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Three Storms Under Cassiopaea
©2004 Pierre-Paul
Feyte
CBS,
the CIA, and the Roving Eye
We
all have the vague sense that you can't trust the mainstream media.
We often hear people exclaim " Don't believe everything you
read!" Most of us, however, while keeping this adage firmly
buried in the recesses of our minds, act as if everything we read
was in fact true.
CBS was recently caught publishing forged documents about Bush's
National Guard service. Or were they? The facts they recount are
true, but the debate has been shifted through the work of Karl Rove
into a discussion of CBS and not the President. Not bad work. We
imagine he is well paid to do this sort of spin doctoring. |
Here's how bad off the Democrats are: They're
cowering behind closed doors, whispering that if it should ever
turn out that Republicans are behind this, it would be so exquisitely
Machiavellian, so beyond what Democrats are capable of, they should
just fold and concede the election now - before the Republicans
have to go to the trouble of stealing it again.
There's no evidence - it's just a preposterous, paranoid fantasy
at this point. But it speaks to the jitters of the Democrats that
they're consumed with speculation about whether Karl Rove, the master
of dirty tricks and surrogate sleaze, could have set up CBS in a
diabolical pre-emptive strike to undermine damaging revelations
about Bush 43's privileged status and vanishing act in the National
Guard, and his odd refusal to take his required physical when ordered.
In this vast left-wing conspiracy theory,
Mr. Rove takes real evidence on W.'s shirking and transfers it to
documents doomed to be exposed as phony (thereby undermining the
real goods), then funnels it through third parties to Dan Rather,
Bush 41's nemesis on Iran-contra. A perfect bank shot.
The secretary for W.'s squadron commander in
the Texas Guard told The Times that the information in the disputed
memos is correct - it's just the memos that seem fake.
"It looks like someone may have read the originals and put
that together,'' said a lucid 86-year-old Marian Carr Knox, who
was flown up to New York yesterday by beleaguered CBS News executives.
She told Mr. Rather that her boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, wrote
a "cover-your-back file,'' a "personal journal'' to keep
a record about the politically connected Bush in his charge. She
said the contents of that mirrored the CBS documents, but she said
those documents were not on the right forms and contained Army terms
rather than Air National Guard argot. She
confirmed that young Bush had disobeyed a direct order from Colonel
Killian to take a physical.
"It was a big no-no to not follow orders,'' she said, adding
that the Bush scion's above-the-rules attitude caused some snickers
and resentment among fellow officers.
Those who suspect Mr. Rove note that when
he was Bill Clements's campaign strategist in a 1986 governor's
race in Texas, he was accused of bugging his own office to distract
from a debate, according to James Moore and Wayne Slater,
authors of "Bush's Brain.'' They said it turned the election
because after that, the Democrat could not get any attention.
Was the same scenario playing out yesterday evening on CNN? After
a five-minute report on the CBS memo controversy, CNN spent about
30 seconds reporting that two more marines had been killed in Iraq.
House Republicans started clamoring for a Congressional inquiry
into the documents used by "60 Minutes,'' saying it might be
an attempt to manipulate the election. (Isn't that what the Democrats
are scared the Republicans are doing?)
These same Republicans never wanted investigations into missing
W.M.D., why Congress passed a Medicare bill based on faulty figures,
Abu Ghraib or even whether those Swiftie guys were lying, for Pete's
sake.
The Democratic paranoia is a measure of the intimidation the West
Wing is wielding in a race where John Kerry can't seem to take advantage
of any of the Bush administration's increasingly calamitous blunders.
The administration has been so dazzling in misleading
the public with audacious, mendacious malarkey that the Democrats
fear the Bushies are capable of any level of deceit.
Iraq is a vision of hell, and the Republicans
act as if it's a model kitchen. The president and vice president
brag about liberating Iraqis and reassure us that they are stopping
terrorist violence at its source and inspiring democracy in the
region by bringing it to blood-drenched Iraq.
But what they haven't mentioned is that
they have known since July that their rosy scenarios are as bogus
as their W.M.D. That's when the president received a national
intelligence estimate that spelled out "a dark assessment of
prospects" for stability and governance in Iraq in the next
18 months, as Douglas Jehl wrote in today's Times. Worst-case estimates
include civil war or anarchy.
Unlike the president, the young men and women trying to stay alive
in the unraveling chaos of Iraq can't count on their daddies to
get them out of the line of fire. |
Regarding the "Mark of Rove," an
even more insidious idea occurred to me a couple of days after the
phony "forged document scandal" began. Sure, it would
be super clever of Rove to fake documents that essentially contain
the truth thus discrediting that truth. But
it would be even more of a Grandmaster move to use actual documents
to destroy the truth.
Consider this:
Back during the 2000 campaign, it was reported that Bush's TANG
files in Texas were thoroughly researched by his campaign team.
Of course, folks like us interpreted that as a scrub job. Why wouldn't
we?
The team must have found these documents in Col. Killian's P-file.
Killian was his CO; of course they checked his files. They left
everything in place and immediately created a plausible story to
account for the documents, i.e. -- they are forgeries. Friendly
"experts" were gathered to create a full-on 24-bit true
color oppo plan. They took their time and did a very good job of
discrediting the documents. Everyone got
their marching orders then waited. This was critical. If anyone
traced a leak of the TANG files to Rove after Bush's supporters
cried "forgery" then you'd have him red-handed. That was
unacceptable.
Remember this was 1999-2000. Rove was preparing for Gore with
this. But as we all know a landmine is a patient thing. If it doesn't
get the intended victim, it will get someone else eventually.
Rove NEVER leaked the Killian memos; he didn't have to. As Election
2004 came around he set his oppo team to dig into Kerry's Vietnam
record. The Swift Boat Liars did their damage to Kerry and made
Vietnam an issue. There's your bait. Rove waited for a respected
news source to find the files, to take the time to verify the documents
and the man who wrote them, to step into the trap. 60 Minutes went
public and SNAP. The trap closed. The response was IMMEDIATE and
MULTIFACETED. There was a full laundry list of issues in less than
a day: document experts with multiple arguments, family members
of Killian's, retired TANG officers, etc. No one was ready for that.
60 Minutes never had a chance. As far as they
knew, the documents were real and correct BECAUSE THEY WERE REAL
AND CORRECT.
How could 60 Minutes see that they were actually playing to Rove's
plan? They couldn't. This is Rove's mastery of political intrigue
in action. The files that years ago were deadly to Bush transformed
into a shield placed over the monster's heart. How freakin' clever
is that? Every swing voter or mild Bush supporter who watched 60
Minutes that night saw the truth and was swayed by it, even if only
a little bit. Hell, even strong Bushies might have felt a lapse
of support.
Then, the "Rove Bomb" went off.
EVERY news outlet carried the forgery rap the NEXT DAY. Why?
Because the bomb had been planted in advance. All the work had been
done ahead of time. A few bloggers and Drudge trotted out some lies
about typewriters; some "experts" gave opinions on "breaking
news" that had been prepared years ago; the 24 hour news machine
rolled it all up in neat bulletins and all the Bushites and swing
voters who had felt even an iota of doubt about Bush were inoculated
against the truth almost immediately and became IMMUNE to further
exposure. The myth of the liberal media grew stronger and
Kerry and the Democrats were painted with the tar brush.
I think the scenario above was what we really saw. And if that's
true, what other traps are out there? Think about it. The press
has not just given these people a four year free pass on all skeletons
in the Bush Closet. They have given the Bush Family Evil Empire
(BFEE) time and opportunity to turn each of those liabilities into
assets.
What this means is that despite the huge amount of blood, sweat,
tears and time so many of us have put into researching the past
of the BFEE in order to pull down the monster's mask, what we need
to do is focus on NOW. The BFEE stole the past and rigged it with
tripwires. The press let them do it and it is too late to get it
back. Our battleground is NOW.
NOW over 1000 American kids have died for nothing in Iraq. NOW
our security is a lie. NOW our friends and allies fear and loathe
us. NOW our economy has been turned upside down and its pockets
picked for the benefit of the few. NOW class war is being waged
on the poor and working class. NOW our rights are gone. NOW Bush
has violated his oath of office. NOW Bush is a war-criminal. NOW.
NOW. NOW.
NOW we stop playing their game. NOW we start playing ours. We
DO NOT dig up the past. WE KEEP THEM FROM BURYING THE PRESENT! [...] |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - CBS News faced new charges
of journalistic impropriety on Tuesday, a day after the network
said it regretted using questionable documents in a report challenging
President Bush's military service.
At issue was a report in USA Today that the source
of the documents gave them to CBS only after the network agreed
to arrange a conversation between the source and the presidential
campaign of Bush's opponent, Democratic Sen. John Kerry.
Experts in media ethics said if the report were true, CBS may have
overstepped the boundary between journalism and politics. The network
said it would investigate the matter.
"It is obviously against CBS News standards
and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated
with any political agenda," CBS News said in a statement.
Comment:
Sure it is - and Fox News is the most objective news outlet in the
known universe...
"As to what actually happened here, it is one of many issues
the independent review will be examining," the network said,
referring to a probe it announced on Monday as part of a dramatic
about-face over the authenticity of documents.
After two weeks of defending the documents, which served as the
basis for its Sept. 8 report, CBS News publicly acknowledged that
it could not prove they were authentic.
Media experts said the affair had deeply
damaged the credibility of CBS News, once home to anchor Walter
Cronkite -- dubbed "the most trusted man in America."
[...] |
Should CIA agents be allowed
to pose as journalists to further the aims of their clandestine
activities?
Members of a Council on Foreign Relations task force on the future
of U.S. intelligence in the post-Cold War world say yes, and a CIA
official recently came forward to admit that the Agency already
occasionally does so despite regulations barring the practice. But
is this a breaking story or just the latest chapter in a spy story
that traces its roots back to the 1950's? While
they may act like strangers in public, the press and the CIA have
a sordid past that spans more than four decades.
The CIA-Press Connection in the 1950s and 60s
The CIA-press connection traces its roots back to the early days
of the Cold War, when Allen Dulles (who became CIA director in 1953)
began courting the nation's most prestigious journalistic institutions
for Agency operations. The mood of the day precluded the need for
secretive infiltration, as Carl Bernstein points out in his 1977
expose on the topic. "American publishers,
like so many other corporate and institutional leaders at the time,
were willing to commit the resources of their companies to the struggle
against global Communism," he writes. "Accordingly, the
line separating the American press corps was often indistinguishable."
Comment:
Today, the war is not against Communism, but rather terrorism.
