FTR#367—What’s Going on Here? (Part II)—Networking Part III—(Two 30-minute segments) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 7/7/2002.)

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This program continues analysis of economic and political relationships underlying the 9/11 attacks. (For more about the attacks see FTR#’s 325-366. Note: FTR#’s 260-315, FTR#325 and succeeding programs are streaming on Real Audio at www.wfmu.org/daveemory. FTR#’s 01-270 are available for download only, also on Real Audio, at http://archive.wfmu.org:5555/archive/DX/.)

1. The broadcast begins by reviewing 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, 361, 366.)

2. Sullivan & Cromwell featured Allen and John Foster Dulles as its (arguably) most important attorneys. It doesn’t require a great leap of imagination to see continuity between that firm’s role on behalf of SBG (Saudi Bin Laden Group), the Dulles brothers’ involvement with the financial networks that financed the Third Reich and the firm’s efforts on behalf of U.S. financial firms seeking to blunt the Treasury Department’s proposed new anti-terrorism regulations. “The U.S. financial services industry has launched its first serious challenge to the slew of new regulations from Washington aimed at staunching the flow of funds to terrorist groups." (“Finance Sector Hits at Moves to Curb Terror Funds” by Edward Alden; Financial Times; 7/3/2002; p. 2.)

3. “The concerns, spelled out this week by 11 industry trade groups representing nearly every major U.S. financial institution, cast serious doubt on the U.S. administration’s plans to implement the most important of those regulations by a July 23 deadline.” (Idem.)

4. “They could also mark the beginning of a split between the government and industry over just how much new regulation in needed to discourage financing of terrorist groups.” (Idem.)

5. “The Treasury department wants all banks and other financial groups to set up elaborate schemes to monitor correspondent and private banking accounts opened in the U.s. by foreign banks or individuals. These are thought to be a main conduit for dirty money flowing into the U.S. financial system.” (Idem.)

6. “The rules could also seriously disrupt established financial relationships, the letter warned. In the most extreme instances, financial institutions from a handful of countries such as Russia, the Philippines and Egypt could be barred from dealing with U.S. banks unless they make available data on all their customers worldwide.” (Idem.)

7. “H. Rodgin Cohen, a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell, who led the effort on behalf of the 11 groups, said the Treasury’s definition of risky correspondent accounts was ‘so broad that they pick up basically all relationships between U.S. financial institutions and foreign institutions and foreign financial institutions.” (Idem.)

8. The program highlights the historical parallel between Sullivan & Cromwell’s efforts to weaken the Treasury Department’s anti-terrorism rules and the successful efforts of the Dulles brothers and their associates to interdict Operation Safehaven (a Treasury Department operation aimed at interdicting the Bormann flight capital program.) (For more about this subject, see FTR#’s 353, 366.) “The dissent comes at a time when the U.S. effort to crack down on funding for terrorist groups has largely stalled. The campaign has focused on seizing terrorist accounts, and the U.S. and its allies have frozen about $115m in suspected terrorist assets to date. But the seizures have dried up as terrorist groups have moved their assets out of cash accounts and into commodities such as gold and diamonds, Treasury officials say.” (Idem.) It should be noted that the dynamic involved here, the conflict between powerful economic networks and U.S. national interest and the safety of its citizens is central to an understanding of the events of 9/11. It will be discussed in future programs.

9. As the war wound to a close, Allen Dulles conducted successful negotiations with SS general Karl Wolff for the surrender of the SS forces in Italy. These negotiations were in direct conflict with official policy, which forbade unilateral negotiations between the Third Reich and the Western allies “With support from the top RSHA leadership, a deception game was begun with both Allied intelligence and the Catholic Church. Utilizing Wall Street and Vatican fears of communism, some of Himmler’s top cronies, like SS General Karl Wolff, became Damascus-road converts to a ‘kinder, gentler’ SS eager to establish friendly relations with both the Americans and the Holy See.” (Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International; by Kevin Coogan; Copyright 1999 [SC]; Autonomedia; ISBN 1-57027-039-2; p. 321.) (For more about this connection, see FTR#121.)

