FTR#584—Rewriting History--(Two 30-minute segments)
(Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 2/4/2007.)
Note: FTR#’s 260-316, 317,
324, FTR#325 and succeeding programs are streaming
on Real Audio at www.wfmu.org/daveemory.
FTR#’s 01-270, 316-324 are available for download
only, also on Real Audio, on their Archive Page.)
Note!! WFMU is now
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NOTE: TWO
LECTURES PRESENTING MR. EMORY’S VIEWS OF WHAT WE CAN EXPECT IN THE FUTURE ARE
NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWLOAD FOR FREE IN
BOTH REAL AUDIO AND MP3. These lectures are:
L-1: ‘The Political Implications of the UFO Phenomenon and the ‘ET’ Myth’; and
L-2: ‘The Future--Technology, Theocracy and the Thousand-Year-Reich.’
Descriptions are available in the Lecture Series section.
NEW!! A number of
vitally important books are now available for download for FREE. The books are:
Martin Bormann: Nazi in
Exile by Paul Manning; The Nazis Go Underground
by Curt Reiss; and All Honorable Men (parts 1 and 2) by James
Stewart Martin. Taken together, these books will provide a significant
understanding of the concept and reality of The Underground Reich, and they can
be downloaded with a modem Internet connection. They are available at: Spitfirelist.com/Books. In addition, we have added Cairo to Damascus by John Roy Carlson [1951], Germany Plots with the Kremlin by T.H. Tetens [1953], and Armies of Spies by Joseph Golomb [1939].
Yet another recent addition is Germany’s
Master Plan by Joseph Borkin and Charles Welsh. (Borkin is the author of
the 1979 classic The Crime and Punishment
of I.G. Farben.) Another anti-fascist classic about I.G. Farben supplements
the Borkin and Welsh text—Treason’s Peace
by Howard Watson Ambruster. Two more recently-posted gems are The Thousand-Year Conspiracy by Paul
Winkler and Falange by Alan Chase,
both published in 1943. The Winkler text documents the evolution of militant
Pan-Germanism from the Teutonic Knights to the Nazis and Falange documents the Third Reich’s geopolitical goals in the
Spanish-speaking world. By the time many of you read this description, more of
the long-out-of-print anti-fascist books that are more than 50 years old will
have been added to the Spitfirelist.com/Books URL. The Manning text’s URL also features a discussion of
Paul Manning’s career and professional credentials. Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile is also available in html. Note also that FTR#305
has a synoptic overview of the Bormann organization. An understanding of the
Bormann organization is essential for an in-depth grasp of the arguments
presented on For The Record.
Note also that U.S. Government documents proving Prescott
Bush Sr.’s Money-Laundering on behalf of the Third Reich before and after World
War II are available at a linked website, along with commentary by John
Buchanan, who located the documentation. This material is discussed in FTR#435.
The website containing the documents is www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/.
New! The 1990
Archive Show “Uncle Sam and Il Duce: American Support for Mussolini and the
Mythology of the Corporate State” is now available for download for FREE on
MP3! This program is arguably the best post-World War II analysis of classical
fascism—what Mussolini called “The Corporate State.” Check it out at: http://www.spitfirelist.com/Archives/
Summary of FTR#584—(Note: The massive
volume of ‘For The Record’ programs about 9/11 and related topics is summarized
and analyzed in the periodically-updated description for FTR#391. FTR#’s
454, 455, 456 are compilations of much of the key documentation
culled from Mr. Emory’s investigation into 9/11. Along with FTR#391, they should give
listeners/readers a substantive grasp of this momentous event. It is
recommended that listeners use this description and e-mail it to others.) In Mein Kampf (his autobiography and political manifesto),
Adolph Hitler spoke of the big lie: “Most people
tell little lies. They would be ashamed to tell big ones. They would never credit others with such great impudence as
the complete reversal of facts. Even
explanations would long leave them in doubt and hesitation, as any trifling
detail would dispose them to accept a thing as true. All good liars know this
and, therefore, stop at nothing to achieve this end.” This program
treats the subject of the big lie in the specific context of rewriting history.