That's not to say that reporters acted as spies in the James Bond
sense. Media outlets offered services that fell into the broad categories
of providing "cover" for CIA operatives (i.e. jobs and
credentials) or sharing information gathered by reporters on staff.
While the Agency ran a formal training program in the 50's that
attempted to teach rank-and-file agents to be reporters, this was
among the least common of the more than 400 relationships with the
press described in CIA files. Most involved were journalists before
their involvement with the CIA began.
Reporters, especially foreign correspondents, typically served
as "eyes and ears" for the CIA. Often they were briefed
by agents before a trip and debriefed when they returned; they shared
their notebooks, relayed things that they had seen or overheard
and offered their impressions. More complex
arrangements found reporters planting misinformation for the Agency
or serving as liaisons between agents and foreign contacts, often
in return for information or access.
"In return for our giving them information, we'd ask them
to do things that fit their roles as journalists but that they wouldn't
have thought of unless we put it in their minds," one agent
told Bernstein. "For instance, a reporter in Vienna would say
to our man, 'I met an interesting second secretary at the Czech
Embassy.' We'd say, 'Can you get to know him? And after you get
to know him, can you assess him? And then, could you put him in
touch with us -- would you mind us using your apartment?'"
Another senior CIA official offered the following description of
"reporting" by cooperating journalists: "We would
ask them, 'Will you do us a favor? We understand that you're going
to be in Yugoslavia. Have they paved the streets? Where did you
see planes? Were there any signs of military presence? How many
Soviets did you see? If you happen to meet a Soviet, get his name
and spell it right."
It was a symbiotic relationship: reporters got the scoop and the
spooks got the dirt. Correspondents with Agency
ties were highly valued by their bosses for the stories they brought
home. And agents saw in the press a perfect vehicle for information
gathering: who else besides a reporter enjoyed such free access
in a foreign country, could cultivate so many sources among foreign
governments and elites and ask lots of probing questions without
arousing suspicion? [...]
The Church Committee Investigation
A flurry of public attention began to cast doubts upon the ethics
of a press wedded to the Central Intelligence Agency after a Washington
Star-News story by Oswald Johnson reported that the CIA had three
dozen American newsmen on its payroll at that time (November 1973).
Then-CIA director William Colby (CFR) leaked this information to
Johnson, fearing an embarrassing fallout after both the Star-News
and New York Times approached him to ask if any of their staff members
were receiving payments from the Agency. (A Times investigation
four years later showed the number of CIA-funded journalists to
be closer to 50; Bernstein's expose in Rolling Stone that same year
claimed it was more like 400.)
By now, the times they had a-changed: In a 1974 article in the
Columbia Journalism Review, former reporter Stuart Loory chastised
fellow journalists for their history of chumming it up with the
CIA and for their lax coverage of the issue once it came to light.
"There is little question that if even one American overseas
carrying a press card is paid by the CIA, then all Americans with
those credentials are suspect," he wrote.
"We automatically... consider Soviet and Chinese newsmen as
mouthpieces and informants for their governments, while at the same
time congratulating ourselves for our independence. Now we know
that some of that independence has, with the stealth required of
clandestine operations, been taken away from us -- or given away."
In 1975, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence headed by
Frank Church (the Church Committee) focused its attention on the
Agency's use of American news outlets. The CIA went to great lengths
to curtail this part of the committee's investigation, though, and
some members of the committee later admitted that the Agency was
able to get the upper hand. Colby and his
successor, George Bush
(CFR, TC), were able to convince the Senate that a full inquiry
would cripple their intelligence-gathering capabilities and would
unleash a "witch-hunt" on the nation's reporters, editors
and publishers.
"The Agency was extremely clever about it and the committee
played right into its hands," one congressional source told
Carl Bernstein. "Church and some of
the other members were much more interested in making headlines
than in doing serious, tough investigating. The Agency pretended
to be giving up a lot whenever it was asked about the flashy stuff
-- assassinations and secret weapons and James Bond operations.
Then, when it came to things they didn't want to give away, that
were much more important to the Agency, Colby in particular called
in his chits. And the committee bought it."
Former intelligence officer William Bader (who returned to the
Agency as a deputy to Stansfield Turner) and David Aaron (who later
served as deputy to President Carter's national security advisor)
supervised the committee's investigation of the CIA-press angle.
CIA director Bush balked at all of Bader's requests for specific
information about the scope of the Agency's media activities. Under
pressure from the entire committee, Bush
finally agreed to pull records on journalists and have his deputies
condense them into one-paragraph summaries. The Agency would not
make the raw files available, and neither the names of journalists
nor their affiliations would be included. More
than 400 summaries were compiled (a number that officials acknowledge
was probably on the low side) in an attempt to give committee members
"a broad, representative picture." [...]
CBS: CIA Broadcasting System?
Bernstein asserts that a good relationship between former CIA director
Allen Dulles and former CBS president William Paley (CFR) made the
network the CIA's most valuable broadcasting asset. "Over the
years," Bernstein writes, "the network
provided cover for CIA employees, including at least one well-known
foreign correspondent and several stringers; it supplied outtakes
of newsfilm to the CIA; established a formal channel of communications
between the Washington bureau chief and the agency; and allowed
reports by CBS correspondents... to be routinely monitored by the
CIA."
Paley chose Sig Mickelson (CFR), president of CBS News from 1954
to 1961, as his liaison with the CIA. Mickelson (who went on to
become president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty) recalls
complaining about having to use a pay phone to contact the CIA,
and later installing a private line that bypassed the CBS switchboard
for this purpose. A CBS investigation of his files revealed that
he was involved in passing on CBS film and outtakes to CIA officials
in exchange for payment and that he regularly forwarded copies of
CBS' internal newsletter to his CIA handlers. The same investigation
revealed that two CBS employees -- stringer Austin Goodrich and
Frank Kearns, a network reporter from 1958-1971 -- were undercover
CIA operatives.
Mickelson has discussed his CIA activities
with Bernstein and others. "When I moved into the job I was
told by Paley that there was an ongoing relationship with the CIA,"
he has recalled. "He introduced me to two agents who
he said would keep in touch. We all discussed the Goodrich situation
and the film arrangements. I assumed that this was the normal relationship
at the time. This was at the height of the Cold War and I assumed
the communications media were cooperating -- though the Goodrich
matter was compromising."
Mickelson's successor Richard Salant says he continued some of
these practices when he took the CBS helm. "I said no on talking
to the reporters, and let them see broadcast tapes, but no outtakes,"
he explains. "This went on for a number of years -- into the
Seventies."
Sign of the Times
The New York Times was for the CIA in the realm of newspapers what
CBS was to the Agency among broadcasters. Publisher
Arthur Hays Sulzberger (CFR) arranged for cover for approximately
10 CIA employees between 1950 and 1966 as part of his general policy
of providing assistance to the CIA whenever possible.
According to CIA officials, the Agency's ties to the Times were
stronger than to any other papers because of its large foreign news
operation and because of close ties between publisher Sulzberger
and director Dulles (a relationship described by one staff member
as "the mighty dealing with the mighty.") The output of
this close relationship generally included reporting for CIA agents
and "spotting" new prospective foreign operatives. Sulzberger
is said to have signed a secrecy agreement with the Agency in the
1950's -- some say he did so as a pledge not to reveal the classified
information he was privy to; others claim it was a pact never to
reveal the Times' dealings with the CIA.
Former Times reporter Wayne Phillips said CIA agents approached
and tried to recruit him as an undercover operative in 1952, advising
him that the Agency has a "working relationship" with
Sulzberger. A Freedom of Information Act request later revealed
that agents hoped to put him to work as an "asset" abroad.
The Times ran a story about the attempted recruitment in 1976, in
which Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (CFR) asserted that he had "never
heard of the Times being approached, either in my capacity as publisher
or as the son of the late Mr. Sulzberger."
A CIA Post?
Bernstein's former employers at the Washington
Post escaped his expose unscathed, but other investigators have
documented extensive CIA ties at the paper. According to
John Kelly of CounterSpy magazine, Post reporter Walter Pincus (CFR)
worked for the CIA in 1959 as an Agency trained and funded delegate
sent to the International Youth Festival in Vienna to disrupt the
festival and spy on fellow Americans. After briefing agents on his
activities and taking a pledge of secrecy, he went on attend youth
conferences in Ghana and Guinea. Pincus claims that he was offered,
but turned down, a permanent CIA position, although he did attend
a political meeting in New Delhi at the Agency's request before
going on to bigger and better things at the Post. Pincus has written
several pieces sympathetic to CIA operations. He published an article
just prior to the release of Bernstein's Rolling Stone expose downplaying
the article's claims, even though his report essentially let Post
publisher Katherine Graham off the hook.
Reporter Russell Warren Howe also has a long history
of CIA service. In 1958, he once said, his "days as an asset
had just begun." He worked for the CIA proprietary "Information
Bulletin, Ltd." and its successor, "Forum Service"
(later known as Forum World Features), in addition to the CIA-funded
"Africa Report and "Survey." Howe
was fully aware of his employer's CIA ties, referring once to the
FWF as "the principal CIA media in the world." According
to the Church Committee, the Post management was aware that one
of their reporters worked for a CIA publication, and that on several
occasions they knowingly reprinted propaganda from that paper in
the Post.
Philip Geyelin (CFR) on the other hand was a CIA agent before taking
a job as a Post reporter. Geyelin joined the Agency for 11 months
during a leave from the Wall Street Journal. While at the Journal,
CIA memos about Geyelin (which number in the hundreds, according
to CounterSpy) described him as "a CIA resource" and a
"willing collaborator." Geyelin has come to the CIA's
defense in the Post: in response to a statement by Post ombudsman
Charles Seib that the CIA should stick to dirty work, the press
should inform the public, "and never the twain can meet,"
Geyelin replied that to the contrary, agents and journalists were
"all searching for the same nuggets of truth about the outside
world." He took this a step further when he protested Congressional
efforts to regulate CIA-media ties, invoking journalists' constitutional
right to be co-opted by spooks. "(I)n its zeal to restrict
the freedom of the agency to subvert the press," he wrote,
"Congress could wind up making a law that would in fact abridge
-- or threaten to abridge -- some part of the freedom of the press
that the First Amendment was intended to protect."
Publisher Katherine Graham is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations with close ties to former CIA directors Dulles and William
Casey (CFR). She hired CIA-linked Wackenhut Security Corporation
to break up a Post union strike, and invited former Deputy Attorney
General Nicholas Katzenbach (CFR) to join the Post's board of directors
despite his well-documented past as a CIA apologist. Katzenbach
is said to have asked a past Post editorial page editor to tone
down an upcoming editorial about the CIA, and he chaired a presidential
panel that "investigated" CIA domestic operations (but
actually served as a rubber stamp for the Agency's activities).
