PART 2.3
-
THE BLACK PRINCE
As we can see, the Central Intelligence Agency appeared able to
break every known law up to and including committing assassinations,
without fear of exposure or criminal charges. This was helped
enormously by a well guarded memorandum of agreement between the CIA
and the Justice Department that allowed the CIA to police itself
and, in effect, enabled it to turn a blind eye to any and all
criminal activities carried out on the part of its employees --
making the CIA above the law.
Curiously, this memorandum was dated
18 February 1954 [i] -- and was the direct predecessor of the now
infamous Memorandum of Understanding between the CIA and the Justice
Department signed during the Reagan Administration. The later “MOU”
has come to be known as a charter for cocaine cartel operators and
other drug traffickers during the 1980s and amounts to a de facto
“get out of jail” card. It is interesting to note that the original
1954 agreement occurred on Allen Dulles’s watch as DCI (Director of
Central Intelligence).
Allen Dulles was appointed as Director of
Central Intelligence in 1953 at about the same time his brother,
John Foster, was appointed Secretary of State. Between them the
Dulles boys grabbed hold of US foreign policy and shaped it in their
own corrupt image. We shall return to the dastardly duo shortly and
focus on their long and close association with the Schroder banking
group. Importantly, the Schroder and Wagg families agreed to combine
their interests in the formation of the City- based merchant bank,
J. Henry Schroder Wagg & Co. –in an agreement enacted in, yes, 1954.
Another odd ingredient forms part of this peculiar story.
Wackenhut
Corporation, the international security firm that is known to have
very close connection to the US military and intelligence community,
“had its beginnings in 1954,” according to early Wackenhut
literature sent to prospective clients. [ii] Wackenhut has been
linked to the Inslaw software debacle as well as the Danny Casolaro
story. Casolaro, a freelance journalist, was “suicided” on the brink
of learning vital information in regard to the so-called “Octopus.”
“Octopus” is the term used to refer to a deeply secretive and loose
association of military, intelligence and organised crime
professionals who line their own pockets in the name of state
secrecy. Wackenhut also has long been involved in arms development
and trading – one of the two essential ingredients of the “guns ‘n
dope” barter brigade that has littered the twentieth century with
dozens of high intensity conflicts fuelled by the dope trade.
The year 1954 was of significance for another reason, too. US
projections forecast that by 1954 the Soviet Union would also have a
tenable thermonuclear capability and that US military power must
grow sufficiently by then in order to “provide reasonable assurance
that the free world could survive an initial surprise atomic attack
of the weight which it is estimated the USSR will be capable of
delivering by 1954 and still permit the free world to go on to the
eventual attainment of its objectives.” Cold War strategists had,
back in 1950, written the coldest of Cold War documents: National
Security Council Directive 68 (NSC 68). Fearing, or at least
presenting the fear of, Soviet world domination, NSC 68 argued for
“A Rapid Build-up of Political, Economic, and Military Strength in
the Free World.” This was to be achieved by all necessary means, it
seems, for, although admitting that, “the United States now
possesses the greatest military potential of any single nation in
the world,” the cold warriors were concerned that the Soviet Union
possessed “greater numerical forces” than the US. This was not to be
tolerated.
Instead, a “military shield” was to be provided that had the effect
of mercilessly strapping the US taxpayer to the grindstone of
weapons development – and, as a natural by-product, huge corporate
profits for arms manufacturers -- for the next fifty years. NSC 68
argued persuasively that this could be achieved in the time honoured
way by a “reduction of Federal expenditures for purposes other than
defense and foreign assistance, if necessary by the deferment of
certain desirable programs” and “increased taxes.” It seems probable
that another hitherto unstated objective was the bribery of
unaligned nations by means of gold certificates.
Another event of great significance took place in 1954. That year,
President Eisenhower commissioned General James Doolittle to conduct
a study of CIA covert operations. General Doolittle concluded the
CIA was often ineffective against the KGB and that the CIA "must
learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy its enemies by more clever,
more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used
against it." It is likely that bribery and corruption formed a part
of Doolittle’s “more clever, more sophisticated and more effective
methods...” [iii]
These measures included a willingness to modify behaviour and, where
feasible, manipulate minds. It was in 1954 that Morse Allen, the
CIA’s first behavioural research kingpin, began what are now
regarded as deeply concerning experiments in hypnosis designed to
create an unthinking, robotic assassin known as the “Manchurian
Candidate.” These experiments developed and widened under
the secret
CIA mind control programme MKULTRA – a series of studies way ahead
of their time that date back to 1953 and included, as far back as
1965, studies concerned with gene-splitting and gene manipulation.
Nor can this re-telling of events be complete without brief mention
of the fastidious audit of US gold reserves conducted at Fort Knox
in utmost secrecy in 1954. This is curious, as meticulous audits of
gold reserves on the 1954 scale are uncommon. Each of the almost
three quarters of a million 400-ounce bars was counted and weighed.
Moreover, every hundredth bar was bored and a small quantity of gold
removed and assayed to determine purity. Extraordinarily, the gold
“plugs” removed from the bars were sent to assay offices throughout
the United States to ensure that no single individual could learn
how detailed the audit was.
