-
- In its zeal to stamp out communism, the Vatican set up
alliances during World War II with various secret societies, fascist groups
and spying agencies and has maintained these networks ever since.
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- By David G. Guyatt © 2000 by David G. Guyatt http://www.nexusmagazine.com/smokemirrors.html
Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 7, Number 5 September-October 2000
in the USA only. From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com
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- Albert Vincent Carone is one of those people who spent
his life dancing between raindrops and turning invisible wherever a shadow
lingered. He existed and also didn't exist. Al Carone--unlike his near
namesake, Al Capone--truly was a paradox wrapped in a mystery concealed
behind an enigma.
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- Carone was a detective in the New York Police Department,
but this didn't stop him from becoming a "made" man in the Genovese
crime family. He knew all the leading Mafiosi of his day, including Vito
Genovese, Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante, Joe Colombo and Pauley Castellano
amongst others. To Carone's daughter, Dee, they were all known as "Uncle".
When she got married, her father arranged two different reception rooms
to separate the Mob guests from the NYPD guests. But this was more window-dressing
than anything else. One of Carone's principal functions in the NYPD was
to act as the "bagman" in protecting shipments of CIA drugs to
the various Mafia families.
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- Carone died in 1990 under mysterious circumstances. This
followed a period of great personal disenchantment with his life, following
a secretive mission to Mexico in 1985 when a large number of innocent women
and children died unnecessarily. His death was horrific, reports Mike Ruppert,
editor of From The Wilderness newsletter, who has investigated Carone's
life story and written a special report on it (see acknowledgements).
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- Meanwhile, another "Uncle" was Bill Casey,
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Reagan Administration.
Casey had been with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World
War II. During the 1970s, he became Chairman of the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) which regulates the US investment industry. During his
tenure in that role, Casey used Carone as a "cut out" to pass
sensitive insider information to Mob capo Pauley Castellano, says his daughter,
Dee.
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- Carone was also a Full Colonel in the US Army, where
he had operated in the Army's Counter Intelligence Corp (CIC). Unsurprisingly,
in view of his close friendship with Bill Casey, he was also a covert operative
for the CIA. But that wasn't half of it. Carone was also a Grand Knight
of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), which historically has
been the military arm of the Vatican and is regarded as a separate State
with full powers of statehood, including issuing its own diplomatic passports.
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- In more recent decades SMOM has acted as a funding conduit,
a black market gold channel and money laundry for the CIA, amongst others,
and is known to act as the Vatican's intelligence arm. It was alleged to
be involved in, for example, the disappearance of Russia's gold reserves--over
2,000 metric tonnes--which vanished during 1991, around the time that Soviet
Premier Mikhail Gorbachev was ousted from office.
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- Malta knighthoods are awarded to many leading individuals
who are part of the military and intelligence community. The CIA's Bill
Casey, for example, was a Knight of Malta. Former NATO General and later
US Secretary of State Alexander Haig is also a Malta Knight. Another is
General Vernon Walters, the former Deputy Director of the CIA under DCI
George Bush, and later appointed a roving ambassador during the Reagan
Administration. The legendary head of the OSS (the WWII precursor of the
CIA), "Wild" Bill Donovan, was made a Knight along with his wartime
compatriot and later CIA Chief of Counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton.
And John McCone, another prominent member of the US "spook" agency,
was also distinguished with a Malta knighthood. The list goes on. Most
interesting is Reinhard Gehlen, the former Nazi intelligence expert recruited
by the US in 1945&endash;46 to head the Gehlen Org--a secret, German-based
intelligence arm of the United States that was composed of former SS and
Gestapo agents, many of whom, including Klaus Barbie, were wanted Nazi
war criminals. The foregoing names amount to a listing of some of the most
powerful and influential members of the Western intelligence community
over the last five decades.
