Your humble author became enamored with The X-Files from the very beginning --I watched the pilot at the ripe old age of ten way back on September 10, 1993. Even then I was aware that I was watching something special and in hindsight X-Files clearly had an enormous influence on my development. Everything about the show from the look, the music and especially the subtext was pitch perfect. It seemed both incredibly cutting edge and yet timeless, in the great tradition of paranormal-themed shows that had inspired it such as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Kolchak: The Night Stalker(all of which I discovered as a result of The X-Files).
As such, it should come as little surprise that I eagerly anticipated the series' revival. After two enthralling episodes, I feel secure in the saying that The X-Files surely has its mojo back if it ever in fact lost it. The show is both more timely and subversive than ever and that has already triggered some very angry reactions from the Establishment media. The great Christopher Knowles has already given an outstanding rundown of this curious state of affairs:
"So Carter again sets out to scare his audience. And he does so by doing what he's always done- reach into the Jack-in-the-Box of America's Nightmare Cabinet and force the fringe into the mainstream.
"That he seems to be taking so much flak shows that he is indeed striking some very sensitive nerves, which is why mainstream voices-of-record The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly were not content to attack "My Struggle" once, they actually did so twice...
"Lest you think that's some editorial quirk, look at the bad review in Time,which not only completely misinterprets the mandate of the original series (fun?) but cites the authoritarian propaganda orgasmatronThe Dark Knight as the example Carter should be following..
"So apparently it's not OK to write about this stuff anymore, not even as fiction. It was OK during the Bush era, it was OK to be suspicious of the Powers-That-Be then. Michael Moore made millions doing so. But not with the Anointed One in the Oval Office."
And yet The X-Files is a property of Fox, a key piece of the media empire of mogul Rupert Murdoch. And Murdoch is as much a "Voice of the Establishment" as anyone.
This is of course not the first attempt made to revive The X-Files after the show came to a brisk conclusion in 2002, in the wake of 9/11. That attempt consisted of the poorly-received 2008 film, I Want to Believe. Budgeted at a mere $30 million, this low key and highly allegoric film was none the less released on July 25th, right in the midst of the summer blockbuster season. While probably already doomed due to a plotline existing outside of both the show's mythos episodes and classic monster-of-the-week features, the timing of the release probably couldn't have been worse.
It is also interesting to note that this largely apolitical film was released several months before the Anointed One entered the White House, when the presidency was still possessed by George W. Bush and military-industrial complex shill John McCain still had some (slim) possibility of attaining the presidency.
And now, eight years later, The X-Files returns during another presidential cycle, this time with a generous budget and a choice prime TV slot. And of course one of the front runners, Hilary Clinton, was First Lady during the show's 90s heyday.
Is it a coincidence that Fox seemingly sabotaged The X-Files revival in 2008 during the finals months of the Bush II's presidency while going all in to make the 2016 miniseries a major hit in the final months of Barack Obama's presidency?
I think not and the seeming schizophrenic reaction of the "Establishment," with Fox going all out for the revival while the pen snipers of the New York Times and such like take aim, is a prime example of the split amongst the ruling elite. In the notorious Tragedy and Hope, Carroll Quigley referred to The New York Times as one of the five newspapers with which "The American branch of this 'English Establishment' exerted much of its influence through..." (pg. 953). Earlier Quigley had dubbed this "English Establishment" the Anglo-American Establishment and had argued that it exerted much control via the wealth of powerful American families such as the Morgans and the Rockefellers and influential think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
To some extent the CFR and like organizations had dominated (but not controlled) the American political scene from roughly the end of the Civil War until the 1950s. By the early 1970s the power of the CFR was in decline and a host of usurpers had emerged to challenge the authority of the Anglo-American Establishment.
"... In the Nixon era the multilateralist policies of the once-dominant Council on Foreign Relations came to yield place to the unilateralist and neocon policies of the once-marginal American Enterprise Institute. A key moment was the split in the CFR establishment after 1968, dividing the 'traders' (those who were concerned for international economic order) from the 'Prussians' or 'warriors' (those who were concerned for preserving U.S. predominance over the Soviet Union.) This last group included the first neocons...
"Future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, in a 1971 confidential memorandum for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned that survival of the free enterprise system lay 'in organization, and careful long-range planning and implementation, and consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, and in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.' Soon, funding for this right-wing ideological offensive was being provided 'by a small sewing circle of rich philanthropists --Richard Mellon Scaife in Pittsburgh, Lynde and Harry Bradley in Milwaukee, John Olin in New York City, the Smith Richardson family in North Carolina, Joseph Coors in Denver, [and] David and Charles Koch in Wichita.' With support from these foundations America saw a spate of new and well-funded right-wing organizations, such as the Scaife-backed Moral Majority and the interlocking Coors-back Council for National Policy (once called by ABC News 'the most powerful conservative group you've never heard of').
"The stage was set for what political commentator Kevin Phillips and others have called the 'greed decade' of the 1980s, when 'the portion of the nation's wealth held by the top 1 percent nearly doubled, skyrocketing from 22 percent to 39 percent, probably the most rapid escalation in U.S. history.' With the spreading gap between rich and poor, the ideal of a public state in which all classes participated was further weakened by the reality of the deep state or security state in which, more than ever before, the few manipulated the many. This was facilitated by a parallel development in the media, with the emergence of new press barons like Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black. As journalist David Brock wrote: 'In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Keith Rupert Murdoch [the prime example] went on a buying spree in the United States, purchasing papers in San Antonio, New York City, Boston, and Chicago. American journalism was never the same.' "
Rupert Murdoch is a long time favorite of the American Enterprise Institute, possibly the premier think tank for the Right Wing Establishment. Thus, there clearly seems to be some behind-the-scenes shenanigans in regards to the recent attacks The X-Files miniseries has endured.
In 2008, during the first bid to revive The X-Files, it was Fox News and co who regularly marginalized conspiracy theories (except those involving Muslims of course) as they had all through out the Bush II regime. During the Obama years, the tin foil hat straw man has been savaged by the older news outlets while Fox provided a platform for Glen Beck and the like. Going further back, The X-Files provided a glimpse of the dark underbelly of the American deep state during the feel-good Clinton years when the nation was collectively happy and fat.
It likely took so long for a second X-Files revival to gain steam due to the change in the collective pulse of the nation. There is far more anger and paranoia out there in Obama's America than there was in Clinton's. If Fox was simply being driven by financial concerns, it seems likely a revival would have happened before now. Certainly the early ratings indicate that the public is ready for the kind of message that Chris Carter and company are offering.
But the political landscape in the country is in total disarray. Establishment pols like Jeb Bush and Hilary Clinton are struggling to continue their dynasties while Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have effectively tapped into the growing populist resentment of Beltway figures. Is X-Files simply a desperate Hail Marry to stave a off still likely Clinton presidency or something more?
Only time will tell, but it is surely we, the viewers, who will benefit the most. In this deeply confused political landscape The X-Files is arguably more subversive now than it ever has been. While taking pot shots at both the Bush II and Obama regimes, it has delved into 9/11 false flags, suppressed energy tech, mass surveillance, the militarization of American police forces and a host of other taboo topics that are rarely brought into popular entertainment anymore.
There have only been a few instances where the revival has slipped thus far. One is its depiction of the Roswell crash, a long time favorite of the UFO crowd that is none-the-less highly dubious when one considers considers the sources behind it (I've addressed this topic before here and here while more interesting information and a much more thorough account of the likely Roswell psyop can be found here).
Another is the Tad O'Malley (Joel McHale) character, a right wing shock jock that has been frequently linked to Alex Jones and Glen Beck. Chris Carter and company seemingly missed a golden opportunity to expose the intelligence community's extensive manipulations of the conspiratorial right (which I've addressed at length before here) with the character. But then again, with Fox still bank rolling the show, Carter may have felt compelled to tread lightly in this regard. After all, the Ring Wing Establishment has always been far more comfortable with the "paranoid style" than their Eastern counterparts.
But ultimately Carter and co take a bold stance with the revival. It is fitting that during the final moments of the second episode, "Founder's Mutation," that images from Kubrick's2001: A Space Odyssey are shown. Kubrick was another deeply subversive filmmaker who made several bold attempts to expose the American deep state in his films. One of the most noteworthy is Dr. Strangelove, a film that likely was only made due to the deep division in the American deep state at the time (as I addressed at length before here).
While Kubrick is always hard to top, I would not bet against Chris Carter. Hopefully audiences will stick with the miniseries despite the lashing it is taking from critics. Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, was arguably sunk by a similar hate campaign. But the nation is different now and Establishment opinion means less than ever before. So here's hoping the masses can weather the storm and see things through to the end.
Welcome to the fourth installment of my examination of the deep political intrigues that confronted the nation of Belgium in the Cold War era. Many of these intrigues were in relation to Operation Gladio, a network of European "stay-behind-armies" established by the US and NATO that have frequently been linked to acts of terrorism in Western Europe. Gladio was considered briefly in part one as well the links two organizations founded by Jean Thiriart had to these intrigues (and the Order of the Solar Temple cult) as well as those of the Vlaamse Militanten Orde (VMO).
With the second installment I moved on to the Front de la Jeunesse (FJ) and the Westland New Post (WNP), two organizations extensively tied to Belgian (and US) intelligence and acts of terrorism. Part three moved on to the Dutroux affair, the cover-up surrounding it and the ties one of Dutroux's associates (Jean-Michel Nihoul) had to the WNP and other component's of Belgium's fascist underground.
As was noted in part three, the arrest of Dutroux and Nihoul spurred several witnesses to come forward with accounts of pedophile networks, ritual abuse and snuff films that involved many of the most prominent individuals in Belgium and beyond. With this installment I would like to continue in that vein by addressing several of the most noteworthy individuals accused by these witnesses, who were dubbed the "X-witnesses" (the accounts of these victims were ultimately published as the X-Dossiers, which naturally only appeared in French and Dutch). The individuals in question were either linked to Belgium's financial and industrial circles or the political and intelligence sectors. Several of the most noteworthy persons straddled both.
I do not wish to delve to deeply into those accused in finance and industry, but the curious reader is advised to look up the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics (ISGP)'s groundbreaking account of Dutroux for much more information along those lines. This is easily the best English-language account of these scandals available in either print or online.
For our purposes here, there are three noteworthy instances that should be noted. The first is the alleged involvement of the Belgian royal family in these reputed pedophile networks.
For those of you who know virtually anything about the history of Belgium, this should come as little surprise. As was noted in part one very briefly, King Leopold II committed one of the most brutal acts of modern genocide in the Belgian Congo towards the end of the nineteenth century. It is estimated that as many as five to ten millions inhabitants of the Congo lost their lives during Leopold II's reign. With such a blood-stained family history, it does not seem beyond the pale that Leopold II's descendants were also involved in child abuse. ISGP notes:
"The Belgian royal family has been implicated on several occasions. X2 spoke about a girl she had known who had been murdered, and how this girl told her about the domain of Princess Liliane de Rety ("a madwoman") where children were buried. [197] Liliane was the second wife of King Leopold III (d. 1983) and lived until her death in 2002 at Chateau d'Argenteuil. In 2004, the Delwart family, shareholders of Solvay, bought the domain. [198]
"From personal experience, X2 mentioned having seen Prince Laurent, the brother of Belgium's present crown prince. Laurent apparently was more interested in masturbating at child abuse orgies than taking part in the actual abuse. [199]
"X3 implicated Prince Charles (1903-1983), the second son of King Albert I; King Baudouin (1930-1993), the eldest son of King Leopold III; and either King Albert I or II. Unfortunately, X3 spoke about experiences from the 1950s and early 1960s, which meant that none of the other X-Dossier witnesses could confirm aspects of her story. Two of her primary abusers, Paul Vanden Boeynants and Charly De Pauw, had already appeared in the Pinon file of the early 1980s; the same is true for King Albert II. [200] Additionally, part of the details of the abuse described by X3, although recognizable, can be a bit hard swallow (the scale and setting), all making her testimony hard to use without more backup from other witnesses. In X3's support, however, she was a well-respected person in the support community for abused women and children, and her interviewers refused to write down most of what she said..."
These accusations included accounts of mass orgies involving the royals and children, various children's genitals being mutilated, children being killed in a host gruesome ways and a baby taken out of her mother's womb via a C-section and then fed to a doberman. But moving along.
Another aristocratic family extensively linked to the pedophile networks was that of the Lippens. ISGP reports:
"... the Lippens family appears all over the X-Dossiers. X1, X2, X4, and two anonymous letters all name Maurice Lippens and his brother Leopold, the long time mayor of Knokke, as vicious child abusers, not only involved in regular rape, but also in the snuff network. [185] Additionally, a relative of them, Count Francois Lippens, the honorary consul general of Belgium, appears somewhere deep in the Dutroux dossier..."
The Lippens family is one of the oldest and most influential in the nation of Belgium. At various points in recent years family members have held key positions in major Belgian corporations such as Societe Generale, GBL (Groupe Bruxelles Lambert) and Fortis and are heavily connected to other major European business interests (especially the Rothschild family). Maurice Eugene Auguste, Count Lippens, the grandfather of the above-mentioned Maurice and Leopold Lippens, was the governor of the Belgian Congo during the early 1920s.
Maurice Lippens, a descendant of a governor of the Belgian Congo
Also of interest on the financial/industrial end is the chemical giant Solvay S.A. Both the Solvay family that founded the company (and who still control it) as well as other movers and shakers that have held key roles in the corporation turn up a lot the X-Dossiers and in other independent accounts of child abuse. ISGP notes:
"Did you already notice how Solvay seems to come up a lot? Etienne Davignon, Karel van Miert and Guy De Selliers De Moranville were all directors of this company. But there's more. The Boëls and Janssens, both major shareholders in Solvay, were accused of trade in drugs and children in 1999, aside from the X-Dossiers. [193] Francoise Dehaye, whose husband was named by X2 as being part of the abuse network [194], is a quality and innovation manager at Solvay. The gamekeeper and-or woodsman of La Hulpe, the castle of the Solvay family, has been accused of being a violent child abuser. [195] And how about the strange statements about Chateau des Amerois, owned by the Solvay family, which also appeared in the Dutroux dossier? [196]."
Why Solvay seems to turn up so much in these in accounts is unknown to this researcher. At one point, prior to the First World War, Solvay was the largest multinational in the world. It used to have a large pharmaceutical division that the company did not sell off until 2009. As a chemical company, it likely receives more than a few defense contracts. What's more, the company also deals in plastics, which indicates that it has ties to the oil industry as well. Unsurprisingly, Solvay has its US headquarters in Houston, Texas, which is to the United States oil and defense industries what New York City is to its banking and insurance industries. But moving along.
While we are on the aristocracy, there is one particular player who appears over and over again in the deep state intrigues that rocked Belgium throughout the Cold War: Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin. Unsurprisingly, the so-called "Black Baron" also frequently turns up in allegations of child abuse. ISGP reports:
"X1 and X2 mentioned de Bonvoisin as one of the most sadistic abusers in the network. [217] One of his sisters married Count Herve d'Ursel [218], who has been accused by X1 of involvement in the snuff and ritual abuse network. [219] His other sister is married to the earlier mentioned Bernard de Merode, an intelligence-connected family which has been accused of child abuse and Satanism by X4 and Nathalie W. [220] X2 mentioned having been at a meeting organized by her pimp, at which de Merode, d'Ursel and de Bonvoisin families were all present, together with the Prince and Princess of Chimay. [221] According to X2, hunts on children were organized in the woods of Chateau de Chimay. [222]"
Ah, but there is so much more that de Bonvoisin has been accused of. Let us first consider a bit about the background of the Baron:
"A third central figure in CEPIC named in the de Cock report was the CEPIC treasurer, Baron Benoît de Bonvoisin, Vanden Boeynant's political advisor whilst VdB was Defence Minister (148). De Bonvoisin has been one of the most notorious characters in European fascism with particularly close links to the Italian MSI and Stefano Delle Chiaie; in 1975, de Bonvoisin hosted a gathering of European fascists at his castle at Maizeret, attended by the heads of Ordine Nuovo, the MSI, the National Front, Fuerza Nueva and the French Forces Nouvelles, amongst others. The Belgian representatives at the 1975 fascist summit were AESP contact Emile Lecerf, editor of the NEM, and Francis Dossogne of the Front de la Jeunesse, the two organisations that the CEPIC members were accused of financing in the de Cock report.
"De Bonvoisin's close relationship with AESP leaders would not be confirmed by formal membership of the Academy until the late 1970s, but as VdB's factotum, he would be a regular participant at AESP administration meetings. He was also an intimate of Archduke Otto von Habsburg, and was in close contact with Jean Violet, as indicated by a diagram of connections between various persons drawn up by leading Belgian fascist Paul Latinus, in which Violet's name figures directly under de Bonvoisin's. Significantly Violet is not linked by Latinus to any other person on the list – possibly a gateway into a different network...
"Beyond his contacts with Violet, de Bonvoisin also enjoyed a privileged relationship with Antoine Pinay; de Bonvoisin's father Pierre had been one of the founding members of the Bilderberg Group with Pinay in 1952. When de Bonvoisin was attacked in the Press in a 1981 revival of the charges of funding the Front de la Jeunesse and NEM, the NEM Club magazine retaliated by printing a picture of de Bonvoisin in Washington in the company of two senior Bilderberg and Cercle members: David Rockefeller and Antoine Pinay (150)*."
There's a lot to take in here in regards to the numerous individuals and organizations the Baron had ties to and I shall breakdown the more noteworthy ones:
The Bilderberg Group is of course a long time bugaboo of the conspiratorial right, generating countless exposes and ample teeth gnashing for decades now. An in depth examination of the Bilderberg Group is of course far beyond the scope of this series and no doubt regular readers of this blog already have some degree of familiarity with the institution anyway. But in brief: Founded in 1954, Bilderberg brought together many of the major financial, industrial and political interests in North America and Europe together in a clandestine fashion with the objective of imposing Anglo-American neo-liberal policies on the member nations as well as much of the rest of the world. David Rockefeller is one of the figures most closely associated with Bilderberg.
the Bilderberg Hotel where the group first met and from which its name derives
The Bilderberg Group was closely linked with the Trilateral Commission (another Rockefeller venture) and the Anglo-American-Jewish Round Tables Groups (of which the American branch, the Council on Foreign Relations [CFR], is the most notorious). It is interesting to note that several of the most prominent individuals in Belgian linked to child abuse (including de Bonvoisin, Maurice Lippens, Viscount Etienne Davignon, Dr. Karel van Miert, and the Belgian royal family) were all attendees of the Bilderberg Group. This researcher does not believe that this was a coincidence and suspects that elements of US and European intelligence were running a "honey trap" on various Bilderbergers, possibly on behalf of an even older and more exclusive European "think tank" that the American conspiratorial right avoids discussing at all costs. This prospect will be discussed further in a future installment. For now, let us return to de Bonvoisin's associates.
Viscount Davignon, a highly connected globalist and alleged pedophile
The figures of Frenchmen Jean Violet and Antoine Pinay shall be most important to this series, but not until a future installment. As for the AESP, it stands for Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques, a Brussels-based "think tank" that brought together various far right and monarchist factions across Europe. Among its major movers and shakers were Violet, Brian Crozier and the Belgian Florimond Damman, who was the organization's founder. Crozier and Damman are other individuals, along with Violet and Pinay, who will be considered at length in a future installment. But suffice to say, the AESP was a highly exclusive elite organization that has been linked to a host of intrigues.
The CEPIC was an organization that we've already encountered in the second installment in this series. As was noted there, the CEPIC was an offshoot of the Parti Social Chrétien (PSC). Several of the victims of the Brabant massacres were affiliated with the PSC and the CEPIC and were seemingly killed in an execution fashion. Here's some more details concerning the CEPIC:
"... a right-wing ginger group within the major Belgian conservative party, the Parti Social Chrétien (PSC). The group, CEPIC, the Centre Politique des Indépendants et des Cadres Chrétiens, would become an official section of the PSC in 1975. In September 1973, a Gendarmerie report by Major de Cock implicated several prominent AESP/CEPIC members in funding an extreme right-wing group, the NEM Clubs. A 1976 Gendarmerie report by Chief Adjutant Roger Tratsaert further alleged that the NEM Clubs had been major participants in plans for a coup d'état by elements of the Gendarmerie in the early 1970s (147)."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 74)
The 1973 attempted coup shall be addressed in a moment. For now, its worth noting that the reader has already encountered a key figure behind the "NEM Clubs" (militant organizations that were inspired by the Nouvel Europe Magazine (NEM), a publication that the great David Teacher states had ties to British and US intelligence dating back to the Second World War): Emile Lecref (addressed in part one).
Lecref was one of the most well-connected figures in Belgian's fascist underground. In addition to editing NEM, he was on good terms with de Bonvoisin who was one of his chief financial backers. He also had extensive ties to the PSC and CEPIC as well as Damman's far more exclusive AESP. Beyond this, he was also one of the key figures in the Belgian branch of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL, an international organization with extensive ties to US intelligence as well as terrorism and drugs and arms trafficking; much more information on the WACL can be found here) and maintained ties to the right-wing terror network known as Aginter Press. Aginter was noted in part one of this series while its ties to the terror attacks that rocked Italy during the so-called "Years of Lead" can be found here.
Aginter and Operation Gladio in Italy also extensive ties with the MSI, Ordine Nuovo and Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie. As noted above, de Bonvoisin was also on good terms with these groups and individuals. This may be especially significant in a future installment, so do keep it in mind.
In part three of this series it was noted that allegations of extreme child abuse involving Belgium's upper crust first began to emerge in early 1980s via the so-called "Pinon file," a kind of life insurance policy Westland New Post (WNP) head Paul Latinus kept in the hopes of blackmailing certain individuals if his life was threatened. It seemingly did not work as Latinus committed suicide under highly questionable circumstances shortly after the existence of the file became widely known. Some accounts have speculated that Latinus' source was Lecref, as discussed in part three. It should also be noted that in the long-suppressed Rogue Agents David Teacher alleges that Latinus received funding from de Bonvoisin while a member of the Front de la Jeunesse. It is unknown if this funding continued after Latinus founded the WNP, but it would hardly seem beyond the realm of possibility But moving along.
Next to de Bonvoisin, the most prominent Belgian figure with deep connections to be mentioned in regards to child abuse was the former Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants (typically referred to as "PvB" or "VdB" for short):
"Behind such a carnival lay the revelations from a troop of witnesses that Vanden Boeynants frequently participated with judges, army officers, lawyers, businessmen and other elite figures, in orgies involving young children and acts of ghastly bestiality, including hunts where children were chased through the woods with Dobermans. PvB is dead, following a heart operation that went wrong. All that he knew about Belgium's depravities has usefully gone to the grave. Yet his legacy lives on, connecting him to almost every organisations spinning in the orbit of crime, neo-Nazi cults and the key figures in the secret army operations..."
(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pg. 305)
ISGP also notes some of them ore incredible charges against PvB:
"Vanden Boeynants was accused by X1, X3 and X4 of being a violent child abuser and-or a person involved in hunts on children. [210] Nathalie W. claimed to have seen Vanden Boeynants at the Dolo [211], the favorite club of Nihoul, while X2 testified she had seen Vanden Boeynants' private driver there, Henri Bil, talking to one of Belgium's most notorious gangsters, Madani Bouhouche. [212] X1 has named both Bil and Bouhouche as child abusers. [213] On a lesser note, Vanden Boeynants' name also appeared in the Pinon file of the 1980s [214] and in Maud Sarr's tv testimony in February 1990 [215], in which his name came up alongside a DEA-trained gendarme general with whom he once ran a massive drug importing operation. [216] Both the Pinon and Maud Sarr cases were about a prostitution network in which minors were used to blackmail high officials."
In part three of this series it was noted that Bouhouche, also a member of the WNP, was suspected of having ties to Nihoul, an associate of Dutroux. As noted above, WNP head Paul Latinus was the one who compiled the "Pinon file" that named PvB as part of a pedophile network all the way back in the 1980s. But back to PvB.
Vanden Boeynants was arguably the most well-connected Belgian politician of his era. His political career began shortly after WWII had ended.
"Prime Minister from 1966 to 1968, Paul Vanden Boeynants from the Parti Social Chrétien (PSC). Vanden Boeynants, or VdB as he is known, would become a national institution in Belgian politics - the Belgian Andreotti, going on to serve as Belgian Defence Minister from 1972 to 1979 and as Prime Minister in 1978-79. He first entered politics at the age of 29 in the ranks of Retinger's European Movement. Before being elected to Parliament, he was one of the five Belgian representatives at the second conference of the Union of European Federalists, the most powerful group within the European Movement, held in Rome in November 1948 shortly after massive intervention by the CIA to ward off an electoral victory by the Socialist-Communist Popular Democratic Front in the April 1948 elections...
"Through the UEF, Vanden Boeynants made a valuable contact in the person of the UEF Treasurer, the Belgian banker Pierre Bonvoisin, who in 1952 would be one of the founding members of the Bilderberg Group with Antoine Pinay. When VdB was Belgian Defence Minister in the 1970s, he would show his gratitude to Pierre Bonvoisin by appointing Bonvoisin's son, Benoît, as his political advisor."
Pierre de Bonvoisin, the Black Baron's father and PvB's early patron
PvB and Benvoisin would be close allies within the PSC for decades, with PvB serving as the front man while Benvoisin operated in the shadows, procuring funds for their rather ambitious projects. As noted above, PvB also seems to have acquired CIA support early on as well. It has long been rumored that he was involved in a host of criminal enterprises in Belgian with the subtle support of the Company.
"... Paul Vanden Boeynants ('PvB' for short), the paunchy and wealthy son of a pork butcher, who became defense minister and twice premier. Compared to the average dour prime minister of Belgium, he had an unusually colourful career. His 'Social Christian Party' was infiltrated by Western intelligence, and was really little more than a vehicle for himself. He put his chubby hands to everything that offered profit, beginning with the national gendarmerie's National Bureau for Drugs, where he installed a pliant general who was on the CIA's payroll. His task was to make sure that regular shipments of marihuana and cocaine bound for the CIA crossed the border into Belgian without harassment. Boeynants, the made-good butcher's son, found time to open a meat processing factory in Malta as another cover to wash CIA dope funds.
"The narco-traffic flooding Belgium belonged in large part to the CIA's long-established international drug circuits, with a certain amount creamed off by Nihoul and partners in return for co-operation on the marketing side. On his part, PvB's carefully articulated populist charms disguised his control over an enormous bundle of enterprises owing strong connections to the underworld and the CIA. When the time came for scores to be settled, the enemies that he had made in the years of good fortune arranged his prosecution for tax evasion. Boeynants responded with threats to sing in no uncertain terms. He was let off with a slap on the wrist, even if his ambitions to become burgomaster (mayor) of Brussels traveled no further."
(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pgs. 304-305)
In addition to being linked to pedophile networks on multiple occasions, PvB was also involved in two other noteworthy political scandals. The first unfolded in 1973 and apparently involved an aborted coup, which PvB (then serving as Defense Minister) would have been a logical candidate to head. David Teacher notes:
"... An AESP Member of Honour since at least June 1970, he would rise to become President of CEPIC from 1977 onwards and leader of the PSC. VdB was implicated by the de Cock report in funding groups planning a coup d'état; at the time, he was Belgian Defence Minister, the minister responsible for overseeing the Gendarmerie."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 76)
As noted above, the CEPIC would be closely implicated in the alleged coup plans. PvB's close associate, Baron de Benvoiisin, was also a key backers of these plans. It would seem that the coup was exposed before it could be put in motion, however. Surprisingly, there is not a lot of information available about these doings (at least in the English language). It is interesting to note, however, that an aborted coup had also been planned in Italy (December 1970) during this same era. This plot involved Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, the so-called "Black Prince," as well as the notorious Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie. As noted above, Delle Chiaie had close ties to Benvoisin. Delle Chiaie also had a longstanding relationship with Aginter Press:
"In Spain, Delle Chiaie linked up with right-wing extremist from other European countries including Otto Skorzeny, a former Nazi, and Yves Guerain Serac, a French former officer for the illegal Organisation Armee Secrete (OAS) and Gladio-linked leader of the Portugal-based CIA front Aginter Press."
As noted in part one, both Jean Thiriart and Emile Lecref had ties to Aginter
Thus, Italy's Black Prince nearly pulled off a coup in 1970 and then, in 1973, the Black Baron was also laying plans for coup in Belgium. And of course the Black Baron seems to have traveled in many of the same circles as the Black Prince. I'm sure that the reader would not be surprised to learn that both of these coup plots were linked to Operation Gladio. But moving along.
Besides the coup, another bizarre controversy that PvB became entangled in was his alleged kidnapping in the late 1980s:
"Then, in early 1989, Vanden Boeynants was kidnapped by members of the well-known Hemers gang, which, it later transpired, had close connections to both Belgian Gladio units and Dutroux's activities. The government tried to pretend he had been snatched by an unknown cell called the 'Socialist Revolutionary Organisation,' which strongly suggested Gladio fingerprints. PvB was held for a month, then released after payment of a whopping ransom. This being the surreal state of Belgium, there were further twists to the episode. First, the prominent gang boss Patrick Haemers– someone else who knew too much – joined the lines of convenient prison suicides. His two accomplices were luckier. One fine day in 1993 at the Brussels-St. Gilles prison, their guards left their cells unlocked. They quietly strolled away to freedom."
(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pg. 305)
ISGP has much more information of PvB's kidnapping and its ties to Dutroux. But suffice to say, the official narrative of PvB's kidnapping (while he was still on probation for financial fraud) is widely disbelieved by the general public in Belgium.
Patrick Haemers (right), one of the alleged kidnappers of PvB
But so much for PvB. There is one other political linked to his PSC that we have already encountered: Melchior Wathelet, Wathelet had been the judge who inexplicably released Dutroux from prison in 1992, a mere three years after he had begun a sentence steaming from a 1989 conviction for sexually abusing multiple children. Wathelet was linked by one of the "X" witnesses to a location known as "the Factory" were a host of outrages took place. ISGP notes:
" 'The factory' X1 regularly spoke about (see above) was a location, where besides regular abuse, snuff movies were shot. Vanden Boeynants' private driver Henri Bil, Baron de Bonvoisin, Annie Bouty, Michel Nihoul, Tony, the controversial lawyer Michel Vander Elst, former prime minister Wilfried Martens, examining magistrate Melchior Wathelet and lawyer Jean-Paul Dumont apparently all went to the ASCO factory to torture and abuse children. [270] In November 1996, X1 took the investigators to the location she had described. On arrival, it turned out that the witness had been talking about the ASCO factory, located just outside Brussels. The description she had given matched, and coincidentally, ASCO was (and is) owned by the Boas family, which used to be close friends and business partners of the late Paul Vanden Boeynants. [271] X1 mentioned having seen a "Roger" [272] at the factory, apparently the head of the Boas family who used to be a member CEPIC and Cercle des Nations."
Before wrapping up, there is one more politician I would like to address who was implicated in child abuse and who later was assassinated under curious circumstances. Consider:
"1991 was to prove another of those years when momentous events occurred in the Gladio calendar, pointing to something extremely sinister beneath the covers of the state. Andre Cools, a significant figure in the vastly corrupted Walloon socialist party, and an ex-deputy premier, suddenly threatened to blow the whistle on links to secret funding and worse, implicating people in high places. He was almost immediately assassinated, in a drive-by shooting in Liege in July that year. Cools was tainted by the Italian Agusta helicopter bribes affair, and implicated in the mysterious disappearance of millions of dollar bonds supposedly in safe transit at Brussels airport. Unquestionably, Cools – a characteristically corrupted and vain Belgian politician with much to hide – was being blackmailed, and decided that if he was going down with the ship, that he would take all hands down with him. The newspapers were engrossed at precisely this moment with the widely suspected links between prominent Belgian politicians and stories of sordid sex trafficking.
"The Flemish newspaper De Standaard pitched with delight on the Walloon socialist organization. It was portrayed as the centre-piece of a sprawling web of corruption linking big business, major banks, insurance firms and construction companies, with many ties to crime networks. With the paper could not say was how much money the party (and its leaders individually) banked directly from NATO slush funds. Cools may have intended to discuss the matter en plein air. Witnesses who escaped the Nihoul sadist orgy circuit often cited Cools as a regular participant, which adds force to his statements just before his death that he was about to make some 'shocking revelations' about the Belgian mafia, and their links to some of the most important people in Liege."
(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pg. 311)
All of this should be taken with a grain of salt. As I've stated at times before, Cottrell is not always the most reliable source. Further, I have found no references to Cools in regards to child abuse at ISGP, easily the most authoritative source for Belgium's multiple elite pedophilia scandals in the English language. ISGP does note, however, that Cools was linked to the Iran-Contra affair with several of the figures (most notably PvB) discussed above. So it would seem Cools at least traveled in the same circles.
And with that I shall wrap things up for now. In the next installment I shall begin to examine some of the elite organizations that were behind the de Benvoisisin/PvB network. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the fifth installment in my ongoing examination of the deep political intrigues that rocked the nation of Belgium during the Cold War era and beyond. This series has primarily focused on two particular controversies that have continued to reverberate in Belgium for decades now: the Brabant massacres (discussed in part two), a series of spree shootings that occurred during the early to mid-1980s that left 28 people dead and scores wounded; and the Dutroux affair (addressed in parts three and four), a scandal that that began with the arrest of serial killer and child rapist Marc Dutroux and which ultimately threatened to topple the Belgian government once allegations of pedophile networks involving prominent figures in banking, industry, intelligence and national security began to emerge.
As was noted in the first installment of this series, these intrigues were loosely connected to what is commonly referred to as Operation Gladio (though Gladio was only the name of the Italian branch). In theory Gladio was a joint operation launched by the US security services and NATO to establish "stay-behind-armies" that would wage a guerrilla war against Soviet forces in the event that the Evil Empire invaded Western Europe. The reality is much murkier, however, as compelling evidence has emerged from multiple European nations that the Gladio armies were used to destabilize the political processes of these nations so as to prevent communist parties from being democratically elected. Everything from bribery to terrorism and even truly disturbing "honey traps" seem to have been used to achieve these objectives.
Over the course of the prior installments I have discussed numerous organizations and groups and now I would like to give a brief recap so as to give the reader a kind of score card. This will help drive home the significance of some of the groups that will be considered in this installment. So here we go:
Political Parties and Movements
Parti Social Chrétien (PSC): Was for many years the primary conservative part in Belgium; dominated for decades by former Prime Minster and longtime Defense Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants (PvB) and his financial patron, Baron de Bonvoisin. Both PvB and the Baron have been extensively linked to pedophilia as have other movers and shakers in the party (as noted in part four).
Centre politique des indépendants et cadres chrétiens (CEPIC): The CEPIC was a far right think tank established within the PSC by PvB and de Bonvoisin to counter the influence of the labor unions within the party and to ensure ideological purity in general. It was much more exclusive than the PSC, primarily consisting of high ranking party members, financial interests and the aristocracy. More was said on the CEPIC is part four, while it was noted in part two that several CEPIC members were seemingly murdered execution-style during the Brabant killings, possibly to silence dissent within the CEPIC.
Jeune Europe: A pan-European movement founded by notorious fascist and Aginter Press asset Jean Thiriart; co-founded by Emile Lecref, the editor the Nouvel Europe Magazine (which had longstanding ties to US and British intelligence) and a key figure in PSC as well as playing a major role in the Belgian branch of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Thiriart later dissolved the movement after he became concerned over the ties Lecref and his associates had. Addressed in part one of this series
Parti Communautaire Européen: A Belgium-based pan-European party established by Thiriart after his break with the Lecref and the shuttering of Jeune Europe. This party was allegedly used to split the communist vote during the mid-1970s in Belgium, preventing the Belgian Communist Party from coming to power. Also featured the eventual founders of the Order of the Solar Temple cult in key roles. Also addressed in part one.
Parti Socialiste (PS): The party of Andres Cools, a Belgian politician who was assassinated under mysterious circumstances in 1991. Cools and other party members had been linked to the pedophile networks, but the allegations are not backed up by especially credible sources. Cools and his party were briefly addressed in part four.
Public Information Office (PIO): The organization was initially established as part of the Belgian secret services in the mid-1970s, but quickly went deep private. Members of the Westland New Post militia had extensive ties to the PIO. It was briefly addressed in part two, but here is a bit more background on the PIO:
"Defence Minister and AESP member Paul Vanden Boeynants (VdB) and his advisor de Bonvoisin set up a military counter-subversion and propaganda service, the Public Information Office or PIO. PIO was headed by a longstanding associate of VdB and de Bonvoisin, Major Jean-Marie Bougerol. Bougerol would be a central figure in Belgian parapolitics implicated in previous coup plots: the 1976 Gendarmerie report by Roger Tratsaert stated that one of the plans for a coup d'état in 1973 was jointly organised by the NEM Clubs (funded by VdB and de Bonvoisin) and a group of gendarmes and Army officers centred around Bougerol...
"Despite its independent status, PIO had considerable links to the SDRA: Bougerol claims he was given the use of an office within the Counter-Information section of SDRA in 1974-75 whilst he was setting up PIO, and one of his closest collaborators was Commissioner Fagnart of the Military Security section of SDRA. PIO had two official missions, the first of which was to expose Soviet disinformation in the media, largely through the publication of a press review called Inforep. PIO's second task was to act as a clearing-house for information on subversion, distributing information to the Army, the Gendarmerie, the Sûreté de l'Etat - Belgium's internal security agency, and the Foreign Ministry Security Division. Unofficially, Bougerol used PIO to mount the same kind of aggressive counter-intelligence programmes that the FBI had been conducting in America under COINTELPRO against the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement from 1969 until at least 1976 (254). It is probably no coincidence that PIO's title - unusual for being in English in the original - copied FBI jargon..."
SDRA was a branch of the Belgian secret services. Here's some more details on its relation to Belgian's secret Gladio armies:
"During their investigation, the Belgian parliamentarians noted with surprised how well hidden the secret army (SDRA8) was within the Belgian military secret service (SGR). At the time of the discoveries of the secret network, the military secret service was divided into five departments, one of which was SDRA which employs 150 of the total 300 full-time SGR employees. SDRA had been created in the beginning of the 1950s by Colonel Charlier, who had before served in the British SAS Special Forces and at the time of the Gladio exposure was Lieutenant Colonel and Chief of Staff of the Belgian army. SDRA was again subdivided into eight units, and next to the top-secret stay-behind SDRA8 included under the label SDRA6, for instance, the Belgian Gendarmerie..."
(NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 130)
As was noted in part two, many of the Belgium's fascist militias recruited heavily from the Belgian Gendamerie (SDRA6), which happened to a be a part of the same department (SDRA) that housed the Gladio stay-behind army unit (SDRA8). But moving along.
European Institute of Management (EIM): A private security firm that, during the height of the Brabant shootings, was chaired by former US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II. MacArthur II had extensive ties to US intelligence and it appears that much of the PIO network was rolled up into EIM during the early 1980s when the PIO came under investigation. There was also overlap between EIM "guards" and Westland New Post militants. All of his was addressed at length in part two.
Wackenhut: The notorious US private security firm widely linked to its secret services had an extensive presence in Belgium during the early 1980s. Several Westland New Post members were also employed by Wackenhut. This was also addressed in part two.
Agence de Recherche et d'Information (ARI): A Belgian-based private detective agency that employed several notorious Westland New Post members, also did contract work for EIM and Intertel. Addressed in part three.
Intertel: A US-based private security firm that was a subsidiary of Resorts International, a casino and gambling operation long tied to the Syndicate. During its heyday in the 1970s Intertel cropped up in various scandals such as those surrounding Castle Bank & Trust and the alleged abduction of Howard Hughes from his Las Vegas headquarters in 1971. Allegedly Intertel subcontracted with ARI during the 1980s. Also noted in part three.
Vlaamse Militanten Orde (VMO): This Flemish nationalist group was more of a street gang that a full fledged militia, though members did apparently receive some paramilitary training. Was engaged in numerous acts of terrorism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Had ties to Nazi community in Spain as well as the PSC brass as was noted in part one. NEM Clubs: Armed groups that were centered around the Nouvel Europe Magazine. Editor Emile Lecref played a key role in establishing these groups. Addressed briefly in part four.
Front de la Jeunesse (FJ): Established in 1973 or 1974 by Francis Dossogne as an offshoot of the NEM clubs. At times described as a political organization and at others a militia. It is included here as members frequently resorted to violence. As was noted in part four, this organization received extensive financial support from Baron de Bonvoisin. Several members, most notably Paul Latinus would go on to found the even more militant Westland New Post. Addressed briefly in parts two and four.
Westland New Post (WNP): The most notorious Belgian militia during the Cold War era. Headed by Paul Latinus, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) asset who had been trained by US special forces. Many of the key members in the group were recruited from Belgian security forces. Linked to the Brabant massacres as well as numerous other acts of terrorism. Shortly before Latinus committed suicide in 1984 he threatened to blow the lid on a pedophile network that involved many Belgian VIPs. WNP member Madani Bouhouche likely had ties to Jean-Michel Nihoul, who has long been accused of involvement in elite pedophile networks. The WNP is addressed at lengths in parts two and three.
Nihoul gang: As noted above, Jean-Michel Nihoul has been extensively accused of participating in pedophile networks. He was a well connected figure in Belgian organized crime and an associate of Marc Dutroux and his wife. Was accused of using Dutroux to procure underage girls for wealthy clients. Addressed in part three at length.
Haemers gang: Was involved in the kidnapping of Paul Vanden Boeynants in 1989, an event widely believed to have been a false flag operation by the Belgian public. Briefly addressed in part four.
notorious Belgian gangster and convicted murderer Madani Bouhouche
Other Parties
Order of the Solar Temple (OTS): The notorious secret society that was engaged in several bizarre mass "suicides" in the mid-1990s. Several members of the OTS had been involved with Jean Thiriart in his Parti Communautaire Européen organization in the 1970s. Addressed briefly in part one. Aginter Press: The far right wing terror network based out of Portugal and active throughout Western Europe and Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Aginter has been widely linked to Gladio operations in Portugal, Belgium and Italy (its Italian connections were addressed before here). Multiple figures considered throughout this series such as Jean Thiriart and Emile Lecref had ties to Aginter. Addressed in part one, two and four.
World Anti-Communist League (WACL): Officially launched in 1966 after the Asian People's Anti-Communist League (APACL) and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN, an organization largely comprised of "former Nazis") combined forces. The organization has been extensively linked to the US intelligence community, drug and arms trafficking and numerous terror organizations. As was noted in parts one and four Emile Lecref had ties to the WACL as did much of the PSC brass. Much more information can be found on the WACL here.
Bilderberg Group: The long time bugaboo of the conspiratorial right. Along with the Round Table groups and the Trilateral Commission, one of the major international proponents of neo-liberalism and globalism. Baron de Bonvoisin's father Pierre had helped founded the Bilderberg Group in 1954. As was noted in part four of this series, it appears that numerous members of the organization were ensnared in Belgian's pedophile networks.
And this is how things stand at present. I've primarily focused on organizations based out of Belgium, with a few exceptions such as the WACL and the Bilderberg Group. Beginning with this installment I would like to pull back a bit a focus on how these largely interrelated Belgian groups fit in on the international stage. A good place to start would be with an organization that I briefly addressed in part one: P7.
As the assute reader may have guessed, P7 was allegedly one of the lodges comprising the old Propaganda network. The most notorious of these was Propaganda Due (P2), the Italian lodge that was extensively linked to Operation Gladio (as noted before here). It is also known that there were Propaganda lodges established in Spain and France as well (addressed briefly before here). It is not certain if P7 was supposed to be Belgium's lodge as there were only a handful of Belgian citizens in P7 but it none the less it alleged to have played a key role in funding the Propaganda network.
Essentially all of the claims involving P7 originate from American businessman Richard Brenneke, one of the most curious figures to originate from the Propaganda Due scandal in Italy. Here's a bit on Brenneke's claims:
"In the summer of 1990 RAI1, the Christian Democrat-control channel of state-run Italian television, broadcast a remarkable series of allegations about Gelli's relationship with the CIA and his role in the manipulation of Italian terrorism. The man making these allegations was Richard Brenneke, an American who claimed to have worked for the CIA and to have first-hand knowledge of the activities he described. The report, aired on 2 July, was the final programme in a four-part investigation into allegations that P2 had been in some way involved in the 1986 assassination of Swedish premier Olaf Palme. It unleashed a storm of political controversy, which was heightened when President Cossiga wrote to Prime Minister Andreotti calling on the government to investigate Richard Brenneke's claims...
"In the television interview Brenneke, a balding forty-eight-year-old who runs a property management company in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and who claims to have worked on convert operations for the CIA, Mossad and the US Customs, said that he had first come into contact with P2 in 1969 and that he had been personally involved in making payments to the lodge on behalf of the CIA. The amount varied, at times, from $1 million to more than $10 million a month. The money, Brenneke claims, had been used to finance drug trafficking and terrorism. 'We used them to create a situation that would favor the outbreak of terrorism in Italy and in other European countries in the early seventies. These were very important activities, since certain governments fell as a result of them,' Brenneke told the interviewer. The American said he had worked for the CIA on a contract basis and that Gelli did likewise. He claimed that he had met the P2 boss on a number of occasions, including one, in Colorado, when Gelli was a fugitive from Italian justice. Brenneke also said he was aware of the existence of an operational link between P2 and the American Mafia...
"In the course of the television interview, and on other occasions, Brenneke had alleged that Bush had taken part in secret negotiations with representatives of the Khomeini regime to delay the release of the fifty-two US hostages then being held in Teheran until after the US presidential elections. According to Brenneke's claim, the Republican Party was worried that if Carter succeeded in obtaining the release of the hostages before the vote it might be enough to win him a second term in office. Brenneke said that Bush, the vice-presidential candidate, campaign director William Casey who was later appointed director of the CIA by President Reagan, and CIA officer Donald Gregg attended a secret meeting in Paris at which the Iranians were promised arms in return for delaying the release of the hostages. Gelli too, Brenneke said, had attended the meetings."
In other words, Richard Brenneke claimed that he was part of a covert group that supplied funding to the P2 (which he described as a "parallel NATO structure") to destabilize Italy and that eventually this group played a role in what became the Iran-Contra scandal in which members of Ronnie Raygun's presidential campaign (most notably William Casey) made a deal with the Iranians to delay the release of US hostages until after the 1980 elections. Later this arrangement was used to arm death squads in Central America to suppress a numerous people's revolutions.
As many of Brenneke's claims, while exaggerating his role in these dealings, have largely proven to be true, it is surprising that he claims are not given more credence amongst P2 researchers. But even more surprising is the almost total blackout on the organization that Brenneke claimed to have been behind the funding of P2: P7. Certainly alleged members of P7 will be most interesting to the reader of this series. Here's a bit about this particular lodge and its ties to P2:
"We have already noted the presence of former top P2 member Giancarlo Elia Valori in AESP circles from 1972 onwards; Valori figures on the 1977 and 1978 AESP lists as a member of the Academy's executive body, the Permanent Delegation. According to allegations made in 1988 by Richard Brenneke, three other leading AESP members were involved in a CIA funding channel for P2 called P7...
"... Brenneke claimed to have been personally involved in CIA funding of the P2 lodge via P7 from 1969 through to the 1980s. On the strength of his past record, one can doubt the degree of his personal involvement, but the details he gives of P7 as a funding channel for P2 are persuasive. Brenneke provided a 30-strong list of members of P7, amongst whom we find three of the longest-serving AESP members: Ivan Matteo Lombardo (joined AESP in 1970; by 1978, a Life Member), Vittorio Pons (AESP founding member, by 1978 on the Permanent Delegation) and Ernest Töttösy (in contact with Damman since 1961; by 1978 a member of an AESP Study Group). In 1972, Valori, Pons and Töttösy attended the Academy's XV Grand Dîner Charlemagne; in 1976, all three attended the XIX Grand Dîner Charlemagne. Pons and Töttösy met a second time in 1976 at the XXV CEDI Congress. The same year, Töttösy and Francis Dessart published a book Comité Hongrie 1956-76 to commemorate the revolution; in 1977, the two men set up an eponymous committee whose address was the familiar building at 39, rue Belliard, home to CEPIC, PDG, PIO and later MAUE. The list of its Board members is revealing: alongside Töttösy and Dessart, the Board included Damman, Lecerf, Victor de Stankovich, Bernard Mercier and Jacques Borsu.
"The late Victor de Stankovich was another Hungarian exile who also figured on the P7 list - of the five Belgians on the P7 list, three were linked to Damman: Pons, Töttösy and de Stankovich. De Stankovich was a fervent Atlanticist and a former contributor to Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and Report and Dispatch from NATO. Bernard Mercier was a Board member of CEPIC, named with de Bonvoisin and Vankerkhoven in the 1981 Sûreté report as financial backers of the Front de la Jeunesse and the NEM Clubs. An intimate of Bougerol's, Mercier accompanied Bougerol and CEPIC Senator Angèle Verdin to Spain after Franco's death to visit his grave; all three then went on to attend the XXV CEDI Congress where they met Töttösy and Pons. A 1983 Sûreté report repeated allegations by WNP members that Mercier was a regional representative/inspector of the WNP. Francis Dessart, Professor of Communications at the Institute for High Economic and Social Studies in Brussels, was closely linked to the Moonies, the ABN and WACL, speaking at the 1981 WACL conference; he was also one of Aginter Presse's contacts in Belgium along with two other Board members of the Comité Hongrie 1956-76, Damman and Lecerf. Jacques Borsu was a former comrade-in-arms of French mercenary Bob Denard and leader of the neo-nazi Parti Européen. Having organised paramilitary training camps for the Flemish fascist Vlaamse Militanten Orde (VMO), he was one of the co-defendants in a 1981 trial of VMO leaders (348)*."
There's a lot to take in here. Jacques Borsu we already encountered in the first installment due to his ties to the VMO. He sat on what the great David Teacher referred to as an "eponymous committee" that operated out of the same building that also housed the CEPID and the Public Information Office (PIO). Other board members of this committee included three alleged members of P7, our old friend Emile Lecref (who had close ties to the WACL and Aginter Press), another WACL/Aginter Press contact known as Francis Dessart and Bernard Mercier, an alleged WNP member and close associate of PIO head Major Jean-Marie Bougerol.
Thus, whatever this strange "eponymous committee" was, it brought together elements of the Propaganda network, Aginter Press, the WACL and street level organizations such as the Front de la Jeunesse, the NEM Clubs, the WNP and the VMO. And of course Aginter Press, the Propaganda lodges and the WACL were all extensively linked to Operation Gladio.
And that brings us to another mysterious organization that was ever so briefly addressed in part four: the above-mentioned AESP, which stands for Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques.
The Academy, as it is often referred to, was an offshoot of the Pan-European movement that began to emerge in the wake of the Second World War. There were several different organizations with varying agendas involved in the early days. Probably the most well-known is the European Movement (EM), sponsored by the Polish exile Dr. Joseph Retinger. According to David Teacher in Rogue Agents, the chief source of funding for the EM was the American Committee on a United Europe (ACUE). The ACUE was chaired by Bill Donovan, the head of the OSS, the WWII predecessor of the CIA. Other key figures in the ACUE included future CIA directors General Walter Bedell Smith and Allen Dulles. Bedell Smith and Retinger were also involved in the creation of the Bilderberg Group, which was closely aligned to the EM group and affiliated organizations such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF).
The earliest Pan-European movement, however, was the Paneuropean Union (PEU), founded in 1923 by Comte Richard Coudenhove Kalergi. Kalergi and Retinger had collaborated during WWII but in the post-war years their respective movements began to sharply diverge due to Kalergi's more moderate line concerning the Soviet Union. The CIA had opted to back Retinger's EM movement in no small part due to the perception that Kalergi was soft on communism.
His movement would later be co-opted, however, by Archduke Otto van Habsburg. In 1948 Habsburg had already founded his own pan-European movement, known as the Centre Européen de Documentation Internationale (CEDI). This group was largely dominated by Catholic conservatives and can be seen as the Vatican's answer to the neo-liberal EM/Bilderberg network.
It was from the Habsburg-dominated PEU-CEDI network that the Belgian Florimond Damman first rose to prominence. Damman was one of the most important figures in the international right by the 1960s.
"... a longstanding Belgian contact of Habsburg's - Florimond Damman. Damman was a key Belgian linkman, representing together with a few close friends the Belgian end of almost all the international right-wing networks - PEU, CEDI and WACL. Damman had been a close associate of Habsburg's since at least 1962, when Damman served as Secretary of the Belgian PEU section, Action pour l'Europe Nouvelle et l'Expansion Atlantique (AENA), before rising to become Chairman of the International Events Committee on the Central Council of the PEU in 1966 alongside PEU Vice-Presidents Habsburg and Biggs-Davison, Brussels-based PEU International Secretary and former Counsellor at the EEC Vittorio Pons and Pons's deputy and close associate of Damman, Belgian Baron Bernard de Marcken de Merken.
"Damman's chairmanship of the PEU International Events Committee reflected his ceaseless energy in networking amongst the European Right – he would ultimately die of apoplexy at the height of his powers. One particular form this dynamism took early on was the organisation of banquets, Charlemagne Grand Dinners as Damman called them, to bring together representatives and personalities from the fragmented paneuropean movements... By 1969, the Belgian PEU group would again change name to become the Mouvement d'Action pour l'Union Européenne (MAUE), but would still be run by Damman who liaised with the Habsburg-Sánchez Bella group CEDI as a close personal friend of Sánchez Bella.
"The Belgian section of CEDI was run by Damman's close associate Paul Vankerkhoven, who served on CEDI's International Council and also acted as Damman's Vice-President within the PEU section MAUE. The two men would develop a series of right-wing groups, the earliest being the Belgian section of the Ligue Internationale de la Liberté (LIL), founded by Vankerkhoven in 1966, soon to be the Belgian chapter of WACL..."
Belgian WACL head Paul Vankerhoven, a long time associate of Damman
Teacher indicates that Damman played a key role in assisting Habsburg in usurping the PEU from Comte Richard Coudenhove Kalergi and bringing it firmly into Habsburg's camp. And at the same time Damman was solidifying the Archduke's control over the PEU and the CEDI he was also helping establishing the international far right network that would later become known as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). As to the former activities, the Academy would play a key role in these endeavors:
"... another club, set up by Florimond Damman in January 1969, the Académie Européenne des SciencesPolitiques (AESP). Damman was Secretary-for-life of the AESP; Vankerkhoven served as a member of the AESP organising core, the Permanent Delegation. The AESP would continue the tradition of organising the Charlemagne Grand Dinners and act as a right-wing clearing house...
"Besides bringing together the fragmented forces of national right-wing groups, another intention behind the fledgling Academy was to absorb the other transnational European right-wing movements, particularly CEDI and the PEU, the latter being based in Brussels since 1965. Whilst these two organisations would continue to exist, the AESP would act as a forum for a meeting of minds between fractions within both international groups. This goal of integrating the movements working for European union was in part due to a latent power struggle between political positions and personalities in European federalism."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pgs. 46-47)
According to David Teacher, it was also during this time that Damman forged ties with Yves Guerin-Serac and Aginter Press. Effectively, then, Damman and his AESP would serve as a bridge between highly exclusive elite networks such as Habsburg's, militant "think tanks" such as the WACL and thinly veiled terror networks such as Aginter. It should not then surprise the reader to learn that other members of the Academy included Emile Lecref (another affiliate of the WACL and Aginter) as well as Paul Vanden Boeynants and Baron de Bonvoisin (the connections of PvB and the Black Baron to the AESP were briefly noted in part four of this series). And from these individuals are the ties to Belgian-based terror networks such as the NEM Clubs, Front de la Jeunesse and the WNP, which have already been discussed in this installment and the previous one.
As noted above, the Academy also had ties to the Propaganda network, which was extensively linked to terrorism in Italy (as noted before here) during the so-called "Years of Lead." It would seem then that the Academy, with its ties to Aginter, the Propaganda lodges and various Belgian fascist militias, was at the forefront of terrorism in Europe for much of the 1960s through the 1980s.
The Academy also had elite ties which went beyond the Habsburg network. Consider the following:
"Another of Violet's initiatives at that time was undertaken from Brussels. The operator Violet had chosen was in eccentric man, with the delectable name of Florimond Damman. Having made a small fortune from property deals, he ran a tiny but effect outfit with the grandiloquent name of the Academie Europeene des Sciences Politiques. The three of us –Damman, Violet and I – drafted an appeal for 'Peace without Frontiers,' in which we define our concept of a true detente."
(Free Agent, Brian Crozier, pg. 99)
The above-mentioned Violet is the mysterious Frenchman Jean Violet while Damman's second collaborator is British propagandist Brian Crozier. Both Violet and Crozier would establish close ties to the Academy in the early 1970s, bringing in their own considerable deep backgrounds. Crozier was a hard-line anti-communist journalist and historian with extensive intelligence ties and considerable financial backing. One of his patrons was Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the most notorious sugar daddies of the modern America conservative movement and a member the wealthy and highly intelligence-connected Mellon family. Much more information on Scaife can be found here.
As for Crozier, here's a peak into his activities:
"Scaife meanwhile, with CIA encouragement, was funding a $100,000 a year to a joint CIA-British intelligence psychological operation, the Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), and its controversial chief Brian Crozier. The ISC, created in 1970, was driven by a paranoia about left-wing subversion, similar to that in future Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell's confidential memorandum a year later. Crozier in turn was a member of the Pinay Circle, a European cabal of intelligence personnel and veterans and their overworld backers..."
And Jean Violet, a man who WNP head Paul Latinus cited as one of the top figure in Belgian's fascist underground (briefly noted in part four)? Why, he just happened to be the man Crozier described in his autobiography Free Agent as the most important figure in the Pinay Cercle/Circle, also known as Le Cercle.
Le Cercle is one of the most mysterious organizations one is apt to encounter in this type of research. It has rarely been addressed in the English language and many of those references are quite brief. I had intended to delve into the organization in this series but have since compiled enough information that I felt it warranted its own series. It will soon be forth coming and will shed further light on the international significance of the deep intrigues that have rocked Belgium. For now, I shall wrap things up.
To recap, here's what can be said of these events: Belgium's component of Operation Gladio largely operated through the SDRA department of the SGR, Belgium's military secret service. Specifically, the unit was SDRA8.
Many members of Belgian's security services, especially those from the Gendamerie, became involved with fascist militias such as Front de la Jeunesse and especially the Westland New Post. The Gendamerie unit was SDRA6, located in the same department as the Gladio forces. WNP head Paul Latinus had been recruited by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and had been trained by US special forces (as noted in part two).
The WNP was deeply implicated in acts of terrorism, most notably the Brabant shootings. It also appears to have ties to Jean-Michel Nihoul, a man linked to pedophile networks catering to elites. Latinus expresses knowledge of this network in the Pinot report before he commits "suicide." A little over a decade later the Dutroux scandal breaks and sheds further light on this alleged network. This causes the "X-witnesses" to come forward and discuss their time in this network, as noted in part three.
Paul Vanden Boeynants, a major figure in the PSC party, is implicated in both the Pinot files and by the "X-witnesses." His close alley, Baron de Bonvoisin, is also fingered by several of the X-witnesses. Vanden Boeynants and de Bonvoisin were major backers of the Front de la Jeunesse and likely the WNP as well. They also had extensive ties to international organizations linked to terrorism such as the World Anti-Communist League, the Propaganda lodges and Aginter Press. As noted in part four, Aginter Press has been linked to Gladio while I wrote of the WACL's ties before here. P2's ties to Gladio were noted before here.
And lurking the background are the even more elite organizations such as the pan-European groups such as the PEU and the CEDI and of course the Academy. And then of course is the even more shadowy Le Cercle, which lurked behind all these groups.
There are some allegations floating around that the so-called Franklin scandal was potentially related to the Belgium pedophile rings. For those of you unaware, the Franklin scandal refers to the collapse of the Nebraska-based Franklin Community Federal Credit Union headed by Lawrence E. King, a Republican Party activist. Federal authorities shut down in the bank back in 1988 and during the investigation allegations that King was involved in a child sex ring began to emerge. Some of the children who came forward even alleged that they had been flown back East to Washington, D.C. where they had serviced import political figures.
King was ultimately convicted of financial crimes, but the charges relating to child abuse were thrown out. Still, compelling evidence indicates that something very strange was happening in Nebraska during this time.
As for the possible ties to the Belgian scandals, it largely comes via the figure of Robert Keith Gray, a powerful lobbyist and long time Republican Party mover and shaker who first came to Washington during Eisenhower's administration. It was apparently during this period that Gray became involved with notorious CIA and Navy operative Edwin Wilson.
Wilson would later became involved with Nugan Hand, an Australian bank extensively linked to drug trafficking. During this period he was involved with a clique of "rogue" CIA officers that included Ted Shackley and Thomas Clines. Wilson was later betrayed by this group after he had sold arms to Libya. Shackley and Clines would go on to hook up with Air Force General Richard Secord and several anti-Castro Cubans assets to form what is commonly referred to as the "Enterprise," an intelligence network linked to the Iran-Contra affair.
As for Wilson, besides trafficking in arms, there were longstanding allegations that he handled sexual blackmail operations for the CIA:
"According to fugitive ex-CIA officer Frank Terpil, CIA-directed sexual blackmailing operations were intensive in Washington about the time of the Watergate scandal. One of those operations, Terpil claims, was run by his former partner, Ed Wilson. Wilson's base of operations for arranging trysts for the politically powerful was, Terpil says, Korean agent Tong Sun Park's George Town Club..."
And guess who was in contact with Wilson during this time frame?
"... the Georgetown Club, started by Korean intelligence agent, lobbyist and influence peddler Tongsun Park with the help of lobbyists like Robert Gray, an Eisenhower cabinet secretary who had also worked with Ed Wilson. Gray, who had once headed the Washington office of Hill and Knowlton, at the time the nation's largest and most respected public relations firm, was typical of the powerful Washington lobbyists and public relations executives who the CIA and Shackley had used for years. Many of these lobbyists and executives had some personal secret that made them vulnerable to requests from the intelligence community. In Gray's case, it was a secret history of homosexuality. If news about his personal life became public, it would ruin his relationship with the Republican politicians he had cultivated and the corporations he sought to represent...
"The most mysterious aspect of Gray's involvement was his close personal relationship with Park. Park had played a major role in a rice scandal called Koreagate that involved bribes to members of Congress in the 1970s, but it would be Park's later involvement with Manuel Noriega, Japanese organized-crime elements, and the Safari Club that would make him a key behind-the-scenes figure in the private intelligence networks of the 1980s and 1990s."
As for Gray's link to Franklin, it comes from his alleged friendship with Omaha World-Herald publisher Harold Anderson, who was accused of being a part of King's network. Former CIA asset John DeCamp described fellow Nebraskan Gray as Anderson's "closet friend in Washington" (The Franklin Cover-Up, John DeCamp, pg. 178). This researcher does find DeCamp, who participated in the Phoenix Program (essentially Vietnam's version of Gladio), to be an especially reliable source and I have not found confirmation of this relationship elsewhere.
There is a possibility that Gray knew Douglas MacArthur II, however. As the great Institute for the Study of Globalization notes, MacArthur II was on the senior advisory board of Hill and Knowlton, the legendary lobby firm Gray worked with for many years, during the early 1980s. Gray had started his own public relations firm by 1981 and did not return to Hill and Knowlton until 1988, but it is possible he and MacArthur II had worked together some time before Gray's departure in '81.
As noted in part two, MacArthur had chaired the European Institute of Management (EIM) during the early 1980s as well. This organization had ties to the Westland New Post and likely to the pedophile networks as well. According to ISGP, MacArthur II had known accused pedophile Paul Vanden Boeynants since the 1960s when he was the US Ambassador to Belgium.
But it would seem the possibility of a link between the Belgian pedophile rings and Franklin is not especially firm in this case. It is hardly certain if MacArthur II and Gray knew one another (though both certainly traveled in many of the same circles) and evidence of a relationship between Gray and Anderson is hardly conclusive either. Further, even assuming that Anderson and Gray were in fact close friends and that MacArthur II was in contact with Gray during the 1980s, Gray himself has never been linked by any of these witnesses to King's pedophile ring. Yes, Gray likely had experience in CIA/Pentagon sexual blackmail operations, but it is unknown if he was still doing this type of work by the 1980s.
There is another possible link that will be addressed in the Le Cercle series. Until then, stay tuned.
Le Cercle, sometimes referred to as the Pinay Group or the Pinay Cercle/Circle (in some accounts the Pinay Group was held to be the inner circle of Le Cercle), is one of the most mysterious international bodies one is apt to encounter in the annuals of conspiracy literature. Over the years it has rarely been addressed in the English language and when it has, it is typically depicted as a mere auxiliary of the Bilderberg Group and other neo-liberal/globalist bodies (i.e. the Round Table groups, the Trilateral Commission and other long time bugaboos of the conspiratorial right). This has ensured that serious research into the organization has remained at the absolute fringes of conspiracy culture.
For many years, the only in depth examination of Le Cercle came from its former chairman Brian Crozier in his 1991 autobiography Free Agent. There Crozier provided a highly sanitized version of Le Cercle and the international network that it operated in, largely depicting it as an ineffectual body desperately trying to hold the line against the Communist menace. Of course Crozier held that he himself was little more than a much maligned journalist and historian under relentless attack from the forces of the Left. If only we could be so lucky.
There have been, to be sure, efforts to bring Le Cercle and its more nefarious activities to the attention of a wider audience. David Teacher, a former translator for the European Union in Brussels and an international administrator in Geneva, first shined a critical spotlight on this organization back in the late 1980s via several articles in Lobster magazine. In 1993 he had readied a full length account of the "Paneuropean" network, of which Le Cercle was a major figure in, entitled Rogue Agents (obviously a dig at Crozier's autobiography) for publication. It was rejected by every publisher out there and would lay dormant for 15 years before it finally saw the light of day.
"Later that year, in November 2006, the first ISGP article in quite some time was refused publication by Alex Jones' Infowars. This was quite a shock, because it was the best-documented and most unique article I had written until that point. Looking back, the censorship is easy to understand. Instead of touching on the liberal Eastern Establishment, I wrote about Le Cercle, part of the ultraconservative Pentagon (CIA swings both ways) network that is protected by Alex Jones. The American Security Council, the World Anti-Communist League, the Council for National Policy, the John Birch Society--they are all part of this same network."
As longtime readers of this blog are well aware, this researcher has himself written extensively on the American Security Council, the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and the John Birch Society, and can attest to the conspiratorial blackout that comes from delving into these types of organizations. Proclaiming the same type of disinformation that countless other bloggers and researchers have repeated endlessly concerning groups such as the Bilderbergers and the Council on Foreign Relations can lead to highly lucrative websites such as the above-mentioned Infowars or Vigilant Citizen while attempting original research on Le Cercle or the American Security Council is both rather expensive and grossly under appreciated.
But I digress. Let us return to the matter at hand, namely Le Cercle. Superficially the organization was a kind of off-the-record transnational discuss group that brought together major Western figures drawn from the ranks of the political and financial classes as well as ample "former" military and intelligence personnel. Brian Crozier, a key Cercle member long suspected of ties to US and British intelligence, has insisted that the group was little more than a forum for various interests.
"The Pinay Cercle was a natural offshoot of Jean Violet's Franco-German activities. To describe it as a 'forum' is strictly accurate. There were no members in a formal sense. It was an informal group of broadly like-minded people, who met twice a year, once in America, once in Europe. Usually, some distinguished figure was invited to speak. Among the guest speakers at times when I was present were Strauss, Henry Kissinger (for whom I interpreted), Zbigniew Brzezinski, David Rockefeller, and Guilio Andreotti.
"Within the wider Cercle, a small gathering called the Pinay Group met on occasion to discuss possible action. In 1980, Violet, who had serious health problems, asked me to take over the Pinay Cercle. In practice, I mostly shared the burden with a leading German member of the Cercle, Franz-Joseph Bach, who had run Adenauer's secretariat and later served as ambassador and Tehran.
"In Pinay's day, the old man himself presided over the meetings, but the chairmanship of each session was shared out among others, including Pesenti, Sir Peter Tennent, and myself. On my initiative, Julian Amery, MP (later Lord Amery), took over the presidency. I retired from the Cercle in 1985, having decided that it was making excessive demands on my staff and office time.
"Some outsiders have jumped to the wrong conclusion that the Pinay Cercle was the same as my 'secret' organisation. One of them was a CIA veteran whom I had known since my FWF days. There was in fact some minor overlapping, but the functions of The 61, which I have been describing, were quite different. Some members of The 61's 'Politburo' also attended the Cercle meetings; others did not. Most members of the Cercle were unaware of the existence of The 61. Many of The 61's networks had no connection with the Cercle."
The actual name of the "61" was in fact the 6I (apparently short for "Sixth International"), a full blown private intelligence network that Crozier ran for around a decade during the late 1970s and 1980s. There is compelling evidence that it had more than a passing overlap with the Cercle. Much more will be said of this network in a future installment. As to whether or not the Pinay Group constituted an inner circle to to Le Cercle, this is unknown to this researcher.
Historically, one of the primary concerns of Le Cercle was European integration. Certainly this was also a major topic for the Bilderberg Group and the broader European Movement (EM) that it sponsored. Crozier is quick to point to the presence of many American Eastern Establishment (who were and are closely aligned to the Bilderberg network) staples such Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezenski and the one and only David Rockefeller being active in Le Cercle. It was, however, frequently linked to far more reactionary circles.
"Many Pan-European members belonged to a right-wing association that had little formal structure but became known as the 'Pinay Group', after Antoine Pinay, a former French prime minister. In a since it was broader than the Union because its participants were not exclusively Catholic and its meetings were regularly attended by right-wing Americans. These included former CIA director William Colby, banker David Rockefeller and public relations pioneer Crosby M. Kelly. But the Pinay Group was essentially a European Community lobby established to counter Marxism. It was plugged into virtually every west European intelligence service. Although it met under the auspices of Pinay, the co-ordinator for the group was Jean Violet, a right-wing Gaullist friend of Giulio Andreotti..."
(Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, pgs. 154-155)
David Rockefeller actually provided one of the more compelling descriptions of the group (in the English language, at least) from his Memoirs, in which it is referred to as the "Pesenti Group." Therein he provides considerable insight into the factions active in Le Cercle:
"Bilderberg overlapped for a time with my membership in a relatively obscure but potentially even more controversial body known as the Pesenti Group. I had first learned about it in October 1967 when Carlo Pesenti, the owner of a number of important Italian corporations, took me aside at a Chase investment forum in Paris and invited me to join his group, which discussed contemporary trends in Europe and world politics. It was a select group, he told me, mostly Europeans. Since Pesenti was an important Chase customer and he assured me the other members were interesting and congenial, I accepted his invitation.
"Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Konrad Adenauer were founding members of the group, but by the time I joined, they have been replaced by an equally prominent roster that included Antoine Pinay, a former French president; Guilio Andreotti, several times prime minister of Italy; and Franz-Joseph Strauss, the head of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria and a perennial contender for the chancellorship of the Federal Republic of Germany. The discussions were conducted in French, and usually I was the sole American present, although on a few occasions when the group assembled in Washington, Henry Kissinger, at the time President Nixon's national security advisor, joined us for dinner.
"Members of the Pesenti Group were all committed to European political and economic integration, but a few – Archduke Otto of Austria, the head of the house of Hapsburg and claimant to all the lands of the Austro-Hungarian empire; Monsignor Alberto Giovanetti of the Vatican and a prominent member of Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic organization; and Jean-Paul Leon Violet, a conservative French intellectuel– were preoccupied by the Soviet threat and the inexorable rise to power of the Communist parties of France and Italy.
"Pesenti set the agenda for our thrice-yearly meetings, and Maitre Violet, who had close connections with the Deuxieme Bureau of the Service des Renseignements (the French CIA), provided lengthy background briefings. Using an overhead projector, Violet displayed transparency after transparency filled with data documenting Soviet infiltration of governments around the world and supporting his belief that the threat of global communist victory was quite real. While all of us knew the Soviets were behind the 'wars of national liberation' in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, I was not personally convinced the Red Menace was quite as menacing as Maitre Violet portrayed it to be, but my views were a minority one in that group. Even though I found the discussions fascinating, the ultraconservative politics of some of the participants were more than a bit unnerving. My Chase associates, who feared my membership could be constructed as 'consorting with reactionaries,' eventually prevailed upon me to withdraw."
With these four paragraphs David Rockefeller provides us with a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of Le Cercle. First let us turn to Carlo Pesenti, the individual whom Rockefeller named Le Cercle after in his account of the group. At one point Pesinti owned the largest financial holding company in all of Italy, which was no doubt of great interest to Rockefeller. Pesenti also traveled in more than a few of the same circles already explored by this blog.
"The foundations of Carlo Pesenti's business empire were set in concrete by an uncle who was close to Mussolini. He thereby secured privileged treatment in the export of cement to Italian-conquered Ethiopia. At the end of the war, Carlo tried to clean up the family firm's image; and under his direction, with the spiritual and material support of the Vatican and the Christian Democratic party, the firm became a financial empire involved in banking, insurance, newspapers, and a host of other enterprises...
"Pesenti's financial involvement with the inventors appears to have been episodic, perhaps because his empire was already on the skids. It was Pesenti's financial holding company, Italmobiliare, and more specifically its finance and insurance subsidiary, Bastogi I.R.B.S. S.p.A., that Michele Sindona had targeted for a takeover in the early 1970s, when he was trying to fulfill his ambition of becoming financial overlord of Italy. Pesenti rescued his firm from Sindona with the aid of another prominent Catholic financier, Philippe de Weck, chief of the Union de Banques Suisses. But Italmobiliare emerged from the fray considerably weakened, forced to sell off assets, including a string of banks, and dependent on the IOR and subsequently on Banco Ambrosiano for infusions of funds to keep it alive."
By the early 1980s Pesenti had become the single largest nominal shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano, according to Naylor. Banco Ambrosiano at the time was headed by "God's banker," Roberto Calvi. Calvi was a Mafia affiliate and Propaganda Due (P2) member who would eventually end up dangling from a rope attached to London's Blackfriars Bridge. Michele Sindona, the individual who had first put Pesenti's empire in dire straits, was also a notorious P2 member with extensive ties to organized crime as well. Both men would play key roles in the Vatican bank (the above-mentioned IOR) scandal that finally emerged in Italy during the early 1980s. Pesenti was hardly the only connection P2 had to Le Cercle, as we shall see. Much more information on Sindona, Calvi and the Vatican banking scandal can be found here and here.
Also of great interest is the presence of Archduke Otto von Habsburg in Le Cercle. Habsburg had been one of the key figures in the European integration movement for years. As I explained briefly before here, there were essentially three organizations in play for domination of the European integration movement at the onset of the Cold War: Joseph Retniger's European Movement (EM, which had very close ties to the Bilderberg Group and the CIA), Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi's Paneuropean Union (PEU, the oldest and most controversial due to the more moderate line Coudenhove-Kalergi took toward the Soviet Union) and Habsburg's European Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI). By the 1970s Habsburg's network had totally taken over the PEU, making it the chief rival to the Bilderberg/EM network. And be assured, there were distinctions between these two factions. Here's a bit more Habsburg's network:
"By the early 1960s some of Escriva de Balaguer's children were moving in rather rarefied spheres. Alfredo Sanchez Bella was one. He had broken with Opus Dei in the early 1940s but returned to Escriva de Balaguer's fold in the 1950s. In 1949, the year after the Communist take over Czechoslovakia, he co-founded with Archduke Otto von Habsburg the European Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI), whose objective was to construct around the Spanish Borbons a federation of European states united in Christianity and anti-Communism. This sounded very much like a modern resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire over which Charles V had reigned. Like the Spanish empire of old, the envisaged Catholic federation was intended to have large-spectrum antennae in Latin America and the United States.
"CEDI was believed to be an auxiliary operation of Opus Dei. Although headquartered in Munich, it held its annual general meetings at the Monastery of El Escorial, near Madrid, and it continued functioning throughout the Cold War. It's tentacles spread among Catholic Monarchist circles throughout Western Europe. Archduke Otto, who was educated in Spain and completed his studies at the Catholic University of Louvain, reportedly became one of Opus Dei's most treasured old guard supernumeraries. Like Opus Dei, CEDI published no membership lists, but the president of its Belgian chapter, Chevalier Marcel de Roover, was known to have close ties with the Belgian royal family. Indeed, Archduke Otto's nephew, Lorenz von Habsburg, son of the international banker Karl von Habsburg, married Princes Astrid of Belgium, daughter of King Albert II. Astrid's aunt, the former Queen Fabiola, was related through the House of Aragon to the Spanish Borbon family. Professor Luc de Heusch of the free University of Brussels, an expert on Sacred Kingship, maintained that Queen Fabiola, a disciple of Escriva de Balaguer, introduced Opus Dei to the Catholic aristocracy of Europe."
(Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, pgs. 153-154)
The presence of the Belgian royal family in Archduke Otto's CEDI network is most interesting. As I noted before here, several members of the Belgian royal family have been accused of pedophilia. What's more, the CEDI had close ties to a Belgian "think tank" known as the Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP). The Academy had an interesting roster. Both Brian Crozier and Jean Violet (a most curious figure who for many years was the leading figure in Le Cercle and who will be addressed at length in the next installment) were involved with the Academy as were prominent Belgians such as former prime minister Paul Vanden Boeynants and aristocrat Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin. Both of these individuals were also extensively implicated in pedophilia, as noted before here. This will be quite significant in a future installment, so do keep it in mind. But for now back to the CEDI network.
Paul Vanden Boeynanys (right) and de Bonvoisin (left)
For those of you unaware, the above-mentioned Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer is the highly controversial founder of Opus Dei. Archduke Otto von Habsburg had very close ties to the Opusians ever since the onset of the Cold War. This is hardly surprising, for as David Teacher reports in Rogue Agents, Archduke Otto was the Opusian choice to rule as monarch over a united Catholic Europe (or a new Holy Roman Empire, in other words). Much of Europe's old guard aristocracy (as well as powerful factions within the Vatican) seem to have found a certain appeal in such a notion.
As such, it should hardly come as a surprise that Le Cercle has been accused of being under the dominion of Opus Dei as well:
"... The Pinay Group was said to be another Opus Dei auxiliary operation, and its principal protagonists, Pinay and Violet, were variously reported to be connected with the Work."
This is not strictly accurate, in this researcher's opinion. There were also a considerable amount of Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM, more commonly referred to as the Knights of Malta) in the upper echelons of Le Cercle as well. SMOM, which has direct origins to the Crusader Knights Hospitallers, is a far older and seemingly more exclusive order than Opus Dei. In Their Kingdom Come, researcher Robert Hutchison indicates the Opusians and the Maltese knights did not always have the most cordial relations. Still, Opus Dei and SMOM appear frequently working in tandem with one another. One such instance is in the case of Propaganda Due (which I addressed before here and here).
As noted during my extensive examination of P2, it appears to this researcher that the upper hierarchy of the lodge was totally dominated by Opusians and Maltese knights. That this would also be the case in Le Cercle is hardly surprising given the extensive overlap between the Le Cercle and P2 circles. I already briefly touched upon this relation to the CEDI in one of my Belgium articles before.
This could also help explain the conflict David Rockefeller and his associates ultimately had with Le Cercle. ISGP speculates on this rift as thus:
"It is the Vatican, together with a large chunk of its Catholic "Opus Dei nobility - most notably the Habsburgs - that has been dreaming of recreating the Holy Roman Empire. In an attempt to make that happen, after World War II, Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Otto von Habsburg (re)created their Paneuropa network across Europe in which many Opus Dei members and the generally more prestigious Knights of Malta became involved. To accomplish their mission of rebuilding the old Holy Roman Empire, Opus Dei needed to get people of influence in their camp. That's why they have always focused on recruiting politicians, bankers and other men of influence...
"Le Cercle, founded in the early 1950s, started out as a branch of this extremely conservative Vatican-Paneuropa network, and possibly as a counterweight to the liberal Anglo-American-oriented Bilderberg group. However, the Vatican always had support from influential persons in the United States, most notably leading figures in the CIA. With funds and leadership from these US officials, it helped to set up and maintain the Stay Behind networks, whose job to suppress internal "communosocialist" influences was at least as important as their stay behind function in case of a communist invasion. Le Cercle worked in synergy with the Stay Behind networks, bringing the hard-right, often CIA-supported elements within the national European governments closer together.
"It remains a bit of a mystery who came up with the money to set up Le Cercle. It has been reported that the CIA funded most of the European movement in the decades after WWII through a network involving the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), and other fronts, switching at times their support for British policies to those of France. [218] Details on CIA involvement in funding Le Cercle are missing, although Alan Clark did report in the early 1990s that the Agency was involved. [219] This shouldn't come as a surprise with all the reported Knights of Malta in the top levels of the CIA over the years: Donovan, Dulles, Angleton, McCone, Casey and Walters (acted as Casey's representative at some point). The father of George H.W. Bush, another CIA head, has also been named a Knight of Malta while William Colby has been called a member of Opus Dei. Colby and Casey at some point began attending meeting of Le Cercle."
While there have at times been collaboration between the Anglo-American Bilderberg establishment and far right wing Catholic factions such as Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta, these groups also repeatedly came into conflict with one another. Rockefeller's break with Le Cercle, which seems to have occurred at some point in the late 1970s, happened at a time when these hostilities were especially pronounced. The end result would be the rise of Thatcher and Reagan, both of whom were greatly aided in their electoral victories by Le Cercle and the various Catholic cults working within it. This conflict will be discussed at greater length in a future installment. Until then, stay tuned dear reader.
Welcome to the second installment in my examination of the mysterious body known as Le Cercle (sometimes referred to as as the Pinay Group for Pinay Cercle/Circle). The origins of the group, which are a bit murky, date to the early 1950s when it emerged from various Pan-European and conservative Catholic interests that were taking shape in the wake of the Second World War. Described as little more than a forum to bring together various right wing organizations by apologists, Le Cercle has none the less played a role in various deep events across the several continents.
As was noted in the first installment, Le Cercle was deeply connected to various intelligence agencies in Western Europe as well as the United States and it had access to some of the most powerful elites of the Cold War era. David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezenski all had dealings with Le Cercle for a time. That being said, it would be a gross mistake to dismiss the organization as little more than extension of the Bilderberg Group, as many have (as was noted in part one, there was a fair degree of overlap between early Bilderberg and Le Cercle membership).
In point of fact, Le Cercle seems to have been under the domination of Catholic cults and orders of knighthood such as Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta for much of its existence. While these groups shared some of the objectives of the Bilderbergers, such as a United Europe, they ultimately seemed to have been pursing a kind of new Holy Roman Empire.
At some point more will be said on the differences of these competing faction. For the time being I would like to begin examining the backgrounds of two of the chief figures behind the Cercle in its early days. The first was the famed French statesman and Bilderberger co-founder Antoine Pinay, one of the most connected individuals in the French state during the post-WWII years and the sometimes namesake of the Cercle.
Pinay entered politics in 1929 when he was elected mayor of Saint-Chamond, Loire. By 1940 he had worked his way up to the Senate. Pinay was initially given the post of Conseil National during the onset of the Vichy regime, but he resigned within a few months. He remained in France as mayor of Saint-Chamond, Loire throughout the Occupation. Whether or not he was a collaborator with the Nazis has been a topic of some debate.
It was not, however, until after the War that Pinay's career really took off:
"One of the most prominent members of the new Bilderberg Group was the French politician Antoine Pinay who served as Minister of Public Works, Transport and Tourism from July 1950 to March 1952 before becoming President of the Council (Prime Minister) and Minister of Finance until January 1953. In December 1953, Pinay stood unsuccessfully as the candidate for the Centre National des Indépendants et Paysans (CNIP) in the eighth round of voting of the last presidential elections of the Fourth Republic; the thirteenth round would finally see the victory of René Coty, also of the CNIP. Pinay would later serve under President Coty as Minister for Foreign Affairs from February 1955 until February 1956, and Minister of Finance again under Prime Minister and then President Charles de Gaulle from June 1958 to January 1960 when he introduced the new French franc (13). Apart from his distinguished career in public office, Antoine Pinay had other less obvious attributes – and not just within the select club of Bilderbergers. In 1952-53, at the same time as the Bilderberg Group was being set up, French Prime Minister Pinay and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer created the Cercle Pinay as a confidential forum for Franco-German policy coordination via personal contacts between Pinay, Adenauer and other Christian Democrat Heads of State."
Pinay would remain extensively involved with the group that bore his name from its foundation up until the 1970s, frequently serving as the group's chairman during this period. He would still remain active in the group up till the 1980s, at which point his health had deteriorated to the point he was no longer able to be a participant. Pinay died in 1994 seventeen days shy of his 103rd birthday.
Sniffer Planes of the Alchemists
While Pinay may have been the front man for much of Cercle's early years, the man generally credited with turning it into a major international player is the mysterious Frenchman known as Jean Violet. Violet is generally depicted as a rather buffoonish figure in the few mainstream accounts profiling the man. This is in no small part due to his involvement in a bizarre scandal involving "sniffer airplanes" that rocked France (and, to lesser extent, Italy and Spain) in the 1970s.
"The story of the sniffer airplane begins in 1965 when a Belgian count (Comte Allain de Villegas) and an Italian TV repairman-turned-self-proclaimed nuclear physicist (Aldo Bonassoli). Both 'scientists' had a passionate belief in alchemy and UFOs, and they established a Geneva-based company to finance 'scientific discoveries.' The first project was to develop desalination technology, which made Geneva natural place for their headquarters...
"The failure of the desalination scheme led logically to the next one. If they could not get the salt out of water, the next best thing was to find new sources of fresh water through a device that could 'sniff' underground reservoirs. It was at this point that their paths crossed that of Jean Violet...
"Violet's Vatican connections gave the inventors the financial backing they required to proceed with their experiments. The first stop was Spain, where Opus Dei supporters in the Franco government assured official aid for the project. Financial backing also came from another Vatican-linked source."
That would be the Italian businessman Carlo Pesenti, at the time one of the wealthiest individuals in Italy. As was noted in part one, Pesenti was also a key figure in the Cercle during the early years, possibly even serving as chairman for a time in the 1960s and early 1970s. In his Memoirs, David Rockefeller referred to Le Cercle as the Pesenti Group after the Italian concrete magnet.
At the time of his involvement with the sniffer plane (i.e. the 1970s), Pesenti was engaged in a protracted battle with the Mafia-linked financier Michele Sindona, a member of Propaganda Due. Sindona had hopes of taking over Pesenti's empire. Pesenti emerged victorious, but not without taking a beating. Ironically, his business empire would receive much needed funding later in the decade from Banco Ambrosiano, headed by another Mafia-linked P2 member known as Robero Calvi. Pesenti became the largest minority shareholder of Banco Ambrosiano. Both Sindona and Calvi would play a key role in the Vatican banking scandal, as noted before here, here and here. But back to the sniffer plane:
"Alas for inventors and investors alike, no water was found but that dampened the enthusiasm only of Carlo Pesenti, who by then was more concerned with the water in his stock than the lack of it in his cement. For the others the failure simply whetted their appetites for further discoveries. In the tradition of the medieval alchemists, the team of inventors set out to convert a base material, namely water into black gold. The supposition was that if the sniffer device could not smell water, perhaps it could smell oil.
"The international situation was certainly favorable. Synchronizing the launching of the new scheme was the oil-price revolution of 1973, the syndicate attracted other associates. Among them was the government of South Africa, whom Jean Violet and friends regarded as a bulwark of Western Christian civilization. South Africa needed oil self-sufficiency as insurance against the embargo orchestrated by the heathen hordes into whose hands the world's energy lifeline had fallen. However, early experiments with the server device failed, and the South Africans lost interest. No matter, for Jean Violet had even more distinguished and generous patrons to take their place.
