FTR#361—Networking—(Two 30-minute segments) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 6/2/2002.)

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1. The title of this broadcast discusses the type of relationship that has led to the political realities that made themselves manifest on 9/11. (For more about the attacks, see FTR#’s 325-360.) Much has been made of the term “conspiracy theory” (or “theories.”) This program illustrates the “networking” that occurs between individuals and institutions (with different, and some times conflicting, goals and motivations.) Frequently, these relationships (not necessarily conspiratorial in and of themselves) can be exploited in order to effect sinister goals. One of the central points of discussion concerns the natural inclination of individuals and institutions to cover up mistakes and wrongdoing in order to maintain their own public and professional reputations and status. This “bureaucratic inertia,” often having enrichment as its foundation, has (in Mr. Emory’s opinion) much to do with the “enabling” of events such as 9/11.

2. The broadcast begins by highlighting the fact that legal advice to the Bin Laden construction firm is provided by the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm. “Furthermore, the family company maintained a satellite office in Maryland during the 1990’s, employs a public relations agency in Manhattan, and receives legal advice from the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.” (Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden; Peter L. Bergen; Copyright 2002 [SC]; ISBN 0-7432-3495-2; p. 49.) (For more about Sullivan & Cromwell, see also: RFA#’s 1, 2, as well as FTR#’s 29, 114, 273, 329, 346.)

3. Next, the broadcast reviews some of the “networking” that has occurred among the house of Saud, the Third Reich, the Dulles brothers (principal operators in Sullivan & Cromwell) and British spy and Nazi agent Jack Philby. “This period, stretching from the end of World War I to just after the end of World War II, was characterized by three very evil men: Jack Philby, a British spy; Ibn Saud, his Arab protégé; and Allen Dulles, an American spy and Wall Street lawyer specializing in international finance.” (The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994 [HC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0-312-15648-0; p. 21.)

4. “The racist nature of their secret war against Zionism does not appear in history books for a simple reason. Jack Philby later was paid by Western oil companies to write pro-Arab propaganda disguised as history. Ibn Saud is remembered as the glorious Arab leader who unified Saudi Arabia and led the richest oil region in the world into partnership with the West. Philby, if he is remembered at all, has the reputation of a scholarly British Arabist overshadowed by his son, Kim, the infamous Soviet double agent.” (Idem.)

5. “Jack Philby has become an obscure footnote to the history of the Cold war. But his legacy was far from minor. He is one of the lesser-known but most influential persons in the modern history of the Middle East, the renegade British intelligence agent who plucked an obscure terrorist out of the desert and helped to make him the king of Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud was very much his creation. Philby stole the information from British intelligence files that engineered Saudi control over the holiest shrines of the Moslem world.” (Idem.)

6. “Jack Philby and Ibn Saud betrayed the British Empire and made the American oil companies economic masters of the region. The man who helped them do it was Allen Dulles, an American spy who had befriended Philby while he was coordinating American intelligence gathering in the Middle East in the first half of the 1920’s.” (Idem.)

7. “Between them, these three men built the very foundations of the modern Middle East. They were the architects of the oil weapon, the instigators of war, the manipulators of history. More important, Philby’s and Ibn Saud’s political and philosophical allegiance was to Nazi Germany, while much of Dulles’s profits came from the same source." (Idem.)

8. The influence of Sullivan & Cromwell before the period described above is the next topic of discussion. “Before the United States had a formal intelligence service, it had Sullivan & Cromwell. According to some accounts, this firm helped organize the seizure of land for the Panama Canal. Later it represented the French government, several titans of British industry, and more important for this story, most of the leading banks of prewar Nazi Germany.” (Ibid.; p. 56.)

9. “The 1930’s were not the first time that one of the Dulles boys had represented German money. During and after World War I, Foster tried desperately to keep Kaiser Wilhelm II’s assets from being seized by the U.S. Alien Property Custodian. As a member of the U.S. War Trade Board, Foster had good sources of information. German bribes went all the way to the attorney general.” (Idem.)

10. “In defending the crooked attorney general, Harry Daugherty, his trial counsel pointed out that there was a bigger crook behind the scandal: the lawyer John Foster Dulles, who ‘strutted about the [Versailles] Peace Conference promoting himself as [Secretary of State] ‘Lansing’s Nephew’ while ‘carrying a bag’—looking for a bribe—misdirecting his client by comporting himself overall as a man who should be disbarred.’” (Idem.)

