Who got this no-lose so-called investment? They included serving or former chairmen of Reynolds Metals; Kraft; Itel, Mennen Company; Morton Thiokol. The Arkansas Finance and Development Authority, headed by a man who went to work in the Clinton White House, became lead investor, although state law banned it from buying stocks. Clinton was then governor of Arkansas. He would make Rubin his Treasury Secretary. The new company was not a legitimately independent business. For investors, there was no money at risk; the board of directors never made a decision; and Coral Re had no office of its own but was managed by American International Management, a subsidiary of none other than AIG. Eventually, the scheme unraveled. In 1992, Delaware examiners smelled a rat, AIG initially refused to provide Coral Re documents to the examiners, and it took them a couple of years to nail the connection. When AIG finally supplied Coral Re's financial papers, the regulator was incredulous. He told me, ‘The books were definitely cooked.’ But the cowardly regulators in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and California, though they agreed in 1996 that AIG owned Coral Re and that there was no transfer of risk, did not act to punish AIG, just told it to stop using Coral Re. If Coral Re was an AIG affiliate, it would have to pay taxes on its income. If it was ‘independent,’ that money came tax-free. But the IRS didn't have the guts to go after them, either. AIG spokesman Andrew Silver simply denied the validity of what all the insurance commissions found. He told me that ‘AIG was not involved in the offer and sale of Coral Re's shares. That was done by Goldman Sachs, which approached potential investors with which it had relationships. AIG did not control or have an equity interest in Coral Re.’ That of course it completely untrue. Goldman Sachs failed to respond to inquiries about its role in setting up Coral Re. In May this year (2005), New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against AIG and Greenberg, charging a pattern of fraud through the use of ‘sham transactions’ that bolstered the conglomerate's financial statements.” (Idem.)

8. Next, the broadcast reviews some of the “offshore” stratagems used by corporations to inflate profits and invade taxes, beginning with discussion of “the Bermuda Inversion.” (For more discussion of the Bermuda Inversion, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html.) “DAVE: ‘Let’s review some of the various gambits used by corporations to utilize ‘Offshore’ to their advantage, beginning with the ‘Bermuda Inversion.’ LUCY” ‘In a ‘corporate inversion,’ a U.S. company creates a new parent corporation based in a tax haven like Bermuda. The company and any foreign subsidiaries become subsidiaries of the new parent—and the entire corporation then benefits from tax reporting and regulations that are often significantly less demanding and expensive than those in the United States. In the past few years, about two dozen publicly traded companies have reincorporated in Bermuda or announced they would do so. Among them are Tyco International, McDermott International, Ingersoll-Rand, Nabors Industries, a huge, Houston-based operator of oil-drilling rigs. Since they are now foreign corporations, they evade billions of dollars of US taxes. Shareholders - including pension funds - lose too. In Bermuda, corporate laws shift the balance of control from stockholders to a company's directors and severely limit investors' right to sue. There is no treaty with Bermuda guaranteeing the reciprocity of judgments—meaning stockholders may have a hard time ensuring American court orders are enforced. In addition, stockholders' ability to obtain information about Bermudan court decisions is limited: the island does not even maintain an official court reporter. Legislation to block the tax advantages of conversions was decimated by the Republicans, which applied only to future conversions.”
(For specific documentation, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html.)

9. Next, the program reviews “Transfer Pricing.” (For more about “Transfer Pricing”, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html.) “DAVE: ‘How about ‘Transfer Pricing’? LUCY” ‘Is a way of evading taxes by allocating profits for tax and other purposes among parts of a multinational corporate group or to secretly owned companies. These front companies are always offshore in tax havens. Offshore ‘trading’ offices or companies handle imports and exports, buying a U.S. export from a company at a sharply reduced paper cost and selling it abroad for the real-world market value, so the exporting company makes no profit. That stays with the tax haven trading company. In the reverse, a company buys goods at a real price and ‘sells’ to the U.S. firm at a grossly inflated one, so the U.S. firm has a huge cost to deduct when it uses the item in manufacture or resells it at a loss. Two US professors used customs data to examine the impact of over-invoiced imports and under-invoiced exports on U.S. federal income tax revenues for 2001. The findings were staggering. Would you buy plastic buckets from the Czech Republic for $973 each, tissues from China at $1,870 a pound, a cotton dishtowel from Pakistan for $154? U.S. companies, at least on paper, were getting very little for their exported products. If you were in business, would you sell bus and truck tires to Britain for $11.74 each, color video monitors to Pakistan for $21.90, and prefabricated buildings to Trinidad for $1.20 a unit? After all the deductions, the U.S. company has minimal profits. The offshore centers levy no taxes on ‘profits’ claimed there. Comparing all the stated export and import prices to real-world prices, the professors figured the 2001 U.S. tax loss at $53.1 billion.” (Idem.)

10. A bipartisan senatorial team introduced legislation to curb the ability of corporations to use Offshore to evade taxes: “DAVE: ‘This past year, there was legislation introduced aimed at curbing these abuses. Tell us about that.’ LUCY: ‘In July, Republican Senator Coleman and Democratic Senator Levin introduced our ‘Tax Shelter and Tax Haven Reform Act of 2005 which would, among other reforms, require economic substance for transactions to be eligible for tax benefits and strengthen the penalties for tax transactions lacking economic substance.’”

11. Much of the rest of the program consists of review of the use of the Clearstream network by corporations, banks, intelligence services, criminal syndicates and terrorist organizations, often acting in conjunction with one another. Lucy summarizes the Clearstream network, its functions and its history. (For more about Clearstream, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f356.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f357.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f359.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f360.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f387.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f485.html. In order to find specific documentary references for the points of information that follow, access these “For The Record” descriptions, utilizing the search function, available at: http://www.spitfirelist.com/FTR_search.html.) “DAVE: ‘Lucy, let’s review the Clearstream network and how it was set up. Let’s note in this context that ‘Offshore isn’t simply used by corporations to amass illegal wealth. It’s also used by criminal organizations, intelligence services and terrorist entities to move finances illegally.’ LUCY: ‘Clearstream is a clearinghouse in Luxembourg called Clearstream, which handles billions of dollars a year in stock and bond transfers for banks, investment companies and multinational corporations. It operates a secret parallel bookkeeping system that allows its clients to hide the money that moves through their accounts. In these days of global markets, individuals and companies may be buying stocks, bonds or derivatives from a seller who is halfway across the world. Clearinghouses like Clearstream keep track of the ‘paperwork’ for the transactions. Banks with accounts in the clearinghouse use a debit and credit system and, at the end of the day, the accounts (minus ‘handling fees,’ of course) are totaled up. The clearinghouse doesn't actually send money anywhere, it just debits and credits its members' accounts. It's all very efficient. But the money involved is massive. Clearstream handles more than 80 million transactions a year, and claims to have securities on deposit valued at $6.5 trillion. It's also an excellent mechanism for laundering drug money or hiding income from the tax collector. Banks are supposed to be subject to local government oversight. But many of Clearstream's members have real or ‘virtual’ subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, where records are secret and investigators can't trace transactions. And Clearstream which keeps the central records of financial trades, doesn't get even the cursory regulation that applies to offshore banks. On top of that, it deliberately has put in place a system to hide many of its clients' transactions from any authorities who might come looking. According to former insiders: Clearstream has a double system of accounting, with secret, non-published accounts that banks and big corporations use to make transfers they don't want listed on the official books. Though it is legally limited to dealing with financial institutions, Clearstream gives secret accounts to multinational corporations so they can move stocks and money free from outside scrutiny.’” (For specific documentation, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html.)

12. Next, the program reviews how the Clearstream network figures in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. For more about the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, see RFA#’s 17-21—available from Spitfire—and use the Search Function. “DAVE: ‘Tell us about the Clearstream network and the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, currently in the news after the indictment of four alleged conspirators for the murder of its chairman, former P-2 Lodge member Roberto Calvi.’ LUCY: ‘By 1980, Ernest Backes had become No. 3 official of Cedel (the old name for Clearstream), in charge of relations with clients. He was fired in May 1983. He told me the reason given for his sacking was an argument with an English banker, a friend of the CEO. ‘I think I was fired was because I knew too much about the Ambrosiano scandal,’ Banco Ambrosiano was once the second most important private bank in Italy, with the Vatican as a principal shareholder and loan recipient. The bank laundered drug-and arms-trafficking money for the Italian and American mafias and, in the '80s, channeled Vatican money to the Contras in Nicaragua and Solidarity in Poland. The corrupt managers also siphoned off funds via fictitious banks to personal shell company accounts in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Panama and other offshore havens. Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in 1982 with a deficit of more than $1 billion. Bank chairman Roberto Calvi was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London; the death was ruled a suicide. Michele Sindona, convicted in 1980 on 65 counts of fraud in the United States, was extradited to Italy in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison; in 1986, he was found dead in his cell, poisoned by cyanide-laced coffee. (Another suspect, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the head of the Vatican Bank, now lives in Sun City, Arizona with a Vatican passport; U.S. authorities have ignored a Milan arrest warrant for him.) Now several people are on trial in Italy for Calvi's murder. Backes said that he and a colleague, who was found dead in suspicious circumstance, moved all those transactions known later in the scandal to Lima and other branches. Nobody even knew there was a Banco Ambrosiano branch in Lima and other South American countries.’” (For specific documentation, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html.)