"For the government of France in general, and the French state oil company ELF-Aquitaine in particular, the project held out many attractions --if it worked. ELF-Aquitaine could secure sources of crude oil of the sort lost after the Algerian Revolution, making it a major world supplier, and the invention would put it at the forefront of world petroleum technology. France itself would be relieved of the dollar drain of paying for imported oil if sources could be found either domestically or in France's African tributaries. Furthermore, incumbent president Valery Giscard d'Estaing was close to Violet's political and Opus Dei circles. Violet was also well connected with French intelligence, which in turn had influence with ELF-Aquitaine.
"With the president himself giving the clearance for ELF-Aquitaine to ignore normal government accounting procedures and exchange controls, it pumped hundreds of millions of Swiss francs into the project. Under the supervision of the investors' financial agent, UBS chief Philippe de Weck, the funds earmarked for payments to various Italian 'creditors' were allegedly funneled via a Zürich company called Ultrafin, owned by Milan's Banco Ambrosiano.
"Interestingly, Philippe de Weck was one of four Catholic experts that the Vatican later called on to report on the IOR's involvement with the Calvi catastrophe, and to devise reasons why the Vatican should not share the resulting costs. That task he undertook with distinction; but when the French government asked him to explain his sniffer airplane financial maneuvers that made so much French taxpayer money disappear, he declined – good Swiss banker that he was – to violate client confidentiality.
"The sniffer enterprise was a complete fiasco – a fact that may have had some influence on the 1981 crash of the Opus Dei-influenced Banco Occidental in Spain. French President Giscard d'Estaing managed a cover-up, in which his successor, Francois Mitterrand, cooperated. But late in 1983 a tax-department clerk, investigating the route by which 800 million French francs had left the country (340 million without a trace), and inadvertently blew their cover. By then, however, the French government had more important things on its mind."
The Opus Dei-linked Banco Occidential also had ties to Calvi's Banco Ambrosiano and was ultimately dragged into the Vatican banking scandal. As I noted before here, there is a school of thought that the money being drained out of these various Catholic-centric financial institutions via back door methods was to fund some of the Vatican's intrigues in both the Polish Solidarity movement as well in Central America. These were certainly projects, especially in regards to the Latin American death squads the most reactionary elements of the Vatican frequently found themselves aligned with, that needed to be kept from the public at large. The murky netherworld of shadow financing could accomplish so much more while providing the Vatican with political cover.
The sniffer plane scandal may then have been another front to raise money (in this case, primarily from the government of France) superficially for this curious invention but in actuality was meant to funnel money (after a generous skim by the major players) to such causes the Vatican had become obsessed with under Pope John Paul II (whose rise to power had been greatly aided by Opus Dei, as noted before here). Considering Jean Violet's extensive intelligence background and high-ranking contacts within the Vatican, such a possibility seems all the more plausible. As to that background and those contacts, consider:
"It was in 1951 that Antoine Pinay first met Violet, a Parisian lawyer close to the CNPF, the French employers' federation. Pinay sought out Violet for legal advice about war reparations payments for a Geneva-based firm whose German factory had been seized during the war. Pinay was evidently satisfied with Violet's work as he recommended the lawyer to Pierre Boursicot, head of the French secret service, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et Contre-Espionnage (SDECE). Violet helped the SDECE where he could; as he has said: "Aware of the fact that I could be of some use to my country thanks to my professional situation on the international chessboard, I chose to fight for France within the ranks of the SDECE" (14).
"After the arrival of General Grossin as head of the SDECE in 1957, Violet was taken on as an agent and given missions of increasing political importance. Violet would rise to become perhaps the SDECE's most valued 'Honourable Correspondent' with the title of Special Advocate to the service. One indication of Violet’s significance as a veteran covert operator is the fact that throughout his fifteen years of service with the SDECE, his case officer was the head of the service - first Grossin from 1957 to 1962, then Jacquier from 1962 to 1966, and then finally Guibaud until 1970. Reporting directly to General Grossin, "Violet was masterminding a Service Spécial to promote the General's [de Gaulle's] objectives in defence and foreign policy" (15), a rather ironic fact bearing in mind that Brian Crozier, Violet's future associate in the Cercle, was monitoring de Gaulle’s defence and foreign initiatives with some suspicion from the other side of the Channel.
"An early associate of Violet's in his work for the SDECE was former Chaplain to the French Far East Expeditionary Force in Indochina Reverend Father Yves- Marc Dubois, 'foreign policy spokesman' for the Dominican order and an unofficial member of the Pontifical Delegation to the UN, who was believed by the SDECE to be the head of the Vatican secret service. Violet and Dubois were active in the United Nations from the mid-1950s on when Violet was attached to the French delegation headed by Pinay, at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs. Violet's tasks at the UN included ensuring the Lebanon did not break off relations with France after its involvement in the 1956 Suez fiasco and winning over Latin American republics to block UN condemnation of France's Algerian policy in 1959. Violet's lobbying in the UN would also pave the way for de Gaulle's tour of Latin America in 1964. Another major focus for Violet and Dubois' activities for the SDECE was Eastern Europe: they received half a million francs a month from General Grossin to run the "Church of Silence", Catholic networks behind the Iron Curtain. These activities focused on the countries in what was sometimes referred to as the "Catholic Curtain": Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania (16)*.
Violet's association with the Reverend Father Dubois, of whom more will be said in a moment, would later get the Frenchman into trouble with the SDECE. In 1970 he was drummed out due to suspicious as to where his true loyalties lay.
"... Violet was made a Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur by General de Gaulle. He claimed to British author Godfrey Hodgson that he was in charge of covert political operations for SDECE until he retired as an active spy in 1970. According to Count Alexandre de Marcenches, the chief lifeguard from 1970 to 1981, Violet was 'given the heave' because he cost the French government more than any other spy on SDECE's long list of secret agents. De Marenches further claimed that Violet have been a triple agent working in addition for the Vatican and the West German BND. Other sources said that he was in fact fired because he knew too much about the sexual follies of one of France's leading ladies..."
(Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, pg. 156)
The possibility that Violet was acting as a triple agent is quite plausible. In Rogue Agents, David Teacher notes that Violet was widely credited in foreign policy circles for playing a key role in Franco-German rapprochement in the post-WWII years. It is quite possible that while being engaged in these endeavors Violet developed contacts with the BND (West Germany's primary intelligence agency) and the agency's notorious spymaster Reinhard Gehlen. Gehlen had been in charge of all military intelligence in the Eastern Front for Nazi Germany. Reputedly, he narrowly avoided being charged with war crimes due to the extensive files he had on the Soviet Union. Thus, Gehlen became a key figure for US intelligence during the Cold War despite the fact his intelligence often proved to be inaccurate and his network (often referred to as the Gehlen Org) was riddled with both hardened Nazi war criminals and Soviet double agents.
Teacher reports that at least one German investigator linked Violet to Gehlen:
"In the secret intelligence reports he wrote on the Cercle Pinay in 1979-80, Hans Langemann, the top Bavarian civil servant in charge of security matters, reported that General Jacquier, head of SDECE from 1962 to 1966, had been giving Violet DM 72,000 a year and that Violet had been getting the same sum from the BND's General Gehlen."
This researcher has not been able to directly link Gehlen and his network to Le Cerlce, but both organizations certainly appear to have traveled in many of the same circles. What's more Gehlen, like many of the upper echelon of L Cercle (as noted in part one) had ties to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
That Violet was outed from the SDECE by Count Alexandre de Marenches is most curious as well. De Marenches was also a member of Le Cerlce in addition to being a Knight of Malta. Despite the fact these two men shared some of the same associates, Violet and de Marenches have long been portrayed as antagonists of one another. Brian Crozier, who collaborated with both men, sheds some light on their relationship (or lack therefor of) to one another:
"Inevitably, he had made enemies. One of them was a close friend of the Comte de Marenches who, on being appointed Director-General of the SDECE in 1970, closed down Violet's office without notice. The two men –Marenches and Violet – never met."
(Free Agent, Brian Crozier, pg. 191)
Crozier goes on to claim that Violet had green-lighted a 1980 meeting between himself and De Marenches, who claimed he had never met up to that point. Of course, Crozier also claims that de Marenches was not involved in Le Cercle during the years he was active with the organization (allegedly from 1971 to 1985). This does not seem especially plausible as Le Cercle appears to have established ties with the notorious Safari Club (of which de Marenches was a co-founder of) during this period. But more on that later.
What's more, the sniffer plane scandal was ongoing after Violet was dropped from the SDECE by de Marenches. To believe this you have to believe that de Marenches had already came to the conclusion that Violet was nothing more than a swindler by this point and yet he would allow his fellow Frenchman to entangle the state-owned oil company, ELF-Aquitaine, in a highly dubious investment promoted by Violet that would ultimately cost the French government millions of francs. Given the close ties that oil and intelligence frequently have to one another, it seems inexplicable that de Marenches would have allowed Violet to cheat the French government in this fashion if he truly considered Violet to be a fraud. It is more likely that Violet was engaged in an intelligence operation that de Marenches and the SDECE wanted to distance themselves from if it blew up. Such tactics would ensure everyone had "plausible deniability." And on that note, let us return to Violet's other major intelligence contact.
Not only then was Violet well connected with the SDECE, but he was also engaged with Reverend Father Yves-Marc Dubois in running Catholic networks in the Eastern Bloc. Violet then would have been well positioned to provide covert funding to Solidarity through these channels. And the Reverend Father Dubois certainly would have had the connections to pull off such an operation. Here's a bit more on Dubois and his network:
"In his journeys, Violet came to know Father Yves-Marc Dubois, a French Dominican who was in charge of international relations for his Order. But Dubois represented more than the foreign-policy interests of the black friars of Faubourg Saint Honore. He was described as a 'member of the Vatican's intelligence network, if not its head.' He popped up from time to time as an unofficial member of the Holy See's delegation to the United Nations. When in Paris, he stayed in the Dominican chapter house at 222 rue Faubourg Saint Honore, in the Eighth Arrondissement, within walking distance of Jean Violet's apartment at 46 rue de Provence, in the Ninth Arrondissement.
"Dubois introduced Violet to his 'Swiss correspondent', Father Henri Marmier, the 'official' of the diocese of Fribourg and editor-in-chief of APIC, the Catholic International Press Agency based in Fribourg. Father Marmier and a Polish Dominican, Father Joseph-Marie Bochenski, founded under the auspices of the University of Fribourg the Institute of Sovietology. The Institute's extracurricular activities included the running of a clandestine network the provided aid to Catholic groups behind the Iron Curtain, particularly Poland. The Institute was in part funded by what officials in Fribourg enthusiastically called 'the American grant'. According to the register's office at the University of Fribourg, Opus Dei sent several its members to the Institute."
(Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, pgs. 155-156)
the old Paris-based Dominican headquarters Dubois used to operate out of
So yes, the alleged break Violet had with the SDECE and de Marenches should be taken with a heaping dose of salt. It seems most likely that Violet's chief patrons, the SDECE and the Vatican, wanted it to appear as though Violet was a kind of rogue who was ultimately fleeced by a pair of charlatans. Violet was by all accounts a highly intelligent man. It is far more plausible he was involved in deep intrigues rather than being hoodwinked by a "sniffer airplane."
And that brings us to Violet's pre-World War II activities. There are indications that Violet had been involved with intrigues involving secret societies as far back as the 1930s.
"Violet's political formation came in the 1930s in le Comite' secret pour l'action (CSAR). A far-right political cult modeled on a Freemasonic movement, complete with Masonic-style rites and rituals (although committed to ridding France of left-wing subversion the bona fide Freemasons allegedly represented), CSAR was a sort of French predecessor of Licio Gelli's P-2. It was intensely secretive in all but it's admiration of Franco and Mussolini, and after the war some of its members were accused of being Nazi collaborators. In the 1950s, with his own record pronounced clean, Violet became a close collaborator of French intelligence, and an active supporter of Opus Dei..."
What then is this secret organization, often referred to as "La Cagoule," that Naylor describes as a "far-right political cult modeled on a Freemasonic movement"? Here's a bit of background on the Cagoule from famed historian William L. Shirer:
"... The second was called CSAR (Comite Secret d'Action Revolutionnaire) and was popularly known as 'La Cagoule' and its members as 'Le Cagoulards,' 'the hooded ones.' This last was deliberately terrorist, resorting to murder and dynamiting, and its aim was to overthrow the Republic and set up an authoritarian regime on the model of the fascist state of Mussolini, who furnished some of its arms and most of it secret funds and in whose behalf it murdered two leading anti-Fascist Italian exiles. Its leader was a former naval engineer named Eugene Deloncle and the head of its military section was General Duseigneur, a retired Air Force officer. Marshal Franchet d'Esperey would become one of the main links between the two secret groups and help raise funds for them. Marshal Petain would be kept informed of their work through Loustaunau-Lacau. The two marshals could hardly have been ignorant of the fact that though professing to be anti-Communist both secret organizations, specially the Cagoule, were also antirepublican."
(The Collapse of the Third Republic, William L. Shirer, pgs. 227-228)
Here's a few more details on the order's antirepublican activities:
"The Cagoule had a military organization and recruited heavily from other secret societies on the French right-wing. Arms from Germany, Italy, and Spain provided the wherewithal for the planned seizure of power. An attempt to fake left-wing bombings of industrial employers' associations in Paris in September 1937, though, brought the attention of the authorities down on the would-be revolutionaries. The Cagoule's leader, Eugene Deloncle, was arrested the following month, and the organization's arms dumps surfaced shortly thereafter. Stripped of their weapons and publicly humiliated, the Cagoule sank into insignificance, though many of its members collaborated with the Nazis in the Vichy regime after the French defeat in 1940."
(The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History, John Michael Greer, pg. 135)
the aftermath of one of La Cagoule's terror attacks
On the one hand then La Cagoule was another fascist militia like the ones that had terrorized multiple Western European nations during the Cold War era (such Italian organizations were noted before here while their Belgium counterparts were addressed here; both these Italian and Belgium groups had ties to Le Cerlce, as we shall see). It is especially interesting that La Cagoule would try pinning a series of bombings on left wing organizations. This was the modus operandi on many fascist groups that became involved in the US/NATO stay-behind networks often referred to as Operation Gladio (noted before here and here). Like those organizations, La Cagoule sought to destabilize a democratic government and replace it with a fascist regime. But there was also a fundamentally occult nature to La Cagoule.
"French for hood. Popular name of the Organisation Secrete de l'Action Revolutionnaire Nationale (Secret Organization of National Revolutionary Action), a French right-wing secret society founded in 1935 to oppose the Third Republic and prepare the way for a fascist takeover. Some of its members borrowed the Ku Klux Klan's custom of wearing hoods to conceal their identity, thus their popular name, and the Klan's activities in America seem to have been a source of inspiration for the Cagoule's leaders. Much of the Cagoule's ideology, however, came from synarchy, a right-wing political ideology popular among French secret societies in the early 20th century..."
(The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History, John Michael Greer, pg. 135)
The concept of synarchy first appeared during the late nineteenth century in the writings Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves. Saint-Yves seems to have been deeply influenced by the works of Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, one of the most prominent occultists during the French Revolutionary era. Forty yeas after d'Olivet's death, Saint-Yves allegedly acquired some of d'Olivet's unpublished writings from one of his former students shortly after Saint-Yves had been decommissioned from the French army.
These writings would greatly influence Saint-Yves, who had the resources to bring arcane concepts to a wider audience. He married Countess Marie de Riznitch-Keller, allegedly a Russian aristocrat who was apparently friendly with Empress Eugénie de Montijo. Saint-Yves was also a friend of the Earl of Lytton, the Viceroy of India, and through him had a channel to Queen Victoria herself. Interestingly, the Earl of Lytton was the son of famed novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton who wrote The Coming Race. This work, which first introduced the concept of "Vril forces," and several of Lytton's other works seem to have influenced Saint-Yves.
Saint-Yves would prove to be an enormously influential occultist. He is largely the man responsible for introducing the concept of Agartha (allegedly an underground city in the Hollow Earth where Ascended Masters reside) to the Western world. He would also play a key role in linking the Great Sphinx with the lost continent of Atlantis (which is frequently linked to Agartha as a kind of adversary). His influence of Theosophy and Rudolf Steiner is also noteworthy.
As for his concept of synarchy, here's a general breakdown:
"Whereas Fabre d'Olivet used world history to demonstrate the workings of his three principles, Providence, Destiny, and Will, Saint-Yves used it to support his ideal political system that he called Synarchy – the opposite of Anarchy. Later uses of the term, and indeed Saint-Yves' own writings, make Synarchy a complicated and controversial matter, connected with conspiracy theory, accusations of fascism, globalization, and so on. In its simplest form, it represents government through the equilibrium of three separate powers, respectively controlling the Economy, Legislation (including the military), and Culture (including religion and education). It is international in scale and run by an esoterically minded elite. In a way, Synarchy reaffirms the ideally cooperative but separate roles of the three 'twice-born' castes of Hinduism: merchants (vaishyas), warriors and princes (kshatriyas), priests and teachers (brahmins)...
"Saint-Yves would boast: 'I have drowned the eclecticism of Fabre d'Olivet in my universalist and rational Christianity.' The curious thing is that such a strong-minded and self-important figure should have accepted Fabre d'Olivet's version of prehistory wholesale, with every semblance of belief in it. This is what Saint-Yves did in the early chapters of Mission des Juifs, often quoting Histoire philosphique verbatim and in general paraphrasing it, without indicating his source. We meet again the four colored races, dominating the world in turns; the Celts and the exile of Ram the Druid; his conquests and Universal Empire in India, which, following Saint-Yves' agenda, becomes the first Synarchic government; the origin of the zodiac; the 3,500 years peace until 3200 BCE, when the Schism of Irshou established the worship of the female principle; the coming of Krishna, Fo-Hi, and the Egyptian mysteries; the invasions of the Assyrians and the exodus of Abraham from their territory. With this last episode, Saint-Yves diverges from Fabre d'Olivet to pursue his restitution of Synarchy by Moses, its renovation by Jesus Christ, and its fortunes and historical periods."
(Atlantis and the Cycles of Time, Joscelyn Godwin, pgs. 44)
In other words, then, Saint-Yves envisioned a universal empire controlled by an initiated elite. Saint-Yves, like many thinkers along these lines, seems to have been greatly influenced by the ancient caste system of India. It is important to note, however, the Saint-Yves very much considered himself to be a Christian mystic first and foremost.
Much of Saint-Yves' ideology was transferred to the general masses via one of his greatest admirers, the legendary French occultist and physician Gerard Encausse, often referred to simply as Papus. Papus, while little known in the English speaking world, was one of the most influential and well connected occultists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He rubbed elbows with occult superstars like Aleister Crowley and Theodor Reuss while participating in many of the major esoteric organizations of his day, including the Theosophical Society, the OTO and the Golden Dawn. He even reputedly had contacts with Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra. As such, Papus remains one of the most influential occultists on Continental Europe to this day.
One of Papus' most enduring legacies was his revival of the Martinist Order. Martinism has its roots with two eighteenth century occultists, Martinez de Pasqually and the legendary Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. Martinism was essentially a system of ceremonial magic rooted in Freemasonry. Saint-Martin later broke with Pasqually and embraced the Christian mysticism of Jakob Bohme. He would later on devise his own ceremonial magic that incorporated this philosophical shift. By the time of the French Revolution, however, these systems had largely gone out of existence. It was not until the late nineteenth century that the revival began.
"... Saint-Martin's turn came in 1884, when one of the most important members of the French occult community, Papus... launched a revived Martinist Order. The new organization had only secondhand links to Saint-Martin's original Rite of Martinism, and borrowed its degree ceremonies from other sources –Cagliostro's Egyptian Rite, while the Beneficent Chevaliers of the Holy City, a degree created by Saint-Martin's fellow student Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, provided another – but it became the fount from which essentially all later Martinist orders descend..."
(The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History, John Michael Greer, pg. 383)
It was likely through the Martinist Order that Saint-Yves' concept of synarchy spread through Parisian occult circles and later onto the populace at large. To the outsider, the Martinist Order may appear to be a conventional Masonic lodge, which could explain why Hot Money author R.T. Naylor referred to La Cagoule as "a far-right political cult modeled on a Freemasonic movement." Both Saint-Yves and Papus would have surely taken objection to this description, however. As noted above, Saint-Yves seems to have largely considered himself to be a Christian mystic. Papus apparently entertained similar notions. This excellent biography of the physician notes:
"Papus never became a regular (Grand Orient) Freemason. He opposed Masonry as being atheistic, in contrast to the Esoteric Christianity of the Gnostic Church, the K.O.R.C. and the Martinist Order. Despite this, he organized what was announced as an "International Masonic Conference" in Paris on June 24, 1908, and at this conference he received a patent from Theodor Reuss to establish a "Supreme Grand Council General of the Unified Rites of Antient and Primitive Masonry for the Grand Orient of France and its Dependencies at Paris." It was probably on the same occasion that Reuss conferred upon Papus the X° of O.T.O. for France, and Papus in turn assisted Reuss in the formation of the O.T.O. Gnostic Catholic Church as a child of l'Église Gnostique de France. When John Yarker died in 1913, Papus was elected as his successor to the office of Grand Hierophant (international head) of the Antient and Primitive Rites of Memphis and Mizraim."
The Rite of Memphis and Mizraim is the above-mentioned Egyptian Rite that Papus incorporated into the Martinist Order. This was also considered to be an irregular Masonic rite. On the whole then it would not be inaccurate to state that Papus rejected mainline Freemasonry and only embraced those strands that he deemed to be consistent with "esoteric Christianity."
I am spending so much time delving into this topic because the presence of synarchy and Martinism has already be noted concerning another group linked to Le Cercle that I chronicled: Propaganda Due (P2). Licio Gelli is alleged to have been a member of a Martinist Order (as noted before here) and several of the neo-fascist militias linked to P2 featured followers of the philosopher and occultist Julius Evola. Evola's system has been widely linked to Traditionalism, a movement closely related to Perennialism. Papus played a role in fostering the more arcane strains of these ideologies.
"The occult group that Guenon joined in 1906, and from which he derived his 'Vedanta-Perennialism,' was the Martinist Order. It had been established in about 1890 by Gerard Encausse (famous as Papus), a central figure in the early development of Traditionalism. Encausse was a physician and the son of an alternative medical practitioner who had invented the 'Encausse generator,' a patent machine for passing medicines through the skin by means of hot water; it had never enjoyed the success that its inventor had hoped for. Encausse became a qualified physician (unlike his father) but continued the family interest in alternative therapies such as homeopathy and mesmerism. In 1887, while studying at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, Encausse joined Isis, the Paris lodge of the Theosophical Society, one important source of the Martinist Order's Perennialism, and so of Traditionalist Perennialism."
The above-mentioned Guenon is Rene Guenon, the French philosopher who is easily the most influential figure in Traditionalism. Guenon was an initiate of the Martinist Order and would later correspond with Evola for several years. Evola then was surely exposed to Martinist and synarchist concepts in some form or another, though his own occult system is very unique. Still, Evola's perception of the Hindu caste system (which he believed was the most sacred model for social order) certainly echoed certain aspects of Saint-Yves' synarchy.
But I have digressed enough. The possibility that Martinism and synarchy were underlining influences behind some of the more bizarre aspects of the Le Cercle network will be explored more fully in a future installment. In the next installment, however, I would to begin addressing some of the more noteworthy groups that comprised this network. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the third installment in my examination of the mysterious body referred to at times as Le Cercle, Pinay Cercle/Circle or the Pinay Group (in some accounts the Pinay Group is held to be an inner body of Le Cercle). Rarely addressed in English, the group has existed in one form or another since the early 1950s. During its formative years there were close contacts between Le Cercle and the similar Bilderberger Group, but it would be a mistaken to dismiss Le Cercle as a mere auxiliary of the more well known group as many have done.
As was noted in the first installment, much of Le Cercle's leadership seems to have been dominated by the most reactionary elements of the Vatican as personified by groups such as Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (both groups were heavily represented within Le Cercle). In the early days there was a consensus concerning a united Europe between the Bilderbergers and these Catholic groups, but as the years went on their interests diverged more and more. Likely by the late 1970s David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezenski (all of them major figures in the Bilderberger network) had all broken with Le Cercle, which by then was following a far more radical agenda.
the Bilderberg Hotel where the namesake group first met in 1954
In the second installment I briefly considered former French prime minister Antoine Pinay, the sometime namesake of Le Cercle and gave a much more in depth account of his close associate, the lawyer Jean Violet. For many years Violet was the primary figure behind Le Cercle. This man of mystery was extensively linked to the intelligence services of France and West Germany as well as the Vatican itself. Long reputed to be a member of Opus Dei, Violet nonetheless was allegedly involved with the synarchist-tinged fascist militia known as La Cagoule in pre-WWII France.
the aftermath of a terror attack carried out by La Cagoule in 1930s France
With this installment I would like to begin focusing on the international network that Le Cercle used to achieve its agenda. This network was comprised of numerous far right groups drawn from across Europe, the Americas, South Africa and the Fart East. There was much overlap between these groups in addition to their ties to Le Cercle. Probably the two most important of these organizations was Brian Crozier's 61 network (usually written as "61"; 6I reportedly stood for "Sixth International" in some accounts) and Florimond Damman's Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP, sometimes also referred to simply as the Academy). These two organizations effectively served as intelligence wings of Le Cerlce during the 1970s and 1980s.
The Academy
Let us begin with the Academy as it predated the 6I and has also been covered before on this blog in some detail. The Academy was a Brussels-based organization founded by Florimond Damman in 1969. Damman was the brother-in-law of Alain de Villegas, one of the eccentric "inventors" who had conceived of the "sniffer plane" that occupied so much of Jean Violet's time in 1970s (noted in part two). The Academy was born out of the CEPI/PEU network that Archduke Otto von Habsburg was the leading figure in (addressed before here and here). Damman had been active in such circles for several years before founding the Academy. Not long after its inception, it drew the attention of Jean Violet.
"... Damman would soon overcome the internal struggle within the AESP and expand its activities. At a symposium organised by Habsburg in Vienna in May 1969, Damman met Jean Violet (98)*. By October, Violet was looking for a group that could provide an operational framework for the Cercle Pinay, and thought of Damman and his AESP. On 21st October 1969, Violet wrote to Damman saying that he would like to meet him, having been 'mandated by President Pinay to carry out a study of European perspectives after the German elections' i.e. Willy Brandt's September election victory.
"The meeting took place one week later on 28th October in Brussels, where Violet was accompanied by two of his contacts, the first of whom was Marcel Collet, who had just retired as a director of Euratom. Violet's second companion was certain to ensure a favourable reception from Damman - none other than the International Secretary-General of the Paneuropean Union Vittorio Pons. Over lunch, Violet, Damman, Collet and Pons agreed on a new role for the AESP to act as a forum linking the PEU and CEDI under Habsburg and Sánchez Bella to the Bilderberg Group and Cercle Pinay, represented by Pinay and Violet. The revamped Academy would be run by Damman directed from behind the scenes by Violet and his trio of associates Collet, Father Dubois and François Vallet, an industrialist in pharmaceuticals. Violet announced that he would go to Pöcking, Habsburg's seat just outside Munich, to confer with the Archduke and Strauß about the financing of the AESP."
As was noted in the second installment, Jean Violet had very close ties to both French and West German intelligence during this time. His close associate, the above-mentioned Father Dubois, was believed to be a top figure in the Vatican's intelligence network if not its head (as noted in part two). The Belgian figure of Vittorio Pons was alleged to have been a member of P7 by Richard Brenneke. P7 in turn was one of the Propaganda lodges believed to have provided funding for P2. The Spaniard Alfredo Sanchez Bella was reputedly a member of Opus Dei (as Violet was also alleged to be).
So yes, there were certainly some figures with rather deep ties involved with the international leadership of the Academy from very early on. This trend would only get stronger once the Belgian section had been formalized.
"The operational core of the AESP, the Permanent Delegation, brought together the Belgian sections of the PEU, CEDI and WACL - the duo of Damman and de Marcken represented the PEU Central Council and the Belgian PEU section MAUE, whereas Vankerkhoven was Secretary of both the Belgian LIL chapter within WACL and the Belgian section of CEDI. CEDI's Belgian section was also represented within the AESP by its President, the Chevalier Marcel de Roover, a veteran anticommunist who had played a major part in the early post-war creation of two private anti-communist intelligence services linked to the Belgian Gladio network, Milpol and the Delcourt network. From the late 1950s on, de Roover had represented Belgium in various anti-communist networks that would later become formalised within WACL. He was also one of the earliest Belgians to frequent CEDI: he was appointed CEDI International Treasurer in January 1960 and founded its Belgian section in 1961, serving as its President until his death in 1971. Following de Roover's death, Vankerkhoven would take over Belgian representation within WACL and CEDI, being appointed Secretary-General of CEDI and moving its Belgian office into his Cercle des Nations (100)*.
"The most prominent Belgian members of the AESP however were Gaston Eyskens, the serving Belgian Prime Minister from 1968 to 1973, and his immediate predecessor as Prime Minister from 1966 to 1968, Paul Vanden Boeynants from the Parti Social Chrétien (PSC). Vanden Boeynants, or VdB as he is known, would become a national institution in Belgian politics - the Belgian Andreotti, going on to serve as Belgian Defence Minister from 1972 to 1979 and as Prime Minister in 1978- 79. He first entered politics at the age of 29 in the ranks of Retinger's European Movement. Before being elected to Parliament, he was one of the five Belgian representatives at the second conference of the Union of European Federalists, the most powerful group within the European Movement, held in Rome in November 1948 shortly after massive intervention by the CIA to ward off an electoral victory by the Socialist-Communist Popular Democratic Front in the April 1948 elections. As we will see below, one key Italian politician in this anti-communist propaganda effort would also figure amongst the AESP's members in 1970...
"Baron Benoît de Bonvoisin – "the Black Baron" - was at the time the most notorious patron of Belgian fascism and a key international linkman for the far Right. Perhaps because of his controversial connections, de Bonvoisin would not figure on any formal AESP or MAUE membership lists until after Damman’s death in 1979, however attending CEDI and AESP events from 1976 on..."
WACL stands for World Anti-Communist League. Officially established in 1966 (though regional branches had been around since the 1950s), the WACL brought together a rogue's gallery of US military and intelligence officers, international arms and drug traffickers, assorted terrorists and religious fanatics of various stripes and the inevitable unreconstructed Nazi war criminals. It has been linked to a host of crimes and assassinations on multiple continents. Much more information on the WACL can be found here.
Beyond the ties the Academy had to the WACL and the PvB/Bonvoisin nexus in Belgium, David Teacher reports in Rogue Agents that Damman also had ties to Yves Guerin-Serac and the Aginter Press terror network, As I noted before here and here, Aginter Press has been linked to Operation Gladio and multiple acts of terrorism across Western Europe.
As noted above, the Academy had several indirect links to Propaganda Due from the alleged P7 organization. There was, however, at least one P2 initiate active in the Academy since the early 1970s:
"However, it is the Italian connections of the AESP that are the most fascinating. The former high-ranking P2 member Giancarlo Elia Valori attended both the Charlemagne Grand Dinner and the AESP Chapter Assembly; he would become a member of the AESP's organising core, the Permanent Delegation, the following year. His presence is particularly interesting in the light of the allegations concerning P7 - two of the Academy members allegedly involved in P7, Pons and Töttösy, were also at these meetings with Valori. Valori's attendance at Academy events from 1972 on also points to possible connections between the sniffer plane scandal and P2. Most of the key members in the sniffer plane negotiations were present at the 1976 Grand Dîner and Chapter Assembly with Valori: de Villegas, Father Dubois and Vallet. Vallet and de Villegas would join Valori on the AESP Permanent Delegation by 1977..."
Valori was also close to Argentinian strongman Juan Peron. In Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison reports that Valori was "a secret chamberlain of the Papal Household" (pg. 210). Hutchison also records that Valori was close to fellow P2 initiate and Knight of Malta Umberto Ortolani, the man who many believed actually ran the P2.
Besides links to the P2, long time Academy patron Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin also had close ties to the MSI, the Italian fascist party, and numerous far right militias there such as Ordine Nuovo. The Baron was also reportedly on close terms with the notorious terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie. These ties were addressed before briefly here.
Thus, it would seem that not only did the Academy have extensive ties to multiple intelligence services in Western Europe but it was also extensively linked to groups engaged in acts of terrorism and other outrageous across Europe and beyond. This has led several researchers to conclude the the Academy effectively served as an intelligence network for Le Cercle from its inception to the organization's dissolution shortly after the death of Damman in 1979. Not long thereafter many of the more controversial elements of the Academy would turn up in Crozier's 6I network. Crozier himself had been involved in the Academy with Jean Violet since roughly 1969 (noted before here).
Crozier and the ISC
And that brings us to the 6I and its controversial founder, Brain Crozier. Crozier provided the world with the first full length account of the Cercle network via his 1991 autobiography Free Agent. This work was heavily sanitized, generally depicting Le Cercle as inept and Crozier as a mere journalist fighting the good fight against the forces of Godless Communism. Crozier concedes to having a few intelligence ties, but he largely depicts these individuals and organizations as powerless. Indeed, one can't help but feel truly baffled as to how the West won the Cold War after finishing with Free Agent if even a fraction of Crozier's claims concerning "Communist subversion" were true.
As we shall see, Crozier took more than a few liberties with these claims, especially in regards to his ties to US and British intelligence. In point of fact, Crozier had extensive ties to these intelligence networks long before he hooked up with Le Cercle. These links date back to at least the 1950s.
"Born in 1918, Brian Rossiter Crozier started his career in journalism in 1936. Having worked in aeronautical inspection in 1941, he was hired by the news agency Reuters, which had links to MI6, in 1943. After a spell at the News Chronicle in 1944 and the Sydney Morning Herald in 1948, he returned to Reuters in 1951. From 1952 to 1954, Crozier toured the South-East Asian conflicts in Vietnam and Malaya for Reuters and the New Straits Times, which was used during the Malayan emergency as a channel for British disinformation prepared by the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). It was in Saigon that Crozier started his long partnership with MI6 by meeting "Ronald Lincoln", a friendship renewed back in London when both men had returned home in 1954. Crozier would then also meet a second MI6 officer "Ronald Franks" who would act as his link for several years. Thanks to the fruitful exchange of information with his MI6 contacts, 'Lincoln' and 'Franks', Crozier joined the staff of the Economist in September 1954 as Editor of their prestigious Economist Foreign Report, a post he filled until 1964 (26)*."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 24)
Things really took off for Crozier, however, when he hooked up with an offshoot of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), a notorious CIA front.
"In 1965, the International Organisations Division of the CIA decided to use its intellectual front group, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, to create a new propaganda outlet, a press agency called Forum World Features. This CIA features service, which at its peak supplied over 150 newspapers worldwide, would be run - from its launch in 1966 until its exposure in 1974 - by Brian Crozier. Whilst still Editor of the Economist Foreign Report, Crozier had already provided articles for the CCF journal Encounter as well as working on commission for the IRD for who he "transformed a thick folder of IRD documents into a short book" later published under the title Neo-Colonialism as part of a series called Background Books. After his departure from the Economist in February 1964, Crozier accepted a part-time consultancy for the IRD, advising departments and writing research papers. A few weeks later, Crozier was contacted by the CCF who offered him the job of taking over the CCF's features service and commercialising its output. Tied up with the IRD consultancy and other contracts, Crozier refused but accepted a second more limited commission: to tour South America and report on how the CCF could improve the distribution of the Spanish-language version of their magazine, Encounter. Concerned by Crozier's involvement with a CIA front, his MI6 contacts invited Crozier to MI6 headquarters upon his return in November 1964 and commissioned him to write an extensive background report on Sino-Soviet subversion in the Third World; a sanitised version of the report would be published in 1966 as part of the Background Books series under the title The Struggle for the Third World (54).
"In May 1965, Crozier finally accepted the post of Director of the CCF features service, Forum World Features, and Crozier started at FWF that July. Initial control of FWF ran via two CIA officers, CCF President Michael Josselson, and FWF auditor "Charles Johnson". The legal and financial infrastructure for FWF was provided by one of the CIA's "quiet channels", millionaire John Hay Whitney, a wartime member of the OSS (55), former US Ambassador to Britain during Crozier's time at the Economist and future publisher of the International Herald Tribune. Whitney obligingly registered FWF under his own name as a Delaware corporation with offices in London (56); CIA funding for FWF was channelled through Kern House Enterprises, a publishing firm run by Whitney. For a while, wrangles between Crozier and the CCF continued about FWF's independence from the CCF; Crozier eventually ensured complete separation of FWF from the CCF and direct control via a CIA case officer he calls "Ray Walters". Walters brought in an office manager, Cecil Eprile, and FWF opened its doors on 1st January 1966."
It was through these contacts that in 1962 Crozier would become involved with the America Frank Barnett and several organizations Barnett had ties to, most notably the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC). Barnett had co-founded the NCIS with William Casey, a former OSS officer and Knight of Malta who would go onto become the director of the CIA under Reagan. Much more will be said about Barnett, Casey and the NCIS and other organizations affiliated with this clique in a future installment.
For now the main thing to keep in mind is that the intelligence-connected Barnett would assist Crozier in his next major endeavor: the Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC).
"... Crozier therefore set up a low-key features service within FWF called the Current Affairs Research Services Centre in 1968. CARSC started publication of a series of monthly monographs on conflict, the first one appearing in December 1969. Crozier records that 'the Agency had permitted me to produce the first five Conflict Studies under CARSC as a commercial imprint' using the FWF address; the sixth would go out in January 1970 under the name of Crozier's new venture, the Institute for the Study of Conflict (63).
"Kern House provided the start-up capital for the ISC, and Crozier functioned as Director of both FWF and the ISC. Several of FWF's research staff and the FWF library were absorbed into the ISC; FWF then paid the ISC the sum of £2,000 for use of the library it had once owned. Oil companies put up seed capital: first was Shell, who put up £5,000 a year for three years, and British Petroleum £4,000 for two years (64)*. Then the real money came in, thanks to the Agency and via an old American friend: Frank Barnett of the NSIC (65)*. Having met Barnett in Madrid in 1966, Crozier visited him in New York in 1968. When the ISC was then set up in 1969-70, the NSIC provided substantial assistance. Apart from a guaranteed regular purchase of each issue of the Conflict Studies, Barnett's NSIC also provided the salary for one of the ISC researchers and footed the printing and publicity bill for the ISC's annual publication, the Annual of Power and Conflict (66).
"Above all, beyond NSIC funding, Barnett could provide contacts, arranging a meeting with Dan McMichael, who would remain a true friend to Barnett's NSIC for more than fifteen years, serving on its Advisory Council until at least 1985. McMichael was administrator of the trust funds of the Scaife family, major shareholders in Gulf Oil. Barnett persuaded Richard Mellon Scaife ("Dick Scaife as he liked to be called – a tall, fair-haired man with film-star good looks", as Crozier puts it) to provide $100,000 a year for the ISC as well as taking over the FWF subsidies from Jock Whitney. According to Crozier: "From that moment on, the ISC took off" (67). Between 1973 and 1981, Dick Scaife would donate a total of $6 million to the NSIC and their London friends at the ISC."
Richard Mellon Scaife was a major sugar daddy of the modern conservative movement in the United States. He, along with the Hunt and Koch families and the Unification Church, provided a lot of the seed capital for the conservative counterrevolution that was in full swing in the US by the time Reagan came to power. Scaife (along with much of the rest of the Mellon family) also had very deep intelligence ties. For much more information on "Dick Scaife," check here.
Lord Amery
It was around the time that ISC was just beginning to take off (i.e. 1970) that Crozier made one of his most important contacts. The Monday Club, a political pressure group within the Conservative Party that at this time was especially concerned with preserving White rule in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), found that many of their policies were closely aligned with the ISC. The two organizations began to collaborate and Crozier presumably came into contact with the man who would ultimately succeed him as chairman of Le Cercle through that joint venture. This individual was none other than Lord Julian Amery.
Unsurprisingly, Amery had quite a deep background:
"Another Monday Club member with links to the Cercle complex – indeed a future Chairman of the Cercle Pinay itself - was Julian Amery. Amery was a prominent MP on the Conservative Right with a long history of extensive intelligence contacts. Having served in the Balkans with MI6's Section D and the SOE during the war, he was one of the major figures who pushed MI6 in the immediate post-war period to adopt its disastrous plan "to liberate the countries within the Soviet orbit by any means short of war", notably the catastrophic attempts to "set the Soviet Union ablaze" by landing armed bands of émigrés in Albania, Latvia, the Caucasus and the Ukraine. In June 1950, Amery attended the founding conference in Berlin of the CIA funded CCF and served on its International Steering Committee; at the time, Amery was also one of the leading members of the Central and Eastern Europe Commission of Retinger's CIA-funded European Movement. Amery would also sit in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly from 1950 to 1957 and on the Central Committee of the Paneuropean Union in the mid-1950s (78)*.
"As for his parliamentary career, Amery was elected as a Conservative MP in 1950, marrying Harold Macmillan's daughter the same year. He went on to hold several government posts under his father-in-law, firstly as Under-Secretary of State at the War Office in 1957 and the Colonial Office in 1958, before being promoted to the post of Secretary of State for Air from 1960 to 1962; he would then serve in the Cabinet as Minister for Air until the Conservatives' electoral defeat by Labour's Harold Wilson in 1964. Amery had joined the Monday Club soon after its creation in 1961; he was the guest of honour at the Club's annual dinner in 1963. In 1966, he would lose his parliamentary seat but regain it in 1969, remaining MP until 1992, when he was created a life peer. By the time of the ISC's creation in 1970, the political pendulum had just swung back to the Right. New Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath appointed Amery Housing Minister, where he served until 1972 when he became Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (the cover department for MI6), holding the post for a crucial two years until Heath's defeat by Wilson in 1974 (79)*."
Amery's family background is even more curious. His father, Leopold, had been very close to the notorious Round Table/Milner Group, sometimes also known as the so-called "Cliveden Set." According to Carroll Quigley in The Anglo-American Establishment, it was Leopold Amery whom Lord Alfred Milner had chosen to succeed him in guiding the Round Table group. The Council on Foreign Relations, the long time bugaboo of the conspiratorial right, has its origins with this group. Here's a bit more on this network:
"... The Round Table Group, and came later to be called, somewhat inaccurately, the Cliveden set, after the country estate of Lord and Lady Astor. It included Lord Milner, Leopold Amery, and Edward Grigg... as well as Lord Lothian, Smuts, Lord Astor, Lord Brand (brother-in-law of Lady Astor and managing director of Lazard Brothers, the international bankers), Lionel Curtis, Geoffrey Dawson (editor of The Times), and their associates. This group wielded great influence because it controlled the Rhodes Trust, the Beit Trust, The Times of London, The Observer, the influential and highly anonymous quarterly review known as The Round Table (founded in 1910 with money supply by Sir Abe Bailey and the Rhodes Trust, and with Lothian as editor), and it dominated the Royal Institute of International Affairs, called 'Chatham House' (of which Sir Abe Bailey and the Astors were the chief financial supporters, while Lionel Curtis was the actual founder), the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and All Souls College, Oxford. The Round Table group formed the core of the three-bloc-world supporters, and differed from the anti-Bolsheviks... in that they sought to contain the Soviet Union between a German-dominated Europe and an English-speaking bloc rather than to destroy it as the anti-Bolsheviks wanted. Relationships between the two groups were very close and friendly, and some people, like Smuts, were in both."
(Tragedy and Hope, Carroll Quigley, pg. 581)
Passages such as the one above are typically held up by conspiracy theorists as definitive proof that the Round Table group was engaged in an all encompassing conspiracy to impose a Communist world government on the unsuspecting masses. The truth is a bit more complex, however. While no doubt the Cliveden Set's policies during this period may have been more moderate than the far-right anti-Bolshevik faction, the actualities of their policies was to destroy the League of Nations (and with it, any semblance of world government) while building up Nazi Germany as a counter weight to the Soviets:
"The more moderate Round Table group, including Lionel Curtis, Leopold Amery (who was the shadow of Lord Milner), Lord Lothian, Lord Brand, and Lord Astor, sought to weaken the League of Nations and destroy all possibility of collective security in order to strengthen Germany in respect to both France and Soviet Union, and above all to free Britain from Europe in order to build up an 'Atlantic bloc' of Great Britain, the British Dominions, and the United States... This influential group sought to change the League of Nations from an instrument of collective security to an international conference center for 'non-political' matters like drug control or international postal services, to rebuild Germany as a buffer against the Soviet Union and a counterpoise to France, and to build up an Atlantic bloc of Britain, the Dominions, the United States, and, if possible, the Scandinavian countries."
In fairness, the Cliveden Set's policies toward the Soviet Union seem to have set the stage for the US policy of "containment" at the onset of the Cold War. The Right long bemoaned this policy and was truly radicalized when it gave way to the concept of "detente" during the 1970s (a policy aggressively pursued by some time Cercle attendee Henry Kissinger who, along with his close associate David Rockefeller, broke with the group in the late 1970s).
Crozier himself was quite contemptuous of these polices:
"The decade of the 1970s was dominated by the concept of 'detente', meaning a slackening of international tensions. The concept was misleading. Throughout my period as Director, the Institute for the Study of Conflict was involved in exposing the fallacies of 'detente' and warning the West of the dangers inherent in a policy of illusion.
" 'Detente' meant different things on each side of the Iron Curtain. In the West, advocates of 'detente' (some of whom believed in it) hoped it would lead to a general reduction in the burden of armaments, by reducing the fear of war. Many even hoped, against all evidence, that in time 'detente' could persuade the Soviet leadership that the USSR should now abandon its ideological war against the West and indeed all countries not already in the Soviet orbit. A period of peace was envisaged, during which trade would make the Soviet Union more prosperous and therefore more ready to stop it subversion of other countries.
"On the Soviet side, the aspirations were strikingly different. The Soviets hoped the West would unilaterally reduce defense budgets and remove any obstacles to Soviet acquisition of high technology, with which to build up the already excessive military strength of the USSR. They hoped the West would give permanent – that is, de jure– recognition to the post-war frontiers of Europe: in other words, to Stalin's conquests and annexations. Their ultimate hope was that a European Security Treaty would be concluded, leading to the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Once NATO was dissolved, the Americans would withdraw their forces from Europe and the Soviet forces would be free to intimidate and if necessary occupy Western Europe. To see things this way in any West European country in 1970 was to court unpopularity and such labels as 'right-wing' or better still 'extreme right-wing'; whereas the analysis was simply a recognition of realities."
And here was Lord Amery, the descendant of one of the chief figures behind the Cliveden Set and its policies toward the Soviet Union, throwing in with Crozier, a man whose entirely life revolved around destroying the Soviet Union. Nor was Amery the only Cliveden Set descendant to join the ranks of Le Cercle. The organization's current chairman, Michael Ancram, Lord Lothian, is a distant relative of the Lord Lothian involved with the Cliveden Set during the 1930s. But I digress.
The 6I
It wasn't just the policy of detente that was radicalizing the Right during the 1970s, however. Watergate, the Church Committee and the Committee on Assassinations had brought intense scrutiny on the CIA in the United States. This led to several efforts to reform it during the 1970s, most notably during Jimmy Carter's administration. Le Cerlce saw these policies and similar ones in Western Europe as totally crippling the West's intelligence services and effectively rendering them powerless.
Crozier decided that something needed to be done to fill the gap. Thus was born the concept of the private intelligence services dubbed "6I" (though commonly referred to as the "61"). It had its origins with a previous group Crozier dubbed "Shield." Shield emerged some time during 1976 to assist Margaret Thatcher's rise to prime minister. It specialized in disinformation against the Labour Party and even former Conservative prime minister Edward Heath.
After the success with Thatcher's election (more on that later) Crozier became more ambitious and began to plot a private intelligence network with an international reach.
"The question was whether something can be done in the private sector – not only in Britain, but in the United States and other countries of the Western Alliance. A few of us had been exchanging views, and decided that action was indeed possible. I took the initiative by convening a very small and very secret meeting in London. We met in the luxurious executive suite of a leading City of London bank on the morning of Sunday 13 February 1977. Our host, a leading figure in the bank, took the chair. Three of us were British, four were American, with one German. Ill health prevented a French associate from attending; Jean Violet was with us in spirit.
"Apart from the banker and myself, the other Briton was Nicholas Elliott. The German was a very active member of the Bundestag, whose career had started in diplomacy. He had a very wide understanding of Soviet strategy, in which he wrote several first-rate books.
"The Americans included two able and diligent congressional staffers, and the Viennese-born representative of a big Belgian company. Also there was the remarkable General Vernon ('Dick') Walters, recently retired as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, and later to re-emerge in public life as President Reagan's ambassador, first to the UN, and later to the German Federal Republic...
"I proposed the creation of a Private Sector Operational Intelligence agency, beholden to no government, but at the disposal of allied or friendly governments for certain tasks which, for one reason or another, they were no longer able to tackle. I must make it clear that these task did not include any acts of armed force or physical coercion.
"Our main concerns would be:
To provide reliable intelligence in areas which governments were barred from investigating, either through recent legislation (as in the US) or because political circumstances made such inquiries difficult or potentially embarrassing.
To conduct secret counter-subversion operations in any country in which such actions were deemed feasible.
"There were no dissenting voices, although there was much discussion about the areas for action: the requirements, in intelligence jargon.
"It was agreed that no outsider should be made aware of the existence of the organisation, except if, in the judgment of one of us, the person was deemed a suitable candidate for recruitment..."
The above-mentioned General Vernon Walters, a close aid to Ronald Reagan and his CIA director, William Casey, was extremely well-connected within US intelligence circles:
"As for the Americans, the most notable participant at the 6I meeting was Lieutenant-General Vernon 'Dick' Walters, who served as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (under William Colby, himself a Cercle guest) from May 1972 to July 1976, retiring six months before this first 6I meeting. Fluent in six European languages as a result of his childhood in the UK and France, Walters would become a veteran coupmaster involved in most of the CIA's dirtiest operations – Iran, Italy, Vietnam, Chile, Angola, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Fiji, often working with other Cercle contacts. As American Military Attaché in Teheran, Walters had worked with Kermit Roosevelt and G. K. Young in the 1953 Operation Ajax to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh. From 1967 to 1972, when the Cercle's Belgian base of the AESP was being set up, Walters was Military Attaché in Paris responsible for the Benelux region."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pgs. 150-151)
Like Casey and many others associated with Le Cercle, Walters was also a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) according Robert Hutchison in Their Kingdom Come. Nor was Walters the only Maltese knight with connections to the group. In Free Agent Crozier states that Edward Leigh, a young Thatcherite MP, was engaged in the opposition movement to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) with a leading figure 6I, Julian Lewis. Leigh would go onto become a member of SMOM. And then there was future US ambassador to the Vatican, William A. Wilson, who Corzier described as Reagan's "... liaise both with the Pinay Cercle... and with The 61" (Free Agent, pg. 186) during the early 1980s. Wilson was already a Maltese knight by this point.
And let us not forget about our old friend Jean Violet. Crozier noted that Violet was present "in spirit" at the 6I founding and later notes that he attempted to pay funds to Violet on behalf of his work for the 6I. David Teacher suggests that Violet was likely a high ranking figure in the 6I. He has also been long suspected of being a member of Opus Dei. But moving along.
Later on in his autobiography, Crozier makes it clear that 6I's primary purpose as to conduct operations in host or allied countries, typically related to counter-subversion.
"... We planned both to initiate secret operations in our various countries, and to coordinate the existing overt auctions of the many private groups involved in the resistance to Soviet propaganda and Active Measures. At that time, we had no plans to operate as an espionage agency in the Soviet bloc countries. We felt that this was still a task that could be entrusted to our existing intelligence services, including the CIA. Our main mission was in the field of counter-subversion. Inevitably, we expected to pick up occasional items of secret intelligence. These we would pass on, at our discretion, to interested Allied agencies. We intended also to supplement the analysis made available to the American, British and other Allied governments by the official secret agencies. In many cases, these analyses would prove different. To this extent, they would provide an alternative assessment of current dangers for the special benefit of presidents and prime ministers.
"Unlike existing agencies, we would not be hampered by prohibitions on functioning in our own or Allied countries. Security would be rigorously observed. In no particular, the media, with whatever they might guess or speculate upon, would never be told of our existence, or of the work we were doing. We would be concerned equally with home-grown subversion and the other kind..."
The CIA, in theory, is prohibited from conducting covert operations on American soil by US law The same is true of most Western intelligence services. The 6I then was geared towards subverting these laws by running a private network heavily staffed by "former" Western intelligence assets. At the same time similar networks were being formed in the US to make up for the nurturing of the CIA. It has long been reputed that these networks played a key role in the elections of Margret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, respectively.
The Rise of Thatcher
It has been alleged by researchers such as David Teacher and Richard Cottrell that Thatcher's election constituted a kind of silent coup. Crozier and his earlier Shield network would have been idea candidates to participate in the psychological aspects of such a coup.
"The Cercle complex's UK connections lead us into the heart of a major manipulation of British domestic politics, 'the Thatcher coup' concentrating in the period from Harold Wilson's two election victories in 1974 to Margaret Thatcher's election as Conservative Leader on 11th February 1975 and culminating with her election as Prime Minister on 4th May 1979 (165). A substantial body of verified information confirms the existence of a conspiracy to undermine the Labour Government of Harold Wilson, to discredit Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and to have Conservative leader Edward Heath replaced by someone of a 'more resolute approach'. Colin Wallace - a former psy-ops officer within the IRD-founded Information Policy Unit in Northern Ireland and a key witness on MI5 intervention in domestic British politics in the 1970s - writes:
'Various key members of the Intelligence community - past and present - assisted by influential figures in the public service, politics and commerce produced a series of political and psychological warfare projects which were designed to:
a) prevent the election and re-election of a Labour Government;
b) prevent any coalition between the Labour and Liberal parties;
c) discredit key figures in both parties;
d) collate and disseminate 'black' information which could be used to discredit or 'control' various politicians who were deemed to hold power behind the scenes in all three major political parties;
e) have Mr Edward Heath removed as leader of the Conservative party and replaced by someone of a more resolute approach to the political and industrial unrest" (166)*.'
"It is possible to divide the conspirators roughly into two groups, the first of which centred on serving MI5 officers including Spycatcher author Peter Wright and others who had transferred from MI5's K Branch (counter-espionage) to F Branch (counter-subversion) when MI5 strengthened its role as a political police in the mid- 1970s. This was notably the case of Charles Elwell who transferred from running K2 (Soviet satellite states) counter-espionage to heading F1 (CPGB and other groups) counter-subversion in April 1974 and who would work closely with Brian Crozier after his retirement from MI5 in May 1979.
"The second group was a powerful private-sector coalition of retired MI6 officers, IRD disinformation assets and prominent members of the Tory Right, several of whom would later serve as Ministers under Thatcher. Whilst the Fleet Street Press has concentrated on Peter Wright and his MI5 faction in their late-1980s reports of the Wilson destabilisation, the ex-MI6/IRD/Tory MP coalition and their partners in the industry-funded anti-union outfits were also major actors in the psychological warfare campaign being waged against all three party leaders, a contribution that has been largely underestimated. It is this coalition - the 'counter-subversion lobby' - that was closely connected with the Cercle Pinay complex, not only through the ISC but also through two future groups, NAFF and FARI."
Peter Dale Scott reports that Crozier claimed to have played a significant role in Thatcher's election before a meeting of the Cercle:
"... The Pinay Circle in the 1970s was actively engaged in trying to elect right-wing governments (most notoriously Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom). Crozier himself appeared to claim the credit for Thatcher's election at a meeting of the Pinay Circle."
(The Road to 9/11, Peter Dale Scott, pg. 98)
Unfortunately an in depth examination of the mechanisms that brought Thatcher to power are beyond the scope of this present series. The curious reader is strongly advised to reader David Teacher's full analysis inRogue Agents.
I would like to briefly note, however, certain accusations that were made by this above-mentioned network of various "former" MI5/6 men that Crozier and his network were close too:
"... When the small MI5/MI6 black ops team working up the Wilson and Heath plots got down to work in the early '70s, they made a subliminally curious choice of 'Clockwork Orange' as the in-house codename. Stanley Kubrick's disturbing and controversial film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's story of deranged misfits plaguing the streets was widely regarded at the time as a 'queer' exercise in sexual debauchery if not an actual motif, as many saw it, for blatant homosexuality. Was it merely a co-incidence that Heath was smeared all over London as a closet gay, or that the bombastic Ulster Protestant, the Rev. Ian Paisley, another victim of the same hit list, would be dragged into a scandal concerning pedophilia in the Kincaid children's home? The implication of a dirty tricks sting against Wilson on the grounds of sexual skeletons rattling in his cupboard could hardly have been more obvious to future investigators..."
(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pg. 252)
The thing is, former Prime Minster Edward Heath has not only been implicated as a closet homosexual, but more recently accused of pedophilia as part of the ongoing fall out in Britain following the Jimmy Savile revelations. Keep this in mind dear reader as we shall be returning to this topic in a moment.
The 6I and the Academy
There were ties between the Academy and the 6I from very early on. As I noted before here, both Crozier and Jean Violet had been involved with the Academy since 1969, shortly after the organization's founding. It was still going strong by the time Crozier founded the 6I in early 1977, but that was about to change.
Upon Florimond Damman's death in 1979 the Academy became riddled with infighting. The organization dissolved not long after. Many of the more curious and intelligence connected members ended up joining 6I, which effectively merged Cercle's two primary intelligence networks.
"The interaction between the Cercle and the 6I went far beyond the "minor overlapping" mentioned by Crozier; not only did senior figures from the British and American intelligence communities attend Cercle meetings, but also almost entire national delegations of the Cercle – most notably the post-Damman MAUE from Belgium – were recruited to the 6I cause, soon setting up front groups to assist Crozier's anti-unilateralist propaganda campaign. This process had been ongoing since the previous two meetings of Cercle allies for which we have full participants' lists - the February 1976 AESP Chapter Assembly and the November 1976 CEDI Congress – but the launch in February 1977 of the 6I accelerated the pace of integration. Indeed, the CEDI Congress in particular appears to have heralded the creation of the 6I which came only three months later; three key CEDI participants in November 1976 - Violet, Crozier and Huyn, the triumvirate then running the Cercle - were all, according to Crozier, core founding members of the 6I 'Politburo' in February 1977. Whilst Crozier's memoirs preferred to downplay the overlap between the Cercle and the 6I, noting that "some members of the 6I's 'Politburo' also attended the Cercle meetings; others did not" (525), the Cercle participants' lists between 1982 and 1985 belie the impression of separation that Crozier wished to give, as they record the frequent presence at Cercle meetings of most of the members of the 6I 'Politburo' and many of their operatives...
"Also attending the 1982 Cercle meeting in Bavaria were most of the 6I's Belgian partners - Close, Jonet, de Kerchove and de Bonvoisin. The presence at this 1982 Cercle meeting of almost the entire top membership of MAUE demonstrates that Belgian cooperation with Brian Crozier had continued uninterrupted despite the sudden death in July 1979 of Florimond Damman and the subsequent implosion of the AESP, an upheaval followed in October 1979 by the end of Paul Vanden Boeynants' seven-year reign as Defence Minister and the 1980 'removal from the Army hierarchy' of the controversial counter-subversion unit, PIO.
"This new evidence about Belgian membership of the Cercle also underscores the continuity and personnel overlap that had long existed between the public AESP and CEDI, the 'semi-public' Belgian PIO, the confidential Cercle and the covert 6I. To focus on but one figure, Benoît de Bonvoisin, the Baron Noir had previously attended the February 1976 AESP Chapter Assembly and the November 1976 CEDI Congress, both times accompanied by the PIO's Major Bougerol and by Belgian Cercle convenor Jacques Jonet, and both times meeting Crozier. The MAUE group were active partners of the 6I in its virulent campaign against the nuclear disarmament movement; shortly before this June 1982 Cercle meeting, they had set up the Belgian 6I front groups RAPPEL and the IEPS in March and April respectively.
"It is highly significant that the two former political controllers of Vanden Boeynants' PIO, de Bonvoisin and de Kerchove, both attended various Cercle meetings throughout the Brabant Wallon killings. At this time, de Bonvoisin had long been the main financial backer and patron of both the PIO and the fascist groups linked to the killings, whilst de Kerchove was the key aide to the Justice Minister in charge of the sidetracked and fruitless first investigation.
"Whilst no evidence has emerged to demonstrate a foreign hand in either the planning or the execution of the Brabant Wallon killings, the new primary source on Belgian membership of the Cercle further strengthens the probability that the LIL/AESP/MAUE/PIO complex is the most promising path of investigation for elucidating the crimes, still unresolved after thirty years. Belgium's statute of limitations was due to formally close the case on 10th November 2015; although this has now been extended in extremis to forty years to allow continued enquiry, the sixth official investigation failed to shed any further light on this dark affair, lost in the futile search for the mere exécutants rather than the real commanditaires."
Paul Vanden Boeynants (left) and Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin (right)
The Brabant Wallon killings were discussed before here while the ties figures such as Paul Vanden Boeynants and Benoit de Bonvoisin had to the organizations linked to these terror acts were addressed here. Both Vanden Boeynants and de Bonvoisin were key figures in the Academy. They were also extensively linked to the pedophilia scandal that rocked Belgium in the wake of the Dutroux affair. This is most interesting considering that Crozier and other members of Cercle's British wing also had extensive ties to alleged pedophile networks within the British government during 1970s and 1980s.
The British Cercle Ties to Accused Pedophiles
For many, Britain's pedophile scandals began in earnest with the revelations concerning Jimmy Savile in 2012. Shortly thereafter nine Pakistani men were arrested in the town of Rochdale amidst allegations that they there were abducting and "grooming" young children to be used in a pedophile ring in that area. Soon more allegations came out, linking several beloved British entertainers to these networks.
Both the mainstream and "alternative" media had a field day with these claims. Xenophobia was subtly promoted by the MSM after revelations of the Pakistani gang while "alternative" sources have written at great length about the Illuminati, Project Monarch and how Savile "proves" that the entertainment industry is nothing but an elaborate occult ritual.
Little noticed is the fact that rumors of pedophile networks involving British elites have been circulating since at least the 1970s. As noted above, former Conservative prime minister Edward Heath had faced such dark rumblings for years until he was implicitly implicated in pedophile networks in 2014. Nor was Heath the only Conservative politician to be tagged. In point of fact, there have long been rumblings that numerous members of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet and other political allies were involved in pedophile rings. These allegations were apparently made in what became known as the "Westminster pedophile dossier" and in recent years they have gained fresh legs thanks to the leaks in the wake of the Savile revelations ("incidentally," Savile also seems to have been close to Thatcher). Vice notes:
"In 2012, allegations against the late TV host and bizarre British icon Jimmy Savile surfaced; the list of potential victims stretches into the hundreds, and other well-known BBC names have since been convicted of similar crimes. Last month John Allen, a care home proprietor who has been convicted of 33 sex offenses against children in his charge, was accused of providing boys to sex parties frequented by political figures, and the late former MI6 deputy Sir Peter Hayman has been accused of attending such parties. Just last week John Mann, a Labour MP, handed a dossier to Scotland Yard with 22 names of individuals, including former MPs from the country's two major parties, who he thinks should be questioned over alleged child abuse in the 1970s and 80s. Mann even suggested that two would-be whistleblowers may have been murdered.
"The Westminster story became headline news the way a dam breaks—first through almost unnoticeable cracks in the façade, then with a sudden flood. One of the first cracks was when a whistleblower from the social work world passed a tip off to Labour MP Tom Watson, who in 2012 asked Prime Minister David Cameron if an evidence file linked to the conviction of pedophile Peter Righton—who advised the government on child care policy in the 1970s—could be looked at again. That file, which was initially sent to home secretary Leon Brittan by campaigning Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983, supposedly linked senior cabinet members in the Thatcher administration, as well as Smith, to a pedophile ring. In July it was revealed that the dossier was among 114 files relating to child sex abuse that had disappeared from 1979 to 1999. Brittan himself was questioned by police that same month over allegations of rape—the victim was over the age of 18, but the event just added to public suspicion, stoked by the suggestion of Lord Norman Tebbit that there "may well have been" an establishment cover-up under Brittan´s watch.
"After that, both the press and the police began investigating these claims more carefully. The publications most involved in pushing the Westminster pedophile scandal out to the public have been the Sunday People and the investigative website Exaro.
"The further the media and the cops went down the rabbit hole, the more they found. 'A key turning point was we ran a story on two abuse survivors who talked about being sexually abused as boys by MPs and other VIPs at Dolphin Square [a luxury apartment complex] and other locations,' says Mark Watts, the editor of Exaro. 'That led the police again to contact us and ask to speak to these two survivors and again we passed on the request.'
"The police in turn created Operation Midland, which investigated an alleged pedophile ring that operated at Dolphin Square between 1974 and 1984. It is in one of the apartments there that an anonymous source known in the media as 'Nick' alleges he saw a boy get strangled to death by a Conservative MP during a dark sex game.
"In July, before the Westminster story gained momentum, Home Secretary Theresa May announced an inquiry into organized child sex abuse dating back to the 1970s. But the two people she appointed to chair the inquiry were both found to have conflicts of interest, and panel members have reportedly sent abusive emails to alleged survivors. The (still chair-less) inquiry is now on the verge of collapse, though many see even that flawed effort as a step in the right direction."
Geoffrey Dickens, the Conservative MP who tried to blow the whistle on his own party
It is also interesting to note that more recently the alleged "ultra-liberal" BBC has invested considerable effort into debunking the pedophilia claims specifically pertaining to the Westminster scandal. This is of course the same BBC whom Savile worked for for many years and which has had numerous other employees implicated in the pedophile scandals. And here it is trying to protect Thatcher and numerous other Conservative politicians. No doubt this is another elaborate plot of the Communist conspiracy...
Let us now consider some of the names linked to elite pedophile networks in Britain and Cercle:
Keith Joseph Thatcher's Secretary of State for Education and Science; a very close adviser to Thatcher; name apparently turned up in the original 1984 Westminster dossier and more allegations have emerged since; In Free Agent, Crozier notes: "With Mrs. Thatcher's approval, I liaised with Keith Joseph in certain psychological actions in the election year, 1987" (pgs. 277-278). This researcher has not been able to link Joseph to the 6I or Cercle, but here clearly collaborated with Crozier at times
Conservative MP who became a key member of Crozier's 6I network in the 1980s; during the early '90s the now defunct Scallywag magazine was investigating a pedophile network centered around Wrexham that may have been linked to the Westminster group; Lewis was alleged to been involved in the cover-up
"Subsequently, over a rent dispute which is still a matter of litigation, Dr. Julian Lewis, now Conservative MP for New Forest (East) but then deputy head of research at Conservative Central Office in Smith Square, managed to purchase the contents of our offices, which included all our files. It had been alleged that we owed rent, which we disputed, but under a court order the landlords were able to change the locks and seize our assets which included all our files, including those we had made on paedophiles. It was apparently quite legal, but it was most certainly a dirty trick.
"All of a sudden very private information, some of it even privileged between ourselves and our lawyer during the John Major libel action, was being published in selected, pro-Conservative sections of the media.
"Subsequently, during a court case initiated by Lewis, I was able in my defence to seek discovery of documents and asked to see the seized files. The paedophile papers were missing. This is a very great shame, because Sir Ronald Waterhouse certainly should have been aware of them."
Lewis also worked closely in the opposition movement to Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) with the above-mentioned Maltese knight Edward Leigh. Leigh was also the main activist in parliament for Campaign Against Council Corruption (CAMACC), another front group established by Crozier. Lewis was also involved with Leigh in the Coalition for Peace Through Strength (CPS).
And seemingly here is Lewis, a figure very close to Crozier, attempting to cover up a major pedophile scandal. It is interesting to note that both Lewis and Leigh have also been accused of pedophile. So have at least three British Cercle members who became chairmen of the group: Julian Amery, Jonathan Aitken (who apparently has been on multiple "retreats" organized by the Jesuits) and Norman Lamont (a member of the Catholic order known as the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George). The evidence is not as strong against these figures as those mentioned above, but none the less this would strongly indicate that the Cercle network was aware of the elite pedophile networks in England.
these three Britons who became chairman of Cercle, Julian Amery (top), Jonathan Aitken (middle) and Norman Lamont (bottom), have all been implicated in Britain's pedophile scandals
There are other potential links as well. For instance, both Maurice Oldfield and Peter Heyman, the former Director-General and Deputy Director-General of MI6 respectively, have been implicated in Britain's pedophile networks (such as here and here, respectively). Crozier himself was of course very close to MI6 while one of the 6I founders, Nicholas Elliott, was one of the most storied MI6 officers of the twentieth century. Crozier and Elliott were both friendly with Oldfield, and Elliott surely knew Hayman, but these relationships do not seem to have been especially strong. Still, it surely would have been useful to Crozier and Elliott being aware of Oldfield and Heyman's involvement in such things.
And then of course there is the fact that Crozier was involved with the Belgian AESP (Academy) group that happened to feature Paul Vanden Boeynants and Benoit de Bonvoisin, two powerful Belgians with extensive political connections (Vanden Boeynants was even the prime minister at one point) who have been repeatedly linked to pedophile rings in Belgium involving numerous politicians, intelligence officers and even the royal family (as noted before here).
Gee, that sure sounds a lot like the scandals currently unfolding in Britain...
And here is this mysterious international body, Le Cercle, that seemingly had ties to both the pedophile rings in Britain and Belgium. Indeed, both Brian Crozier and Jean Violet (who both had served as Cercle chairman at different ties) may have been deeply involved with both networks via the 6I and the Academy, which were essentially intelligence networks for Cercle. And that would mean that Cerlce's intelligence wing would be well positioned to, say, blackmail prominent politicians in either country....
All of this is rather curious and yet has largely flown under the radar of both of mainstream media as well as the "alternative." No doubt the exposurer of Monarch programming amongst British performers took precedence among the latter, though such "researchers" would stand a much better chance of finding credible evidence of some type of cult (or possibly multiple ones) in the Cercle complex. Still, its hard to ignore the Machiavellian mastermind that is Gary Glitter....
The possibility of a cult(s) shall be explored in a future installment, but not before I finish examining several of the other curious organizations and networks with ties to Le Cerlce. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the fourth installment of my ongoing examination of the mysterious European network typically referred to as Le Cercle, Pinay Cercle or the Pinay Group (the latter possibly being an inner circle of Cercle in some accounts). During the first installment I briefly outlined the history of the organization and noted its ties to both globalist elites connected to the Bilderberg Group as well reactionary Catholic orders such as Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM). There it was suggested that these groups had broken with their Bilderberg counterparts at some point during the late 1970s, leading to the departure of Eastern Establishment luminaries such as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezenski from the network around then.
With part two I began to focus in on the two figures chiefly responsible for turning Cercle into a major international force: its some times namesake, former French prime minister Antoine Pinay, and his fellow Frenchman Jean Violet. As was noted there, Violet was quite a mysterious figure with extensive ties to the intelligence services of France and West Germany, but also to the Vatican itself. Violet was also reputed to have been a member of the proto-fascist La Cagoule in 1930s France. La Cagoule had its origins in Martinism and synarchy, as was briefly explained in the installment.
When last we left off I had just finished examining two organizations, the Brussels-based Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP, often referred to as the Academy) and Brian Crozier's "61" network. These organizations, which were extensively staffed with "former" intelligence officers from Western Europe, effectively served as de facto intelligence networks for Le Cercle during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1979, upon the death of Academy founder Florimond Damman, many of the Belgian Academy members signed up with the 6I, merging the two networks.
There had already been longstanding ties between the groups, however, as both Violet and Crozier had been involved with Academy since 1969. There were many other controversial individuals involved with the Academy as well. Belgians Paul Vanden Boeynants and Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin had been extensively linked to fascist militias accused of acts of terrorism in Belgium throughout the 1970s and 1980s (as noted before here).
During the 1990s, in the wake of the Dutroux affair, Vanden Boeynants and de Bonvoisin would also be extensively linked to pedophile networks amongst Belgian's political classes (Vanden Boeynants had been the nation's long-serving defense minister and even prime minister twice while de Bonvoisin was a very wealthy and well-connected figure amongst the aristocracy). Vanden Boeynants had already been linked to such outrages as far back as the early 1980s (all of which was discussed before here).
"Incidentally," as I had just noted at the end of part three, numerous members of Cercle's British wing (including three former chairmen) have been implicated in the pedophilia scandals that re-emerged in Britain during 2012 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile revelations. This would indicate the Cercle network was aware of the political classes of both Belgium and the UK being deeply involved in pedophile rings. Certainly such knowledge would be invaluable in influencing the political classes of said countries to adopt policies of particular interest to Le Cercle. And it just so happened, as noted in that installment, that there have long been rumblings of a silent coup behind Margaret Thatcher's rise to power and that Crozier himself took credit for her election before a meeting of Cercle.
With this installment I would like to consider some of the other groups that played a key role in the Cercle complex during the Cold War years. In addition to the Academy and the 6I, it was also noted during part three that Cercle had ties to Propaganda Due (P2, which this blog examined at length before here), P7 (another alleged Propaganda lodge likely based out of Belgium), Aginter Press (a right wing terror network extensively linked to Operation Gladio, as noted before here and here) and the World Anti-Communist League (WACL, an international network long linked to Us intelligence, terrorism and drug trafficking that was addressed at length before here).
Many of these ties came via the Academy and having already dealt with them before here and here, I think it would be beating a dead horse to re-examine them at length now. So with P2, P7, Aginter and the WACL already having been dealt with, let us move onto some of Cercle's American partners, which have only been addressed in passing up to this point.
The ASC and the NSIC
Cercle's chief partner in the United States during the early years was the American Security Council (ASC) and the vast sprawl of American groups linked to it. This blog has already dealt with the ASC at length before here and during that examination noted that the ASC, long dominated by "former" US military and intelligence officers, operated as both a think tank/lobby group as well as a full fledged intelligence network. Many of the latter functions were carried out by a combination of corporate security divisions and private detective agencies (i.e. the Pinkertons and Wackenhut) in collaboration with far right wing "Patriot" organizations such as the Western Goals Foundation (an offshoot of the John Birch Society) and even the Minutemen (the first large scale post-WWII militia group).
For years the ASC compiled lists through these agencies of "subversives" that were then passed along to their corporate clients (which included virtually all of the major defense contractors in the country during this era). As can be expected, the ASC was primarily concerned with "Communist subversion" and thus it should come as little surprise that it was long accused of "blacklisting."
In many ways the ASC was very similar to Cercle. The former was more a full fledged lobby group that publicly supported the interests of the military-industrial complex but ultimately both were primarily concerned with establishing a private intelligence network that could be used to facilitate political change.
Brian Crozier had ties to the ASC going back to the mid-1960s and was probably the chief figure behind the alliance of Cercle and the ASC that would begin to blossom during the early 1970s. Crozier first became involved with the ASC netherworld thanks to the curious figure of Frank Rockwell Barnett. When Crozier first encountered Barnett the latter had technically broken ties with the ASC and was involved with another national defense-centric group known as the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC).
"It was also in Madrid – in Franco's waiting room - that Crozier met one of the future main backers of the UK counter-subversion lobby: Frank Rockwell Barnett who since 1962 had been running the New York-based National Strategy Information Center (NSIC) with the assistance of his Director of Studies, Frank N. Trager. Barnett had had long experience in Cold War propaganda, having served from 1958 to 1962 as Program Director of the Institute for American Strategy. Barnett's colleagues in the IAS were IAS Administrative Director and Air Force Major-General Edward Lansdale and Colonel William Kintner. Lansdale had been a CIA advisor to French counter-insurgency operations in Vietnam in 1953, then serving as Head of the Saigon Military Mission from 1954-57, a period which spanned the disasterous defeat of French forces at Điện Biên Phủ, the July 1954 Geneva Accords which ended the First Indochina War and partitioned Vietnam, and the rigging of the October 1955 referendum in the South which installed the Catholic strongman Ngô Đình Diệm as President of the Republic of Vietnam. Returning to the US in 1957, Lansdale then worked as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, coordinating the CIA's Operation Mongoose to overthrow Fidel Castro until his official retirement in 1963; he would nonetheless return to serve in the American Embassy in Saigon from 1965 to 1968. As for Kintner, he worked as a Department of Defense planning officer and liaison to the CIA for eleven years before retiring from the US military in 1961. Kintner was then appointed Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania where he ran the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a career interrupted by service as American Ambassador to Thailand from 1973 to 1975 during the height of the Vietnam War...
"During their 1966 meeting in Madrid, Barnett invited Crozier to come over to the United States once his Franco research was over. The visit would not occur until 1968 but would ensure substantial backing for Crozier's future ventures."
The NCIS is a curious organization in its own right. Barnett was a specialist in "political warfare" (more on that in a moment) and that seems to have been the primary purpose of this military-centric think tank. Other personnel associated with the NSIC also possessed deep backgrounds:
"... In 1962, Casey had helped establish the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC), along with his protégé Frank Barnett, as well as brewery magnate Joseph Coors and Prescott Bush Jr., brother of George H. W. Bush. In 1976, the NSIC received $1 million for a pro-defense spending campaign, which Barnett coordinated with his newly formed Committee on the Present Danger."
(The Road to 9//1, Peter Dale Scott, pg. 97)
The Casey mentioned above is none other than William Casey, the former OSS officer who would go on to become Reagan's director of the CIA. Casey was one of the most powerful and politically connected intelligence officers of the Cold War era. By the late 1970s Crozier had developed a close working relationship with Casey (in Free Agent, Crozier alleges that Casey arranged for the CIA to pick up 6I's tab for a time) who, like many affiliates of Le Cercle, was a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Nor was Casey the only Maltese knight behind the NCIS -- Frank Shakespeare, who later play a key role in the Heritage Foundation, was also a co-founder of the NSIC and a fellow Knight of Malta. Then there's Prescott Bush Jr., brother of the former US president and also a Maltese knight. This is most interesting in light of the fact that the founding of Crozier's 6I network also involved multiple Maltese knights as well (as noted before here). But moving along.
A 1989 report from a now defunct organization known as "Group Watch" also provided some interesting insights into the NSIC's funding. Consider:
"Between 1973 and 1981, Richard Scaife donated a total of $6 million to the NSIC from the Carthage Fdn, the Sarah Scaife Fdn, and the Trust for the Grandchildren of Sarah Mellon Scaife. (1) In 1985 the John M. Olin Fdn gave the Washington office of NSIC three grants: $107,320 for support for an advisory committee for European democracy; $41,300 for support for a book by Abram Shulsky on American intelligence and national security; and $20,000 to support educational programs on the nature of totalitarian regimes. (3) In the same year, the NY office received the following grants: $10,000 from the Adolph Coors Fdn for programs and publications on national security; $35,000 for work on the history of Soviet intelligence, $30,000 for research and writing on detente, and $15,000 support for a conference at the Center for European Strategy from the Winston Salem Fdn; $5,000 of general support from the Samuel Roberts Nobel Fdn; and from the W. W. Smith Charitable Trust $260,000 for operating support and $70,000 for a Consortium for the Study of Intelligence which examines the intelligence networks of various nations.
"In 1986, the Washington office of NSIC received $41,000 from the John M. Olin Fdn to support the book by Abram Shulsky on American intelligence and national security, and $152,000 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Fdn to support a program on national defense and intelligence. (4) In 1986, the N. Y. office received $15,000 from the Smith Richardson Fdn, $5,000 from the TRW Fdn, and $175,000 from the Sarah Scaife Fdn for general operating support."
As was noted in part three of this series, Crozier also received much of his early funding from Richard Mellon Scaife and his various foundations. Scaife in turn regularly funded operations for the CIA (as noted before here). The John M. Olin Foundation also had ties to the CIA:
"If the Olin foundation was less than transparent about its mission, it was not for the first time. Between 1958 in 1966, it's eagerly served as a bank for the Central Intelligence Agency. During these eight years, the CIA laundered $1.9 million through the foundation. Olin, according to Miller, regarded his undercover role as just part of his patriotic duty. Many of the government funds went to anti-Communist intellectuals and publications. But in 1967, the press exposed the covert propaganda operation, triggering a political furor and causing the CIA to fold the program. The CIA money at the Olin Foundation, which was not publicized at the time, disappeared as quietly as it arrived. The idea of using the private foundation to fund ideologically aligned intellectuals, however, persisted."
(Dark Money,, Jane Mayer, pgs. 104-105)
So, technically the Olin Foundation was not being used as a front for the CIA by the 1980s. Nonetheless, its grants to the NSIC seem to have been geared towards the same type of work it bankrolled for the CIA during the 1960s. What's more, William E. Simon, another Knight of Malta and friend William Casey's, was the president of Olin Foundation during this time.
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation was never directly employed by the CIA. But virtually all of the foundation's funding came from the notorious defense contractor Rockwell International after it bought out the Allen-Bradley company (whose founders had established the Bradley Foundation). Well over a decade prior to that Rockwell had made another interesting corporate buyout:
"... Collins Radio, a major contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency. Three weeks before Kennedy's assassination, Collins radio had been identified on the front page of the New York Times as having just deployed a CIA radar ship on an espionage and sabotage mission against Cuba. Collins also held the government contract for installing communications towers in Vietnam. In 1971, Collins Radio would merge with another giant military contractor, Rockwell International. In November 1963, Collins was at the heart of the CIA-military-contracting business for state-of-the-art communication systems."
(JFK and the Unspeakable, James W. Douglas, pg. 295)
Collins, now known as Rockwell Collins, would continue to do work for the CIA and other branches of the national security establishment up to the present day. In the 1970s Rockwell had also bought out the Draper Company. According to John Bevilaqua in JFK --The Final Solution, heir Wickliffe Preston Draper used the monies from this transaction to bank role the Pioneer Fund, an even more radical think tank deeply immersed in eugenics (interestingly, at various times the Olin and Bradley Foundations and the Pioneer Fund all supported the work of political scientist Charles Murray, who is most well known as the co-author of the notorious Bell Curve).
And then there is the Smith Richardson Foundation, another one of the major sugar daddies for the modern conservative movement. Its long time director of research: Frank Rockwell Barnett... the same Frank Rockwell Barnett who had founded the NSIC.
This of course raises the possibility that Barnett and the NSIC were getting a lot of covert funding from the US national security establishment for the NSIC. This is hardly surprising in light of Barnett's early work with the American Security Council and a group sponsored by the ASC known as the Institute for American Strategy (IAS). Here's a bit about the IAS and its ties to the ASC:
"In addition to providing intelligence to large employers, the Council was also active in Cold War 'education' aimed at the general public. Between 1955 and 1961, the ASC cosponsored an annual series of meetings called the National Military-Industrial Conferences, which brought Pentagon and National Security Council personnel together with executives from United Fruit, Standard Oil, Honeywell, U.S. Steel, Sears Roebuck and other corporations.
"At the 1958 National Military-Industrial Conference, the ASC launched the Institute for American Strategy for the purpose of inculcating elites and the public with anticommunist ideology. Administration of the Institute was granted to Frank Barnett, U.S. Army Colonel William Kintner, and other 'political warfare' advocates then stationed at the University of Pennsylvania's Foreign Policy Research Institute. Barnett was also research director for the Institute's key corporate benefactor, the Richardson Foundation (the charitable arm of the Vick Chemical Company). In 1959 and 1960 the ostensibly private Institute for American Strategy held seminars for reserve officers of the National War College, under the auspices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. The manual for these seminars was the book American Strategy for the Nuclear Age, prepared by Foreign Policy Research Institute analysts Walter F. Hahn and John C. Neff. The book outlined an aggressive strategy of 'protracted conflict' with the Soviets, involving the training of citizens and government leaders in 'psychological warfare' schools. The 1961, the Institute for American Strategy had provided 10,000 copies of American Strategy to the National University Extension Association for distribution to public school libraries and citizen debate groups.
"Through the National Military-Industrial Conferences, regional meetings, National War College seminars and publications, the Institute began to assume the role of a military adjunct and a quasi-government propaganda agency. However, by 1961, Senator William J. Fulbright, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, became alarmed by what he perceived to be a combination of right-wing and military encroachment on the formation of U.S. public opinion..."
Fulbright was especially concerned that the US military was being indoctrinated by far right anti-Communist propaganda, a concern well founded. It was during this time that General Edwin Walker was actively involved in indoctrinating his troops with literature provided by the John Birch Society. As I noted before here, the ASC had quite extensive ties to the John Birch Society and even more radical "patriot" groups such as the Liberty Lobby and the Minutemen.
Despite congressional outrage, the IAS would continue in its agenda unabated and with continued support from the National Security Council (NSC). As was noted above, the notorious intelligence asset General Edward Lansdale took over the mid-1960s (presumably with Kintner, who worked for the ASC for at least a quarter century, still in the fold) after Barnett's departure. Barnett was never officially employed by the ASC again as far as this researcher can tell, but his obsession with "political warfare" and indoctrinating both elites and citizens alike with seems to have been carried out under the auspices of the NSIC.
Crozier's future projects, which largely constituted political warfare propaganda for elites, were very much in line with Barnett's decades-spanning activities. Was Crozier recruited by Barnett in 1966 to become a part of the ASC/NSC's political warfare agenda? Certainly it would help explain the close relations the British Coalition for Peace Through Security had with the ASC-backed Coalition for Peace Through Strength in the United States. In Free Agent, Crozier reports that General Richard Stilwell, a member of the ASC Task Force on Central America during this time, was his liaison between the two Coalition groups.
There was, however, a possible alliance between Cercle and the ASC that pre-dated Crozier's contact with Barnett in the mid-1960s.
International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture
The International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture (ICDCC), known in Europe as Comité International pour la Défense de la Civilisation Chrétienne (CIDCC) is an incredibly mysterious organization that likely played a key role in establishing contacts between Le Cercle (as well as Opus Dei and the Maltese knights) and far-right factions in the United States, especially those within the military and intelligence establishments. It had its origins in the aftermath of Second World War but it does not seem to have been especially active until the late 1950s. Here's a few background details:
"Solís Ruiz would also be a key Spanish contact for another Catholic group, this time involving Pinay himself: the Comité International pour la Défense de la Civilisation Chrétienne [CIDCC], a largely French body created in 1948, whose first President was Belgian Paul Van Zeeland and whose Secretary-General was noted Catholic publicist Pierre André Simon. It would publish a monthly journal Vérité et Documents whose first issue - on Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty - appeared in February 1949. However, CIDCC's first International Conference would only be held in June 1958, in Bonn and Berlin including delegations from nine countries – Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and exile groups from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
"The CIDCC President elected at that conference was Hermann Lindrath, a wealthy German Protestant industrialist, CDU MP from 1953 on and Finance and Economy Minister in Adenauer's third cabinet from October 1957 until his death in February 1960. Lindrath had a chequered past, having joined the Nazi Stahlhelm in 1933, the SA in 1934 and the NSDAP in 1937; he would join the CDU in 1945 and flee from his native East Germany in 1951. At the first CIDCC International Conference in 1958, the Conference Vice-Presidents were Pinay, Solís Ruiz and the recent Italian Foreign Minister (1954-57) and leader of the Italian CIDCC section Gaetano Martino; Solís Ruiz chaired the Spanish CIDCC section, assisted by his Vice- President, IEP Director Fraga Iribarne. It is worth noting that in 1955 Pinay and Martino had been two of the six national delegates at the European Coal and Steel Community's crucial Conference of Messina that would lead to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and the creation of the EEC in 1958 – van Zeeland was the first candidate proposed to head the committee to develop the proposal for a European common market, but was defeated by Paul-Henri Spaak. Martino would go on to serve as President of the European Parliament from 1962 to 1964, and die in 1967."