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- One Vatican group that has extremely close ties to the
Knights of Malta is the ultra-right-wing Opus Dei. This is an immensely
powerful faction in the Vatican today, and its public "do good"
activities eclipse a plethora of the darkest political and financial machinations
known to man. It will not come as a surprise, perhaps, that Carone was
closely associated with Opus Dei and, in particular, with a covert operation
that had its origin back in 1944. This was Operation Amadeus.
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- FROM RATLINES TO DRUG SMUGGLING ROUTES
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- This highly secretive operation was part of the Operation
Sunrise negotiations conducted between Allen Dulles--the then senior wartime
OSS officer in Switzerland, but later to become the Director of the CIA--and
SS General Karl Wolff. This debonair and well-connected SS officer commanded
the SS and Gestapo contingents in Italy at the time.
-
- The result of these negotiations (at least those parts
that are now known about) was an agreement affording amnesty toan extensive
roster of SS&endash;Gestapo forces, in exchange for their agreement
to shift their allegiance to the West in the pre-planned, covert battle
aimed at defeating the Soviet communist "menace"--in other words,
the "Cold War".
-
- One spin-off of these Dulles&endash;Wolff arrangements
were the Vatican-run "ratlines" that aided wanted Nazi war criminals
to slink to safety. Tens of thousands of SS and other Nazis escaped capture
as a result of the ratlines. These included such figures as Franz Stangl,
commandant at Treblinka extermination camp, and his friend Gustav Wagner,
who ran the Sobibor death camp. Others to escape in this manner included
Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust. Eichmann was later captured
by Israeli intelligence agents, smuggled to Tel Aviv where he stood trial
and was eventually executed. In comparison, Dr Joseph Mengele--known as
"the White Angel", a war criminal wanted for his cruel and inhuman
experiments on death camp inmates at Auschwitz--escaped to Argentina and
lived a long life.
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- Operation Amadeus was exclusively concerned with the
flight of SS and Nazi war criminals to the South American continent and
their later ferocious covert actions against the indigenous populations
justified under the banner of "anti-communism". One individual
engaged in Amadeus activities was former Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie,
known to the world as "the Butcher of Lyon".
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- The principal means of funding Operation Amadeus activities
was the hugely profitable narcotics business. Large stocks of SS morphia
had been smuggled out of Europe and into "Catholic" South America
at the end of the War in accordance with the Sunrise agreement. The morphia
was accompanied by looted SS gold and large quantities of counterfeit British
banknotes, forged in concentration camps by captive but skilled counterfeiters
as part of an SS scheme known as Operation Bernhardt.
-
- The escape "lines" used to move wanted men
around South America, away from the prying eyes of Israeli agents, also
proved ideal as smuggling routes for drugs. Decades later, the stocks of
heroin smuggled into the United States for distribution by the CIA-protected
Mafia would be complemented with locally grown cocaine.
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- One of the figures to emerge into the spotlight during
the 1980s who was deeply involved in this narcotics traffic was Colonel
Oliver North, who authorised the exchange of guns for drugs to finance
Contra operations. Oliver North was known to Al Carone under his "work"
name, "John Caffrey". This was the time when Carone was engaged
in CIA-controlled cocaine transactions with Joe "Pickles" Percilia,
a member of the Colombo crime family.
-
- These curious and usually concealed connections between
governments (in the form of the military and intelligence community), organised
crime, the Vatican and Nazi war criminals have some significant history.
Not least was the secret agreement reached between US Naval Intelligence
officers and Mafia don Charles "Lucky" Luciano during World War
II. This resulted in the Mafia's decision to aid and assist the Allies
by contacting Mob figure Vito Genovese in 1943 to prepare the way for the
Allied landing in Sicily. As earlier outlined, it was primarily those SS&endash;Gestapo
units located in Italy under command of SS General Wolff that were initially
concerned in the Operation Sunrise negotiations.
-
- And while large numbers of former Nazis were fleeing
south to fight the communist menace in Latin America--and, more importantly,
to profit personally from their involvement in the lucrative drug and gun
business--in Europe, the spadework was being laid to overthrow or thwart
democratically elected governments via a network of fascist-manned "Stay
Behind units", organised under the aegis of Operation Gladio. Not
surprisingly, this would also lead to certain involved figures making personal
fortunes out of other people's misery--a circumstance that is so commonplace
it is barely worth mentioning.