13. Much of the wrongdoing that surrounds Clearstream concerns the use of its unpublished accounts: “DAVE: ‘Tell us about Clearstream’s unpublished accounts, used and abused by major corporations, as well as criminal syndicates, terrorist organizations and intelligence services.’ LUCY: ‘Cedel/Clearstream violated its own statutes by setting up unpublished accounts for industrial and commercial companies. With accounts in their own names, companies could avoid passing through banks or exchange agents to use the clearinghouse. They thus skirted mandated due diligence and record-keeping. When Siemens was proposed for membership, Backes says, some Cedel employees protested that this violated Luxembourg law. However, management told them that Siemens' admission had been negotiated at the highest level. Among the major companies with secret accounts, Backes discovered the Shell Petroleum Group and the Dutch agricultural multinational Unilever, one of whose accounts was associated with Goldman Sachs. At the discretion of Clearstream, clients can open ‘non-published’ accounts that do not figure in any printed document or record of international financial transactions. When law enforcers ask to see records, they don't exist. Unlike a bank, Clearstream has no effective outside surveillance. It is audited by KPMG, one of the ‘big five’ international accounting firms. KPMG has either been ignorant of or has overlooked the secret account system. Major companies use the secret accounts. Backes discovered non-published accounts of the Dutch agricultural multinational Unilever. The Shell petroleum group had a non-published account in the name Shell Overseas Trading Ltd. The German giant Siemens had four non-published accounts. Siemens has just been accused of involvement in oil for food kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. Among the international banks with the most secret accounts are: Citibank (271); Barclays (200); Credit Lyonnais (23); and Japanese company Nomura (12).’” (For more specific documentation, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html, as well as: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f463.html .)

14. Continuing analysis of Clearstream’s role in major intelligence scandals, the program reviews the use of the network by the conspirators in the “October Surprise.” “DAVE: ‘In addition to the Banco Ambrosiano and Iraqgate scandals, the Clearstream network featured in many of the other major intelligence-related scandals of the last quarter century or so. Tell us about Clearstream and the ‘October Surprise’—the sabotage of the Carter campaign by the Reagan/Bush forces’ collaboration with the Iranian fundamentalist regime.’ LUCY: ‘In November 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Iran was seized, and 52 Americans were taken hostage. Their capture, and the Carter administration's failure to win their release, became a major issue in the 1980 presidential campaign. Carter had frozen $12 billion in Iranian assets in U.S. banks, which was being claimed by American firms and individuals who had lost property in the Islamic revolution. American and Iranian officials were negotiating the amount of funds to be released in return for freeing the hostages, and the amount to be kept to settle claims. The Iranians also wanted Carter to release arms that had been ordered and paid for by the deposed Shah. According to numerous credible reports-many of which first appeared in In These Times-Reagan campaign officials allegedly met with Iranian representatives several times during the 1980 campaign, promising arms and money if Iran delayed release of the hostages until after the November election. This scandal would become known as the ‘October Surprise.’ Reagan won the election, but Carter officials continued to negotiate with the Iranians. Finally, around the turn of the year, an accord was reached under which the United States would release $4 billion but no arms. However, the Iranians did not release the hostages immediately. A few days before Reagan's inauguration, Ernest Backes recalls, Cedel got an urgent joint instruction from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of England to transfer $7 million in bearer bonds-$5 million from an account of Chase Manhattan Bank and $2 million from an account of Citibank-both in offshore secrecy havens. The money was to go to the National Bank of Algeria, and from there to an Iranian bank in Teheran. Backes was informed that the $7 million was part of sums being sent from around the world and concentrated in the Algerian bank. He was told the transfers were linked to the fate of the hostages. The Fed and the Bank of England were not members of Cedel, and by its rules had no right to order the transfers. Backes' two superiors were absent. He informed the president of the Cedel administrative council, Edmond Israel, then acted to execute the order. (Israel, now honorary chairman, did not respond to phone and e-mail messages.) On January 20, 1981, about 15 minutes after Reagan took the oath of office, the hostages were finally freed. Reagan and Vice President George Bush have always denied the payoff happened.’” (For specific documentation, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f360.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f485.)

15. The Clearstream network was also utilized by the BCCI. Note that the milieu of the BCCI figures prominently in the investigation of 9/11, and that FBI chief Robert Mueller was in of the badly attenuated “investigation” of BCCI by Congress. “DAVE: ‘Tell us about Clearstream and BCCI.’ LUCY: ‘When Mayor Giuliani was assistant prosecutor in the investigation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the early 1990’s, he received documents from Backes. BCCI was a Pakistani-run bank registered via shell companies in the Cayman Islands that used secret accounts to effect an $8 billion global money-laundering fraud. Before it was shut down in 1991, BCCI was used by U.S. and Saudi intelligence to fund the mujahideen, then fighting the Soviet-supported government of Afghanistan.” (For specific documentation about the BCCI/Clearstream connection, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f356.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f357.html.)

16. Clearstream appears to have been involved in the financing of Al Qaeda through the Bank Al Taqwa and SICO. (For more about Clearstream and 9/11, see—among other programs--http://www.spitfirelist.com/f456.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f498.html and http://www.spitfirelist.com/f499.html.) “DAVE: ‘You’ve also written about the Clearstream involvement with the Bank Al Taqwa, the main financial institution of the Muslim Brotherhood and a major source of funds for Al Qaeda, according to many intelligence sources.’ LUCY: ‘Following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. started focusing its investigation on the financial trail of Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network. Like any other large, global operation, international terrorists need to move large sums of money across borders clandestinely. In November, U.S. authorities named some banks that had bin Laden accounts, and it put them on a blacklist. One was Al Taqwa-’Fear of God’-registered in the Bahamas with offices in Lugano, Switzerland. Al Taqwa had access to the Clearstream system through its correspondent account with the Banca del Gottardo in Lugano, which has a published Clearstream account No. 74381. But Bin Laden may have other access to the unpublished system. In what he calls a ‘spectacular discovery,’ A series of 16 unpublished accounts had been opened under the name of the Saudi Investment Company, or SICO, the Geneva holding company of the bin laden family's Saudi Binladen Group it is run by Bin Laden's brother, Yeslam Binladen. SICO is associated with Dar AI-Maal-AI-lslami (DMI), an Islamic financial institution also based in Geneva and presided over by Saudi Prince Muhammed Al Faisal Al Saoud, and which directs millions a year to fundamentalist movements. DMI holds a share of the Al Shamal Islamic Bank of Sudan, which was set up in 1991 and partly financed by $50 million from Osama bin Laden.” (For more specific documentation, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f356.html; http://www.spitfirelist.com/f357.html.)

17. The Clearstream network has been utilized by the burgeoning Russian organized crime/oligarch networks. “DAVE: ‘Lucy, you’ve also written about the use of Clearstream by the interests of criminal Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This scandal has been portrayed in the media as a reversion by Russia to the bad old days of the Soviet Union, with the authoritarian central government repressing the budding flower of Russian free enterprise. In fact, the Khordovsky case could be described as a ‘Russian Enron,’ with American investors among the main losers. Enlarge on that, if you would.’ ‘LUCY: ‘The Russian bank Menatep is on the year 2000 list even though it officially failed in 1998. Menatep is implicated in a Russian Audit Chamber report in the diversion of $4.8 million lent to Russia by the International Monetary Fund in 1998. Clearstream's dealings with Russian banks are another area of concern. Menatep Bank, which had been bought in a rigged auction of Soviet assets and has been linked to numerous international scams, opened its Cedel account (No. 81738) on May 15, 1997, after Lussi visited the bank's president in Moscow and invited him to use the system. It was a non-published account that didn't correspond to any published account, a breach of Clearstream's rules. Menatep further violated the rules because many transfers were of cash, not for settlement of securities. ‘For the three months in 1997 for which I hold microfiches,’ Backes says, ‘only cash transfers were channeled through the Menatep account.’ ‘There were a lot of transfers between Menatep and the Bank of New York,’ Backes adds. Natasha Gurfinkel Kagalovsky, a former Bank of New York official and the wife of a Menatep vice president, stands accused of helping launder at least $7 billion from Russia. U.S. investigators have attempted to find out if some of the laundered money originated with Menatep, which they believed had looted Russian assets. (The Justice Department declined to comment on the investigation.) Even though Menatep officially failed in 1998, it oddly remained on the non-published list of accounts for 2000. (Clearstream also lists 36 other Russian accounts, more non-published than published.)’” (For specific documentation, see: http://www.spitfirelist.com/f458.html.)

18. The program concludes with presentation of the website for an organization Lucy has founded (in partnership with others) that is working to eliminate the offshore tax evasion by corporations. “DAVE: ‘We’re almost at the end of the interview, Lucy. Many listeners will be asking themselves what can be done about this situation. You have formed an organization to deal with the use of ‘Offshore’ to evade taxes. Tell us about that group and how people can find out more about it.’ LUCY: ‘I’ve worked with some associates to form The Tax Justice Network. To find out what it is and how it works, contact http://www.taxjustice.net.”

FTR #530 Alfa Males: One Helluva Conspiracy Theory

Recorded October 16, 2005
REALAUDIO

This broadcast sets forth elements of a network that Mr. Emory believes to be a Bormann/Underground Reich network. This network was part of the apparatus involved in the execution of the 9/11 attacks. Beginning with review of the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft and its role in bringing 9/11 hijack ringleader Mohamed Atta to Germany, the broadcast traces the evidentiary tributaries running out of that organization. In addition to a fellowship operated on behalf of the Russian Alfa conglomerate, the CDG network also encompasses the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship. The Alfa firm, in turn, has profound links to criminal syndicates in Asia, Russia and Latin America, as well as elements that participated in activities overlapping both the Iran-Contra and Iraqgate affairs. One of the central elements in this network is the royal family of Liechtenstein, a tiny European country that is an epicenter for money laundering. In addition to participating in a front company that was part of the Al Taqwa constellation that funded Bin Laden, the Liechtenstein royal family (in 2001) assumed the powers of absolute monarchy, just in time to interdict any legal investigations that might have gone in the direction of 9/11. The head of the political party that fronted for Prince Hans Adam’s assumption of absolute power is a powerful lawyer who works for an Alfa subsidiary! The dovetailing of powerful German capital interests apparently linked to the Bormann milieu with Russian oligarchic and criminal elements appears to be an outgrowth of traditional German “Ostpolitik.” For more about Ostpolitik, be sure to access Germany Plots with the Kremlin by T. H. Tetens, available for free downloading at: Spitfirelist.com/Books.