Beginning with the mythology surrounding Notre Football star George Gipp and
Ronald Reagan, the actor-turned-politician who played him in the movies, the
broadcast deals with historical lies that are accepted as truth, truths that
are the target of powerful interests that seek to undermine their credibility,
and the falsification of history to justify a fascist political agenda. At a
Holocaust denial conference in Iran, an assortment of international fascists
convened to disseminate their view that the Holocaust never happened.
Overshadowed by the presence at the conference of Ku Klux Klan leader David
Duke, a group of close advisers to Iranian president Ahmadinejad has been
networking with European neo-Nazis. Conspiracy theory in general and the so-called
9/11 “Truth” movement in particular have proved to be fertile ground for
historical revisionists. (Parenthetically, it should be noted that when someone
realizes that much of our history has been falsified, it can leave them in an
intellectually relativistic state. “Well, if Oswald DIDN’T kill Kennedy, maybe
the Holocaust never happened.”) The program notes that a popular 9/11 book, The War on Freedom, presents the view that the
world is run by a Jewish conspiracy, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately
allowed the Pearl Harbor attack to take place, that Roosevelt was responsible
for starting World War II, that Abraham Lincoln was a war criminal, that
Abraham Lincoln was responsible for starting the Civil War and that the
war-making powers belong to the states. This last contention is the ideological
tenet of the Posse Comitatus, one of the most virulent elements of the white
supremacist movement, now presented uncritically to the so-called 9/11 “Truth
Movement.” Concluding with discussion of the Rape of Nanking in World War II,
the program highlights a forthcoming Japanese film that denies that the
massacre took place. Discussing the actual massacre, the broadcast points out
that the event was the genesis of the all-important Golden Lily program, which
looted the liquid wealth of Asia and put it under Japanese and control. That
stolen wealth became the foundation for Japan’s postwar economic success, as
well as a principal element in the postwar global cartel system.
Program Highlights Include: Japanese rightists’ circulation of the “FDR
started World War II” myth; German publishing giant Bertelsmann’s use of a
house historian who also subscribes to the “FDR started the war” myth; Japanese
Prince Asaka’s direction of the Rape of Nanking.
1.
The program begins
with review of information from FTR#304, highlighting the
preservation of an illusion central to the sporting and political worlds.
Author Dan Moldea illustrates the contrast between the Hollywood legend of
football and the reality of the game by analyzing Ronald Reagan’s role as Notre
Dame star George Gipp in the movie Knute Rockne: All American. This role
provided Reagan with his political persona of “the Gippper.” (This was Gipp’s
nickname and was the centerpiece of an ongoing myth about the player and
Rockne. Rockne was a celebrated football coach at Notre Dame and was played by
actor Pat O’Brien in the movie.) Gipp, dying of pneumonia, supposedly gave
Rockne a deathbed request: “His [Gipp’s] purported
deathbed request to Rockne, ‘Win just one for
the Gipper,’ was used during a locker room pep
talk and helped to inspire Rockne’s 1928 team in its upset victory against
Army. And, as the Gipper incarnate, Reagan used the line to inspire voters to
elect him to the California governor’s mansion and later the White House. To
those who saw the movie and listened to Reagan utter those now-famous words,
Gipp epitomized the virtues of good character, sportsmanship, and ‘the right way of living.’ History,
however, now shows that Gipp, a man of truly questionable moral values,
probably never made any such request on or off his deathbed; that Rockne, who
was known for grasping at anything to incite his players, had fabricated the
incident and that Reagan’s movie further embellished the Gipp/Rockne charade. .