While he asserted that both the FBI and CIA
were "the most decent and effective intelligence agencies in
the world," Katzenbach had first hand knowledge of the seedier
side of intelligence: the Church committee produced several memos
documenting his suggestions to J. Edgar Hoover that he might undertake
wiretap operations as part of the Bureau's campaign to discredit
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Making Time for Spooks
Time and Life founder Henry Luce was considered
one of the CIA's most cooperative sources in the media. Luce, another
of Dulles' personal friends in the media, was said to freely allow
staff members to work with the CIA and willingly provide credentials
for agents who lacked journalistic experience. Throughout
the 50's and 60's Time correspondents attended CIA briefing dinners,
and Luce encouraged his foreign correspondents to meet with CIA
officials after returning from trips abroad.
C.D. Jackson, a Life magazine vice president in the early 1960's,
co-authored a CIA study on reorganization of the intelligence community
during his tenure at Time-Life, and approved specific plans for
granting cover to CIA operatives. Former Life managing editors Edward
Thompson and George Hunt told Stuart Loory that they regularly allowed
military intelligence agents to come to the Life office to look
at photos and, since they were public domain, sometimes gave them
prints. CIA agents were allowed to interview correspondents returning
from overseas assignments too, Hunt said, although he did not consider
this to be "working with" intelligence agencies. "We
never cooperated with the CIA," Hunt claimed. "We didn't
have any of that nonsense going on at Life."
Other News Outlets With Documented CIA Ties
Management at the Christian Science Monitor admitted
the paper had an ongoing relationship with the CIA throughout the
1950's and early 60's. Joseph Harrison, who became editor in 1950,
said he discovered that agents paid frequent visits to the news
office to get information on Monitor stories. "I inherited
the situation and I continued it," he said of the arrangement,
which included allowing the Agency access to uncut versions of stories
and letters from Monitor foreign correspondents. While
Johnson characterized such activities as "helping out as an
American," he drew the line at pursuing stories at the Agency's
behest or allowing his employees to moonlight with the CIA. "That,"
according to his distinction, "would have been espionage."
CIA files show that ABC News provided cover
for agents throughout the 1960's. During the Church committee
hearings the Agency refused to reveal whether its relationship with
the network was ongoing. As with ties to other high profile news
outlets, arrangements were made at the highest level, with the full
knowledge of network executives. CIA officials claim that Sam Jaffe
and one other unnamed correspondent performed clandestine tasks
for the Agency. Jaffe admits that he was approached by agents who
offered to get him a job with CBS, who would send him on assignment
in Moscow if he agreed to cooperate, but claims he never agreed
to the deal. Jaffe did go on to do some work for CBS, though, and
said he believed that the CIA had a hand in getting him the assignment.
One of the more unusual accounts of the CIA-press
connection involves the Louisville Courier-Journal. Undercover
operative Robert H. Campbell spent three months at the paper as
a reporter in 1964-1965 as part of an arrangement made by the Agency
and Courier-Journal executive editor Norman Issacs. The first account
of Campbell's tenure at the paper appeared in a front-page story
in 1976 -- in the Courier-Journal (one of the few self-investigative
pieces written on this topic).
James Herzog reported that Campbell had been hired in spite of
the fact that he could not type and knew little about newswriting.
"Norman said that when he was in Washington, he had been called
to lunch with some friend of his who was with the CIA [who] wanted
to send this young fellow down to get him a little knowledge of
newspapering," the paper's former managing editor recalled
in the article.
CIA sources say that the Courier-Journal arrangements were made
so that Johnson could amass a record of journalistic experience
(he also worked briefly for the Hornell, New York Evening Tribune).
The Agency even sent funds to the Courier-Journal to pay Johnson's
salary. These same sources claim that the deal was made with Issacs
and approved by the paper's publisher, but neither man recalls being
involved. "All I can do is repeat the simple truth," Issacs
said in response to Herzog's story, "that never, under any
circumstances or at any time, have I ever knowingly hired a government
agent." But, he added, "none of this is to say that I
couldn't have been 'had.'"
But clues were there. No one looked into Johnson's credentials
when he was hired, and his file included the curious notation "Hired
for temporary work -- no reference checks completed or needed."
Johnson's journalistic prowess (or lack thereof)
should have given him away: his editors characterized his work as
"unreadable" and it was never published. If that was not
clue enough, his penchant for announcing to patrons at a bar a few
steps from his office that he was a CIA agent should have done the
trick.
Who else? Bernstein compiled the following
list of additional organizations known to have provided CIA cover:
the New York Herald-Tribune, the Saturday Evening Post, Scripps-Howard
Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, the Associated Press, United Press
International, the Mutual Broadcasting System, Reuters and the Miami
Herald. [...]
Sources
"The CIA and the Media: How America's Most
Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence
Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered it Up," Rolling
Stone, October 20, 1977, p.55-67.
"CIA in America," CounterSpy, Spring 1980,
p. 42-43.
"Washington Post -- Speaking for Whom?"
CounterSpy, May-July 1981, p. 13-19.
Loch K. Johnson, America's Secret Power: the CIA
in a Democratic Society, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989,
p. 182-311.
"'Loophole Revealed in Prohibition on CIA Use
of Journalistic Cover," New York Times, February 16, 1996,
p. A24.
"Making Intelligence Smarter," report
of a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations, 1996.
"Disinformation and Mass Deception: Democracy
as a Cover Story," Covert Action Information Bulletin, Spring-Summer
1983, p. 3-12.
"The CIA's use of the press: a 'mighty Wurlitzer,'"
Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 1974, p. 9-18. |
Introduction
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the American Press have
been central features of American society since their beginnings.
The CIA concerns itself with international and internal security
operations, many of which remain hidden from the general United
States population. The American Press works to provide the public
with access and information, much of which focuses on the government
and its operations. It appears that the two
groups work against each other, one striving to conceal, while the
other attempting to expose. Unknown
to most, the two organizations actually have a long history of partnership.
The two groups share personnel and have overlapping payrolls. In
addition the CIA has relied on journalists for espionage purposes
for over half a century. This partnership raises numerous
issues regarding the credibility and bias of the information provided
by the press. Many take for granted that the information provided
by their daily newspapers and evening news is presented independent
of government pressure and control, however the complex relationship
between the CIA and the media leads one to question this separation.
This paper will first examine the founding of the CIA and its basic
components, the look at the evolution of covert operations, followed
by the facets of the operations themselves. Then a review the major
covert operations undertaken by the CIA will be presented. An investigation
concerning the mainstream press and journalists employed by the
CIA will follow, and then move to a look at the relationship between
the two organizations. The effects of "September 11" on
this relationship will then be explored, and end with concluding
thoughts regarding the effects of the CIA and media's complex relationship.
[...]
The CIA and the Press: an intimate relationship?
The reason for such an exchange may involve "the revolving
door between the media and government. It's considered a badge of
honor for a journalist to have spent time working for the White
House, whereas it should be seen as a conflict of interest"
(Brandt 9). The overlap leads one to question the validity and point
of view of the information and articles presented by the shared
personnel.
In addition, numerous examples exist in a short examination of
recent history of the overlap in payrolls. David Gergen, "has
been spinning through the door so often that it makes the rest of
us dizzy. Gergen flacked for Nixon, Ford, Reagan and finally Clinton,
and between administrations he was an editor at U.S. News &
World Report and a commentator for PBS" (Brandt 9).
The list continues; John Scali was with ABC and then Nixon, returning
back to ABC after Nixon's era. Robert John Myers was in CIA for
twenty years and then took the position of publisher of the New
Republic in 1968 (Brandt 9). "Generoso Paul Pope, Jr. was in
the CIA the year before he bought the National Enquirer in 1952.
Laughlin Phillips, co-founder of the Washingtonian, was in the CIA
for fifteen years . . . George R. Packard and L. Bruce van Voorst
were with the CIA before they joined Newsweek, and Philip Geyelin
worked for the CIA while on leave from the Wall Street Journal"
(Brandt 9).
In terms of the actual organizations used
by the CIA, in an article by Thomas Wright he listed the American
Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated
Press, United Press International, New York Times, Louisville Courier-Journal,
Copley News, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek
magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the
old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-Tribune, all have
worked with the CIA. Furthermore, the
most "valuable" associations have been with the New York
Times, CBS and Time Inc" (Wright 1).
As demonstrated above, the CIA has not only used reporters and
worked with media groups, the organization and the government and
media also share much of the same personnel to run their operations.
One might ask why the CIA would even risk involving the media at
all in its operations, the answer is quite simple: "The
use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence-gathering
employed by the CIA" (Brandt 9). |
Lowry Mays is the Big Daddy of
radio. The founder and CEO of Clear Channel, Mays oversees 1,233
radio stations with some 100 million
listeners across all 50 states, and runs a company with $8
billion in revenues and a $23 billion market cap. But ask Mays about
what he does for a living and you won't hear much about musicians
or how to bring up ratings or who's the best DJ. Those things don't
interest him much.
Truth is, Mays isn't that passionate about what goes out over the
airwaves. As long as his broadcasts sell ads, he's happy. "If
anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone
from our company," says Mays, 67. "We're
not in the business of providing news and information. We're not
in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply
in the business of selling our customers products."
That all-business attitude is just one of the things that infuriates
Mays's detractors, for whom creative content is everything. To the
musicians, small radio operators, and other radioheads who hate
Clear Channel, Mays is an evil emperor intent on seizing the many
charming boutiques of Radio Land and converting them into an audio
Mall of America. And that's just for starters. [...] |
Clear Channel, rejecting Howard
Stern's claims that he was canned for slamming President Bush, says
its radio network does not have a political agenda.
But new political contribution data tell
a different story about Clear Channel (CCU) executives. They have
given $42,200 to Bush, vs. $1,750 to likely Democratic nominee John
Kerry in the 2004 race.
What's more, the executives and Clear Channel's
political action committee gave 77% of their $334,501 in federal
contributions to Republicans. That's a bigger share than any other
entertainment company, says the non-partisan Center for Responsive
Politics.
In contrast, Viacom (VIA) executives and its political action committee
gave just 30% of their $545,650 to Republican candidates. Viacom
syndicates Stern's show. [...]
Clear Channel CEO Lowry Mays and his sons
led the campaign giving. Mays gave $12,500 to the Republican
National Committee in September. He gave $2,000 to Bush in July.