Program Highlights Include: The German industrial figures on the board of directors of the CDS; a history of the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft and its American subsidiary, the CDS; the Alfa Group’s links to Cheney’s Halliburton Oil company; the Alfa Group’s links to Iraqgate arms trafficking; the Alfa Group’s links to the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq; Alfa’s links to the Cali cocaine cartel of Colombia; Alfa’s links to heroin trafficking; Attorney Norbert Seeger’s role with Alfa subsidiary Crown Resources; Norbert Seeger’s role as head of the Progressive Citizens Party in Liechtenstein; links between Liechtenstein and the milieu of the CDU funding scandal; Atta’s father’s friendship with the German couple that sponsored Atta’s entry into Germany under the auspices of the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft; review of John P. Schmitz’s links to many of the entities and personalities discussed in the program.

1. We begin with a review of the relationship between 9/11 hijack ringleader Mohamed Atta and the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, a joint U.S. German fellowship program that sponsored Atta’s entry to, and stay in, Germany. (For more about Atta and the CDS, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 477, 523.) “For at least four years while living in Hamburg during the 1990’s, terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta was part of a ‘joint venture’ between the U.S. and German governments, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, an elite international ‘exchange’ program run by a little-known private organization with close ties to powerful American political figures like David Rockefeller and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.”
(“Mohamed Atta Worked for Elite U.S.—German Government Exchange Program” by Daniel Hopsicker; MadCowMorningNews; 4/24/2003.)

2. “The jointly-funded government effort picked up the tab for Atta on sojourns in Cairo, Istanbul, and Aleppo in Syria during the years 1994 and 1995, as well as employing him as a ‘tutor’ and ‘seminar participant’ during 1996 and 1997. Moreover, Atta’s financial relationship with the U.S.—German government effort may even extended back to his initial move from Egypt to Germany in 1992, after being ‘recruited’ in Cairo by a mysterious German couple dubbed the ‘hijacker’s sponsors’ in a recent news account in the Chicago Tribune.” (Idem.)

3. “Mohamed Atta, before becoming a ‘terrorist ringleader,’ enjoyed the patronage of a government initiative known as the ‘Congress-Bundestag Program,’ overseen by the U.S. State Department and the German Ministry of Economic Development, the German equivalent of the U.S. Agency for International Development busy currently supervising the secretive bidding race for tens of billions of dollars of post-war reconstruction contracts in Iraq.” (Idem.)

4. “News that Mohamed Atta had been on the payroll of the elite international program surfaced in a curious way just a month after the 9/11 attack a brief seven-line report by German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Oct. 18, 2001, under the headline ‘Atta Was Tutor for Scholarship Holders.’ The story quoted spokesmen for ‘Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft,’ described as a ‘German international further education organization,’ as having admitted paying Hamburg cadre principal Atta as a ‘scholarship holder’ and ‘tutor,’ between 1995 and 1997.” (Idem.)

5. “But what makes the story curious is that the German paper concealed the shocking implications of their story, that Mohamed Atta had been on the payroll of a joint U.S.—German government program, through the simple expedient of neglecting to mention that the ‘Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft’ was merely a private entity set up to administer the ‘exchange’ initiative of the two governments.” (Idem.)

6. The U.S. end of the program is run out of an address at United Nations Plaza in New York by CDS International. The letters stand for Carl Duisberg Society, also the name of its German counterpart in Cologne, the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft. Both are named for Carl Duisberg, a German chemist and industrialist who headed the Bayer Corporation during the 1920’s . . . .” (Idem.)

7. “. . . Kissinger, to cite just one example, had at one time addressed over 100 international business leaders at an anniversary dinner organized and celebrating CDS International held at the River Club of New York June 2, 1987. Kissinger congratulated CDS International on its 20 years of service in keeping close business ties, not only between Germany and the United States, but more recently through career development programs for participants from other countries as well. Five years later, Mohamed Atta became one of these participants from ‘other’ countries. . . .” (Idem.)

8. “CDS International, states the organization’s literature, provides opportunities for young German engineers. Mohamed Atta wasn't, strictly speaking, a ‘young German engineer,’ but apparently Kissinger's praise for ‘career development programs for participants from other countries as well’ had been taken to heart by the friendly folks at the Carl Duisberg Society. ‘These young German engineers earn real world experience and are given assignments to contribute from the start,’ a program spokesman enthused in a newspaper interview. The organization is today understandably shy about mentioning that their most famous recent graduate's ‘real world experience’ included murdering almost 3000 people in New York City in slightly less than two hours.” (Idem.)

9. “A financial relationship between the terrorist ringleader and the U.S. and German Governments has not previously even been hinted at in America's major media. The conspiracy-minded might conclude that the fact that the scoop is going to the MadCowMorningNews may owe something to the program’s raft of politically-powerful boosters. Having big juice in high places may also explain more equally-curious omissions in a second story about Mohamed Atta’s time in Germany, which appeared recently in the March 7, 2003 Chicago Tribune, under the headline ‘9/11 haunts hijacker's sponsors; German couple talks of living with pilot Atta.’” (Idem.)

10. It is interesting, and probably significant that the mysterious German couple who brought Atta into Germany under the auspices of the CDS came to meet him through their friend, Mohamed’s father. In FTR#523, we examined the senior Atta’s apparent supervision of the hijackers in Florida. He was apparently the leader of the group, a fact covered up by the FBI. In FTR#519, we looked at the senior Atta’s endorsement of the London subway attacks. “The article describes the 1992 meeting in Cairo between Atta and a German couple running an ‘international student exchange program,’ a meeting which the Tribune says led Atta to move to Hamburg. During a visit to the Egyptian capital in fall 1991, the Tribune reported, the German couple had stayed with friends who knew Atta's father, a Cairo lawyer, and his father's friends had then introduced the German couple to Atta. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] ‘Atta, who had recently graduated with a degree in architectural engineering from the University of Cairo, told the couple he wanted to study architecture in Germany, but he had no particular idea where he should go,’ the paper reported.” (Idem.)

11. Notice the strange circumstances under which the faceless German couple came to sponsor Atta. Does this make sense? “Though the article neglects to mention it, the reason Atta found himself with ‘no particular idea where he should go’ was because although he had studied engineering at prestigious Cairo University, he had not fared well enough to gain admission to its graduate school. The paper quotes the German wife telling investigators: ‘In this first conversation, we suggested he continue his studies in Hamburg and offered him a place to live at our house.’ Atta, she states, accepted their offer right away. This magnanimous gesture by the German couple to an undistinguished young man they have just met raises serious questions. Perhaps their gesture is just the very milk of human kindness; perhaps it is something else.” (Idem.)

12. Notice that the identity of the German couple who sponsored Atta was kept secret by the Chicago Tribune. WHY?! “Why did this German couple running an international exchange program leap at the opportunity to help a young man not considered promising enough to gain entrance to graduate school in Cairo, and offer him a place to live at their house. The Tribune doesn’t say. And they have made it difficult for anyone lese to follow up on their story, because they neglected to identify either the couple or the ‘international’ program they ran by name. But although Tribune correspondent Stevenson Swanson cites the German couple for ‘having played such an important role in Atta's move to Germany,’ he never gives either their names nor that of the organization they worked for.” (Idem.)

13. “This is some curious, if you know what we mean. After all, the story is 1200 words in length. So it’s not as if they didn't have room to print the names, is it? ‘Jane and John Doe from Help-A-Student International’ would have been enough. You know: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. So, either The Tribune just forgot the 'Who,' or something even weirder happened.” (Idem.)

14. “After studying German in Cairo, Atta arrived in Germany on July 24, 1992, according to investigators' records, and then lived rent-free for at least the next six months in the couple's home in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood. And since just two years later Atta was on the payroll of the ‘Congress-Bundestag Program,’ it is reasonable to conclude--and no thanks to The Chicago Tribune--that it was also the ‘exchange program’ responsible for bringing him to Germany in the first place. . . CDS International's elite sponsors are apparently influential enough to have kept their organization’s name out of the newspapers. Or at any rate out of The Chicago Tribune.” (Idem.)

15. Next, Mr. Emory pontificates about evidentiary tributaries running between a number of elements, which—taken together—appear to form parts of a network that involves elements of German heavy industry and finance, massive drug trafficking, arms trafficking and Russian criminal elements. The focal point of this part of the discussion is the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, the organization that trafficked Atta around in Germany and possibly the United States. As noted in FTR#477, Atta was associated with Germans, Swiss and Austrians in Florida. As noted in—among other programs—FTR#492, the German BKA (the federal police of that country) and/or Atta paramour Amanda Keller identified many of Atta’s associates as sons and daughters of prominent German industrialists. In the past, Mr. Emory has speculated about whether the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft might be an element of the Underground Reich. In FTR#305, we examined the Bormann group’s control of German industry, and in FTR#155, we noted that the children of key Bormann group members follow in their parents’ footsteps. Are we looking at a Bormann/Underground Reich network here? One that oversaw the hijackers’ activities? “ . . . ‘In the 1920’s, Carl Duisberg, General Director of Bayer AG in Germany, envisioned sending German students to the United States on work-study programs. Duisberg was convinced that international practical training was critical to the growth of German industry. Many of the returning trainees later rose to prominent positions at AEG, Bayer, Bosch, Daimler Benz, and Siemens, bringing with them new methods for mass production, new ideas, and new business practices. Following World War II, alumni from the first exchanges founded the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (CDG) in 1949 to help engineers, businessmen and farmers gain international work experience necessary for the rebuilding of Germany . . . .”
(“History of the Carl Duisberg Society".)