. . Regardless of the facts, the American public continues to believe the
legend of George Gipp’s deathbed request to Knute Rockne. The difficulties in
debunking the myth about one college coach and one of his players is an
indication of the problems in dispelling the legends about an entire
institution, particularly one as popular as football. Powerful forces in America have built empires around these
myths; and the preservation of these empires and the personal wealth of those
who own them depend upon the maintenance of the legends. In the Reagan movie myth of the lives of Rockne and Gipp,
there is one scene in which Rockne chases away a gambler who is looking for an
edge. Rockne, played by actor Pat O’Brien, tells him, ‘We haven’t got any use
for gamblers around here. You’ve done your best to ruin baseball and horse
racing. This is one game that’s clean and it’s going to stay clean.’ Considering that Gipp, with the knowledge of Rockne, was a
notorious sports gambler, the O’Brien quote perhaps best illustrates my point. To a large degree, the National Football League (the NFL)
has become the embodiment of the Gipp/Rockne myth. It has wrapped itself around
the American flag and strutted into America’s homes to the thrilling stir of
brass and percussion music as the choreography of bone-crushing tackles in
dramatic slow motion flashes across the nation’s television screens. Based upon
the illusion, the country’s love affair with professional football has given sports
fans confidence that the NFL is an institution unencumbered by corruption.”
(Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football; Dan
Moldea; copyright 1989 by William Morrow and Company [HC]; ISBN 0-688-08303-X;
pp.19-20.)
2.
Moldea
later points out that, when being chastised by Rockne for being unmotivated,
Gipp explained that he had $500.00 bet on the game and was, as a result, very
motivated. (Ibid.; p. 437.)
3.
Seeking to rewrite the history of the Second World War, Iran hosted a
well-publicized Holocaust Denial conference. Never one to be reticent, Iranian
president Ahmadinejad used the occasion to reiterate his call for Israel to be
wiped out. “Iran’s hard-line president said
Tuesday that Israel will one day be ‘wiped out’ as the Soviet Union was,
drawing applause from participants in a conference casting doubt on the
Holocaust. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments are likely to further fuel
the outcry prompted by the two-day gathering, which has gathered some of
Europe’s and the United States’ best-known Holocaust deniers. Anger over the
conference could further isolate Iran as the West considers sanctions in the
standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program. But Ahmadinejad appeared to revel in
his meeting Tuesday with conference delegates, shaking hands with American
participants and sitting near six anti-Israel Jewish participants dressed in
black ultra-Orthodox coats and hats. ‘The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon
the same the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom,’ Ahmadinejad
said during Tuesday’s meeting in his offices, according to the official IRNA
news agency. . . . Ahmadinejad has used anti-Israeli rhetoric and cast doubt on
the Holocaust to rally anti-Western supporters at home and abroad, particularly
in Asia and the Middle East. Several times he has referred to the Holocaust as
a ‘myth’ used to impose the state of Israel on the Arab world. . . .” (“Iran’s
Leader Predicts the Extinction of Israel” [Chronicle News Services]; San
Francisco Chronicle; 12/13/2006; p. A19.)
4.
Among those in attendance were former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke
and Robert Faurisson, a French neo-fascist, whom American political luminary
Noam Chomsky has championed in the past. “Iran
held a gathering that included Holocaust deniers, discredited scholars from
around the world Monday under the guise of a conference to ‘debate’ the Nazi
slaughter of 6 million Jews. Among those representing the United States was
former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, whose prepared remarks, issued by the
Iranian Foreign Ministry, said the gas chambers in which millions perished
actually did not exist. Robert Faurisson, an academic from France, said in his
speech that the Holocaust was a myth created to justify the occupation of
Palestine, meaning the creation of Israel. . . . In another development Monday,
Iranian students staged a rare demonstration against Ahmadinejad, lighting a
firecracker and burning his photograph as he delivered a speech at their
university, the state news agency reported. Ahmadinejad responded calmly when a
small group of students in a crowded hall at Amir Kabir Technical University
started chanting ‘Death to the dictator,’ The Islamic Republic News Agency
reported. One held up a poster that read: ‘Fascist president, the Polytechnic
is not a place for you.’” (“World’s Holocaust Cynics Get their
Chance to Vent” by Nazila Fathi [New York Times]; San Francisco
Chronicle; 12/12/2007; p. A19.)
5.