10. The power of the Dulles brothers reached peaked during the Eisenhower years, when John Foster Dulles became secretary of state and Allen became director of the CIA. It should be noted that the Dulles milieu maintained a close operational relationship with the SS underground. “Until Dulles was named CIA director by President Eisenhower (and his brother, John Foster Dulles, became director by President Eisenhower (and his brother, John Foster Dulles, became secretary of state), operational links to the Nazi underground came primarily from the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), headed by Dulles protégé Frank Wisner, the former chief of OSS operations in Bucharest, Romania. After the war, Dulles, Wisner, Angleton, and OPC’s Carmel Offie virtually ran covert operations in Italy as their own private affair.” (Ibid., p. 334.) (For more about these relationships, see RFA#F’s 1-3, FTR#’s 233, 366.)

11. The Nazi/Dulles/CIA relationship operated largely through the Office of Policy Coordination. “The OPC’s budget was $4.7 million in 1949. Three years later, when Dulles was still only CIA deputy director, it had reached $82 million. OPC personnel had humped from 302 to 6,954. OPC was officially incorporated into the CIA in 1952 as the Agency’s directorate of Plans. In1956, after President Eisenhower established the Killian Commission to investigate the Agency, it was discovered that more than half of the CIA’s personnel and 80 percent of its budget had been devoted not to intelligence-gathering but to psychological and political warfare programs. Throughout this entire time, the Dulles network was intimately involved in complex deals with factions inside the postwar SS.” (Idem.)

12. Another influence on a Dulles/Order collaborative relationship may have been psychologist Carl Jung, who was connected to Dulles and to the Third Reich. “Did Dulles offer to protect elements of the SS in return for its support for CIA-backed anti-Soviet operations in Europe and the Third World? Did he think that granting the Order a certain amount of autonomy was a small price to pay for bringing it into the American camp? Might he even have been personally compromised in some way, or manipulated by the Dulles family psychiatrist, Carl Jung? Men Among the Runs, then, may have been less a concession by Evola to American power than a signal that some sort of understanding reached by Dulles and Wolff at the end of the war was now fully operational.” (Idem.)

13. The Dulles networks precipitated the Crusade for Freedom, through which Eastern European fascists were brought into the United States for political purposes. (For more about this subject, see, among other programs, RFA#37, Miscellaneous Archive Show M24, FTR#’s 29, 48, 113, 186, 248, 346.) “The truth was quite sordid: With the help of the Dulles-Angleton clique, the Vatican had sent many of the Eastern European Nazis to Western countries, including the United States, Australia and Canada, where the right wing recruited them to get out the rest of the Eastern European ethnic vote. The man who ran the political recruitment was Richard Nixon.” (The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People; John Loftus and Mark Aarons; Copyright 1994 [SC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0-312-15648-0; p. 122.)

14. Frustration over Truman’s 1948 election victory over Dewey (which they blamed on the “Jewish vote”) impelled Dulles and his protégé Nixon to work toward the realization of the fascist freedom fighter presence in the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach organization. “As a young congressman, Nixon had been Allen Dulles’s confidant. They both blamed Governor Dewey’s razor-thin loss to Truman in the 1948 presidential election on the Jewish vote. When he became Eisenhower’s vice president in 1952, Nixon was determined to build his own ethnic base.” (Idem.)

15. “Vice President Nixon’s secret political war of Nazis against Jews in American politics was never investigated at the time. The foreign language-speaking Croations and other Fascist émigré groups had a ready-made network for contacting and mobilizing the Eastern European ethnic bloc. There is a very high correlation between CIA domestic subsidies to Fascist ‘freedom fighters’ during the 1950’s and the leadership of the Republican Party’s ethnic campaign groups. The motive for the under-the-table financing was clear: Nixon used Nazis to offset the Jewish vote for the Democrats.” (Idem.)

16. “In 1952, Nixon had formed an Ethnic Division within the republican national Committee. “Displaced fascists, hoping to be returned to power by an Eisenhower-Nixon ‘liberation’ policy signed on’ with the committee. In 1953, when Republicans were in office, the immigration laws were changed to admit Nazis, even members of the SS. They flooded into the country. Nixon himself oversaw the new immigration program. As vice president, he even received Eastern European Fascists in the White House.” (Ibid.; pp. 122-123.)