To this day, no one knows why this comprehensive inventory was
conducted in such secrecy. Is it possible that someone in the
Eisenhower Administration learned of the gold hoards on the
Philippines and figured that Fort Knox had been plundered and its
gold replaced with ersatz bullion while the real gold had been
shipped to the Philippines and buried? Did someone conclude that
General Douglas MacArthur and his mentor, former President Herbert
Hoover, might have been behind such a crooked scheme? We now know
that both MacArthur and Hoover had huge quantities of gold valued in
excess of $100 million stashed in hidden bank accounts set up by the
CIA’s Santa Romana. [iv]
Meanwhile, the following lists some of the more significant events
of 1954, but does not include the US Internal Revenue Code of that
year, only because I have been unable to study that code in any
detail. By any measure, however, 1954 is proving to be a spectacular
year for historians:
* Secret Treaty signed that concerns vast amounts of gold stashed in
the
Philippines. The treaty remains virtually impenetrable - although it
is
rumoured to involve bribery of national leaders of non-aligned
nations
attending the Bandung conference in 1955. * Marcos learns that Yamashita's gold is real in November 1953 and
begins
digging in 1954. * London gold market opens for the first time since 1939.
* First Bilderberg meeting, chaired by Prince Bernhard.
* Fred Meuser, Lockheed's European Director, transfers to Geneva to
live,
work and play and bribe Bilderberg Chairman, Prince Bernhard. * Germany joins NATO.
* German External Debt Treaty agreed to (Bormann funds flood back to
the
fatherland). * SEATO Treaty signed in Manila. * Four Power Treaty is signed in Paris to terminate the occupation
regime in Germany * Geneva Accord reached regarding peace between France and
Indochina. * US signs Mutual Defence Pact with Korea. * Ed Lansdale travels to Manila, Saigon and Djakarta.
* Ten - year - old Gunther Russbacher emigrates to the US to later
take up a
career in ONI and CIA -- along, he says, with many other Austrian
nationals.
They all become US citizens. Forty years later, Russbacher peddles
gold
recovered from the Philippines to the Austrian central bank. * Moscow agrees to withdraw from Austria and allow democratic
elections. * The Israeli Mossad and US CIA found an intelligence
“partnership.” * US enacts the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
* German industrialists (principally Krupp) begin campaign in US
Senate to
recover assets seized by Allies at the end of WWII. John Foster
Dulles supports the
campaign. * Swiss bankers discuss question of Nazi gold and "heirless assets"
-- those
plundered from Jews in the concentration camps. * Schroder and Wagg families combine their interests via the 1954
registered
company Schroder Successors Ltd., to become J. Henry Schroder Wagg
merchant bankers. * Rothschilds’ holding in Rio Tinto Company sold back to Spanish
government. * US gold audit at Fort Knox.
And 1955 events I have compiled so far:
* Bilderberg's second annual meeting includes discussions of the
Bandung Meeting (second item on the agenda) * Bandung Meeting.
* NSC 68 target date for US superiority.
Meanwhile, one of the more intriguing pieces of information
regarding the Dulles brothers is their interest in the Council on
Foreign Relations, an elite group of policy makers that sprang out
of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.
The CFR was formed as the sister
organisation of the British Royal Institute of International Affairs
(RIIA), which was founded by those closely associated with the aims
of the Rhodes-Milner group. Moreover, according to Peter Grose in
his all-too-flattering biography of Allen Dulles, Gentleman Spy,
Dulles travelled to Europe in 1947, where he,
“… paused in London for
meetings with Alan Toynbee and took a leisurely side trip to Oxford
‘at its loveliest’ for mellow conversations in the common room of
All Souls, where matters of import could be considered over port and
cigars.” [v]
The name Arnold Toynbee, naturally raises interest, for he was one
of that small and close band of disciples of John Ruskin at Oxford
that included Cecil Rhodes, Lord Alfred Milner and others who became
principal architects of the Rhodes-Milner group that sat at the very
heart of the RIIA-CFR, Anglo-American relationship. Peter Grose also
references what is portrayed as an almost chance encounter between
Dulles and Arnold Toynbee (the nephew of the Toynbee the older) on
board a Pan American Clipper “Flying Boat” in 1942. This was during
Dulles’s extended journey to Switzerland for the purpose of taking
up residence as the senior OSS man. Toynbee, in addition to his
Oxford connections, was also a member of Britain’s secret
intelligence service. This is of some consequence, particularly when
we recall Dr. Damanik’s earlier mention that the Secret Treaty was
closely connected to “Rhodes scholars.”
