By Alex ConstantineHow to read this report: I'm aware that there is a wealth, even a surfeit, of detail here, for which I offer only a mild apology - this approach to a murder investigation is usually complex because that is the way CIA assassinations are structured. So is any investigation that follows. And much of this report is given to necessary introductory biographical data, which slows me down and makes the research appear complicated. If your purpose is a thorough knowledge of the intelligence and organized crime connections - necessary to establish beyond a doubt CIA-Mafia "suicide" sponsorship and the identity of the man who arranged these deaths - read every word. Jeremy and Theresa are worth the effort. If the purpose is to narrow in on the "suicides," scan Section A and read all of Section B. Every section cross-references, however, and I consider the details necessary to understanding this case, though in some instances I dwell on them merely to establish CIA ties beyond a reasonable doubt, as in the Gotham Partners section. I also dwell on corporate looting, a sub-theme of the outline, to underscore the unconscionable criminality of the CIA-corporate culture behind MediaBistro.com. The long Paris Review section is included not only for the tie to Daniel Kunitz, but to provide a CIA-media case history - the profile of a pre-digital predecessor of the "Bistro." Read until satisfied that the Review was and is an active state propaganda vehicle, then proceed with the outline, or read the entire text, which is pretty interesting as a sidebar.
This project is not as complete as it may seem - I haven't charted all connections, by any means. The curious researcher is strongly encouraged to investigate further, because there is much more to know, especially concerning intelligence connections to MediaBistro.com. Other Internet data mining/disinfo/psyop operations similar to it remain to expose.
- AC
A) CIA Connections to MediaBistro.Com
• PART ONE: MediaBistro, KeyBanc's Ken Carr III, Sol Trujillo, CIA & In-Q-Tel
• PART TWO: IN THE BEGINNING: How MediaBistro.Com Founder Laurel Touby Learned to Love Neo-Con Martin Peretz
• PART THREE: Mediabistro's Laurel Touby Joins the CIA-Mafia-Bush Family "Old-Boys Club"
• PART FOUR: Who Funded Author Adrian LeBlanc's Yale Law School Education?
• PART FIVE: MB's Daniel Kunitz and the Secret History of the Paris Review
• PART SIX: National Review Online's Cathy Seipp, the Internet Mentor of Duncan/Blake's Loudest Detractor, KATE COE
B) Who Arranged the "Suicide" of Theresa Duncan?
• PART SEVEN: Picking Up Theresa Duncan's Investigation of the Omaha/Des Moines Child Prostitution Network - This Time, with MediaBistro.Com as the Starting Point
• PART EIGHT: Allen & Co. LLC, the CIA-Mafia-Omaha-MediaBistro.Com Nexus
• PART NINE: The Composting of Hannah Wit
• PART TEN: 666 Grand Ave., Des Moines, Iowa
A) CIA Connections to MediaBistro.Com
We'll be solving a large slice of the Duncan/Blake "suicide" mystery now ... it will take ten chapters to explain, but each step leads inevitably to the man who arranged the "suicides" of Theresa Duncan, Jeremy Blake - and a third party on the west coast who these two would have taken a profound interest in, had they lived. ... I can only prove this by drawing a complex system of connections historical and personal - to the deaths of Duncan and Blake, but also to the obscure death in Oakland, California a week before Theresa died - the third death is inextricably connected.
(Note: The symbol used here, "---->," means "continue to the next documented step.")
Theresa Duncan died on JULY 10, 2007. The tone of her last blog entry wasn't signally depressed (in fact, she wasn't actually the depressed person found in some press reports, eg. MediaBistro's Kate Coe's in the LA Weekly, according to close friends):
" .... Her last entry ... includes a blurry photograph of a woman putting on a mask and quotes the novelist Reynolds Price: 'A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens — second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. ... ” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/arts/design/21dunc.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
----> EIGHT DAYS AFTER THERESA'S BODY WAS FOUND, MediaBistro was sold to JupiterMedia. (Note: JupiterMedia is a completely ethical publishing concern, to my knowledge. I have no particular bone to pick with JupiterMedia. It is the owners of MediaBistro AT THE TIME OF the Duncan/Blake "suicides" that interest me. The handoff to JupiterMedia was intended, I believe, to distance MediaBistro from readily traceable CIA ties - and certain intelligence operators in Omaha and Des Moines who are the subjects of this research - also to reward Laurel Touby for running a smooth data mining operation in Hollywood, as described by Omer Algar, MB's chief computer technician, himself in parts nine and ten.)
• PART ONE: MediaBistro.Com, KeyBanc, Sol Trujillo and the CIA
----> The transaction was handled by KeyBanc Capital Markets, which in turn is owned by KeyCorp:
----> "JUPITERMEDIA ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION OF MEDIABISTRO.COM ONLINE COMMUNITY AND JOB BOARD SERVING MEDIA & CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS"; (New York, NY - July 18, 2007) - Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM) today announced that it has acquired all of the shares of mediabistro.com inc. (www.mediabistro.com), the career and community site for media and creative professionals, for $20.0 million in cash and a two year earn-out that could result in an additional $3.0 million in cash consideration. Based in New York City, Mediabistro.com was founded in 1999 by Laurel Touby. Funding for this acquisition was secured through the recently announced closing of a $115 million senior credit facility arranged by KeyBanc Capital Markets." http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/releases/07.07.18-JM_Mediabistro.html
----> KeyBank handled the MediaBistro transaction at the time of Theresa's death; KBCM, as I say, is a division of KEYCORP, a firm that could be counted on to keep the secrets ...
----> The CEO of KeyCorp is Ken Carr III: "Dr. Ken Carr, CEO: Ken Carr has held senior executive roles and completed significant MERGERS and acquisitions with organisations such as
IBM Global Services Australia
Lucent Technologies
Computer Sciences of Australia
Unisys Australia Limited.
(Note: Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) is only one of the most corrupt intelligence fronts in the world. The other corporations aren't coy virgins, either.)
"He has a depth of experience in the telecommunications industry, having worked for telecommunications carriers such as British Telecom and AT&T, and was involved in the second licence bid and creation of Optus. ...
----> A Significant KeyCorp. Advisor: Sullivan & Cromwell LLP http://www2.snl.com/irweblinkx/file.aspx?IID=100334&FID=4553389
(Note: Students of domestic fascist history know Sullivan & Cromwell as a significant cog in CIA-Nazi relations and the intelligence underground - example: "If you ever need a reminder that the CIA was founded and run by lawyers, you won't need to look any further than the overthrow of Guatemalan democracy. The Dulles brothers were partners in the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell; time permitting, they also worked for the US government. With John Foster Dulles heading the State Department and Allen Dulles heading the CIA, they were the czars of Eisenhower's foreign policy, and they made sure that the interests of Sullivan & Cromwell clients weren't ignored." From: The CIA's Greatest Hits.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Guatemala_CIAHits.html
----> Former KeyCorp Senior VP and Chief Economist Jeff Thredgold is listed with the speaker's bureau of the American Enterprise Institute, a front for the CIA and military intelligence.
http://www.aeispeakers.com/speakerbio.php?SpeakerID=1006
Sol Trujillo----> The current KeyCorp. is intertwined with TELSTRA, the Australian telephone system, by merger: "Telstra CEO to answer questions over business PAST, The World Today, Friday, 10 June , 2005 - ... when Telstra's new CEO, Sol Trujillo, fronts up to the Australian media tomorrow, there's little doubt he'll face some tough questions about his colourful past. Mr Trujillo's extensive management experience includes a stint running a company linked to the CIA, as well as a very brief career with a Telco implicated in one of the biggest corporate swindles in history. But the new Telstra boss has also run a hi-tech company that built spyware and had links to the CIA, and when US West company was taken over by Qwest Communications in late 2000, he narrowly escaped being number two at a company involved in a major corporate fraud.
"Here's how US TV reported the merger at the time: US TV: US West's chief executive becomes co-chairman of the new combined company, and president of its internet, local and wireless businesses. That's better than the first offer of vice-chairman, but clearly number two to Joseph Nacchio. .... Apart from running a company with CIA connections, he stuck by the Salt Lake Winter Olympics when its organising committee was accused of bribing Olympic officials. ....He's taking over a company with a diminishing revenues from its fixed copper wire phone network, and growing competitive threats in broadband, and mobile telephony.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1389309.htm
----> Dick Cheney was a director of US West at the time of the Omaha allegations that Theresa was writing about when she died (the company will surface again, most interestingly in part ten).
----> More of the same: "Former US West CEO to head CIA-funded start-up, CNET News.com, November 15, 2000: The PHONE SYSTEM and the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY are both known for their strong interest in managing information. So it should come as no surprise that longtime Bell veteran Sol Trujillo is joining a CIA-funded wireless networks company, La Jolla, Calif.-based Graviton, as its chief executive. The small start-up was among the first to receive funding from the CIA's new venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, which has a name that the United States' top spy agency admits is designed to invoke the memory of James Bond's favorite tinkerer, Q. Trujillo, who left US West this summer after a contentious merger with Qwest Communications International that left the latter's Joe Nacchio in charge, spent almost his entire career in the Bell system, starting with Mountain Bell and retiring as the chief executive of US West. He will replace Graviton founder Michael Nova, who will stay on as chief technical officer. Trujillo, 48, was recruited by Graviton director Brook Byers of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, another Graviton partner. Other investors include QUALCOMM, SIEMENS and SUN MICROSYSTEMS.""Graviton is developing a wireless data networking system that will incorporate sensors notifying users of useful information. The company says the technology, which incorporates Qualcomm's Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), has multiple commercial purposes. For example, Coca-Cola has partnered with Graviton to equip soft drink machines that measure flow levels and adjust the syrup mix. Siemens hopes Graviton can improve security systems for commercial and residential buildings. Other partners hope to better monitor manufacturing and construction machinery, utilities equipment and even consumer appliances such as gas ovens.
"In-Q-Tel is a bit more coy regarding how it might use a wireless data network. The company doesn't discuss the specific nature of the projects it funds, but insists that the research not only works to solve the agency's most vexing problems but also leads to commercial advancements."
http://www.news.com/Former-US-West-CEO-to-head-CIA-funded-start-up/2100-1033_3-248674.html
----> HOW HIGH DOES SOL TRUJILLO GO IN THE DOMESTIC POLITICAL SCENE? "A little bit of Sol in US presidential race," The Age, February 22, 2008: " ... Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo faced the music over perceived plans to depart the country early and take up a job as a political adviser in the US. Trujillo once worked as chief fund-raiser for US presidential hopeful John McCain. While in Australia, Trujillo has chipped a nominal $US2300 ($A2507) into Senator McCain's campaign fund ... "
http://business.theage.com.au/a-little-bit-of-sol-in-us-presidential-race/20080221-1tq6.html
----> What did the blogheads say?: "Trujillo - Do you know what is un - Australian?
"To try to mingle in the affairs of Australia:
1) By not being an Ausralian citizen
2) By being openly a member of the Bush's CIA in Australia.
"How dare you say to stop the Australian Broad Band?
http://business.theage.com.au/telstr...1206-1fgg.html
Who are you anyway? Bush's puppet in Australia?"
Lets deport this $##^&&* to Texas and let him jojn his Republicain
friends. Sol Trujillo $%^&* you and suck George Bush.
George
http://www.wirelessforums.org/aus-comms-mobile/telstra-chief-sol-trujillo-yankee-go-home-go-bush-33915.html
AUSTRALIA'S TELSTRA BUYS US$908,640 OF ADDITIONAL SHARES IN KEYCORP.
Publication: AsiaPulse News
Publication Date: 29-JUN-01
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-10690301_ITM
----> "Laurel Touby, 44, an entrepreneur based in New York City, made her money last summer by selling mediabistro.com ...
••••••
PART TWO - IN THE BEGINNING: How MediaBistro.Com Founder Laurel Touby Learned to Love Neo-Con Martin Peretz
American-way, CIA-sponsored entrepreneurship: Multi-millionaire MediaBistro founder Laurel ToubyMediaBistro's Kate Coe really has her daggers out for her late "friend" Theresa Duncan. The perennially-amused "FishBowl LA" commentator has been ridiculing the former since the "Golden Suicides" in July. She can't get enough of trashing "paranoid" Theresa Duncan (and gross inaccuracies, slanted reporting aren't too good for the deceased), because Kate Coe KNOWS with occult certainty that "conspiracy theory" is for the certifiable ... like Theresa ... totally without substance ...
Duncan, of course, chose to commit "suicide" at the moment she was working on a story that tied Jim Cownie, founder of Heritage Communications, then TCI under Rupert Murdoch, now AT&T Cable, to heinous CIA/Republican Party crimes in Omaha, Nebraska. Some ranking Democrats were also tied in.
----> [SIDEBAR: THE CHARMLESS TCI-CAPCOM-BCCI SCANDAL - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - BCCI CONSTITUTED INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CRIME ON A MASSIVE AND GLOBAL SCALE.
... BCCI's commodities affiliate, Capcom, based in Chicago, London and Cairo, was principally staffed by former BCCI bankers, capitalized by BCCI and BCCI customers, and owned by BCCI, BCCI shareholders, and front-men. Capcom employed many of the same practices as BCCI, especially the use of nominees and front companies to disguise ownership and the movement of money. Four U.S. citizens ... While investigation information concerning Capcom is incomplete, its activities appear to have included misappropriation of BCCI assets; the laundering of billions of dollars from the Middle East to the US and other parts of the world; and the siphoning of assets from BCCI to create a safe haven for them outside of the official BCCI empire. Capcom's majority shareholders, Kamal Adham and A.R. Khalil, were both former senior Saudi government officials and successively acted as Saudi Arabia's principal liaisons to the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1970's and 1980's.
Its U.S. front men included Robert Magness, the CEO of the largest U.S. cable telecommunications company, TCI; a vice-President of TCI, Larry Romrell; and two other Americans, Kerry Fox and Robert Powell, with long-standing business interests in the Middle East. Magness, Romrell and Fox received loans from BCCI for real estate ventures in the U.S., and Magness and Romrell discussed numerous business ventures between BCCI and TCI, some of which involved the possible purchase of U.S. telecommunications stock and substantial lending by BCCI. ... "
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/01exec.htm]
The Omaha allegations are so side-splitting ... Who hasn't had a good laugh over those unlikely tales of credit union thievery, child prostitution networks, ties to Warren Buffett and the Omaha "elite," the CIA, upper-tiers of the Republcan Party, media lies about the case ... the many unexplained "suicides" of witnesses and investigators, the fatal "accidents," the disappeared and murdered children ... Crazy stuff.
Of course, the stalking allegations have been heard before in connection with the Omaha scandal: " ... For years the Franklin matter had haunted Troy Boner [one of Larry King's child prostitutes]. Following his interviews with the Yorkshire TV crew, Boner fell off the radar until 2003. After running into a New Mexico hospital in 2003, waving the Franklin Cover-Up book, and screaming that they were out to get him because of the book, Boner was sedated. The next day when hospital workers went to check on Boner he was found dead. The death was never publicly investigated, and remains a mystery. ... "
http://www.franklincase.org/indepth.htm
Kate Coe----> The Gothamist blog's observation on Kate Coe's "reporting" on the deaths of Duncan and Blake:
MediaBistro's Kate Coe
" ... Spiteful with a vengence, Coe posts all over the internet about the paranoia SHE claims they suffered from, with only an unsubstantiated claim of a connection to Theresa Duncan. Why? To push her article of hate and envy. I would not be surprised if it was supported by one of the enemies Theresa posted about on her blog! ... "
----> "CONSPIRACY THEORIES": In the LA Weekly, Coe wrote of Theresa's irrational fears, her "increasingly troubled state of mind." Duncan’s "paranoia began to hurt her professionally." She and Blake moved to New York and settled at St. Marks, linked up with Frank Morales of the local 9/11 Truth Movement. "By uncanny coincidence, activist Father Frank Morales, a controversial figure who probes conspiracy theories, was the pastor." Morales does not probe conspiracy theories, at least in his written canon - he writes sober, detailed, well-documented articles about martial law (eg. Operation Garden Plot, which no one has ever called theory) and illicit intelligence operations (he wrote for my site a few years back and I saw no fringe conspiracism in his work. He has published in Covert Action Information Quarterly and writes scholarly articles, fully sourced from declassified documents. Now Coe was trashing Morales ... ) - told the Weekly that “Theresa . . . manifested a penchant for looking at things in a dark way.” But she was a "bright light" herself, Morales noted. Coe quoted a friend of Theresa's, who opined: “She had always said kind of crazy, paranoid things,” but “it just got worse and worse. She accused me of being an undercover CIA officer, of eavesdropping on her ... "
Kate Coe never took any of this seriously for a moment, especially the stalking. Should Theresa's hyper-vigilance be attributed to paranoia or justifiable fear of her government? Coe has maintained that she was herself stalked by the Children of God sect ... but this isn't "paranloia" ... She offers less evidence of stalking than Duncan did in her blog - but we are to believe Coe at her word, but not Duncan, whose allegations were dismissed out of hand in the brutal LA Weekly story. Duncan was a highly successful, well, "failure," lived in a state of dread, obviously insane, if we are to believe MediaBistro - and Coe wanted the world to know about it so badly, she trashed Theresa for months.
(Another peculiar death to tickle Kate Coe: Peg Carter: "There are two people I saw at those Church meetings who ended up dying unnatural deaths. Beside Jeremy Blake, with whom I had a conversation there, was Dan Wallace.... Dan just didn't wake up one morning. 23 years old. The autopsy report was never made public.... Dan was one of the original 'We Are Change' members. He was less likely to follow the bogus leadership and was open to the No Planes research. He also stood up to the police in various street actions. There are more videos in regard to Wallace, but this one came out today: Who Killed Dan Wallace, by 'Scottish Cream 1st.'"
http://synchromysticismforum.phpbb-forum-host.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=44&start=70)
It was all so amusing. Bloggers joined in, wild rumors were posted far and wide on the Net claiming that Theresa Duncan was a cat killer, whore, liar, plagiarist, hysteric, even a latent murderer.
(see, eg., http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007/08/suicide-watch-b.html?cid=80743201#comments)
Coe continually chimed in, quoting sources who were always assumed to be faultless critics of a funny lunatic.
----> This is how cover-ups are done in the state press. Innuendo and ridicule serve to discredit Hugo Chavez, Michael Moore and Theresa Duncan. The distortions and ridicule heaped on Theresa Duncan, unable to respond from the grave, and her "conspiracy theories" for months after her body was found - unwarranted, highly-biased, relentless - prompted a hunch that led me to take a look-see at the money behind MediaBistro ...
MediaBistro is a CIA data mining operating, and itself a path to understanding the Blake-Duncan suicides. Begin with it and start researching ... Next stop: CIA, and the Bistro is up to its lucrative little chin in it.
----> THE MOMENT OF DISCOVERY: I found a management bio page at the MB web site and some financial data - and knew in a moment what had happened to Theresa, why Coe was determined to destroy her credibility. Not the whole story, but enough of it. I didn't know then about a related "suicide" in Oakland a week before Theresa Duncan was found dead, or some of the names lurking in the background - these would have clarified some of the connections - but I've been researching fascist conspiracies for a long time. There was nothing cryptic about that page. Explaining what I saw, though, was a different matter - unless you knew what the names and connections meant, the page related very little. We arrive at that moment when I first opened the books on MediaBistro.Com to chart the connections ...
----> Laurel Touby founded MediaBistro. In her own words:
" ... I wrote a business plan with the help of business advisors." Laurel may want to have a good talk with those advisors ...
"... My goal was to raise $1 million, even though I didn’t need half of that."
Where did she go for the half-million? To the liberal Hollywood community that MB serves with entertainment news commentary and lucrative job listings? ...
----> " ... The funding came from a venture private equity hedge fund called GOTHAM PARTNERS. A small portion of it came from MARTIN PERETZ, who owned the New Republic back then, and some of THESTREET.COM. At that time, I kept ownership of more than 70% of the company. ... "
www.nyreport.com/index.cfm
Visit the site, revel in celebrity worship, absorb the skewed political "opinions," note that MediaBistro gathers intelligence on people living in Hollywood and pays its "reporters" (or "useful idiots" to MB's CIA investors) poorly ... We'll see that MediaBistro also "data mines" its members in Hollywood. ... ... And don't even try to do the math ... She didn't have half the funding needed ... sold a minority stake to raise it ... and wound up with 70% ownership ... But Touby isn't terribly business- and tech-savvy, if the truth be known: "Laurel Touby's Inability To Use The Internet Creates Mayhem"
http://gawker.com/tag/rebecca-fox/)
Peretz & Co.: They bought into that 30% of Bistro, supposedly, but these figures turn out to be false (see part three). "Marty," as Ms. Touby refers to him, Peretz fits the Mockingbird profile - he is an obvious facilitator of CIA (and fascist) propaganda. He also belongs to front operations with CIA financing, eg. the GPSG (see below), is tight with now-defunct Gotham Partners (see below) - which was in bed with the CIA and Mafia (part three) - and has employed CIA Mockingbirds, eg. the avuncular Fred Barnes, etal.
----> Peretz in The Middle: MediaBistro's funding sources are not, in fact, distinct, as they seem in Touby's account - they each come back to Martin Peretz, who has strong ties to the Gotham Fund AND TheStreet.com, which he co-founded with financial consultant JIM CRAMER a regular on cable TV state propaganda channels:
" ... Peretz is co-founder and was co-chairman of the Board of TheStreet.com, a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ, and he remains a Director. The NASDAQ has a 20% interest in The Marker, a financial e-mail publication of Ha'aretz. ... He has served for several decades as a director of 11 mutual funds in the Dreyfus-Mellon Group. Previously, he served on the Board of Directors of the Bank Leumi of New York and the Carmel Container Corporation. He was a co-founder of Leukosite, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, which, after it became a public company, was merged into Millennium Pharmaceuticals.""
http://www.tnr.com/columnists/Martin_Peretz.html
----> JIM CRAMER STARTED AS A REPORTER for the Tallahassee Democrat in Tallahassee, Florida. Cramer was " one of the first on the scene after serial killer Ted Bundy attacked four women, killing two of them in 1978."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cramer
" ... He is also an occasional contributor to Time magazine. ... Cramer co-hosted CNBC shows America Now and Kudlow & Cramer with Lawrence Kudlow in the early 2000s. Cramer now has his own television show on CNBC, Mad Money with Jim Cramer. Cramer is also a major hedge fund swindler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cramer
Peretz and Gotham Partners: "... Bill Ackman. Mr. Ackman is a 36-year-old Harvard M.B.A., the son of real-estate mogul Larry Ackman and a rising force in Democratic Party politics. His investors now include New Republic publisher Marty Peretz. ... "
http://www.tnr.com/columnists/Martin_Peretz.html
----> How Peretz came to be wealthy and invest in MediaBistro: ”[T]he key thing to know about Peretz is that his entire position in the world of politics is due to the fact that he purchased TNR with money his wife inherited from her SINGER SEWING [M]ACHINE FORTUNE. Peretz is always viciously attacking people who have earned their intellectual or journalistic credentials, rather than purchased them, and I wonder if his own precarious position is this world is the key to the frequent slander to which he subjects those with more genuine literary accomplishments. (Peretz has never written a book, or any other significant work of scholarship or reportage).”
http://rittenhouse.blogspot.com/2002/05/unfortunate-confluence-of-events.html
MediaBistro.Com investor "Marty" Peretz
----> AT New Republic, MARTIN PERETZ OPENED THE DOORS TO CIA PROPAGANDISTS. Touby could turn to no one else in the world for MediaBistro financing but this notorious neo-conservative: " ... In reality ... the New Republic had been taken over by neocon Martin Peretz in the 1970s, and he had turned it into a home for neocon and right-wing pundits, such as Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes."
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/073007Parry.shtml
Neo-Conservative Propaganda and The New Republic: "Is Peretz taking orders from the Scaife family foundations? If so, that would explain a lot about what's up with The New Republic. ... "
http://www.mahablog.com/oldsite/2005.02.13_arch.html
----> Peretz and the Fascist Right: Peretz was a member of The Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG): http://www.geocities.com/tom_slouck/iraq/cpsg_98_letter_iraq.html
"In February 1998, the CPSG asked Clinton "to go beyond a military strike on Iraq and to help overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and replace his regime with a provisional government. ... Signatories included the current ultra-unilateralist undersecretary of state for arms control and international strategy, John R. Bolton, Gary Schmitt and several AEI 'scholars', including the current chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle. PNAC's two co-founders, William Kristol, editor of Rupert Murdoch's The Weekly Standard, and neocon commentator Robert Kagan, also signed the letter."
----> Martin Peretz and PNAC: Led by Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, this group still "occupies several dozen key posts in the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department."
Dreyfuss also noted a Washington think tank developed: "Project for the New American Century" Members include Richard, Perle, strategist Robert Kagan, William Kristol, NEW REPUBLIC publisher, Martin Peretz, and ex-CIA Director James Woolsey and are "tied to a web of similar neo-conservative, pro-Israel organizations." Dreyfuss quoted Diplomat Akins: "It's a team that looks all too familiar, seeking to implement the plan first outlined back in 1975.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MIL410A.html
Martin Peretz to Bush: Bomb Iraq... Editor-in-Chief and co-owner Martin Peretz's personal stance on Iraq. ....
www.counterpunch.org/leopold02212003.html
----> The CPSG was funded by the Bradley Foundation, one of the better-known CIA conduits: " ... co-chaired by Bush chickenhawk Richard Perle along with former New York Democratic Rep. Stephen Solarz. CPSG teamed up with the Bush Senior administration to mobilize support for Iraq Attack, version I. According to Jim Lobe of the Project Against the Present Danger, CPSG received a sizable grant from the Wisconsin-based Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, a major funder of both PNAC and AEI. Obviously, these folks like [to] share the same bed. ... "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_Peace_and_Security_in_the_Gulf
----> Friend of Scooter Libby: "Let me concede: I am a friend of Scooter Libby. ... I like Scooter, who is quite brilliant, very honest, and brave. Also funny. I've contributed to The Libby Legal Defense Fund and have joined the fund's advisory committee, which is not large because in Washington old pals dessert when even their college roommate gets into trouble. In a time when self-styled civil libertarians are giving money to defend Muslim terrorists, I am happy to help defend an American patriot, some of whose politics I do not share and some of whose politics I do, from a cynical onslaught of the special prosecutor who put journalists into jail for not telling him what he already knew."
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2006/09/12/martin-peretz-blogger/
----> Friend of Joe Lieberman: "It was then that people like Joe Lieberman emerged, muscular on defense, assertive in foreign policy, genuinely liberal on social and economic matters, but not doctrinaire on regulatory issues. He had marched for civil rights and is committed to an equal opportunity agenda with equal opportunity results. He has qualms about affirmative action."
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/003529.html
Background notes about Martin Peretz: " ... In the mid-1960s Peretz was one of now-Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore's Harvard political science professors (e.g., see Melinda Henneberger, "A Test of Character," The New York Times, 21 June 2000) and became one of (if not the most influential of Gore's "mentors." (E.g., see Howard Kurtz, "The Publisher's Winning Ticket," Washington Post, 17 August 2000).
"Just hours before casting his Senate vote to support sending U.S. troops to fight in the Persian Gulf, then-Tennessee Senator Al Gore consulted Peretz (John Aloysius Farrell," (Allegation Revived: Simpson Says Gore 'Shopped' Gulf Vote, Boston Globe, 5 February 2000)."
http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg01113.html
* Peretz is a long-time advocate for Israel and Zionism (e.g., see Martin Peretz, "Zionism: the 'God' that did not Fail": " ... if it succeeded, it did so not least because it was not a God. It was a morality, and a politics, of worldliness ... " (The Gazette (Montreal) 25 April 1998, SECTION: THE REVIEW; Pg. B4).
-----> For more on the CIA, Iraq war politics and Peretz-in-context, see: "Harvard in Service to the National Security State." by John Trumpbour, CAIB site.
http://www.cia-on-campus.org/harvard.edu/harvard.html
----> TNR Sold: Note the handoff to another right-wing extremist, Canada's answer to Rupert Murdoch, Leonard Asper: "New Republic Sold, to Drop Weekly Publication Schedule," by Ben Smith, February 23, 2007: "The Canadian media giant CanWest has taken a majority stake in the 92-year-old New Republic, and plans to relaunch the weekly as a thicker, glossier – and half as frequent – magazine with a more robust Web site. The new ownership and redesign completes a period of change at the magazine, which shifted markedly to the political left under its new editor, Franklin Foer, and has sought to shake off its association with the Bush administration’s pursuit of the Iraq war."
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=F03A1B72-3048-5C12-00C67B9F359A44FA
•••••••••
PART THREE: Mediabistro's Laurel Touby Joins the CIA-Mafia-Bush Family "Old-Boys Club"" ... GOTHAM PARTNERS [a key investor in Laurel Touby's MediaBistro.com] owns Crescent Investments, which oversees GW Bush's blind trust. Richard Rainwater is at Crescent/Gotham, and is close to Bush: " ... Rainwater founded Columbia Healthcare, which merged with HCA and became the country's biggest for-profit hospital company (Scott was later forced out as CEO amid a federal fraud investigation). Even [his partner] George W. Bush kept an office, when he and Rainwater were putting together the Texas Rangers stadium deal. ... " (SOURCE: money.cnn.com, see below)
MEDIABISTRO'S ATTORNEY DOUBLES AS A NANOTECH BIO-CHIP PROMOTER
After MediaBistro sold to JupiterMedia in July 2007, the quirky founder thanked her investment consultants, among them "Marty Peretz" for "letting me into his old-boys club and funding my wildly ambitious business plan." (We met neo-con Peretz's old boys' bund - intimately involved in the Bush administration, PNAC proponents of the Iraq War - in part two.)