-
- These neo-fascist activities would come to prominence
in the early 1980s following the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano and the death
of Italian banker Roberto Calvi, who was "suicided" and left
hanging under London's Blackfriars Bridge. This would lead to sensational
disclosures about the role of the Vatican Bank, the IOR, in Calvi's financial
empire and would quickly grow to include the activities of Mafia financier
Michele Sindona--whose activities, in turn, would implicate leading blue-blood
banks in Europe and America in Mafia activities. Both Sindona and Calvi
were close to Opus Dei, which lost around $55 million when Sindona's empire
crashed. According to his family, Roberto Calvi was deeply engrossed in
helping Opus Dei take control of the IOR when he was killed.
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- Meanwhile, both Calvi and Sindona were members of the
secretive Propaganda Due (P2) masonic lodge, which is said to have been
a "parallel government" in waiting and which planned to effect
a coup d'état in Italy following a Communist Party victory at the
polls.
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- P2 was run by former Italian fascist and member of the
Nazi SS, Licio Gelli--dubbed "the Puppet Master" by the Italian
press. Gelli's connections to the ultra-hard-right and fascists in Europe
and Latin America were extensive. In fact, he had been deeply involved
in establishing the Vatican-run ratlines that aided the worst Nazi war
criminals to escape Allied justice at the end of WWII. All told, an estimated
50,000 Nazis were helped to freedom.
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- Gelli had numerous powerful friends, including former
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. He was also a personal friend of Argentina's
General Juan Perón, and his close associations with Argentina would
later lead him to be a key figure in shipping a supply of French Exocet
missiles to sink British Task Force ships during the Falklands War. In
this endeavour he worked closely with Ronald R. Rewald, founder of the
Hawaiian-based financial institution Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham
& Wong--a CIA proprietary company and forerunner of the CIA-owned Nugan
Hand Bank.
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- The involvement of a CIA front company engaged in financing
and providing weapons to be used against a key American ally (Britain)
with the wholehearted public support of the US Government may seem somewhat
duplicitous. However, in the world of "black ops", "friends"
and "enemies" are interchangeable words and working both sides
of the fence is accepted practice.
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- In terms of hierarchy, Gelli reported to Umberto Ortolani,
described by one writer as "the great Vatican door-opener" and
"secret chamberlain of the papal household". In addition to his
P2 connections, Ortolani is also a member of the inner council of the Knights
of Malta and has military intelligence connections that date back to WWII.
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- THE OCTOPUS AND THE SPIDER
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- There are numerous other masonic groups and secret societies
in Europe which move in and out of focus at various times. Almost all of
them are Catholic in nature.
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- One of these is the Priory of Sion (Prieuré de
Sion)--a secretive order that first came to public attention via the best-selling
book, The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail, published in 1982. The Priory
is closely connected with the alleged treasure of Solomon which is said
to have found its way to the small village of Rennes-le-Château in
southwestern France, where it is said to have been buried by the Knights
Templars, forerunners of the Knights of Malta.
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- The Priory, whose headquarters were located at Annemasse,
near Geneva on the Swiss border, are styled as the "guardians"
of Solomon's treasure, but, most interestingly, they have numerous subterranean
connections to fascists and those on the far right that date back to WWII.
Meanwhile, it has to be noted in passing that Annemasse is said to have
been the centre for the anti-communist Stay Behind units of Operation Gladio.
-
- If this is not intriguing enough, another fact stretches
coincidence to the point of bursting. In recent years, the Priory of Sion
has moved its headquarters to Barcelona and now boasts a Spanish Grand
Master. This, one could conclude, is to enable it to be physically closer
to the historical heartland of Opus Dei, which was founded in Spain in
1928.