Obviously some of the early figures involved with ICDCC were quite well connected to the point that they played a key role in in establishing the body (the EEC) that would ultimately become the European Union (a united Europe was a major goal of Cercle until recently). The above-mentioned Pinay is of course Antoine Pinay, the some times name sake of Cercle and also a member of the Knights of Malta. Jose Solis Ruiz of Spain had close ties with Opus Dei for many years until breaking with the group in the late 1960s. Another prominent Opusian would also encounter Pinay through the ICDCC:
"Within a week of the formation of the new government, Pinay received an official visit on the 14th January from Spanish Trade Minister Alberto Ullastres, a high-ranking Opus Dei and CEDI member who, as later Spanish Ambassador to the EEC, would become a Life Member of the AESP. At the end of the month, it was the turn of Solís Ruiz to visit Paris, holding discussions with Debré, Pinay and Foreign and Information Ministers Couve de Murville and Frey before attending a CIDCC meeting on the 30th January at which he was appointed CIDCC Vice-President and Spain selected as the host for the next CIDCC Conference..."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 473)
The AESP is the Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques, or the Academy. It was this body that had close ties to P2, the WACL, Aginter Press and the Belgian fascist militias and pedophile networks. Crozier and Jean Violet were also involved with the Academy, which effectively merged with Crozier's 6I network during the late 1970s as noted before here.
In addition to the Opusians, there were some other curious European affiliates as well:
"Among the speakers was Dr. Theodor Oberlander, a former German officer who had led the Ukrainian Nightingales during World War II ... Oberlander had served as West Germany's minister of refugee affairs until 1960, when details of his wartime role became public and he was forced to resign. He was also a delegate to the Asian People's Anti-Communist League. Herman Punder, the ICDCC's outgoing international president, was an ex-Nazi Abwehr agent. Both Punder and Oberlander had direct connections into the Munich-based newspaper that, the day after the assassination, would contact General Walker – and then somehow 'scoop' the world on the previously unknown news that Oswald fired on Walker in April ."
The assassination referenced above is of course in regards to JFK. General Edwin Walker, who may have been involved in the ASC-IAS "political warfare" indoctrination of the US military, revealed that Oswald had taken a shot at him with a rifle several months before the JFK assassination to a German newspaper shortly after the assassination. Assassination researchers have long alleged that this article was part of disinformation campaign to depict Oswald as a Communist.
It is also interesting to note that Theodor Oberlander, in his duty as minister of refugee affairs, financed the Ecclesiastical Administration for Moslem Refugees. This organization was at the time largely comprised of Muslims of Turkish descent that had served the Nazis in the Eastern Theater. The Ecclesiastical Administration would go on to fund the construction of the first mosque in Munich. This mosque, as detailed in Ian Johnson's groundbreaking A Mosque in Munich, would become arguably the premier holy site for Muslims in Europe. It would go to forge close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and would be linked to both the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and (to much lesser extent) 9/11. These developments occurred long after Oberlander's affiliation with the mosque had concluded, though he was an early supporter of political Islam. But moving along.
Of special interest to long time readers of this blog will be the American ties to the ICDCC:
"... A further CIDCC Presidium meeting was held in Paris in December 1962, for the first time including an American representative, German born US Major-General Charles Andrew Willoughby, who had served as General Douglas MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence during most of World War II, the occupation of Japan and the Korean War. A longstanding admirer of Franco and Mussolini whom MacArthur had nicknamed his "pet fascist", Willoughby travelled to Spain after his retirement in 1951 to act as an advisor and lobbyist for Franco's government, returning to the US in 1968 and dying in 1972. Earlier in 1962, Willoughby had founded an American section of the CIDCC; the American contribution to the CIDCC would be funded by Willoughby's close associate, Texas oil tycoon Haroldson Lafayette Hunt (14)."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pgs. 474-475)
While typically depicted as a buffoonish figure in mainstream accounts, much information that has come to light concerning General Willoughby in recent years has shed a different light on MacArthur's "pet fascist." As was noted before here, Willoughy is believed to have been one of the key figures behind the recovery of "Yamashita's Gold" or the "Golden Lilly," obscene amounts of gold and other precious medals Imperial Japan had thoroughly looted from conquered nations during WWII. The Golden Lilly allegedly encompasses an enormous amount of the world's gold supply and has been used by the US and the Japanese to fund various black opts for decades now.
Willoughby also played a key role in recruiting Unit 731, the notorious Japaneses chemical and biological warfare specialists, into the US national security apparatus after the war as well dragging the armed forces and the intelligence community into KMT-Yakuza drug trafficking (as noted before here). Willoughby has also been compelling linked to the JFK assassination (as noted before here) and even the Roswell Incident.
In other words, he was seemingly one of the most well connected intelligence officers in US history. And here he is, participating in the ICDCC along with Antoine Pinay himself and several other Opus Dei members. Willoughby himself was a member of a mysterious secret society known as the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ) that claimed to be a descendant of the Knights Hospitallers (as did the Maltese knights), but via the Russian line of succession. The SOSJ is an extremely curious organization that we shall return to in a future installment.
I've seen several sources (including ISGP and Peter Dale Scott in Deep Politics and the Death of JFK) list Willoughby as a member of the American Security Council. This researcher has not be able to confirm this association to my satisfaction, however. But this is rather immaterial because even if Willoughby was not an actual member of the ASC, he was on friendly terms with quite a few participants (as noted before here). It is quite possible then that the relationship between the Le Cercle and the ASC originates to the time Pinay and Willoughby spent with the ICDCC together.
As noted above, Brian Crozier was first approached by Frank Barnett, a former ASC employee, in Madrid in 1966 while he was working on a biography of Franco. Willoughby was living part of the time in Madrid during this period and active with the ICDCC as well as being close to Franco and his regime. It is possible then that Barnett's offer to Crozier had its origins with the ICDCC network, though I have found no evidence of this. Still, the time frame and location is very suggestive of a possible connection.
It is interesting to note as well that Willoughby and his chief financial patrons, the Hunt family, seem to have played a key role in creating the modern Christian fundamentalist movement. In addition to the ICDCC, Willoughby and the Hunts would also support the Christian Crusade of Billy James Hargis (probably the most power Evangelist of his era). As I noted before here, old man Hunt would go on to become one of the chief financial patrons of Pat Robertson early in the legendary televangelist's career. Hunt's son, Nelson Bunker Hunt (who Peter Dale Scott claimed was the actual financial patron of the ICDCC in Deep Politics and the Death of JFK) would also go on to fund the Council for National Policy, a far right wing think tank closely aligned to James Dodson's Focus on the Family and other powerful Evangelical efforts.
Willoughby was also close to the Unification Church. As I noted before here, the Unification Church also provided a lot of funding for American Christian fundamentalist groups. And naturally, the Unification Church also had ties to Le Cercle as well.
Unification Church
The Unification Church was founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1952. Some times followers of this sect are referred to as "Moonies" after the founder. As I noted before here, Moon owed much of his career to Douglas MacArthur. Through the Pipe he would forge close ties with both the US and South Korean intelligence services. This has led to ample controversies for what many have referred to as a cult. And of course, there are the curious ties the Unification Church has to the Yakuza, as I noted before here.
As for its ties to Le Cercle, it comes in the form of a Belgian known as Arnaud de Borchgrave. According to David Teacher in Rogue Agents, de Borchgrave was close to Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin, a key paymaster for the Academy who later became involved in Crozier's 61 network (as noted before here). In Belgium, Bonvoisin supported the Public Information Office (PIO), a quasi-government agency that produced future members of several fascist militias that later destabilized Belgium during the 1980s (noted before here and here). Apparently de Borchgrave had been involved with the PIO during the 1970s, serving as a "foreign press contact."
By the mid-1980s he would go onto become the editor-in-chief of a key Moonies publication, the Washington Times:
"In 1985, de Borchgrave would become editor-in-chief of the Moonies' newspaper, the Washington Times. The Unification Church would be a forum for cooperation between de Borchgrave and Cline: Cline was on the Editorial Board of The World and I, the Moonies' monthly edited by de Borchgrave. De Borchgrave was a former Board member of the Moonies' US Global Strategy Council, chaired by Cline in the late 1980s. Cline and de Borchgrave also shared a platform with William Casey as speakers at a special conference series on intelligence held at the Ashbrook Center, Ohio in 1986, one of Casey's last public appearances before his death in May 1987. At this time, de Borchgrave was working with Moss and John Rees of the John Birch Society in 'a risk analysis' company, Mid-Atlantic Research Associates (MARA); the three also edited a monthly private intelligence report called Early Warning (265)*."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pgs. 126-127)
The above-mentioned Cline is Ray S. Cline, a former high ranking CIA asset who was deeply involved with the World Anti-Communist League and occasionally the American Security Council. Elsewhere Moss is Robert Moss, a member of Le Cercle. It is also interesting to note that Douglas MacArthur II was at the time a member of the Washington Time's editorial advisory board. As I noted before here, MacArthur II (the nephew of the legendary general) was extensively linked to Belgium's fascist militias and pedophile networks.
There is one final network that played a key role in establishing Christian fundamentalists as a major political power in the United States with ties to Le Cercle that we shall now consider. This network, along with the Willoughby-Hunt and Unification Church nexus, is very suggestive of a spiritual agenda on the part of Le Cercle.
The Family
The Family (some times known as the Fellowship) was an organization little remarked upon until Jeff Sharlet's brilliant 2008 expose' entitled The Family. Today the Family stands as one of the most well-connected (and well funded) Christian lobby groups on the planet, with extensive contacts amongst the US Congress, the defense establishment and, increasingly, among their foreign counterparts as well. Founded by a Norwegian minister named Abraham Vereide, the organization had its origins in union busting in Washington state during the 1930s. The Family quickly emerged into something far more ambitious with the onset of the Second World War.
"... Abram took his program – the Idea, he called it – first national and then international. By 1942 he organized businessmen's committees in dozens of cities, and relocated himself first to the other Washington, the capital. In the midst of a January snowstorm, he assembled his first meeting of Congressmen to hear the Christian testimony of Howard Coonley, the ultraright president of the National Association of Manufacturers. Coonley we saw a third front for the war, after Europe and Asia, right there in Washington, against Franklin Roosevelt socialism and the death of a Christian nation in which God's chosen vessels – the Up and Outers – were free to produce wealth for all to enjoy by way of trickle-down religion. The Up and Outers won their first battle the next year with the passage of the Smith-Connally Act, the beginning of the New Deal's repeal. 'It is the age of minority control,' prophesied Abram; democracy, he believed, had died back in 1935, no match for communism or fascism. He proposed instead what he called then... 'the Better way,' Up and Outers, guided by God, making the hard decisions behind closed doors.
"By war's end those doors belonged to a four-story mansion on Embassy Row in Washington, purchased with the help of a beautiful socialite widow, Marion Aymar Johnson. Abrah called the prototype for C Street a 'Christian Embassy,' headquarters for the movement he'd by then incorporated as International Christian Leadership (ICL). And international it was: in 1946, Abram undertook his first overseas mission with a mandate from the State Department to examine Nazi prisoners for conversion potential. He found more than a few willing to switch out the fuhrer for the American father-god, men such as Hermann Abs, a leader of ICL's German division and the wizard of the West German miracle – until, decades later, he was discovered by Jewish Nazi hunters to have been 'Hitler's leading banker.' But Abs was an innocent compared to many of the men Abram recruited, men for whom he learned not fascism – a European disease, to which American fundamentalism even at its most authoritarian has always been immune – but the power of forgetting. The blank slate, the sins of the powerful wiped clean – that was an idea, Abram realized, that would flourish in cold war America.
"Abram had grasped the cold war before most, declaring at World War II's end the immediate commencement of World War III. In 1955, Sen. Frank Carlson, with whom Abram had launched the annual ritual that would become the National Prayer Breakfast in 1953 by calling in favors from a reluctant Eisenhower, coined the phrase that would serve as the movement's motto: Worldwide Spiritual Offensive. In 1959 Sen. Carlson took the fight to Haiti, where he decreed Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier God's man for the island nation and thus worthy of U.S. support, the guns and butter that kept Papa Doc – one of the most lunatic killers of the Western Hemisphere – and then his son, Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc,' in business for decades. What was in it for ICL? Help the weak by helping the strong. They helped Papa Doc and Papa Doc helped the businessmen who traveled to Haiti with Carlson, and the businessman helped Carlson and the Republican Party: help all around that somehow never trickled down to the Haitian people. In 1966, ICL moved on to Indonesia, where General Suharto had come to power through what the CIA would later call 'one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century.' Abram called the coup a 'spiritual revolution,' and began sending delegations of congressmen and oil executives who became champions of the genocidal regime. Help the weak by helping the strong: Suharto, ICLers believed, helped the week of Indonesia resist the temptations of communism, by any means necessary."
During these periods in time the CIA was also quite active in Haiti and later Indonesia. The possibility that the Family was carrying out intrigues in these locations on behalf of the US intelligence services is a prospect that I considered at length before as part of my in depth examination of the organization.
For our purposes here, it is important to note the close involvement of the German banker Hermann Abs with the Family. As noted above, Abs was the German head of International Christian Leadership (ICL), a Family-controlled organization that was also active in Haiti and Indonesia. Abs was one of the most well-connected global elites on the planet when he hooked up with Vereide and had long been active in the united Europe movement, including Otto von Habsburg's European Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI, which many future members of the Academy were very active in, as noted before here). Here's a bit more about Abs:
"Abs had been head of the Deutsche Bank from 1940 to 1945. The Deutsche Bank was the Nazis' bank throughout the war; Abs was in effect Hitler's treasurer. Abs was also on the Board of chemicals conglomerate I. G. Farben and participated at company Board meetings when members discussed the use of slave labour at a Farben rubber factory located in the Auschwitz concentration camp (242). The Deutsche Bank's collaboration with the Nazi regime did not lead to a purge of its staff; after the war, Abs continued on the Board of the bank, serving as spokesman for the Board from 1957 to 1967 before being appointed Honorary Chairman of the Board in 1976.
"Besides his banking activities, Abs was also one of the key German partners of Dr. Joseph Retinger in his efforts to set up the CIA-funded European Movement and the Bilderberg Group. Abs was one of the two leaders of the German section of the Independent League for Economic Cooperation, one of the five organisations that made up the European Movement; Abs would chair the EM's Economic and Social Commission in 1955 (243). Abs was also one of the founding members of the Bilderberg Group, having served on the 1952 organisation committee with Pinay, Voisin, Ball and Bonvoisin. The friendship between Abs and Strauß dated back to at least the mid-1950s when the two men met at meetings of the Bilderberg Group; Strauß, then Nuclear Power Minister, had attended the Bilderberg conference in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in September 1955. One year before the 1975 meeting between Abs, Strauß and Spínola, Abs and Strauß had both attended the 1974 Bilderberg conference held in April in Megève, France (244). Abs was also a longstanding member of CEDI; with Strauß, Abs attended the XI CEDI Congress in 1963 (245). Together with AESP and CEDI member Merkatz, Abs was a member of CEDI's informal German section, the Europäisches Institut für politische, wirtschaftliche und soziale Fragen (European Institute for political, economic and social issues)."
Abs does not seem to have been an actual member of Le Cercle, but was in close contact with the group nonetheless. Franz-Joseph Strauss was a longstanding fixture of Le Cercle and a very close friend and associate of Abs. Abs also seems to have been friendly with Pinay himself as well as Benoit de Bonvoisin's father, Pierre. Thus, it is understandable that Teacher refers to Abs as a "Cercle Pinay contact" (pg. 398). Abs, like many of the figures we've encountered in this series, is reputed to have been a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, but this researcher has not been able to reliably confirm this claim.
Still, what of the Family's plan of "Worldwide Spiritual Offensive"? With the ties Le Cercle had to much of the modern American Evangelical movement, it would certainly seem that the group was engaged in such a objective. This is especially compelling in light of the domination the Maltese knights and Opusians seem to have had over the organization.
While political warfare specialists in the United States such as Frank Barnett seem to have realized the value of religion in the ideological war with the Soviet Union prior to their contacts with Le Cercle, one cannot help but wonder if such plans were put forward front and center once the US national security establishment allied itself with reactionary Catholic factions such as Opus Dei and SMOM. Certainly there seems to have been a powerful alliance between these factions in areas such as Latin America.
And of course there's the fact that the Family itself bares more than a passing resemblance to Opus Dei. Both movements were founded by charismatic leaders who were obsessed with worldly power. To this end they dedicated their careers to the recruiting of the rich and powerful into their respective orders. Both men despised democracy, populism and labor unions, seeing such institutions as affronts to Christian civilizations. And both sought political gains by their control over the politically connected rather through mass movements. Indeed, both men were appalled by populist movements.
In my series on the the Family I had pondered whether their was a much closer relationship between the Family and Opus Dei than public records indicate. The presence of Le Cercle contact Hermann Abs behind the early funding for the ICL's European section indicates that the relationship may have been quite close and that Opus Dei, along with SMOM, were crucial the Family's rise to power in the US.
Heritage Foundation
There is one final US group I would like to consider that is closely aligned to many of this previous groups considered in this installment, especially the old ASC network and the Unification Church. Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation emerged by the election Ronald Reagan as one of the most powerful think tanks in the entire country. It maintains an enormous influence over the American conservative movement to this day. The source of it's initial seed capital should come as little surprise to the reader:
"In 1975, the Scaife Family Charitable Trust donated $195,000 to a new conservative think tank in Washington, the Heritage Foundation. For the next ten years, Scaife became its largest backer, donating $10 million more. By 1998, these donations had reached a total of some $23 million, which meant that Scaife accounted for a vastly disproportionate share of the think tank's overall funding. Previously, Scaife had been the largest donor to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the older, rival conservative think tank in Washington, but Heritage had a new model that won him over. In contrast to the research centers of the past, it was purposefully political, priding itself on creating, selling, and injecting deeply conservative ideas into the American mainstream.
"In fact, the Heritage Foundation was born out of two congressional aides' frustration with the more conventional think tank model. One of them, Edwin Feulner Jr., was a Wharton School graduate and Hayek acolyte, with a flair for fund-raising. The other, Paul Weyrich, was a brilliant and fiercely conservative working-class Catholic press aide from Wisconsin, who described himself openly as a 'radical' who was 'working to overturn the present power structure.' The duo had become exasperated by AEI's refusal to weigh in on legislative fights until after they were settled, a cautious approach reflecting the older think tank's fear of losing its nonprofit status. Instead, they wanted to create a new sort of action-oriented think tank that would actively lobby members of Congress before decisions were made, take sides in fights, and in every way not just 'think' but 'do.' "
Ah yes, Richard Mellon Scaife, Brain Crozier's long time financial patron. Perhaps for this reason it should come as little surprise that Heritage co-founder and long time president Edwin Feulner was apparently very close to Cercle:
"Major private-sector funding for the Cercle/6I campaigns would also be provided by the American Heritage Foundation, whose President since 1977 Edwin Feulner had attended the December 1979 Cercle meeting. The Heritage Foundation, whose role is concealed in Crozier's memoirs, provided the infrastructure and funding for three Cercle/6I groups active in anti-peace movement propaganda in Britain. Whilst some of the funding was direct and therefore public, the Heritage Foundation also created an intermediary to act as a conduit for covert funding for the Cercle/6I campaign: the International Freedom Fund Establishment, which was run by Brian Crozier, who thus became the Heritage Foundation's bag-man in Britain. IRS tax returns for the Heritage Foundation show that it donated a total of $140,000 to the IFFE for the three years 1982, 1983 and 1985. In an interview, Heritage Foundation Vice-President Herb Berkowitz described the IFFE as 'a networking operation [...] we support them, and he [Crozier] does the work' and admitted to a further Heritage donation to Crozier of $50,000 in 1986. Crozier himself conceded that the IFFE received a total of £200,000 from the Heritage Foundation between 1982 and 1986, whilst declining to identify the ultimate beneficiaries of such largesse (441)."
It is also possible that Scaife was continuing to funnel money to Crozier via the Heritage Foundation as well. Regardless, the relationship between Heritage and Cercle/6I seems to have been quite close by the early 1980s.
Readers will probably be little surprised by another tie between Cercle and Heritage: co-founder and longtime president Edwin Feulner was also a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Frank Shakespeare, a member of Frank Barnett's NSIC and another Knight of Malta, joined Heritage in 1977, just as its ties to Cercle were beginning to heat up.
Safari Club
One final organization I would like to address before wrapping up this installment is the mysterious Safari Club. Dating from the mid-1970s when the CIA was allegedly under siege, the Safari Club brought together the intelligence services of several non-US nations to "fill the gap," so to speak.
"... in 1976, faced with the congressional crackdown on unsupervised CIA operations, Adham, Sadat, and the shah of Iran formed their own anti-Communist coalition – the so-called Safari Club – to conduct through their own intelligence agencies operations that were now difficult for CIA. A key figure in securing a firm agreement to this effect was Alexandre de Marenches, head of the French intelligence service SDECE (the Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre--Espionnage). De Marenches surfaces again in connection with the 1980 Republican-CIA plots against President Carter.
"In February 2002, Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, nephew of and successor to Adham, gave Georgetown University alumni a frank account of the Safari Club's formation in response to post-Watergate restrictions: 'In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. The could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran.'
"The Safari Club met at an exclusive resort of the same name in Kenya, which in the same year, 1976 was visited and eventually bought by Adham's friend Adnan Khashoggi. According to investigative journalist Joseph Trento, 'The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George H.W. Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commercial International (BCCI), into a world-wide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world to create the biggest clandestine money network in history.'
"Trento further charges that Adham, his successor Prince Turki, and their Saudi agency the GID, or Mukhabarat, funded off-the-books worldwide convert operations for CIA. These include support for an alleged 'private CIA' close to Bush and dominated by former CIA men like Ed Wilson, Theodore Shackley... and Tom Clines..."
Both Kamal Adham and especially his nephew and successor as head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal, were reportedly very close to Le Cercle. Adham and Prince Turki also had very close contacts to the ISI, the Pakistani military intelligence. Adham, Prince Turki and the Safari Club would play a crucial role in supporting Islamic extremists in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Reportedly Osama bin Laden was one of Prince Turki's personal contacts. This connection would bring much controversy to Prince Turki in the wake of 9/11 when he was still operating as Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief. Alexandre de Marenches, one of the chief figures behind the founding of the Safari Club, has long been described a member of Le Cercle (and has been confirmed as a member of the Knights of Malta, like so many of the other individuals already considered). Crozier disputed this in Free Agent but nonetheless acknowledged contact with de Marenches. Crozier himself and his 6I network were also reportedly used by the Safari Club at times.
"In the meanwhile, the Shah was reconsidering Crozier's offer of 6I help for psyops campaigns and contacted Turki al-Faisal, who put in a good word for the 6I. Turki al-Faisal's recommendation of the 6I carried a lot of weight for the Iranians; Turki al-Faisal was the Saudi representative on the Safari Club, a network for covert cooperation between the French, Saudi, Iranian, Moroccan and Egyptian intelligence services, founded by Alexandre de Marenches on 1st September 1976 with headquarters in Cairo (369). Besides Turki al-Faisal's recommendation, Cercle participant General Fraser had also been advising the Shah to accept the 6I's help: 'he had raised with the Shah the question of financial assistance for our group, in return for our advice and expertise in combating the wave of subversion that threatened to sweep him off his throne' (370). Fraser advised Crozier to involve ISC Council member Sir Robert Thompson whose counter-insurgency experience during the Malayan campaign and the early stages of the Vietnam War could be useful in the Iranian context.
"In August 1978, the Shah reversed his previous decision and invited the Cercle to Teheran; although Violet was prevented from travelling due to ill-health, Crozier, Elliott, Thompson, and a team of advisors flew to Teheran on 3rd September. The Cercle team stopped off in France to pick up Antoine Pinay, whose long acquaintance with the Shah would add authority to the Cercle's proposals. The Cercle team met the Shah for two and a half hours, but were struck by his apathy. They then went on to discuss the situation with two top SAVAK officials, General Motazed and the head of the research department, Kaveh. The Cercle and SAVAK officials discussed a plan to distribute leaflets to split the tacit alliance between the Shiite fundamentalists and the Communist Tudeh party.
"The time was past however for such subtleties; the commander of the Teheran garrison General Oveissi, who had planned to meet the Cercle team, was unable to attend due to the unrest in the Iranian capital. The Cercle's visit came at a crucial time: the caretaker Prime Minister resigned the day after the Cercle's meetings, and martial law was declared four days later, just after the Cercle team's return to London. FARI got to work, producing Ian Greig's Iran and the lengthening Soviet shadow.
"In early November, the Shah finally decided to give the go-ahead for the Cercle to intervene, and the top civilian in SAVAK flew to London to spend a full week closeted with Robert Moss transforming a pile of SAVAK reports on Communist influence in the revolution into an ISC Conflict Study. Following publication of Moss's Conflict Study The Campaign to Destabilise Iran in November 1978, the Shah authorised a first annual payment of £1 million to the 6I for a psychological action operation, but the decision to involve the 6I further would come too late as the Shah would be overthrown in January 1979 before the payment could be made."
According to Teacher, the 6I still had some dealings with Iran even after the Shah was overthrow as Crozier thought the climate was ripe for a counter coup against Ayatollah Khomeini. Nothing ultimately came of these plans, however.
*****
Le Cercle's ties to the Islamic world are most compelling. Despite the militancy Opus Dei and some other Catholic orders have had against Islam, Le Cercle none the less seems to have made close cause with the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Iran until the Shah's overthrow. I also suspect that there were close links between Le Cercle and elements within the Turkish deep state as well. As I noted before here and here, there were very close ties to the SMOM and Opus Dei-dominated Propaganda Due and the Turkish nationalist Grey Wolves outfit. Unfortunately, not a lot of research has been done along these lines.
The support of the Safari Club for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan is quite telling, however. Here religious extremism was blatantly used against the Soviets with Le Cercle's support. Possibly the most curious aspect of this arrangement, however, is the involvement of Eastern Establishment luminaries linked to Le Cercle in launching the Afghan project. When Jimmy Carter was elected to the US presidency in 1976, he did it on a campaign in that promoted "detente" (a concept much despised by Crozier, as noted before here) as the foundation of his foreign policy towards.
Detente had first gained prominence among US foreign policy circles during Henry Kissinger's time in the Nixon and Ford administrations. Kissinger himself had been a Le Cercle visitor as had David Rockefeller. Rockefeller would go on to found the Trilateral Commission with Zbigniew Brzezinski, probably the elite organization most vigorously engaged in the pursuit of detente during the 1970s. Carter's administration was loaded with Trilateralists such as Brzezinski, who served as Carter's National Security Advisor.
And yet it was Brzezinski, with the urging of David Rockefeller, who pushed the Carter administration into abandoning detente in favor "competition" with the Soviet Union in the Middle East.
"... By the time SALT II was signed in 1979, Carter had consented to significant new weapons programs and arms budget increases (reversing his campaign pledge). By the end of his presidency both Vance and his ally Paul Warnke, the chief negotiator of SALT II, were gone. Most significantly, PRM-10 reinforced Brzezinski's ideological overreactions in the Middle East. In a speech before the Foreign Policy Association, Brzezinski identified a so-called arc of crisis around the Indian Ocean, where the Soviet Union was poised to capitalize on regional instability. As State Department official Henry Precht later recalled: 'There was this idea that the Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets. It was a Brzezinski concept.' Soon before the fall of the shah and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were interpreted by Brzezinski –paranoically rather than accurately – as proof of Soviet expansiveness and designs on the region...
"Brzezinski mobilize support for his positions by creating a special coordination committee (SCC) in the White House, chaired by himself, to deal among other things with sensitive operations, covert activity, and crisis management. In his memoir Brzezinski wrote that he 'used the SCC to try to shape our policy toward' a number of issues, of which the first listed by him is the Persian Gulf. In this way, in the words of South Asia specialists Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison: 'As he boasts in his memoirs, Brzezinski had steadily eroded Vance's power.... This control over covert operations enable Brzezinski to take the first step towards a more aggressively anti-Soviet Afghan policy without the State Department's knowing much about it.'
"More specifically, Brzezinski stymied Vance's efforts to negotiate a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, coupled with 'a broader "mutual restraint" agreement covering both Iran and Pakistan.' Again, from Cordovez and Harrison: 'The United States government was itself divided from start between "bleeders," who wanted to keep Soviet forces pinned down in Afghanistan and thus to avenge Vietnam, and "dealers," who wanted to compel their withdrawal through a combination of diplomacy and military pressure.' This led to the killing of Vance's proposal by Brzezinski, 'in one of the least-noticed but most important of his many clashes with Vance.' Even in the late 1980s 'the "bleeders" fought against the Geneva Accords until the very end.'
"Since then, and to the state, America has had to cope with the consequences of Brzezinski's reckless adventurism.
"Although right-wingers like Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society continued to complain about Carter's trilateral administration, the trilateralist ideology had shown in practice to be less relevant than the trilateralists' sociology. In the latter the dominant figure was ultimately Brzezinski because of his proximity to his former mentor, David Rockefeller, and those around him. Two events... contributed to the demise of detente during the Carter presidency. These were the fall of the shah in 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a year later."
Brzezinski was himself of course a participant of several Le Cercle meetings. While the Eastern Establishment has typically preferred to administer its foreign policy through the State Department, setbacks in the Persian Gulf at the end of the 1970s seem to have pushed certain members within this clique back to a more militant approach to the Soviet Union that was more in line with that of Le Cercle. Is it a coincidence that two of the key figures in this reversal, Brzezinski and David Rockefeller, had been active in Le Cercle prior to these events (though had likely broken contact by 1979)?
Certainly these concession seems to indicate that Le Cercle's vision for the Soviet Union had begun to surpass that of groups like the Bilderbergers and the Trilateralists and their quest for peaceful coexistence by the late 1970s. The 1980s, dominated by Cercle favorites Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, would witness a new militancy that would lead to the total destruction of the Soviets by 1991. And a key component in this strategy was the Cercle preference for religious extremism as a counterbalance to Communism.
While Le Cercle primarily seems to have been concerned with Christianity for its "worldwide spiritual offensive," it does seem to have found fundamentalist Islam useful in the Third World. Certainly General Charles Willoughby and some of his associates from the ICDCC seem to have come to this realization prior to the full scale embrace of Islamic fundamentalism by the Western intelligence services during the late 1970s. As Peter Levenda noted in The Hitler Legacy, Willoughby had testified before HUAC in 1957 in which he noted political Islam as the only compelling counterbalance to Sukarno and the Soviet influence in Indonesia. And as it just so happened, the Family would make common cause with such factions during the US-led coup in Indonesia in 1965 (as noted before here)...
In this context it would seem that religious extremism in various forms was totally acceptable in accomplishing the long term goals of Le Cercle. For this reason this researcher has no hesitation in describing the politics of this organization as clerical fascism. Certainly Le Cercle's numerous ties to religious extremists bares this label out.
Indeed, clerical fascism could be described as one of the two guiding lights of Le Cercle's foreign policy. The second, implied in the title of this series, is even more shocking. In the next installment I shall begin to delve into this truly disturbing aspects of Le Cercle. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the fifth installment in my examination of the highly secretive European network at times referred to as Le Cercle, Pinay Cercle or the Pinay Group (which has been described as an inner circle of Le Cercle in some accounts). Cercle emerged in the early 1950s as an offshoot of the United Europe movement, with many of its early backers coming form the ranks of the Pan-European Union (PEU) and especially Otto von Habsburg's European Centre of Documentation and Information (CEDI). Virtually all of the major players in Le Cercle's early days had backgrounds in the intelligence services of Western Europe, the Vatican and, later, the United States.
As was noted in the first installment, there was much overlap between Le Cercle and the CIA-backed European Movement and the Bilderberg Group in the early days with Eastern Establishment luminaries such as David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski being covertly recruited into the group by the late 1960s. But it would be a mistake, however, to dismiss Le Cercle as a mere auxiliary of the Bilderberg Group as many have.
In point of fact, Le Cercle was very much dominated by reactionary factions within the Vatican such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) and Opus Dei. By the late 1970s Rockefeller and company had broken with Le Cercle over the organization's alleged fanaticism (though nonetheless, Cercle's ideology seems to have wielded an enormous influence over Zbigniew Brzeezinski's policies while serving as Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, as noted before here) with virtually all of its US partners from that point onward being drawn from the ranks of the Pentagon and/or the intelligence services.
With part two I began to consider the two figures chiefly responsible for turning Cercle into a major international force: former French prime minister and sometimes namesake Antoine Pinay and fellow Frenchman Jean Violet, who has been linked to the intelligence services of France, West Germany and the Vatican as well as possible involvement in the proto-fascist La Cagoule in 1930s France. La Cagoule has of course long been accused of involvement in Martinism and synarchy, which was also addressed in that installment.
The third installment considered two organizations, the Brussels-based Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP, often referred to simply as the Academy) and Briton Brian Crozier's 61 network, that effectively served as Le Cercle's own private intelligence network from the early 1970s up until the late 1980s. In 1979, upon the death of Academy founder Florimond Damman (a long time member of the CEDI and a very close associate of Violet and Crozier's), the remnants of the AESP were rolled into the 6I creating quite a formidable private intelligence network for Le Cercle.
The 6I network alone is reputed to have played a key role in Margaret Thatcher's rise to power, which some have referred to as a silent coup. Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that both the Academy and 6I as were deeply implicated in pedophile networks in Belgium and the United Kingdom catering towards elites. These networks were linked to the ones exposed in the wake of the Dutroux affair and the Westminster allegations (which were given new life after the revelations concerning Jimmy Savile), respectively.
All of these organizations had extensive ties to the intelligence services of Western Europe, the United States and several other "partner" nations. The ASC and the WACL were, much like Le Cercle itself, combination think tank/lobby groups and private intelligence networks with an international reach. Both Aginter and P2 were extensively linked to acts of terrorism (as noted before here) while the ICDCC, the Unification Church, the Family and the Heritage Foundation played a major role in the rise of the modern American Christian fundamentalist movement and the modern conservative movement in general. Meanwhile the Safari Club played a key role in the rise of militant Islam in Afghanistan.
These things combined with the presence of so many Maltese knights, Opusians and other Catholic extremists in its ranks of Le Cercle led this researcher to dub the organization a proponent of clerical fascism. Certainly there is little disputing Le Cercle's decades of support for religious extremism of various stripes but especially of the Christian variety.
But there is an even darker aspect of Le Cercle that has only been little touched upon up to this point. Certainly the astute reader has begun to notice that, despite the abundance of Christian and even Islamic extremists within its ranks, there is also ample evidence of occult trappings behind the order as well. What's more, there are truly shocking ties to pedophile networks that span the globe. Already those involved in Belgium and Britain have been examined at length before. As was noted in the third installment, leading figures of both the Belgium and British Cerlce wings have been deeply implicated in pedophilia (including at least three former British Cercle chairmen). Nor are the Belgium and British scandals the only evidence of institutional pedophilia being committed by Le Cercle.
Before delving more deeper into these topics I need to pause now and consider two more organizations that were a part of the Cercle complex. These were left out of the prior installment as I felt it made more sense to address them here as they cut to the heart of Cercle's dealings in the occult and pedophilia. So on to the first group.
the Albertini network
This was yet another private intelligence network, largely based out of France, that Cercle would utilize. Whether or not this network had any formal name is unknown to this researcher, thus I have named it after its head, Georges Albertini. Albertini was active in both Cercle itself as well as Crozier's 61 network and was likely part of the "command staff" of Cercle. His background, however, is what is of the greatest interest to us here:
"Albertini was irremediably tainted by a Fascist and collaborationist background. Despite his great qualities, he lacked critical judgment at times of crisis. He was also short of luck. As a very young man, in the 1930s, had been a Socialist, joining the entourage of the Prime Minister of Popular Front days, Leon Blum. He then switched to the Fascist, as many others had done, and joined the group of Marcel Deat (who had also been a Socialist, but had turned to Fascism, largely because of despair over the failures and inefficiency of the parliamentary system of France's Third Republic).
"When the war came, Deat and the young Albertini had become collaborators. More precisely, Deat collaborated with the Nazis when they invaded France, while Albertini joined the Vichy government as a member of the Secretariat of Marshall Petain's Pierre Laval. This was indeed the choice of the overwhelming majority of the French people, who had rallied to Petain as the hero of Verdun in 1917 and the one man who could save the country after its catastrophic defeat by Hitler. Only a tiny minority had chosen the lonely path of resistance advocated by General de Gaulle.
"After the liberation of France by the Allies, Albertini paid dearly for having made the wrong choice. He was jailed for two years for collaboration. From my SDECE friend, Antoine Bonnemaison, I learned that he was initially condemned to death but reprieved.
"After his release, he changed his views by 180 degrees, in economics as well as politics. He dropped socialism in favor of enterprise and the market economy. From Vichy and collaboration, he became an ardent Gaullist. For many years, he held two jobs. In the mornings, he was political adviser to the merchant bank and business consortium, Worms. In the afternoons, he crossed the Boulevard Haussmann to run his fortnightly Est & Ouest, the most authoritative publication in the French language on the problems of Communism. Having accurately predicted the seizure of the Suez Canal by Colonel Nassar in 1956, well ahead of the event, he saved millions for the shareholders of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal de Suez, and his morning job was safe for life.
"There was more to him, however, then his combination of jobs. He had built up a huge network of informants and helpers and was increasingly consulted by those in high offices of state to which he had ceased to aspire. Moreover, he and Georges Pompidou had been at school together, and during the Pompidou presidency and beyond he was true eminence grise for the Elysee."
The great David Teacher in his long suppressed Rogue Agents(the only full length English-language account of Le Cercle) confirms Albertini's above background and adds a few interesting details:
"Georges Albertini, one of the mainstays of post-war French anti-communism, had had a controversial war-time past: a former right-hand man of the pro-Nazi collaborator Marcel Déat during the Occupation, Albertini had been a member of the Vichy administration working in the Secretariat of the Vichy Prime Minister Pierre Laval. After being jailed for two years for collaboration, during which time he shared a cell with banker Hippolyte Worms, Albertini became an ardent Gaullist, helped by his schooltime days with Georges Pompidou. Through his contacts in politics and his work as a political advisor to the Worms banking and business consortium, Albertini set up "a huge network of informants and helpers", working as an 'Honourable Correspondent' of the SDECE and as an unofficial advisor to both Pompidou and later Jacques Chirac. Albertini was a longstanding associate of Antoine Pinay: both men had attended a series of conferences on Soviet political warfare organised in 1960-61 by Suzanne Labin, future mainstay of WACL's French section (46). Albertini's Centre d'Archives et de Documentation politique et sociale also produced the fortnightly magazine Est et Ouest, 'the most authoritative publication in the French language on the problems of Communism' in Crozier's view, a publication which may well have been part of the Interdoc network (47). As well as serving as one of the major channels for anti-Socialist propaganda in France in the mid-1970s, Albertini would also become closely involved in the Cercle complex, publishing the ISC's output in French, attending Cercle meetings and playing a significant part in Crozier's private intelligence service, the 6I."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pgs. 28-29)
What's especial interesting about Albertini's time during the Occupation is the close proximity Albertini found himself to alleged synarchists active in the French government and industry both before and after the Occupation. Of particular interest is Albertini's ties to Hippolyte Worms and his bank. Allegedly the so-called "Worms clique" was very active in the synarchist movement.
"... collaboration with Germany could count on more than enough eager supporters among French industrial and banking interests – in short, among those who even before the war had turned to Nazi Germany and had looked to Hitler as the savior of Europe from Communism. These were the elements which had originally backed Petain and Weygand – elements that stuck to the program after both these men had begun to back away from it. These people were as good fascists as any in Europe. They dreaded the Popular Front like the plague and were convinced that they could prosper even under Hitler's iron rod. Many of them had long had extensive and intimate business relations with German interest and were still dreaming of a new system of 'synarchy,' which meant government of Europe on fascist principles by an international brotherhood of financiers and industrialists. Laval had long been associated with this group. Darlan, though not one of the 'boys,' was clever enough to take them into camp. If they worshiped Laval, they served Darlan, as they would have served anyone who played the game...
"Many important banking groups must be included in this category: the Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l'Industrie (which was Laval's group par excellence), the Banque de l'Indochine (of which Baudoin was the chief), the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, and others. But peculiarly identified with the Darlan regime was the Banque Worms et Cie, headed by Hippolyte Worms, with Gabriel Leroy-Ladurie and Jacques Barnaud as the dominant figures. To realize the extent to which members of the Banque Worms group had been taken into the government by the autumn 1941 a brief survey of the council of the Secretaries of State will be profitable...
"From this list it appears at once that practically every minister or secretaryship touching economic affairs was in the hands of one or another of the Worms clique. Many of them, like Pucheu, Bouthillier, Barnaud, and Lehideux were able men – as able as they were self-interested and unscrupulous. Pucheu, of whom quite a bit became known through his trial for treason, was an excellent organizer and a man who, in point of ambition, was hardly second to Darlan himself. He had been closely associated with the Cagoulard and other prewar fascist movements. As an agent of the Cartel Siderurgique he had sought to promote co-operation between French and German heavy industry. In other words, he, like several of the others, had a collaborationist past and was not only willing but eager to join up with the enemy. Darlan could count on these men, who not only arranged for the shipment of goods and manufactured products to Germany, but also served as go-betweens in arranging the transfer of French manufacturing establishments to German ownership or control. Needless to say, they turned a pretty penny in the process and furthered their own affairs at the same time. This economic collaboration, which was a very real thing from the outset, was not affected by the vicissitudes of political collaboration. It was well-established before the war and served well the purpose of both German and French interest."
(Our Vichy Gamble, William L. Langer, pgs. 167-170)
As was noted in the second installment of this series, Cercle co-founder Jean Violet was accused of participating in the proto-fascist La Cagoule during the 1930s. La Cagoule had in turn been closely associated with synarchism and Martinism, as was noted in that installment. And here we find another early Cercle member, Georges Albertini, involved with figures linked to La Cagoule prior to the Occupation.
Pierre Laval and Francois Darlan have both been linked to synarchy and La Cagoule despite both men being intense rivals for power in Vichy France. Laval seems to have had the weakest links to either movement. Nor was Albertini's previous political mentor, Marcel Deat, linked to La Cagoule or synarchy. Hippolyte Worms and his bank were another story, however. As the above quote demonstrates, the "Worms clique" was very much involved in the financing of La Cagoule and has long been suspected of adhering to synarchist ideology. Albertini seems to have been especially close to Worms and his bank, being employed by it for quite a few years.
Thus, it would seem that at least two of the key members in Cercle's French wing, Jean Violet and Goerges Albertini, were possibly active in synarchist circles at some point before or during the Occupation. Keep this in mind dear reader as we shall return to this topic in a future installment.
For now, there is one final curiosity concerning Albertini that I would like to address: his membership in the Information Council of the Americans (INCA). Albertini sat on the "International Advisory Committee" for this New Orleans-based anti-Communist outfit. The INCA was co-founded by Dr. Alton Ochsner, the legendary surgeon and cancer specialist, and Edward Scannell Butler, a man frequently described as a professional propagandist. Here's a bit more background on the INCA:
"... Born in 1935 in New Orleans, Butler at one time or another has been a male model, a Fuller Brush salesman, and an Army public relations man. His political predilections led him to toy with the Birch Society and to speak before White Citizens Councils. In 1960 he became executive director of a New Orleans anti-Castro group called the Free Voice of Latin America. 'This young man's ultra-right-wing views were not only embarrassing but in my opinion dangerous,' a former Free Voice official recalls. 'He could think of nothing but the danger of some global-encircling communist conspiracy and that it was the primary goal of the Free Voice to forewarn the people of Latin America.'
"Ousted from the Free Voice, Butler formed the Information Council of the Americas (INCA) and persuaded several Free Voice directors to join him. Dr. Alton Ochsner, a prominent New Orleans ultraconservative who heads the widely known Ochsner Clinic, was installed as president, and other civic lights accepted lesser post. INCA literature blossomed with an International Advisory Committee that included Herbert Philbrick, retired National Air Lines chairman Dudley Swim, and Earl A. Emerson, once chairman of Armco Steel. And Frawley has later been added. In 1965 Butler and INCA were lauded on the floor of Congress by Louisiana's Hale Boggs, and Senators Karl Mundt and Everett Dirksen later followed suit. As the Free Voice official put it, 'I'm continuously amazed by Butler's Orwellian use of conceptual words and by his uncanny ability to impress his odd definition of men of high office.' "
During this era there were any number of far-right anti-Communist groups that have long since been forgotten. Butler and the INCA continue to be commented upon for one peculiar event: Butler's "debate" with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba scuffle in New Orleans.
The interview was sponsored by William Stuckley of the station WDSU, on which the debate was aired live in 1963. Also appearing as part of the debate was anti-Castro Cuban Carlos Bringuier along with Stuckey, Oswald and Butler. Bringuier was a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC). In Secret Agenda H.P. Albarelli quotes a report by Ralph Schoeman to the Rockefeller Commission that notes Bringuier was in contact with the anti-Communist groups supported by Bulgarian Spas Raikin.
As I noted before here, Raikin was one of the first officials to approach to Lee Harvey Oswald upon his return to the United States from Minsk. Raikin was a member of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) and the Asian People's Anti-Communist League (APACL), the two organizations that would eventually merge into the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). As was noted before here and here, the Academy (and thus Le Cercle itself) had very close ties to the WACL. What's more, Charles Willoughby's associate Theodor Oberlander, who was active with him the International Committee for the Defense of Christian Civilization (along with Antoine Pinay, as was noted before here) had ties to Raikin via the ABN and later the WACL network. Albarelli reports that is likely Raikin may have been friendly with Edward Butler through the League as well. Thus, its possible that Bringuier and Butler were already awre of one another via this anti-Communist network (that was also very close to Le Cercle) prior to the interview with Oswald.
It was during this interview that Oswald's famously proclaimed himself a Marxist. This statement and several others would be used repeatedly by the conspiratorial right for years afterwards as evidence of a Communist conspiracy. The INCA would play a crucial role in making Oswald's notorious interview with Butler widely available in the wake of the JFK assassination.
But it is likely that the INCA were far more than a mere citizens' advocacy group:
"Employees of the banana companies, to begin with, were involved with Oswald himself. It was for example a Standard Fruit employee, Manuel Gil, who arranged for and managed the Bill Stuckey program that aired the televised Oswald-Bringuier 'debate' (the footage used on November 22 to tell the world that Oswald was a dishonest, Marxist, Castro sympathizer). It is true the Gil (a veteran of the New Orleans CRC) probably did so as an associate of Ed Butler's INCA, the Information Council of the Americas, a New Orleans right-wing propaganda operation that almost certainly did work for the CIA. But so many Standard Fruit employees were associated with INCA that one may perhaps conclude that Standard Fruit, at least as much as the CIA, was sponsoring INCA's propaganda activities in Latin America. As I wrote in a monograph submitted to Robert Blakely and the House Committee on Assassinations,
Standard Fruit's employees at INCA included its General Counsel Eberhard Deutsch (Jim Garrison's former law partner and political mentor); Cuban refugee activist and CRC veteran Manuel Gill... and William I. Monaghan, who later resigned and joined Oswald at the William B. Reiley [coffee] Company. And a 'Charter Member' of INCA was Standard Fruit's Director Seymour Weiss, a veteran anticommunist and political heavy from the Huey Long era. Weiss was said to have run New Orleans for the National Crime Syndicate along with the more famous mafioso Carlos Marcello.
Many U.S. multinational supported INCA, through foundation such as the Cordell Hull Foundation. INCA's anti-Communist activities in Latin America, in practice, meant opposing all political parties advocating nationalization of U.S. corporations. Thus INCA clearly served the economic interest of U.S. firms doing business there."
(Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Peter Dale Scott, pgs. 94-95)
But beyond business interests, as Scott notes above, it is also almost certain that there were ties with the US intelligence community as well. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dick Russell notes that the INCA was perceived by some as psychological warfare operation: "Butler said he had conceived of this psychological warfare PR unit while serving in a special Army unit 'in the quiet little town of Alexandria, Virginia' " (pg. 401).
A "special Army unit?" As noted in the Turner quote, Butler did work as a military public relations man for a time. And here, during the 1960s, he would turn up in New Orleans, a city especially active in Latin America Cold War intrigues at the time. And he would just so happen to conduct an interview with Lee Harvey Oswald several months before the JFK assassination, an interview that has been used repeatedly since to label Oswald as a Communist. In this context, Georges Albertini's presence on the INCA's International Advisory Committee is even more eyebrow raising as Albertini seems to have been deeply engaged in psychological warfare operations via his own Est et Ouest as well as his work with Brian Crozier in the ISC and the 6I (to say nothing of Le Cercle).
As curious as all of this is, there are have long been rumblings that there was an even more sinister agenda lurking behind the INCA. In 2007 the highly controversial Dr. Mary's Monkey by Edward Haslam was published and three years later it was followed by Judith Vary Baker's Me and Lee, an even more controversial work. Both books effectively allege that Dr. Albert Ochsner was working on a top secret project for the US intelligence community that involved developing viruses as weapons. Baker alleges that she herself was involved in this project with Ochsner along with Dr. Mary Sherman (who was murdered in 1964 in New Orleans under very mysterious circumstances) and David Ferrie, a man long linked to the Kennedy assassination.
The INCA was not apparently directly involved in these intrigues but certain members (i.e. former FBI man William I. Monaghan) allegedly aided Ochsner towards these ends. This researcher would again like to stress that the claims of Haslam and Baker (who, among other things, claims to have been Lee Harvey Oswald's lover) are extremely controversial. And indeed, there seems to be more than enough curiosities surrounding the INCA not involving biological weapons to warrant a closer examination. More on that in a future installment. For now, let us turn to another strange Cercle contact.
the Colony
Easily one of the most disturbing and eyebrow raising associations Cercle had was with the notorious Chilean commune known as Colonia Dignidad (the Colony of Dignity, commonly referred to simply as the Colony). Founded in the early 1960s by German immigrants, the Colony allegedly sought to promote "traditional" Christian living via 1940s era clothing, abstaining from modern electric devices and 14 hour work days, among others things. Superficially at least the sect was supposed to be something akin to Mennonites. It was not long after the Colony's founding, however the dark rumblings of fugitive Nazis, elaborate torture centers and pedophilia began to emerge.
Here's a bit more about the background of the Colony and the man who founded it, Herr Paul Schafer:
"Paul Schafer was one of the founders of the Colony of Righteousness and was, and is, its only leader. Schafer jumped bail in Germany in 1961 on charges of child sexual abuse, but that did not stop him from taking a group of families with him when he fled to Chile, arriving there in 1962 at the age of 40 with around sixty 'blond, blue-eyed settlers'... including some children who were brought there under false pretenses, taken from their families back in Germany. His flock came from the town of Siegburg, across the Rhine from Bonn, where Schafer claimed to be a psychologist, and where he ran the youth home where the sexual-abuse charges originated. Schafer, also the leader of a Baptist sect (a sect which evidently condones sexual intercourse between adults and children among other peculiarities), bought an old ranch called El Lavafero about 250 miles south of Santiago in the Parral region and quickly converted it into a self-sufficient, model community known as Colonia Dignidad, the 'Colony of Righteousness' or 'Dignity Colony.'
"The population of the Colony eventually grew to about 350, composed of 250 adults and 100 children. According to reports in the Chilean and German press, the sexes are rigorously separated and sexual intercourse is forbidden (except, one gathers, at the discretion of Schafer). And since sex is prohibited, the only way the Colony has been able to increase its population has been by 'importing' children from Germany. German authorities have been investigating charges that from thirty to forty children reported missing from the Bonn and Cologne areas have wound up at the Colony. Thus, charges of both child abuse and international child abductions have been leveled at this remote cult community by eyewitnesses, escapees, and responsible members of the West German and Chilean governments. The parallels between Colonia Dignidad and the stories told by 'satanic cult survivors,' however, are even stronger...
"Accounts of the size of the Colony vary from news report to news report. Everything from 12,000 acres to 37,000 acres has been offered, and accounts of its operations also include a mine, a lumber mill, and a gravel factory. The author believes it is safe to say that the county has grown considerably over the years and that estimates of a 37,000-acre settlement might not be far from the mark, considering the other purposes to which the Colony was put both during and after the Allenda regime...
"... in 1966, the first of many accusations against Schafer and the Colony surfaced when Wolfgang Muller escaped the 'watchdogs, electronic alarms and six-foot barbed wire fences' to describe life inside the Colony. Muller – who had been brought over from Germany as a member of the original Siegburg group when he was sixteen – claimed that he had been forced into slave labor at the Colony, was beaten, and had been sexually abused by Schafer in Germany when he was twelve years old. One of Muller's most interesting claims – especially in light of later events – is his insistence that Schafer had given him 'memory-altering drugs' when Mueller attempted to rebel or to reveal the details of his abuse at Schafer's hands. He also complained of electroshock treatments being administered by camp doctors... After his third escape, he wound up at the West German embassy in Santiago and now lives in that country under an assumed name, still afraid for his life.
"Muller also revealed the existence of several former Nazis who lived at the Colony but denied that Nazism was part of the Colony's ideology. Later that same year, another escapee –Wilhelmine Lindeman – appeared with the same story of mind-altering drugs. This time, there was medical proof of her story: doctors discovered evidence of injections on her body."
The Colony's notoriety only grew after Allende was overthrow and replaced by Pinochet in 1973. Numerous political prisoners were taken to the Colony were they were "re-educated" via electroshock, drugs and sensory deprivation, along with more "conventional" forms of torture (i.e. mauling prisoners with German shepherds). Much more information of these activities can be found here.
Eventually the Colony would become a key component of Operation Condor.
"... it was also revealed that Colonia Dignidad was an important node in the communications network of Operation Condor: the multinational effort by Chile, Argentina, and other South American dictatorships to run guns, launder money, assassinate political opponents in the Americas and elsewhere in the world, and to develop weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons."
(The Hitler Legacy, Peter Levenda, pg. 171)
Condor in turn was closely linked to frequent Cercle partner the World Anti-Communist league (WACL):
"These offshore events in 1976 were mirrored by similar arrangements for off-loading former CIA agents and operators in Latin America. This was the Confederacion Anticomunista Latinoamericana (CAL) and its death-squad collaboration Operation Condor. Operation Condor was a coalition of intelligence agencies of CAL countries, chiefly Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. The CAL was funded through the World Anti-Communist League by the governments of South Korea and Taiwan and – once again – the petrodollars of Saudi Arabia."
And Schafer? He fled the Colony in 1997 after being charged with child sexual abuse. He spent eight years on the run until he was finally caught in Argentina in 2005. He was returned to Chile and incarcerated, mercifully dying in 2010 in prison. In all he was convicted of abusing some 25 children, but it has long been suspected that that number is much higher. In addition to the children he was suspected of abducting from Germany, there were also reports that children from nearby the Colony frequently "disappeared" as well.
As for the ties the Colony had to Le Cercle, they unsurprisingly came from the group's German wing. During the mid-1970s Le Cercle began an intense propaganda campaign to attack the Soviet Union for its lack of religious freedom. Both the Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP, frequently referred to as simply "the Academy") and Brian Crozier's Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC, a predecessor to the 6I that was primarily focused on propaganda as noted before here) took leading roles in these endeavors. As was noted before here, the Brussels-based Academy had several key members who had been implicated in pedophilia in Belgium.
By 1977 it was felt that Cercle's German wing should also become involved in promoting religious freedom in the Soviet Union. A group was formed for this purpose.
"The AESP and the ISC were not the only Cercle associates to support these campaigns; the Cercle's German friends also contributed. As we have seen, the German pillars of the Cercle throughout the 1970s had been Strauß's CSU, represented by Cercle/6I member Count Hans Huyn, and the Swiss group ISP, run by AESP partner Karl Friedrich Grau. In 1977, the Cercle's German friends set up a specialised group to support the campaigns on religious freedom being run by the ISC and the AESP – a German equivalent to the earlier British-based CSRC/Keston College.
"This new group was the Brüsewitz Centre, a 'Christian' group whose aim was to 'publicise human rights violations and particularly the violations of the freedom of worship in the so-called German Democratic Republic'. The Brüsewitz Centre was named after Oskar Brüsewitz, an East German priest who burned himself alive in August 1976; the priest's widow tried in vain to prevent the group using his name. The founding body for the Brüsewitz Centre was the Christlich- Paneuropäische Studienwerk [Christian Paneuropean Study Group], founded in July 1977 and chaired by Otto von Habsburg's teenage daughter, Walburga von Habsburg (334)*. The Brüsewitz Centre's Board included several well-known faces: Habsburg, Huyn and Merkatz, all three CEDI members and early associates of the AESP. On the Board of the Brüsewitz Centre, we also find the Czech exile Ludek Pachmann, whom we have already met as a speaker for Grau's ISP in 1975-76 along with Habsburg and Huyn. Habsburg, Merkatz and Pachmann of the Brüsewitz Board would all also serve on the Board of Amnesty International's right-wing rival, the IGfM.
"The Brüsewitz Centre's Board also included five other Germans who would crop up in later Cercle operations in the 1980s..."
It is one of those five above-mentioned board members of the Brusewitz Centre that gave Cercle its line to the Colony:
"The third Brüsewitz Board member of note was Dr. Lothar Bossle, a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics, President of the Katholische Deutsche Akademikerschaft [Catholic German Academic Society] and one of the most vocal opponents of liberation theology. Having been a socialist student activist in his youth, Bossle would switch to the CDU in 1959; from 1960 to 1963, he worked at the German Army School in Koblenz before being assisted by Filbinger in becoming Professor at the Pedagogical High School in Lörrach. In 1972, Bossle was active within the Aktion der Mitte group which used industry millions from Axel Springer and others to publish election propaganda against the socialist-liberal coalition ('One dose of socialism – from 1933 to 1945 – was quite enough!'); in 1974, he was a cofounder of the pro-CSU campaign group KDK. In 1975, he courted controversy in calling Allende a 'socialist Hitler' and then applying the same treatment to Willy Brandt and Olof Palme. Bossle would become one of Pinochet's most fervent supporters in Germany ('Chile is on the path to true democracy') and a key contact person for Colonia Dignidad, the German group in Chile linked to the Chilean secret service DINA, which Bossle visited at least four times (335)*...
"More significantly, whilst at Würzburg, Bossle would act as Director and later President of the Institut für Demokratieforschung [IfD, Institute for Democracy Research], one of whose Vice-Presidents was Cercle member Count Hans Huyn. In 1977, the IfD published Huyn's contribution to the Cercle's post-Helsinki human rights campaign, Menschenrechte und Selbstbestimmung (Human rights and selfdetermination); in 1974, Huyn had been a co-founder of the Swiss-based Europäische Konferenz für Menschenrechte und Selbstbestimmung [EKMS, European Conference for Human Rights and Self-Determination], another forum for the Cercle complex which would work closely with Sager's SOI throughout the 1980s. In 1977, the IfD would also support the fledgling Brüsewitz Centre, publishing the report Oskar Brüsewitz: Sein Protest – sein Tod – seine Mahnung [Oskar Brüsewitz: his protest – his death – his warning]. In 1979, the IfD would publish a German version of Crozier's February 1978 Conflict Study Surrogate Forces of the Soviet Union, and Bossle would organise a 1979 conference by Crozier at the Sociological Institute of Würzburg University (337)*.
"Bossle's IfD had extensive intelligence contacts - the IfD's scientific director was prominent CDU MP and later Brüsewitz Board member Heinrich Lummer, whose numerous Libyan trips were financed by the BND; the deputy scientific director was former Major-General Gerd Helmut Komossa, from 1977 to 1980 head of Germany's military security service, the MAD.
"Bossle's close associate on the Board of the IfD was Prof. Dieter Blumenwitz. Professor of International and Constitutional Law at Würzburg University from 1976 on, Blumenwitz had represented Bavaria before the Federal Constitutional Court in summer 1973 in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent the conclusion of the Basic Treaty governing relations between East and West Germany. Blumenwitz shared Bossle's close links with Chile and reportedly visited Colonia Dignidad with Bossle. In 1979, Blumenwitz was one of the co-authors with Crozier of Pinochet's Chilean Constitution; in 1980, Blumenwitz intervened on behalf of Colonia Dignidad in legal proceedings seeking to block Amnesty International's German section from publishing allegations that the colony had served as a secret DINA torture centre (338)*. Like many of the Cercle's German friends, Blumenwitz was also a Board Member of the IGfM and an advisor to and author for the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung."
While neither Lothar Bossle or Dieter Blumenwitz were technically members of Le Cercle, both individuals worked very closely with the group's German wing. Count Hans Huyn, who was involved with the IfD along with Bossle and Blumenwitz, was likely a founding member of Le Cercle and very close to its leadership. He was also a member of the pedophile-linked Academy/AESP and Crozier's 61 (which had ties to the Westminster pedophile scandals, as noted before here).
Bossle and Blumenwitz also seem to be especially concerned with the well being of the Colony as well, with Blumenwitz even interceding on its behalf before the German section of Amnesty International. And all the while Bossle was in contact with Academy (via several members of the Brusewitz Centre) and Crozier's 6I network (via Count Hans Huyn), both of whom have numerous ties to pedophile networks in Belgium and Britain.
This is all rather ominous, especially in light of the above-mentioned allegations that children were being abducted from Germany and shipped to Herr Schafer and the Colony. What is the probability of this same group of elites being in contact with politically-connected pedophile rings in Belgium, Britain and Chile (Pinochet was a guest of the Colony while American DINA agent Michael Vernon Townley served as a contact between the Colony and Pinochet's security services) being a mere "coincidence"? I suspect not very high and those numbers would not be improved by the possibility that Le Cercle had ties to even more pedophile rings than those in Belgium, Britain and Chile. But more on that in a moment.
While Le Cercle does not appear to have become involved with the Colony until the late 1970s, there were possible earlier links. One via the WACL was already hinted at above, that related to Operation Condor, though these plots did not get going until 1976, shortly before Cercle's first formal contacts with the Colony.
Opus Dei, which was very closely aligned with Le Cercle (some have argued it in fact controls the group) had been active in Chile since the 1950s and, according to Robert Hutchison in Their Kingdom Come, were very close to Pinochet and his regime. I have not, however, found any direct links to the Colony.
The Colony's strongest European contact seems to have been former SS commander Otto Skorzeny's network, which included the arms dealership known as Merex and the Paladin Group. The founder of Merex was former Wehrmacht officer Gerhard Mertins, who appears to have been in contact with the Colony from the early days. Mertins would come to the defense of the Colony in Germany during the late 1970s, at the same time Blumenwitz was trying to protect it from Amnesty International.
Le Cercle does not seem to have had direct ties to Skorzeny's network, which is hardly surprising. Le Cercle was highly secretive and very sensitive about their support for fascism. Skorzeny's group was to high profile and to unabashedly Nazi. Skorzeny himself had been a minor celebrity since WWII and would continue to fascinate the tabloids until his death in 1975. Thus, Le Cercle would have been very cautious about any potential approach to Skorzeny.
Still, there were ample intermediaries available to either group. In Stefano Delle Chiaie: Portrait of a Black Terrorist, Stuart Christie notes that Skorzeny collaborated with Aginter Press and its founder, Yves Guerin-Serac. The ties Cercle had to Aginter via the Academy were already noted before here and here. In NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser reports that the notorious neo-fascist Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie was employed by Skorzeny in Spain during the early 1970s. As was noted before here, Delle Chiaie was also in contact with the Academy's Benoit de Bonvoisin, who has been deeply implicated in Belgium's pedophile networks.
And then there is Gerhard Mertins himself, who Stuart Christie notes in Stefano Delle Chiaie was an agent of the BND, West Germany's primary intelligence service. As was noted above, the IfD that Bossle and Blumenwitz were involved with had close ties to the BND as well. As was noted here, it is believed that Jean Violet, one of the co-founders of Le Cercle, was an agent of the BND and throughout David Teacher's groundbreaking account of Le Cercle in Rogue Agents, he indicates that there were close ties between Le Cercle and the BND.
Was Le Cercle aware of the Colony even before it had contact with it via Bossle and Blumenwitz? Certainly the BND would have been well placed to facilitate contact between the Colony and Le Cercle.
the Franklin Scandal
There are at least two other networks were the possibility of a link to Le Cercle exists. The first is one of the most notorious alleged elite pedophile rings in the United States. The fallout surrounding it is typically referred to as "the Franklin scandal" and unfolded in the heartlands of Nebraska. The central figure in it is one Lawrence ("Larry") E. King, who at one time was a rising star in the Republican Party. He was the Vice Chairman for Finance of the National Black Republican Council, a sanctioned affiliate of the Republican National Committee and sang the "National Anthem" at both in 1984 and 1988 Republican National Conventions.
King seemed poised to become a major national figure, but then the bottom suddenly fell out from underneath him in late 1988. King was the manager of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, and on November 4 it was raided by federal agents. It was ultimately concluded that nearly $40 million had been stolen from the credit union and King found himself being indicted on 40 counts that included conspiracy, fraud and embezzlement.
But this was only the beginning of King's problems. In 1989 several children came forward and alleged that King was the head of a pedophile ring that pimped out minors to powerful local figures and even those in Washington, D.C. Boy's Town, the legendary Catholic orphanages, was also implicated in this scandal, being accused of offering up children for this network.
While King was ultimately convicted of financial crimes, the allegations of child abuse were dismissed. The mainstream media was quick to proclaim a hoax, but Franklin continued to draw interest from researchers who found much compelling evidence to collaborate some of the allegations against King. Then, in 1999, one of the alleged victims (Paul Bonacci) and his attorney, John DeCamp (a former CIA agent who participated in the Phoenix Program and who has dominated much of the debate surrounding the Franklin scandal for nearly two decades now) partly succeeded with a civil lawsuit against King.
"Though child-abuse charges were never brought against King, Paul Bonacci and John DeCamp pursued federal civil lawsuits against King and other alleged pedophiles Bonacci named as his assailants. US District Court Judge Warren Urbom declared Bonacci's accusations of Satanism and sadism to be unsubstantiated and 'bizarre,' and he dismissed all but one of the lawsuits filed by DeCamp – Larry King was incarcerated for looting the Franklin Credit Union when Bonacci's lawsuits were initiated, and he didn't bother to respond to the court summons.
"Judge Urbom therefore granted Bonacci a default judgment against King. DeCamp then requested a hearing on the single issue of damages, and called Bonacci to stand along with other witnesses who corroborated his 'bizarre' accusations. After Judge Urbom listened to the testimony, he awarded Paul Bonacci a one million dollar judgment. The ruling was based upon some of the horrific events that Bonacci related to me.
"Judge Urbom wrote in his decision, 'Between December 1980 and 1988, the complaint alleges, the defendant King continually subjected the plaintiff to repeated sexual assaults, false imprisonment, infliction of extreme emotional distress, organized and directed satanic rituals, force the plaintiff to "scavenge" for children to be part of the defendant King's sexual abuse and pornography ring, forced the plaintiff to engage in numerous sexual contacts with the defendant King and others and participate in deviant sexual games and masochistic orgies with other minor children. The defendant King's default has made those allegations true as to him. The issue now is the relief to be granted monetarily.' "
Bryant goes on to note that King originally appealed this ruling, but withdrew the appeal following "actions for depositions," according to DeCamp. While DeCamp is hardly the most credible source, Urbom's ruling and compelling research into the scandal from works such as Bryant's strongly indicate that there was a basis in reality for the charges made against King. Unfortunately, despite the persistence with which the scandal has hung around, there still seems to be a ways to go before a truly accurate picture of the scandal can be had. And likely this will not be forth coming without criminal charges being brought against someone.
For those of you interested, here is a long banned documentary on Franklin originally produced by the Discovery Channel in 1994 that will provide more details on the allegations surrounding Franklin:
As for the possible ties Franklin had to Le Cercle, they are tenuous. As I already noted before here, there have been allegations that the King pedophile ring was linked to the one in Belgium via the notorious public relations specialist Robert Keith Gray. Gray hailed from Nebraska originally and was said to be a close friend of Harold Anderson, the publisher of the Omaha World-Herald and an individual implicated in King's pedophile ring.
Gray worked for many years for the legendary PR firm Hill & Knowlton, but departed by 1981 to form his own PR firm. In the early 1980s, Douglas MacArthur II was involved with Hill & Knowlton around the same time he chaired the European Institute of Management (EIM), a private security firm linked to terrorism and pedophile rings in Belgium (as noted before here). MacArthur II and the EIM group both had ties to Le Cercle, but this researcher has found nothing to indicate that MacArthur II personally knew Gray or that they had been working at Hill & Knowlton together at the same time. Thus, it does not seem very likely that Gray was a bridge between Le Cercle and Franklin.
A much more compelling connection comes in the form of Reagan's first CIA director, the notorious William Casey. Casey, a former OSS man and Knight of Malta, was apparently held in high esteem by King. There have long been allegations that King was an agent of Casey.
"Direct ties of Larry King to persons and institutions active in Iran-Contra are a matter of public record. In 1987, according to the World Herald, King donated $25,350 to Citizens for America, a group that sponsored speaking tours for Oliver North and Contra leaders. CFA was a key public relations group for Iran-Contra; King was a founding member and one of its largest contributors.
"According to his May 22, 1989 interview with Omaha radio station KKAR, King was trying to bring North to Nebraska. A former security guard for King has sworn that he saw North attend at least one of King's parties, a party at which children were also present. Since he was stationed outside, he has no knowledge of what might have happened inside. 'I just thought it seemed kind of curious, the whole set-up,' he said.
"The head of CFA, David Carmen, was a partner in Carmen, Carmen and Hugel, the public relations firm hired by Larry King to help set up one of his other projects, the Council for Minority Americans. It is alleged that Carmen, Carmen and Hugel was one of King's direct links to the CIA.
"Another of the PR firm's partners was Max Hugel, formerly deputy director in charge of covert operations, under the late William Casey at the CIA. Hugel earned the post for services rendered in the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign. Larry King met Hugel back then, since one of Hugel's responsibilities for the campaign committee was out-reach and liaison work with minority groups. Brought to the agency by Casey in 1981, Hugel lasted only a few months at the CIA and was forced out under a cloud of scandal.
"King had a third friend at Carmen, Carmen and Hugel – Ambassador Garald Carmen, the father of David. 'What was Larry King doing with Ambassador Carmen?' reflected a Washington intelligence specialist. 'It was the diplomatic pouches.... Larry had even been lobbying for his appointment as an overseas ambassador.' According to a Washington Times report of December 15, 1988, King did seek ambassadorial appointment. One source specified that he wanted to represent the United States in Jamaica, where his wife, Alice, was born.
"During the height of Iran-Contra activities, 1984-86, Ambassador Carmen was in the right place to have served as bag man. He was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in 1984 through 1986. The United States ambassador to Switzerland in that period was Faith Whittlesey, who was depositioned by the congressional committee investigating Iran-Contra Oliver North's multiple secret bank accounts were located at Credit Suisse. When Carmen left the diplomatic service in 1986, Carmen, Carmen and Hugel was and remained deeply involved in Nicaragua. According to the intelligence newsletter Unclassified (December 1990-January 1991), the Carmen group under a National Endowment for Democracy contract, handled the U.S. activities of the Violeta Chamorro campaign in the Nicaraguan elections.
"If King was involved with CIA money laundering, that jibes with a report from a member of Concerned Parents: 'I heard from two different black people in North Omaha that King used to send limousines down to Offutt Air Base [home of the Strategic Air Command] to pick up CIA personnel for parties.
"The sometimes expansive Larry King used to talk fondly about his friends. In a Sept. 7, 1988, interview with the Metropolitan King said, 'I know some of the people I admire aren't very popular. Ed Meese. The late Bill Casey of the CIA. And I love former Chief Justice Burger. Those are the people I really like to talk to. Bill Casey.... I just thought so very highly of him.' "
(The Franklin Cover-Up, John DeCamp, pgs. 173-175)
The American Security Council (ASC), Cercle's closets US partner for decades, was deeply involved with supplying weapons to Central America as part of Iran-Contra. Oliver North had close ties to this network, though I have found no links between King's Citizens for America group and the ASC complex. Still ,the possibility of ties is strong as these circles were very incestuous.
Much more compelling is King's alleged relationship with Max Hugel. Hugel is a curious figure --a Brooklyn Jew frequently described as an ardent Zionist, he was Casey's chief liaison with Israel. His departure from the CIA was linked to an Arab factions within who thought Hugel was too fanatical a support of Israel. Hugel had at times been suspected of being to close to the Soviets as well.
On the flip side of the coin, Hugel may have been close to the MacArthur faction within the Pentagon (addressed before here) as well. Hugel had served in military intelligence with a posting in Japan. This did not happen until 1953, after MacArthur and his intelligence chief, General Charles Willoughby (who worked closely with Le Cercle in the 1960s, as noted here), had been removed. Hugel seems to have forged close ties with Japanese businessmen during this time.
Eventually Hugel would become very close to the Unification Church, which MacArthur and Willoughby played a key role in establishing (as noted before here). He would also became a key figure in the Council for National Policy (CNP), which received much of its original funding from Nelson Bunker Hunt. The Hunt family was very close to MacArthur and Willoughby and Nelson may even have been one of the key backers of the International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture (ICDCC), as was noted in the prior installment.
Even more curious is a trip Hugel took to North Korea in 1991 on behalf of the Unification Church. He was accompanied by "former" officials of the US government, which gave the conference a quasi-state sanctioned air. One of Hugel's compatriots in this trip was none other than Douglas MacArthur II. The same Douglas MacArthur II linked to pedophile rings in Belgium and who possibly had a link to the Franklin scandal via Robert Keith Gray.
This is the only reference I've found to Hugel and MacArthur II meeting in any capacity. Whether the two men had any kind of relationship prior to this 1991 meeting is unknown to this researcher. Both men by this time seem to have very close to the Unification Church, however.
But let us now return to William Casey. The CIA director and Maltese knight had extremely close ties to Cercle:
"The man to whom Reagan offered the job - within days of his meeting with de Marenches - was someone the French spymaster approved of entirely: OSS veteran and NSIC co-founder William Casey. Thanks to Casey and others, the NSIC and the Cercle/6I would enjoy unbroken access to the highest levels of US policymaking even before the advent of the Reagan Administration. As well as having been Reagan’s election manager, Casey was also head of the Reagan transition team, particularly in the field of intelligence, where Casey was assisted by two former senior CIA officials as Special Advisors, 6I founding member Lieutenant-General Vernon Walters and longstanding ISC friend Ray S. Cline. The agenda for the incoming Reagan Administration had to a large extent already been mapped out in a 3,000-page list of policy recommendations published by the Heritage Foundation in January 1981 under the title Mandate for Leadership - its intelligence proposals had been drafted by NSIC Washington chief Roy Godson, Senate Intelligence Committee staffer and later NSIC and IEDSS author Angelo Codevilla, and Crozier's old associate and probable 6I founding member Herb Romerstein (412).
"Once in charge of the CIA, Casey would help to provide initial funding for the 6I's operations. Members of the 6I 'Politburo' also soon assumed high office: General Walters would act as Reagan's Ambassador at Large from 1981 to 1985, US Representative at the UN from 1985 to 1989, and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to West Germany from 1989 to 1991, whilst General Stilwell served from 1981 to 1985 as Reagan's Deputy Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy – despite the anodyne title, Stilwell was in reality charged with a fundamental reform of US special forces. Reagan also ensured contact with the Cercle and the 6I through an old Californian friend, William A. Wilson, whom Reagan also appointed as his personal envoy to the Vatican in February 1981 and full US Ambassador to the Holy See in March 1984, resuming US-Vatican diplomatic relations suspended since the early 1970s. Besides the channels to Reagan via Casey, Walters or Wilson, the Cercle/6I also liaised directly with Reagan's successive National Security Advisors, Dick Allen, William P. Clark, Bud McFarlane and Admiral Poindexter."
(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 193)
Casey's ties to Le Cercle stretched back to at least 1978, when he attended a meeting of the group. This relationship seems to have grown even closer by 1980 and may have stretched back even further. As was noted in the prior installment, Casey's co-founder of the NSIC, Frank Barnett, had been in contact with Crozier since 1966 and had been actively collaborating with him since 1969. And of course, there's also the Sovereign Military Order of Malta connection that Casey shared with so many Cercle figures.
So, to recap: Larry E. King indicated that he was a great admirer of William Casey and may even have been in regular contact with him while Casey was serving as the director of the CIA. According to John DeCamp, who is far from them sot credible source, King was also in close contact with close Casey aide, Max Hugel (Joseph Trento notes in Prelude to Terror that Casey was Hugel's sole patron in the CIA and had personally brought him in despite vigorous opposition from the rest of the Agency). Hugel was close to the Unification Church (as Cercle was by the late 1980s). He would attend a conference in North Korea in 1991 with Douglas MacArthur II, a man linked to terrorism and pedophile rings in Belgium. Many of his alleged contacts there were a part of the Academy, Cercle's primary Belgian wing. MacArthur II may also have been in contact with Robert Keith Gray, a close friend of fellow Nebraskan Harold Anderson, who was implicated in King's pedophile ring.
As was noted at the beginning of this section, Cercle's potential ties to Franklin are rather tenuous. But none the less, there does not seem to have been many degrees of separation between Casey and King's alleged pedophile ring on the one hand, and on the other between Casey and the Cercle pedophile rings.
In all three instances these rings seem to have targeted at right wing political parties and the security services of Belgium, the UK and the US. And they all seem to have been established around the time Cercle was actively engaged in bringing about political change in these nations. In the UK and the US, Cercle ended up with the friendly regimes it had ever had in those countries (i.e. Thatcher and Reagan).
If there was a tie between the Le Cercle rings and Franklin, was Casey then an agent of Le Cercle establishing a network similar to the ones in Belgium and Britain for influencing politics? Certainly being aware of politicians and key security figures in several major Western nations engaged in pedophile rings would be extremely comprising and would give Cercle almost total control over the figures they had implicated.
And with that I shall wrap up for now. With the next installment I will finish up addressing the other possible pedophile ring linked to Cercle and will then pull things back a bit and consider the bigger picture. Stay tuned dear reader.
Welcome to the sixth installment in my epic examination of the highly secretive European network at times known as Le Cercle, Pinay Cercle or the Pinay Group (that latter of which in some accounts is held to be an inner circle of Cercle). During part one I examined the geopolitical implications of Cercle, noting its ties to the Bilderberger Group and Eastern Establishment luminaries such as David Rockefeller (who was recruited into the group around 1967 and who allegedly had no prior knowledge of its existence). These ties have led many American researchers to dismiss Cercle as nothing more than auxiliary of Bilderberger, but this would be a mistake. In point of fact, it was dominated by reactionary Catholic groups such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and Opus Dei since its founding in the early 1950s. Rockefeller and co later broke with Le Cercle over its extremist positions.
With the second installment I considered the backgrounds of the two Frenchmen chiefly responsible for turning Le Cercle into a major international power: some times namesake and former French prime minister Antoine Pinay and his close associate, Jean Violet. Violet is a most curious figure. As was noted in that installment, Violet had ties to the intelligence services of France, West Germany and the Vatican. What's more, he was believed to have been a member of the proto-fascist La Cagoule terror network in 1930s France. La Cagoule in turn was held to have been spawned by the occult underground of Martinism and synarchy. Part three moved on to two curious organizations that were crucial to the Cercle complex: the Brussels-based Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP, often referred to simply as the Academy) and Briton Brain Crozier's 6I network. Effectively these two groups served as private intelligence networks for Le Cercle. The Academy came first and dominated most Cercle's intrigues during the 1970s. However, upon the death of founder Florimond Damman in 1979, much of the Academy was rolled into Crozier's 61 network (which was founded around 1977). 6I would remain quite active until the mid-1980s. Of especial note are the ties both the Academy and 6I had to pedophile networks in Belgium and the UK respectively. The Belgium network first faced mass exposure in the wake of the Dutroux affair (noted before here, here and here) while the Britons were linked to the Westminster allegations that emerged during Thatcher's reign.
With the most recent installment I began by considered two final organizations linked to Cercle: Georges Albertini's network and Chile's notorious Colonia Dignidad (typically referred to as simply the Colony and which was addressed before here). Albertini was a key early member of Cercle who, like Jean Violet, appears to have been involved with synarchy in France. He was also a member of the Information Council for the Americas (INCA), a group linked to the Kennedy assassination. As for the Colony, it was a kind of commune that would develop into a full scale torture center in Pinochet's Chile.
Its founder, Paul Scahfer, was a German immigrant who had collaborated with the Nazi regime. Numerous other notorious Nazis, including Otto Skorzeny, Gerhard Mertins, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, and Josef Mengele, were guests of the Colony, which was comprised entirely of former German nationals. Schafer was also an arch pedophile who was eventually convicted of molesting twenty-five children. He had previously been accused of child abuse in Germany before fleeing to Chile in the early 1960s. Dark rumblings of children going missing around the Colony and being imported to it from Germany have abounded for years.
As I was wrapping things up, I also noted the possible ties Le Cercle had to two other pedophile networks. One of these was allegedly run by Larry E. King, the manager of the Omaha-based Franklin Community Federal Credit Union, and a prominent figure in both the Nebraska and Washington political scenes. As the allegations of King's child abuse first came out in the wake of a federal investigation being launched against his credit union, this incident is frequently referred to as the Franklin scandal.
While ties to this ring were not especially strong, the presence of close Cercle associate William Casey and his trusted aide, Max Hugel, to King is eyebrow raising. Casey was close to Brian Crozier, the head of 61 which, as noted above, was closely linked to the alleged Westminster ring. Hugel may have known Douglas MacArthur II, who has been linked to the Belgium ring (noted before here and here), as well.
With this installment I shall pick up where I left off and consider the other network that may have had ties to Le Cercle. This one is one of the least commented upon and most disturbing aspects of the Kennedy assassination.
The Dark Life of David Ferrie
Easily the most bizarre figure linked to the Kennedy assassination (and that's saying something) is David Ferrie. Here's a bit about Ferrie's background and ties to the nation's most notorious assassination:
"... Made memorable by Joe Pesci's performance Oliver Stone's JFK, Ferrie was an improbable person. Had a novelist invented him, the genre would have to be either science-fiction or fantasy, or perhaps something avant-garde and experimental. In actuality, everything one reads about Ferrie is usually understatement. An Eastern Airlines pilot, an amateur cancer researcher, possibly an anti--Castro gunrunner and certainly (by his own admission) an associate of Sergio Arcacha Smith of the anti-Castro underground as well as of Mafia overlord Carlos Marcello, he was also in charge of Lee Harvey Oswald's old Civil Air Patrol unit in Louisiana. He had no facial hair at all, due to a condition known as alopecia, so he would paste on false eyebrows in a shocking shade of red and wear a red wig.... Ferrie came to the attention of District Attorney Jim Garrison when the latter was ramping up his investigation into New Orleans's connection with the Kennedy assassination. Ferrie's name had been dropped as a friend of both Guy Banister and Lee Harvey Oswald by one Jack Martin, who worked for Guy Banister (he of the FBI UFO files) as some sort of ersatz investigator. Martin himself worked with Ferrie on an investigation involving diploma mills and fraudulent ecclesiastical papers. Well, they claimed it was an investigation. It was obviously more than that. It seems that both Martin and Ferrie were only too happy to acquire these paper dignities themselves. Ferrie and Martin had both come to the attention of the Warren Commission briefly, and then were dropped as suspects. They both came under Jim Garrison's microscope later on, but Ferrie he died before he could testify. Garrison claimed that Ferrie was one of the most important people in history, but that might have been hyperbole. He was certainly one of the strangest."
Aside from this garden variety strangeness as well as his likely involvement in Kennedy assassination, Ferrie had another, even darker secret: he was an arch pedophile.
"The investigation into David Ferrie's unlawful and perverse activities with young boys would quickly become extremely complex, involving well over 20 young boys, and Ferrie and Arcacha Smith, as well as several unidentified Cubans, making strong-arm efforts to suppress evidence and threatening bodily harm to several of the young boys interviewed by detectives. Indeed, Arcacha Smith and an unidentified Cuban, according to police files, visited at least one boy at his place of work telling the young teen that he would seriously regret talking any further to investigators about Ferrie. The convoluted case would also provoke a number of issues that, today, remain unexplained and strange.
"First, a number of the boys interview by New Orleans police stated that they had traveled to Cuba with Ferrie and others a number of times after the island's takeover by Fidel Castro. One youth, Al Landry, according to police reports, said, 'that he had been to Cuba on several occasions since the revolution and stated that America should wake up because the Russians are 90 miles away.' Unknown is why Ferrie took these youths to Cuba in 1960 and 1961, and what they did in Cuba while there.
"Another youth told police that David Ferrie had taken several boys to Honduras 'to do some mining' and that additional trips to Latin America were planned by Ferrie. When police officers executed a search warrant on Ferrie's residence on August 23, 1961, they discovered a passport taken out in the name of Albert Paul Cheramie on August 2, 1960 (Cheramie is another of the boys Ferrie is believed to have sexually molested, and was reported to be a distant relative of Rose Cherami.) Why was Ferrie taking young boys to Honduras? What sort of 'mining' were they doing there?"
Ferrie's use of the name "Cheramie" and his alleged abuse of Albert Paul Cheramie is most curious. As noted above, Albert was reputedly a distant relative of Rose Cherami, another enigmatic figure who appears in the JFK assassination saga. Cherami was a prostitute mixed up with Carlos Marcello's network (as noted above, Ferrie worked for Marcello). On November 20, 1963, Cherami was found by the side of road in Louisiana injured and suffering from heroin withdraw.
Upon being picked up by authorities, she informed them that she was being transported from Florida to Texas as part of a drug and sex trafficking racket. She also claimed that President Kennedy would be assassinated in Dallas soon, a notion she apparently picked up from the two gangsters that were transporting her. Needless to say, he prediction proved to be quite accurate on the twenty-second.
While Rose claimed the men who were transporting her were Italians, other witnesses identified them as Cubans. One of the individuals was specifically identified as Sergio Arcacha Smith, Ferrie's above-mentioned associate who tried to strong arm kids into recounting their allegations of abuse at the former pilot's hands. Rose also claimed that she was a part of an interstate sex trafficking ring run by the Syndicate. Much more information on this topic can be found here.
Needless to say, it seems rather odd that two years prior to Rose's bizarre trip, Ferrie was accused of abusing a distant relative of hers' and that the same man (Arcacha Smith) who tried to cover-up Ferrie's misdeeds back then was identified as one of the individuals transporting Rose cross country in what was reputed to be an interstate prostitution ring. But back to Ferrie's abuse:
"David Ferrie, when questioned by the police on August 21, 1961, said that he had 'a degree in psychology, but only gave advice' to people and treated nobody. Neighbors who live near Ferrie's home told detectives that they 'understood that Ferrie was a psychologist' and that 'a steady stream of boys were in and out of Ferrie's home' for what some thought was help with problems.
"A number of the boys sexually molested by Ferrie were taken by law enforcement authorities to the Youth Study Center in New Orleans. The Center is a division of the city's Human Services Department, chartered 'to provide secure detention to youths ages 8-16 that have been arrested and are in pre-trial status.' The Center, which remains open today, also provides educational classes for housed youth. Since some of these boys molested by Ferrie had not been arrested, the reason for taking them to the Center is unclear and unexplained by police reports.
"According to a former New Orleans resident, who is closely related to two of the boys sexually molested by Ferrie and today lives in northern New York: 'The Youth Study Center has been a hotbed of corruption, sexual abuse, police brutality, and God only knows what else for decades. I understand that it all still goes on today.[David] Ferrie used to go there posing as a doctor of some sort, some sort of sham, to recruit kids.... He [Ferrie] took a lot of kids to Cuba, Guatemala and Honduras. Why? I don't know... He was an amateur hypnotist, learned out of a book, I guess, and he practiced trance stuff on a lot of boys. I understand that, besides Youth Study Center visits he went to the East [Louisiana] State Hospital a lot, where some of his boys were taken for treatment. There were rumors and stories for years before I left [Louisiana] that Ferrie was in bed, no pun intended, with one of the doctors there, who was a drug addict.... Ferrie wanted the doctor to not treat the boys... the crazy rumor was that the hospital was treating the boys with LSD to stop them from becoming homosexuals and Ferrie hated that.' "
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, pgs. 79-80)
The notion that Ferrie was taking sexually abused children to Guatemala is especially curious in light of another scandal that would involve an organization closely linked to the Cercle complex and which did not unfold until the late 1980s. More on that in the next installment, so do keep the Guatemala connection in mind dear reader.