16. Note the prominent German industrialists on the board of directors of the Duisberg Society, and do not forget the Bormann group’s stewardship of German industry in this context. “Board of Directors Carl Duisberg Society: . . . Gerd D. Mueller (retired) [member of Bundestag on CSU ticket) Chairman of the Board; Executive Vice President and CFO Bayer Corporation . . . . Dr. Hans W. Decker; Treasurer of the Board; Professor—Columbia University . . . Robert Fenstermacher; Executive Director of CDS International, Inc. (ex officio) . . . Carl Geercken; Partner Alston & Bird LLP . . . Dr. Olaf J. Groth; Executive Director, Strategic Analysis & Integration—Boeing International Corporation . . . Dr. H. Friedrich Holzapfel; Managing Director—The Burlington Group . . . Dr. Gudrun Kochendoerfer-Lucius; Managing Director—InWEnt (Capacity Building International, Germany) . . . Fritz E. Kropatscheck; Manging Director—Deutsche Bank, A.G. (retired) . . . Wolfgang Linz (retired) Executive Director CDS International, Inc. . . . Dr. Karl M. Mayer-Wittmann (retired); President—WEFA, Inc. . . . Frances McCaffrey; Manager, Center Development—BMW of North America . . . Dr. Horst K. Saalbach Vice Chairman of the Board--Festo Corporation . . . Dr. Norbert Schneider; Chief Executive Officer—Carl Duisberg Centren GmbH . . . .”
(“Board of Directors: Carl Duisberg Society”)

17. Another of the fellowship programs that operates under the auspices of the CDS is the Alfa Fellowship, that functions on behalf of the Alfa Group, a Russian conglomerate with more links than a switchboard. Among the connections of the Alfa group are profound links to cocaine and heroin trafficking, Halliburton Oil (Dick Cheney’s former firm), and the oil-for-food scam in Iraq. The Iraqi oil scam, in turn, appears to be linked to Carlos Cardoen, one of the principal arms traffickers involved in the Iraqgate scandal presided over by the elder George Bush. (For more about the elder George Bush’s involvement in the Iraqgate scandal, see—among other programs—FTR#384.) Is this Russian part of the network connected to the network that was trafficking Atta around in Florida? “ALFA FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM: Nearly fifteen years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Cold War-era policies and concepts continue to affect U.S. relations with Russia. . . . The Alfa Fellowship Program is designed to address this problem . . . .”
(“ALFA FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM”; Page on the Carl Duisberg Society web site.)

18. Dick Cheney’s former firm—Halliburton—is connected to the Alfa company. “Under the guidance of Richard Cheney, a get-the-government-out-of-my-face conservative, Halliburton Company over the past five years has emerged as a corporate welfare hog, benefiting from at least $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans. One of these loans was approved in April by the U.S. Export-Import Bank. It guaranteed $489 million in credits to a Russian oil company whose roots are imbedded in a legacy of KGB and Communist Party corruption, as well as drug trafficking and organized crime funds, according to Russian and U.S. sources and documents.”
(“Cheney Led Halliburton to Feast at Federal Trough: State Department Questioned Deal with Firm Linked to Russian Mob” by Knut Royce and Nathaniel Heller [Center for Public Integrity]; 8/2/2000.)

19. “Those claims are hotly disputed by the Russian oil firm’s holding company. Halliburton, which lobbied for the Ex-Im loan after the State Department initially asserted that the deal would run counter to the ‘national interest,’ will receive $292 million of those funds to refurbish a massive Siberian oil field owned by the Russian company, the Tyumen Oil Co., which is controlled by a conglomerate called the Alfa Group. . . .” (Idem.)

20. Note that a Russian intelligence officer identifies Chechens as behind the Alfa Group-connected heroin traffic. Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are strongly connected to the groups active in Chechnya. Again, is this operation connected to Atta’s activities in Florida? “ . . . That document and the FSB report claim that Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest and most profitable, as well as Alfa Eko, a trading company, had been deeply involved in the early 1990’s in laundering of Russian and Colombian drug money and in trafficking drugs from the Far East to Europe. The former KGB major, who with the fall of communism in the late 1980’s had himself been involved in the plan by the KGB and Communist Party to loot state enterprises, said that Alfa Bank was founded with party and KGB funds, and quickly attracted rogue agents who had served in anti-organized-crime units. ‘They (the rogue agents on the bank’s payroll) quickly determined that dealing in drugs would bring the highest profits with literally no risk in Russia,’ according to the former KGB officer. He claimed that a ‘large channel of heroin transit was established from Burma through Laos, Vietnam, to the Far East [Siberia].’ From there the drugs were camouflaged as flour and sugar shipments and forwarded on to Germany. The drug operation was controlled by a Chechen mob family, he said. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s] . . .” (Idem)

21. The Cali cartel—connected to the Iran-Contra drug trafficking networks that were linked to Atta’s operations in Florida—is linked to the Alfa Group’s criminal activities. “ . . . The FSB document claims that at the end of 1993, a top Alfa official met with Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the now-imprisoned financial mastermind of Columbia’s notorious Cali cartel, ‘to include an agreement about the transfer of money into Alfa Bank from offshore zones such as the Bahamas, Gibraltar and others, The plan was to insert it back into the Russian economy through the purchase of stock in Russian companies.’ The account from the former KGB officer is unclear about Alfa’s alleged role with Rodriguez, but apparently confirms that ‘in 1993-94 there were attempts of the so-called Chess Player [Rodriguez’s nickname] to launder and legalize large amounts of criminal money in Russia. He reported that there was evidence ‘regarding [Alfa Bank’s] involvement with the money laundering of . . . Latin American drug cartels.’ . . .” (Idem.)

22. The program highlights links between Alfa and people linked to the leadership of the Republican Party: “ . . . Tyumen could have significant access to the White House should the Bush-Cheney ticket win in the November presidential elections. Tyumen’s lead attorney at Akin Gump is James C. Langdon Jr., a managing partner at the firm. He is also one of George W. Bush’s ‘Pioneers,’ one of the elite fund raisers who have brought in at least $100,0000 for the Republican presidential hopeful. . . .” (Idem.)

23. The discussion concludes with the links of Alfa Group to the Iraqi oil-for-food scam and the Iraqgate weapons trafficking of the 1980’s. “ . . . One outfit that participated in the Iraqi oil trade is the Alfa Group, a Moscow firm with holdings in banking, telecom, oil and commodities trading, run by billionaire Mikhail Fridman. Alfa quite legally pumped the price of its cheap Iraqi crude by trading it to a succession of affiliates and friends with questionable pasts. [including Alfa subsidiary Crown Trade & Finance] The daisy chain, known internally as a ‘rondo,’ boosted Alfa’s proceeds and also made the money harder to trace. Alfa deposited funds in a Gibraltar tax haven. . . .”
(“The Saddam Shuffle” by Michael Maiello; Forbes; 11/15/2004.)

24. “ . . . A favorite rondo customer—and a point of entry to the U.S. market—was a Houston company, Bayoil. It participated in 32 Iraqi oil trades with Alfa companies between August 1999 and December 2000. Bayoil also bought directly from Saddam. Saddam had been dealing with Bayoil owner David Bay Chalmers Jr. before. During the 1980’s Iran-Iraq war Bayoil apparently got a fee of $2 a barrel for brokering 20 million barrels of Iraqi oil to the Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen. . . .” (Idem.)

25. Crown Resources and other Crown entities are part of the Alfa Group, one of whose outgrowths is the CDS subsidiary program the Alfa Fellowship. One of the questions Mr. Emory raises in this program concerns the post-Soviet Russian oligarchy and organized milieu. In this program, we are seeing elements of intersection between the Russian criminal-oligarchical networks and German capital networks that appear to be linked to the Underground Reich. This raises some interesting questions. The Soviet Union was the economic basket case of the world. How did some of these Russian elements obtain the sort of global power and influence that they have? They had to have help, the advantages of looting state monopolies notwithstanding. More about this below, in connection with Alfa’s Crown subsidiary. “ A deal to sell the Swiss-based commodities operation of former U.S. fugitive financier Marc Rich to Russia-owned energy trading group Crown Resources is off. . . . Crown is owned by the Alfa Group conglomerate. . . . .”
(“Marc Rich Deal to Sell Commodities Operation to Russian Group Fails” [AP]; 6/8/2001.)

26. One of the principal figures in the Crown/Alfa network is Dr. Norbert Seeger, about whom we will more below. “ . . . 30. Dr. Norbert Seeger; Rechtanswalt, Vaduz [Liechtenstein]—Information includes: Knowledge of facts pertaining to role of Crown Finance Foundation and other Crown entities in money laundering and tax evasion activities. . . .” (From the legal documents in a lawsuit—“Rule 26 Initial Disclosures; UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT; SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK; NOREX PETROLEUM LIMITED No. 02 Civ. 1499 (LTS)(KNF); Plaintiff v. ACCESS INDUSTRIES, INC.; Et. Al. Defendants; PLAINTIFF’S RULE 26(a)(1) INITIAL DISCLOSURES; 1. INDIVIDUALS LIKELY TO HAVE DISCOVERABLE INFORMATION THAT MAY BE USED TO SUPPORT NOREX’S CLAIMS . . . . A. Individuals Associated With Plaintiff”; p. 8.)

27. A critical element of discussion here concerns the tiny principality of Liechtenstein—a small European country of 32,000 people, whose principal industry is money laundering. As we will see, Liechtenstein figures significantly in the events in and around 9/11. In 2001, Prince Hans Adam became (for all intents and purposes) the only absolute monarch in Europe. This gambit was accomplished through a popular referendum, effected under the auspices of a front group—the Progressive Citizens Party. The referendum ceded to the Prince virtually all real power. In particular, he had the ability to completely control the judicial system, thereby controlling all legal investigations in the country—a particularly interesting and important power in the very important year of 2001! This assumption of absolute power put Hans Adam in the position of being able to block or neutralize any legal investigation into any of the financial shenanigans that transpired in Liechtenstein, including 9/11-related activities! As will be seen below, the main business in this tiny country is money laundering. “ . . . In a referendum in March 23, 64% of voters in Liechtenstein approved a measure to give Prince Hans Adam II the power to dismiss governments, approve judicial nominees and veto laws. It is the most power of any monarch in Europe. Hans Adam had threatened to leave the country if the measure was not approved. . . The Prince’s involvement in legislation consists in a right to take initiatives in the form of government bills and in the right to veto parliamentary proposals. The Prince has the power to enact princely decrees. Emergency princely decrees are possible when the security and welfare of the country is at stake. A countersignature by the head of government is, nevertheless required. The Prince has the right to convene and adjourn parliament and, for serious reasons, to adjourn it for 3 months or to dissolve it. On the basis of the names put forward by Parliament, the Prince nominates the government district and high court judges, the judges of the Supreme Court, and the presidents and their deputies of the Constitutional Court and of the Administrative Court of Appeal. The Prince’s other authorities include exercising the right to mitigate and commute punishments that have been imposed with legal force and the abolition--i.e., the dismissal---of investigations that have been initiated. All judgments are issued in the name of the Prince. . . .”
(Wikipedia entry on the political system of Liechtenstein.)