11. The program then sets forth Loftus’ and Aarons’ description of the role of Sullivan & Cromwell in the forging of key industrial and financial relationships underlying not only the Third Reich, but much of the American economic landscape as well. (For more about this, see RFA#’s 1, 2, 10 as well as Miscellaneous Archive Show M11.) “Unfortunately, Foster was allowed to continue the practice of law. As a reward for his services, he became the representative of several major German companies, such as I.G. Farben, which owned huge blocks of stock in American oil companies. Farben later became infamous as the holder of the patent for the poison gas used at Auschwitz and for working thousands of Jews to death as slave laborers. Foster’s dream was to make the world one big monopoly, controlled by his German and American clients.” (Idem.)

12. “In 1934, Dulles helped draft the agreements establishing the international cartels, joint ventures, and the market-sharing among the Belgians, the British Imperial Chemical Industries, and I.G. Farben. As discussed in Chapter 2, it was agreements such as that signed by the Rockefeller-controlled Standard Oil Company of New Jersey with Farben that helped the Third Reich to gain such important advances in the development of synthetic rubber and gasoline. In return, Farben became a shareholder in the New Jersey oil company second only to John D., Jr., himself.” (Idem.)

13. “Sullivan & Cromwell seemed to have connections everywhere. It was the original revolving door between the government and Wall Street. As we explain in Chapter 10, after World War II the revolving door became a way of life for the men who populated the oil companies and the espionage world. By the time the team of Ronald Reagan and George Bush took over the White House in 1981, it was impossible to tell where private interests ended and public duties began and ended.” (Idem.)

14. “Allen Dulles had joined Sullivan & Cromwell after quitting the State Department in 1926. His brother Foster had previously served with State Department intelligence. Allen was on the board of a leading German bank. Foster was a director of I.G. Farben. They dealt in millions and traded with nations as equals. In fact, they taught many of twentieth-century robber barons how to rob.” (Ibid.; pp. 56-57.)

15. As can be seen from the discussion that follows, the issue of “globalization” is not a new one. “The Dulles brothers were the ones who convinced American businessmen to avoid U.S. government regulation by investing in Germany. It began with the Versailles Treaty, in which they played no small role. After World War I, the defeated German government promised to pay war reparations to the Allies in gold, but Germany had no gold. It had to borrow the gold from Sullivan & Cromwell”s clients in the United States. Nearly 70 percent of the money that flowed into Germany during the 1930’s came from investors in the United States, many of them Sullivan & Cromwell clients.” (Ibid.; p. 57.)

16. “Some of the biggest American financial houses, such as Morgan et Cie and Chase, also invested heavily in Germany after World War I. In return for their gold, the American clients received bonds and promissory notes backed by shares of stock in Swiss holding companies that owned stock in German banks. These banks in turn owned the stock of major German corporations, which in turn owned some of the most valuable industrial patents in the world.” (Idem.)

17. “In fact, the German bankers had almost created a worldwide high-tech monopoly. American companies, such as Du Pont and General Motors, were more than willing to swap gold for patent rights, at bargain basement prices. There was even talk of setting up a worldwide patent cartel in Germany, so that the American investors could escape the strictures of the U.S. antitrust laws. It was a heady time. When the price of the mark stabilized and the German economy started to revive during the 1930’s, the profits were enormous.” (Idem.)

18. “The Dulles brothers looked like geniuses. Their ‘Dawes Plan’ of recycling U.S. gold so that Germany could meet its international reparations payments, while rebuilding its domestic industry, was a stunning success, at least for a while. Under the plan, the United States lent Germany the money to pay Britain and France their war reparations. In turn, Britain and France repaid the United States. As the biographer of the Dulles family, Leonard Mosley, has noted: ‘Financially speaking, it was a mad sort of merry-go-round, but it gave the statesmen a breathing space.’” (Idem.)

19. “Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but it also made for big profits for the brothers’ clients. The German economy began to boom while the United States was in the early years of the Depression. That was hardly surprising, since so much desperately needed American capital had been shunted off to Dulles clients in Germany.” (Idem.)

20. “These German clients were mostly not Nazis, at least not originally. Most were conservative Catholic monarchists who believed in the traditions of the Kaiser, Prussian nobility, and the honor of the German officer corps. They hated the chaotic liberals who ruled the Weimar Republic. Most of their money went into moderate or center-right political parties.” (Ibid.; pp. 57-58.)