Concluding the topic
of Iran’s sponsorship of a Holocaust denial conference, the program notes that
the event was organized by a group of Ahmadinejad’s advisers who are forming
links with neo-Nazi groups in Europe! In this context, it is important to
remember that the Iranian fundamentalist regime has long had contexts with
Nazis—so-called “neo”-Nazis and members of the old guard. Bank Al Taqwa
director Achmed Huber has been very close to the regime in Tehran and the
Ayatollah Khomeini’s exile in France was paid for by Francois Genoud. Huber has
also served as a liaison person coordinating the activities of Islamic fascists
and both American and European neo-Nazis. (For more about Huber, Iran, Genoud
and the neo-Nazi connections, see FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 456, 499.) “Iran’s so-called Holocaust conference this week was billed
as a chance to force the West to reconsider the historical legitimacy of
Israel. But why would the Iranians invite speakers with so little credibility
in the West, including a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and disgraced
European scholars? That question misses the point. Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad portrays such conference participants as David Duke, the former
Klan leader, and Robert Faurisson of France, who has devoted his life to trying
to prove that Nazi gas chambers were a myth, as silenced truth-tellers whose
stories expose Western leaders as the hypocrites he considers them to be. . .
.The two-day meeting included no attempt to come to terms with the nature of
the well-documented Nazi slaughter, offering only a platform to those pursuing
the fantasy that it never happened. In addition the organizers of the
conference, a small circle around the president, have been building ties with
neo-Nazi groups in Europe. . . . [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (“Iran
Leader Uses Conference on Holocaust to Push Agenda” by Michael Slackman [New
York Times]; The San Francisco Chronicle; 12/14/2006; p. A28.)
6.
The flakier elements of the 9/11 “Truth Movement” have associated
themselves with fascist revisionism. Among the reactionaries presenting a
revisionist view of history in conjunction with 9/11 is Andreas Von Buelow, who
attributes 9/11 [and just about everything else] to—you guessed it—the Jews.
Von Buelow’s comments and a veritable Motherlode of fascist revisionism is
contained in the “Backword” of The War on Freedom, a popular book about
9/11. “Von Buelow told AFP [The American Free
Press, an American neo-Nazi publication] that he believes that the
Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, is behind the September 11 attacks . . .
The BND (German secret service) is steered by the CIA and the CIA is steered by
the Mossad. . . .” (The War on Freedom; Nafeez Mossadeq
Ahmed; Copyright 2002 by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed; Tree of Life Publications [SC];
ISBN 0-930852-40-0; p. 366.)
7.
Another stunning example of 9/11-connected revisionism in The War on
Freedom is the assertion that Abraham Lincoln was an imperial warmonger,
that he was responsible for victimizing the Confederacy during the Civil War,
and that the war-making powers belong to the states! This agenda is that of
the Posse Comitatus, one of the most extreme elements in the white-supremacist
movement. “The war powers have been usurped and
abused by the White House at least since the 1840’s. A new book sharply assails
the totalitarian basis of our modern Union, as laid by Abraham Lincoln, over
the rubble of the U.S. Constitution. ‘Lincoln lusted after Empire. The
juggernaut he put in place exterminated the Plains Indians with the same
ferocity with which Southern towns and cities were sacked and pillaged.’ The
Indians are in Palestine now—evicted into camps, demonized, and massacred in
illegal wars. The Constitution grants all powers not delegated elsewhere to the
States; and delegation of powers is not their abandonment or abuse. Thus, the
war powers rightfully revert back to the individual states, and need to be
devolved to them, to make such mutual defense agreements as they deem fit. . .
. Yet our states still have the right to secede. DiLorenzo writes that Lincoln
and his generals should ‘have been hanged as war criminals under the Geneva Convention of 1863.’ In our time,
complicity—whether indirect or direct—in the Pearl Harbor and WTC attacks is
also a treasonable crime against humanity, which should be prosecuted.” (Ibid.;
pp. 377-378.)
8.