President Mark Mays and Chief Financial Officer Randall Mays each
gave $2,000 to Bush last year, as well. Levin says these gifts reflect
a fact of political life — that companies tend to favor the
party in power.
Clear Channel, based in San Antonio, has grown rapidly since Lowry
Mays started the company 30 years ago. It
has 180 million weekly listeners and 1,200 stations, up from about
200 stations five years ago.
Critics worry that its airwave dominance
will stifle diversity of broadcast views as the FCC, Congress and
the courts debate restricting radio ownership. "When they are
that powerful and they have a political track record, it can make
one uneasy," says Andrew Schwartzman, president of Media Access
Project, a watchdog group. [...] |
According to the company's web
pages, "Clear Channel Worldwide (Clear Channel Communications,
Inc., NYSE: CCU), headquartered in San Antonio, TX, is a global
leader in the out-of-home advertising industry with radio and television
stations, outdoor displays, and entertainment venues in
66 countries around the world.
Including announced transactions, Clear
Channel operates approximately 1,225 radio and 39 television stations
in the United States and has equity interests in over 240 radio
stations internationally. Clear Channel also operates approximately
776,000 outdoor advertising displays, including billboards, street
furniture and transit panels around the world. Clear Channel
Entertainment is a leading promoter, producer and marketer of live
entertainment events and also owns leading athlete management and
marketing companies."
Self-Censorship
Following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, Clear Channel program
directors issued a list of "potentially offensive songs"
that it suggested stations not play. Many reports referred to the
list as a "ban" on the songs, which included all Rage
Against The Machine songs, the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy"
(which includes the line "Time to get paid, blow up like the
World Trade"), John Lennon's "Imagine," Metallica's
"Seek and Destroy," AC/DC's "Safe in New York,"
Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife," Peter, Paul and Mary's
"Leaving on a Jet Plane," and Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great
Balls of Fire," and "The Drifters' On Broadway."
Clear Channel spokesperson Pam Taylor objected to the list being
called a "ban," saying, ""This was an effort
to help people be sensitive to the unthinkable environment. It's
been somehow turned into some sort of evil attempt to control pop
music, and that's absurd."[1] According to the New York Times,
"a smaller list of questionable songs was originally generated
by the corporate office, but an overzealous regional executive began
contributing suggestions and circulating the list via e-mail, where
it continued to grow." The program directors at individual
stations were able to decide whether to play the listed songs or
not.[2]
Also, in 2003, "after the Dixie Chicks criticized President
Bush during a London performance ... some Clear Channel radio stations
pulled the group's music from their play lists."[3] According
to the New York Times (March 31, 2003), "More unified were
the actions of Cumulus Media, which owns 262 stations, and has at
least temporarily stopped all 42 of its country stations from playing
the Dixie Chicks."
Pro-War Rallies
The Clear Channel's activities go beyond radio. In
March 2003, its affiliate stations throughout the United States
organized pro-war rallies, under the name of Rally for America,
to coincide with the Bush administration's launch of war with Iraq.
"Experienced Bushologists let out a collective 'Aha!' when
Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because
the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush,"
reported Paul Krugman in the New York Times. Although
Clear Channel denied sponsoring the rallies, "they were promoted
repeatedly by the company's widely syndicated radio personality,
Glenn Beck."[4]
To counter negative impressions resulting from the post-9/11 playlist
and "Rally for America" debacles, Clear Channel hired
the crisis-management firm Brainerd Communicators. According to
the New York Times (March 31, 2003), part of Clear Channel's damage
control included an op/ed article by Glenn Beck in which "Mr.
Beck described the [pro-war] rallies as a grassroots response to
his personal broadcast call to 'Mr. and Mrs. America' to urge their
local radio stations to hold rallies."
Breaking the Law
In their "Ten Worst Corporations of 2003" list, Robert
Weissman and Russell Mokhiber report that Clear Channel has "compiled
a record of 'repeated law-breaking' ... violating the law -- including
prohibitions on deceptive advertising and on broadcasting conversations
without obtaining permission of the second party to the conversation
-- on 36 separate occasions over the previous three years."[5]
Bush Connections
"The vice chairman of Clear Channel
is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column.
When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the
University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco,
and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under
Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under
the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush
family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a
deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire." [6],
"In addition, Hicks steered a controversial scheme to use
the University of Texas' $13 billion endowment for private investment.
Among the beneficiaries were the Carlyle Group,
the arms investment firm tied to both George Bush Snr and the bin
Laden family, and George W Bush's controversial Harken Oil drilling
project in Bahrain."[7]
Data released by the Center for Responsive Politics in early 2004
revealed that Clear Channel executives donated $42,200 to Bush compared
to $1,750 to Democrat Presidental candidate John Kerry. Clear Channel's
[political action committee] contributed 77% of their $334,501 in
federal contributions to Republicans. [8]
Contact
Clear Channel
200 Basse Road
San Antonio, TX 78209
Phone: 1-210-822-2828
URL: http://www.clearchannel.com |
In a country where separation of
media and state is so valued, should a TV network allow a government
agency to have an editorial role in how that agency is portrayed on
the air?
The question is raised by the input and support
CBS has accepted from the Central Intelligence Agency in producing
its new weekly drama about the CIA, "The Agency," which
premieres this month.
One wonders if CBS executives remember "The FBI," the
dramatic series starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. that was one of the
great feats in propaganda history. Week after week for nine years,
it presented an unvaryingly upbeat -- and largely distorted -- portrait
of a highly ethical, non-politicized institution keeping America
safe from internal and external enemies. It was a portrait jointly
shaped by ABC, a private network, and the FBI, a secretive government
agency that had say over scripts and story lines.
Each episode displayed the FBI seal and thanked director J. Edgar
Hoover for his cooperation. As far back as
the newsreels of John Dillinger's capture, Hoover knew that polishing
the Bureau's image through the mass media was a key to ever more
power and more funding.
After "The FBI" went off the air in
1973, Congressional hearings and Freedom of Information lawsuits
revealed that -- during the nine years of sanitized hero-worship
on ABC -- the Bureau was systematically abusing the First Amendment
rights of countless civil rights and peace advocates, from grass
roots activists to John Lennon and Martin Luther King Jr. "The
FBI" offered no episodes about that FBI.
Zimbalist and his TV cohorts waged war against organized crime,
but in the real world, the FBI's efforts were half-hearted at best.
In 1968, for example, when activist/comedian Dick Gregory made a
speech denouncing the Mafia as "snakes" for importing
drugs into the inner city, J. Edgar Hoover reacted by trying to
provoke the mob into retaliating against the comedian. Hoover wrote
that the FBI should develop "a counterintelligence operation
to alert La Cosa Nostra to Gregory's attack on LCN."
Those dozen words shed more accurate light on the character and
activities of the Bureau than all the weekly ABC episodes that year.
Apparently unconcerned with this history, CBS's "The Agency"
has invited the participation of the CIA, an institution with a
history at least as controversial as the FBI's. The
CBS project readily won the support of the CIA and its public liaison
officer with Hollywood, Chase Brandon, whose job is CIA image-enhancement.
A decade after the collapse of our Soviet enemy (which the CIA
largely failed to predict), positive media presentations can help
sell the public on the need for the CIA and its estimated $30 billion
price tag. Each week "The Agency" will glorify CIA officers
who save the world from Arab terrorists, drug-runners, kidnappers
and assorted cutthroats.
A new ABC spy series, "Alias," has also received some
CIA assistance, but Brandon refused requests to help two forthcoming
CIA-related movies -- one starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt
, another starring Matt Damon -- because he deemed them insufficiently
positive: "If someone wants to slander us," Brandon told
the Washington Post, "it's not in our interest to cooperate."
Echoes of J. Edgar.
After meeting the creator of "The Agency" and reviewing
scripts, Brandon granted unprecedented CIA support for the CBS series
because "it would show our spirit, patriotism and dedication."
As the New York Times described, CBS was even allowed to shoot parts
of its pilot at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, using off-duty
CIA employees as extras. For interior sets in Los Angeles, the CIA
has provided agency seals. "Much to the
delight of the agency," the Times reported, "CBS clearly
has become an agency booster."
Series creator Michael Beckner explained CIA involvement to the
Richmond Times-Dispatch: "[The series] is not going to demonize
them…What attracted them to cooperating with us is the fact
that we want to tell stories about the lives of the people that
work there."
Producers say the CIA will have input on scripts but not script
"approval." Executive Producer Shaun Cassidy commented
on the CIA's script involvement : "Their support is a strictly
case-by-case basis. If they don't like the script, we won't have
their support that week."
But should network TV producers be showing scripts to a government
agency in hopes of getting its support? And if a series is that
cozy with its subject, how much integrity can the program have?
In recent years, the CIA has worked hand-in-hand
with brutal regimes and armies. It has helped overthrow elected
governments. CBS knows it will abruptly lose its access and support
if "The Agency" focuses on the CIA's less savory activities
or blunders.
As long as CBS and the CIA remain wedded, don't expect a hard-hitting
episode on the agency's alliance with the corrupt, often-brutal
military in Colombia. Or on the CIA's past links to terrorists like
Osama bin Laden now protected by the Afghan government. Or on the
agency's role in the bombings of the Chinese embassy in Serbia and
the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.
In other words, expect far more fiction than fact.
|
WASHINGTON - The part of the
CIA that's in charge of science and technology is showing off some
never before-seen-devices that have been used in the cloak-and-dagger
game over the years.
CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante went to CIA Headquarters to
get a sneak peek at what some have called "the finest museum
you'll never see."
It's a museum of top-secret spy stuff, a display of the once-classified
gadgets used by CIA spies all over the world. It's
for CIA employees only, but CBS News got a rare look behind the
scenes from Dr. Donald Kerr, director for science and technology.
|
George
Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director
and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement
with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly
discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which
Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects
of Nazism.
His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets
were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led
more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought
in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers
at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor
to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds
for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under
the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter
about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate
and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified
last year, show that even after America had
entered the war and when there was already significant information
about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited
from companies closely involved with the very German businesses
that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested
that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the
Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.
Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with
Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the
secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multibillion
dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against
the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on
the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history
an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election.
While there is no suggestion that Prescott
Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal
that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted
as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped
finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end
of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was
the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC)
that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work
for the bank after America entered the war.
Tantalising
Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that
formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow
Thyssen to move assets around the world.
Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and
grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world
wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web,
UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled
bank in the Netherlands. More tantalising are
Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC),
based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During
the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration
camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed
hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National
Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is
not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when
Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.
Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All
three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive
system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of
Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University
of Maryland.