28. The head of Liechtenstein’s Progressive Citizens Party is Norbert Seeger—a principal figure in Alfa’s Crown Resources subsidiary!! “ . . . Since 2001, it has been the Progressive Citizens Party that has provided all the members of the government. The minority parties, as opposition parties, act as a check on the government in Parliament and on parliamentary commissions. . . .” (Idem.)

29. “ . . . Political parties and leaders: Progressive Citizens’ Party of FBPL. [Norbert Seeger]; . . .” (Idem.)

30. Next, the broadcast reviews information from FTR#442. One of the most important connections illustrated in this program is the evidentiary tributary connecting the Bank Al Taqwa and the royal family of Liechtenstein. Recall that Bank Al Taqwa is a principal financial source for Al Qaeda and other Muslim Brotherhood offshoots. (For more about Bank Al Taqwa, see—among other programs, FTR#’s 343, 456, 513.) One should not forget that Al Taqwa itself originates from a firm established in Vaduz, Liechtenstein—that nation’s capital. Liechtenstein is one of the principal “funny money” centers of Europe, and a major pivot point for the Bormann organization. This information should be evaluated against the background of the information presented in FTR#’s 352, 357, 359, 377, 378. Those broadcasts highlight the intersection between the Al Taqwa milieu and European far-right interests, including the P-2 and Alleanza Nationale milieu in Italy. These links with powerful European capital interests and far-right networks indicate that there is much more going on here than just Islamic fundamentalism. In light of the links between Liechtenstein, Crown/Alpha (Norbert Seeger) and the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, the Asat Trust/Liechtenstein royal family connection assumes potentially larger significance. Do the various tendrils of the creature portrayed in this program description constitute a Bormann/Underground Reich network deeply involved in 9/11?! “ . . . The prosecution also alleged that [alleged Al Qaeda financier Soliman] Biheiri is linked to a secretive financial network in Switzerland and Liechtensstein called Al Taqwa, which American and European investigators say is a financial backer of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood, often depicted as the ideological parent of most radical Islamic groups, recently has come under government scrutiny for its possible direct role in supporting terrorism, most prominently because of Al Taqwa.”
(“Terror Fund Trail Leads to Alpine Kingdom” by Marc Perelman; Forward; 10/17/2003.)

31. “The Bush administration and the United Nations have designated the Al Taqwa network and its main officials—two self-avowed Muslim Brothers and an admitted Nazi sympathizer—as supporters of Al Qaeda. As a result, their assets have been frozen and they are the focus of a Swiss investigation. The Al Taqwa officials have repeatedly rejected the charges. At the [alleged Al Qaeda financier Soliman] Biheiri detention hearing last month, prosecutor Steven Ward described Biheiri as the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘financial toehold in the U.S.’” (Idem.)

32. “The prosecution said it had established links between [alleged Al Qaeda financier Soliman] Biheiri and the two principals of Al Taqwa, Youssef Nada and Ghaleb Himmat. According to testimony from special agent Kane of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the addresses of Nada and Himmat were found in Biheiri’s laptop computer. Kane told the court that there were ‘other indications’ of connections between Al Taqwa and Biheiri’s company BMI, including financial transactions. . . .” (Idem.)

33. “. . . One company in the Al Taqwa galaxy that was designated by the United States and the U.N. as a terrorist-related entity is a Liechtenstein entity called Asat Trust. Its director Martin Wachter, told the Forward this year that Asat Trust operates merely as a registry for businesses and is not involved in the operation of any company. He added that the American government had wrongfully designated Asat Trust as a terrorist-related entity because it had once represented Al Taqwa in a small real estate deal in Switzerland.” (Ibid.; pp. 2-3.)

34. “Still, copies of business registration documents on file with authorities in Liechtenstein show that Asat Trust has been intimately involved with the Al Taqwa network during the last 30 years, registering changes in company names, personnel and financial structure, which may explain why Asat Trust landed on the American and U.N. terrorist lists.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

35. The information about the Al Taqwa links with the royal family of Liechtenstein is set forth as follows: “The records also shed light on the involvement of one member of the royal family of Liechtenstein in Asat Trust. According to the documents, deceased Prince Emanuel von und zu Liechtenstein became a board member of Asat Trust in May 1970 and stayed until November 1990, when he was replaced by Wachter, the trust’s current director. Florian Krenkel, a spokesman for the royal family, said Prince Emmanuel had died in 1987 and that he was a distant cousin from ruling Prince Hans Adam II. . . .” (Idem.)

36. “ . . . There also appears to be some links between Asat Trust and a bank owned by the Liechtenstein royal family. Several Asat Trust documents feature on their letterheads ‘Bank in Liechtenstein AG’ beneath ‘Asat Trust.’ The royal family bank has changed its name and is now called LGT bank. A telephone and an e-mail query to the bank’s spokesman Hans-Martin Uehringer went unreturned. . . .” (Idem.)

37. More about Liechtenstein and its money-laundering economy: “High atop an Alpine ridge sits a prince in a 130-room castle, in a tiny domain that has made a name for itself by hiding people’s money. It has also found a bit more international attention than it would like.”
(“The Prince and His Black Sheep: This Is No Liechtenstein Fairy Tale” by John Tagliabue; New York Times 4/8/2000.)

38. Note the references to Liechtenstein’s role in the CDU funding scandal. (These are the references to the conspiracy involving Kohl, the French oil company and the “decrepit oil refinery.”) For more about the CDU funding scandal, see—among other broadcasts—FTR#’s 193, 276, 278, 506. In FTR#’s 469, 476, we noted the links of John P. Schmitz to various aspects of the 9/11 investigations, as well as his links to the Bush milieu. Schmitz was a beneficiary of the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship, a subsidiary program (along with the Alfa Fellowship) of the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft. When working with the Bundestag, Schmitz worked with Mathias Wissman, the former treasurer of the CDU! Later, Wissman went to work for Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, a law firm that also employed Schmitz and that represents key German government-linked corporations in their attempts to move into American markets. (For more about this, see—among other programs—FTR#492.) Again, with the Asat Trust [Al Taqwa] link to the Liechtenstein Royal Family, as well as the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft/Atta/Alfa/Robert BoschFoundation Fellowship relationship, we may well be looking at a Bormann/Underground Reich network “in the raw.” “Last year, when German prosecutors investigated millions of dollars of secret donations to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the tail led to Liechtenstein, a principality the size of Fort Wayne, Ind. When Swiss investigators looked into millions of dollars of obscure ‘payments’ involving the sale of a decrepit refinery to a French oil company, the money trail also led to Liechtenstein. In 1996, when American agents seized a Swiss launderer of Latin American drug profits, he confessed that he loved to do business in Liechtenstein since its banks never divulged much about its clients.” (Idem.)

39. “The affable 55-year-old Prince Hans Adam II, whose ancestors bought the country from the Austrian crown some three centuries ago, sees his nation of 32,000 people as merely offering banking privacy and low taxes. To him, bank secrecy and wafer-thin tax rates are services the country just like its dairy products and its leading export, dental prosthetics.” (Idem.)

40. “Since many of Europe’s wealthy face income tax rates exceeding 50 percent, Liechtenstein offers a secluded place to squirrel away their fortunes. It also has a top income tax rate of just 18.9 percent. Taxes for holding companies or enterprises with no more than a mailbox here are a mere 1 percent.” (Idem.)

41. “But those kinds of lures have apparently attracted some unsavory elements. Liechtenstein’s headaches began last November, when the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel published what it said were details of a German intelligence report that made accusations against Liechtenstein banks and fiduciaries—specialists in establishing mailbox corporations that are used to mask bank accounts. The enterprises were tied to a Sicilian Mafia group, Latin American drug lords and Russian gangs, the report said.” (Idem.)

42. “The article also asserted that a former Liechtenstein prime minister had assembled a network of banks, government workers and lawyers to help organized crime. Prince Hans Adam, in an interview, accused Germany of seeking to ruin Liechtenstein as a tax haven. To do so, he added, the Germans ‘did not hesitate to commit character assassination on a country and on individual people.’ . . .” (Idem.)

43. Note that the Swiss currency is Liechtenstein’s “coin of the realm”—something that would no doubt facilitate the money laundering infrastructure in that tiny nation. “ . . . In 1924, after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following World War I, Liechtenstein entered a customs union with Switzerland, whose currency is the coin of the realm. . . . It is not lost on Liechtensteiners that while German governments pillory their system, German politicians use it to hide campaign donations. In 1997, a local employee of one influential fiduciary gave Der Spiegel diskettes containing confidential client information. Among Germans stashing money here were not only well-known business people and an Olympic gold medalist, but also officials of Chancellor Kohl’s political party, the Christian Democratic Union. . . .” (Idem.)

44. Liechtenstein protested that their financial system was adequately transparent. “ . . . Yet when financial inspectors from the Council of Europe visited Liechtenstein in September, they came to very different conclusions. To lift bank secrecy, they found that requests must pass 12 appeal levels. They also found that the office for investigating bank reports of suspicious money has five overworked employees. So to learn where suspicious money comes from, the banks simply ask their clients. ‘The examiners fail to see how ‘tipping off’ in such circumstances can be avoided,’ the inspectors politely concluded in their report.” (Idem.)

45. “Peter Csonka, the team’s secretary, said Liechtenstein had 80,000 trust companies—almost 3 for every citizen—as well as 280 lawyers and 80 trustees, most of whom ‘are in some business where the purpose is not totally clear.’ Financial policing, he said, ‘equals zero.’ . . .” (Idem.)