Another piece of fascist historical revisionism that The War on
Freedom markets to the 9/11 “Truth” community is the canard that Franklin
Delano Roosevelt deliberately let the Pearl Harbor attack proceed unimpeded. This
is a readily verifiable lie that belongs in the same category as Holocaust
denial. In point of fact, the United States’ armed forces in the Pacific
theater were on a war alert from late November of 1941 on. Having broken the
Japanese [diplomatic] Purple Code and knowing that Japanese diplomats were
instructed to break off their peace negotiations on December 7 and burn their
cables, the War Department concluded that the Japanese were going to attack. At
the same time, Naval Intelligence noted that the radio signatures of the
Japanese aircraft carriers had gone silent. From this, they concluded that the
Japanese were going to launch an attack from a carrier task force. Admiral
Husband Kimmel was warned to prepare for an attack. He failed to alert the
defenses on Oahu when the U.S.S. Ward engaged and sank an enemy submarine
attempting to enter Pearl Harbor on the morning of 12/7/1941, and the rest is
history. “Let’s move along to Pearl Harbor, on
Hawaii (annexed, like California, in a subversive putsch, turning the Pacific
into an American lake). Declassified files recently revealed that FDR was even
more cunning than the ‘conspiracy theorists’ believed. He not only let the
Japanese attack Pearl Harbor—he first executed an 8-point plan to provoke and
lure them, ensuring that they saw no alternative other than to attack. . . .” (Ibid.;
p. 336.)
9.
Pinning the blame for World War II and Pearl Harbor on
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (and exonerating the Japanese in the process) is as
fundamental perversion of history as is possible. In fact, Roosevelt stood
largely alone in attempting to cut off the supplies of oil (and scrap metal),
which Americans provided to the Japanese. Using these supplies, the Japanese
had waged a savage war of aggression for more than a decade. Among the
atrocities committed by Japanese armies was the Rape of Nanking, discussed below.
It should be remembered that the Japanese oligarchs and militarists were the
beneficiaries of vast amounts of investment capital channeled their way by
powerful American industrialists and financiers. In addition to the fact that
successful Japanese conquest brought these investors greater chance of
realizing profits on their capital investment, influential members of the
American power elite were supportive of the Japanese war of aggression because
the armies of the Rising Sun were seen as a bulwark against the spread of
Soviet and Chinese communism. For more about the subject of U.S. capital
investment in Japan, see—among other programs—FTR#426, as well as
Miscellaneous Archive Show M26,
available from SPITFIRE.
10.
The house historian
for Bertelsmann also blames World War II on Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Bertelsmann is the German media firm that dominates English language
publishing. For more about Bertelsmann, see the series of programs produced
about German Corporate Control of American Publishing. “ . . . His book Roosevelt’s Way to War (Roosevelt’s
Weg zum Krieg)
was published in 1983. Rewriting history, he stated that Roosevelt, not Hitler had
caused World War II. He also wrote that American Jews controlled most of the
media,’ and he claimed they gave a false picture of Hitler. Did the book
impress [Heinrich’s son Reinhard] Mohn,
then the majority shareholder of Bertelsmann? The firm hired Bavendamm as its house historian, and in 1984 he completed
a historical study, 150 Years of Bertelsmann: The Founders and Their Time—with
a foreword by Mohn. A year later, Bavendamm
edited the firm’s official history, which set forth the untrue story that the
firm had resisted the Nazis and had been closed down by them. Mohn also asked Bavendamm to
write the authorized history of the Mohn family,
published in 1986 under the title Bertelsmann, Mohn,
Scippel: Three Families—One Company. In a second
book, Roosevelt’s War (published in 1993, reissued in 1998), Bavendamm accuses the U.S. President of enacting a plan to
start World War II. In the same book he suggests that Hitler’s threats in early
1939 against European Jewry were a reaction to Roosevelt’s strategy against
Germany. After the revelations about Bertelsmann’s Nazi past appeared, the
company announced that it had asked ‘the historian and publicist Dr. Dirk Bavendamm to look at the new information and begin to
reinvestigate the role the publishing house played in those days’ and defended
his work. . . .” (“Bertelsmann’s Revisionist” by Hersch
Fischler and John Friedman; The
Nation; 11/8/99; p. 1; accessed at http://www.thenation.com/doc/19991108/fischler.)
11.