----> She was especially grateful to attorney Wayne Martino of Brenner, Salzman and Wallman:
" ... our corporate lawyer, who has been with me through every crazy spin-cycle of this business, from pre-funding 1998 to today's sale. Wayne thought of every angle, considered every possible permutation of every deal. I am ever indebted to you, Wayne."
http://www.mediabistro.com/news/breaking/mediabistrocom_merges_with_jupitermedia_a_marriage_of_minds_media_resources_63233.asp
----> Who is Wayen Martino? - (Of particular relevance here is his background in nanotechnology, because in the next few steps we will find him in alliance with the CIA and corporations with fascist histories to advance the nascent technology): "Born Danbury, Connecticut, April 18, 1959; admitted to bar, 1984, Connecticut. Education: American University (B.A., cum laude, 1981); University of Connecticut School of Law (J.D., with honors, 1984). Practice Areas: Corporate; Mergers and Acquisitions; Finance; Venture Capital; Business Start-Ups; Strategic Alliances; Internet; NANOTECHNOLOGY; Technology Transfers; Technology Licensing; Executive Employment."
----> Some clients of Wayne Matino's New Haven law firm, Brenner, Salzman and Wallman: GE, IBM, Nortel Networks, Williams Communications, US West, and Pasteur-Merieux-Connaught.
http://www.bswlaw.com/Attorneys/Attys_page.htm
US West gave us director Dick Cheney and former CEO SOL TRUJILLO, who moved on to head Graviton, founded by the CIA's In-Q-Tel, then to KeyCorp. Trujillo handled the sale of MediaBistro to JupiterMedia (part one).
----> Wayne Martino and nanotechnology - He is president and co-Founder, Connecticut Nanotech Initiative, in close alliance with the National Nanotechnology Initative. Also, attorney for the initiative.
http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=58982085
http://www.lawyers.com/Connecticut/New-Haven/Brenner,-Saltzman-and-Wallman-LLP-328713-f.html
----> A nanotech symposium hosted by Wayne Martino and the CNI "boasted" a "'who's who' in nanotechnology leadership to include ("neo-cons") James Murday, Naval Research Laboratory and acting director for the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office; Mark Modzelewski, founder and executive director of the world's fastest growing technology association - the NanoBusiness Alliance; Robert Hwang, director, Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory; and Mark Reed, professor of engineering and applied science at Yale University."http://www.nanotech-now.com/CNI-release-10142003.htm
The Nanotech Capitol of the World: "Connecticut is poised to become the nanotechnology capital of the world, so believe the invitation-only members of a new organization called the Connecticut Nanotechnology Initiative, which met for the first time over the weekend at Yale University. ... "
http://www.infowars.com/archives/2003/Feb/02-25-03.htm
Industrial interest in nanotech: " ... Lt. Governor M. Jodi Rell adds that nanotechnology is a win-win for Connecticut. ... [W]e’re home to industry leaders like General Electric, Pfizer, United Technologies, and more. ... "
http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?A=11&Q=257674
----> Inframat Corp. of Connecticut is a leading sponsor of Martino's CNI. Inframat is a military contractor:
eg., Army, see: http://www.dodsbir.net/selections/abs032/armyabs032.htm
----> Regional Alliances of the International Nanotechnology Alliance include Martino's organization: Franklin Institute, Pennsylvania, Texas Nanotechnology Initiative, Virginia Nanotechnology Initiative, Denver Nano Hub, Silicon Valley, San Diego and Michigan Nano Hubs, Massachusetts Nanotech Initiative, Connecticut Nanotechnology Initiative. (Source: "The Future of NATIONAL NANOTECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE," National Science Foundation)
www.nano.gov/
----> CIA and military intelligence interest in nanotechnology drives the industry - Intelligence community interest in the technology is clearly evident in lists of conference attendees, as found in this 2001 symposium report:
List of Attendees
Alan Baily, Central Intelligence Agency
Eric Baker, Central Intelligence Agency
Ramesh Bapat, RAND Science, Technology and Policy Institute
Dave Barlow, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Working Group, National Ground Intelligence Center, Military Technologies Division
Beverly Brown, National Ground Intelligence Center
Jeanne Brown, National Ground Intelligence Center
Gene Cheney, Air Force Technical Applications Center
Ken Crelling, U.S. Department of Defense
Joey Crider, National Ground Intelligence Center
Gary Curral, DuPont
And many more - in fact, intelligence people turned up in hordes:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10253#description
----> Some of those funding the nanotechnology initiative movement: NIST, DOD, DOJ, DOS, NASA, NRC (Nat. Research Council, a CIA front),
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:bJXSHXjWJhAJ:www.nano.gov/html/res/roco_aiche_48slides.pdf+Connecticut+Nanotechnology+Initiative&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
----> The CIA had a quieter role in Martino's Initiative - also THE WHITE HOUSE - and these federal sources were funding Martino:
From Small Wonders, Endless Frontiers: A Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative - TABLE 2.1 Estimated Funding for Nanotechnology from FY 1999 to FY 2003 (million dollars)
... Funding figures for four additional entities (the Departments of State and Treasury, the CIA, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) that are also joining the NNI are not yet available. ... Currently represented on NSET are the Departments of Defense (DOD), Energy (DOE), Justice (DOJ), Transportation (DOT), Agriculture (USDA), State, and Treasury; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ... the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA); and two White House offices (the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and OSTP).
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10395&page=11
The Nanotechnology Initiatives developed MICRO-CHIPS - in large part, with open and hidden channels of CIA/military funding:
Nanotechnology Initiative
Fundamental nanoscale science and engineering
Principal Areas of Investigation (Fiscal year 2002) Biosystems at the Nanoscale 14% – biostructures, mimicry, bio-chips
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:bJXSHXjWJhAJ:www.nano.gov/html/res/roco_aiche_48slides.pdf+Connecticut+Nanotechnology+Initiative&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
That is, 14% of the advances made by the Initiative run, in part, by Martino, were in bio-chips.
2.) Mixing with the Mafia & Bush Family
In part two, Ms. Touby "explained" the early funding of MediaBistro: "My goal was to raise $1 million, even though I didn’t need half of that. ... The funding came from a venture private equity hedge fund called GOTHAM PARTNERS. A small portion of it came from MARTIN PERETZ, who owned the New Republic back then, and some of THESTREET.COM. At that time, I kept ownership of more than 70% of the company. ... "
www.nyreport.com/index.cfm
Martin Peretz----> Not quite. The funding from Gotham Partners shakes out like this: "Party Girl Makes It Big," By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, October 22, 2007: " ... In 1999, Touby asked her readers to contribute $100, and quickly amassed $4,500. With the dot-com boom in full force, she got $250,000 in backing from MARTY PERETZ [the "small portion"], then the New Republic's owner, and $750,000 from GOTHAM PARTNERS. ... "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/10/22/BL2007102200452_pf.html
In other words, Touby, in the interview above, obfuscated the sources and percentages of MediaBistro financing with a favored MB strategy - lying.
----> Gotham, the MediaBistro investor, makes the "Hedge Fund Hall of Shame": " ... Gotham Partners, which had grown to $300 million by 2003, implode[d] in a spectacular display of business wrangling and SEC investigations. That, of course, was only the beginning. What’s worse than losing $300 million and having Eliot Spitzer breathing down your neck? Being in Pensions & Investments Magazine’s Hedge Fund Hall of Shame. ... "
http://www.02138mag.com/tribe/spotlight/762.html
Key name to know in connection with the now-defunct Gotham Partners. From NameBase:
----> Mobbed-up, CIA'ed-up WILLIAM FRIEDMAN (N.Y.LAWYER). See:
• Brewton, P. The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush. 1992 (34)
• Pizzo, S. Fricker, M. Muolo, P. Inside Job. 1989 (247)
• Stein, B. A License to Steal. 1992 (78, 81-2)
http://www.namebase.org/main4/William-_28n_2Ey_2Elawyer_29-Friedman.html
----> William Friedman? - William Friedman was an executive for a failed S&L/investment house known as Southmark - a target for looting by the CIA and Mafia (seeInside Job, by Fricker, etal.):
" ... William Friedman was Southmark’s Vice Chairman ... "
http://www.fool.com/Industry/RealEstate/RealEstateWeekly.htm
This places him well within the CIA-Mafia Beebe network that included the likes of Adnan Khashoggi, Peter Munk (business partner of Khashoggi, Rupert Murdoch and GHW Bush); Stefan Halper (co-founder with fellow George Bush supporter Harvey McLean of Palmer National Bank, which was financed by H K Beebe and funneled private donations to the Contras; former son-in-law of past CIA deputy director Ray Cline); Ben Barnes (former Texas Lt. Governor); Gov. John Connally; Clint Murchison Sr.; Charles Keating, and a host of others.
SEE: http://www.jailhurwitz.com/beebe.html
---->How it Happened: The trail leading up through the arches over the Redwood courthouse steps started in the late 1960s in Gaffney, South Carolina. By 1973, at age 36, Gene Phillips filed a $30 million bankruptcy -- the largest real estate Chapter 11 in recorded South Carolina history. By 1980, Phillips had recovered, taken over the company of a former creditor, and met a talented and resourceful deal-lawyer/wheeler-dealer named WILLIAM FRIEDMAN. The two found a weakness in the financial structure of an Atlanta-based REIT. Manipulating a forgotten pool of outstanding warrants, they took control of a former affiliate of Citizens & Southern Bank, now known as Southmark. As time went on Phillips’s companies bought a company Lear Jet which was later replaced with a DC-9, and generally they flew about as high over Texas as a financier can.
"The next collapse was even more spectacular. Southmark bought San Jacinto Savings & Loan, which the regulators finally took over. Drexel Burnham ponied up with $915 million in two tranches of last-ditch financing. With that money, Phillips’s Southmark Corporation made investments that reportedly scared even Michael Milken. Finally, in 1987 Southmark wrote off over $1 billion in one month and the centerpiece to a $9 billion pile of assets headed into another bankruptcy court.
"Before that collapse, Southmark had taken over control of a number of partnerships originally syndicated by Robert McNeill, and in 1987 the principals of the wounded Southmark succeeded in rolling up four of those partnerships. They ultimately contributed most of the assets of the newly formed, AMEX-traded National Realty.
"The tale then leads to an eight-year court battle in Judge Jenkin’s court with allegations of huge fees and conflicts of interest being hurled by investors’ counsel, and rejected by those representing Phillips and his associated entities. The story involves three other publicly traded REITs controlled by Phillips’ associates, as well. The other REITs are CONTINENTAL MTG. & EQUITY TRUST (Nasdaq: CMETS), TRANSCONTINENTAL REALTY INVESTORS (NYSE: TCI), and INCOME OPPORTUNITY TRUST (AMEX: IOT). All these stocks have elements of common ownership and control with other Phillips entities. Interestingly, all have also been pretty hot performers in the first quarter of 1997, though none tied American Realty.
"NATIONAL REALTY LP UNITS ($100 MM in Market Cap) + 33%
CONTINENTAL MTG. & EQUITY TRUST (CMETS) -($66 MM) + 30%
TRANSCONTINENTAL REALTY INVESTORS (TCI) -($49 MM) + 14%
INCOME OPPORTUNITY (IOT) - ($22 MM ) + 36%
AMERICAN REALTY TRUST (ARB) - ($196 MM) + $157%"
http://www.fool.com/Industry/RealEstate/RealEstateWeekly.htm
How to Loot a Bank - The Enron Strategy : [E]xaminer R. Neal Batson, acting under the authority of a Dallas federal bankruptcy judge, concluded that Southmark created 'illusory' sales and 'phantom' profits by buying massive real-estate portfolios and selling them to limited partnerships in deals Southmark financed. Many partnerships defaulted, helping drive Southmark into bankruptcy. The report said the chairman, Mr. Phillips, and the vice chairman, Mr. FRIEDMAN, were chiefly responsible for the collapse and reaped 'substantial benefits' at Southmark's expense. These included general-partnership fees from affiliates, Southmark advances to 'insider partnerships' and personal loans. ... "
----> Follow the Money: " ... Messrs. Phillips and Friedman themselves eventually resigned from Southmark -- but only after a three-day meeting in a Dallas hotel in which board members agreed to transfer the right to advise Transcontinental and six other companies from a Southmark unit to a closely held company controlled by Messrs. Phillips and Friedman ... "
The transfers of Southmark/San Jacinto holdings take us to Cotham Partners:
----> Friedman in partnership with the Chicago Mob: National Realty and TRANSCONTINENTAL ("TRI") were picked up by Gotham Partners:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT affidavit: " ... Gotham acquired a total of
approximately 1,835,000 shares of TRI (for which it paid about $10.5 million). Based upon such acquisitions, it is my understanding that Gotham presently owns approximately 21 percent of the issued and outstanding shares of TRI. ..."
http://www.secinfo.com/dREsz.5t.d.htm
Gotham Partners made a sizable profit on TRI, according the the Wall Street Journal: " ... Recent Transcontinental/Income Opportunity board moves have, if anything, shored up Mr. Phillips's control since the indictment. In June, the Transcontinental/Income Opportunity board, acting for Transcontinental, voted to lend $12 million to help Basic Capital and American Realty meet their margin calls. And in October, the same board, acting for Income Opportunity, agreed with American Realty to buy Gotham Partners' stake in Transcontinental for $16.50 a share, roughly three times what Gotham paid for it. ... "
----> After Southmark assets were looted and transferred away, misspent and otherwise evaporated into thin air: "Southmark's 2 Top Officers Step Down," New York Times, January 19, 1989: "The Southmark Corporation said today that its two top officers and major shareholders, Gene E. Phillips and WILLIAM S. FRIEDMAN, had resigned from the ailing real estate and financial services company and several affiliates. ... "
But the disgraced officers of Southmark were handsomely rewarded:
" ... In return for stepping down, a move that industry experts said would appease Southmark's creditors, the men will not only retain their 21.7 percent share of the company's stock, but will also have five years to repay a $10 million personal loan from Southmark that was due last month. ...
'''It looks like a substantial part of their empire will remain in their hands,' said Jon A. Fosheim, the president of Green Street Advisers Inc., an investment research group based in Newport Beach, Calif. ... Under the settlement, which Southmark said had been made to avoid potential litigation, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Friedman will continue to control hundreds of millions of dollars in assets held by realty trusts and partnerships."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3DE123DF93AA25752C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
----> Southmark owned San Jacinto Savings lead to Keating, Silverado and the Bush family:
"San Jacinto, a subsidiary of the Dallas-based real-estate investment firm Southmark Funding, is now on the verge of collapse. When San Jacinto topples, federal regulators say its bailout could cost taxpayers more than the estimated $2 billion that was paid to bail out Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings of Irvine, Calif., which urrently holds the honor of being the most expensive S&L failure.
"Brewton reports that in September 1988 an S&L regulator in Dallas wrote to Darrel Dochow, a federal bank regulator, expressing concerns about the "significant number and volume" of loans between Silverado Savings of Denver (Neil Bush's failed S&L) and M.D.C. Holdings of Denver (owned by Colorado GOP fundraiser Larry Miezel) and between San Jacinto Savings of Houston and Lincoln Savings of Irvine, Calif. The regulator also said he was concerned about "the apparent shifting of such loans among those institutions."
http://christiancommonlaw-gov.org/pipermail/conspiracywatch_christiancommonlaw-gov.org/2007-April/000377.html
----> Another name to know - The Mafia's JOSEPH GROSZ, who was employed by THOMAS GAUBERT: "Chicago mob associate; worked for Gouletas family; ran Southmark's San Jacinto Savings; director of THOMAS GAUBERT's Telecom."
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:81yjVNH7ARYJ:osdir.com/ml/culture.discuss.cia-drugs/2005-11/msg00018.html+southmark+and+%22inside+job%22&rfp=dta
----> SO THE MOB'S JOE GROSZ WORKED FOR THOMAS GAUBERT - A FORMER BOARD MEMBER OF THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY - A CIA FRONT modeled after the American Family Foundation, another CIA front: "FUNDING: The Center claims that its funding comes from private sector members of its board of directors, individual donations, foundations and corporations, and the Agency for International Development (AID)." (AID is a major CIA conduit and fronts for Agency covert operations, and the same can be said for NED, below, another major funder of the Center.) Specific financial information on the Center is not available, but it is believed that a major portion of the Center's funding comes from AID. In 1988 the Center received $465,000 to support the "institutional and logistical development of the National Congress of Guatemala." This AID funded project agreement with the Center ran through July 1990 and involved total funding from AID of $1,765,000. The AID agreement included $236,174 in matching funds from the Center, bringing the total for the 3-year project in Guatemala to more than $2 million. (6,9) The Center also received $250,000 from AID for election monitoring activities during the 1990 Nicaraguan elections. In 1989 the Center also received $75,000 from the NED for election monitoring and observation of the Nicaraguan elections.
SOURCE GROUPWATCH, http://rightweb.irc-online.org/gw/1585.html
----> On the Mob's Mr. Grosz and the genesis of the San Jacinto/Bush family connections:
" ... In another Chicago suburb, Chicagoan Joe Grosz, alleged to be a mob associate, bought control of Home Savings of Waukegan with $1 million he was accused of fraudulently obtaining from a Kansas S&L that failed.
The lawsuit against Grosz alleges he and others persuaded the Home Savings board to spend S&L money on junk bonds of Las Vegas casinos, financed through Michael Milkin's Drexel Burnham Lambert empire, investments which lost millions.
"The Chicago law firm that approved these transactions had a partner named Herbert L. Stern, Jr., husband of Democratic State Sen. Grace Mary Stern. He's a defendant in the lawsuit against Grosz and others.
"Grosz is an Illinois link to the notorious national S&L scandal involving Charles Keating, Herman Beebee and other convicted criminals. He's been convicted of bank fraud at San Jacinto S&L in Houston, which he ran for Beebee's Southmark Co.
"The law firm sued in civil court over losses at San Jacinto S&L is Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where former chairman of the Democratic National Committee Robert Strauss is a partner. Strauss also was a business partner with James A. Baker III and friend of former President George Bush, who named him U.S. Ambassador to Moscow.
"Though such links could keep an army of investigators busy for decades, the Resolution Trust Corporation went out of business on December 31, turning its files over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That agency could drop the lawsuit against Hyde, and is said to be unlikely to investigate Illinois any further.
"The RTC records on the failed S&Ls, seized when they took over the institutions, were boxed up and sent to a Kansas City warehouse more than a year ago. A freedom of information request to the RTC asking about the fate of these records has never received a response. ... "
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/2-18-96/hydecharged.html
----> Gotham Partners owns Crescent Investments, which oversees GW Bush's blind trust. Richard Rainwater is at Crescent/Gotham, and is close to Bush:
" ... Rainwater founded Columbia Healthcare, which merged with HCA and became the country's biggest for-profit hospital company (Scott was later forced out as CEO amid a federal fraud investigation). Even George W. Bush kept an office, when he and Rainwater were putting together the Texas Rangers stadium deal. ... "
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/12/26/8364646/
----> BTW, who is Thomas Gaubert of Telecom, which employed the Mafia's Joe Grosz: " ... big Democratic fundraiser from Dallas; former head of Independent American Savings, which purchased 20 branch offices from Hurwitz' USAT; owned a piece of Sandia Federal Savings in Albuquerque; head of Telecom; A right-wing flag waver. ... "
http://www.jailhurwitz.com/beebe.html
Chairman Quits At Telecom
September 22, 1992
"The Telecom Corporation, a Dallas-based maker of equipment for the food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries, announced yesterday that Thomas M. Gaubert had resigned as chairman, chief executive and a director effective last Friday."
Gaubert steps down fromTelecom: " ... The company said the resignation had been prompted by recent federal indictments involving Mr. Gaubert. Larry Marek, a company spokesman, would not provide details of the indictments yesterday ... "
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2DC1231F931A1575AC0A964958260
----> On Gotham founder William Ackman - "Bill to Laurel Touby": "Bill Ackman is the managing member and portfolio manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. .... Pershing Square has played an active role in creating value at companies including Wendy’s International, McDonalds, Ceridian Corporation, and Sears Canada."
http://www.hedgefundintelligence.com/Event.aspx?ProductID=7086&ElementID=5198
----> BTW, Gotham-owned Ceridian is "Scandal-Plagued": "Ceridian Fires Exec for Passing Secrets to Hedge Fund " ... between activist funds and the management and boards of their targets. Ceridian Corporation, the scandal-plagued payroll-services company, announced on Monday ... "
http://www.cfonet.com/search/?author=&qr=ceridian&sort=date_desc&source=all
----> "Affable" Richard Rainwater is the 335th wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes:
#335 Richard Rainwater
Age: 61
Fortune: self made
Source: Investments
Country Of Citizenship: United States
Residence: Fort Worth, Texas, United States, North America
Industry: Finance
Marital Status: married, 3 children
University of Texas Austin, Bachelor of Arts / Science
Stanford University, Master of Business Administration
Affable investor got start managing BASS FAMILY'S $50 million portfolio in 1970; lost money first 2 years, better tidings buying large Disney stake in 1984. ...
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/EKO5.html
----> THE BASS FAMILY, WHO GAVE US RICH RAINWATER, INVESTED IN JIM COWNIE'S HERITAGE COMMUNICATIONS.
Sid Richardson was a financier of the Kennedy assassination, according to many researchers of the coup in DallasTHIS IS A KEY STEP, TYING GOTHAM PARTNERS, MEDIABISTRO'S OWNER, TO JIM COWNIE OF THE HOAK-BUFFETT-TOM MURPHY CIA CLIQUE: (Theresa Duncan was fixated on Cownie in the last days of her life, and believed that he was responsible for the CIA-cult harassment that she reported in her blog. Robert Bass is the nephew of SID RICHARDSON, whose alleged role in the Kennedy assassination is well known. Robert's brother Ed was a classmate of George W. Bush at Yale. The Bass family of Fort Worth are major financial supporters of Bush.)
"THE BASS FAMILY BUYS INTO HERITAGE COMMUNICATIONS"
New York Times
December 8, 1986
"An investment group led by Robert M. Bass of Forth Worth has purchased 5.8 percent of Heritage Communications Inc. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Friday, the Bass group said that it bought the Heritage shares for investment purposes, ''without any view to control or influence management'' of the Des Moines-based cable television system operator ... "
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE3DB173EF93BA35751C1A960948260&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fB%2fBass%2c%20Robert%20M%2e
----> The White House for Sale web site reports that Lee Bass "ranked in 1999 as George W. Bush’s fifth largest career patron. When Bush’s ailing Harken Oil suspiciously won exclusive offshore drilling rights in Bahrain in 1990, the Basses bankrolled the venture. ... "
(http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/)
For more of the Bass family's adventures in political subterfuge, see:
http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/bass.html
Richard Rainwater
----> RAINWATER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR BUSH'S WEALTH: "What George does to make a Bush buck is called "Crony Capitalism" by commentatorJim Hightower. Case in point: Dubya's financial relationship with RICHARD RAINWATER during his tenure as Texas governor. ... It's well known that Rainwater has been a major financial backer of Bush's political career, but it's a little-known fact that he's also largely responsible for Bush's personal wealth. He's put Bush into various profitable deals, from oil and gas to real estate, but the big one was the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. Rainwater and Bush sold the baseball team to another Texas high roller and Bush campaign contributer, billionaire Tom Hicks. But their relationship didn't stop there. When Bush became Guv in '95, he put all but his Texas Rangers stock into a blind trust managed by--surprise--Rainwater. Hightower implies the financial relationship wasn't a one-way street: 'Bush is nothing if not loyal to Rainwater, who has done very nicely while his pal has been governor. Among the favors Rainwater has enjoyed: *State buildings sold to Rainwater's real estate company at bargain basement rates; *State college and public school funds invested in Rainwater's company; *A Bush-sponsored tax cut that failed, but would have cut millions in annual taxes for Rainwater; and *A stadium-financing bill backed by Bush that gave a $10 million bonus payment to a Rainwater company.' Politex, May 1999"
http://www.bushwatch.com/bushmillions.html
----> RICHARD RAINWATER ON HIS ROLE MODELS: "My role models, Warren Buffett and Charlie Allen ... "
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE2DF1639F932A15754C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
----> RAINWATER'S PATH TO WEALTH BEGAN WITH COUNSELING FROM A GEICO CEO. GEICO HAS BEEN INTIMATELY ASSOCIATED WITH OMAHA'S WARREN BUFFETT FOR 57 YEARS::
" ... So it was with some interest, one day early in his retirement, that he opened a copy of Beyond the Limits, sent to him by his friend Jack Byrne, the former CEO of GEICO ... "I got captured by this book because it was this ultimate quant-jock-oriented approach to looking at the really big picture," says Rainwater. It had statistics and charts galore, detailing trends and forecasting what exponential growth rates portended for the future. Along about page 66, when the book addressed nonrenewable resources, "I really started to get twitchy," he recalls.
"According to Limits, world energy consumption grew 60-fold from 1860 to 1985. With 100 million people being added to the globe each year, the book predicted that demand would grow another 75% between 1989 and 2020. Coming to the subject in the mid-1990s, Rainwater saw developments the authors couldn't have known about when they were writing"
(See:http://www.geico.com/about/corporate/history/)
Byrne worked for Warren Buffett. (Buffett has owned an appreciable share of GEICO since 1951. The company started up in 1948. Among the early investors, count Benjamin Graham, a business professor at Columbia University, "who would one day find Warren Buffett in his class. The link between GEICO and Warren Buffett was thereby established, and in 1951 Buffett made his first official appearance in GEICO's history. ... "
http://www.geico.com/about/corporate/history/)
----> GEICO IS A CIA DUMMY FRONT.
SEE: "CIA FRONT COMPANIES."
http://www.jar2.com/2/Intel/CIA/CIA%20Fronts.htm
And it's all Buffett's.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/berkshire_hathaway_inc/index.html?query=GEICO%20CORP&field=org&match=exact
••••••
PART FOUR: Who Funded Author Adrian LeBlanc's Yale Law School Education?
Among the journalistic powerhouses thanked by Laurel Touby after MediaBistro was sold to JupiterMedia last year, there was ADRIAN LEBLANC, a respected "progressive" writer - who happens to owe her Yale Law School education to a close friend of Henry Kissinger, the CIA's old Nazi recruiter and secret bomber ... Adrian LeBlanc gave MediaBistro its name - she must be proud - I'd pay hard money for a transcript of the Touby-LeBlanc "brainstorming" sessions":
After the sale of MB in 2007- one week after "paranoid" blogger Theresa Duncan was found dead in New York - Touby thanked Ms. LeBlanc, a nonfiction writer, "for numerous late-night work-sessions, everyday hand-holding and for brainstorming the name mediabistro.com. (I said 'MediaSalon?' and she bested me with 'bistro. I am ever indebted.)"
http://www.mediabistro.com/news/breaking/mediabistrocom_merges_with_jupitermedia_a_marriage_of_minds_media_resources_63233.asp
NEXT STEP - CIA
----> STEP A: ADRIAN LABLANC IS HERSELF EVER INDEBTED TO THE KNIGHT FOUNDATION FOR HER YALE LAW SCHOOL GRANT: "LeBlanc," according to Bullpen, a student-written webzine published by the NYU School of Journalism, "gives voice to the experiences of common people." She graduated from Smith in 1986, and "moved on to Oxford University, where she earned a masters in philosophy and modern literature. In ‘93, she attended Yale Law School on a fellowship from the KNIGHT FOUNDATION."
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/bullpen/adrian_nicole_leblanc/backgrounder/
A Yalie speaks for the "common people."
The commoners are deeply grateful, we're sure. But how did this "liberal" writer from a humble working class family come to enter Yale Law School?
----> STEP B: The chairman of the Knight Foundation is DR. W. GERALD AUSTEN M.D.