46. Note the prince’s relative immunity, as well as his inclination to use private auditors to “keep the books” for the kingdom. Note, too, that Arthur Andersen was the auditor that facilitated the Enron rip-off. “One hurdle to reform, some say, is the growing political dissent between the prince and the government on matters like constitutional reform and law enforcement. The prince, for instance, proposes contracting oversight of the banking system to private auditors, and suggests PricewaterhouseCoopers or Arthur Anderson. ‘I’m a proponent of outsourcing whatever can be done better,’ he said. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] For his part, Prime Minister Mario Frick wants the deletion of constitutional passages assuring the prince’s immunity. ‘He could steal my car, and I can’t do anything about it,’ Mr. Frick said. The prince recently annoyed politicians by mailing his own proposals for reform to all households and posting them on his Web site: www.fuerstenhaus.li. . . .” (Idem.)

FTR #529 Nazi Roots and Fascist Flowers

Recorded October 9, 2005
REALAUDIO

This broadcast details some of the fruits that have been borne by the collaboration between elements of U.S. intelligence and Nazi and fascist groups from World War II. Beginning with discussion of the Ukrainian fascist OUN-B and its affiliated organization the ABN (Anti-Bolshevik League of Nations), the program highlights the position of Ukrainian head of state Victor Yuschenko's wife in that milieu. The former Katherine Chumachenko was a key official with the UCCA (the key OUN-B front group in the U.S.) and was Deputy Director for Public Liaison in the Reagan/Bush White House. In light of the fact that Yuschenko’s entire cabinet has either resigned in protest over the corruption of his regime or been fired, one must seriously consider to what extent his association with fascist fellow-travelers like the former Ms. Chumachenko may have paved the way for unsavory elements to enter the Ukrainian government. The program also highlights the links between both the GOP and the John Birch Society milieu and the Iron Guard, the Romanian fascist group that fought alongside Hitler and the Nazis. Joseph Schmitz, the son of John Birch Society luminary Joseph G. Schmitz and the former Inspector General of the Pentagon has been named as the head of the Blackwater company—a private security outfit employing former elite special operations troops. After reviewing the John Birch Society’s recovery of Japanese war loot from the Philippines in order to fund a private, right-wing national security establishment, the broadcast sets forth the links between the national security establishment and various “private” security organizations that function as proxy warriors and spies. Many of the right-wing outfits that spawn some of these “private” organizations also appear to have been the recipients of Japanese war gold. The broadcast concludes with an examination of the role of Graz, Austria (the hometown of the family of Arnold Schwarzenegger) in the Vatican “Ratline” escape networks that spirited Nazi war criminals out of Europe and, in many cases, into the service of elements of Western intelligence.

Program Highlights Include: The role of the OUN-B and the closely affiliated ABN in Nazi liquidations and atrocities on the Eastern Front during World War II; the close links between the OUN-B and ABN and the Reagan/Bush White House; the role of the Romanian Iron Guard in the ABN/GOP milieu; the postwar survival of much of the Iron Guard infrastructure; review of the links between elements of the MacArthur group within the military and the John Birch Society; the role of the Graz police establishment in the Ratline operations in that city, as well as the influence of the Cardinal of Graz in sheltering war criminals in the town.

1. In late 2004 and early 2005, much of the world’s attention was focused on the so-called “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine, in which a challenger—Victor Yuschenko—ousted a corrupt and autocratic predecessor after the populace demanded that evident electoral fraud be invalidated. The bloom has since gone off the fruit, so to speak, as Yuschenko’s entire cabinet has either resigned in protest over corruption or been fired. This program begins with discussion of Yuschenko’s wife—a Ukrainian/American with a politically tainted past. A Wall Street Journal editorial lauded the former Katherine Chumahcneko: “In the most peaceful revolution since South Africa ended its apartheid regime by electing Nelson Mandela president in 1994, Ukraine has just elected opposition leader Viktor Yuschenko president of the former Soviet satellite republic. The victory comes for the pro-Western leader after a dirty campaign that saw him poisoned and only after hundreds of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets to protest voter-fraud. ‘We peacefully, beautifully, elegantly and without any drops of blood changed Ukraine,’ Mr. Yuschenko told cheering supporters.”
(“From America With Love” by John Fund; Opinion Journal—from The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page; 12/27/2004; p. 1.)

2. “What many Westerners do not realize, however, is when Mr. Yuschenko takes the seat of power, at his side will be a tough minded, savvy American-raised businesswoman. His wife, Kateryna Chumachenko Yuschenko, is the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who grew up steeped in the traditions of her ancestral homeland. . . .” (Idem.)

3. Mrs. Yuschenko’s background is more than a little interesting, and gives a possible hint to a source of corruption: the former Ms. Chumachenko was closely affiliated with a front group for the OUN-B, a Ukrainian fascist group that worked with the SS under the Third Reich and has been an integral element of the postwar Underground Reich. The OUN-B worked closely with the Gehlen spy outfit and affiliated organizations, such as the ABN (see below.) For more about the Gehlen spy outfit, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 44, 113, 180, as well as RFA#’s 1, 2, 3, 22, 36, 37, available from Spitfire. “One Ukrainian nationalist group was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) which split into two organizations: a less militant wing, led by Andrew Melnyk and known as OUN-M, and the extremist group of Stepan Bandera, known as OUN-B. The Nazis preferred the radical nationalist OUN-B. During the German military occupation, the Ukraine witnessed terrible atrocities against Jews and other groups targeted by Nazi policies. The OUN-B organized military units that participated in these atrocities. With the collapse of the Third Reich, many Ukrainian collaborationists fled their homeland.”
(Old Nazis, The New Right, and the Republican Party; by Russ Bellant; South End Press [HC]; Copyright 1988, 1989, 1991 by Russ Bellant; ISBN 0-89608-419-1; p. 69.)

4. The OUN-B, like the ABN, became a big part of the Republican ethnic heritage branch—a Nazi/fascist wing of the GOP with its roots firmly planted in the Third Reich. For more about the GOP/ABN/OUN-B connection, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 332, 465. In the passage that follows, note for the purpose of the present discussion the UCCA, the main OUN-B front group in the U.S. “After the war, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Bandera (OUN-B), a clandestine group financed in part by German intelligence and led by [Jaroslav] Stetsko, accelerated its work in the West. A secretive group, OUN-B’s tracks are difficult to follow. ‘You have to understand. We are an underground organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions of influence,’ explained an OUN-B member who insisted on anonymity. The positions of influence under discussion were Reagan Administration appointments. All of the OUN-B’s key Administration contacts were through an organization called the Ukrainian Congress of America (UCCA), headquartered in New York City. . . .” (Idem.)

5. The program presents more information about the ABN and its relationship with the former World Anti Communist League. For more about the OUN-B and the ABN—especially their influence within the Reagan administration, see—among other programs—FTR#367. For more about the World Anti-Communist League, see—among other programs—RFA#’s 14, 15—available from Spitfire. “ . . . The ABN is the high council for the expatriate nationalist groups that formed the police, military and militia units that worked with Hitler during World War II. Some were organized as mobile killing teams that exterminated villages and sought to murder whole ethnic, racial, and cultural groups. These mobile killing teams are the forerunners of the modern death squad. It is consistent, then, that the Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation (CAL) (for many years the Latin American branch of WACL) has a great affinity for the ABN and its members, according to several ABN members. CAL historically has served as an umbrella group for the regional death squads.” (Ibid.; p. 75.)

6. “A meeting of the youth sections of CAL and ABN in 1983 took place in Fedorak’s Ukrainian Cultural Center in Warren, Michigan. The resulting 16-point resolution bore statements that might surprise some of their conservative U.S. supporters. Not only were the usual anti-communist sentiments expressed, but also anti-capitalist positions were taken. One point, for instance, called for ‘rejection of all materialist doctrines (author’s emphasis) which defile the human individual by treating people as egotistical, covetous and selfish beings. . . .’ The resolution called for a ‘faith in Revolutionary, liberation nationalism . . . .’ and ‘unbending opposition to collectivist slavery, against communist and capitalist alienation of human labor. . . .’” (Ibid.; pp. 75-76.)

7. “These formulations mirror the classic outlines of National Socialism, which simultaneously fought the Communist and Western Capitalist powers ideologically and militarily. The Third Way, rejecting East and West, is still a position taken by significant elements of the contemporary neo-Nazi movement.” (Ibid.; p. 76.)

8. “The Stetskos were not only leaders of OUN but the multi-ethnic ABN as well. The July-August, 1983 ABN bulletin ABN Correspondence carries several cover photos which show the Stetskos and other ABN leaders as White House guests in July 1983, personally meeting with Reagan, George Bush and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.” (Idem.)

9. “After the Stetskos visited the White House, Yaroslav Stetsko’s wife Slava Stetsko, who lives in Munich, West Germany, called on the ABN to support Reagan’s re-election. She carried that message to ABN chapters during 1984 as well. The Reagan campaign cooperated with ABN, including scheduling an appearance by Michel Sotirhos, head of Ethnic Voters for Reagan-Bush Campaign of 1984 as well as the Republican Heritage Groups Council, at the 1984 ABN conference in New York City.” (Idem.)

10. “The Goal of the ABN is to pressure the U.S. government toward a ‘liberation’ policy aimed against the USSR, with ABN leaders as the liberators. Although ABN members say they only need technical assistance from the West, they want the U.S. military to put them in power in Eastern Europe and the USSR. This is the formula they tried under German Nazi sponsorship. Their manipulations of the American political system are toward that end.” (Idem.)

11. “The emigres of the ABN still dream of one more chance to create a new order in Europe. They even got Michigan Republican Congressman Paul Henry to enter a statement into the Congressional Record in July, 1986, commending the ‘independence’ of the Ukraine under Stetsko in 1941.” (Idem.)

12. “According to Henry ‘a representative assembly of the most prominent Ukrainian leaders from all walks of life issued a Proclamation of the Restoration of Ukraine’s Independence. . . . The proclamation received enthusiastic support of the Ukrainian people’ Henry referred to the ‘freedom fighters’ of the ‘Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), led by Stepan Bandera.’ When questioned about his praise for a document which included the line ‘Glory to the Heroic German Army and its Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler,’ a spokesperson for Henry said he’d ‘not been aware of the fine print. . . .’” (Idem.)