Blaming World War II
on Franklin Delano Roosevelt and alleging that he deliberately allowed the
attack on Pearl Harbor to take place is common among Japanese rightists. “Yasukuni shrine officials have agreed to delete a
controversial exhibit and discuss further changes to the shrine’s military
museum, criticized by many for glossing over Japan’s wartime history. Officials
from the shrine will meet a leading conservative historian today to discuss the
alternations. These are likely to focus on exhibits that accuse the US of
deliberately forcing Japan into the Second World War, but are unlikely to
address more contentious displays relating to the Japanese invasion of China
and Southeast Asia. However, agreement to make changes would show that
Yasukuni, which has become a flashpoint in Japan’s relations with Asia, is
sensitive to outside pressure even though it is a private religious
organization. The museum, which was renovated in 2002 to reflect what many
consider a revisionist view of Japanese history, is adjacent to the shrine,
which honors Japan’s war dead, including a handful of convicted war criminals.
Hisahiko Okazaki, a right-wing political commentator, said museum staff and an
advisory historian from Japan’s self-defense force had agreed to meet him to
discuss potential changes. The meeting follows a column in yesterday’s
Sankei newspaper, in which Mr. Okazaki called for the removal of an exhibit
accusing Franklin D. Roosevelt, the former US president, of engineering a war
with Japan to strengthen the US economy. The exhibit says the plan to force
Japan into war followed the failure of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Mr. Okazaki said
the shrine had agreed yesterday to delete that reference . . . . [Italics
are Mr. Emory’s.]” (“Japan to Remove Exhibit from War Museum” by David
Pilling; Financial Times; 8/25/2006; p. 2.)
12.
Turning to the subject of Japanese historical revisionism, the program
sets forth the growing tendency in that country to revise history in a manner
favorable to the memory of its fascist and imperialist past. (For more about
this, see FTR#’s 296, 581. Japanese historical
revisionism also embraces the notion that the Rape of Nanking never occurred.
[The Rape of Nanking was one of many Japanese atrocities committed during World
War II. The late Iris Chang memorialized the slaughter. Ms. Chang’s strange
death is discussed in FTR#509.]
“When Japanese troops conquered the then-capital
of China in 1937, historians agree they slaughtered tens of thousands of
civilians in an orgy of violence known since then as the Rape of Nanking. A
Japanese nationalist filmmaker announced on Wednesday he is working on a documentary
with a very different message: the massacre never happened. The film, to be
called ‘The Truth about Nanking’ and completed in August, will be based on
testimony from Japanese veterans, archival footage and documents that
proponents say prove accounts of the killing are nothing more than Chinese
propaganda. ‘This will be our first effort to correct the errors of history
through a film,’ director Satoru Mizushima said at a Tokyo hotel, joined by a
group of conservative lawmakers and academics who support the project.
Mizushima, president of a rightwing Internet broadcaster ‘Channel Sakura,’ said
he hoped to enter the film in international festivals late in the year. He is
aiming to raise about 300 million yen (US$2.47 million; €1.89 million) for the
effort. The film is part of a gathering wave in Japan of ‘massacre denial’
projects, mostly books, that attempt to debunk a slaughter that historians say
killed at least 150,000 civilians. China says the death toll was as many as
300,000. The film was certain to rile audiences in China, and opponents say it
would only cause embarrassment for Japan.” (“Japanese Director
Announces Production of Nanjing Film to Deny Massacre” [AP]; The
International Herald Tribune; 1/24/2007; accessed at: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/24/asia/AS-GEN-Japan-Nanjing-Film.php.)
13.
“‘They say the film will transmit the truth about Nanking,
but they will be only spreading shame for Japan,’ said Shinichiro Kumagai, a
civil activist studying the massacre in Nanjing — the current name of the city
— and supporting Chinese war victims. ‘The move only reveals their inability to
face Japan's wartime past by looking the other way,’ Kumagai said. The film is
based on the work of Japanese historian Shudo Higashinakano, whose work
included two books in the late 1990s claiming the massacre was a hoax. A
Chinese court last year awarded a Nanjing Massacre survivor 1.6 million yuan
(US$200,000; €156,100) in compensation after ruling against Higashinakano and
another historian for claiming she fabricated her account of the atrocity. The
massacre, brought to a worldwide audience in English by Iris Chang's book, The
Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, is widely seen as
a gruesome symbol of Japan's bloody conquest of East Asia in most of the first
half of the 1900s. The massacre is a cause celebre of Japan's increasingly
active nationalist groups, which are pushing to cull references to it in public
school textbooks and discredit accounts of the slaughter. . . .” (Idem.)