17. The Nazi/fascist presence in the Republican ethnic outreach program became permanent when George H.W. Bush was chairman of the Republican National Committee. “In 1968, Nixon promised that if he won the presidential election, he would create permanent ethnic council within the Republican Party. Previously the Ethnic Division was allowed to surface only during presidential campaigns. Nixon’s promise was carried out after the 1972 election, during Bush’s tenure as chairman of the Republican National Committee.” (Ibid.; p. 123.)

18. Bush’s appointment to the CIA may well have been politically motivated, in part, by his relationship to the CFF milieu, the Dulles networks and the Underground Reich. Nixon’s designated successor (Gerald Ford) appointed Bush, who considers Nixon to be his political mentor. (For more on the Nixon/Dulles/Bush connection, see, among other programs, RFA#37, FTR#’s 29, 186, 244, 248, 332, 337.) “. . . Nixon was forced to resign as a result of the Watergate scandal. At the same time, Bush was transferred from his post as head of the Republican National committee to the CIA. . . .There was a real risk in the 1970’s that the congressional investigations of Nixon might collide with the congressional investigations of Nazis. Bush was sent to the CIA to ensure that Nixon’s garbage remained buried.” (Idem.)

19. William Casey was a long-time political ally of Prescott Bush, Sr. (W’s grandfather.) Nixon was also close to Bush, Sr. (See, among other programs, RFA#37, FTR#’s 186, 248, 332.) Ronald Reagan and William Casey also figured prominently in the Crusade for Freedom program. “As a young movie actor in the early 1950’s, Reagan was employed as the public-spokesperson for an OPC front named the ‘Crusade for Freedom.’ Reagan may not have known it, but 99 percent of the Crusade’s funds came from clandestine accounts, which were then laundered through the Crusade to various organizations such as Radio Liberty, which employed Dulles’s Fascists. Bill Casey, who later became CIA director under Ronald Reagan, also worked in Germany after World War II on Dulles’s ‘Nazi ‘freedom fighters’ program. When he returned to New York sponsored the immigration of these Fascists to the United States. Casey’s committee replaced the International Red Cross as the sponsor for Dulles’s recruits.” (Ibid.; p. 605.)

20. The former World Anti-Communist League or WACL was among the organizations that overlapped the development of the fascist/GOP/Islamist milieu underlying the events of 9/11. (For more about Islamosfascist elements in the GOP ethnic outreach community, see FTR#’s 353, 356-361.) A central element in the Islamist/WACL link was the World Muslim Congress, founded by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. “Two years later, in January of 1955, Sadat became the secretary general of the Grand Mufti’s World Muslim Congress (WMC). The WMC soon developed close ties to CIA-backed organizations like the Asian People’s Anti-Communist league (APACL). It also circulate Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic writings and maintained especially good ties with Gerald K. Smith.” (Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International; p. 385.)

21. A primary element in WACL was the ABN. (For more about WACL/ABN, see RFA#’s 14, 15, 19, 21, 36, 37, as well as FTR#’s 48, 113 and numerous programs featuring Kevin Coogan, discussing his book Dreamer of the Day.) “Fearing that a new conflict with the Soviets might be just around the corner, American intelligence desperately wanted to reach an accomodation with the far right. U.S. agents aggressively recruited top officials from Alfred Rosenberg’s Ostministerium for anti-Soviet operations. Through umbrella organizations like the Anti-Bolshevik bloc of nations (ABN), the CIA, in league with the Gehlen Org, reconstructed the pre-war coalition of ‘anti-comintern’ groups in East Europe, the Baltics, and the Ukraine, which had extensive ties to German military intelligence and the Rosenberg apparat.” (Ibid.; p. 393.)

22. “This revamped ‘Anti-Kommintern’ then became the European wing of the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League (APACL), the precursor organization to the World Anti-Communist League (WACL).” (Ibid.; p. 599.)