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- If Otto Skorzeny was a leading force in running the SS
Brotherhood escape routes--Der Spinne, the Spider--after the war, and SS
General Karl Wolff was the lead negotiator with OSS Swiss Chief, Allen
Dulles, then another Nazi, Walter Rauff, head of the Milan SD, was one
of two liaisons with the Vatican involved in the establishment of the Nazi-smuggling
system. Earlier in his career, Rauff had overseen the development of the
Nazis' mobile gas vans, known as "Black Ravens", which gassed
to death around 100,000 Jews, mostly women and children, by pumping exhaust
fumes into the back of an hermetically sealed van.
-
- Another important link between the Vatican and SS escape
routes was Friedrich Schwendt, who was also the man in charge of laundering
forged SS banknotes. Before WWII, Schwendt was an international arms dealer
who shipped weapons to China and Russia. He was also the investment manager
of the family fortune of his first wife's aunt, Baroness Gemmingen-Guttenberg,
of the vastly wealthy Argentina-based Bunge family, of the massive transnational
firm Bunge Corporation that is also known as "the Octopus".
-
- This title is interesting, for it may connect to the
so-called "Octopus" that ties in to murdered freelance journalist
Danny Casolaro, who at the time of his death in 1991 was investigating
a number of high-level illegalities including the theft by the Department
of Justice of a "tracking" computer program known as "PROMIS".
Casolaro was writing a book about what he had discovered. He originally
titled it "Behold, A Pale Horse", but later modified it to "The
Octopus". In a draft page of the book, he described this group as
an "international cabal whose freelance services covered parochial
political intrigue, espionage, sophisticated weapon technologies that included
biotoxins, drug trafficking, money laundering and murder-for-hire".
Casolaro further stated that this cabal was "spawned thirty years
ago in the shadow of the Cold War".
-
- After Casolaro's death, journalist Carol Marshall (a
pen name) followed up his investigation and wrote an (as yet) unpublished
manuscript, titled "The Last Circle". In this, Marshall describes
her investigation of Robert Booth Nichols--one of the central figures of
the Octopus, whom she describes as being part of a secretive group known
as "the Chosen Ones" and who wore "skull and crossbones
rings and shared a common interest, if you could call it that, in the old
German SS occultism, its tribal and inner circle rites".
-
- During her continuing investigation into the Octopus,
Marshall found that the SS occultism outlined above was connected to Lt.
Col. Michael A. Aquino, a former US Green Beret who is a self-professed
Satanist and who held a Top Secret security clearance for his work in military
intelligence and on classified psychological warfare matters. Aquino officiated
at SS black-magic ceremonies held at Wewelsburg, the castle once used by
SS chief Heinrich Himmler to create an SS order of Teutonic knights based
on the Knights Templars.
-
- The foregoing connections lend themselves to a larger
picture of global, interlocking, right-wing fascist groupings that operate
in the shadowland of deniable military and intelligence operations associated
with profit during WWII and, later, throughout the Cold War.
-
- In this respect, it is intriguing to note that the Priory
of Sion, one of the foremost Catholic groups under discussion, uses as
a symbol something that is variously described as an octopus or a spider
(araignée) on its documents. The Priory's association with the octopus
could easily relate to the so-called Octopus described above, where organised
crime works hand in glove with operatives from US intelligence and the
military. If one decides, on the other hand, that the Priory symbol is
a spider, there is the intriguing notion of the Vatican-run Nazi escape
lines of Austrian Catholic Otto Skorzeny and his SS Brotherhood's Der Spinne
(the Spider).
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- THE BUSINESS OF GOD
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- Al Carone was, as mentioned earlier, a "made"
man of the Genovese Mob in addition to his other associations. It is curious,
therefore, to note that one of the leading lights of the Octopus, according
to writer Carol Marshall, was ultra-right-wing oil tycoon Clint Murchison,
owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team. Murchison's oil company, Murchison
Oil Lease Company, was 20 per cent owned by Gerardo Catena, the chief lieutenant
of the Genovese crime family.