The East Louisiana State Hospital appears on at least two other occasions during the JFK saga. Located in Jackson, Louisiana over 100 miles from New Orleans, Lee Harvey Oswald (who had no car and was perpetually broke) found himself applying for a job at the hospital at some point in the late summer of 1963. He was apparently brought to Jackson in a black Cadillac and was accompanied by two other men. Witnesses identified these two men as David Ferrie and Clay Shaw, the head of New Orleans' International Trade Mart and the man Jim Garrison brought charges against in his bid to expose the Kennedy assassination.
Rose Cherami had also been confined there, but two years prior, in 1961. Interestingly, several of the youths Ferrie was accused of abusing were taken there at the same time Cherami was being held there. Whether or not one of these boys was her alleged distant relative Albert Paul Cheramie is unknown.
In A Secret Order, Albarelli reports that shortly after Oswald's strange appearance at the hospital in 1963 a Dr. Alfred T. Butterworth went to work there. Butterworth had previously worked for Sidney Goettlieb at Fort Detrick as part of Project MK/NAOMI. He had also administered LSD at the NIMH Kentucky Addiction Farm (an institution used as part of Goettlieb's "behavior modification" experiments) prior to his employment at East Louisiana State Hospital. He would go onto administer LSD at Louisiana's notorious Angola prison. But moving along.
In addition to Ferrie's pedophilia, he was alleged to have been a bishop while also standing accused of conducting bizarre rituals performed in his apartment. Accounts of these acts are quite incredible:
"... According to Perry Russo – one of Jim Garrison's witnesses during the Clay Shaw trial, and not necessarily the most reliable or credible of those witnesses in the eyes of many investigators – Ferrie conducted the equivalent of Black Masses in his apartment at the appropriately-numbered 3330 Louisiana Avenue Parkway, New Orleans. James Kirkwood, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Chorus Line, conducted his own informal investigation in New Orleans during the Clay Shaw trial, published as American Grotesque in 1970. Kirkwood was unequivocally pro-Shaw and anti-Garrison, so although his lengthy study makes for entertaining reading, his conclusions are not always above reproach, but it is worth quoting his transcript of Perry Russo's description of Ferrie's weekly Black Masses:
The chalice featured animal blood, the wafer consisted of some kind of raw flesh, instead of cake or bread. He wore a little black toga, solid black. He wore nothing underneath.... He called it the American Eastern Catholic Orthodox Church... After all the ritual, shouted ritual... It ends up and it's a brutal thing, sadistic quality to it – bloodletting, chicken killing, stuff like that.... "
Black masses? And supposedly on behalf of an organization Russo referred to as the "American Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church. Ah dear reader, this brings us to quite a murky netherworld.
the AOCC and the Old Roman Catholic Church
The great Peter Levenda has long alleged that the church Ferrie was reportedly a member of was in fact the America Orthodox Catholic Church (AOCC). Levenda himself was briefly involved with the sect in his late teens and thus his claims must be taken seriously.
The AOCC was one of several curious churches that crop up in the Kennedy saga (a topic I briefly delved into here). Many of these churches were quite obscure and dominated by what are typically referred to as "wandering bishops." These are alleged holy figures with dubious consecrations that may have been driven into fringe sects due to their inability to confirm to orthodoxy (many wandering bishops were homosexuals) or because they were simply hucksters with some other covert agenda. The AOCC seems to have attracted a bit of both. Here's some background information concerning its origins and deep history:
"... the American Orthodox Catholic Church (AOCC) had its origins in Eastern Orthodoxy, which was in disarray after the Russian Revolution. In the 1960s, Bishop Carl Stanley was one of the church's leaders in the Midwest. He participated in the consecration of Jack Martin and David Ferrie, two of the more notorious members of what New Orleans Distict Attorney Jim Garrison decided was a conspiracy of anti-Castro Cubans, right-wing zealots, intelligence agents (and others) to murder the President. Stanley himself, according to documents in the National Archives, was a convicted felon with a substantial rap sheet. He was under investigation by the FBI after the assassination, evidently because Stanley himself had reported on his relationship with Ferrie and Martin and his suspicion that the two men were involved in killing the President. Garrison picked up on these threads during his own investigation in 1967-68, and cast a wider net: eventually, he would be seeking to depose wandering bishops as far afield as Canada, including one Earl Anglin James, who had consecrated the bishop who consecrated Stanley in the first place. From the aristocratic Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia to the somewhat sleazier American Orthodox Catholic Church, the ties to the Kennedy assassination were numerous and suggestive.
"One of Stanley's associates, the man who would take over the AOCC as its 'patriarch' a few years later, was Bishop Walter Myron Propheta. Stanley was based in Kentucky at the time, and Propheta in the Bronx...
"Propheta was a hard-line anti-Communist who had supported Dewey during the campaign against President Truman. A Ukrainian by birth, he had been a priest with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – another staunchly anti-Communist organization, since the Ukrainian people had suffered tremendously under the Moscow regime, which he tried to exterminate their language and culture along with a number of their political activists – and had left that Church to form his own congregation. The reasons for this are a little murky, and may have had more to do with politics than religion, since leaving the Church led by Bishop Bohdan and joining a suspect group that has been dismissed by most commentators as a kind of 'bishops mill' could not be seen as a particularly intelligent move.
"The key word here is 'intelligent,' for it seems that the AOCC – particularly under Propheta – was just that: a front for an intelligence organization. As suspected by Jim Garrison, the AOCC was hand in glove with a number of covert intelligence operations being run in the United States and abroad, the Church providing 'cover' in the form of authentic-looking religious documents, clerical outfits, and a widespread network of wandering bishops who for the most part were all rabidly right-wing. David Ferrie and Jack Martin were only the tip of the iceberg, for Propheta found himself involved in everything from the Biafran civil war to the Italian elections in the 1960s. One of his successors is not believed – by Italian military intelligence – to have been involved in money laundering for Serbian terrorists during the latest crises in Bosnia and Kosovo.
"Indeed, the AOCC was not the only such 'wandering' denomination so involved. The Old Roman Catholic Church had connections to intelligence activities at home and abroad as well, including a famous hypnotist who was said to have been the man who 'programmed' the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan..."
The above-quote comes from the mysterious "Simon," who was either another priest involved with the AOCC around the time Peter Levenda was (i.e. 1968-69) or a pseudonym for Levenda himself. Simon first came to public notice in the late 1970s with the publication of what is typically referred to as the "Simon Necronomicon." Simon alleged to have discovered this work amongst a collection of works that were stolen from an Orthodox denomination though most believe it was a hoax to cash in on the fictional Necronomicon that appears in the works of H.P. Lovecraft and others.
As for the famous hypnotist from the Old Roman Catholic Church, it is first useful to note the connections that this fellow sect had to the AOCC. They chiefly revolved around the above-mentioned Earl Anglin James, a Canada-based bishop who also became ensnared in Jim Garrison's investigation. James does not seem to have been a member of the AOCC, but was close to Stanley and Propheta (as well as Jack S. Martin, another alleged AOCC member who worked with Ferrie in investigating these "bishop mills"):
"According to the paper's report, James had been a bishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church in 1945, but had been excommunicated two years later. The story is more interesting than these bare-bones would indicate, however.
"James was indeed consecrated – on June 17, 1945 – by the infamous Henry Carfora, the guiding light behind the Old Roman Catholic Church and its policy of consecrating all and sundry in those days. Carfora was assisted in this consecration by the indomitable Hubert Augustus Rogers. Thus James' pedigree is firmly in the wandering bishop camp.
"To make matters if possibly any more complicated, Christopher Carl Stanley – the bishop who was being 'investigated' by Jack Martin and who consecrated David Ferrie a bishop – was himself consecrated by the same Earl Anglin Lawrence James.
"Thus we have a direct line of apostolic assassination succession from Carfora to James to Stanley to Ferrie: the latter three all at one time or another suspects in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy. This is not to forget the line that goes from Carfora to Stanley to Propheta."
Thus it would seem that Stanley and Propheta --the two chief figures in the AOCC during this era --with both consecrated by members of the Old Roman Catholic Church. In Dead Names, Simon/Levenda notes that he had helped repair relations between the AOCC and the Old Roman Church, implying that relations were not especially close, during the late 1960s. But there does appear to be one peculiar connection between the AOCC and the Old Roman Catholic Church at this time: David Ferrie and his ties to the above-mentioned hypnotist.
As I'm sure many readers have already guessed, this hypnotist is none other than the notorious William Joseph Bryan. Here's some background on Bryan and his deep ties:
"... A large, bearded man who taxed the scales at nearly 400 pounds, he was even stranger in his appearance than hairless Ferry; a fat man who expected his secretaries to sleep with them, and who used hypnosis to sexually exploit still others. He demonstrated his hypnotic powers in public on many occasions, even putting noted defense attorney F. Lee Bailey under, along with two other lawyers, in a seminar organized by Melvin Belli... He also consulted on many famous criminal cases, and had hypnotized accused serial killer Albert DiSalvo (the 'Boston Strangler') in his cell.
"Bryan worked in the Los Angeles area, out of an office on Sunset Strip in Hollywood, after checkered career in which he was once a drummer for Tommy Dorsey's band and then, during the Korean War, worked for the US Air Force in what he termed 'the brainwashing section.' If this was, in fact, true and not some of Bryan's notorious hyperbole, then he certainly came to the attention of the CIA, which had just geared up Operation BLUEBIRD at this moment and had sent agents to Korea to investigate the brainwashing phenomenon and to come up with ways to protect American servicemen against it... As an admittedly powerful hypnotist, Bryan would been scooped up by the CIA almost at once. Hypnosis – along with drugs – was the CIA's immediate strategy in the development of the 'Manchurian Candidate,' and they were working with hypnotists in New York and elsewhere in the attempt to develop a workable protocol. If the records of Bryan's success are anything to go by, then he already had the system down pat. According to Bryan's associates, he admitted to working for the CIA; the only question is, for how long?
"Bryan had a flamboyant personality and lifestyle that would have been vulnerable for an ordinary intelligence operative; Bryan had no qualms about discussing his sexual exploits, however, so he was a poor target for blackmail. From available evidence in the public record, if Bryan was involved with the CIA as he claimed, it was probably in the capacity of a consultant, although one can imagine cases in which he would have been called in to perform a tricky hypnotic maneuver. This is, in fact, the belief of investigators such as Turner and Christian, as well as Political Science Professor Philip H. Melanson (The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 1991, 1994). They believe sufficient evidence exists to suggest the Bryan was the hypno-programmer of Sirhan Sirhan."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 312-313)
Sufficient evidence now exists to tie Bryan to the CIA. The great H.P. Albarelli notes:
"... Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Bryan was associated with several ultra-conservative right wing groups and through these associations came to the attention of the CIA's Morse Allen, a staunch proponent of the use of hypnotism and intelligence activities. One CIA Security Office document, from the early 1950s, details a lengthy meeting in New York City between Allen and Bryan, during which Allen sought assurances that Bryan could employ hypnosis in order to control selected, unwitting subjects..."
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, pgs. 151-152)
Morse Allen was the head of Project Bluebird and later Project Artichoke. These programs were conducted out of the Office of Security and were separate from the much more well known Project MK-Ultra, which was headed by Sidney Gottlieb and hailed from the Directorate of Science and Technology. The divide and rivalry between these two programs was addressed briefly before here.
Albarelli notes, however, that Bryan does seem to have had ties to MK-Ultra, as well. In 1955 Bryan had founded the American Institute of Hypnosis, which in some of its publications from 1959 and 1961 credited the Granger Research Company with "technical assistance" and other things. Granger was actually a CIA front company that had been co-founded Sidney Gottlieb and other individuals involved with MK-Ultra around 1954. But moving along.
Bryan has other curious skeletons in his closet as well, most notably his relationship to Ferrie and his fondness for underage girls:
"Steven Duffy and Greg Parker research on William Bryan, Jr.: Hypnotist Bryan died under very strange circumstances in a motel room in Las Vegas. The details of his death vary and are quite unclear. Some reports assert that he died of heart attack; others state he was shot to death, and still others claim he committed suicide after having a three-day party of sorts with two underage prostitutes. One additional report states that Bryan was killed by a prostitute after he told her he had hypnotized Sirhan Sirhan to murder Robert Kennedy. (Some readers may recall that in the past 25 years at least ten CIA employees have died under strange circumstances in various motel rooms across the country.) Bryan was once charged in Nevada (his home state) for furnishing liquor to a young girl under the age of eighteen while he was attempting to convince her of the merits of 'free love.' In 1961 Bryan was extradited to California to face charges filed by District Attorney William Raggio, who was a close friend of Frank Sinatra. Reportedly, Bryan was very close to Sinatra. Bryan told a number of people that Sinatra was responsible for his being hired as a consultant on the film, The Manchurian Candidate. Bryan lost his license to practice medicine in California. Bryan, like Dr. Renatus Hartogs before him, was once found guilty of sexual misconduct with four female patients. Reportedly, he paid another woman $50,000 to not file a sexual misconduct complaint against him. There are also claims the Brian hypnotized and programmed would-be-assassin Arthur Bremer to kill Gov. George Wallace in Maryland. And last, but not least, Bryan was a close associate David Ferrie, having taught Ferrie hypnosis. Bryan, like Ferrie, was a member of the Old Catholic Church."
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, pg. 435n)
As far as this researcher is aware, the above-mentioned Duffy and Parker are the only individuals who have alleged that Bryan personally knew Ferrie and had even trained him in hypnosis. Still, William Turner (a former FBI agent) and John Christian in researching their classic The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: The Conspiracy and the Cover-Up, had turned up evidence that Bryan and Ferrie had belonged to the same branch of the Old Roman Catholic Church. Given there involvement in far right wing politics as well, the possibility that Ferrie and Bryan had known each other is quite strong.
We are then left with the implications that these two individuals, who by all accounts were first rate hypnotists with intelligence ties, were active in this underground network of wandering bishops during the 1960s and both happened to become mixed in the assassinations of JFK and RFK respectively. What's more, both men appear to be pedophiles as this is not the first time I've encountered evidence that Bryan had a thing for underage girls.
Certainly this is all rather curious. But what does it have to do with Le Cercle, the reader may be asking. Well, to answer that question, I must now turn my attention to an obscure order of knighthood that was very briefly noted in the third installment of this series.
The Sovereign Order of Saint John
Quite a bit of information concerning the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ) has already been published on this blog, so I shall be brief. Some times referred to as the Shickshinny Knights of Malta due to its headquarters in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania, the order unsurprisingly claimed descent from the Medieval Knights Hospitallers via the Russian line of succession. As the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM, an organization we have encountered repeatedly throughout this series) is acknowledged by the Vatican as the official successors to the Knights Hospitallers, the claims of the SOSJ are largely dismissed as a hoax.
When the group was founded, however, is something of a mystery. Most accounts hold that the SOSJ did not come into existence until 1956 when the order was incorporated by its long time Grand Master, Charles Pichel. Others have cited 1908 for the group's founding as this is reportedly when its Grand Priory was established in Luzerne County (home of Shickshinny). This researcher has found reliable references to the order dating back to the 1930s, but not earlier than that (though Pichel was involved in at least one other esoteric order as early as the 1920s).
Charles Pichel is quite a curious figure. He was suspected of being an agent for the Nazi regime during the 1930s as well as being accused of drug trafficking. As I noted before here, here and here, there is compelling evidence that Pichel and early members of the order may have had ties to the infamous Thule Society. These connections came from a group far right wing White Russians that ended up in Germany and later the United States following the Russian Revolution. Thus, while the SOSJ likely does not have nearly a thousand year legacy dating back to the Crusades it may well have existed since at last the 1930s and had origins with the Thule Society.
While generally dismissed as a marginal organization, the SOSJ has nonetheless been linked to both the assassination of JFK (as noted before here) as well as the Oklahoma City bombing (for these links, check here). It also played an enormous role in creating the modern America patriot movement (and especially the militia movement), which has been extensively linked to terrorism (as noted before here). This is hardly surprising consider the type of "talent" the organization attracted.
The SOSJ was at the height of its prowess during the 1960s and 1970s. By this time it had accumulated a roster of initiates littered with "former" high ranking military officers, including at least nine generals and eight admirals by 1970 of the US military. Quite a few of these initiates had deep backgrounds with intelligence connections.
There was of course Admiral Charles Cooke, who played a key role in bringing the military and CIA into KMT drug trafficking (noted before here). And then was Herman E. Kimsey, a former Chief of Analysis and Research for the CIA. Meanwhile Admiral Sir Barry Domvile was a former head of British Naval Intelligence until his Nazi sympathies led to his internment during WWII. And then there was Colonel Philip J. Corso whose military career researcher Kevin Coogan described thus: "... a 20-year Army Intelligence operative who retired in August 1963. He seems to spend some of his time in military working on a Operation Gladio-type operation in Germany in the 1950s" (Dreamer of the Day, pg. 605). As was noted here and here, both Propaganda Due (P2) and the intrigues in Belgium were linked to Operation Gladio (as well as Le Cercle, as noted before here).
And who could forget about General Charles Willoughby, Douglas MacArthur's chief of intelligence. Willoughby was effectively the most powerful US intelligence officer in the Far East from 1941 until 1951, at which point both the Pipe and Willoughby were drummed out of the Army by Truman. As I noted before here, Willoughby would go on to offer his services to Allen Dulles in 1955 and would shortly there after pop up in a host of organizations with intelligence applications.
One of these organizations was the International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture (ICDCC), which was addressed in part four of this series. As we saw there, it is likely that the ICDCC was an auxiliary of Le Cercle. Willoughby would have been in contact with Antoine Pinay himself as part of this group and may well have been a member of Le Cercle.
At this point I would like to pause and point out to the reader the similarities between the SOSJ and the Brussels-based Academy (addressed at length before here and here). Both organizations effectively seemed to have severed as bridges between elite policy-centric organizations and street level operatives. Above the Academy was Le Cercle and elements of the united Europe movement (i.e. Paneuropean Union, Habsburg's CEDI and even the Bilderberger Group to some extent) who work active in the organization. But also active were terror networks like Aginter Press and the Belgian fascist militias such as Front de la Jeunese (FJ) and the Westland New Post (headed by Paul Latinus, an asset of the DIA as noted before here).
The SOSJ was in much the same position. Above it was the American Security Council, comprised of numerous "former" high ranking CIA, FBI and military men as well as ample funds provided by many of the largest defense contractors in the nation (i.e. General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, etc). But the SOSJ also had extensive ties to the America militia movement, as especially the Minutemen and the Posse Comitatus (as noted before here), that would be linked to acts of terrorism for decades.
As was noted above, both the Belgians and the P2 in the Academy had ties to Operation Gladio. As noted above, SOSJ initiate Colonel Philip J. Corso may have been involved in organizing a Gladio network in Germany prior to his time in the SOSJ. This researcher has long suspected that the SOSJ was effectively the command center for the American wing of Operation Gladio and its ties to Le Cercle (which seems to have been quite active in the Gladio networks to say nothing of Operation Condor [noted here], which was effectively South America's version of Gladio) and the fact that at least one SOSJ member seems to have been actively engaged in planning Gladio only reinforces this researcher's belief. There is another curious connection as well:
"... an arrangement for the creation and support of right-wing 'stay-behind' groups in Europe to combat the risk of Communist takeover. This arrangement in Italy, known later as Operation Gladio, led in turn to a shadow system of parallel intelligence agencies, shielded from the overview of Italy's public and more centrist government. These CIA-linked agencies developed a strategy of tension in which a series of lethal terrorist bombings, falsely presented as left-wing, were used to drive Italy further to the right...
"Guido Giannettini, one of the Italian authors of the strategy of tension (and of the Piazza Fontana bombing eight years later), came to America in 1961 to lecture at the Naval War College on 'Techniques and Possibilities of a Coup d'Etat in Europe.' In March 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared their own documents developing Giannettini's strategy. This was Operation Northwoods, which many books have cited as a 'precedent' for 'U.S. complicity in the attacks of 9/11.' As journalist James Bamford wrote of Northwoods: 'The plan, which had been written with the approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets.' "
(The Road to 9/11, Peter Dale Scott, pg. 14)
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCOS) who approved Northwoods was General Lyman Lemnitzer. The same year that Lemnitzer approved Northwoods he was shipped off to Europe to become the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. JFK had firmly rejected Northwoods and it has been speculated that Lemnitzer's removal as Chairman of the JCOS stemmed from the disgust Kennedy felt towards the Northwoods scheme (as noted before here). Nonetheless, Gladio operations in Europe would begin to kick into high gear by the end of that decade. Richard Cottrell in Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe compellingly argued Lemnitzer played a key role in escalating Gladio.
What does this have to do with SOSJ? Well, consider who invited Guido Giannettini to lecture at the Naval War College:
"In November 1961, Giannettini had been invited by General Pedro del Valle, commander the United States Central Naval Academy at Annapolis, to conduct a three-day seminar on 'The Techniques and Prospects of a Coup d'Etat in Europe.' His audience included both Pentagon and CIA representatives. This appears to have established Giannettini as a respected figure among NATO spy chiefs."
(Stefano Delle Chiaie: Portrait of a Black Terrorist, Stuart Christie, pg. 26)
General Pedro del Valle was not just a member of the SOSJ, but also a member of its Supreme Court. What's more, he was reportedly one of three men who Colonel William Potter Gale alleged to have instructed him to establish the Posse Comitatus (noted before here). Another of these men was Colonel Benjamin von Stahl, another SOSJ initiate. Was this a component of Operation Northwoods? Certainly these connections are compelling, but I have digressed enough. Back to the matter at hand.
The SOSJ and the Wandering Bishops
With Willoughby as a bridge between Le Cercle and the SOSJ, the question then becomes: was there a tie between the SOSJ and the AOCC or the Old Roman Catholic Church? And the answer does indeed seem to be in the affirmative.
While Peter Levenda has long insisted that David Ferrie was a member of the American Orthodox Catholic Church, there is but one problem with this claim: the AOCC did not in fact exist at the time Ferrie was consecrated. There was an older version of the AOCC active in New York during the 1930s, but it seems to have been totally defunct by the 1950s. It was until 1964 that Stanley and Prophets would revive the church. This was a good three years after Carl Stanley has consecrated Ferrie a bishop. So while Ferrie may have ultimately been a member of the AOCC after 1964, he could not have been a member at the time of his consecration.
So what then was the church that Ferrie was consecrated in? Stephen Roy, who is acknowledged as one of the best Ferrie researchers out there and who is very skeptical of his role in the Kennedy assassination, did a lot of research into this question. He came up with the following answer:
"The group Martin and Ferrie were associated with was the 'Byzantine Primitive Catholic Church, Old catholic Church in N.A., Apostolic, Orthodox, Catholic, Order of Saint John,' according to the consecration certificates. The group Ferrie alone was associated with was the 'Society of the Domestic Missionaries Of Saint Basil the Great', according to his membership card."
"V. Sovereign Order of St.John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller, Priory of the Holy Saviour (1960)
"This group is one of the many scissions of the Shickshinny operation (see II). It was headed by the Rev. Christopher Carl Jerome Stanley of the Old Catholic Church. Stanley was consecrated by J.F. Assendelft-Altland, a highly controversial 'episcopus vagans' and self- styled Patriarch of the Ancient Catholic Byzantine Church. According to Formhals,(5) Stanley initially styled himself 'Bishop' later 'Archbishop'. Somewhere along the line he also acquired the titles of 'Count of Durazzo' and 'Prince of the Holy Roman Empire'. The prioral seat was originally located in Louisville, then moved to Seattle, and finally to Texas. After Stanley’s death the group disappeared from the American chivalric scene."
note that Stanley has a Maltese cross on his cloak, the insignia of Knights Hospitallers and their successors
"One of many scissions of the Shickshinny operation..." And up above, the Order of Saint John is listed as part of the title of Stanley's church. Is it possible then that this "Byzantine Primitive Catholic Church... " began as an auxiliary of the SOSJ? This is certainly possible as according to Michael W. Cuneo in The Smoke of Satan, the SOSJ operated about fifty chapels across the country that performed the Traditional Mass circa 1993. Did Stanley's church start out as one of those chapels before he broke with the SOSJ and formed his own rival order of knighthood?
What's more, how serious was this break with the SOSJ? Peter Levenda, in an article entitled "The Bishop and the Boys Part III" that originally appeared on his Sinister Forces website (and which is only available now in cut and paste form here), made the following statement:
"One of the other bishops of the American Orthodox Catholic Church – Homer Ferdinand Roebke, an associate and colleague of Carl Stanley – consecrated one Forest Ernest Barber on March 7, 1965, less than five months after the Forbes consecration. As I am informed by investigator David Guyatt, Barber was a member of the Augustan Society (an 'International Genealogical, Historical, Heraldic and Chivalric Society' with some interesting associations) as well as of the Shickshinny Knights of Malta, a far-right organization and secret society that numbered among its initiates such intelligence notables as the rabid right-winger Major General Charles A. Willoughby (the former Adolf Tscheppe-Weidenbach and member of General MacArthur’s intelligence staff during World War II) as well as Colonel Philip J Corso, a man with a long background in intelligence dating from the war who was the author of The Day After Roswell, a controversial memoire of his experiences in the aftermath of the UFO crash in New Mexico."
So it would seem by 1965 at least one member of the SOSJ was admitted into Stanley's church, now the AOCC. This, just a little over a year after the founding of the AOCC. Given the close ties the SOSJ had to the Traditional Catholic sects, this researcher suspects that contact may have continued between Stanley (who was apparently an SOSJ initiate) and the SOSJ during the early 1960s. And if not with Stanley, possibly with other members of the AOCC.
Another possible tie between the SOSJ and the AOCC comes via Willoughby's frequent corespondent and fellow member of the ICDCC: Theodor Oberlander. Oberlander was briefly addressed in part four of this series, but I have since come into more intriguing information concerning this "former" Nazi. According to David Teacher in his groundbreaking examination of Le Cercle entitled Rogue Agents, Oberlander became involved as a "patron" of Karl Friedrich Grau's Frankfurt Study Group very early in its existence (i.e. prior to 1960). Grau was for years one of the Cercle's primary German partners and a regular attendant of their meetings. His Frankfurt Study Group was another propaganda network along the lines of Brain Crozier's Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC, noted briefly here), but geared toward the German-centric regions of Europe.
Oberalnder was also on the Executive Committee of an organization known as the European Freedom Center (EFC), a group closely linked to the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Paul Vankerkhoven would also sit on the Executive Committee during the mid-1970s. He was a close associate of Florimond Damman, the founder of the Academy. Damman himself would also be active in the EFC as well.
Thus, it would seem that Oberlander had quite close ties to Le Cercle, ties that may even have pre-dated his activities with Willoughby in the ICDCC during the early 1960s. For our purposes here, however, it is Oberlander's links to Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (one of the organizations behind the founding of the World Anti-Communist League, as noted before here) that are of great interest:
"Theodore Oberlander, the German commander of Ukrainian Nightingales, has continued his partnership with Yaroslav Stesko through the World Anti-Communist League. A staunch Nazi, Oberlander joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and was made an honorary officer of the Nazi SD (Gestapo) in 1936. The Ukrainians accused of carrying out many of the purges in the Lvov area in June 1941 were under his command."
(Inside the League, Scott & John Anderson, pg. 44)
In The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dick Russell notes that Oberlander and Stesko were "two of Willoughby's closet European associates" (pg. 595). Both men were deeply involved in anti-Communist Ukrainian groups for decades. Indeed, Stesko was arguably the most powerful figure in the expat Ukrainian community for decades after WWII.
As was noted above, Bishop Walter Propheta was himself Ukrainian and a long time priest in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He was also quite active in anti-Communist activities for decades after leaving his homeland. The possibility that Propheta and Stesko knew one another is quite high. Indeed, this researcher suspects that there is a strong chance Propheta was active in the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) at least during the early days.
There is also a strong chance he knew Oberalnder (who commanded Germany's Ukrainian forces during WWII and would be deeply involved with them for years afterwards via his work with West Germany's refugee affairs division and later through the ABN and WACL) as well. And both Stesko and Oberlander were in regular contact with Willoughby. Thus, the possibility that Willoughby and Propheta were acquainted with one another is quite strong. It is interesting to note that a little over a year after Propheta seems to have become involved with Stanley (who had likely broken with the SOSJ around 1960) a SOSJ member would join the AOCC in 1965, as noted above. But moving along.
There is also a strong possibility that the SOSJ also had close ties to the Old Roman Catholic Church (which Ferrie and Bryan may have been members of by the mid-1960s) as well. Peter Levenda indicates as much in his The Hitler Legacy, noting: "... the Shickshinny Knights of Malta: a group founded in the 1950s by one Charles Pichel, who had Old Catholic Church connections and a desire to replace the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta with his own group, headquartered in the town of Shickshinny, Pennsylvania" (pg. 273). As was noted above, Stanley's Byzantine Primitive Catholic Church was said to be a part of the Old Catholic network in North America.
Another of these ties may have been SOSJ initiate Father Gerard G. Shelley, who was the head of the entire Old Roman Catholic Church in Britain. He also had extensive ties with the Old Roman Catholic sects in North America and was the head of the SOSJ's "Old Roman Catholic Section." In Is the Order of St. John Masonic another SOSJ initiate, Father James F. Wathen, hints (though never implicitly states) that there is a tie between the SOSJ and the Old Roman Catholic Church as well.
All of this tends to strongly indicate that the SOSJ had quite extensive ties to both the AOCC (and its predecessors) as well as the Old Roman Catholic Church.
The INCA Connection
At this point we must now consider the Information Council for the Americas (INCA), first addressed in part five. There it was noted that one member of the INCA's "International Advisory Committee" was none other than Georges Albertini, a very close associate of Brain Crozier and a long time member of Le Cercle. Like many of Le Cercle's non-British/American members, Albertini had collaborated with the Nazis during World War II during France's Vichy regime. Afterwards he was imprisoned for this collaboration along with the infamous banker Hippolyte Worms.
Worms himself along with various officers of the Banque Worms were cited by William L. Langer (an OSS veteran) in his Our Vichy Gamble as being enamored with the ideology of synarchy, which was closely linked to Martinism (as was noted in part two). This so-called "Worms clique" was said to be greatly involved in the spread of this ideology amongst the French elite. Whether or not Albertini became involved in these affairs is unknown but he would acquire a position with the Banque Worms after the war that he would hold for decades. Albertini was also alleged to have been friendly with French military officers linked to La Cagoule (a proto-fascist militant secret order said to based upon synarchy and Martinism) in the pre-war years.
As I noted in part two of this series Jean Violet, one of the co-founders of Le Cercle and a major force behind it for decades, was said to have been a member of La Cagoule during the 1930s. Thus, two of the key figures from Le Cercle's French wing potentially had ties to synarchy and one of them happened to be a part of the New Orleans-based INCA that has also been linked too the Kennedy assassination.
As was noted in part five, the INCA is mainly known for promoting a radio interview between Lee Harvey Oswald and the INCA's Edward Butler (among others) in which Oswald proclaimed himself a Communist. Researchers such as Edward Haslam and Judith Vary Baker have alleged that the INCA head Dr. Alton Ochsner (a famed surgeon and cancer researcher) was engaged in research with Dr. Mary Sherman to develop biological weapons to be used against Castro for the US intelligence community. David Ferrie was said to be a part of this team.
The research of Haslam and especially Baker is highly controversial, however, and cannot be described as a reliable source. This researcher is unaware of connections Ferrie had to the INCA outside of Haslam and Baker's research, though certainly Ferrie traveled in many of the same anti-Communist circles as the INCA crowd. And there is quite compelling evidence linking Lee Harvey Oswald himself to Ferrie.
There is little dispute, however, that Alton Ocshner knew Clay Shaw, Jim Garrison's chief suspect. As was noted in the prior installment, several witnesses spotted Shaw with David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald near Clinton, LA and later Jackson in the late summer of 1963. Indeed, quite a few witnesses have come forward over the years to assert that their was a relationship of some kind between Shaw and Ferrie. What's more, there are also indications that Shaw was friendly with Ferrie's boss during the early 1960s, former FBI man turned private detective Guy Banister (much more information on Banister can be found here).
"... The Information Council of the Americas chief sponsor was another New Orleans rightwing patrician, Dr. Alton Ocshner. Through this author's field investigation in New Orleans, there is no doubt Banister knew Ochsner, and so did Clay Shaw. In fact, there is a photo in the New Orleans Public Library of Shaw with Ochsner..."
(Destiny Betrayed, James DiEugenio, pg. 157)
In the same work, DiEugenio indicates that Shaw also knew Sergio Arcacha Smith, the above-mentioned Cuban who reportedly helped cover-up Ferrie's abuse of children in New Orleans during 1961: "He [Arcacha Smith] relates to Clay Shaw since Shaw donated funds to the CRC and, during the Garrison investigation, Shaw made direct calls to Arcacha Smith's lawyer" (pg. 185). DiEugenio also reports that Arcacha Smith was friendly with INCA's Edward Butler as well. In general it seems that there was much overlap between the INCA and Guy Banister's network (which included Ferrie, Arcacha Smith and almost surely Oswald himself).
Clay Shaw was also a member of the notorious Permindex trade organization originally based out of Basel, Switzerland and alleged to be a front for the CIA. It has long been linked to the Kennedy assassination. As I noted before here, there are allegations that Propaganda Due Grand Master Licio Gelli was also a member of Permindex. In other accounts, it is held that close associates of Gelli and not Gelli himself were involved in Permindex. This potential connection will be even more curious in a moment.
"Shaw was deeply involved in the New Orleans network linked to MKULTRA with strong hints of a sadistic child abuse ring operating in the background, not the least at Shaw's own home where hooks suspended from the ceiling with bloody palm prints were found. [116] The New Orleans network had various ties not only to the Rockefeller group in New York, but also Le Cercle and the American Security Council. Shaw himself counted the House of Savoy and the Borghese family [117] among his associates. Both families, and both almost certainly linked to the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei, were deeply involved in running the underground fascist armies that carried out the CIA's strategy of tension in Italy. Most worrying of all, Shaw counted among his associates Princess Jacqueline de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, a member of the family named in the Dutroux X-Dossiers as having organized elite child hunts at their domain in southern Belgium. We just described how Douglas MacArthur II was a friend and associate of the Belgians accused of these exact practices."
The Borghese family was responsible for Junio Valerio Borghese, the so-called "Black Prince" linked to a possible coup in Italy circa 1970. Borghese was very close to the notorious Italian neo-fascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie, who in turn was closely linked to Propaganda Due (noted before here and here) Borghese and his family may also have been linked to the Belgium network, as I noted before here.
And that brings us to one of the most bizarre accusations against Clay Shaw, a homosexual and apparent sado-masochist. During his arrest in 1965 some curious things were found:
"The 'evidence' produced from Clay Shaw's home were a black gown, a net hat, a black hood and cape, a chain and five whips. Several of these items had been part of Shaw's Mardi Gras outfits in previous years — he was wearing the robe and carrying a whip when he met Layton Martens during Mardi Gras in 1965, as Martens would later describe (Milton Brener, The Garrison Case, 156). Other friends of Shaw's would also recalled the costume, including Mrs. Lawrence Fischer (James Kirkwood, American Grotesque, 27; see also Epstein, 186; Kirkwood, 49; Lambert, 76, 76 fn.)."
It is interesting to note that the above-mentioned Layton Martens that Shaw encountered while wearing a robe and carrying a whip was allegedly one of the children Ferrie had molested. This lends further credence to the possibility that Ferrie was involved in some type of pedophile ring in New Orleans, one that may have been linked to Belgian networks. Certainly Shaw seems to have been near to Ferrie as well as several alleged European pedophiles of noble blood in addition to his sado-masochism. For our purposes here, however, what is most noteworthy were the allegations that Shaw owned a black hood and camp. This shall be most curious (more so that it already is) in a moment dear reader.
Black Friars
Let us return now to William Joseph Bryan, the famed hypnotist with CIA connections who was also a priest (or bishop) in the Old Roman Catholic Church. Easily the most bizarre account of Bryan appears in a worked called Project Artichoke by one David M. Silvey. Many of Silvey's claims are quite incredible though H.P. Albarelli, easily the most credible researcher on Artichoke and MK-ULTRA active today, found some Silvey's claims compelling.
"... writer David M. Silvey, in his book, Project Artichoke, provided some very provocative leads on hypnotist William Bryan and FBN agents George White and Ira Feldman. The latter owned property near Silvey's family home and knew Silvey's mother. Incredibly, Silvey's book links one of the victims of the infamous Zodiac Killer with Bryan, the CIA, and the assassination of Robert Kennedy. When this author read Silvey's book, it brought to mind my conversation about George Hunter White with San Francisco Chronicle crime reporter Paul Avery, who closely covered the Zodiac story – as depicted in the film, Zodiac, starring Robert Downey, Jr. (who played Avery). Having also written an excellent article on George White, Avery remarked to this author that he had long been suspicious of White's possible connections to the brutal Zodiac killings. Avery, now deceased, remarked that there had been other incidents of violence connected to White and Feldman that 'troubled' him, and that the activities of the two MK/ULTRA operative 'nagged' at him, as if they were 'trying to tell me something.' "
This researcher had independently began to come to some of the same conclusions as Silvey does in Project Artichoke, namely that there was a connection to Zodiac, the Manson family and white supremacist terror groups like the Order (which was very briefly addressed before here). He indicates that Bryan and the Old Roman Catholic Church were part of this network. At one point he gives a description of a ritual involving this network and Bryan:
"We had to be there at midnight of course, I was surprised to see Dr. Bryan dressed up in a black KKK looking gown with the pointed hood, the movie cameras and lighting was all in place and generators were running. There was an armed triple roving perimeter. This is going to sound stupid but just like in the movies as it got closer to midnight dark clouds started to form just above us. A God fearing – devil worshiping ceremony was about to bring Al Hilal and Four P into The Order."
I'm sure many of you at this point are wandering where I'm going with this. Well, consider Silvey's description of Bryan's ritual regalia: "a black KKK looking gown with the pointed hood."
Now, consider these images of La Cagoule (which literally translates to "the hood"; sometimes the group was known as La Cagoulard, "the hooded ones") from 1930s France:
Isn't it rather odd that these fascist secret societies seemed to have adopted black cloaks and head gear resembling a Klansman's hood for their regalia?
Of course, a tie between La Cagoule and P2 is quite likely. As was noted before here, P2 initiate Giancarlo Elia Valori was active in the Academy during the 1970s at the same time Jean Violet was also playing a major role in it --the same Jean Violet accused of being a member of La Cagoule in the 1930s. And indeed, there were numerous other ties to P2 and the Academy, as was noted in that article. According to ISGP, a "strictly confidential" report written by a Belgian magistrate has recently turned up verifying a tie between Violet and the P2.
And here we find William Joseph Bryan described as also dressing up in such attire. The same William Joseph Bryan who was a priest in the Old Roman Catholic Church, which was also linked to the Sovereign Order of Saint John. And of course there's Charles Willoughby of the SOSJ active in the International Committee for the Defense of Christian Culture (ICDCC) with Antoine Pinay, the sometimes namesake of Le Cercle.
And of course the SOSJ was likely connected to the American Orthodox Catholic Church of which David Ferrie was a member. And, as noted above, reportedly Ferrie and Bryan knew one another. Certainly they would have had much in common, least of all their interest in hypnotism and pedophilia.
And of course there are all of those pedophile rings linked to Le Cercle, which also seems to have had prominent members with ties to synarchy (the ideology reputedly behind La Cagoule) active from its very inception. One of them, Jean Violet, was very close to Antoine Pinay, who was active with Willoughby in the ICDCC. And what of Clay Shaw, a man who apparently had black robes and a hood in his possession, and his ties to Dr. Alton Ocshner, who was active in the INCA with Georges Albertini, one of those Le Cercle members linked to synarchy? And what of Shaw's friendship with one of the boys Ferrie was accused of molesting? And of course, there's the possibility that P2 Grand Master Licio Gelli was involved with Permindex with Shaw. As I noted before here, there are allegations that Gelli and P2 were involved with Martinism and synarchy as well.
Is all of this a mere coincidence? Certainly the presence of black robes and a hood in occult activities is the epitome of a cliche and it would be ridiculous to claim that this alone is evidence of a network. But what of these black Klansman's hoods and black robes? The Klan itself at times employed black hoods and black robes, but this was primarily for the so-called "Nighthawk" component (a security section, apparently). These were mostly low ranking members and it is unknown if the black robes were even employed by the Klan when La Cagoule adopted them.
Outside of La Cagoule, P2 and Silvey's description of Bryan, this researcher is unaware of such regalia being used as the standard apparel for a secret society. And the degrees of separation between these three instances are not especially great.
What's more, there is a certain modus operandi that connects these three occurrences. La Cagoule was a proto-fascist paramilitary group that actively employed terrorism to destabilize France. Later, alleged La Cagoule member Jean Violet would become involved with the Academy, a Brussels-based group with ties to neo-facist militias such as the above-mentioned Front de la Jeunese (FJ) and the Westland New Post (WNP) that employed acts of terrorism to destabilize Belgium (noted before here). Propaganda Due, as noted before here and here, was very close to neo-fascist Italian paramilitary networks that used terrorism to destabilize the Italian state. And the Old Roman Catholic Church that Bryan was active in almost certainly had ties to the Sovereign Order of Saint John, an organization that was still being linked to "patriot" militias engaged in terrorism as recently the early 1990s. And all of these different networks appear to be united by the mysterious Cercle complex.
the symbol of the Zodiac killer, which seems to be a play on the ancient solar cross emblem
For these reasons, this researcher believes that this may constitute a kind of secret society or even a cult within Le Cercle. I have dubbed it "Fratelli Neri" --Italian for "Black Friars." In some accounts this is what initiates of P2 referred to themselves within their meetings. It was also the name of the bridge where Roberto Calvi's body was found hanging from, as noted before here. It seems especially appropriate considering the possibility that Old Roman Catholic Church members also employed this type of regalia as well.
the Paneuropean Union, which was very close to the Academy and Le Cercle (as noted before here and here) used the solar cross as its logo
So, to recap: Over the course of this series I have demonstrated a tie between Le Cercle and reputed elite pedophile networks in Belgium and the UK (noted here). I have also indicated a possible connection between Le Cercle and the alleged Franklin ring of Larry E. King (noted here). With this installment I have sketched out a possible pedophile ring active in New Orleans during the 1960s involving David Ferrie and Clay Shaw, though all of this is circumstantial. I've also demonstrated how this ring could have been connected to Le Cercle via either the SOSJ or the INCA.
In a previous installment, I also noted the ties between Le Cercle and Chile's Colonia Dignidad, which was run by another arch pedophile for decades. Whether this constituted a ring is unknown, but certainly the Colony appears to have been involved in "behavioral modification" techniques (noted before here). David Ferrie was also alleged to have been a first rate hypnotist. He was possibly a priest in the same church as William Joseph Bryan, another accused pedophile and skilled hypnotist. Bryan was so skilled that he was recruited by Morse Allen into Project Artichoke. As noted above, there's a strong chance Bryan could have been linked to Le Cercle via the SOSJ as well.
If this was not disturbing enough, there is also the specter of Operations Gladio, Northwoods and Condor (Condor's ties to the Colony were noted here) lurking in the background of these intrigues, to say nothing of the hypothetical Fratelli Neri secret society/cult.
And with that I shall wrap things up for now. With the next and final installment we shall consider instances of pedophilia amongst groups closely linked to Le Cercle and the possible belief system(s) within the organization. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the seventh and final installment in my examination of the highly mysterious group known variously as Le Cercle, Pinay Cercle or the Pinay Group (which in some accounts was held to be the inner circle of Le Cercle). As was noted in the first installment, Le Cercle had its origins in the United Europe movement as well as early ties to the Bilderberger group. However, the dominate faction in Le Cercle always seems to have been reactionary Catholic groups such as Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM). By the late 1970s David Rockefeller and the rest of Bilderberger clique broke with Le Cercle over its extremist agenda.
With part two I began to consider two of the chief figures behind the formation of Le Cercle: former French prime minister and sometimes namesake Antoine Pinay and his close associate and fellow Frenchman Jean Violet. Violet was suspected of being an agent for French, West German and Vatican intelligence. He has also been linked to the fascist paramilitary network known as La Cagoule in 1930s France. As was noted in that installment, La Cagoule is suspected of having its origins in Martinism and synarchy, a prospect that is quite important in the later installments of this series.
The third installment considered the Brussels-based Academie Europeenne des Sciences Politiques (AESP, often referred to simply as the Academy) and Briton Brain Crozier's 6I network. Both of these two groups effectively served as private intelligence networks for Le Cercle. Even more ominously, both networks had extensive ties to the alleged elite pedophile rings in Belgium and the UK that were initially exposed in the wake of the Dutroux affair and the Westminster pedophile dossier, respectively.
With the fifth installment I considered two other curious associations of Le Cercle: the network of Georges Albertini, another Le Cercle member linked to synarchy as well as the Information Council for the Americas (INCA, a group closely linked to the JFK assassination) and Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony or simply the Colony), a Christian commune based in Chile extensively linked to Operation Condor and the greatest extremes of the Pinochet regime. Its founder, Paul Schafer, was a "former" Nazi and arch pedophile. The Colony was also reputed to have employed numerous "behavioral modification" techniques, as noted before here.
Also noted in that installment were the possible links Le Cercle had to the alleged Franklin pedophile ring. From there, part six considered the possible ties Le Cercle had to David Ferrie, another arch pedophile linked to the Kennedy assassination, as well as the possibility Ferrie was also involved in a pedophile ring in New Orleans during the 1960s. Ferrie was allegedly trained as a hypnotist by the notorious William Joseph Bryan, who is also believed to have been a priest or a bishop in one of the several churches David Ferrie was ordained in.
As I wrapped up that installment, I noted that Bryan has been described as wearing ritual apparel similar to that employed by both La Cagoule and Propaganda Due (which were closely linked via the Academy, as noted before here). Ferrie and Bryan could have easily been linked to Le Cercle via either the INCA or a mysterious secret society known as the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ). From there I proposed that the bizarre regalia that La Cagoule, P2 and Bryan employed may have been evidence of some type of secret society or cult within Le Cercle which, via its proxies in Europe, the United States and South America, seems to have played a major role in Operations Gladio, Northwoods and Condor. And that is where I shall pick things up.
Clearly something very strange was going on. Le Cercle seems to have had definite links to the pedophile rings in Belgium and the UK. There is also a strong chance they were linked to the alleged Franklin network as well as David Ferrie, who seems to have active in pedophile ring in New Orleans during the 1960s. Ferrie was alleged to have been a very skilled hypnotist, as was William Joseph Bryan, another individual possibly linked to Le Cercle and who consulted with Project Artichoke personnel (noted before here). As noted above, the Colony also seems to have been engaged in "behavioral modification" techniques as well.
For years there have been dark rumblings of an international network of pedophiles rings catering to elites. In many cases these rings were also linked to arms and drug trafficking as well as terrorism. Certainly one of Le Cercle's key partners, the World Anti-Communist League, had extensive ties to arms and drugs, as I outlined in an extended examination of the WACL. Groups linked to Le Cercle were deeply implicated in Operation Gladio, a program long linked to state-sanctioned terrorism, as was noted in the prior installment. The WACL is reputed to have played a key role in the similar Operation Condor of South America as well. And here we find Le Cercle, with likely ties to pedophile rings in both Europe and the United States, Operation Gladio, and which seems to have dominated the WACL at the upper levels.
This researcher does not believe, however, that Le Cercle was the ultimate control mechanism for this complex. As this researcher has tried to stress throughout this series, the Cercle complex seems to have been under the control of Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The great Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics (referred to as ISGP throughout this installment), which as compiled the most extensive membership list of Le Cercle presently available, made the following statement concerning Cercle's composition:
"The picture that emerges here is one of religious fanaticism. At least 20 percent of the known members of Le Cercle belong to Opus Dei and-or the Knights of Malta, including most of the founders. And even those that do not belong to these organizations can be freakishly religious, like Colonel Billy McLean or the afore mentioned Jonathan Aitken. In the end, these people, even though they are more composed and better educated than the average fundamentalist Muslim, might well be just as hard to reason with."
Beyond Opus Dei and SMOM, there are also ample members who belonged to other Catholic sects or orders of knighthood such as the Sovereign Order of Saint John, the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, the Dominicans, and even the Jesuits (though on the whole the Society of Jesus does not seem to have exerted any real influence over Le Cercle and indeed many of its members held it in contempt). On the whole then, Le Cercle seems to have been steeped in the most reactionary strains of Catholicism.
the cross of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George
Effectively then the agenda and modus operandi of Le Cercle and these groups, but most especially Opus Dei and SMOM, is in complete harmony with one another. With this in mind we can now consider intrigues involving Opus Dei and SMOM with an awareness that these acts fall firmly within the Cercle complex.
AmeriCares, Covenant House and the Sons of Cristeros
Let us now turn our attention to AmeriCares, an NPO allegedly geared toward disaster relief and various healthcare initiatives. AmeriCares was founded in 1979 and would soon be staffed by various globalist heavy weights. It was highly active in war-torn Central America during the 1980s. Allegedly this was for purely humanitarian purposes, but evidence emerged that AmeriCares was in fact playing a key role in supporting the Contras and their allies in this region of the world.
"... The Vatican quarreled publicly with the Nicaraguan government, which had Jesuits in cabinet, and important Vatican allies began funding, in cooperation was Sun Myung Moon, about twenty private US-based organizations, the anticommunist governments and guerrilla movements of Central America...
"With the refusal of Congressional aid (reversed a year later), the slack was taken up by the Moonies and other private groups, including evangelical churches, the Taiwan-sponsored World Anti-Communist League, and Soldier of Fortune magazine. Not the least of the participants was a 'private, humanitarian organization' called Americares Foundation, which formed a cooperative program with the Opus Dai-linked Order of the Knights of Malta to channel money to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Most of the money was earmarked for hospitals but some reportedly went for funding the Contras and creating Vietnam-style 'model villages' for the Guatemalan Indians."
Note that another component of the Cercle complex, the World Anti-Communist League, was also active in Central America with AmeriCares during this time. But even more disturbing, however, was AmeriCares' ties to an organization known as Covenant House.
"... Covenant House. The youth organization's director, Father Bruce Ritter, was alleged to have molested youth who took refuge with him.
"Lauded by the Reagan and Bush Administrations as a showcase for the privatization of social services, Covenant House had expanded into Guatemala as a gateway to South America. According to intelligence community sources, the purpose was procurement of children from South America for exploitation in a pedophile ring. The flagship Guatemalan mission of Covenant House was launched by a former business partner of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, Roberto Alejos Arzu, who had ties to the CIA, according to the Village Voice of February 20, 1990. The Voice quoted Jean-Marie Simon, author of Guatemala Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny: 'It's like having Idi Amin on the board of Amnesty International.'
"A top source of money for Covenant House has been Robert Macauley, founder of Americares, a service organization implicated in channeling funds to the Contras. A close friend of the Bush family since Connecticut, Andover and Yale days, Macauley has George Bush's brother Prescott on the Americares board. Father Ritter was a vice president of Americares, at least until he had to resign from Covenant House in February 1989, and spent weekends at Macauley's estate in Connecticut, according to a former Covenant House employee."
(The Franklin Cover-Up, John DeCamp, pgs. 180-181)
It should be noted that there is nothing available that confirms DeCamp's allegations that Covenant House was being used to traffic children in the Americas. Its head, Father Bruce Ritter, was definitely brought down over sexual improprieties, however. It also seems all but certain Ritter was in fact a pedophile and that he did recruit some of his victims through Covenant House, but beyond that the details are rather vague.
So yes, the scandals that rocked AmeriCares and Covenant House during the 1980s seem to have been firmly under the dominion of the Maltese knights. Even more eyebrow raising are the allegations that Guatemala was being used as a staging ground to abduct children from Central and South America for a pedophile ring. As was noted in the prior installment, David Ferrie was reportedly flying children into Cuba, Honduras and Guatemala for reasons no one has ever been able to explain (Ferrie claimed he was taking them on "mining" expeditions). It is interesting to note that Ferrie's one-time boss, Guy Banister was, like the above-mentioned Maltese knight Roberto Alejos Arzu, a former partner of the Somoza family:
"... Banister was also instrumental in the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean, a pet project of Nicaragua's General Somoza, and was part of a global network of right-wing hard-liners. The Anti-communist League of the Caribbean was one of a global family that originated with the Asian People's ACL. A creature of the Nationalist Chinese, and included the pro-Batista ACL of Cuba and the Chicago-based ACL of America. Banister's associate, Maurice B. Gatlin, Sr., of New Orleans, was counsel to the ACL of the Caribbean as well as a member of the steering committee of the umbrella World ACL, along with Richard Nixon's good friend Alfred Kohlberg of the China Lobby. The ACL affiliates engaged in propaganda and lobbying and collaborated with the intelligence branches of their respective governments."
(Deadly Secrets, Warren Hinckle & William Turner, pg. 231)
This Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean eventually became a part of the WACL which, as noted before, had ties to Colonia Dignidad as part of Operation Condor. There were also allegations that children were being abducted from Germany and shipped to Colonia Dignidad in Chile, noted here.
Ferrie was also employed by attorney G. Wray Gill. Gill is who also assisted Ferrie in combating his numerous pedophilia charges. Another of Gill's clients was notorious gangster Carlos Marcello. Marcello is widely believed to have had extensive business dealings with the Somoza family as well.
Is it possible then that Covenant House was actually a continuation of a pedophile ring that had been active since at least the 1960s and engaged in trafficking children to and from the Americas and Europe? Obviously this all very circumstantial, but it is most curious these right wing pedophile networks seem to keep cropping up in the same regions of the world.
On the topic of right wing pedophiles, there is a possibility that the Legion of Christ also had ties to the close Cercle partner the World Anti-Communist League. The Legion of Christ is little known in the English speaking world, but it was quite influential in Latin America throughout the second half the twentieth century until the downfall of its founder in the early twenty-first century. Here's a bit of background about the Legion:
".... Father Marcial Maciel's Legion of Christ was a favorite order of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. So enamored of Father Maciel was John Paul II that he invited him on his plane on several occasions when traveling to South America. The two organizations, Opus Dei and the Legionaries, have much in common – indeed the pope saw them in the same light, with Maciel's group boasting of its roots in Mexico and Escriva's in Spain. Both were in bed with aristocratic millionaires, extremely hierarchical, extremely patriarchal, admiring of uber-right causes (Maciel of Pinochet, the Chilean dictator), and run very tightly. In fact Maciel's had a special twist to it: a vow was demanded of its members that they never criticized Maciel or their other superiors and that they report anyone who did. Secrecy trumped everything, spying was part of the vow. Both were fully committed to papalolatry. Whatever the pope says goes. They made the perfect vanguard for new and anti-Vatican II religious movement...
"Maciel founded the Legion of Christ in 1941 and devised a scheme of greasing the palms of many a cardinal and Rome to ensure its success. One Mexican widow of a successful industrialist is said to have donated $50 million to the Legion. In 1958 Maciel managed to build a seminary in Salamanca, Spain, from monies he was given from Josefita Perez Jimenez, the daughter of a former Venezuelan dictator.
"The facts are these.'Maciel was a morphine addict who sexually abused at least 20 Legion seminarians from the 1940s to the '60s.' Bishop John McGann of Rockville Centre, New York, was informed of a seminarian who was sexually abused by Maciel from age thirteen to twenty-six. Father Vaca wrote Maciel: 'I have arrived at the Legion in my childhood, with no sexual experience of any kind... It was you who initiated the aberrant and sacrilegious abuse that night; the abuse that would last for thirteen painful years.' Bishop McGann did the right thing and sent a letter by this former Legion priest with the complete allegations to the Vatican in 1976, again in 1978, and again in 1989. Nothing was done. Ratzinger did nothing. Ratzinger, it seems, was too busy denouncing theologians the world over than to go after a darling of the pope. Come the 1980s, Maciel set up three families, two in Mexico and a third in Switzerland. In total he appears to have fathered six children by three women and adopted the seventh. His middle son, Raul, now twenty-nine, tells the story of how his father molested him and his brother from ages of eight to fourteen. As teenagers they resisted his advances. Maciel met Raul's mother in 1977 when she was nineteen years old and working as a domestic servant. Maciel was 57. Raul sought $26 million from the order to remain silent; he is now suing the order. Maciel supported his girlfriends generously, leaving just one of them homes valued at above $2 million. The two older sons protected Maciel's third son, younger and adopted, by pushing Maciel away and refusing to allow him to be in the room alone with the youngest son. His daughter with also was sexually abused by 'Our Father.' There was even an occasion when Father Maciel brought his children to receive communion for the pope, telling him they were his 'nephews.' "
The relationship between Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ has always been ambiguous. Here's a few more details concerning it:
"The Legion of Christ, much smaller and not nearly as well known as Opus Dei, has a similar kind of messianic Hispanic spirituality and unswerving fidelity to the pope. Both groups believe in money and power to advance the aims of the church; they work hard to recruit orthodox Catholics and view each other as rivals... The Legion... has an affiliated organization, Regnum Christi (Kingdom of Christ), the claims 'tens of thousands of laymen and women, as well as deacons and priests.' They are the Maciel's cadre for infiltrating and 're-Christianizing' existing Catholic organizations. Maciel claims the idea for Regnum Christi came to him in 1949. Several ex-Legionaries say he borrowed the 'lay apostlate' idea from Opus Dei in the 1960s and took the name from a defunct European pious association."
(Vows of Silence, Jason Berry & Gerald Renner, pgs. 244-245)
There is another possible source of influence for the Regnum Christi which we shall get to in just a moment. Nonetheless, it clearly seems that Opus Dei wielded some type of influence over the Legion and that the differences between the two organizations had little to do with ideology and everything to do with competition for converts. In this sense they were rivals, but more often than not they traveled in the same circles. Opus Dei was also extremely close to Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI (formerly Joseph Ratzinger) as well. There is one especially compelling instance of overlap between these two groups that saw be noted in a moment.
As for the WACL, this researcher is unaware of a direct connection between it and the Legion However, the Legion had its origins in the Cristero Revolt that plunged Mexico into a civil war during the 1920s. One of Marciel's uncles was a general in the Cristeros. The name of the Legion was derived from the Cristeros, who at times were referred to as the "Legion of Christ the King."
There was at least two other right wing extremist organizations to emerge from the Cristeros in Mexico. One was the bizarre secret society known as Los Tecos ("the Owl"). This organization was closely tied to the WACL, as I noted before here. This researcher has been unable to establish a relationship between the Legion and Los Tecos, though it would certainly seem that a fair amount of Mexican bloggers believe a relationship exists. Obviously this is hardly proof, but given that both groups emerged from the Los Cristeros movement and were firmly steeped in fanatical Catholicism, it seems highly likely they were aware of one another.
The other extremist movement to emerge from the Cristeros was the Unión Nacional Sinarquista, or National Synarchist Union. Catholic to the core, the movement has been linked to both the Legion of Christ and Los Tecos as well as Opus Dei, though this researcher has been unable to reliably confirm any of these connections. It is clear, however, that Father Marcial Maciel had contact with the Mexican synarchist and was infleunced by their movement.
"The infiltration strategy is rooted in Mexican history. In the 1930s, after the government crushed the Cristero Revolt, holdout Catholic rebels turned to terrorist tactics. In one village they cut off the ears of a man whose two daughters were socialist schoolteachers. Bishops, fearing retaliation from the government, worked with lay activist and a covert group called Las Legiones. With a secret oath of loyalty to the bishops, Las Legiones infiltrated the radical Catholic groups and purged the leaders. Las Legiones' high command worked with a secret tier of secondary leaders in forming alternatives to socialist unions, and creating an organization of small landowners allied with capital and labor, called Sinarquismo, as a counterforce to communism and dictatorship, while strengthening the rights of Catholics.
"One lesson of Las Legiones was the value of stealth. No one learned it better than Father Maciel. The Legion has made a mission of converting Catholics to its cause as a counter to progressives in the church. Regnum Christi members are expected to obey orders and contribute money to the Legion. Recruitment is a top priority; so is disguising their goals to win recruits."
(Vows of Silence, Jason Berry & Gerald Renner, pg. 245)
In other words, the Legion's lay organization, Regnum Christi, was potentially born out of a duel influence from Opus Dei and synarchy. That will be a most interesting tidbit in just one moment.
But as for actual ties between Opus Dei, the Legion, Los Tecos and the Mexican synarchist, things are a bit more hazy. Lyndon LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review has insisted that there is in fact a link between the Mexican synarchist and both the Legionnaires and Los Tecos. Their account is very compelling, but I cannot endorse this narrative without more credible evidence. Still, this researcher finds such connections to be highly plausible.
Saint Catherine of Siena, Great Falls, VA
Opus Dei has cropped up in recent years in relation to one of the United States' most notorious pedophile scandals in addition to the bizarre death of sitting Supreme Court Justice also accused of involvement in a pedophile ring. Both of these intrigues revolve around the same church, Saint Catherine of Siena. Located in Great Falls, Virginia, the sect was established around 1981. It first gained notoriety in 2001 when one of its members, former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, was arrested for being a spy for the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation. This led to intense scrutiny of the church and some interesting things turned up.
For one, it reputedly has longstanding ties to Opus Dei, with many members belonging to the obscure Catholic sect and Opusian clergy regularly hearing confessions there. And of course there are the high profile individuals who have regularly attended Saint Catherine at one time or another.
At least two of these high profile members were linked to the scandal surrounding Jerry Sandusky, the long time defensive coordinator of the Penn State Nittany Lions. In 1977 Sandusky founded the Second Mile, an NPO designed to assist underprivileged and at-risk children. Then, in 2008, allegations emerged that Sandusky was an arch pedophile who had been preying upon children via his foundation for decades. In 2012 Sandusky was found guilty of 45 of 48 charges against him, virtually all of them stemming from child sexual abuse. All of Sandusky's victims had been recruited through Second Mile. What's more, there were dark rumblings that Sandusky was not alone and that his Second Mile foundation provided boys for other pedophiles linked to Penn State.
This was a dramatic fall from grace for Sandusky and his Second Mile foundation. In 1990, honorary SMOM member President George H.W. Bush praised Second Mile as a "shining example" of charity work in a letter. And then there's Rick Santorum of Saint Catherine's. Santorum has been widely reported as a member of Opus Dei, though he insists that he is merely a "great admirer" of the sect. Santorum also had ties to Penn State and Second Mile:
"Santorum attended Penn State. He claims his grades suffered because of his conservative beliefs. Santorum once sponsored Sandusky in 2002 for a Congressional Angels In Adoption award."
"ThinkProgress notes that when the story broke last winter, Santorum said he’d be 'rooting for' head football coach Joe Paterno and wished him the best. Santorum said it was unfair Paterno was fired.
"Paterno passed away in January, and observers now say the Freeh report demonstrates that Paterno would’ve likely faced criminal charges such as child endangerment, perjury and conspiracy in his neglect to report Sandusky to authorities."
Given that Santorum is a Penn State alumni, possibly friendly with Joe Paterno, and sponsored Sandusky's organization for a Congressional award, his claim that he never met Sandusky does not seem especially credible. But what is even more incredible is that this is not even the first time Santorum has backed an organization headed by an arch pedophile. Consider:
"Mr. Santorum has been a supporter of Regnum Christi, the lay wing of a conservative, cultish order of priests known as the Legion of Christ. In 2003, he was the keynote speaker at a Regnum Christi event in Chicago that drew protesters because the group’s charismatic founder, who had spent years denying that he had sexually abused seminarians, was scheduled to share the podium.
"The founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, did not show up, but critics faulted Mr. Santorum for agreeing to appear at the group’s forum. 'He was certainly lending them legitimacy,' said Jason Berry, a documentary filmmaker and the author of a book about Father Maciel."
Indeed, Santorum's appearance occurred well after numerous allegations concerning Maciel's pedophilia had been widely circulated. And yet Santorum would opt to speak in support of Maciel, just as he later who for Peterno. And it is of course most interesting to that Mr. Santorum seems to have balanced his commitments to the allegedly "rival" groups, Opus Dei and the Legion. But let us now return to the other strange connections Saint Catherine has to Sandusky.
"Today, former FBI Director Louis Freeh is known to be close to Opus Dei. According to Bucciarelli, Freeh’s children attend Opus Dei schools and Freeh knows Opus Dei members..."
Isn't it odd that one of the biggest Penn State supporters and a former backer of Second Mile as well as the man hired by Penn State to investigate the scandal aren't merely close to Opus Dei, but even attended the same exact Opus Dei-linked church at one point?
The blogosphere has alleged that there is another connection to the Sandusky scandal and Opus Dei as well: the Catholic fraternal order known as the Knights of Columbus. In Their Kingdom Come Robert Hutchison notes that the Knights of Columbus had grown close to Opus Dei ever since the 1980s. The present head of the Knights is one Dr. Carl A. Anderson. Of him, Hutchison notes: "A Reagan White House aide at the time was Dr. Carl A. Anderson, who served as a liaison officer for special interest groups – e.g., Opus Dei – at the White House. Anderson was an Opus Dei member and as such his apostolate was to attract others in his milieu into the Work..." (pg. 360).
This is all quite interesting but there is one problem: This researcher has been unable to reliably confirm Paterno's membership in the Knights of Columbus. Numerous conspiracy websites are making this claim but they provide no reliable source for it. That an effort could have been made to expunge the net of references linking Paterno to the Knights is certainly possible, but this claim should at present be held with much suspicion.
Another claim making the rounds at present that should be regarded with much suspicion is that recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was involved with a pedophile ring. Scalia himself has long been linked to Opus Dei and attended the same church that Santorum and Freeh did. It is alleged that either Scalia or his wife were members of Opus Dei, though this has been vigorously denied for years.
As for the accusations of pedophilia, they did not emerge until after Scalia's death and they have their origins with a series of articles published on the highly controversial Veterans Today website earlier this year (2016). For those of you unaware, here are some of the height lights of VT's claims:
"Justice Antonin Scalia was surprised when he was ordered to the White House. This was not a man you gave orders to, especially not President Obama. It was Justice Antonin Scalia who vacated the long sacrosanct immunity from civil lawsuits, opening the door for a weakened presidency.
"Sources say that Scalia was the single actor behind the impeachment of Bill Clinton. President Obama was aware of this and had ordered the FBI to set out traps for Scalia. We will now outline the downfall of Antonin Scalia. Yes, this is a story of secret societies, operating worldwide and ritual Satanic child abuse that permeates Washington.
"When Scalia left the White House after a meeting with the president just before flying to Texas, the manila envelope he was carrying had printouts from a computer seized by FBI Special Agent Jeff Ross of the Salt Lake City, Utah field office, or so informants tell us.
"Scalia left the White House carrying 'slam dunk proof' that would lead to the arrest, conviction and, of course, impeachment of a seated Supreme Court Justice, files that contained names of victims and details on sex acts, preferred 'types' along with dates and places. All of this was on the seized computer and these files went 'up hill' from the FBI to the Department of Justice and directly over to the White House...
"The computer itself belonged to a Stirling David Allen, arrested and charged with child rape and sodomy by the FBI after an investigation that began with a meeting in Rome, Italy. The FBI had known about Allen for some time, had wanted to arrest him since 2014 but had been blocked, they just didn’t know why or who was behind it, not until Justice Scalia died. Within 9 days, Allen was jailed, and the evidence he held began to yield gold...
"We were shown an email from Allen where he tells of his January 15, 2016 meeting with Agent Ross at which time his computers were seized by the FBI. What we are told was on Allen’s computer and what Allen told agents is astounding. Allen confessed, we are told, not only to his own sex crimes but to being recruited by a powerful international organization that provided him broad protection from prosecution."
The above-mentioned Sterling David Allen was apparently arrested on charges of pedophilia earlier this year in Utah. But this is effectively all of VT's claims that can be reliably confirmed. Otherwise, all we're left with are VT's unnamed White House sources who claim that references to a "sitting Supreme Court Justice" were found on Allan's hard drive. Obviously this is incredibly sketchy and until credible evidence emerges that conclusively links Scalia to Allen, this entire scenario should be viewed with much skepticism.
"When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died 12 days ago at a West Texas ranch, he was among high-ranking members of an exclusive fraternity for hunters called the International Order of St. Hubertus, an Austrian society that dates back to the 1600s.
"After Scalia’s death Feb. 13, the names of the 35 other guests at the remote resort, along with details about Scalia’s connection to the hunters, have remained largely unknown. A review of public records shows that some of the men who were with Scalia at the ranch are connected through the International Order of St. Hubertus, whose members gathered at least once before at the same ranch for a celebratory weekend...
"Cibolo Creek Ranch owner John Poindexter and C. Allen Foster, a prominent Washington lawyer who traveled to the ranch with Scalia by private plane, hold leadership positions within the Order. It is unclear what, if any, official association Scalia had with the group."
One particular sentence from the above-quoted Washington Post set the blogosphere on fire:
"The society’s U.S. chapter launched in 1966 at the famous Bohemian Club in San Francisco, which is associated with the all-male Bohemian Grove — one of the most well-known secret societies in the country."
No doubt the conspiratorial right shot its proverbial load over this revelation, with none other than Alex Jones leading the charge. Jones of course famously infiltrated Bohemian Groves and proclaimed that the grainy footage he took there depicted a baby being sacrificed by the Luciferian elite, or something along those lines. But Jones is hardly a credible source --indeed, the great ISGP has recently published an epic article meticulously detailing Jones' ties to the US intelligence community. Thus, the bulk of Jones' claims should be considered highly dubious.
This is not to say that there may not be something sinister about Bohemian Groves --few would dispute how utterly bizarre the camps and their rituals are. But as ISGP detailed in a host of other excellent articles (such as this one and especially this one), very little is actually known about Bohemian Grove, its purpose and customs. Anyone who claims otherwise is merely speculating.
There are some other interesting things about the International Order of St. Hubertus that neither Jones or his legions of space monkeys have bothered considering. For starters, lets consider the regalia of this order:
Now, consider these historic depictions of the Knights Hospitallers (which the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Sovereign Order of Saint John claim descent from):
To spell it out for you: All of these groups employ the Maltese cross and as part of their regalia deploy it on a cloak. Clearly all of these groups derived inspiration from the Knights Hospitallers. Even more telling, however, are the Order's "royal protector" and Grand Master. Its website states:
"The International Order of St. Hubertus is a true knightly order in the historical tradition. The Order is under the Royal Protection of His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain, the Grand Master Emeritus His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria and our Grand Master is His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary."
"His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary" is more commonly referred to as Archduke Karl von Habsburg, the son of Otto von Habsburg. The latter was a major figure in the Cercle complex and it would appear his son followed suite. Since 1986, Archduke Karl headed the Austrian branch of the Paneuropean Union (PEU), which by this point in time was firmly under the control of the Habsburg family. As was noted here and here, the PEU was one of the organization from which a lot of the initial Cercle membership derived and for years afterwards there was much overlap. The ties between the PEU and Le Cercle were further spelled out in David Teacher's groundbreaking Rogue Agents. And as I noted in part one, both Le Cercle and Opus Dei seem to have both had the agenda of reviving the Holy Roman Empire with its former royal family, the Habsburgs, playing a key role in it.
"Finally, Franco decided to skip don Juan, instead naming as heir his young son Juan Carlos. Don Juan remained in exile, while Juan Carlos was brought to Spain to be educated in accordance with Franco's traditional values. Much of Juan Carlos's education was entrusted to members of Opus Dei, including his chaplain, Fr. Federico Suárez. This is documented in Prof. Paul Preston's 2004 biography of King Juan Carlos."
And of course there's the fact that both King Carlos and Archduke Karl are also members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Thus, it would seem that the International Order of St. Hubertus' Grand Master and "Royal Protector" were both very close to Opus Dei and likely Le Cercle as well (in the case of Karl von Habsburg, this is all but certain) in addition to being initiates of SMOM. And of course there are those persistent rumors that either Scalia himself or his wife (or both) were members of Opus Dei. At a minimum, Scalia attended an Opus Dei-linked church and surely was in contact with the Opusians.
Hence, this researcher has no hesitation in suggesting that the International Order of St. Hubertus is likely a part of the Cercle complex and almost surely linked to both the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei. Naturally Alex Jones, Vigilant Citizens and countless other hacks have totally missed this connection and are still hallowing at the moon about Satanic cults of Illuminati when it comes to Scalia and his alleged pedophilia. And that's a real pity, as it sure seems like the Cercle complex would be the most logical place to look for some type of international pedophile network what with its links to the Dutroux affair, the Westminster pedophile ring, Colonia Dignidad, Franklin, and possibly even a 1960s New Orleans-based ring involving David Ferrie...
An Opusian Initiation and Operation Gladio
This present series was born out of an earlier one focusing on pedophile rings and the strategy of tension in Belgium. In researching this series, one of the most bizarre and disturbing accounts I encountered came from a former member of the youth wing of the Belgian political party Parti Social Chrétien (PSC).
As was noted in an installment in the series concerning Belgium, the PSC was the party most commonly linked to the pedophile rings in that nation. Two major figures involved with the PSC, Paul Vanden Boeynants and Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin, were key players in the Academy (effectively Le Cercle's intelligence network throughout the 1970s) and extensively linked to the pedophile rings as well as with ring wing paramilitary groups linked to Belgium in the 1980s (noted before here).
"Jacques Thoma was at a restaurant with Sara de Wachter (01/10/55) when he broke down in tears. He participated in 1985-86 in several satanic sessions close to Charleroi.
"He is very afraid. He was a treasurer of the youth section of the PSC. He often met with Michel Dewolf, Philippe Sala and Jean-Paul Dumont. They tried to direct Thoma toward Opus Dei what they considered Nec Plus Ultra [Latin for 'nothing further beyond'].
"Under the pretext of initiation tests for Opus Dei he was brought to a Black Mass with sexual acts. He mentions the presence of girls from a country in the East (13-14 years)... He was drugged before being taken into a room with masked people who had dressed in black robes. The participants drank blood. He was placed in the presence of a naked little girl laying down on an altar - she had died.
"He encountered the grand master, Francois-Joseph, who told him that he was a police informant and that he had to be careful... Francois-Joseph is a notary implicated in the trafficking of girls for prostitution from the East.
"He wanted to leave but was drugged again. He woke up the following day in his car. He left the party [PSC] and made a declaration to the BSR [Special Investigations Unit of the gendarmerie] in Charleroi."
Richard Cottrell also mentioned Thoma's account and provided some interesting details about his boss, Jean-Paul Dumont:
"More disturbing questions were raised by an allegation from a former treasurer of the Parti Social-Chretien (PSC) youth division Jacques Thoma. He is on public record as claiming he was once invited to mass orgies by his superior, an associate of Jean-Michel Nihoul and Marc Dutroux. They were explained to him as 'an Opus Dei initiation test.' Once again we find mystical current seeping from neo-Nazis and the paedophile gangs, implying the possibility of seamless connections to the Vatican's so-called 'church within a church.' Opus Dei, which translates to 'Work of God,' has been accused by its detractors of various ungodly activities, featuring the intimidation of members, denigration of women and infiltration of governments. The organisation bonding practices are said by critics to involve self-mortification, with devotees obliged to wear spiked chains around their thighs, whip their buttocks and sleep on hard boards. For all its protestations to the contrary, it is certainly true that Opus Dei operates well below visible radar and venerates secrecy. When I undertook the European Parliament's high-profile probe into family-splitting cults, Opus Dei attracted by far the largest response to my mailbag, more even than high-profile organisations like the Moonies and Scientology. It was excluded from the report after heavy lobbying from the Vatican hierarchy and its powerful supporters in Strasbourg, including perhaps the most prominent Euro-MP, the late Austro-Hungarian archduke Otto von Habsburg."
(Gladio: NATO's Secret Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pgs. 302-303)
ISGP confirms that Dumont likely did have a relationship with Nihoul (a close associate of Dutroux who, in some accounts, Dutroux was providing under age girls for) and possibly even Dutroux himself. And what of Cottrell's claim of Otto von Habsburg's covering up the findings of a European Parliament investigation of subversive cults as it related to Opus Dei? Certainly it would seem highly plausible, considering Robert Hutchison describes Archduke Otto as "one of Opus Dei's most treasured Old Guard supernumeraries" (pg. 154) in Their Kingdom Come. And keep in mind dear reader, that it is Archduke Otto's son, Archduke Karl von Habsburg, who is the current head of the International Order of St. Hubertus.
Both Vanden Boeynants and Bonvoisin have been named as members of Opus Dei as well. Such a connection would hardly be surprising, given their ties to the terror attacks that rocked Belgium in the 1980s (noted before here) as well. These attacks were likely a component of Operation Gladio (as noted before here and here) and Opus Dei is reputed to have been a key partner in such intrigues. In 1990 the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende, reacting to an account given by former CIA director William Colby in his 1978 book Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (specifically in reference to his involvement in setting up stay-behind armies in the Scandinavian countries), dug up some curious details concerning Denmark's stay-behind units and their links to other Gladio operations across the continent:
" 'Berlingske Tidende can reveal that Absalon is the Danish branch of the international Gladio network. This has been confirmed by a member of Absalon to Berlingske Tidende who wishes at present to remain unnamed,' a Danish daily newspaper sensationally headlined its discoveries in 1990. The source, named Q by the newspaper, confirmed what Colby had revealed in his book. 'Colby's story is absolutely correct. Absalon was created in the early 1950s,' the source Q related. The network, according to Q, was composed of right-wing men in order to guarantee staunch anti-Communism. 'Colby was a member of the world spanning laymen catholic organization Opus Dei, which, using a modern term, could be called right-wing. Opus Dei played a central role in the setting up of Gladio in the whole of Europe and also in Denmark, Q claimed..."
As I hope this series and this installment specifically have demonstrated, there is ample evidence indicating that Opus Dei, along with their close partners in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and their proxies in the Cercle complex, were engaged in even more nefarious things than stay-behind armies participating in the strategy of tension.
What Does It All Mean?
And now it is time to wrap up this series. Over the course of it I have endeavored to show that the Cercle complex has extensive links to terrorism related to Operation Gladio and similar programs (i.e. Operation Condor) as well as elite pedophile rings. It stands accused of subverting the political process in Britain (noted in part three) and engaged in electioneering in the United States and various other allied nations through a combination of propaganda and infiltration of domestic political parties. Blackmail, likely stemming from its extensive international network of pedophile rings, was surely a key component as well.
The conspiratorial right has of course long alleged that an international networks exists involved in drug and arms trafficking, false flag terrorism and pedophilia. Le Cercle would certainly fit the bill, but there is little else the conspiratorial right got right. This network has often operated through far right organizations and highly conservative Christian sects. There are indications of a series of secret societies and cults behind these networks but one finds few of the usual suspects are present. An incomplete list of these institutions includes: the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Opus Dei, the Dominicans, Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, the Sovereign Order of Saint John, the Old Roman Catholic Church, the American Orthodox Catholic Church, the Family/Fellowship, the Unification Church, Propaganda Due and the other Propaganda lodges, La Cagoule, and possibly even the International Order of St. Hubertus as well as the unholy trinity the Cristeros spawned: the Legion of Christ, Los Tecos and National Synarchist Union.
Virtually all of these organizations are publicly Christian. There are Masons, but primarily from the Propaganda network. These lodges, while many things, had no real ties to the Scottish Rite, the Grand Orient or any other mainline Masonic lodge. Like La Cagoule, the Propaganda lodges were likely based upon Martinism and synarchy, the proponents of which by and large despised mainline Freemasonry (as noted before here). On the whole, it would be grossly inaccurate to describe this network as "Masonic." Nor does this researcher find many ties to Aleister Crowley and certainly not the Bavarian Illuminati or the Communism International.
Nor are there many indications that these networks operated through the New Age movement, as is commonly claimed. While their are compelling incidences of this (i.e. the Finders, though even the narrative surrounding the Finders has been challenged of late), many of these alleged New Age centric-cults can traced back to the Cercle complex. The Process Church, the Manson Family and the alleged Son of Sam cult all had ties to the same neo-Nazi/patriot underground (noted before here and here) that was dominated by the Sovereign Order of Saint John (noted before here). Colonel Michael Aquino, a long time whipping boy of the conspiratorial right and widely alleged to be involved in Satanic ritual abuse, was likely a member of the American Security Council (one of Cercle's closest American partners for decades). The Order of the Solar Temple, responsible for mass suicides in France and Canada in the mid-1990s, had extensive ties to Cercle's Belgium partners (as noted before here). The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the so-called "hippie mafia" that was at one point the largest distributors of LSD in the world, was eventually co-opted by Ronald Hadley Stark, a likely intelligence asset with ties to the Italian fascist underground (noted before here).
Likely the use of these New Age groups by largely neo-fascist individuals and organizations constituted a continuation of the strategy of tension, which called for terrorism to be committed by both the left and right to advance a fascist government. Frequently liberal organizations were co-opted by the forces of the right to achieve these ends. This aspect of the strategy of tension was detailed throughout my examinations of Ronald Stark and the P2.
What's more, many of the sources credited with "exposing" Satanic cults can also be traced back to the Cercle complex. Alex Jones has already been noted. Here are just a few more examples:
Maury Terry Author of The Ultimate Evil, the first work to link the Manson Family and the alleged Son of Sam cult. Terry cut his teeth working for Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, who supported Terry's bid to "expose" the cult conspiracy. Murdoch is a long time backer of the American Enterprise Institute, which frequently collaborated with American Cercle partners such as the ASC and the Heritage Foundation.
Ted Gunderson A "former" high ranking FBI agent once in charge of the LA division. Upon retiring, Gunderson became the key figure in "exposing" Satanic cults during the 1980s. Whether it was the alleged Son of Sam cult, the Finders, Franklin or McMartin Preschool (as well as a legions of lesser known instances), Gunderson was there. As investigative journalist Cheri Seymour reported in her groundbreaking The Last Circle, Gunderson was very close to alleged CIA asset Robert Booth Nicholas (who was involved in the PROMIS scandal and may have been the last person to meet with journalist Danny Casolaro before his alleged suicide). Nichols was on the board of the First International Development Corporation (FIDCO) in the 1980s, an organization with ample intelligence connections as well as to the MacArthur clique that dominated the American Security Council.
John DeCamp A former CIA officer who was involved in the Phoenix Program. Phoenix was very similar to Gladio and Condor, two operations Le Cercle seems to have played a key role in. DeCamp's boss and a key contact over the years was the above-mentioned former CIA director William Colby, a member of Opus Dei who had also met with Le Cercle.
On the whole, these are considered to be many of the most credible researchers into Satanic ritual abuse. It probably goes without saying, but the waters are quite muddied in this field.
As for the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), clearly these groups had some involvement in Le Cercle. But this involvement seems to have ceased by the late 1970s. This is quite significant as this period marked the rise of Thatcher and Reagan, both of whom were closely connected to Le Cercle. It also witnessed the scrapping of "detente" for the more vigorous policy of "rollback" in regards to the Soviet Union. The Rockefeller faction was particularly engaged in detente, having pursued it vigorously through both Henry Kissinger and in the early years of the Carter administration. But by 1980 the landscape had changed dramatically with policies long backed by Le Cercle coming to the forefront. This was all noted over the course of the third and fourth installments in this series.
David Rockefeller hobnobbing with Le Cercle VIPS; one of them is reputedly alleged pedophile Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin
On the whole, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateralists and the CFR were primarily composed of bankers and other financial interests. Their overriding concern was thus international trade. Le Cercle, by contrast, was dominated by reactionary Catholic factions such as Opus Dei and SMOM, old guard European aristocracy and powerful military and intelligence officers as well as defense contractors from the United States. The primary objective of these interests until the collapse of the Soviet Union was the confrontation with Communism. It probably goes without saying, but the duel objectives of these two factions were not always compatible. What's more, as I noted before here and which ISGP addresses in much greater depth, there are indication that more than a few Bilderbergers were ensnared in Belgium's pedophile rings, which had close ties to Le Cercle. One suspects that blackmail played a key role in Le Cercle's rise to power.
*****
As for the beliefs that potentially underpinned Le Cercle and the secret societies surrounding it, this is not a question that can be easily answered. Very little credible information is available in this regard, though there are ample indications of an occult doctrine. So it should be stressed that the following is highly, highly speculative. This researcher in no way, shape or form wants it to be taken as fact, but merely theories of the researcher.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let us begin. There seem to be three potential systems, two of which the evidence for is rather slim. Let us then start with the weaker of the two:
Satanism: This is a tricky topic to address. This researcher would like to make clear that when I am discussing Satanism here, I am referring to the historical system that began to appear roughly around the time of the Crusades and not the modern manifestations such as Anton LaVey's Church of Satan or the "nu-Satanist" movement currently polluting the landscape in the United States. These movements are little more than Randism with a bit of ritual trappings for the photo ops. As was noted before here, historic Satanism was very rare and almost always was practiced by individuals with ties to the Catholic Church. In point of fact, it is impossible to perform a "proper" Black Mass unless it is done by an ordained priest.
Certainly this would not have been a problem for David Ferrie or even members of Opus Dei. But on the whole, actual evidence of Satanism within Le Cercle is rather scarce.
Evola: As I noted before here, many of the Italian neo-fascist groups linked to P2 were followers of the occultist and philosopher Julius Evola. I have found no evidence that elements of the Le Cercle complex outside of Italy were influenced by Evola, but certainly the possibility exists. Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin, an Academy member widely linked to both Opus Dei and pedophilia, was friendly with the notorious Italian neo-fascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie as well Ordine Nuovo (noted before here). Both Delle Chiaie and the Ordine were influenced by Evola.
Guido Giannettini, who SOSJ member General Pedro del Valle had invited to address the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1961 (noted before here), was close to Ordine Nuovo founder Pino Rauti, who in turn was heavily influenced by Julius Evola. General Charles Willoughby, another SOSJ initiate, was active in Spain during the 1960s and could have easily encountered Delle Chiaie, Rauti, or any number of other Evola-ites during this time frame. This could help explain how General Pedro del Valle was aware of Giannettini from such an early date. But this is all highly, highly circumstantial.
And that brings us to the most compelling suspect...
Martinism and synarchy: Certainly there were two prominent individuals involved with Le Cercle, Jean Violet and Georges Albertini, that have been compellingly linked to synarchy and possibly Martinism as well (noted here and here). As I noted before here, P2 Grand Master Licio Gelli has also been linked to the Rite of Memphis-Misraim which is often incorporated into Martinism and synarchy as well.
What is now generally considered to be Martinism first emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century and was largely the creation of the legendary French occultist often referred to as Papus. Synarchy in turn seems to have emerged from Martinism.
Martinism was based upon a host of influences that included the Rite of Martinism (derived from the order's namesake, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin), the Egyptian Rite, and the Rite of Memphis-Misraim, among others. The original Rite of Memphis (which was not combined with the Rite of Misraim until around 1872 by John Yarker) was said to have been inspired by the legendary occultist Alessandro di Cagliostro. It is interesting to note that Cagliostro claimed to have been a member of the Knights of Malta and that he had been left on Malta as an orphan. There seems little dispute that Cagliostro was on friendly terms with Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca, who was himself said to have been an alchemist.
Certainly all of this is most curious in light of how many members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta have been involved with Le Cercle over the years.and seemingly working in harmony with synarchists. In the case of Propaganda Due, not only was it tied to synarchy, but its entire hierarchy was dominated by members of Opus Dei or the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (noted before here and here). And as was noted earlier in this installment, the entire Mexican synarchist movement essentially emerged from the far right wing Catholic Cristero movement.