23. The anti-Soviet Afghan war of the 1980’s saw the Grand Mufti-founded WMC become a principal element of that effort. This effort, backed by Saudi and U.S. intelligence, saw the emergence of Osama Bin Laden and the “Arab-Afghans.” It was in this same period that Islamist elements emerged as an important element within the Republican Party. “A few years later, the WMC, then headed by Pakistani Dr. Inamullah Kahn, mailed Holocaust-denial literature to every member of the U.S. Congress and the British Parliament. The WMC’s official mouthpiece, Muslim World, carried the ads for The Protocols of the elders of Zion and Henry Ford’s The International Jew. . . .Dr. Khan also served as an advisor to the Saudi Arabian royal family, which lavished funds on the WMC. In addition, the Saudi Arabian government retained the services of American neo-nazi William Grimstead as a Washington lobbyist. . . Soon, the World Muslim Congress began working closely with U.S. intelligence and Pakistani military officials, who were covertly supporting the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet-installed regime in Kabul. This effort was strongly endorsed by Dr. Khan, who served for many years as the Pakistani representative of the Nazi-infested World Anti-Commnist League, which played an important role in the Reagan administration’s ‘secret war’ in the Golden Crescent.” (The Beast Reawakens; Martin A. Lee; Copyright 1997 [HC]; Little, Brown & Co.; ISBN 0-316-51959-6; pp. 225-226.)

24. For the convenience of the Internet user, some of the documentation of the GOP/Islamofascist connection is reproduced from FTR#356. [Jamal] Barzinji constitutes one of a number of links between the GOP/ethnic outreach milieu and that of Al Taqwa and the events of 9/11. Barzinji, in turn, overlaps institutions with connections to the Bin Laden family and Al Taqwa. (For more about Al Taqwa, see FTR#’s 335, 336, 338, 340, 342, 343, 344, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 357-9.) Barzinji is a representative of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. (“Wahhabis in the Old Dominion” by Stephen Schwartz; The Weekly Standard; 4/8/2002 [Volume 007, Issue 29]; accessed at www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=1072&R=4FC12C2DAA .)

25. The WAMY is described as “. . .an arm of the Saudi regime with offices in Virginia. WAMY has been deeply involved in providing cover for Wahhabi terrorism. The 2002 entry in the U.S. Business Directory lists the president of the WAMY office in Annandale, Va., as Abdula bin Laden—the terrorist’s younger brother.” (Idem.)

26. One of the key connecting links between the milieu of Al Queda, the highest ranks of the Republican Party and Al Taqwa is the Amana Mutual Funds Trust. (Idem.)

27. “Barzinji serves as a trustee and officer of the Amana Mutual Funds Trust, a growth and income mutual fund headquartered in Bellingham, Washington, conveniently near the Canadian border. Amana’s board also includes Yaqub Mirza, a Pakistani physicist who shares Barzinji’s Herndon office address and who is widely described as a financial genius. Another board member and tenant in the Herndon office is Samir Salah. He formerly ran a branch of Al Taqwa in the Caribbean, heads a financial firm linked to Saar, and directs Dar al-Hijra, a mosque in Falls Church, Va., notable for hardline Wahhabi preaching.” (Idem.)

28. In previous programs about September 11, Mr. Emory has presented his hypothesis that an Underground Reich “Fifth Column” within the U.S. political, economic and national security establishment was involved in the attacks. In that context it is interesting to consider Mr. Barzinji’s connections. “Front groups interfacing between the Wahhabi-Saudi money movers under federal suspicion and the broader American public include two institutions active in the religious field: the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS). The involvement of GSISS with the financing of extremism is especially startling in that it alone is credentialed by the Department of Defense to certify Muslim chaplains for the U.S. armed forces. Barzinji has appeared on the boards of both.” (Idem.)

29. On April 4, Treasury Secretary O’Neill met with powerful Islamist Republicans whose spheres of interest overlap those of the institutions and individuals targeted on March 20. (“O’Neill Met Muslim Activists Tied to Charities” by Glenn R. Simpson [with Roger Thurow]; Wall Street Journal; 4/18/2002; p. A4.)

30. “Among the Muslim leaders attending [the meeting with O’Neill] was Talat Othman, a longtime associate and supporter of President Bush’s family, who gave a benediction at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000. . .But he also serves [with Barzinji] on the board of Amana Mutual funds Trust, an investment firm founded by M. Yacqub Mirza, the Northern Virginia businessman who set up most of the entities targeted by the Treasury and whose tax records were sought in the raid.” (Idem.)

31. As Mr. Emory hypothesized in FTR#353, the Norquist/GOP/Islamist links are part of the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach program. “The case also highlights conflicts between the Bush administration’s domestic political goals and its war on terror. GOP officials began courting the U.S. Muslim community intensely in the late 1990’s, seeking to add that ethnic bloc to the party’s political base.” (Idem.) (For more about the fascist heritage of the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization, see, among other programs, RFA #37, FTR#’s 29, 48, 113, 248, 346, 353.)