14.
Turning to the historical reality of the Rape of Nanking, the program
notes that the atrocity was directed by Prince Asaka, Emperor Hirohito’s uncle.
[In the program, Mr. Emory incorrectly identifies Asaka as Hirohito’s brother.] “Just before the Japanese began their assault on Nanking,
Emperor Hirohito sent his uncle, Prince Asaka Yasuhiko, to take over command
from General Matsui Iwane, who was suffering from tuberculosis. In any
aristocracy, there are always extreme nationalists and racists with a narrow
education, and Japan was no exception. Men like Prince Asaka regarded
themselves as demigods, and felt only contempt for Chinese, Koreans, and other
Asians. In addition, he was an alcoholic, given to wild bouts of drunken rage.
On taking command outside Nanking, he told his aides that it was time to ‘teach
our Chinese brothers a lesson they will never forget.’” (Gold Warriors; Sterling and Peggy Seagraves;
Copyright 2003 by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; Verso Books [HC]; ISBN
1-85984-542-8; p. 37.)
15.
The Rape of Nanking was not a fabrication. “In the Rape of Nanking that followed, some 300,000
defenseless civilians were slain by Japanese troops, between 20,000 and 80,000
women of all ages were raped repeatedly, including children, adolescent girls,
and grandmothers, man of them disemboweled in the process. Men, women and children
were subjected to acts of such barbarism that the world recoiled in horror.
Thousands of men were roped together and machine-gunned, or doused with
gasoline and set afire. Others were used for bayonet practice, or to practice
beheading, in a sporting competition to see which officer could behead the
greatest number that day. Weeks passed while atrocities continued, streets and
alleys piled high with corpses. Unlike previous atrocities, done out of sight,
these were witnessed by hundreds of Westerners including diplomats, doctors and
missionaries, some of whom smuggled out photographic evidence.” (Idem.)
16.
The Rape of Nanking saw the genesis of the decisively important Golden
Lily program of systematic looting in occupied Asia. (For more about Golden Lily,
see—among other programs—FTR#’s 427, 428, 445, 451, 501, 509.) “It was at this bitter moment that Golden Lily came into
existence. When the Japanese Army swarmed down the China Coast in 1937, crossed
the Yangtze, and moved westward to Nanking, so many units were involved across
such a broad front that there was danger of Japan’s ruling elite losing control
of the financial side of conquest, as rival commanders competed for spoils. How
could you keep army or navy officers from side-tracking gold bullion and
priceless art works, not to mention smaller scale theft by soldiers? At the
same time, groups of yakuza were moving through newly occupied areas,
conducting their own reign of terror. To keep everything under strict control
at the highest level, the Imperial General Headquarters created Golden Lily (kin
no yuri), named after one of Hirohito’s poems. This was to be a palace
organization of Japan’s top financial minds and specialists in all forms of
treasure including cultural and religious antiquities, supported by
accountants, bookkeepers, shipping experts, and units of the army and navy, all
overseen by princes of the blood. When China was milked by Golden Lily, the
army would hold the cow, while princes skimmed the cream. This organization was
put directly under the command of the emperor’s brother, Prince Chichibu. We
know the date because the Imperial General Headquarters itself was only set up
in the imperial palace in Tokyo in November 1937, just as the Rape of Nanking
was commencing. The purpose of the Imperial Headquarters was to keep control of
the war in the hands of the emperor and his senior advisors, to avoid repeating
what happened in Manchuria, where the Kwantung Army grew recklessly independent
in all respects. The Imperial Army already had a number of Special Service
Units, among them intelligence teams specializing in different kinds of
cultural and financial espionage, and secret service agents like general Doihara,
outside the ordinary command structure. These were reassigned to Golden Lily,
giving it the resources needed to find treasure of all kinds, from the sublime
to the most prosaic. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 38.)