In a prior installment I also noted the similarities between the regalia of the synarchist-inspired La Cagoule (of which at least two French Cercle members were involved with) and P2, which are somewhat akin to black Klansman's robes. One of my readers was kind enough to point out that these customs as well as those of the Klan itself seem to have been inspired by the parade costumes of the Spanish Nazernos that are used during the Spanish Holy Week. Consider:
Nazarenos; note the use of the Maltese cross within a red circle; this seems to be a variation upon the solar cross symbolism that is also employed at times by the Knights of Malta and which appears in the seals of Opus Dei and the International Order of St. Hubertus and within the banner of the Paneuropean Union
The Klan was historically dominated by Protestants deeply steeped in Scottish Rite Freemasonry and was vehemently anti-Catholic. It is likely then that if the Nazarenos influenced modern KKK regalia (which largely emerged around the time of Birth of a Nation) it was a form of mockery. But in the case of La Cagoule and P2, this may well have constituted a kind of hat tip to their real inspiration. I have been unable to determine if the Knights of Malta had any historic ties to the Nazarenos (who first emerged in the sixteenth century and who began to employ the costumes around the seventeenth) but they apparently do participate in modern Nazarenos outings.
Interestingly, the Spanish Wikipedia (and Wikipedia in general is never the most reliable source) claims that the first order to sport the hoods was known as the "Brotherhood of St. John Lateran and Our Lady of the Hiniesta Seville." As has been noted throughout this series, several secret societies linked to Le Cercle claim origins from or derive inspiration from the Knight Hospitallers, whose full title was the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem. In general, Saint John seems to have had special appeal for many of these sects.
As was noted before here, Papus was something of a progressive (and was even an early supporter of women's rights), but he and many of the individuals involved in the Martinist revival(the original Rite of Martinism had fallen out of use by the middle of the nineteenth century) thoroughly despised mainline Freemasonry. Papus considered himself to be a kind of Christian mystic, as was noted in this series' earlier account of Martinism and synarchy.
Whether it was Papus' intention or not, synarchy seems to have become a thoroughly Catholic-centric system by the 1930s as evidence by the Mexican branch's origins in the Cristeros and the litany of radical Catholic groups French Cercle synarchist would later associate with. And indeed, the presence of radical Catholic groups affiliated with what eventually became Martinism can be traced back to Cagliostro and his relationship with Knights of Malta Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca.
Of course, the blogosphere is overflowing with conspiracy websites that claim the Knights of Malta are themselves a part of Freemasonry. This researcher does not find such claims compelling, however. One of the most notable speculative histories on Freemasonry is John J. Robinson's Born in Blood. As I noted before here, Robinson argued for a Knights Templar origin of Freemasonry but noted that the Knights of Malta were the longstanding rivals of both the Templars and the Masons. He even goes so far as to claim the Maltese knights were one of the three "Juwes" or "unworthy craftsmen" in the Masonic myth of the murder of Hiram Abiff.
In the essay "Knights and Freemasons: The Birth of Modern Freemasonry" two thirty-third degree Freemasons, Albert Mackey and the notorious Albert Pike state: "In an inquiry into any pretended connection of the Crusaders with Freemasonry, we may dismiss the two Orders of the Knights of Malta and the Teutonic Knights with the single remark that in their organization they bore not the slightest resemblance to that of Freemasonry. They had no arcana in their system, no secret form of initiation or admission, and no methods of recognition. And besides this want of similarity, which must at once preclude any idea of a connection between the Masonic and these Chivalric Orders, we fail to find in history any record of such a connection or the faintest allusion to it."
While one could quibble with the notion that the Maltese knights "had no arcana in their system," on the whole this essay is consistent with the view typically put forth by high ranking Masons such as Mackey in relation to the Maltese knights. Thus, this researcher has no hesitancy in proclaiming this tradition that includes the Maltese knights, Opus Dei, Martinism and the synarchists to be firmly rooted in Catholicism.
And with that I shall wrap things up. As the song goes, this entire series has been one long, strange trip. I hope the reader has found this information as compelling as I have. Until next time, stay tuned.
By now I'm sure regular readers of this blog have some notion of the events that unfolded in Orlando early Sunday morning (6/12/16) in Orlando, but for those of you living under a rock or discovering the article in the future, here is a brief rundown:
At roughly 2 AM one Omar Mateen, 29, walked into a Orlando-based LGBT club known as Pulse and opened fired with an assault weapon. When the smoke cleared, nearly a third of the club goers (the venue could hold around 300 people) were wounded. At present (6/13/16) 49 are reported dead and another 53 were wounded. The shooter was allegedly killed by a SWAT team around 5 AM after it raided the club. Mr. Mateen had apparently been holed up in the club for several hours with dozens of hostages before the SWAT team intervened. It is at present unknown how this effected the situation.
Mr. Mateen claimed to be a member of ISIS, and the group claimed credit for the attack,but it is unknown at this point if he actually had contact with the terror network, or was merely a supporter. The FBI had apparently investigated Mr. Mateen for terrorist ties in both 2013 and 2014, but naturally found nothing. Mr. Mateen's parents were from Afghanistan though he was reportedly born in New York. Given his age, it is possible that his parents immigrated to the United States during the Soviet-Afghan War. This simply speculation on this researcher's part, however, as I have found nothing credible to confirm this.
Easily the biggest red flag thus far revealed about Mr. Mateen was his employment with G4S, the notorious British security firm. RawStory reports:
"Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan, had worked for G4S since 2007, and was employed at a gated retirement community in South Florida, the company said in a statement late on Sunday.
"He underwent two instances of company screening and background checks – once when he was hired in 2007, and again in 2013.
"In 2013, the company learned that Mateen had been questioned by the FBI but that the inquiries were then closed...
"G4S, which employs 620,000 people and operates in more than 110 countries, provides security services to a slew of U.S. government agencies, including the State Department, Justice Department, U.S. Army and Air Force, and Department of Homeland Security, according to a brochure on its U.S. website.
"Mateen was an armed security officer for G4S, and the company was trying to ascertain whether any guns used in the attack were related to Mateen’s work, said a spokesman who declined to be named...
"The company is no stranger to controversy. It has come under fire from rights advocates for providing services to Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said in 2014 it sold its stake in G4S.
"Three of the firm’s security guards were acquitted of manslaughter charges in 2014 in the cardiac arrest death of an Angolan aboard a flight from London whom they were repatriating to his native country."
This is only scratching the surface and does not even address the controversy surrounding a subsidiary of GS4, the infamous Wackenhut security firm. Wackenhut was one of the trailblazers of the private security racket and has been a lightening rod for controversy decades before it became a part of G4S in 2004. It was originally founded in 1954 in Coral Gables, FL, by George Wackenhut, a former FBI man. While Wackenhut seems to have originally been founded as a private detective agency, it soon added guard services to its wares and soon thereafter its profile began to skyrocket.
By the 1960s it had won lucrative contracts to guard the Kennedy Space Center and the Atomic Energy Commission's nuclear test site in Nevada. Most famously, however, are the guard services Wackenhut provided to Area 51. Stories of amateur Ufologists being chased off the the site by brown-uniformed Wackenhut men are legion.
Unsurprisingly, there have long been allegations that Wackenhut had ties to the US intelligence community:
"Of all the articles written about Wackenhut Corporation, probably the most provocative was written by John Connolly for SPY magazine, published in September 1992, pp. 46-54. Connolly, a former New York police officer turned writer, began his story with the following introduction 'What? A big private company – one with a board of former CIA, FBI and Pentagon official; one in charge of protecting nuclear-weapons facilities, nuclear reactors, the Alaskan oil pipeline and more than a dozen American embassies abroad; one with long-standing ties to a radical right-wing organization; one with 30,000 men and women underarms – secretly helped Iraq in its effort to obtain sophisticated weapons? And fueled unrest in Venezuela? This is all the plot of a new best-selling thriller, right? Or The ravings of some overheated conspiracy buff, right? Right? wrong'.
"Connolly highlighted George Wackenhut as a 'hard-line right-winger' who was able to profit from his beliefs by building dossiers on Americans suspected of being Communists or left-leaning 'subversives and synthesizers' and selling the information to interested parties. By 1965, Wackenhut was boasting to potential investors that the company maintained files on 2.5 million suspected dissidents – one and 46 American adults then living.
"In 1966, after acquiring the private files of Karl Barslaag, a former staff member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Wackenhut could confidently maintain that with more than 4 million names, it had the largest privately held file on suspected dissidents in America.
"Connolly wrote that it was not possible to overstate the special relationship that Wackenhut enjoys with the federal government. Richard Babayan, claiming to be a CIA contract employee, told SPY that 'Wackenhut has been used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies for years. When they [the CIA] needed cover, Wackenhut is there to provide it for them.'
"Another CIA agent, Bruce Berckmans, who was assigned to the CIA station in Mexico City, but left the agency in January 1975 (putatively) to become a Wackenhut international-operations vice president, told SPY that he had seen a formal proposal submitted by George Wackenhut to the CIA offering Wackenhut offices throughout the world as fronts for CIA activities. In 1981 Berckmans joined with other senior Wackenhut executives to form the company's Special Projects Division...
"SPY also printed testimony from William Corbett, a terrorism expert who spent 18 years as a CIA analyst and is now an ABC news consultant in Europe. Said Corbett, 'For years Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the DEA. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandestine operations. Additionally, Corbett said that Wackenhut supplied intelligence agencies with information, and it was compensated for this – 'in a quid pro quo arrangement' – with government contracts worth billions of dollars over the years."
Even more ominous are the ties Wackenhut had to the Westland New Post, a Belgian neo-fascist paramilitary outfit that has long been linked to the Brabant massacres that rocked Belgium during the 1980s.
"... Wackenhut also drew for some of its employees on the Westland New Post paramilitaries. One of these was a known bomber and hitman, the Frenchman Jean-Francois Calmette, a notorious veteran of the OAS rebellion against de Gaulle and a close conspirator of Yves Guerin-Serac. He was director of the Belgian division of Wackenhut up until 1981, while doubling as a senior Westland New Post commander. These were curious relationships for such a prominent businessman in the security business...
"In 1982, Barbier was assigned as a Wackenhut security guard to the synagogue on the Rue de la Regence in Brussels. During his watch, it mysteriously blew up. The plans of the building were later found in Barbier's home. This same Marcel Barbier was later discovered to be a close personal associate Paul Latinus, effectively his deputy. The plot thickened. Security duties agreed with the Belgian Army involved the strange melting away of Wackenhut security patrols during a number of incidents in which these bases were supposedly attacked by revolutionary forces. In every case, the Strategy of Tension assaults were mounted by paramilitary units, with Westland New Post to the fore...
"In the mid-1980s, Wackenhut closed down in Belgium, amid reports of marching orders from the Ministry of Defense. It may have been that things got too hot for comfort, and the chief clients wanted the show out of town. Judged in the light of later events, Wackenhut's activities in Belgium anticipated mercenary activities by trigger-happy private security contractors of several decades later, notably the infamous Blackwater outfit."
(Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe, Richard Cottrell, pgs. 306-307)
Much more information on Wackenhut's involvement in what was likely false flag terrorism in Belgium during the 1980s can be found here.
At this point I would like to stress that all of this is highly speculative and many facts are still coming in regarding the Orlando Massacre. But this researcher believes that Wackenhut's history in Belgium is highly suggestive of how deep intrigues may have played a part in the Orlando Massacre. Obviously Wackenhut is no more and now a part of G4S. But clearly G4S has its own deep intrigues as well and it is certainly possible that it may provide similar services to the CIA or other American and/or Europe intelligence agencies.
Here's some more information concerning G4S and its most notorious subsidiary, Wackenhut. As to the later, it found itself implicated in a triple murder stemming from a partnership between Wackenhut and the Cabazon tribe, whose reservation resides in Coachella, California, near Indio (a part of the Palm Springs area). In 1981 the Cabazon tribe founded Cabazon Arms, an arms-manufacturing venture that has been linked to a host of intrigues. One is the above-mentioned triple murder:
"In 1982, Fred Alvarez, a Cabazon tribal leader, and two companions, were found murdered on the Indio reservation. Alvarez had been critical of Nichols' and Wackenhut's dealings with the Cabazon tribe, and he had mentioned to friends that he had received death threats. Investigative reporter Virginia McCullough later came to believe that Alvarez had discovered that monies rightfully belonging to the Indians were being embezzled by the partnership called Bingo Palace Inc. Alvarez knew what he was getting into, however. He had told the Indio Daily News, 'My life is on the line. There are people out there [on the reservation] that want to kill me."
The above-mentioned Nichols is Robert Booth Nichols, a notorious alleged CIA man who has been implicated in a host of scandals, most notably the Inslaw affair and the collapse of Sam Israel's financial empire. There are allegations Nichols attempted to use Cabazon Arms to provide equipment for the Contras:
"The crux of the Wackenhut involvement in arms development and shipments through various sources, including Peter Zokosky, Robert Booth Nichols, John Vanderwerker, and others, was tied irrevocably to the Reagan administration's efforts to aid the Nicaraguan Contras.
"A Special Operations Report emanating from the Riverside, California, District Attorney's Office which was sent to John Cohen, investigator for the House Judiciary Committee on Inslaw, provided indisputable proof that Wackenhut sold arms to the Contras.
"The Special Operations Intelligence Report entitled 'Nicaraguans and Earl Brian at Lake Cahuilla – 9/10/81' described the meeting held between two groups, the Nicaraguans and Wackenhut/Cabazon officials, at a county-owned police firing range at Lake Cahuilla in Riverside County.
"According to the surveillance report, the purpose of the meeting was 'to test a new night vision device and weapons. All [the] weapons tested were semi-automatic. [A] new sniper rifle tested was a 50 caliber with a 308 bullet.'
"The report went on to note that 'some automatic weapons were present, but all had necessary permits through Meridian Arms. Meridian Arms [is] owned by Michael Riconosciuto, Robert Booth Nichols (no relation to John Philip Nichols), and Don Oliver – Undersheriff of San Diego County. Meeting and testing took about one hour, then all parties left.' "
"G4S has previously been accused of improperly vetting its employees. In 2009, Danny Fitzsimons, a former British paratrooper and employee of a G4S subsidiary, killed two colleagues in Iraq, claiming to be 'the antichrist' and saying he 'must satisfy' his 'bloodlust.' An official investigation concluded that his employer did not properly vet his psychological health.
"In 2007, G4S signed contracts with five Israeli prisons and 'interrogation centers,' leading to accusations that it was complicit in torture and the imprisonment of children. In 2010, three G4S security guards killed an Angolan national during a deportation flight from the U.K., by restraining him in an asphyxiating position.
"In January, five G4S officers were arrested after a BBC expose revealed systematic abuse and neglect at a G4S-run youth jails.
"G4S has also become a focal point for the Israel-focused Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement over its partnerships with Israeli prisons and military checkpoints. Activist pressure has led to divestment from the company by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Methodist Church, and UNICEF in Jordan. G4S has since announced that it would end its Israeli prison contracts.
"In 2002, G4S acquired the United States-based Wackenhut Corporation, a private security and prison contractor with a deeply troubled history, including the widespread sexual assault of inmates at a Texas detention center in 1999.
"Wackenhut went on to win a contract to guard the U.S. Embassy at Kabul, worth $189 million over five years. In 2009, the Project on Government Oversight sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with photographic evidence that embassy guards had created a 'Lord of the Flies environment,' at the embassy, said to include guards and supervisors 'peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks… [drunken] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity.'
"Nevertheless, Wackenhut was hired by the U.S. government and BP in 2010 to manage perimeter security for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf Coast.
"In 2011, G4S won a contract to provide security for the 2012 London Olympics – only to overcharge the British government and provide understaffed security."
For years Wackenhut was one of the largest operators of private prisons in the United States and one of the trailblazers of the private prison racket. G4S seems to have not only followed in these footsteps, but also internationalized Wackenhut's approach to private prisons.
The same article notes that G4S was provided with ample indications of Mateen's instability:
"G4S confirmed in a statement that Omar Mateen had worked for the company since 2007, and said it was 'shocked and saddened' by the shooting. A later statement said that Mateen was subject to 'detailed company screening' in 2007 and again in 2013, 'with no adverse findings.'
"But one of Mateen’s former coworkers told the New York Times that he 'saw it coming,' that Mateen 'talked about killing people all the time,' and that he was 'always angry, sweating, just angry at the world.'
"The coworker, who said he quit his job due to harassment from Mateen, explained that he 'complained multiple times' to G4S, because Mateen didn’t like 'blacks, women, lesbians, and Jews.'
"Yet G4S continued to employ Mateen, who was able to obtain a 'security officer' license to buy firearms in addition to his state license and conceal carry permit.
"Mateen was even allowed to work at G4S while under FBI investigation. According to the FBI, Mateen was suspected of involvement in terror in 2013. The FBI investigation included the use of paid informants, recording conversations, following him, electronic surveillance, and interviewing him three times, FBI Director James Comey said on Monday. The investigation was closed because it produced no hard evidence of terrorist complicity."
"Mateen first appeared on authorities’ radar in 2013 after the security guard’s colleagues alerted the FBI to inflammatory statements he made to colleagues claiming 'family connections to Al Qaeda,' according to Comey.
"Mateen also told coworkers he had a family member who belonged to Hezbollah, a Shia network that is a bitter enemy of ISIS — the network he pledged allegiance to the night of the carnage, Comey noted.
"The FBI’s Miami office opened an inquiry into Mateen.
" 'He said he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so he could martyr himself.' Comey said.
"Nevertheless, FBI investigators investigated Mateen, who was born in New York, for 10 months. They introduced him to confidential informants, spied on his communications and followed him. They also interviewed him twice."
"Few individuals, even now, are aware of the significance of Jupiter Island. Located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, just a few miles north of Palm Beach, the island measures a mere half a mile wide and nine miles long. According to authors Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, island residents read like a 'Who's Who' of the Anglo-American establishment. Many have close connections to the intelligence apparatus and not a few are, or have been, members of the notorious Skull and Bones Society, a secretive and influential Masonic lodge formed at Yale law school.1 Interestingly, many of the early residents, including Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush-George Bush's father-were strong supporters of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party prior to World War II. Even in recent years, George Bush continued to have unfinished work with Nazis domiciled in South America, Tatum says-especially while the world's eyes were turned towards Saddam Hussein and Iraq during Desert Storm. That, however, is another story.
"Jupiter Island boasts hyper-security. All vehicles are tracked by sensors placed in the roads and every housekeeper, gardener or other non-resident is required by ordinance to be fingerprinted and registered. Residents themselves are carefully screened prior to being permitted to purchase real estate (many purchase by invitation, it is thought) and one of their primary duties as good residents is to perform active 'surveillance' to ensure the island remains secure.2 It was here that Tatum met with and discussed sensitive projects with then Vice President and later President Bush, at the residence of his mother, Rose Bush."
"The murky picture of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen grew more complex Tuesday with word that the FBI is investigating whether he had been a regular at the gay dance club he attacked and had been leading a secret life as a gay man...
"On Tuesday, a U.S. official said the FBI is looking into a flurry of news reports quoting patrons of the Pulse as saying that Mateen frequented the nightspot and reached out to men on gay dating apps. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Some psychologists raised the possibility that Mateen was sexually conflicted and lashed out against gays, or that he was casing the nightclub for an attack and trying to find victims online."
In antiquity, the month of July was known as a rather volatile time, especially at the onset of the so-called "Dog Days" of Summer. These were said to occur with the helical rising of the Dog Star Sirius and frequently resulted in fiery weather and even fiery tempers.
"The heliacal rising of Sirius was also important to ancient peoples. Here is a dramatic description by the ancient Greek poet Aratus of Soli of the rising of Sirius (often known as the Dog Star as it is in the constellation Canis, or "Dog"):
The tip of his [the Dog's] terrible jaw is marked by a star that keenest of all blazes with a searing flame and him men call Sirius. When he rises with the Sun [his heliacal rising], no longer do the trees deceive him by the feeble freshness and their leaves. For easily with his keen glance he pierces their ranks, and to some he gives strength but of others he blights the bark utterly.
"We see that this dramatic description of the rising of the star indicates an event which was certainly noticed by ancient peoples. Throughout Latin literature there are many references to 'the Dog Days' which followed the heliacal rising of Sirius in the summer. These hot, parched days were thought by that time to derive some of their ferocity and dryness from the 'searing' of Sirius..."
The helical rising of Sirius was by all accounts a major event in the ancient world, yet, as I've noted before, there is little certainty concerning the actual date on which it began. It is most often alleged to have been July 23, though some accounts place it on the twentieth. In David Ovason's classic The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital, he cites July 3 as the beginning of the Dog Days.
Either way, we are almost upon the Dog Days if not already engulfed in their fury if the current state of the world is any indication. On July 14, 2016, a terror attack was carried out in Nice, France, involving a large truck that left some 84 people dead. As can be expected, the Internet is already awash with claims of "false flag," but this is perhaps to hasty. The technocrats in Brussels are already uneasy after Brexit and French officials already fear that another large scale terror attack could have serious (har har) repercussions for one of the two nations (along with Germany) chiefly responsible for the EU. Consider the following:
"Fielding questions behind closed doors from the Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry into the Paris attacks in November 2015, the transcript of which has today been released, Patrick Calvar, the head of the Directorate General of Internal Security (RPS) explained that it was not just an escalation of the terrorists’ capabilities he feared, but also the subsequent response from what he termed the 'far right'...
" 'I think we will win against terrorism; I am, however, more concerned about the radicalisation of society and the basic movement that drives it. That’s what worries me when I talk with my European colleagues: we will have, at one time or another, to provide resources to deal with other extremist groups because confrontation is inevitable.'..
" 'All of Europe is in danger of rising extremism so we are, domestically, trying to put in place the resources to watch far right groups who are waiting for confrontation,' he told Parliamentarians...
" 'If another attack or two occur, it will happen. It is therefore down to us to anticipate and confound all those groups who would, at some point, spark clashes between communities.' "
It may not even come to an armed revolt. Marine Le Pen was already surging in French polls prior to the nation's latest large scale terror attack and no doubt she is even better positioned after Thursday's events. And of course, there are the ever growing calls for "Frexit" as well, which could effectively be the final nail in the coffin of the EU.
This is most assuredly not what the technocrats in Brussels or the American Eastern Establishment want. On the other hand, the old guard aristocracy centered around the Le Cercle network, while once being a crucial alley of the United Europe movement, have grown increasingly Eurosceptic since the chairmanships of Lord Norman Lamont and Lord Lothian. While my inclination is that the recent attack was likely collateral damage from the disastrous US-NATO policy toward the Islamic world since 9/11, the objectives of the latter group are only going to be furthered with this latest incident.
But this is Turkey we are talking about after all and there is a reason why this nation originated the deep state. Within said nation, there is a growing suspicion that Erdogan himself has sponsored the coup. Certainly Turkey and its military have a long history with coups and this latest effort seems shockingly inept, especially if it had backing from the CIA. Erdogan, by contrast, will appear as a national hero with the way cleared for him to further his authoritarian rule. He'll no doubt be greatly helped in this endeavor by being able to ascertain the Gulen loyalists and other adversaries in the military and brutally purge them.
But why would Erdogan single out a CIA-linked cleric as the coup plotter? In recent weeks Erdogan has been warming up to Putin and deescalating Turkey's recent tensions with Russia in the process. Is this the beginning of a closer relationship with Putin, one in which Turkey will bow out of NATO efforts to counter Russia?
Certainly raising speculation that the CIA was a partner in the coup will only make the pivot toward Russia an easier sell t the populace if that is in fact Erdogan's agenda. Only time will tell as events surrounding this coup are still murky at the very best and the parapolitics will likely only become apparent after some time.
But regardless, this is yet another sign that 2016 is different, a notion that gains more currency every day.
Update 7/16/16: Well, that didn't take long. Erdogan has already demanded the extradition of alleged coup plotters and CIA asset (noted above) Fethullah Gulen from the United States while massive purges of both the military and other government branches (especially the judiciary) are well under way. At present some 265 people are officially reported dead as part of the failed coup.
Curiously, the are allegations that the Clintons have ties to Fethullah Gulen, the cleric Erdogan blamed the coup on. This is highly speculative, however and it is unknown if this has any bearing of these events currently unfolding.
Welcome to the sixth installment in my ongoing examination of the CIA's mysterious Office of Security (OS). For those of you just joining me or trying to catch up, here is a brief rundown of what has come before:
part one noted the backgrounds and politics of the OS personnel as opposed to Office of Strategic Services (OSS) "Old Boys" who dominated the Agency's upper hierarchy for decades
the second installment began to consider the OS' involvement in the Watergate scandal by breaking down OS veteran James McCord's totally bungling of the second break-in and the possibility that he or one of his employees had tipped off the D.C. police off concerning the break-in
part three focused on the likely target of the Watergate break-in, namely a prostitution ring that was being run in the nearby Columbia Plaza and using the Watergate-based DNC to recruit clients; James McCord appears to have played a key role in setting up this operation
part four addressed the OS's extensive network of "safe houses" as well as the evidence that more than a few of these safe houses were used for blackmail operations; it also addressed the likely Watergate cabal, which was heavily represented by the OS, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) as well as the notorious American Security Council network (ASC, which this blog addressed at length before here)
the fifth and most recent installment gave a rundown of the OS's involvement in assassinations and clean up operations (especially in regards to their involvement in the death of Frank Olson) as well a brief assessment of their role in Operation CHAOS
When last I left off I had just noted that several of the New Left and Black Liberation groups targeted by Operation CHAOS developed militant splinter factions shortly after CHAOS and similar programs were initiated. The OS section that worked most closely in CHAOS was the Security Research Staff (SRS), the same unit that oversaw the notorious BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE experiments (and the same unit James McCord spent much of his CIA career in).
As promised at the end of the last installment, I shall now be moving on to BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE in earnest. Despite the fact that these Projects cast quite a shadow over many of these events already considered in this series, this researcher felt it was best to first address the non-behavior modification controversies surrounding the OS. While typically depicted as a marginal component of the CIA, the OS nonetheless turns up in many of the blackest CIA projects initiated from the Agency's inception up until the Watergate scandal.
The Office of Security was not a marginal CIA department and in fact seems to have been entrusted with many of the Agency's most secretive operations, especially on the domestic front. Reporting directly to the DCI himself (few CIA departments had such a privilege) and charged with protecting the Agency from foreign penetration, the OS can be seen is something of a Praetorian Guard for the Agency during the early days. In this context, it s not especially surprising that the OS was the CIA department entrusted with the Agency's initial forays into behavior modification and enhanced interrogation methods.
Setting the Record Straight on ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA
And that brings us to BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE. Before delving into the history of these Projects, one particular point must be made with the greatest emphasis. And that is, in brief:
BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE were in no way, shape or form a component of MKULTRA or its successor programs.
BLUEBIRD was "rolled" into ARTICHOKE some time around 1951, as has long been known, but Project ARTICHOKE did not end with the initiation of MKULTRA in 1953, as is commonly claimed. In point of fact, when ARTICHOKE ended and what happened in the aftermath is shrouded in mystery as well. In A Secret Order H.P. Albarelli cryptically notes: "From 1951 to about 1963, when the Artichoke Project was revamped and renamed..." (pg. 171).
In other words, ARTICHOKE seems to have been active until 1963, the same year MKULTRA was officially ended. Nor was ARTICHOKE the only project of this nature the OS-Security Research Staff (SRS, the branch of the OS that oversaw the behavior modification experiments) operatives were engaged in up until 1963 --the mysterious and little addressed Project QKHILLTOP was also shuttered that year after being active for nearly a decade.
Of course, as researchers of this topic are well aware, MKULTRA did not actually end in 1963, but was "revamped" as MKSEARCH and other projects in 1964. It would appear that the same thing was done to ARTICHOKE around this time as well, but very little is known about the successor program(s?) to ARTICHOKE. It is quite possible that ARTICHOKE continued running in some form or another until 1973, when the fall out from Watergate spurred the CIA to shutter these programs and destroy the records relating to them (part four addressed why Watergate was a factor in these decisions).
Nor were the BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE projects ever under the control of the Technical Services Staff (TSS) or MKULTRA head Sidney Gottlieb, as is commonly claimed. TSS and Gottlieb did have some involvement with ARTICHOKE via the so-called "Artichoke Committee," but this was very minor. Gottlieb himself described the arrangement as thus:
"... It's important to know that I was not on the ARTICHOKE team, in the ARTICHOKE group that the Office of Security or Security Research ran. My knowledge of ARTICHOKE teams stem from my attendance at conferences or meetings at which I represented technical services. ARTICHOKE and technical services were, in nearly every since of the word, separate. They had separate purposes, separate supervision, not all the time in synch with one another... The Church Committee blurred the lines between all these programs, MKULTRA, ARTICHOKE, Bluebird, QKHILLTOP, Chemical Corps, NAOMI, SHADE, all of them became one and I was... I didn't have any problem with answering for them all, but I didn't... I didn't oversee all these projects. Let's leave it at that."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 233)
In point of fact, MKULTRA seems to have been started in stealth and led to something of a power struggle between ARTICHOKE head Morse Allen and Gottlieb.
"... ARTICHOKE director, Morse Allen, was engaged in a power struggle with Sidney Gottlieb for control of the project. Allen had earlier told Gaynor he had reliable reports that Gottlieb's OTS, with strong support from Wisner and Helms, was devising its own mind control program to be conducted apart from OS and OSI. Allen was upset about the extent of bureaucratic infighting within plain sight of DCI Dulles and DDCI Cabell, but Gaynor dissuaded Allen from complaining too loudly or going to the top with his unhappiness. Gaynor's advice was good, and it turned out well for Morse Allen to have heeded it. Despite the fact that OTS would soon launch its own 'mind control' program, MKULTRA, Allen would retain leadership of Project ARTICHOKE for at least a decade longer. (Contrary to many publications and written accounts, ARTICHOKE was not replaced by MKULTRA and the two projects continued to run concurrently, at least until 1958, if not longer.)"
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 248)
Gaynor is Brigadier General Paul F. Gaynor, the long time head of the Security Research Staff. Gaynor was something of an expert in the CIA in terms of sexual blackmail, maintaining the so-called "fag files" (noted in part one). Gaynor was also very close to James McCord and was in contact with him throughout the Watergate scandal (as noted before here and here). He also had extensive ties to the far right, especially the American Security Council clique (as noted before here and here).
OSI is the Office of Scientific Intelligence while OTS is the Office of Technical Services, the successor to the Technical Services Staff (TSS). The OSI, unlike the TSS, was a partner with the OS in Projects BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE and for a brief period in 1952 was even the department directing ARTICHOKE. The Office of Security and the Office of Scientific Intelligence were also beset by differences, however, and a power struggle played out here as well with the OS regaining control of ARTICHOKE and holding on to it until the Project's end. This dispute will be dealt with in greater depth in a future installment.
That future DCI Richard Helms and Frank Wisner, one of the most powerful figures in the early days of the CIA who then held the powerful post of Director of Plans, would encourage Gottlieb to set up MKULTRA as a rival to the OS-controlled Project ARTICHOKE is most interesting. Both men had been very liberal politically during their college days and allegations of Communist sympathies had dogged them ever since. What's more, Wisner had been very close to James Kronthal, the Soviet double agent the OS had uncovered and potentially had "assisted" in his "suicide (noted in part five) in 1953. Apparently Wisner had even been investigated by the Office of Security at one point during this time frame.
Frank Wisner, who ultimately committed suicide after receiving electroshock therapy and other techniques from CIA psychiatrists
This researcher wonders if the far right wing tendencies of the Office of Security personnel may have partly played into the angling of Helms and Wisner to set up Gottlieb and MKULTRA as a rival to ARTICHOKE. Certainly the possibility for abuse with such operations was quite high, and Helms and Wisner may have feared leaving the most reactionary elements of the CIA in complete control of such operations.
Another reason cited for the creation of MKULTRA and the ascension of Gottlieb and TSS in this field was the need for more "scientific control" over such research. The OS, largely comprised of former FBI and military men, had few members with any kind of scientific backgrounds. This reasoning could help explain why MKULTRA experiments seem almost totally void of originality, largely rehashing prior ARTICHOKE experiments.
This was already noted briefly in part four when considering the safe houses. The OS controlled a vast network of them across both the nation and the world and employed several of them for ARTICHOKE experiments that involved both prostitutes and unwittingly dosing subjects with experimental drugs. This of course bares more than a passing resemblance to the notorious Operation Midnight Climax that Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent George Hunter White ran for the TSS, which was initiated nearly two years after the ARTICHOKE experiments had begun. What's more, Morse Allen had known White prior to WWII and may even have recruited him for early ARTICHOKE experiments. Thus, White's purpose with Operation Midnight Climax may have been to merely recreate prior ARTICHOKE experiments.
Another example of this already addressed was the work of Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, noted in part five. Pfeiffer's research eventually contributed to three separate MKULTRA Subprojects, but his early work at Bordentown Reformatory and later the Atlanta Penitentiary was begun under the auspices of Project ARTICHOKE before seemingly being transferred, or passed on, to MKULTRA, where Pfeiffer continued in a similar vein.
There is a possibility that will be explored over the remaining installments in this series that at least part of MKULTRA's purpose was merely to confirm or deny the conclusions reached by ARTICHOKE experiments. Certainly it seems that many of MKULTRA's experiments had their origins in research already conducted by ARTICHOKE. But moving along.
The MKULTRA Red Herring
The more one studies ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA, the more one is left with the impression that the MKULTRA revelations were largely designed by the CIA to draw attention away from Project ARTICHOKE. Certainly there has been a nearly five-decade long campaign of disinformation on the part of the Agency to depict ARTICHOKE as a mere predecessor to MKULTRA that was eventually rolled wholly into it. Over the past decade, evidence of such a plot has begun to emerge in the form of what was informally called "Operation Dormouse." Concerning "Dormouse," Jeffrey Kaye and H.P. Albarelli provided the following details on Truthout in 2010:
"Contemporary torture's earliest, deepest and most influential roots are found in the CIA's Artichoke Project. Indeed, it is Project Artichoke that encapsulates the CIA's real traveling road show of horrors and atrocities, not MK/ULTRA which, although responsible for its own acts of mindless cruelty, pales in comparison.
"That MK/ULTRA received, and continues to receive, the lion's share of the media's attention and public outrage over CIA mind control programs was a deliberately planned outcome on the part of the Agency. This outcome was the central objective of a never before revealed covert operation launched in 1975 and informally code-named Dormouse.
"Dormouse, operated out of the CIA's Security Research branch, had its genesis in the 1975 Rockefeller Commission report and in the subsequent Congressional hearings into CIA illegal activities chaired by Senators Frank Church and Teddy Kennedy. Following the initial revelation of Frank Olson's alleged "suicide" by the Rockefeller Commission, a number of high-level meetings occurred between President Gerald Ford's White House and CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston.
"Houston, who had served the Agency as its doyen general counsel for over 25 years, secretly huddled on at least two occasions in June 1975 with Ford's chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld, and his chief assistant, Richard Cheney. Houston impressed upon both men that any prolonged and intense media scrutiny of Project Artichoke would lead to opening a Pandora's box of legal, institutional, international and public relations problems that could destroy the CIA.
"Houston explained that the Agency's MK/ULTRA program was far less problematic for the CIA because it had been a research-based program that initiated 153 contracts to colleges, universities and research institutions nationwide. These contractors, all stalwart and prestigious institutions like Harvard, Columbia, and Tulane Universities, could serve as viable buffers to any harsh outside attacks.
"Houston stressed that deliberate exposure of the MK/ULTRA program by essentially offering it to the press would serve to placate the brewing feeding frenzy over so-called mind control projects, and would divert any investigative attempts into the multi-faceted Artichoke Project.
"Houston additionally explained to Rumsfeld and Cheney that, along with the release of MK/ULTRA details to the media, the names of a few former CIA employees, such as Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, would also be released to the press. Incredibly, when the subject of possible federal prosecutions of CIA officials for capital crimes and felonies, such as murder and drug trafficking, came up in their discussion, Houston informed Rumsfeld and Cheney that there was little cause for concern...
"Without doubt, as the extant record clearly reveals, the CIA's Dormouse Operation, as expressed by Houston, was remarkably effective. Information released on the Agency's MK/ULTRA program more than sated the media's curiosity for mind control details, and even a few random Artichoke Program citations in a couple released documents failed to draw any concerted examination by anyone in the press..."
Richard Cheney, then a rising star in the American deep state
Thus, it would seem that the Security Research Staff's rivalry with MKLULTRA and Gottlieb even extended into the cover-up, with the SRS effectively laying responsibility for virtually everything relating to behavioral modification experiments at the feet of Gottlieb and MKLULTRA. While Gottlieb and MKLUTRA were certainly responsible for their fair share of barbarism, there are ample indications that Gottlieb and company were choir boys compared to their counterparts in ARTICHOKE. There may have been a hint of anti-Semitism behind the Jewish Gottlieb being offered up as a sacrificial lamb for the CIA's behavioral modification experiments as well. As was noted in part one, longtime SRS head General Paul Gaynor had many racist associates and even resorted to anti-Semitism during the CIA's investigation of journalist Jack Anderson, whom he accused of being a part of the "liberal-Zionist-Mafia" cabal (noted in part four).
BLUEBIRD and Pelican
With those disclaimers out of the way, let us now begin our examination of BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE in earnest. The origins of BLUEBIRD, the predecessor to ARTICHOKE, are some what murky, but seem to date to around 1949. This was of course not the first time the United States security services had officially investigated behavior modification and enhanced interrogation methods, however. The OSS had famously experimented with "truth serums," including cannabis, with the assistance of the above-mentioned George Hunter White during the WWII years. Elsewhere, the Army employed a special interrogation unit known as the "Rough Boys," part of its Counterintelligence Corps, in the post-WWII years up until at least the early 1950s. The Rough Boys employed both drugs and electroshock, two latter staples of the so-called "Artichoke Treatment."
The Navy had begun to investigate potential truth serums in 1947 as part of Project CHATTER.
"... Described as an 'offensive' program, CHATTER was supposed to devise means of obtaining information from people independent of their volition but without physical duress. Toward this end Dr. Charles Savage conducted experiments with mescaline (a semi-synthetic extract of the peyote cactus that produces hallucinations similar to those caused by LSD) at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. But these studies, which involved animals as well as human subjects, did not yield an effective truth serum, and CHATTER was terminated in 1953.
"The navy became interested in mescaline as an interrogation agent when American investigators learned of mind control experiments carried out by Nazi doctors at the Dachau concentration camp during World War II. After administering the hallucinogen to thirty prisoners, the Nazis concluded that it was 'impossible to impose one's will on another person as in hypnosis even when the strongest dose of mescaline had been given.' But the drug still afforded certain advantages to SS interrogators, who were consistently able to draw 'even the most intimate secrets from the [subjects] when questions were cleverly put.'.."
(Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shalin, pgs. 5-6)
possibly Dr. Charles Savage, one of the key early researchers in CHATTER
As we shall see, CHATTER was not the only behavior modification project to comb Nazi archives for techniques in such fields. As such CHATTER in some ways laid the foundation for was to become BLUEBIRD.
"... Project Bluebird, which operated for about two years, 1949 through the summer of 1951, and primarily concentrated its efforts on former American POWs returned from the Korean War. These servicemen were placed as patients in several Army hospitals, including Valley Forge Hospital in Pennsylvania and the Walter Reed facility in Washington D.C. There, former POWs were subjected to various 'behavioral modification' programs involving the use of experimental drugs, hypnosis, and special interrogation methods, all for what the CIA deemed 'offensive objectives.' Joining the CIA in Project Bluebird as formal partners were the Army, Navy and Air Force. The FBI declined to participate in Bluebird.
"Reads one April 1951 Bluebird Project report:
" 'The Navy's research efforts in regards to Bluebird objectives had actually begun at Bethesda Naval Hospital. There, according to the Navy's Bluebird designees, J.H. Alberti and Lt. Cmdr. Hardenburg, extensive experiments had been conducted using both drugs and medical aids (polygraph machines, surgical means, hypnotism). Besides Bethesda hospital, the Office of Naval Research conducted a project in partnership with the University of Indiana, which in essence [was] a search for valid indications of deception other than the mechanical indicators now being used.' "
(A Secret Order, H.p. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 168-169)
As noted above, CHATTER was begun in 1947 but there may have been an even more mysterious Naval operation closely connected to BLUEBIRD that was begun in the late 1940s as well.
"... an intense, covert program operated by the CIA in tandem with Naval Intelligence, aimed at 'identifying and testing the effectiveness of suspected Soviet Russians, or satellite countries, activity in the areas of physical, psychological, mechanical and medical interrogation techniques.' Initially code-named Pelican, and then Operation Boomer, and finally Project Bluebird..."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 202)
The reference above to Project Pelican is most curious. This researcher has only been able to find one other reference to it and that has to do with the incredible comments made by Lieutenant Commander Thomas Narut, a Navy psychologist, in the wake of a NATO conference in Oslo during 1975. Afterwards Narut got into a conversation with a journalist from the Sunday Timesand made some shocking revelations about an assassination program being run by the Navy.
"When pressed by Watson to explain the details of this kind of conditioning, Narut said that he had worked with 'combat readiness units' which included men being programmed for commando-type operations and for undercover placement at U.S. embassies. These, Narut said, were 'hit men and assassins' (Narut's words) made ready to kill in selected countries should the need arise...
"The conditioning of Narut's assassins was accomplished by audio-visual desensitization, a standard behavior modification process. These men were 'desensitized' to mayhem by being shown films of people being killed or injured in a number of different ways. At first the films would show only mild forms of bloodshed. As the men became acclimated to the scenes of carnage, they would see progressively more violent scenes. The assassin candidates, Narut explained, would eventually be able to dissociate any feelings they might have from even the goriest scenes they viewed."
Apparently the treatments these would be assassins were given was very Clockwork Orange-like. They were even strapped into chairs, their heads clamped so that they could not look away from the screen and a device preventing them from closing their eyes was even employed. Narut alleged that the techniques he had described were conducted at the Naval Neuropsychiatric Laboratory Center in San Diego, California.
After the Sunday Times article was published, several American journalist attempted to interview Narut. This proved easier said than done as the Navy rapidly closed ranks. The Navy of course denied everything Narut had said, but some interesting comments were made off the record by an alleged military source.
"... Eventually, one persistent journalist was informed off the record that the Navy 'kept elite units of trained assassins at secret locations across the world,' and that the overall designation for some of the units was Project Pelican. 'The project is a matter of national security,' said one Navy official in the Pentagon...."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 346-347)
Was Project Pelican the designation for the Navy's contributions to BLUEBIRD and later ARTICHOKE? Certainly there are indications that developing assassins was an objective of BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, as we shall see. But moving along for now.
BLUEBIRD, ONI and the Nazis
One of the most curious aspects of BLUEBIRD that is much remarked upon by researchers is the both date in which the program was officially launched and the individual who green lighted it. Consider:.
"Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoeter was the first Director of the CIA; he was also later to become a member of NICAP, that organization of professional scientists, military men, engineers and civilians created to uncover the truth about UFOs. Hillenkoeter remained convinced about the reality of the phenomenon all his life. But on April 20, 1950 --ironically enough, Hitler's birthday --he approved the creation of a special project to discover a means to combat the Russian mind weapons, whatever they were. This project was called BLUEBIRD."
(Sinister Forces Book One, Peter Levenda, pg. 187)
Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoeter, himself a long time member of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), is one of the most curious and overlooked CIA directors. As I'll already indicated in the previous section and in part four of this series, there appears to have been rather close collaboration between the Office of Security and ONI. The Navy was already active in behavior modification research at the time the CIA was founded, so Hillenkoeter likely would have brought a passing familiarity with such projects within him to the CIA. What's more, the eventual head of BLUEBIRD and the long time head of ARTICHOKE, Morse Allen, had served in the ONI during WWII. Allen had spent much of WWII in the Pacific Theater while Hillenkoeter was the chief of intelligence for the staff of Admiral Chester Nimitz's Pacific fleet. Thus, there is certainly a possibility that Hillenkoeter was aware of Allen even before both men had joined the CIA.
Hillenkoeter's activities with NICAP are also interesting for our purposes here as there is compelling evidence that ARTICHOKE had an interest in UFOs, as shall be addressed in a future installment. For now, it is interesting to note that there was quite a bit of overlap between the membership of NICAP and the American Security Council (ASC), a vast private intelligence network as well the leading lobby group for the military industrial complex throughout the Cold War era. As was noted in part one, long time Security Research Staff (SRS, the section of the OS that oversaw BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE) head Brigadier General Paul Gaynor had close ties to the ASC while in part four it was revealed that the ASC likely played a key role in the Watergate scandal along with the OS and ONI. Certainly then the presence of so many ASC men, including Council founder John Fischer, in NICAP along with Hillenkoeter is rather curious, especially in light of ties both Hillenkoeter and the ASC had to BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE. But moving along.
The timing of BLUEBIRD's official launch is most curious as well. Certainly the date of Hitler's birthday (April 20, 1950 would have been Der Fuhrer's sixty-first) is most ominous, especially in light of the fact that Nazi records had become studied prior to the official launch of BLUEBIRD for techniques that could be put to use in the fledgling project.
"... In 1949, Frank Wisner, Office of Policy Coordination assistant director, created a scientific steering committee to conduct a complete inventory of all chemical and biological weapons then in existence, including those employed by the Nazis and Japanese during World War II. Based on that inventory, Wisner instructed the committee to come up with 'ideas in the areas of chemical, biological and radiological warfare' and 'if concept is deemed workable the Committee will recommend competent scientists and engineers to supply detailed information to round out any such plans. Wisner said the committee would work closely with selected personnel from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Camp Detrick, military intelligence, and the CIA's Division A."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 209)
Presumably the Committee mentioned above is what eventually became the "Artichoke Committee." Some of the military personnel involved in the Committee had ties to the Nazis as well.
"A combined CIA-military intelligence project code-named 'Bluebird' and later renamed 'Artichoke' was set up... Significantly, the key military intelligence agency involved with this project --the Joint Intelligence Committee --had been involved in Paperclip from the beginning. The JIC members included U.S. Army Director of Intelligence Alexander Bolling and Brigadier General John Alexander Samford, the chief of Air Force intelligence who later headed the National Security Agency."
Reportedly some of the Paperclip scientists such Freidrick Wilhelm Hoffmann were used as part of the initial BLUEBIRD experiments and may even have contributed to ARTICHOKE for years afterwards.
And this point this researcher would like to take a moment and stress the joint nature of BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE. While the CIA is largely perceived as being wholly responsible for these projects, this is HARDLY accurate, as I hope some of the previous sections have indicated. The fact of the matter is that the US Military, especially the Army and Navy, were not only willing participants but had even embarked upon research of this nature that pre-dated the CIA's involvement. BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE were very much collaborations between the CIA and the Pentagon, with the latter developing its own particular uses for the research conducted as part of BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE.
BLUEBIRD and Twilight Language
Another curious aspect of BLUEBIRD is the project's name. Conventional accounts hold that there was nothing especially significant about BLUEBIRD's name. H.P. Albarelli, for instance, notes: "The code named BLUEBIRD had resulted from a comment made at a 1950 planning committee meeting of the Office of Special Operations (OSO) --that the objective of improved interrogation techniques was to get the subject 'to sing like a bluebird.'.. " (A Terrible Mistake, pg. 208).
The great Peter Levenda, examining BLUEBIRD through the prism of "twilight language," suggested a far more disturbing inspiration for BLUEBIRD's name.
"There is a phrase which is perhaps not used so much these days as it was in the tender years of the twentieth century: 'the blue bird of happiness.' What many people do not realize --and did not realize even then --was that this term had its origins in a play and a novel written by the Belgian Nobel Prize-winning author and dramatist, Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949). Maeterlinck was surrounded by the Symbolist movement (forerunners of the Surrealists) in fin-de-siecle France, and was a friend of Sar Peladan, a noted Rosicrucian of the day. Indeed, Maeterlinck was something of a mystic himself and a firm believer in occult phenomena, as his other writings such as The Other World (1942) amply demonstrate. He was also a keen observer of nature and natural phenomena, in The Life of the Bee (1901), in which the concept of the 'meme' is introduced, to a wider audience (after its creation by a relatively-unknown German psychologist --Richard Sauder --years before, the same psychologist who created the 'engram,' made famous by L. Ron Hubbard). His writings were very popular in Europe, being a mixture of the profound with the child-like, such as his most famous work The Blue Bird 1909). In this play, first performed in the Russian language in Moscow on September 30, 1908 and later in English in London and New York, two children set off on a search for the Blue Bird of Happiness. This search leads them on many adventures --a kind of initiatic quest for the Grail --and the author was startled to realize that many of the motifs of Maeterlinck's play are repeated in the CIA's search for a Manchurian Candidate, a search that began with Project BLUEBIRD. It is this strange set of correspondence that leads the author to the opinion that Sheffield Edwards's agenda itself was far more profound than simply a search for a truth serum or a psychological defense against it, or that at least Edwards understood the implications of what he had set out to do in BLUEBIRD...
"The story, which begins on Christmas Eve, involves two children --Tyltyl and his younger sister Mytyl --who set out on a quest to find the Blue Bird of Happiness. Impoverished children of a woodcutter, who lives across from a great house with very rich children, they understand that they are too poor to receive Christmas presents that year. They go to sleep with the lamp out. Then, in the middle of the night, a light shines through their house from outside, the lamp lights itself, and the children awake. (It is like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, similar in detail to descriptions of UFO landings.) There is a knock at the door, and an old woman --who later introduces herself as the Fairy Berylune --asks them if they have 'the grass that sings, or the bird that is blue.' It appears that Berylune has a sick daughter who will not get well unless the Blue Bird of Happiness is found. The children, eager to help, then set off on a quest for the mysterious Bird... and to visit their dead grandparents, with the Fairy's help. In order to visit the dead, however, they have to pass through the Land of Memory which is on the way to the Blue Bird."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 187-188)
While BLUEBIRD would certainly prove to be quite a journey into the "Land of Memory," Levenda's premise is very dubious. Still, there is compelling evidence that the conservative men of the Office of Security would develop quite an interest in mysticism during their work on BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, as shall be addressed in a future installment.
Before wrapping up, a few more points shall be made about the early days of BLUEBIRD. Let us begin with the Project's founding agendas.
"... Simply put, the initial objectives of BLUEBIRD were to devise the most effective means possible for obtaining specific information from unwilling subjects. The project focused almost exclusively on situations deemed 'Special Interrogations' or 'SI' in which the quick and complete 'inducing of full disclosure' was paramount.
"At BLUEBIRD's inception, CIA officials made it clear that no method of obtaining information was taboo from consideration. Documents from the project's earliest meetings reveal a laundry list of methods, including the use of 'ego-depressant' drugs like heroin and morphine; polygraph; electro-shock therapy; the use of 'mechanical aids'; lobotomies; hypnotism; fatigue; isolation; sensory deprivation; and torture."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 208)
A few paragraphs down Albarelli quotes at length a proposal from the BLUEBIRD committee that indicates an even more sinister agenda:
"After the research programs have been developed, it is recommended that BLUEBIRD conduct experiments and develop techniques to determine the possibilities and practicability of positive use of SI on willing and unwilling subjects for operational purposes. Positive use of SI would be for the purpose of operational control of individuals to perform specific tasks under post hypnotic suggestion and, in addition, would cover research in training fields and defensive conditioning against the application of SI by unfriendly elements. This field, if it is found that the application of SI is possible and practicable, offers unlimited opportunities to operating offices."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 208-209)
After roughly a year of research, official BLUEBIRD teams became active just a few months after Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoeter had green lighted the project. Many of these headed overseas to test suspected double agents.
"Three months after the Director approved BLUEBIRD, the first team traveled to Japan to try out behavioral techniques on human subjects --probably suspected double agents. The three men arrived in Tokyo in July 1950, about a month after the start of the Korean War. No one needed to impress upon them the importance of their mission. The Security Office ordered them to conceal their true purpose from even the U.S. military authorities with whom they worked in Japan, using the cover that they would be performing 'intensive polygraph' work. In stifling, debilitating heat and humidity, they tried out combinations of the depressant sodium amytal with the stimulant benzedrine on each of four subjects, the last two of whom also received a second stimulant, picrotoxin. They also tried to induce amnesia. The team considered the tests successful, but the CIA documents available on the trip give only the sketchiest outline of what happened. Then around October 1950, the BLUEBIRD team used 'advanced' techniques on 25 subjects, apparently North Korean prisoners of war."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 25)
Many of these tests were likely conducted at the Naval base in Atsugi. ARTICHOKE personnel visited the Atsugi location throughout the 1950s to conduct experiments there, though not anywhere to the extent some sources claim.
There were also tests conducted in Europe, especially Germany, but apparently the most common test subjects in the early days were U.S. military personnel. This was already noted briefly a few sections up, but here are a few more details concerning early BLUEBIRD experiments on GIs:
"Bluebird... experiments conducted at Edgewood or the Army intelligence base at Fort Holabird, Maryland. The participation of the CIA and the JIC in the project was kept hidden using a University of Maryland contract with Edgewood as a cover. At least a thousand soldiers... were given up to twenty doses of LSD to test the drug as a possible interrogation weapon --even though Edgewood scientists already knew it could cause serious physical reactions in humans...
"Nonetheless, test subjects at Edgewood or Fort Holabird were given LSD and other drugs, then subjected to hostile questioning by intelligence officers to deliberately create an extreme state of fear and anxiety. One soldier fought his way out of a locked box in stark terror during a Fort Holabird experiment. Several soldiers were seriously harmed by the tests. One man suffered a grand mal seisure; another went into an acute state of paranoia and had to be hospitalized for a week. Three others developed a history of epileptic seizures after the experiments..."
(Secret Agenda, Linda Hunt, pgs. 166-167)
And this was the kind of "vision" that gripped BLUEBIRD in its inception. And things were only going to become more brutal and bizarre as time went on. While Sidney Gottlieb is typically held up as the dark alchemist who oversaw these workings, in the next installment we shall meet the true black magician that inspired much of the mysticism in the early behavioral modification experiments. Stay tuned.
The shooter in the latest incident was also African-American and a veteran and said to have been radicalized by the epic killings of frequently unarmed African-Americans in these United States. There was, however, something of a twist to this latest incident: the shooter, one Gavin Eugene Long, was apparently a "Moorish Sovereign Citizen." Heavy.com reports:
"While Long says in the video he is not affiliated with any groups, CNN is reporting police found a membership card appearing to show he belonged to a black sovereign citizen group, the Washitaw Nation of Mu’urs...
"The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote about the Washitaw Nation in 1999. Sovereign citizens believe they are exempt from federal and state laws, including those requiring them to pay taxes. The FBI has classified them as a domestic threat.
"Long declared himself to be a sovereign citizen in court documents, obtained by the Kansas City Star, which were filed last year in Jackson County, Missouri...
" 'No doubt at all, He’s 100 percent sovereign citizen,' J.J. MacNab, an expert on anti-government extremists, told the Star, saying he fell into the Moorish Sovereign category, which includes the Washitaw Nation of Mu’urs. 'This group believes that they are indigenous to the continent and therefore above all federal, state and local laws. These documents show Long’s attempt to separate his flesh and blood ‘indigenous’ self from his legal entity self.'
"The anti-black sovereign citizen movement’s teachings turned out to be highly adaptable to the black nationalist teachings of Noble Drew Ali, who founded the exclusively black Moorish Science Temple of America in the early 20th century.
"He taught that black 'Moors' had been America’s original inhabitants, so they were entitled to self-governing status as a nation within a nation – giving them rights that predate the Constitution, just as sovereign citizens believe.
"The Nation of Islam arose from the Moorish Science Temple movement after the death of Noble Drew Ali, which splintered the organization...
"Moorish sovereign citizens often cite treaties signed more than 200 years ago between the U.S. and Barbary Coast states, which a retired judge – who studies history in his time away from the bench – said were no longer valid."
The Moorish Science Temple had its origins in the early twentieth century. It included a host of esoteric traditions largely derived from Freemasonry as well as a fascination with Islam, especially Sufism. It should be strongly emphasized, however, the the Moorish Science Temple's brand of "Islam" bares little resemblance to the mainstream version and is considered deeply heretical to most "pious" Muslims. Here's a brief account of the system's origins:
"According to Peter Lamborn Wilson in Sacred Drift, 'Moorish Science represents a more serious meditation on the Islamic current within Masonry. According to my informant M.A. Ahari, Nobel Drew Ali was a Pythian Knight, a Shriner, a Prophet of the Veiled Realm, and of course a 32nd Degree Mason, He suggests that Masonic catechisms may have been the model for the Moorish Catechism...'
"Giving a sense of history back to displaced people was perhaps Noble Drew Ali's greatest accomplishment. After his death in 1929, the Moorish Science Temple splintered over questions of succession, but this religion still exists and remains one of the first expressions of American-based Islam.
"And what if Noble Drew ALi was right? As Wilson suggests in Sacred Drift, Morocco was indeed an early supporter of pre-Revolutionary America and worked closely with Thomas Jefferson and Freemason Benjamin Franklin to achieve the Moroccan Treaty of 1787. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin worked closely with the Moors in the Continental Congress to secure this treaty..."
(Ritual America, Adam Parfrey & Craig Heimbichner, pg. 65)
Presumably this formed the basis of the "treaties" referenced above. This concept of sovereign citizenry was a much later addition, however, and had nothing to do with Freemasonry or the mainline Moorish Science Temple. In point of fact, the sovereign citizen movement had a rather peculiar, though nonetheless occultic, origin: the Thule Society.
Segments of the Thule Society firmly believed that Germany's jurisprudence had been usurped, replacing their ancient Aryan legal codes with Roman law. An entire study section of the Thule Society was dedicated to researching this tragedy.
"... Johannes Hering's ring studied proposals to replace Germany's Roman-derived civil code with the imagined laws of ancient Northern Europe. One of the law ring's members was a young student, Hans Frank. Frank later shaped Nazi jurisprudence in his capacity as president of the Association of German National Socialist Jurists. After 1933, he was Bavarian minister of justice and, in an example of the Nazi penchant for creating long-winded titles for unprecedented public offices, Reich Commissioner for the Standardisation of Justice in the States and for the Renewal of the Legal Order. During World War II, Frank served as governor-general of Nazi-occupied Poland, where his role in the Holocaust and in terrorizing the Polish nation led to the gallows at Nuremberg."
This concept of an earlier German law suppressed by the Roman one so inspired the Nazi Party that it was enshrined as the nineteenth point of the 25 Point program of the Nazi Party. Specifically, it read: "We demand that the Roman Law, which serves the materialistic world order, shall be replaced by a German common law."
The Posse Comitatus is often cited as the originators of the sovereign citizen movement in the United States, but this is not entirely accurate. As I explained during my examination of the Thule Society, it appears that the ideology of the Thulists was transferred to these United States via a secret society eventually known as the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ, noted before here). SOSJ, in turn, had very close ties to the Posse Comitatus movement and may even had pushed Posse founder (and "former" military intelligence officer) William Potter Gale into starting the movement in the first place. Given the number of military men behind the Posse and the sovereign citizen movement in general, there is a strong possibility that these movements constituted some type of covert op. All of this was addressed on this blog before here. Certainly more than a few veterans have found a certain appeal in the ideology, Mr. Long being only the latest.
And as for how a fraction of the Moorish Science Temple ended up knee deep in the sovereign citizen movement, I think I have an explanation for this as well. It involves another offshoot of the Moorish Science Temple, known as the "Moorish Orthodox Diocese of Ong's Hat and Montclair, New Jersey." In Sinister Forces Book I, the great Peter Levenda notes that a certain Bishop, Michael Francis Augustine Itkin, had ties to a most peculiar church:
"... the American Orthodox Catholic Church; in fact, a successor to Stanley --one Bishop Michael Francis Augustus Itkin... --was consecrated by him in November of 1960..."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pg. 279)
The American Orthodox Catholic Church (AOCC) is quite a notorious sect that has been linked to the Kennedy assassination, among numerous other outrages (noted before here). It also had ties to the Sovereign Order of Saint John, as I noted before here. It is possible then that Bishop Itkin first picked up on sovereign citizen ideology while with the SOSJ and brought a more politically correct form of it to the Moorish church, which later spread to other Moorish Science Temple offshoots, including the Nation of Islam.
This is of course all highly subjective and speculative, but surely more probably than many of the Byzantine Masonic conspiracy theories being floated around the Internet concerning this incident. And with that I shall wrap things up for now. Stay tuned dear reader for possible updates.
Welcome to the seventh installment in my ongoing examination of the CIA's mysterious and controversial Office of Security (OS). An active participant in the Watergate scandal, Operation CHAOS and Projects BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP, the OS found itself knee deep in many of the CIA's blackest black ops from the Agency's inception up until at least 1973 when the fall out from the Watergate scandal shook things up. For those of you just joining me or trying to catch up, here is a brief run down of what was covered in the prior installments:
part one addressed the composition and politics of the OS while also contrasting them with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) "Old Boys" who dominated the CIA's upper hierarchy for decades
the second installment began to consider the Watergate scandal, noting the role long time OS man James McCord had in the totally bungling of the second break-in while also considering the possibility that McCord or one of his employees tipped off the police concerning the break-in
with part three I considered the Columbia Plaza-based call girl ring servicing the Watergate-based DNC that provided the motive for the second break-in as well as the likelihood that James McCord was the one running said operation
the fourth installment wrapped up with Watergate, noting the OS's long time use of "safe houses" for sexual blackmail as well as the likely plotters behind Watergate, which included the OS, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the shadowy private intelligence network and defense lobby group known as the American Security Council (ASC, the history of which was addressed on this blog before here)
part five considered the role the OS played in CIA assassination operations, potential deaths linked to OS "clean up" operations (including the "suicide" of Frank Olson) and the role and implications of the OS's participation in Operation CHAOS
with the sixth and most recent installment I finally began to consider Projects BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, noting that these projects had little or nothing to do with MKULTRA and Sidney Gottleib as well as giving a brief run down of the origins of BLUEBIRD
With an overview of BLUEBIRD out of the way, it is now time to turn our attention to the man who provided much of the "vision" for BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE throughout the nearly fourteen year period (1949-1963, noted in the last installment) that these projects were active. Frequently Sidney Gottlieb, the longtime MKULTRA head, is described as a kind of black magician or dark alchemist in the literature concerning CIA behavior modification experiments but if anyone deserves such a title it is ARTICHOKE chief Morris "Morse" Allen.
Introducing Mr. Allen
Superficially, Allen seems like a most unlikely candidate to push the extremes of consciousness as BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE did. Consider:
"... Allen had spent most of his earlier career rooting out the domestic communist threat, starting in the late 1930s when he had joined the Civil Service Commission and set up its first security files on communists. ('He knows their methods,' wrote a CIA colleague.) During World War II, Allen had served with Naval intelligence, first pursuing leftists in New York and then landing with the Marines on Okinawa. After the war, he went to the State Department, only to leave in the late 1940s because he felt the Department was whitewashing certain communists cases. He soon joined the CIA's Office of Security.A suspicious man by inclination and training, Allen took nothing at face value. Like all counterintelligence or security operators, his job was to show why things are not what they seem to be. He was always thinking ahead and behind, punching holes in surface reality. Allen had no academic training for behavior research (although he did take a short course in hypnotism, a subject that fascinated him). He saw the BLUEBIRD job as one that called for studying every last method the communists might use against the United States and figuring out ways to counter them."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 26)
Hypnotism was hardly the only arcane topic Morse Allen had an interest in. Indeed, the grizzled security man seemingly devised a host of bizarre methods (with some connection to the occult) that he envisioned the Communists using against the United States. There is little in his background to indicate where his rather peculiar interests derived from. But then again, very little is known about his pre-BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE background in general (the same could be said for his activities after the late 1960s as well).
Robert L. Bannerman, Morse Allen's long time associate in both the State Department and CIA's Office of Security
As noted above, Allen first went to work for the ONI in New York before being shipped off to the Pacific. Interestingly, there was another curious ONI man in New York City during parts of 1941 and early 1942: L. Ron Hubbard, the future founder of the Church of Scientology. Hubbard's role in the ONI has been hotly disputed, but most credible sources acknowledge Hubbard was detached to the ONI until at least early 1942.
Both Allen and Hubbard would go on to see time in the Pacific Theater, but it is unknown if there was any overlap at this point. They also allegedly attended George Washington University at the same time, but again, this researcher has been unable to confirm Allen's time there. There does, however, seem to be a decent possibility that the two men may have encountered one another in New York City shortly after WWII had started while they were both working for ONI.
Hubbard of course had a host of interests in the arcane and may have provided some inspiration to Allen, but this is all highly, highly speculative. The fact is, there is no conclusive proof either man ever met, though they did seem to travel in some of the same circles during WWII.
Before wrapping up with this intro, it is worth noting how Allen became involved in BLUEBIRD. For Allen, it all began with an overseas assignment to investigate Russian interrogation methods.
"... a two-month overseas mission in late summer, 1949, by a CIA team under polygraph expert Morse Allen from the Security Office. Allen's mission 'was to discover whether the Russians or Russian controlled countries are or have in the past been utilizing interrogation and espionage techniques which involve the use of drugs and hypnotism.' Allen met with high-ranking American occupation officials in Germany, Poland and Hungary, as well as numerous informants and 'returning Prisoners of War at border points... Several hundred of these returning POW's were interrogated in hopes of discovering the use of drugs or hypnosis techniques on them.' Allen reported after his return, 'During the trip, the Polygraph (lie detector) was used in sixteen cases... In four different cases, suspected Communist agents were processed by drugs and the establishment of the state of hypnosis for interrogation purposes.'...
"The day after Allen submitted his trip report, he sent CIA security chief Sheffield Edwards a detailed proposal for what he termed 'security validation teams.' According to Allen, these would be multi-function groups of 2-4 agents highly-trained in general interrogation techniques --use of polygraph, drug administration, hypnosis --as well as basic medical skills. The teams would be limited to carrying out 'the ultimate polygraph screening of all CIA personnel; the processing of any loyalty cases which might arise from time to time; [and] more detailed screening of special security categories,' such as government department and agencies, including the Atomic Energy Commission, the Pentagon, and the State Department. Teams would be located in Washington, D.C., Detroit, and California; overseas they would operate in Germany, France, and England. The CIA's Security Office would direct all teams, but close cooperation from the Agency's Office of Scientific Intelligence, Special Operations, and Technical Services was expected."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Alberreli, Jr., pgs. 209-210)
Allen's proposal for these "validation teams" excited the Agency hierarchy and soon a role was envisioned for them that went well beyond screening potential employees. By early 1950 the idea of using them internationally on various subjects had gained support, prompting the approval of BLUEBIRD of April 20, 1950, to begin experimenting with the so-called BLUEBIRD teams. These teams and some of their operations were already addressed in the prior installment.
By the late summer of 1950 Allen had become the formal head of BLUEBIRD. Pleased with the initial results of his interrogation teams, he decided to take BLUEBIRD into bold new territories by 1951.
In general 1951 was a banner year for BLUEBIRD. It featured the initiation of a host of programs to test the limits of hypnotism and enhanced interrogation methods as well as witnessing some of the OS's most ambitious experiments, such as the Pont-Saint-Esprit incident (noted in part five). It also witnessed the transformation of BLUEBIRD into ARTICHOKE, the name the project would retain for over a decade.
The name change was brought about by H. Marshall Chadwell, then head of the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The OSI was the Office of Security's primary partner in BLUEBIRD and later ARTICHOKE and there was briefly a power struggle in which the OSI gained control of the project briefly in 1952 before the OS wrestled it back again. But more about that in a future installment.
As for Chadwell''s reason for changing the name, it is thus:
"On August 8, 1951, H. Marshall Chadwell, following a conference with a group of military representatives, requested that for security reasons the Office of Security designate a new code name as soon as possible for Project BLUEBIRD. As Chadwell put it, 'BLUEBIRD was chosen to cover a particular field operation. The word has been in use for quite some time and is known to several persons no longer connected with the project.' Eight days later, Sheffield Edwards notified Chadwell that the new name was 'ARTICHOKE.' "
Allen Dulles is frequently credited with picking the word "artichoke" for the project's name, but there is no basis for this claim. In point of fact, it appears to have been named after a New York-based gangster.
"Project Artichoke was an ultra-secret program initiated in August 1951 upon the approval of CIA director Walter Bedell Smith and the Agency's Scientific Intelligence Director, Dr. H. Marshall Chadwell. The code name 'Artichoke' was selected with sardonic humor from the street appendage given to New York gangster Ciro Terranova, who was referred to as the 'Artichoke King.'... "
Ciro Terranova, the "Artichoke King"; the use of "artichoke" in this context may have been a reference to ARTICHOKE experiments performed on organized crime figures, as shall be noted in a moment
But of course a name change was hardly the only significant development for ARTICHOKE in 1951.
Hypnotism
It was earlier in the year the Morse Allen initiated the Agency's first formal studies into hypnotism. As noted above, Allen had already had a passing interest in it even before this time and may even have used his limited training in hypnotism in some of the earliest BLUEBIRD interrogations. There was at least one peculiar source from which Allen drew inspiration from:
"The CIA's interest in hypnotism developed primarily from Morse Allen's fascination with the subject and his review of surviving and classified OSS materials...According to Dr. Sidney Gottlieb:
The origins of CIA interest in hypnotism began before I arrived at the Agency with [Morse] Allen and others in SRS who recognized the practice as a possible means for eliciting information. Apparently there was earlier interest in the subject with the OSS, but I'm unaware of the details or extent of that. [Morse] Allen, as I understand it, became deeply involved in conducting hypnosis experiments and elsewhere... "
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 282-283)
Stanley Lovell, a chemical plant owner who would later have some involvement with MKULTRA, oversaw the OSS experiments on hypnosis. Unfortunately, very little is known about these experiments or the extent to which hypnosis was employed during WWII by the Allies. Clearly Morse Allen saw something in these files that showed promise as he would soon coax the CIA into embarking upon a full scale study of hypnotism.
"The CIA's first behavioral research czar, Morse Allen of ARTICHOKE, was intrigued by hypnosis. He read everything he could get his hands on, and in 1951 he went to New York for a four-day course from a well-known stage hypnotist. This hypnotist had taken the Svengail legend to heart, and he bombarded Allen with tales of how he used hypnosis to seduce young women. He told the ARTICHOKE chief that he had convinced one mesmerized lady that he was her husband and that she desperately wanted him. That kind of deception has a place in covert operations, and Morse Allen was sufficiently impressed to report back to his bosses the hypnotist's claim that 'he spent approximately five nights a week away from home engaged in sexual intercourse.' "
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pgs. 194-195)
It is likely that the "well-known stage hypnotist" mentioned above was none other William Joseph Bryan, a figure long linked to the RFK assassination. Here are a few more details about Bryan:
"... William Joseph Bryan was a much more successful hypnotist (it was his career), and, as a notorious womanizer, often used hypnosis... his resume was if anything even more suggestive. A large, bearded man who taxed the scales at nearly 400 pounds, he was even stranger in his appearance... a fat man who expected his secretaries to sleep with him, and who used hypnosis to sexually exploit still others. He demonstrated his hypnotic powers to sexually exploit still others. He demonstrated his hypnotic powers in public on many occasions, even putting noted defense attorney F. Lee Bailey under, along with two other lawyers, in a seminar organized by Melvin Belli... He also consulted on many famous criminal cases, and had hypnotized accused serial killer Albert DiSalvo (the 'Boston Strangler') in his cell.
"Bryan worked in the Los Angeles area, out of an office on Sunset Strip in Hollywood, after a checkered career in which he was once a drummer for Tommy Dorsey's band and then, during the Korean War, worked for the US Air Force in what he termed 'the brainwashing section.' If this was, in fact, true and not some of Bryan's notorious hyperbole, then he certainly came to the attention of the CIA, which had just geared up Operation BLUEBIRD at this time and had sent agents to Korea to investigate the brainwashing phenomenon and to come up with ways to protect American servicemen against it..."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 312-313)
There is now no question that Bryan was involved with BLUEBIRD's successor, ARTICHOKE, all that remains is when he was first approached by the project. H.P. Albarelli offers up this tantalizing tidbit:
"... Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Bryan was associated with several ultra-conservative right wing groups and through these associations came to the attention of the CIA's Morse Allen, a staunch proponent of the use of hypnotism in intelligence activities. One CIA Security Office document, from the early 1950s, details a lengthy meeting in New York City between Allen and Bryan, during which Allen sought assurances that Bryan could employ hypnosis in order to control selected, unwitting subjects. Reads the memorandum in part:
We explored the issue of moral inhibitions blocking or preventing the effects of hypnosis and [Bryan] said as far as he was concerned there were no problems in this area at all.... With the task of inducing through trance a mental state whereby a subject would do harm to or kill another person, he said the task, although never attempted by him or anyone he knows, would not be any more difficult than inducing a subject to drink a glass of water. "
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., 152)
It is likely that this meeting stemmed from 1952, if my reading of the footnotes in A Secret Order is accurate. But the possibility remains that Bryan was the stage hypnotist who conducted the four day course Allen and other OS men attended in 1951. Certainly the description of the hypnotist presented by John Marks above fits Bryan to a T.
Bryan then could have conceivably been working as part of Project BLUEBIRD while he was in the Air Force during the Korean War, though his service is far from certain and may have been another of his legendary exaggerations (despite ample references to his time in the Air Force online, this researcher has yet to find any credible evidence definitively proving Bryan was in the Air Force at all). Or perhaps his alleged work in brainwashing for the Air Force, which participated in BLUEBIRD and later ARTICHOKE, was a cover for his actual employer, the CIA. Unfortunately, this whole part of Bryan's life is shrouded in mystery and all one can really do is guess.
What is known, however, is that there were at least two other highly regarded hypnotists approached in the early years by Morse Allen. One was the legendary psychiatrist and hypnotist Milton H. Erickson. Erickson is believed to have been one of the premier hypnotists of the twentieth century along with Bryan and a major influence on neuro-linguistic programming. Erickson was involved with ARTICHOKE for years while publicly dismissing the possibility of creating a "Manchurian Candidate." He would apparently become a key source of Walter Bowart for his classic Operation Mind Control, though Bowart did not seem to have been aware of the extent of Erickson's involvement in ARTICHOKE.
In point of fact, Erickson seems to have been one of the two primary hypnotists consulted for ARTICHOKE, the other being the notorious George Estabrooks. Estabrooks is a figure likely well known to most researchers of CIA behavior modification programs. He has claimed to have been involved in hypnosis operations for the military in both World War II as well as Korea and seems to have been the first major public figure, in 1943, to raise the specter of hypno-programmed spies. Here's some more background about Estabrooks:
"George Hoban Estabrooks was a professor of psychology and chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate University in New York. He had been a Rhodes scholar and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1926. Most people who came close into him contact with Estabrooks considered him to be brilliant, but overly egotistical when it came to his bold claims about hypnotism: 'I can hypnotize a man, without his knowledge or consent, into committing treason against the United States.'
"Besides hypnotism, Estabrooks was very interested in telepathy, and early in his career he worked with Walter Franklin Prince and Gardner Murphy, who established the Boston Society of Psychical Research. In 1942, when Estabrooks was bragging the loudest --that he could turn any man into a traitor through hypnosis --the War Department, precursor to the Department of Defense, quickly took notice and summoned the proud professor to a meeting at the Pentagon...
"Apparently, the Pentagon was not willing to chance it, as evidenced in an article by Estabrooks that appeared in 1971 in Science Digest. In it, Estabrook provides a glimpse into his work for the military on hypnosis:
One of the most fascinating but fangerous applications of hypnosis is its use in military intelligence. This is a field with which I am familiar through formulating guidelines for the techniques used by the United States in two world wars.... The "hypnotic courier"... provides a unique solution [to communication in war]. I was involved in preparing many subjects for this work during World War II. "
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 280-281)
Estabrooks' interest in telepathy is most interesting. As we shall see, he was hardly the only person working on ARTICHOKE with such an interest. But back to the matter at hand.
Hypno-Couriers and Beyond
It does appear that Allen and Security Research Staff (the component of the OS that oversaw ARTICHOKE) head Paul Gaynor embraced Estabrooks' "hypnotic couriers" very early in the game and even went a few steps further. Consider:
"With the advent of ARTICHOKE, Morse Allen was easily able to incorporate hypnotism into many aspects of the program, including hiring hypnosis consultants Estabrooks and Erickson, among others. He also recruited a cadre of volunteer Agency support staff, all of whom --given the tenor of the times --were women. They were used in an intensive series of hypnosis experiments, most of them conducted in CIA-owned buildings and Washington D.C. hotel rooms. The experiments grew increasingly complex, as well as dangerous. Some 'secretaries' were hypnotized to engage in sexual acts with complete strangers whom they would be induced to approach in Washington D.C. bars and restaurants...
"In July 1954, SRS Chief Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen met to discuss a proposal from Estabrooks involving the 'idea of [the Agency utilizing] couriers that had been hypnotized.' According to several CIA documents about the meeting, Allen informed Gaynor that the idea 'is not new and I am absolutely certain that Estabrooks did not invent the idea.' When Gaynor questioned the viability of the concept, Allen explained, 'We [CIA] ourselves have carried out much more complex problems than this and in a general sense I agree that it is feasible.' However, continued Allen, 'There is no proof whatsoever that the hypnosis cannot be broken by another competent hypnotist.' "
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 270)
As was already noted in parts three and four, there is ample evidence to indicate that the OS used safe houses to run prostitutes out of for sexual blackmail purposes. The Columbia Plaza operation that was crucial to the Watergate scandal is the most compelling example of this. Thus, the indication above that "secretaries" were hypnotized and then instructed to seduce random strangers in Washington bars is most compelling.
There have of course long been allegations that "mind control" is routinely employed on sex workers servicing politicians and other VIPs. This researcher is not especially convinced of such notions for, assuming that "mind control" is even possible in the first place, it is seemingly a very expensive and time consuming process, something that would not be especially practical to induce in typical sex workers. However, the possibility that hypnotic blocks or suggestions have been employed is far more feasible.
Certainly, there are ample indications that individuals were hypnotized and used as couriers so as to keep the information they were carrying secret, even to the courier his or herself. For instance, in the classic The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dick Russell notes the following claim from Richard Case Nagell, a CIA and military intelligence officer, made concerning the use of hypnotism on couriers:
"Nagell confirmed that hypnosis was used in intelligence for 'compartmentalization of information.' He added that sometimes an intelligence 'courier' --which was one of his own admitted roles in 1962-63 --might undergo such treatment. 'You only undergo hypnosis for certain projects,' Nagell continued. 'It is used by he CIA for any number of reasons. To a degree in the recruiting program, in the Psychiatric Division. It's actually a section of the Security Division, to find out if you're homosexual or have done this or that. In instances, they use hypnosis for real bona fide reasons.' "
(The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dick Russell, pg. 380)
Nagell's allegation of an entire component of the Office of Security dedicated to just hypnotism is both compelling and highly probable. As I hope the prior section has demonstrated, the OS clearly had ambitious operational uses for hypnotism on the drawing board as far back as the early 1950s and by Nagell's time it may well have been heavily used in the field.
As for the couriers, Walter Bowart's Operation Mind Control contains numerous accounts of US military personnel who later reported being hypnotized and used as couriers. And of course there is the most famous alleged hypno-courier of them, former model Candy Jones. An examination of Candy Jones and her claims is well beyond the scale of this blog, but in brief: a popular model and pin-up girl in the 1940s and 1950s, Jones would develop a serious illness while on a United Service Organizations (USO) tour in the Philippines and would briefly be laid up there in 1945. There should would encounter a psychologist whom she later alleged hypno-programmed her.
Fifteen years later, in 1960, she would encounter a retired US Army general whom she had known during her USO days. He asked to use her modeling school as mail drop and from there she was ultimately recruited into being a courier. Not long after she encountered the same psychologist who had treated her years earlier in the Philippines and through the use of hypnosis he began to create an alternate personality in Miss Jones known as "Arlene." Arlene was then used as courier into especially dangerous areas of the world such as Taiwan and North Vietnam. Frequently Arlene/Candy traveled as part of a USO tour while conducting missions.
While this may seem incredible, Morse Allen did seem to genuinely believe that it was possible to create an alternate personality via hypnosis:
"... Eager to be unleashed, Morse Allen kept requesting prolonged access to operational subjects, such as the double agents and defectors on whom he was allowed to work a day or two. Not every double agent would do. The candidate had to be among the one person in five who made a good hypnotic subject, and he needed to have a dissociative tendency to separate part of his personality from the main body of his consciousness. The hope was to take an existing ego state --such as an imaginary childhood playmate --and build it into a separate personality, unknown to the first. The hypnotist would communicate directly with the schizophrenic offshoot and command it to carry out specific deeds about which the main personality would know nothing. There would be inevitable leakage between the two personalities, particularly in dreams; but if the hypnotist were clever enough, he could build in cover stories and safety valves which would prevent the subject from acting inconsistently."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate, John Marks, pgs. 196-197)
Evidence indicates, however, that it was far complicated to maintain an alternate than simply subjecting a subject to a session or two. In Candy Jones's case, she regularly had to check in with her alleged programmer. Beyond this, as implied above, only a very small percentage of the population (i.e. those who make a good hypnotic subject and already with a tendency to disassociate) would even fit the prerequisites for such conditioning. Thus, it is most likely the bulk of hypno-couriers were simply given memory blocks and such like rather than full on alternates. And that is assuming claims of such are even credible in the first place.
It should be emphasized that Candy Jones' claims are highly, highly controversial and many believe they were fabricated. Still, if Richard Case Nagell's claims are accurate, the Pentagon and the CIA certainly did use hypno-couriers at times, thus Jones's claims cannot be totally dismissed.
On the whole, Jones's claims are far less outrageous than many of those made by so-called "mind control victims" and there is a certain similarity to her background and that of Heidi Rikan, the head of the OS-sponsored Columbia Plaza prostitution ring. Both women experienced traumatic abuse as children, including sexual (Rikan was molested by her Nazi father, as noted before here), which would have made them likely to disassociate, and both had ties to the military early in their lives. Rikan actually enlisted in the Army upon graduating high school and served for a brief period while Jones was deeply involved with the USO for decades.
Both women also allegedly worked as couriers, Jones for the CIA and Heidi for the mob (as noted before here). The Office of Security, as noted in part five, had extensive dealings with the mob on various projects. I have not found any direct ties to Joe Nesline, the long time Syndicate head in Washington D.C. and Heidi's boss, but the OS certainly used Syndicate-connections to procure prostitutes for their D.C. safe house (noted before here).
Further, during Heidi's time in Dallas working for the mob she befriended Gordon McLendon, a former Naval intelligence officer. As noted above, Morse Allen was also ONI and in part six of this series the close working relationship between the CIA and the Navy on BLUEBIRD and later ARTICHOKE was outlined. In point of fact, BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE may have had their origins in Navy projects such as CHATTER, Boomer and Pelican.
But as far as this researcher is aware there are no indications that Rikan ever claimed to have been hypnotized or subjected other such ARTICHOKE treatments (though her attorney may not have been so lucky, as noted before here). Thus, this is pure speculation on my part, especially in light of the fact that Jones's claims are still highly controversial.
For those of you wandering, yes, there are indications that Morse Allen tried to go even further than hypnotizing couriers and prostitutes. Experiments to create a programmed assassin were also attempted:
"On February 19, 1954, Morse Allen simulated the ultimate experiment in hypnosis: the creation of a 'Manchurian Candidate,' or programmed assassin. Allen's 'victim' was a secretary whom he put into a deep trance and told to keep sleeping until he ordered otherwise. He then hypnotized a second secretary and told her that id she could not wake her friend, 'her rage would be so great that she would not hesitate to "kill." ' Allen left a pistol nearby, which the secretary had no way of knowing was unloaded. Even though she had earlier expressed a fear of firearms of any kind, she picked up the gun and 'shot' her sleeping friend. After Allen brought the 'killer' out of her trance, she had apparent amnesia for the event, denying she would ever shoot anyone."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 195)
If the CIA is to be believed (always a dubious prospect), then this is as far as Allen's experiments with programmed assassins got. The CIA was unable to face the legal liability, in theory, of taking such an experiment to its logical conclusion while there was much debate over how effective a hypno-programmed assassin would even be. The latter point is quite valid as the evidence suggests that individuals who have been hypno-programmed are only capable of carrying rather simple tasks. Assassination plots frequently do not go as planned and a hypno-programmed killer would not be able to think on their feet.
The former is far more dubious. Project ARTICHOKE subjected countless individuals, including US military personnel, to horrific abuses. Beyond that, ARTICHOKE documents frequently make vague references to "disposal problems" among test subjects. Given the temperament of Allen and his boss, Brigadier General Paul Gaynor, it does not seem especially likely that they would let legal considerations prevent them from taking one of their pet projects to its logical conclusion. But the fact remains, there is no definitive proof that such experiments were ever performed.
Shock and Drugs
Hypnosis was of course far from Allen and Gaynor's only concern. Beginning in 1951 they also began to embark upon extensive medical research in a host of institutions. There were two specific tools in their quest to perfect behavior modification methods that had a special appeal: electroshock and drugs, especially hallucinogens. As for the former, ARTICHOKE's interest in electroshock emerged very early in the game.
"At the end of 1951, Allen talked to a famed psychiatrist (whose name, like most of the others, the CIA has deleted from the documents released) about a gruesome but more practical technique. This psychiatrist, a cleared Agency consultant, reported that electroshock treatments could produce amnesia for varying lengths of time and that he had been able to obtain information from patients as they came out of the stupor that followed shock treatments. He also reported that a lower setting of the Reiter electroshock machine produced an 'excruciating pain' that, while nontherapeutic, could be effective as a 'third degree method' to make someone talk. Morse Allen asked if the psychiatrist had ever taken advantage of the 'groggy' period that followed normal electroshock to gain hypnotic control of his patients. No, replied the psychiatrist, but he would try it in the near future and report back to the Agency. The psychiatrist also mentioned that continued electroshock treatments could gradually reduce a subject to the 'vegetable level,' and that these treatments could not be detected unless the subject was given EEG tests within two weeks. At the end of a memo laying out this information, Allen noted portable, battery-driven electroshock machines had come on the market.
"Shortly after this Morse Allen report, the Office of Scientific Intelligence recommended that this same psychiatrist be given $100,000 in research funds 'to develop electric shock and hypnotic techniques.' While Allen thought this subject worth pursuing, he had some qualms about the ultimate application of the shock treatments: 'The question would, of course, apply to the use of electroshock if the end result was creation of a "vegetable." [I] believe that these techniques should not be considered except in gravest emergencies, and neutralization by confinement and/or removal from the area would be far more appropriate and certainly safer.' "
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pgs. 27-28)
On the other hand, reducing a subject to a "vegetable state" would be useful in regards to the "disposal problems" that perpetually plagued Project ARTICHOKE. The possibility that such actions were taken is highly probable. But moving along.
The psychiatrist noted above that the CIA eventually gave a $100,000 to for researcher purposes was almost surely Dr. Max Fink, one of the "pioneers" of electroshock therapy. Truthout notes:
"Dr. Fink... is considered the godfather of electroshock therapy in the United States. In the early 1950s and beyond, Fink was a fully cleared CIA Project Artichoke consultant. In 1951, CIA officials under the direction of Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen of the agency's Security Research Service (SRS) that oversaw Artichoke, worked closely with Fink in New York City in efforts to thoroughly explore the merits of electroshock techniques for interrogations. The CIA was especially interested in the use of standard electroshock machines in producing amnesia, inducing subjects to talk and making subjects more prone to hypnotic control. According to one CIA document, Fink told officials 'an individual could gradually be reduced through the use to electroshock treatment to the vegetable level.' "
ARTICHOKE also found drugs, especially hallucinogens, highly compelling as well. The OS/SRS team had already begun several experiments with such drugs while the project was still named BLUEBIRD.