-
- Throughout the Second World War and thereafter there
was, according to author Charles Higham in his book, Trading With The Enemy,
a "general agreement of certain major figures of American, British
and German commerce to continue their relations and associations after
Pearl Harbor". Higham adds that he also learned that "certain
figures of the warring governments had arranged to assist in this [activity]".
Higham's subsequent research proved that this high cabal--which he dubbed
"the Fraternity"--not only existed but benefited handsomely throughout
WWII. This led the author to ask:
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- What would have happened if millions of Americans and
British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations,
had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey managers shipped the
enemy's fuel through neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping
Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied
Paris after Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars' worth of business
with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan?
Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in
France with authorisation from Dearborn, Michigan? Or that Colonel Sosthenes
Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT,
flew from New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's
communications systems and improve the robot bombs that devastated London?
Or that ITT built the Focke-Wulfs that dropped bombs on British and American
troops? Or that crucial ball-bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated customers
in Latin America with the collusion of the Vice-Chairman of the US War
Production Board, in partnership with Göring's cousin in Philadelphia,
when American forces were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements
were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored?
-
- Higham's "Fraternity" has similar characteristics
to the so-called "Octopus", and also shows certain similarities
to Colonel Oliver North's "Enterprise". All have engaged in the
most dubious and illegal activities for profit, and all operate hand in
glove with organised crime. All lean so far to the right, ideologically
speaking, that the word "fascist" can be used without reservation.
Meanwhile, none of them cares very much for the woes of humanity and, indeed,
they appear committed to stomping on ethics and moral values wherever they
meet them.
-
- The octopus--or "Oct Opus", as one European
documentary film producer renders the spelling when referring to Opus Dei
(which began life on 2 October 1928)--has eight arms that surround its
mouth (ensuring a constant supply of food) and three hearts, and is therefore
not prone to starving or dying. But it can also be identified by these
oddities. Opus Dei, the group that is now in control of the Vatican, is
undoubtedly one arm of this global criminal network, in this writer's view.
Or are the three hearts of the octopus more vital to identify? Could they
be analogous to the "Church, State and Mafia, the forces that prevail
beneath the play of the shadows of the world" (as described by Nick
Tosches in his book, Power On Earth, which tells the life story of murdered
Mafia financier Michele Sindona)?
-
- There is yet another interesting twist to this accumulation
of associations: Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands. The Prince was the
founding chairman of the publicity-shy Western power elite, the Bilderbergers.
This shadowy and secretive group meets over a weekend in May/June each
year, under an almost total media blackout [see deBriefings this issue].
Powerful and very influential figures from the world of banking, business,
politics, the media, trades unions and academia are invited. Included regularly,
for example, are Dr Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, and Italy's "king-maker",
Gianni Agnelli. The first meeting took place in May 1954.
-
- This, strangely, was the same year that Prince Bernhard
became head of the Johanitter Orde in Nederland, one of four orders that
make up the Chivalric Alliance of Orders of Saint John (Alliance de Chevalerie
des Hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jérusalem). The stated purpose
of these four, known as "the Alliance"--which is composed of
northern European nations Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and Great Britain,
the latter being an ancient order known as "the Most Venerable Order"--is
"to reduce to silence the enemies of Christ". The headquarters
of the Alliance are located in Switzerland.
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- These are Protestant orders rather than Catholic, but
it is of significance that, on 26 November 1963, the Alliance was"consolidated
with the signing of a joint declaration between the Sovereign Military
Order of Malta and the Most Venerable Order, at St John's Gate, London,
by the Grand Chancellor of the SMOM, the Prince of Resuttano, and Lord
Wakehurst, Lord Prior of the Most Venerable Order". In other words,
the Catholic and Protestant orders bound themselves to work together to
"silence the enemies of Christ"--a clear reference to communism.