There may also well be some connections to the 1954 report of the
Reece Committee. The Special Congressional Committee under Chairman
B. Carroll Reece (Tennessee) had been charged in 1953 with
investigating tax-exempt foundations. Establishment historian,
Carroll Quigley, in his book Tragedy & Hope – which provided the
first clear factual insight into the Rhodes-Milner group – states of
the Reece Committee that:
“it soon became clear that people of
immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far
and that the ‘most respected’ newspapers in the country, closely
allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about
any revelations to make the publicity worthwhile, in terms of votes
or campaign contributions.” [vi]
What Quigley was describing was
self-censorship by the US media to protect the interests of their
patrons. In any event, one cannot help but muse whether the seven
trusts mentioned by Dr. Damanik as being vehicles for the Secret
Treaty gold bullion certificates were, in some manner, connected to
one or more of those tax-exempt foundations investigated by
Congressman Reece and his committee. Once again, a study of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1954 is called for when time permits.
Joseph Retinger, one of the architects of the Atlantic-Europe
movement that sewed together the elites of America and Europe, was
also the principal founding member of the Bilderberg group.
According to Retinger, John Foster Dulles, “was among those in
America who helped us most.” [vii] Another founding member of the
Bilderberg group was Sir Colin Gubbins, who headed Britain’s wartime
SOE, which was the model for the OSS, which in turn was the
predecessor of the CIA. There were others from the intelligence
community who involved themselves with Bilderberg from the very
beginning. For example, Walter Beedel Smith, Eisenhower’s Chief of
Staff during World War II – and later Director of the then newly
formed Central Intelligence Agency -- became one of two US
co-chairman.
Crucial to the underlying Anglo-American structure of Bilderberg was
the Continental European contingent of which German participants
formed the greater part. Not least,
Prince Bernhard of the
Netherlands was the first Chairman of Bilderberg. In an earlier
incarnation, the Prince worked for
I.G. Farben’s notorious
intelligence department “NW7,” which became the Third Reich’s
private eyes and ears during World War II. In his Farben role,
Bernhard worked under Frank Fahle, who later was appointed as
Lockheed’s agent in West Germany. The connections continue. John
Foster Dulles, as senior partner in the law firm Sullivan &
Cromwell, personally represented I. G. Farben’s American company,
General Aniline and Film Corporation, prior to World War II. His
allegiance to his clients in obfuscating German ownership of GAF
earned Foster a reprimand from a state prosecutor as a “scoundrel
who should be disbarred.”
Of some interest too, is the fact that Prince Bernhard is associated
with the Knights Templar through the Dutch variant of the Order of
St. John (the Johanniter Orde, Nederland), of which he is the head
with the title "Landcommandeur." The Prince governs the Dutch order
along with a chapter of eight other knights. The Prince was
appointed to his position in 1954. The involvement of secret
societies as a covert ant-Communist force throughout the Cold War is
dealt with in more detail in an article I have written titled "Holy
Smoke & Mirrors," which appears in an Appendix to this Dossier.
The rebuke aimed at John Foster Dulles mentioned above in no way
thwarted the ambitions of the crusty statesman. By 1954, as
Secretary of State, he dropped any pretence of impartiality and
testified (in opposition to the Justice Department’s position) in favour of a bill designed to return vested enemy assets (of which
GAF was one, for example) to their former owners. This bill,
introduced by Senator Dirksen, was intended to contravene the 1945
Reparations Agreement.
Footnotes
[i] Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General REPORT OF
INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGATIONS OF CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CIA AND THE
CONTRAS IN COCAINE TRAFFICKING TO THE UNITED STATES Volume II -- The
Contra Story, dated October 8, 1998. The report stated: "For over 20
years, CIA had broad discretion to report or not report information
that came to its attention regarding potential violations of federal
law by its employees, assets and other persons. According to a 1954
memorandum from CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston to the DCI,
Houston discussed the issue of reporting Federal criminal violations
to the Department of Justice (DoJ) with Deputy Attorney General
William P. Rogers on February 18, 1954. According to that
memorandum, Rogers and Houston agreed that CIA would be responsible
for determining whether a potential violation of criminal law by
persons associated with CIA would be referred to DoJ for
prosecution."
[ii] Noted in Carol Marshall’s excellent but thus far unpublished
manuscript The Last Circle, at 15. A condensed version is available
on the Internet at the Lycaeum Book Archives at
www.lycaeum.org/books/books/last_circle/.
[iii] Burton Hersh, Old Boys (New York: Scribners, 1992) at 355.
[iv] See Sterling Seagrave The Yamato Dynasty (London: Bantam Press,
1999) at 293.
[v] Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy, the Life of Allen Dulles (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1994) at 270.
[vi] Carroll Quigley, Tragedy & Hope (California: GSG Associates,
reprint of original London: MacMillan, 1966 imprint) at 955.
[vii] Holly Sklar, Trilateralism, (Montreal: Black Rose Books,1980)
at 162.
PART 2.4 -
THE BORMANN–PERON-KRUPP-MARCOS CONNECTION
The maneuvering in the US Senate to draw a blade across the war
reparations agreement was unnecessary for some of the
better-connected German industrialists. Alfried Krupp, widely
regarded as a “super-Nazi” for financing Hitler and Himmler (and
because he utilised slave labour and plundered occupied territories)
was personally “pardoned” from a pending war crimes trial by John
McCloy – High Commissioner in Germany. Not only that, but McCloy, a
former director of the Ford Foundation, rescinded a property
confiscation order that would have stripped the Baron of his
enormous holdings, thereby bringing to a close his status as one of
the world’s wealthiest individuals.