13. Notice Yuschenko’s wife’s position in this fascist/Nazi concatenation. The former Ms. Chumachenko had been director of the UCCA’s Captive Nations Committee and (as of 1988) been Deputy Director for Public Liaison at the White House! “On July 20, 1988, George Bush reaffirmed the ties between the Republican Party and the ABN by making a campaign stop at Fedorak’s Ukrainian Cultural Center in Warren, Michigan. Bush delivered a hard-line foreign policy speech to those attending the annual Captive Nations banquet sponsored jointly by the Captive Nations Committee and the ABN. Sharing the dais with Fedorak and Bush was Katherine Chumachenko, formerly the director of the UCCA’s Captive Nations Committee and currently the Deputy Director for Public Liaison at the White House. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] Ignatius M. Billinsky, President of UCCA, had already been named Honorary Chair of Ukrainians for Bush, and Bohdan Fedorak named National vice-chair of Ukrainians for Bush. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 76-77.)

14. Next, the program highlights the role of Romanian Iron Guard units in the ABN. For more about the Iron Guard, the ABN and the GOP, see RFA#2—available from Spitfire, as well as many of the shows mentioned above. To learn more about the Iron Guard and its links to the GOP and the Underground Reich, use the search function at the top of this description. Note, in particular, Horia Sima’s role as head of an Iron Guard government in exile. We will examine links between the U.S. far right, the Iron Guard and Sima later on in this discussion. “ . . . (Romanian Liberation Movement). The Romanian affiliate of ABN and the World Anti-Communist League. Its leader for many years, Horia Sima, was also the head of the Romanian Iron Guard following WWII. Sima could hardly claim to have fought the Nazis and Soviets simultaneously, since he was released by the Germans from house arrest to head a Romanian puppet government-in-exile. It as set up by the Germans in Vienna in 1944, immediately the Romanian government abandoned the Axis and sued for peace with the Allies. As head of the government, Sima formed Romanian military units which fought on Germany’s behalf on the Eastern Front from 1944-45. Sima’s government-in-exile was disbanded nine days after Hitler’s death.” (Ibid.; p. 75.)

15. The Iron Guard is part and parcel to a milieu that has coalesced at the forefront of the trend toward privatization of national security matters. Iron Guard officials had significant interface with elements of the John Birch society. A book excoriating Senator Edward Kennedy was authored by one “Zad Rust”—a pen-name for Prince Michael Sturdza, the foreign minister for the Iron Guard government during World War II. This book was actively promoted by the John Birch Society and Robert Welch, and—as will see—Representative John G. Schmitz. Schmit’s legacy has been perpetuated by his sons John P. Schmitz and Joseph Schmitz. For more about the Schmitzes, see FTR#’s 469, 476.“ . . . On the questions of killing in ‘defense’ of one’s own ‘group,’ Robert Welch’s ideas are remarkably parallel with those expressed in deed by one of Europe’s most notorious gangs of political assassins. In a book titled, Teddy Bare: The Last of the Kennedy Clan and described by Welch as one of ‘a battery of heavier guns’ against ‘the enemy,’ we find its author Zad Rust aghast that the ‘founder’ of ‘the American Civil Liberties Union’ gave his full approval to the right of all, citizens and aliens alike, to advocate political assassination . . .[Teddy Bare; Western Islands, p. 147.]”
(“Assassination and the Strange Friends of John Schmitz” by Walter A. Carrithers, Jr.; paper authored in 1972; pp. 40-41. [PDF download])

16. “Rust”/Sturdza also wrote a book extolling the Iron Guard and promoting the canard of the “Jewish Conspiracy.” The book was endorsed by Representative John G. Schmitz, whose sons (as discussed in the references in paragraph 15) have carried on his legacy. His sons are involved in investigations into various aspects of the 9/11 situation. “As since revealed in JBS literature, ‘Zad Rust’ is a pen-name for Prince Michal Sturdza, author of The Suicide of Europe, greeted by John G. Schmitz as a ‘powerful book’ (Review of the News, Feb. 23, 1972, p. 48.) It is described in advertising as ‘brilliant memoirs’ and ‘a personal, first-hand witness to international intrigue, to a people’s courageous response to . . . treason by their highest leaders . . . . a vital contribution without which no accurate history of the Twentieth Century can be written.’” (Ibid.; p. 41.)

17. “How indeed does author Sturdza portray this ‘courageous response to . . . treason by their highest leaders. . . .’? Despite ‘Zad Rust’s’ mock shock at any idea that the advocacy of political assassination should be considered a civil right, the ‘response’ Sturdza admits and defends was that of the Iron Guard of Romania, one of the most notorious, bloodiest terrorist-assassination gangs in all of Nazi Europe—and Prince Sturdza was the Foreign Minister in its Cabinet after it finally gained power (and at once allied with Hitler and with Mussolini)!” (Idem.)

18. “To show a bit of what that means, we quote from Assassination and Political Violence (A report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence), p. 572: ‘Extreme nationalism and anti-semitism produced in Rumania a native form of fascism, the Iron Guard. The Iron Guard . . . utilized . . . tensions for direct action in the form of mass and individual violence . . . Nationalistic and rabidly anti-semitic, the Iron Guardists . . . ruthlessly . . . practiced a variety of violent tactics, inciting the population to pogroms and outrages against Jews, democrats and moderates who opposed them. Fascist students and Iron Guardists, in open disregard of the law and of the elementary rights of others, shot down public officials, and even fellow students. Codreanu {founder of the Iron Guard movement} shot down the prefect of police Manciu in court (1924) {in the birthplace of the movement}, participated in the assassination of Prime Minister Ion Duca (1933) . . . Again, in 1937 terrorists attempted to assassinate a courageous rector of the University of Yassi because of his opposition to antisemitic terrorism.” (Ibid.; pp. 41-42.)

19. “ ‘In 1936, a student, Mikhail Stilescu, who had resigned from the organization, was killed in a hospital in Bucharest by 10 Iron Guardists [a typical ‘courageous’ response] . . . When General Antonescu took over the government of Rumania in 1940, the Iron Guardists murdered more than 60 prisoners and kidnapped and murdered the leading Rumanian historian, Professor Nicola Iorga, who was a former Rumanian Prime Minister and himself a nationalist. A leading peasant party economist, Virgil Madgearu, met the same fate. Outrages against Jews followed afterwards. This is only a random sample of the numerous killings and outrages perpetrated by the Iron Guard.’” (Ibid.; p. 42.)

20. “In his defense of the Iron Guard whose agents assassinated two acting Prime Ministers of their country, ‘Zad Rust,’ the hatchet-man Founder Welch set upon Senator Edward Kennedy, pleads that it all was necessary to try and save the nation from ‘the Anonymous and Omnipotent Powers who decided that the hammer and sickle should replace the Cross where it has reigned for about two thousand years.’ (The Suicide of Europe; p. lxv.) Who were these ‘powers’ so ‘malevolent’ that they could only be combated by the assassin’s gun? Sturdza does not openly identify them; but it is no great task to read his intent, especially since one of his fellow-Iron Guardists, one at the right hand of its Leader, was Ion Mota, first to translate into Rumanian The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. . . .” (Idem.)

21. Note that the aforementioned Horia Sima and the Iron Guardists are an active part of the milieu of the John Birch Society, as well as the GOP. “ . . . (As a footnote, the Iron Guard movement in exile is neither defunct nor inactive. One can find indications of its activity in America even today. For $.35 we purchased one of the copies of A Declaration of the Rumanian Legionary Movement on sale at the Americanist bookstore at Knotts Berry Farm, Orange County, California. Printed in South America, its author is Horia Sima who, with Sturdza, was a member in the Iron Guard cabinet of Prime Minister Antonescu. After its downfall, Sima fled to take refuge in Nazi Berlin.)” (Ibid.; p. 43.)

22. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans, there has been renewed focus on the privatization of national security matters, with the Blackwater security firm and other private security organizations assuming a leading role in the policing of that city. (For more about the privatization of national security matters, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 451, 522, 524.) In the middle of Katrina’s strike on New Orleans, Joseph Schmitz—son of John G. Schmitz and brother of John P. Schmitz—was appointed as the head of Blackwater’s parent company. “ . . . Just as the hurricane was hitting, Blackwater’s parent company, the Prince Group, named Joseph Schmitz, who had just resigned as the Pentagon’s Inspector General, as the group’s chief operating officer and general counsel. . . .”
(“Blackwater Down” by Jeremy Scahill; The Nation; 10/10/2005; p. 4 of 4.)

23. Next, the program recapitulates information from FTR#451 about the recovery of Japanese war loot from World War II and its use by the John Birch Society and other elements to finance their goal of a private national security establishment. (For more about the Japanese looting program, its background and history, see FTR#’s 290, 426, 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 509.) The broadcast highlights the role of the John Birch Society in recovering Golden Lily treasure from the Philippines in tandem with mining engineer Robert Curtis. Note that the funds were going to be used to finance a private, right-wing vigilante force. (For more about the John Birch Society, see RFA#11, available from Spitfire.) Notice the reference to the Hunt Brothers’ attempts to corner the world’s silver market. The late Ali bin Musssalim (who maintained a Bank Al Taqwa account for Al Qaeda) was a participant in that scheme. “When the Hunt Brothers ere trying to corner the world’s silver production in the early 1970’s,’ Curtis told us, ‘they sent Colonel Herbert F. Buccholtz to me . . . later came Jerry Adams . . . Robert Welch, founder of the Birch Society; Congressman Larry McDonald, and Jay and Dan Agnew, and Floyd Paxton.’”
(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. 174.)