32. The meeting was described as highly unusual. “Bruce Zagaris, an asset-forfeiture lawyer, who represents clients in similar cases, said a meeting between Treasury officials and anyone who might be associated with an entity under investigation is very unusual. ‘It’s virtually impossible [to arrange such a meeting], especially with the Treasury secretary,’ Mr. Zagaris said. ‘It’s very difficult to even get phone calls returned.’” (Idem.)

33. The Amana organization has numerous areas of overlap with organizations described as being implicated in terrorism and the milieu of Al Queda. “Two nonprofits affiliated with Mr. Mirza and named in the search warrant, the SAAR Foundation Inc. and the Heritage Education Trust Inc., held large blocks of shares in Amana’s mutual funds in 1997, according to SEC records. The SEC documents and other records detailing connections between Mr. Othman and the Islamic Institute [on the board of which Mr. Othman serves] and the raided groups were compiled by the National Security News Service, a Washington based nonprofit research group.” (Idem.)

34. Further details have emerged about the links between Al Taqwa and the GOP/Bush administration. “Mr. Othman also is on the board of Mr. Saffuri’s [and Norquist’s] Islamic Institute, the GOP-leaning group that received $20,000.00 from the Safa Trust, one of the raid’s targets. The president of the Safa Trust, Jamal Barzinji, is a former business associate of Switzerland based investor Youssef Nada, whose assets were frozen last fall after the Treasury designated him a person suspected of giving aid to terrorists.” (Idem.)

35. A recent Wall Street Journal article described some of the organizations targeted in the raids. “These include Al-Taqwa Management, a recently liquidated Swiss company the U.S. government believes acted as a banker for Osama bin Laden’s al Queda terrorist network. . .Two people affiliated with the companies and charities are linked by records to entities already designated as terrorist by the U.S. government. Hisham Al-Talib, who served as an officer of SAAR, the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Safa Trust Inc., another Mirza charity, during the 1970’s was an officer of firms run by Youssef M. Nada, records show. Mr. Nada is a Switzerland-based businessman whose assets have been frozen by the U.S. for alleged involvement in terrorist financing, and is alleged by U.S. officials to be a key figure in the Taqwa network. . .Jamal Barzinji, an officer of Mr. Mirza’s company Mar-Jac and other entities, also was involved with Mr. Nada’s companies in the 1970’s, according to bank documents from Liechtenstein. A message was left yesterday for Mr. Barzinji at his address in Herndon. Mr. Barzinji and Mr. Talib live across the street from each other. A third business associate of Mr. Nada, Ali Ghaleb Himmat (who also has been designated by the Treasury as aiding terrorism), is listed as an official of the Geneva branch of another charity operated by Mr. Mirza, the International Islamic Charitable Organization.” (“Funds Under Terror Probe Flowed From Offshore” by Glenn R. Simpson [with Michael M. Phillips]; Wall Street Journal; 3/22/2002; p. A4.)

36. Othman’s links to Bush are profound. “Mr. Othman has ties to the Bush family going back to the 1980’s, when he served with George W. Bush on the board of a Texas petroleum firm, Harken Oil & Gas Inc. Mr. Othman has visited the White House during the administrations of both President Bush and his father George H.W. Bush.” (“O’Neill Met Muslim Activists Tied to Charities” by Glenn R. Simpson [with Roger Thurow]; Wall Street Journal; 4/18/2002; p. A4.) (For more about Harken Oil and George W. Bush, see FTR’s 284, 355.)

37. Bush’s involvement with Harken has become a target of scrutiny, in the wake of a variety of alarming disclosures about corporate misdeeds. “The controversy involves Bush’s sale of shares of stock in Harken Energy Co., an oil and gas exploration company. Bush had acquired shares in the company and joined its board in the mid-1980’s when Harken bought his money-losing energy firm, Spectrum 7.” (“Story Changes on Bush Stock Sale” by Zachary Coile; San Francisco Chronicle; 7/4/2002; p. A15.)

38. “On June 22, 1990, Bush sold 212,140 shares of Harken stock just two months before the company reported a $23 million loss. At the time he sold, the stock price was $4, but by the end of the year, it had fallen to $1 a share.” (Idem.)