The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress,
show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number
of companies involved with Thyssen.
The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are
contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure
of the company assets. What these files show is that on October
20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC,
of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books
of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates,
the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel
Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company,
another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized.
The third set of documents, also at the National Archives, are
contained in the files on IG Farben, who was prosecuted for war
crimes.
A report issued by the Office of Alien Property Custodian in 1942
stated of the companies that "since 1939, these (steel and
mining) properties have been in possession of and have been operated
by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable
assistance to that country's war effort".
In 1924, his [Prescott's] father-in-law, a well-known St Louis
investment banker, helped set him up in business in New York with
Averill Harriman, the wealthy son of railroad magnate E H Harriman
in New York, who had gone into banking.
One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush
was a founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents,
which list him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share
in UBC worth $125.
The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law
to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial
family.
August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major contributor
to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and his
sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks
and companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore
if threatened again.
By the time Fritz Thyssen inherited the business empire in 1926,
Germany's economic recovery was faltering. After hearing Adolf Hitler
speak, Thyssen became mesmerised by the young firebrand. He joined
the Nazi party in December 1931 and admits backing Hitler in his
autobiography, I Paid Hitler, when the National Socialists were
still a radical fringe party. He stepped in several times to bail
out the struggling party: in 1928 Thyssen had bought the Barlow
Palace on Briennerstrasse, in Munich, which Hitler converted into
the Brown House, the headquarters of the Nazi party. The money came
from another Thyssen overseas institution, the Bank voor Handel
en Scheepvarrt in Rotterdam.
By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman,
which claimed to be the world's largest private investment bank,
and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel,
steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing
Hitler's build-up to war.
Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of
which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the
Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts
and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m,
dropping to $1m only on a few occasions.
In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany after falling out with Hitler but
he was captured in France and detained for the remainder of the
war.
There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens throughout
the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names invested
heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything changed
after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be argued
that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with
the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically
neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on
July 30 1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled
"Hitler's Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases
had raised suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest
egg" hidden in New York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs.
The Alien Property Commission (APC) launched an investigation.
There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized
a string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in
the autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is
in dispute is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these
companies on paper.
Erwin May, a treasury attache and officer for the department of
investigation in the APC, was assigned to look into UBC's business.
The first fact to emerge was that Roland Harriman, Prescott Bush
and the other directors didn't actually own their shares in UBC
but merely held them on behalf of Bank voor Handel. Strangely,
no one seemed to know who owned the Rotterdam-based bank, including
UBC's president.
May wrote in his report of August 16 1941: "Union Banking
Corporation, incorporated August 4 1924, is wholly owned by the
Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
My investigation has produced no evidence as to the ownership of
the Dutch bank. Mr Cornelis [sic] Lievense, president of UBC, claims
no knowledge as to the ownership of the Bank voor Handel but believes
it possible that Baron Heinrich Thyssen, brother of Fritz Thyssen,
may own a substantial interest."
May cleared the bank of holding a golden nest
egg for the Nazi leaders but went on to describe a network of companies
spreading out from UBC across Europe, America and Canada, and how
money from voor Handel travelled to these companies through UBC.
By September May had traced the origins of the non-American board
members and found that Dutchman HJ Kouwenhoven - who met with Harriman
in 1924 to set up UBC - had several other jobs: in addition to being
the managing director of voor Handel he was also the director of
the August Thyssen bank in Berlin and a director of Fritz Thyssen's
Union Steel Works, the holding company that controlled Thyssen's
steel and coal mine empire in Germany.
Within a few weeks, Homer Jones, the chief of the APC investigation
and research division sent a memo to the executive committee of
APC recommending the US government vest UBC and its assets. Jones
named the directors of the bank in the memo, including Prescott
Bush's name, and wrote: "Said stock is held by the above named
individuals, however, solely as nominees for the Bank voor Handel,
Rotterdam, Holland, which is owned by one or more of the Thyssen
family, nationals of Germany and Hungary. The 4,000 shares hereinbefore
set out are therefore beneficially owned and help for the interests
of enemy nationals, and are vestible by the APC," according
to the memo from the National Archives seen by the Guardian.
Red-handed
Jones recommended that the assets be liquidated
for the benefit of the government, but instead UBC was maintained
intact and eventually returned to the American shareholders after
the war. Some claim that Bush sold his share in UBC after the war
for $1.5m - a huge amount of money at the time - but there is no
documentary evidence to support this claim. No further action was
ever taken nor was the investigation continued, despite the fact
UBC was caught red-handed operating a American shell company for
the Thyssen family eight months after America had entered the war
and that this was the bank that had partly financed Hitler's rise
to power.
The most tantalising part of the story remains
shrouded in mystery: the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush,
Thyssen, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz.
Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and
steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel
magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical
company.
Flick's plants in Poland made heavy use of slave
labour from the concentration camps in Poland. According to a New
York Times article published in March 18 1934 Flick owned two-thirds
of CSSC while "American interests" held the rest.
The US National Archive documents show that BBH's involvement with
CSSC was more than simply holding the shares in the mid-1930s. Bush's
friend and fellow "bonesman" Knight Woolley, another partner
at BBH, wrote to Averill Harriman in January 1933 warning of problems
with CSSC after the Poles started their drive to nationalise the
plant. "The Consolidated Silesian Steel
Company situation has become increasingly complicated, and I have
accordingly brought in Sullivan and Cromwell, in order to be sure
that our interests are protected," wrote Knight. "After
studying the situation Foster Dulles is insisting that their man
in Berlin get into the picture and obtain the information which
the directors here should have. You will recall that Foster is a
director and he is particularly anxious to be certain that there
is no liability attaching to the American directors."
But the ownership of the CSSC between 1939 when the Germans invaded
Poland and 1942 when the US government vested UBC and SAC is not
clear.
"SAC held coal mines and definitely
owned CSSC between 1934 and 1935, but when SAC was vested there
was no trace of CSSC. All concrete evidence of its ownership disappears
after 1935 and there are only a few traces in 1938 and 1939,"
says Eva Schweitzer, the journalist and author whose book,
America and the Holocaust, is published next month.
Silesia was quickly made part of the German Reich after the invasion,
but while Polish factories were seized by the Nazis, those belonging
to the still neutral Americans (and some other nationals) were treated
more carefully as Hitler was still hoping to persuade the US to
at least sit out the war as a neutral country. Schweitzer says American
interests were dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The Nazis bought
some out, but not others.
The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government
and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both
materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second
world war.
Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold,
85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown
out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government
cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".
Jan Lissmann, one of the lawyers for the survivors,
said: "President Bush withdrew President Bill Clinton's signature
from the treaty [that founded the court] not only to protect Americans,
but also to protect himself and his family."
Lissmann argues that genocide-related cases are covered by international
law, which does hold governments accountable for their actions.
He claims the ruling was invalid as no hearing took place.
In their claims, Mr Goldstein and Mr Gingold, honorary chairman
of the League of Anti-fascists, suggest the Americans
were aware of what was happening at Auschwitz and should have bombed
the camp.
The lawyers also filed a motion in The Hague asking for an opinion
on whether state sovereignty is a valid reason for refusing to hear
their case. A ruling is expected within a month.
The petition to The Hague states: "From April 1944 on, the
American Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids,
as well as the railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to
Auschwitz. The murder of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims
could have been prevented."
The case is built around a January 22 1944 executive
order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government
to take all measures to rescue the European Jews. The lawyers claim
the order was ignored because of pressure brought by a group of
big American companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a
director.
Lissmann said: "If we have a positive ruling from the court
it will cause [president] Bush huge problems and make him personally
liable to pay compensation."
The US government and the Bush family deny all
the claims against them.
In addition to Eva Schweitzer's book, two other books are about
to be published that raise the subject of Prescott Bush's business
history. The author of the second book, to be published next year,
John Loftus, is a former US attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals
in the 70s. Now living in St Petersburg, Florida and earning his
living as a security commentator for Fox News and ABC radio, Loftus
is working on a novel which uses some of the material he has uncovered
on Bush. Loftus stressed that what Prescott Bush was involved in
was just what many other American and British businessmen were doing
at the time.
"You can't blame Bush for what his grandfather did any more
than you can blame Jack Kennedy for what his father did - bought
Nazi stocks - but what is important is the cover-up, how it could
have gone on so successfully for half a century, and does that have
implications for us today?" he said.
"This was the mechanism by which Hitler was
funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third
Reich's defence industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by
which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners,
this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial
laundering of the Third Reich were blunted," said Loftus, who
is vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg.
"The Union Banking Corporation was a holding company for the
Nazis, for Fritz Thyssen," said Loftus. "At
various times, the Bush family has tried to spin it, saying they
were owned by a Dutch bank and it wasn't until the Nazis took over
Holland that they realised that now the Nazis controlled the apparent
company and that is why the Bush supporters claim when the war was
over they got their money back. Both
the American treasury investigations and the intelligence investigations
in Europe completely bely that, it's
absolute horseshit. They always knew
who the ultimate beneficiaries were." [...]
The Anti-Defamation League in the US is supportive
of Prescott Bush and the Bush family. In a statement last
year they said that "rumours about the alleged Nazi 'ties'
of the late Prescott Bush ... have circulated widely through the
internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically
motivated ... Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser."
However, one of the country's oldest Jewish publications, the Jewish
Advocate, has aired the controversy in detail.
More than 60 years after Prescott Bush came briefly
under scrutiny at the time of a faraway war, his grandson is facing
a different kind of scrutiny but one underpinned by the same perception
that, for some people, war can be a profitable business. |
[...] "CHURCHILL'S
DECEPTION"
According to Kilzer's well-documented book, Hitler was trying to
convince the English to make peace. In exchange, he was ready to
retreat from Western Europe and from much of Poland.
Kilzer describes how British Intelligence took advantage of Hitler's
racist ideology to divert his energies against Russia and trap him
in a two-front war. They convinced him that a large pro Nazi (anti
Communist) "Peace Party" was prepared to unseat the "war
monger" Churchill.
This party consisted of the Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward
VIII) and appeasement-minded elitists known as the "Cliveden
Set." The Nazis had longstanding social ties with this group
and confided in them. Hitler seemed to overlook the fact that Windsor
went to stay at the Rothschild castle in Austria after he abdicated.
Rudolph Hess, the Deputy Leader of Nazi Germany, was in contact
with the Cliveden group and flew to England May 10, 1941 to negotiate
peace. According to Kilzer, Hess had Hitler's blessings.