In the post- war years, one of the more colourful Nazi characters
employed by Krupp was Otto (“Scarface”) Skorzeny – dubbed Hitler’s
“favourite commando.” In addition to being the head of the post- war
SS escape network, Die Spinne (The Spider), Skorzeny was also an
operative for the CIA. Krupp favoured the burly SS officer
especially because of his valiant achievements in transferring
Krupp’s wealth -- and that of other industrialists, plus gold and
other loot plundered by the Nazis -- to banks in neutral nations
shortly before the collapse of the Third Reich. Skorzeny had other
powerful friends also. Allen Dulles is said to have personally
involved himself in the 1953 decision by Reinhard Gehlen nominating
Skorzeny as the chief military adviser to the Egyptian regime of
General Mohammed Naguib.
Also intriguing is the close connection between Baron Krupp and
Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, who escaped post-war Germany via the
Vatican ratlines to Argentina after languishing for a few years in
Italy.
Ladislas Farago in his book Aftermath – Martin Bormann and the
Fourth Reich, reveals that Dr. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach
approached Bormann in August 1942 intent on passing his vast fortune
– which was increasing under the Third Reich – via a
“fideicommission” to a single heir, thus keeping
the Krupp empire
intact. The alternative was to see the amassed fortune divided many
ways, which would have inevitably led to the disintegration of the
house of Krupp.
The problem was that the existing law interfered with his desire. He
told Bormann that he wished the firm to pass on to his eldest son,
Alfried, regarded as a “devout Nazi and SS man.” [i] In exchange for
Hitler’s agreeing to modify the law to permit Krupp’s request,
Bormann extracted an agreement whereby Krupp assigned a portion of
his vast assets, in secret, to the Nazi Party under Bormann’s
control. Consequently, a new law was passed on 12 November 1943
permitting a “Lex Krupp.” Pleased with the agreement, Hitler
lavished profitable contracts on him, making Krupphaus the “most
prosperous cog in the industrial war-machine.”
One of the assets assigned was a massive ranch in Argentina that was
later used by Bormann as a favoured bolt-hole. Ever a realist,
Bormann understood that the defeat at Stalingrad spelled the end of
the Third Reich. Consequently, he began shipping plunder regularly,
by U-boat, to Argentina throughout 1942 and 1944 under a plan known
as “Aktion Fuerland” – Operation Land of Fire, so named because of
the archipelago, Tierre del Fuego, Argentina’s southernmost “Land of
Fire.” These transfers, totalling around 1,800 shipments, were to be
used to “help the rebuilding of the Nazi empire,” according to
Rudolph Freude, one of Bormann’s trustees and a close confidant of
Eva Duarte – later to become Eva Peron.
Evita Peron was, in fact, part of the Freude syndicate handling the
vast stash of Nazi loot that was regularly being shipped to
Argentina for deposit in four banks chosen by Freude. These banks
were the Banco Aleman, the Banco Aleman Transatlantico, the Banco
Germanico and the Banco Tornquist. In each case the gold, silver,
gemstones and other treasure were deposited to accounts in the same
name – that of Senorita Eva Duarte. Four individuals implicitly
trusted by Bormann had joint control over all the deposits – a
procedure designed to ensure that personal greed was checked before
it could take root.
The principal reason for Bormann’s sojourn in Italy, forcing his
delay in travelling to Argentina to safety, was that Juan Domingo
Peron, under the guidance of greedy Evita, wished to acquire some of
Bormann’s hoard in exchange for allowing Bormann entry and providing
him state security once he had arrived. Practical as ever, Bormann
agreed to hand over a portion of the assets he controlled. He
eventually arrived in Buenos Aires in the Spring of 1948 to begin
his new life.
It is, therefore, of considerable interest to learn that in the
summer of 1947 – when negotiations between Bormann and Juan Peron
were in full flow – Evita chose to make a “good-will” trip to
Europe, travelling to Lisbon, Madrid, Geneva, Paris, Zurich, Lucerne
and Rome, where, according to Ladislas Farago, negotiations with
Bormann were finally steeled. [ii] She also visited a less well
known Spanish city – Avila -- that lies to the west of Madrid.
Why she visited Avila is not known – at least by me. But there is an
intriguing possibility worth mentioning. The Appendices at the end
of this Dossier reveal a vast fortune in gold, gemstones and
currency left as an inheritance by Sr. Don Franco Miguel de Avila
and Sra. Dona Trinidad Asis de Villarba de Avila of Spain. The heirs
of this vast estate were Francorito MC de Avila and Lolita Trinidad
V. de Avila of Manila, Philippines.
Of interest, Dona de Avila shared the same middle name “Trinidad” as
Imelda Marcos’s mother – Remedios Trinidad Romualdez, known to
intimates as “Medy.” Whether this is happenstance or indicates that
the heirs of this fortune are related to Imelda Marcos, I do not
know. I do know that both Marcos's preferred to use close
confidantes and family as “cut-outs” whenever possible.