From the Knight Foundation's web site: "Dr. Austen was elected chairman of Knight Foundation in 1996. He was elected vice chairman in 1991. He has been a foundation trustee since 1987. An internationally recognized heart surgeon, Dr. Austen retired as the Chief of the Surgical Services at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital in 1997 after serving 29 years in that role. He continues as the Edward D. Churchill Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. ... Dr. Austen is a life member of the Corporation (board of trustees) of the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ... "
http://www.knightfoundation.org/about_knight/trustees/detail.dot?id=7039&pageTitle=Dr.+W.+Gerald+Austen+M.D.&crumbTitle=Dr.+W.+Gerald+Austen+M.D.#
Students of CIA/fascist history will have a field day at the MIT Corporation web site. The connections are too numerous to list here, and Dr. Austen is among them: "MIT Corporation Board,"
http://www.fiatpax.net/dohe/mit.htm
----> STEP C: Dr. Gerald Austen of the Knight Foundation - who approved Adrian LeBlanc's Yale Law School grant - is HENRY KISSINGER'S personal physician ... and so much more:
KISSINGER TO UNDERGO CORONARY BYPASS OPERATION
February 10, 1982
BY FOX BUTTERFIELD
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
National Desk
"Henry A. Kissinger, the former Secretary of State,wi ll undergo major surgery Wednesday at the Massachusetts General Ho spital to relieve obstructions in his coronary arteries. Dr. W. GERALD AUSTEN, the hospital's chief of surgery, who is MR. KISSINGER'S PERSONAL PHYSICIAN, said today the operation would 'probably' be a triple bypass. ... "
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D00E5DC123BF933A25751C0A964948260
----> STEP D: DR. GERALD AUSTEN IS ALSO A "CLOSE FRIEND" OF HENRY KISSINGER: " ... 'My doctors have come to two conclusions,' announced Henry Kissinger, 58, to the throng of reporters at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. 'One, that I do have a heart; second, that it is in need of repair.' Kissinger's longtime friend and personal physician, W. Gerald Austen, chief of surgery at Massachusetts General, explained that the operation was to be a triple coronary bypass, in which a major vein from the patient's leg would be used to make detours around the clogged arteries leading to his heart. Kissinger handled the risks diplomatically: he quipped that he was negotiating for 'a quadruple bypass—one more than Haig.' ... "
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922761,00.html
----> Other trustees of the Knight Foundation (from its web site):
Cesar L. Alvarez - "CEO of Greenberg Traurig L.L.P. ... Alvarez is also co-chair of the International Diplomacy Committee for the Florida Free Trade Area of the Americas as well as a member of FACE (Facts About Cuban Exiles). He serves as a member of the executive committee ... for Cuban Detainees in Guantanamo. Alvarez has been recognized as one of “The Power Dozen: The Most Influential Business People in Miami-Dade County” by The Miami Herald (December 2003)
Robert W. Briggs - " ... Briggs began his law career as a staff judge advocate for the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps. He has been with Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs since 1971 where he specializes in corporate, business, and foundation matters. He also serves on the Board of Directors of FirstMerit Corporation ... "
Paul E. Steiger - " ... He formerly was the editor at large of The Wall Street Journal and vice president of Dow Jones & Co. Appointed managing editor of The Wall Street Journal in 1991 ... Steiger serves as chairman of the Knight Foundation-supported Committee to Protect Journalists and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. ... In 1999 was elected to the Pulitzer Prize board. .. "
----> Alberto Ibargüen is the president and CEO of the Knight Foundation - "Ibargüen is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and of El Nuevo Herald. ... He served in the Peace Corps in Venezuela’s Amazon Territory and in Colombia. ... He is a member of the board of PepsiCo, AMR Corp. (American Airlines), ProPublica and of the Council on Foreign Relations ... He served as board chair of PBS ..
----> Alberto works closely with The Inter American Press Association - a CIA front:
Knight Foundation site: "For his work to protect journalists in Latin America as part of the Inter American Press Association, Ibargüen received a Maria Moors Cabot citation from Columbia University and George Washington University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters."
"Treasurer - William E. Casey, Dow Jones & Co., New York, New York" ...
"The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) describes itself as 'a non-profit organization dedicated to defending freedom of expression and of the press throughout the Americas.; Membership is largely comprised of media companies and media owners; IAPA represents 'over 1300 newspapers and magazines.' Although its charter may state that it defends 'freedom of expression,' the real purpose of the organization is defend the ownership and control of media operations, i.e., the freedom of the media company owners.
"As the explanation by Fred Landis below indicates, IAPA has had a long and close relationship with the CIA and its affiliated organs – these were responsible for setting up the association in the first place. Beginning the mid-1990s, the CIA sought to keep a lower profile, and instead the US relationship came in the for of the National Endowment for Democracy and its many affiliated organizations. Since the mid-1990s, the NED and its affiliated groups perform the media coordination role performed by the CIA in the past – although some of the people involved are the same."
Fred Landis: "IAPA stands ready, with all its hundreds of cooperating member newspapers, to scream 'Marxist Threat to Free Press' if any attempt is made by the target government to restrict the flow of hostile propaganda. In 1969 the CIA had five agents working as media executives at El Mercurio, all of whom in subsequent years were elevated to the Board of Directors of IAPA. The owner of El Mercurio was made head of the Freedom of the Press committee, and later President. IAPA bylaws permitted only working owners to be members, so the bylaws were changed to accommodate him. Then many of the CIA operatives at Copley News Service were made members of the Board of Directors of IAPA. Immediately before the campaign to oust socialist Prime Minister Michael Manley, Jamaica Daily Gleaner publisher Oliver Clarke was added to the Executive Committee; he has now been promoted to Treasurer. At the last annual convention in San Diego, IAPA elevated Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, Jr., to its Board of Directors. At that time he was not an editor or publisher of La Prensa, but the CIA needed him because he had the same name as his martyred father. After his elevation he was belatedly made Assistant Director of La Prensa, and when he was recently added to the IAPA Executive Committee, La Prensa began carrying the IAPA membership credential in its masthead. At the last IAPA meeting in Rio de Janeiro in October, speeches, including those by Vice-President Bush, were dominated by alarmist references to the situation of the press in Nicaragua.
"Obviously the owner of a conservative newspaper in Latin America does not need CIA money to be against a socialist government. The assistance provided by the CIA is primarily technical, not financial. Without CIA help, the local newspaper's opposition would be openly stated on the editorial page in language reflecting the ideology of the local conservative elite. That would be ideological warfare, not psychological warfare. But the CIA is not concerned, in these operations, with local ideology; it is concentrating on the use of its bag of technological dirty tricks. One of these tricks is disinformation."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Inter_American_Press_Association
----> As for the "Committe to Protect Journalists," chaired by the Knight Foundations's PAUL E. STEIGER, see: "REAL JOURNALISM VERSUS PROPAGANDA," By Edward S. Herman. The Committee is a tool of U.S. and NATO imperialism. Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, is also an active member.
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2000-02/03herman.htm
THE 9/11 CONTEXT:
----> HENRY KISSINGER WAS RECALLED FROM AN APPOINTMENT TO THE 9/11 "INVESTIGATION," REPLACED BY THOMAS KEAN: " ... President Bush named former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a moderate Republican with a record of bipartisan cooperation, to replace Henry Kissinger as head of the panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. He serves on several corporate boards, including those of the international petroleum company Amerada Hess Corp., the Pepsi Bottling Group and Aramark Corp., which manages food and support services at office buildings, sports arenas and other facilities. ... "
http://www.patriotsaints.com/News/911/Conspiracy/Bush/buffett.htm
Aramark is a division of Pepsico. THOMAS KEAN, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, is a Pepsico director. Another 9/11 commissioner was TOM BLODGETT from AFFILIATED COMPUTER SERVICES.
http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2006/11/lexington-comair-crash-part-20-return.html
----> Thomas Kean "has long served as director of Fiduciary Trust Co., a financial company that lost 87 employees in the World Trade Center." Anne Tatlock, CEO of Fiduciary Trust, was with investor Warren Buffett when the WTC was decimated.
----> Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway/SunTrust Banks and 9/11: "Officials said the hijackers appeared to have relied most heavily upon SunTrust Banks for the movement of funds through accounts opened in Florida ... "
"Anne Tatlock found out about the collision of a plane with the North Tower while en route to the U.S. Strategic Command headquarters in Omaha. The 62-year-old chief executive of Fiduciary Trust Co. International was one of a small group of business leaders at a charity event hosted by Warren Buffett. Military officers boarded the bus she was on, and escorted her to an officer's lounge and a television, just in time to see the second plane hit the South Tower between the 87th and 93rd floors--right where 650 of her employees worked. Fiduciary, which today manages $44 billion of securities for pension plans, endowments and wealthy individuals..." - Forbes (10/15/01)
----> WHO ELSE ATTENDED BUFFETT'S CHARITY EVENT AT OFFUTT?: " ... Warren Buffett hosted this event. Rush Limbaugh said on the air that he was there also. Then there is the group of top Pentagon officials who suddenly canceled travel plans on September 10th due to security concerns. ... "
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x41811
Anne Tatlock
" ... Tatlock is on the board of Merck and Howard Hughes Medical Center."
http://curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=620435#i
----> THE FIDUCIARY TRUST 9/11 TERROR DRILL: " ... Fiduciary Trust, located in the south tower, had scheduled an emergency drill for the day." NY Times (03/31/06) clip. ... "
http://www.free-conversant.com/realtruth/967
----> FIDUCIARY TRUST AND 9/11: " ... Thomas H. Kean- sits on the BOD of a Fortune 500 company [Franklin Resources, based in San Mateo, California] which owns the company (Fiduciary Trust) which had offices where Flight 175 hit the South tower of the WTC. ... Also on the BOD of Franklin was the CEO of Fiduciary, Anne Tatlock, who had a famous near miss - being out of the office that day in order to attend Warren Buffett’s celebrity charity event, arriving at Offutt AFB just in time to witness the second plane hit the South tower. Of course, Offutt is where Dubya would land later in the day; the same location where Brent Scowcroft was en route to observe the nuclear wargame Global Guardian… "
http://wecanchangetheworld.wordpress.com/category/warren-buffett/
Kean has long served as director of Fiduciary Trust Co. and FRANKLIN RESOURCES.
https://www.franklintempleton.com/retail/jsp_cm/global_nav/company/officers_directors.jsp
----> Franklin acquired Fiduciary Trust FIVE MONTHS before the WTC collapsed and profited handsomely from the tragedy: "Only five months before the attacks, mutual fund firm Franklin bought Fiduciary - a 70-year-old asset manager catering to high-net worth clients and institutional investors - for $825 million.... Through the first two weeks after the attacks, Franklin had paid out $16.46 million in benefits payments to victims' families, according to its annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Franklin could write off $19.8 million in lease, property and equipment leases - and recover an estimated $27.2 million from insurance ... "
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:LWAe_rnS7EcJ:www.bloglines.com/blog/ewing2001/2006_9_25+ALEX+CONSTANTINE+AND+PEPSICO+AND+THOMAS+KEAN&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
••••••••
PART FIVE: MB's Daniel Kunitz and the Secret History of the Paris Review
Your Narrator: Return now in time, with me, to the creation of the CIA's MediaBeastRow ...
----> Former Paris Review Managing Editor DANIEL KUNITZ had a hand in that ...Media News
WEDNESDAY, JUL 18
" ... mediabistro.com Merges With Jupitermedia: a marriage of minds & media resources - Daniel KUNITZ, former managing editor of the PARIS REVIEW ...
http://www.mediabistro.com/news/breaking/mediabistrocom_merges_with_jupitermedia_a_marriage_of_minds_media_resources_63233.asp
More details on the founding of MB.COM:
"Dotcommandos: The Accidental Entrepreneur - ... Even securing funding for the company, which is usually an arduous process, was a relative snap for Touby. She ran into DANIEL KUNITZ — then managing editor of the PARIS REVIEW — in Manhattan one day and took him to a snazzy dinner at Balthazar. Buying Kunitz a $50 meal led to $1 million in funding he helped her secure from New Republic owner Martin Peretz and Gotham Partners, a private equity fund. ... " [For more details, see parts two and three.]
http://www.mediabistro.com/aboutus/articles/024.pdf
----> THE PARIS REVIEW IS "A CIA HOAX." Please read "The Fiction of the State," by Richard Cummings, until satisfied that this is the case (it won't take too long). Cummings asks, "Why the Silence?" - " ... it all has to do with the PR still being a CIA operation, which is why no one will write about it as an ongoing operation, according to CIA policy. ... ":
The fiction of the state:
The Paris Review and the invisible world of American letters
By Richard Cummings
The Paris Review (PR hereafter except in quotations) has a new editor. Philip Gourevitch, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner for his book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda and a writer for The New Yorker, has taken the posit-ion that was held by George Plimpton until his death. Gourevitch replaces Brigid Hughes, whose brief tenure ended in considerable acrimony, with the PR board announcing that her contract would not be renewed. Dismissed from the Board was her supporter, novelist and long-time PR advisory editor, Elizabeth Gaffney, whose novel, Metropolis, published by Random House, then appeared to mixed reviews. A sort of 'Gangs of New York' meets Little Women, it sank like a stone. One wonders if Gaffney teaches her writing students how to write bad sentences about stupid things. It's hard to imagine that Random House would have given Gaffney a contract for this mess of a book had she not been on the board of the PR at the time.
Gourevitch has promised to revitalize the publication, continuing its tradition of publishing fiction, poetry and interviews with writers; but he also intends to emphasize non-fiction as well. With Robert Silvers of The New York Review of Books on the Board of the PR, and now with a major New Yorker writer at the helm, the concentric circle of the New York world of letters has diminished further in its insularity. But why should anyone care about a small literary magazine with a limited subscription base? And how does it manage to pay someone like Goureveich? Why does The New York Times give so much coverage to the magazine, when there are other publications of equal merit that labor on in relative obscurity? It is because the PR is special. Everyone knows that. But they don't all know exactly why. Once, I didn't either; but as fate it would have it, the truth would force itself on me without my making any effort to find it out. It all simply fell into my lap.
Frederic Bastiat wrote that the state was the greatest fiction, in which everyone tries to live off of everyone else. In the world of American letters (which is basically still New York) this resonates with particular force, as Maria Koenig Matth-iessen would find out. Before she married novelist Peter Matthiessen and she was still married to advertising genius, Julian Koenig (himself a master of fiction, which is what his industry purveys) Maria would constantly complain to me that she was bored and that she had once been 'in the swim' in the
literary world of London. Stuck in Bridgehampton, she was 'out of it', as she put it in her crisp British accent. With her relationship with Peter Matthiessen, she left the boring and superficial world behind her for one of intellectual and artistic authenticity and stimulation. Or so she thought.
Working for McGovern
Maria and I would often meet on the train to New York, I, traipsing in to meet with agents, editors and others in the book world, in pursuit of a literary career, she to her 'Japanese tea ceremony' lessons, as she explained it to me, which, in actuality, were her trysts with Peter Matthiessen. Matthiessen was ruggedly handsome, a mythic literary figure, who, accord-ing to legend, had 'founded' the PR in the early Fifties but who had given up his glamorous life as an expatriate literary lion, to become a fisherman on eastern Long Island.
I also had migrated to the Hamptons after living in Ethiopia (I had taught at the law school of the Haile Sellassie I University), and had given up my life as a law professor to write. Because of the horrors of the Vietnam War, I got sucked into politics, working for the nomination of anti-war candidate George McGovern. At the home of wealthy liberal activist and French scholar, Domna Stanton, where I had gone to attend a planning session for the McGovern campaign, I met George Plimpton for the first time. I have a photograph of that session, that shows all of us sitting around a table, with me between Plimpton and actress Tammy Grimes. Plimpton was the editor of the PR, a charming and attractive man who exuded warmth and good humor. He became famous trying his hand at pro football and boxing with Archie Moore. His books were best sellers. I told him how I had met his father, Francis Plimpton, at a similar gathering at Marietta Tree's town house, to support the senate campaign of Adlai Stevenson III. We hit it off and he volunteered to work for me, carrying petitions for the McGovern delegates running in the First Congressional District on Long Island. He was against the Vietnam War and was for McGovern and I needed all the help I could get. Getting the McGovern slate on the ballot, which included me as a delegate, and withstanding the inevitable challenges from the regular Democratic organization, which viewed us as dangerous insurgents, was going to be no easy task.
Plimpton did a great job. His petitions were perfect. He arrived at my house in Bridgehampton one afternoon, pulling up in his station wagon and waving them like a delighted child. 'Great, George,' I said. 'This is a huge help.' He was genuinely happy. But after the Eagleton affair it was revealed McGovern's choice for vice president, Thomas Eagleton, had received shock treatments for depression and resigned from the ticket and McGovern's disastrous defeat at the hands of Richard Nixon, I took my family and escaped to Barbados, to teach at the University of the West Indies. While there, I wrote an Op Ed piece called 'Hailu and the Very Old Lion', about an Ethiopian laborer who had moved all my furniture himself, and who had stood in front of Haile Sellassie's pet lion as it sat on a stone fence, and laughed at it. I said the lion was old and toothless, like the Emperor himself, implying that he would not remain in power much longer, now that famine had come to Ethiopia. Charlotte Curtis, one of the last of the greats at The New York Times, accepted it and the Times published it in April of 1974, while I was still in Barbados.
To my amazement and delight, I was contacted by George Braziller, of the eponymous publishing house, and by Ned Chase, (father of Chevy) who was editor in chief at Putnam's, and asked by both of them do a book. My agent was the gentle-manly John Schaffner, whose eccentric family reminded every-one of the Sitwells. His wife, Perdita, had, it turned out, been secretary to James Jesus Angleton, literary scholar and chief of counterintelligence at the CIA. (His deputy was the novelist, William Hood.) Ned Chase took me to the legendary Billy's, watering hole to the literary world, and told me he was going to give me a five book contract and that I was the 'voice of your generation'. I floated back to the train and came home with the news. Braziller came to my house and sipped iced tea as he went through my book proposal, 'Eagles Among the Lions'. He seemed genuinely pleased, even if he did drop the manuscript. I watched with horror as the pages slipped to the floor, but he quickly gathered them up with a broad smile, shook my hand vigorously and departed. This was it. I was in. Or so I thought.
A friend in the Hamptons who had read the Op Ed piece told me I should meet Peter Matthiessen, who wrote about the same sort of things. She got me together with him and a few other writers, but he was aloof and didn't say anything to me. I shrugged it off and concentrated on doing a book proposal for Braziller and Chase.
My proposal described how, while travelling in the north of Ethiopia, I had witnessed American troops in combat in Axum, where I had gone to see the famous obelisks. At the airport, American troops in combat fatigues swarmed all over the place, with American helicopters landing and taking off. I could make out the voice of an American pilot through the static on the airport radio saying, 'I've gotta come in for more ammu-nition. I can't fly around here without more ammunition.'
Secret war in Ethiopia
What I had witnessed was Nixon's secret war in Ethiopia to defend Hails Sellassie from the Tigre Liberation Front and the Eritrean Liberation Front, as they both sought to overthrow the backward, feudal regime and to secede. Most of my students at the university were in the revolution, but the Americans were still behind Haile Sellassie, an important ally in the Cold War. The Horn of Africa was of considerable strategic importance, with Cold Warriors such as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing the outcome of the struggle with the Soviet Union would be decided in the Ogaden. The insurgents were largely pro-Soviet, and if Ethiopia fell to the U.S.S.R., it would have a dagger at the heart of Saudi Arabia, just across the Red Sea. As an Air Force officer told me in confidence one night after a few too many beers, there had already been an uprising led by young Saudi air force officers against the Saudi royal family that American forces stationed at important bases in Ethiopia had put down.
Then, John Schaffner phoned to tell me that something strange had happened. George Braziller had rushed into his office, waving the proposal. He threw it at Schaffner, shouting, 'I can't do this', and bolted out the door. Ned Chase then phoned him to tell him the deal was off, giving no reason. I paid a visit to Chase at his office to find out what had happened. He was extremely nervous and fidgeted with papers on his desk. 'I can't find the proposal', he explained. 'I think I've lost it. Anyway, it's too late to do anything. I'm sorry.'
It hit me like a blow to the solar plexus. Schaffner was perplexed and found it unfathomable. He said that nothing like it had ever happened to him before in his career as an agent. 'I don't know what it is,' he said to me. 'It's highly unusual.' I had gambled a lot on my writing career, and now it lay in ruins. But then, Congress voted to impeach Nixon and the revolution came to Ethiopia on the night the Americans were staging a fashion show in Addis Ababa. Such was their obliviousness. Or their denial. Someone had photographed Haile Sellassie throwing meat to his pet lion, while millions of Ethiopians were starving to death. It was the 'tipping point' of the revo-lution. As the country went through the torture of Nixon's downfall, Senator Fulbright uncovered a secret agreement between Nixon and Haile Sellassie, in which America pledged to come to his rescue if he were threatened by an internal insur-gency. It was completely beyond the scope of Nixon's author-ity. But when did that ever matter to him? He had already authorized the mass, illegal spying by the CIA on Americans as the anti-war protests grew in size and force. Years later, Angus McKenzie would posthumously reveal in his book, Secrets, with knowledge obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, how the CIA had penetrated counterculture anti-war publications and shut them down. But Nixon was forced to resign, and his plans for a new Vietnam in Ethiopia were scratched, as was the infamous Huston plan, which would have effectively turned America into a police state. John Erlichman acknowledged as much. He asked me what I was doing during the Vietnam war. I told him I was working for McGovern. He looked straight at me and said, 'You did the absolutely right thing.' Nixon's right-hand man, Erlichman had done time in prison, and was a sick and broken man when I met him in Atlanta. He died not long after I met him.
But with a revolutionary government in place in Addis Ababa, America abruptly did a turn around and began supporting the Eritrean secessionists, backing a new group, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, the EPLF, to displace the Marxist ELF. Professor Tesfatsion Medhane, an Eritrean who teaches at the University of Bremen, has documented this in his numerous publications. He was also my Amharic teacher and one of my students when I was teaching at the Haile Sellassie I University. And with my book safely out of the way, Thomas Kenneally surfaced with his To Asmara, extolling the great virtues of the Eritreans as they struggled for their independence from tyrannical Ethiopia. (Eritrea is today a totalitarian state, while Ethiopia is, more or less, a democracy.) When asked about this switch in American policy, Henry Kissinger famously remarked, 'America has no permanent allies, only permanent interests'. America also seemed to have a convenient way of manipulating the American publishing industry.
Fast forward a few years later, at a Christmas party at the home of Swedish artist Hans Hokanson and his wife, Barbara. With a tall Christmas tree lit with real candles, a huge roast pig, endless amounts of glug and a crowd of artists and writers, including James Rosenquist, The New Yorker cartoonist Stein-berg, and Peter Matthiessen, the place was throbbing to Jimmy Cliff. From across the room, I saw Matthiessen glaring at me. Barbara Hokanson made her way towards me, stopping in front of where I was sitting. She leaned over and in a whisper, said, 'Peter wants me to tell you that you should feel lucky that he doesn't let you get close to him, because he could really hurt you.' I looked up and saw Matthiessen, still glaring at me malevolently. 'Why would he want to hurt me?' I asked, but Barbara had already turned and walked away. I shrugged off the incident, but filed it away in my subconscious.
After she started living with Matthiessen, Maria invited me to have lunch with her at Bobby Van's to meet James Jones. Matthiessen was there, as well. Jones, who was gracious and cordial, was drinking grapefruit juice, on the wagon because of a heart condition. Throughout the lunch, Matthiessen sat sil-ently, occasionally giving me a strange glance. Maria was her usual gregarious self. I kept thinking how stunning she had looked at the Benson Gallery that summer, when she appeared barefoot, her hair wild, and she announced to me that she had left Julian and moved in with Peter.
After she married Matthiessen, we met on the train. She seemed different, somewhat subdued. Rather gratuitously, she said, 'Everything is a hoax.' 'Everything?' I asked, incredu-lously. 'Everything', she answered.
Matthiessen was CIA
My memory was jogged when, sometime later, still in the Seventies, The New York Times disclosed, without citing sources, that Matthiessen had been in the CIA and that his literary activities had been a cover for his intelligence work. 'Was that the hoax?' I wondered. Did his comment to Barbara Hokanson that he could really hurt me have anything to do with his institutional affiliation? Matthiessen told friends that he had left the Agency in the Fifties, but did one every really leave it? I had been active in the anti-war movement. In the days of Richard Nixon, that could spell trouble. There was the coup in Chile and the murder of Allende. After Nixon's fall, the national security state perpetuated itself under Henry Kissinger, who stayed on under Gerald Ford as secretary of state. William Colby still headed the CIA. Nothing had really changed.
I pondered Matthiessen's literary output. Partisans struck me as superficial and cynical and not particularly well written. At Play In The Fields of the Lord I found to be a wooden and tedious book. Far Tortuga, written in a West Indian dialect, was impossible to get through and condescending, yet it ended up on The New York Times best-seller list. The Snow Leopard I found to be pompous and utterly pretentious, but it, too, found its way onto the list. But his publisher was Farrar, Strauss and Giroux and Peter Matthiessen was a great writer, the mantra went, and the item in The New York Times faded from memory. His nature writing assignments took him to exotic places around the globe, he took up the cause, first of Caesar Chavez and then of the American Indians, and became a Buddhist monk.
The Pied Piper
It was after the publication in 1985 by Grove Press of The Pied Piper, my biography of Allard Lowenstein, that I found myself sitting next to Matthiessen's ex-wife, Patsy Southgate, at a dinner party at the home of Gaby Lieber Rodgers, ex-wife of Jerry Lieber, half of the rock and roll team of Lieber and Stoller. Barney Rosset of the Grove Press and I had been duly vilified by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New York Review of Books, Ronald Radosh in The New York Times Book Review, and Myra McPherson, Ben Bradlee's pit bull, in the Styles section of The Washington Post, because I had outed Lowenstein, a civil rights and anti-war activist who had served one term in Congress and had been assassinated by Dennis Sweeney in 1980, as a CIA operative and a closet gay. McPherson, after belting down three martinis in the restaurant of the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, said, 'Richard, you can't say these things. I am going to have to trash you. You should have put this in a novel.' Martin Garbus, one of America's leading civil liberties lawyers and attorney for Grove Press, asserted that the reviews had been 'planted' by those who wanted Lowenstein's CIA background kept secret and were not real reviews.
Patsy Southgate had been one of the most beautiful women of her generation. A Smith student, she was a fine writer and French translator who became engaged to Peter Matthiessen, who was at Yale. After a few vodkas and glasses of wine, she opened up to me and started talking about the CIA, something people did after the publication of The Pied Piper. She told me how Matthiessen had been recruited to the CIA at Yale to serve as an intelligence officer. After she and Matthiessen were married, they first went to CIA orientation and then to Paris, where Matthiessen's assignment was to 'found a literary magazine'. But founding a magazine was not within Matthiessen's ken, so he befriended expatriate Harold Humes, who had attended MIT and who was starting a new literary publication that would feature interviews with writers, fiction and reviews of restaurants and clubs. Matthiessen provided funding from Sadruddin Aga Khan, the son of the Aga Khan, who had been [the Wall Street Journal 's and CIA's] John Train's roommate at Harvard, and who agreed to serve as the magazine's publisher. Train became managing editor. Then Matthiessen got rid of Humes and brought in his old friend from New York, George Plimpton, who had been studying English literature at King's College, Cambridge, to replace him. Plimpton, who had gone to Exeter and Harvard, was the son of Francis Plimpton, founder of the white shoe law firm of Debevoise, Plimpton (his partner was Eli Whitney Debevoise) who also served as counsel to the Democratic Party.
Humes was furious. After the first edition came out, he boarded the ship carrying the magazines, found them in the hold, and with a stamp he had made up, stamped them all 'Harold Humes, Editor'. Humes, who never found out why he had lost his magazine, later went mad. Southgate, who dis-approved of what Matthiessen was doing, gave him an ultimatum. She told him that he either left the Agency, or she would leave him. He didn't, so she did. Matthiessen's personal behaviour didn't endear him to her, either. She, as well as friends from Southgates's and Matthiessen's Paris days, took note of his dark side, and his occasional gratuitous acts of cruelty, that astonished them. Carol Southern, who was married to Terry Southern and knew Matthiesssen and Southgate in Paris, relates how Matthiessen made Southgate carry a case of wine up the stairs to their apartment while she was pregnant. On another occasion, while out driving, he deliberately drove over a turtle as it was trying to across the road. He was also stingy, as Maria Matthiessen would find out. Having given up what she described as her 'cushy deal' married to Julian Koenig, who with Fred Papert, had founded Koenig, Papert, the hottest advertising firm in New York in the Sixties and early Seventies, with her posh house on Ocean Road in Bridgehampton, her lavish parties and a full-time West Indian housekeeper, she had to deal with Matthiessen's austere lifestyle in his cottage in Sagaponack, as he doled out the pennies. Eventually, she was forced to take a job working as a gofer for Carol Phillips, who had founded Clinique and who had been married to Benny Goodman.
Meanwhile, Freddy Plimpton divorced George, took up yoga and became a full-time resident of the Hamptons. It happened suddenly, with George at a loss for why she dumped him. Was it for Patsy Southgate reasons? Freddy wasn't saying. She was a stunningly attractive woman with enormous sex appeal but unlike Plimpton, was totally averse to the socialite mentality that consumed him. It was as though he could never reconcile his liberal political beliefs and his membership in the Racquet Club. Like many upper class liberal Democrats, he seemed to lack an integrated personality. He could rail against inequality and then, participate in it without the slightest embarrassment, failing miserably to conflate his aristocratic predilections with his longing to be a bone fide member of the left.
After a period in which he was in a funk, Plimpton married Sarah, an heiress to a Minnesota mining fortune, who resembled his mother, at least physically. They also had in common that they were both from Cold Spring Harbor. Plimpton's mother was one of the last of the great American grandes dames, a nonconformist whose social position was so secure, she was at complete ease in any situation. In this respect, she was the exact opposite of Francis Plimpton, a stiff and dour man with little or no sense of humor. At Marietta Tree's legendary town house, where I met him, I found myself in a debate with him over Ian Smith's Unilateral Declaration of Independence for Rhodesia, which violated the rights of the black majority. To my astonishment, Francis Plimpton, a supposedly liberal Democrat, who had served as an ambassador to the United Nations, supported the white racist Ian Smith and opposed the embargo placed on Rhodesia. I, on the other hand, had been commissioned by the U.C.L.A. Law Review to write an article on the illegality of the UDI, which I did, with complete conviction. After I submitted it and it was accepted, I was notified by the new editor-in-chief that it was being lifted from typeset and would not be published. America was violating the embargo because it needed the chrome for military reasons in Vietnam. But the U.C.L.A. Law Review? I had been asked to teach at U.C.L.A. Law School when I was in Ethiopia. Surely they were not part of the national security state. In any event, I got it published by the N.Y.U. Journal of International Law and Politics.