21. Next, the program discusses the role of Sullivan & Cromwell client I.G. Farben in funding the Nazi electoral triumph. The issue of “campaign finance reform” is not a new one, anymore than is “globalization.” “If Hitler wanted a bigger share of the vote in 1933, he had to go after a much bigger source of funding. In January 1932, Hitler met in Dusseldorf with a group of twenty-five German industrialists. This was the turning point for the Nazi party. Without sufficient funding, they would go down to defeat in 1933 as a lunatic fringe. With heavy financial backing, the Nazis could win a sufficiently substantial minority to obtain a share of power in the government coalition.” (Ibid.; p. 58.)

22. “Hitler told the industrialists what they wanted to hear. If they helped the Nazis increase their vote in 1933, it would be the last election they would ever have to worry about. There would be no more elections, no more problems with unions, no more antibusiness liberals. When asked how he would handle inflation, he replied ‘with concentration camps.’ Hitler would solve unemployment by throwing out the Jews. His words brought the house down. The industrialists immediately pledged 3 million marks.” (Idem.)

23. “Perhaps 3 million marks was small change, but it as an axiom among politicians that the early donations are the most valuable. The members of the Dusseldorf Industrial Club in 1932 gave Hitler small but significant contributions when he needed them the most. Among the contributors was the manager of Giesche, Germany’s largest zinc producer. His company was a client of Allen Dulles. So was another 1932 contributor, I.G. Farben.” (Idem.)

24. “Before 1932, the Nazis had conducted a vicious propaganda campaign against Farben ‘as an exploitative tool’ of ‘money-mighty Jews.’ In June 1932, two I.G. Farben officials met secretly with Hitler at his home in Munich to try to end the campaign. A deal was struck: In return for election donations, Hitler halted the campaign and promised to keep tariff protection after he won power. A sign of relief went up at the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, which stood to lose millions if Hitler kept his word and dismantled its partner.” (Ibid.; pp. 58-59.)

25. “Following Hitler’s triumph and consolidation, I.G. Farben led the way among the German corporate world, adapting itself to the Nazi ideology and purging itself of ‘undesirable’ (i.e., Jewish) elements. ‘By 1937-38, it was no longer an independent company but rather an industrial arm of the German state, and fully Nazified.’ Allen Dulles was pleased. With clients like Farben, there were megaprofits to be made all round—provided, of course, that one was prepared to abandon the Jews.” (Ibid.; p. 59.)

26. Illustrating the complexity of some of the equity arrangements made through these connections, the program discusses the Swiss banks’ role in the German buybacks of American equity in some of Dulles’ clients. By way of comparison, one should not overlook the fact that, as discussed in FTR#’s 356, 357 and 359 (among other programs) Swiss banking has been a major element in the Al Taqwa/Banco del Gottardo nexus. “It should not be a surprise that the Dulles brothers and their friends also represented the helpful Swiss banks, which ‘loaned’ the buy-back money to their German clients. As collateral, the Swiss banks received stock in German banks that now controlled, on paper at least, the holdings of the major German corporations.” (Ibid.; p. 61.)

27. “The net effect was to use Swiss bank secrecy as a shield to prevent Hitler from realizing that the American and British investors still pulled the strings behind the scenes. In fact, it was Hitler’s bank disclosure law of 1933 that forced a flood of German money over the border into Switzerland. In 1934, the Swiss made disclosure of bank accounts a crime.” (Idem.)

28. “Some historians believe that the Swiss shield law had a more nefarious purpose than protecting American-owned businesses from Hitler. The Swiss bank laws also kept the Dulles brothers’ clients away from the prying eyes of the American Justice Department with its strict laws against monopolies, trusts, and cartels. Apart from being illegal, helping the Nazi cartels dominate world trade was against U.S. foreign policy. Although the United States was not at war with Germany in 1939, it took a dim view of ‘neutral’ American businessmen who acted in favor of the Third Reich.” (Idem.)

29. “Still, for two heady years the Dulles clients had the best of both worlds. Between September 1939 and December 1941, American investors structured their multinational holdings to legally make a profit on both sides of the war. As long as the United States remained officially neutral, such conduct was technically legal, or at least offered a plausible defense. John Foster Dulles remained on the board of I.G. Farben. His brother Allen remained on the board of the Schroder bank, along with a scarfaced representative of the SS.” (Idem.)