The so-called “Melmer” hoard of gold and other blood money gathered
by the SS at the death camps included 550,000 ounces of gold. [iii]
This is a quite specific amount of gold that converted totals just
over 17 tonnes. It is, therefore, of more than passing interest to
note that I have in my possession an ownership certificate dated 2
June 1980 in the name of Dra. Rosario Romualdez Ramo. Romualdez is,
of course, the family name of Imelda Marcos. The certificate is too
faded to reproduce, but it bears the account number 881-161426
together with the transaction code number RRR/51981-26. You will, by
now, have gathered that it represents ownership of 17 tonnes of
gold.
The Peron connection to Bormann gold provides yet another twist. In
early 1973 – the year Peron returned to power in Argentina -- 400
tonnes of gold belonging to Peron was put on sale in the black
market. Worth £700 million, it almost equalled the entirety of the
Bank of England’s official gold reserves. In any event, the sale of
Peron’s 400 tonnes of gold was code-named “Bormann 1345,” creating a
suspicion that it might have originated as one of Bormann’s 1,800
odd “shipments” of loot to Argentina (a figure mentioned by both Tom
Bower and Ladislas Farago). In any event, the Spanish government was
tutor for this bullion and was required to sanction the sale that
was being offered by a Chilean businessman living in Madrid. The
transfer agent was, according to author, Robert Hutchison, Professor
Vincenzo de Nardo – described as an “Inspector-General with the
Italian Finance Ministry,” who stated that his involvement was
private but conceded that the transactions was of a “political
nature.” [iv]
Peron, it will be recalled, was an intimate of Licio Gelli, the
grandmaster of the notorious P2 Masonic Lodge that has been
described as a right-wing parallel government in waiting [see
description of P2 Masonic Lodge below]. Gelli answered to the
Vatican Chamberlain, Umberto Ortolani – a member of the inner
council of
the Knights of Malta. [v] Juan Peron, who visited Rome
in 1973, was accompanied on his return to Argentina by Licio Gelli,
who was appointed honorary Argentine Consul in Florence a few months
later. Less than a year after Peron’s successful re-election,
Escriva de Balanguer, the legendary founder of Opus Dei, visited
Argentina, said to be home to one of Opus Dei’s most successful
operations in South America.
Throughout his long sojourn in South America, Bormann generally felt
safe from being identified and, indeed, safe from capture. His life
revolved around administering the ever growing mass of Nazi funds
that long ago had been artfully invested. However, in November 1972,
London’s Daily Express newspaper broke a series of articles showing
that Bormann had escaped retribution and was living in South
America. Bormann was, in fact, living in some comfort in a huge
hacienda in Chile when the story broke, causing a worldwide
sensation.
News of the Daily Express’s Bormann “expose” quickly reached Captain
Hans von Gerstein in Argentina. Gerstein was a close confidant of
Bormann and more than the fear that his master might become a target
of Israeli revenge or kidnapping, Gerstein’s concern was for the
vast financial empire that Bormann still personally controlled and
which was spread throughout 750 corporations located around the
world.
With Bormann’s consent, a conference was held Santiago, Chile
beginning 22 December 1972 and lasting until Christmas Eve. The
meeting was carefully monitored and kept under 24- hour human and
electronic surveillance by Chile’s secret police special bureau.
Finally, after two days of intense meetings, control over Bormann’s
assets moved into the hands of Captain von Gerstein. According to
author Paul Manning in his book Martin Bormann – Nazi in Exile,
Bormann’s assets are now administered by a “leadership group of
twenty” younger men who oversee investment strategy in the form a
board of directors, chaired by Bormann.
Among the institutions that have benefited from Bormann’s
gold-hoarding efforts is Deutsche Bank, which, just prior to the
collapse of the Third Reich, entrusted the Reichsleiter with its
secret reserves to preserve them intact. [vi] Manning notes that
other major conglomerates that have reason to thank Bormann for his
care of Nazi wealth include Bayer AG, BASF and Hoechst. The
explosion of growth and profitability of these and numerous other
corporations resulted from the huge flow of investment funds that
“poured in from the interlocking companies established in safe haven
countries by Martin Bormann and Hermann Schmitz.” [vii]
One additional interesting fact was Bormann’s return from Chile –
where he had fled following the downfall of Juan Peron in 1955 --
back to Buenos Aires in 1966 and 1967. His visits were timed to
coincide with meetings of a shadowy group committed to building a
reinvigorated worldwide movement of Third World nations patterned on
the Third Reich. This was to be the successor to Hitler’s New Order
with a focus on a coalition of anti-communist right-wing forces. One
of the aims of the secretive group was “the seizure of total power
in Argentina” together with a plan leading to the “ideological
conquest of Latin America.” These aims were to be pressed forward in
“collaboration” with the “chiefs of national Socialism in Germany
and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.” [viii]
This “hierarchy” within the
Roman Catholic Church would almost
certainly have reached as high as Monsignor Giovanni Montini, who
was the Vatican’s Undersecretary of State throughout the war years
and shortly after. Montini, of course, would become Pope Paul VI. In
their book The Secret War against the Jews, authors John Loftus and
Mark Aarons say that some evidence exists that Montini became a
“source” for the CIA after World War II. [ix] Likewise, the Sicilian
born banker, Michele Sindona, who knew Montini and who worked
closely with Roberto Calvi, the disgraced Milanese banker who
brought down Italy’s largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano.