Coincidentally this was the worst night of the Blitz. Afterward,
there was a long lull in both Nazi and British bombing raids. It
appears the Nazis thought they had an understanding with the British
and turned their attention to the invasion of Russia the following
month (June 22, 1941.)
Hitler didn't understand that the Anglo American elite was (and
still is) intimately connected with international (i.e. Rothschild)
finance. Anglo American imperialism is in fact a front for the families
that own the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. These Jewish
and non-Jewish families are connected by money, marriage and Lucifer
worship (i.e. Freemasonry). Both Roosevelt and Churchill were their
flunkies. (All our "leaders" are.)
In 1776 Meyer Rothschild financed the Illuminati, a Masonic secret
society that in turn spawned the major revolutions of the modern
era including the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The ultimate aim
is to establish the banker world dictatorship, which is at an advanced
stage today.
In the 1930's their purpose was to incite a two-front war that
would leave the great nation states (England, Germany and Russia)
prostrate. Like all wars, the purpose was to kill millions of people,
traumatize humanity, increase public debt and private profit, and
make "world government" (the future UN) seem essential
for "peace."
The 1930's British Policy of Appeasement was probably designed
to encourage Hitler's expansionist tendencies and to provoke war.
Douglas Reed, the (London) Times Correspondent in Berlin, was first
tipped off to something fishy when his newspaper suppressed his
warnings of the Hitler menace. [...]
HITLER'S SECRET BACKERS
The book "Financial Origins of National Socialism" (1933)
by "Sydney Warburg" provides another glimpse of how the
Illuminist clique supported Hitler. This 70-page booklet was suppressed
for many years but was republished in 1983 as "Hitler's Secret
Backers."
"Warburg" describes a July 1929 meeting with "Carter,"
the President of J.P. Morgan's Guarantee Trust, the Presidents of
the Federal Reserve Banks, "the young Rockefeller" and
"Glean from Royal Dutch." These are all Rothschild dominated.
It was determined that Warburg who spoke
German should travel to Germany and ask Hitler how much money he
needed to overthrow the state. The only stipulation was that Hitler
adopts "an aggressive foreign policy."
"Warburg" details five meetings with Hitler between 1929
and 1933. The first took place in a beer cellar and Hitler calculated
his needs on the back of a paper plate. About $25 million was transferred.
This was extremely important in the depth of the depression because
the Nazis provided food and shelter to many of their supporters.
Hitler wasn't told the reason for this support and did not ask.
On two occasions, he wondered out loud if "Warburg" was
himself Jewish but dismissed the idea before "Warburg"
could reply.
There is no "Sydney Warburg" but the internal evidence
suggests the author could be James Warburg, son of Federal Reserve
founder Paul Warburg. Many people dismiss this monograph as yet
another fraud but the wealth of accurate detail and anecdote suggests
otherwise.
One wonders why anyone would go to this much trouble to alienate
the most powerful people in the world if he weren't sincere. The
only people with the power to suppress it are the ones it incriminates,
and they have a record of suppressing similar works. [...] |
In 1983, Croom Helm Ltd. published my 1st book, Zionism in the Age
of the Dictators. American writers don't expect favorable reviews
from the London Times, but editorialist Edward Mortimer declared
that "Brenner is able to cite numerous cases where Zionists
collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes, including Hitler's."
Still less could a Trotskyist dream of a review from Izvestia,
the Soviet government gazette, but they hailed it. "During
the world war, Brenner points out, Zionism showed its real meaning:
for the sake of its ambitions, it sacrificed the blood of millions
of Jews."
Louis Rapoport, a failed Berkeley radical, denounced the book in
the Jerusalem Post as "leftist babble." Nevertheless,
he conceded, there were "very real charges that will continue
to haunt" Zionism "until they are dealt with honestly."
In 1987, Jim Allen, the celebrated British movie/TV writer, based
Perdition, a stage play, on the book. When intense pressure on the
Royal Court Theatre canceled production, we debated Sir Martin Gilbert,
the Churchill family's private historian, and Stephen Roth, head
of the British Zionist Federation, nationwide, prime-time on ITV.
The London Review of Books said the Zionist scheme "made it
one of the most famous plays of the decade." Indeed, unless
the Queen was sick on the crapper, every politically or theatrically
interested person in Britain watched us win, thanks to director
Ken Loach's strategic instructions.
Extraordinary world interest wasn't matched in America's media.
Alex Cockburn championed the book in the Village Voice and in the
Nation. But the Voice refused to review it. The Nation sent it out
to someone, but, sorry, "he never sent in the review."
Walter Laqueur had to bark in the Zionist New Republic after their
Perdition debacle: "Some of Brenner's book is invented, some
is exaggerated or drawn out of context." Yet even he admits
that "German Zionists did not fully understand the meaning
of Hitler when he came to power in 1933. Some of their comments
and declarations make embarrassing reading 50 years later."
Despite Zionism's best efforts, over 5,000 copies sold in 18 years
before being put on the web: www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/index.htm
Then Lyle Stuart of Barricade Books discovered that a friend, a
Zionist propagandist, had never read the complete proposal of the
"Stern Gang," 1940s Zionist terrorists, to go to war on
Hitler's side. 51 Documents was born. Now Americans and others can
read the evidence and judge for themselves.
There are six selections re Zionism's relationship to anti-Semitism
and racism prior to Hitler. The 51 documents, including 35 letters,
memos, articles, and reports by Zionists, are from the Hitler era
and after. Seven are by Nazis, most notably Eichmann's memoir, written
in Argentina, on Hungarian collaborator RA<<zso Kasztner.
Five of the six and 43 of the 51 are complete. The rest are extensive
excerpts from important reports. There are four first-time full
translations of articles from German, Hebrew, Italian and Russian.
Zionism convicts itself. On June 21, 1933, the German Zionist Federation
sent a secret memorandum to the Nazis:
"Zionism has no illusions about the difficulty of the Jewish
condition, which consists above all in an abnormal occupational
pattern and in the fault of an intellectual and moral posture not
rooted in one's own tradition. Zionism recognized decades ago that
as a result of the assimilationist trend, symptoms of deterioration
were bound to appear, which it seeks to overcome by carrying out
its challenge to transform Jewish life completely.
"It is our opinion that an answer to the Jewish question
truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only
with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social,
cultural and moral renewal of Jewry--indeed, that such a national
renewal must first create the decisive social and spiritual premises
for all solutions.
"Zionism believes that a rebirth of national life, such as
is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and national
values, must also take place in the Jewish national group. For the
Jew, too, origin, religion, community of fate and group consciousness
must be of decisive significance in the shaping of his life. This
means that the egotistic individualism which arose in the liberal
era must be overcome by public spiritedness and by willingness to
accept responsibility."
By 1936, the Post ran a news flash, "German Zionists Seek
Recognition":
"A bold demand that the German Zionist Federation be given
recognition by the Government as the only instrument for the exclusive
control of German Jewish life was made by the Executive of that
body in a proclamation today. All German Jewish organizations, it
was declared, should be dominated by the Zionist spirit."
Zionist factions competed for the honor of allying to Hitler. By
1940-41, the "Stern Gang," among them Yitzhak Shamir,
later Prime Minister of Israel, presented the Nazis with the "Fundamental
Features of the Proposal of the National Military Organization in
Palestine (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish
Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on
the Side of Germany."
Avraham Stern and his followers announced that
"The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the
German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity
inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion
that:
1. Common interests could exist between the establishment of a
new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the
true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied
by the NMO.
2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed folkish-national
Hebraium would be possible and,
3. The establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national
and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich,
would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future
German position of power in the Near East.
Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under
the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli
freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich,
offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side."
They hanged people all over Europe after WW II for notes to the
Nazis like these. But these treasons against the Jews were virtually
unknown in the run up to the creation of the Zionist state in May
1948. Ninety percent of America's Jews suddenly became emotional
pro-Zionists. With Democrats, Republicans and even the Communist-organized
Progressive Party competing for Jewish votes in the November Presidential
election, Harry Truman's monetary aid bought arms from pro-Soviet
Czechoslovakia, and an Israel was born, run by the German Zionists'
cothinkers in Jerusalem.
Jews and other Americans still know little of Zionism's sordid
past. But today only programed fanatics can come away pro-Zionist
after reading plain facts. Indeed, according to the American Jewish
Identity Survey (2001), less than 22% of all Jews declare themselves
Zionist.
Opposition to Zionism also grows among liberal educated gentiles,
every time their declared enemy, Pat Robertson, howls in favor of
Orthodox Israel.
For complex historical reasons, the Vietnam anti-war movement and
anti-apartheid campaign emphasized demonstrations over sustained
education. Even in victory, little was left behind in the way of
attention to foreign affairs among the broad masses. Even after
9/11, the ultimate attention getter, US public knowledge about the
Arab world, Islam, the oil industry, Zionism, and Washington's involvement
with them, is minimal. But the present anti-Iraq war movement has
no choice but to systematically educate itself and the public. The
issues are too complex for anything less. Ignorance or illusions
about any of the players, here or there, means certain death for
X number of Arabs, Israelis, Kurds, Muslims and Americans. |
Andrea Armstrong doesn't look like the enemy, yet she stands accused
of being a traitor. She doesn't act like the enemy, yet she's been
insulted, threatened and stalked.
Her crime? Wanting to play basketball at South Florida while being
true to her religion:
Islam.
"I swear, I'll send my degree back to USF if they cave on
this. But then, she'd need to shave her beard and moustache off."
That was one of the many chat-room e-mails sent to Armstrong. She
is one of the first American athletes in the post 9-11 era who wants
to practice Islam in public. Judging by the reaction, Muslims aren't
the only ones who should be worried.
"She will be allowed to wear only one suicide belt under her
robes." Actually, Armstrong wanted to wear long pants, sleeves
and a scarf while playing, since the Islamic code calls for women's
skin to be covered. Her teammates didn't mind, but critics screamed
it would open the floodgates for individualized jewelry and clothing
to be worn by every player with a distinctive faith.
The fact is, the NCAA has been granting uniform exceptions for
years. The real problem people have isn't Armstrong wanting to be
true to her convictions. It's the convictions themselves.
"Islam condones killing. Do you condone killing?"
Look, there's no question radical Islam is at the root of most
terrorism. In the warped eyes of many, that means all 1.3 billion
Muslims worldwide are out to destroy America.
"For the record, Islam contributes NOTHING positive to Western
Culture."
Tell that to all those Muslim doctors, bankers and business owners.
Tell that to the well-known sleeper cell, "Muslims For Bush."