30. After detailing the formation of this complex trans-Atlantic financial and industrial axis, the program reviews the Bush family’s role in this relationship. “Apart from disclosing that ‘Grandfather Walker’ came from ‘ a devout Catholic family,’ was named after the poet George Herbert, and formed his own investment firm, George Bush revealed practically nothing about his grandfather in his autobiography. However, there was another, far seamier side to George Walker. Walker was one of Hitler’s most powerful financial supporters in the United States. The relationship went all the way back to 1924, when Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist, was financing Hitler’s infant Nazi party. As mentioned in earlier chapters, there were American contributors as well.” (Ibid.; p. 358.) One should remember in this context, that the Thyssen family (including the recently-deceased Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza based, like Al Taqwa/Banco del Gottardo, in Lugano, Switzerland) became primary elements of the Bormann organization.

31. “Some Americans were just bigots and made their connections to Germany through Allen Dulles’ firm of Sullivan & Cromwell because they supported fascism. The Dulles brothers, who were in it for profit more than ideology, arranged American investments in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s to ensure that their clients did well out of the German economic recovery. ‘Dulles clearly emphasized projects for Germany . . . and for Mussolini’s fascist state . . . All told, these and more than a dozen similar transactions had a combined value in excess of a billion dollars.’” (Idem.)

32. One of the Bush family holdings was the Hamburg-Amerika line. (As discussed in FTR#273, this company became a key element of the Bormann organization after the war.) “Walker also set up a deal to take over the North American operations of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, a cover for I.G. Farben’s Nazi espionage united in the United States. The shipping line smuggled in German agents, propaganda, and money for bribing American politicians to see things Hitler’s way. The holding company was Walker’s American Shipping & Commerce, which shared the offices at 39 Broadway with Union Banking. In an elaborate corporate paper trail, Harriman’s stock in American Shipping & Commerce was controlled by yet another holding company, the Harriman Fifteen Corporation, run out of Walker’s office. The directors of this company were Averill Harriman, Bert Walker, and Prescott Bush.” (Ibid.; p. 359.)

33. “At some point, Prescott Bush [W’s grandfather] must have realized that his father-in-law was, to put it mildly, a very shady character. A 1934 congressional investigation alleged that Walker’s ‘Hamburg-Amerika Line subsidized a wide range of pro-Nazi propaganda efforts both in Germany and the United States.” (Idem.)

34. The program also reviews Allen Dulles’ role in the masking of the Bush family Third Reich assets. “To this day, we do not know if Prescott Bush stayed on board out of loyalty to his father-in-law or because the money was so good. Instead of divesting the Nazi money, Bush hired a lawyer to hide the assets. The lawyer he hired had considerable expertise in such underhanded schemes. It was Allen Dulles. According to Dulles’s client list at Sullivan & Cromwell, his first relationship with Brown Brother, Harriman was on June 18, 1936. In January 1937, Dulles listed his work for the firm as ‘disposal of Stan [Standard Oil] investing stock.’” (Ibid.; p. 360.)

35. The bulk of the second half of the program details a recent example of networking that highlights some of the complexities that should be considered in connection with recent disclosures concerning failures on the part of the FBI and CIA to prevent the attacks of 9/11, despite numerous clues.

36. Egyptian-born internet investment advisor Amr “Anthony” Elgindy had inside data from the FBI in his possession at the time of his recent arrest. “A former FBI agent charged in a stock-manipulation scheme had classified data among his belongings, and the trader he is accused of conspiring with had investigative reports about companies that were illegally taken from the FBI, prosecutors told a federal court judge.” (“Trader, Former Agent In Alleged Stock Scam Had Data From FBI;” by Jerry Markon; Wall Street Journal; 5/29/2002; p. C1.)

37. It was also disclosed that attention on Elgindy was focused as a result of the 9/11 securities manipulation probe. (For more about that subject, see FTR#’s 327, 331, 335, 357.) “The investigation that led to charges against five people, including a current and a former FBI agent, with using confidential government data to manipulate stock prices was an almost accidental result of probes into the September 11 terror attacks and to some degree convicted spy Robert Hanssen . . . His adversaries also pointed out that Mr. Elgindy is a Muslim whose brother, Khaled Elgindy, is active in Islamic advocacy groups in Washington.” (“Terror Probes Led to Stock-Fraud Case;” by Michael Schroeder, Gary Fields, Ianthe Jeanne Dugan and Aaron Elstein; Wall Street Journal; 5/24/2002; pp. C1-C3.)