It was Montini who headed the Vatican-run “Ratlines” engaged in
smuggling wanted war criminals, members of the SS and other Nazis on
the run to safety in Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the shadowy anti-communist group that wished to induct
Bormann into its circle as a notional figurehead to aid it with the
task of “building a reinvigorated world-wide movement of Third World
nations patterned on the Third Reich,” was the World Anti-Communist
League (WACL) that was chaired by US CIA operative, John Singlaub.
He entered our story earlier as a leading member of the Philippine
gold-hunting Nippon Star group.
It is hardly surprising that another member of Singlaub’s WACL was
Kodama Yoshio, who also earlier featured in this story. Another, of
course, was Ferdinand Marcos, who attended WACL meetings throughout
his 20-year reign as dictator of the plunder-rich Philippines. It is
interesting to note that America’s tax authority, the IRS, granted
the US arm of WACL tax-exempt status following serious pressure from
Ronald Reagan’s White House. Singlaub and others would later leave
their mark on public history due to their involvement in the
Iran-Contra Affair that was given birth by Lt. Col. Oliver North’s
so-called “Enterprise.”
Interestingly, Kodama was one of those who, in 1954, founded the
Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League. Kodama, along with his Yakuza
compatriot and war-criminal cellmate, Ryoichi Sasakawa, ruled Japan
with an iron fist artfully concealed in the gloved hand of political
puppets. Sasakawa, in particular, boasted of a close, personal
friendship with Ferdinand Marcos "long before he became president."
Author Sterling Seagrave believes their friendship arose during "the
Quirino presidency at the end of the 1940's when Marcos and other
Quirino lieutenants were busy trying to discover" where Japanese
plunder had been buried in the Philippines. Sasakawa was also deeply
involved with the CIA, especially during the CIA sponsored
anti-Sukarno campaign of the of the 1950's when he was in charge of
supplying "materials to the anti-Sukarno camp." [x]
Other founding members of the APACL included the former Chinese
warlord and patron of the feared Shanghai underworld Green Gang,
Chiang Kai Shek and Korea's Park Chung Hee -- whose claim to fame
was to establish the Korean Central Intelligence Agency modelled on
America's CIA. Another founding member was the Reverend Sun Myung
Moon of the Unification Church [Moonies] -- a CIA tool if ever there
was one. Meanwhile, one-time war criminal and Yakuza boss Ryoichi
Sasakawa (together with Kodama) virtually ruled Japan from behind
the scenes.
If there was one thing that connected the individual members of this
odd group, it was their shared fascist beliefs and backgrounds that
resulted in another common denominator -- all became immensely
wealthy.
Meanwhile, the stated objective of Hitler's New Order / Vatican-
backed coalition group mentioned earlier was simple – “A New World”
based on Nazi ideals. The group had major bases in Portugal, Spain,
Italy, Belgium, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Taiwan,
Japan, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela, according
to a report passed to Coordinacion Federal – Argentina’s secret
service. This report additionally stated that funding for the
organisation was provided from “hidden treasure of the Third Reich
on deposit in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Paris, Monaco, Lucerne and
Zurich,” as well as from a US$500 million sum available through
“Group Peron” and other revenue “derived from dividends paid by
Mercedes-Benz of Stuttgart” on investments placed there by this
so-called “Sacred Movement.” It was a case of Nazi loot used to fund
the European anti-communist movement and Japanese loot funding the
Asian Anti-Communist League.
Bormann’s role in the Fourth Reich group was little more than as an
honorific figurehead. His induction into the “Sacred Movement” was
scheduled for a meeting in Buenos Aires in the form of an
“initiation” ceremony along Masonic lines. It is almost certain that
this group was also an appendage of the secretive Italian Masonic
Lodge, Propaganda Due (P2) that is known to have had deep and
powerful connections in Latin America – especially Argentina. In any
event, the Masonic “ceremony” proved a fiasco, with Bormann storming
out in impatience. [xi]
It is of more than passing interest to learn that Singlaub’s Nippon
Star venture also had ultra right-wing motives in its search for
World War II plunder. According to Bob Curtis, who had earlier
worked with Ferdinand Marcos following his development of a
technique that would alter the metallurgical finger-print of gold
(obviously of immense use to Marcos, who had recovered tens of
thousands of tonnes of war plunder), Singlaub and others involved
with Nippon Star had an ultra right-wing agenda.
Curtis, who had earlier escaped Marcos’s clutches fearing for his
life, fled with detailed photographs of all 172 maps made by the
Japanese Golden Lily. These showed where each hoard of plunder had
been buried and how much each trove was worth. Years later he was
given the bulk of Ferdinand Marcos’s personal archives by Marcos’s
mistress. These, Curtis said, totalled over 60,000 documents.