Armstrong's plan apparently was to bring down the U.S. one free
throw at a time.
"How about SHE adjust to OUR society? If she doesn't like
it, she can go back home."
SHE is from Oregon. Armstrong's been playing basketball since the
third grade, and would have been a senior at USF this season.
She is white, was raised a Catholic and felt a spiritual emptiness.
Islam filled it, so she converted in June.
In America, you're supposed to be able to do that, right?
"If you met this girl, she is so nice," Ahmed Bedier
said. "She is reserved and polite and humble."
He is the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations,
which got involved after Armstrong said USF's coach told her to
clean out her locker. The school says she was never pressured to
quit. After meeting with CAIR, it decided to seek the NCAA uniform
exemption.
By then, the Internet and talk radio were on fire. Freedom of speech
and religion are getting burned.
CAIR sponsored a dinner last month and invited Hernando County
government officials to discuss the perceptions of Islam.
When the county commission held its meeting last week, a Baptist
minister accused commissioners of supporting terrorism.
"Terrorists! Terrorists!" his followers chanted.
If county commissioners get that treatment for simply meeting with
Muslims, what could Armstrong expect in college gyms this winter?
We won't know, because she decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
She quit last week, not long after some guy started screaming at
her and followed her home. The terrorist paranoids won.
USF will honor her scholarship, but this issue isn't going away.
Armstrong was a relative nobody. Imagine the reaction if a major
sports star decided Islam brought them fulfilment.
What if Serena Williams or Derek Jeter or Peyton Manning became
a Muslim? They would probably learn what Armstrong has.
These days, blind intolerance comes in a lot of uniforms. |
Hmm — dilemma.
I don't like writing about myself .... but I need to sell some books.
Why do I need to sell some books? So I can keep writing, of course.
Why do I need to keep writing? Well now, there's the central question.
Why do I write?
The cynics among you would (and do) insist that Kaminski writes
books (or terse essays that he later collects into books) to make
money. Of course, others who have read my desperate dissertations
about the current calumnies of this twisted tango called human society
have definitely digested the idea that I write to alert caring people
of dangers, deceptions, and deceits. After all, were I writing to
merely make money, wouldn't I be saying those same things that prove
so profitable for all those snivelling sycophants you see on TV?
Wouldn't I be saying George W. Bush is a great leader and sincere
God-fearing guy? And that America is the light of the world and
has the right to kill anybody it wants to in the name of profit?
That's what the writers who are making the real money are saying,
in one demented way or another.
No, my regular readers wouldn't say I write books to make money.
Perhaps if I did, I would have more of the green stuff. But for
me, that's never been the purpose. Let me explain.
I have no children, nor a wife. Sure, I have some siblings, and
their extended families, with whom I have cordial relations. Except
they think I'm crazy. They don't listen to a thing I say. I gave
them copies of my first book and other things I write. They refuse
to read them. And when they glance at them, they think what I assert
is preposterous.
The American government behind the 9/11 disaster? How blasphemous,
they think. After all, they all voted for Bush. They're wondering
when the government is going to come and pick me up and transfer
me to Camp Ashcroft. They joke about this. Many of them have advanced
degrees. I consider them ineducable.
Because I have no family, and because the family I do have is profoundly
anesthetized by this odious American coma so many seem so drugged
by, I've managed to construct a family on the Internet.
The Internet. What a great gift. Never in a million years could
I have found so many like-minded souls without the Internet. I have
managed to build a cyberfamily, one that buries me with e-mails
every single day, that cheers me up when I get too low, one that
comes looking for me when I am absent for too long a time.
They appreciate what I have tried to give them each time I sit
down at this keyboard. Each time I sit down and try to write a piece,
it's always ... what do these people who are most important to me,
these people who I would rather talk to more than anybody else in
the world, because these are the people who really care about what's
going on in the world, and the people who are actually trying to
do something about it .... what is it that these people who have
shown me so much love really need to hear?
Judging by the responses I get back, I am doing what I set out
to do, telling them what they need to hear, telling them that there
is a higher standard by which the people of the world can lead their
lives, telling them about the criminal idiots who every day try
to deceive them with false rationalizations and psychotic dogma,
trying to get them to be mindless robots who accept killing and
lying, and warning them about the poisoning of the minds and bodies
and souls by those who pretend to be acting in their best interests,
but who clearly are not.
Judging by the responses I receive, I am succeeding. The world
can be a better place. It is currently going in the wrong direction.
It is up to us to change it, because nobody else will. I am doing
my part, and will continue to do it until my last breath. At this
point, I can do nothing else. And I am so grateful for all the support
I've received, both moral and financial.
This gratitude fuels my original desire, which is to say what I
think needs to be done to make this species and this world ....
dare I say the words I wrote so long ago in another, never published
book? .... they now seem so hopelessly and unrealistically optimistic
.... to make this world a beacon of hope, compassion and justice
to all the universe for as long as the future shall be! There. I
said it. Now you know why I write.
The impossible dream of a pathetically romantic loner, you may
fairly conclude. What is there that is really worth doing in the
world that the majority do not say in their fleabitten futility:
"A just world? That's impossible." But in fact, at the
very end of philosophy, you discover that nothing really is worth
doing unless it is impossible.
The title of my book The Perfect Enemy is also the title of one
of the 41 essays in it. It refers to my continuing insistence that
the boogeyman is really a nightmare fairytale constructed to keep
us from seeing the obviously criminal behavior of our leaders, that
the dreaded al-Qaeda group of so-called terrorists is not so much
a group of aggressive Islamic freedom fighters as it is a cynical
strategem devised by the powers who control us to justify their
endless wars and heartless abuse of all free peoples in the world.
I'm proud to have invented the phrase (although others also make
the claim) because as a meme, it has taken hold in the world, and
the subject is now discussed in numerous essays on the Internet
and elsewhere.
But it is only one of many essays that have been featured on hundreds
of websites around the world, from Al-Jazeera to Pravda to the American
Free Press (but sadly, never in any mainstream American newspapers),
and more importantly, forwarded by many thousands of readers to
their own lists of friends and sources.
I was proud to be quoted by a Russian general the other day who
was commenting on one of my pieces that was subtitled "only
a desperate idiot would join the U.S. armed forces today."
And just as proud to receive a letter from Yemen saying I understood
the situation in the Middle East better than most Arabs. Or another
letter from Iran appreciating that I understood the Iranian people
to be decent and honest.
I have always thought the two most important essays in this collection
are "9/11 was a hoax," a piece that circulated all over
the world and was reprinted by many (and still holds up pretty well
despite that fact it was written more than a year ago), and "Solving
the Enigma of Media Manipulation," which really was just a
rewrite of the fine series on the subject published by questionsquestions.net
about the corruption by the CIA and Zionist manipulation within
the so-called liberal left American alternative media. I believe
that these are two pieces that everyone in America should comprehend.
If they did, we wouldn't be in the desperate fix we are in now,
waiting for World War III, a worldwide financial collapse and inevitable
environmental disaster.
Of course religion is always one of my favorite topics. My regular
readers know my position on the matter all too well — namely,
that it too is a hoax. How else could our "God-fearing"
president and most of the braindead hypocrites in America keep cheering
genocide against the Palestinians and advocating the mass murder
of everybody in the world who is not like them. Essays such as "Spiritual
Gangsters," "Devils from Heaven," and "Penalty
of an Ancient Fraud" pretty much outline my position on these
matters.
But the majority of these essays revolve around the great deception
known as 9/11, and its horrible offspring issues, the continuing
American mass murders in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Detective story" is still the simplest explanation about
what happened on 9/11. Find the people who made the money off the
suspicious investments prior to that horrid day and you'll find
the people who planned and committed this dreadful deed. Of course,
the corrupt FBI has already officially said there was nothing suspicious
about those investments.
"The understanding" is about how everyone can expect
America's next generation to be much worse and more callous than
this one, because with all these false myths about Arab enemies
being pounded into the brains of our children, the war that Bush
plans to last forever no doubt will, since these kids will grow
up to be even more warlike and gullible than average Americans are
now.
The piece quoted by the Russian general — "Uncle Sam
wants you dead — now!" — is about how anyone joining
today's U.S. military is either guaranteed a senseless and ugly
death in a faraway land for no real reason, or a future of cancer
and other ailments due to the depleted uranium ammunition the insane
power brokers are now using to pollute the land throughout the world.
Why the U.S. has embarked on this obviously suicidal policy is still
anybody's guess.
But I think of all the pieces I've written on the Internet, the
single one people liked most was "The Man in the Big White
Stone," which was about an imaginary conversation with the
composite personality inside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The
punchline to that one is probably the best sentence I've ever written.
The Perfect Enemy: The Internet Essays of John Kaminski, volume
2, is simply a continuation of the series of columns I've written
over the past three years that have appeared on such esteemed websites
as rense.com, serendipity.li, globalresearch.ca, onlinejournal.com,
apfn.com, worldnewsstand.net and rudemacedon.ca. The first volume,
titled America's Autopsy Report, took us through the beginning of
the Iraq war. Volume 2 takes us up to the summer of 2004, when the
Kean commission was just about to issue its bogus report on 9/11.
Needless to say, the series will continue.
Volume 2 is bigger than volume 1, 41 essays to 27, 322 pages as
opposed to 200. But it's the same price, $18.95. I figure the first
one was priced a little high, so this one is priced a little low.
$5 for shipping and handling; if you're outside the country, throw
in a few extra bucks.
Again, thanks for your consideration and support, and let me repeat:
Go to http://www.johnkaminski.com/ for ordering information.
We are trapped in a social system that never was what it said it
was. Perhaps it was the best the human race could do at the time,
evolving as it did out of a system of decaying monarchies and manipulative
secret societies. But whatever the situation was, the United States
of America as set up by our Founding Fathers was simply not the
free republic it pretended to be, and over time, through the inexorable
deterioration caused by lies and graft, it has devolved into a corporate
police state in which democracy has come to mean corruption and
servitude, and freedom means millions of dead innocents slaughtered
on the altar of corporate profits.
The genuine wealth and well-being of all life on this planet has
been made subservient to the insatiable appetites of those who control
the money supply, and the public is left out of the loop where as
a consequence the rewards for its labors are siphoned off through
the cancerous principles of usury by the parasites who control the
social systems.
We are now at a point in our evolution where we either capture
control of our destinies by finally assuming control of our money
supply and calibrating it to honest evaluations of labor and commodities,
or we forever relinquish our claim to be free people on a just planet
and accept our roles as powerless serfs in a world of heartless
masters and expendable slaves.