39. “Fleischer told reporters that Bush believed that he had complied with the law by filing an SEC Form 144, which alerted investors of his intention to sell the stock.” (Idem.)

40. “But Bush did not file a second document, SEC Form 4, until 34 weeks after the sale of the stock. U.S. securities law requires that corporate leaders at publicly traded firms report sales by the 10^th day of the month following the sale.” (Idem.)

41. “Fleischer blamed the lawyers at Harken for not filing the second form. ‘It was a mix-up with the attorneys,’ he said.” (Idem.)

42. “But Fleischer later backed off his statement that it was the corporation’s responsibility to file the form on behalf of its directors. Federal law says it’s the responsibility of the director, not the company, to file the form.” (Idem.)

43. “Shortly after Bush sold his Harken stock , the SEC investigated the deal for possible insider trading. The investigation occurred while Bush’s father was president, and the agency ended its inquiry in 1993.” (Idem.)

44. “The controversy bubbled to the surface again this week after the release of a 1991 SEC memo showing that Bush was late in filing four Form 4s for sales of Harken stock worth $1, 028, 935. Bush used $600,000 of money from the sales to buy part ownership of the Texas Rangers baseball team.” (Idem.)

45. Further detailing the background of Othman, the broadcast highlights the connections between people associated with the Nugan Hand Bank and Othman. “Harken Energy was formed in 1973 by two oilmen who would benefit from a successful covert effort to destabilize Australia’s Labor Party government (which had attempted to shut out foreign oil exploration.) A decade later, Harken was sold to a new investment group headed by New York attorney Alan G. Quasha, a partner in the firm of Quasha, Wessely & Schneider. . .William Quasha [Alan’s father] had also given legal advice to two top officials of the notorious Nugan Hand Bank in Australia, a CIA operation. After the sale of Harken Energy in 1983, Alan Quasha became a director and chairman of the board. Under Quasha, Harken suddenly absorbed Junior’s struggling Spectrum 7 in 1986. (“Bush Family Value$: The Bush Clan’s Family Business” by Stephen Pizzo; Mother Jones; September/October 1992; accessed at www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html .) (For more about Nugan Hand, see RFA#’s 4, 25, 30.)

46. Othman also has links to Gaith Pharoan of the BCCI and, through him, to James R. Bath and the Bin Ladens. “Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, in turn, was a business associate of BCCI front man Gaith Pharoan; he bought a chunk of Harken’s stock and placed his representative, Talat Othman, on Harken Energy’s board of directors.” (Idem.)

47. Next, the broadcast turns to discussion of Clearstream, a major vehicle for the financing of BCCI and, as we shall see, Al Taqwa. “A controversial European book that might help authorities track terrorist funding sources remains unpublished and relatively unknown in the United States. Entitled Revelation$ [by Ernest Backes and Denis Robert], it exposes a secret banking system that might be used by terrorists. At the center is a clearinghouse in Luxembourg called Clearstream, which transfers money for international banks and major companies.” (“A Book Too Hot For U.S. to Handle? Tracking Terrorist Money” by Lucy Komisar; Pacific News Service; 10/4/2001; accessed at www.pacificnews.org/content/pns/2001/oct/1004tracking.html .)

48. Furthermore, the Clearstream/BCCI link was apparently known to Rudy Giuliani (a U.S. attorney under the elder George Bush.) “This reporter was shown copies of what Backes says are records of the secret accounts. He keeps the originals in caches outside Luxembourg. The documents are a mine of information for any financial inquiry, with detailed information on every cross-border transfer in cash or securities. Some U.S. officials—including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani—may well be aware of the system detailed in the documents. . . .When Mayor Giuliani was an assistant prosecutor in charge of investigating the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the early 1990’s, he received documents from Backes according to Revelation$. ‘Giuliani and agents of the FBI were delighted with the official documents [which Backes sent him],’ the authors wrote.’” (Idem.) Mr. Emory notes that the current director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, was in charge of the BCCI investigation and was less than vigorous in his pursuit of the truth. It is Mr. Emory’s view that Mueller may well have been an inside plant, positioned in order to prevent an unraveling of the BCCI money trail in the direction of George W. Bush. (For more about BCCI and the milieu of 9/11, see, among other programs, FTR#’s 325, 330, 342, 344, 353, 362.)