Because of his possession of the Golden Lily treasure maps and his
earlier involvement with Marcos, Curtis was invited to become
involved with Singlaub and other members of Nippon Star in their
recovery venture.
Curtis travelled to Hong Kong, where he was briefed over a three-day
period by the CIA. Included in these briefing were details of a very
sensitive transaction between Marcos and Manuel Noriega that
involved gold for drugs. [xii] Not least, Curtis speaks of a number
of transactions that involved Madame Pineda – who was an
intermediary for Imelda Marcos (and who regularly features in Peter
Johnston’s correspondence in my keeping). On Pineda, Curtis had this
to say: “When I learn how to scan and attach files, I'll send you
some goodies on Pineda, which is mind boggling. It involves the son
of an ex-US president.” [xiii] This may well be a reference to
George W. Bush, who is rumoured by other sources to be involved in
black market gold deals.
Not least, Curtis told me that he held many details of Krupp deals
other than the one I was already privy to and added that the “Krupp
involvement is deeper than you think. Several transactions were for
a trillion dollars” [my emphasis]. [xiv] Curtis also revealed that:
“The China Mandate is a real earth shaker. 200,000 metric tons,
negotiated with Nixon and Mao. The purpose: to keep China out of any
Asian expansion for 50 years. The fear that America had over China's
crossing the border in Korea was that China would invade Formosa and
the Philippines, leading to a nuclear war. This document could get
you killed, so could the Trilateral document that I referred to earlier.”[xv]
Curtis also had some notes written by hand by Edward Lansdale, who
he says typifies an “early player and mover” and who was also
involved in the China deal.
The Trilateral Commission reference,
Curtis told me, regards a letter (in the possession of Curtis) that
was sent to President Marcos on Trilateral notepaper – on the
authority of
Dr. Henry Kissinger – demanding that Marcos sell “63,
321 tons of gold to 2000 US and European banks admittedly controlled
by the Trilateral.” This letter was dated 21 February 1986. Curtis
adds that the last sentence of the 12 page letter states:
“Release
the 62,321 metric tons of gold now, while your are in a solid
possession and right and you alone can do it and alone can claim
immortal glory as the greatest man in Asia."
According to Curtis, it was Marcos's refusal that led to his loss of
power three days later. The gold that Marcos refused to sell – in
exchange for US Treasury certificates and some cash -- was
eventually shipped to the US aboard the US nuclear-powered aircraft
carrier “President Eisenhower,” having been later “released” by
Imelda Marcos, who was avoiding pursuit for criminal charges when
she fled the Philippines with her husband. Curtis notes that
President Reagan wanted the gold for the “Rainbow Dollars” that had
already been printed and that Reagan planned to back with gold. What
is interesting here is a news article that appeared in the
Philippine Enquirer where 96 members of the 51st Army Engineering
Brigade operating in total secrecy under President Marcos state in
an affidavit that they recovered 60,000 tons of gold during the
Marcos years. This article is reproduced in the Appendices. Not
least Curtis states that other players involved in Marcos gold over
the years have included the
Club of Rome and also the Tavistock
Institute. [xvi]
Curtis’s claims will undoubtedly be seen by some as too
conspiratorial and extravagant to be worth taking seriously.
However, it is as well to know that Curtis has passed muster with a
number of investigative journalists and authors, including, among
others, columnist Jack Anderson and Sterling Seagrave.
This was all very interesting to me simply because in addition to
his activities with the Secret Treaty gold certificate negotiations,
Peter Johnston was also involved with Imelda Marcos on other bullion
transactions. One of these involved a vast transfer of money
authorised by the last remaining heir of the Krupp family fortune,
Baron Arndt Krupp von Bohlen & Halbach. Dated 4 November 1985, a
letter issued on the Baron’s private letterhead – and bearing his
signature – authorised Krupphausen attorney Carl Letermeyer to
effect payment to Clem. T. Santiago of Manila, Philippines of the
equivalent of “one percent (1%) from profits of Krupphausen in 1980
up to 1985 now on deposit at Volksbank Willislav AG, Switzerland.”
[xvii]
However, complication beset the transaction, not least the death of
Baron Krupp. As late as January 1988, Carl Letermeyer wrote to Clem
T. Santiago at the Krupp Heritage & World Peace Foundation in
Singapore enclosing a summary of figures covering the five-year
period stated in the Baron’s November 1985 authorisation. The sums
involved are almost unbelievable, and for this reason I recommend a
careful study of Sterling Seagrave’s 1999 book The Yamato Dynasty
(Bantam Press) – especially the footnotes on pages 354/5. In any
event, the transfer sum due to Santiago at the Krupp Foundation –
and representing 1% of profits over a five-year period -- totalled
US$112 billion. [xviii]
Seagrave’s intriguing and well researched book reveals the true
story of the origin of Marcos gold that resulted from immense
Japanese plunder throughout Southeast Asia World War II. The bulk of
it – totalling 172 treasure troves – was buried on and around the
Philippine islands prior to the war’s end. One site referenced by
Seagrave, and audited by Japanese accountants, contained a
staggering Yen777 billion. The dollar-yen exchange rate was almost
four yen to the dollar, giving an equivalent in 1945 US currency of
$194 billion. Nor can it be argued that Seagrave is exaggerating.