There was no arguing with Francis Plimpton, so I switched the topic to his daughter's psychological novel she told me she was working on. But George's mother was another matter entirely. At a party in honor of James Merrill at his glamorous duplex apartment on the Upper East Side overlooking the Hudson, she objected to the fact that there was 'nothing to nosh on' with the drinks. 'George, don't you have any pea-nuts, at least?' she scolded him. He sheepishly confessed that he didn't have any. At that, she grabbed my arm and we raced to the elevator, down and out onto the street. Storming along looking for a store, she finally spotted a bodega. The Puerto Rican proprietor was bewildered by her sense of urgency about the peanuts, scurrying around until he located two jars of Planters. Back in the apartment, she tore into the kitchen and reappeared with a bunch of small dishes and poured the pea-nuts into them, placing the dishes on tables in various locations. Helping herself to a fistful, she began downing them as she gulped her martini, listening benignly to Sarah complain about a new apartment building that was going up that threatened their view. Then, before we began dinner, Plimpton introduced James Merrill and Richard Howard, who was the poetry editor of the PR, and lauded Sadruddin Aga Khan as the benefactor whose generosity, as publisher, had made the PR possible. I noticed Plimpton's mother with a wry grin on her face. Did she know something I didn't?
What puzzles me is that when Plimpton's memory is honored, there are accolades to his father, but never any mention of his unpretentious mother, who was clearly responsible for his buoyant and exuberant side. Louis Begley was guilty of this omission in an event at Guild Hall in East Hampton, at which Peter Matthiessen also spoke. Begley, a successful novelist and corporate lawyer, had been Francis Plimpton's law partner, so his gratitude to the father is understandable; but George's mother probably made him uncomfortable. Candor has a way of doing that to people.
40th anniversary
As I was leaving the party, Plimpton asked me if I was going to attend the 40th anniversary celebration of the PR in Paris, Mississippi, that he was planning, with events and parties in nearby Oxford, and, of course, fireworks. 'Gosh, that's a long way to go', I said. 'It will be worth it', Plimpton winked. It would be, but not for the reasons Plimpton probably imagined. But PR celebrations were always major events. The one at Tony Duke's Boys Harbor featured an array of American literary celebrities, including the two Normans, Mailer and Rush, with lavish food and drink. For a small literary magazine, it had a way of generating a considerable amount of attention. I was definitely going to Oxford, Mississippi, home to William Faulkner and Ole Miss.
I checked into the guest lodge on the campus of Ole Miss. On the walls were photographs of legendary athletes as well as the beauties who had won Miss America titles. Ole Miss had more Miss America winners than any other institution in the country and a stroll on the campus showed me why. Gorgeous, beautifully dressed and groomed young women were every-where, smiling and greeting me graciously with a polite, 'Hello, sir', in languid southern accents. Not for nothing had Plimpton picked this place. I caught the exhibit of PR covers by famous artists that were on display at the museum and headed over to downtown Oxford for dinner.
I found a restaurant in a hotel on the square and after a dinner of New Southern Cuisine (shrimp with grits), I sat down on a sofa in the lobby. In walked Plimpton, resplendent in a blue blazer, his white mane glorious in its disarray. He gave me a huge smile and invited me top join him and some friends for drinks later that night at a bar in Oxford.
It was the night of the Ole Miss-Tulane basketball game and the place was packed with undergraduates partying in the manic manner of the southern elite. Smoke filled the room and a zydeko band blasted away in the background. George was sitting at a table with William Styron, Willie Morris, whom I knew from Bridgehampton and his Bobby Van's days, George's new wife, Sarah, and the then managing editor of the PR, James Linville, whom everyone called Jamie. I sat down at the end of the table next to Linville, with Plimpton opposite me. Waiters kept bringing huge pitchers of beer. I knew that Styron was supposed to be on the wagon, but he was drinking also.
Gratuitously, Linville told me that he had read The Pied Piper. 'The stuff about the CIA is fascinating', he said. Then, without skipping a beat, he added. 'Peter Matthiessen was in the CIA. The Paris Review was his cover. Peter is haunted by the CIA.' I looked up and saw George, who was leaning over so far his chin was practically in my beer mug. He had heard every word but said nothing. Why Linville had volunteered this to me in these circumstances puzzled me. I thanked him for read-ing my book but said nothing further about the CIA. There was a forced conviviality that I found unnerving. Plimpton was somewhat cooler towards me and eyes narrowed a bit as he looked at Linville, but otherwise, he gave no indication that there was anything wrong in the slightest. We all drank and talked until it was quite late and departed.
Newsweek and the CIA
At a reception at a famous bookstore in Oxford, Plimpton recited the usual history of the PR, including the part about how, running with the bulls in Pamplona, with Sadruddin Aga Khan, he made the prince an offer he could not refuse to be the publisher. On the last night, we all gathered at a restaurant in Paris for catfish and fireworks. Plimpton avoided me, but I put that down to the fact that he was absorbed in hosting the event. I filed away in the recesses of my mind what Linville had said with the Patsy Southgate revelations and thought no more about it. I did wonder why they had told me these things. After my experience with the Lowenstein book, I had no intention of digging into people's CIA affiliations any longer. I remem-bered how the writer Robert Sam Anson, who had worked for Newsweek, had come up to me at the John Steinbeck Book Fair at the Benson Gallery one summer after the publication of The Pied Piper and excoriated me. 'I knew Allard Lowenstein', he shouted as I sat at a table with copies of the book in front of me, a rather boisterous Blanche Weisen Cook directly to my left. 'I was in the CIA. He would have told me if he had been in the CIA.' Blanche recounted to me how she had been vilified for her Declassified Eisenhower in which she disclosed Eisenhower's role in the CIA's overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala, and the part played by former Luce publication executive, C. D. Jackson. as Eisenhower's director of psychological warfare Sometime later, I was having lunch with Shana Alexander at Bobby Van's when Anson came over to say hello to her, avoiding eye contact with me. After he left, I asked Shana if she knew that Robert Sam Anson was in the CIA. Between swallows, she casually said, 'Robert Sam Anson was in the CIA. Lots of people at Newsweek were.'
But I did see George socially, on and off. A particularly glittering New York event at which I encountered him, was the lavish reception at the Morgan for Stephen Spender, sponsored by the American Academy of Poets. In his eighties, Spender was still leonine and handsome. After he concluded his reading, we all adjourned to a champagne reception in a spacious, candle-lit hall, where Spender held court. Plimpton, the de facto host, was effusive. He managed to be both gregarious and distant to me. It was a perfect venue for Plimpton. Spender had been the editor of Encounter, which like The PR, had been a beneficiary of CIA largesse. It was a sort of old home week.
A few years after the Linville incident, I was at an authors' party at the home of Martin and Judy Shepard, publishers of the Permanent Press, which had published my secessionist book, Proposition 14. The novelist and playwright John Sherry, who was probably Peter Matthiessen's closest friend and who had published Maggie's Farm with Permanent Press, came over to me. I knew Sherry well. He was a gregarious and exuberant man, but now he was deadly serious. He told me he needed to speak with me out of earshot of the other guests, and led me to a corner of another, empty room. He informed me in hushed tones that Peter Matthiessen had confessed to him that Sadruddin Aga Khan and his foundation had never put up a penny for the PR and that all the money had come from the CIA. Sherry went on to say that, in his mind, Matthiessen, who wanted to be remembered as a novelist, was not a good one and never would be. Sherry lambasted At Play In The Fields Of The Lord, insisting that Matthiessen had no talent for writing novels, and that his good work was his nature writing. I took all of this in, knowing as I did about how the Congress for Cultural Freedom had funded publications such as the PR and Encounter, all of which Frances Stone Saunders would recount in her groundbreaking work, Who Paid The Piper?. But, while she stated that Matthiessen had been in the CIA, she had not gotten the goods on the PR. I learned later that she had gotten a letter from Matthiessen about the CIA and the PR, in which he said that the 'CIA dumped the job on me'. I also learned later from a British scholar that the CIA had originally intended to set up art critic Clement Greenberg in Paris as the editor of a Paris edition of The Partisan Review, but dropped this option to go with Matthiessen and the PR.
Shepherd Stone, who headed the Congress for Cultural Freedom, was a snob and insisted that those who worked for him be graduates of elite American colleges and universities. Stone might well have disdained Greenberg, who was a graduate of Syracuse University and who had been an itinerant neck-tie salesman before becoming the leading booster of abstract expressionism and Jackson Pollock. Along with Barnet Newman, Greenberg had become the CIA's favorite huckster of the avant guard, which he did as well for the benefit of the value of his own art collection. Quel fumiste, the Parisians might have said. No, Matthiessen, with his WASPy good looks and his literary pedigree (his uncle was F. O. Matthiessen, the brilliant, socially prominent left-wing literary critic at Harvard, who committed suicide before being outed as gay) was the better choice. Besides, Greenberg was Jewish (Stone, a Dartmouth graduate, was also, but he had changed his name and assimilated) and the CIA was imbued in the Fifties with the kind of anti-Semitism that was rampant at Yale, where much of the CIA recruiting had gone on.
George Plimpton was witting
Was this the end of it? What more was there to know about the PR? I wondered why Sherry had chosen to tell this to me with such a sense of urgency. Our conversation ended, we joined the other guests. But it didn't add up. If all this were true, and I had no doubt that it was, surely George Plimpton wasn't in the dark. He must have been 'witting' all along, as they say in Agency parlance. As I would find out, it was more than that.
In the fall of 2003 I received some e-mails from Daniel Gallagher, an America graduate student in Paris researching American writers who wrote novels in Paris. He had read some articles by me on the Internet (I am a columnist for Lewrockwell.com,) at least one of which which made reference to Peter Matthiessen and the PR. Becoming intrigued with my thesis that the magazine was a CIA front, he read The New York Times article from 1977 that outed Matthiessen as CIA, using his career as an author only as cover for his intelligence activities. Gallagher commented: 'It is true. The Paris Review was a hoax, part of the CIA world-wide propaganda effort.'
Through a friend, Gallagher located James Rentchler, who at first was identified only as a retired Foreign Service officer. Gallagher agreed to approach him on my behalf with questions I had suggested. Rentchler, it turned out was extremely rich, living in Paris and writing his memoirs. The Rentchler family is from Cincinnati, heirs to a giant railroad fortune. They all went to Princeton. George Rentchler was in my class there and was a friend. James Rentchler worked in the White House for both Presidents Carter and Reagan in the National Security Council on European affairs and served as Ambassador to both Guinea and Malta. His flat, as Gallagher described it, was filled with photos of American presidents and government officials. There were 'hundreds' of them, according to Gallagher, who noted the presence of an official looking American flag.
Rentchler told him that he worked in the 'cultural section organizing cultural events all over the world'. Rentchler himself brought up George Plimpton and the CIA, so Gallagher's question about Plimpton and the CIA 'dove-tailed so beauti-fully that his response just flowed out'. Gallagher wrote:
'When asked if George Plimpton's father was CIA, he said "absolutely", he was very well connected. I then asked him about George, saying that I had not found any trace whatsoever linking him to the Agency and he smiled and said that George was "an agent of influence", and that he travelled here, there, did this, did that, etc. "Those guys at the Congress for Cultural Freedom, George was in with all of them, he knew all those guys." That's what he said.'
When Gallagher asked him who else he should speak to, he referred him to Frances Stoner Saunders. Gallagher was be-mused. He wrote, 'The Review was a total CIA propaganda machine, from 1953 right up to the last issue.'
Agents of influence for the CIA, as Tom Braden pointed out in a number of articles, were writers, editors and publishers who penetrated the culture on behalf of the CIA. They were invariably paid. That George Plimpton never took a salary from the PR was undoubtedly true. He didn't have to.
A change of publisher
The PR was soon to have a change in publishers. Following the death of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Plimpton persuaded Dru Heinz to become the PR publisher. She also funds a major literary prize through the Dru Heinz Trust. At the same time, it reopened its Paris office, staffing it with novelist Harry Matth-ews, naming two editors for a new London office, this all at a time when anti-American sentiment was escalating in Europe because of the invasion of Iraq. Leading vocal critics of American policy were John LeCarré and Harold Pinter. Coincidentally, James Linville took up residence in London, sub-letting Perry Anderson's flat. Soon after, the influential, virulently anti-war London Review of Books published Anderson's pro-war article, 'The Casuistries of War.' Linville vehemently denies that this coincidence had anything to do with a change of policy at the LRB, but he acknowledges that 'at dinner parties, and such', he did argue against the anti-American position of British writers and intellectuals, in what he described as 'informal debates'. While acknowledging that the CIA sought to recruit him, he insists that he rebuffed their efforts. In addition to this, an 'anonymous donor' purchased the PR archives for $500,000 and donated all it to the Morgan Library in New York, while Charles Ryskamp was still the director.
With all of this information at hand, I sent several e-mails to The New York Times to suggest corrections in articles it had published on the PR. After George Plimpton died, Bill Borders e-mailed me with Plimpton's obituary, asking me what, if anything was wrong with it. I told him that Peter Matthiessen was not a founder of the PR, that Harold Humes had founded it and that Matthiessen had taken it over it at the behest of the CIA, getting rid of Humes. 'To write about Matthiessen and The Paris Review without mentioning that it was his CIA cover is bad journalism', I argued. 'It omits this important aspect of The Paris Review that it was part of the propaganda effort against the Communist and Soviet influence in Europe during the Cold War.' I went on to explain what I had learned about Plimpton. There was no response. In a recent article in The Times that the the PR had not renewed Brigid Hughes contract, the reporter described Plimpton as 'the founding editor' of the PR. I e-mailed Dan Okrent, the ombudsmen, to correct this error and to, once again, set out the facts of the PR. A brief correction appeared, saying only that Plimpton was not the 'founding editor' but rather 'one of the founding editors'.
A deafening silence
In late fall of 2003, I went into New York to have a dinner meeting with Taki and Scott McConnell of The American Conservative to discuss my proposed article on Plimpton and the PR, to be titled, 'An American In Paris'. The article, a lean and to the point (two pages) piece that stated all the facts, appeared in February of 2004 and produced a deafening silence. I did send it to my former agent, Tim Seldes, who had been Plimpton's agent, and he said he found it 'fascinating' and that he would show it to Sarah Plimpton. She never responded, at least not directly to me. But on the way back on the Hampton Jitney to Bridgehampton from the dinner with Taki and Scott McConnell, I happened to pick up a copy of The New York Post and came across a very small article, just a couple of para-graphs, that said the Nixon administration, during the 1970s, had notified publishers that it didn't want any books to be published on Ethiopia. It was for national security reasons. Did America have the D-notice system that prevailed in Britain, so the government could effectively censor by 'request' in the interests of national security? Some time later, I phoned Ned Chase, one of the editors who had asked me to do an Ethiopian book and then reneged. His wife told me he had Alzheimer's. She was horrified by what I told her. I then wrote a letter to George Braziller telling him that I knew what had happened to the Ethiopian proposal, but that I forgave him because I didn't know what I would have done under similar circumstances. He rang me up, suggesting that we get together for lunch.
We had lunch at Le Café Crème on Madison Avenue, a small French brasserie that was so Parisian, I thought Braziller and I should have been speaking French, as though we were in a Chabrol film. He asked after Barney Rosset. I brought up the article and George laughed. But a bit later, he said could not recall the circumstances surrounding his return of the 'Eagles Among The Lions' proposal to John Schaffner. He did relate that his book club, The Book Find Club, had been the victim of McCarthyism and that he 'got wise and went into literature instead'. It was all very congenial. Afterwards, George gave me copy of a new book of his, a handsome edition of Langston Hughes' great poem 'Let America Be America Again', with woodcuts by Antonio Frasconi.
The poem ends:
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-
America will be!
An ever-living seed,
Its dream.
Lies deep in the heart of me.
We the people must redeem
Our land, the mines, the plants,
the rivers,
The mountains and the endless plain-
All, all the strength of these
Great green states
And make America again!
It was Braziller's way of telling me that he had made compromises he didn't want to, so he could survive, but that somehow, a better country was still possible.
Did the CIA firebomb Grove Press?
But did he know about the spying by the CIA on Grove Press, Evergreen Review and Barney Rosset and the effort it made to close down Grove? After the issue of Evergreen appeared with Paul Davis' legendary depiction of Che Guevara on the cover, Cuban exiles firebombed the offices of Grove. Rosset insists it was done at the behest of the CIA. His CIA file would appear to bear him out. I saw Rosset's CIA file and is gave me a chill. The boxes lined the walls of his loft. They knew all about his finances, what he was publishing, and they knew what they hated. When the strike broke out that crippled Grove Press in the early Seventies, it was organized by small unions unrelated to the publishing industry, the Furriers, Meatpackers, organizations like that. Why did they pick Grove, when it was a small, independent house with few employees? If they were starting to organize the publishing industry, it would have made more sense to do it at Random House or some other large organization with many editors. But if you thought about it, it made sense.
The unions involved in trying to break Grove were part of the AFL-CIO, and Jay Lovestone, who founded the American Communist Party but was expelled personally by Joseph Stalin, headed its international division. Barely escaping from Moscow with his life, Lovestone became a bitter enemy of the Soviet Union. Recruited to the CIA, as Ted Morgan has documented in A Covert Life, his biography of Lovestone, he took over the unions' international office dispensing funds all over the world for anti-Soviet activities. Grove Press and Evergreen Review were under suspicion. Grove published radical books and Evergreen Review was a leading anti-Vietnam war publi-cation. It was a natural target for Lovestone, whose case officer was James Jesus Angleton. Grove survived the strike, but in a truncated version. By the time it published The Pied Piper, it needed an influx of cash, which is why Barney Rosset was finally forced to sell it to Lord Weidenfeld and Ann Getty. Evergreen Review folded entirely, so the CIA got its wish.
But I wondered how the CIA had managed to get to the publishers to tell them not to do books on Ethiopia. And then, I remembered Robie Macauley. Macauley, who had once worked for the Congress of Cultural Freedom, and allegedly was let go, became, after doing a column for Playboy, Senior Literary Editor at Houghton Mifflin. He was known for developing new fiction writers and for having a passion for fine literature. A modest, soft-spoken man, he could have passed for a vacuum cleaner salesmen, the way many CIA intelligence officers could. Because that was, in fact, what he was. At lunch with me sometime before he died, Robie quietly volunteered that all the time he had been Senior Literary Editor at Houghton Mifflin, he had run the entire CIA program in sub-Saharan Africa. That, of course, included Ethiopia. So, it was Robie who had stuck it to me. After his obituary appeared in The New York Times, listing all his literary honors, I phoned up the reporter who had written it to tell him he had left out Robie's CIA career. There was a brief silence, after which he said, 'We can't put everything into an obituary.' They had known. They were just keeping it out.
In the case of Roger Strauss, The New Yorker and Salon.com didn't keep it out. Strauss, the founder of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, worked for the CIA, with a secret phone in a special desk drawer to which only he had the key. With that phone he could reach his case officer in Langley. All his European acquisition editors were CIA agents. Strauss was also, rather conveniently, Peter Matthiessen's publisher.
Before the publication of his God And Man At Yale, William Buckley wrote an article for Commonweal, in which he argued for the creation of a 'totalitarian bureaucracy'. Buckley had been recruited to the CIA out of Yale. His case officer at the Agency was E. Howard Hunt, novelist and Watergate conspirator. Buckley co-founded The National Review with former Trotskyite, James Burnham, who also worked for the CIA. Buckley got his wish for a bureaucratic dictatorship when the National Security Act was amended in 1949. Under the direction of George Kennan, the CIA developed its covert action capability, all of which Kennan later regretted as 'the biggest mistake of my life', as he put it. Still, that power was abused, as the CIA engaged in illegal acts against David Ellsberg, Barney Rosset, Angus McKenzie and many others, including me, because the censoring of unwritten books is a form of unconstitutional prior restraint. This has had a power-ful effect on free expression in America, engendering timidity in the publishing world from which it has never recovered.
Now, with the enactment of the Patriot Act, these illegal activities are legal, including protective detention, with the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus suspended by impli-cation. Writing under these conditions becomes the supreme challenge in a society that George Orwell would easily have recognized. The national security state has been transformed into the police state, not unlike life under Franco in Spain, which I personally experienced. You are free to go to the beach when you want, to go shopping when you want, but the closer you get to the Third Rail of power, the greater the peril. The bloody crossroads, as Cyril Connolly called them, of literature and politics has become increasingly bloody, with the result that literary life in America has become impenetrably bland: The Lovely Bones, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, on it goes. Get with the team or shut up. Even the 9/11 novels all seem contrived and banal. An anti-Bush book by a former government employee did appear during the election, and a CIA analyst wrote a book criticizing the 'imperial hubris' of the administration. But after the election, Bush appointed Porter Goss to head the Agency, and he quickly purged all dissenters. Since then, it is as though an iron curtain has descended on American publishing.
Why the silence?
But why the total silence about the revelations about the PR, given that Matthiessen has told the truth to a number of people? 'The true division of humanity', Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables, 'is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness'. And Solzhenitsyn said that the first obligation of the writer was 'not to be part of the lie'. But, alas, much of the literary world and the media that reports on it, choose to remain in the darkness and be part of the lie because that's what it takes to make a living in a culture of lies. And maybe, it all has to do with the PR still being a CIA operation, which is why no one will write about it as an ongoing operation, according to CIA policy. There is, in sum, considerable denial in the world of American letters, and as they say at A.A., I'm told, 'denial is not a river in Egypt'.
George Plimpton ultimately knew the difference between the light and the darkness, which is why, before he died, he named Barney Rosset of Grove Press, as the first recipient of the Paris Review Hadada, a bronze statuette of a bird, as 'an editor, pub-lisher or writer who has distinguished themselves in furthering the cause of contemporary literature'. But just before the 50th anniversary celebration of the PR to be held at Cipriani's, George Plimpton died. The celebration went on any way, with an indoor fireworks display in honor of Plimpton's honorary title of Fireworks Commissioner of New York. Garrison Keillor hosted the event. Guests were seated with literary table hosts, including Paul Auster, Rick Moody, Michael Cunningham, Lorrie Moore, John Ashbery, James Alter, Francine Prose and Kurt Vonnegut. There were readings from the PR by poet Robert Pinsky and music by David Amram, Israela Margaliat, Ilann Maazel, and the Bethune Big Band.
But the bronze statuette was not presented to Barney Rosset before the other guests. Rather, as he related it to me, he was shuffled off to a hallway, where it was quickly presented to him out of sight of everyone else. He was not even invited to the dinner. Was Robert Silvers still furious over The Pied Piper? 'George's last joke', Barney quipped. Barney remembered a literary conference in Puerto Rico, where he ran into George Plimpton, Peter Matthiessen and William Styron. Everyone was convivial, with the three inviting Rosset to drive with them away from the hotel to a bar where they could 'drink in private'. But once in the car with Barney, they began pressuring him to allow Grove to be used for the publication of the works of Latin American anti-Communist writers, the way the CIA had published Ignazio Silone, Richard Wright and others in The God That Failed. Barney refused to join the secret team and they put him out of the car, obliging him to trudge the three miles in the dark back to the hotel.
Matthiessen gave evidence of being remorseful. After the disastrous legal fight with then governor of South Dakota, Bill Janklow, involving allegations in Matthiessen's book on the American Indian Movement, In The Spirit of Crazy Horse, he almost lost his house. He developed a serious melanoma, but survived. Then he completed his Everglades trilogy, Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone, a morality tale on the evils of racism and the excesses of capitalism. The books contain some passages of exquisite prose, as if it took his confession to John Sherry for this to finally happen. As Virginia Woolfe observed about writing novels, you can't be honest about other people unless you are honest about yourself. Matthiessen is working hard at being a different man, as if trying to honor James Baldwin's professed goal in life: 'To be a good writer and a decent person.'
As for myself, I still remember seeing George for the last time. I was coming back from a play, walking east on West 43rd Street, until I got to Fifth Avenue, heading for the Jitney. It was late, and the streets were dark. Then, I caught sight of him on his bike, going against the traffic, his trademark white hair in stark contrast to the shadows. I saw him raise his arm and wave to me, and I shouted into the night, 'Hey, George!' and waved back. He was gone.
http://www.venusproject.com/ethics_in_action/the_fiction_of_the_state.html
••••••
----> ON MEDIABISTRO'S DANIEL KUNITZ ALSO AT THE NEO-CONSERVATIVE NEW YORK SUN
The Sun was founded by a group of investors including CONRAD BLACK .... The Sun's managing editor Ira Stoll had been a longtime critic of this policy of the Times, as well as what he considered to be liberal bias in Times reporting, in his media watchdog blog smartertimes.com. When smartertimes.com became defunct, its Web traffic was redirected to the Sun website.
Stoll has characterized the Sun's political orientation as "right-of-center," and an associate of Conrad Black predicted in 2002 that the paper would be "certainly NEOCONSERVATIVE in its views." Editor-in-chief Lipsky describes the agenda of the paper's prominent op-ed page as "limited government, individual liberty, constitutional fundamentals, equality under the law, economic growth ... standards in literature and culture, education."[5] The Sun's roster of columnists includes many prominent conservative writers, including William F. Buckley, Jr., Michael Barone, Daniel Pipes, and Mark Steyn. ... The paper courted controversy in 2003 with an unsigned February 6 editorial arguing that protestors against the Iraq war should be prosecuted for treason. According to Scott Sherman, writing in the left-wing magazine The Nation (4/30/07), the Sun is "a broadsheet that injects conservative ideology into the country's most influential philanthropic, intellectual and media hub; a paper whose day-to-day coverage of New York City emphasizes lower taxes, school vouchers and free-market solutions to urban problems; a paper whose elegant culture pages hold their own against the Times in quality and sophistication; a paper that breaks news and crusades on a single issue; a paper that functions as a journalistic SWAT team against individuals and institutions seen as hostile to Israel and Jews; and a paper that unapologetically displays the scalps of its victims."[9]
In the same article, Mark Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan's chief of staff at the United Nations, describes the Sun as "a pimple on the backside of American journalism." ... While the Sun claims "150,000 of New York City's Most Influential Readers Every Day," according to April 2007 article in The Nation, its [the Sun's] own audit indicates that "the Sun is selling 13,211 hard copies a day and giving away more than 85,000. (By contrast, the Daily News sells about 700,000 copies a day.) In an attempt to lasso subscribers in certain New York ZIP codes, the Sun recently offered free subscriptions for a full year, an unusual way for a newspaper to build circulation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Sun
----> BACK TO THE NEW REPUBLIC: " ... the Sun and of the New Republic, both of which are owned in part by ROGER HERTOG (“neoconservative”) and Michael Steinhardt (“liberal”) ... Canadian media magnate Conrad Black is another major financial backer of the Sun. Black also owns the UK Spectator. ... "
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dmccarthy/dmccarthy30.html
----> Sun Chairman Roger Hertog also chairs the Manhattan Institute, a trustee of the American Enterprise Institute, and was an anonymous funder of Commentary, the CIA's cold war propaganda sheet: " ... most of the contributors to the Commentary Fund have chosen to remain anonymous, especially Roger Hertog. ... "
http://republicandan.blogspot.com/2005/05/evening-in-commentary.html
A Sun rises
in New York
But will we need a flashlight to find it? Read on.
By Jeff Bercovici
But the vice chairman of Hollinger International, Conrad Black’s company, told The New York Times that the Sun will be "certainly neoconservative in its ideological views."
Neoconservatism is a strain of political thought first articulated in the 1960s and 1970s that places particular emphasis on limited government and free markets.
Through Hollinger, Black owns the Chicago Sun-Times, the London Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post.
He will own 12.5 percent of the New York Sun.
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2001/nov01/nov26/5_fri/news3friday.html
----> FOLLOW THE MONEY ... WHOSE MONEY? ... "Daniel Kunitz, who was managing editor from 1995 to 2000, explained, "The Paris Review does not run on a lot of money. There are no large salaries, and a million in the bank is a lot more than it's ever had before." Before it became a nonprofit, he recalled, it had an operating budget of about $300,000 and required added revenues of about $100,000 a year. Plimpton never took a salary from the magazine, which McDonell has called his "spiritual hideout." Now that the publication is being run as a nonprofit, it's easier to attract money from other foundations ... "
by Cynthia Cotts
October 21st, 2003 12:00 AM
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0343,cotts,48043,6.html
----> Paris Review co-founder Harold Humes, squeezed out by the CIA, heard voices and was a probable mind control case:
Puttin’ On The Ritz
by Richard Cummings
" ... Matthiessen told Sherry that he had not “founded” The Paris Review from scratch, as legend has it, but that he had established it at the behest of the CIA ... "
Paris Review co-founder Harold L. Humes's novels resurface ...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/cummings1.html
By Celia McGee
Published: January 17, 2007
The renewed attention to Harold Humes is no doubt aided by the growing interest in American writing of the 1940s and '50s, and a better understanding of the mental instabilities that can stall a creative career. (Humes suffered from some of the same sort of manias that also afflicted John Nash, the math genius chronicled in "A Beautiful Mind.") Humes, moreover, was the campaign manager on Norman Mailer's run for mayor of New York City in 1969, and present at the infamous party where Mailer stabbed his wife Adele.