"In 1951, just weeks before Bluebird was renamed Artichoke, officials within the CIA's Security Office --working in tandem with cleared scientists from Camp Detrick's Special Operations Division, who in turn worked closely with a select group of scientists from Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland --began a series of ultra-secret experiments with LSD, mescaline, peyote, and a synthesized substance (sometimes nicknamed 'Smasher') which combined an 'LSD-like drug with pharmaceutical amphetamines and other enhancers.' Former Detrick scientist, Dr. Gerald Yonetz, described the substance: 'It was like a rocket ship to Mars.' "
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 169)
One of these experiments was likely the dosing of the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit with LSD. Chaos ensued and several deaths were involved. It is possible this incident is what drove Fort Detrick scientist Frank Olson over the edge, as noted in part five of this series.
Frank Olson was involved in a lot of the early CIA/Pentagon LSD experiments
Many of these experiments would eventually combine electroshock, drugs and hypnosis into a potent cocktail. The bulk of the subjects in the early days were "recruited" from military and federal prisons as well as mental health facilities. Experiments were conducted at such facilities under the gaze of reputed psychiatrists and psychologists such the above-mentioned Max Fink. By 1953 ARTICHOKE had a whole network of such facilities up and running.
"... the conduct of experiments at three federal prisons, as well as extended work at a reformatory in Bordentown, New Jersey, was submitted to Gaynor and the Artichoke Committee. Experiments were also conducted at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., a Veterans Administration hospital in Detroit, Michigan, and at the Federal Narcotics Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Experiments at the Narcotics Farm, somewhat romanticized in some current publications, were specifically targeted at African-American inmates, who were considered by the program's director to be inferior to white inmates at the facility."
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 171)
The ARTICHOKE program certainly did not limit its scope to prisons and asylums, however. As was noted in part four, some of these experiments were conducted at safe houses such as the one in Foggy Bottom near the heart of downtown Washington. D.C. Safe houses were also used overseas as well. And in some cases, field tests were conducted directly on the streets, so to speak. For the latter, the ARTICHOKE team had initially recruited the notorious Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent George Hunter White who would eventually gain infamy for his work on MKULTRA's Operation Midnight Climax. White was first approached for ARTICHOKE, however.
"... George White had already been vetted for Project BLUEBIRD by James Angleton. Angleton had met with White at least twice already in Washington, and once in New York. Gottlieb would say decades later that he was unaware of Angleton's recruitment of White..."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 223)
James Jesus Angleton, the long time chief of the Counterintelligence Staff, was one of the most powerful figures in the early days of the CIA. An Old Boy's Old Boy, he served as the basis of the Matt Damon character in The Good Shepherd. While occasionally clashing with the OS, on the whole Angleton's CI staff worked closely with the OS on multiple projects, including CHAOS. Angleton was an early backer of ARTICHOKE and seems to have continued close ties with the program until the early 1960s while other Old Boys such as Richard Helms and Frank Wisner had already shifted their loyalties to Gottlieb and MKULTRA (noted in part six). But back to the matter at hand.
Among one of White's possible duties for ARTICHOKE was the dosing of gangster Eugene Giannini in early April of 1952. It was by all accounts highly successful and netted a host of incriminating revelations. Unsurprisingly, Giannini turned up dead not long afterwards, but there is suspicion that his death had more to do with ARTICHOKE than his confessions.
"Five months later somebody murdered Giannini. On September 20, his body was found in East Harlem face down in the gutter with two bullet holes in his head. Within days, two of Giannini's closet associates in New York were also killed. No one has ever been arrested for any of the murders. All three slain men had provided George White and Pierre Lafitte considerable information about illicit drug dealing and mob connections. All three had been subjects in White's early LSD experiments, the results of which presumably benefited the CIA's Project ARTICHOKE. The files on all three murders have long since been lost or misplaced by New York crime officials. Were these early subjects disposed of gangland style because they were a threat or liability to someone? As far-fetched as it may seem, the 'disposal problem' would soon become a primary concern of Project ARTICHOKE officials."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr. pgs. 242-243)
Ah yes, the "disposal problem" again. Interesting, the above-mentioned Pierre Lafitte was allegedly present in Frank Olson's hotel room at the Statler on the night of his "suicide." Originally George Hunter White was supposed to be with him, but ended up in California due to the sudden death of his mother. Lafitte instead went to the Statler that fateful night with the French gangster Francois Spirito, who had only recently been released from the Atlanta Penitentiary. While there, he had been subjected to ARTICHOKE experiments by Dr. Carl Pfeiffer (the Atlanta prison was one of the above-mentioned federal facilities used by ARTICHOKE). And of course, Dr. Olson is alleged to have become initially unnerved due to the disastrous ARTICHOKE experiment in Pont-Saint-Esprit, all of which was noted in part five.
QKHILLTOP
One of the least addressed of the CIA behavior modification experiments is the mysterious Project QKHILLTOP. Very, very little is known about this project, but what little information is available to us is highly disturbing. But before getting to the techniques, here's a bit about the background:
"Very little is known about Project QKHILLTOP other than that it was initiated sometime in 1954 and, about a year later, the project recruited Dr. Harold Wolff, the physician who treated the war injuries of Allen Dulles's son. Wolff had also been physician to the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and also to his popular rival, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq (overthrown by the CIA's Operation Ajax in 1953, to reinstate the Shah). Wolff, according to former intelligence officials, was essentially rewarded for his treatment of Sonny Dulles by receiving a multi-year CIA contract to study the brainwashing techniques of the Soviet and Communist China, as well as the interrogation methods techniques of both, including interrogation drugs...
"QKHILLTOP continued until 1963, and, contrary to other reports, was always operated independently from TSS's MKULTRA. Almost all of QKHILLTOP files were destroyed in 1973 at the direction of then DCI Richard Helms."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 296-297)
QKHILLTOP was also operated out of the OS's Security Research Staff and overseen by Morse Allen. Curiously, this was the project that initiated the notorious Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE), of which Dr. Harold Wolff was a co-founder of. Originally SIHE was under the control of ARTICHOKE, but was transferred to Gottlieb and MKULTRA some time around 1955. It would go on to provide the funding for the "psychic driving" experiments of Ewen Cameron at Allan Memorial Hospital in Canada. Harold Wolff, who would continue to report to Morse Allen until 1963, appears to have remained at the head of SIHE until the late 1950s, and would have been well placed to inform Allen of MKULTRA experiments.
But back to QKHILLTOP. Here's an outline of Wolff's "objectives" with QKHILLTOP:
"Wolff's specialized neurological practice led him to believe that brain maladies, like migraine headaches, occurred because of disharmony between man and his environment. In this case, he wrote to the Agency, 'The problems faced by the physician is quite similar to that faced by the Communist interrogator.' Both would be trying to put their subject back in harmony with his environment whether the problem was headaches or ideological dissent. Wolff believed that the beneficial effects of any new interrogation technique would naturally spill over into the treatment of his patients, and vice versa. Following the Soviet model, he felt he could help his patients by putting them into an isolated, disoriented state --from which it would be easier to create new behavior patterns. Although Russian-style isolation cells were impractical at Cornell, Wolff hoped to get the same effect more quickly through sensory deprivation. He told the Agency that sensory-deprivation chambers had 'valid medical reason' as part of a treatment that relieved migraine symptoms and made the patient 'more receptive to the suggestion of the psychotherapist.' He proposed keeping his patients in sensory deprivation until they 'show an increased desire to talk and to escape from the procedure.' Then, he said, doctors could 'utilize material from their own pat experience in order to create psychological reactions within them.' This procedure drew heavily on the Stalinist method. It cannot be said what success, if any, Wolff had with it to the benefit of his patients at Cornell.
"Wolff offered to devise ways to use the broadest cultural and social processes in human ecology for covert operations. He understood that every country had unique customs for child rearing, military training, and nearly every other form of human intercourse. From the CIA's point of view, he noted, this kind of sociological information could be applied mainly to indoctrinating and motivating people. He distinguished these motivating techniques from the 'special methods' that he felt were 'more relevant to subversion, seduction, and interrogation.' He offered to study these methods, too, and asked the Agency to give him access to everything in is files on 'threats, coercion, imprisonment, isolation, deprivation, humiliation, torture, "brainwashing," "black psychiatry," hypnosis and combinations of these with or without chemical agents.' Beyond mere study, Wolff volunteered the unwitting use of Cornell patients for brainwashing experiments, so long as no one got hurt. He added, however, that he would advise the CIA on experiments that harmed their subjects if they were performed elsewhere. He obviously felt that only the grandest sweep of knowledge, flowing freely between the scholar and spy, could bring the best techniques to bear on their respective subjects."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pgs. 158-159)
Apparently Wolff was provided with around 100 Chinese refugees whom he would "reprogram" into American agents and who would then be reinfiltrated back into Communist China. There are no clear answers as to how far Wolff got in this project or the extent that he incorporated "special methods" into his beloved technique of sensory deprivation. John Marks' dismisses Wolff's scheme, but QKHILLTOP ran for almost decade and is one of the most well concealed of the CIA behavior modification experiments. This tends to indicate that QKHILLTOP was involved in more than academic research, which could have been completed in several years. For instance, Wolff wrapped up his research as head of the Ad Hoc Group on Psychochemical Agents in only a few years. One of this group's chief concerns was the study of LSD.
At this point I would like to again stress the similarities between ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA experiments. While much controversy has arisen over the barbaric Allan Memorial Hospital experiments conducted by Ewen Cameron, the reality is that ARTICHOKE had already conducted a host of experiments barring more than passing resemblance to Cameron's "psychic driving" at facilities like Cornell, the Atlanta Penitentiary, Bordentown, St. Elazabeth's Hospital and so on years before Cameron's experiments were green lighted by MKULTRA. Indeed, MKULTRA would either take over or run their own concurrent operations at many of those facilities with the same doctors by the mid-1950s.
In point of fact, the real purpose of Cameron's experiments, like George Hunter White's Operation Midnight Climax, seems to have been primarily to recreate prior ARTICHOKE experiments. This was likely done in part because of the composition of TSS, who ran MKULTRA, as opposed to the OS crew. The TSS men were largely scientists and in theory would be better suited to validate or the merits, or lack therefore of, of ARTICHOKE experiments. But clearly, as far as shock treatment, sensory deprivation, hallucinogens and hypnosis were concerned, ARTICHOKE had already extensively tested these methods and applied them to the field by the time MKULTRA was being initiated.
From there on out MKULTRA would simply follow in the footsteps of ARTICHOKE, frequently using the same personnel (i.e. Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, Dr. Harold Wolff, Dr. Max Fink, Dr. Harris Isbell, William Joseph Bryan, George Hunter White, etc) ARTICHOKE had already recruited prior to the creation of MKULTRA. There is little doubt that Morse Allen was spying on MKULTRA, his rival, and would have been well placed to know much of the research being conducted under the MKULTRA banner.
Extreme Measures
Certainly these aspects of the CIA's behavior modification experiments are truly barbaric, but there were even more disturbing realms that both projects would venture into. Specifically, I am referring to the operational interest ARTICHOKE (and later MKULTRA) personnel had in lobotomies, ultrasonics and radiation. From what little information is available, the project's interest in such things likely dates back to when it was still classified as BLUEBIRD.
"In 1952 the Office of Scientific Intelligence proposed giving another private doctor $100,000 to develop BLUEBIRD-related 'neurosurgical techniques' --presumably lobotomy-connected. Similarly, the Security office planned to use outside consultants to find out about such techniques as ultrasonics, vibrations, concussions, high and low pressure, the use of various gases in airtight cambers, diet variations, caffeine, fatigue, radiation, heat and cold, and changing light. Agency officials looked into all these areas and many others. Some they studied intensively; others they merely discussed with consultants."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 28)
Here are some more details about ARTICHOKE's interest in lobotomies, ultrasonics, and radiation:
"... the Agency's ARTICHOKE program, operated by the Security Office, considered radioisotopes or tracers as a means to determine whether a certain drug or chemical would effect parts of the brain the CIA wanted to zap. As one ARTICHOKE researcher wrote with stunning precision in 1954:
'The use of certain type liquids which can be traced in their passage through the human body is well known. We have been advised that either at the Massachusetts General Hospital or in one of the Harvard units that there was a very advanced unit being developed for the tracing of radioactive material throughout the human body and particularly in the brain.... We have received information from competent people that almost any element can be made 'active' in some way or other and its passage throughout the body and to the brain can be observed.... Along these lines, several of our most important consultants have constantly urged exploration of the tracer technique as a method of advanced ARTICHOKE studies.'
"The same researcher recommended the use of tracers to find a drug, which would produce a 'chemical lobotomy,' that could be triggered by direct radiation of the brain, as follows:
A non-toxic drug may be found by radioactive-tracer techniques that will be attracted to such an area (of the brain), and so produce a taming that can last for some time.... Ultrasonics or some other radiating energy may be developed to give a physical stimulus to such an area without injury.'
"Lastly, the ARTICHOKE researcher recommended that the amygdaloid nucleus area of the brain be studied. He wrote:
At present, this brain center can be specifically stimulated by a current passed through wires inserted through the brain by operation. Such a procedure is obviously useless to this project; but ultrasonics or other means of radiant energy may yet be improved or modified so that a 'cross-fire' (as with X-rays) arrangement could be focused on a selected small region in the brain without affecting the surrounding areas. The Amygdaloid nucleus is interesting because it has been stimulated in humans producing fear or anger. Monkeys' amygdaloids have been removed; producing tameness. Temporary inhibition of this region (possibly of others) should tame humans. "
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 294-295)
ARTICHOKE'S research into ultrasonics are most interesting. There has of course been much speculation concerning the creation of sonic weapons by the United States security services and here are indications that the OS sought to weaponize ultrasonics to effect parts of the human brain and possibly when combined with drugs to induce a "chemical lobotomy" as far back as the early 1950s.
As with many things surrounding ARTICHOKE, there is little evidence available to indicate how far research was taken in this regard. It is interesting to note, however, that one particular ARTICHOKE scientist we have yet to meet would spend years researching the closely related infrasonics after his time on ARTICHOKE. But more on that in a future installment.
And with that I shall wrap things up for now. In the next installment we shall consider the so-called "Artichoke treatment" and potential operational uses of ARTICHOKE. Stay tuned.
As a child of the 90s, I was blessed to experience some of the most ambitious genre fiction in my formative years. I missed Twin Peaks during its initial run, but had caught up with it by the mid-1990s. I was with The X-Files at the beginning, watching the pilot on September 10, 1993. And of course there was also Millennium(which I've written at length before here) and some of those could-have-been classics like Nowhere Man and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
But a particular favorite of mine was Babylon 5. At the time it was one of the most ambitious narratives ever attempted on a sci-fi TV series (or really any TV series), featuring the early use of a story arc. All five seasons were plotted out ahead of time by creator J. Michael Straczynski (though the story lines of the fourth and fifth seasons were later altered when there were concerns over cancellation) so that the series would flow like a novel. Even seeming stand-alone episodes would feature minor plot points (some times headlines glanced on a newspaper or TV new reports playing in the background of scenes) that would hold major implications for future plot developments.
Nowadays we take story and myth arcs for granted, but at the time there was really nothing else that quite had the scope of B5. The X-Files was close, but featured ample monster-of-the-week episodes, while the myth arc after the Syndicate was suddenly killed off never quite recovered.
B5, like The X-Files, is also loaded with mythological and esoteric allusions along with rich symbolism. I've toyed with writing an extended examination of such things for several years now but have yet to feel like I could do it justice. This feeling was only reinforced of late as I began re-watching the series several weeks ago.
Thus I was quite saddened, upon finishing up two season three episodes in the wake of dinner, to find that Jerry Doyle had passed away on July 27th. Doyle, 60, had recently found new life as a conservative radio talk show host (he had also ran as a Republican for the US House of Representatives in California after leaving the show several years earlier) but he is till most widely remembered (like much of the rest of the cast) for his turn on B5. In the show he had played the cynical security chief Michael Garibaldi, a character said to be the descendant of the legendary Italian statesman and Freemason Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Babylon 5 had a rather expansive cast, featuring 17 regular characters during its five year run. Curiously, five of them have already died, and all at fairly young ages. Sixty especially seems to be an unlucky age for B5 alumni. Michael O'Hare, who played Command Jeffrey Sinclair, the first military governor of Babylon 5, also died at sixty in 2012. This researcher has long suspected that Commander Sinclair's last name was inspired by the famed Sinclair Clan of Scotland. This would be in keeping with the Masonic theme the Garibaldi choice hints at. Consider:
"Central to many recent theories about secret societies, the Sinclairs are a Scottish aristocratic family of Norman extraction --their name was originally St. Clair --with a historic connection to Scottish stonemasonry... it was well enough established in tradition in the early seventeenth century that one branch of the Sinclair family was able to gain the backing of Scottish stonemasons' lodges in two attempts to re-establish their rights over the craft. The Sinclairs were also patrons of the masterpieces of Scottish medieval architecture, the famous Rosslyn Chapel...
"The hereditary rights of the Sinclairs over Scottish masons lapsed with the transformation of Scottish stonemasons' lodges into modern Freemasonry in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In 1736, at the establishment of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Willaim Sinclair of Roslin formally relinquished all rights over Masonry. In return, the members of Grand Lodge made him Scotland's first elected Grand Master for a term of one year..."
(The Element Encylopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History, John Michael Greer, pgs. 560-561)
was Sinclair supposed to have had famed distant relatives as Garibaldi did?
The final of the B5 actors to have passed away at the age of 60 is Jeff Conaway. Conaway was also known for work on Taxi and his turn in the film adaptation of Grease. He died of a case of pneumonia that was exasperated by years of drug abuse. On B5 he had played security officer Zack Allan. He began as a reoccurring character in season two and was upgraded to a regular cast member for the third season. He remained as such until the show's end in 1998, his character eventually becoming chief of security.
Another B5 regular nearly died at 60 as well. Andreas Katsuls, who played the Narn ambassador G'Kar, passed away at the age of 59 in February of 2006. Like Conaway, he had suffered from an addition, though in Katsulas case it was smoking. He ultimately succumbed to lung cancer. He was the second of the regular cast members to die.
The first was Richard Biggs, who played Dr. Stephen Franklin. Biggs passed away in May 2004 at the age of 44. Thus, he is the only of five deceased regulars not near the 60 mark to pass on. The last name of his character, Franklin, could be seen as an allusion to yet another famed Freemason, namely the American statesman Benjamin Franklin. As far as I can tell, these are the only regular characters with names potentially alluding to Freemasonry, though there are many others loaded with historic and metaphysical significance.
Certainly it would seem the age of 60 and character with last names potentially inspired by Freemasons have proved to be a lethal combination for B5 alumni. This is quite a morbid synchronicity.
Welcome to the eight installment of my ongoing examination of the CIA's mysterious and highly controversial Office of Security (OS). While little remarked upon by most students of the CIA, the OS nonetheless appears knee deep in host of the CIA's biggest controversies, including multiple assassinations and suspicious deaths, the Watergate scandal, Operation CHAOS and several of the Agency's behavior modification programs, most notably Projects BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP. For those of you just joining me or trying to catch up, here is a brief rundown of what has already been addressed in the prior installments:
part one noted the backgrounds and politics of the OS men and contrasted them with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) "Old Boys" who dominated much of the CIA's upper hierarchy for decades
part two began to consider the role the OS played in the Watergate scandal, here noting OS veteran James McCord's total bungling of the second Watergate break-in and the possibility that he or one of his employees had tipped off the police before hand
part three considered the actual purpose of the Watergate break-in, namely a prostitution ring being run out of nearby Columbia Plaza that serviced the Watergate-based headquarters of the DNC; the prostitution ring was likely under the control of James McCord
part four considered the OS's longtime use of "safe houses" for prostitution rings as well as the conspirators behind the Watergate scandal, which included the OS, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the notorious defense lobby group and massive private intelligence network known as the American Security Council (ASC, which this blog examined at length before here)
the fifth installment considered the OS's role in assassinations and several suspicious deaths, including that of Frank Olson, as well as the role it played in Operation CHAOS
part six began to examine the role the OS played in the CIA's behavior modification experiments, beginning with Project BLUEBIRD and also noted the conspiracy to lump all of these projects in with MKULTRA
the seventh and most recent installment considered the background of longtime BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP head Morse Allen as well outlining ARTICHOKE's early work with hypnosis, electroshock and hallucinogenic drugs as well as the little information available to us concerning the mysterious QKHILLTOP
As I was wrapping up with the previous installment, I had just finished addressing QKHILLTOP's experiments with sensory deprivation. This technique, along with hypnosis, drugs and electroshock, are fairly well known techniques employed by both ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA and to a certain extent are still used in enhanced interrogation methods to this day. In point of fact, many of these techniques became part of an arsenal for what the Agency referred to as the "Artichoke treatment," or simply the " 'A' treatment."
The Artichoke Treatment
As with many things relating to BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, the actual origins of the Artichoke treatment seem to reside with the military, especially the Army. Shortly after World War II the Army deployed a special interrogation squad that employed many of the methods later used by ARTICHOKE. They were referred to as the "Rough Boys." Here are a few details concerning this unit from Truthout:
"Army CIC interrogators working with the CIA at prisoner of war camps and safe house locations in post-war Germany on occasion used Metrazol, morphine, heroin and LSD on incarcerated subjects. According to former CIC officer Miles Hunt, several 'safe houses and holding areas outside of Frankfurt near Oberursel' - a former Nazi interrogation center taken over by the US - were operated by a 'special unit run by Capt. Malcolm S. Hilty, Maj. Mose Hart and Capt. Herbert Sensenig. The unit was especially notorious in its applications of interrogation methods [including the use of electroshock and Metrazol, mescaline, amphetamines and other drugs].' Said Hunt: 'The unit took great pride in their nicknames, the 'Rough Boys' and the 'Kraut Gauntlet,' and didn't hold back with any drug or technique ... you name it, they used it.' Added Hunt, 'Sensenig was really disappointed when it was found that nothing had to be used on [former Reichsmarschall] Herman Goering, who was processed through the camp. Goering needed no inducement to talk.'
"Eventually, CIC interrogators working in Germany would be assisted in their use of interrogation drugs by several 'former' Nazi scientists recruited by the CIA and US State Department as part of Project Paperclip. By early 1952, the CIC's Rough Boys would routinely use Metrazol during interrogations, as well as LSD, mescaline and conventional electroshock units."
Metrazol was another beloved tool of the ARTICHOKE men
As was noted in part six of this series, many of the military representatives of the Bluebird and later Artichoke Committee were actively engaged in Paperclip while also participating in BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE. At least one of the psychiatrists employed by the Rough Boys, Dr. Robert S. Ecke, was later used on ARTICHOKE teams. Thus, it would seem that the Artichoke treatment was strongly influenced if not totally based off of the techniques employed by the Rough Boys, though certainly the CIA made their own modifications.
In addition to the Oberursel facility and a nearby safe house in Frankfurt, several other facilities were used across the globe. Frequently they were safe houses near highly classified military installations and the subjects in these interrogation were shipped to these locations suddenly and anonymously.
"Other CIA reports reveal that the CIA's SRS was not sitting idly by while awaiting the recruitment of groups of human subjects. Teams of Agency officials and contract physicians were traveling frequently to locations in Europe and the Far East, including Atsugi, Japan, where in the isolation of CIA and military safe houses and installations, enhanced interrogations and mind-control experiments were being conducted on defectors, double-agents, and kidnapped foreign agents. Reads a November 1956 Artichoke team report that could have easily been written today at Guantanamo, Cuba: 'The team physician administered a suppository containing a small amount of heroin to the subject so as to increase subject's pain threshold.' (The Artichoke physician referred to in this report, a well-known Washington, D,C., psychologist, made over 90 Artichoke-related trips abroad.)"
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 169-170)
the infamous Atsugi Naval Base where multiple BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE experiments were conducted
SRS stands for Security Research Staff. This was the component of the Office of Security that directed projects BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP. Morse Allen directed all three for the SRS, which was overseen by the notorious Brigadier General Paul Gaynor, an old hand at counterintelligence and sexual blackmail (more on Gaynor's background can be found here). It was Gaynor and Allen more than any other individuals who were responsible for ARTICHOKE and its "treatment."
Details on the actual Artichoke treatment are scarce, and what little is available to us indicates techniques varied depending upon the subject and what the ultimate objective for the interrogation was. For instance, one account presented in the classic The Search for the Manchurian Candidate seems fairly tame when compared to the tools the ARTICHOKE personnel had at their disposal. Consider:
"... They decided to give him the 'A' (for ARTICHOKE) treatment. This, too, was not very original. It had been used during the war to interrogate prisoners and shell-shocked soldiers. As practiced on the suspected Russian agent, it consisted of injecting enough sodium pentpthal into the vein of his arm to knock him out and hen, twenty minutes later, stimulating him back to semiconsciousness with a shot of Benzedrine. In this case, the Benzedrine did not revive the subject enough to suit the psychiatric consultant and he told Dr. Thompson to give the subject another 10 mg. ten minutes later. This put the subject into a state somewhere between waking and sleeping --almost comatose and yet bug-eyed. In hypnotic tones that had to be translated into Russian by an interpreter, the consultant used the technique of 'regression' to convince the subject he was talking to his wife Eva at some earlier time in his life. This was no easy trick, since a male interpreter was playing Eva. Nevertheless, the consultant states he could 'create any fantasy' with 60 to 70 percent of his patients, using narcotherapy (as in this case) or hypnosis. For roughly an hour, the subject seemed to have no idea he was not speaking with his wife but with CIA operatives trying to find out about his relationship with Soviet intelligence. When the subject started to doze, the consultant had Thompson give him a double jolt of Benzedrine. A half hour later, the subject began to weep violently. The consultant decided to end the session, and in his most soothing voice, he urged the subject to fall asleep. As the subject calmed down, the consultant suggested, with friendly and soothing words, that the subject would remember nothing of the experience when he woke up.
"Inducing amnesia was an important Agency goal. 'From the ARTICHOKE point of view,' states a 1952 document, 'the greater the amnesia produced, the more effective the results.' Obviously if a victim remembered the 'A' treatment, it would stop being a closely guarded ARTICHOKE secret. Presumably, some subject who really did work for the Russians would tell them how the Americans had worked him over. This reality made 'disposal' of ARTICHOKE subjects a particular problem. Killing them seems to have been ruled out, but Agency officials made sure that some stayed in foreign prisons for long periods of time. While in numerous specific cases, ARTICHOKE team members claimed success in making their subjects forget, their outside consultants had told them 'that short of cutting a subject's throat, a true amnesia cannot be guaranteed.'..."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pgs. 43-44)
It is interesting to note the above interrogation also took place in a safe house near the notorious Frankfurt-based Oberursel facility that was extensively used by the Rough Boys as well as ARTICHOKE.
As was noted in the previous installment, there actually are some indications that murder (or "assisted" suicide) was employed to deal with ARTICHOKE's "disposal problem." Indeed, dealing with the subjects in the aftermath was a reoccurring problem. This seems to have stemmed from the inability of the Artichoke treatment to induce permanent amnesia, as we shall see in our next example.
This subject was a Bulgarian named Dimitre Dimitrov. In 1951 he would find himself abruptly moved from a Greek prison in which he had already experienced rather intense torture, and rendered to a pair of US military bases in Panama. These facilities are especially interesting for there later implications for the ARTICHOKE project.
"The hospital and interrogation center where Dimitre Dimitrov was placed were on the grounds of the U.S. Army's Fort Clayton in Panama. In the 1950s, Fort Clayton, along with nearby sister installations, Fort Amador and Fort Gulick, both in Panama, were the original sites of the Army's notorious School of the Americas which, among other activities, trained the world's most notorious foreign secret police units --including DINA (Chile), SAVAK (Iran), BOSS (South Africa) and KCIA (South Korea) --in interrogation techniques and torture. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and beyond, all three army forts also served as secret prison compounds and interrogation centers for double agents, defectors and others kidnapped by American intelligence agents and spirited out of Europe and elsewhere. Additionally, Fort Gulick was extensively used as a training facility for paramilitary and guerrilla fighters who were covertly dispatched to Cuba before and after the Bay of Pigs invasion. Fort Gulick also served as a secure depository for a number of biological warfare substances sent from Fort Detrick and used in Cuba, including the Swine Flu virus that was covertly introduced by the U.S. military into Cuba's pig population...
"Beginning in 1951, Fort Amador and Fort Gulick were used extensively by the Army and the CIA as secret experimental sites for developing 'behavior modification' using a wide range of techniques, including 'truth rugs,' mescaline, LSD and heroin. Former CIA officials have also long claimed that in the 1950s and later, Fort Clayton and Fort Amador housed and trained a number of Army assassination teams that operated throughout North and South America, Europe, and South East Asia."
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs .165-166)
In part six it was noted that Project BLUEBIRD may have had its origins with a Navy program known as Project Pelican. Pelican was allegedly used to groom and desensitize would be Navy assassins who were then be dispatched Naval facilities and US embassies across the globe for such purposes. Was something similar done to these alleged Army assassination teams?
What's more, the fact that secret services such as the KCIA and DINA were trained in interrogation techniques at these facilities is also most interesting. As we shall see, the ARTICHOKE program may have continued among US-allied intelligence services after it was officially ended some time around 1973. But more on that later.
Apparently, part of the rational for applying the Artichoke treatment to Dimitre Dimitrov was due to all of things he had witnessed while being incarcerated at Fort Clayton. Given some of the operations that were being conducted there and at nearby facilities, it is easy to believe Dimitrov had seen to much. Thus, the Artichoke treatment was requested to help him forget some of these things as well as making him more favorably disposed towards America (seriously). Even Morse Allen, the CIA's biggest proponent of hypnosis, had some doubts as to how effectively amnesia could be induced in Dimitrov. In a CIA memo, he stated:
"While the [Artichoke] technique that Ecke and Gladych are considering for use in this case is not known to the writer [Allen], the writer believes the approach will be made through the standard narco-hypnosis technique. Re-conditioning and re-orientation an individual in such a matter, in the opinion of the writer, cannot be accomplished easily and will require a great deal of time.... It is also believed that with our present knowledge, we would have no absolute guarantee that the subject in this case would maintain a positive friendly attitude toward us even though there is apparently a successful response to the treatment. The writer did not suggest to [Bannerman and Pritchett] that perhaps a total amnesia could be created by a series of electro shocks, but merely indicated that amnesia under drug treatments were not always certain."
It is important here to note Allen's skepticism concerning the effectiveness of the Artichoke treatment. The effectiveness of these techniques in mere interrogations live alone full blown mind control has always been rather debatable, to say nothing of being rather impractical. On the one hand there were only so many psychiatrists and other ARTICHOKE personnel available for such operations while on the other, as indicated above, these processes were extremely time consuming. Consider the scope of Dimitrov's Artichoke treatment:
"... In March 1952... Dimitrov was 'successfully given the Artichoke treatment in Panama for a period of about five weeks.' While specific details of the techniques applied to Dimitrov remain unavailable, subsequent statements made by Dimitrov himself make it clear that he was subjected to intense and repeated interrogation using an array of drugs, including LSD, heroin, and barbiturates, and 'near weekly hypnosis sessions,' that also made use of an array of drugs. Dimitrov further stated that he was subjected to electro-shock treatments used in combination with LSD 'so as to jumble my thoughts and memories' and 'to try to create a total amnesia' in his mind of all events that occurred in Greece and Panama."
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, pg. 174)
Obviously the Artichoke treatment was not especially effective on Mr. Dimitrov as evidence by the fact that he seems to have had a quite clear recollection of what was done to him. Indeed, despite proclamations that Dimotrov had been "successfully given the Artichoke treatment," Dimtrov seemingly remained imprisoned in Panama until late 1956, when he was finally allowed to enter the United States. As noted above, Dimtrov received the Artichoke treatment in March of 1952. Thus, US authorities felt the need to hold Dimitrov for an additional four years after his "successful" Artichoke treatment.
Nor were the details of the Artichoke treatment the only things Dimitrov remembered from his time in Panama. He made some quite shocking allegations in the late 1970s:
"About ten years after the JFK assassination, Dimitrov, operating sometimes under the aliases Lyle Kelly, James Adams, General Dimitre Dimitrov and Donald A. Donaldson, informed a number of people that he had information about who ordered the murder of JFK and who had committed the act. Reportedly, he had encountered the assassins while he had been imprisoned in Panama. He also told several people that he knew about military snipers who had murdered Martin Luther King. In 1977, Dimitrov actually met with US Sen. Frank Church, head of a Senate Committee investigating the CIA, and President Gerald Ford to share his information. Dimitrov said after the meeting that Ford had asked him to keep the information confidential until he could verify a number of facts. Immediately following the March 29, 1977, death of Lee Harvey Oswald's friend George de Mohrenschildt, Dimitrov became extremely frightened and contacted a reporter with a foreign television station who either mistakenly, or intentionally, revealed Dimitrov's name publicly on American television. Not long after this, Dimitrov disappeared in Europe where he had fled. He has never been seen or heard from since. Former CIA officials say privately, 'Dimitrov was murdered' and 'His body will never be found.' "
That Dimitrov would bring up two of the premier assassinations of the 1960s is most compelling. Certainly the OS crops up in several of the major assassinations of that era as well in operations targeted against the New Left and black activists. These topics were already addressed some what in the first and fifth installments, but now is a good time for a closer look.
JFK
I have already written quite extensively on the possible role ARTICHOKE and CIA behavior modification techniques in general may have been used on Lee Harvey Oswald in depth before here, so this section shall not be as detailed as it could be. As was noted in the first installment of this series, the OS maintained a file on Oswald What's more, Allen's old boss at the State Department's Office of Security, Robert L. Bannerman (addressed briefly in part six), was the one who requested that both Allen and Brigadier General Paul F. Gaynor, along with former FBI agent turned OS operative Bruce Solie, keep track of Oswald and other defectors coming back from Russia in that era. Thus, ARTICHOKE capos Allen and Gaynor were at the very least aware of Oswald.
Its even possible that they were familiar with Oswald prior to his return from Russia. As noted above, the Atsugi Naval Base was used quite regularly for BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE experiments throughout the 1950s. Oswald was of course famously posted to Atsugi in 1957 and would have theoretically been there at the time ARTICHOKE experiments were still being conducted. There are, however, no indications that he was ever subjected to such experiments. But back to the matter at hand.
Also noted in the first installment was the fact that both Allen and Gaynor were friendly with both William B. Reily of the New Orleans-based Reily Coffee Company, as well as former Army psychological warfare expert Edward Scannell Butler, then working for the Information Council of the Americas (INCA), also New Orleans based. Oswald held a job with the Reily Coffee Company in the summer of 1963, when he famously debated Ed Butler and anti-Castro Cuban Carlos Bringuier for a radio broadcast that was aired on WDSU after his arrest while attempting to hand out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets.
Edward Scannell Butler, a "former" Army psychological warfare expert
What was not mentioned in that installment was one of Oswald's potential coworkers at the Reily Coffee Company during the summer of '63. As H.P. Albarelli reports in A Terrible Mistake (pg. 428), it was none other than Pierre Lafitte. As was noted in the fifth installment of this series, Lafitte was allegedly present in Frank Olson's hotel room on the night of his suicide, having shown up with a French gangster known as Francois Spirito, who had just been released from the Atlanta Penitentiary where he had been subjected to ARTICHOKE/MKULTRA experiments conducted by Dr. Carl Pfeiffer. Lafitte was very close to George Hunter White and thus primarily did work for MKULTRA, but as was noted in part seven of this series, both White and Lafitte also carried out assignments for ARTICHOKE without the knowledge of MKULTRA head Sidney Gottlieb on occasion. Thus, there is certainly a possibility that Lafitte could have been keeping an eye on Oswald while working for Reily on behalf of the OS, which maintained a file on Oswald.
And indeed, it is possible that the OS did more than maintain files on Oswald. As it turns out, Edward Butler's emergence in Oswald's life around the time he was involved with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee may have been any thing but coincidental. Spartacus Educational notes:
"John M. Newman (Oswald and the CIA) discovered that in 1963 the CIA had an anti-Fair Play for Cuba Committee in operation. It was being run by David Atlee Phillips and James W. McCord. As James DiEugenio has pointed out a CIA document describes Ed Butler as 'a very cooperative contact and has always welcomed an opportunity to assist the CIA.' "
Ah yes, our old friend James W. McCord. McCord was of course a long time veteran of the OS who had operated out of the Security Research Staff with Allen and Gaynor for years. And of course Allen and Gaynor and the SRS compartment of the OS were the ones charged with investigating Oswald. Was McCord then involved in an operation against FPCC on behalf of the OS that employed Oswald as an informant? Certainly there is a possibility.
That McCord was potentially running this operation with David Atlee Phillips is most interesting as well. Phillips was an especially notorious CIA officer who spent the bulk of his career in the Special Activities Division (SAD) of the CIA. Many JFK assassination researchers believe that Phillips' was Oswald's handler.
While this is in and of itself is certainly intriguing, the situation is even more curious when one considers that Phillips was apparently friendly with former Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) man Gordon McLendon, as was noted in part three of this series. Phillips and McLendon apparently founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), a powerful network of "former" CIA, FBI and military intelligence officers (which McCord was also involved with) that some believe actually runs the CIA from behind the scenes.
"former" ONI man and radio personality Gordon McLendon
What's more, McLendon appears to have been friendly with Heidi Rikan in Dallas. As was also noted in part three, Rikan appears to have been running a prostitution ring out of Columbia Plaza during the Watergate era that was under the control of James McCord. Thus, there is a possibility that McCord could have met McLendon through Phillips, potentially explaining how McCord became involved with Heidi. It is also interesting to note that Joe Nesline and the other Syndicate figures Heidi was working for in Dallas were also associated with Oswald's assassin, Jack Ruby, as noted in that installment. There have been theories that Ruby was also a "Manchurian Candidate," as I noted before here.
James McCord also had a working relationship during the 1940s with another figure long linked to the JFK assassination and Oswald specifically.
"Guy Banister's name is well-known among conspiracy aficionados as anther one of the men implicated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in the Kennedy assassination. It was Guy Banister --by this time a former FBI agent --who rented office space at the same location stamped on Lee Harvey Oswald's 'Fair Play for Cuba Committee' flyers. Banister was running an anti-Castro Cuban operation from his investigator's office, an operation that attracted the likes of former Eastern Airlines pilot, and assassination suspect David Ferrie. Oswald was running a pro-Castro Cuban operation from the same address, an anomaly that could only be explained if one understood that Banister and Oswald were working together, and that the pro-Castro operation was a front for some other, even more nefarious, purpose. Further, while Banister was FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Chicago field office during World War II, one of his FBI subordinates was James McCord of Watergate 'plumbers' fame, and another was Robert A. Maheu: the man who would later become head of his own investigative agency and an employee of Howard Hughes, the man whose agency was started by money won from James McInerney, the assistant Attorney General who was involved in the Jack Parson investigation..."
So at one point James McCord worked underneath Guy Banister in the FBI's Chicago field office, along with Robert Maheu. As was noted in part four, Maheu was recruited very early by the OS and his private detective agency frequently carried out work for the OS of varying degrees of legality. In point of fact, the OS seems to have regularly used private detective agencies and other private security services as fronts. Thus, Guy Banister's agency would have been an obvious choice to assist the OS in its investigation of the FPCC.
It is also interesting to note that Guy Banister had also served in the Office of Naval Intelligence. The above-mentioned Gordon McLendon was also "former" ONI, as was ARTICHOKE head Morse Allen. Edwin Wilson, an OS veteran who appears to have been running a prostitution ring out of the Georgetown Club at the same time the Columbia Plaza operation was active (noted in part four), was at the time attached to the ONI's Task Force 157. Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the CIA director who initially green lighted Project BLUEBIRD, had cut his teeth in ONI. And of course there's the possibility, as noted in part six, that BLUEBIRD had its origins in Navy projects such as CHATTER and Pelican that were operated in part by the ONI. Thus, given how many ONI men turn up in connection with the OS and ARTICHOKE, Banister's connection to ONI may be far more significant than many have yet realized.
And yes, the above-mentioned Jack Parsons is none other than the notorious rocket science who was a member of Crowley's OTO and performed the "Babalon Working" with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard had briefly served in the ONI during the early 1940s (and long alleged that he was acting on behalf of the ONI when he approached Parsons) and may even have met Morse Allen during this time, as noted in part seven. That Robert Maheu got money from James McInerney, the assistant Attorney General who investigated Parson in 1950, to start his private detective firm is most curious as well.
As was noted in part four, Maheu was recruited by the OS shortly after he opened his detective agency and is alleged to have received money from OS-SRS chief Brigadier General Paul Gaynor even before he was officially recruited by the OS. Was McInerney working on behalf of the OS when he gave Maheu start up money? And if McInerney did have ties to the OS, were they established when he helped investigate Parson in 1950? This question shall be addressed in a future installment as the implication may be quite staggering. But back to the matter at hand.
Before wrapping up with this section, there is one last potential OS tie to the Kennedy assassination that should be mentioned: the Paine family. Michael and Ruth Paine would become the benefactors of the Oswalds during their time in Dallas and would remain close to Marina Oswald after they relocated to New Orleans. At the time of the assassination Marina Oswald was living with the Paines. More background on this series of events can be found here.
OS ties to Michael Paine are sketchy though Lee Pennington, a former FBI agent who regularly reported to OS-SRS chief Brigadier General Paul Gaynor (noted before in part four) alleged to have had contacts who knew the Paine family. With Ruth Paine we are on much firmer footing. Her father, William Avery Hyde, has long been suspected of ties to the US intelligence community. It is known that the OS maintained files on Hyde, much as it did Oswald. But whether he was under suspicion or being used operationally is unknown.
And then there's the murky background of Ruth's sister:
"... Ruth Paine was the younger sister of Sylvia Hyde Hoke. In 1993, a CIA security file was declassified which revealed that Sylvia had been employed by the Agency for a number of years prior to 1963 as a psychologist..."
Beyond this, virtually nothing else is known concerning what type of psychological work Hoke did or in what department. But certainly any number of psychologists and psychiatrists were detached to BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE during this era, though there are no indications that Hoke was involved in such work. Her husband, another suspected CIA employee, may have been privy to such things.
"... Interestingly, Hughes, after 1954, would work briefly for the Atlantic Research Corporation, where Ruth Paine's brother-in-law John Hoke also worked..."
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 259)
This is most interesting indeed as the above-mentioned Hughes is none other than Allan Hughes. According to H.P. Albarelli Jr. in A Terrible Mistake, Hughes was briefly detached to MKULTRA in the early 1950s and participated in the interrogation of Frank Olson at Deep Creek Lake along with Sidney Gottlieb (noted before here). Prior to that he had been detailed to Army CIC, which worked closely with Project ARTICHOKE, as noted above. Whether or not Hughes was involved in ARTICHOKE at this point is unknown but it is certainly a possibility. After leaving the CIA in 1954 he briefly worked at the Atlantic Research Corporation before joining Robert Maheu's private detective agency. As was already noted above, Maheu was a major asset of the OS. So, if nothing else, Sylvia Hyde Hoke's husband at least briefly worked with an individual who was involved in CIA behavior modification experiments during her employment with the Agency. But moving along.
There is one final connection the OS may have had to the Kennedy assassination, but before getting to that we need to now consider the assassination of JFK's brother, RFK.
RFK (and MLK and the New Left) Must Die
As I'm sure many of you are already aware, it has long been alleged that RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan had been hypno-programmed by the famed stage hypnotist William Joseph Bryan, the man who hypnotized serial killer Albert DiSalvo during his trail and long alleged to have been a consultant on the adaption of The Manchurian Candidate. As was noted in part seven of this series, Bryan had been a consultant for the ARTICHOKE program in the 1950s. He had also long alleged to have been a part of the Air Force's "brainwash section" during Korea, but this may well have been more of Bryan's famed hyperbole. Thus, the allegations of Bryan's involvement with Sirhan should be taken with a grain of salt, but they are not without merit. Consider:
"... In the first place eyewitnesses to the shooting of Senator Kennedy have claimed that Sirhan's demeanor was strangely distant and removed --'peaceful' --when he was pounced on by Kennedy's supporters in the moments after the killing. Sirhan himself claims no memory of the assassination, although he did not deny that he did it. Before Sirhan's identity was made public, Bryan was on a radio show giving his opinion that the assassin had been hypnotically programmed. And one of Sirhan's notebooks contained serial killer DiSalvo's name repeated several times, although Sirhan himself does not know why. Although Bryan would gleefully describe any of the cases he worked on, especially high-profile cases like DiSalvo, he would change the subject when Sirhan's case was brought up, and occasionally turn angry at reporters or investigators who had the temerity to mention it. This was uncharacteristic of Bryan, and points to another level of knowledge about the case.
"Eerily, Sirhan would also turn angry and upset when the Rosicrucians were mentioned, insisting that they not be brought into the investigation. This has led Turner and Christian to wonder if that was a deliberate hypnotic suggestion, implanted by Bryan or some other programmer, to divert attention away from the real conspirators. The 'DiSalvo' reference in Sirhan's notebooks, however, suggests that the name of this alleged serial killer was brought up during Sirhan's programming, perhaps as a trigger word or, more likely, as a reference back to the original programmer. This would have to have been Bryan, since Bryan famously worked on the DiSalvo case. Did Bryan plant the 'DiSalvo' reference as a kind of calling card? Or did Sirhan see the name of his programmer linked to DiSalvo in a newspaper or magazine article? There is no other connection between Sirhan and DiSalvo that anyone has been able to discover. It is perhaps the only pure anomaly in Sirhan's notebooks. It has nothing to do with politics, with Robert Kennedy, with the Illuminati or the Theosophists. It is as glaring --in the context of the notebooks --as a black cat on a white rug. The only connection to both Sirhan and Di Salvo is, of course, Bryan himself.
"At one point, and to select individuals, Bryan claimed to have hypnotized Sirhan. There is no evidence linking Sirhan to Bryan after the assassination, however. Something like that would have become a matter of public record, considering the amount of scrutiny the case was getting in the wake of the botched investigation and follow-up to the JFK assassination. Bryan certainly would have made loud publicity over the fact that he hypnotized Sirhan if in fact he had done so; it would have been an impressive addition to his resume. Yet, Bryan claimed to have never hypnotized Sirhan when pressed by an independent researcher, and abruptly terminated the interview. Thus, Bryan had two stories about Sirhan. If Bryan did hypnotize the Palestinian immigrant, it was before the assassination; and for this, we are on firmer ground because Sirhan was hypnotized prior to June 1968."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 313-314)
Clearly, the notion of Bryan is problematic as Sirhan's programmer. As indicated above, Bryan was a tireless self promoter and never missed an opportunity to plug his own prowess in hypnosis. Thus, it is likely it would have been extremely difficult for Bryan to keep silent about such a thing as killing RFK. What's more, Bryan could have been an easy target to blackmail due to his rather blatant pedophilia (noted before here).
On the other hand, Bryan's sexual indiscretions were not exactly a dark secret. For instance, in A Secret Order H.P. Albarelli notes: ""Bryan was once charged in Nevada (his home state) for furnishing liquor to a young girl under the age of eighteen while he as attempting to convince her of the merits of 'free love' " (pg. 435). Bryan was also noted to have bragged frequently to friends about his ability to seduce underage girls with his hypnotic powers (noted in part seven).
Still, Bryan would seemingly be an unlikely candidate to task with something as high stakes as programming an assassin to take out a beloved political figure and likely future US president. It is quite possible, however, that Bryan had some knowledge of the assassination. He was a consultant for ARTICHOKE and may have instructed others in his hypnotic techniques. There is one particular individual whom he is said to have trained:
"... Bryan was a close associate of David Ferrie, having taught Ferrie hypnosis. Bryan, like Ferrie, was a member of the Old Catholic Church."
David Ferrie was an employee of Guy Banister's detective agency and is widely alleged to have been close to Lee Harvey Oswald during his time in New Orleans. Ferrie was famously played by Joe Pesci in Oliver Stone's JFK.
While Ferrie's relationship to Bryan is still highly speculative, there seems little doubt that they were members of the same bizarre church, which had numerous links to the fascist underground and the US intelligence community, as noted before here. Both Morse Allen and Paul Gaynor, as noted in part one, were on very good terms with the former in addition to being powerful figures in the latter. Thus, there may have been others whom Bryan had trained who either dropped a reference to their former teacher into Sirhan's programming as a tribute or red herring, to distract researchers from the real programmers. But moving along.
There are also some indications that ARTICHOKE may have played a role in another major assassination that occurred during the turbulent 1960s. Truthout reports:
"Other hard evidence of the CIA's leanings toward assassination as a feature of policy and operations is yet another memorandum by the Agency's Security Office and Artichoke official Morse Allen. Wrote Allen about Martin Luther King in 1965: 'It is [redacted]'s belief that somehow or other Martin Luther King must be removed from the leadership of the Negro movement, and his removal must come from within and not from without. [Redacted] feels that somehow in the Negro movement, at the top, there must be a Negro leader who is "clean" who could step into the vacuum and chaos if Martin Luther King were exposed or assassinated.' "
ARTICHOKE head Morse Allen seems to have at least been considering the possibility of MLK's assassination by 1965 along with holding the firm belief that King's movement had to be cleansed of "communist influence." While some may believe I'm reaching here, keep in mind that the above-mentioned ARTICHOKE victim, Dimitre Dimitrov, claimed to have information about both the assassinations of JFK and MLK.
It is also interesting to note that MLK's alleged assassin, James Earl Ray, had been both hypnotized prior to King's death and had also displayed quite an interest in hypnosis in general. Consider:
"One other bit of evidence gives unity to the contradictions --Ray had been hypnotized while in Los Angeles.
"It was not mentioned in Ray's 'trail,' but at the time of his arrest in London, he had in his possession three books on hypnosis: Self-Hypnotism: The Technique and Its Use in the Daily Life by Leslie M. LeCron, How to Cash In on Your Hidden Memory Power by William D. Jersey, and Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. Ray had told William Bradford Huie, 'I took a course in hypnosis while in L.A. I had read a lot about it in prison on how it was used in dentistry and medicine.'
"On November 27, 1967, Ray appeared in the office of Dr. Mark Freeman, a psychologist who practiced in Beverly Hills. Dr. Freeman remembered that Ray, who'd given his real name, asked to be hypnotized because he wanted to sleep better and remember things better."
(Operation Mind Control, Walter Bowart, pg. 213)
Apparently Dr. Freeman found Ray to be a very good hypnotic subject. Ray himself alleged to have seen as many as eight hypnotists in his day, according to Bowart. This researcher has yet to find anything yet directly linking Ray to ARTICHOKE or MKULTRA programmers, however.
The OS certainly seemed ready to deal with both assassinations and was quick to implement emergency measures in 1968 in the wake of the RFK and MLK deaths.
"... The CIA's OS activated an emergency security plan at CIA headquarters as a precautionary measure during the riots after King's assassination, the Poor People's Campaign, the funeral of Kennedy, and a few other public events to protect CIA personnel and facilities. The OS responded to the Secret Service's request for CIA help with security measures at the Republican National Convention in Miami in August 1968, and later at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with Helms' approval, but the DCI directed that the support be overt."
(MH/CHAOS, Frank J. Rafalko, pgs. 34-35)
What exactly was meant by "overt support" is unknown. The only details I've been able to find out about the OS's involvement at the notorious 1968 Democratic National Convention are reports that they dispatched two technicians to assist the Secret Service in monitoring radio frequencies. This researcher finds this account to be rather dubious. Typically, the TSS or another section of the Directorate of Science and Technology would have handled such an assignment as this is where their area of expertise lay. The OS was more action oriented and normally would have relied upon the TSS to provide listening devises.
As was noted in part seven, ARTICHOKE did consider ultrasonics and other potential electromagnetic radiation (which includes radio waves) for use in their experiments. Some scientists believed that such things could be used to make individuals more passive or aggressive, depending upon the circumstances. Certainly the 1968 Democratic Convention proved to be rather aggressive, resulting in mass riots that badly damaged the public's perception of the party. Whether or not exotic methods were used to spur the chaos is unknown, but there is no dispute that the Convention was littered with undercover informants. In the classic Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shalin note: "According to Army intelligence documents later obtained by CBS news, nearly one out of six demonstrators at the Chicago convention was an undercover operative" (pg. 224).
a scene from the 1968 Democratic National Convention
As was noted in part five, the OS was the primary component of the CIA tasked with infiltrating New Left and black activists groups during this era. Thus, it is quite likely some of their undercover informants were active in these demonstrations. So while the possibility that sci-fi crowd control weapons were used at the '68 convention is quite slim, the OS would have likely been well positioned to activate good old fashioned agent provocateurs. But back to the matter at hand.
Questions and Reflections
What then does it all mean? Are these assassinations indications of the much speculated upon Manchurian Candidate?
Perhaps, but such conclusions are problematic for reasons indicated in the Artichoke treatment section: the evidence that these techniques actually work is highly debatable, at best. At least one MKULTRA operator dismissed the effectiveness of a Manchurian Candidate out of hand:
"... The MKULTRA veteran maintains that he and his colleagues were not interested in a programmed assassin because they knew in general it would not work and, specifically, that they could not exert total control. 'If you have one hundred percent control, you have one hundred percent dependency,' he says. 'If something happens and you haven't programmed it in, you've got a problem. If you try to put flexibility in, you lose control. To the extent you let the agent choose, you don't have control.'... "
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 203)
On the one hand, these claims from an unnamed MKULTRA veteran should be taken with a grain of salt. While MKULTRA may not have had much interest in mind control, ARTICHOKE surely did. An ARTICHOKE document discussing its objectives states: "... ascertaining whether effective and practical techniques exist, or could be developed, which could be utilized to render an individual subservient to an imposed will or control..."(A Secret Order, pg. 171). Clearly an interest existed.
But how practical a Manchurian Candidate would actually be is quite valid. While this researcher does not believe a programmed assassin would be able to carry out an elaborate "executive action" (such as taking a target out with a sniper rifle), it may in fact be possible to condition someone to shoot a targeted individual in a public place or crowd. Certainly it does seem that Sirhan Sirhan managed this feat. Far right wing CIA-connected financier Nicholas Deak was murdered under similar circumstances in 1985 by a female assailant displaying signs of being hypno-programmed.
It is important to emphasize that in both cases the victims were shot at point blank range by assassins that were able to get right next to their targets. The same is also true of Jack Ruby, who some believe was hypno-programmed to assassinate Oswald. In this researcher's opinion, this is about the extent of what a programmed assassin would be able to pull off. And even this may be giving Project ARTICHOKE to much credit.
What hypno-programming would likely be most effective at would be in creating a patsy and not an assassin. Consider:
"The veteran admits that none of the arguments he uses against a conditioned assassin would apply to a programmed 'patsy' whom a hypnotist could walk through a series of seemingly unrelated events --a visit to a store, a conversation with a mailman, picking a fight at a political rally. The subject would remember everything that happened to him and be amnesic only for the fact the hypnotist ordered him to do these things. There would be no gaping inconsistency in his life of the sort that can ruin an attempt by a hypnotist to create a second personality. The purpose of this exercise is to leave a circumstantial trail that will make the authorities think the patsy committed a particular crime. The weakness might well be that the amnesia would not hold up under police interrogation, but that would not matter if the police did not believe his preposterous story about being hypnotized or if he were shot resisting arrest..."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 204n)
In the case of Oswald and especially James Earl Ray, this seems the most plausible outcome if ARTICHOKE techniques were applied in such cases. This may well have been the case with Sirhan Sirhan as well, as some researchers believe that there was more than one shooter in RFK's assassination as well. And of course, this assumes that hypno-programming is even effective and not just speculation on my part. But it does seem likely that were was something dubious about the OS's appearance in the above outlined events.
While it may seem superficially preposterous to many that ARTICHOKE and the Office of Security could have played a key role in the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, to say nothing of the riots at the '68 Chicago convention, keep in mind that there is ample evidence that the OS played a key role in creating the Watergate scandal which ultimately brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. The OS has long been linked to CIA assassination plots as well and turns up in several suspicious suicides, including that of Frank Olson, as noted in part five.
In many ways the Office of Security was akin to a domestic version of the Special Activities Division (SAD), which it frequently collaborated with. SAD is the primary arm of the CIA that handles foreign covert and black ops --assassinations, paramilitary operations, psychological and economic warfare, etc. The OS handled domestic black ops like black bag operations and clean-ups, and potentially even assassinations as well. But beyond this, they also had counterintelligence functions such as running double agents or infiltrating domestic groups. And finally, they were the principal department to handle interrogations, which is how they ended up with control of ARTICHOKE (which was initially founded to investigate "special interrogation" methods, as noted in part six).
With all this in mind, it does not seem much of a stretch that the OS would have been tasked with something as incredible as ending a presidency, or a domestic "subversive" movement. Indeed, they are arguably the only component of the CIA that had the necessary "expertise" in the multiple disciplines that would have been required to carry off such things.
All of this is of course highly speculative on my part and many of the deep events just outlined had players involved in them that went well beyond the OS. What I have hoped to demonstrate is the likelihood of some OS involvement in these events and the possibility that the OS was far more than a marginal component of the Agency, as it is often depicted. Given how many of the CIA's most controversial operations that OS turns up in, this should not seem like much of a stretch to the reader of this series.
Legacy
Before wrapping up with this installment I would like to briefly address the fate of ARTICHOKE after it was finally put to rest officially in 1973. It seems likely that ARTICHOKE did not in fact end, but was simply outsourced. The process of taking ARTICHOKE deep private was likely well underway as far back as the 1950s, but certainly it had to be officially divorced from any branch of the US government after the Watergate scandal (at least until the presidency of Bush II).
Easily the most enduring legacy of ARTICHOKE is its influence on torture, most especially its trailblazing use of sensory deprivation. ARTICHOKE appears to have taken an early interest in the work of McGill University superstar Dr. Donald Hebb, whose research served the basis for Ewen Cameron's "psychic driving" insanity. The CIA began to follow Hebb's work in 1951 just as ARTICHOKE was beginning to ramp and by 1954 Morse Allen had approached another psychiatrist about such methods.
"The CIA, following Hebb's lead, moved quickly to explore the implications of sensory deprivation for interrogation. As early as March 1955, for example, the agency's Office of Security had already done a research paper describing 'total isolation' techniques as 'an operational tool of potential.' That same year, Morse Allen, a militant anti-Communist who headed the CIA's Artichoke project, met with a brain surgeon at the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Maitland Baldwin, about his recent, rather promising experiment. After forty hours inside a specially constructed sensory deprivation box, an army volunteer began 'an hour of crying loudly and sobbing in a most heartrending fashion' before kicking his way out. This dramatic denouncement persuaded Baldwin that 'the isolation technique could break any man, no matter how intelligent or strong-willed.' By now, Morse Allen felt further work with volunteers proved little, and wanted real-world testing of subjects 'for whom much is at stake (perhaps life and death),' pressing even for 'terminal experiments' to see how deeply coerced sensory deprivation could disturb the mind. Though feeling that anything more than six days of sensory deprivation would 'almost certainly cause irreparable damage,' Baldwin agreed to do these 'terminal type' tests if the agency would provide both subjects and cover. In the end, however, a CIA medical officer blocked the project as 'immoral and inhuman,' suggesting that those who favored the experiment might 'volunteer their heads for use in Dr. Baldwin's "noble" project.' "
(A Question of Torture, Alfred W. McCoy, pgs. 38-39)
In theory that was the end of things, but at around roughly the same time Morse Allen initiated the highly secretive Project QKHILLTOP. As was noted in part seven, QKHILLTOP was based upon the work of Harold Wolff, who was equally fascinated with sensory deprivation as well as what Alfred McCoy refers to as "self-inflicted pain." Very little is still known to this day about QKHILLTOP despite the fact that the notorious Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE) began as an offshoot of the project. Eventually SIHE was turned over to MKULTRA and through it Gottlieb and company funded Ewen Cameron's experiments, potentially to confirm the conclusions of ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP.
By the early 1960s, these "breakthroughs" achieved by ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA were incorporated into an official CIA interrogation manual.
"In 1963, the CIA distilled its findings in its seminal Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation handbook. For the next forty years, the Kubark manual would define the agency's interrogation methods and training programs throughout the Third World. Synthesizing the behavioral research done by contract academics, the manual spelled out a revolutionary two-phase form of torture that relied on sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain for an effect that, for the first time in the two millennia of this cruel science, was more psychological than physical."
It is of course most interesting that the Kubark manual was first issued in 1963. This was the year that both ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA were officially ended, though research in such fields continued in successor programs to both projects until 1973, but at a greatly reduced scale. As Kubark indicates, by this time enough research had been done and it was time for these techniques to be taken into the field on a mass scale. And make no mistake about it, Kubark is very much the legacy of ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA, as research done by both projects is directly cited in the manual:
"... Similarly, Kubark noted that experiments at 'McGill University, the National Institute of Mental Health, and other sites have attempted to come as close as possible to the elimination of sensory stimuli.' Some of these 'findings point toward hypotheses that seem relevant to interrogation, but conditions like those of detention for purposes of counterintelligence interrogation have not been duplicated for experimentation.' This deficiency --the lack of verifiable results from human subjects --would soon be resolved as the CIA began to apply its paradigm, particularly in South Vietnam."
(A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy, pg. 52)
Indeed, in Vietnam the Phoenix Program would provide ample opportunities for the CIA to put these methods to work operationally. Thus, you have the origins of "enhanced" interrogation methods. Its close associate "extraordinary rendition" was very much the legacy of ARTICHOKE as well. As was noted above, double agents and such like were frequently abducted and shipped to sites such as those mentioned above in Panama and Germany where they were subjected to the Artichoke treatment. Nowadays these locations would be known as "black sites."
"black sites" currently used by the CIA and Pentagon
Not long after the ARTICHOKE program was shuttered, this system reemerged in the Southern Cone of South America in what is commonly referred to as Operation Condor. Condor was a program run by the intelligence services of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and several other Latin America nations to track down dissidents both domestically and abroad. Condor displayed many of the same elements as ARTICHOKE.
"Since those wanted by the various juntas often took refuge in neighboring countries, the regional governments collaborated with each other in the notorious Operation Condor. Under Condor, the intelligence agencies of the Southern Cone shared information about 'subversives' --aided by a state-of-the-art computer system provided by Washington --and then gave each other's agents safe passage to carry out cross-border kidnappings and torture, a system eerily resembling the CIA's 'extraordinary rendition' network today."
One particular location in Chile was quite significant to Operation Condor.
"Considerable funds were laundered through Colonia Dignidad in Chile, as one example, and these funds were used to develop chemical and biological weapons, as well as to run the torture and interrogation center at the Colony after the overthrow of Allende. The Colony itself was part of... Operation Condor..."
(The Hitler Legacy, Peter Levenda, pg. 299)
This researcher has already written at length on Colonia Dignidad before here and will not delve into it too deeply here, but suffice to say, any number of ARTICHOKE techniques such as mind-altering drugs, sensory deprivation, isolation and electroshock were employed by the Colony in addition to less "scientific methods" (i.e. German shepherds). The Colony was staffed by any number of "former" Nazis, but also received assistance from Chile's primary intelligence agency.
"... the Colony got a chance to put its electroshock and narcotics 'therapies' to the test. Townley and DINA agents had the run of the Colony, both at Parral and at the Colony office in Santiago. While DINA maintained contact with its agents all over the world through the Colony's radio link, Townley helped design the specifically equipped interrogation cells. These were tiny, soundproofed rooms built underground where 'political prisoners' were taken not only for actual interrogations of a political or military nature, but also for the purpose of developing new methods of torture."
The above-mentioned Townley is Michael Vernon Townley, an American assassin linked to the deaths of Carlos Prats, Bernardo Leighton and Orlando Leterlier, among others. Currently he is residing in the American witness protection program. In theory Townley never worked for any US intelligence services, he just had a natural "talent" for political assassinations and torture. He was, however, a member of Chile's dreaded DINA. And as was noted in the Artichoke treatment section, the DINA was one of the intelligence services trained in interrogation methods in Panama by US authorities while the ARTICHOKE experiments were also being conducted there. While this certainly could be a coincidence, it seems a bit of stretch that the DINA would set up a system very much like ARTICHOKE with no input from the US and would end up with an American playing a key role in it's torture program.
Also interesting to note are Operation Condor's ties to the American far right. As I noted before here, Operation Condor was sponsored in part by the notorious World Anti-Communist League (WACL, addressed at length before here), a bizarre mixture of "former" US intelligence and military officers, international drug traffickers, death squads commanders, religious extremists of various stripes and the inevitable aging Nazi war criminals. The WACL in turn was very close to the American Security Council (ASC), with more than a little overlap in the American membership (for instance General John Singlaub, who headed the WACL in the 1980s, was also a key member of the ASC during this time as well). And as was noted in parts one and four of this series, ARTICHOKE supervisor Brigadier General Paul Gaynor had very, very close ties to the ASC, as did James McCord.
It is also interesting to note that a major backer of the WACL for years was the Unification Church of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Moon and his Unification Church received ample backing from the KCIA who, as noted in the Artichoke treatment section, were another of the foreign intelligence services trained in interrogation methods at the School of the Americas and nearby facilities where ARTICHOKE experiments were also being conducted. It has long been alleged that the Unification Church employs brainwashing methods on its members (noted before here). Whether this has any ties to ARTICHOKE is unknown.
For years the ASC, the WACL and Le Cercle (which had ties to the above-mentioned Information Council for the Americas, as noted before here, and also sponsored numerous US Christian sects that employed brainwashing on their members) were effectively the major linchpins of the Fascist International throughout the Cold War. And there is more than compelling evidence that Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen, the directors of ARTICHOKE, were very close to this network. With this network's resources and extensive intelligence experience (the ASC, the WACL and Le Cercle were effectively all private intelligence networks), it would seem a logical place to continue aspects of ARTICHOKE. Certainly Operation Condor seems to have been heavily influenced by ARTICHOKE.
The New Orleans-based Information Council of the Americas (INCA, addressed before here and here) is especially suggestive in this regard. The INCA is mostly remembered now for sponsoring Lee Harvey Oswald's infamous radio debate, but its membership had ties to Le Cercle, the CIA-linked International Trade Mart, and a host of other domestic far right organizations linked to the American Security Council network. Clay Shaw, one of the key suspects in Jim Garrison's investigation of the JFK assassination, was a member of the INCA. And one of the INCA's most visible members, Edward Scannell Butler, was very close to both Morse Allen an Brigadier General Paul Gaynor, as noted above and in part one of this series. In this context, the implications of the INCA and the evil it represented go far beyond the Kennedy assassination and could hint at a disturbing metamorphosis of ARTICHOKE.
While it seems likely that aspects of ARTICHOKE were continued in some form by the Fascist International until the end of the Cold War, with the 9/11 terror attacks and the ensuing "War on Terror," ARTICHOKE methods were once again openly used by US personnel. Truthout notes:
"Dimtrov's story takes on added significance when one considers the latest stories of the unraveling torture conspiracy and operations conducted by the American CIA and Department of Defense, in conjunction with their British allied organizations, and a host of other governments, including Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland and numerous others. After a series of exposures during the 1970's, many assumed the worst excesses of the Cold War torture research program, and its implementation in programs such as the CIA's Operation Phoenix in Vietnam were a fixture of the past. However, subsequent revelations, e.g. the appearance of a US-sponsored torture manual for use in Latin America in the 1980's, including documentation of torture by US forces in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, demonstrate that a direct line exists between the torture and rendition programs of the past and the practices of the present day. Recently, articles have detailed how the 2006 rewrite of the Army Field Manual allowed for use of ongoing isolation, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, induction of fear and the use of drugs that cause temporary derangement of the senses...
"The allegations of drugging by Mohamed and other prisoners are redolent of the use of hallucinogenic and other powerful mind-altering drugs by the US in its Artichoke, MK-ULTRA and other programs. A recent account, by Joby Warrick of The Washington Post, described some of these allegations of drugging of 'detainees.' The Post article subsequently led to an ongoing DoD Inspector General investigation into Possible Use of Mind Altering Substances by DoD Personnel during Interrogations of Detainees and/or Prisoners Captured during the War on Terror (D2007-DINT01-0092.005) "to determine if DoD personnel conducted, facilitated, or otherwise supported interrogations of detainees and /or prisoners using the threat or administration of mind altering drugs." According to his attorney's filings in the Jose Padilla case, Padilla, who was also originally implicated in the "dirty bomb" so-called plot with Binyam Mohamed, was forced to take LSD or other powerful drugs while held in solitary confinement in the Navy brig in South Carolina.
"Another former Guantanamo prisoner, Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian Muslim released in 2005, has consistentlytold his tale of being subjected to electroshock, beatings and drugging while in US custody...
"Most recently, in an important article by Scott Horton at Harpers, the reexamination of the evidence in the supposed 2006 suicides of three prisoners at Guantanamo pointed to the possibility that the prisoners were killed in a previously unknown black site prison on the Guantanamo base - 'Camp No' - run by the CIA or Joint Special Operations Command. This raises the question of why they were taken off site at all. One prisoner, 22-year-old Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, had needle marks on both of his arms. The marks were notably not documented in the US military's autopsy report."
This researcher had an especially good laugh over current CIA director John Brennan's recent faux outrage over the prospect of the CIA again being ordered to conduct waterboarding. The CIA and the Pentagon have been conducting far worse for over half a century now, and even when outrage from the general public has forced them to officially stop, the interrogation sites have continued in the deep private. Rest assured dear readers, somewhere the CIA and the Pentagon are still overseeing ARTICHOKE-like methods applied to the War on Terror.
Pedophilia
Before wrapping up, I would like to address something I'm sure many readers are curious about: namely, the possible ties pedophile networks have to ARTICHOKE. As was noted above, William Joseph Bryan was a pedophile while David Ferrie was also an arch child rapist (addressed before here) and the founder of Colonia Dignidad, Paul Shaffer, was finally brought down due to multiple accusations of pedophilia (addressed before here).
As was noted in parts one, three and four of this series, Security Research Staff (SRS, which oversaw ARTICHOKE) head Brigadier General Paul Gaynor was an old hand at sexual blackmail even before ARTICHOKE was initiated. He was especially vigorous in perusing homosexual blackmail, maintaining the so-called "fag files" in the SRS. And as was addressed throughout parts three and four, there is ample evidence to indicate that the OS was deeply involved in sexual blackmail for the CIA, likely being the lead department for such things.
This researcher has found no evidence that minors were ever used for such functions. TSS/MKULTRA personnel, who were generally far more moderate than their ARTICHOKE counterparts, did discuss the possible use of children, however.
"... a TSS veteran says that a good number of case officers wanted no part of homosexual entrapment operations. And to go a step further, he recalls one senior KGB man who told too many sexual jokes about young boys. 'It didn't take long to recognize that he was more than a little fascinated by youths,' says the source. 'I took the trouble to point out he was probably too good, too well-trained, to be either entrapped or to give away secrets. But he would have been tempted towards a compromising position by a preteen. I mentioned this, and they said, "As a psychological observer, you're probably quite right. But what the hell are we going to do about it? Where are we going to get a twelve-year-old boy?" ' The source believes that if the Russian had had a taste for older men, U.S. intelligence might have mounted an operation, 'but the idea of a twelve-year-old boy was just more than anybody could stomach.' "
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 104)
While the TSS and MKULTRA personnel may have had serious moral scruples over such things, the OS was clearly not offended by homosexual blackmail and this researcher doubts that they would have shied away from using children if they thought there was an advantage to be gained. But likely such operations would have been outsourced from the get go to create plausible deniability. Something like Robert Maheu's private detective agency or Gaynor and Allen's far right wing contacts would have been the ones to carry out such activities. And as I noted before in my examination of Le Cercle, there are ample indications that the Fascist International did run an international pedophile network for sexual blackmail purposes. This likely predated ARTICHOKE, however, and it is debatable how much influence the program as a whole would have had on it.
There are, however, indications that ARTICHOKE did conduct experiments on children. And these were likely far, far stranger than entrapment operations. As we shall see in the next installment, ARTICHOKE was involved in some truly bizarre pursuits that went well beyond special interrogation methods and mind control. Yes dear readers, I shall begin to examine the high weirdness angle of ARTICHOKE in depth in the next installment. Stay tuned.
"For a while, before such projects were transferred away from the purview of Morse Allen's SRS to Gottlieb's TSS, the Agency delved deeper into the black arts"
-- H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, pg. 263
Welcome to the ninth installment in my ongoing examination of the CIA's mysterious and highly controversial Office of Security (OS). For those of you just joining me or trying to catch up, here is a brief run down of what has been addressed in the prior installments:
in the first installment the backgrounds and politics (which many Alex Jones bots would find appealing) of the OS men were considered and contrasted with Ivy League-centric Office of Strategic Services (OSS) "Old Boys" who dominated the CIA's upper hierarchy for decades
part two began to consider the OS's involvement in the Watergate scandal, examining longtime OS veteran James McCord's total bungling of the second break-in and the possibility that he or one of his employees had tipped off the police before hand
the third installment considered the actual purpose of the Watergate break-in, namely a Columbia Plaza-based call girl ring that was servicing the Watergate-based DNC and which was likely under the control of James McCord
part four dealt with the OS's extensive use of "safe houses" for sexual blackmail as well as the cabal behind the Watergate scandal, which included the OS, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of Naval Intelligence and the powerful defense lobby group and private intelligence network known as the American Security Council (which this blog has addressed at length before here)
part five considered the OS's role in assassinations, suspicious deaths linked to the OS (including the "suicide" of Frank Olson) and the role the OS played in Operation CHAOS
the sixth installment began to get into the OS's role in the CIA's behavior modification experiments, considering Project BLUEBIRD and dispelling much of the disinformation concerning MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE (hint: ARTICHOKE continued in some form or another until 1973 and was neverunder the control of Sidney Gottlieb)
the seventh installment considered Project ARTICHOKE with an emphasis on its use of hypnosis, drugs and electroshock
part eight examined the so-called "Artichoke treatment" and addressed the OS's possible role in the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK; also considered was the possible continuation of ARTICHOKE after 1973 in the deep private (and later, as part of the "War on Terror")
As those of you who have been following this series from the beginning are well aware, it has been one long, strange trip. And now dear readers, things are about to become even stranger as I begin to address the "high weirdness" component of ARTICHOKE.
Typically Sidney Gottlieb is depicted as a kind of dark alchemist within the CIA, but as we shall see throughout the remaining installments in this series, it was Morse Allen more than any other individual in the CIA at this point that deserved such a label. As was already noted in part seven, it was Allen's passion for hypnosis that led it to becoming such an integral part of the CIA's behavior modification experiments. Allen was a thorough researcher and was likely well aware that hypnosis had its origins in the occult, with Mesmerism to be precise. And this was hardly the only arcane topic Allen had an interest in.
God's Flesh
Beyond his well known fascination with hypnotism, Allen was apparently the first CIA official to acquire an interest in the famed "magic mushroom." Not content with procuring mere physical samples of the mushroom, he sought to understand everything surrounding the lore of the fungus.
"... Their fixation on the 'magic mushroom' grew indirectly out of a meeting between drug experts and Morse Allen, head of the Agency's ARTICHOKE program, in October 1952. One expert told Allen about a shrub called piule, whose seeds had long been used as an intoxicant by Mexican Indians at religious ceremonies. Allen, who wanted to know about anything that distorted reality, immediately arranged for a young CIA scientist to take a Mexican field trip and gather samples of piule as well as other plants of 'high narcotic and toxic value of interest to ARTICHOKE.'
"That young scientist arrived in Mexico City early in 1953. He could not advertise the true purpose of his trip because of ARTICHOKE's extreme secrecy, so he assumed cover as a researcher interested in finding native plants which were anesthetics. Fluent in Spanish and familiar with Mexico, he had no trouble moving around the country, meeting with leading experts on botanicals. Then he was off into the mountains south of the capital with his own field-testing equipment, gather specimens and testing them crudely on the spot. By February, he had collected sacks full of material, including 10 pounds of piule. Before leaving Mexico to look for more samples around the Caribbean, the young scientist heard amazing tales about special mushrooms that grew only in the hot and rainy summer months. Such stories had circulated among Europeans in Mexico since Cortez had conquered the country early in the sixteenth century. Spanish friars had reported that the Aztecs used strange mushrooms in their religious ceremonies, which these converters of the heathens described as 'demonic holy communion.' Aztec priests called the special mushrooms teonanactl, 'God's flesh.' But Cortez's plunderers soon lost track of the rite, as did the traders and the anthropologists who followed in their wake. Only the legend survived.
"Back in Washington, the young scientist's samples went straight to the labs, and Agency officials scoured the historical record for accounts of the strange mushrooms. Morse Allen himself, though responsible in ARTICHOKE research for everything from the polygraph to hypnosis, took the trouble to go through the Indian lore. 'Very early accounts of the ceremonies of some tribes of Mexican Indians show that mushrooms are used to produce hallucinations and to create intoxication in connection with religious festivals,' he wrote. 'In addition, this literature shows that witch doctors or "divinators" used some types of mushrooms to produce confessions or to locate stolen objects or to predict the future.' Here was a possible truth drug, Morse Allen reasoned. 'Since it had been determined that no area of human knowledge is to be left unexplored in connection with the ARTICHOKE program, it was therefore regarded as essential that the peculiar qualities of the mushroom be explored...' Allen declared. 'Full consideration,' he concluded, should be given to sending an Agency man back to Mexico during the summer. The CIA had begun its quest for 'God's flesh.'
"Characteristically, Morse Allen was planning ahead in case the CIA's searchers came up with a mushroom worth having in large quantities. He knew that the supply from the tropics varied by season, and, anyway, it would be impractical to go to Mexico for fungi each time an operational need popped up. So Allen decided to see if it were possible to grow mushrooms at home, either outdoors or in hothouses. On June 24, 1953, he and an associate drove from Washington to Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania, in the heart of 'the largest mushroom-growing area in the world.' At a three-hour session with the captains of the mushroom industry, Allen explained the government's interest in poisonous and narcotic fungi. Allen reported that the meeting 'was primarily designed to obtain a "foothold" in the center of the mushroom-growing industry where, if requirements for mushroom growing were demanded, it would be done by professionals in the trade.' The mushroom executives were quite reluctant to grow toxic products because they knew that any accidental publicity would scare their customers. In the end, however, their patriotism won out, and they agreed to grow any kind of fungus the government desired. Allen considered the trip a great success."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate" , John Marks, pgs. 114-116)
Whether or not anything ever came from Allen's efforts to grow magic mushrooms in Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania is unknown. The location is interesting, however, as we saw in part three of this series that a lot of strange things were going on in Pennsylvania during this time. And indeed, one of the ARTICHOKE scientists we shall be considering in the next installment had close ties to Pennsylvania. So do keep this particular location as well as dates concerned with Allen's interest in magic mushrooms in mind for we shall return to them again before this series is over.
Allen turned to Sidney Gottlieb and the Technical Services Staff (TSS) to both analyze the samples his research scientist had brought back from Mexico as well as to assist in the hunt for the magic mushroom. In some accounts, Gottlieb was said to have outflanked Allen and taken over complete control of this operation. Results were not forth coming, however, until 1956.
One variety of magic mushroom was ultimately found in Mexico by R. Gordon Wasson, a vice-president of J.P. Morgan & Co. As is well known by now, the funding for Wasson's expedition was provided by the Geschickter Fund, a CIA front. By this point it was primarily being used by MKULTRA personnel, though in Shroom Andy Letcher claims that ARTICHOKE originally had ties to the fund. But clearly TSS, which oversaw MKULTRA, got first dibs of the magic mushroom, at least in official narratives.
In point of fact, compelling evidence has emerged that the above-mentioned ARTICHOKE scientist had already discovered a variety of magic mushroom (the Amanita muscaria variety as opposed to the psilocybin kind the Wassons found in Mexico some time around 1953) in 1954. Further, this scientist was already having meetings with Wasson in 1955, potentially procuring his own samples of the psilocybin variety of magic mushrooms at this point as well. Thus, ARTICHOKE may have been experimenting with magic mushrooms for at least a year before TSS got their hands on samples. More will be said on this matter in the next installment.
Remote Viewing and the Office of Scientific Intelligence
As is well known by now, the CIA developed an interest in "remote viewing" and other aspects of parapsychology during the early 1970s. The lead department at the time was the TSS, who granted the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) remote viewing program some of its earliest funding. The TSS was one of two CIA departments who funded the SRI research.
"The CIA funding and contract management came to be handled jointly by two offices. The first was the Technical Services Division (TSD), in the Directorate of Operations, which had funded some low-level psi research during the 1960s. In the summer of 1973 TSD was transferred to the Directorate of Science and Technology, and became known as the Office of Technical Service (OTS). TSD/OTS was responsible for technical assistance to certain spying and covert-action operations, and was a bit like the gadget-strewn "Q branch" in the old James Bond films. The second SRI psi-funding office, under the Directorate of Science and Technology, was the more scientifically oriented Office of Research and Development (ORD)."
(Remote Viewers, Jim Schnabel, pg. 105n)
Some old ARTICHOKE partners were also involved in these projects, however. The Office of Naval Research (ONR), which was deeply involved in ARTICHOKE as well as the Navy's own behavior modification experiments (as noted before here), would provide some of the funding. Once SRI's ONR contract had been cut off, the Navy established its own remote viewing program with Hal Puthoff, the head of the SRI remote viewing program, as an adviser on.
Even more compelling, however, is the presence of Dr. Christopher "Kit" Green in the SRI program.
"One of the areas he kept an eye on was parapsychology, in particular the goings-on at SRI. Although the contract with SRI was being run by a different office from Kennett's [a pseudonym for Green --Recluse], the Agency had wanted him to make an independent evaluation of the work being done there, as part of an overall assessment of the importance of parapsychological research in the United States and the Soviet Union..."
That Green was tasked with an overall assessment of parapsychology is most interesting for our purposes here. At the time Green became involved with SRI, Green was a member of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). OSI had been the Office of Security's primary partner in BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, eventually wrestling control of ARTICHOKE from the OS in late 1951. But the OS was then back in control by September of 1952. The OSI remained very closely involved in ARTICHOKE for years afterwards, however. As this dispute has some barring on the rest of this installment, it is worth digressing here to provide some more details. Consider:
"Initially, ARTICHOKE was the responsibility of the Agency's Office of Security, with former BLUEBIRD director Morse Allen assigned to oversee day-to-day matters. Allen eagerly took the job, but immediately ran headlong into jurisdictional battles with the Agency's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). In late 1951, OSI managed to gain control of ARTICHOKE, but by September 30, 1952 the Security Office was back in the driver's seat. Frank Wisner formalized the transfer responsibility in a memorandum stating that all 'the various offices concerned' had agreed that 'over-all responsibility for Project ARTICHOKE should be transferred from the Office of Scientific Intelligence to the Assistant Director for Security,' Sheffield Edwards. Wisner added, however, without explanation, that 'responsibility for the foreign scientific aspects of the subject covered by Project ARTICHOKE' would 'remain in the Office of Scientific intelligence.' Inter-departmental squabbling continued, however.
"According to a 1952 CIA report on the jurisdictional battle, there was 'a glaring lack of cooperation among the various intra-Agency groups, fostered by petty jealousies and personality differences that result in the retardation of the enhancing and advancing of the Agency as a body.' When the decision was made that Security would regain control, Allen promised he would 'call upon the research staff and support facilities' of TSS, if necessary, but nowhere is there any indication that he did so. According to Sidney Gottlieb, 'We were never called on to do anything that I can recall, other than to attend review meetings and to report on our own programs, but our hands were full with other matters, so I'm sure we were greatly relieved they didn't.'
"During the time ARTICHOKE's lines of authority were in dispute, incoming Scientific Intelligence chief Marshall Chadwell and the Agency's Medical Division were nonetheless contracting with individuals from a number of federal agencies. An April 7, 1953 memorandum from Chadwell and the Medical Division Chief states that people with specific skills for special ARTICHOKE projects had been recruited from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the National Institutes of Health..."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 227)
an image from The Six Million Dollar Man; the Office of Scientific Intelligence is referenced frequently in pop culture but generally overlooked by conspiracy researchers
Thus, while the OS regained control of ARTICHOKE by and large, "foreign scientific aspects" would remain under the director of the OSI presumably for as long as the project continued. From this point onward the working relationship between the OS and OSI seems to have been fairly smooth. In general, the prior head of the OSI, Dr. Willard Machle, was probably responsible for a lot of the initial issues and "personality differences" between the OSI and the OS.
"... Machle was instrumental in the creation of the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. He was a hard working, strong willed, forceful man who maintained an unwavering bias that only scientists conduct scientific research as opposed to 'ill-trained, ignorant spooks.' Chadwell replaced Machle as OSI chief on March 6, 1950, however, Machle stayed on with the Agency for a number of years and also performed extensive outside consulting work..."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 790)
The OS seems to have had a much better working relationship with Machle's successor, H. Marshall Chadwell, a figure whom much more will be said of in a moment On the whole, the rivalry seemed to be far more intense between the OS and the TSS. Morse Allen effectively kept the TSS in the dark concerning ARTICHOKE experiments, as noted above, while both pumping Gottlieb for information and likely spying on MKULTRA on the side.
But back to the matter at hand. At the time SRI was approached about remote viewing, programs based upon ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA were still active. The presence of the TSS in the project and the fact that CIA involvement was ended at roughly the same time the successor programs to MKULTRA were shuttered has led some to speculate that the SRI remote viewing experiments may have been linked to MKULTRA.
This is indeed quite possible, but it would seem that ARTICHOKE was potentially in the act as well. In addition to Kit Green, at least one known ARTICHOKE scientist would become involved in the remote viewing experiments. But more on that in a future installment.
And what of Green's mandate to make an "overall assessment of the importance of parapsychological research"? Why not someone from TSS, who appear to have taken the lead role on remote viewing at this stage?
Parapsychology
This researcher suspects that this decision was made to due the fact that ARTICHOKE's parapsychological research dwarfed that of MKULTRA. While MKULTRA had certainly been involved in parapsychological research prior to the SRI experiments, its work in that field was rather limited. And as with many things, ARTICHOKE appears to have beaten MKULTRA to the punch by several years and had invested far more in such pursuits.
Estabrook, like many involved in the Boston group, seems to have favored a more "natural" explanation such as telepathy for mediumship than what Spiritualists and their supporters had put forward. Estabrook would maintain a life long interest in telepathy and during his involvement he would meet a certain legendary parapsychological researcher who would later be heavily subsidized by Project ARTICHOKE.
"... the work of Dr. J.B. Rhine at Duke University's Parapsychology Laboratory in North Carolina was of special interest to the CIA's Security Research staff. One former CIA official has reported that the writings of Martin Ebon on parapsychology and the paranormal were likewise of special interest to the Agency, and that many of Ebon's books originated in studies conducted by the CIA's SRS and TSS branches. Ebon wrote over twenty-five books on subjects such as life after death, communications with the dead, ghosts, and exotic ESP. Born in 1917 in Hamburg, Germany, he emigrated to the United States in 1938 and worked as managing editor of thew Foreign Language Division of the Overseas New Agency. During World War II, Ebon joined the staff of the U.S. Office of War Information where he became an expert on the Soviet Union. After the war, he became closely aligned with the Parapsychology Foundation in New York, and was executive editor of the International Journal of Parapsychology.
"An examination of Ebon's extensive writings reveals that he was nearly always at the forefront of paranormal studies, and that often his writings paralleled the secret research of the CIA. Ebon has written authoritatively about Faraday cages, ESP, telepathy, bio-energy weapons, hypnosis, remote viewing (well before it became all the rage), electromagnetic waves, and out-of-body experiences. In one of his books he revealed details of a three-year CIA program designed to make 'a serious effort' to advance ESP research 'in the direction of reliable application to the practical problems of intelligence.' "
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 264-265)
The Security Research Staff was of course the component of the Office of Security that oversaw ARTICHOKE. From what little information is available to us, the indications are that ARTICHOKE's research into parapsychology was quite extensive, and went far beyond the work done by J.B. Rhine and Martin Ebon. What's more, the Office of Security seems to have overseen the bulk of this research throughout the 1950s.