38. The U.S. attorney in the case charged that Mr. Elgindy may have had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. “In a court hearing in San Diego, Kenneth Breen, an assistant United States attorney, said the adviser, Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, tried to sell $300,000 in stock on the afternoon of September 10 and told his broker that the stock market would soon plunge . . . Mr. Elgindy. . . . recently moved $700,000 to Lebanon and is a serious flight risk, Mr. Breen said. . . . At the hearing yesterday, Mr. Breen said that on the afternoon of September 10, Mr. Elgindy contacted his broker at Salomon Smith Barney and asked him to sell $300,000 in stock in his children’s trust funds. During the September 10 conversation, Mr. Elgindy predicted that the Dow Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon crash to below 3,000, Mr. Breen said. . . .” (“Stock Adviser Knew About 9/11 Attacks, U.S. Suggests” by Alex Berenson; The New York Times; 5/25/2002; pp. B1-B14.)

39. The program also notes that Elgindy’s father was active on behalf of a Hamas member. “His father, Ibrahim Elgindy, founded an umbrella group of Muslim organizations in Chicago and led a 1998 protest on behalf of Muhammad A. Salah, whose assets were seized that year after the United States government linked Mr. Salah to Hamas, the radical Palestinian group.” (Ibid.; p. B14.)

40. Mr. Salah’s situation was the focal point of charges that the F.B.I. had bungled an investigation into his situation. “An F.B.I. agent has sued the bureau for refusing to let him publish a book about what he says were botched efforts to investigate fund-raising by Hamas and other militant Islamic networks in the United States in the 1990’s. . . .Mr. Wright’s investigation led to the seizure in June 1998 of $1.4 million in the bank accounts of Mohammed Salah, a Chicago resident who had served time in an Israeli prison after being convicted of helping to recruit and train for Hamas.” (“F.B.I. Agent Sues Bureau for Barring Terror Book” by Judith Miller; The New York Times; 5/11/2002.)

41. It should be noted that one of the people Mr. Wright wanted to investigate was Yassin Qadi, being investigated in connection with the milieu of 9/11. “In his complaint, Mr. Wright said that the funds were linked to Yassin Qadi, a Saudi businessman, whom the federal government designated last October as a financial supporter of Osama Bin Laden.” (Idem.) (For more about Qadi, see FTR#330.)

42. The program also notes that Elgindy has worked on Muslim causes with the powerful Talat Othman, in turn connected to the milieu of George Bush, Youssef Nada, Al Taqwa, BCCI, and Harken Energy. (For more about Othman, see FTR#356.) (“Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago;” p. 4; accessed at www.ciogc.org/about_cio.html .)

43. The U.S. has recently encountered difficulty in attempting to neutralize Al Taqwa. “ ‘The Americans are good at intelligence information,’ says an Italian official who has followed Bank al Taqwa, a Bahamas-based lender that the U.S. alleges financed the al Qaeda terrorist network. ‘But they provide little that can be used in court. We’re still waiting for real information.’ ” (“Bush Faces Widening Gap with Europe” by Ian Johnson, Christopher Cooper and Philip Shishkin; Wall Street Journal; 5/21/2002; p. A15.) (For more about Al Taqwa, see FTR#’s 335, 336, 338, 342, 343, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359.)

44. The program notes that Ramzi Youssef’s uncle worked for Mercy International. “A further interesting connection between [World Trade Center bomber] Yousef and bin laden is Yousef’s uncle, Zahid Sheik, who was the regional manager of Mercy International Relief, a charity based in Peshawar, during the mid-1990’s. At the same time, Mercy International Relief’s Nairobi branch worked closely with Al-Qaeda, issuing identity cards to Bin Laden and Ali Mohammed. After a police raid on Wadih el-Hage’s house in Nairobi in 1997, eight boxes of his personal papers were stored at the charity’s office in the city.” (Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden; p. 140.) (For more about Ali Mohammed, see FTR#’s 338, 348, 350.)

45. The program concludes with review of the alleged connection between Mercy International and Al Taqwa. “But Nasreddin Ahmed Idris’s real representative at the head of Gulf Office is another member of the Muslim Brothers, Khaldoun Dia Eddine, who belongs to the Syrian branch of the organization. He too was ‘employed’ by the bank Al Taqwa, which he represented in Lugano before he took on the coordination of the activities of ‘Mercy International,’ an Islamic humanitarian organization. The humanitarian organizations, Islamic nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s), represent one of the other ‘derivative products’ from Al Tawa bank.” (Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam; pp. 152-153.) (For more about Mercy International, see FTR#351.)