24. “The Birch Society was started in 1958 by a group of wealthy businessmen and far right politicians convinced that every closet in America contained communists, Jews, wetbacks, Afro-Americans, liberals and homosexuals. The Birchers also were dedicated gold and silver bugs. They had a longstanding grudge against U.S. presidents, starting with FDR, who had intervened to make private ownership of gold in America a crime, with penalties of heavy fines, confiscation and imprisonment. They also believed that Nixon had sold the United States down the river twice—first by taking America off the gold standard, second by his recognition of Red China. On the other hand, Nixon’s actions made it possible for the first time since 1933 for Americans to purchase and own gold legally. So Nixon opened up avenues for the Birch leadership to acquire gold overseas, and sneak it into America through the back door of Canada, where it added to the Society’s fund for anti-communist activities. Like other ultra-conservative groups in America and individuals like General Lansdale—one of their own—who had been forced out of the CIA and Pentagon by liberals, the Birchers had a long-term strategy to create their own right-wing vigilante force. Not something crude like Hitler’s Brown Shirts or Gestapo. More like a private FBI, assisted by elite private military forces. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s]. This would cost money, hence the need for large amounts of privately held gold.” (Ibid.; pp. 174-175.)

25. “Although he was a conservative, and a patriot, Curtis was not a Bircher. But he shared their fascination with precious metals. Once he joined the Marcos gold hunt, Curtis told the Birch Society board confidentially about the hidden Japanese loot. He described his role in the Leber Group, and his participation with Marcos in sanctifying the gold, and in finding discreet channels to market it.” (Ibid.; p. 175.)

26. “Curtis did not realize that the inner circle of the Birch leadership already knew about the Santa Romana recoveries, and the role of Robert B. Anderson and John J. McCloy in setting up the Black Eagle Trust. They also knew about the roles of Generals MacArthur, Whitney and Willoughby in the M-Fund, and all the financial manipulations in postwar Tokyo. They knew this because one of the founding members of the Birch Society was Colonel Laurence Bunker, a humorless fellow who had succeeded General Bonner Fellers on MacArthur’s personal staff in Tokyo. Bunker became MacArthur’s chief aide and spokesman in Tokyo from 1946-1951—the years of witch-hunging in Japan that made the McCarthy witch-hunts in America look bland.” (Idem.)

27. “The Birch Society money men who arranged the loan for Curtis were Washington State senator Floyd Paxton and his son Jerry, who ran Kwik Lok corporation, makers of the ubiquitous plastic clips used to close plastic bags in supermarkets. Another participant, Curtis said, was Jerry Adams of Atlanta, head of the Great American Silver Corporation, a precious metals company associated with the Hunt brothers. Curtis said he was informed by Congressman McDonald and Robert Welch that the loan for Curtis to work with Marcos had been ‘cleared’ by them personally. They told Curtis he was to deal directly with multi-millionaire Samuel Jay Agnew, who sat on the national council of the Birch Society.” (Idem.)

28. In addition to the Birch Society, it appears that other private right-wing interests also recovered large amounts of Golden Lily loot from the Philippines. “Private” is a questionable term, however, because the interests described below are inextricably linked with elements of the National Security Establishment. It is of particular significance that people associated with the Enterprise were involved with this apparent recovery. (The Enterprise was at the epicenter of Reagan/Bush covert operations of the 1980’s including the Iran-Contra and Iraqgate affairs.) Many people from this milieu are in prominent positions in the administration of the second George Bush. It is worth noting that the Golden Lily treasure may well have been a contributing factor to the growth of private military firms and private intelligence organizations—one of the major constellations in the contemporary national security firmament. “Once it was proved in U.S. courts that massive gold shipments did come out of the Philippines during the twenty years Marcos was president—gold that did not originate in the Central Bank, or in mines like Benguet—the remaining mystery is where did it go?” (Ibid.; p. 186.)

29. “To be sure, the gold was shipped covertly, usually after re-smelting in manila by Johnson-Mathey Chemicals, using equipment Marcos stole from Robert Curtis. Before it left Manila, some was re-papered by Johnson-Mathey Bank, then made its way to buyers throughout the gold pools in New York, Zurich and London. Other black bullion was sold privately to Saudi princes, and Middle Eastern syndicates, or to discreet groups of Europeans through Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.” (Idem.)

30. “Documents including waybills show that some shipments went to America aboard commercial ships and planes, while others went out on CIA aircraft to Hong Kong or to an American military base in Australia. So far as anyone can tell, the gold that went to America did not end up in Fort Knox. If it did, the U.S. Government is not admitting it. So where did it go? Who was shielding and helping Marcos, other than the CIA and Pentagon? Who else benefited from all this recovered plunder? Was the leverage of the federal government used to get some of this gold bullion into private hands?” (Idem.)

31. “The answer is that Marcos had connections beyond the CIA, to a shadowy network called The Enterprise, a cluster of private intelligence organizations (PIO’s) and private military firms (PMF’s). These were staffed by former CIA and Pentagon officers who saw themselves as Paladins of the Cold War. Many PIO’s and PMF’s got their start in the 1970’s during shakeups at the CIA. They mushroomed in the 1980’s after Jimmy Carter stirred up the anthill, and strongly motivated men had to continue their careers elsewhere.” (Idem.)

32. “At the end of 1972, when he replaced Richard Helms as CIA director, James Schlesinger made it clear that he intended to forcibly retire hundreds of agents who were dead wood, or part of a Dirty Tricks clique under Helms long engaged in operations that violated American laws, including assassinations. When it then became known that the CIA was involved in the Watergate break-in and other domestic break-ins, Schlesinger ordered an internal investigation and preparation of a complete list of all Agency projects that might embarrass the government. The resulting 693-page report, called ‘the Family Jewels’, led to leaks about assassination programs like Mongoose, death squads like Phoenix, and other wet-work hidden by national security. Over a thousand CIA agents were sacked or obliged to take early retirement.” (Ibid.; pp. 186-187.)

33. “When Nixon resigned, President Ford set up the Rockefeller Commission to investigate CIA wrongdoing, but staffed it with hardline conservatives who would avoid revealing things that would ‘blacken the name of the United States and every president since Truman.’” (Ibid.; p. 187.)

34. “Congressional hearings into Phoenix, the Lockheed bribery scandal, and later Iran-Contra, resulted in additional housecleaning at CIA and the Pentagon. Added to these purges were disputes between CIA officials like Ray Cline and President Nixon over rapprochement with China, and between Jimmy Carer and top military officers like major General John Singlaub, and Air Force General George Keegan. When Carter got rid of so many professional soldiers and spooks, he does not appear to have given much thought to what they might do to keep busy in private life. No Roman emperor would have been so careless in disbanding a legion.” (Idem.)

35. “Many of these clever and aggressive men regrouped privately, with funding from hard-right organizations like the Birch Society, Moonies, World Anti-Communist League, and wealthy conservative tycoons. Like Santy’s Umbrella organization, The Enterprise grew into a powerful and influential network during the late 1980’s. Although they were now private citizens, these men continued to have close ties to serving military officers, to top men in the CIA and the armed services. This overlap made it nearly impossible to distinguish between official U.S. Government operations and those that had private objectives. This was especially true because so many of these individuals had long experience in covert operations, deception, and the clandestine use of government resources and secret funds. They were accustomed to working with CIA proprietaries that had every appearance of being legitimate companies in private industry but were actually Trojan Horses for the intelligence community and, by extension, for the armed forces. In fact, some of the PMF’s were little more than fronts set up so that generals, admirals, and former spooks could continue to draw salaries and pensions as if they had never left government service. Many CIA agents spent years or even decades under various covers, so it was hard to establish beyond any doubt whether they ever left the Agency, or merely went underground.” (Idem.)

36. The program concludes with a point of speculative inquiry. In FTR#’s 504, 508 (among other programs), we examined the Vatican’s longstanding relationship with fascism and Nazism. In FTR#504, we took a look at the Vatican’s “ratlines”—the Vatican-sponsored escape networks used to spirit Nazi war criminals out of Europe and (in many cases) into the service of Western intelligence agencies, including American. RFA#17—available from Spitfire—has a detailed discussion of the ratlines. Gustav Schwarzenegger (Arnold’s father and a man categorized as a “Class Three” war criminal by the Austrian government) was a key police official in Graz in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Graz was also a key way station on the ratline, used to shelter Croatian Ustachi war criminals among others. This sheltering was done with the cooperation of the police chief of Graz. Was Gustav Schwarzenegger part of this Graz/Ratline operation? Was that why he quarreled with the British commissioner in the area? Was the tiny Graz suburb of Thal (where the senior Schwarzenegger became chief of police) also involved with the Graz/Ratline operation? For more about the Nazi background of Gustav Schwarzenegger and indications that he was part of the Underground Reich, see FTR#421. It is worth noting that right-wing Catholic connections appear to have played a role in the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political star. In FTR#422, we looked at his wife’s family connections to the fascist Opus Dei organization. Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is a member of the Knights of Malta. Might Arnold’s right-wing Catholic and Underground Reich connections be traceable to his father’s connections to the same elements? For more about the Knights of Malta, see Miscellaneous Archive Show M8, available from Spitfire. For more about Arnold Schwarzenegger, see FTR#’s 421, 422, 429, 434, 436, 492, 496, 520. The material in FTR#421 concerning the Nazis’ projected use of the police and other services essential for the maintenance of the postwar German infrastructure—material against which Gustav Schwarzenegger’s career must be measured—is from The Nazis Go Underground by Curt Reiss. Happily, this book is now available for download for free on the Spitfire website. “ . . . When asked about his post-war activities, Monsignor Petranovic cheerfully admitted that he helped ‘a couple of thousand people’ leave Italy via Genoa. When the war ended, he says he witnessed the Communist massacres of captured Ustashi. After a brief stay in Zagreb, he was dispatched to the Yugoslav-Austrian border, where he moved freely among the fleeing Ustashi. He settled for a time in Graz where many notorious war criminals were hiding. His work there was aided by Bishop Ferdinand Pawlikowski, who obtained clearance from the local police chief to allow Petranovic to stay in Graz. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] . . .”
(Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks; by John Loftus and Mark Aarons; St. Martin’s Griffin [SC]; ISBN 0-312-18199-X; p. 106.)

37. The Cardinal of Graz also facilitated the Graz/Ratline connection. “ . . . Perhaps the ‘treasure’ had been in a monastery, but Gowen was certain that the British were now using it to finance ‘the Croat 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. . . [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (Ibid.; p. 123.)