" ... But also intriguing to many is the documentary's revelation of a CIA connection to the history of The Paris Review. In the film, Matthiessen, best known as a novelist, environmental activist and advocate of American Indian rights, admits publicly for the first time that he was a young CIA recruit at the time he helped start the magazine, and used it as his cover. ... "
"Immy cajoled me into talking about it," Matthiessen said.
Humes, who tussled with Matthiessen and Plimpton about this secret after Matthiessen confided in him in the mid-'60s, died in 1992 in St. Rose's Home, the New York City cancer hospice founded by Nathaniel Hawthorne's daughter. Immy Humes found correspondence between the three co-founders about Matthiessen's clandestine affiliation in a suitcase of papers sent to Harold Humes's wife and four daughters in New York after he had to be institutionalized in Britain for several months after a psychotic break.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/17/features/counter.php
Yale was, as Robin Winks documented so brilliantly in Cloak & Gown, under the aegis of Sherman Kent, one of the prime theorists of American intelligence, the major recruiting ground for the CIA. William Buckley was one of those the CIA recruited, along with another Yalie, who would become famous as the architect of American counterintelligence, James Angleton. Angleton, who went from the OSS to the CIA and who was regarded, along with Allen Dulles and Kent as one of the three leading American theorists of intelligence, stayed close to Yale’s intellectual circles that participated in the CIA’s recruitment efforts. Another of its prizes at Yale was Peter Matthiessen, nephew of Harvard literary critic F.O. Matthiessen. Patsy Southgate, Matthiessen’s ex-wife, told me before her death that she and Peter were "swept off" by the CIA to Paris to engage in literary covert action. ...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/cummings/cummings19.html
••••••••
PART SIX: NRO's Cathy Seipp, the Internet Mentor of Theresa Duncan's Loudest Detractor, KATE COE
Right-wingers love-bombed Cathy Seipp in her lifetime, and still write of her as a passing saint of "conservatism" - why not? She was a female David Horowtiz, a fascist liar on the take from the CIA, Ann Coulter's ideological clone (and there was even a physical resemblance). She despised liberals like a good little Nazi. Seipp considered Hollywood's Writers' Guild a surviving bastion of old guard, Stalin-style "Communism."
It was all for show, of course, blatant dishonesty. But lies are the staple of "conservatism," and no one held her anti-liberal "principles" against her - except her victims, of course, but they didn't have the media connections ...
Cathy Siepp was the Internet mentor of Kate Coe Coe's friend Anne Thompson: "COE is a sharp-witted industry pro who produces for TV. Mediabistro, the journalists' website, pays her by the post to blog, which she happily does, obsessively. (We met through our mutual blogging MENTOR, the late great CATHY SEIPP.) ... "
http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007/06/bloggers-chat-p.html
----> CATHERINE SEIPP? The conspiratorial right-winger (whose protegé Ms. Coe denounces "conspiracy theorists" Duncan and Blake). Cathy's dead, but much bereaved by her neo-con friends at Fox News, and the like. She wrote the weekly 'From the Left Coast' (opinion formation) column for NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE.
----> THE NATIONAL REVIEW AND THE CIA - That is, National Review Online, a crooked little house built by a crooked little intelligence agency ...
For the Review's indebtedness to the CIA, see "Neoconservatism: a CIA Front?": http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3700.htm
Also: "The National Review: A CIA Front?"
http://wconger.blogspot.com/2007/09/national-review-cia-front.html
A little background on National Review - WILLIAM CASEY Drew up National Review's papers of incorporation ...
Hunt (and Buckley) Fail to Come Clean About the CIA and the Conservative Movement, March 4, 2007: " ... at [the CIA's James] Burnham's urging, [William F.] Buckley created National Review magazine, the premier "Conservative" publication of the past fifty years, joining him in the endeavor as principal editors were Kendall, Burnham, and his sister Priscilla, all of whom had been employed by the CIA. William J. Casey drew up the incorporation papers for National Review, and served as its long-time legal counsel. The mysterious early funding of this "non-profit" publication has long been an enigma to researchers. One hoped that Hunt (and Buckley) would finally shed light on this subject, for in one of the most fascinating, if incomplete, chapters in the book, The Great Propaganda Machine, Hunt describes some of his activities in the CIA's on-going efforts to manipulate, subsidize and influence the news media and through it, American public opinion. The great unanswered question of this book therefore, is: What was Hunt's role in assisting his old colleague in creating the CIA's synthetic "Conservative Movement?" Buckley's National Review editorial colleague Frank Meyer (and his good friend, National Review contributor Murray Rothbard) believed that the magazine was a CIA operation run by Burnham as Buckley's control. And Hunt does detail in the book how the CIA was engaged in many clandestine operations of covert front groups and foundations using media manipulation and propaganda to project American imperial power and hegemony throughout the world. Why not come clean about National Review? Buckley remained close to Hunt and, as he relates in this book, helping him through some trying post-Watergate legal difficulties after the mysterious airline death of his wife Dorothy. Years later, Buckley was outted as a CIA operative by former CIA agent William Sloan Coffin ... "
http://www.amazon.com/review/RM8YBB3V6BWQ2
----> A FAIR ENOUGH SUMMATION OF MS. SEIPP'S CIA-FASCIST PROPAGANDA ROLE: " ... Like [Dennis] Miller, Ron Silver, Rob Long, Ben Stein, and a few celery-stick munchers, [Cathy] Seipp works the angle of being a rare, beleagured conservative in heathen Hollywood. You know, the type of writer/personality who peddles tales about saying something positive about George Bush at a party and everybody falling down in a dead faint; that sort of thing."
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott/2005/12/index.html
----> CATHY SEIPP "GOES TO BAT FOR JOE MCCARTHY and attacks the Hollywood Left:
http://www.plugnickeltimes.com/archives/S_0704a.html
----> DENNIS SEIPP, HER HUSBAND, WORKS FOR WASHINGTON GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC. (WGI), formerly Morrison-Knudsen Corporation, which intersected with the CIA: " ... Brown & Platt is a rather prestigious Chicago law firm with a history dating back to 1881. It has become international in scope and has offices all across this country and around the world. Why would this legal giant have an interest in my little, obscure blog? One word and that is Seipp! The real kicker is that their interests do not revolve around the recently departed Cathy Seipp, but rather Dennis Seipp, associated with Washington Group International, Inc. ... "
http://mike-connectingthedots.blogspot.com/2007/03/cathy-seipp-story.html
----> THIS RETURNS US DIRECTLY TO WARREN BUFFETT'S CHARITY GOLF OUTING AT OFFUTT ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. WGI IS THE FORMER MORRISON-KNUDSON CORP., WHICH BRINGS US TO: "Peter S. Lynch - Manager o/t Fidelity Magellan Fund; FIDELITY MUTUAL FUND Whiz; Director of Morrison Knudsen and W. R. Grace & Company; Wall Street Stock Investor; Advisory Committee AmeriCares."
----> Re Lynch: He is a Knight of Malta, a distinction he shares with WR Grace and son. AmeriCares, of course, is a CIA front. On and on ...
http://letsrollforums.com/movers-and-shakers-sovereign-t16438p10.html
But more importantly, ANNE TATLOCK (see part four), who was en route to Warren Buffett's outing when her Fiduciary office was destroyed at the World Trade Center on 9/11, is also a principal of the FIDELITY MUTUAL FUND.
SEC Filing - http://www.secinfo.com/dwvdh.z22.htm
----> Today, PETER S. LYNCH - A KNIGHT OF MALTA - IS VICE CHAIRMAN OF FIDELITY INVESTMENTS.
http://www.zoominfo.com/search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=1389647
He's been there for some time: " ... Lynch was hired as an intern with Fidelity Investments in 1966 partly because he had been caddying for Fidelity's president (among others) at Brae Burn Country Club in Newton, Massachusetts. ... When he returned after a two year Army stint he was hired permanently in 1969."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lynch
----> RE: Washington Group International, Inc.
WGI'S Defense Services Program, from the company web site:
" ... The Department of Defense, CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES and military installations face considerable challenges in responding to multiple world events. The transformation of the military structure, base closures and natural disasters has increased the demand for a highly qualified pool of contractors that quickly engage and mobilize to provide affordable, timely response. From new construction to refurbishment of existing facilities, we add value and cost savings to military projects and government-related agency life cycle programs. Our core strength lies in complex operations management in government facilities, backed by 70 years of military service in engineering, procurement, construction, operations, maintenance and management:
Global Military Base Operations, Maintenance, Closure and Realignment
Classified Engineering and Construction
Global Infrastructure and Privatization
http://www.wgint.com/markets/defense/defense_services/
----> WGI is owned by the URS Corporation. Let's take a look at the URS Board of Directors, where we find representatives from Rand Corp., Lockheed (Cohen Group is its lobbying arm), Textron, some CIA fronts (Agilent, VeriSign), and other scurillous corporations:
H. Jesse Arnelle - ... a director of Textron Corporation since 1993 ... a director of Gannett Company [owned in part by BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY] ... a director of Union Pacific and Resources, Inc.; as a director of Wells Fargo and Company; and as a director of Waste Management, Inc. ...
Armen Der Marderosian - ... Mr. Der Marderosian served as President and Chief Executive Officer of GTE Government Systems Corporation from 1995 to 1999 ...
Lydia H. Kennard - ... served on the Board of Trustees of Rand Corporation since 2002 ...
General Joseph W. Ralston - ... Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group since 2003 ... a director of Lockheed Martin since 2003 ... General Ralston's military career began in 1965 and concluded in 2003 when he retired from active duty. General Ralston's military career was highlighted by his service as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C. from 1996 to 2000 and Commander, U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO from 2000 to 2003.
John D. Roach - ... a director of VeriSign, Inc. (since July 2007) ...
William P. Sullivan - ... the President and Chief Executive Officer of Agilent Technologies, Inc. ... He served as Agilent's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer from March 2002 until March 2005 ... a Director of Agilent since March 2005..
William D. Walsh - Mr. Walsh has served as Chairman of Sequoia Associates LLC, a private investment firm, since 1982
••••••
----> Re: Cathy Seipp
Fox News mourned her passing after a long bout with lung cancer: " ... Cathy was a conservative by choice, not by upbringing, and she delighted in exposing liberals for their elitism and insensitivity. ... "
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,260268,00.html
MEMORABLE QUOTES BY CATHY SEIPP
"The WGA West remains filled with unreconstructed apologists for American Communists."
" ... People on the left [who in America push for affirmative action for women and gay marriage] are making common cause with political Islam, which regards women as chattel and think homosexuals should be crushed in walls. ... "
http://www.lukeford.net/essays/contents/mediabias.htm
"The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times are liberally-biased and will not admit it... "
http://www.lukeford.net/essays/contents/mediabias.htm
"A disapproving phrase you get called a lot here if you’re conservative is 'mean-spirited.'"
BLATANT DISHONESTY: AL FRANKEN RESPONDS TO CATHY SEIPP'S LIES AT NRO
August 25, 2006 11:51 AM
Being Franken
To the Editor
Dear Right-Wing People,
On Monday, August 21 Catherine Seipp wrote a piece on your website that perpetrates a nasty myth about my record as an employer. Ms. Seipp wrote as follows: "Another friend of mine, for instance, visited Borders not long ago looking for a book she’d heard of that had a funny anecdote about how Al Franken rails against audiences for not employing more minorities, and yet apparently couldn’t find any non-white research assistants for his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them... or writers for Saturday Night Live when he was an executive producer there... or researchers and producers for Air America. But she couldn’t remember the name of the book and asked at the information desk for help. “Really? Al Franken?” the Borders clerk asked dubiously. “It must be some self-published thing.” My friend added that she remembered there was something about liberal hypocrisy in the book’s title, but the clerk said he’d never heard of it and couldn’t find it.
The book, Do As I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, is actually a very clever and well-researched polemic by the Hoover Institution’s Peter Schweizer, who jokes that “Al Franken’s staff is whiter than Bob Jones University.” Schweizer’s publisher is not a vanity press but Doubleday, but it’s easy to understand why those on the Left wish people who point out the hypocrisy of their icons would just shut up and disappear.
Ms. Seipp is correct on one point. The misinformation she disseminates is from Peter Schweizer’s book. But let’s take these one-by-one. I do not rail against audiences for not employing more minorities. What Schweizer was referring to is a joke I tell when I give speeches at a lot of corporate events. The joke is: “First of all I want to congratulate (name of company) for not giving into that whole affirmative action nonsense.”
There was a “non-white” student who helped research Lies and the Lying Liars. I was never executive producer of SNL, but when I served as producer for the 1985-6 season, we hired Danitra Vance, who was both a writer and a cast member and was African American. (Danitra has since passed, although National Review did not give it the attention it gave to Belushi’s death, because, I assume, she was black.)
One of my researcher/producers on my Air America show is black. When we first started, the second researcher I hired was black. He left to finish Yale Law School. Our archivist is black.
In his book, Schweizer makes up some statistic that I’ve hired something like a 107 people during my career and only one has been black. First of all, it appears that Schweizer came up with his number by rather creatively manipulating the definition of who I’ve hired. For example, he counts the writers of my projects. Well, I am a writer, often the sole writer, on all my projects. So he counts me several times. And, yes, I admit it. I am always white.
Also, he includes the producers of my projects, almost all of which I produce. Since the projects I produce are those for which I am a writer, he counts me twice for each of those. And again, when I produce, I am always white.
For some reason, Schweizer doesn’t include Sanaa Lathan, a cast member of my sit com Lateline, nor Lenny Garner who directed an episode of that show. Sanaa is now a movie star, but not because of Lateline. Schweizer doesn’t include any of the skilled crew of that show or any of the other projects that I’ve been involved in.
I thank you for the opportunity to correct the record, particularly since Doubleday refuses to do so for the paperback version of Schweizer’s book.
Your pal,
Al Franken
Minneapolis, Minnesota
http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2006/08/28/al-franken-to-national-review-dear-right-wing-people/?url=http%3A%2F%2Farticle.nationalreview.com%2F%3Fq%3DZGNmZGEwYTM0YTE2MWRlODIxNmI0ZTUwZmQ3YjU5MzY%3D&frame=true
Section B
••••••
PART SEVEN: THE OMAHA/DES MOINES CHILD PROSTITUTION NETWORK ALLEGATIONS - PICKING UP THERESA DUNCAN'S INVESTIGATION ... THIS TIME, WITH MEDIABISTRO.COM AS THE STARTING POINT
Now it gets really interesting ...
A black catNames to keep an eye out for in this entry are in caps: We recall that Theresa Duncan was about to tie Jim Cownie to the OMAHA scandal, which revolved around one LARRY KING, a high-profile CIA-Republican and pedophile, when she decided to "suicide." Cownie founded Iowa's Heritage Communications at the behest of the CIA's Tom Murphy (CapCities' founder), the company that went on to become TCI, bought out by Rupert Murdoch and in turn acquired by AT&T. See: http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2007/08/murder-of-theresa-duncan-jim-cownie.html)
(It's the same patriotic-pedophilic milieu that most recently gave us this little suppressed outrage.)
King's stolen millions were channeled through FIRSTIER BANK. (Stephen PIzzo's Inside Job: The Looting of America's Saving & Loans details the multitude of CIA-Mafia hands behind the S&L heists of the '80s, the context for Franklin.)
The following connections alone constitute the motive for MediaBistro's continuous defamations of the late Theresa Duncan - protecting other CIA-Republicans (and a smattering of political mongrels from the upper-tiers of the Democratic Party), not just Cownie, from exposure in the Omaha case, especially DAVID E. WIT OF CAL ENERGY/LOGICAT:
MediaBistro.com -> Logicat -> CECI/AT&T -> FirsTier -> Larry King.
MediaBistro's KATE COE, a producer at Murdoch's NewsCorp., the approved state propaganda network, snickers at Theresa's Omaha allegations - even concerning missing children and child prostitution nets, credit union heists, etc. - a comprehensive job of defamation drawing on tried-and-true tactics of misrepresentation and ridicule ... and the web site that she writes for is but a couple of short steps from the Franklin Credit Union scandal ...
There is an armed (and dangerous) conflict-of-interest in MediaBistro's reporting on the "suicide" of Theresa Duncan.
We turn to ...
----> OMER ALGAR, Chief Technology Officer & Chief Operating Officer at MediaBistro.Com. Mr. Algar Hails from LOGICAT, Inc.
"Omer, our chief technologist and our chief operating officer, is responsible for maintaining and growing mediabistro.com. ... Formerly at LOGICAT, INC., he managed the development and operations of educational data services, including the College Board's Enrollment Planning Service and Predictor Plus. He grew up in lovely Istanbul, finished high school at Robert College, and then came to the U.S. to earn a B.A. degree in computer science and economics from Hamilton College."
http://www.interbiznet.com/ern/archives/070718.html
----> Logicat was Founded by DAVID WIT
----> ANOTHER AT&T CONNECTION (We've seen AT&T ties earlier, and I will group them in an upcoming section): Mr. Wit's stepdad is Michael I. Sovern, president of Columbia U. and a director of AT&T since 1995 - " ... MICHAEL I. SOVERN, director since 1984, the former president of Columbia University who established Joseph Califano's CASA at Columbia. ... "
http://www.smokershistory.com/cummins.htm
" ... Mr. Wit, a summa cum laude graduate of Hamilton (note that Mr. Algar also graduated from Hamilton), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, is a co-founder and the managing partner at Logicat Inc., a software and test development company in New York. His mother is a sculptor. His father is a managing director at Allen & Company, investment bankers in New York (named for Herbert A. Allen, a director of The Coca-Cola Company since 1982). His stepfather, Michael I. Sovern, is the president of Columbia University. ... "
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE5DA113CF933A05754C0A96F948260
----> "David E. Wit 32. Mr. Wit has been a director of CECI since April 1987. He is co-founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Logicat, Inc., a software development/publishing firm. Prior to working at Logicat, Inc. Mr. Wit worked at E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company, where he analyzed seed-stage financing and technology investments."
OMAHA CONNECTION
----> The principal executive offices of CECI and CE Sub [CALENERGY] are located at 10831 Old Mill Road, Omaha, Nebraska. [THIS IS ALSO THE ADDRESS OF THE MIDLAND BIG BROTHERS, BIG SISTERS CHAPTER - https://www.kintera.org/site/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?c=khLOKXPFLqF&b=3599395&en=oiJPJVMEIbIIKTPyFbKYIfNLKfJPKWNDJjISL0OKInJ7G - chilling in light of King & Co.'s pedophilic interactions with children from Boystown, as described by John DeCamp in The Franklin Cover-Up]
David E. Wit 32 Director.
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/archive7,24,00,7,29,00.htm
DAVID E. WIT, Director. Mr. Wit has been a director of CalEnergy since
April 1987.
http://www.secinfo.com/dsvrn.8sh.d.htm
----> THE NEBRASKA CONNECTION - AN EXPLOSIVE IMBROGLIO SHARED BY DICK CHENEY AND THE BUSH FAMILY
by Linda Minor
... According to John DeCamp, FirsTier Bank "was the bank Larry King's pilfered $40 million passed through, without anybody batting an eye." In 1987-88, at the time of the Franklin Credit Union scandal was revealed, there were two men serving on the board of FirsTier Financial, Inc. who were also directors of a company called Valmont Industries--Robert H. Daugherty and William F. Welsh II.
Note below that Thomas F. Madison is also on the board of US West Communications - a board on which Cheney sits. Also interesting is the fact that Lloyd P. Johnson serves on the board of Cargill and Norwest. Charles M. Harper is on the ConAgra board, as is Walter Scott, Jr., who also serves on the board of Berkshire Hathaway and Burlington Resources. A recent makeup of Valmont's board is shown below.
Burlington Resources is a company affiliated with the Burlington Railroad, formerly the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe in St. Louis. The Bush and Walker families have been closely connected to this company. Walter Scott, Jr. was on the FirsTier board in 1987 and has been on Valmont since 198, as well as on Burlington Resources and other boards. [Click. Note 2] He currently is on the board of Mid American Energy, sitting alongside a man with a fascinating resume, named Sir Neville G. Trotter, JP., DL., FCA, FRAeS, 67. [Click. Note 3]
Another thing that stands out is the obvious connection between the FirsTier Financial and Peter Kiewit Sons, Inc. The latter company controls the Kiewit Royalty Trust, which was created under a Trust Indenture dated May 17, 1982 by Peter Kiewit Sons', Inc., a Delaware corporation to provide "an efficient, orderly and practical means for the administration of income received from certain royalty and overriding royalty interests in certain coal leases." The Trust has no active plan of business operation and was set up to distribute income to holders of Units. (The trustee of the Trust is First Bank, National Association ("Trustee"), Omaha, Nebraska, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of First Bank System, Inc., a registered bank holding company. First Bank, National Association is a successor to FirsTier Bank N.A. Omaha, as a result of the merger of FirsTier Financial Inc., the parent holding company of the former trustee, with and into First Bank System, Inc.
FirsTier was also closely tied to California Energy and Magma Power Co. (a Nevada corporation). In a 1995 proxy statement for MAGMA POWER COMPANY, 4365 Executive Drive, Suite 900, San Diego, California 92121 a meeting to be held in Omaha, Nebraska, was announced by chairman David Sokol at which Magma stockholders would consider and vote upon a proposal to approve the Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of December 5, among Magma, California Energy Company, Inc. ("CECI") and CE Acquisition Company, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of CECI ("CE Sub"), pursuant to which CE Sub will be merged with and into Magma (the "Merger"). The statement also contained the following information: Kiewit Energy Company ("Kiewit Energy"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Peter Kiewit Sons', Inc. ("PKS"), is an approximate 43% stockholder (on a fully diluted basis) in CECI.
PKS, a Delaware corporation, is a large employee-owned company which had approximately $2.2 billion in revenues in 1993 from its interests in construction, mining, energy and telecommunications. PKS is one of the largest construction companies in North America and has been in the construction business since 1884. PKS is a joint venture participant in a number of CECI's international private power projects.
The principal executive offices of CECI and CE Sub are located at 10831 Old Mill Road, Omaha, Nebraska 68154 and their telephone number is (402)330-8900. CE Sub is a wholly owned subsidiary of CECI and has not conducted any business except in connection with the Offer. CECI and CE Sub were incorporated in 1971 and 1994, respectively, under the laws of the State of Delaware. The principal executive offices of PKS are located at 1000 Kiewit Plaza, Omaha, Nebraska 68131, and its telephone number is (402) 342-2052. PKS was incorporated in 1941 under the laws of the State of Delaware. The board of directors of Magma are as follows ... Director Walter Scott, Jr. 62 Director Barton W. Shackelford 73 Director DAVID E. WIT 32 Director. ...
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lmnebraskaconnection.htm
----> Related - FirsTier and the Iran contra scandal, see: CIA AND ORGANIZED CRIME FRONTS DURING THE IRAN-CONTRA ERA AND CONTINUING (D. Wit mention)
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg49545.html
••••••
PART EIGHT: Allen & Co. LLC, the CIA-Mafia-Omaha-MediaBistro.Com Nexus
" ... Media Leviathan, U.S. Intelligence Form Secret Cabal ... "
Very little in the way of editorial content this time. We are external observers of the research, which takes us to ...
THE KEY CIA-MAFIA CONNECTION TO MEDIABISTRO.COM (see the Cliff Robertson interview below), THE CENTRAL LINK BETWEEN MEDIABISTRO.COM AND OMAHA'S FRANKLIN COVER-UP ...
HERBERT A. ALLEN, a mobbed-up director and a key MB connection to the CIA-Mafia-RNC-sponsored Omaha scandal that Theresa Duncan wrote about before her "suicide." It's my contention that Jim Cownie, founder of the company that is now AT&T Cable, whom she named in connection with Larry King of Omaha and associated child prostitution network, wasn't the only one who dreaded an exposé ...
Few subjective opinions are offered here - these news reports, press releases, interviews and miscellaneous scraps of information speak tomes for themselves - all of this begins to explain the deaths of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake - and MediaBistro.Com, with ties to Herbert Allen's investment firm - has expended so much energy defaming and discrediting Duncan's research - the cover-up proves the crime ...
Back to that sale of MB to JupiterMedia:
----> MediaBistro founder Laurel Touby thanks her Internet advisor NATE ZELNICK:
JUL 18, 2007
MediaBistro.com Merges With Jupitermedia: a Marriage of Minds & Media Resources
MB founder Laurel Touby: "Today is probably the happiest day of my life. (Okay, second happiest. Getting married to Jon [Wise] was pretty excellent.) When I put up my first web site in 1996 -- or was it 1997? the records are gone -- it was a humble little directory on someone else's web site.
No announcement would be complete without a long list of thank-yous. Here are the people who I am grateful to [list] ... Nate Zelnick and the other tech gurus, who escorted me through the vagaries of PERL script and Cold Fusion. ...
http://www.mediabistro.com/news/breaking/mediabistrocom_merges_with_jupitermedia_a_marriage_of_minds_media_resources_63233.asp
----> NATE ZELNICK HAILS FROM ALLAIRE CORP.
The Web Standards Project: Members
archive.webstandards.org/member - [Cached]
Published on: 4/14/2006
Nate Zelnick, Freelance Writer, Boston
"Zelnick has been a reporter covering technology (among other things) since 1990. He also writes the bi-weekly columns "Under Development" for Internet World and "The XML Files" for the Web magazine Webdeveloper.com. He has worked at PC Magazine, edited a number of newsletters related to the Internet and the electronic information industry, and was Technical Editor of Webweek/Internet World. He has also worked for public radio in Philadelphia, The New York Times, States News Service, and he ran the conference program for the Internet World trade show. Zelnick was recently Project Manager for Industry Relations for ALLAIRE CORP. in Cambridge, MA, and represented the Internet tools company at the World Wide Web Consortium."
http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=20305591
---> THE ALLAIRE CORPORATION - BUT, MORE IMPORTANTLY, BRIGHTCOVE, "THE GOOGLE OF VIDEO" - WERE INCORPORATED BY JEREMY ALLAIRE, WHO EMPLOYS LAUREL TOUBY'S INTERNET TRAINER, NATE ZELNICK:
" ... Jeremy founded BRIGHTCOVE in early 2004 with a vision for the transformation of television with the Internet. ... Jeremy joined Macromedia with its merger with ALLAIRE Corporation, where Jeremy was a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. Founded in 1995, Allaire Corporation was a pioneer in using the web as an application platform ... "
http://www.brightcove.com/about_brightcove/brightcove_board_of_directors.cfm
----> THE RISE OF BRIGHTCOVE
From: Brightcove's Ad Guru Adam Gerber Departs, by Gavin O'Malley, Jul 23, 200
"... Jeremy Allaire founded Brightcove in 2004 and immediately began recruiting from established companies--including News Corp., Comcast, Macromedia, Lycos, and ATG. Since then, the company has racked up a number of victories, most recently winning video-distribution duties for Fox Entertainment Group last month. Other top-tier publisher partners include Dow Jones, The New York Times Company and CBS News. ... "
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=64392
Brightcove
WHAT IS BRIGHTCOVE? - "Brightcove is an Internet TV platform/network that allows content makers to monetize their content with ad revenues. The site has two different content makers in mind, independents and established media entities. Brightcove provides different distribution and monetization solutions that work for both.
"Brightcove offers two main kinds of distribution to its content makers. Content makers can allow their content to be placed on blogs and websites free of charge, which increases their reach and drives traffic, or they can license their content to be used how the buyer sees fit. Both CBS News and Fox have made deals with Brightcove."
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/brightcove
----> BRIGHTCOVE SIGNS THE "MAINSTREAM" (CIA-MAFIA) MEDIA
June 17, 2007, "Television Syndication will Never Be the Same: Fox Video is Sharable with Brightcove Player" - "Brightcove's JOSH HAWKINS tells me: ... Monday's announcement comes on the heels of a deal with CBS Corporation where Brightcove was chosen as the Internet video syndication platform for all CBS News properties - e.g., the Evening News with Katie Couric, The Early Show, etc. (This is not part of the CBS Audience Network, which we are also part of). Other Brightcove customers in the broadcast/cable category include Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting (e.g., Sky Sports, Sky News), Discovery (e.g., Animal Planet, TLC, Travel, Discovery), National Geographic Channel, MTV Networks, Rainbow Media (e.g., IFC, WE TV, AMC, Fuse), Disney Buena Vista Television (e.g., Live with Regis and Kelly, Scrubs, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Ebert & Roeper), TV Guide.
"Congrats to JEREMY ALLAIRE and the team for making such extraordinary progress with the broadcast world." - Andy Plesser
http://www.beet.tv/2007/06/fox_video_is_sh.html
----> BRIGHTCOVE'S JOSH HAWKINS BEGAN IN THE CORPORATE SECTOR AS A POLITICAL FUNDRAISER VIA THE INTERNET - " ... Josh has also directed Web, email and fundraising programs for a variety of FEDERAL POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS and national public affairs initiatives.
http://splinteredchannels.blogs.com/about.html
----> BARRY DILLER IS ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT BRIGHTCOVE:
BARRY DILLER is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, and Chairman of Expedia, Inc.