The real danger in the world lies within the hearts of each of
us. The question that now threatens our future, and the future of
our children, is this: Will we accept this kind of economic parasitism
that limits our lives to a kind of social slavery, or will we try
to build something we can truly be proud of, a world in which honesty
and fairness are actual possibilities rather than cynical political
doublespeak meant to rationalize the abuse of some for the profit
of others?
It is my fondest hope that something I might say in these Internet
rants will trigger events that will lead the world toward a truly
free, just, and compassionate society. Or better yet, that something
I might say will trigger one of you to take that step, utter those
words, or make that move that one day will make all the difference
in the fight between truly enlightened freedom and manipulated semiconscious
slavery.
Best wishes, and thanks for both your attention .... and your heart's
desire.
John Kaminski, skylax@comcast.net, is a writer who lives on
the Gulf Coast of Florida. He is the author of two collections of
essays, America's Autopsy Report and The Perfect Enemy, which have
been published individually on hundreds of websites around the world.
In addition, he has written The Day America Died: Why You Shouldn't
Believe the Official Story of What Happened on September 11, 2001,
a 48-page booklet aimed at those who still believe the government's
highly questionable version of events. A second booklet, 9/11: The
Manipulation of Reality, will be published before the end of 2004.
For more information, go to http://www.johnkaminski.com/ |
Early morning motorists driving
through Norfolk and Cambridge-shire yesterday could hold the key
to finding out more about the meteorite or fireball sighted over
the region.
Around 20 motorists driving along the area's roads from around
6.30am reported seeing the fireball, which many described as having
a bright glow followed by a long trail of light.
They reported their findings to Graham Barnard on his Today in
Norfolk early morning programme on BBC Radio Norfolk.
Mr Barnard told the EDP that around 20 callers rang in from around
6.30am to report initially to presenter Wally Webb seeing the fireball
mainly in the sky above the west and south of the county.
"Callers had their own theories as to what it was, ranging
from a fireball, firework or, in the case of a caller from the Thetford
area, an aircraft on fire, but we quickly put listeners' minds at
rest that it wasn't an aircraft," said Mr Barnard.
Yesterday, the mystery sighting was confirmed as being a fireball
or meteorite by Mark Lawick-Thompson, chairman of the Norwich Astronomical
Society.
He said the fireball could have broken up while in the atmosphere
and the fragments might have landed but, until more detailed information
about the sightings was available, it was not possible to say if
fragments had landed.
The last reported sighting of a fireball in East Anglia was in
Peterborough in 1991.
He appealed to people who had seen the fireball to contact with
their detailed descriptions via his e-mail: astronomy4all@btopenworld.com
His view was shared by research scientist Vicky Pearson who said
the sighting had been reported early yesterday morning in locations
mainly in Southern England, including Oxford and Poole in Dorset,
but there had also been sightings in the Midlands.
Miss Pearson, who is based at the Planetary and Space Science Research
Institute at the Open University at Milton Keynes, said she had
not received any of the reported sightings in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.
She said that, until more information was available, it would not
be possible to say if fragments had landed.
Miss Pearson asked people who saw it to call her on 01908 652814
during weekday office hours. |
MOSCOW, Sept. 24 (Xinhuanet) --
Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday said on Friday that terrorism
is a common threat to the international society, and a new international
security system should be created on the basis of a multipolar world
with a respect for the rule of international law.
While answering questions raised by President of Xinhua News Agency
Tian Congming after the session of the World's first Congress of
News Agencies, Putin said that the situation of the world today
has changed, so we must see clearly the world's future and take
unified measures to safeguard the international security.
Putin indicated that the new international security system which
is taking shape should be set up not only on the basis of a multipolar
world a respect for the rule of international law, but also be able
to defend the rights and interests of the countries and people that
suffer from outrageous attacks.
Speaking of Russia's anti-terrorist position, Putin stressed that
the world of today is no longer a unipolar world, so no one can
achieve its geopolitical interests through the original system,
nor can it attain its own geopolitical goal through international
terrorist nets.
"We need to put away all factors obstructing cooperation
of the international society and unite in efforts to go ahead,"
said Putin.
The two-day session of the World's Congress of News Agencies that
opened in Moscow on Friday was organized by the Itar-Tass news agency,
a state news agency of Russia, and attracted about 400 participants,
including heads of 115 new agencies from about 100 countries. |
TEHRAN, Sept. 25 (Xinhuanet)
-- A new strategic missile has been successfully test-fired and
delivered to the Iranian armed forces,state television reported
on Saturday.
"The new strategic missile was successfully test-fired during
the recent military maneuvers by the Islamic Revolutionary GuardsCorps
(IRGC) and delivered to the armed forces," Iran's Defense Minister
Ali Shamkhani was quoted as saying.
Shamkhani referred to the "Ashoura 5" military maneuver
program,which started on Sept. 12 and was held by the Basij militia
corps with the support of the IRGC.
On Sept. 18, state media reported that a new "long-range
missile" would be test-fired during the maneuvers.Shamkhani,
however, refused to reveal details about the missile for "security
reasons".
He also said Iran was ready to confront all threats not only inside
but also beyond the region.
Tehran last month announced a successful test-firing of an upgraded
version of its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile.Military
experts said the missile, with a range of 1,300 km, is capable of
striking Israel or any other enemy target in the region.
Shamkhani said on Aug. 27 that the Islamic Republic had achieved
an "effective deterrent power" to confront its enemies
in the region.
The United States and Israel, which accuse Iran of secretly developing
atomic weapons, have threatened to launch preemptive attacks on
Iran's nuclear facilities. |
LONDON, Sept 23 (AFP) - EU external
affairs chief Chris Patten struck out Thursday at recent comments
by French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy about the tax regimes of
newcomers to the European Union.
"It is bizarre that anyone should see growing prosperity in
one part of our single market as a threat, rather than an opportunity
for us all," Patten wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial
Times newspaper.
"Would we prefer the entire EU to grow at the current French
or German rates of less than two percent?" he added.
Sarkozy suggested earlier this month that EU aid to the 10 central
and eastern European states that joined the bloc on May 1 be conditional
on the countries raising their tax rates to EU averages.
His remarks were were rejected by the new EU members and were met
coldly by other EU countries. |
PARIS, Sept 24 (AFP) - French President
Jacques Chirac's ruling UMP party risks losing its outright majority
in the upper house of parliament, the Senate, when a third of its
seats are renewed in elections Sunday.
Candidates for the Union for a Popular Movement face a strong challenge
from dissident centre-right lists in a number of constituencies,
and party managers have warned that about ten of its seats are in
danger.
Heavy losses would be seized on by the left-wing opposition as
the government's third defeat after regional and European elections
earlier this year, and a sign that it has lost the confidence of
the public.
However any setback would be relative, as the Senate has an in-built
conservative bias. Currently the UMP has 162
seats in the 321-member body -- a majority of one. If it loses seats
it will be forced to share power with a centrist bloc led by the
Union for French Democracy (UDF) which is looking to make gains.
The opposition Socialists hope to win five or six new seats, but
have no chance of gaining control of the chamber because the electoral
system works against them. Senators are chosen by an electoral college
consisting of some 150,000 regional, departmental and municipal
councillors as well as the 577 members of the lower house of parliament,
the National Assembly.
Over-representation of conservative rural areas means an in-built
leaning to the right. The Senate's function is to vet legislation
-- though it can ultimately be over-ruled by the National Assembly
-- and to scrutinise government action. Senators normally hold other
positions in local government and are expected to represent their
region's interests in Paris.
Under the 1958 constitution the president of the Senate is the
country's second ranking figure and takes over from the president
if he is incapacitated or dies. The current tenant Christian Poncelet,
76, is hoping for a third term but could face a challenge after
Sunday's vote.
Five government ministers -- including Prime Minister Jean-Pierre
Raffarin and Education Minister Francois Fillon -- are running for
Senate seats, which they will surrender to substitutes if they win.
Much focus Sunday will be on the Hauts-de-Seine department west
of Paris where the 77-year-old former interior minister and veteran
Gaullist Charles Pasqua is standing for a seat.
Pasqua is the object of a number of judicial investigations into
illegal party financing and since losing a seat in the European
parliament in June no longer enjoys parliamentary immunity.
Sunday's election is for 127 Senate seats, the others being renewed
at three year intervals. Under a 2003 law, members are elected for
six years instead of nine, and the number of seats is being increased
to 331. |
FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) - Hurricane
Jeanne forced up to three million people to evacuate Saturday and
sent others to hurriedly buy supplies as the storm gained speed and
bore down on Florida with winds near 170 kilometres an hour.
If it hits Florida's Atlantic Coast late Saturday or Sunday as
predicted, it would be the fourth hurricane to slam the state this
season, a scenario unmatched in more than a century. Jeanne hovered
off the coast as a Category 2 storm, but Jack Beven, a hurricane
specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, warned that
a Category 4 storm with winds of at least 210 km/h "is not
out of the question."
Already blamed for the deaths of close to 1,200 people in Haiti,
Jeanne was poised to slam some of the same areas hit by the earlier
storms, potentially transforming still-uncleared piles of debris
into deadly missiles. Meteorologists said the storm's outer bands
could bring wind and heavy rain to Florida by Saturday afternoon
and its expected northern turn could happen after the storm strikes
land, sending Jeanne up and through east and central Florida. |
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - The U.S.
Embassy criticized Indonesian authorities Friday for detaining executives
of a U.S.-based mining company on allegations of dumping hazardous
waste into a bay, and suggested the action could harm the country's
efforts to attract investment.
Police were questioning Richard Ness, director of Denver-based
Newmont Mining Corp.'s local subsidiary, Newmont Minahasa Raya.
Five other Newmont employees, including the American site manager,
were being held at the national police headquarters in Jakarta,
company spokesman Kasan Mulyono said.
No charges have been filed. Under Indonesian law, they can be detained
for up to 20 days.
"We respect the independence of Indonesia's judicial system,
but feel very strongly that the detention of P.T. Newmont employees
is inappropriate," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.
"Throughout the investigation, P.T. Newmont has fully co-operated
and made their staff available to the Indonesian authorities,"
it said. "P.T. Newmont has guaranteed their continued co-operation.
There is no need to physically detain officials of the company.
The detention of Newmont employees under these circumstances can
only harm the investment climate in Indonesia." [...]
Residents on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi say a Newmont gold
mine is polluting a bay with mercury-and arsenic-laced waste. Local
and international media have carried pictures of villagers with
skin diseases and large lumps they claim were caused by the waste.
Newmont has denied the allegations but says it will co-operate
with the investigation. |
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