"At the very least, one suspects that a firsthand encounter with LSD would have made the clandestine mentality more receptive to the possibility of ESP, subliminal perception, and other phenomena associated with altered states. The CIA's interest in parapsychology dates back to the late 1940s. A handwritten memo of the period suggests that 'hypnosis and telepathists' be contacted as professional consultants on an exploratory basis, but this proposal was initially rejected. It was not until 1952, after the CIA got heavily involved with LSD, that the Agency began funding ESP research.
"While parapsychology has long been ridiculed by the scientific establishment, the CIA seriously entertained the notion that such phenomena might by highly significant for the have a high ESP capacity, their talent could be assigned to specific intelligence problems. spy trade. The Agency hypothesized that if a number of people in the US were found to In 1952 the CIA initiated an extensive program involving 'the search for and development of exceptionally gifted individuals who can approximate perfect success in ESP performance.' The Office of Security, which ran the ARTICHOKE project, was urged to follow 'all leads on individuals reported to have true clairvoyant powers' so as to be able to subject their claims to 'rigorous scientific investigation.'
"Along this line the CIA began infiltrating seances and occult gatherings. A memo dated April 9, 1953, refers to a domestic --and therefore illegal --operation that required the 'planting of a very specialized observer' at a seance in order to obtain 'a broad surveillance of all individuals attending the meetings.'
"The CIA also sought to develop techniques whereby the ESP powers of a group of psychics could be used 'to produce factual information that could not be obtained in any other way.' If it were possible 'to identify the thought of another person several hundred miles away,' a CIA scientist explained, 'the adaptation to the practical requirements for obtaining secret information should not give serious difficulty.' Moreover, 'everything that adds anything to our understanding of what is taking place in ESP is likely to give us advantage in the problem of use and control.' "
(Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shalin, pg. 18n)
It would then seem most probable that the OS oversaw much of the parapsychology work in the early days. In general, there is very little evidence that Sidney Gottlieb and MKULTRA had much involvement in parapsychology prior to the SRI remote viewing programs. There was some low level research, as noted above, possibly involving Martin Ebon, but much of the early parapsychological work was driven by ARTICHOKE, with TSS primarily serving as an observer in the 1950s. This premise will be expanded upon in the next installment.
Project OFTEN
Still, there have been persistent allegations that MKULTRA was deeply involved in the parapsychological in certain quarters. This is especially true about Project OFTEN, in which a host of incredible allegations are attributed too. Consider:
"In 1969, Robert Manners revealed to me, a unit of scientists attached to the CIA's Office of Research and Development dared to follow the path the TSS had taken a deade-and-a-half earlier in the field of mind control. But the scientists had other, far more controversial plans, several of which involved trying to invade, understand, and harness demonic powers as tools of espionage.
"To ensure that the project stood some chance of achieving its unusual aims, Gotttlieb approached Richard Helms --the CIA director from 1966 to 1973 --and secured a $150,000 grant for the new project, which became known as Operation Often. The curiously named study took its title from the fact that Gottlieb was well known for reminding his colleagues that: '... often we are very close to our goals then we pull back' and '... often we forget that the only scientific way for ward is to learn from the past.'
"Investigative writer Gordon Thomas said: 'Operation Often's root could be traced back to the research Dr. [Donald Ewen] Cameron had approved in trying to establish links between eye coloring, soil conditions and mental illness.' Thomas also noted that when he was given access to Cameron's research and notes after Cameron's death in 1967, Gottlieb was struck by the fact that 'Dr. Cameron could have been on the verge of a breakthrough in exploring the paranormal. Operation Often was intended to take over the unfinished work, and go beyond --to explore the world of black magic and the supernatural.' And, thus, the stage was set for the next act in the U.S. Government's involvement in, and understanding of, what they perceived to be the true nature of the UFO presence on the Earth...
"As Operation Often progressed, the project began to immerse itself in distinctly uncharted waters, and the staff ultimately spent more time mingling with fairground fortune tellers, palmists, clairvoyants, demonologists, and mediums than the did with fellow Agency personnel. By May 1971, the operation even had three astrologers on the payroll --each of whom were paid the tidy sums of $350 per week plus expenses --to regularly review copies of newly published magazines and newspapers in the hope that they might be 'psychically altered' to something of a defense or intelligence nature..."
A lot of these claims are problematic. For starters, as far as this researcher can discern, the allegations linking OFTEN to Gottlieb and Cameron appear to stem entirely from Gordon Thomas. Thomas first made these claims in Journey Into Madness in 1989 and then doubled down on them with Secrets and Lies in 2007. The problem is that Thomas has shown a tendency to embellish if not outright fabricate claims relating to the CIA's behavior modification experiments. In A Terrible Mistake, the far more credible H.P. Albarelli Jr conclusively demonstrated the Thomas's claims concerning Frank Olson. William Sargant and Ewen Cameron are bogus. As for Secrets and Lies, where Thomas expanded on his OFTEN claims, Albarelli notes:
"Many of Thomas's claims in this book seriously challenge the credulity of his loyal readers. Additionally, many of his claims, besides being wrong in this author's view, are unsupported by any documents or cited sources."
(A Terrible Mistake, pg. 809)
In the case of Journey Into Madness, Thomas presents no sources for his incredible claims concerning OFTEN. Thus, this researcher believes that Thomas's claims in this regard should not be seen as credible.
Another issue is the fact that, by all accounts, the official purpose of OFTEN had nothing at all to do with mediums, clairvoyance, demonology, or anything supernatural. In point of fact, it appears to have primarily been another drug research program:
"During this period the Army Chemical Corps and the CIA's Office of Research and Development initiated a project to create new compounds 'that could be used offensively.' A major portion of the OFTEN/CHICKWIT Program, as the joint effort was called, was geared towards incapacitants. A CIA memo dated March 8, 1971, indicates that a backlog of more than twenty-six thousand drugs had been acquired 'for future screening.' Information gathered from this screening process was catalogued and data-banked in a 'large, closely held' computer system that monitored worldwide developments in pharmacology. Under the auspices of OFTEN/CHICKWIT at least seven hallucinogens similar to BZ were tested; inmates at Holmsburg prison in Pennsylvania were used as test subjects for some of the drugs. Very little is known about these experiments, although CIA documents mention 'several laboratory accidents' in which a drug designated EA-3167 produced 'prolonged psychotic effects in laboratory personnel.' "
(Acid Dreams, Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain, pg. 94n)
Holmesburg Prison where OFTEN drug experiments were allegedly conducted and yet another location in Pennsylvania that appears in this strange tale
This researcher does not totally discount the possibility that OFTEN may have had some involvement in the paranormal, however. In addition to Nick Redfern's above-mentioned source, Lee and Shlain also make reference to experiments with fortune tellers and the like during the late 1960s in their classic Acid Dreams. And John Marks, in his equally classic The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate" indicates the Office of Research and Development (ORD, the section that oversaw OFTEN, as shall be explained in a moment) did research parapsychology and other disturbing topics during the 1960s:
"Just as the MKULTRA program had been years ahead of the scientific community, ORD activities were similarly advanced. 'We looked at the manipulation of genes,' states one of the researchers. 'We were interested in gene splintering. The rest of the world didn't ask until 1976 the type of questions we were facing in 1965.... Everybody was afraid of building the supersoldier who would take orders without questioning, like the kamikaze pilot. Creating a subservient society was not out of sight.' Another Institute man describes the work of a colleague who bombarded bacteria with ultraviolet radiation in order to create deviant strains. ORD also sponsored work in parapsychology. Along with the military services, Agency officials wanted to know whether psychics could read minds or control them from afar (telepathy), if they could gain information about distant places or people (clairvoyance or remote viewing), if hey could predict the future (precognition), or influence the movement of physical objects or even the human mind (photokinesis). The last could have incredibly destructive applications, if it worked. For instance, switches setting off nuclear bombs would have to be moved only a few inches to launch a holocaust. Or, enemy psychics, with minds honed to laser-beam sharpness, could launch attacks to burn out the brains of American nuclear scientists. Any or all of these techniques have numerous applications to the spy trade."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pgs. 226-227)
The ORD also toyed with implanting electric devices in the heads of test subjects to control bodily functions. This research, at least, was based upon work the TSS had done in the early 1960s. However, there is no indication that OFTEN had any involvement from Sidney Gottlieb and the TSS, nor that OFTEN itself was the projected that investigated these more arcane pursuits (which seem to have pre-dated OFTEN, but may have eventually been part of the Project).
As noted above, OFTEN was a joint project run by the Army and the CIA's Office of Research and Development (ORD), one of the two CIA branches (along with the TSS) that provided funding for the the SRI remote viewing experiments (noted above). But while OFTEN may have drawn inspiration from some of the MKULTRA experiments, it was surely not limited to them. In point of fact, the ORD chief at the time was quite familiar with ARTICHOKE.
"In ORD, Dr. Stephen Aldrich, a graduate of Amherst and Northwestern Medical School, took over the role that Morse Allen and then Sid Gottlieb had played before him. Aldrich had been the medical director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence back in the days when the office was jockeying with Morse Allen for control of ARTICHOKE, so he was no stranger to the program..."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 224)
potentially an image of the drug experiments conducted by OFTEN
Aldrich seems to have transferred to the ORD some time around 1962, just as MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE were winding down and about to be replaced by successor projects. It is unknown if Aldrich was with the OSI throughout the 1950s, but he would have surely been present there when ARTICHOKE's interest in parapsychology began to blossom. And keep in mind, the OSI continued to work closely with the OS on ARTICHOKE until at least the late 1950s, having final authority on "foreign scientific aspects" throughout this time frame (and likely beyond).
Is this then why Kit Green of the OSI was tasked by the CIA with making an "overall assessment of the importance of parapsychological research"? Certainly the OSI would have been well placed to have followed such research from the beginning. And of course by the late 1960s an OSI and ARTICHOKE veteran was overseeing the Office of Research and Development, which ran OFTEN for the CIA and participated in the SRI experiments with the TSS and Green.
As such, it does not seem a stretch to this researcher to suggest that OFTEN and aspects of the SRI research were an extension of ARTICHOKE. And keep in mind dear reader, at least one known ARTICHOKE scientist was involved in the SRI experiments as well. Indeed, it is quite likely that all of these "high weirdness"-centric pursuits of the ORD derived from his experiments in the 1950s, as we shall begin considering in the next installment. But before getting to him, we need to digress into yet another fantastic topic.
UFOs
When the figure of H. Marshall Chadwell crops up in conspiracy literature, it is typically in relation to the UFO question. As is well known among Ufologist, Chadwell was one of the earliest CIA officials to develop a keen interest in the UFO question. Indeed, the Office of Scientific Intelligence appears to have been at the forefront of the CIA's first formal inquiry into the UFO phenomenon.
"... The CIA's UFO investigation drew in its Office of Current Intelligence, the Office of Scientific Intelligence and the Weapons and Equipment Division. In August 1952, its representatives gathered for a number of highly secretive meetings with its Air Technical Intelligence Center counterparts at Wright Patterson..."
"The CIA initiated a series of informal discussions about UFOs with other agencies. One of the matters under review was the 'clogged channel' problem. CIA Director of Scientific Intelligence H. Marshall Chadwel chaired these meetings and visited Wright-Patterson AFB on August 8 for a 'thorough and comprehensive' briefing about UFOs from Blue Book officers. He was accompanied by CIA official Frederick Durant and power scientist H.P. Robertson."
(UFOs and the National Security State, Richard Dolan, pg. 113)
Chadwell was sufficiently concerned by these briefings and set a chain of events in motion that led to the creation of the infamous Robertson Panel, so named for the above-mentioned scientist that accompanied Chadwell to Wright-Patterson. Here are some details:
"On 24 September 1952, H. Marshall Chadwell, the CIA's assistant director for Scientific Intelligence, sent a summary report of the ATIC meetings to Director Walter Smith, outlining the conclusions drawn from the sessions. It is worth reprinting almost in full:
the flying saucer contains two elements of danger which, in a situation of tension, have national security implications. These are:
a) Psychological --with worldwide sightings reported, it was found that, up to the time of the investigation, there had been in the Soviet press no report or comment, even satirical, on flying saucers.... With a State-controlled press, this could result only from official policy decision. The question, there fore, arises as to whether or not these sightings:
1) Could be controlled
2) Could be predicted
3) Could be used from a psychological warfare point of view, either offensively or defensively
The public concern with the phenomena, which is reflected both in the United States press and in the pressure of inquiry upon the Air Force, indicates that a fair proportion of our population is mentally conditioned to the acceptance of the incredible. In this fact lies the potential for the touching off of mass hysteria and panic.
b) Air Vulnerability -- the United States Air Warning System will undoubtedly always depend upon a combination of radar screening and visual observation. The USSR is credited with the present capability of delivering an air attack against the United States... At any moment of attack, we are now in a position where we cannot, on an instant basis, distinguish hardware from phantom, and as tension mounts we will run the increasing risk of false alerts and the even greater danger of falsely identifying the real as phantom.
"As well as instigating an investigation into what the Soviets knew about flying saucers, Chadwell concluded that a 'study should be instituted to determine what, if any, utilization could be made of these phenomena by United States psychological warfare planners and what, if any, defenses should be planned in anticipation of Soviet attempts to utilize them'. His final recommendation was that they should manage public perceptions of the phenomena 'to minimize the risk of panic'.
"Walter Smith didn't need much more convincing, and in January 1953 the CIA convened a secret panel consisting of nuclear physicists, radar and rocketry experts, other Air Force personnel and an astronomer. Headed by Dr. Howard Percy Robertson, director of the Pentagon's Weapons Systems Evaluations Group, the group spent four days with very long lunch breaks listening to UFO reports, watching films of unexplained objects, and seeking possible explanations for the phenomenon. Their conclusions, which were not fully revealed to the public until 1966, effectively echoed the concerns of Chadwell's earlier report.
"The Robertson Panel Report recommended that the military focus on training its personnel to recognize unusually illuminated man-made objects and natural phenomena, including meteors, fireballs, mirages and clouds, both visually and on radar. 'Such training,' it noted, 'should result in a marked reduction in reports caused by misidentification and resultant confusion.' As far as the general public were concerned, a programme of 'debunking' would be set in place to reduce their interest in the subject, and diminish 'their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda' from the Soviets. 'As in the case of conjuring tricks,' it noted, 'there is much less stimulation if the "secret" is known.' The Panel had some interesting suggestions as to how this education might be carried out: they recommended using Walt Disney cartoons and the Jam Handy Co., which made Second World War training films, as well as the Navy's own Special Devices Center (now the Office of Naval Research) to train in aircraft identification.
"Psychological monitoring of the population was another key consideration. Panel members would have been aware of an extreme case of UFO nerves from Quito, Ecuador, on 12 February 1949, when a panic triggered by a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds led to riots that were quelled only after tanks took to the city streets, resulting in twenty deaths. It was 'felt strongly' that psychologists should advise on the programme --Hadley Cantril, who had written a study of the panic in he US surrounding Orson Welles's original 1938 War of the Worlds radio play was mentioned --along with 'someone familiar with mass communications techniques, perhaps an advertising expert.'
"The Robertson Report also recommended that civilian UFO groups be monitored, 'because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur. [Their] apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind.' For the next two decades, one of the groups mentioned by name, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) of Tucson, Arizona, found itself under close scrutiny by the intelligence services.
"In conclusion the Report found that while the UFOs themselves seemed to present no 'direct physical threat to national security', the reporting of them did: 'clogging... channels of communication by irrelevant reports' and creating a cry wolf situation that could create so many false alarms that genuine hostile actions might be ignored. What's more, the general interest in the subject threatened to inculcate 'a morbid national psychology in which skillful hostile propaganda could induce hysterical behavior and harmful distrust of duly constituted authority.' "
The Robertson Report remains highly controversial among Ufologists and for obvious reasons: it almost exclusively focused on the psychological aspect of the UFO phenomena without really attempting to explain the UFOs themselves. For this reason, many believe the Robertson Panel was never meant to be anything more than a whitewash.
"The panel's conclusions were preordained. Hynek said he discerned the panel's debunking mood right from the beginning. Fournet suspected right away that the actual author of the conclusions was not Robertson but Durant, and that he wrote them late on Friday. Work by UFO researcher and historian Michael Swords pushes the date further back: 'Fournet did not know that the report, in draft form, existed before Friday and possibly before the panel was even convened on Wednesday.'
"Many have questioned whether the CIA could manipulate a group of scientists to reach their desired conclusions. Kevin Randle, for example, doubted that 'someone in the government [would be] confident enough in his own abilities to micromanage the data [and] influence the conclusions...' But micromanaging data is not necessary when the right people are selected. The members of the Robertson Panel were power scientists, strongly connected with the military and national security state. They were certainly no detached, impartial jury, withholding a decision until an objective review of the evidence. Quite the contrary.
"Of later writers about the Robertson Panel, only Ruppelt was misled. He believed the panel accepted Garland's recommendation that Blue Book be expanded. He also misinterpreted the panel's education and debunking recommendation, thinking it meant that 'the American public should be told every detail of every phase of the UFO investigation.' Others hit closer to home. Keyhoe believed the panel was a CIA program to bury the UFO. Hynek --years later --stated he was 'negatively impressed.' The Lorenzens understandably came down hard against the panel. Even one of the panel members, Dr. Thornton Page, said in 1980 that the panel 'tended to ignore the five percent or ten percent [sic] of UFO reports that are highly reliable and have not yet been explained.' Many years later, Page made the matter crystal clear:
H.P. Robertson told us in the first private (no outsiders) session that our job was to reduce public concern, and show that UFO reports could be explained by conventional reasoning...
"After all these years, the Robertson Panel still leaves a bad taste. In part, this is because Nobel-caliber scientists were involved in such scientifically shallow and deficient work. Berkner showed up just in time to put his name on the final document. The rest sat around for a few hours --precious time away from busy calendars --to listen to a few presentations, probably feeling bored with a subject they all believed was nonsense long before they arrived. Would the CIA really entrust policy-making authority to a group which, prestigious though it certainly was, was unable to render an informed decision on the subject? Here we arrive at the core meaning of the Robertson Panel: a group that, by its very prestige, was able to sanction a policy already decided upon. Within the classified as well as public world, it is always a good idea to cover your vulnerable areas. What better way than with a panel composed of Nobel-caliber scientists needed to help defuse the UFO problem, certainly not to figure it out. This is the point that the people at Battelle missed. What the CIA and air force wanted was not an actual study of the problem --they had enough of those already. What was needed, and fast, was adequate justification for a policy decision."
(UFOs and the National Security State, Richard Dolan, pgs. 126-127)
That the conclusions of the Robertson panel were preordained seems obvious from the fact that it appears to have shared the same concerned as those expressed in Chadwell's earlier report, namely the debunking of UFO sightings and the monitoring of UFO groups. While this was framed in the context of the Cold War, with fears that the Soviet Union could use the phenomena against the United States, there were likely ulterior motives for Chadwell's concerns. Certainly the Soviet fears did not seem to be especially plausible.
For one, its highly debatable that the Soviets would have had the ability to launch a full scale aerial assault on the US in 1953. Their military was still in the process of recovering from World War II and would not be at such a level to present a real military threat to the US until a few years later. The CIA was surely aware of this, thus the notion that UFO sightings could hinder the nation's air defense by bogging down authorities with frivolous accounts seems rather ludicrous.
The notion that the US could be sent into a mass panic over fake accounts of a UFO invasion also seems rather dubious. The 1938 radio broadcast of Orson Welles's adaptation of War of the Worlds is often cited by UFO proponents and skeptics alike as proof of the effects UFO revelations could have on the public. There's only one problem with this: recent evidence indicates that the War of the Worlds hysteria was massively overblown and that the bulk of radio listeners who heard it live were unaffected.
That the CIA would want to monitor UFO groups is hardly surprising as many of the early contactees such as George Adamski expressed sympathy for Communism. During the 1950s, this inevitably led to federal interest. But monitoring UFO groups would have been useful to the CIA in another way as well: it would have enable them to track raw data coming in from the general public concerning sightings without having to do so in any official capacity.
While the Robertson Panel dismissed the UFOs themselves as being both harmless and nonexistent, Chadwell did not seem to share such views in private. In December 1952, weeks before the Robertson Panel was convened at his urging, Chadwell sent a memo to then-DCI Walter Bedell Smith that noted: "[U]nexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of major U.S. defense installations are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles" (A Terrible Mistake, pg. 265).
H. Marshall Chadwell: Man of Mystery
On the whole H. Marshall Chadwell is one of the most curious deep state figures from this era. From late 1951 until September 1952 he oversaw Project ARTICHOKE, a fact most Ufologists seem to miss. His initial investigations of the UFO phenomena unfolded while he was still in charge of ARTICHOKE and the department that he headed, the Office of Scientific Intelligence, still retained control over "foreign scientific aspects" of the project for years afterwards. It was also around this time that ARTICHOKE began to investigate parapsychology in earnest, as noted above. Chadwell was also overseeing a massive study on LSD during this time frame for the CIA as well.
Of course, Chadwell was an old hand at these types of intrigues by the 1950s. During World War II he had cut his teeth working for the mysterious Division 19.
"Division 19 had been a highly secret operation tucked away within the National Defense Research Committee's Office of Scientific Research and Development. Established on June 28, 1941 by Roosevelt's Executive Order, Division 19 was run by Dr. H. Marshall Chadwell... Most of the documents concerning the work of the Division 19 are still classified and may well never be released for public scrutiny. However, a few declassified files exist and although they are sketchy, they do reveal the scope and, sometimes, the specifics of certain Division 19 projects...
"Other Division 19 programs were devoid of any humorous elements and were far more lethal. Many were taken over by SOD and the CIA during the fury of the Cold War, including the CIA's cautious alliance with the Mafia, as well as with the OSS's highly classified assassination programs. The latter were recast by the CIA as 'executive action,' 'health alteration' and 'incapacitation' programs. Well before the CIA was conceived, at the height of World War II, Division 19, through the OSS, began the systematic recruitment of underworld figures that were most adept at 'close-in killing methods.'...
"Given the cornucopia of lethal weapons and innovative equipment that Division 19 came up with for the OSS --including silent pistols, signet rings containing L-pill Zyankalium ('L' for lethal), and poison dart pens --one can easily see how the division served as a model for the CIA's Technical Services Section."
Division 19 also played a role in the Office of Strategic Service (OSS)'s "truth drug" experiments that served as a later basis for the early work on BLUEBIRD (noted briefly before here). This, combined with Division 19's work with experimental weapons and gadgets, assassinations, and recruiting Mafia figures, indicates that Chadwell was already highly connected before he even joined the CIA and possessed much "expertise" in subjects that would be of great interest to ARTICHOKE.
Interestingly, his close associate at the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an individual well known and much speculated upon by Ufologists: Vannevar Bush. Bush was both the chairman of the NDRC as well as the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), a key branch of the NDRC. In A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli refers to Bush and Chadwell as the "ranking" members of the NDRC and indicates that they collaborated together regularly. As the OSRD had a close working relationship with Division 19, this would hardly be surprising. It is also interesting to note that Chadwell's close associate, Howard P. Robertson, also cut his teeth in the OSRD during during the war. Thus, Robertson surely knew Bush as well as Chadwell.
Also present at the NDRC was Colonel Boris Pash. As was noted in part five, Pash headed the Alsos Mission to locate German scientists that would be of interest to the United States national security apparatus. The mission was began in 1943 and was green lighted by Vannevar Bush. There have been persistent rumors that Pash's mission played in a key role in what would become ARTICHOKE. This is understandable as Pash located several Ahnenerbe scientists who had done drug research for Nazis involving mescaline, among other substances.
Also noted in part five was that Pash appears to have been running an assassination bureau for the CIA by the early 1950s. He also served on the "Health Altercation Committee" with long time OS chief Sheffield Edwards. Also around 1950, he reviewed Nazi experiments again: "Under the project [BLUEBIRD -Recluse], Boris Pash, formerly employed in Operation Paperclip, reviewed Nazi interrogation techniques, including 'drugs, electro-shock, hypnosis and psycho-surgery' " (A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy, pgs. 26-27). This researcher has been unable to confirm in other sources, however, whether Pash's research was a part of BLUEBIRD or some other project. But back to the matter at hand.
As I'm sure many of you are aware, in UFO lore Vannevar Bush is held to have been a key figure in Majestic 12, an alleged highly secretive UFO study group initiated by President Harry S. Truman after the alleged Roswell crash in 1947. While Majestic 12 is almost surely a hoax, there are compelling indications that Bush was involved in some kind of UFO study group by 1950.
Consider, for instance, the claims of Wilbert Smith, a Canadian government official and engineer. In 1950 he traveled to the States and discussed the UFO question with Robert Sarbacher, a member of the US Department of Defense Research and Development Board, among others. Upon returning to Canada, Smith authored a Top Secret memo on November 21, 1950, that stated:
"I made discreet enquiries through the Canadian embassy staff in Washington, who were able to obtain for me the following information: (a) the matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States government, rating higher even than the H-bomb; (b) flying saucers exist; (c) their modus operandi is unknown, but concentrated effort is being made by a small group headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush; (d) the entire matter is considered by the United States authorities to be of tremendous significance."
(UFOs and the National Security State, Richard Dolan, pg. 88)
Wilbert Smith is of course a highly controversial source himself and there has been much dispute over his credibility. But the memo itself is apparently genuine. Even more compelling, however, is the fact that it was released to the public in 1979, while the Majestic 12 documents did not show until 1984.
This researcher suspects that the MJ-12 hoax was spurred as potential damage control over the revelations of the Smith memo, which was declassified by the Canadian government. Sooner or later Ufologists would have found it and ran with it, potentially making their own speculations as to who would have joined Bush in such a group. A prime candidate would have been his old friend and associate from the National Defense Research Committee, H. Marshall Chadwell, who had expressed ample interest in UFOs and by the early 1950s was deeply involved in the highly classified Project ARTICHOKE. Another would be H.P. Robertson, his former subordinate in the OSRD who later became involved in Chadwell's UFO work. And what of Boris Pash, who handled security for the NDRC during the war, and who appears to have been involved in BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE related projects with Chadwell by the early 1950s?
Me thinks the Ufologists have missed some rather intriguing (and glaring) connections...
Did the OS Have Any Involvement?
But back to the matter at hand, namely the Office of Security. While there's seems to be little doubt that their ARTICHOKE partners in the Office of Scientific Intelligence were involved with UFO research by 1952, I have found no official indications that the OS had a role.
Still, this researcher believes that a strong possibility exists that the OS would have been involved. Given Morse Allen's fascination with hypnosis, magic mushrooms and parapsychology, it hardly seems a stretch to assume that he would have had an interest in UFOs. And it is known that at least one MKULTRA asset investigated UFOs for that project.
An argument can of course be made that the MKULTRA crew would have been the logical team to investigate UFOs. After all, MKULTRA was overseen by the Technical Services Staff, which was largely comprised of scientists. And theoretically scientists would be more qualified they laymen to investigate UFOs. There's just one problem with this chain of reasoning, however: the man MKULTRA tapped to investigate UFOs on site was John Mulholland, a professional stage magician with absolutely no formal scientific training. While Mulholland may have been effective at spotting hoaxers, its debatable that he would have been more qualified at this than the OS men, many of whom had cut their teeth in the FBI and other types of law enforcement. As professional investigators, they surely would have had a good feel for dubious witnesses as well, to say nothing of securing a crime scene and so forth.
John Mulholland, whom we shall encounter again in the next installment
And what of Chadwell and the Robertson Panel's obsession with keeping an eye on UFO groups? Would the TSS or the Office of Scientific Intelligence been tasked with such an assignment? Unlikely, as both divisions were largely comprised of scientists with little experience in infiltrating and monitoring civilian groups. But the OS men certainly did have such "expertise" and in the case of Operation CHAOS and other such domestic projects targeted at "subversive" groups in the United States, it was the OS that took the lead role in actively placing spies in them (as noted before here).
And indeed, there are some indications that the OS was involved in monitoring civilian UFO groups. As was noted in part six, Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoeter, the DCI who green lighted BLUEBIRD, would become actively involved in NICAP after his retirement from the Navy. NICAP was the largest civilian UFO group in the US until 1970, investigating hundreds of sightings. As was also noted in part six, the board of NICAP was stacked with members of the American Security Council (ASC), a defense lobby group and massive private intelligence network. As was noted in part four, Security Research Staff (the department of the OS that oversaw BLUEBIRD and later ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP) head Brigadier General Paul Gaynor had recruited ASC Washington head Lee Pennington as an asset of the OS at some point in the 1950s and had stayed in close contact with him for years. Was the OS using their contacts in the ASC (whose membership had quite an interest in UFOs) to monitor NICAP and other civilian UFO groups?
And while we're on the topic of the OS's involvement in arcane subjects, let us turn to one final mystery before wrapping up: Did the OS have anything to do with legendary rocket scientist and occultist Jack Parsons?
I already touched on this topic briefly in part six, noting that Morse Allen may have potentially known L. Ron Hubbard from his time in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Hubbard, the infamous founder of the Church of Scientology, was of course famously involved in the "Babalon Working" with Parsons in 1946. Hubbard claimed to have engaged in such doings on behalf of the ONI, who wanted Parsons investigated. There is no hard evidence, however, that Allen knew Hubbard or had any involvement in Hubbard's doings with Parsons. But there are other possible connections.
Potential links to ARTICHOKE may go back to the Second World War. There are some allegations that Parsons was involved with the National Defense Research Council (NDRC). Nick Redfern notes:
"Significantly, files pertaining to Parsons' theft of the papers from Hughes Aircraft reveal that, several years earlier, he had worked with some notable bodies, including the Government's Office of Scientific Research and Development, the National Defense Research Council, and the Northrop Aircraft Company..."
(Final Events, Nick Redfern, pg. 32)
I have not been able to confirm these in other sources, however. But if true, it raises the possibility that H. Marshall Chadwell (and potentially Vannevar Bush and H.P. Robertson as well) may have known Parsons from the NDRC. This is very speculative, though.
I am on somewhat firmer ground with the figure of James McInerney, the assistant Attorney General who was part of an investigation of Parsons in 1950 concerning the rocket scientist's security clearance. McInerney became involved in investigating Parsons after Parsons was accused of conspiring to pass on classified documents to a foreign power.
"Once Parson's security clearance was reinstated, he started working for the Hughes Aircraft Company. It would be September 1950 that he was found in possession of 'classified documents,' documents that Parsons admitted were helping him draw up a proposal for a laboratory in Israel. This was considered outright espionage, and he lost his security clearance again and never got it back.
"The man in the middle of this investigation --being brought into it by J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI --was an Assistant Attorney General, James M. McInerney. In correspondence between the two men in the spring of 1951, a determination was being sought on whether the documents in Parsons' possession were, indeed, classified and whether their sale or transfer to Israel would be a breach of 'national security.' Most of the documents were authored by Parsons himself, dating to his GALCIT days, and all were written during the war years. However, the military decided that one of the items was Restricted and two others Confidential, thus establishing a basis --however flimsy --for considering Parsons a potential spy for Israel.
"This correspondence --and the associated investigation by the FBI and the armed services --took place over a year. On February 7, 1952, Hoover sent James McInerney a memo regarding Parsons, informing him that Parsons' appeal to the Industrial Employment Review Board of the Department of Defense was turned down. According to an attached letter from the Board, Parsons 'might voluntarily or involuntarily act against the security interests of the United States and constitute a danger to the national security.
"Five months later he was dead.
"James McInerney is an interesting person to associate with Parsons. We discover, for instance, in Robert Maheu's autobiography Next to Hughes, that it was James Mcinerney who provided the initial funding for Maheu's security firm, Robert A. Maheu Associates. According to Maheu, 'Almost immediately, I began working for the CIA.' This was in 1954, and McInerney was still Assistant AG. He and Maheu, and some other ex-FBI agents, were gambling illegally, and Maheu won handily the princely sum (in 1954) of $2,800, all from McInerney. When Maheu attempted to refuse the winnings, McInerney would have none of it. It was to this fund that Maheu attributes the initial financial investment for his agency."
And it was noted in part four, it was the Office of Security that recruited Maheu a few weeks after he had founded his agency. Was McInerney possibly working on behalf of the OS in giving Maheu the seed corn he needed to fund his agency, which almost immediately began handling prestigious clients? Certainly this seems as plausible as Maheu winning his money from McInerney via illegal gambling.
If McInerney was working for the OS, when had they first approached him? Could it have possibly been during his investigation of Jack Parsons in 1950, just as BLUEBIRD was heating up?
But why, you may be asking, would the Office of Security have an interest in Jack Parsons? There are practical reasons of course --the OS was charged with investigating CIA employees and private contractors. While there is no evidence Parsons had considered any type of work with the CIA, Parsons' investigation unfolded against the backdrop of the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Scientific espionage with the Soviets was a major concern, and given Parsons alleged Communist ties from the 1930s (he knew a few open Communists during this time, but there is no evidence Parsons was interested in that particular ideology), he may have came to the OS's attention during the early 1950s. I have found no evidence of this, however, as there do not appear to be any Office of Security files on Parsons (that have been released to the public, anyway).
But there is an even more curious reason as to why the OS could have had an interest in Parsons, and one that they would want to keep under the radar: Parsons had claimed to have been contacted by "Venusian" in the wake of his Babalon Working in 1946, a year before the first modern wave of UFO reports emerged in 1947 with the Kenneth Arnold sighting and the alleged Roswell incident. And in Parsons' case, his encounter may have had special significance to the OS due to the possibility that it was conjured up through occult means.
As we shall see in the next installment, a certain ARTICHOKE scientist would become quite enamored with such possibilities during the early 1950s. And he may well have conducted ARTICHOKE experiments to pursue these possibilities. Stay tuned dear reader.
Regular readers of this blog are no doubt familiar with my series examining the CIA's mysterious and highly controversial Office of Security (OS). Therein the reader will discover the links between the OS and many of the CIA's biggest scandals, including the Watergate break-in (noted here, here and here); the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK (noted here); the mysterious "suicide" of Frank Olson, Mafia-sponsored plots to assassinate Castro, the OS's extensive role in Operation CHAOS (all of which was noted here); and the role it played in several of the CIA's behavior modification programs such as BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP (noted here, here and here).
The Office of Security is often dismissed as a marginal component of the CIA by researchers who have chosen to focus on the far more glamorous Directorate of Operations (which included James Jesus Angelton's Counterintelligence Staff, the assassination and paramilitary-centric Special Activities Division (SAD) and Sidney Gottlieb's Technical Service Staff (TSS) until the early 1960s), much to determinate of truth seekers. The OS was far from marginal and in fact there appears to have been a decades-spanning conspiracy to cover-up the extent of the OS's dirty deeds. This is no more evident than in conventional accounts of Project ARTICHOKE, where is alleged to have been rolled into Sidney Gottlieb's MKULTRA some time between 1953 and 1955.
As was noted before here, that is totally bogus. ARTICHOKE did not end in the mid-1950s, but in fact continued until 1963, at which point it appears to have been broken down into successor programs that may not have ended until 1973. Nor did Sidney Gottlieb and the TSS ever oversee ARTICHOKE. While Gottlieb and the TSS had a role in the so-called "Artichoke Committee," the project was under the control of the Office of Security from its inception until 1963, aside from a brief period from late 1951 until September 1952 when it was directed by the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The OSI was the OS's primary partner in ARTICHOKE and even retained control of "foreign scientific aspects" after overall control was reverted back to the Office of Security.
ARTICHOKE was, in other words, a totally separate project from the far more well-known MKULTRA, and was likely far more brutal and stranger than Gottlieb's dabblings (and dabblings they were in comparison to Morse Allen's penchant for the extreme). My initial series on the OS already covered the brutality aspects of this project, noting that the current practice of "enhanced interrogation methods" and "extraordinary rendition" is very much a legacy of ARTICHOKE.
This is hardly surprising as the principal purpose of ARTICHOKE was to develop what were initially referred to as "special interrogation" practices. Soon, however, ARTICHOKE ventured into even more exotic and bizarre pursuits. I'm sure many of you are aware that one of these pursuits was "mind control" and on the whole the OS's track record in this regard was a mixed bag (as noted before here).
Another was parapsychology. The OS subsidized the research of J.B. Rhine and his famed Duke University experiments as well as those of Martin Ebon. But even more compelling and mysterious was its support of the research of Dr. Andrija Puharich, whom the great Philip Coppens referred to as "the Father of the American New Age Movement." This may be a bit of a stretch, but there can be little doubt Puharich had a large yet little acknowledged role up until the 1980s.
In the previous series this researcher had not considered Puharich as the objective of his research appears to have gone far beyond mere mind control and parapsychology. It is this researcher's contention that part of the purpose of Puharich's research was to attempt to contact a nonhuman intelligence.
While this may seem incredible to many, bare in mind that the head of the Office of Scientific Intelligence throughout the heyday of ARTICHOKE was H. Marshall Chadwell, a man with a keen and well documented interest in UFOs. It is by now fairly well known that Chadwell was an early advocate of CIA investigations into UFOs and that he was behind the creation of the infamous Robertson Panel. Less well known was Chadwell's involvement in ARTICHOKE, which he briefly headed, as well as his friendship with Vannevar Bush that dated back to at least their time working together in the WWII-era National Defense Research Committee (all of which was noted before here).
While evidence of the Office of Security's interest in UFOs is scarce, there can be little doubt now that the OS sponsored Puharich's bizarre research for ARTICHOKE. And this research does indeed appear to have been geared towards the fantastic --"supersoldiers" and even establishing contact with a nonhuman intelligence. This series shall explore such possibilities and may reveal a truly disturbing prospect underlining the Pentagon and CIA behavior modification experiments.
But before getting to all of that I must first consider Puharich's contact with an alleged extraterrestrial intelligence that referred to itself as "The Nine" for they are at the heart of this mystery. Long time readers of this blog (and those of you who glance over to the side bar) are probably well aware that I've written a prior post on The Nine, but much time has passed since then and I have come into additional compelling information. But beyond that, the timing of Puharich's alleged contacts with The Nine is most important, and here I will have a chance to outline the different eras.
Origins, Vinod and the Round Table Foundation (1947-1952)
So, with the statement of purpose out of the way, let us get on with the story. It all begins with a chance encounter with "a Hindu scholar and sage from Poona, India" (Uri, Andrija Puharich, pg. 13) whom Puharich first met at some point in December of 1951. This individual is known only to posterity as "Dr. D.G. Vinod." No record of Vinod appears to exist outside of Puharich's accounts of his initial encounters with The Nine, which has led many to believe that D.G. Vinod was a pseudonym and I see no reason to question this.
Christopher Knowles of The Secret Sun provides one of the best accounts of modern references to The Nine that predate Puharich's involvement in the second part of his essential "The Secret Star Trek" series. There Knowles notes that a story published in Fantastic Adventures, a pulp magazine edited by the legendary Ray Palmer of Amazing Adventures (and who originally published the bizarre "Shaver Mysteries"), contained a short story from November of 1947 that bore an uncanny resemblance to the later manifestation of The Nine. The story, "Son of the Sun," was written by Millen Cooke under the pseudonym Alexander Blade. Cooke had a keen interest in the occult and UFOs and was deeply involved in the West Coast occult community during this era. Knowles speculates that "Dr. Vinod" may have been a part of this circle:
"... Missus Cooke was obvious given to visionary experience. It's unclear if her liturgy was her own personal revelation or that of a group similar to the Round Table, but it should be noted that the Cookes were instrumental in bringing Meher Baba to America, and the mysterious Dr. Vinod could well have been part of that circle. These people all seemed to know each other, though they swapped practices and enthusiasms like normal people change socks."
But back to the matter at hand. Puharich's next encounter with Vinod occurred two months later, in February 1952. At this point Vinod allegedly read Puharich's past and future. The sage accomplished this by gripping the middle joint of Puharich's right ring finger with his right thumb and index finger while whistling between his teeth "as though he were trying to find a pitch" (Uri, pg. 13). After a minute or so of this Vinod began to recount detailed aspects of Puharich's past while also predicting a rosy future for the Croatian scientist.
Puharich was so impressed that he arranged another meeting with Vinod, but this time under laboratory conditions. A little less than four years before Puharich had first encountered Vinod he had set up a foundation to study such phenomenon. Both this foundation and its backers are most interesting.
"... Puharich founded the Round Table Foundation of Electrobiology in Camden in 1948, an organization whose name was usually shortened to the Round Table, or the Round Table Foundation. Thus, the hospital or clinic that had been originally planned became instead a kind of research institute specializing in the more arcane of the behavioral sciences, from cybernetics to ESP, and moved from the barn --which he lost due to some unpleasantness concerning Red baiting in the small New England town --to somewhat grander quarters in a twenty-two room house. One of the earliest experiments was with the psychic Eileen Garrett, who was placed in a Faraday Cage to test her psychic abilities, as were such other famous names in the field as Peter Hurkos and Henry Stone. In order to support his research, Puharich approached a variety of individuals for funding, including Henry Wallace. Wallace had been Secretary of Agriculture in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration and later his Vice President. Under Truman, Wallace had been Secretary of Commerce, and in 1948 ran for President himself on the Progressive Party ticket. Wallace's name is usually associated with a scandal involving a Russian mystic, one Nicholas Roerich (Wallace himself is usually credited with coming up with the pyramid and all-seeing eye design used on the back of the US dollar bill)...
"In any event, Wallace agreed to help fund Puharich's research, with a check for &4,458. 73 in April of 1949. A princely sum at the time. And he visited the Round Table --according to Eileen Garrett --sometime in 1949-1950.
"Another mysterious donor to the Foundation was one Walter Cabot Paine, of Boston, who donated $3,000. When a researcher attempted to interview Walter Paine, he was rebuffed immediately, and Paine did not answer any questions. Arthur Young, the Bell Helicopter designer and eventual guru himself, told the same researcher that Paine was an associate of his and an oil executive who wished to remain anonymous. Mr. Young was being a little disingenuous, for he was related to Walter C. Paine through marriage. Arthur Young would remain a close friend and associate of Puharich during the 1950s and it is this relationship that --in the context of all we have been discussing so far --is absolutely stunning in its implications, for Arthur Young was married to a Forbes heiress, one Ruth Forbes Paine, who was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In other words, very old, very white money. Walter Cabot Paine was the son of Robert Treat Paine, a wealthy Boston Brahmin and art patron who made a special study of Japanese art, and was a direct descendant of the Robert Treat Paine who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. W.C. was directly related to Ruth Forbes Paine Young's previous husband, George Lyman Paine (who is also descended from Colonial American 'royalty,' the Lyman family). Her son by that previous marriage, Michael Paine, married Ruth Hyde."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 238-240)
Henry Wallace is of course a long time bugaboo of the conspiratorial right. In addition to his association with mystic Nicholas Roerich, he was also a Freemason and had dabbled in Theosophy for nearly a decade before abandoning it at some point in the 1930s. He remained a self-professed Christian for his entire life, however.
The presence of Arthur Young and Ruth Forbes Paine Young, along with their distant relation Walter Cabot Paine, on the donor list are most interesting as well. The latter two were of course very old money, stretching back to the Colonial days. And they were not the only "Boston Brahmins" to become involved in the sage of The Nine either, as we shall see. Certainly then Puharich appears to have been receiving support from elements within the oldest branch of America's aristocracy.
But there are indications that Puharich was getting even more generous contributions for his research, the sources of which have never been identified. But this was no inconsiderable amount of money. The great Philip Coppens notes: "Fortune often walked together with these, as in 1951 he somewhat miraculously received a research grant of close to $100,000 to build a solid sheet metal Faraday cage, to test Garrett." This is quite impressive, considering that Puharich was from a rather humble background and yet a mere five years or so after graduating from medical school he seemingly had access to ample amounts of funding for rather arcane research.
It is also interesting to note that Arthur Young was living near Philadelphia during this time frame and would continue to maintain a residence with Ruth Forbes Paine Young in that general area for years to come. As was noted in my examination of the Office of Security, a lot of strange things appear to have been happening in Pennsylvania during this era in general. Another of Puharich's close associates, whom he would first encounter towards the end of 1960s, Ira Einhorn, was also based out of Philadelphia for years.
Even more curious is Ruth Forbes Paine Young's son from a previous marriage, Michael Paine. As noted above, Michael Paine was married Ruth Hyde. This young couple would go on to befriend to Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald during their time in Dallas in early 1963. Marina Oswald and her child would later move in with Ruth Paine, after she had separated from Michael, later in 1963 and was rooming there at the time of the assassination. There are many disturbing implications about the Paines and their possible intelligence ties, which I addressed before here. There is also a possibility that the Office of Security had some tie to the Paines, especially Ruth Hyde Paine whose father the OS had an extensive file on (as noted before here). But moving along.
Early Contacts with The Nine (1952-1953)
Puharich's next session with Vinod, this time under laboratory conditions, did not occur until December 31, 1952, New Year's Eve. By all accounts, it was well worth the wait as this was the first formal contact Puharich had with The Nine.
"... On December 31, 1952, Dr. Vinod and I took a plane from New York to Maine. We landed in Augusta at 7:30 P.M., and Hank Jackson, the administrator of the laboratory, the Round Table Foundation, was there to meet us. We drove over the country roads in the snow, chatting all the way. We entered the great hall of the laboratory, and without saying a word or even taking off his overcoat, Dr. Vinod found his way to the library and sat down on a sofa. Hank and I followed him. We realized that he had gone into a trance. We sat opposite him, waiting expectantly. Curious enough, the house was always bustling with activity, but on this New Year's Eve there was not a sound in the house from child, man, woman or animals. There was the hushed silence of expectancy as Hank and I watched our entranced sage.
"Then, at exactly 9 P.M., deep sonorous voice came out of Dr. Vinod's mouth, totally unlike his own high-pitched, soft voice, saying in perfect English without an accent:
M calling: We are Nine Principles and Forces, personalities if you will, working in complete mutual implication. We are forces, and the nature of our work is to accentuate the positive, the evolutional, and the teleological aspects of existence. By teleology I do not mean the teleology of human derivation in a multidimensional concept of existence. Teleology will be understood in terms of a different ontology. To be simple, we accentuate certain directions as will fulfill the destiny of creation...
"When Dr. Vinod awoke from his trance after some ninety minutes odd speech by the Nine, he had no recollection or knowledge of what had been said. Hank and I worked for a month with Dr. Vinod, listening to the profound wisdom of the Nine. It was a deeply moving experience, ad we really believed every word that we heard purely on the internal evidence. This work was interrupted in February 1953 when I had to serve as a captain in the U.S. Army during the Korean War."
the location in Glen Cove, Maine where Puharich and the Round Table Foundation conducted the initial seances with The Nine
And so ended the first of a series of seances that would have profound implications for the history of the United States. As such, it is largely immaterial as to whether or not The Nine actually existed for their influence would begin to greatly effect American popular culture by at least the early 1960s and would continue to do so for years afterwards in some of our most revered franchises. And certainly it would seem that powerful forces within both the public and private sphere would have a keen interest in them. But more on that later.
As for what exactly The Nine are/were, this is a bit ambiguous. It is commonly reported (even by your own humble writer) that they initially claimed to have been the Great Ennead, a group of nine Egyptian deities whose cult center was located at Heliopolis. During the Old and Middle Kingdom eras they were usually at the top of Ancient Egypt's pantheon.
This researcher has not been able to determine if The Nine ever actually stated this to Puharich, however. It would seem that Puharich made the connection via a series of sessions in the mid-1950s with the psychic Harry Stone in which Stone claimed to be channeling Rahotep, an Egyptian pharaoh of the 17th Dynasty. Puharich believed that he had detected references to the Ennead in some of these sessions. It would appear that upon making this connection Puharich became convinced that these communications were linked to the earlier ones with The Nine. But more on the Stone sessions in a moment.
Eventually The Nine claimed to be an extraterrestrial race from the planet Hoova who were now located in a city-sized spacecraft known as Spectra. They did not, however, appear to exist in physical form (aside from the spacecraft), but had evolved to the point that they had forgone their flesh-and-blood bodies many centuries ago. In some accounts they were said to have advanced to such a state that now they existed outside of time and space, multidimensional beings that none the less still had an interest in the development of the human race. Or something like that.
The next contact occurred in February of 1953 and for this session Puharich had brought in some big guns to join Vinod, Henry Jackson and himself.
"Some months later, on June 27, 1953, the night of the full moon, Puharich gathered around him what was to be a core group of the Round Table Foundation for another session with Vinod. The membership of this group of nine members --a la The Nine --is illuminating. Henry Jackson, Georgia Jackson, Alice Bouverie, Marcella Du Pont, Carl Betz, Vonnie Beck, Arthur Young, Ruth Young, and Andrija Puharich. Dr. Vinod acted as the medium. Imagine the Fellowship of the Ring, with government funding and a security classification that was, well, 'cosmic.'
"In this group, we find immediately a Du Pont and a Bouverie. Du Pont is self-explanatory, but for those who do not have a copy of the New York Social Register to hand, Alice Bouverie was born Ava Alice Muriel Astor, and was a descendant of John Jacob Astor, and the daughter of Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, builder of the Astoria Hotel and author of the book A Journey to Other Worlds (1894); her father was also one of the ill-fated passengers aboard the Titanic when it went down in April 1912...
"... Henry Jackson was Puharich's administrator and was married to Georgia Jackson. Carl Beck was involved in alternative energy research, and had visited the laboratory of one Thomas Henry Molay, a Mormon scientist and erastz alchemist living in Salt Lake City who claimed to have identified a source of 'free energy' which he termed 'radiant energy.' Developing alternative energy sources (a la Nicola Tesla) would be a preoccupation of Puharich in the years to come. (The only member of the original Nine that the author has been unable to satisfactorily identify is Vonnie Beck, who may have been the same Vonnie Beck who was a pilot for the US Navy during World War II, but at this time there is no further information on Beck.)
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pgs. 244-246)
A few points: Having a former Navy man such as Beck present at the seance will make ample sense in the next installment, so this research is inclined to believe that Levenda located the right individual. As for Carl Betz (and not Beck), this is not the famed actor, but an alternative energy researcher as Levenda indicates. The Henry Jackson present at the meeting has no connection, as far as this researcher can discern, with the longtime Democratic Senator Henry Jackson, who was close to the American Security Council (ASC, which this researcher has explored in depth before here).
As for the Blue Bloods, if anyone was wandering, the only one of them with tenuous ties to Skull and Bones appears to be Ruth Forbes Paine Young. There was at least one Forbes, John Forbes Kerry, who became a Bonesman. Ruth Young's husband prior to Arthur Young, George Lyman Paine, had blood relations to one family (Lyman) that may have also had Bonesmen in its ranks, but this researcher has not be able to reliably confirm this. On the whole then there were no discernible ties between Skull and Bones and this gathering.
The two most interesting families present are the Du Ponts and the Astors (via Alice Bouverie). The Du Pont family had been very close to the Nazi regime, especially IG Farben, whom they almost formed a joint cartel with. As for the Astor family, the British branch is especially notorious. Like the Du Pont family, they sought a close relationship with the Nazi regime in the years leading up to World War II. They were also major players in the infamous Round Table Group.
"... the Round Table Group, and came later to be called, somewhat inaccurately, the Cliveden Set, after the country estate of Lord and Lady Astor. It included Lord Milner, Leopold Amery, and Edward Grigg (Lord Altrincham), as well as Lord Lothian, Smuts, Lord Astor, Lord Brand (brother-in-law of Lady Astor and managing director of Lazard Brothers, the international bankers), Lionel Curtis, Geoffrey Dawson (editor of The Times), and their associates. This group wielded great influence because it controlled the Rhodes Trust, the Beit Trust, The Times of London, The Observer, the influential and highly anonymous quarterly review known as The Round Table (founded in 1910 with money supplied by Sir Abe Bailey and the Rhodes Trust, and and with Lothian as editor), and it dominated the Royal Institute of International Affairs, called 'Chatham House' (of which Sir Abe Bailey and the Astors were the chief financial supporters, while Lionel Curtis was the actual founder), the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and All Souls College, Oxford. This Round Table Group formed the core of the three-bloc-world supporters, and differed from the anti-Bolsheviks like D'Abernon in that they sought to contain the Soviet Union between a German-dominated Europe and an English-speaking bloc rather than to destroy it as the anti-Bolsheviks wanted. Relationships between the two groups were very close and friendly, and some people, like Smuts, were in both."
(Tragedy and Hope, Carroll Quigley, pg. 581)
Could Puharich's group have been named after the British Round Table Group? Certainly this is a possibility and the presence of an Astor in the group does raise such questions. But it is unknown to this researcher as to how close Alice Bouverie was to the British branch of her family. As such, this is probably an unlikely prospect, but curious nonetheless.
But back to the seance. By all accounts this one was even more impressive than the first:
"Dr. Vinod sat on the floor in the lotus posture holding in his hands a string of sacred beads, called rakshas. On his lap was a simple copper plate nine inches in diameter. On the flour to his side was a small statue of the Hindu god, Hanoum. Thus, Dr. Vinod was in the center of a circle made up of the nine people listed above. He entered a trance state at 12: 15 A.M. He spoke for about fifteen minutes and then one of the Nine, R, spoke through him, saying:
Tonight we want to create Brahmins in this world. Brahmin means a person dedicated to Brahman.
"At this instant all nine observers in the fully lighted room saw the appearance, in an instant, of what appeared to be a pile of cotton threads about three feet from Dr. Vinod. It seemed to this observer that the pile of thread had just popped right out of the wooden floor. Dr. Vinod, still in a trance state, leaned over to pick up the threads. When he untangled them, he brought forth loops of finely woven cotton cord. He handed one to each person and there was exactly one loop for each. He asked each person to slip the loop over the right shoulder and under the left arm.
"What we had witnessed was the appearance of a material substance from nowhere! All present were quite sure that the large ball of cotton material had come from the floor and no place other than the floor."
Peter Levenda writers in Sinister Forces Book One: The Nine that he believes that the statue was actually of Hanuman, the Monkey King. Hanuman was apparently a human being who was given divine powers due to his devotion and courage. Thus, if the statue was of Hanuman, it would seem especially appropriate in this context.
So to was the presence of the Boston Brahmins for a transformation into Brahmins. Here are some more details about this concept:
"A Brahmin, of course, is the highest caste in the caste-structured Hindu system. Other castes include warriors and merchants, and there is also the non-caste known as the Untouchables (who were generally involved in trades considered unclean, such as handling the dead, slaughtering, etc.). What Vinod (or, actually 'R') was telling the assembled group is that they were to be reborn as spiritual Brahmins, in charge of bringing about a mystical renaissance on earth... under the mentorship of The Nine, of course. 'R' then made an allusion to alchemy and transformation, and then a reference to Buddha. Eventually, the Hindu and Buddhist references faded out of the communications from The Nine in favor of discussions of 'supersense' and other quasi-scientific, philosophical constructs that might have seemed profound in the context of the seance but which make for rather painful reading today, fifty years later."
What became of this group of "Brahmins" is unknown. Of course Puharich continued chasing The Nine for at least another two decades and a few other participants would continue to crop in and out of the story for a few more years. Arthur Young, for instance, may have been with Puharich during a trek he took to Mexico in 1956 that seemingly produced a communication with The Nine and Alice Bouverie would play a key role in the next stage of Puharich's interaction with The Nine before her death (also in 1956). But the rest of the group appears to have drifted out of the story. Of course the Jacksons, due to Henry's occupation as Puharich's laboratory assistance, may have played a further role and the same is also possible of Young's wife, Ruth Forbes Paine Young. But as far as this researcher is aware this marked the end of the involvement of Marcella Du Pont, Carl Betz and Vonnie Beck in this ordeal. This also marked the final channeling of The Nine by Dr. Vinod as well. From here on out new mediums would be located.
Thus, only two of these "Brahmins" (Puharich) and Bouverie can be reliably linked to The Nine beyond the July 27, 1953 session. There's also a strong possibility that Arthur Young remained involved until the mid-1950s as well. But everyone else appears to have already played heir role. This would hardly be the last time The Nine would set lofty goals for their followers that would eventually be abandoned.
Harry Stone and God's Flesh (1954)
Puharich's next alleged contact occurred in 1954. This was the episode involving the psychic Harry Stone noted above. As far as this researcher is aware, Puharich never appears to have linked this episode publicly with The Nine, though there are multiple indications from Puharich and his associates that there was a connection. That Puharich may have been hesitant to link these two events is easy to understand: Stone's alleged channeling of Rahotep, an ancient Pharaoh, was closely connected to the fly-agaric or amanita muscaria, an hallucinogenic mushroom. While Puharich would later go on to record these experiences in his classic The Sacred Mushroom, neither the general public (then emerging from McCarthyism) or the deep state (in which such things were highly classified) were ready for hallucinogens to be linked explicitly to nonhuman intelligences at this point.
"In 1954, Puharich received a transcript from what Harry Stone had uttered during a trance. Some were in English, others in Egyptian. 'The first time this occurred, Harry had been at Mrs. Davenport’s apartment in New York. When admiring a gold pendant, in the form of a cartouche, he had suddenly started to tremble all over, got a crazy staring look in his eyes, staggered around the room, and then fell into a chair.' What fascinated Andrija was the trance description that Stone had given of a plant that could separate consciousness from the physical body. Puharich knew that the ancient Greeks and the shamans in Siberia had an ancient tradition in which men partook of a plant which could detach the soul from the body, travel far, and then return with knowledge that was otherwise inaccessible to the human mind. If he was able to master this technique, it was clear that he and those for whom he worked, would have a powerful advantage over their enemies. Stone’s drawings of the plant looked like mushrooms, and the description he gave was that of the fly agaric, or amanita muscaria.
"Puharich realised that Stone had given him the answer to his problem: this mushroom could enhance extrasensory perception in human beings. All he had to do was find it and use it. By the fall of 1955, Puharich had an ample supply of the mushroom to find out…
"Puharich tested 35 'psychically ungifted' people, but none reported anything out of the ordinary. But in the case of Harry Stone, during a visit by Aldous Huxley, Stone asked to have the mushroom administered. Rather than chew, Stone applied the mushroom on his tongue and on the top of his head, in ritualistic fashion. Five minutes later he woke up, and began to stagger around as though he were heavily intoxicated with alcohol. At that point, Puharich wanted to test whether Stone’s psychic abilities had enhanced. The results were positive. In fact, they were not just positive, but perfect. Ten out of ten. And not only that, but superfast as well. Puharich quickly administered a large dose of atropine and removed the remaining particles of the mushroom from his tongue. Within fifteen minutes, Harry was ‘normal’ again.
"This was, of course, a major revelation for Puharich and the experiments were detailed in his book, The Sacred Mushroom. But Puharich was not the only one to write about it. Aldous Huxley stated: 'I spent some days, earlier this month, at Glen Cove, in the strange household assembled by Puharich […] Harry, the Dutch sculptor, who goes into trances in the Faraday Cage and produces automatic scripts in Egyptian hieroglyphics […] whatever may be said against Puharich, he is certainly very intelligent, extremely well read and highly enterprising. His aim is to reproduce by modem pharmacological, electronic and physical methods the conditions used by the Shamans for getting into a state of travelling clairvoyance. At Glen Cove they now have found eight specimens of the amanita muscaria. This is very remarkable as the literature of the mycological society of New England records only one previous instance of the discovery of an amanita in Maine. The effects, when a piece as big as a pin’s head, is rubbed for a few seconds into the skin of the scalp, are quite alarmingly powerful, and it will obviously take a lot of very cautious experimentation to determine the right psi-enhancing dose of the mushroom.' ”
Puharich alleged that he found the original fly-argaric specimens used in his experiments near his laboratory in Maine. This occurred in 1955 while most of Puharich's efforts were geared towards locating samples in Mexico (as were the CIA's). Naturally, psychics had assisted Puharich in locating these samples. Puharich would eventually claim to have figured out a way to cultivate them so as to have a steady supply for his experiments.
There are also indications that Puharich was conducting other experiments with magic mushrooms around this time that have largely been hidden from the public, as well as the extent of the official interest in the Stone episode. This shall be addressed in a future installment. For now it is interesting to note that Alice Bouverie played a key role in this series of events as well, apparently being one of the first individuals to locate a fly-argaric in the Maine woods during 1955. Almost exactly a year later she would die suddenly. Another of Puharich's psychics, in this case the famed Dutchman Peter Hurkos, had a premonition of her death shortly beforehand:
"The next morning, July 19, 1956, I again arrived at the laboratory to find Peter in the kitchen having a cup of coffee. He was still talking about the luminous mass which he had seen two evenings ago. I quizzed him all over again as to what he thought it meant. He admitted that he had no idea what it meant, but that it had made an indelible imprint upon his mind. While I was talking to Peter the phone rang and I answered it. It was Alice Bouverie's son calling from New York City. He was very taut, and tersely announced: 'Mummy is dead.' I couldn't believe my ears, and asked him to repeat what he had just said. He repeated: 'Mummy is dead, we found her in her bedroom this morning. She had apparently died sometime during the night. I thought you would want to know.' I was so stunned that I couldn't find the right things to say. I finally asked him what had been the cause of death. He said that he did not know, but the doctor who had examined her had the idea that it probably was a stroke. She had been in perfect health when she went to bed...
"Alice's sudden death remained inexplicable. The coroner described death as due to natural causes, but could not define any single pathology that could be responsible for such sudden death..."
(The Sacred Mushroom, Andrija Puharich, pgs. 112-113)
And so departed another of the "Brahmins" from the stage. Alice Bouverie had apparently helped Puharich locate a sample of the fly-argaric on July 6, 1955 and then passed away on July 18, 1956. Her contribution had consisted of passing on a "hieroglyphic message" that Harry Stone had received on July 4 and which Alice had recorded and passed on to Puharich, just in time for his improbable discovery on July 6. Whether these dates have any significance is unknown, but they are close to a shake up in the deep state that shall be addressed in the next installment and thus worth noting in this regard.
Laugheads and Brother Philip (1956)
Puharich's next contact from The Nine apparently emerged as part of a chance encounter with a curious couple in Mexico on July 26, 1956. This was of course eight days after Alice Bouverie had died and a week after Puharich had been notified of her death. At the time he was still working with Peter Hurkos, who was present for Puharich's encounter with the Laugheads (yes, a real last name).
"... Puharich was still quite busy. He found himself in mexico with his psychic friend Peter Hurkos, (and, it seems, Arthur Young) in July 1956 to 'help solve an archaeological problem.' As Puharich was involved in locating drugs that could stimulate psychic ability, it seems likely that he was there with Hurkos on just such an agenda: neither Puharich nor Hurkos had any archaeological credentials. While in the town of Acambaro, he and Hurkos ran into an American couple from Arizona who eventually claimed that they had been receiving instructions from The Nine. Neither Puharich or Hurkos had ever met these people before, but it seems they were working with a medium back in Arizona who was also channeling The Nine. To prove this, they sent letters to Puharich the following month with sealed communications from The Nine that referred to details of the specific seances that Puharich had chaired back in Maine. This was the proof that Puharich was looking for. The details went so far as to include a variation of the Lorentz-Einstein Transformation formula that had formed part of the first seance.
"If we do not want to give The Nine the benefit of a doubt, we can assume that the medium who was working with the Arizona couple --the Laugheads of Whipple, Arizona (which sounds fishy anyway_ --was the same Dr. Vinod, for no one else would have the information..."
Levenda's conclusions here are problematic. For one, it is unknown if Arthur Young was in fact with Puharich. In Uri (which Levenda used as his source for this encounter) Puharich lists only himself and Hurkos as being present. On the other hand, the above-mentioned letter that Puharich received states that "We were also instructed to send a copy to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Young" (Uri, pg. 20), implying that the Laugheads were somehow aware of Arthur and Ruth Forbes Paine Young's involvement with Puharich and The Nine. It would certainly be logical to deduce from this that the Laugheads were aware of this connection because Young himself was present. Considering that Levenda does not seem to think much of the Laugheads, it is hardly surprising that this is his conclusion.
But Levenda is most assuredly wrong about Dr. Vinod being the one working with the Laugheads. For one thing, this medium was described as a "young man" who was involved with "the Brotherhood of one of the ancient Mystery Schools in South America" (Uri, pg. 18). This does not jive with the limited accounts we have of Vinod, but describes to a T one of the most well known and infamous contactees of the 1950s: George Hunt Williamson.
While Williamson has mostly been forgotten in recent years, he was present with George Adamski during his alleged contact with Venusian called "Orthon." After this event Williamson would go to work with for former Silver Shirt founder William Dudley Pelley on his publication Valor. During this period Williamson became keenly aware of the occult connections to the UFO mystery and even claimed to be able to contact extraterrestrial intelligence via a Ouija board. By the mid-1950s Williamson was very active in South America, especially Peru where he extensively explored the Nazca Lines. It was around this time he would establish his own UFO cult down there, which the Laugheads were likely a part of.
The Laugheads themselves were no strangers to contactee cults either. Earlier they had been involved with another alleged medium and contactee, Dorthy Martin. It appears it was through this connection that couple had first met George Hunt Williamson. Like Williamson's eventual employer William Dudley Pelley, Martin appears to have been close to the I AM movement prior to the Second World War. For much more information on this network, check here.
William Dudley Pelley during the Silver Shirt years
There can be little doubt now that Williamson was the medium the Laugheads were using when they allegedly received communications from The Nine. Consider:
"Let us note that Dr. Laughead and his wife are quoted in the famous book by Dr. Andrija Puharich, Uri Geller. During a journey in Mexico in July 1956, the Laugheads met by chance, or synchronicity, Dr. Puharich in Acambaro and spoke to him of 'a young man, a very fine voice channel or medium' who was in contact with extraterrestrial intelligences who communicated through him. Having returned home in August in Whipple, Arizona, the Laugheads sent to Puharich three messages received by this 'young man.' Puharich was stunned by their similarity to those received by his own medium, Doctor Vinod. The identity of the 'young man', who was anxious to remain anonymous, became known only in the 1970s.
"It was George Hunt Williamson..."
(The Incredible Life of George Hunt Williamson, Michel Zirger & Maurizio Martinelli)
The great Greg Bishop and the equally great Kenn Thomas confirm this account by Zirger and Martinelli in this old article that originally appeared in a 1999 issue of Fortean Times. Thus, there seems to be little question of Williamson's involvement in the saga of The Nine, though many researchers still seem to avoid making this connection. But a casual reading of Williamson's work reveals more than a few allusions to The Nine.
Williamson appears to believe that the universe was structured according to the "Spectrum of Awareness" that consisted of nine levels. The eighth level was the "Thought Universe," in which beings that reached it moved beyond physical existence. The ninth level was the "Energy Universe" in which a union with the "Creative Spirit" could be sought.
At the top of Williamson's cosmology were beings whom he referred to as "El's" after the ancient Semitic word for "god" or "lord." Williamson describes these beings as thus:
"For countless ages, after their arrival upon the Earth planet, the 'El's' had been attempting to achieve a Timeless condition, that is, to reach a place where they could not only create by mere Thought, but also escape the binding chains of physical existence, to break for ever the ties that bound them to physical planets and systems --the conquest of Matter, Energy, Space and Time. They searched for thew secrets of Timelessness that would make them Immortal so they might march across Time and the Stars unfettered and free."
(Traveling the Path Back To The Road in the Sky, George Hunt Williamson, pg. 42)
Curiously, Williamson was obsessed with a Hopi legend concerning the incredible flight of a bluebird that returned from "beyond the sky."
"In every Hopi kiva and by every Hopi fireside the origin legend is related over and over again. The story also tells how the people thought there might be land where it rains 'beyond the sky' and the crops would grow and everybody would be happy again. This indicates the dwindling water supply on Mars and the need for some of the people to migrate elsewhere since the small supply wouldn't take care of a large population. The legend speaks of the Hopi chief and leaders talking over the situation and deciding to try to find out what 'the other side of the sky' was like. The chief summoned different birds and asked them to fly up towards the sky and attempt to go through the 'hole'. The birds were unable to penetrate this 'hole' and every time a bird was sent it failed in its mission. Every new bird sent was able to go a little further, but the 'hole' was not penetrated.
"After each bird would return unsuccessful, the chief and the leaders talked over the situation and always decided to make another attempt. Finally the 'bluebird' was chosen to make the journey. Everyone waited for a long time, and they began to think that the 'bluebird' had been lost and they would never see it again. A long time passed, and at last the people could see a little speck far up in the sky. This speck grew larger and larger and came nearer and nearer to them. Soon they could hear the 'bluebird' singing, and in a little while it reached the surface of their dry world. All the people crowded around and the 'bluebird' told them: 'Yes, there is country up there beyond the sky. There is much land that would make good fields, there is much water from flowing springs, and there are many rain clouds.' "
(Traveling the Path Back To The Road in the Sky, George Hunt Williamson, pgs. 210-211)
In this context Williamson was speculating that the Hopi originated from Mars and that the bluebird was a space craft that went through a "hole" presumably in the sky to Earth. While this seems rather unlikely, this researcher cannot help but wander if the men of the Office of Security were aware of this folk tale. Certainly it would appear that BLUEBIRD would go through its own "hole" (or "Stargate") and return to the "wise men" who had sent it. But moving along.
Uri (1971-1975)
Puharich's next known communication with The Nine did not occur until 1971. It was in November of that year that Puharich hypnotized the famed Israeli stage magician Uri Geller and received what he later deemed to be a communication from The Nine. So began Puharich's most public flirtation with The Nine, climaxing in the publication of Uri in 1974. This was the first time the general public at large was told of The Nine. Puharich had of course dropped hints in The Sacred Mushroom and pop culture staples such as The Outer Limits and Star Trek had potentially already incorporated references to them (for more details on this, see Christ Knowles' groundbreaking "The Secret Star Trek" series at The Secret Sun),
It all began when Puharich set out to Israel in 1971 to investigate Geller, who was already a successful stage magician in Israel at the time. But Geller, of course, claimed that his powers were real and not a sleight of hand. Many have long suspected that there were intelligence indications behind Puharich's visit and this may well be true. In addition to Puharich's deep state ties (which shall be addressed in the next installment), there are ample indications that Geller was already working for the Mossad at this time (he would go on to allegedly do work for US and British intelligence as well).
Regardless, Puharich brought Geller to the US in the early 1970s. On the one hand, this enabled Uri to pursue his stage career in the entertainment capital of the world. But on the other, Puharich was able to bring Geller into both Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in 1973-1974 and 1974-1975 respectively. Geller's initial test run at SRI showed great promise. Philip Coppens reports:
"In August 1972, Puharich called Geller back from Europe, to start the research programme. Geller agreed reluctantly. They flew to Germantown, Maryland, to meet with Dr. Werner von Braun (we can only ask why), then onwards to San Francisco, to Stanford University, and back to the East Coast to meet some more scientists. It was Stanford Research Institute (SRI) where the remote viewing experiment was housed. The project was co-ordinated by Russell Targ, a specialist in lasers and plasma research, and Dr. Harold Puthoff, a specialist in quantum physics. They were sufficiently impressed by Geller’s qualities to warrant further investigation.
"A full-page report of the experiments appeared in the National Enquirer, not renowned for its scientific focus: 'A young Israeli who can apparently bend metal with his mind has undergone rigidly controlled experiments at a leading research institute. The top scientists who tested him admit they cannot explain his amazing "powers." The experiments were "cheat-proof" and the scientists reported that Geller participated in experiments where the probability that anyone could have done what he did was one in a million, and in another test, one in a trillion.'
"Geller amazed the scientists when he made a balance placed in a bell jar respond as though a force was applied to it – without touching the balance. A chart recorder monitoring the balance showed that Geller somehow produced a force ten to a hundred times greater than could be produced by striking the bell jar, or the table, or jumping on the floor.
"He correctly identified, eight out of eight times, the numbers shown on a die shaken inside a closed metal box. Only scientists handled the box, and no-one knew what number was on the die until after Geller had made his predictions, and the box was opened.
"He correctly identified, eight out of eight times, the numbers shown on a die shaken inside a closed metal box. Only scientists handled the box, and no-one knew what number was on the die until after Geller had made his predictions, and the box was opened."
Dr. Russell Targ (left) and Dr. Hal Puthoff (right), who famously ran SRI's legendary remote viewing program in the early 1970s
While Geller performed well at SRI, the tests at Livermore Laboratory became the stuff of legend (or nightmare, depending upon one's point of view):
"What was to become a mounting hysteria, practically a mass-possession, began when one of the group, a security officer, Ron Robertson, was speaking on the phone to Geller, and Geller proceeded in mid-conversation, his voice having oddly changed and gone up an octave, to give him a detailed prediction of three family dramas, all of which happened to the officer the following Saturday. Then, in the makeshift lab, an infrared camera started recording unexplained patches of radiation high up on a wall. Kodak, the film manufacturer, was discreetly asked to examine the results. The company could not even begin to explain them. Shortly afterwards, a tape recorder picked up a peculiar, unintelligible metallic voice, a voice no one had heard when the machine was on. When Green later examined the metallic voice tape, one of the few recognizable words on it was the codename for an unconnected top-secret project, which he happened to know about, but nobody at Livermore could have any inkling of.
"As Uri became an occasional fixture around the laboratory, some members of the team and their families began to see fuzzy, 3D hallucinations or visions, or something, of miniature, comic book-style flying saucers hovering in the centre of various rooms. Other visions the scientists reported, in mounting terror, took the form of giant birds, which would walk across their gardens, or, in the case of one physicist, Mike Russo, and his wife, the foot of their bed.
"After a few weeks, another physicist, Peter Crane, called Dr. Green at CIA, almost in desperation. Green came down and met Cane in a coffee shop in Livermore town, near the lab. He later met the other team members, and was astonished to find them swearing and weeping openly as they described what had been happening. Decades later, as a medical doctor, Green was still pondering the implications of this apparent assault on the team's state of mind.
"Knowing that group hallucinations are extremely rare, and additionally, that all affected Livermore personnel, as a part of their high security clearance, were known to be unusually stable psychologically, Green doubted the hallucination theory even more. 'I was confident at the time, as I am now, that there was no psychiatric pathology,' Dr. Green says today of these almost extravagantly weird events of 40 years ago. 'I realized quickly that it had none of the signs of mass hysteria. There was no endogenous psychopathology on behalf of the individuals there. They were not psychiatrically ill. But that doesn't mean they didn't get scared to death.'
"You can see why, when it turns out that Russo, after telling Green what had been happening, then received a phone call from the metallic voice, insisting that the Livermore group cease its work on Geller --something the scientists, who were only volunteers after all, did with some alacrity, and whereupon the phenomena gradually stopped.
"One of the last but most extreme of the phenomena appeared to a physicist called Don Curtis and his wife. It consisted of a holographic false arm in grey suiting material and was hovering in their living room then rotating like it was on a spit. The arm had no hand, but a hook..."
(The Secret Life of Uri Geller, Jonathan Margolis, pgs. 45-47)
The CIA scientist mentioned above was Christopher "Kit" Green. As was noted before here, at the time of these experiments Green was a member of the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). The OSI had been the Office of Security's primary partner in ARTICHOKE, even heading the project briefly from late 1951 until September of 1952. At the time of the Geller experiments Green was tasked with performing an overall evaluation of the various parapsychological work being done by the CIA, most notably at SRI. But moving along.
Things seemed to be going so very well for Puharich and Geller. Puharich's close associate (and eventually, a convicted murderer) Ira Einhorn had procured a book deal for Puharich in which he would reveal Uri's extraordinary powers. Einhorn and allegedly Geller saw a paragram shift coming in which the psi phenomena would become as scientifically accepted as gravity. And then Uri was published, and it all went out the window. Chris Knowles describes Puharich's meltdown as thus:
"... There's a wafer-thin membrane between visionary and madman, and Puharich seemed to cross it. Running around the deserts of Israel chomping mushrooms and chasing saucers with Uri Geller seemed to kick something loose in Puharich's skull. And his meltdown would be all too public...
"Puharich's unique blend of mushroom madness and Jerusalem Syndrome would be spelled out in his 1974 biography on Uri Geller. The young Israeli was already under growing scrutiny from the skeptics for his increasingly extravagant claims of psychic power and Puharich's mad travelogue/Saucercult liturgy blew the lid off the pot. Here's a typical passage:
Hal Puthoff and Russ Targ arrived in Ossining on January 27 to show us the movie film they had made of the experiments with Uri. They told us that the management of SRI had decided to stand firm, to back Hal and Russ, and to make a public announcement backing their findings with Uri. This was heart-warming news for us.
On February 2 we were driving from New York City toward Ossining at noon...as we were turning into Exit 7A at Elmsford, New York, we both saw a welcome sight. There, some thirty feet in front of and above our car, was Horus. He was fluttering in the rain and air, hovering over us so that we could see him. I slammed the car to a skidding halt. Horus glided to a nearby dead tree, landed, and looked down upon us from his imperial height. How happy Uri and I were to see him, after a whole year!
We looked at Horus for some ten minutes, then he glided silently down into the woods and vanished. Uri and I looked at each other; we both knew the meaning of Horus's appearance. We were in danger again! But we were also protected.
When we got to the house, Uri and I sat in my study to discuss our situation. The tape recorder started to run. But this time there was no message. The tape recorder ran on and on, blank. Then a letter appeared on top of the tape recorder. I picked up the letter. It was dated 1949, with no month or day.
It was from my departed friend, Dr. Eugene Milne Cosgrove...(w)here had it come from? With Horus on the scene, and this acute reminder of the nameless terror of impending death, what was in store for us?
"Now, remember this book was supposed to be written in order to kosher Geller with the scientific community and it's one occult ritual after one UFO encounter after another."
Indeed. And not only was all of it so bizarre, but Puharich also proclaimed from the rafters that The Nine had big plans for himself and Uri:
"... The mysterious aliens, from a world called Hoova, and sometimes calling themselves Rhombus 4D, had assigned Puharich and Geller a variety of tasks, which would test their faith and abilities. The Nine had given the pair a central role in preventing war, as well as making them foot soldiers in a grand design for Earth, which they admitted was principally for their own needs and benefit, but which would, at the same time, be the greatest thing mankind had ever experienced. They reassured Puharich, through Uri, that they had been directing his, Puharich's, life and career for decades, as well as Uri's. They explained that their city-sized spacecraft, called Spectra, was responsible for Uri's odd powers, and the way mankind received Uri Geller would determine whether and how Hoova's Earth-development proggramme would continue, as well as the planet's general fate. For some subtle, cosmic reason, Uri was deliberately being sent into the world under the cover of a clownish, comic act."
(The Secret Life of Uri Geller, Jonathan Margolis, pg. 196)
Despite the fate of humanity allegedly hanging in the balance, Geller soon began to distance himself from Puharich and by late 1975 seems to have totally abandoned any pretext of being a prophet of The Nine. This no doubt had something to with the fact that being a "clownish, comic act" likely payed much better than being the messiah of vaguely defined alien gods. And there may have also been deep political implications, as shall be explored in the next installment.
Lab Nine (197?-1978)
Puharich appears to have been involved in the saga of The Nine until the late 1970s despite losing Geller. In many ways this was the apex of The Nine saga. Puharich and his associates would be hobnobbing with a host of celebrities and prominent scientists throughout this era. A relationship with Gene Roddenberry would famously emerge sometime around 1975-1976, which would eventually lead to elements of The Nine's story being incorporated into the Star Trek franchise. Or so official history goes, anyway. Over the course of the groundbreaking "The Secret Star Trek" series Chris Knowles compelling argues that both Star Trek and the original Outer Limits (as well as Incubus) had allusions to The Nine by the 1960s. And of course there was the atrocious 1977 made-for-TV movie that Roddenberry produced and co-wrote known as Spectre that was clearly based upon the misadventures of Puharich and Geller. But moving along.
And of course, Puharich continued his search for more mediums to contact The Nine with. It would appear that at some point in the late 1960s or the early 1970s that Puharich had established a base of operations for these schemes. As with everything else involving The Nine, it was quite elaborate.
"... Puharich had bought --using whose funds, it is not known --a magnificent 15-room house with six acres, a brook and a pond at 87 Hawkes Avenue, Ossining, New York. This became his base for what was, at his Uri Geller apogee, a virtual Puharich cult. The Puharich place was known in Ossining as a hangout for oddballs, otherwise 'The Turkey Farm' or 'Lab Nine'.
(The Secret Life of Uri Geller, Jonathan Margolis, pg. 198)
Up to this point Puharich had had at least three known mediums that he used to channel The Nine: Dr. Vinod, George Hunt Williamson (whom Puharich likely never met, but who channel messages from The Nine and sent them on to Puharich via the Laugheads) and Uri Geller. Harry Stone may have also been involved, but Stone channeled Rahotep, and not The Nine themselves (though he possibly gave Puharich an invaluable tool in the magic mushroom for contacting them). It was at Lab Nine that he would have regular meetings with both of the last two mediums he used to contact The Nine (at least officially). One of them, a most peculiar woman, would go on to be involved with The Nine for years to come after Puharich had allegedly dropped out.
"One of the most useful and colourful characters with whom Puharich surrounded himself at Ossining was Phyllis Schlemmer (nee Virtue). Born of Italian and Irish ancestry in Pennsylvania, from an early age she was aware of her gifts as a medium. At her Catholic college the priests often asked her to accompany them on exorcisms, as she could 'see' possessing spirits leaving the victims. As she grew older, she regularly channelled a number of spirit guides. After the break-up of her first marriage, she moved to Florida where she developed her career as a psychic, working for the police and mining companies, and even broadcasting her own television show. She founded the Psychic Center of FLorida in Orlando, a school for developing psychics, in 1969. Her main spirit guide was an entity called 'Dr. Fiske', but in 1970 a new control simply named 'Tom' 'came through'. She assumed it must be her grandfather Thomas, who died when she was just five.
"Phyllis Schlemmer met Puharich at a conference in the late 1960s, and the two were in regular contact thereafter. In January 1974, a cook from Daytona Beach, who is referred to in Nine-related literature only by the pseudonym 'Bobby Horne', enrolled at Schlemmer's Psychic Center, developing healing talents so remarkable that she recommended him to Puharich as a potential subject for further study. It was not to be a fortuitous recommendation for poor Bobby.
"Puharich travelled to Miami to meet Horne in March 1974. On their first meeting... he hypnotised the young man, who began to channel an extraterrestrial entity called Corean. Puharich was delighted, believing he had found a worthy successor to Geller in his quest to establish regular contact with the Nine. He went on to have several channelled 'interviews' with Corean, but refused to let Horne himself hear the tapes of these sessions, claiming that this specifically followed Corean's own instructions. It was decreed that Horne should be told neither the identity of the entity nor the content of its communications. Puharich behaved in a highly unethical way for a hypnotist, asking obviously leading questions of Corean, such as if he was connected with Hoova, the civilisation supposedly in contact with Uri Geller. In fact Corean had not mentioned Hoova, but afterwards this became a regular subject of discussion for him. Then, amazingly, Puharich compounded his already extraordinarily unethical behaviour by implanting a posthypnotic suggestion in Horne's subconscious mind to enable Schlemmer to continue to put him into trance in his, Puharich's, absence...
"With Horne replacing Geller as the new 'Chosen One', a circle formed around him, with a nucleus consisting of Puharich, Schlemmer and Sir John Whitmore, the heir to an aristocratic British family. Educated at public school and the elite military academy of Sandhurst, he later became a successful racing driver. At the time of the Lab Nine operation he owned houses in England and the Bahmas. He had first become seriously involved with this bizarre set-up in April 1974; the previous year he had spent some time with James Hurtak in California as one of his inner circle of 'disciples'...
"Puharich, Whitmore, Schlemmer and an increasingly reluctant Bobby Horne began to proselytise in both the United States and Britain in the spring and summer of 1974, although they kept the group small and intimate, not intending it to explode into a mass movement, at least in the immediate future. Meanwhile Bobby Horne was suffering from increasing pressure from the Nine, being expected to drop all other activities to follow the group around the world to channel at any time of the day or night and produce phenomena almost constantly. He began to make excuses or fail to show up, and even became suicidal as the demands of the exhausting business spiralled out of control. (Later, Whitmore was to airily dismiss Horne as showing 'signs of instability'.) The Nine eventually decided to let him go --their second failure, after Geller --and announced that from then on Schlemmer would be their 'transceiver', with Tom as their spokesman."
(The Stargate Conspiracy, Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, pgs. 173-176)
Schlemmer would remain involved with The Nine presumably up until the time of her death in 2013, but her promotions of them became less frequent after the 1990s. It was in that decade that she published The Only Planet of Choice, supposedly their manifesto. Curiously, Schlemmer also had a tie to Pennsylvania, but this researcher has been unable to determine where her old stomping grounds were.
The use of Bobby Horne, a Daytona Beach-based cook, is also interesting. Daytona is located in Volusia County, a region that has experienced its own fair share of high weirdness and channeling. There is of course Cassadaga, a Spiritualist commune founded near DeLand in the late nineteenth century by members of the Spiritualist Church. Allegedly spirit guides were used to determine the location of the camp.
On the topic of DeLand, the creator of the "weird tale" himself, H.P. Lovecraft, would also visit there regularly. His good friend R.H. Barlow was a resident, you see. There have of course been some very, very curious musings about the nature of Lovecraft's relationship with Barlow, who during the time of the DeLand visits was a teenager. Barlow eventually become Lovecraft's literary executor after Lovecraft's death. Barlow would go on to commit suicide at the ripe old age of 32 in January of 1951. But moving along.
HP Lovecraft and RH Barlow to the left with Barlow's parents on the right
Now that I've established Puharich's two final mediums from the Lab Nine years, it is time to consider one of the most curious aspects of the Ossining operation: the so-called "Space Kids." This project began in 1975, just as Puharich's involvement with The Nine was allegedly winding down. After the fiery end of this project, Puharich would have nothing to do with The Nine again (at least publicly). But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, let us consider the few details available to us concerning this project.
"... Puharich had assembled a group of around twenty youngsters from seven countries. He called them 'Gellerlings,' or 'Space Kids.' They ranged in age from nine to the late teens. Supposedly, they had the psychic powers of Uri Geller. The idea was to train the kids, educate them on their powers and how to use them. Puharich also initiated trance sessions where he attempted to find out where these powers came from. In an unpublished book he wrote about this psychic summer camp; he prints substantial portions of these interviews, which, if they are to be believed, seem to indicate that the Space Kids indeed hail from unearthly locations. The Kids describe strange cities with science-fiction trappings and claim to be messengers from these distant civilizations. Puharich marshals his evidence that they bear messages to save Earth from nuclear destruction.
"Many of the sessions were rather benign. For instance, Holly Maddux spent a lot of time with a young woman simply doing ESP exercises. Other times, though, the Space Kids were asked to do things that upset them. One who was fourteen that summer says that he began to feel suspicious about the whole experience when his trainers asked him to do remote viewing at specific locations --to leave his body and report what he saw and heard. What disconcerted him was that the locations included politically sensitive areas, like the Kremlin."
Puharich's frequent partner in these experiments was the Philadelphia-based New Age guru Ira Einhorn who, as noted above, had helped Puharich secure his book deal for Uri. The above-mentioned Holly Maddux was Einhorn's girlfriend at the time and assisted in the experiments. In 1977 Maddux broke up with Einhorn and a few weeks later she went missing. In 1979 her rotting body was found in a trunk in Einhorn's Philadelphia-based apartment. Einhorn would go on the run and was convicted in absentia in 1981.
Einhorn was adept at raising money, procuring wealthy donors for Puharich's experiments such as Barbara Bronfman of the wealthy Canadian family. Likely with support from such sources (many of Einhorn and Puharich's New Age associates long insisted on Einhorn's innocence) Einhorn was able to hide out in Europe until 1997, when he was located in France. It was not until 2001 that he was extradited back to the United States, however.
Another participant in the Space Kids program was the British-based American Joyce Petschek, who had apparently married into considerable money.