Since December 1992, beginning with QVC, Mr. Diller has served as chief executive for a number of predecessor companies engaged in media and interactivity prior to the formation of IAC.
From October 1984 to April 1992, Mr. Diller served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fox, Inc. and was responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company in addition to Fox's motion picture operations.
Before joining Fox, Mr. Diller served for ten years as the Chairman and Chief Executive of Paramount Pictures Corporation. In March 1983, in addition to Paramount, Mr. Diller became President of the conglomerate's newly formed Entertainment and Communications Group, which included Simon & Schuster, Inc., Madison Square Garden Corporation and SEGA Enterprises, Inc. Prior to joining Paramount, Mr. Diller served as Vice President of Prime Time Television for ABC Entertainment (Another CapCities exec).
Mr. Diller was born in San Francisco and raised in Beverly Hills. He serves on the boards of The Washington Post Company and the COCA-COLA Company. He is also a trustee of New York University and serves on the Executive Board for the Medical Sciences at UCLA ... Channel 13/WNET ...
---->Diller entered the Brightcove picture with investment partner ALLEN & CO.; Diller and HERBERT ALLEN are both are on the COCA-COLA BOARD OF DIRECTORS (Diller since 2002):
Diller's IAC, AOL to Invest In Web-TV Company, WALL STREET JOURNAL
"Some of the biggest names in the Internet business, including Time Warner Inc.'s America Online and IAC/InterActiveCorp, are lining up behind Brightcove, a start-up firm that is developing technology that could accelerate the growth of television on the Internet.
"Barry Diller, IAC's chairman, is joining the Brightcove board as part of a $16.2 million round of funding announced today. Other participants in the funding group include Hearst Corp. and ALLEN & CO LLC, an investment-banking firm that specializes in media investments. AOL, which is making Internet TV a priority, is leading the investment group and is the largest investor."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113261996520303641.html
(Other noteables on the board at Brightcove, which has been transformed into one of the most promising corporations on the Internet. Jim Breyer: ... Jim is currently on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart Stores ... Scott Kurnit: ... started the first Pay Per View cable network .... He was also the youngest program director in the PBS SYSTEM and served as program director for Qube, the world's first fully interactive cable system. Mr. Kurnit was president of Showtime Event Television ... Employed directly or through joint ventures, Mr. Kurnit has worked at the highest levels of Warner, Viacom, News Corp., PBS, IBM, and MCI. David Orfao: ... David led ALLAIRE Corporation from 1997 to 2000 as President/CEO/Board Member. http://www.brightcove.com/about_brightcove/brightcove_board_of_directors.cfm)
MediaBistro's Omer Algar----> (HERBERT A. ALLEN's connection with MEDIABISTRO'S OMER ALGAR, LOGICAT, and its co-founder, DAVID WIT (see part seven) formerly of FIRSTIER BANK, which laundered the some $38-million pilfered from the FRANKLIN CREDIT UNION by OMAHA'S pedophilic Republican embezzler, LAWRENCE KING, who had ties to the elite of the city, the CIA, Oliver North, Warren Buffett, and an infamous child prostitution network, will be the topic of the Theresa Duncan "suicide" discussion.)
David E. Wit is of particular interest here:
" ... Mr. Wit [eerie coincidence, Theresa Duncan's references to Jeremy Blake as "Mr. Wit"] is a co-founder and the managing partner at LOGICAT INC., a software and test development company in New York. .... His father is a managing director at ALLEN & COMPANY, investment bankers in New York (named for the family of HERBERT A. ALLEN, a director of Coca-Cola Company since 1982). His stepfather, Michael I. Sovern, is the [former] president of Columbia University. ... "
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE5DA113CF933A05754C0A96F948260
(David E. Wit has been a director of CECI since April 1987. He is co-founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Logicat. Wit worked at E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company, where he analyzed technology investments.
Michael I. Sovern Wikipedia entry: "Outside of law and academia, Sovern is Chairman of Sotheby's Holdings, Inc. and sits on numerous boards of directors, including Comcast Communications. Mr. Sovern has served on the board of trustees of the Asian Cultural Council, formerly the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund, based in New York and in Asia. He also served as a board member and juror for the Pulitzer Prizes.")
---->FOX SIGNS WITH BRIGHTCOVE:
"Fox Picks BrightCove For Online Video"
Duncan Riley
" ... Fox Entertainment Group have announced the selection of online video provider Brightcove as the single online distributor of Fox network television programs. Starting immediately, Fox Broadcast Net, FX and Speed is available via ad-supported Internet video channels using Brightcove technology with more content to follow. ... "
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/18/fox-picks-brightcove-for-online-video/
What Is Brightcove Doing With A Total of $81.2 Million Funding?
January 17th, 2007
"The return on investment made on YouTube’s funding through the acquisition definitely has whetted the appetite of investors. YouTube took in two rounds of funding from SEQUOIA (see parts six and ten) Capital for a total of $11.5 million. ..."
---> ANOTHER COMPANY THAT RINGS A BELL - AND ANOTHER TIE TO MEDIABRISTO - ONE William D. Walsh (in Part Six of this series), Sequoia's chairman, is also chairman of Washington Group Investments (WGI) (part six) which employed Dennis Seipp last time we looked - the husband of Cathy Seipp, Kate "FishBowl LA" Coe's Internet mentor. YouTube, of course, is owned by RUPERT MURDOCH, whose company employs Ms. Coe.
---->The article continues: " ... So how come Brightcove, a lesser known Internet TV website is receiving such substantial funding? Brightcove started with $5.5 million and then received $16.2 million. Today, it was announced that Brightcove raised $59.5 million. This comes to a total of $81.2 million of total funding. The investors include Maverick Capital, The New York Times Company, Transcosmos Investments, Accel Partners, ALLEN & COMPANY, America Online, General Catalyst Partners, The Hearst Corporation, IAC (InterActivCorp), and Brookside Capital."
http://pulse2.com/2007/01/17/what-is-brightcove-doing-with-a-total-of-825-million-funding/
----> Allen is on the Board of Coca-Cola See: Re Coke and the Nazis http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2007/07/coca-cola-nazisbritish-comedian.html
Herbert A. Allen
President and Chief Executive Officer
Allen & Company Incorporated (a privately held investment firm)
"Herbert A. Allen has been a director of The Coca-Cola Company since 1982. Mr. Allen is president and chief executive officer and a director of Allen & Company Incorporated, a privately held investment firm, and has held these positions for more than the past five years. Mr. Allen was a managing director of Allen & Company LLC, a privately held investment banking firm, from September 2002 to February 2003. He is a director of Convera Corporation."
http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourcompany/bios/bio_20.html
---->ON HERBERT A. ALLEN, THE CIA AND THE MEDIA
Media Leviathan, U.S. Intelligence Form Secret Cabal
A quiet gathering of the media’s top elites to discuss mergers, with a keynote address by the head of the CIA, escaped mention in the mainstream press.
By M. Raphael Johnson
Herbert Allen, Jr.Each year, at the posh ranch of investment banker Herbert Allen Jr., the world’s media elites meet to discuss strategy, possible mergers and editorial policy. It can only be called a media version of Bilderberg as government, corporate and media officials are meeting in secret, behind the usual wall of security.
As always, for all of these meetings that actually matter, leftist protests are strangely nonexistent, even though it is summertime and colleges are largely empty.
This year is a bit different, given that the key note speaker is none other than CIA Director George Tenet. [Tenet is a director of Allen & Co. - AC]
Tenet’s attendance has been likened to the “smoking gun” that researchers have been looking for, proving the institutional link between finance, media, government and business.
Like all meetings of this type, it is off limits to reporters, however ironic it might be for a media confab.
The world’s media, whose bosses are attending the gathering, have not bothered to mention the CIA connection this year, likely the first time the world’s premier intelligence gathering service has been invited to this media gathering.
One of the main issues this year is the buying up of French media giant Vivendi, currently run by Jean Bernard Levy (aka Jean Marie Fourtou, among other names), which controls Universal Studios, according to The New York Post.
Making bids are Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and Sumner Redstone. Redstone also has made noises that he is interested in buying CNN.
Bronfman and Barry Diller have held high executive posts in the French conglomerate in the past, but are now using their connections to buy up the majority of shares, though some media reports deny that Diller is interested.
Some have speculated that the “French” corporation is merely another front for Bronfman and Zionist interests.
Bronfman is the founder of the World Jewish Congress, an organization that also includes Vladimir Guzinsky who owns the media MOST corporation in Russia, with major shares being owned by a CIA-conduit, The Washington Post.
CNN founder and billionaire Ted Turner, strangely, was not present, though it might be noted that in 2002, Turner, in an interview with the British Guardian newspaper, said “Israel practices terrorism” and the “bombers are all they [the Palestinians] have.”
Major corporate sponsors included Starbucks coffee (with several others remaining secret) and the Wednesday arrival of Tom Hanks, Candace Bergen and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proves that this is not merely a secretive place to make deals, but is the very canvas where the American anti-culture is painted.
Bloomberg’s presence is important, for, as mayor of the most powerful city in the world, he brought in ex-CIA spy David Cohen to become his deputy commissioner of intelligence, creating a link between the CIA, Bloomberg and this media conference.
What makes this year different is that the mergers, as mentioned by Redstone in a recent speech at the confab, is that the FCC has relaxed its acquisitions laws, as well as the presence of U.S. intelligence.
Of course, Tenet would not have attended unless there is an extant link between the CIA, mass media and corporate America.
Tenet’s presence is not mentioned in any CIA document or press release, nor is any newspaper reporting it except American Free Press. The only major mention of Tenet’s presence was a brief July 9 statement on Headline News, a CNN/Bronfman property found on most cable providers.
The same is said for Starbucks and as yet unnamed other corporate sponsors of the event. Only in that brief report were they mentioned, dropping out of sight thereafter.
In 1998, when CNN did a story on the United States using nerve gas on antiwar GIs during Vietnam, CIA operatives made them pull the story.
CNN had turned the story over to several long-time clandestine operatives, including former head of operations Ted Price. Price’s successor was David Cohen.
On Nov. 11, 2001, The New York Times uncovered a ploy by the Bush administration to set up “round the clock” “news bureaus” to control the “message of the day.”
Additionally, the same article reported that several dozen major Hollywood executives met with Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser, to find “common ground on how the entertainment industry can contribute to the war effort, replicating in spirit if not in scope the partnership formed between filmmakers and war planners in the 1940s.”
Gen. Tommy Franks stated at a press conference on March 25, 2003, that “the media is a weapon of war.”
For many who have never heard of Allen’s gatherings, the full institutional formation of intelligence, business, banking, media and government links is to control the information that reaches the global public.
Allen’s conferences remove such linkages from the realm of “conspiracy theory” into the realm of real journalism. Not surprisingly, such reports have yet to surface in the mainstream media.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/07_11_03/Media_Leviathan/media_leviathan.html
Also: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Herbert_Allen
Allen & Co.'s Directors
• Donald R. Keough "has been a director of The COCA-COLA Company since 2004. Mr. Keough is chairman of the board of Allen & Company Incorporated, a privately held investment firm, and has held this position for more than the past five years. Mr. Keough retired as president, chief operating officer and a director of the Company in April 1993. He is also a director of IAC/InterActiveCorp, Convera Corporation and BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY Inc." [1]
• Herbert A. Allen, President and CEO
• George Tenet, Managing Director, former CIA director
• Kim M. Wieland, CFO (Former Managing Director)
• Stanley S. Shuman, [Former?]Executive Vice President & Managing Director; Board Member, NEWS CORPORATION [MURDOCH] - Stanley S. Shuman graduated from with a B.A. from Harvard University, J.D. from the Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A from the Harvard Business School.
Shuman has been a Managing Director of Allen & Company, Inc. since 1970, Non-Executive Director of News Corporation since 1982, Director of News America since 1985, and Director of Carnegie Hall. He was appointed by President Clinton to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and is also on the Board of Visitors of the Institute of Public Policy Science and Public Affairs at Duke University, where he was Chairman from 1992 to 1996. Mr. Shuman is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Director of the Markle Foundation, member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the Bar of the State of New York
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stanley_S._Shuman
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Allen_%26_Company%2C_Inc.
----> MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE CIA-MEDIA MEETINGS HOSTED BY HERBERT ALLEN, KINGPIN OF THE CIA'S MEDIA MAFIA
MOGULS WILL BE MOGULS AT CAMP ALLEN
Shareholders get burned around the Big Media campfire
BY NIKKI FINKE, July 5, 2006
Gas up the Gulfstream G550, Jeeves, it’s time for your Master of the Media to attend Camp Allen, that annual summer sleep away in Sun Valley, Idaho, for entertainment, communications, high-tech, Internet and other corporate plutocrats. (These guys may be the only Americans who can afford to “fill ’er up.”) This year’s confab for monied moguls — think white men frolicking a la Bohemian Grove (only with families and clothing) — is from July 10 to 16. I’ve managed to get my hands on the preliminary speakers schedule, and the highlight (or is it lowlight?) has to be Barry Diller, Rupert Murdoch and Sir Howard Stringer interviewed by Michael Eisner. Oh, to be a fly on the wall, if only to hear whether FrankenEisner will let someone else gets a word in edgewise.
EBay and Amgen are giving presentations to answer softball questions like, “Why is your company so fabulous?” The Oracle from Omaha, Berkshire Hathaway honcho Warren Buffett, will be interviewed by Charlie Rose. And, to fuel those Trilateral Commission conspiracy theorists, Friday’s seminar on “The Improvised Explosive Device Challenge and How We Are Countering It” will be given by General (Ret.) Montgomery C. Meigs, who was commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe and of NATO’s peacekeeping force in Bosnia. (In 2003, CIA Director George Tenet wouldn’t talk to the Senate Intelligence Committee after allowing Dubya to wrongly assert that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium from Niger, but he did give a private intelligence briefing to Camp Allen.)...
And the gathering still brings together the likes of Sumner Redstone (Viacom), John Malone (Liberty Media), Richard Parsons (AOL/Time Warner), Brian Roberts (Comcast), Barry Diller (IAC/InterActiveCorp), Les Moonves (CBS), Peter Chernin (News Corp.), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mario Gabelli (major shareholder in Cablevision), Richard Lovett (CAA), Jeff Berg (ICM), Terry Semel (Yahoo), Bob Iger (Disney), Tom Freston (Viacom), Bob Wright (NBC Universal/GE), Ron Meyer (Universal), David Geffen (Dreamworks), Jeffrey Katzenberg (Dreamworks), Edgar Bronfman Jr. (formerly Seagrams, now Warner Music) and Michael Ovitz (unemployed). But, to be honest, nobody talks about it anymore, nobody cares about it anymore and nobody wants it anymore. Attending it now is a chore.
http://www.laweekly.com/news/deadline-hollywood/moguls-will-be-moguls-at-camp-allen/13926/
----> BIRDS OF A FEATHER - HERBERT ALLEN IS SOLIDLY IN THE CIA MOCKINGBIRD MILIEU (that's why he looks like the Smoking Man on X-Files)-Warren Buffett Agan:
Death of Katharine Graham
... Her funeral was attended by a group of nationally recognized business, political and media celebrities, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Case, Lawrence Eagleburger, Herbert Allen, Oscar de la Renta, Barbara Walters, Vernon Jordan, Barry Diller, Robert McNamara, Dick and Lynne Cheney, Rudy Giuliani. They were all present to bid farewell at the National Cathedral, as former Senator John Danforth delivered the homily and Yo-Yo Ma played.
Even Henry Kissinger was there to offer a eulogy. Kissinger, the public official who practiced best in secret, Kissinger, a practitioner of death – the man who is yet to be held accountable. Kissinger praised Graham for having "fiercely defended...freedom of expressions" and for being "a seminal figure in the battle to submit even the highest officials to ethical and judicial norms."
http://www.chicagomediawatch.org/01_3_graham.shtml
COMPANIES: THE AMERICAS: Last stand of Coke's old guard
By Andrew Ward, Financial Times
Apr 19, 2006
"Cut Don Keough, it is said, and he would bleed a fizzy brown liquid. The Coca-Cola president-turned-director has been at the heart of the soft drink company's leadership for more than three decades.
"He will seek to extend the relationship for at least one more year today when he stands for re-election to the board at Coke's annual shareholder meeting in Wilmington, Delaware.
"But as Mr Keough approaches his 80th birthday in September, the charismatic Irish-American admits there is a limit to how much longer he will serve.
"'Is there a day when I will decide to call it a day?' he asks. 'Of course. I hope to serve on the board for another year but not much longer after that.'
"Mr Keough's plan for life after Coke adds to signs of change in the company's famously entrenched boardroom. Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor and Coke's largest shareholder, will step down from the board after today's meeting, ending his 17 years as a director.
"Both Mr Keough and Mr Buffett - friends since their days as neighbours in Omaha, Nebraska - are part of a close-knit boardroom club that has presided over the world's largest beverage producer since the 1980s.
"Another veteran director is Herbert Allen, the billionaire financier whose investment banking firm, Allen & Co, is chaired by Mr Keough.
"Critics have long called for a shake-up of the Coke board, arguing it has grown too cosy and incestuous to lead the company out of a long period of sluggish growth.
"The board's radical decision this month to go without annual pay unless earnings targets are met reflects the pressure on directors to become more accountable.
"Mr Keough, however, rejects criticism that the board lacks independence.
'I've never lost an ounce of sleep over someone criticising the board,' he says in a rare interview. 'Warren Buffett once said the most independent director would be a man off the street of New York who does not know anybody because he could not possibly have any conflicts of interest. But he would probably make a lousy director.'
"Mr Keough first joined the board in 1981, when he was appointed president and chief operating officer after 17 years with the company. For the next decade, he served as loyal deputy to Roberto Goizueta, Coke's legendary former chief executive, during one of the most successful eras in the company's history. "I was the best paid janitor in America," he jokes, playing down his role in the success.
"Mr Keough retired in 1993 but remained an influential adviser to his former colleagues. He rejoined the board two years ago after the company removed age limits on its directors.
"Some critics have cited Mr Keough's enduring presence as an example of how Coke remains fixated on past glories instead of embracing new opportunities in the beverage market.
" ... Last year, PepsiCo's market capitalisation overtook Coke's for the first time after several years of superior growth. Mr Keough, however, rejects the notion that Coke is in terminal decline. ... "
http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=%22Herbert+Allen%22&aje=false&id=060419000564&ct=0
----> ANNALS OF COMMUNICATIONS, THE NEW YORKER - MAY 22, 1995
THE CONSIGLIEREThere are big decisions yet to be made in the MCA-Seagram deal, and they may all involve Herbert Allen.
BY KEN AULETTA
Herbert A. Allen's official biography contains just five sentences, and they reveal almost nothing about the man.
The biography says that Allen is the chief executive officer of Allen & Company, a privately held investment-banking firm; is a member of the board of directors of the Coca-Cola Company; was once chairman of the board ofColumbia Pictures; and graduated from Williams College. There is no hint that Allen has becomethe unofficial investment-banking consigliere to many of the world's communications companies.
Allen calls himself "an owner" and "a buyer," and notes that, on behalf of Allen & Company, the Allen family, and the partners, he has several hundred million dollars invested in a hundred and fifty companies. "I'm not an investment banker," he says. Nevertheless, clients seek his investment advice. Last November, he was summoned to a meeting in Osaka with Yoichi Morishita, the president of the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. In 1990, Allen represented Matsushita when it bought MCA, which is the parent of Universal Pictures, Putnam Publishing, a television company, and a record company, and in addition has an interest in theme parks. Now, having tired of the extravagant costs and the narcissism of Hollywood, Matsushita wanted Allen to help it sell MCA. What unfolded over the next five months will no doubt contribute to the Allen legend. Allen is fifty-five but appears to be older. He has pouches under his eyes, which are deep-set and dark; his forehead is high and is topped by thin-ning, short black hair. His face looks gaunt. He is wide-shouldered and lithe, however, and laughs easily, and heconveys the impression that he is an older man inhabiting a young man's body. Sitting across from Allen in Osaka, Morishita asked him how much MCA might bring in an outright sale, and Allen said seven to eight billion dollars. Morishita asked him to prepare what Allen calls "a menu of choices" regarding MCA. Back in the States, Allen visited MCA's executives and listened to their analysis of the business and to their complaints about dealing with Matsushita. In December, at a second meeting in Osaka, with eleven Matsushita executives present, four members of Allen's team presented a financial analysis of MCA's strengths and weaknesses--the kind of computer-generated presentation that Allen prefers not to do himself. He is not a spreadsheet specialist, not someone who is constantly taking notes. Although his clients all agree that he is smart and financially adept, when they are asked to describe histalents they usually mention not pro-fessional qualities but personal ones--candor, independence, loyalty, anda shrewd sense of people and theirmotives. When the focus of the second Osaka meeting shifted from hard numbers to matters of judgment, Allen spoke up.
The Matsushita executives said that they were puzzled by the behavior of MCA's chairman, Lew R. Wasserman, and its president, Sidney J. Sheinberg, who for months had been talking openly to the American media about their grievances against their Japanese parent, their principal complaint being that Matsushita would not allow them to buy a television network or to expand into other areas. Expressing one's grievances publicly was alien to the team-oriented Japanese management culture, and in the most indirect, polite ways the Matsushita leaders said so. Allen's response was blunt. T
he Matsushita executives had just three options, he said. One, they could retain Wasserman and Sheinberg and other MCA executives and support their expansion plans; two, they could sell MCA; or, three, they could keep MCA and invest more resources but change the management. Allen said that if they chose the first or the third option they should do as Wasserman and Sheinberg wanted and invest more money to buy a broadcast network, perhaps, or expand into cable and other new media. For weeks after the December meeting, Allen heard nothing from Osaka, but the silence was no surprise to him. Nor did it particularly bother him. Allen is a stoic, and he knew that Japanese companies tended to be secretive about their decision-making and tried to reach an internal consensus before sharing their thoughts with outsiders. By March, Matsushita had reached a consensus to sell MCA. By April, Allen had helped engineer a sale. What was unusual about the sale was its inside nature: Without a public auction, Allen delivered MCA from one client to another. In some ways, it was the kind of inside deal that Allen criticized when Viacom's chairman, Sumner Redstone, and Paramount's chairman, Martin Davis, agreed, in 1993, to a friendly merger without an auction. Nevertheless, with the help of Michael Ovitz, the chairman of the Creative Artists Agency, who had also represented Matsushita four years ago and was an adviser in this negotiation, Allen persuaded the Japanese to sell the company to Edgar Bronfman, Jr., the president of the Seagram Company.
Bronfman advanced his own cause by twice flying to Osaka to have dinner with Morishita. The first of these visits was arranged by attorneys at Simpson Thacher, which had long represented Seagram and now, conveniently, was counselling Matsushita. After the second dinner, Morishita told Bronfman that he would make an exclusive arrangement to sell Seagram eighty per cent of MCA subject to price and timing. Word of the deal leaked out in late March, when Seagram raised the cash by selling its stock in E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Company for nine billion dollars. And when word did get out, a friend of Bronfman's says, "a long, juicy list of those interested in MCA" materialized, including Ronald Perelman's New World Communications and the German-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann. By then, however, Allen and Ovitz--along with Seagram's traditional investment-banking firm, Goldman, Sachs, which, like Seagram's usual outside counsel, Simpson Thacher, was this time representing Matsushita--had locked up the deal for Seagram. There would be no bidding war. "All our regular advisers were on the other side," Edgar Bronfman, Jr., says. "I hope that was helpful."
According to Allen, the major credit for putting the deal together for Bronfman belongs to the attorneys at Simpson Thacher. In corporate boardrooms, however, Allen is thought of as the architect of the deal. When it comes to Hollywood and invest-ment banking, "all roads lead through Herbert," says Brian Roberts, who is the president of Comcast, the na-tion's fourth-largest cable-television company.
Now that Bronfman owns MCA,he has at least three major decisionsto make--all of which could involve Allen. First, he must decide on an executive to run MCA--a decision in which Allen may play a pivotal role. Sources close to Bronfman say that he is talking to others but that his first choice is Ovitz, who is a friend of both Bronfman's and Allen's. Someone familiar with the situation says, "Bronfman has talked to him about the job."
Ovitz might be able to bring with him the consortium of three telephone companies that he has helped organize to provide video on demand; the consortium could give MCA more of a presence in new media. Ovitz, a friend says, has grown tired of the constant hand-holding and selling required of an agent, even one with his power. But before Ovitz would leave Creative Artists, a company he built and from which he is reported to receive thirty-five million dollars annually, he would want to net about two hundred million dollars from the sale of his stake in it, and from his entry into MCA he would want a promise of "reasonable autonomy" and other assurances, an Ovitz intimate says. And one man he would rely on for counsel is Herbert Allen. Second, Bronfman must decide whether to sell Seagram's fifteen-per-cent stake in Time Warner, which is worth two billion dollars, and which Allen helped Bronfman buy last year. Within the investment-banking community, one hears mild derision over speculation that Bronfman and Allen, as soon as the MCA sale was set,did not exercise Seagram's leverage on Time Warner, the world's largest communications company, to extract a steep exit price. This is what the investorKirk Kerkorian may be trying to doby threatening a takeover of Chrysler. The practice is called "greenmail," and Allen considers it a form of extortion. Still, there are Allen clients--NBC, which is owned by General Electric, and perhaps two or three others--who might like to be partners with Time Warner. Finally, the road for Seagram to acquire or become partners with a TV network could pass through Allen. Seagram needs a network for the same reason that Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount started their own networks: studios want a guaranteed distribution system for their television-production factories. At the moment, however, Bronfman is not thinking about a network. "I have nothing on my plate but understanding MCA," he says. "This is a big enough bite for us. Once we understand the business, there will be a whole lot of opportunities for growing." When Bronfman is ready to make another move, Allen has a client--NBC, again--that is searching for a global partner. ALLEN owns nearly forty per cent of Allen & Company, his family owns thirty-five per cent more, and fifteen directors own the rest. Associates estimate Allen's private fortune to be a billion dollars--a sum that helps account for his independence. His firm employs a hundred and sixty people and occupies two floors of a building on Fifth Avenue in the Fifties. Allen hasa modest office whose windows overlook Fifth Avenue, and which contains only a desk with a brown leather desk chair, a beige couch, two blue suede armchairs, and a third blue chair opposite the desk. Allen says that when he is not in the middle of a big deal hisinvestment-banking duties consume about twenty per cent of his time.
With clients, Allen can be blunt, as he was with Matsushita. Edgar Bronfman, Jr., says that candor is the quality in Allen that most impresses him. "He tells you what he believes, whether you hear it or not," Bronfman says. One witness recalls that when Bronfman was acquiring his stake in Time Warner, and Time Warner's C.E.O., Gerald Levin, refused to invite him to jointhe board and refused to solicit his advice, Allen was a hawk. ...
http://www.kenauletta.com/theconsigliere.html
---->ACTOR CLIFF ROBERTSON ON ALLEN & CO. AND THE MAFIA (AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF SPIELBERG'S CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND)
CR: When David McClintock wrote the book, Indecent Exposure, which was about my blowing the whistle on this whole Columbia Pictures-David Begelman scandal....
JF: What year was that written, do you know?
CR: I guess it was probably 1980, 1981. He said, "Are you willing to cooperate?" I said, "Of course! I'm not going to hide from the truth." So he wrote a very good book and he made a lot of money. I'm glad for him. But all the characters, with the exception of me, ended up making a lot of money. Begelman got, ended up he got a severance thing and a lot of money. And all the other people did too. But one of the figures in the book evidently--and it's pretty obvious--said to McClintock, or made an agreement with McClintock--and I never confronted David on this, but in a way I have, but I never would embarrass him--that he would tell David who said what in the board room, because he was on the board, with this one other guy--who said what, but he wanted his half whitened a little bit, so David kind of made him look like kind of almost a victim, but he wasn't a victim, he ended up with a lot of money too. This is not an actor, this is another one of these big shots. So you see what had happened.
Well, then I got a call from Lucien.... I want to say Wainscott [Truscott]. A good writer. He was writing an article for The New York Times, to raise a lot of hell. It was [for the] Sunday supplement, and it was going to be called "The ... something of Hollywood" [ editor’s note: “Hollywood’s Wall Street Connection”]. It was about the ALLEN BROTHERS, Charlie Allen. That was not the original name, but they have a company called Allen--Herbert Allen and Charlie Allen. Now, this Herbert Allen, Jr., you've probably heard about him, he was a big wheel, he was the head of--he sold Columbia to Sony and he's the son of Herbert Allen. They move in a fast track. They were very powerful, very rich. Now, the more old respectable brokerage firms, my friends tell me, that the Allen brothers are considered smart, but they choose not to do business with them because they've had a lot of ties with organized crime. They started as bucket brokers in the twenties. Do you know what a bucket broker is?
JF: No, I don't.
CR: Bucket broker was the term--see, anybody and everybody--filling station operators were selling stocks in those days. My former wife's father, who didn't even graduate from high school, had to quit school at fourteen, he ended up a stock broker--a lot of people did--anybody and everyone. Well, the Allen brothers were these brothers--I don't know what their original name was, Jewish name--but they started a brokerage firm. And they were known in those days as bucket brokers. A bucket broker was a guy that was taking all these orders on a phone, and then after he'd get the order, he'd just throw it in the bucket.