Documents in my own possession amply confirm what he says. The
foregoing facts corroborate Seagrave’s thesis that numerous wealthy
individuals possessing right-wing sympathies aided and abetted the
OSS/CIA by laundering plundered Japanese gold, gemstones and other
booty. In fact, the OSS began recovering the loot from one
Philippine 777 site commencing in 1945 and efforts have continued,
more or less, up to the present.
Directly related to the foregoing are other equally interesting
facts. Allen Dulles, together with former New York Governor Thomas
Dewey, owned a large shareholding in Mary Carter Paint Company, a
firm reputed to be a CIA front and owned by leading Mafia financier,
Meyer Lansky. This company, later renamed Resorts International,
caused a flurry of press interest when it was discovered it had made
a 1968 contribution of $100,000 to the Nixon presidential campaign
fund in the form of thirty-three cheques for $3,000 and one for
$1,000.
Richard Nixon was, of course, Vice President during the Eisenhower
Administration, which spanned the years 1952-1960. In 1971, Nixon
closed the gold window, thus removing gold as a backing for the US
dollar. In time, the mobbed-up Resorts International would
demonstrate links to Castle Bank in the Bahamas – a CIA front
company founded by veteran OSS and CIA bagman, Paul Helliwell.
Castle Bank would later, in turn, reveal close connections to Wall
Street’s junk bond investment bank, Drexel Burnham & Lambert – thus
squaring the then- hazy but now- clear circle of associations among
the CIA, the Mob, Wall Street and government.
Meanwhile, it is of additional interest to note that the
Bahamas-based Paradise Island Bridge Company was principally owned
by Swiss and German investors, including the director of a BASF
subsidiary company. BASF is, of course, the largest single successor
firm of I.G. Farben. In any event, the company was highlighted
throughout the Watergate years due to allegations that it had been
laundering “skim money” (possibly from the joint Mob/ CIA- owned
Paradise Island Casino or, perhaps, from World War II plunder
recovered by the CIA?) for eventual payment to then President Nixon
via his confidant, Bebe Rebozo. Allegations surrounding an amount of
$200,000 paid to Nixon’s camp was made by an IRS informant. [xix]
Nixon and his top henchmen in the White House were so pro-Nazi that
it began to sour relations with Israel.
Crime boss Meyer Lansky had a controlling interest in the Swiss
-registered and -based International Credit Bank through his
henchmen Tibor Rosenbaum and John Pullman. Customers of the bank
included the State of Israel, the Rothschild family and, not least,
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.
Bernhard was born a German prince who married a Dutch queen and
became an honorary member of the SS before joining the intelligence
arm of I. G. Farben -- which later became an indispensable spook
asset of the Third Reich. When war broke out, Bernhard quit his
German associations and joined the RAF, which, delighted to have
this blue-blood aboard, gave him his own battle squadron. Post-war,
he closely associated himself with both American and British
intelligence and took bribes from American aircraft manufacturer
Lockheed Corporation. This latter episode was during his
chairmanship of the Bilderberg group – forcing his resignation --
and at about the same time that he opened an account in Meyer
Lansky’s private Swiss bank for landed financiers, princes, Mafiosi
and casino gentry. Few, surely, can list these manifold and genteel
credits on their vitae. The words “for sale” and “highest bidder”
inevitably spring to mind.
Footnotes
[i] Ladislas Farago, Aftermath (New York : Simon & Schuster, 1974)
at 222-5. [ii] Ibid at 213. [iii] Ibid at 203. This treasure also included 3,500 ounces of
platinum, 4,638 carats in diamonds and others precious stones and an
assortment of gold marks, pound sterling, dollars and Swiss francs.
[iv] Robert Hutchison, Their Kingdom Come (New York, St. Martin’s
Press,1997) at 211. [v] Ibid at 208. [vi] See, Farago’s Aftermath.
[vii] Paul Manning, – Martin Bormann – Nazi in Exile (Lyle Stuart
Inc., 1981) at 282. [viii] Farago at 395. [ix] John Loftus and Mark Aarons at 83-84.
[x] See Seagraves at 121 [xi] Farago at 397. [xii] Personal correspondence with this writer. [xiii] Ibid. [xiv] Personal correspondence with this writer. [xv] Ibid.
[xvi] Personal correspondence with this writer. These claims have
also proved impossible to corroborate thus far. However, I believe
them to be worthy of inclusion with the understanding that they are
unverified. I also think it worth noting that when researching his
book, Marcos Dynasty, author Sterling Seagrave arranged for
investigative reporter Don Goldberg to spend a few days reviewing
thousands of Marcos documents in the possession of Curtis and
concluded, based on Goldberg’s reports, he was telling the truth.
[xvii] See the "Krupp Letter" in the Appendices.
[xviii] Copy of fax of original letter in this writer’s possession.
[xix] From an unpublished manuscript by Peter Dale Scott.
Go Back
|