"... She was, for a period, the companion of Andrija Puharich, and was a participant in the Space Kids experiments --indeed, two of her own teenage children were among the junior Gellers. American-born, she had married into a wealthy family of Jewish industrialists who had fled the Continent before World War II..."
a Joyce Petschek, but it is unknown if this is the same one who befriended Puharich
There is of course a host of baseless speculation online about what nefarious activities may have unfolded at Lab Nine involving these kids. This researcher would like to stress that he has found no evidence of physical or sexual abuse. What's more, such things being conducted at Lab Nine seems rather improbable. While there is certainly evidence that Andrija Puharich was involved in some questionable experiments involving children during the 1950s (which shall be addressed in the next installment), it is unlikely that he would try to recreate such things at Lab Nine. It was far too open and public.
The fact that at least one of Puharich's own donors (and potentially girlfriend for a time) would subject her own teenage children to these experiments further indicates that they were fairly benign. Surely if Puharich wanted to do something truly nefarious, he would be far more low key and not use test subjects that could so easily be traced back to him.
As to whether or not the deep state had any interest in these experiments, this is also difficult to say. The events that would lead to the destruction of Lab Nine, in August of 1978, would seem to indicate that at least someone in the intelligence community wanted Puharich to cease and desist, if Puharich himself is to be believed. Consider:
"... Puharich's three-story frame house in Ossining, New York, the headquarters for the mind-blowing experiments of the Space Kids, had burned down. The one fatality was a German shepherd dog who had been felled by smoke. The police had ruled the case arson.
".... The house on 87 Hawkes Avenue was empty: Puharich was long gone, rumored to be in Mexico. Talking to neighbors, Olver learned of strange doings at the Turkey Farm --people all over the world coming for unspecified, and possibly unnatural, experiments...
"Olver later contacted the arson investigator who had looked into the case for the Insurance Company of North America. The investigator had concluded that a would-be psychic researcher, spurned by Puharich, was the main suspect. This suspect had once left statements on Puharich's answering machine such as, 'I don't know what's happening to me! I'm going crazy!' He had appeared at the Turkey Farm one day and demanded that everyone listen to his personal problems. One of these problems was, as he explained it, harassment from extraterrestrials.
"... the investigator found Puharich's conversation fantastic: 'It is noteworthy to mention,' he wrote, 'that Puharich stated he has observed numerous UFOs and has communicated with extraterrestrial beings.' Though Puharich confirmed the strange behavior of the rejected would-be researcher --the doctor had been in Los Angeles during the fire --he suggested that the fire might have been started by the Central intelligence Agency. This would have been a 'warning' to him because he had been circulating evidence of Soviet experiments in psychic warfare. Puharich spoke of sending reports to President Carter and Prime Minister Trudeau detailing how the Russians were sending ELF waves that were 'softening people's brains.' Obviously, if Puharich had actually torched his home, he would offer a more digestible alibi. 'Despite the baroque tale spun by Dr. Puharich, we found nothing to implicate him or the occupants of his residence in the cause of the fire,' wrote the investigator."
Pretty much everyone dismissed Puharich's CIA claims. Mainstream journalists and investigators would of course give no credence to such claims, but conspiracy researchers are equally dismissive. But there is compelling evidence that Puharich was genuinely scared by the fire. What's more, he would soon find himself in conflict with one of the most powerful Overworld in the world. This would mark Puharich's permanent fall from grace.
By the late 1980s Puharich was all but forgotten and he would ultimately die destitute in 1995. This was an astonishing fall from grace for a man who had once had virtually unfettered access to the highest corridors of power, who routinely rubbed elbows with celebrities, blue bloods and powerful figures in the deep state.
The question then becomes, what exactly happened and what was really going on behind the scenes throughout the years in which Puharich was allegedly doing the bidding of The Nine. In the next installment I shall attempt to answer these questions and more. Stay tuned dear reader.
Welcome to the second installment in my examination of the potential ties between the CIA's mysterious Office of Security and the even more mysterious entities commonly referred to as The Nine. This blog has already considered the Office of Security at length in a prior series that covered the OS's ties the Watergate scandal (noted before here, here and here); Mafia-linked assassination plots to get Castro; the curious "suicide" of Frank Olson; the OS's role in Operation CHAOS (all of which was noted before here); the potential ties the OS had to the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK (noted here); and of course their role in several of the CIA's notorious behavior modification programs, including Projects BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and QKHILLTOP (noted here, here and here). Of special relevance to our current subject here is the extensive investment ARTICHOKE made in parapsychology, including the Rhine experiments at Duke University, and its potential role in investigating the UFO phenomena (all of which was addressed here).
As for The Nine, that is an even more peculiar subject. They were addressed at length in the first installment of this series and it is strongly suggested that the reader familiarize themselves with the saga of The Nine, especially dates, before delving into this post. But in brief: modern rumblings of The Nine appeared in the West Coast occult scene in the years before and after the Second World War (as the greater Christopher Knowles outlined before here), but it was not until December 31, 1952, that The Nine really began to emerge as a force.
It was on that particular New Year's Eve that they were channeled by a brilliant scientist named Andrija Puharich using a medium known only to posterity as Dr.D.G. Vinod. Vinod would channel The Nine again for Puharich on at least one more occasion, in 1953. After this Puharich would have sporadic contact with them until 1971, when he became involved with the famed Israeli stage magician Uri Geller.
Geller would become Puharich's most well known medium and would be involved with the saga of The Nine throughout the early 1970s during roughly the same time he was being tested at Stanford Research Institute (SRI)'s legendary remote viewing program as well as at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Geller would begin to distance himself from Puharich, however, in 1974 after the publication of Uri. This Puharich-penned biography of Geller was supposed to legitimatize psi to mainstream science. Instead it weaved a fantastic tale of alien gods using Puharich and Geller to positively influence the development of world.
Geller soon learned that being a simple stage magician (and an Israeli and American spy) was far more lucrative and took his leave. Puharich continued on with new mediums, Phyllis Schlemmeter and a Daytona Beach cook known only by the pseudonym of Bobby Horne, generally operating out of an estate that he had procured in Ossining, New York. The place was known either as the Turkey Farm or lab Nine.
Beginning in 1975 Puharich began to conduct a series of experiments assessing the psychic abilities of children. These kids were known as the "Space Kids" and they attempted to remote view politically sensitive locations (such as Washington and the Kremlin) as well as other worlds. While these experiments appear to have been fairly benign, they came to a fiery end in 1978. It was at this point that someone burned down Lab Nine. Authorities suspected a disgruntled psychic Puharich had rejected while the doctor himself blamed the CIA. Regardless, the fire has never been solved.
Many were quick to dismiss Puharich's claims of CIA involvement but this was effectively the beginning of the end for Andrija. After moving in rarifield circles that included wealthy backers, celebrities and powerful individuals within the defense and intelligence communities, Puharich now found himself under assault from one of the wealthiest families in the world. He would never recover and die destitute in 1995, largely forgotten by the New Age community he had done so much to build.
Puharich: the Early Years (1918-1947)
But I'm getting ahead of myself. After giving a conventional account of Puharich's involvement with The Nine in the prior installment, I would now like to focus in on his ties to the deep state and the implications this has. So let us begin by considering Puharich 's curious development in the 1940s that laid the foundation for his later misadventures in the deep state during the 1950s.
"Andrija Puharich was born Henry Karel Puharic on February 19, 1918 in Chicago. His parents were Balkan immigrants from what would soon become Yugoslavia, his father a stowaway who had entered the united States in 1912. His parents were divorced in 1933, and the young Puharich spent two years on a farm in Illinois working the orchards and doing general farmhand work. He eventually went back to school, graduating from Farragut High School in Chicago in 1938, when he was already twenty years old...
"Upon graduating from high school, Andrija was awarded a scholarship to the College of liberal Arts at Northwestern university, receiving his B.A. in philosophy in 1942, with a minor in pre-med. During the rest of the war years, Andrija --as a member of the US Army Medical Corps on inactive status and studying medicine on Army funds --also did some post-graduate work in philosophy, thus becoming himself one of those scientist-philosophers that he seemed to attract around him in later years. He also manged to get married, in 1943, to a lady who was working at the Office of War Information (and hence the OSS) and who eventually moved with him to the Kaiser Permanente Research Foundation in Santa Barbara, California..."
(Sinister Forces Book I, Peter Levenda, pg. 236)
How much of an influence Puharich's first wife had on his later career in the deep state is highly debatable. While at Kaiser Puharich carried on an affair with another woman and he was soon separated from his wife (and baby girl). Not long afterwards he resigned his post at Kaiser and dropped in on an alleged "old family friend" then residing in Camden, Maine. This was Zlatko Balokovic, another Yugoslav who had married into the wealthy Borden family. Balokovic appears to have been the one who encouraged Puharich to pursue parapsychology.
"Whatever was discussed during that period in Camden --where Puharich stayed for two to three weeks during a snowstorm --the end result was that Puharich would stay in Camden and build a hospital there where he could engage in the kind of research that interested him. Thus, he would turn down the more prestigious and potentially much more lucrative position at Kaiser Permanente, and stay in the frozen northeast. Balokovic would subsidize him to the tune of two hundred dollars per month, and in no time Puharich had located an unused barn that he would convert into his hospital. The barn itself was interesting, having been used by the US Navy during the War to store material that was never described. Naturally, explosives come to mind or some form of munitions, but this was never revealed."
The fact that this location Puharich's first hospital geared towards parapsychological work was located in a barn that had previously been used by the Navy is most interesting for reasons the reader shall soon learn. But for now, back to our narrative.
Puharich was also traveling to New York frequently during this time where he met with psychiatrist Warren S. McCulloch, one of the founders of cybernetics. McCulloch would also do work for the CIA in later years and during his time visiting McCulloch, Puharich's views of parapsychology would be further refined. The end result was that Puharich founded the Round Table Foundation in 1948 in Camden. As was noted in the first installment, it was the Round Table Foundation that sponsored the initial contact with The Nine. This is essentially the official history of the beginning of Puharich's involvement with parapsychology and The Nine. But your humble researcher believes that he has turned up two aspects of Puharich's early days that have been overlooked and which may be quite relevant to later deep state developments.
The first involves one of Puharich's potential classmates at Northwestern. The great Philip Coppens notes: "Graduating from medical school at Northwestern University in 1947, his interest was immediately captured by the paranormal." In a prior installment in the Office of Security series, the reader was introduced to another scientist who potentially graduated from the same school in the same year:
"... Dr. Stephen Aldrich, a graduate of Amherst and Northwestern Medical School, took over the role that Morse Allen and then Sid Gottlieb had played before him. Aldrich had been the medical director of the Office of Scientific Intelligence back in the days when that office was jockeying with Morse Allen for control of ARTICHOKE, so he was no stranger to the programs. Under his leadership, ORD officials kept probing for ways to control human behavior, and they were doing so with space-age technology that made the days of MKULTRA look like the horse-and-buggy era..."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 224)
According to Dr. Aldrich's obituary, he in fact graduated from "Northwestern Medical School" in 1947, the same year that Puharich also graduated. This researcher has not been able to determine if "Northwestern Medical School" is the same as the medical school at Northwestern University, but it seems all but certain as I have been unable to find any other reference to a "Northwestern Medical School" outside of Dr. Aldrich's biographies. Thus, he and Puharich were almost surely in the same medical program, which they apparently graduated from in the same year. This researcher would suggest then that it is highly likely that Dr. Aldrich and Dr. Puharich knew one another.
Beyond this, Aldrich's involvement in ARTICHOKE is most suggestive as well. The administrative battles mentioned above unfolded between 1951 and 1952, while Puharich was involved in ARTICHOKE by 1953, if not sooner (he was already consulting with the military by then and the CIA had begun to follow his research by 1952, as we shall see). It is unknown to this researcher if Aldrich continued on with the Office of Scientific Intelligence after authority was transferred back to the Office of Security in 1952, or departed then.
Aldrich would go on to take over the newly founded Office of Research and Development (ORD) in 1962. The ORD would begin its own behavior modification experiments during this period and would launch Project OFTEN in 1968. OFTEN is the source of much speculation due to the accusations that, in addition to its own drug experiments, it extensively investigated clairvoyance, astrology, demonology and the like. While this researcher has not found definitive evidence linking OFTEN to such topics, the ORD does appear to have been investigating such arcane topics by the late 1960s, though on what scale is unknown.
What is known is that the ORD was one of the two departments, along with Gottlieb's Technical Services Staff (TSS), that funded the SRI remote viewing research in the early 1970s --the same research that Puharich brought Uri Geller to America to participate in.
Thus, Aldrich attended the same medical program at the same university as Puharich, he graduated in the same year as Puharich, he had known involvement in ARTICHOKE a year or so before Puharich became officially involved in the project, and the office Aldrich headed would later fund the SRI program Puharich's star pupil would participate in.
Ans yet many researchers continue to insist that Ewen Cameron's "psychic driving" experiments that Gottlieb and the TSS sponsored in the late 1950s and early 1960s under MKULTRA were the basis of OFTEN and that much of the CIA's later remote viewing experiments were based upon Cameron's research. This is despite the fact that there is no credible evidence that Cameron ever investigated parapsychology, that Puharich had already engaged ARTICHOKE in parapsychological research back in the 1950s and that the doctor who oversaw OFTEN may well have been a college classmate of Puharich's and even worked with him on ARTICHOKE in the 1950s.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Much more information on OFTEN and the questionable claims surrounding it can be found here. For now, let us get back to Puharich's early years in the deep state.
Penguin, Pelican and Super Soldiers (1948-19??)
Easily one of the most curious claims made by Puharich was his assertion that he was brought into a Navy project known as Penguin in 1948. The great Philip Coppens provides the most in depth details concerning this project:
"According to Puharich himself, it was around this time that he was spotted by the intelligence agencies as a potential asset. Puharich claimed he became involved with a 'Project Penguin', a project whose existence has been denied by its sponsor. Project Penguin allegedly got underway in 1948, a Navy exercise that ran for some years. Its scope: to test individuals set to possess 'psychic powers'. In charge of the project was Rexford Daniels, this according to a statement made by Puharich on the Geraldo Rivera show on October 2, 1987. A Rexford Daniels did indeed exist and owned a company that in the 1970s must have attracted the attention of Puharich as the company did research into an area in which Puharich was a world-renowned expert at the time: how proliferating electromagnetic emissions interfere with one another and may work harmful environmental effects on man.
"However, it is only Puharich who has spoken about Penguin and even though there is no logical reason why he would lie about that episode of his life, it is not substantiated at present by other material. Still, whether Puharich worked for the Navy or not is not that important. It is a fact that he himself started to become the magnet that attracted the world’s most notorious psychics. The only question is whether it was pure selfinterest, or whether the Navy was asking him to meet these people. Still, one of the more notorious of these individuals, Peter Hurkos, was brought to the US by a man with a background in Naval intelligence. So at the very least, the Navy did help Puharich… and we need to wonder why they did so much for what was, in essence, a psychic, for which there was no official interest."
There is indeed no evidence that Pengiun ever existed, which has long baffled Puharich researchers. It is well known and documented that Puharich was doing parapsychological research for the Army by 1953. Puharich himself even briefly discussed this development in The Sacred Mushroom. Why then lie about his research beginning in 1948 under the auspices of the Navy in a project that clearly never existed?
This researcher believes that the project did in fact exist, only that Puharich had slightly altered the name. While there is no record of a Project Penguin, there can be little doubt that the Navy initiated Project Pelican some time around 1948. It came on the heels of the more well-known Project CHATTER, one of the first American programs to formally test hallucinogens on subjects (at least officially). As I noted before in my examination of the Office of Security, there are indications that Pelican served as the basis for BLUEBIRD, which eventually became ARTICHOKE in 1951.
Very little is known about Pelican, but the little information available to the public is highly disturbing. There are indications that the project was still active until at least the mid-1970s and it appears to have been geared towards the creation of "super soldiers." In 1975, a Dr. Thomas Narut of the US Navy let slip to several journalists details about A Clockwork Orange-style indoctrination program Navy assassins were put through in which they were strapped into chairs with their eyes clamped open and shown a series of increasingly disturbing and violent films. This theoretically desensitized them and made them into more effective assassins, individuals who could kill on command without thought or hesitation.
The Navy of course denied Narut's allegations but reputable journalists were able to get confirmation of the program's existence off the record from official sources. At least one of these sources stated that this project was known as Pelican. Much more information on Narut and his revelations can be found here.
This researcher suspects that Narut's work was only one part of Pelican. If it was as wide-reaching as BLUEBIRD (and this is certainly a possibility as BLUEBIRD was potentially based upon Pelican), then the Navy would not have limited itself to simply creating more effective killers. If Puharich was in fact a part of Pelican, then his task may have been to create soldiers that relied upon psi as much conventional weapons to perform their tasks. Puharich himself appears to have embraced the notion psychic super soldiers by he early 1950s:
"In a later 1953 presentation at Edgewood Arsenal that perhaps presaged the subsequent development of remote viewing, Puharich predicted the day 'in the not too distant future when a select cadre of soldiers will possess the ability to telepathically accomplish critical intelligence tasks, and may well hold the mental abilities to observe and counteract enemy movements and tactics.' "
(A Terrible Mistake, HP.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 54-55)
While some may scoff at such an idea, there can be little question that super soldiers were an early objective for ARTICHOKE (the successor to BLUEBIRD). Consider:
".... CIA-funded Project Artichoke experiments were just beginning at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and various mental hospitals in Louisiana. At Tulane University in New Orleans, Dr. Russell R. Monroe was just beginning his research on neurological brain dysfunctions in the minds of criminals and psychopaths. The CIA and the military, which were quickly drawn to the program, were becoming intrigued with the possibility of creating what were then referred to as 'aggressive soldiers' and now are called 'super soldiers.' "
If the CIA and the military were already trying to create more aggression in the minds of their soldiers, would they have stopped there? Or would the possibility of telepathic soldiers have been to much to resist? This researcher suspects that it was irresistible and that the Navy, who launched the first full scale "special interrogation" programs with CHATTER, were first in line here as well. And as we shall see, there is evidence of two tracks for Puharich's research --one for the creation of more conventional assassins and one for these psychic spies.
So Puharich, alleges to have begun his relationship with the deep state as part of Project Penguin in 1948. While there is no evidence of Penguin existing, Project Pelican most assuredly did and was started around this time frame. Also in 1948, Puharich establishes the Round Table Foundation. As noted above, the initial laboratory for these endeavors was in an old barn used by the Navy during WWII to store materials that remain unknown to this day.
For the next four years Puharich is involved in the Round Table Foundation conducting a host of psi-related experiments. He ends up with a host of wealthy donors as well as considerable donations that are still unaccounted for despite being from a poor immigrant family, not graduating from high school until he was 20 and graduating from a university that, while being some what prestigious, was hardly Ivy League. And yet here he was with seemingly unlimited sums of money to pursue a host of arcane subjects.
This researcher suggests that, while Puharich did have some wealthy and generous donors, the real sponsor of this research was the US Navy and possibly the Army. Given the political climate in the country at time (the Cold War was just heating up while Joseph McCarthy was beginning to earn a name for himself), the military likely decided it was best to keep this research off the books until Puharich had produced compelling results.
Official Deep State Interests Begins (1952-1953)
These results began to emerge in the early 1950s, finally allowing an official approach. Consider this series of events: As noted in part one, in 1951 (the year BLUEBIRD became ARTICHOKE) Puharich miraculously received a research grant of almost $100,000 (no small amount of money in 1951) from an unknown source to build a Faraday Cage and test the alleged ESP of one of his star subjects, Eileen Garrett, in. Then by his own account the Army came knocking in 1952 to inquire about the usefulness of the Faraday Cage and the research he had done as part of the Round Table Foundation:
"... The first such conversation had started prior to my entry into the Army. The first such conversation had started in August of 1952 at the Round Table Laboratory in Glen Cove, Maine. A friend of mine, an army colonel, who was Chief of the Research Section of the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare, had dropped in to say hello. He expressed a rather normal sort of curiosity about my investigation of extrasensory perception and was quite interested in a device which we had been developing in order to increase the power of extrasensory perception. He asked me if it really worked. I told him that I didn't know yet and that I wouldn't for a couple of months, until our statistical analysis of the results of the experiment was completed. The colonel then surprised me by saying that if we found any positive results to be sure to let me know, as the Army was definitely not disinterested in this kind of work.
"It was November 1952 before the statistical analysis of the telepathy experiment was completed. The results showed that extrasensory perception was increased in the Faraday Cage device by a healthy margin over those scores obtained under ordinary room conditions. This, to me at least, was an exciting finding, as it represented the culmination of two years of experimentation. My enthusiasm led me to send the results to my colonel friend in the Army. He invited me to give a report on this work at the Pentagon. On November 24, 1952, I made such a report before a meeting of the Research Branch of the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare. As far as I could tell at the time my report evoked little interest in this group. (However, I found out much later, after I was in the Army, that I had been requested for active duty in the Army on November 25, 1952). On December 6, 1952, I received one of those well-known greeting cards from my draft board, took a physical examination and was inducted into the Army on February 26, 1953."
H.P. Albarelli alleges that official military (and CIA) interest in Puharich's work with the Faraday Cage began even earlier that what Puharich reveals in his book:
"... Since February 1952, TSS officials had been intrigued with Puharich's claims about telepathy and clairvoyance, especially in connection with a devise Puharich employed called a Faraday Cage, essentially a copper-lined box that Puharich claimed 'increased the abilities of a psychic by a thousand fold.' Puharich described the cage as a 'shield from electromagnetic radio waves, allowing only extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic waves to get through.' On several occasions Puharich had asserted to CIA scientists: 'There isn't a psychic warfare operation or research laboratory in the world that does not make use if the [Faraday] Cage.' Robert Lashbrook went so far as to hand write a letter to Mulholland expressing, at length, TSS' s views on the value of using the cage. Wrote Lashbrook: 'As far as we can tell, the group does not indicate why the cage should work.... Good luck, John. Don;t taken any wooden nickles.'
"Gottlieb and Lashbrook, both of whom may have been in over their heads on the subject of telepathy and psychics, were acutely aware that U.S. Army officers at the Pentagon and in Army intelligence were especially interested in the Faraday Cage. The two TSS men had no intention of being left in the proverbial dust by the Army on any potentially significant scientific development. The U.S. intelligence community and military use Faraday cages, or Faraday shields as they are sometimes called, extensively. Many CIA and NSA buildings are enclosed within Faraday cages, intended to act as a Tempest shield (eavesdropping protection), and also a mitigation against electromagnetic pulse. Additionally, intelligence agencies employ portable cages to shield passports, credentials, documents, and credit cards from electronic interference."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 256-257)
Gottlieb and the rest of the TSS were likely concerned about being left in the dust by Morse Allen and the ARTICHOKE crew as well. As we shall see, a rather intense rivalry appears to have broken out between the MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE projects over Puharich's research. But more on that in a bit.
TSS's interest appears to have perked up after Puharich's work with the above-mentioned Eileen Garrett in the Faraday Cage. In A Terrible Mistake, Albarelli notes that January of 1952 witnessed some especially intense and rewarding experiments that Puharich conducted on Garrett using the Cage.
On the whole this was an eventful time for Puharich. In December of 1951 he had met Dr. Vinod, his initial medium for The Nine, for the first time. On February 16, 1952, Puharich alleges to have had his first session with Vinod in which the medium reconnected events from both Puharich's past and future. On December 31, 1952, New Year's Eve, Puharich had his first contact with The Nine. This was just a little over a month after Puharich's last acknowledged meeting with Pentagon officials.
Curiously, it was in October of 1952 that the research began that would lead the CIA to the "magic mushroom." As was noted before here, it was at that time ARTICHOKE head Morse Allen was told of piule, a shrub used by Mexican indigenous peoples as a hallucinogen. In early 1953 a "young scientist" arrived in Mexico City on behalf of ARTICHOKE to collect samples of the piule and search for other curiosities. It was here that the CIA allegedly first learned of hallucinogenic mushrooms and their lore. Morse Allen would soon thereafter learn everything he could about them.
This scientist appears to have returned with his samples to Washington in February of 1953. In The Sacred Mushroom, Puharich remarks: "I had given the same lecture in February 1953 at the Pentagon for the Advisory Group on Psychological Warfare and Unconventional Warfare, Department of Defense" (pg. 12). Puharich was thus in Washington during this time, would develop a well known interest in hallucinogenic mushrooms in 1954 (officially) and would end up back in Mexico in 1956 for curious reasons (it was during this trip he got another communication from The Nine, as noted before here). He would also engaged in a dialogue with R. Gordon Wasson by at least 1955 involving Mexican hallucinogenic mushrooms as well.
Thus, this researcher believes the possibility exists that Puharich may have been the researcher tapped by ARTICHOKE for the trip to Mexico that turned up the initial account of hallucinogenic mushrooms that would so fascinate the ARTICHOKE men. When the MKULTRA crew took steps in 1956 (noted before here) to procure samples of the Mexican mushrooms, it was likely to avoid being left in the dust by their counterparts (and rivals) in ARTICHOKE.
Enemies (1952-19??)
We shall return to magic mushrooms in a moment, but for now I would like to turn to the opposition that Puharich faced within the deep state. It probably goes without saying, but not everyone was on board with Puharich's more incredible theories and he would be beset by enemies throughout his official time in the deep state. Some of these rivalries may well have gone on to effect Puharich's career for the rest of his life, as we shall see.
One of the first enemies Puharich made was the legendary chemist Frank Olson, who would commit suicide under highly dubious circumstances in November of 1953. Puharich had already butted heads with Olson even before Puharich was re-drafted back into the Army.
"That Puharich favored and was quite open-minded toward matters esoteric was not disputed by anyone, much less Puharich himself. His claims in the early 1950s ranged from the existence of extraterrestrial entities on earth to man's ability to communicate with higher intelligences that dwarfed human intellectual capacities.
"Frank Olson scoffed at such claims, perhaps more out of fear of the unknown than from objective knowledge to the contrary. One day in mid-1952 he made a less than flattering remark to Puharich who was a guest at the Chemical Corps Biological Division briefing on hallucinogenic plants. Puharich, more than capable of countering any form of derision or skepticism, quickly challenged Olson to a debate. Puharich called Olson a 'frightened schoolboy who had not yet managed to overcome his fear of the dark.' Olson's retorts were far less sophisticated and the argument would likely have degenerated into fistcuffs had not the Chemical Corps' medical director and Puharich's friend, Col. Norman Elton, intervened and put a stop to it.
"Here it is most interesting to note that during Frank Olson's last week in New York City with Richard Lashbrook and Vincent Ruwet, Lashbrook would take the time to hand-deliver a CIA travel check to renowned stage magician John Mulholland. The check was for Mulholland's trip that same week to Chicago to meet with Puharich and a close associate, an officer in the Army's Psychological Warfare Office. The meeting would cover a number of subjects, including hypnotism, in which Puharich was intensely interested. Just six months earlier, he had attended a demonstration of hypnosis and sleight-of-hand practices staged at the Statler Hotel for CIA and selected Federal Narcotics officials. Mulholland, the magician, had also attended the Statler event. Reportedly, Mulholland remained skeptical about hypnosis throughout his life and never incorporated hypnosis into his stage show..."
Whether or not Olson's death had anything to do with Puharich is highly debatable. I did note, however, that there is a strong chance the ARTICHOKE team played a role in Olson's death. The "terrible mistake" that Olson referred to may have been an experiment that ARTICHOKE carried out in which it dosed the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit. with LSD in 1951. Pandemonium ensued and a few deaths occurred.
As we shall see, Puharich was also doing very questionable research during this time (1953, when Olson became increasingly unstable) as well. Whether or not this further contributed to Olson's instability is unknown, but one suspects that Olson would have been troubled by some of Puharich's experiments in this era. Curiously, John G. Fuller, the man who wrote the first account of the Pont-Saint-Esprit incident, The Day of Saint Anthony's Fire, was an associate of Puharich's. But moving along.
There appears to have been no one individual that Puharich clashed more with in the CIA than the above-mentioned stage magician, John Mulholland. Mulholland, a close associate of Sidney Gottlieb who had worked extensively on MKULTRA, despised Puharich for reasons that have never been properly explained. One report Mulholland issued on Puharich was especially critical of both the man's work and character.
"Mulholland showed [George] Gordon a paper he wrote for 'an intelligence agency' and of that paper, Gordon remarked, 'John's work for the CIA was not esoteric or strange. The CIA had been presented with a man who said he could send and receive thoughts or codes long distance by mental telepathy. So, they employed John to tell them if this was the real McCoy. And this man was no more a mind reader than fortunatetellers can tell fortunes. The man was simply using tricks that magicians use to give the illusion of being able to read minds of others. John wrote how the charlatan was trying to take the CIA for a ride.
"Mulholland's report titled A New Type of Experiment in Parapsychology dated November 11, 1953, is extensive regarding Dr. H.K. Puharich's experiments for 'The Round Table Foundation.' Dr. Puharich was also the same doctor who 'verified' the controversial Hungarian-born Uri(ah) Geller as being genuine psychic in the 1970's. Puharich changed his first name shortly after their initial meeting, possibly to obscure his past.
"Mulholland was firm in his recommendation that the government was wasting money on parapsychological experiments without solid controls. In other words, they were throwing money after experiments that could have deceptive results to out and out cheating by doctors and subjects who were shielded by Faraday cages.
"The Faraday cage was used to block out all electrical influences to the 'sensitive' subject being tested. The scientists who were unfamiliar with the ways of deception, assessed irrational findings through a rational locus. This tested the magician's ire. The general test was that a psychic test subject would know when an electrical current passed through the Faraday cage during 90-second intervals. The professional magician Mulholland was particularly virulent when he assessed scientists' finding:
It seems to me that the report was too obviously written in the psychic researcher's four-dollar word double talk. This type of writing purportedly is done by truly 'scientific,' but the results are more as if it were written for 'Science Fiction' or one of the pulps in which the 'scientific wonders' of the year 2000 are disclosed.
(The Magician, Ben Robinson, pgs. 178-179)
Here seems a good place to pause to make a few remarks. For one, this shows continued interest in the work of Puharich's Round Table Foundation by the US intelligence community. In point of fact, Mulholland issued his report a little over five months after Puharich's alleged second contact with The Nine in June of 1953. This was the one that featured ample "Boston Brahmins" present, in addition to one reputed member of the Navy (noted before here). This session was also done under the auspices of the Round Table Foundation and this researcher can't help but wonder whether contact with The Nine was one of the things being evaluated, if not by Mulholland, then someone.
Another point that should be made are the errors made by Ben Robinson, the above-quoted researcher. Puharich did not change his name to Andrija after meeting Geller, but in fact had been using Andrija since at least the 1950s, if not the 40s. What's more, Geller was not born in Hungry (though one of his parents had been born there).
While The Magician is a solid effort, Robinson appears to have embellished Mulholland work with the CIA throughout the work, to say nothing of Mulholland's "expertise" with parapsychology. Here he would have us believe that Mulholland could detect the unsoundness of Puharich's methods by Puharich's use of "four dollar word double talk." Earlier in The Magician Robinson indicated that Mulholland himself, a professional stage magician with no formal scientific training, was tasked with performing ESP experiments for MKULTRA. The great H.P. Albarelli found these claims to be somewhat questionable.
"By mid-1955, Mulholland's work and travel related to the occult or parapsychology intensified considerably. Around the same time, Mulholland's generally concise, professionally written communications with Gottlieb and Lashbrook assumed a more relaxed style, often referring to 'the girls,' 'the women' and 'the women in Maine.' Magician and Mulholland biographer Ben Robinson speculates, without elaboration, that it 'is likely that these people were psychic test subjects who attempted to read maps while blindfolded at a distance.' Robinson adds: 'Possibly he [Mulholland] was referring to the prostitutes employed by the Agency for the development of their new drugs. Both operations existed simultaneously.'
"Robinson is only partially correct. References to 'the girls' began to show up in George White's date book at the same time, and it is certain that White had nothing to do with psychic experiments. White had, however, recruited three young women to assist with the LSD experiments he was conducting in the Bedford-Barrows Street safe house. None of these women were prostitutes, however. Two were aspiring actresses whom White had first encountered through his wife, Albertine, and the third was married to a close friend of the Whites. Interesting to note is that all three women had been dosed with LSD, one unwittingly and the other two knowingly. While it is possible that Mulholland used these women for psychic experiments, it would appear doubtful since White makes no mention of it anywhere. Moreover, sources close to White, and highly knowledgeable about Mulholland's work for the CIA, report that the magician's 'girls' were actually several young women that Mulholland had recruited through his secretary-mistress Dorothy Wolf. He recruited them not only for psychic tests, but also to secretly dose CIA-targeted individuals with LSD and other drugs. The targeted individuals were located in Maine, New Hampshire, Illinois, and Connecticut, as well as other states.
"Some of the clandestine work was directed at Henry (Andrija) Puharich and possibly also some of his associates..."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 255-256)
So, while Mulholland may have had some involvement in testing ESP, how seriously it was taken by the Agency is highly debatable. Would they really have entrusted such assignments to a professional stage magician and would they have valued his opinion over trained scientists and medical doctors This makes the possibility that Mulholland's actual purpose in these shenanigans was to spy of Puharich all the more plausible. This could help explain why Mulholland was dispatched to Chicago to oversee Puharich's work with a Dr. Clark Thorp in December of 1953 on behalf of the Armour Research Foundation. Certainly Mulholland would seem more fitted to spying on this group than evaluating them. Consider:
"The Armour Research Foundation is a research and funding institute attached to the Illinois Institute of Technology that conducts extensive scientific research for the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, including the Army's Chemical Corps. Much of this research is classified and concerns radio frequency interference reduction, as well as other projects. Armour continues to be an active Department of Defense contractor.
"Dt. Clark E. Thorp was the manager and chairman of Armour's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in the 1950s. Thorp is considered the 'Father of Modern Ozone Research,' primarily because of his expertise concerning Ozone toxicity and its effects on humans. Scientists say that it was Dr. Thorp's work that 'led the way to clearing the Ozone as a potential pollutant.'...."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 261)
In Robertson's narrative, Mulholland was practically the only thing standing between the hapless scientists and Puharich's schemes.
"... Mulholland traveled to Chicago on December 3rd and 4th to meet with Mr. Clark Thorpe and Dr. H.K. Puharich of the Armour Research Foundation and the Chairman of the Foundation, Kenneth Miller. Dr. Robert V. Lashbrook and Dr. Henry Bortner, who later took over the Special Operations Division of the CIA, also traveled from Washington to Chicago on American Airlines Daylight Mercury. All four then traveled to the Armor Research Foundation Administration Building at 35 West 33rd (33rd & State) in the Windy City. The CIA has said that they sought operatives in the field that are 'the best actors, politicians and can think on their feet.' This was clearly in evidence during the magician's trip to Chicago when reviewing the policies of the Armour Research Foundation.
"Mulholland's report makes a special note that Clark Thorpe was unknown to the receptionist at the address the team was sent to. Only after much haggling was Thorpe discovered on the premises, whereupon the entire team were taken to another building.
"The magician's assignment was to assess the value of research by Thorpe and company. Mulholland 'respectfully submitted' a very detailed two-page report back to Washington stating that The Literature Survay (sic) on Thought Transference was 'most Pollyanish in (its) make-up.' He was probably accurate in his assessment as he found Dr. Puharich particularly sycophantic.
"Apparently when a certain doctor's name was brought into the conversation, Puharich was quick to bring up a multitude of references concerning that doctor. Ever the watchdog of peculiar behavior on the part of the Armour Research Foundation parapsychologists, Mulholland thought to test Puharich's assertions, and writes in his report:
I was somewhat surprised by the Doctor's comparative youth. It is unusual to find a sincere believer in things psychic who has not passed through life's meridian. Mr. Thorpe took the Doctor and me on a tour through the Foundation's various departments. Our conversation was on what we were shown and was very general. After about an hour, I discovered that within five minutes of the time Mr. Thorpe mentioned a name or scientific discovery, the Doctor would mention the name or scientific data in some other connection. He seemed to be attempting to show familiarity with everyone and everything mentioned. So, I spoke about a Professor and the Doctor seemed to be quite familiar with his work. This interested me as I had just made up the name of the professor and what he had been doing. In my judgment, the doctor is using things psychic as a means to meet and mingle with people he otherwise would have no opportunity to know.
"Mulholland wisely counsels his Washington contacts that such behavior of the parapsychologist's was based on ambition so strong that it would lead to trickery. He wrote, 'I trust that I am wrong, but I am fearful that I am not.'...."
(The Magician, Ben Robinson, pgs. 179-180)
Were the MKULTRA men dependent upon Mulholland for these kinds of brilliant insights, or was there another purpose to dispatching Mulholland on such a mission? H.P. Albarelli believes the latter was likely the case:
"Mulholland biographer Robinson writes that the magician's Armour 'assignment was to assess the value of research by Thorp and company,' but this seems hard to imagine given Mulholland's lack of scientific training in any of Armour's undertakings. Robinson claims that Mulholland 'respectfully submitted' a 'very detailed two-report' to Gottlieb sating that 'The Literature Survay {sic) on Thought Transference [was] mostly Pollyanish in [its] make-up.' (One cannot help but think that Gottlieb and Lashbrook were using, and indulging, Mulholland for something other than scientific expertise --which he clearly lacked --and tapping his real skills for devious purposes. A handwritten, cryptic note from Lashbrook to Gotltieb in 1955 fails to illuminate much of the story: 'Mr. Mulholland again discounts the bulk of what he witnessed, nonetheless every objective was achieved.' Robinson, in his biography, provides no hint whatsoever of the specific research Mulholland was evaluating at Armour so it is very difficult to ascertain what he was really doing in Chicago. It is abundantly clear from Robinson's book that Mulholland detested Puharich, but here it is important to note that the CIA and the Army never wrote Puharich off, or discounted his work, but they did closely monitor his work."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 261)
Further clouding this strange series of events is the possibility that Mulholland had lied in subsequent tellings of what he saw in Chicago. Certainly there appears to be a strong possibility that Mulholland did not think Puharich was a total fraud:
".... It was revealed years later, in fact, that at the 1953 Chicago gathering magician Mulholland had become 'so frightened of something Puharich did' that he abruptly left the meeting, aborted his Chicago stay and immediately flew back to New York."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 55)
Unfortunately, no information is available as to what Puharich may have done that frightened Mulholland so. But this would strongly indicate that Puharich was hardly the quack Mulholland attempts to depict him as. What's more, Mulholland would eventually test one of Puharich's star subjects, the above-mentioned Eileen Garrett, and declared her the real deal. Thus, it would seem that Mulholland may have felt there was more merit to Puharich's work than what he acknowledged publicly.
Deep State Intrigues: Enter the Rockefellers
This situation is further complicated by the fact that Puharich's bosses in ARTICHOKE, Brigadier General Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen, appear to have despised Mulholland every bit as much as Mulholland detested Puharich. In point of fact, Gaynor invested over a year into keeping Mulholland out of the CIA.
"Gottlieb did not mention that the CIA's Security Office, in the person of Paul Gaynor, and perhaps Morse Allen, had raised a number of concerns about Mulholland in the process of clearing the magician for Agency contractual work. Chief among Gaynor's concerns were Mulholland's 'sexual proclivities' and his long-standing relationship with his personal assistant Dorothy Wolf... SRS chief Gaynor was expert in identifying and exploiting certain idiosyncrasies of targeted individuals. Mulholland had employed Ms. Wolf about seven years before e married Pauline Nell Pierce, yet he never ended his romantic entanglement with Wolf. Indeed, Mulholland's love for Wolf was so sincere and steadfast that he informed his wife-to-be that his relationship with Ms. Wolf would not end and that Pauline would have to accept it if they were to be married. According to Mulholland biographer Ben Robinson, Pauline Mulholland once remarked, 'Johnny was so much a man, one woman's love would not satisfy him.'
"Despite Gaynor's concerns, Mulholland was finally approved for work with the Agency. Robert Lashbrook hand delivered Mulholland's security oath to him in New York for his signature on November 14, 1953. This was almost two years after Professor S.L. Quimby had first suggested Mulholland for hire in early 1952. Gotltieb had first met Mulholland in mid-November 1952, and then in early February 1953, briefed him on the specifics of what TSS wanted the magician to do for the CIA. Understandably, Gottlieb had grown impatient with the security clearance process. In fact, Gottleib had gone so far as to speak personally to Dulles about Mulholland. Also significant is the fact that Mulholland was extremely well connected with circles of power:the Rockefeller family, including Nelson, had been boosters of Mulholland; Mulholland's wife Pauline was related to Barbara Bush, George H.W. Bush's wife; and Pauline was a distant cousin of former U.S. President Franklin Pirece. Pauline herself came from a very wealthy family, and her father, Arthur J. Pierce, was a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 253)
Gaynor's objections to Mulholland's extramarital adventures are especially absurd when one considers Puharich's involvement in ARTICHOKE. Puharich went through multiple wives and mistresses in his day, rarely being satisfied with one woman at a time. Surely he was no more indiscreet than Mulholland, whose affairs were openly acknowledged to his wife. This is surely not the reason why Gaynor sought to keep Mulholland from doing contract work for Gottlieb as part of MKULTRA.
The likely reason comes from Mulholland's close relationship with the Rockefeller family, especially Nelson. Increasing evidence has come out in recent years indicating that the Rockefeller family was one of the primary funding conduits for MKULTRA and related programs.
"... As early as December 1954 and extending through December 1955, Rockefeller had served as President Eisenhower's representative on the National Security Council's Operation Coordinating (OCB), which was very much involved with CIA clandestine operations. Gerald Colby and Charlotte Dennet write that Rockefeller acted as 'Eisenhower's "circuit breaker," informing the president of CIA covert operations while protecting the president's "plausible deniability" before Congress, since some operations ran afoul of American or international law.'...
"Moreover, Rockefeller's knowledge and approval of drug experiments and brainwashing research went far beyond his OCB experience. Still largely overlooked in the public record is the fact that the U.S Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) undertook drug experiments sponsored by the CIA when Rockefeller was department undersecretary in 1953. Many of these experiments involved CIA funding and required Rockefeller's specific approval. Also, beginning in the early 1950s, the Rockefeller Foundation had been funding CIA-front groups like the Fund for Human Ecology, which was directly involved in CIA-sponsored behavior 'modification' experiments. Beginning even earlier, in 1943, the Foundation had been funding a psychiatric research facility, the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, Canada, which soon became the site of some of the CIA's most notorious and horrific psychological experiments, conducted by Rockefeller-funded Ewen Cmeron."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 464-465)
As noted before here, there was a power struggle earlier for control of ARTICHOKE between the Office of Security (OS) and the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI). For a brief period of time, between late 1951 till September 1952, the OSI was in control of the project before it reverted back to the OS, where it remained for at least another decade. At the time the OSI was headed by H. Marshall Chadwell who, between WWII and his time joining the CIA in the early 1950s, had worked for the Rockefeller Foundation.
It would seem that the OS had rebuffed one effort by the Rockefllers to take a direct hand in these projects, but with the creation of MKULTRA they were not so lucky. Mulholland was brought onto MKULTRA shortly after the project was officially launched (Gottlieb had already been working on it since 1952) in 1953 (Mulholland had done some work prior to his November clearance coming through, however), and was used regularly on a host of operations that he did not seem especially qualified for over the course of the next several years. This researcher suspects that part of Mulholland's function on MKULTRA was to keep track of how his benefactor's money was being spent.
Curiously, a little over a year after Mulholland was brought onto MKULTRA, some of the scientific projects being overseen by ARTICHOKE were transferred to MKULTRA:
"... Early in 1955, Sid Gottlieb and his Ph.D. crew from TSS took over most of the ARTICHOKE functions, including the Society [for the Investigation of Human Ecology], from Morse Allen and the Pinkerton types in the Office of Security. The MKULTRA men moved quickly to turn the Society into an entity that looked and acted like a legitimate foundation. First they smoothed over the ragged covert edges. Out came the bugs and the safes so dear to Morse Allen and company. The new crew even made some effort (largely unsuccessful) to attract non-CIA funds..."
(The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate", John Marks, pg. 162)
Marks isn't entirely accurate here. ARTICHOKE in fact continued until 1963 and would be involved in a host of strange activities, but some of the research functions were passed on to the more conservative Gottlieb, who was far less inclined to mysticism than Morse Allen. Further, the MKULTRA men did in fact appear to have attracted private funding to the Society, for as noted above, the Rockefellers were sponsoring these activities at this point. And John Mulholland appears to have been right in the thick of it with the Ph.D.'s of MKULTRA.
It is interesting to note that Puharich left the Army at around the same time and continued his research in the private sector. While Puharich appears to have still had some intelligence connections at this point, the same to have been primarily from the military. Further, Gottlieb would allege that MKULTRA had stopped following Puharich's work (if they were ever close to it) around his time as well. But more on that later.
Was Puharich forced out by Mulholland with backing from the Rockefellers? As outlandish as that sounds, this would not be the only time Puharich would run afoul of the Rockefllers for there can be little doubt that he began to draw their direct ire in the early 1980s. The great Christopher Knowles notes:
(Puharich) was granted a U.S. patent for a 'Method and Apparatus for Splitting Water Molecules.' This method would reportedly split water molecules into Hydrogen and Oxygen with a net energy gain, and is essentially a perpetual energy device that many believe violates the first law of thermodynamics.
Puharich being a friend of R. J. Reynolds found support and protective acceptance, until he fell into disfavor with David Rockefeller, ultimately necessitating him to seek protection from another friend, the [then] Mexican President. Puharich capitulated, acquiescing to Mr. Rockefeller’s demands, promising not to engage in further ‘water as fuel’ research, thereby, stopping all attempts at his sanctioned assassination by the CIA.
...Puharich was well connected, and respected within the most elite of global society. He was known academically, and internationally among the power elite. He therefore was a significant threat to those special interests involving a direct influence regarding energy sources as fuel derivatives. And his use of ‘water as fuel’ was a direct threat to one of the most powerful families on planet Earth. Puharich had to personally assure the Rockefeller family, that he would no longer engage in further research or usage of ‘water as fuel’ to power combustion engines...
"Were Puharich's problems with the Rockefellers only a function of his work with free energy? Or was his other project-- The Nine-- causing the Rockefellers grief on the other side of the country?"
As was noted in the prior installment, Puharich had alleged that the CIA was behind the destruction of his Ossining estate that housed Lab Nine in 1978. He had already begun to pursue "free energy" at this point and was a very close associate of Lt. Col. Thomas Bearden. Bearden was one of the earlier proponents of zero point energy.
But what of Puharich's ousting from the Army in 1955? Is it possible that his feud with Mulholland and his later confrontation with the Rockefellers in the early 1980s also involved The Nine as well as "free energy"? To this researcher's mind, this possibility can not totally be discounted.
Puharich seems to have largely abandoned The Nine, at least publicly, after 1956 and did not acknowledge them again until 1971, when he became involved with Uri Geller. At the time the Rockefller faction in the Nixon White House was under siege. A year later, longtime OS veteran James McCord would participate in the Watergate break-in that seems to have been partly inspired by the deep state's contempt of Rockefeller hatchet man Henry Kissinger (as noted before here).
This is a topic that shall be explored more in a moment. But for now, it is worth noting that Puharich was not the only one who fell afoul of a professional stage magician with Establishment ties. Beginning in 1973, Puharich's once-protege Uri Geller would draw the ire of the Amazing Randi. James Randi, one of the founders of the infamous CSICOP, would go on to spend decades trying to debunk Geller. Randi himself had ample Establishment ties, including the Rockefellers. The great ISGP notes:
"Received a five-year $272,000 grant of the CIA- and State Department-linked MacArthur Foundation for the years 1986-1991. Chairs in this period were Thorton Bradshaw and Elizabeth McCormack, both with very close ties to the Rockefeller family. As for McCormack, she's been a director since 1970, chair in the 1986-1995 period, and at the same time an advisor to Rockefeller Family & Associates and Rockefeller family in general. Her protege, Jonathan Fanton, was chair of the MacArthur Foundation in the 1999-2009 period..."
Whether or not Randi had links to the Rockefellers prior till then is unknown, but certainly it is curious that Randi began to attack Geller in earnest shortly before the claims concerning The Nine emerged, and in their aftermath published a tract attacking the Israeli magician known as "The Magic of Uri Geller" in 1975. This appears to have been expanded into a full fledged book by 1982 known as The Truth About Uri Geller.
I would like to note one other possible connection the Rockefeller faction had to The Nine before moving along. In the groundbreaking "The Secret Star Trek", Chris Knowles noted that Jenny O'Connor, another prominent channeler of The Nine, was deeply involved with Esalen Institute from the late 1970s up until 1983. Specifically, she was close to Dick Price, one of the founders of Esalen.
While Esalen received ample support from the Rockefeller family, it was not Price, but his partner Michael Murphy, who was close to the Rockefeller interests. O'Connor appears to have been a source of conflict between Esalen's two co-founders. Knowles remarks:
"Price, like partner Michael Murphy, came from a wealthy family (you don't get access to Rockefellers if you're poor). But he experienced a major psychotic break when he was young and was institutionalized. In many ways his spiritual seeking was a function of seeking healing. Although its hard to imagine now, Esalen once attracted the cream of the crop of psychiatry. Ironically, it would Price's father that would pull him out of a second psychotic episode in the 1960s.
"Murphy was cut from a different cloth. He was the one who was close to Laurance Rockefeller and he spent most of his time away from Big Sur. He opened up a branch office and a sports center in San Francisco and left the running of Esalen Prime to Price, who was growing erratic in the 1970s...
"But it was very clear that there was a definite line of demarcation between Price's Esalen and Murphy's Esalen and that the men had followed their interests in very opposite directions. At the same time Price and Jenny (and if you insist, The Nine) were remaking the workshop/spa end of the spectrum in their image, Murphy had begun his work with Soviet scientists and so on and ne'er the 'twain would meet. The two founders were like an old married couple who agreed to tolerate each other. As Price said of Murphy, "He puts up with my ETI and I put up with his KGB."*
"Mother Jones did a negative piece in December 1979 ('Esalen Slides Off the Cliff') that focused on Jenny and The Nine. The writer, though a leftist, wasn't necessarily opposed to psychic phenomena, he just thought Jenny was mediocre. But she stayed around from early 1979 to at least the beginning of 1983 (according to Upstart Spring) and I can't find any mention of her leaving, other than Marion Goldman writing of Murphy marshaling his forces to get rid of her and The Nine in the early 80s and reassert control over Price (which is a whole other story).
"As much as people within Esalen want to treat Jenny and the Nine as a footnote, it wasn't. It covered a full fifth of Esalen's lifespan by 1983. Seeing as how Price went through enthusiasms like Obama goes through your email, it's even more remarkable how long he and Jenny kept things together...
"By the mid 1980s, Murphy had reasserted control over Esalen, bringing in a corporate type named Steve Donovan (who was involved in the building of Starbucks and Peet's Coffee) to act as a third co-president. This move also smells faintly of Rockefeller, but it could be all these people were moving in the same elite Bay Area circles (Donovan was already an Esalen trustee)...
"Soon after Donovan was appointed to the Esalen leadership role, Price hiked out to the source of the springs for an routine inspection. Apparently there had been a heavy rain and by some bizarre fluke a boulder came loose and fell down a mountainside. It exploded on impact and Price was struck in the forehead by a stray chunk and killed instantly. He was found sitting in the water basin that feeds the Esalen water supply, a huge gash in his forehead."
Knowles presents even more compelling details of the Rockefeller aligned Murphy faction here. With all of this in mind, this researcher does not believe the notion that Puharich's interest in The Nine may have played a role in his being booted out of the military and a transfer of functions from ARTICHOKE to MKULTRA can be dismissed. While there were certainly other issues at play, Puharich's research may well have presented a real affront to the Rockefellers and their agent, John Mulholland. Certainly it would be interesting to know what Puharich did during the 1953 Chicago meeting that allegedly scared Mulholland so.
Puharich's Work on ARTICHOKE (1953-1955)
And with that out of the way and the context established, let us now turn to Puharich's experiments. Puharich's work on ARTICHOKE has been a closely guarded secret for well over sixty years now and even in 2016, we only have vague details available to us concerning this work. In this section I shall try to piece together the extent of his work and its influence on later operations.
The bulk of what is available to us concerns Puharich's work with hallucinogenic mushrooms. It seems clear now that Puharich was the first individual to do formal experiments with psychedelic mushrooms on behalf of the CIA and Pentagon. Consider:
"Recently uncovered document fragments from the mostly destroyed MKULTRA collection reveal that Puharich had far more contact and interaction with the CIA and Army concerning drug experimentation than he indicates in any of his books. Indeed, it appears that Puharich participated in a number of secret experiments with amanita muscaria, the species of psychoactive mushrooms mentioned in his book. The experiments took place at prisons for men in New Jersey and Maryland, as well as at the Spring Grove Mental Hospital in Catonsville, Maryland. Also involved in these experiments was Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi."
While MKULTRA appears to have had some involvement in these experiments, it was almost surely ARTICHOKE that was directing them, as we shall see. For now, the timing of these experiments merits comment. Albarelli does not provide at date, but they surely unfolded between 1953-1955, during Puharich's time in the Army. At a minimum, these experiments had likely already wrapped up a few months prior to the MKULTRA team acquiring their own psychedelic mushrooms from Gordon Wasson in 1956. Puharich himself appears to have already been in contact with Wasson by 1955, however. Indeed, Puharich, along with ARTICHOKE head Morse Allen, appear to have been the men who spurred the CIA's early interest in psychedelic mushrooms.
Allen's role was already noted before here. It is interesting to note that Allen would meet representatives from the mushroom industry in Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania on June 24, 1953, to discuss the possibility of growing psychedelic mushrooms there. It is unknown if anything ever came out of this meeting, though certainly this may explain how Puharich was able to procure ample samples of these rare mushrooms for his experiments. Certainly the CIA would have had to have their own supply if they were able to conduct tests on prison inmates and mental patients.
Curiously, Puharich had his second formal contact with The Nine of June 27, 1953, a mere three days after Allen's meeting. This was the one featuring ample Boston Brahmins. As I noted earlier, there is also a possibility that Puharich was the young scientist Allen dispatched to Mexico to acquire samples of piule and came back with tales of God's flesh. This could have potentially happened in early 1953, shortly after Puharich's initial session with The Nine on New Year's Eve. This scientist apparently returned to Washington at some point in February. Puharich of course had to report to duty for the Army on February 26. The time frame is thus very suggestive.
Even more compelling is the possibility that psychic Harry Stone, whom Puharich alleges was the individual who put him on the trail of the psychedelic mushroom, and the experiments Puharich conducted with him using the fly-argaric were part of Puharich's CIA mushroom experiments:
"... Puharich ran a series of highly successful experiments with Stone using Amanita muscaria and other drugs that especially captured the interest of the CIA. These experiments eventually blossomed into its controversial remote viewing programs involving a wide array of targets, including convicted murderer and egomaniac Ira Einhorn. Einhorn, who had once been close friends with Puharich and had written the introduction to the 1962 edition of his book, Beyond Telepathy, claimed in the 1990s, while on the lam for murder in Europe, that Puharich's CIA-sponsored drug research in 1953 and 1954 was linked to Frank Olson's death."
(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pg. 263)
The Sacred Mushroom explored Puharich's work with Stone in depth
Ira Einhorn is of course hardly a reliable source, but there is documentation that Puharich clashed with Olson, as noted above. And as we shall see in a moment, there were aspects of Puharich's research they may have deeply troubled Olson.
The time frame Albarelli lists above --1953-1954 --is most interesting. Puharich alleged to have not even known about psychedelic mushrooms until the summer of 1954 when the experiments with Harry Stone began. R. Gordon Wasson apparently did not witness the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in Mexico until the summer of 1953. It is of course possible that Puharich was using other psychedelics instead of mushrooms in 1953. Certainly the CIA was still extensively testing LSD during this time frame. But it would clearly seem that Puharich was doing tests on psychedelic mushrooms for the CIA by 1954, nearly two years before the Agency (or at least MKULTRA) officially received their first samples.
The possibility that Stone was a part of Puharich's CIA experiments is quite probable --after all, they took place while Puharich was in the Army apparently testing drugs to determine there effects of psi. In this context, the Stone experiments seem like nothing more than an extension of Puharich's work for the deep state during this time.
Even more intriguing, however, is the possibility that Stone's experiences were linked to The Nine. As noted in the prior installment, Puharich never seems to have publicly linked Stone's visions to The Nine, but it seems difficult to believe that he never made the connection, given how much The Nine are associated with Ancient Egypt in Uri.
Puharich never actually linked The Nine to the Great Ennead publicly, as far as this researcher is aware, but Harry Stone dropped references to them while allegedly channeling the Pharoh Rahotap with the aid of magic mushrooms
If Puharich did make the connection to The Nine during the Stone experiments, would he have shared them with his bosses in ARTICHOKE? Given Morse Allen's interest in subjects such as hypnosis, magic mushrooms and parapsychology (topics that were close to Puharich's heart as well), one suspects Puharich would have found a sympathetic ear in Allen. And given the dating of certain events Allen and Puharich were involved in during this time frame, it may well have been Puharich had already informed Allen of The Nine some time before the Stone experiments. Perhaps that was partly there purpose --to contact a nonhuman intelligence.
Albarelli's claim that the later remote viewing experiments at SRI were based upon Puharich's research during the 1950s are compelling as well. As was noted before here, the Office of Security was urged to start formally investigating parapsychology in 1952, the same year Puharich was first officially approached by the Army, a close partner in ARTICHOKE with the OS (as noted before here). This researcher suspects that Puharich's work was part of the first large scale effort the CIA and military had made to investigate parapsychology scientifically.
Then, in the 1960s, the Office of Research and Development (ORD) became the lead section of the CIA pursuing this arcane research. As noted above, the doctor who headed the ORD at the time, Stephen Aldrich, almost surely knew Puharich from either their time in Northwestern University Medical School or during Aldrich's work on ARTICHOKE in the early 1950s (as noted above, Puharich was already consulting with the military in 1952, when Aldrich appears to have been involved with ARTICHOKE).
In addition to drugs, the ORD also begins to test astrologers, clairvoyants, and demonology, topics that long fascinated Puharich and which he had conducted experiments with for years. In 1967 or 1968, the ORD along with the Army initiate Project OFTEN, which allegedly pursues many of these esoteric subjects. The ORD goes on to become one of the two CIA sections, along with Gottlieb's TSS, that fund the SRI experiments (noted before here). And then, in 1971, Puharich is dispatched to Israel to vet Uri Geller. By 1973 Puharich has Geller at SRI (and later Livemore Laboratory) for tests.
This is very compelling chain of events, one of which Gottleib and the TSS did not play a prominent role in, as is commonly claimed. As with many things related to these experiments, MKULTRA's role appears to have been greatly embellished and largely based upon research already done by ARTICHOKE. And it would seem that the most disturbing aspects of Puharich's research were totally under the control of ARTICHOKE:
".... another still very mysterious CIA project involving young people and women. This project, commencing in early 1953 and running until about 1963, involved the training of small cadres of women for work as Agency and military couriers, as well as young girls and teenagers for mostly unknown objectives apparently related to the CIA's interest in hypnosis, slight-of-hand, and telekinesis. Some of the best evidence of this project comes from the activities of CIA officer Robert Vern Lashbrook in November 1953, when he was in New York City with Dr. Frank Olson (for Olson's alleged psychiatric sessions with Dr. Harold Abramson), and shortly thereafter in December 1953 and January 1954. We are fortunate to have this evidence from the assiduous research of writer and magician Ben Robinson, who reveals it in his book, The Magician: John Mulholland's Secret Life, the activities of Lashrook concerning Dr. Andrija Puharich's research and projects.
"Additionally, former CIA scientist John Gavin, who worked in the CIA's Technical Services Division under Gottlieb, said in 1979, 'There was a project around the mid-1950s that involved children, covet operation and parapsychology of sorts. I didn't work on it, but I knew about it.' Gavin, who resigned his CIA post in the late 1950s, also stated, 'There was also one project I was aware of that trained women as couriers and covert operators. It made use of LSD and what was called 'narco-hypnosis,' a term devised by the Agency's Medical Office... it was operated apart from Technical Services under the ARTICHOKE Project and involved the development of special interrogation techniques.' A May 19, 1952 CIA document sent from the Agency's Medical Staff chief to the Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence reads in part:
Reference is made to the attached draft, subject 'Special Interrogation.' At the meeting of 14 May 1952 the Medical Office outlined its position regarding the Artichoke Project and requested that the term 'Narco-hypnosis' be used to those responsibilities within the interim program that are basically medical... It was also agreed at the meeting of 14 May 1952 that field activities would be under the command of the chief of field station concerned, provided that instances of this agreement would be referred back to headquarters for final decision.
"In late 1998, when this author interviewed Dr. Sidney Gottlieb... the former Technical Services Division chief said, 'Yes, I have some trace memories of the project. I think it began before MK/ULTRA was approved... with an unrelated program Morse Allen initiated around [Dr. Andrija] Puharich's work. It was never a formally sanctioned TSD program, but we were interested and [Dr. Henry] Bortner stayed with it for a while... It was one of those projects that would be greatly misunderstood today.' "
(A Secret Order, H.P. Albarelli, Jr., pgs. 42-43)
This is not the only reference I've found to this bizarre "courier" program. As was noted before here, former military intelligence and CIA officer Richard Case Nagell once revealed to journalist Dick Russell that he had regularly undergone hypnosis while serving as a courier for the CIA in the early 1960s. He further alleged that this was a fairly common practice then and that it was conducted by the Office of Security, who apparently had an entire section dedicated to hypnotism by this point.
An example of one of these couriers may have been Heidi Rikan, the madam who oversaw the Columbia Plaza call girl operation that played such a key role in the second Watergate break-in, which was addressed at length before here. Heidi came from an abusive childhood and joined the Army in 1957. She dropped out a little over a year later and by 1960 she was stripping in Washington D.C. Not long afterwards she became mixed up with the Syndicate and by the early 1960s was working as a courier for them. As was noted before here, the ARTICHOKE team had set up a D.C. "safe house" in the early 1950s that used Mafia call girls at times. What's more, some of the noted couriers in the early ARTICHOKE experiments were Agency "secretaries" that were hypnotized and encouraged to pick up strangers in the D.C. area for casual sex, as noted before here.
Heidi appears to have been involved in another such "safe house" operation in the early 1970s that primarily serviced politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike. Her operation was being filmed through two way mirrors by a private detective, Lou Russell, who at the time was working for James McCord in his security firm. McCord, one of the Watergate "Plumbers" was a long time veteran of the Office of Security. By the mid-1950s he had been detached to the Security Research Staff (SRS), the OS section that oversaw ARTICHOKE. McCord was very close to the SRS chief who had overseen ARTICHOKE, Brigadier General Paul Gaynor, as well as ARTICHOKE director Morse Allen (noted before here and here), whom McCord had known since the late 1940s when Allen was still with the State Department and McCord the FBI. McCord thus would have almost surely been aware of the ARTICHOKE project.
As was noted before here, McCord was involved in an operation targeting the Fair Play For Cuba Committee (FPCC) in 1963 that also involved the notorious David Atlee Phillips, whom many JFK researchers believe was Oswald's handler. McCord, Phillips, the above-mentioned Richard Case Nagel and Oswald all appear to have been lurking in New Orleans during this time.
David Atlee Phillips was also close to Gordon McLendon, a famous radio personality and former Office of Naval Intelligence officer. McLendon appears to have befriended Heidi Rikan at some point during her time in Dallas in the mid-1960s while working for the Syndicate. A little over half a decade later she appears again in D.C. seemingly working for McCord. More information on Heidi's possible role as a CIA courier can be found here.
It is most interesting that Puharich's research appears to have been what inspired this "hypno-courier" program that the OS was running for nearly ten years, up till 1963 (and likely beyond as one of the successor projects based upon ARTICHOKE when it was shuttered officially in 1963). Here it is interesting to note that another CIA hypnotist involved in this courier program, the infamous George Estabrooks (noted before here), also had a keen interest in parapsychology. He was a long time believer in telepathy and had helped found the Boston Society for Psychical Research back in the 1920s (noted here). There are some indications that another hypnotist linked to this courier program, the famed psychiatrist Milton Erickson, may have also had an interest in psi, though this researcher has been unable to confirm this. It is interesting to note, however, that Erickson is widely credited with heavily influencing the development of neuro-linguistic programming. But moving along
A Special School? (1953-1956)
And of course the couriers appear to have been only one component of this project. The other involved "young girls and teenagers for mostly unknown objectives apparently related to the CIA's interest in hypnosis, slight-of-hand, and telekinesis." This of course sounds somewhat like Puharich's later work with the "Space Kids" program that he ran out of his Ossining estate ("Lab Nine") from 1975-1978 (noted in the prior installment). This project also involved testing the psi abilities of kids. This researcher suspects that his early work for ARTICHOKE was somewhat more intense and likely involved administering psychedelics to the kids to enhance their psi abilities. I have no proof of this, but it clearly seems that Puharich was involved in studying the effects of hallucinogens on psi during his ARTICHOKE years, if the Harry Stone experiments are any indication.
And it does seem that this was very much an ARTICHOKE project, as Gottlieb's comments above indicate. Harry Bortner, whom Gottlieb mentioned, was one of the scientist dispatched with John Mulholland to review Puharich's work with the Armour Research Foundation. As noted above, there are indications that part of John Mulholland's purpose in tagging along on this assignment was to spy on Puharich's research, perhaps via planting a bug. The fact that Gottlieb himself acknowledged that Puharich worked for Morse Allen and that he appears to have attempted to spy on Puharich's research should be ample proof that Puharich's research was not being directed by Gottleib, TSS and MKULTRA.
I have been unable to find any additional details about Puharich's work, but the following account of a "special school program" in the mid-1950s could potentially be related. Physicist Jack Sarfatti, a later friend of Puharich's, would allege that he was recruited into such a program during the early 1950s, one that was keenly interested in the psi abilities of children:
"Nuclear physicist Jack Sarfatti (intimate of Saul Paul Sirag, Andrija Puharich, Uri Geller, Ira Einhorn, Philip K. Dick, Carlos Castaneda, Barbara Honegger, and many others) has written about a... experience he had as a primary school student around the same time, in 1952, an experience in which he places a lot of stock and which was obviously a seminal event in his life. He had been identified as boy with a genius IQ, and preparations would soon be made to send him to Cornell University on a full scholarship at the age of 17. In the meantime, however, he received a strange phone call at his home in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
"According to Sarfatti's own account in The Destiny Matrix (1995), and also available on the Internet,
The telephone rings. I pick it up. I hear curious clanking mechanical sounds like relays clicking. A distant cold metallic voice speaking numbers gets louder.
'Who are you?' I ask.
'I am a conscious computer on board a spacecraft... We have identified you as one of four hundred young bright receptive minds... You must give us your decision now. If you say yes, you will begin to link up with the others in twenty years.'
"After a few seconds, young Sarfatti agrees, and the voice replies, 'Good, go to your firescape [sic]. We will send a ship to pick you up in ten minutes.'
"Nothing happened.
"Sarfatti then goes on to explain how he later became a member of a group of gifted children, an after-school coterie led by one Walter Breen (1928-1993), 'a graduate student at Columbia and well known Numismatist associated with psychologist William Shelden.' Walter Breen is a fascinating person in his own right. His Complete Encyclopedia of US and Colonial Coins is the definitive volume on this subject, and retails today for $135. But he was also very familiar to the science fiction circles of the 1960s, and he was a co-founder of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). He also wrote, under the pseudonym, J.Z. Eglinton, Greek Love, a text which has been referenced by the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) as supportive of their philosophy concerning sexual relationships between men and boys. Breen had been arrested before for child molestation, and would be again at the end of his life.
"But the gifted children group to which Sarfatti belonged was somehow linked with the Sandia Corporation, now part of Lockheed Martin, a charter member of the Defense-Energy establishment. In an email posted on a Web site... and dated July 16, 2001, Sarfatti writes, 'Breen was talking about extra dimensions, telepathy, remote viewing, UFOs, mutant humans, contact with aliens... Sandia was trying to develop us as super-kids to have paranormal powers and to deal with extra-dimensional intelligence.' Sandia is still involved with gifted children to this day, in cooperation with a 'super kids' program that selects very bright students to work with its supercomputer.
"As for Walter Breen, he eventually married Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-1999), the science-fiction author of The Mists of Avalon (and author of much lesbian fiction besides, who was very active in gay counseling as well as a contributor to The Mattachine Review) who would bear two children (in addition to a child by her first marriage) while they were married and before their separation in 1979. Even more dascinating is the fact that, in 1980, both Marion Zimmer Bradley and Walter Breen would be ordained as priests in the Eastern Orthodox Church by Bishop Michael Itkin, amking their line of apostolic succession (via Bishop, and now 'Saint,' Carl Stanley) the same as David Ferrie's!..."
(Snisiter Forces Book III, Peter Levenda, pgs. 257-258)
Levenda goes on to note that Sarfatti would describe this school program as the "McDermott-Sheldon-Breen 'Columbia-Sandia eugenics' connection of 1953-1956" (pg. 260). In other words then, Sarfatti got his bizarre phone call in 1952, and then ended up in this special school program from 1953-1956 when he would have been around 13.
Sarfatti's description of the mechanical voices on the phone is most interesting. Throughout Uri, Puharich makes repeated references to finding the same type of mechanical voices on his tape recorder, allegedly from The Nine. But Sarfatti claims to have received this call in 1952. As Puharich did not have his first session with The Nine until December 1952 on New Year's Eve, then Sarfatti's call surely came before Puharich's first contact.
It's difficult to say what this may mean. From what this researcher can tell, Puharich does not appear to have associated these mechanical voices to The Nine until the early 1970s, by which time he knew Sarfatti. Certainly Puharich could have adopted this element into the saga of The Nine if it was in fact a hoax. On the other hand, the legendary psychonaught Terence McKenna had written at great length about "Machine Elves" and mechanical voices during experiences with DMT and other hallucinogens. Nor is he the only one.
While Sarfatti could have theoretically been drugged, he has given no indication of this and this association of mechanical voices with beings seen during drug-induced hallucinations does not appear to have emerged before the 1970s. And it would seem to stretch plausibility that this association was made just to "confirm" Sarfatti's experience in 1952. Further, strange mechanical sounds have been reported in conjunction with alleged nonhuman beings not involving drugs. John Keel reported hearing mechanical sounds on the telephone while investigating the Mothman, for instance. All in all then, this phenomena does not seem to be something that can be explained away be intelligence shenanigans.
Curiously, the voice told Sarfatti that if he said "yes" he would "link up with the others in twenty years." Twenty years from then would have been 1972, just as the SRI remote viewing experiments were starting and the West Coast in general was becoming a mecca for fringe scientists. Sarfatti was among the vanguard of such scientists drawn there.
As was noted above, Puharich was already lecturing the Pentagon about telepathic soldiers in 1952 and appears to have been testing teenagers by 1953 as part of his work on psi for ARTICHOKE. Thus, the possibility exists that what Sarfatti described was part of Puharich's work for ARTICHOKE. Certainly there years in which Sarfatti was active in the program were consistent with Puharich's time ARTICHOKE, which officially ended in 1955, a year before Sarfatti finished with the program. And the objective of dealing with "extra-dimensional intelligence" is certainly on par with Puharich's later descriptions of The Nine.
But it should be stressed that this researcher has found no ties between Sarfatti's claims and ARTICHOKE, nor has Sarfatti ever indicated that he saw Puharich participate in this school program. And as Sarfatti later knew Puharich, he surely would have recognized him. And despite the presence of Walter Breen, who was first convicted of pedophilia in 1954, Sarfatti has never indicated that sexual abuse was a part of this project.
This isn't to say that sexual abuse may not have been employed in ARTICHOKE, but there is no evidence that Puharich engaged in such activities. What is most troubling is Breen's connection to a network Levenda dubbed "wandering bishops." As I noted before here, at least two prominent members of this network have been linked to pedophilia and one of them had done work for ARTICHOKE before. David Ferrie is most interesting in this context and I indicated before how Ferrie (an arch pedophile and occultist) may have experimented with "ritual abuse" for ARTICHOKE. But I should stress again, this is all highly, HIGHLY speculative on my part.
Aftermath (1956-1974)
Puharich does not appear to have ceased his involvement with the deep state after being booted out of the Army in 1955, but his research would continue largely in the private sector until the early 1970s, when he became involved with Uri Geller. During the late 1950s he appears to have made a most curious acquaintance who would go on to sponsor a lot of Puharich's paranormal research from that period up to the mid-1960s.
"Andrija Puharich had gone to Brazil in August of 1963 with businessman Henry Belk, a former agent with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), heir to the largest chain of department stores in the southeast United States (the Belk Stores which are headquartered in Charlotte, South Carolina), and founder of the Belk Research Institute, of which Puharich was president, an institute created for the study of paranormal phenomena. Belk had also been acquainted with Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos but, according to one account, became disillusioned with Hurkos when Belk's ten year old daughter and only child went missing shortly after Hurkos had done a psychic reading for Belk and predicted nothing of the sort. His daughter was found dead by drowning and, according to the same source, it was Hurkos who saw the site where she ould be found. That was not enough for Belk, of course, who felt that if Hurkos had any real powers he would have warned Belk of the tragedy so that he could have averted it. The Belk family is famous in South Carolina; they have endowed various educational institutions and have been major contributors to charities. Willaim Henry Belk, the founder of the department store chain, began in 1888 with a small store in Charlotte which he named The New York Racket..."
(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pgs. 186-187)
The great Philip Coppens notes that Belk was actually the one who had introduced Puharich to Hurkos, indicating that they had known each other since at least 1955, just as Puharich's time with Army was winding down. As was noted above, Puharich alleged that it was the Navy who first took an interest in his work as part of "Project Penguin" (likely Project Pelican) in 1948. As I noted above, I suspect that Puharich's research was being subsidized throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s by the military before he was officially brought into the fold in 1953. Belk may indicate that the military, specifically the Navy, was continuing to sponsor his research for years after Puharich had left the Army (and ARTICHOKE) officially.
Puharich's work with Belk was not the only thing he was up to during the 1960s. In 1958 he founded the Intelectron Corporation, a medical electronics business. By the early 1960s Intelectron had acquired a roster of rather prestigious clients. Philip Coppens notes:
"With Intelectron, he mainly worked for the US government. “They had immediately seen the many potential applications of electromagnetic stimulation of hearing,” Puharich said. The U.S. Air Force thus awarded Intelectron a research contract. From there on, research was to be performed under the guidance of a member of an Air Force committee. Puharich, it seems, was never more than a long arm away from a government official…
"The interest of the committee led to an active exchange between Puharich and representatives of the U.S. Government. These agencies were the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Foreign Technology Division of the Systems Command of the U.S. Air Force (USAF-SC), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)… not your normal 'interface' when working for the government.
"As I have already mentioned, the United States and Russia were actively interested in telepathy. Apparently Professor Vasiliev, head of the parapsychological department in Leningrad, had used a Faraday Cage isolation technique to prove the existence of telepathy. This work had been done in secret, and all the witnesses to the work were no longer alive. There was a question in the minds of some NASA officials as to whether the Russians had actually done this cage-telepathy research, or had merely copied Puharich’s work of 1952. Puharich himself had many discussions about this question with NASA officials. The conclusion was that NASA was going to support his research in psychic phenomena, or what they called bio-information-transfer, or energy transfer.
"According to Puharich, a curious situation was created in the fall of 1963, so much so that he himself did not clearly foresee when it started to happen. It all came out of his research work in two different areas, the psychical research (ESP), and the research in electro-stimulation of hearing (ESH). The problem arose, he thought, because competing agencies of the US Government supported different aspects of his research. The United States Air Force supported his research in ESH under contract; NASA supported the research in ESP.
"In September 1963, at the International Astronautic Congress in Paris, NASA’s Bioastronautics director Eugene Konecci said that both the American and Soviet Union Space Agencies were testing 'non-electronic biological communication'. He believed that “thought transference” might be a workable method of communication through space.
"The announcement made by Konecci caused a fierce negative reaction from the US Congress. One of their spokesmen had just said that NASA believed in telepathy? The administrator of NASA, James Webb, was told that if he did not stop this ESP research, there would be major cuts in the NASA budget. Dr. Webb could only follow up on this advice and the research project that Puharich was to direct was cancelled. Puharich himself believed that the US Air Force was behind this congressional pressure on NASA, because of the intense rivalry that existed between the two agencies."
1963 in general appears to have been a banner year for Puharich and his research. Puharich, with Henry Belk's urging, ended up in Brazil investigating Arigo, the "psychic surgeon" who performed operations without any anesthesia or antisepsis and using only kitchen knives. His patients allegedly felt no pain and there was practically no blood. Arigo claimed that a Doctor Fritz, who had died in 1918, guided him (curiously, Puharich himself was born in 1918).
1963 was also the year of the JFK assassination. As was noted before here and here, there are strong indications that Puharich's old ARTICHOKE bosses, Brigadier General Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen, may have played a role in the assassination. This was also the year that ARTICHOKE and MUKULTRA were shuttered. Each project produced successor programs, but the research was at a much reduced scale.
A year before, in 1962, the Office of Research and Development (ORD) became the CIA department tasked with taking the lead on furthering the Agency's pursuit of fringe topics. The ORD, as noted above, was headed by Dr. Stephen Aldrich, a veteran of ARTICHOKE in the early 1950s who appears to have graduated from the same medical school as Puharich in the same year. There is a strong chance that Aldrich knew Puharich and if not, almost surely knew his work as the ORD would push the CIA towards fringe pursuits to an extent not seen since the heyday of ARTICHOKE. Topics such as astrology, clairvoyance and demonology were once again fair game for research.
In 1968 Project OFTEN was initiated by the ORD and the Army. Officially the task of OFTEN was to further test drugs, including even more power hallucinogens, but there have long been allegations that it was also deeply involved in high weirdness as well. The ORD would go on to be one of the two CIA offices (along with Gottlieb's TSS) to sponsor SRI's remote viewing experiments in the early 1970s (noted before here). The stage was set for Puharich's triumphant return. Philip Coppens notes:
"By the late 1960s, Puharich had built a solid foundation for ESP, and had shown practical applications, many of which he had done for the US government. The next phase of his life took him back to the days of the Round Table, where he had worked with psychics on a largely informal basis. Puharich went in search of new psychics, of which Uri Geller would become the most notorious example. Sponsored and largely run by the CIA, the remote viewing project seemed to use Puharich as a consultant, whereby the day to day management was left to other scientists. It seems that Puharich carried on where he had left off more than a decade before..."
Was Puharich's involvement with this research driven partly by his old bosses in the Office of Security? Successor programs to ARTICHOKE were likely still active at this time and the OS was the only one of the major CIA offices involved with behavior modification research (which also included the TSS, the ORD and the Office of Scientific Intelligence) who do not appear to have had an agent involved in the SRI experiments. But Puharich clearly was, and this researcher can't help but wonder if part of Puharich's job at this juncture was not just to evaluate Geller.
Ultimately, no one appears to know for whom within the CIA Puharich was consulting for. Given his strained relations with TSS and Gottleib (who appears to have been close to the Rockefeller family, Puharich's longstanding enemies), it does not seem likely that these were his patrons. The OSI or the ORD are possibilities, but this researcher suspects that the OS would not sit idly by and let other departments run with research it had largely pioneered. And why not get back in the action with their star researcher, the man whose work appears to have inspired the SRI experiments and the subsequent Project Stargate in the first place?
And then came Uri and Puharich's revelation of the The Nine to the general public. Puharich's motives in writing this work have long baffled friends and colleagues (as noted in the prior installment) for instead of legitimizing his decades of research on psi, it made Puharich and his star pupil a laughingstock.
Wars in Heaven and Wars on Earth
The publication of Uri is most interesting in terms of deep political events then playing out, however. In 1972 longtime OS-SRS (Security Research Staff, the component of the OS that oversaw ARTICHOKE) veteran James McCord walked into the Watergate building and set in motion a chain of events that would bring down the Nixon presidency. In my examination of the OS, I argued that a cabal including the OS, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the American Security Council (ASC; for decades the premier lobby group for the military-industrial complex as well as a vast private intelligence network, as noted before in this series) and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had conspired to remove Nixon so as to sabotage Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's efforts at detente with the Soviet Union.
Kissinger is of course a notorious Rockefeller crony and the Rockefeller family had a longstanding goal of detente with the Soviet Union that had been pursued by both Henry Kissinger during the Nixon years and throughout much of the Trilateral Commission-dominated Carter administration. As noted above, the Rockefellers appear to have had an axe to grind with Puharich. They would openly move against him in the 1980s when Puharich attempted to pursue free energy and they appear to have played a role in his ousting from the Army and ARTICHOKE in the mid-1950s via their agent, John Mulholland.
This also resulted in shake up of the behavior modification research, with ARTICHOKE losing some of its functions to the Rockefeller-funded MKULTRA. This researcher suspects that the OS never forgot or forgave this slight and here, in 1972, James McCord would put events in motion that would lead to the end of detente by the end of the decade. Tellingly, in the aftermath of Watergate McCord would pen tracts denouncing the Rockefellers, Kissinger and the Council on Foreign Relations, as noted before here.
Watergate is of course cited as a major reason for DCI Richard Helms's decision to destroy the ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA files in 1973. And yet there are no direct links between Watergate and MKULTRA that this researcher is aware. But James McCord was almost surely aware of ARTICHOKE, as noted above, and may even have been employing ARTICHOKE methods on the Columbia call girl ring that was so crucial to the second Watergate break-in and which he appears to have been running. This is likely what Helms was really worried about and not Gottlieb and his limp-wristed academics.
It is of course well known by now, thanks to the great Peter Levenda's work in his Sinister Forces trilogy, that the specter of The Nine lurked in the background of the JFK assassination via the figure of Michael Paine (addressed before here and here). Michael Paine, along with his wife Ruth (whose father the OS may have used as an agent), had ample dealings with the Oswalds during their time in Dallas during 1963. Paine's stepfather was Arthur Young, a long time associate of Puharich's. He was one of the "Brahmins" for the June 27, 1953 session with The Nine and appears to have been involved in their saga until at least 1956.
What has yet to be addressed is the fact that the degrees of separation between The Nine and Watergate was not that great either. James McCord was in contact with Security Research Staff chief Brigadier General Paul Gaynor throughout the Watergate scandal, the same man who had overseen ARTICHOKE, and McCord had known ARTICHOKE director Morse Allen since at least the late 1940s. Allen was of course Puharich's supervisor on ARTICHOKE and it is likely that Gaynor knew Puharich as well. There's even a slim chance that McCord himself knew Puharich.
It seems rather fitting then that The Nine would appear in the backdrop of both the JFK assassination and Watergate as these two events were effectively bookends to a civil war being played out between factions of the Establishment (for more information on the deep politics of the Kennedy assassination, check here). The Rockefellers would weather Watergate, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Nelson Rockefeller would come within a heartbeat of the presidency, but his family would totally be driven out of the Republican Party in 1976.
The Rockefellers would take refuge in the Democrats with Rockefeller Republicans being rebranded as "neo-liberals" but by 1979 detente was dead. In 1980 Reagan would come to power with ample backing from Le Cercle (noted before here), the World Anti-Communist League (addressed before here) and the American Security Council (ASC, which Paul Gaynor was a long time alley of, noted before here and here). The military-industrial complex were now co-partners with the financial elite.
But in 1974, Puharich would reveal The Nine to the public at large. This occurred a year before the Rockefeller Commission (chaired by Nelson) and the Church Committee were launched and began to reveal the CIA's behavior modification experiments to the public, but the CIA was already anticipating such things as early as 1973 as the "Family Jewels" report and Helm's decision to destroy the MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE files indicate. An investigation was coming --the writing was on the wall --and eventually the public would get a peak into these highly secretive projects of even more highly questionable legality. But when the information began to come out in the middle of the decade and ramped up towards the end, a curious thing occurred: Essentially every aspect of these experiments were blamed on Sidney Gottleib and MKULTRA.
In 2016, countless books have been written exposing Gottlieb and MKULTRA and yet many fundamental aspects of ARTICHOKE are still unknown to the public. As was noted before here, there was in fact a conspiracy on the part of the CIA to pin as much as possible on Gottlieb and MKULTRA while downplaying ARTICHOKE's role and perpetuating the out and out lie that it was "rolled" into MKULTRA in 1953 or 1955,
And Morse Allen? Aside from the limited ARTICHOKE material available covering the period of 1950-1955, virtually nothing else is available covering his intelligence career prior to 1949 or after the mid-1950s. It is unknown when he retired from the CIA or when he even died (Albarelli was able to determine it was sometime in the late 1980s). Why, after over 65 years since BLUEBIRD was started, is Allen and his career still shrouded in mystery? What is the CIA still trying to hide?
Could it be related to The Nine? As outlandish as this may sound, this researcher suspects Puharich's revelations in 1974 may have been sending a message to certain deep state factions about what could come out if ARTICHOKE was thoroughly investigated. Certainly a consorted effort emerged not long afterwards to perpetuate the MKULTRA myths despite the Rockefellers having ample involvement with MKULTRA.
While Puharich may have been doing one last favor for his old bosses, Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen, it came with a heavy price. Both Gaynor and Allen appear to have left the Agency by 1974. A year later Puharich would start the Space Kids, but by 1978 his Lab Nine research center was burned to the ground and he apparently feared the CIA was trying to assassinate him. Was it Puharich's research involving free energy and ELF waves (ARTICHOKE had investigated electromagnetic radiation in the 1950s but it does not appear that Puharich was involved in this research) that spurred this sudden reversal? Or perhaps the fact that his Space Kids program bore to close a resemblance to the highly classified Project Stargate, which had just been launched (and which was largely based on his research)? Or was it pay back for his revelations of The Nine? Or perhaps a combination of all three?
But despite everything, the CIA offered Puharich one last chance --with the ASC-aligned Ronnie Raygun in office. The great Philip Coppens notes:
"Perhaps as a reward for his silence, in 1982, Puharich was offered the post of ELF (Extremely Low Frequencies) research director for the CIA. In the words of his biographer, “supposedly two CIA men came to his house in Delaplane, Virginia apologizing that the CIA gave him such a hard time.” Puharich declined the position. He had got the message: do what you want, but keep quiet about it. And so he did. In 1980, Richard Joshua Reynolds invited Puharich to live at his estate and study ELF at his own convenience."
Coppens goes on to note that Puharich would continue to discuss ELF waves with the CIA up until the late 1980s, but the Agency seems to have kept him at arm's length after his confrontation with the Rockefellers over developing a fuel based on water in 1983, as noted above. He appears to have rattled to many cages by this point. When Puharich died in 1995, he was destitute and largely forgotten.
The Nine experienced something of Renaissance in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Only Planet of Choice by Phyllis Schlemmer, who had channelled The Nine for Puharich in the 1970s (noted in the prior installment) was published in 1994 and elements of their saga cropped up in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, the Stargate franchise, among others. But the publication of The Stargate Conspiracy in 1999, the first in depth look at Puharich and The Nine, proved to be their last hurrah. No major new contacts have occurred in years now and the general public is largely oblivious to them despite the enormous comeback the New Age movement has made in recent years.
This researcher does not pretend to have all the answers. What I have hoped to achieve with this series is to display how incomplete our understanding of these events truly are. In 2016 the hit Netflix series Stranger Things lifted its story line largely from Puharich's research and yet attributes these experiments to MKULTRA and a thinly-veiled version of Ewen Cameron, likely out of sheer ignorance. No doubt another generation of researchers are already poised to follow this red herring yet again.
in fairness to Stranger Things, there may have been some subtle hints to ARTICHOKE
My hope is that this series may finally spur researchers to take a closer look at the true black magician of the CIA during the Cold War years, namely Morse Allen, and his star researcher, Andrija Puharich, who provided the intellectual frame work for research into such arcane topics. Herein one will find the true stranger things.