There've been a lot of questions, but they've never been to jail. Very powerful in New York. At any rate, Ray Stark, who was power without portfolio because he had done “Funny Girl,” and he was very powerful at Columbia and did some other pictures and had been very successful. And I knew Ray, he's a smart little guy. You'd see him up there, used to go up there with his wife, skiing, from New Jersey. Deceptively kind of a funny little guy--funny always kind of, but could be not a guy to have as an enemy.
JF: Yes, not someone to mess with.
CR: Right. They say that he is one of the guys, along with Charlie Allen and Herbert Allen....
Lucien Truscott! He's the guy! Lucien called me one time and said, "Cliff, they didn't go back far enough." I said, "Who?" He said, "Newsweek and all these people talking about Hollywoodgate. It goes back further than that." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "It goes back to pre-Castro in Cuba." I said, "Lucien, what's that got to do with it?" He said, "Before Castro took over Cuba, there was big gambling in Cuba, in Havana, and the head of it was a charmer who had been arrested forty times and never served in jail, named Myer Lansky." Myer Lansky was a big, big organized crime figure, never served a day in jail. He was Jewish, but he was the top guy in the Italian mafia, but he was the brains. He was in charge of the gambling. When Castro took over, he kicked the gamblers out. Myer set up another gambling syndicate in the Bahamas, and among his partners were Carroll Rosenblum, who died very mysteriously off of Palm Beach water, witnessed by a Canadian visitor, a guy in a scuba suit, and he used to go swimming every morning. Carroll Rosenblum was the owner of the L.A. Rams. His wife is now the owner. Now they've moved to St. Louis, I guess. Carroll Rosenblum; Elliott Hyman [phonetic spelling]; Ray Stark, partner of Elliott Hyman; and a guy named--another big Canadian gambling figure. I'll think of it right before it's over. But these guys were all in partners with Myer Lansky.
Now, when Ray Stark and the Columbia boys, according to Lucien Truscott, the master plan was, they knew they were going to make a lot of money with a picture called “[Close] Encounters of a Third Kind,” about aliens. And the master plan, according to Lucien Truscott--and Lucien Truscott is a very good writer, his father was a big hero in World War II--you know, West Point and all this stuff. When they knew that Encounters of the Third Kind was going to be successful, according to Lucien--he told me on the phone--the master plan was to puff up the stock and, right at the height, sell it to United Artists. He said they stood to make sixty additional million dollars. "So when you blew the whistle on these people, you were not being very friendly. And therefore, it's no surprise if you're not working, but it may not be no surprise if something happens to you." ...
---->ALLEN & CO. AND THE CIA-MAFIA'S CASTLE BANK: " ... After the O.S.S. was disbanded, [Paul] Helliwell worked within the War Department Far East intelligence division before opening a law firm in Miami where he worked for the CIA, handling corporate legal matters. Helliwell represented Claire Chennault in financing his airline with drug smuggling, and contracting with the CIA's sister agency, Office of Policy Coordination, headed by Frank Wisner, before the two agencies were merged in the 1950s.
Sea Supply Corporation was set up in Miami in 1949 with its main office in Bangkok, Thailand. Helliwell in 1952 was attorney for Sea Supply, as well as general counsel for the Royal Consulate of Thailand, the address of which was Helliwell's law office. Sea Supply was a cover for Chennault's Civil Air Transport (CAT), while also channeling assistance to Thailand's police chief who was involved in the opium trade. Once the Far East money stream was set up, Helliwell focused on Guatemala and helped Frank Wisner and Tommy Corcoran - lobbyist for the airlines and for the United Fruit Co. - orchestrate the coup which forced President Arbenz into exile. Helliwell acted as "paymaster," the man who made the off-the-books payments with cash that did not appear on government budgets. Helliwell also headed the Republican Party in Florida, bringing him into contact with Bebe Rebozo, one of Richard Nixon's biggest financial supporters.
Helliwell's law partner Mary Jane Melrose, moved to Freeport, The Bahamas, in 1969 serving as an officer and director of the Port Authority and also of Intercontinental Diversified. Payoffs were made to the Prime Minister from the corporation's accounts, which had been laundered through the Castle Bank & Trust, set up by [CIA operative Paul] Helliwell's law firm. The year before Melrose began handling operations personally from the island, the Port Authority had considered transferring shares to a Philippine mining company named Benquet, founded in 1903. The group Helliwell represented was involved in a consortium with a group represented by ALLEN & CO. - a merchant bank in New York composed of Charles and Herbert Allen, who held the largest block of Benquet stock.
According to J. Bryan III and Charles J.V. Murphy in The Windsor Story (Dell 1979), Charles Allen of Allen & Co. was one of the Duke of Windsor's most respected advisers (p. 609). Bryan and Murphy also indicate that Clint Murchison sold to both Robert Young and the Duke shares in his Canadian Delhi, from which the Duke made a profit of more than half a million pounds. While the three of them were in Mexico, Young attempted to sell used rolling stock there, while Murchison attempted to buy mineral rights to offshore properties.
The parent company for Castle Bank was Freeport's first bank, Mercantile Bank & Trust (founded in 1962), which owned one of the five shares of Castle. Mercantile had itself been formed by a syndicate which included the Cayship Investment Co. of Panama and other entities owned by Daniel K. Ludwig.
Legal documents revealed that Mercantile had been set up by Inge Gordon Mosvold, a Norwegian shipbuilder. By 1965, [the CIA's] Paul Helliwell was a director of Mercantile Bank.
Documents also showed a close connection between Helliwell and the Chicago law firm of Burton Kanter, who was a tax attorney for members of organized crime in Chicago, whose primary means of laundering money was into hotel chains. ... "
Surprisingly, this Bahamian finance scheme coincided with much of the political background of Richard Nixon, whose first government job was in 1943 at the Office of Price Administration, where he met Cuban American Bebe Rebozo and future-Senator George Smathers. Nixon's job was to regulate the prices of rubber goods, which were rationed during the war. Smathers was an attorney for crime figures smuggling tires from Cuba, while Rebozo owned a gas station from which he sold the tires on the black-market. A few years later when Nixon ran his first campaign for Congress, he was assisted by mobsters working for Mickey Cohen, who sold heroin in Los Angeles. Through Rebozo, Nixon also met other organized crime figures, many who had been involved in Cuban casinos before Castro threw them out. Some of these men set up businesses in The Bahamas, once it was developed. Nixon was an attorney for National Bulk Carriers, which had contracts with General Development Corp., run by [the CIA's] Wallace Groves and Lou Chesler, to build the harbor. In his presidential campaigns, Nixon was the first Republican to have union support--from the Teamsters, headed by James Hoffa, who loaned hundreds of millions of dollars from the Central States Pension Fund for construction of casinos in Las Vegas. [Source: Gary W. Potter, Professor, Criminal Justice and Police Studies, and sources cited therein.]
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lm4,30,02,harvardtoenronpt4.htm
Senator Bill Bradley is Managing Director of Allen & Company LLC.
http://www.gridpoint.com/company/advisors/
"Trends: Secretive New York bank Allen & Co. gets into Silicon Valley media tech"
http://www.blogforward.com/money/2008/02/21/trends-secretive-new-york-bank-allen-co-gets-into-silicon-valley-media-tech/
••••••
PART NINE: The Composting of Hannah Wit
As mentioned in Part One, there is a solution to Theresa Duncan's "suicide" ... any volunteers who care to do so can confirm the information I am about to report independently. In fact, I am asking that other researchers follow this path and the overall investigation and report their findings objectively.
Now that some of the primary CIA and Mafia connections have been established, this is an opportune moment to pause for an interlude, albeit a dismal one, to examine how they interact.
----> MEDIABISTRO IS IN THE BUSINESS OF "DATA MINING"; BACK TO THE SOVERNS AND WITS: We've already met LOGICAT'S DAVID E. WIT (employer
of MediaBistro's OMER ALGAR from Istanbul before he signed on as Laurel Touby's chief technology officer ((in which capacity he does "DATA MINING," ie. gathering intelligence on MediaBistro's 400,000 members, AS BIZTECH REPORTS: " ... Mediabistro.com has been using business analytic tools, including data-mining software, to better understand its members, Algar says. ... Data-mining apps can aggregate and analyze customer interactions from the time someone is introduced to the company, Algar says. What do they do on the Internet? What events have they attended? ..." MediaBistro.com expends precious capital to know events attended by it's members ... this benefits MB somehow? Why does MB want to know about customer ineractions? Does MB inform paying members that their personal data is "mined," interpersonal relationships tracked?)), formerly of CAL ENERGY and its symbiotic relationship with FIRSTIER BANK, which laundered LAWRENCE KING of Omaha's stolen $38-million. David Wit's stepfather is MICHAEL I. SOVERN, the seventeenth president of Columbia University* and a director at a number of major corporations - INCLUDING AT&T and COMCAST. (The founder of Heritage Communications, now AT&T Cable, of course, was JIM COWNIE, the Des Moines, Iowa telecommunications entrepreneur, and the subject of Theresa Duncan's blogging when she died ... ) (The significance of Comcast will be apparent.)
Take a closer look:
----> Michael I Sovern's bona fidés: Director at COMCAST Corporation Class Aaa Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; SERVICES /CATV SYSTEMS, Director since November 2002. Prior to November 2002, he served as a director of AT&T Corp. for more than five years. From his Wikipedia entry: "Sovern has served on the board of trustees of the ASIAN CULTURAL COUNCIL, formerly the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund, based in New York and in Asia. He also served as a board member and juror for the Pulitzer Prizes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_I._Sovern"
----> CIA CONNECTION: The ASIAN CULTURAL COUNCIL's endowment is funded in large part by the Ford Foundation, THE STARR FOUNDATION (chaired by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg of AIG infamy - another Buffett connection), and the CIA's LAURANCE S. ROCKEFELLER.
----> Laurance Rockefeller: "Laurance may have been less visible than his brothers, but he was equally steeped in the sordid world of covert intelligence and disinformation. In the 1950s, he served on a panel that released a report penned by Henry Kissinger (see Part Four of this series) International Security - The Military Aspect, calling for successive escalations in defense spending of $3 billion per year to 1965. In 1973 he was named a director of Reader's Digest, a fount of CIA cold war black propaganda. (To indulge in a bit of necessary guilt by association, Melvin Laird, a Digest officer, is also a director of SAIC, the "remote viewing" sponsor.) Rockefeller is A TRUSTEE OF M.I.T., a director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Olin Mathieson, etc., etc." (DR. W. GERALD AUSTEN, who we met in Part Four, Kissinger's longtime friend, is also a trustee of MIT.)
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/rock.html
----> Sovern and the WIT family: "Sovern married four times: First to Lenore Sanders, to the former Eleanor Leen in 1963, to the former JOAN ROSENTHAL WIT (deceased after a long struggle with cancer) in 1974, and finally to Dr. Patricia Margaret Walsh in 1995."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_I._Sovern
JOAN ROSENTHAL WIT had a son, David E. Wit, whom we've met, and a daughter, Hannah E. Wit.
----> HANNAH WIT, 42, the daughter of Harold Maurice Wit and Joan Rosenthal [Wit] Sovern, DIED ON JULY 3, 2007 - EXACTLY ONE WEEK BEFORE THERESA DUNCAN WAS FOUND DEAD IN NEW YORK CITY ...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02EED6123AF931A15754C0A9619C8B63
----> HANNAH EDNA WIT - DAVID E. WIT'S SISTER - ONCE DEAD, WAS LITERALLY TURNED INTO COMPOST. Her boyfriend was KCBS (Oakland) reporter DOUGLAS SOVERN. Ms. Wit on death: "Hannah Wit once told her longtime boyfriend what should happen to her body after her death. No toxic embalming fluid for preservation, she insisted. No fancy metal casket lined in satin. No concrete vault around her grave. No elaborate marker. Wit just wanted to disappear. 'I want to be eaten by the worms,' she said.
"'You can't do that,' DOUG SOVERN - a reporter for the CBS affiliate in Oakland, California, remembers telling Ms. Wit.
Doug Sovern, environmentally-friendly KCBS radio peronality" ... After she died this year at age 42, Sovern, a radio reporter who lives in Oakland, did some research and was surprised to find he could honor Wit's unusual wish. He learned he could commission a "green" burial, leaving behind nothing more than biodegradable COMPOST to fuel plant life. ... "
http://greenburialcouncil.org/files/sacbee.pdf
----> HANNAH WIT WAS DOUG SOVERN'S STEP-SISTER ... AND "COMPANION." Yet Sovern has a blog and it does not mention Hannah's death. Checking the archive, there were two entries in Sovern's blog for July, 2007, when she died - neither mentions the death of his step-sister and "companion."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE2DC1F3EF93BA3575AC0A965958260
Hannah lived on the margins of the same CIA Old Boys Club that recruited Laurel Touby, but she obviously wasn't one of them. SF Chronicle Obit: "Hannah Edna Wit January 27, 1965 - July 3, 2007. Hannah passed away Tuesday, July 3 at the much-too-young age of 42 ... Hannah was born in New York City, the daughter of Harold and Joan Rosenthal Wit. She was a graduate of the Dalton School and Wesleyan University. Hannah moved to the Bay Area in 1987. She worked tirelessly for many years serving wonderful people who are often shoved to the margins of society. She was an attendant for severely physically disabled people, then taught developmentally disabled adults at the Clausen House Independent Living Program in Oakland. ... "
http://www.sfchroniclemarketplace.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/08/MNWITHANNA49.DTL
CompostHannah is worm food now and will never be exhumed ...
So, you ask ...
----> How did Hannah Wit die (precisely one week before THERESA DUNCAN)? ...
" ... [Hannah] Wit, who committed SUICIDE in July, is buried on a wind-swept hill, close to the ocean and Mount Tamalpais. When her loved ones arrived at the site after a short indoor memorial service, they spotted a flock of wild peacocks and a baby deer. A hawk soared overhead. Wit's beloved dog Mujo sat at attention as her body was lowered into the ground. 'Hannah was a very special person,' Sovern said. 'She was into nature. She was a vegetarian and very organic. She loved animals and she cared about people. In the end, I felt that we did the right thing for her.' It was exactly what she would have wanted. ... "
"Suicide" ...
----> POSTSCRIPT: "Don’t talk to me of loss; I bury pills in applesauce." - Poet Sarah Hannah
Sarah Hannah, a graduate of Columbia University, took her life in Brookline on May 23, 2007 - within a couple months of Theresa Duncan's death. Theresa wrote that Sarah Hannah had dated Jeremy Blake, who threw himself into the sea ... or was thrown ...
********
* Columbia University and the U.S. Intelligence Community
Excerpted from: North American Congress on Latin America, Who Rules Columbia? -- Original 1968 Strike Edition (New York: NACLA, 1970), pages 13-17 of 40 pages.
The very nature of the Cold War struggle against Communism and the drive for empire require extensive non-military resources. The U.S. intelligence community, under the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency, is in charge of enlisting the expertise and the cover of non-governmental organizations. Through covert penetration of civilian branches of the government, voluntary groups, corporations, law firms, research centers, cultural projects, foundations and universities, the CIA is able to mobilize and coordinate for government service much of the seemingly a-political work of U.S. civilian society.
The primary tasks of the U.S. intelligence community are gathering and analyzing strategic information for decision-makers and positioning trained personnel in key locations to manipulate the course of events. (For a history and discussion of the CIA see, Wise and Ross, The Invisible Government.) Like several large universities, Columbia offers excellent opportunities for achieving these goals. Most of the evidence points to indirect relationships, but because the CIA is closed and secret and because the Columbia Administration refuses to discuss its CIA relations, it is quite possible that CIA-CU ties are far more direct and pervasive than the public data now indicates. In fact, our own information indicates that these ties are so direct as to involve a highly influential group of men in dual positions of leadership -- inside Columbia and in the CIA itself.
One level of association involves individuals connected with Columbia who are also affiliated with CIA-related organizations. Three types of CIA-relationships are identified in the following table.
CIA-Related Organization
(Position in CIA-Related Organization) Name and Columbia Position
I. ORGANIZATIONS HEAVILY FUNDED BY CIA:
Asia Foundation
(Tr) Grayson Kirk, President
African-American Institute
(Tr) Arthur Krim, Trustee
(Tr) L. Gray Cowan, Dir. SIA African Institute
(Tr) Louis G. Cowan, Dir. Special Prog. Grad. School of Journalism
American Society of African Culture
(Ed.Bd.) L. Gray Cowan, Dir. SIA African Institute
Committee of Correspondence
(former Pres) Anna Lord Strauss, SIA contributor
(Mem) Alice Stetten, SIA Adv.
Free Europe Committee
(Mem) Frank Altschul, SIA Adv.
(Mem) Adolf A. Berle, Prof., SIA Adv.
(Mem) Ernest A. Gross, SIA Adv., Past Trustee, Barnard College
II. ORGANIZATIONS WHICH RECEIVED SOME FUNDS FROM THE CIA:
Institute for International Education
(Tr) Grayson Kirk, President
(Tr) Lawrence Wien, Trustee
(Pres) Kenneth Holland, SIA Adv.
John H. Whitney Trust
(Tr) Walter N. Thayer, Trustee
American Council for Emigres in the Professions
(Pres) Harry J. Carman, Dn. Emer.
(Dr) Horace L. Friess, Prof.
(Dr) Wesley J. Hennessy, Assoc. Dn. School of Engineering
(Dr) Frank Tannenbaum, Prof. Emer.
(Dr) Rosemary Parks, Former Pres, Barnard College
(Exec. Dr) Joe Jefferson, former Dean of Administration
(Adv) Millicent C. McIntosh, Pres. Emer., Barnard College
III. COVERTLY PASSED CIA FUNDS:
Farfield Foundation
(Dr) William A.M. Burden, Trustee
(Dr) Gardner Cowles, SIA Adv., Trustee Teachers College
Foundation for Youth and Student Affairs
(Dr) Francis T.P. Plimpton, Trustee Barnard College
Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation
(Pres) Cleveland E. Dodge, Trustee, Teachers College
Edward John Noble Foundation
(Dr) Eugene C. Bewkes, SIA Adv.
(Dr) Alger B. Chapman, SIA Adv.
(Dr) David S. Smith, SIA Assoc. Dean
David, Josephine and Winfield Baird Foundation, Inc.
financial contributor to Columbia
William Benton Foundation
financial contributor to Columbia
Catherwood Foundation
financial contributor to Columbia
W. Alton Jones Foundation
financial contributor to Columbia
J.M. Kaplan Fund, Inc.
financial contributor to Columbia
Lucius N. Littauer Foundation
financial contributor to Columbia
Aaron E. Norman Fund, Inc.
financial contributor to Columbia
Rubicon Foundation
financial contributor to Columbia
Legend: (Dr)=Director; (Tr)=Trustee; (Dn)=Dean; (Ed.Bd.)=Editorial Board; (Ad)=Advisor; (Emer)=Emeritus; SIA = School of International Affairs; (Mem)=Member
Another indirect connection between the CIA and the School of International Affairs (SIA) is demonstrated by the presence of Eugene C. Bewkes and Alger B. Chapman, as advisory council members of SIA, and David S. Smith, Associate Dean of SIA, Director of the International Fellows Program and a member of the Administrative Board of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs. All three men are directors of the Edward John Noble Foundation, which besides passing money for the CIA, has also given over $2 million to SIA. Smith is also tied to the intelligence community through his past position as Asst. Sec. of the Air Force where he was involved with the CIA's U-2 flights over the Soviet Union.
The Farfield Foundation, which was a large contributor to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the American Society of African Culture and the American Council for Emigres in the Professions, is well represented at Columbia through Gardner Cowles [Teachers College Trustee] and Columbia College Trustee William A.M. Burden, both of whom are directors of the foundation. Burden, one of the foundation's founders, is also a director of Lockheed Aircraft which served as a CIA front for the U-2 flights. Farfield made contributions in 1962 and 1964 to Columbia for travel and study fellowships.
Another important member of SIA's Advisory Council and a major SIA contributor is Sigurd Larmon, president of the advertising firm, Young and Rubicam, which is rapidly increasing the number of its overseas accounts. Mr. Larmon was one of a nine-member committee chosen by Eisenhower in 1953 to help perfect the country's psychological warfare program. According to The New York Times, the "committee presumably would study means of improving the organization and techniques of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Psychological Strategy Board, the Voice of America, the Information Services of the State and other departments, and the psychological operations of the Army in Korea."
In February, 1967, many students and faculty began an inquiry into the School of International Affairs to see if it was funded through conduits, or indirectly by the CIA. Andrew W. Cordier, Dean of the SIA, responded by saying, "There is no indication that any of the foundations which have supported the school and its associated institutes have in turn been financed by the CIA."
The investigation was continued by Professor Serge Lang of the Mathematics Department, who was denied access to the School's budget. When Lang asked if Columbia held any contract the existence of which was classified, Warren Goodell, Associate Director of Projects and Grants, said he was not at liberty to comment. Ralph S. Halford, then Dean of Graduate Faculties (now a special asst. to Kirk) stated the Administration's official policy on CIA funding: "University policy would not preclude the acceptance ... of project support from the CIA." He went on to say that if a project was in line with regular academic duty, endorsed by the chairman or dean of the division in which it would be conducted, and approved by the Office of Projects and Grants as being appropriate to a University, "the University would not hesitate to accept ... an offer by the CIA to furnish funds in support of the project."
The student-professor investigation concentrated on the research projects of SIA, and late in 1967 a source that remains anonymous indicated that the Research Project on National Income in East Central Europe had been CIA-funded since 1961, receiving $125,000 a year. Columbia acknowledged that his charge was accurate, and indicated that the project was financed by the CIA's Office of Economic Research. Cordier immediately revealed that Dr. Thad P. Alton, Director of the National Income Project, had contracted for funds directly with the CIA, without going through the dean.
Alton and his staff were required to produce reports of their findings. Four books concerning the national income and product of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland were financed by the CIA and published by Columbia University Press.
After students exposed it, the Columbia administration admitted that the Research Project on National Income in East Central Europe in the SIA was CIA sponsored. At least two of the researchers on this project, Claus Wittich and Vaclav Holesovsky, had worked for Radio Free Europe just prior to their Columbia-CIA work. The CIA was still funding the National Income Project until the recent strike when pressure from students and faculty forced the University to take steps to sever this tie.
The SIA deals with areas of study which interest the CIA. At least three of the members of the Advisory Council, Frank Altschul, Adolf A. Berle and Ernest A. Gross have served with the Free Europe Committee (FEC) which administers Radio Free Europe (RFE). The FEC-RFE complex draws on CIA funds for the radio operations and, more important, supports Eastern European exile groups which serve as an important source of intelligence for the CIA. The relationship between SIA and FEC goes much deeper than is indicated by the ties of these three advisory members to both groups. In 1955, FEC contributed $55,000 to Columbia's School of International Affairs to be used "to further teaching and research on Eastern Europe." Also, many SIA alumni work for RFE and RFE personnel come to SIA to do research, especially at the Research Institute on Communist Affairs. Another, more indirect tie between Columbia and FEC is indicated by the fact that Grayson Kirk's son, John, was a director of FEC.
As important as direct CIA involvement in SIA research projects, is Columbia's association with two organizations, the Asia Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Asia Foundation has received much if not all of its financial support from the CIA. It has a budget of about $7 million a year to provide "private American assistance to those Asian groups and individuals working for continued social and economic improvement." The foundation has resident representatives in 14 Asian countries, with American offices in New York and San Francisco. At various times, representatives have been kicked out of Cambodia, Indonesia and more recently, India, reputedly for their various intelligence activities.
The person who makes the link between the Asia Foundation and Columbia is Grayson Kirk, president of the University. Kirk has been on the board of the Foundation for many years, and is one of its most influential trustees. In 1962, when Robert Blum, president of the Foundation, resigned, Kirk was appointed Chairman of the Nominating Committee of the Trustees, whose purpose was to select a new president. In his search for suitable candidates for this position, Kirk sought the advice and suggestions of Dean Rusk and Averell Harriman, a move which indicates the importance of the Foundation. He also encouraged recommendations from George S. Moore, President of the First National City Bank of New York, and A.L. Nickerson, Chairman of the Board of Socony Mobil Oil Company, Inc., concerning members of the bank and of Socony Mobil, which had experience in Asian affairs. One man who was proposed as a possible choice was Robert Amory, but Kirk himself is reported to have feared that he might bring embarrassment to the Asia Foundation. From 1952-1962, Amory was Deputy Director of the CIA.
The relationship between the Asia Foundation and Columbia is a reciprocal one. Since at least 1961, the Foundation has given grants to Columbia's School of Journalism, recently financing the Japanese Science Writers' Project and Fellowships for Asiatic Journalists. Grayson Kirk's long and intimate association with the Asia Foundation suggests what an able and prominent supporter of the CIA this university president really is. It follows that many of his administrative decisions as President of Columbia University have also reflected the interests, priorities and concerns of the CIA. Certainly such decisions would not infringe on these concerns. Consider Kirk's attitude toward the NSA (National Student Association)-CIA exposure: "One shouldn't jump to conclusions that the people in these organizations were being used as spies." The money was donated "more for propaganda purposes than for anything else." Kirk's only complaint about the CIA's funding of non-governmental organizations was that "a certain amount of this seems to have been handled clumsily by people in Washington."
The Council on Foreign Relations is probably the most prestigious and influential organization in the area of international relations and policy. Its members include former government officials, university administrators and corporate executives. The Council publishes books, holds conferences, hosts foreign dignitaries, advises the government and involves itself in other activities necessary to influence U.S. foreign policy. The following list demonstrates the close relationship between Columbia University and the Council.
Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University
Henry M. Wriston (Pres., 1964) SIA Advisory Council
Frank Altschul (VP and Sec'y) SIA Advisory Council
Hamilton Fish Armstrong (Director) SIA Advisory Council
William A.M. Burden (Director) Trustee, Columbia
Joseph E. Johnson (Director) SIA Advisory Council
Grayson L. Kirk (Director) President, Columbia
David B. Truman (Member) VP and Provost, Columbia
Max Ascoli (Member) SIA Advisory Council
Harding F. Bancroft (Member) SIA Advisory Council
Adolf A. Berle (Member) SIA Advisory Council
Charles M. Brinckerhoff (Member) SIA Advisory Council
Kenneth Holland (Member) SIA Advisory Council
George S. Moore (Member) SIA Advisory Council
William I. Nichols (Member) SIA Advisory Council
Ogden R. Reid (Member) SIA Advisory Council
Edward L. Tinker (Member) SIA Advisory Council
David B. Smith (Member) SIA Associate Dean
Prof. Philip E. Mosely (Member) SIA European Inst.
Prof. L. Gray Cowan (Member) SIA Inst. of African Studies
Prof. Howard Wriggins (Member) SIA Southern Asia Inst.
Prof. William T.R. Fox (Member) SIA Inst. of War and Peace Studies
Andrew W. Cordier (Member) Dean, Faculty of Int'l Affairs, SIA
Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Member) Trustee Emeritus, Columbia
Marshall D. Shulman (Member) SIA Russian Inst.
Although many CIA conduit foundations have given contributions to the Council, it has never been exposed as a recipient of CIA funds. In fact, the Council appears to serve a much more direct and important function for the CIA. Convincing evidence of this is the series of discussion groups on "Intelligence and Foreign Policy" that the Council hosted in late 1967 and early 1968, to which Vice President David Truman was Columbia's representative. A list of the topics discussed is revealing. The list is as follows: "Intelligence and Foreign Policy: The American Experience;" "Intelligence and Policy Making: The Task Ahead;" "Covert Operations;" "Intelligence Operations and Private American Institutions;" and "U.S. Intelligence Organizations in the Future."
The discussions were led by individuals with extensive knowledge of CIA operations. For example, Richard Bissell (former Deputy Director of Plans for the CIA and architect of the Bay of Pigs invasion) reviewed the activities and functions of CIA agents overseas and discussed why it is better to work through nationals when possible; he also discussed when agents should and should not work through and with the knowledge of the U.S. Ambassador. In addition, he spoke of CIA funding of private organizations and the effect on their programs after the use of foundations as conduits for CIA money were exposed. Other known members of the CIA and other intelligence organizations who participated were Robert Amory, Jr., Allen W. Dulles, McGeorge Bundy and Franklin A. Lindsay.
What follows is an informal record from sources close to the University administration of the topics considered in the "Intelligence Operations and Private American Institutions" discussion group:
Short-run view - Advantages and disadvantages of having the CIA fund a private institution:
Types of organizations and relations:
Private U.S. organizations created or used as fronts - e.g. Western Enterprises in Taiwan;
American Universities - Research; Credibility of American scholars abroad?
Placement of individuals in private organizations for cover-corporations; Major propaganda organizations - e.g. Radio Free Europe;
Reasons for covert methods:
To protect relationship with friendly governments or groups;
Protection from reprisals;
Use of friendly governments to fake retaliatory actions;
Avoid destroying activity which would occur if done overtly;
Increase effect by not being aligned with U.S. source;
Avoid necessity of legal requirements;
Allow plausible denial when cover is exposed;
Avoid public accountability by Congress and Administration for unpopular activity;
Avoid public commitment of U.S. prestige.
Issues:
Relationship of CIA and Universities;
Tragedy that closer relations have been largely destroyed;
Some way must be found to reestablish relationship;
Overt means of support for NSA [National Student Association]-type activities;
Means of control and termination of operations;
How to sense a shift in public attitudes;
How to develop a clearly American style of operations, not patterned after Communist or British;
How to attract the right people and be aware of public opinion;
Is the CIA becoming too much of a career service?