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- Interestingly, it has been suggested that the Knights
Templars were "infected" with the Johannite or Mandaean heresy
that denounced Jesus as a "false prophet" and in his place recognised
John the Baptist as the true Messiah. Meanwhile, two early Grand Masters
of the Priory of Sion are said to have had Johannite tendencies: Leonardo
da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton. Notwithstanding that, the famous founder
of the Knights Templars, Hughes de Payens, has been accused by the Vatican
of being a Johannite.
-
- Leaving aside this brief foray into esoteric history,
it is as well to note that Prince Bernhard, in addition to his Bilderberg
role and as head of the Dutch Johannite Order, was also an honorary member
of Himmler's SS and worked in NW7, the global intelligence arm of I.G.
Farben which acted in the interests of the Nazi cause. The activities of
NW7 in Latin America before, during and after World War II are deeply interwoven
in this story.
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- In facilitating and aligning itself with many of the
foregoing activities, the Vatican aimed to help eradicate a communist ideology
that despised Christianity. Opus Dei and a host of other Catholic-cum-fascist
secret groups engaged in a litany of murder, money laundering, drug peddling,
arms trafficking, concealment of WWII loot, embezzlement, manipulation
of financial markets and many other consummate illegalities. The purpose
of all these activities was, arguably, to allow the Vatican to remain the
spiritual bulwark of the Christian West.
-
- But if such business is the business of a Church preaching
of a God in Heaven, then Caesar on Earth had better watch out. A new landlord
has fallen into town.
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-
-
- Acknowledgements
-
- In preparing this essay, I drew upon an indispensable
group of published/unpublished work and sources, as follows:
-
- ¥ The full account of the unique story of Al Carone,
by Mike Ruppert (available to order online at www.copvcia.com). ¥ Trading
With The Enemy, by Charles Higham (St Edmundsbury Press, Suffolk, UK, 1983).
¥ Their Kingdom Come, by Robert Hutchison (St Martin's Press, New York,
1997). ¥ Web of Gold, by Guy Patton and Robin Mackness (Sidgwick &
Jackson, London, 2000). ¥ Ratlines, by Mark Aarons and John Loftus
(Mandarin, London, 1991). ¥ The Bormann Brotherhood, by William Stevenson
(Arthur Baker, London, 1973). ¥ Unpublished manuscript by Peter Dale
Scott on Barbie, Dulles and Operation Sunrise. It details how the OSS&endash;SS
preserved each other while serving their true masters: transnational corporations.
¥ The Last Circle, an unpublished manuscript by Carol Marshall, which
investigates the so-called "Octopus". ¥ My thanks also go
to Catherine Austin Fitts (www.solari.com) for her invaluable help. --
David G. Guyatt
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- About the Author:
-
- Following a 28-year career as a professional international
banker based in the City of London, David Guyatt now pursues a career researching,
writing and producing material for TV documentaries, films and magazines.
His feature articles have appeared in diverse publications including BusinessAge,
NEXUS, Fortean Times, The X Factor and Lobster.
-
- In addition to his commercial writing, David has prepared
background papers on anti-personnel electromagnetic weapons for the International
Committee on the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as for Scientists for Global
Responsibility. He has also written for the World Development Movement
on his "insider" knowledge of international weapons financing.
-
- David was engaged as an expert consultant for the two-part
World in Action TV documentary, broadcast in the UK in April 1997, that
exposed Britain's weapons trail to Indonesia; and he assisted Swiss TV
in a documentary on non-lethal weapons, also broadcast in early 1997. At
present, he is pursuing an in-depth investigation into the real secrets
surrounding the enigma of Nazi gold and WWII treasure looted by both German
and Japanese "plunder teams". It will also unravel some of the
more enduring secrets of the gold market.
-
-
- Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 7, Number 5 (August-September
2000) or September-October 2000 in the USA only. PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld
4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280;
Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381 From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com
-
- Correspondence c/- NEXUS UK Office 55 Queens Road East
Grinstead, W. Sussex RH19 1BG United Kingdom E-mail: goldbug@goldbug99.freeserve.co.uk
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