49. Mueller was recently a focus of some criticism for meeting with the American Muslim Council, a Wahhabi-linked organization overlapping both the GOP/ethnic wing and terrorist elements. “Amid accusations it supports extremists abroad, the American Muslim Council opened its four-day conference Thursday with a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill to press lawmakers on issues ranging from Palestinian statehood to toughened FBI surveillance tactics.” (“Muslims Converge on Capitol Hill in Lobbying Bid”; San Francisco Chronicle; 6/29/2002; p. A5.)

50. “FBI director Robert Mueller was being pressured by conservatives and Jewish groups to cancel his Friday speech to the council, part of the administration’s attempts to reach out to segments of the American Muslim community after the September 11 terror attacks.” (Idem.)

51. Links between AMC and Islamic charities funneling money to terrorists were at the core of the critics’ arguments. “But critics say the council has urged members in the past to contribute to some charities whose assets have since been frozen by the United States because of links to terrorists.” (Idem.)

52. Some of the GOP/Islamist/AMC links are even indeed alarming. “The record of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—which, like the AMC, sends members to meetings organized by Norquist and Saffuri—is no more encouraging. When interviewed by Salon’s Jake Tapper on September 26, CAIR Communication Director Ibrahim Hooper refused to condemn Osama bin Laden. CAIR founder Nihad Awad, who appeared with Bush at the Washington Islamic Center, has argued that ‘there is ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad and the Egyptian Intelligence [service] played a role in the [1993 World Trade Center] explosion.’ And Siraj Wahaj, who has served as a CAIR board member, has been described by federal prosecutor Mary Jo White as a possible conspirator in the ’93 bombing.” (“Fevered Pitch” by Franklin Foer; The New Republic; 11/12/2001; pp. 5-6; accessed at www.thenewrepublic.com/111201/foer111201.html .)

53. One of the people that played a major role in both the ABN and the Republican ethnic outreach organization was Laszlo Pasztor. Pasztor was also the “liberation director” of the Free Congress Foundation, an organization involved with a number of Russian and Eastern European political elements. (For more about Pasztor, see also: RFA#’s 36, 37, among other programs.) “The Free Congress Foundation, founded by American far Right strategist Paul Weyrich, became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Figuring prominently in this effort was Weyrich’s right-hand man, Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross organization in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler’s Reich. After serving two years in prison for his Arrow Cross activities, Pasztor found his way to the United States, where he was instrumental in establishing the ethnic-outreach arm of the Republican National Committee.” (The Beast Reawakens; Martin A. Lee; p. 303.)

54. Much of the second side of the program consists of review of portions of FTR#166. That broadcast, in turn reviews parts of RFA#36. That tape segment recapitulates material about the intersection between FCF, ABN, WACL. (“The Free Congress Foundation Goes East” by Russ Bellant and Lou Wolff; Covert Action Information Bulletin; Issue #35; Winter 1990-1991.)

55. Noting the fascist heritage of the FCF and its intersection with the milieu of the Republican ethnic outreach organization, the program concludes with discussion of the FCF’s attack on the Menwith Hill (Yorkshire) and Echelon elements of the vitally important NSA/GCHQ electronic counterintelligence function. (“Big Brother Is Listening to You” by Lisa S. Dean; San Francisco Examiner; 7/5/1999.) The program notes that the attack by the FCF on Echelon/Menwith Hill coincided with a German intelligence and public relations blitzkrieg against these same installations. The motive for the German “outrage” was alleged industrial espionage. FTR#331 highlighted the fact that Germany had the same capability, while charging that the Echelon/Menwith Hill liaison had provided the United States with the same capability. The program conceptualizes the FCF attack on Echelon/Menwith Hill as presaging the 9/11 attack on the United States by the Underground Reich and its Islamofascist allies. By discrediting the U.S. electronic intelligence capability, promoting domestic U.S. opposition to Echelon/Menwith Hill and alerting Al Qaeda elements to the capabilities of the intercept system, FCF and its Underground Reich allies helped prepare the way for the destruction of 9/11. The subject of FCF and its attack on Echelon/Menwith Hill will be discussed in future programs. (For more about growing national security conflicts between the U.S. and Germany/EU, see also: FTR #’s 103, 119, 152, 166, 215, 266, 272, 273, 294, 311, 313.)