The importance of the relationship between the intelligence community and Columbia is great. The universities and their personnel serve in an advisory capacity and as a feed-back mechanism for intelligence evaluation. Also, by involving academics in intelligence, the CIA is able to create a favorable disposition towards the secrecy and manipulation which has become essential to many government operations in America. Policy initiative during these sessions more often than not comes from the intelligence community -- as is clearly the case in many situations where foreign policy is made.
Integration of a major university like Columbia into the ranks of this elite means not only that the CIA is provided with needed scholarship on international affairs and an academic cover for foreign penetration, but, most important, it thereby has the power to enlist Americas own intellectual resources in the barren campaigns of the Cold War.
http://www.cia-on-campus.org/columbia.edu/columbia.html
••••••
PART TEN: 666 Grand Ave., Des Moines, Iowa
" ... Doug Adams said: 'Mr. and Mrs. Wit were not crazy. In fact they were pretty damn smart. A little too smart.' Just a bit of 'Des Moines' digging in documents unavailable over the internet will show you that 'The Trouble with Anna Gaskell' is that her legal guardian, JIM COWNIE, was eyeballed by the SENATE committee overseeing the investigation into the FRANKLIN COVER UP. ... " - Theresa Duncan
Now we look for an individual lurking behind these separate "suicides." If one exists, he will be the key to everything. With the deaths of Hannah Wit and Duncan/Blake serving as triangulation markers (ideal for this purpose, because there is no ostensible connection, and anything they have in common could well offer a solution to the mystery ... not to mention why MediaBistro.com has been so intent on defaming the "Golden Suicides"), the intelligence ties and unexplained deaths - including the widely-exploited deaths of Duncan and Jeremy Blake - should converge.
There is another consideration: Theresa's friend FRANK MORALES - who wrote articles for my web site a few years ago - was with Jeremy Blake just before her body was found. This remains to place in context: Morales told reporters that he felt Theresa's death was "a warning shot" ... At this time, the 9/11 movement in New York that Frank Morales was a prominent figure in had more or less concluded that a wealthy and well-connected individual from Omaha, Nebraska was key to understanding September 11, 2001. Bear this in mind while reading on.
Simple steps lead to the central figure in the deaths of Duncan (highly-publicized) and Hannah Wit (very obscure):
----> Odd, isn't it, that these two "suicides" should occur seven days apart (part nine)? Two untimely deaths separated by a land mass. It's doubtful that they knew one another. They had little in common ... yet there was one significant connection: WARREN BUFFETT - whose father was a homegrown American fascist subscriber to the Birch Society, funded early on by Nazis in postwar Germany, a billionaire with killer instincts, multiple pathologies and a CIA history.
The Oracle of Omaha connects the death of Theresa Duncan, Hannah Wit - and too many others ...
----> Recall that MediaBistro.Com's OMER ALGAR hails from LOGICAT, co-founded by DAVID E. WIT - composted Hannah Wit's surviving brother.
----> David E. Wit - whose father is a director of ALLEN & CO. (see part eight, in which the CIA-Mafia's Allen is found in his semi-secret conclave with Warren Buffett) is a key director of Cal Energy and parent MID-AMERICAN ENERGY HOLDINGS CO.
The address of Mid-American Energy:
666 Grand Avenue
Des Moines, Iowa
(This is a bit eerie, considering that satanism was at the heart of the John DeCamp's Omaha child sexual trafficking allegations ... and that Logicat, Inc.'s insignia is a black cat ... )
----> MID-AMERICAN ENERGY, which owns Cal Energy (CECI), IS OWNED BY WARREN BUFFETT:
"Berkshire Hathaway owns MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a utility conglomerate."
http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=MidAmerican%20Energy%20Holdings&id=071203000412&ct=0
That is, Wit and Buffett are business partners. And they go way back.
----> Theresa Duncan was writing about an Omaha pedophile ring, overseen by Franklin Credit Union's Lawrence King, when she died.
----> Mr. King was financed by Warren Buffett, son of Howard, who owns the company that David Wit directs.
Question: How much did the late Hannah Wit know about the sexual trafficking (the same Theresa Duncan was exploring when she decided to commit "suicide"), not to mention the credit union looting that implicates her brother - the son of an Allen & Co. director, MediaBistro data miner Omer Algar's employer - and Warren Buffett?
Basics:
CURRENT STATUS OF OMAHA BASED PEDOPHILE RING
"... President Bush has greeted Father Val Peter at the White House to promote his 'faith-based initiative', the idea embodied by the sex pervert, Father Ritter. Val Peter, as head of Boystown and head of its Board of Directors facilitated Larry King's access to its finances and his children. He did this with the help of Wall street billionaire, WARREN BUFFETT, whose Berkshire Hathaway is based in Omaha. Buffett was also good friends with Larry King- hosting a party to celebrate his 10th wedding anniversary. .... "
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=26295
----> The relationship between Buffett and the King of Omaha, as detailed by Lincoln, Omaha attorney John DeCamp in The Franklin Cover-Up. NOTE - "Buffett is a director emeritus of one of the institutions that merged to become FIRSTTIER," Larry King's cash laundry, another Buffett connection to David Wit (suggesting a long-term relationship):
Pg. 148-50 - "One of King’'s earliest boosters was the wife of a man with an unrivaled reputation for shrewd investments - Warren E Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Based in Omaha, Buffett is the second biggest stockholder of the Washington Post and a controlling power in ABC-TV. ... Wifh $4.4 billion to his name, Buffett is ranked by Fortune magazine as the 24th richest man in the world, and in the United States among the top five. In Omaha, the Buffett mystique gains from the fact that there are two hundred-some "Buffett millionares, who made their fortunes by investing through Buffett’'s Berkshire Hathaway.
" ... He contributes to groups advocating radical population reduction. His Warren Buffett Foundation lists hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to Negative Population Growth, the Association for Voluntary Sterilization, Planned Parenthood, the Population Growth Council and Population Institute, the Sex Information and Education Council, and Federal American Immigration Reform. Negative Population Growth members, according to the group’s literature. ...
"Language about Buffett, and his own, abounds with references to his 'cult.' A 1991 Washington Post write-up of his annual shareholders’ meeting quoted guests along those lines: 'It’s like worshipping at the altar of the high priest of finance...,' 'He has a very large, cultish following.' ...
"His 'folksy' image belies a killer instinct."Backing from Buffett’s socialite wife, Susie, came early in the rise of Larry King. Susie Buffett was a volunteer at the credit union in its early days. According to the Lincoln Journal-Star of March 19,1989, King "liked to tell the story of a woman coming to the credit union to see him and being told to return at 7:00 the next morning because he was so busy. The woman was Susie Buffett, wife of billionaire Warren Buffett, and she did come back to offer her help at the credit union.
"For years, it has been part of Larry King lore in Omaha, that the Buffetts' hosted a tenth wedding anniversary party for him and Alice. James Traub’s December 1991 Gentleman’s Quarterly article served as a platform for Warren Buffettt to deny he had a role in that affair, and to insinuate that perhaps the party never happened: 'In 1979, King asked Susan Buffettt if she would be willing to host his and Alice’s tenth-anniversary party at her house....Susan said yes, but her husband said no.
"Susan Albert, a close researched of the Franklin scandal who has interviewed seveal people who attended the anniversary party commented that the Buffett/Traub account was carefully worded. Buffett avoided an outright assertion that the party didn'’t take place, but 'you’'d be left with the thought that it never happened, if you didn’t know anything.'
Buffettt told Traub, "I knew that King was a phony... It was like he had a big sign on his head that said, PHONY, PHONY, PHONY."’ These protestations prompt the question, why, if Buffettt saw so clearly that Larry King was a fraud, he did not alert his friends at FIRSTIER, or the World-Herald. Buffett is a director emeritus of one of the institutions that merged to become FirsTier, and he served on the World-Herald board.
Larry King returned favors, by hosting a fundraiser for Buffett's son Howard, when Howard ran for Douglas County commissioner. Warren Buffettt may have done some more private socializing with Larry King, if a former Omaha city employee is correct in his report, that when Larry King was crowned 'Queen' at The Max gay bar, Warren Buffett was his escort. 'This is what his cousin Barbara Webb told me,' said the source. 'She said the people, they were mad, because Larry brought his son and his wife there.'
"The Wall Street Journal feature reported that Warren and Susan Buffett have lived apart for thirteen years, although they attend official functions together. Buffett shares his home with a companion named Astrid Menks, 'alternating his time between the two women. According to the Journal, Buffettt met Menks in 1977, when Susie brought her home from the nightclub where Menks was a waitress - the French Cafe.'"
Pg. 150-152- "Buffett and King shared an interest in Boys Town, which to many Americans evokes the 1938 movie starring Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan, the priest with the heart of gold whose orphanage, Father Flanagan’s Home for Boys, straightened out many an errant youngster. Known today as Boys Town, it is an incorporated village on the west side of Omaha, with extensive land and plush facilities, and an endowment of $460 million. The orphanage is therefore a major power in the Omaha financial world. It has begun a $25 million expansion program, and will have youth care facilities in seventeen cities by 1992. The chairman of its finance committee is Union Pacific’s Michael Walsh.
"In 1972, Warren Buffett executed a manuever around Boys Town, which is not fully understood to this day. His own Sun newspaper ran a series of articles, that targetted Boys Town for having too large an endownment. The Sun wrote, 'members of the board of directors of Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home generally seem little concerned that the institution has amassed a net worth of more than $200 million while going to the public twice a year with a plea of poverty. Of the cited $200 million, $175 million was the liquid endowment.'
"Editor and Publisher magazine reported on March 30, 1985, 'The Sun papers in 1973 became the first weeklies to win the Pulitzer Prize for an expose of Boys Town. The story idea originated with Buffett, who also participated in its development and wrote a section of it.
"The articles prompted a major shake-up and purge of personnel at Boys Town. Buffett is believed to play some significant role with the orphanage today, perhaps in his specialty- investment advice. An inquiry with Boys Town was referred to the in-house attorney for the orphanage, who, in answer to the simple question, 'What is Mr. Buffett’s precise role with Boys Town?' .... At any rate, Buffett has not complained lately about the size of Boys Town’s endowment, although it is now much larger than it was in 1973.
"Larry King was intimately involved with Boys Town. The institution came up repeatedly during the Legislature’s Franklin Committee investigation, and even earlier.
"Foster Care Review Board Executive Director Carol Stitt’s July 1988 plea to Attorney General Robert Spire, for an investigation of child abuse, included that youth care worker Kirstin Hallberg told me about three youth at Boys Town who all reported inappropriate activities with Larry King of Omaha. On March 29, 1989, her colleague Burrell Williams told investigator Jerry Lowe, 'that on several occassions in the past he had heard of kids transported from Boys Town and the north Omaha Girl’s Club to functions allegedly linked to King."
Pg. 157- "The Omaha corporations that bankrolled Larry King and Franklin are also the major sponsors of youth organizations in Nebraska, such as Boys Club, Girls Club, Boy Scouts, Boys Town, Uta Halee Home for Girls, and others. These corporations donate millions of dollars per year to these organizations, as the annual reports of the recipients show. Many executives of these firms sit on the boards of the youth care facilities.
"The donation of so much money and time would seem to indicate a great concern for Nebraska’s youth. Key member’s of the Omaha business community, however, did nothing to help and plenty to wreck the Franklin committee’s investigation into the sexual abuse, ritual torture, and murder of children. ... "
http://www.geocities.com/nolte_family2001/franklin-notes.html
----> Warren "Oracle" Buffett, of course, speaks endlessly in the media of business ethics. ...
MidAmerican Energy, which boasts at its web site of deep investment in "alternative" fuels, generates an excess of 3,000 MW annually from COAL burning, and plans to add another 3,290 MW to that total. Four proposed COAL-FIRED power plants will cost about $3.3 billion and emit 21.3 million tons of CO2 each year. MidAmerican companies: CalEnergy, CE Electric UK Generation, PacifiCorp Energy, Pacific Power, Rocky Mountain Power, Kern River Gas Transmission Company, MidAmerican Energy Company, and Northern Natural Gas.
What sort of ethics drove Mid-American Energy Co., where David Wit is a key director, in 1999, when Berkshire Hathaway acquired the Des Moines company?
Looting Indonesia: The energy brokers 'warm-up' for California
by Michael Billington
MidAmerican Energy Holdings
MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company (formerly CalEnergy), owned by Warren Buffett, is both a leading international energy producer and a major player in the deregulated energy markets in the United States and the United Kingdom. MidAmerican contracted to build two geothermal power plants in Java. One plant was completed and one was under construction at the time of the 1997-98 collapse in Southeast Asia.
When Indonesia put a hold on the incomplete plant, and could not meet the contracted purchases on the other, MidAmerican refused to renegotiate, but took the matter to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (Uncitral). This international body ruled in favor of MidAmerican, ordering that Indonesia immediately pay $572 million to MidAmerican for breach of contract.
PLN responded in May 1999, by filing suit in a Jakarta District Court to annul the Uncitral ruling as having 'gravely prejudiced PLN's legal rights by ignoring or misinterpreting the Indonesian laws', according to PLN President Adhi Satriya. The contracts, he said, were 'clearly specified to be subject to the sovereign laws of Indonesia'. MidAmerican returned to the Uncitral, which simply asserted its jurisdiction over the dispute 'notwithstanding Indonesian court orders purporting to enjoin the arbitration ... in violation of generally recognized principles of international law'.
Since Indonesia had no means of paying the extortionists, MidAmerican turned to its insurers, which included the U.S. government's insurance operation, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), which paid the American firm for its loss in the collapsed Indonesian market. Rather than leaving it at that, the U.S. State Department, behind the thugish U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, Gelbard, went to work to collect the blood money. In July 2000, Gelbard announced that he was 'running out of patience' with Indonesia's tardy repayment to OPIC of the $290 million it had paid to MidAmerican. 'There is always the possibility of declaring expropriation [of Indonesian assets].... If we were to do this', snarled the diplomat, 'it would result in a dramatic deterioration of the rupiah and would hurt Indonesia very much'.
http://www.odiousdebts.org/odiousdebts/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=2746
----> ON JIM COWNIE, WARREN BUFFETT, CIA - THERESA DUNCAN BLOGGED THAT THE HARASSMENT SHE ENDURED JUST BEFORE HER DEATH WAS THE WORK OF JIM COWNIE ... FLASHBACK TO JOE ROSENFIELD, IOWA ENTREPRENEUR, OF THE WARREN BUFFETT CIRCLE -AND THE FOUNDING OF HERITAGE COMMUNICATIONS:
"Joe was chairman of Younker Brothers Inc, which was the largest department store chain in Iowa and Nebraska by 1987. Three brothers Lipman, Samuel and Marcus started the business in 1856 after they came out from Poland. It listed on the Nasdaq in 1992, but today it is part of the Saks Department Store Group after Proffitt's purchased it in 1996. Its story can be found here ... http://www.saksincorporated.com/our_stores/store_histories/YNKhistory.html
" ... Then there is JIM HOAK [Cownie's partner] from Heritage Communications (Des Moines, Iowa), which got coaxed into the communications business by Joe. Joe hung out with BUFFETT, Buffett hung out with TOM MURPHY [MURPHY WAS A FOUNDER OF CAP CITIES/ABC - A PRIMARY CIA PROPAGANDA OUTLET. - AC NOTE] and the next thing you know, Jim Hoak was hanging out with Tom Murphy. Also mixed in with all of this is the Hubbells. Then again just about everyone in Des Moines know the Hubbells, because they are one of Iowa's most prominent families. This is mainly due to Frederick M. Hubbell, who accumulated tremendous wealth in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Frederick M. Hubbell is another subject worthy of research. ... "
http://www.sharenet.co.za/cms.phtml?dir=/&uidn=221406&scheme=default
----> BTW, years later, Buffett was still involved with CapCities, the notorious CIA propaganda front: " ... In 1986, Capital Cities Inc, with backing from Warren Buffett, bought ABC for $3.5 billion. ... "
http://www.smokershistory.com/abc.htm
---> JOE ROSENFIELD "INVESTED IN WARREN BUFFETT'S FUTURE" & SEQUOIA FUND" (Sequoia turned up earlier in this series):
" ... In 1967, mutual friends introduced Mr. Rosenfield to Warren Buffett and the two became close friends. Investments in Mr. Buffet's future, as well as an investment in Grinnell graduate Robert Noyce's startup company, NM Electronics - the forerunner of INTEL - were the cornerstones of Grinnell College's endowment growth. ... During his career, Mr. Rosenfield was committed to a number of institutions, including the Democratic Party. His support of such organizations throughout Iowa as Equitable Life Insurance Company, Northern Natural Gas, Bankers Trust, General Management Corporation, and Northwestern Bell, is legendary. ... "
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:76enlczcI3kJ:www.grinnell.edu/publicrelations/releases/2000/rosenfield.html+Joseph+Rosenfield&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
"Joe Rosenfield spent about 20 years practicing law, after graduating from Iowa Law School in 1928. He was chairman of Younkers Brothers Inc and a director of General Growth Properties. His most famous job was that of managing Grinnell College's endowment fund. He had a little help from his friends. Giants like Warren Buffett, William Ruane and Richard Cunniff (Sequoia fund), Steven Jobs (Apple Computer), Robert Noyce (Intel) and James Gipson (Pacific Financial)." ... The man simply was an investment genius. He bought Berkshire Hathaway at $17.50 in 1967 shortly after he met Buffett. ... Joe bought Freddie Mac in its infancy and thanks to him Grinnell has over $600m in Sequoia today. ... In 2000 he held 20 stocks, which included the 10 stocks that was held in the Sequoia fund at the time. ... Where did Rosenfield meet Buffett? At a meeting with Martin Luther King, which gave a speech at Grinnell. ... "
http://www.sharenet.co.za/cms.phtml?dir=/&uidn=221406&scheme=default
----> One very important name in connection to Buffett remains to be shown - SOVERN (very important to Hannah Wit ... ). RECALL THAT MICHAEL I. SOVERN IS A DIRECTOR OF COMCAST. A couple of years back ...
Big Investment in Comcast Doubles Buffett's Holding
By GERALDINE FABRIKANT
February 16, 2005
In a development that caught investors by surprise, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., controlled by the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, disclosed yesterday that it had increased its stake in the Comcast Corporation by about $150 million, doubling its holding to 10 million shares with a total value of $323.6 million. Berkshire bought five million shares last spring.
In a separate, but less significant move, the Quantum Fund, the $8.7 billion hedge fund overseen by the financier George Soros said in regulatory filings that it had bought $50 million of Time Warner stock ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/business/media/16cable.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
----> DAVID WIT'S FATHER AT ALLEN AND COMPANY, KNOWN TO BE TIGHT WITH THE CIA AND MAFIA - Who should we find commingling with the CIA and Mafia but David Wit's primary, Harold M. Wit. This site [http://www.oldbahamabay.com/corporate/founders.htm] gives you Harold Wit, Wallace Groves from the CIA, Herbert Allen and other interesting people all investing together in the Bahamas. Another partner in this investment: Alvin S. Trenk, fundraiser for Bill Bradley of Allen & Co.
----> THE WARREN BUFFETT 9/11 CONNECTIONS - A SIERRA MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE DAMNS HIM FOR THE DEVASTATION IN MANHATTAN
----> POSTSCRIPT: BUT WE NEGLECT MR. ALGAR, MEDIABISTRO.COM'S DATA MINING TECH. He went to HAMILTON College, and this struck the curious researcher here as something to look into:
"EXECUTIVE PROFILE Omer Algar ... serves as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Mediabistro.com. Mr. Algar is responsible for maintaining and growing mediabistro.com. ... Mr. Algar holds a BA degree in COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS from HAMILTON College."
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=31018575
----> A look-see at the Computer Science Department faculty at Hamilton:
Mark Bailey, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Computer Science
(mbailey@hamilton.edu)
"Mark Bailey ... is a consultant with Assured Information Security, a R&D firm that works closely with the Air Force Research Laboratory. ... "
[More from Bailey's Vitae: Outside Consultant (March 2001–September 2004). Information Directorate, Air Force Research Lab, Rome, NY. ... Faculty Research Fellowship. National Research Council/United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Summer 2003.] http://www.cs.hamilton.edu/~bailey/pubs/vitae.pdf
Alistair Campbell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Computer Science
(acampbel@hamilton.edu )
" ... From the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., Campbell has received summer fellowships to perform research on the problems of ontology alignment and semantic integration of defense department data sets. ... "
Richard Decker, Ph.D., Professor of Computer Science
(rdecker@hamilton.edu)
Decker ... served as Mathematics-Statistics Assistant at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Grounds. ...
And so it goes ...
••••••••
Howard Buffett
"For America, a spin-off of the America First Committee, was formed in 1954, ran by some of the leading WW II "isolationists." ... The stated aim of For America was the support of political candidates sympathetic to the Nazi cause. Three congressmen made up the recruiting arm of the organization: Burton K. Wheeler, Hamilton Fish and HOWARD BUFFETT. ... "
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/postwar.html
Postwar: Early Birch Society funding came from wealthy German supporters of the Hitler regime, and the jingoistic "pro-American" propaganda that flowed from the notorious Nazi front - identical to the "conservative" rhetoric that fronts for fascism at the Fox News Network these days - was nauseating. The fawning greeds who admire Warren Buffett and receive their opinions from the Wall Street Journal editorial page (and Fox News) don't know or care that Buffett has a secret life beyond the public relations facade. - AC
Investor Profile: Warren Buffet's Early Years
By Mika Hamilton
Warren Buffett was the only son of the HOWARD BUFFETT and Lelia Stahl. Leila worked as both a clerk and secretary and after her marriage has a homemaker and mother. Howard worked as an investment broker and spent four terms in Congress as a U.S. representative. He was elected to “Congress in 1942 with a pledge to keep FDR from "fasten[ing] the chains of political servitude around America's neck."
He marked himself an oddball by returning a pay raise to the Treasury and by subjecting each piece of legislation to a simple test: "Will this add to, or subtract from, human liberty?". Howard Buffett was an extremely conservative man. While in Washington he was part of an elite organization, the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, which fought against communism and liberal rebels.
Presently, the John Birch Society is associated with the extreme right of American Politics. Warren was very close to his father often following him to work. And his father made good use of his presence, employing Warren to write prices and quotes on the board in his investment firm. His close bond with his father was further encourage but a tense relationship with his mother. Leila was prone to immense anger and violent outbursts.
http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Investor
-Profile:-Warren-Buffets-Early-Years&id
=228431
••••••
The Wisdom of Howard BuffettNazis hate the UN, of course. Why? The answer is found in any TV image of a UN conference - race mixing. "Colored people" and other "subhumans" hold a majority at the UN. Howard Buffett, Warren's daddy, on the proposed creation of a UN Military Force ("subumans" with guns!!):
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/
1995/vo11no26/vo11no26_leader.htm
"A number of speakers here have mentioned with quite some piousness the birthday of the lonely Nazarene, but I do not think many of them have mentioned ... that it was probably the first international police force of all times that crucified the lonely Nazarene. It was the Roman legions that were in this land foreign to their own that crucified the lonely Nazarene whom we revere as the founder of Christianity. That leads me to the further observation that if great international police forces are set up we might again see the spectacle 2,000 years later of an international police force crucifying Christianity that the lonely Nazarene died for years ago."
••••••
POSTSCRIPT: THE FRANKLIN COVER-UP'S ROBERT WADMAN THREATENS A LAWSUIT
Twice-disgraced police chief and accused Republican pedophile Robert C. WadmanBungalow Robert "Bobby Wad" Wadman, the accused child rapist of Franklin Cover-Up notoriety, is harassing me with a libel lawsuit claim for a chapter in a book that I published in 1995, and excerpts from John DeCamp's Franklin Cover-Up in the post titled, "The Duncan/Blake 'Suicides' Solved." Someone kindly explain to the FORMER police chief of Omaha AND Wilmington, North Carolina (he was drummed out of both positions under storm clouds of scandal) the meaning of the phrase "statute of limitations," and that statute's first-year publication clause. No "summons" could be legally granted in this case, as Wadman claims in his letter below, and the wanker is trying to intimidate with a bluff. Why now? What's this all about?
Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. Wadman's name appears repeatedly in my report on the Duncan/Blake "suicides," and the death squad behind them, friends of Wadman, has evidently hatched a pathetic scheme to suppress the article (posted at my home page) by applying legal pressure over a "libel" issue nuisance suit. There are scores of articles posted on the Internet about Robert Wadman - the one post he is targeting with lawsuit threats happens to deal with the death of Theresa Duncan. Theresa wrote about the Omaha scandal, in which Wadman played a principal role, just before she was found dead.
But libel lawsuits are not a problem with me. I'm not a Daniel Hopsicker who whines about them. I'm a Constantine who lives on houseflies. I whine about other things ...
The only two lawsuits that ever came along in my 20 years as a reporter ended with the other side in tears. One of them was forced by the judge to pay ME for damages - and the statute of limitations in that case had passed, the judge explained, when I said that I wanted MORE money, so I was told to be content with the undersized damages award that I had pocketed. And I didn't even have a lawyer. Argued my own case. With no supporting documentation, just a mouth ... The other lawsuit was filed by the widow of a former Waffen SS officer. That one never went to court, and a Beverly Hills attorney who volunteered to help sent her a letter demanding that she cease the harassment. I was never bothered by her again.
Now it can be revealed, fifteen years after the fact: I set in motion the events that led to Robert Wadman's departure as police chief in Wilmington back in July 1994. Constantine the Nobody brought him down. Who says these people aren't accountable, that we can't effect change as individuals in a corrupt system?I manage. So sue me, Saxon mothers ...
- AC
--- Robert WADMAN
Mr. Constantine:
Please forward your mailing address by attaching it to this e-mail. I have a summons for you and I need your mailing address. Your web-page and book contain false information about Robert C. Wadman. The false information you have spread has caused a loss of business. You are being sued and I need your address for summons delivery. If you have any questions please call (801) 626-6149 or e-mail 'Rwadman1@weber.edu
Robert C. Wadman
Wadman:
My mailing address is posted at my blog.
I am a researcher, Mr. Wadman, and work from secondary sources almost exclusively. This means you have a notion of filing a nuisance suit - and that is all you can do, because that's what you are, a public nuisance.
Sue away. I don't even need an attorney to turn this around on you for threatening harassment of a reporter who's work is fully documented.
You made your own bed. Sleep in it.
- AC
Some references:
Robert C. Wadman
Weber State University
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Department of Criminal Justice
Ogden, Utah 84408-1206
phone (801) 626-6146
FranklinCase.org/Timeline
2-02-1989 - Robert Wadman and the head of FBI in Omaha, Nicholas O'Hara, say they are unsuccessful in efforts to find any evidence of Franklin related child ...
franklincase.org/timeline.htm
At the same time the Omaha Chief of Police, Robert Wadman, and Nicolas O’Hara, then head of the FBI in Omaha, declared they were "unsuccessful" (italics ...
franklincase.org/summary.htm
Robert Wadman was Wilmington's Police Chief back in the early 90's. He was fired in July of 1994 with no public explanation by City Manager Mary Gornto. ...
www.bluelineradio.com/oldindex.html
Akira The Don - Blog: Bush, Babies: The Franklin Cover-Up
My husband was unjustly fired at the hands of Robert Wadman. ... To this day, I still cannot believe how and why Robert Wadman held so much power and ...
www.akirathedon.com/2006/ 08/bush_babies_the_franklin_cover.php
YouTube - "Conspiracy of Silence" pt 5/6; sex abuse scandal from 1980s
The same is true for the former head of the Omaha police department, Robert Wadman. He is currently trying to pressure the missing boy Johnny Gosch's mother ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSro5jpx5wU
Franklingate, AIPAC-Cheney - If your looking for information on The Franklin Scandal, Omaha, Nebraska, 1989, Lawrence E. King Jr, Robert Wadman, Harold Andersen, Spence, Bonacci, ...
www.franklingate.com/aipac-cheney.htm
UPDATE - ROBERT WADMAN AND THE BUSH STATE DEPARTMENT:
Professor Helps Former Soviet Block Nation Develop Police Regulations
Aug 30, 2005
OGDEN, Utah – Weber State University Criminal Justice professor Robert Wadman has spent much of his summer in Albania, where he has been working as part of a five-member commission to help the Albanian National Police write rules and regulations for their new force.
The overseas assignment is part of the U.S. State Department's International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), an outreach effort designed to help promote democracy around the globe. ICITAP is funded by the State Department but administered by the U.S. Department of Justice. Wadman, who works part-time for the Justice Department, was accompanied by representatives from the European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe.
"In former Soviet block countries, the police are a national organization," Wadman said. "With this in mind, the elected parliament is responsible for enacting laws that will direct their police organizations in a manner that supports democracy."
Wadman says that for many Eastern European nations, retraining and modernizing police departments is among the more difficult transitions involved in moving from a communist regime to a democratic form of government. ...
http://www.weber.edu/WSUToday/083005wadman.html
••••••
Alex Constantine is the author of The Covert War Agianst Rock, rated "one of the best music books ever written" by London's Observer. Constantine was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus Brain Trust in 2005, and addressed the Caucus' annual conference on CIA assassinations and the state propaganda system. He writes books on fascism, most recently, Psychic Dictatorship in the USA II.